sugarrush-77

It’s very clear to me that I can’t have anything to do with my salvation. The chasm between me and God is far too wide, and I will never become perfect. This is something that I’ve realized before, but not to the extent I have realized it now. I’ve given up on myself before, but not to this extent, not yet. I was holding a couple things very tightly in my hand and it was getting painful to hold onto them, so painful that I had to let go.

Today, I went to a group Bible study, which really just turned into a private Q&A session for me because I had too many questions. I should feel bad for the other people that had to sit through that, but I don’t. Fuck them. Maybe not really in a fuck them way, but before I got there today, I was spiraling hard, thinking about ways to ruin my life.

During the Bible study, I was able to get a lot of clarity on some questions on how I was to live my life. First off, here’s the roadmap of my current spiritual journey in chronological order. Steps 1-2 are what I’ve experienced thus far, and everything after it is what I see to be my next steps.

1. In a state of existential despair, looking for a clear cut path to salvation because I believed in God and hell, and would do anything to escape it. Fear dominated here, and I would guilt trip myself over the smallest things, because I was trying to achieve my way to salvation through perfection. I’m always going insane in my head.

2. I give up on myself entirely, realizing that I cannot do anything to achieve my salvation, and if God wants me in hell, I cannot do anything about it. So be it. Fear passes away here into a serenity bordering on lifelessness. I’m still spiraling, not in a way driven by fear, but characterized with a fatalistic carelessness.

3. My next stage is approaching this Christian thing entirely differently. No more chasing after perfection. God is the only one that can give me any kind of understanding of truth, change my heart or life in any meaningful way. It can ONLY come from Him. With that presupposition in mind, I’m going to approach this Christianity from a relationship with God angle instead.

Our pastor said, the reason the Good News is called “Good News” is because when you’ve tried to save yourself and failed at it, and realized that you have no potential — zero potential at all to reach across the chasm between you and God, the fact that Jesus came and died on the cross for us is Good News. He claimed that he’d been a Christian for 44 years, decided he was going to become a pastor early on in his life, but he thinks he just understood the Gospel/Good News a week ago, despite the fact that he’d been preached it hundreds of times. I think what he meant there is that there are different levels to understanding this. I believe I am only at the beginning of coming to understand this, and nobody will ever reach completion in their journey. So there will be many more aha moments incoming.

Duty can very quickly become a bad thing in your relationship with God. I’ve had some problems with this, so I’m really not going to try that hard anymore. Our pastor said that a sign of legalism creeping into your life is if you start feeling guilty when you don’t do the “Christian thing”. If I don’t feel very moved by God to do something, I’m not going to do it anymore. I can’t live my life like this anymore. I need to move on, or I’m going to get cardiac arrest.

Our pastor also said something about fighting the law, and fighting against your sin. If you draw a line in the sand for yourself, you’re sure to cross it. However, if you love God, and have abounding joy in Him, you won’t be too tempted by stuff anymore, because you’re already fulfilled. So that’s why I’m going to stop trying to torture myself to perfection in all areas of my life, whether it be being a better programmer, better Christian, etc.. I’m going to approach it via my relationship with God, and let Him work.

I need to keep my hands off the steering wheel, and hand it to God. But even for that, that’s what God is going to do. I need to stop expecting “basic competency” or good things from myself. That’s simply not a possibility. There’s no point expecting a 3-year old to write mathematical proofs. But that’s a very freeing sensation.

tldr; stop focusing on perfection, focus on the relationship. Do it all in community, because God uses community to teach and show us how it’s done.

I feel #0fddfc today.

One of my coworkers walked by my desk today when he was leaving work and fished a Taiwanese pineapple cake out of his coat pocket. I asked him if he was trying to poison me, and he said, “No, I’m just handing cute little pineapple cakes to cute boys.” He must have either misspoke, or said what was really on his mind, because he got a little flustered after saying that and said, “No, wait, what did I just say…” By the way, this guy has a girlfriend.

But it’s not even like gay guys like me. I only have this effect on straight men. I remember being in the Korean military, and the boys were saying that they’d completely defile my body if I was a woman. They would wrestle me down, and smell me. Apparently, my skin naturally excretes a nice smell that attracts males. So am I a straight twink?

