Beauty in the Breakdown

So far New Jersey has been great - I've met so many wonderful people from different places (I'm the only one from CA haha), I've gotten along with my apartment-mates, and I've even started cooking (mostly to save money). I'm glad for what God has been showing me recently, and I'm really excited for the community that I'm starting to build here. 

Yet, at the same time, things aren't so great. 

The more time I spend here in New Jersey, the more I see myself slowly reverting back to living like the way I do at home. It's going back to unwholesome interaction with people, it's the relationships built on people and people alone. It's not spending time to pray. It's being too lazy to go to church. It's me being complacent. Timid. It's me living as though God wasn't a personal God, ignoring Him as if He was irelevant to each day of my summer. I don't like what happens, yet it comes so easily and naturally. After all, this is how I've been used to living for 18 years of my life. 

This is the Vincent who my friends and family back home know. But this isn't me anymore - my time at Berkeley has been transforming me. Whenever they ask me if there are any changes in my life, I want to tell them "YES. I've encountered a God who loves me unconditionally and I've found His Son who died for my sins, and it has forever changed my life and the way I see it. I have found an amazing God of love, compassion, wisdom, and grace who is personal. And He cares about you even more than I possibly can." 

Yet whenever the "Anything new?" arises, an invisible force holds my tongue in check as I say "No. Not really." 

Why do I do that? 

As the days pass in New Jersey, I've been thinking about why. I've been so conflicted and scared that the people who I knew before I knew Christ would treat me differently once they found out how I've changed. I'm afraid that the the comfortable would become awkward, that familiar would turn unknown, and that understanding would disintegrate into ignorance. As a result of my inaction due to these fears, for the past year I've managed to keep hidden the most important aspect of my life to the people I've known the longest. Why am I unable to talk about the God that I love the most with the people in this world that I love the most? Why do I always revert back to familiarity and doing what I've been used to? Will I ever tell them of my new-found identity?

No. Not yet. I can't. I'm too weak. It's too difficult to do by myself.

Because of my weakness, I've found myself living a double life ever since I became a Christian. It's been so painful being in it and I see why I've avoided thinking about it for so long. And I question where my heart is. I see how I've been putting myself - my own comfort - above God. And in this aspect of my life I see how I've been failing Him.

Yet scripture speaks volumes about failure. He reminds me of an ancient story: one of people who have been delivered from slavery - who have seen God work miracles with their very eyes - only to create a golden calf in the wilderness to worship it instead of Him. God whispers to me the story of His people, of the Israelites, and of how they continually break covenant with Him generation after generation. Yet He never gives up on them. He shares a story that I've heard many, many times - a story that I've always overlooked until now.

And I realize that I am just like the Israelites. 

God, You've freed me from my Egypt and saved me from a life without You in it. You redeemed me from my sin and promised me a new home. Yet when I oh so quickly forget of Your promises, I fall back to my old idolatrous ways and my comfortable methods of people-pleasing - these ways of living for myself. And even though You've brought me out of Egypt, it seems that Egypt is still in me.

Lord, I have failed. But just like how You remained faithful to the Israelites after they too failed time after time, I know You'll be waiting patiently when I fall short. You tell me not to be afraid to fail because you have a plan for me - a plan to give me hope and a future - and You'll catch me if I fall too far. You are a God of love and forgiveness - a God of second chances. Whenever I'm angry at my actions and when I doubt my faith, You remind me of Your own faithfulness by telling me the same word You told Your people around 3,500 years ago. That one word...

Remember...

Remember what I've done for you...

Remember why you chose to follow Me.

God, I don't deserve Your love. Yet I know You'll be beside me giving me strength when I don't have enough to tell them about my faith. I must remember where my heart truly lies. Maybe then it won't be so hard.