We all fall short

When you are caught up in the hype of hearing God and having a revelation, it builds us up for (sometimes) a bigger fall.

Other times, we just forget that we are human and we make mistakes and will always fall short of the glory of God. None of us are perfect, and none of us will ever reach a place of perfect spirituality and Christlikeness.

HOWEVER, it is no excuse, and when we do trip up and put God down a few notches and give Him a compromise of our lives, rather than the full thing, we need to recognise this and genuinely ask for His forgiveness, and that we be refined by this shortfall.

That is why we never surrender just once to God, but we constantly need to keep surrendering parts of our lives to Him, and constantly give more and more to Him.

We're self-centred, but that doesn't get us out of the fact that God deserves our all. When we do forget about our Creator and how much He deserves - and we realise that we get distracted - we've got to time, and time again come back to Him and ask for a more persevering, faithful spirit and attitude, constantly seeking self control and discipline, and revolving around an attitude to please Him.

God, if I failed you today, I pray that You'll forgive me, help me get up and move ahead, stronger and with a more determined and faithful heart.

On a lighter note,

I'm pretty proud of this photo :D

the thing about spiritual highs.

Its quite scary, but we hardly realise the battle that is going on for each of our souls - between good and evil. To me, it honestly sounds so far-fetched and storybook-like that I don't really understand and can't properly comprehend the fact that we're smack in the middle of the biggest war since creation.

And so, just when we feel like we're moving in the right direction and have the upper-hand, we get bombarded by doubts, laziness, complacency and things that draw us away from putting our full trust in God.

Right now, thats me - I'm so torn right now, between what God wants and what I want.

Even after one night of just confirmation, confirmation, confirmation that God is working things in my life, straight after a spiritual high and feeling that I'm back on track, I'm struggling!

I want to keep my life in my own hands because I'm sure of my own power.
I don't want to put it in God's hands because I'm not sure of His power, and I don't entirely have my faith in Him.

I don't want to put my life in his hands because I feel insecure and I'm moving to the passenger seat and letting God take the wheel.

When it comes down to it, its actually satan doing his thing - planting doubts, making me afraid of the future and making it seem that trusting myself is much easier, and that its not so bad if compromise what I give to God.

I can't explain how frustrating this is.

I suppose when you're in this situation, you can only pray.

We need to place ourselves into His hands, despite how scary the future might be, and how things might not work out as we want them to, and how much hurt and pain could potentially be ahead.

But we've got to look further, and realise that this is the way to be obedient and ultimately please God.

So God, I'm asking you to take this situation into Your hands, take the person(s) involved, take my feelings and negative thoughts, my worries and uncertainties away and just simply take control.

YAY!

First post since forever!

New layout and everything - because the past few weeks have been fairly up and down.

For who knows how long, I feel like I haven't been growing like I should be, with God. Like, there's the busy-ness of life, starting uni, finding new friends, the drama of feelings, assignments, exams, holidays - so much to the point that (although we mention it all the time), we forget about God and where His place should be in our lives.

I have not been on track - and did not expect to be where I am right now, with this mindset and 'heartset', if it were not for God just having a hand in my life.

Who would have thought that Julie's innocent 19th birthday, in which she asked Steph and I to chuck together some songs for a "Chill Night In with Julie", would lead to me placing a new emphasis on my faith?

Who knew that night at 1-something in the morning, after the songs and party were all over, that God would speak through Steph and give me the wake up call that I've been needing for a long time? Seriously, a godsend, no doubt about it.

Who knew that the next day, that I would work out with one of my closest friends, a solution to a situation that we've had with one another for ages - a solution that was completely God centred and got rid of the frustrating dilemmas that were facing us both.

God has showed me a glimpse of Himself just in 2 days, and I know I prayed for it in passing one night a few weeks ago. I was expectant then, but forgot over time, and only JUST realised that He answered my prayer.

He's working ! Like right there, and calling it all coincidence would be plain ignorant.

And this is only the beginning.

I've been going along keeping stuff under my own control and committing very little to Him. In particular, relationships, but overall.. everything. I haven't had a solid quiet time or prayer routine ...ever. Longest I've done a quiet time consistently was like 4 months max.

If you want to get anything out of this post, it's this:

KEY POINT: We need to surrender EVERYTHING to Him. Not some half-hearted, wishy-washy 'commitment' where we give a couple words to God, don't listen for an answer, and just follow our own human feelings and emotions.