[What I look like to straight men]

I have a sacrilegious theory about the sex I was born with. My mom married into an intensely Buddhist family, and Buddhism in Korea is tightly coupled with ancestor worship. So, when she refused to bow at the ancestor worship altar, and refused to partake in their rituals, the old curmudgeons on my dad’s side went all apeshit, pissing their pants, punching the air, all the bullshit. But another thing about old Korean curmudgeons is that they love grandsons, because of that whole Asian cultural thing where the son is the most important, yada yada yada. All the other moms in the extended family had like 2 daughters before they could arrive at a son. My mom had a son immediately. I wonder if I was supposed to be born a woman, but God was like, fuck these guys, and swapped my chromosomes at the last moment.

That would explain the whole twink thing, and why a bunch of straight men are currently begging at my door to get a whiff of my bare, naked skin. Saying stuff like “It makes me feel alive again,” and “I can’t live without this anymore.” I could charge them five bucks a lick, but then that would be borderline prostitution, and I don’t mind it, so I let them have at it. It makes me happy too. I’m glad that my existence has some use, at least.

There are 4 main reasons I’m emotionally repressed.

1. My mom (bless her heart) has bad anger issues. Sometimes, she got so mad that she beat the fuck out of me. This made me view emotions as dangerous, and hate emotional people.

2. I was an emotional kid. When I got excited, I lost control. My mom compared me once to a kid who had it more under wraps than me with good manners. That made me afraid of losing control.

3. I’m shy, and care a lot about what people think of me.

4. I’m a guy, and men are taught to repress their feelings.

But I just realized I don’t want to live like this anymore. My heart hurts sometimes from holding it all in. Literally. My heart actually fucking hurts sometimes.

And here’s the crazy thing. I don’t even feel happy when I feel happy. I get scared when I feel happy, because I’m not used to feeling happy and fulfilled, like “What is this feeling lmao?” I actually feel a twisted sense of happiness when I’m miserable. It just feels right to be deep in the shit. It feels right to be scared, lonely, shocked out my mind while imagining me cutting myself to shreds. Maybe I don’t do that anymore. Maybe accept happiness, at least when it comes?

I want to be free and let go. I realize this is a bit backwards. Usually, you make your emotional mistakes as a teen, or a kid, and you dial it back as you get older. I’m an adult. But better I make my mistakes now, rather than later, right? I want to feel what I’m feeling again. I want myself, to be honest with myself. I don’t want to live the rest of my life in a dissociative daze, in an out of body experience where I’m looking at myself from the third person. If I’m being honest, I was probably too concerned with looking like a model student, and a model son, and a model Christian as a teen and a young adult. And I was way too good at hiding my emotional baggage and the shitshow in my brain from other people for my own good. I tricked pretty much everyone.

By trade, I’m currently a programmer, but ironically, I think this will also make me better at programming. Programming isn’t just about writing code. It’s also about being good at making snap decisions with intuition, because sometimes, you don’t have time to really think your decisions through. Intuition is feeling, and feeling is loosely connected to emotions. I think too much, don’t feel enough.

I’m so used to hiding in an emotional shell, even from myself. Sometimes, I’m feeling an emotion, and I’ll become too self-aware of myself, and it’ll recede back into my heart. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t even know where to start. But it’ll take some time.

Maybe one thing I’ll do is write a feeling diary. But instead of dissecting my emotions and explaining the thoughts behind why I felt that way in the moment like I usually do, I’ll just start writing some whimsical bullshit. Like, “I felt magenta, then aquamarine-yellow, and a butterfly grew out of my bellybutton when I laughed.”

This seems very sudden, and out of the blue, so I’ll write a note for myself on how this thought germinated in my mind. A couple things happened.

1. I was writing some short fiction, and realized I lacked a creative spark that I used to have, that excitement of embarking on a new adventure, that joy of creation, that whimsy, the JUICE that breathes feeling into my characters, deep emotion into them, the lifeblood of vivid description gushing from my pounding, trembling heart onto the page.

2. I gave up on myself. I got wrapped up in a bunch of neurotic spiritual bullshit, and looked at the people around me that were serving God better than me, that loved Him more than me, and were… happy. I looked at myself, and said, “What the fuck am I doing wrong? I’m a shitter. I’m miserable. Rarely happy. I’m missing something.” The answer is I don’t fucking know. But I did realize I need to take 50 steps back, reinvent my whole jive, and blow everything in my head the fuck up. I’ve built, brick by brick, a thought-library of bullshit in my head. If God is real, and truly with me, I trust that He will lead me through this, and save me in the end.

