Bible: The Main Course

I want to make a confession today: I am really lazy, I don't read bible daily, and I never finish my bible plan reading in my bible application, not even one. If there something I can boast, it is only the fact I have finished bible once, though I don't remember and understand a thing, which only bring me shame.

I tried, seriously. I tried a thousand times to read bible everyday. But, most of my trials didn't succeed for whatever reasons. Actually, I know I'm just lazy. I tried my best to understand what those verses mean, sometimes I desperately google it, nevertheless it was useless.

Despaired about the bible, Christian books caught my eyes. They are easier to read and convey God's message too, all the better explaining about it than google do. I started to read C.S. Lewis, Judah Smith, Max Lucado books and others. Each book has specific theme which make it easier for me to understand better about specific issue. However, the fact that I spent those books more often that I read bible is terrifying me.

Maybe it is not a sin for spending much more time reading Christian books than reading bible, yet I know it is not right. It feels similar to us liking to read opinion article without really understand the event, or wanting to hear about a friend we are too lazy to contact from another friend. Perhaps, I should read bible in the first hand. Reading Christian books is not wrong, but they are not our daily bread. They suppose to be snack, while bible is the main course.

Though I still don't understand the bible, I promise myself to never stop trying to read it daily. I wanna know Him better through His words, believe someday He will reveal it in the right time, and keep praying that He will always lead me in this bible reading activity.

So, I pray that we all can keep reading bible daily and understand it in His time. Amen!

Finding My True Love

True love does sound good. I always secretly wish to find my true love. I imagined my true love is a gentleman with great love and great taste, ready to love beyond my imperfection at anytime, whatever my condition is. That was how I imagined true love until this morning.

I am not good at relationship, in fact I never stay in a relationship longer than a year. When I find something wrong in a relationship, usually I become doubtful, then if he cant convince me that everything will be alright I will leave soon. Maybe it's because I don't want to take the risk of spending the rest of my life with a wrong person. In attempt to know how deep is his love, I usually act super annoying and cranky for days to see if he will keep on loving me. I swear I didn't do this intentionally to test them, I did it without ever knowing why but just because I want to and I need to. Some of the guys leave me, some other stay but could not convince me. By all ways, I always leave.

Recently, I promised myself to take some long me-time. I kinda feel bad for never succeed a relationship, I started thinking that the mistakes were on me and not the guys. I realized that I wish too much from them to love me unconditionally. If it is too much to ask for an unconditional love, maybe I will never meet my true love. All I wish for is an unconditional love, because I know that I am not perfect. I was afraid someday my lover will start counting my flaws then he will decide to leave.

This morning, I was thinking that maybe unconditional love is too much to ask for and no man is capable of it. But, how come? My heart is crying for it. God was so cruel if He put a desire in my heart that impossible to be satisfied. Then He told me, "the one you have been looking for is Me!" As soon as possible He made it crystal clear.
All these year, I was crying for unconditional love, I was crying for Him. Only God can give me unconditional love, not matter how much I sinned, how annoying and cranky I can be, He still chooses to love me unconditionally. That moment, I know my quest was over. I have met my true love, The One who will and has loved me unconditionally.

Thank you God, for loving me unconditionally.

Do you know? He loves you unconditionally, too!

Between Demand and Request

I think we all know the difference between demand and request, they have a big difference. Recently, I know the difference is even bigger when it comes about apology.

The definition of demand is ‘a forceful statement in which you say that something must be done or given to you', meanwhile request is ‘the act of asking for something’.

When it comes about apology, do you DEMAND or REQUEST for forgiveness? Let this question be a reflection for each of us.

There was a day when somebody hurt me, I was mad, even more than mad, I was disappointed. He did say sorry, but it was hard for me to forgive him. I remained silent for some other days, but then when we met, he said “why do you still angry at me? I have said sorry.”  Then he grumbled some more. 

At that point, I realize that most of us demand forgiveness. He demands something he doesn't deserve, but he thinks it is his right to be forgiven. Maybe it is in our mindset that if we apologize, we must be forgiven. Forgiveness is a gift for a gentle request, but most of us forget it. Forgiveness is something we don't deserve, but given by mercy. For that reason, we should cherish every forgiveness given to us.

We often do the same thing to God, we pray for something, but then when we don't get it, anger creeps into our heart. It was a demand, not a request. We demand God to forgive us, we demand God to bless us, we demand God to do something for us. We have no right for heaven or for blessings, but God gives it anyway. When we ask for something but don't get it, we should not be furious for it is not our right, but be grateful when He gives it for it is a gift. That’s why anybody who gets His forgiveness should be thankful, because He is being generous. He gives us something we don't deserve. 

