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1 Thessalonians 2

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DL's avatarECHO FAMILY GROUP QUIET TIMES

v.4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.

I think the phrase that I always seem to slip my mind from time to time is ‘All Glory to God’, and most likely because I’m so prone to how I used to live, to build up my name and do things that’ll make me look good. So I have this pride when it comes to being a leader from previous Tae Kwon Do leadership but while serving in RSD for the past year was totally different. There’s no award of recognition for being ‘Best Instructor of the Year’ or hearing constant praises from parents and higher ranking Instructor to boost self confidence. In the end, the goal isn’t to please the group or myself but God. If my…

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1 Timothy 4

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DL's avatarECHO FAMILY GROUP QUIET TIMES

v. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving
v. 8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

These verses stood out to me and mainly because I’ve been lingering on to what Pastor Steven had prayed for me during AMI. He told me my fears for the future wasn’t about jobs or money but that I didn’t associate ‘Happiness’ and ‘following God’ together. I want a future filled with adventure, that no two days will be the same and that I wouldn’t be stuck in some same mundane routine; So fear comes to mind if I think that I’ll be walking in circles “in the wilderness” with my walk with God. But God says 

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Matthew 28 – Greetings

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“Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭28:9‬ ‭NIV‬

I find it so beautiful that the first thing Jesus says after being ressurected from the dead was ‘greetings’. If a king and savior has resurrected from the dead, I would imagine, “I have risen and I have proven you wrong, I am the almighty!!!” Or something more grandure but he says hello and it melts my heart that he would still be humble and still remember us, still say hi to us. 

My most intimate moments during prayer after I haven’t prayed in a while is when I’m ready to pray and he say, “hi Doris”. He says hello to begin the conversation and/or for me to listen. The almighty savior says hello to the hopeless, the broken, his child, his precious son / daughter and praise him for that. 

Hi God. Thankyou for alway being here for me and listening to me. Father how precious is the gift you have to us, this quality of love and being able to share it. You have sacrificed your son to love me and help me to do the same. Help me to sacrifice my pride and my time to be close to you, to spend time all day thinking of you and talking to you knowing that you are near that you are always present. Holy is my father and sovereign is his love. Widen my heart to be filled with more of your love. I love you God. In Jesus name, Amen.

Matthew 24

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DL's avatarECHO FAMILY GROUP QUIET TIMES

45“Who then is the faithful and wise servant,whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?46Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.47Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.48But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’49and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards,50the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know51and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Do I have a servant’s heart? Am I willing to serve him for the rest of my life? Some…

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Matthew 16

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DL's avatarECHO FAMILY GROUP QUIET TIMES

[Matthew 16: 15- 17] He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

I think a lot of times I start to forget that it’s not about me but about Him. I share testimonies to high school friends who asked, “so what have you been doing these past four years,” and I tell them about my first two year of all the dry fun I had and then told them how I found Christ. But never had I thought about it the other way around. God found me, revealed himself to me, and maybe it wasn’t Jr yr in college, maybe it was when I was 5…

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Planning the New Hampshire Trip / Father’s Heart