3. What catalyzed this realization was this. I was watching the opening of City the Animation, and it was just so fucking beautiful. The vibrant colors, the exuberant overture explosion of sound, and the sweet emotional bond that binds the cast together culminated in a joyous experience that blew out the receptors in my frontal cortex. It affected me so much emotionally, that I felt alive again for the first time a in a long time, and I began to wonder why. I began to wonder if, this experience, of me watching the opening to this anime was also part of God’s plan. And oh how happy would I be to believe that.

I give up on myself! But I don’t do it with the defeated expression of yesterday night, when I told myself it was all over. I give up on myself joyously with a smile on my face, and tears trembling in my eyes! I WIN! I feel like I can fly again! I haven’t smiled for real in forever! I feel like a bright yellow-white! Or maybe it’s just this song I have on repeat that’s the one doing the talking :P

I hereby renounce my previous favorite color green. Now, my favorite is YELLOW

I've always held the opinion that we can demonize public figures, Hitler, all the people who’ve committed horrible things all we want, but we all have to remember, that everyone has a little bit of Hitler in them. The evil that was in Hitler’s heart is the same evil that resides inside your heart, and my heart. And I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a shitter, and by many standards, not a good person.

“A person may think their own ways are right, but the Lord weighs the heart.” (Proverbs 21:2-3)

People who know me will disagree with my statement. But they’ve never seen the thoughts that fly through my head, and they don’t know that I take delight in evil.

Sometimes, I just want to see the world burn. I’m not so psychopathic that I’ll see a dead person and smile, but I am happy when people around me encounter miserable events in their lives. And it’s all because I’m miserable pretty much all the time. I just want to see them feel as unhappy as I do. Yesterday, I heard a member of the worship team at church talk about some church drama that was going on, and how the team had abruptly gotten disbanded. I must have been jealous of the close community that they had together, because I admit I had to stop myself from cracking a smile, imagining that community fall apart. So that each of them could be as lonely and empty as I feel every day. And it’s not like these are people I hate, either. I think they love God, and I think highly of them. It’s fucking horrible, I know. But this is the truth. Why can’t I be happy for other people when they are happy, despite whatever I’m going through? Why do I wish that everyone would drop to my level, instead of wishing that I could be as happy as other people around me?

I also am a hedonist.

No Face, a spirit inside the movie Spirited Away, is a spirit that possesses an insatiable hunger, and grows bigger and bigger, consuming everything in its path. When I see this guy, I see myself. Except instead of having a bottomless stomach, I feel like I have a hole in my mine, so that everything I eat fulfills for a moment, and falls out, leaving me empty again. And instead of food, I consume pleasure. I don’t drink anymore, but I still haven’t been able to cut porn and masturbation from my life, and I still browse internet reel slop for insane amounts of time. Sometimes, I feel possessed, and I can’t stop myself, no matter how much I want to, and like there’s a monster in me doing things that I don’t actually want to do. But I must want to do it, because that monster is just my desire.

I also hate authority. This comes from pride. Because I hate when people tell me what to do.

I also like watching that yuri shit and that menhera shit. Yuri because it’s saccharine sweet. It’s not hot to me, but emotionally satisfying for some reason. Menhera shit because misery loves company, and I fantasize about falling into a deep pit of a degenerate lifestyle of giving up on everything.

And the list goes on and on. Christianity is not a religion about do’s and don’ts, and endless rituals to appease a God. God cannot be appeased by our works alone, and, if I understand correctly, really is a God that desires our hearts and a faith in him more than anything. Of course, God is pleased by good deeds, but for our deeds to even be considered good, God judges our hearts and decides if it is in the right place. Yet faith without works is also dead.

This is a big concern of mine because I have a deep-seated fear that Jesus will cast me away from him on judgement day, saying that He did not know me (related article explaining this). The article paraphrases this sentiment.

“Jesus is saying to the five foolish virgins, ‘I don’t see in you the life, the evidence, of loving my name and departing from evil. You’re not mine. I don’t know you.’” (from the article)

Love has emotional components to it, but also many actional components to it, and I feel like I have so much evil already in my life that I do, not because I’m unaware of it, but because I’m either unwilling to cut it out because I love my sin too much, and or I’m wrestling with it, and losing. I’m to love God more than anything, including the sin in my life, and if I don’t depart from my sin, isn’t it evidence that I don’t even love God more than the sin in my life?