So, ask for forgiveness, and cherish it when it is given to you. Close your eyes and say "thank you God for your forgiveness although I don't deserve it" from your deepest heart.

Kindhearted or just OK?

Some researches show that we tend to think that we are better than we actually are. Another random fact, we usually claim to have a kind heart or at least nice, never break the state law, never kill, never divorce, etc

Are we kindhearted or just OK? Definition of a kindhearted is having or showing a kind and gentle nature. Is it? For me it's like the sentence isn't complete yet. It should be 'having or showing a kind and gentle nature constantly and for all'. 

To be a kindhearted is to show a lovely actions for everybody and constantly, never being absent and especially for a reason 'we are only human'. Yes, we are human, a kindhearted human. 

Maybe not most, just some people tend be kind to people who kind to them. It doesn't take a kindhearted guy to do that, everybody does. But to be kindhearted is to be kind to whom who has been unkind to us.
Kind actions should be constant. Being a kindhearted is not depending on our mood, do not let our mood drive our actions and ruin our days.

Being kind isn't an easy-peasy thing, it sure take commitment, lots of practice, and prayers, still I believe it will be worth it. Why? Because He wants us to be.

In this instant super short post I only wanna tell you two things I wrote above because I think that was important. For specific definition of being kindhearted and only nice, you can seek it on Bible, it has all the details. Hoping I can write about it someday. 
Have a nice day!

People-Pleasing Behavior

Today I felt terribly bad, I was disappointed. Things became worse when I realized that I was disappointed with myself.

The consequence of doing something is being criticized. At first, I thought I was disappointed with people who didn't appreciate me much. Then, I questioned myself "do I need approval? Or do I need appreciation?" But actually, that is not the point. The point is I was disappointed with myself, because I cannot please everybody.

I always said the same things over and over again to others, "you cannot please everybody." But I was being reminded about the same thing today. I cannot please everybody, I cannot fulfill people's expectations. Even when I give my best, it is not enough and it will never be. It was frustrating to think about how to please everybody, because in fact it was rather impossible. Now, let me think twice if it is right to have a people-pleasing behavior.

The first question is "why I need to please everybody?" I couldnt find the answer, maybe...just because I dont need to! I am not capable of it, even I cannot always please people I love the most. The truth is we will always get disappointment from anybody, maybe from our friends, best friends, family, spouse, or ourselves. But it is in human nature to please somebody, at least that's what I feel. So, who I need to please? Who I choose to please? Some people may choose to please their parents, some other try to please their spouse, and there are any who want to please their community. But, who I need to please?
I was reminded by this way, that the only one I need to please is God. I had chosen to give this saved life to Him, although actually this life isnt mine anymore. Every morning I said the same things in my prayers, today I realized that I never really mean it before. Saying those is a habit. Now, I want to mean it, really mean it from my deepest heart.
I want to consciously choose to please Him as my one and only. Maybe my trials and efforts are not enough, He just wants me to leave it to Him.The moral road of trying harder and harder is not enough this way. This time, I leave it all to Him. I want to do what He wants me to do and to be.

2 Corinthians 12:9
"and He said to me, "My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." So then, I will boast most gladly about my weakness, so that the power of Christ may reside in me."

I believe when we please God and become who He wants us to be, we will not only please Him, He will make us a living grace for our communities. Do not make it the target, it is the side effect. Focus on Him and He will give it all to you. 

By posting these, I really hope you will think again about your people-pleasing behavior (just like what I did), especially if you feel intimidated by it. You may reach on different conclusion than this post, it may not be wrong. Please pray about it, He knows what is best for you.
Have a rest on Him and on your pillow, happy wednesday!

Fight or Flight!

In medicine, we have one specific hormone called "flight or fight" hormone. It is called adrenaline. It increases heart rate and makes us become more alert. Actually, I don't wanna talk about the hormone itself, this time I wanna talk about the real fight or flight in life. There will always problems come to life, we cant choose what kind of problem that will come to our life. But we can choose to fight or to flight.

Looking back, I think most of the time I chose to flight. It is easier to runaway from problems, just be home, hug your mom, watch movies and read novels to forget your problems. I was deceiving myself, kept telling myself that my life was okay, but actually it was not. I chose to be alone, so that no one can hurt me. My buddy told me that she saw me building a wall, so that people cannot approach me. I didn't realize it before, but one thing that I know for sure, I don't want people to have pity on me.

