Prince of Peace

Aigo, its 1:15am and I can't sleep : (

I have work at 7am......

Oh well

I am really bad when it comes to worshiping in spirit and truth I think.  When I'm playing and sometimes when I'm singing, I'm very conscious of how poorly I play or sing and its a distraction from true praise.  Today (yesterday) Pastor Peter said praise is thanksgiving.  I totally agree but I like the way an old praise leader refered to praise.  He would make us do a "praise God" cheer before playing because he called it a celebration.  Praise is celebrating God and everything that He's done, everything that He is, everythign that He will do, and just.... EVERYTHING.  I forget though, so I resolve to put "Give Thanks" and "Celebrate" all over.  At my work desk, on my laptop, on my cell phone, in my car, and wherever else, because my stubborn flesh can't stay focused on God.

"You're my Prince of Peace, and I will live my life for You"

If you're not living your life for God then who are you living it for?  Yourself? Your parents? Your small group? Your friends?  Could I propose that the best thing you can do for yourself and your parents and your small group and your friends and everyone else in your life, is to live your life for God.  What a testament that would be!

If you agree, then what are you gonna do about it?

1 Corinthians 10:31

Know it AND AND AND do it.  Too many of us have potential, with hearts that love God, but too few of us manifest that love and facilitate its growth like we're called to do.

When we meet up, lets not just know we're Christians in our conversations, lets be Christian in our conversation and relationship.  K ^_^

David has been a bad boy this week

But I love him

So here's promised beach pictures

So I feel stinking old.... I filled out my 401K retirement plan forms

Yesterday, someone thought I was a father.  I was at my uncle's funeral.  He was actually my grandfather's brother, so not actually an uncle.  So one of my cousins was introducing the family to some family friends.  As I was being pointed out, Nicholas, my 3yr old cousin ran over to me so that I could pick him up.  To which one of those friends asked if he was my son.  I'm not old enough to have a son...

This is me and my fake son

Too stinkin cute

Won't be deleted

No there being few girls at "beach bonanza" wasn't the discouragement, thats just how the story started about how some ccm guys are discouraging and how I ended up taking all the girls in my car, girls who give the ccm guys too much credit but didn't believe me until they got thrown into the ocean, also the guys were giving me a hard time for taking the girls but honestly, no stinkin wonder they didn't want to go in those guys' cars.  But anyway, I deleted that entry because it doesn't do much good for me to rant about their failures, at least to those who read this blog.  I love them a whole bunch and I expect a lot from them and hope for a lot for them, because I know they have potential, maybe not of themselves but at least in the Spirit.  God's gotten them this far.  It makes me sad to see them not live up to that potential.  At the same time I hope the my brothers and sisters would be so critical of my life.

Beach was fun, I'm really going to miss college, but I refuse to give up fun all together and be an old man.  I've seen people get jobs, be tired all the time, get grumpy, and lose joy, but I refuse.  At least for now.  Sleep is unimportant.  BAM fellowship tonight, night boarding thursday, snowboarding saturday, something on sunday!

Work feels a lot different from school.  For me, school days sucked in the morning if I woke up and just got more burdensome as the day went on and I hadn't done any work but the deadline had gotten that much closer.  Work, however, sucks in the morning but as the day goes on I just get closer to going home and then when I do get home I can do whatever I want, which has mostly been chores haha, but I'm happier doing them than having no one do them.

Speaking of school, what the heck happened to me.  I scored more than a standard deviation higher than the average on all of my midterms and finals this quarter..... I'm not that smart.... I don't do that?  Hooray anyway!

Pics of beach when I get home.......I wouldn't blog at work.......

One decision is one step forward or back

I love meeting with Pastor Peter Chung.  He always has something for me to think about.  For awhile now I've been stressing the pursuit of being a good Christian instead of being a good leader, brother, employee etc.  And thats really affected how I go about things.

This week we talked about my most recent failures and how, even though these struggles seem like giant failures of a difficult week, they are really small failures that result in giant effects.  What I mean is, failing at my disciplines this week wasn't the failure.  The failure was Monday morning when I chose to not read, Tuesday when I chose to not read, Wednesday when I didn't pray, Thursday.... etc.  Theres a few decisions I make every day that determine how that day goes.  I could eat out or eat in, read in the morning or at night or not at all, I can talk to this or that person, and I generally know how these things will direct my day.

