Hao 3.0

Good evening, light of the world!

Imma start with a couple things on this week’s passages. First: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” So ultimately, our purpose for being light and shining is to glorify God; more specifically here, to direct people towards Him. This probably sounds really obvious, but it’s something I often forget to be honest. Even as a Christian, I’m often trying to be good for my own sake. I wanna be a good guy so that people will like me, so that I can feel good about myself, so that I can be successful, etc. That’s a problem! If God ain’t my focus, I’m missing the mark. If I’m trying to be good just so I can promote myself, I’m no different from the rest of the world. There are plenty of people out there who are into self-improvement and are better at it than I am. But Christianity isn’t a self-help program for losers to become successful by themselves and for themselves. In truth, Christianity is a relationship where losers become glorified by Jesus and for Jesus. Hallelujah!

The second passage essentially tells us: if our eyes are messed up and we can’t see spiritual reality, then we’re in huge trouble. If truth, light, and life doesn’t seem that bright or great to me, but instead lies, darkness, and death appear very dazzling and attractive... then I’m seriously (I think the technical term is) screwed. So in the words of the American poet Ice Cube, “Checkity check yo self before ya wreckity wreck yourself!” I think the verses directly before (21) and after (24) the passage are also helpful: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” & “No one can serve two masters.” In physics, we were learning about eyes and that only a super small part of our vision is actually in focus. For example, if you stare at the middle of the page, then you won’t be able to read the words that are on the sides. And so spiritually, I regularly need to ask myself: where are my eyes, heart, and mind focused on? As the hymn prays, “Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart.”


Spiritual Life

Since we started this blog, every week as it comes to Wednesday or Thursday, I realize I need Jesus to set me straight once again because again I’ve wandered off course. I used to think of myself as a pretty stable and consistent guy but now, I feel like I can be cruising at high altitudes and still fall off abruptly. Maybe sometimes it’s like Peter walking on water, but then seeing the wind and waves, he started to sink. It can be so frustrating! It sucks how, like Jackie said, it’s so easy to get caught in Satan’s little lies. And it’s wack because he usually doesn’t even come at us with a new trick. It’s the same old BS, but we fall for it over and over again. Fool me once, shame on you; but fool me twice... or 10 times, or 100, or 1000...? So it’s real easy to get discouraged, but we gotta press on! I definitely echo with Melissa’s post from last week too. I gotta keep my mind set on Jesus and His Spirit or else I’d go crazy. Real talk. 


Other Stuff (boring, it’s about school so feel free to skip lol)

I got my physics midterm back and that test was wack! The test itself was really poorly worded, and my exam was hella misgraded. I went to my professor and he agreed I should’ve gotten about another half standard deviation higher on my grade (~around a letter grade higher). But the course basically doesn't do regrades so I’m stuck with what I got. Also, one of the professors I talked to all the time this semester told me he wasn’t really into writing recommendation letters.. And I was like wth? But thankfully, 2 other professors were down so I’m really grateful for that. Now I just need to find 1 more.. Overall, I’m definitely learning to put all this academic business in God’s hands though. For a long time now, I’ve been praying for God to do whatever He feels like with my future and I mean it sincerely.




Now excuse me as I go push on my “Tyrone*” rock for exercise.

For anyone feeling tired or weary, this song is so refreshing: Christy Nockels - You Revive Me