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My parents have a tendency to not officially announce events or vacations until the week or day before.  For instance, I could have had a sleepover planned with a friend Saturday night, and my dad would call around 6pm and would say,”going to grandma’s birthday tonight, get ready.” Now over the years, they’ve definitely improved notifying me and my siblings about such plans and events ahead of schedule but this year was another year.
Most vacations my dad would be the one taking care of all the planning with the hotels, attractions, and time of when to depart but unfortunately, he was unable to make it because of his business and the responsibility fell on me knowing that my mom (who isn’t fluent in english) would have a long stressful struggle trying to figure things out.
2 days. They gave me two days notice to plan a trip to New Hampshire, and because I was busy the first day from previous plans, I only had Sunday to research and plan what to do because I didn’t really know what New Hampshire was about.
To be honest, I didn’t want to go, I wanted to stay home, rest, sleep, get some reading in and not spend money and time into going on a vacation so hastily with the responsibility of the enjoyment of the whole trip on me. It wasn’t even a family vacation because my dad was busy and my sister was in band camp for that week. But understanding my mom’s heart which wanted me and mostly my brother to experience different settings around the world, I reluctantly set my heart to planning a short vacation for me, my mom, and my brother.
The night before, I spent all night researching top attractions, their hours and prices, the locations, and a hotel that would be somewhat close to the ones I thought would be best. Finally around 5am, the day of the trip, I booked the hotel for that day and slept for 6 hours. I woke up had breakfast and went to wake up my brother.
Getting my brother out of his bed is the hardest thing to do because my couch potato brother can change his mind on an instant notice. All he would want to do is to stay home and play games on his laptop and makes up lame excuses to not go anywhere. “I don’t want to go cut my hair because you woke me up in a pissed mood”, “I don’t care about her concert, I just don’t want to go.” And I’ve done pretty well in trying to convince him to go out every time he tried stay home this summer, but that morning I didn’t want to hear it with my lack of sleep.
With my most loving-est, gentle-est sister voice, I tried to wake him up to get ready to go and he said, “I’m not going.”  My heart dropped and I didn’t even have energy to persuade him with a different attitude. “Come on, don’t do this,” I said exhausted. And he said no once more.
Something inside me snapped, the old me without patience for my younger brother came back, and the ugly came out. “HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME?! I SPENT ALL NIGHT! ALL NIGHT! RESEARCHING THIS FAMILY TRIP SO THAT WE CAN HAVE A GOOD TIME!” A whole other sentences came out from disappointment, stress, exhaustion, frustration along with pillow whacking and wrestling his defences. I ran to my room and I couldn’t handle it anymore. I laid in bed sobbing and praying in distress knowing that today was the day of the trip and would also have to pack to drive 6 hours into NH.  Why God, why did you give me such a difficult brother, why did you make me first child, why is this family so broken? I spent all night researching, planning, for this trip that I didn’t even want to go to, and I have to deal with this? How could he say no? But in that moment I felt and understood some of God’s heart for me.
He must feel the way I feel when I say no to his plans for me. My Father who has this perfect plan for me, probably spent a lot more time then the night before to make sure things fall into place so that I may be able to experience whatever he has in store for me. But the moment I hesitate and turn away, if he had my heart, I’m sure he’d throw a tantrum as well but instead of whacking me with pillows he’d strike a lot more painful and furious things at me that I can’t imagine what would be anything but terrifying. Then I thought, Wow, what a Beautiful God we have to have given us Jesus to take our sins and his wrath upon him so that he may be able to show us grace and redeem us to make us whole.

We ended up going after my mom settled my brother’s heart, and had a spontaneous and fun time relaxing, hiking, and seeing awe-ing mountain tops. But the preparation for this trip would be the one thing I would never forget.

Father, thankyou. For so many things. For this imperfect family, for this opportunity to come to understand a bit of your heart for me and your children, for sending Jesus to die for our sins. Lord how can you have such a kind heart towards me, how can you hold yourself together when so many times I’ve turned away from you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I have failed in the past and will fail yet again once more but I pray Lord won’t your spirit of love overwhelm me to always bring me back to you. I have faith that you will always bring me back to your truth, your love and grace, your mercy and might, strength and peace. Put in me a spirit that desires to seek more of your heart, words, and truth. King Jesus, let me live my life to glorify your precious name high because you are everlasting. Let me not be tempted by this world and its patterns. I love you and I pray all these things in your son’s name, Amen.

Grace, You’ve shown me grace
You’ve lifted my shame
Drawn me with loving kindness
Washed whiter than snow
You have redeemed and made me whole

– You Have Won me by Bethel Music

Social Media and God

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So here’s my opinion, or the way I think when it comes to social media and God.

I see a lot of people sharing the Gospel, quoting the Bible, and really loving God through social media and its not being ashamed but I guess I’m just not like that because I can’t. Maybe it’s because until recently social media was used to Glorify me, my name. I mean Instagram, Twitter – FOLLOW ME and you don’t even care if you don’t know the person, it’s just about the numbers of how others sees your page. And even FB now has so many friends that you wanted to keep connected with but are not really close to and your is still trying to be like, “hey I’m still that cool person you met at that one hangout.” So because of this distance of we’re connected but not really, I’ve been having a hard time trying to use it to Glorify God’s name. So many times I’ve felt reluctant to post something serious because of the “judgement” I think I would face.
I recently posted on FB a confession on my state of … I guess spiritual thinking.