At this point, I just want to give up. For the past 3 weeks, I’ve had some life-ending depression, that I think was maybe triggered by watching porn again. I don’t have much hope left in me. I don’t even have many thoughts anymore. Even if I marry, I have no confidence I can do my family justice. I don’t know if I have anything good to offer this world in other respects either. I have such large mood swings all the time that I don’t trust my emotions to tell me the truth about anything anymore.

I just want to give up on myself. GOOD BYE!!!!!!!!

#personal

Reason why I’m doing this

Continued Discussion on What God has Entrusted Me With

I’m not even going to pretend like I am a good steward of any of the things that God has entrusted me with. I am so, so, so far away from God, and the depth of my sin and willful disobedience is so great that I despair daily at the person that I am. When I reflect upon my flaws and my sin, I don’t even know where to start. Without the cross, without grace, I cannot cross the chasm that separates me and my creator, and I am forever endebted to Christ. All that I feel I can do is spend time with God, and obey Him, so as to let Him do His work in my broken soul.

Faith and Innocence

A little tidbit of New Testament-esque justification by faith can be found in Daniel as well, if I’m interpreting this correctly.

“My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight. Nor have I ever done any wrong before you, Your Majesty.’” (Daniel 6:22)

“The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.” (Daniel 6:23)

The logic of the statements follows as so:

• Daniel was saved from death because he was found innocent in God’s sight. (Daniel 6:22)
• Daniel was saved from death because he had trusted in God. (Daniel 6:23)
• Daniel could not have been truly sinless, so his innocence had to come from somewhere else. His trust/faith could have been credited to him as righteousness. Maybe it’s a stretch, since the 2 verses do not logically tie together like that.

God’s Faithfulness

Finally, God is ultimately the one who enables, and God is the one who saves. Daniel’s excellence is a result of his character (also developed by God), and also a result of God-given excellence. If Daniel was simply an excellent administrator, political intrigue would have killed him at the beginning of his career. Furthermore, regardless of skill, you cannot rise to the top of any organization, much less a large empire without an abundance of luck or divine providence. The fact that he stayed on top of the ladder for many many years amidst changing regimes and government officials jockeying violently for authority is proof of God’s faithfulness towards Daniel. God is the one who saves, God is the one who shows His faithfulness.

Interesting Note: No Community

Some prophets had wives and children. It doesn’t seem like Daniel did. As the book of Daniel progresses, his friends fall out of the picture for whatever reason, and he becomes the sole focus of the story. He probably did have a spiritual community of some sort, but it isn’t mentioned. I wonder how he did his faith life, because it almost seems like he did it alone.

End Note:

I very much dislike reading about the end times, because I sometimes fear that my name is not written in the book of life. I don’t want eternal punishment. Also, it makes me realize that I’m but a drop in the sea, and I have no power or control over these fated happenings. I barely understand what is even being described in these visions, and it still troubles me. Poor Daniel.

#slave2christ

I spent most of today in bed, choking on my own loneliness. As I mentioned in NO LONGER WORTH ANYONE’S TIME, I am officially no longer worth anyone’s time anymore. I have to forcefully wedge myself into peoples’ space and time, and figuratively ask them, “Hey, do you have a moment?” I had really hoped that I would be able to find some friends to hang with at my church, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m not involved in any kind of service at church, and I’m not going to join something just because I need friends, because I don’t think God would be the biggest fan of that. And, welp, I kind of tried to make friends in faith, because I long for deep relationships that have faith at the heart of it. But it’s been a couple months, and I’m still really lonely, and I don’t really get the sense that anybody is open or willing to become friends with me.

Two things that has recently changed with me is:

1. I’m no longer self-confident

2. I’m not funny anymore

I’m not confident in myself anymore because God has shown me time and time again that I shouldn’t be confident in myself, but in Him. But I have yet to grasp what being confident in God really means. For example, I used to believe that I could achieve X, Y, Z with my own ability. But now, I’m unsure about everything. “Well, maybe I could achieve X, Y, Z if God allows, but I’m not even sure if that’s what He wants, and…” is what’s been running through my head.

I’m not funny anymore. I used to crack a lot of crass jokes, and I just kind of stopped doing that, especially around church people, because I know God doesn’t like that. But that was kind of my entire humor repertoire, and I guess I haven’t reinvented myself yet. Every conversation used to be a little minigame for me to get people to laugh, and I’ve lost that playfulness too. So I’m not funny anymore.

