What a musical night

Finally got the guts to work on the soundboard for GOC this past Friday. Well sorta, not really, it was mostly Chen and Benny with me sitting there acting like I knew what I was doing. It would be waaay to scary to do it on my own, oh wow just the thought of the pressure of screwing up and not knowing how to fix it... STILL managed to mess up when Justin was giving the call to worship haha... Practice makes perfect. Anyways it was awesome and so great to see that with God's help we were able to work through it and overcome BOTH speakers not working at random times. We are a silly bunch, singing as we work.

Oh I must add that Kung Pao Chicken is an awesome game, and Will looks handsome with a unibrow+beauty mole.

You are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light...

Tonight's small group we went through Ephesians 5:3-21. Crazy stuff. God commands us to not let immorality, impurity, or greed to even be named among us. The main idea is that we were already made righteous by God as children of Light. Committing any sins of immorality, impurity, or greed means we our turning ourselves into something we're not. We can't just confess and repent and let ourselves repeat that over and over again. It's all or nothing because "no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, had an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God." -Ephesians 5:5. I never thought of myself as a Christian in that sense, that I am already made righteous by God, and sins of immorality are making me someone that goes against what God created. I pray that I continually remind myself of this and hold myself to this standard.

Don't be a FOOL

One week down already and fortunately for all of us we get a 3 day weekend. Man sooo much work already... That's one goal for the quarter: get good/better grades and do a better job with schoolwork in general. One of the ways I can honor God is by being a good steward of my role here as a student at UCLA. This has been one fun weekend so far minus the stupid NFL playoffs. Man my legs are tired from ballin' Friday and playing tackle football on Saturday. Dang I feel bad for hurting Mitchell's ankle when I tackled him, hopefully he's alright.
Going to prayer meeting on saturday and hearing about things and thoughts going through everyone's minds after coming back from break makes me want to put a real effort into hanging out with the guys more this quarter. As the Bible says 'iron sharpens iron' and as brothers in Christ we need to do likewise because trying to go it alone leads to more harm than good. Crossroads today felt really refreshing for some reason, maybe it's from not going to Grace church for the last few weeks or something. One thing Rick said that hit me hard was "what kind of fool would reject Christ, reject eternal life, and reject forgiveness of sins from a wrathful God???" It just made me think about how fortuanate I am to be a Christian, and to have the promise of eternal life and forgiveness of sins given to me from a loving God when I deserve nothing. Also it gave me a deep sense of pity for those who never get a chance to hear the Gospel told to them because of our failure as Christians to share the good news of our savior Jesus Christ. Then even more saddenning thing is to think of those who actually do hear the Gospel and reject it. I sometimes wonder if those people are actually grasping the idea of an all powerful Savior willing to demean Himself by becoming flesh on earth to be a servant to men just so He could be crucified and receive the wrath from the weight of all our sins. --edit--In the end it's all up to God. My perfectionist ways sometimes blind me into being too preoccupied with how I articulate the gospel. It's not about me, all I can do is get the gospel out there. God, make me bold!

Break is over, and so it begins...

Got back to school Saturday night, the only interesting story about that is that I didn't know that meal plans didn't start until Sunday night for dinner...Man that sucked, had to survive during the day on hot cheetos and a cookie. Makes for a solid breakfast/lunch yum yum. Snowboarding was sooo much fun, definitely my highlight of break, but so painful afterwards. I can't believe my right shoulder is still so sore. Haha many good memories, sometimes it's not what you do on a trip, but the people you go with that make it really memorable. Ben Du's driving, fitting all the snowboards in Will's little car, trying to learn toe and eating it again and again (don't know how ben du does it...), the freakin scary fog and rain that tried to kill us, the almost endless train, Will talkin trash on our really nice waiter, learning from Mike what the true cause of food coma is, and chillin' at Will's house.

Winter break '07 was definitely unique. I've never felt so many emotional ups and downs in my life. From anger that made me want to punch walls in frustration, anger at mostly myself for the mistakes I make, sadness at life in both mine and when taking care of my grandparents and realizing that life is so short, but also joy in both seeing my family desire to go to church and thinking about the fact that as a Christian, I have hope and a knowledge of real truth that is an eternity with God the Father. One thing I need work on is to not dwell on sins I've committed, and to put them behind me after I repent. I'm looking forward to this quarter though, not so much the school and taking 18 units, but seeing how God is going to work in me and my brothers here at UCLA. As Richard is always telling me, follow the path that God creates for you, don't go trying to make your own path because God has everything in your life planned out, it is our job to be obedient and follow.

Stupid Michigan

Rose Bowl final: USC 32, Michigan 18. What a let down...at least our football team did its job. That's why you didn't belong in the championship game. Oh well there's always Bruin basketball and Charger football! I'm think I'm going to Big Bear on Thursday! Ooo man I'm excited, never touched snow in my life. This shall be interesting...plus I have no snow gear whatsoever, so we'll see how that works out...I don't think my shorts and t-shirt policy is gonna fly..