The day is made up of these small decisions, the week is made of these days, and the year made of these weeks.  My life starts with every new decision I make.

Every decision is important.  I definitely failed but I can start to pick myself up with my next decision, and once I'm there I'll strive for God with my next decision, and the one after that.

It sounds like too much to fix my disciplines, to fix my sins, to fix my laziness, etc....

But is it too much to write an encouragement instead of watch tv.  Is it too much to read instead of taking 30 min to go out to eat?

I think I can do that

It is finished

Finals that is

And school almost, well pretty much.  I start working full time this Tuesday, for the rest of my life haha.  School seemed long but then if you think about it, I've been in school for 18 or so years, but I have about 40 or so years to work.  I'm gonna have to switch that up a bit haha.

I'm so thankful to have been able to go to college and get a degree, and thankful that somehow God allowed me to get an engineering degree.  To be honest I'm not sure how I made it?  I don't even think I learned that much.

I'm thankful I'll have an opportunity to continue learning, that Talbot actually called and emailed me to let me know that I haven't finished my application haha.

I guess it might be a lesson learned.  I already knew but I guess I forget pretty often.  I don't like when things are broken, or even a little off.  My coffee table opens up but if people hit it wrong the parts seperate and I'm always putting them back together.  I have to fix a drawer that fell off its hinges or isn't sliding in the way its supposed to, like the drawer under my tv stand.  When people ask me for help on something, I can't help to see it all the way through, if its directions, I need to know they made it to their destination, if its car stuff I need to know that it works or I do it myself.  Maybe that may sound like something good but sometimes, the best way to fix things is not to be super proactive about it.  Somethings aren't in my control and somethings can only be fixed with time.

I got in trouble for the first time in awhile and I really tried to resolve it so everything would just be good again.  But sometimes the best thing to do is to just give people space and time, especially when I'm the cause of the aggrivation.

I thought I was a patient person, but I realized I'm only patient when I have to put up with something.  And maybe its my pride that makes me think that I'm some kind of martyr to do that.  But when I feel like I should fix something, my patience goes out the window.

Things I need to pray about

Sometimes waiting it out is fixing it, but ultimately theres no right or wrong answer.  I can't just do this in this situation or do that in that situation.  The more I grow, the more I need to be in prayer and discerning in how my choices work for or against God and His kingdom.  When I'm focused on Him and not being a nice guy I will make better decisions.  After all, I don't remember anyone calling Paul a nice guy.

I'm weak

haha what a failure, I can not stay away from my blog, i love writting/typing out what I'm thinking.  Probably because I think a lot and I change topics so much in my head I forget what I was thinking about.

But anyway, I remember in CCM praise team a few years ago, Ronny would ask for prayer requests and praise reports.  I haven't intentionally done praise reports so maybe this is a good place, especially since my Mom reads haha.  Besides lessons learned, encouragements, and rebukes are praise report worthy.

Anyways I was bored studying and turned on my itunes, which has mostly praise music on it.  Its a lot happier and strengthening time when I'm being reminded through song of why I've been writting down equations for 8hrs haha.  Not a complaint at all, rather, after all that time I'm

 totally renewed by being reminded and focused on my love, and His love for me.

good luck everyone on your finals, its a blessing to pursue such degrees with which we can glorify Him in ways others can't.

Jump in

Fake smiles

The closer you grow to God, get to know Him and understand His love and character, serve Him, with fellowship and encourage in your life, the harder it is to live without it.

The last week or so has been rough and I've utterly failed in my disciplines.  At first its not too apparent that I'm not doing well.  It's easy to convince myself that I'll just catch up on reading, pray later, invest time in people when I have more time.  Especially with finals.  Like once I get past them everything will be great.....  It's been two weeks of fake/forced smiles.  And those make me : (

So I'm giving up posting like almost everyday.  Limit myself to once a week or so I think.  Reason being is because if I stop posting everyday, I have no excuse to not do my disciplines in the saved time.  This blog has kinda been where I take whats been bugging me and burdening me and turn it around to rebuke myself by trying to turn those things into something I've learned and encouraging.  But at the same time, I think it's taken away from me offering my troubles up to God.  Today's sermon reminded me how important prayer is.  What can we do more powerful than pray?