Confession: (So this is something that I’ve been struggling with and I’ve told a few friends but I just want to get it out there for the sake of breathing) I want to stop worrying about how everyone will see me and start relying on how God sees me. Because the only person to satisfy is Him and myself through Him. I don’t want to think before every move, “what is this person going to think of this?” And I’m thinking now, “why limit myself?”. I want to be who I am and not feel like the world’s watching and think it matters, even though they prob don’t because honestly in the end, no one’s watching, no one cares, because they’re worried about their lives. There were so many times this past year where I wanted to post struggles and pains that I was going through but in fear of judgement from people I call “friends”, I just couldn’t. I told myself, “they don’t care” “stop trying to look sad on fb” “stop trying to get sympathy” but I cut out my own worth from myself and the people around me. I tried so hard to make it seem like my life was, “okay” that everything was happy, good, fine because I didn’t want to seem like a failure. I didn’t want to give the 2%ers a chance to say “hahhahhh! she’s going through sh**t”. Because of that pride, I spreaded myself thin to be everything I knew was happy good and fine. Even writing this seems pretty lame in my head …ew Doris you’re 22, what are you doing?” But It really breaks a person when she tries to be something she’s not. I don’t want envy, I don’t need jealousy, I don’t want to live to please other people, but please the God that’s in me without hiding or faking who I am. I’m so filthy yet He somehow still seems to love me. I sometimes feel so torn between who I have to be in fashion and who I have to be in Christ. And with who I was and who I am. I stop who I’ve become or growing into because of the fear that the new me/the changing me will shoo away the people who knew me as something else. And I truly dislike the fact that I’m so easily affected by the people around me. That I’m not true to myself, that I’m not my own rock. I want to love myself for who I am, for what I believe, for all the filthiness that God has cleansed, and for the worth I have in His name.

See even now copying and pasting this on here – WordPress is weird to me. I guess I keep thinking… is this to glorify me or God? But I know God broke a barrier of worth when I clicked post and didn’t keep it to “only me”. Maybe I don’t see that God has provided me with a community to help encourage and support one another… When did I lose trusting in my friends? Or maybe because when other people do it, I see it as them using God’s name to Glorify themselves. I guess another thing is going to down for “Filthy Me” for the sinful way I think. But it’s difficult to differentiate the purpose of posting things whether it’d be me or friends.

…
Through this (just now), God is telling me (the same thing I heard once before) stop trying to wander around and find the sin. Focus on me, my Glory and My love for you, and all will be well *smiley face. And it’s really unprofessional but ‘lol’ to the smiley face because he says it with such simplicity and kindness when I’m scratching head, feeling heartache for answers that I know.
Just Pray.

God, life is so filled with so many distractions. Everything is so ‘beautiful and sensual’ and I can’t help but get distracted. *lol because I really am weak. I can’t commit to things on my own and with your spirit, your presence I can. Maybe too many times I doubt the power in your name. Jesus I call to you now to set a whole new level of thirst in me for you. I want to bask in your goodness, breathe the breath you’ve provided and stop acting so foolish, setting you aside for things of this world that will soon fade. God let me pray with you, spend time with you, on and off social media. Let my worlds be one in you for God you are my core. Let my heart not be hindered from you. Let my soul rest in your name for you are God alone. I want to be able to scream JESUS IS LORD everyday with no fear of how others will see me. Lord guide me as I use social media as a tool for your glory rather than mine and continue to build me into the daughter of Christ you made out to be. Lord you are with me, you give me comfort and I am forever grateful. Thankyou for blessing me with such Joy with my siblings today and I pray that your presence would shine through this day. In Jesus name. Amen.

