ok as you can read from the title.. red is really so not my colour.. but! i really like the jacket.. and yes i wil wear it..and as promised i will wear it this sunday.. i think.. anyway thanks willow for the jacket its nice =)
on a side note the tagboard will be up soon..
ok on to the main point of the post..its going to be a really long one.. cos i tend to talk alot and i have alot to say so add those two together and you're in for a bedtime story! haha but anyway im actually glad that you all took so much out from the sermon.. well yiann at least.. but im sure the rest of you did as well.. and i'd like to add few points to what yiann had said in her post..yes i do agree that it is hard for us to really just believe in sth that we cant sense with our 5 senses.. but you know what.. i think another point that we should all take out as well is this.. once we really get to know God for who He is.. we actually in a way do FEEL Him.. like how Ryan discribed it.. to TASTE and see that the Lord is good, to SMELL His fragrance (let Your fragrance rest in this place as we gather to seek your face [very old song which some of you may not know]) to HEAR Him speak (John 10: 3-4 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice) and we SEE how He works in our lives yes? i think so.
but this one thing really has got me thinking.. from what Ryan said yest.. the devil thinks that we all have a price on our faith.. a specific thing or area in our lives that if attacked, we lose our faith in God.. and sometimes (not always mind you) when we go through particularly tough times it is a test of how much faith we have in God to bring us THROUGH the situation. not out of he situation but through it.. through it because only by going through it do we realise how insignificant we are and how much we need God.. cos only by going through it do we rely so much on God and grow closer to Him and trust Him more. through it because only by going through it do we come out stronger..have ever wondered why after you go through adventure camps or camps, you find that you trust a particular person or a group of people so much even though at the start of the camp you may not know them in the first place? its because during the camp you HAVE to rely on them, you are put in situations where you have to work together and trust one another, sometimes with your lives (high rope obstacles are an example) where you have to encourage one another share your food even (i can almost hear some of you laughing at the idea of me sharing my food ok..) and through this all a trust is built upon each other because of what you went through..in the same way, but perhaps on a deeper level, this is how trust is built when we actually go through a situation with God..because we have to trust in Him.. we have to cling to Him for support.
but with regards to if we have a price to our faith.. i guess its half true.. but only half because its (READ THIS)-------> HOW MUCH DO YOU VALUE YOUR FAITH AND WALK WITH GOD <-----(READ THIS) and that is the price to your faith.. to put it crudely.. your heart is where your treasure is.. what you place as first place in your life is what you will take as the most important.. and so the logic is if you take away the most important thing to you, all else will be meaningless or alot less important because you desire the thing that is the most important in your life back.. (i hope im not losing you guys.. i know how to reason it out in my thought process but im not sure how to find the exact words to accurately discribe it) imagine it this way.. the thing that we love the most and is the most important in our lives is like the foundation to our heart.. and the second most important thing is the second layer and the third most important thing is the third layer and so on.. and lets say we have 20 layers in our hearts.. if you take away the lets say 17th layer.. everything above the 17th layer will come crashing down right? but from the 16th to the first layer everything remains the same.. not to say that it doesn hurt but you still have the 16th layer downwards right? and what happens if you take away the first layer? everything comes crashing down am i right? so its obvious the the first layer has to be the most solid and well guarded layer of our hearts something that the devil cant take away..
and the ONE thing that the devil can never take away is our love for God and our relationship with God..so what im trying to say is this..ask yourselves.. where do you put your faith in God? what "layer" is your relationship with God in with regards to this analogy? you know when i was thinking of this the song firm foundation (i can almost hear a small children's chior singing it now..) started playing in my head.. and its true.. we have to make JESUS our FIRM FOUNDATION! so what if the devil takes away our 4th layer or our 6th layer..yes it will hurt but we still have our foundation.. we still have the one thing that we hold DEAREST in our hearts..and we can start rebuilding from there.. the price to our faith is the price of the layer that is below where we put our relationship with God in.. if there is no layer below our faith, there is nothing that the devil can do to make us lose our faith.. because our relationship with God is something that the devil can never take away.. i encourage you my brothers and sisters in willow to place your foundation in the Word of God, YOUR love for God and YOUR trust in God.. just like how Job's foundation was His love and relationship with God, placed even before his own physical well-being.. placed even before his family. that is why Job never lost faith in God.. its also the same reason why that Rachel that Ryan talked about never lost her faith in God.. where is your relationship with God placed in your life right now?