I mean like being COMPLETELY obedient to God, two hands up, on our knees, giving up our LIVES for Him, like He gave his life to teach and help others, and ultimately save us from sin.

Giving every aspect, whether it be relationships, friendships, careers, education, money, time, our prayers, praises, dance, art - every single part of our lives.

Where pleasing God is of top priority, and only thing that we want to do.

And this 'heart-set' (not just mindset) doesn't come overnight mind you.
To get to that place of complete surrender is gonna take me a long time - I'm only getting back on track. That's why all I need is to have a kingdom perspective and a persevering heart - I'm going to get through this no matter what, by looking at life from above, rather than from down here, and placing my trust in Him.

Faith is a choice, and I choose to believe :)

Where The Love Lasts Forever

And forever I will sing,

Lord forever I will sing,

How you gave your life for me

Just to save me .. just to save me.

Someday..

It's been a while since I've blogged (quite a cliche term when you think about it, eh?).

But yeah, I've been blogging on the First Year Uni of Melbourne website and just been busy with uni and really couldn't be bothered maintaining two blogs at once.

But I can't really vent this anywhere else.

I just woke up and for some reason went to the Hillsong United I Heart Revolution website, which led me to the I Heart Revolution Myspace. Then I watched one of their songs done on the I Heart tour, 'Take It All'. It's here if you haven't seen it:

All I wanted to say was that hearing a song (and strange thing is I've listened to this and others like this many times) from thousands of people in a completely different language, moves me on an entirely new level. I believe music is so powerful, it has the power to cross political barriers, cultural barriers, language barriers and reveal a heart of worship and praise that is far bigger and more thriving than the belittled image in our minds.

We sometimes pray (rather habitually) about how 'We're worshipping with millions of other people all around the world', but for me, it takes this sort of thing to realise only a glimpse of how awesome it is to be worshipping with the global church.

If you're feeling a little bit insignificant, stressed, broken, annoyed, disappointed here's a verse.

2 Corinthians 1:3-9

The God of All Comfort

 ³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,⁴who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. ⁵For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. ⁶If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

The story behind this verse is quite cool, and motivates me today. In a nutshell, I was going through probably the most emotional and dramatic time of my life (as of yet). To get away from the people and life in Melbourne, I went to Crossway's youth, Deeper (now Surge) camp. There was 5 days of getting away and meeting completely new people and just being able to relax. The final night (as in most cases) is usually the biggest and most pumped up. This camp was no different, but I wasn't as into the crying and insaneness as I would usually be. But during the worship, not a climatic bit but just a soft bit, in my head was the most vivid image. It was just a white background and 2 Corinthians 1:3. Clear as day and it wouldn't go away. (lyrical miracle) So later that night I checked it and it happened to be all about comfort - something that I was really searching for at that time.

And I can't deny that it was His doing, because I've never read that verse in my entire life. I wasn't looking to God for comfort at the time, I was looking to new friends and time away from my normal life for comfort. It brought me back to not what I needed, but Who. 

So yeah, thats it. Oh and if you don't mind, comment or tagboard something! Bloggers actually enjoy knowing that someone reads their ramble, no matter if its 2 years after writing their speel.

Season Two Episode Eight

Of Friends...

What a great series! Finally got down to getting it off Jon and sitting down to watch it.

Also been watching "Chuck" as well - pretty sweet series as well.

I was reminded (geekily enough) of how much technology must have advanced since well.. the start of Friends.

Chandler starts off opening this block of a laptop and says:

"12 megabytes of ram,

500 megabyte hard drive

built in spreadsheet capabilities

and a modem that transmits at over 28,000 bps (bits per second = 3.4 kb/s)"

Standard cheap computers these days dwarf that, heck this laptop has 2gb of ram (2000 megabytes), and a 120 gb hard drive (120,000 megabytes).

Okay, enough geek schpeel (is that how you spell it?)

Yes my holidays have also been full of Alex-y goodness.

There, happy? 

Should have a great time tomorrow, more computer gazing, bumming and lazing.

Lyrical miracle.

Phenomenal abdominal.

Cracking rap King.

Okay they're deteriorating in quality, I'll stop now.

Peace on Earth and Good Will to All.

Long times.

Dunno what that title means.

LONG TIME NO SPEAK! 

I thought I'd just share some photographic love, yet again, of recent happenings!

Oh, I did get back from Singapore. Yay.

Been having a ball in Melbourne (and going to Melbourne Uni, doing commerce! woot.)