Wednesday, May 22, 2013

The Purpose of Life


Now that most of us are going to be High School graduates, have you ever thought about what your future would be like? I don't know about you, but let me tell you, if you have not set any goals for the future, you will not live your life meaningfully.

Just like as the new year begins, we make a new year's resolution. We tend to look at it and sometimes we tend to forget about it. That is what makes our new year more enjoyable, right? In this case, sometimes we can't forget our life goals. Without making our life goals, we will not be able to see the direction we are heading to. It's okay to switch up our goals every now and then, it just means we want to do something different in the future. Or even our dreams have changed, and that is totally fine.

Most of us as a child, we say we want to do something great in the future. Although we don't have a certain plan at that time, it was fine only because we were so little. Now, we still say we want to do something great in the future, but how do we get there? Soon, our parents will let us pursue our dream, but how do we pursue our dream? To be able to pursue our dream, we have to make goals that we can look at from time to time to know where we are headed. That's the purpose of our life.

Last week, I went to my Youth Group and had a little discussion with some of my fellow friends. The theme of the discussion was, "Our future". Each one of us had to tell our goals for the Youth Group as well as our own personal goals. I was shocked at first to hear someone ask me that question, only because I had not goals for my personal life. I only had goals for my Youth Group. Therefore, I had to make something up. So, I said, "My personal goals are to be successful, expand my knowledge in education, and to support my family." Then I realized, that is my purpose in life, but what is it that I really want to do in life that can fulfill my purpose in life? I came to realize that, my purpose in life is to do what makes me happy, because if it makes me happy, it will surely make someone else happy.

I believe in goal setting to help guide us to where we want to be. It may not always be the only source to help us on our path, but it is an encouragement. If we are heading West and our goals are East, we know that we should turn around and head East. I encourage my fellow friends and classmates to set goals on their future. Little things like this, helps us look back and think about how great our life is now. Fulfilling our purpose in life feels like helping the world one person at a time.

What are your goals in life?

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Seeking the Lord


We often hear 2 Chronicles 7: 14 quoted in the bible in seeking God for revival:

                                    “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, 
and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, 
then I will hear from heaven 
and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

 But what does it mean to seek God?

Thinking of what it means to seek God, I came to realize that I don't know why I would seek for him. Trying to find the answer myself will be the first step in seeking Him.

Majority of us seek God when we are in desperate for God to grant us something. Unfortunately, that is not how it works. It's just like us asking our parents to go out and hoping they will say yes, but their answer is no.

Bottom line: If you're feeling the nerves to seek God, it is because he was the first one to seek you. Let that phrase sink into you. Don't miss it, because when it's gone, it's hard for it to come back.

The Lord is searching all over the world to try and see if He can find someone whose heart is His. Do you surrender daily to seek for Him? Is every ounce of your day dedicated to Him? Are you running after the Lord, to know that you have Him? Do you have sleepless nights searching for the Lord?

If your answer to these questions was "no", then let me encourage you to pursue the Lord relentlessly, as if we were hunting for Him! Seek the Lord with all your heart, take advantage of the early and late hours of the day, when everyone is crying out of desperate for the Lord to help them. I want to encourage you to be driven to reach out in a way you were rushing in line to meet your favorite celebrity. This by all means, is not a passive act. In fact, it is something you give your whole body, mind, and soul into.

If you are willing to do this, the wonderful promise to you is that the Lord will strongly support you in whatever it is that you are doing. D.L. Moody had once said, "The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him. I will try my utmost to be that man." I agree with Moody, we get so distracted in our daily lives that we never see the good God has given us or even through us.

Do you want to know Him?

If you want to Jesus personally, you can. It all starts off when you repent on your knees and believe in Jesus.  God's words in the bible said, " Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel, and saying, ' The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel." (Mar 1:14b-15). In this section, he preached to us that we must repent and believe in order to receive His grace.