April 12th

"3 Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises."
This is going to be a rough couple of months... put on your seat belts.. aha. With Sam leaving, i honestly dont know whats going to happen. The church can fall apart but its our responsibility to keep it together... Lets not panic... cause i sure did. Looking at the situation now it seems more clear but when i was told i was thinking wayyyy to dramatically.

Thats it for James. Keep up with devos.

-Isaac

Happy Easter Everyone!
Yo you know what I realized
they didnt do those boiled eggs today at church
Not that I ever ate them because I always thought they were sorta gross. But still....

So no catholic bible today, (unfortunately). I got some verses from Jeremiah from good ol' www. BibleGateway.com.. teeheee
This is when God first speaks to Jeremiah and calls him, just as he called people like Abraham and Moses and such..
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

I liked this verse because it really reminded me how God chose every single one of us.. Even before we were formed in the WOMB he knew us. Thats crazy man. Even our MOMS cant say that about us hahah
So nobody is here by accident - God has a specific plan for every individual.. I like how the verse uses "I set you apart."It sort of reminded me how we can all worship God and give our lives up to him. But each of us are set apart from each other in that God has a DIFFERENT plan for all of us. I think a lot of us fall into the trap of trying to live the "cookie cutter christian life". But really theere is no such thing. The only thing that we all have in common is that we accept Jesus as our personal Lord and savior, and that we desire to serve God. Outside of that God has so much more - he has an intricate plan set out for us.. So instead of following what everyone else is doing (haha Christian peer pressure) we should really seek God and ask him to guide our lives in the direction that HE wants for US.
In TOK class we're studying this philosopher named Kierkegaard. And even though there are some things I disagree with him on (he was very anti-institutional-church) there are some things he says that makes SO MUCH SENSE. He hated churches, because he thought that they were trying to create cookie-cutter Christians, who just go to church every Sunday in the finest clothes, repeat the same old words over and over again and listen to the priest who scares them into salvation with sermons about hell and damnation. He belived that there was no need for any of the rituals, or institution-like things that were occuring, b ut since God is such a relational God, that everyone finds him through personal prayer and meditation.
Now don't get me wrong, I love the church and I think it's so important to have a community of fellow worshippers. So in that regard i disagree with him.. But I think it's so true that we have to be wary of falling into a ritual.. But isntead we need to take the time out of our live to really LISTEN to God - and alow him to do with our lives exactly what he wanted in his original plan. Sam always says "Why settle for less?" Because God's plan is so great, anything that we try to do for our own lives that falls short of God's plan is LESS. So why not seek the BEST in God?

Muahah my parents are cooking kalbi on the bbq as we speak. And I am SO EXCITED. HAHAHA
Man pho and now this. What a gluttinous day. Old-school catholics would think that I'm automatically going to hell despite my faith because gluttony is a deadly sin.