The Aftermath

I reckon during the past few weeks that everything I've heard at church or youth I've just left with quiet acceptance, since I've been so busy with work in general. Today I finally got proper sleep in a long time (and just realised how great it is) and had time to question myself and the stuff I'm been reading and hearing lately.

Today on the menu was reading a recommendation of a book which was akin to the 'Christian's guide to Surviving College', where you can see a short synopsis of it here and also discussions on college in general; questions if we are really going to college (or as they call in Australia, uni) for a God-given purpose and not because it's the expected norm in society.



I've read a range of articles on the web. It's been pretty interesting, because when I procrastinate sometimes I tend to look at web articles more than funny pictures, and sometimes it leads to intellectual discussion about the position I'm in socially. For example for the past few weeks I've read about the state of the Asian American, the expectations of going to college, education, architecture as a egocentric profession, teenagers, drugs and pornography and a lot of other things related to my scope (possibly except the pornography bit, and when I say pornography I mean articles about porn and not watching porn itself. Just thought I'd clear that up). I think God has lead me through all those articles for a reason, although they are not similar, they belong in the scope of what I do as a student, as what I've chosen to do in the future, and the foundation that is my beliefs and even my heritage. Christians are often called for a 'greater purpose in life', something like 'changing the world', changing the future, changing yourself to become a better person. I know how much the church likes to throws those keywords around all the time. That's all good and dandy; we all want to have a vision and purpose ourselves to change the world. Great, let's go do that. But as soon as I hone in to my thoughts about change I realised that keywords 'changing the world', 'vision' and 'purpose' open up such wide topics that it's near impossible, with a retrospective of my life, and my position in general to write about it in its entirety, but I always have the urge to do so.

It started with the many promises I made for God and wanted to keep, but never did.

It started with the urge for purpose, the drive to make sense of everything. To reform myself, to assure of myself as a human being.

And there are many questions I ask myself to get there, continuing to ask 'what do I really want to do, today, in 2 weeks time, in a year, in ten years'? Age old questions like that are fun and hard to answer.

I wanted to go into the question today; why do I go to uni in the first place? Oh no, not that question again? Seriously? Anything else to talk about? I know that's what I'm thinking and maybe you too but I just want to answer this on a spiritual basis instead, which I might have already covered. But I've thought about it in a new light and I'm going to share. So why do I go to uni? I can easily write the answer here, although I hesitate to actually say the truth out loud to a lot of people on this, because the truth is kind of embarrassing to me; I only go because I've been expected to take university courses, graduate and get a job easily. I didn't come because I wanted to be that person, doing that job, doing the kind of work in the near future. I didn't have an interest in anything, so the world supplied me with that interest. Faced with indecision, fear and hesitation going to extended tertiary education seemed the easy route. For the past 3 years, all of those rosy thoughts changed; vanished as I discovered the horrible reality that is the nature of university, and the arena of getting a job in general, which I might have talked to death over all the time in past posts. It's something you don't want to think about, until when it comes, and when it does you might get doubts and regrets like cuts and bruises. Well at least it is for me.

For the past few years going in and out of my life I thought; university might be doing more harm than good in my spiritual life; I mean all that all-nighters, living unhealthily for the glory of how much hard work was done on one project, the majority of the cohort being non-Christian, stuff like that. But I can say, without going to uni I might not have had the opportunity to question my faith seriously on an intellectual basis, which I'll do now.

What I always question in tandem with why I study at uni is how I live for God. It also ties in to the question of what I do, because I myself claim that I live for God, and if I don't know my real purpose for doing anything then I just tend to point my finger, raise my hand and say I do it for God. I really don't though. I know I ought to, but God really want this from me; it's not that you ought to, it's because you want to. What is more ironic is the fact that I can't bring myself to tell my God-given purpose to other people. I just shrug and say, "eh, I do it because I feel like it". I can recall doing that numerous times (like at least six times) in just this past year. The past few weeks majority of my actions was not for the glory of God but for myself.

I'm questioning myself all the time. Because you know why? Back in youth a few weeks ago, I said to God, "I want to give my life. Everything in my life to you. Take it and use it". You know, the stupid confirmation act that your pastor or youth leader makes you do after a message so you feel good and cleaned up after you've done dirty stuff all week. After a wreckage I got through having slept very little, drank very little, ate very little and basically lived off little for the past few weeks I can say, I am not ready to give up my life for God.

I've done things like being judgemental of other people, and when I saw people off the deep end I thought 'I'm glad I'm not like them'. That is being stuck up and not godly at all.

I would post up links on Facebook to my uni friends such as lecture notes or assignment sheets; I would be extremely hesitant as my conscious was telling me to do it so I could climb on top of the social ladder or on the 'approved list' of friends, so I could get 'good recommendations' per say. Not godly at all.

It also resulted in me being absolutely bitter with God; I couldn't worship because I knew the words I was singing were completely off and wrong in my life. Not godly again.

It also got me thinking that I could just quit what I was doing, and then start making creating things to sell on online shops. I didn't consult anyone on that, and I now think that's not what God had in plan for me. Not godly.

I've had fantasies of having a wild youthful life; going to social events and promoting what I do. Let's be straight up and honest with ourselves. That is not godly.

I've been a blur. Seriously, all this has gone through as a blur, and in several weeks it's all accumulated and hit me in the face. What am I to do about it? Nothing. But I'm going to drop a few words about it.

First of all, I just want to say that to the people who think they're strong enough to survive uni. You try and duke it on your own because you want to prove by your strength you can do it, and you know other people before you have, so of course you can. But you don't know how easy it is to slip in that mask; how one missed Sunday can turn into next week, next month and then you've never coming back any more. I've been there before. You can turn into the party animal slinging heroic sounding stories of how you got so drunk at a party to your friends. You start pleasing people instead of God, you start doing things to get attention to yourself. You just turn into a nasty mess, you won't like worshipping and doing that sort of stuff Christian people get up to on a Friday night or Sunday morning. You won't like going back any more to the nice sweet person you were before, because nobody will like you for it; you'll look like a massive hypocrite.

Second, I also want to say that what you're doing; is is really for God? Can you decide what to do and will it be to glorify God or will it just get you up one more level of hipster cred/ street cred? Did you choose to live this lifestyle for God, or live a lifestyle because everyone else is doing it? Mention God; you get a little uncomfortable since it's the same people you've sat with that just sat in agreement, "religion is a cultural artefact; it was only meant to explain what happened before we discovered science". That's the risk you take when you enrol for uni, or even if you don't and go straight into the workforce. No matter what course you take, left or right people are going to say this indirectly or directly to you; and you have to be prepared. Even if you nod with them in silent agreement but at their backs snigger at them and go 'no but I go to church, and believe in God' you still look like an idiot to them, and get it; you look like an idiot to God.

It's not easy definitely. Saying outrageous things like 'I want to live for God and give my life entirely up to Him' is something that can't be done overnight. But here's a tip; everyday when you wake up say out aloud to God exactly that. You might feel like a hypocrite, but you're not being one if you put that in your conscious and work on it. Keep reading about His great promises in the Bible and praying about it. Never underestimate what He can do for you. Definitely get friends along to keep you company along the way (it's impossible without friends) because it's going to be one rocky ride. And definitely tell people about how you want to live your life for God. It puts you in the spot, it'll make you uncomfortable, but it might move you to do something. That's what I'm trying to do, overcome my shyness, and regardless of my shortcomings, but I believe that God can use me to make a difference in my place; no matter how corny that sounds.