The week of hell

I'm sure everyone just as I am is totally stressed out from school.

So my assignment/exam due list is as follows:
Group presentation tomorrow, Decision analysis project due monday, 50% security exam Tues, Possibly exam on thurs, final project due fri. 

So yea, we're alllll sooo busy, but I am reminded that we can find calmness among all of this that God is here with us, and God will pull us through.

Spend some time with God, lift everything up to Him when you feel stressed out, and I can guarentee you that you will be more focused, more energized, and more motivated to finish your tasks =)

God Bless

Godly Man

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ravi+zacharias+%22Godly+Man%22&search_type=&aq=f

This week I've been watching these talks by Ravi Zacharias
I really enjoy Ravi's talks on every topic. He gives this talk from the Book of Daniel
but he does it in such a way that it's heart wrenching and life moving.
If you guys have some time this week to watch these videos.
You never know, you may learn something :P
~Allan

Finding Calmness in the midst of Craziness

Soo, just finished writing my final, brain is fried.

A committee meeting in 10 minutes, a midterm in 18 hours and a project due in 30 hours. Things have been nuts, but finding calmness on the way to school.... small victories here and there.

So I wanted to ask everyone... how many of us can still sing praises while things are tough? When the things that we're encountering seem soooo.... dependent on the things of this world? When it's about things like... academics? Which are sooo dependent on studying, notes, etc?

How many of us can still sing praises when the going is tough and the keys to success seem soo... worldly? And not on God?

Wonders of the day

What was the first definition of Wonder that came to mind?

is it the Wonder in terms of pondering?
or is it the Wonder in terms of amazing happenings?

Well there's a bit of both.

Wonders (amazing happening)=

I woke up at 7:30 am when I usually wake up around 8:30 earliest.

Wonders (pondering)
As Christians, how many people do we deal with on a daily basis who do not know God?
How many people do we have on our phone list who are non-christians who we just never call?

I challenge everyone to call or talk to someone about God sometime this week, whether it be a short conversation or a long one.

Us Before Agrippa

This week was rather stressful and I craved all week to rest. Yet, forever reason, God did not give me the rest I required. This isnt really part of the story, I just thought I'd add it in.
All week I've been plagued by this ponderment of how to approach people withthe gospel. I had a rather interesting meeting with Bryan, and without revealling to much, he reminded me how sometimes when we evanglize there is something inside us that pulls us backwards. Why when we try to spread the word, the words gets caught in our throat, and for some reason they sound wrong when we play them in our head.
It made me wonder why, what was causing this disunity in me?
As I took a stock of everythign over the last week, I really got an understanding of depth of sin still in me. I quietly prayed and asked God to reveal it more and more to me and that I would have the power to change. How this disunity in me the "war in my soul" as Paul would put it. Really affects so much in my life.

Towards the 2nd part. About how to Evanglize...I looked to Paul before Agrippa in Acts chp 25-26.I won't go into to much detail, but if you have time look at how Paul dictates to the High Roman Crowd. Most of which are officials and how he explains his circumstances and how such circumstances have changed his life. I think that's the key, we need to reveal teh truth about Christ and the changing power.

~Allan

Sex, lust and all of that

Sex, lust is a huge topic to cover. There are so many guys out there (Christian guys) who struggle with this. Honestly, It's something huge I struggle with too.

I've been talking with lots of Christian guys about this and through this journey I've learnt so much.

Sex
First, God wants us to have awesome sex. Like seriously. He wants it to be the best most fun and kinky (in a good Christian way) thing we can share with our wives. But that's the thing. It's with our wives. As you all know, we shouldn't be having sex before marriage. Yes, it is immoral and all that but honestly it's because God wants the best for us. It's proven somewhere (google it, I'm lazy) that the more sexual partners you have before marriage the higher chance of divorce there is and it makes total sense! Look, if you had sex with like 12 chicks than got married. What would be in your head when you're making sweet love to your wife? Exactly, all those other 12 chicks. Comparing her to them and picturing them in your head. God wants the best for us. He obviously wants us to stay married and dedicated to one woman all our lives and that's why there's kind of that rule in the bible.

Not only that, but it may sound a bit crazy, but when you have sex with someone it's more than just having sex. Sex was only meant to be shared between your wife and you. When you have sex a spiritual linkage occurs. Sex is something so sacred and when you take something so sacred and spread it out like free candy it's going to take away how special it is between you and your wife.

I'll be honest, in my past relationship with my ex-girlfriend we had sex. It was the worst decision I've made and I honestly wish I could take it back. I thought I was in love with this girl when in fact it was just pure lust.

Surprisingly enough that happens quite a lot. We mix up our feelings of love and lust and we can't tell the difference.

I grew up with an abusive father that never truly showed me affection. That's why I was craving for love from her and I could only fill that empty void with physical satisfaction.

Masturbation
Now this is a huge thing we all struggle with. And if you say "PSH... no way" than sir, I salute you. I struggle with this quite a bit. It's something that some may be addicted to.

