a very belated blog post.

a picture of the girls that I live with except one at Brooklyn, NY:

I wish I could blame my lack of internet for the lateness and absence of blog posts, but I know that it's my procrastination and laziness. :/

It's crazy to think that in skipping two blog posts (since I have tried to make my blog posts at City Project weekly), I am already halfway done with this Project.

God has been incredibly good.  More than I imagined.  More than I can say.  And probably more than I even know right now.  A recurring theme for me throughout City Project seems to be a saying of "It's really really hard, but it's really good."  God has constantly been showing me where I lack.  He has shown me my weaknesses.  He is showing me my shortcomings. Sometimes, He uses the experience itself to show me my weaknesses or He uses other people to show me mine.  And frankly, this process hurts. a. lot.  It hurts to the point where I want to not recieve these teachings from God, and want to just lower other people (my way is by gossipping). Even that, is my pride.  But, praise God because there is grace.  Grace is not a mere idea, but it is a huge band-aid for this hurt.  At the same time it's more than a band-aid because it's not just a cover-up for the hurt, but it reminds me that grace has already covered it!  When I stand before God, I am completley righteous because of Jesus.

In New York City, God showed me my pride and my lack of compassion for His people.  We were to evangelize to others, particuarly Muslims for a week.  For me, because God has given me an outgoing personality, it's easy to go talk to people without much effort.  Others, however, struggled to share because they may have been shy or it's hard to go start conversations with strangers.  They were so frustrated at themselves because their hearts yearned to share.  Their hearts were broken to share.  And here I was just doing it to do it.  To place another check on my check-list of how I am a great Christian.  With this and throughout the week, God showed me my pride and the brokeness of me.  But, through it, He showed me His love.  The greatness of His love.  He knows me including my brokenness and He still chose me.

Then the centrality of the story becomes not about my brokenness, but the largeness of God's love for me.  Christ loves me so much that He saw all of this and still chose me.

"But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.  For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life."-Romans 5:8-10

Now, this becomes very real.  All that I am able to do now for Christ does not come from me, but comes from Christ because me, by myself, am a very broken person.  And so now God is bringing me to a place where I'll be able to say...

"Therefore, I will boast all the more more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me....For when I am weak, then I am strong."-2nd Corinthians 12:9-10

the first few steps...

were scary.
were exciting.
are powerful.
are humbling.
are God-led.
are reflections of His love.
will be remembered as indicators what was to come.

Psalms 139: 1-4
"O Lord, you have searched me and known me!  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.  You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.  Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether."

Matthew 18:20: "For when two or three gathered in my name, for am I there with them"

It is only day four in City Project, yet God has met with me in such intimate and great ways already.  Words are unable to express the intimacy and powerful ways God has met with me.  He has humbled me beyond what I imagined, He has shown me that He knows my innermost thoughts, He has loved me more than I could ever imagine.  I wasn't able to pray to ask for brokenness except for about twice, but my Spirit yearned to just break me so I could experience more of God's love.  I couldn't pray fervently even when I asked, so I asked others to pray.

And God answered.

On the second night, as God led me to share a sin with the girls in my house (who I only knew for two days...that's how you know that it's the Spirit!), they all laid their hands with me and joined me in battle against my sin.  They declared God's righteousness and power over my life.  And it has worked and is working.  Wow.  God is good.  And it leaves our girls so much more expectant of what is to come.  Not only that, He had heard my desire.  I was able to experience so much more of His love when He broke me in front of these girls.

I am broken.  But I am washed. I am sanctified.  I am justified.  Because Christ died for me.  (1st Corinthians 6:11)

God has just been so good to me during this trip.  Meeting the other participants and being able to live with some of them keeps humbling me.  I came in thinking that I was  top tier 'prayerer', but receiving prayer from girls who I thought I was better in prayer with humbled me greatly.  This only makes me lean on God's grace.

Thank you God!  He is so good and so willing to come because He is so willing to love us.  He wants us to experience His blessings and providence.

We have limited internet access at our house (which is also another blessing because it allows us to focus on God), so I don't know if I'll be able to update very frequently,.  Please continue to keep praying for me and our team!  We're heading to New York tomorrow to evangelize to Muslim community there.  Pray for great movements of God! :)