Focus on the Bright Side

One new thing I have learned this week is about the happening in the Dark Ages. I have learned that no matter how dark and gloomy were the events happened at this point in history, light still prevailed. I could not take the brutal happenings and pitiful memories present within this period yet there were positive things that we can get from it. Just like the blood of the Christian martyrs had brought popularity in a wider scope. We may not appreciate the bad things at those times yet as time went by, God had let it occur for good and it was under His sovereign plan.

Reminiscing the past, I could tell that there were lots of painful experience I also have undertaken. During those times I tend to ask God what  was the matter and what was going on to my life. God just ignored my complaints on Him and He rather gave me a heartwarming answer. He reminded me that everything happens for a reason. All I need is just to trust Him because no matter how much I try to fully understand His plan for me I cannot. God wants me to focus on the bright side of every happening, circumstance, challenge or trial that I am going through knowing that He is the Master of my life.

To Have an Enduring Spirit

No matter how I escape from danger: there is, there was and there will always be. This week I have learned how very hard the life of Christians before yet they thrived despite such. I could not imagine how did they get through from the wrath of the world. One great thing that impacts me from their lives is to have an enduring spirit. This week I know a bit about the background of Origen especially on how he stood for what he believed in and he dared to die for his tremendous faith in Christ. I want to learn his courageous attitude, not being fearful of what lay ahead in spite of the threats of his life. He really died honoring Christ through his body and no matter how severe the punishment he had encountered, his being zealous for God still remained and never died down.

Before, as far as I could still remember, I was the naughty and stubborn 'Shiela' at home. I acted like a princess at home. I didn't like somebody bother me and if so I would yell at him or her. I talked back to my parents because I always thought to myself that I was right. But despite the hardness of my attitude before, there were so many scars and struggles of life I was bearing. I had a rare skin allergy and it has no cure because only my body could fight it and the medicine just helped me to prevent such skin disease yet not the remedy of it. I suffered such sickness way back when I was still five years old and still up to now. But this time, my skin disease is already mild and would attack me for only few times and not that too bad anymore. I asked God for the total healing of mine in regards but God didn't remove it fully. A certain time of my teenage years, God spoke to me with these Bible verses, “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12: 7-10 NIV). I encountered these verses after I got truly saved and after the physical infirmity that struck me last 2006 and it was tuberculosis. I was not yet saved at that time. After I got healed of tuberculosis, I decided to accept Christ as my personal Lord and Savior by then. Along the way I have realized that being a Christian is not easy. Not all of your weaknesses will be gone especially that I am now still in my present body. To suffer for Christ is still hard for me this time even though I have met lots of lions already in my Christian walk. It still a problem for me currently to have a consistent enduring spirit yet I do have to have because God is already working in my life and I want to think and act out ways for me to be able to achieve it with God's help.

My first step to have an enduring spirit is through asking God's help. I know that I can't do it myself but I can because Christ is in me. I will ask for God's perseverance everyday especially presently that I am still a student. I desire that God will help me to endure and finish my college degree for His glory. Secondly, I will practice persevering. I should dare to face hard challenges or the 'lions' in my path. One of the lions I am facing presently is the upcoming result of our comprehensive exam that would probably be released next week. My utmost desire as a fourth year student is that everyone of us will pass and that no one will be left behind . I earnestly ask God to help me practice endurance especially these days and also few hours from now, Music Club will be having a presentation in the chapel and I am one of them. Hope that I can persevere including the other members as well. The last thing I am going to do to have an enduring spirit is to be disciplined in my quiet time with God no matter how busy my day is. My life verse says, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13), therefore, I have no reason to depend on my strength alone because God is my Invisible Partner and apart from Him I am nothing, I have nothing and I can do nothing.

The Essence of Good Conflicts

This week I have learned the essence of good conflicts. Just like what had happened to early Christianity wherein there are lots of heretic beliefs emerged. Yet despite this, it made Christian doctrines to be clarified, well-polished, or well-scrutinized. For example, in regards with the issues of Trinity and the natures of Christ, various of interpretations aroused. The early Christian adherents were also tested of their faith and how they did stick to the Scriptures. It caused then lots of divisions of Christianity because of some theological doctrines. But then I can consider it that it was a good conflict because it weeded out fake God's followers who tried to contradict what God says in His trustworthy, inspired, inerrant and infallible Word.

Based on what I have learned, I can flashback the times in my life where I encountered good conflicts. I made conflicts with my siblings, parents, friends, teachers, classmates, schoolmates and even church mates before. Yet despite those conflicts, God used them for me to able to withstand criticisms from people especially this time that I am already a Christian. My life before even though I may consider it as mess yet God used the mess in my life for me to be captivated by His Message. God recycles me, from being a garbage to a new product. The conflicts in my life both in the past and the present were and are making me to be more dependent on Him and to acknowledge His matchless grace, wisdom and power.

To apply what I have learned, I want to look at the positive side in every conflict yet I have to put in mind that not all conflicts are beneficial. I will always seek God's help every time I will encounter a conflict and ask for His supervision what are the moves I am going to make. Furthermore, I can also ask help from my trusted Christian friends or my accountability partner to helping me find a solution to a certain conflict I am facing. Another thing is that when conflict arises I will choose to be proactive than reactive. I should meditate first what I am going to feel and act, considering also other people's welfare not only myself. Lastly, I should remain thankful to God for the conflict He let me face because I am fully convinced that it is one way of helping me to be more like him and to become the person He desired me to be.