My Spiritual Suitcase

We were discussing this question last night at fellowship, and the first thing that came to my mind was "obviously it is to glorify God", which is the right and 'perfect' answer - but as imperfect people, I can confess that many times - "to glorify God" isn't the first thing on my mind, and it's just hard to see how studying for something like evolutionary ecology could glorify God - where is the connection? But as we were sharing, the Holy Spirit answered this question in a new light for me. I was trying to think of alternative ways to answer this question, or to build that bridge more - the bridge between studying and bringing God glory. And I realized that God is glorified when we are thankful and we steward what He has given us well. Though what God gives us isn't and shouldn't be the main focus, He does choose to lavish His grace upon us immensely; we've been blessed with food in our fridge, a roof over our heads - but not only

"what's your desire?" said my friend - that's what started this whole story. We were discussing about how to discern God's will, and he made a good point - that sometimes we focus so much on what God wants, we say "where you tell me, i'll go - just tell me where!". I've learnt that when discerning God's will, there's never really a one and only one correct door to walk through. God can use whichever doors you have discerned to walk through for His glory and your sanctification. But it's true, many times I get stuck between options because I can't figure out where God wants me to be - but as my friend pointed out, sometimes God turns the question on you and asks you "what do you desire? what do you want?" -- "what? we get choice?" you may say - but of course! We're not just zombie robot hybrids - God gives us free will to choose - and isn't that a great thing!? Fast forward and with that thought bu

Again, I confess that I haven't been doing well with keeping up with the news - especially with what has been happening in Syria recently, but also what's been happening in the past few years. But this month i've been praying for Syria, and it fits in well as Harvest Waterloo Region has been working to raise 30,000$ to sponsor a Christian Syrian refugee family over. So a little about Syria - they've been going through a civil war over the past five years or so. According to my research, it all began with teenager painting revolutionary slogans on a wall which caused a protest; provoking open fire from government officials - leading to a riot and a demand for the president to resign. The conflict continued to snowball and accumulate, involving different sects (subgroups of a main religion) which caused the rise of extremist Islamic militants and by now as many of us know and have seen - the conflict has gone international. 22 millions people have left their homes

I'm not even sure how to begin describing my "social life" throughout my childhood. I do know that I was a 'floater', meaning that I knew everyone but I never really knew anyone. I remember the high school cliques, and never really finding a place to fit in. I never found the true and deep sense of belonging and community that we all crave for (cause we're designed for it!). And as I think about it, I feel that this could be why i've always struggled with finding intimacy; relational intimacy. I remember as a kid, I would pray asking that God would give me a friend who I would be able to "share all our happy and sad times together" - meaning nothing held back, just a completely open and honest friendship. I even remember thinking and putting that standard on some of my friends mentally back in elementary school and high school (they didn't know... I think) - and I wasn't going to get 'no' for an answer. I wanted so-and-so to be

warning: this post may contain too much information (TMI) The past two weeks i've been trying to fight off a sore throat, and towards the end of last week, that fight has fully fledged and I am currently waging war against all the snot, phlegm and tears (sensitivity to light is one of the symptoms I often experience when i'm sick - which is why I am writing this post from the darkness of my basement, lights off, and sunglasses on). I've been downing endless cups of fluid, shoving whatever asian herbal medicine I have with me (regardless if I know what it is or not), and going through box after box of tissues (we're running low!). Last night as I was writing my blog post, I could barely do it because my eyes were welling up with tears even with the minimal light I had on in my room, I was ferociously coughing my throat out and I was getting up to blow my nose every five mins. Who would've know that the human body could produce so much snot! It's kinda gros

Is there anything you can't afford to lose? Is there anything in your life, if it were to be taken away, that would just destroy and devastate you? I remember a while back, there was sermon I remember listening to about worship and idolatry, and our pastor narrowed it down to two main root idols, 'the greed of having' and 'the fear of losing'. Now although the term 'idol' isn't used much nowadays and it's easy to just think its just a statue someone worships (which is not very common anymore), - the truth is, idols can be manifested in other things as well and are just as prevalent, if not even more prevalent today than ever before. An idol can be defined as anything you put before God. Video games, YouTube, your social status, comfort, your friendships, your significant other - pretty much anything and everything can become an idol. And to be frank, whenever I think of idolatry, I think 'nah, I don't have any significant idols in my li