Skip to main content

Where sin runs deep, your grace is more

This year of LIFEgroup was hard. So ridiculously hard.

It is by God's grace that we didn't give up. And if there's one thing I'm taking away from Core, it's that--the power in commitment and persevering, even when it's hard

It was hard not only to keep the faith in the midst of our own lives, but hard to love one another. To forgive one another when we say things insensitively, to be honest with one another despite the risk of judgment, to give each other the benefit of the doubt at times when we're hurt. 

It's hard to keep the faith in our trying moments of academic probation, unemployment, and family issues--but it's a whole 'nother level of investment to care for, maintain, and pour out our lives into relationships. Relationships that never even existed prior to being placed into the same LG--that takes faith.

Core, thanks for sticking with your commitment to love and invest in one another. 

Thanks for showing ME immense patience and forgiveness at times when I said things insensitively, cowardly stayed away from touchy topics, forgot to pick you up (heh), and/or didn't reciprocate the affection you showed me. I've never realized my shortcomings as much as I have with this group, but I'm thankful--because where sin increased, grace increased all the more (Romans 5:20). 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Delirious

delirious (adj): marked by uncontrollable excitement or emotion; ecstatic; filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy (1 peter 1:8); me I don't think I had a personal relationship with God until 2 weeks ago. There have been a lot of formative moments and experiences in the past 6 years of me considering the existence of a higher-being, 3 yrs of being a Christian, 1 year of living by faith, 6 months of serving on church leadership, 1 month of dire circumstances, each of which have been challenged and supported by specific instances in my life.* But it's only been 2 weeks of finding pure joy, satisfaction, and freedom in Christ (alone). Though it's been 6 years since I first stepped into a church building and 3 years since I accepted Christ, I was always afraid to admit that I didn't know what grace, freedom, repentance, or Jesus meant--in terms other than the ones I had heard or read--it was always a theory and never a reality in my own life. After years of doing chur

And just when you least expect it..

Today I went down to the food court with another intern and as I opened my box of sushi, I hesitated. Feeling as if there were too many eyes on me (I only ate with one other person -_-), I questioned whether I should pray before my meal, in fear of social rejection. After I prayed, she asked me if I was a Christian, and I awkwardly responded that I was. Then she said, "Finally! What a relief to know that there are other Christians!" WHAT THE.. I couldn't believe it. Here I was, sitting with a co-worker that I had simply exchanged cordial greetings with, now talking about God haha. Even though I was scared and honestly did NOT want to pray, God used a habitual thing like that to open up opportunities for me to invite her to small group and share my faith. Crazy how He works when you least expect it.

Honesty

If you're my friend, teammate, lifegroup member (or you have any context with me at all), I've probably hurt you. I've probably hurt you in the way I approached you, made you into an agenda, or seemed disinterested in our friendship at times when we weren't being "purposeful". I probably gave you the idea that I didn't value our time together unless we were doing something "productive"--and in all honesty, you were right--you read right through me, and knew exactly what I was thinking. Ever since experiencing God (personally) for the first time three weeks ago, I've seen how my skewed relationship with God has affected so many other parts of my life. Before, I saw having a relationship with God as a list of tasks--in my warped point of view and biases of being an already-too-task-minded person, if I wanted to know God, I needed to read the Bible, persevere in prayer, get involved in biblical community, and serve the church. If I did all these