In either category, I’ve regressed, and it shows in my life. Some days, I can’t bear to look myself in the mirror because I can’t stand the sight of myself, because it reminds me of the entire being that I am, which I find disgusting and unbearable to be even reminded of. Socially, because I spend so much of my time coding, I’ve become an omega autist, and I have trouble making conversation with people, much less cracking jokes, and making people happy.

So today, I spent a lot of time choking on myself in bed. If I still drank, I would have drowned myself in alcohol. I’m past that, so I didn’t do that, but I instead reflected on how little anyone cared about my existence. And I don’t say that lightly. My life is currently possessed by a quietness, stillness that reflects my social isolation. My phone mostly rings with Slack messages from people at work telling me to do something, and a whole lot of ads. When I get back to my apartment from work, I compulsively turn on something like Youtube or music just to fill the silence. It’s hard for me to bear the silence.

Today I felt bodily pain while lying in bed and reflecting on my aloneness. Something hurt. I don’t know what. Maybe it was my heart. I wondered if I should cut myself with the razor blades I use to shave. If I started, I didn’t think I would be able to stop myself from going all out and giving myself a serious injury. I shivered, thinking about the ramifications of it. I would have to pay for a visit to the ER, trashing my bank account. I would have to give people at work and church some bullshit excuse on why I had a huge bandage on my wrist that everyone would see through. I would have yet another addiction to deal with. The thing that really stopped me was having to explain it to everyone. It would make me ashamed to the core. It’s just weak and lame, that whole cutting yourself thing because you hate yourself. I wouldn’t want to show myself around them again.

Some people tell me stories about how people around them are compelled to come to church because of the manner in which they live their life. They possess a hope and joy that is unknown in this world, and like a moth to a flame, people are drawn to it, and want to know why. Every time I hear a story like that, I’m cut to the core, because I know that the way that I’ve lived my life, and how I live right now, nobody will do that looking at me. I’m completely useless to both people and God. Writing was the only thing I was ever talented at, and I think I’m getting worse at that too. So I’m on the way to becoming a human dumpster.

This blog is a pretty honest reflection of my internal dialogue. Who would read this and see Christ? I’m despaired and who I am, and what I’ve become. I don’t know if I can change, and I am forcing myself to hope, because I have decided to hope.

Yeah anyways, I crashed out and fell asleep in a state of depression. I woke up, and went to church, because they had dinner for people. Everyone there was new to the city, like me, and didn’t have anywhere to go, like me. I was hoping to talk to the people a little more, but our head pastor ended up giving a long talk, which I liked too.

This is the gist:

1. God doesn’t have a special someone prepared for you in marriage. There are multiple options He usually opens up to you, and you have free will in the matter. If you’re ready for marriage, and you’re awake to the signs He’s giving you, you’ll find it. The key here is that you must first give God control over your marriage, trusting that He’ll show you someone, rather than you finding something yourself.

2. Youth is a time of venturing off the beaten path, and throwing stuff at the wall, seeing what sticks. Continually question, and try new things even if people tell you you can’t do it.

This is what I realized:

1. I need to let God take the wheel on marriage, my dreams, and friendships.

Because I don’t want to be forever alone, I must therefore marry. I don’t have any dreams of my own, mostly because I’ve given up on them, waiting for God to show me something. I don’t have friends in this new city. In all these things, I must give God full control, and continually pray for His guidance in these things. That God might prepare me to play my part in a loving marriage, that He will give me vocational calling, and that God will show me who to make my deep friendships with. I must pray with expectance, and unrelenting hope, because I know that God is listening to my every word of my prayers.

I’ve half given up on making deep faith-based friendships/relationships at church because everyone’s so busy with their own thing. But I’m also just hedging my expectations against disappointment, and I decided that I would stop doing that. I also feel bitter and rejected even though nobody’s actually rejected me (I’M SUCH A LOSER) that I just want to distance myself from them because I’m a petty bastard. I hate myself for even considering in hoping for friends, because it feels so impossible that it’ll happen that I feel like an idiot for hoping. But for God, this is a simple task. I also hate asking for help, from anyone, even God. It makes me feel incompetent, weak, and useless. If someone stabbed me in the arm, I would tourniquet myself, and take an Uber to the ER. I wouldn’t ask for help unless I was literally bleeding out.