Now that I am away from home, where can I flee from all these things? Deep inside, it haunted me all the time. I started to seek God more frequently, I thought I need another hidden place to runaway. But God is never a hidden place, He doesn't let me runaway from my problems. When I prayed to Him to let go all my problems, He didn't say yes to it. Instead, He stays with me and strengthens me, then helps me to fight my problems.

Romans 8:37
"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us."

My God is the real King, He doesn't let His child to be a chicken or a loser. Bible says, Jesus makes me more than a winner. To be a winner, first of all I have to fight the battle. In every fight, I got hurt that I wanna cry out loud and quit. Again, He doesn't let me quit, He wants me to reach the final and be more than a winner. He strengthens me in every fights, He gives me comfort and heals my wounds. The most important thing is I am closer to Him as He leads me in every fight and I can learn to become more like Him.

At the end of the days, I just can say "thanks God, for letting all these things happened in my life." Because I know that His plans are the best for me, that right now He is changing me into someone He would love to see in me.

Let me quoted some from C.S. Lewis
"God allow us to experience lowest points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way."

Instead of my miserable english, I hope the readers can understand what I wrote here. Fight your battles guys, but remember you cannot do it alone. That is why you need Him, He will lead you, heal you, comfort you and make you more than a winner. Have a blessed day, readers!

Christians Are Cheaters, Too

Everyone in this world lives with disappointments, heartaches, insecurities, fears, and many negative uncontrolled feelings. Some people try to face it, some seek for help, and some others runaway into things. Most of people who can face it finally come back with a bitter heart for knowing the world is never a good place for living. Some people seek for help, try to rely on other people and only get more disappointments at the end. The others runaway into things, drugs, alcohol, job, games, books, hobbies, anything that can take them off from real life, make them forget their pains.

Christians are not exceptionable in this case. Those negative feelings are inevitable too for us. Do you think that Christians are a group of the strongest, wisest, smartest, most diligent, best people so we can face those feelings without getting hurt? NO. Christians are a group of the smallest, laziest, dumbest, weakest, coward, selfish people. We are the worst people that you can ever imagine. That's why we seek for a savior, for we know that we, the worst people, cannot face this world alone. Perhaps, we more than once tried to rely on a person or thing, but we only got more disappointments. Maybe, we more than once run into life-pain-killers, but we became so addictive that it could danger us.

Life is like a Role Playing Game. Let me make it into a parable. Life is a game named "The Hardest Game Ever". We are the players. Everyone is forced to play and finish it. Some people try to play with the rules, try their best to figure out every problem that come. Some people seek for cheats, but every cheat costs, and usually the cost is too high. The others paused their game by runaway into other things for the game is to difficult for them. But sadly, no one could finish the game well. No one got happy ending. Someday, The Game Maker heard that the game is too hard and no one can finish it well. So, The Game Maker decided to send someone He has trained named Jesus Christ. Jesus is sent to finish the game and He made it. After finished the game, Jesus is sent among the players to teach them how to play and finish the game well. Jesus is the only legal, free, and live cheat sent by The Game Maker. He tries to tell everyone the walk through, gives us weapon and guardians, but not everyone believes in Him. There are people that prefer to believe in themself, play the game by following their instinct and feeling only, try to figure out how to finish it well. Some people are seeking for cheats, but not everyone believe in Jesus' walk thourgh, so they seek for other cheats, they pay for the cheats. Christian are a group of cheaters, we cheated on the game, but we choose Jesus as the cheat. Because Christians are the poorest so we seek the free one, we are the dumbest and the laziest so we don't think much to believe in Him, we are coward and selfish so we prefer the one that can guarantee that we will finish the game well.

I consider people who prefer to try to figure the game out by themself as people who believe in logic thinking such as atheists and agnostics, and other cheats as other beliefs.
Why do I choose to use Jesus' cheats for this life? Because it is free, legal, guaranteed from The Life Giver. For people who choose other beliefs, or rely on their logic and skills, I appreciate their choices, but I just cant be one of them. Life is hard, and I'm not a hard-worker so I choose the easiest way, Jesus. Following Jesus is the easiest way to get joy and eternity life. Easiest but not easy. But still the easiest. I'm a coward, selfish, and frightened to any risk, so I follow Jesus, for His path is risk less. There will be risk, but He guarantees to cover it all.