Anyways, good bye blog Ill see you from time to time

Humble abuse

Where's the line between being a humble servant and just being taken advantage of?  Or mayber there is no line?  Or maybe the notion of being taken advantage of is really a failure to be totally humble in my service?  I don't really know but it is stinkin hard sometimes.

I didn't buy a big so I could watch it by myself.  Likewise I would gladly share any of my food or snacks, my guitar, my movies, I love giving rides to people who need them.

But...

Maybe it is my own sinful pride and wanting to be given some kind of respect that I don't deserve.  I think I'm pretty patient but I do have my limit.  To come over to my home because theres a basketball game is a privelage not a right.  Eating my food is something I'll let anyone do but please ask.  I'd love to give anyone a ride but don't show up at my door and ask.  Just because you know someone will do something for you, its courteous to ask anyway.

I love Mark, He called me to borrow a movie and assured me he would bring it back.  Of course I'll let him borrow it and its nice that he would ask.

Most are respectful and grateful.

I need to be patient and loving

I'm better than you

I'm really not.  I am definitely not.  At least not where it counts.

Being a "mature" Christian is hard because I don't really struggle much if at all with drunkeness, blasphemy, lust, murder, theft, sloth, anger etc... you know the obvious ones.  But then I think its the not so obvious sins that are really detrimental to my spiritual health.  I want to be better.

I want to be good enough really.  A good enough Christian, a good enough leader, a good enough friend, a good enough brother, son, employee, student, servant etc.  And on the surface thats not a bad thing.  I should strive to be better at all of those.  But I realized the folly comes in the difference between being good enough and being better.

Better implies theres room for improvement.  Thats cool, it is true.  But being good enough sets a goal and that goal will most definitely fall short of our calling, since if we are to have a goal it should be Christ.  But the most important thing is that I am no where near the goal.  And because I fall short, I need to strive and work, not suffocating the Spirit's work in me, so that while I'll never be good enough, never be like Christ, at least God may say to me when I come face to face,  "well done my good and faithful servant."

My purpose isn't to be good enough but show the world that He is, and more.  I want to be obedient and loving enough to do that.  That means I may not be the best Christian, leader, friend, brother, son, employee, student but that everything that is good in those things are attributed to God so that He is given the glory for actually being the best.

I'm amazing!

Well actually God is because honestly it seriously must be God working in my heart and especially my brain for me to get something like an 85% on a vibrations test!

Seriously above the curve twice in one quarter? thats not me....

I was going to babysit in May but not anymore : (

I got moved to April! yay!

Its funny, last year around this time my class started to realize college is almost over.  It didn't hit me till this year for obvious reasons.  It's kind of a weird feeling.  I am very excited to be done with school... at least engineering school (seminary and possibly business school in the future).  I'll even have more time to hang out and do stuff.  No more hmwk or projects, no stressful all nighters.  But its sad that everyone else seems busier?  How is that?  Everyone has more time but not for each other?  Well everyone who doesn't take their work home with them.  Maybe we're just getting old and free time is precious rest time.  But doing fun stuff is rest time for my heart, free time is only rest for my body.  I'm sad to lose ccm and all the time hanging out, the people who don't go to berean.  But at least I will have more time for berean and I stinkin love berean.  Time for boarding with andrew chung and joe whang and brian sd, more guitar with henry chung and luke hsu, more car talk with rog, more motorcycle talk with luke and derrick, more childrens ministry with hannah henry jeni sally joong yuhl rog, more meeting with ppc before he leaves.  Exciting, more guitar, more attempts at learning languages, more money for sure, more video editing, more cooking.  I will miss college though.

*edit

stinkin sophomores make letting go of college hard.  I love you guys.  why would you guys even consider to appreciate me at senior banquet?  Thank you but thats not allowed ^^

*delete

Haha first deleted post.  That was a bit too dramatic for me, even though I wrote it.

Its not like I want to die but I am excited for when I do get to go home.

