Peace

I felt a touch of peace today. When you commit everything to the Lord, and you realize that whichever way things turn out, whether good, bad, or ugly, it can only be for the best in the end, then there will be a kind of incomprehensible peace in your soul. When you realize that everyday God will provide for your needs, whether it is food on the table, clothes on your body, or love from your family and friends, then there will be a great extraction in your soul: your worries begin to separate from your thoughts and emotions, and suddenly there's a freedom that you used to have when you were a very young child, before you learned to be anxious. When it dawns on you that if everything suddenly turns for the worst, and even your basic needs don't go satisfied, but you still will have great joy because there's treasure piling up in heaven for each moment of suffering you go through, then you know that the smile on your face is there because you've found God's peace.

I felt that peace today. It wasn't as deep as it should be, nor as lasting, but it's a taste of something that is to come. Like a vision to work towards, that peace invites me to draw nearer to God. There's more where that came from.

I have realized that when you set your mind on God, when you meditate on His goodness and His mercies, your fears kind of fade away like how shadows disappear in the presence of perfect light. Isaiah 26:3 "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You." That is the reason why you will feel peaceful when you focus on God.

I've also realized that computer games and television really sets a distance between you and God. The moment I turned on the tv, I felt a distinct disturbance in my soul. It is faint, but it preludes a sense of spiritual dryness and irritation that I used to dwell in. When I turned it off, I could meditate on God, and 'stay' my mind on Him. That slight irritation disappears. Then I turned on the computer and went to search for mmorpg's to play. Fancy how foolish I really am! Is there anything good I can glean from there? While searching, the familiar ache at the base of my head snuck up on me. My chest began to tighten, and my countenance fell. Somehow, computer games don't edify. They can choke the word and dull your sword, but they don't edify. Yet this is the irony of it all. I'm still downloading one now. And it's one of those fantasy mmorpg's where you run around grinding mobs and doing quests and trying to get better armour and weapons. It's not good. Am I like a dog that goes back to its vommit?

Ok I just stopped the downloading. There must come a point in time where I decide, "Ok this is it. No more computer games. I'm serious with God, and this is deadweight. I'm here to run the race and this doesn't help. I'm throwing it behind me." And then I must really do it. I have made this decision before, about three times in fact, but failing each time. And after I cleared my harddisk of games, I go on the net to download new ones. It's fine if I actually enjoy them and they don't hurt me. But they do. I get addicted easily, I lose interest in God, and I suffer aches and pains in my body. Surely there are enough cons to point me towards the direction of giving up my gaming habit!

But the more excellent way, I suppose, is when I give them up in love. When His love convicts me enough to stop hurting myself with foolish decisions. When my mind is stayed on Him to the point that it doesn't want to leave. Then this habit of mine will go away. Somehow I have the feeling that it is happening already, and that when it goes, it'll go for good. And then there will be real peace.

Construction in progress - sorry for the inconvenience caused

One day as I was about the take the elevator up to the 6th story, I noticed the familiar construction sign posted on the fence: "(Insert title of this blog post)" And for some reason or another it spoke to me about my own life. There's a lot of construction going on, especially after all the pulling down that happened about 3 months ago. No wonder I'm not the best that I could be. There are many days when I just get too overwhelmed by my weaknesses, and motivation just gets sapped out of me. I don't achieve much on these days, but I do spend time talking to my dad who counsels me out of it. Sometimes I just have to remember that construction is a process. It takes time for a pile of raw material to become an edifice, and if you would like to build a big and important one, it may take lots of time. In my life, there are many things that I'm working on, and I progress very slowly. Some of the things that I've started have deflated halfway, and I'm not proud of that. But there are other things that are slowly building up, filling up the horizon with something to look at, though they aren't complete nor will they be complete in the new future. It's easy for me to look at others around me and get very discouraged - after all they are so far ahead with their lives, and I'm trailing far behind. But this race that I'm running is not against the people around me. I'm just running this race against myself - God did not ask me to compete with other saints. But he did say that if I complete it he'll give me a crown, and I'm up for it.