Everything for the Gospel

Its 8:58 in the morning, and its been quite a while since I've posted something here. I'm playing "Home Where I Belong" by B.J. Thomas. I'm feeling a bit rotten right now. I promised to help my friend Apple to tutor these two Koreans, still in highschool. One behaves well but the other is quite a spoiled brat frankly speaking. The "me, myself and I" type. Its hard. I actually took this job not for the pay alone (though that would be helpful right now..) but to understand the Korean culture more since I have a niece in Korea and so that I can communicate better with my sister who lives there. I also wanted to take a break from teaching very young kids. Sometimes, I feel like I am beginning to sound like them and I need to be with people older than me, or my age so I will learn to speak the language of the now. I do enjoy it but the content is all new. I have to study Chem and Math altogether and the last time I opened Chem and Trigonometry books was 1995. Phew! That is a good fifteen years. I still remember some terms and some math but boy, oh boy, I seem to be rusty at these now. feel awful not being able to answer all their questions correctly because I am not an authority.

I want to QUIT right now. I am praying about it. There is even a better offer. The mom of my former student is calling me up. Their house is nearer, the pay is better. We can begin and end early too.

Its a long travel from my house. The class ends at 9 p.m. which is followed by a long walk along shanties set in a dark road made visible by headlights of passing cars.

Suddenly I remember what my brother used to tell me, "everything for the gospel.." and so now, I come to God, and as I write, my heart prays that I will not leave for comforts sake but because it will further the gospel in their lives. They need someone who can help them with their academics and maybe, I am not that person.

I also do not want to put the Philippines in a bad light. A teacher like me who can't answer all their questions. A Filipino teacher who is accepting measly pay. Can my God not find me a better paying job?

Then again, I did want this experience. I did want this learning adventure. Is this the price to pay for a new experience?

I better go now. Off to the post office, and then back to SM.

The Failure of Teacher Training Programs

I was chatting with a former colleague a few minutes earlier. She is now based in Davao. We exchanged websites for teaching. She told me about her aunt from Nigeria, who was married to an Italian long time ago. She is now a widower but is very much able to take care of herself, even buying a brand new car recently.

As teachers, the subject of leaving to work abroad surfaced again. Mutual friends have long left for greener pastures outside the Philippines. Surprisingly, amidst the recession, most are doing well and heaping praises even from their respective employers. I would be a hypocrite to say that working abroad never crossed my mind. It did. Pay, yes but more than that, it has been a long time dream to study in a good university to redeem my transcript because I want to teach in college someday. I also get fascinated with different cultures. I would feel sad to leave the Philippines, my family and the next generation of Filipinos for better pay elsewhere outside the country.

In the middle of this blog, I think of counter arguments such as, I can work earn and save to invest in a small business here in the Philippines someday. Working outside is highly educating. The best way to learn is not by listening to your professor in college, but, rather, in doing the actual job hands-on. I can always bring home the know-how.

These thoughts are in a constant debate in my mind. So far, my rambling has nothing to do with my title, but it should get there soon. I might continue this tomorrow as I am getting sleepy...I think I will get me a glass of water and continue this tomorrow. I'm yawning now..

It Is Well With My Soul

It has been a rather warm Friday. After lunch of fish and malunggay leaves cooked in the first pressing of coconut milk, I ran upstairs to check on the phone. For a while I thought I thought I heard it ring. I discovered the PC was still on. Sigh. My brother left it on again and You Tube was playing "It is Well with My Soul." One of my favorite gospel classics, I am pretty sure I've heard several versions but this one caught my attention. It was a performance by Wintley Phipps. What struck me was a brief testimony to which he added that "It is in the quiet crucible of your personal private suffering that your noblest dreams are born and God’s greatest gifts are given in compensation for what you have been through. "

Beautiful.