I’m such a sensitive bitch and I can’t stop myself. I’m so stupid and I hate myself for it. (x10000000000000000)

I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself

I’m

s

u

ch

a

bitch

#personal

Reason why I’m doing this

So most of this stuff doesn’t actually relate to why I started reading Daniel in the first place. It’s mostly about the crazy visions that Daniel has about the near future of regional geopolitics and the end times.

But there are still many things to be taken from the text in relation to the topic – “How can I live as a slave to Christ?”

Consistency

First off, Daniel is nothing if not consistent. His life, all the way up to the end of his life, is dedicated towards God, and everything else is secondary. God never rebukes Daniel for the sin in his life (at least in the Bible), and God continually saves Him. I’m not saying Daniel is sinless, but clearly, he never let up in his relentless pursuit of God. He practices spiritual discipline daily. He prays 3 times a day, even in the face of death for prayer.

“Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.” (Daniel 6:10)

What’s notable about this is that it mentions that he gives thanks to God daily. This is incomprehensible without a transcendental trust in God, and an attitude of abandon towards his own life. Daniel’s life was rife with political intrigue, and there are likely many more plots against him that didn’t make it into the Bible. But it doesn’t seem like they swayed his heart at all. His trust towards God did not falter, and his faith stood the test.

This cannot be explained but by the grace of God. For who can live like this with their own strength? I need to ask God for grace, that I may be as consistent and unrelenting in my pursuit for God as Daniel.

Lives a Life Blameless Before Others

Second, Daniel’s life is blameless before others. King Darius’s administrators and satraps tried to dispose of Daniel, and investigated every nook and cranny of his life as a public servant. But they could not find a single charge against him in corruption, negligence, or lack of excellence in work. He was easily the best amongst all of them. So much that King Darius put him on a fast track for promotion.

I make so many mistakes at work, some due to my own negligence. I’m also inexperienced, and have a lot to learn. I need to step it up. I’m not representing myself, I’m representing God. But for this too, I must ask for God’s grace. For who can gain ability on their own if God does not allow it?

Trusts God

Third, Daniel is distinguished in his trust towards God.

“The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.” (Daniel 6:23)

I’m not sure if it was intended to be interpreted in this manner, but in the English NIV translation, the verse seems to imply that Daniel was saved because he had trusted in God. So does that mean that if Daniel did not trust in God, he would not have been saved? Not necessarily, because that logical relation does not mean that he would not have been saved for another reason. But still, this trust seems to be important.

Daniel’s life is full of obstacles. God places before him various trials the moment he arrives to Babylon, and they only increase in difficulty. At each obstacle, God seems to be asking, “No matter if I save save you or not, will you still follow me? Do you still trust in my goodness? Do you love me more than you love life itself?” For us reading the Bible, and for us familiar with Daniel’s story, it seems so obvious that God had a plan, and God would continually save Daniel, proving his faithfulness. But Daniel had no idea. At every trial he faced, there was no guarantee that God would save him yet again. After all, God allows even faithful people of God to die.

Would I be able to say yes to God even when staring down the barrel? My little unfounded theory is that God doesn’t just present trials out of the blue to a believer. It doesn’t mean that trials will never not jump in difficulty and only linearly increase in difficulty, it’s just that God gives us opportunities, even small ones, every single day, to say “yes” to Him. He builds us up in faith and character using these small opportunities, and uses us accordingly. If only we say “yes” to all the small things, I have hope that He will use even the smallest things to give us the strength to say “yes” to him when the stakes become higher. This thinking is based on the following verse.

“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much” (Luke 16:10)

Every little small thing God has entrusted in my life I need to give my utmost attention to. So what are the things in my life that God has entrusted to me?

Largely,

• a job
• my church
• friends
• family
• my extra time
• my intellect
• an Internet connection
• etc.

So God has given me each of the following things for a reason, and entrusted me with them. Without Him in the picture, these are all good things that I wouldn’t know what to do with. But with Him in the picture, I now know that He has entrusted me with each of these things for a reason, and I need to understand that reason, and in joy, prayer, and petition, fulfill God’s plan in each of these areas, as a child uses a crayon to fill in the outlines given by a coloring book.

Even when reading through Daniel, I am resoundingly sure of the fact that I have not even understood 1% of the significance of this book, and of Daniel’s life. But I hope that God will use this insignificant effort of mine to understand what it means to live for Him in a great way. I look forward to the day when God shows me how He used this time spent before Him.

