Hmmm

interesting.

Faith

Today's devotion! So qiao right? ^^

Faith and Humility

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. --Hebrews 11:1

There are a great deal of things that I need to have faith about. For one thing, the fact that I need to improve myself and learn to deal with some people in a better manner, because it is right and it is good and just because they irritate me (and mymy they shouldn't, because they are the people who love me most) well, I think this is one of the hardest things I have to do...but I HAVE TO DO IT because it is the right thing to do. Denying myself constantly and without stop for breath is probably the hardest thing for me to do, because I always go easy on myself, but what is a test unless there is a standard pegged to it?

Test or not, it isn't ultimately a test of myself, but rather, a test of my own ability to have faith in God, and to increase my dependance of Him by utterly denying all that is me, and my own feelings of irritation.

Urgh. I think of how I feel and I know how wrong it is to feel this way. How ugly it makes me, how dreadful! I think it's because I think of myself as a great, big Somebody and that is why it irritates me to feel like the Nobody I should be!

Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each consider other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. -- Philippians 2:3-4

God has been getting at me for two items lately. Faith, firstly, and secondly, humility.

I have very little faith. I have always a niggling feeling inside that God will not answer. But then I realize that if a desire is good and right and God-honoring then, God says that I can have faith that what I hope for will come to pass, even if I cannot see it right now. So it is not trusting in my good God, in the plans that He has for me, in the goodness He desires to see in me. So let me have more faith, and know that God is changing me and He is truly changing me and I WILL CHANGE and it will be a beautiful and God-honoring change that I can praise God for in times to come.

And I am a very proud person. I often do not consider myself lower than other people. This pride is always in me. In all the niggling things in life I have to pick and choose portions where I am better than another, just to feel better about myself. Urgh, isn't this ugly? I think my pride comes through and it isn't a nice thing to see. So I must pray for God to humble me. I am even afraid to pray this because I am terrified at what He will do, but I think my character change is more important than my feelings.

PRAY FOR LOWLINESS OF MIND AND TO CONSIDER OTHERS BETTER THAN MYSELF.

Everyone is better than myself. Every human is to be treated with the utmost respect, and to look to them to see what we might learn. If I feel superior to the Bangladeshi worker because I earn more money, well, God says that is wrong. So this is to banish feelings of superiority. I feel like a very terrible person now, but God says when we feel terrible about ourselves, that's when we are most close to God.

That's humility. It's less about feeling good than doing right. And then it becomes less surface happiness and it becomes something very close to joy. Jesus, Others, You. That's what JOY is.

The removal of self from the equation.

Now I must wait up patiently for information from another. And let me do this humbly, and not consider my time as so very important that I cannot wait for another. 

The Sabbath

Today, I was forced to observe the sabbath.

And I think I really need this sabbath.

I slept all day and I'm still so exhausted. And my backache is terrible.

So it is good, to observe the sabbath day. Thank God for creating the sabbath!

Been attending Chinese Service lately, with Joelle and Pei Ling. haha. I am semi-clueless throughout the service.

But the Chinese Version of 1st Corinthians 13 is very pretty!

爱是恒久忍耐， 又有恩慈； 爱是不嫉妒， 爱是不自夸， 不张狂，不作害羞的事，不求自己的益处， 不轻易发怒，不计算人的恶，不喜欢不义， 只喜欢真理；凡事包容，凡事相信，凡事盼望， 凡事忍耐；
林前十三 4－7

and the memory verse for today:

出埃及记第二十章17节
不可贪恋人的房屋；也不可贪恋人的妻子，仆婢，牛驴， 并他一切所有的。