God sent Jesus as savior for everyone, but it is a choice to believe in Him. I choose to believe in Him for He is the one who can guarantee my life safety, which is thing I do not find in other beliefs. So, are you in? I don't expect anybody who read will instantly believe in Him. To believe in Him takes time and processes. But, I hope someday you finally will believe in Him, too.

And, I hope you can understand what I post today despite my bad english, God bless the readers! :D

The Reason Behind

Sometimes in a conversation with someone I dont like, I feel like I wanna punch him straight in the face or spill out drink on her dress. But I ended up never do it. Why? We simply think because that was non-sense, or bad for our reputation. 

Actually, I found it differently. When we stop doing or start doing something, it is because we do it for someone.

My sister loved bitting her nails. That bad habit caused her nails became so ugly. Everyone kept telling her to stop doing it, but she didnt listen to anyone. And someday, she stop bitting her nails, why? Because now she loves herself, she doesn't want to have uglier nails. 

Like many other child, I would find tons of reasons when mom ask me to go to grandma's home with her. Now, I do it happily, simply because I love mom and I dont wanna disappoint her. When I go to grandma's home, which is thing actually I dont like to do, I do it due to my love for mom.

A friend of mine didn't like to wear high heels, even hate to wear school uniform due to its skirt. She was a macho girl (haha) and basketball captain. Years passed by, one day I met her and saw her changes. Now she curls her hair, wears skirt, and makes herself up in almost every way! I talked to her and found she doesnt change much besides her new interest in outer look. She does change because she loves her boyfriend.

Those are some example of changes we do consciously or not. Changes can be bad or good. So, when you care about a person with good things in his/her mind, it will give you good reason to do good things. On the contrary, if your someone special is someone with filthy mind, all you do gonna turns into something bad.

Our human nature is to do sins, but deep down inside our heart God put moral and conscience there. It makes us feeling guilty doing something bad and knowing it is right when we do good things we don't like to do.

To be a better person we have to love a better person with better mind. Since no human is perfect, why still expecting to find one? No one will make you a better person in every single way just like we never inspire people to do well in every single way, things and habits, because we aren't perfect.

To be perfect, we have to love the Perfect One. We all heard this quotes often, "in everything you do, do it for God" but I will tell you, in every thing you shouldn't do, don't do it, for Him. 

Do you think that you love Him? When we really do love somebody, we will think about him/her in everything we do, we will try to make him/her happy by doing things he/she loves and stop doing things he/she hates. All we do is trying to be someone he/she wish can exist in his/her life. This rule works too in loving God. 

So, do you really love Him? Have you loved Him that much? You don't need to say the answer out loud. If you cant find the answer, ask Him.

"God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their qualities. He knew it already. It was I who didn't." - C.S. Lewis

Sent From Above

I am Christian, not because my religion, but due to my faith in Jesus Christ. Although most of my thoughts contain about God, I'm not a religious person in the eyes of society. I do not go to church every Sunday. I do not post verses in my tweets, or use godly words in my messenger status. I never use t-shirt contains quotes like 'Jesus Army' or 'Army of God', and many other things that can identify me as a Christian.

I was born and grown up in a Christian family, but in the end, it is not my family or ceremony habit that makes a Christian, but God put it in my heart so I choose consciously to be a Christian. His call is inevitable.
For me, being a Christian is about faith and heart. I don't need to post it in twitter, facebook and any other social media. Because I believe He knows I believe in and love Him even if I do not post it on my social media. What society thinks about me is not important, I don't even care if they think I am an atheist, because they are not The One who guarantees my life.

We all do stereotyping. Giving labels. In my society, the Christians usually do not get good labels. They post verses in twitter and facebook, talk about God here and there, always tell people about God, but still use rude words, do gossiping, cheat in test, envy people, and show off the religiosity they think they have.
I do not want to be that kind of person. I do not want to be a kind of No Action Talk Only person. What is the point of being a Christian without loving people? Dont you think it will be better if we let the actions talk? Just do good toward people and someday they will know the reason why we are doing these.
I do everything because of my love for Jesus, I don't want to disappoint Him.

Here I am trying to explain the simple things we use to forget in Christianity. Let me remind you that I am not an expert and never learn about theology. I am opened to any correction, just leave a comment or two and we can have some discussion about the topics I write.

I wish all the readers can understand what I mean despite my bad grammar, hehe. Thanks for reading :)