Post OTR

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I recently came back from my first missions in Over-the-Rhine Cincinnati, Ohio and to be honest, it was an eye opening trip- but wasn’t life changing. On the ride back I spoke with a brother and he spoke about two things that hit me, lying to myself and materialism. By lying to myself about the emotions that I feel and by putting my securities in titles and things that I own or the characteristics that make up who I am, I was glorifying me and not God. After that realization, I felt Filthy. How could I do this…

God, It makes me upset to think that I had such a main part of the gospel misinterpreted. This whole week I’ve been praying,”and all this is to honor you” but how empty those words were. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way I built myself up to look like a kind person because in reality I’m worthless; guilty of sin and no better than trash yet you seem to still pour out your love over me. Why I asked and you said it was because Jesus has covered over all our sins by taking it on his body to the cross so that you may be able to love. Jesus, How? How could you take such a sin on yourself. How do you even come towards such a filthy sinner like me. How did you come to comfort me when I had this underlying sin within me. Father God, I pray that you would break my walls down, demolish my tower, and rebuild it so that it’s yours, so that so that I may truly understand to take up my cross and follow you. In Jesus name, Amen.

My Needs?

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Today in AMI QT’s, I was asked to question “What is the usual content of my prayer?  Do I tend to avoid the unpleasant topic of sin as I focus on “my needs?”  Do I realize that my greatest need is to be in a right relationship with my Father?”

It’s not that I avoid the topic of sin as I focus on “my needs”, it’s that I question my lack of interest. I question a lot these days on the relationship status and there are times where I think to myself, “Is it wrong for me to want to live a simple life facing the hardships as I go alone?” As of now, life is simple. Wake up, eat, watch netflix, update my portfolio here and there, upload a picture, check social media, eat again, go to taekwondo, hang out with friends, hang out with siblings, help out parents; very summer routined life. I’m not searching for a job yet and I have no fear of not getting one because jobs are out there whether they are corporate or small start-ups. But it gets difficult to try and squeeze in QT’s or praying when everything in life seems to be floating okay. That’s probably where I’m at fault.

Have I lost motivation to do works for God? To pray for the people that have supported me in a time of need?

Sadly the answer to the last question is “no”. I don’t realize that my greatest need is to be in a right relationship with my Father.

Father God, what has happened? Why am I satisfied with this mundane life that’s floating by? Why don’t I feel the importance of you in my life right now? Must I always be in a accountable environment to be able to understand the greatness of your glory? Father forgive me for my failures to see the fault I’m living. Give me a heart that thirst you, a heart that cares the way you see me. Wasn’t it you that I found my security in? Wasn’t it you that helped me through the toughest times and rejoiced with me in the most precious times. Father, I pray that you would ignite a fire in my soul that burns for a passion for your name. Let me not be satisfied in this life, let everyday be filled with motivation to seek your glory, let me experience the first true love I’ve encountered with you. In Jesus name, Amen.

Spiritual Status

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To be honest, living back in New Jersey is hard on my spiritual life because I experienced God’s presence, love, and intimacy in my apartment and being back where my laundry is done, dinner is served, life became a little less heavier. I find myself trying to ignore God, his presence in general and although I know it hurts him to see me turn a blind eye, I end up turning another blind eye to that as well.

But with that said, I’m excited to see how God will sovereign in my NJ home. To my eyes my family seems to be doing okay compared to the years previous but I feel an underlying miscommunication of our love for one another and I hope that while I wrestle with my relationship with God once more, He will open up new doors and tender our hearts for one another.

God. Father. I miss praying to you. I miss the intimate moments we’ve had but why do I feel so distracted? Why do I feel like it’s okay for me to enjoy my worldly surroundings. Father, I pray that not only to be reminded of you but for my heart to quench for you once more. For my heart to seek out your Words and wisdom; everything of who you are. Lord I pray that you would invade this space which will soon be my home once more and make it yours. To have it filled with Your love, Your strength, Your compassion, Your guidance for my family, for my choices and actions. Father fill my room with your Holy Spirit and help me to kindle the fire you provide. Father God I pray for energy to wake up and do your works for your kingdom everyday. Good Shepherd of my soul, take my hand and lead me on. For I am yours and you are mine. Amen.