Great is Thy Faithfulness

A soothing balm for my distressed heart. Where else do I run to but to my Lord, my God, the rock of my salvation. When my heart breaks over the most painful reasons, which is family, I have nowhere to go but to God and remember His faithfulness in the past. I pray this prayer, Psalm 25:5.. Thou art the God of my salvation. You Oh Lord are the hope of our family. Father, I throw up my hands in the air. I throw up my hands in the air to You. Not that I have quit but I just recognize my inability to solve this pending conflict. I throw my hands up in the air because I am thrusting them towards heaven.

I copy pasted this from Spurgeon's July 8 devotionals.

Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day."
Psalms 25:5

When the believer has begun with trembling feet to walk in the way of the Lord, he asks to be still led onward like a little child upheld by its parent's helping hand, and he craves to be further instructed in the alphabet of truth. Experimental teaching is the burden of this prayer. David knew much, but he felt his ignorance, and desired to be still in the Lord's school: four times over in two verses he applies for a scholarship in the college of grace. It were well for many professors if instead of following their own devices, and cutting out new paths of thought for themselves, they would enquire for the good old ways of God's own truth, and beseech the Holy Ghost to give them sanctified understandings and teachable spirits. "For thou art the God of my salvation." The Three-One Jehovah is the Author and Perfecter of salvation to his people. Reader, is he the God of your salvation? Do you find in the Father's election, in the Son's atonement, and in the Spirit's quickening, all the grounds of your eternal hopes? If so, you may use this as an argument for obtaining further blessings; if the Lord has ordained to save you, surely he will not refuse to instruct you in his ways. It is a happy thing when we can address the Lord with the confidence which David here manifests, it gives us great power in prayer, and comfort in trial. "On thee do I wait all the day." Patience is the fair handmaid and daughter of faith; we cheerfully wait when we are certain that we shall not wait in vain. It is our duty and our privilege to wait upon the Lord in service, in worship, in expectancy, in trust all the days of our life. Our faith will be tried faith, and if it be of the true kind, it will bear continued trial without yielding. We shall not grow weary of waiting upon God if we remember how long and how graciously he once waited for us.

Chicken Pox for the Soul

Its actually Sunday today, but I know that this post will register Saturday, July 4th. I am just home. Im approaching my third week of quarantine for chicken pox. I am here, isolated in the room with the computer to keep me busy and productive. Its really not too bad after all. You just have to look at it from the right perspective. God really has a way of gripping my attention. So many things are going on in my mind right now. Mental debates, reminiscing, future plans and all too often accompanied with sighs, tears, songs, verses of scripture. To add, my cousin posted two audio clips in her Facebook Account, What do I Know of Holy by Addison Road and God Speaking by Mandisa. Frankly, I am not a big fan of this kind of genre, so to speak. I associate it with Lisa Loeb, Alanis Morisette kind of music. Perhaps for the longest time I have kept to the usual favorites- Tommy Walker, Brenton Brown, Chris Tomlin, Hillsong, Steve Green, Bob Fitts and I must have missed some. But I gave these songs a chance and guess what? I liked them. I liked them so much that I have been playing both, alternately almost nonstop since yesterday.

What Do I Know of Holy hits home hard.. I've been a church-going, bible reading christian since childhood. And in the midst of the routine, the bible studies, the small group meetings, the Sunday and midweek gatherings, "do I really know holy?" Sometimes, its actually helpful to get chicken pox so that your soul gets nourished properly. And its actually God doing you a favor because His ways are higher than ours. I guess that I have thought that I have figured You out, I knew all the stories that I learned to talk about, how You were mighty to save, but those were only empty words on a page that I caught a glimpse of who You might be, the slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees. I realize sometimes, we get enamored in the miracles of yesterday. We are too caught up with the victories He won for us before. These are helpful lists to look back to, to once more, remember His faithfulness. But there comes a time in your walk with God that you realize that you miss those times. You miss the intimacy and so you start asking What do I know of holy?

For some strange reason, you are always in church. If they checked attendance, you were occasionally late but always present, seated in the front row. So its not the churchgoing really, but the heart that connects with God in a very intimate way. For some stranger reason, I'd rather have chicken pox and know holy than be up and about, not knowing holy.

I want to know You more Lord.