The right response would have been for me to look forward to that time without complaining about the present time.  I used the verse Philippians 1:21 to justify my sentiment but I rebuked myself when I continued the chapter.  Paul wants to be with Christ for sure, but that's not what God has planned for him, and he doesn't even complain.  He continues to talk about how he will stay for the Philippians sake and encourages them to live their lives without complaining.

I was especially rebuked by Philippians 2:14-15

Do all things without grumbling or questioning that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.

I'll try to shine brighter

Haha I have two major finals that worry me and they're both on Monday at 1:30-3:30 and 4:00-6:00 haha

F is for Fail

fail + fail + fail + fail + fail + fail........... + fail + fail = righteousness?

Jay never emailed me to go to bible study, I dunno if that was a failure to correctly present the bible or not, I fail in doing well in school, I fail in working as hard as I can at work, I fail my friends, I fail my brother, I fail guitar, I fail learning any language, I fail engineering, I fail serving, I fail loving, I fail being joyful, I fail working out, I fail being financially responsible, I fail being as clean as I want to be, I fail being intentional, I fail to make time, I fail to be held accountable, I fail to keep those I love accountable, I fail God, I fail my saviour, I fail...

I don't understand God's love because I don't know how He could sacrifice anything, let alone His son for me when I just continue to fail in everything.  I myself have a hard time loving brothers and sisters who don't sin against me, and an even harder, almost impossible time loving those that do.

Lately, I've been reflecting on the fruits of the Spirit a lot.  I need to work on being more loving, more joyful, more peaceful, more patient, kinder, good, faithful, gentle, and self controlled.  When I fail at these I can't accept myself as just a sinner.  I need to be a sinner striving for righteousness.  Knowing that I fail can't be an excuse to fail or a simple write off of why I failed.  I fail because I lack Godly attributes.  A good question I heard is; if the Spirit works in us to grow us then what good will it do to pursue the fruits of the Spirit when they are resulting from the Spirit, not ourselves.  Answer? I dunno haha.  I don't know how the Spirit works, maybe the Spirit plants conviction in our hearts or something like that.  The Spirit prays for us but we still need to pray ourselves.  I think that likewise we can just absolve our responsibility to growth in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  I won't accept failure.

I'm not as strong as people think, and even if people don't think I'm that strong, I'm still probably less than that.  But my failures won't defeat me.  I pray that my failures will decrease or even be non-existant but until then I'll continue to strive, sometimes joyfully, sometimes with feet dragging.  To give up would be to fail again.

An email from my prof

Hi Andrew,  I thought your extemporaneous speech from last Tuesday evening was well chosen, relevant and valuable.  It is not often easy to express these ideas to groups of people (as opposed to a one-on-one discussion).  I respect your conviction to your beliefs.  Jeff

 Seed planted (I hope) ^_^

People (dis)Pleaser

Today...(yesterday? tuesday?) was like EV day for me.  I went with Berean again and I tagged along with Travis, but this time I actually helped out a bit and talked to people a little.  I'm totally capable of EV-ing on my own but..... I dunno.....

I'M NOT ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL

but then what am I afraid of?  I guess I just don't want to offend anyone or get into an argument.  I generally try to be a people pleaser and sometimes more than I should.  I certainly won't compromise my faith to please anyone but then why am I nervouse to talk to people!  Argh I irritate myself.  So dumb, seriously, am I so selfish that I would rather please people than present the gospel to everyone I see?

Well that aside I did talk to a few people.  I remember Sarah, who professes to be catholic but then she seems to disagree with the denomination.  Looking back I wish I would have suggested that maybe God is convicting her to look elsewhere (and maybe slip her a Berean flier).  I talked to a Muslim guy, whose name I didn't catch.  He didn't really want to talk to us.  I wonder if he was trying to make us go away or if he really has read the bible several times.  Thats more than I've read it! (...failure).  Lastly I talked to Jay.  I love Jay.  He's tried Christianity but he didn't feel "moved."  He doesn't think faith is something that can be explained rationaly, which is hard for him as a university scientist.  He seems interested though and acknowledges the importance of a spiritual life.  I gave him my email.  He was thinking about coming to friday bible study with me.  I hope he emails me.