let me share with you one last story before i stop blogging (yes i know i talk alot and sometimes waaaaaaayyy too much but this is a blog and so you all are forced to read it!! MUAHAHAHA!!) this last story is not something i have shared with alot of people.. nor is it something that im very proud of but as a mentor (i think thats my role right?) to the group i want to show you all that we are all human and when we fall we have to pick ourselves up.. you all know what happened to me during OCS right? and this story is about how i lost my faith during that time but more importantly how i gained it back..it was because i wanted to bean officer so much.. and because i was doing well in my course.. im not going to lie to you.. i was doing well.. from what one of my instructors said they wanted to push me to be the PC of a unit.. whic meant that i had to be close to or within the top 10 % of my wing..and pride came into my life.. the pride of doing well, the pride that I, ME , DERRICK (despick) was doing well in officer training.. woo! so much so that i forgot that God was the one that was supposed to be in control.. so much so that i forgot that my life my calling is to serve God and to let God guide me..to let God be in control.. and when the incident happened, i was angry at God.. can you believe it? instead of standing up and saying i was wrong.. i was angry at God.. when i clearly was controling my own life at the point it happened..what happened was that i placed being an officer below my faith and walk and trust in God.. and when the incident happened.. everything came crashing down.. absolutely everything.. i was crushed.. depressed and generally wanted to just crawl into a hole and hide myself from every1.. can you imagine the shame? of being kicked out of training because you have an integrity problem? what will people say to me? or behind me? or to my parents? what will they think about me? or my family? or how my parents raised me? i was depressed.. but i thank God.. because even though i lost my faith.. even though i totally didnt want to have anything to do with God ever again.. He had every intention of having EVERYTHING to do with me.. He sent me great friends, "repairmen" and yes "repairwomen" as well first in the form of my parents and pastor henry.. they encouraged me..they showed me that i can and should always turn to God..and then He sent Kaimin, Caleb and Ryan.. willow let me tell you that there is no greater friend than those who will tell you that you are wrong and will scold you when you are.. because those are the friends that will stick by you.. those are the friends that want the best for you and are not afraid of losing the friendship because they care so much for you..thats what Kaimin, Caleb, Ryan, my parents and Pastor Henry did.. they showed me that I should be loking to GOd instead of wallowing in my self pity and showed me that theres more to life than being an officer.. most of all they showed me that God still cared.. God sent Claudia, Nadine, Denise, Amos, Adrian and so many others to come and encourage me as well..and they are the ones that helped me rebuild my life.. this time with my new found love and relationship with God the foundation of my heart and my life..
what i really want to encourage you all about is this.. no matter how hard you have it,no matter what goes on in your life.. even if it all seems impossible to bear.. just remember that God is always there.. and if you put God as your foundation.. nothing.. absolutely nothing can ever take away your faith in God.. blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5:3) what i feel it means is that because we feel that we are spiritually inadequate, we fall back on God to draw on His infinite resources.. If we build our heart's foundation based on our Love, Faith, Relationship with God and the Word of God.. we will be constantly drawing on God's resources and we will never lose our faith.. i thank God that He has brought me through all that He has so that i can share it with you all.. i also thank God that He has brought all of you through whatever you all have gone through because willow would never be the same without each and evey one of you being the way you are.. and without each and every one of you.. willow, or JYM would never be the same..i've been praying for each and every one of you each day and i believe that God can and will use each of you in mighty ways if you let Him. so yea..to end i just want to urge and encourage each and every one of you to look at your hearts and place your relatonship and your love with and for God as the foundation of your hearts..and when you go through a problem.. remember that you will never lose the one thing closest to your heart.. the most important thing in your life.. you will never lose God!
im really sorry that this is so long.. but yeap.. this is from my heart.. my thought process goes even deeper (imagine that!) but i this is the gist of it la.. and if you really want to know the rest of my thought process you can always ask me.. i'll try my best to explain it to you so you will get it.. but in anycase thank you for bearing with me and reading this far..
agape
-derrick (despick)-