Honestly, the act of masturbation isn't a sin. Check the bible, it's nowhere to be found unless you're talking about old testament stuff with Onan who "spills his seed" and God zaps his arse for that. Onan wasn't choking the his chicken. What happened was his brother died so it was his responsibility as a brother to impregnate his brother's wife but what he did was he pulled out before he gave out his "seed." Anyway, the action of masturbation is one of those grey areas that many can discuss for hours.

The thing that IS a sin though is lust. Who honestly can masturbate and not lust at the same time? Well if thats you, than dang do you have a messed up mind. Anyway, when we lust it's basically committing adultery. I would find where it states that in the bible but again I am lazy and I'm sure it's there I've read it a billion times. So therefore, Masturbation is a sin because it leads or is caused by lust.

Checking Out Chicks
Oh boy, do I have a problem with this. And than again, so do many many other guys. You aren't alone!

God gave us two eyes to see, and if we see something beautiful we're going to go and look at it. If this really awesomely pretty girl walks down the street my eyes naturally are attracted to her. It's like how our pupils are attracted to lighter colors. It's like BAM! Woah... perrrrdyy gurlll.. But that's the thing. You can admire how beautiful a girl is but that's totally different from perving out on her.

What happens a lot is that I see a really beautiful girl, I'm talking stunning, walk down the opposite side of the road. I see her but than I glance away staring at the floor. When I first glanced I already acknowledged that she's a fine specimen of female but I choose not to stare again because I don't want her getting the wrong impression and most of all I don't want to be focusing on the wrong things.

If you catch your eyes staring at the wrong places than quickly divert them away. It happens. Our eyes automatically look for things. Focus on their eyes. Girls love eye contact but that's not what's important. What is important is that you aren't feeding that lustful side of you.

Because of what I've done in the past all those images really have stuck in my head. It sucks, I wish I could just rip them out of my brain but I'll have to endure it and pray against it.

In conclusion...

If you find yourself lusting, LOOK TO MARRIAGE. Everytime those thoughts come up in my head I start praying for my future wife and pray that God prepares me for HER. Through mind, body, and soul.

Weird happenings

Lately at work (Hollister), I've been finding myself in more and more spiritual conversations.  Most of them not started by me, but by the people who just suddenly decide to randomly ask me questions.

So one conversation I had was the "debate" between Creationism vs. Evolutionism.

It started when I was just doing my work normally, and there was this girl who was working on an overlapping shift at the back with me.  So she decides to start the conversation with:

Girl: "Hi, what highschool did you go to?"  

Jon: "AY Jackson" 

Girl: "Never heard of it
Jon: "It's a public school in north york"
Girl: "Oh, I go to a catholic school, but I don't believe in the Catholic ways"

Jon *intrigued*

Jon "So what do you believe in then?"

Girl "I believe in Evolutionism!"

Jon *chuckles* "So why do you believe in evolutionism rather than creationism?"

Girl "I don't know, you need to ask me specific questions"

Jon *thinks to self... didn't i just ask you a question?"

        "So give me an example of evolution"

Girl "Ummm.... you know the fish that live at the bottom of the sea? They had to evolve so that they can survive in that environment in the water pressure, lack of light, and stuff like that"

Jon "So, you're saying that fish originated from shallow water?"

Girl "NO! i'm just saying they evolved to that"

Jon *wonders.. wheres the logic in that???*

...

..

*more chatting that is similar to the illogical argument above*

....

...

Jon "So in school you learned all about creation and stuff right?"

Girl "Yea but I don't believe in that bullsh*t and I think Evolutionism explain things better"

Throughout the entire conversation I picked out a couple of things:

- People believe in what they want to believe.

- People are illogical/stupid

- She might have a negative past experience

But neway, that was that.  Interesting conversation.  Not very smart girl.

So last night, my manager was being really pmsy, and he was complaining about how he had to work alot tomorrow and asked why I couldn't work on Fridays.  I told him I had church to go to. He was quite shocked and asked Why i was going to church and goes on to explain how his mother's ex-boyfriend made him go attend a mass when he was a kid and forced him to miss the Finals for his soccer game with his friends and thus letting all his friends down.  He also explained that when he was a kid, he loved soccer and it brought joy to him.  So he goes on to explain how he thinks that what brought him joy also brought God "joy" and that religeon is just another form of slavery.
After hearing his story, I asked him: "So if some guy finds joy in mass murder, does that mean by killing other people, that will bring "joy" to God?"
He replies by saying that the guy who find joy in killing people is sick and doesn't bring "joy" to God.  Logically speaking... its the same.  But of course doing what gives you joy doesn't always give joy to God.

Final thoughts:

Among both of the conversations I've had, they both had a question that most people who don't (or refuse) to believe ask:
"Why does God allow all these bad things to happen to people, like earthquakes, hurricanes and stuff to happen?"

I'll leave this question for people to comment on.