What the hell was that all about?...

God’s grace produces men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not pampered, spoiled weaklings. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline to live the worthy and excellent life of a disciple of Jesus in the realities of life. And it is always necessary for us to make an effort to live a life of worth and excellence.

Something that has been coming up a lot is the question: "Why do I keep making the same mistakes? I'm so disappointed in myself" And the more and more I pray and seek after God, I am coming to realize that God is okay with the fact that we are making the same mistakes. We are only human. But this cannot be mistaken with the fact that God still wants us to live with the mindset that we must put everything that we have into seeking after Him and doing His will. We must acknowledge our unworthiness, because it is not we who have redeemed ourselves, nor is it we who provide grace, strength, courage and salvation. God is the provider of grace and it is this very grace that turns weak people into strong men and women who are in the likeness of Christ. We have been grown and nurtured in a society where you earn your respect and earn your right to take up a significant part in this life. But God counters that and says that we have not earned anything and we cannot earn it. There is no way that we can earn grace and salvation. It was freely given not because God wanted to flaunt his awesome power... but because He wanted us to live in love. He wanted us to live free of the burdens of this world; breaking the very concept that we need to earn before we deserve.

God has been humbling me a lot these days (be careful what you pray for...). But I welcome it wearily. Being humbled by God comes at a price; your pride. It might seem like such a "1+1=2" concept, but this is something that people often hear and yet don't understand. Too often we live life like we're looking at our watches. We check the time always, yet we never know what time it is.

When God humbles you, He will BREAK you. Everyday, I am being broken... and it hurts like hell. My words mean nothing, my voice is all but mush, my thoughts are simple and foolish, and I am left as nothing but "nothingness". I'd be lying if I said that I'm having the time of my life, especially because as I am undergoing these humbling moments, I am really living out these humbling moments. As in, God is really imposing on me that I need to be humbled. And as much as I want to cry out "God, break me more and mold me into your masterpiece", I can't help but think of the pain and burning I will feel as I am thrown into the furnace for refinement. It's like when you throw ores into the fire, the pure metal gets separated from the impurities because all things have different melting points. In the same way, God will throw us into the fire as ores and we will emerge empowered by His holy flames with the ability to shake off and scrape off the impurities.

God, be my blacksmith...