After that I had a speaking exercise in my upper div writing class where I was supposed to talk about my families background, or a hobby of mine, or a life changing experience.  Too be honest I kinda like talking about my families background from a samurai lineage to immigration and integration into a fading Japanese community to internment camps to service in WWII.  I could also talk about snowboarding, cars, motorcycles, tv shows, movies, video games, various instruments etc.  But how could I pass up an opportunity to share the most life changing experience ever, when I accepted Christ.  It was really hard, because everyone else talked about their hobbies or their personal immigration to the states.  I followed speeches on scuba diving, la lakers, pipe smoking, beer, immigration from spain, from iran, but honestly Jesus held his own.  I still received applause like everyone else even though I was the only serious one.  One guy wanted to know what church I was going to.  I hope three minutes was enough time to plant a seed.  I wish I could be more like Paul.

I hope those things were good uses of my time since I skipped my other classes and work and still have to pull an all nighter for this midterm.  Well, whether that was a good use of my time or not, any more blogging probably isn't.

I love blogging.  Josiah encouraged me to journal but I guess I just like typing better than writing.  I like writing too but I think I'm more intentional and it takes me much longer haha.  oi vibrational mechanics

So much going on! and most of it is awesome (most)

Awesome stuff

I have my calluses back!  It's been so long that I thought it would take a couple weeks but its only been maybe 6 days or so and I can feel them!  I said I wouldn't start guitar till after school but.... I can't help it.

I finalized my employment! 40k/yr from april to july and then 45k/yr from aug to dec then a formal review.  It's not great for an engineer but all things considered I am pretty stinking blessed.  I pray that I can be a good steward of such a blessing though.  And I get 12 personal/sick days a year.  If i take them consecutively thats about 2 and a half weeks.

I'm trying to go random EV-ing everyweek.  I feel like it's very long overdue that I should consistently reach out.  It's such a blessing to have people like Alex and P. Aaron.  P. Aaron is so used to doing it that he has an arsenal of questions and responses that are all gentle and respectful but true and giving all glory to God.

Tonight I have a speech exercise where I'm not allowed any notes or slides and I'm supposed to just talk about either a hobby, something I don't remember, or a life changing event.  So I'm going to try and exposit the gospel in 3 minutes to my class.  Kinda scary but too good an opportunity I think

Not so awesome things

I'm skipping all my classes and work today to study for my midterm tomorrow.  I know nothing thats going to be on this midterm and I have today to figure it all out.  Deng it.......

I'm still coughing a little bit!  GASH just go away.  I cough maybe 10 times a day, thats like less than one cough an hour.  Lame.

I love P Aaron, Tina who was too nice to not listen to us last week but has a very hardened heart, Kelly who didn't want to listen to us at all but I hope one day she will, pajama pants, bam sweatshirt, ccm sweatshit design idea that I don't have time to draw out, So Cal weather, Part time study, guitar......

I'm awesome

I am so stinkin cool

I fell in the water first at Switzer Falls.  Whats wrong with me.  Even when other people eventually fell it was like a foot or maybe a hand and foot.  But me, I fall in both feet butt and hands.  Hands holding my camera!  Again!  (Well actually the first time I went swimming with my camera)

I thought it'd be cool because the camera was in the water for like literally 1 second.  Nope.  This would be the second camera (same model) that I'd have lost to Switzer Falls!  Switzer hates me and my camera.  At first the screen wouldn't display correctly, it would have lines or static or sometimes just a white screen.

But electronics have a way of fixing themselves 

(which isn't really magic like I say it is, really most electronics now have current sinks so that when there is a short circuit all the electricity is just discharged instead of going into the important components.  Thats why you can let electronics dry out, because when the water isn't creating a short anymore, electricity will again go where its supposed to, instead of just being discharged.)

Anyway, my camera is back to 100%.  I think. I hope.  I'm kinda scared because I took some pictures saturday night and the lighting sensitivity was really off.  (Which I think I'm getting into cameras now understanding ISO light sensitivity and apeture size and such.  Time to do some experimenting, when I have time of course)  I really hope my camera isn't damaged and I just don't know yet.  But then again it would be an excuse to get a more versatile camera.