#slave2christ

Reason why I’m doing this

Maybe it’s the way that the story’s told, but I get the sense that Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego really don’t care about anything other than pleasing God. One reason it feels this way is because the writer of the Bible didn’t care to show how Daniel and his friends felt or reacted when faced with certain death. There’s no mention of fear, of worry, or hesitation. I’m sure they felt some kind of fear, since they are only human too, but the main focus is on the way they choose to respond to the situation, and not so much their emotions.

Because it’s written this way, I can’t help but imagine Daniel and his friends possessing an aura of nonchalance as they continually face certain death and danger in what I imagine to be unstable and abusive living conditions. King Nebuchadnezzar is at the very least, bipolar. He threatens to literally rip you into shreds, then prostrates himself before you and heaps riches upon you five seconds later. His gut reaction to minor inconveniences is to kill the people causing the minor inconveniences. Most people would live cowering in fear in this kind of environment. But Daniel and Co are not afraid of death in the slightest however, and so Daniel’s friends’ reaction to death threats from a man that very well means it is:

“King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16b-18)

But despite how nonchalant Daniel and Co are, none of them are ever disrespectful or rebellious to the king. It’s not “Our almighty God will save us from you, shove an umbrella up your ass and open it,” but “The only thing I care about is my relationship with God. I’m not afraid of death, and I’m not afraid of you. But I will still treat you with the respect that a human deserves.”

Daniel and Co do not fear because their trust in God is so great, and because they, unconsciously, or consciously, know that the only thing that matters is living a life pleasing to God, which they do.

Also, the concept of career advancement does not seem to exist in their brain. I’m sure, because they seem to be smart and diligent people, that they would give it their all at the role they are placed in. But they don’t work thinking about “I need to gain more power” or “I need this promotion.” They simply do their job well, and focus on pleasing God. Then God randomly gives them a promotion via divine intervention, placing them at the top of the corporate ladder that many would kill to be at.

So a couple things stuck out to me today:

1. There’s nothing to fear but God

2. Please God

3. Do your job well

4. Be kind and respectful to others despite not being too attached to what they think of you

#slave2christ

Reason why I’m doing this

There’s a couple themes to point out.

Fate

• There’s an aspect of fate to all this. Daniel and his friends were chosen from all of Israel to serve in the courts of Babylon. They were good lookin’, smart, and all that. I’m sure there were others in Israel that could be chosen, but they were the ones. What I’m saying is that they were probably fated to be chosen.

Disciplined Commitment to Holiness

• Daniel and his friends decide at the get go that they aren’t going to eat the food sacrificed to idols. They decided it was sin, that they weren’t going to do it, and they decided to eat raw vegetables instead (pretty bad food tbh).
• The guy in charge was concerned that they would not develop properly, and grow up to be good servants of the kingdom. Then they told the guy in charge that they weren’t going to do it, and that he should test them.

Trusting in God for the Results

• Daniel and his friends trust that God is going to deliver them from having to eat food sacrificed to idols when they ask the guy in charge to test them. They would not ask the guy in charge to test them if they had no trust in God to deliver them.
• I’m sure that even if they did not pass this test, God would have given them a different way out.

Leadership

• I’m sure Daniel and his friends all led exemplary lives before God. But the spotlight is on Daniel. He seems to be one leading his friends, and they follow really well, but he does seem to be that calls the shots. But he does it in a way that is pleasing to God.
• Someone has to step up and lead.

God-given competence and excellence

• In the text, it says that God gives them all wisdom, knowledge, and discernment over the years that they study. This shows that ability is ultimately given by God. Even if we don’t receive the same talents that Daniel and co received, we can rely on God for the ability to be excellent and competent in whatever work we do, so that He will be glorified when people look at us.

#slave2christ

What does it actually look like if we are to live as a slave to Christ? My pastor recommended me the following books of the Bible to read: Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther.

I will read them!

It becomes more and more apparent to me that living as a Christian means that I have to give up everything that I am. This bothers me, and it would probably bother anyone. But I continue, in part because I know that the only path to living the life truly lived, and living a life that God acknowledges is going forward, and giving up more and more of myself. What is the alternative? Living the same way as I did before? Mired in sin, and the meaningless things of this world? These things still call to me, as a siren calling to a sailor from the deep, but what is the point in pursuing them when I have much better things to do with my life? Isn’t it much more interesting to wake up every morning, in expectant hope of what God has in store for you that day? At least, these are the things that I tell myself to keep going. The world tries to brainwash me in one direction, so I must try to keep my thoughts going in the other.

#personal