Archive for January, 2010

Thank you for these times when I’m really tired, i find my rest in You.

And I can find You anywhere.

“God is active and present in his world, quite independently of whether we experience him as being so.  Experience declared that God was absent from Calvary, only to have its verdict humiliatingly overturned on the third day.” (Alister McGrath, Mystery of the Cross)

This strong conviction that He is there even when I don’t see Him or understand what’s happening keeps me sane… and still joyful in any circumstances.

To some, God is discoverable everywhere; to others, nowhere. Those who do not find Him on earth are unlikely to find Him in space. (Hang it all, we’re in space already; every year we go a huge circular tour in space.) But send a saint up in a spaceship and he’ll find God in space as he found God on earth. Much depends on the seeing eye.

(C.S. Lewis)

I found this quote from C.S. Lewis’ The Joyful Christian just this morning and it’s so cool to see that even one of my favorite writers acknowledge Godspotting.

Yes, it does depends on the seeing eye. God is always there, His hand orchestrating things, even if we don’t understand what’s happening at first. I have to admit that there are really days when I’m too down or too busy or just too tired to muster up the energy to Godspot. Yes, sometimes it does require some effort, but there are days too when you just see Him there, right in front of your nose and there’s no denying it.

Yesterday was one of those days.

Yesterday was hard. I just got back from a relaxing weekend in Batangas and I get to work expecting that all the work that we’ve put in last week would be done– because we really should have been done already. But just as we were about to turn in the magazine for printing, one of the bosses of the boss intercepted it, didn’t like what she saw and now wants to do an overhaul.

And we thought we’re a week ahead of the deadline for the very first time. I thought I was doing a good job.

So… our deadline was extended so we can work on this issue some more. It’s really frustrating because we worked our butts off to meet their crazy deadlines and now looks like we’ll be late once more.

But on the train on my way home, I found myself, instead of complaining to God about my bosses, really joyful and grateful. Because, for some strange, and seemingly masochistic, reason I welcome their corrections and comments that require even more work and effort for us. Because I know that it will make for a better product. I guess once we’re past our automatic reaction and rejection to anything that requires more effort than what we’ve already put in, it’s by God’s grace that we can see beyond all the work to something really great coming out of it.

Plus, as a person who has a predilection to laziness, I welcome anything that keeps me from my just sitting on my ass all day.

It reminded me of how my parents used to expect and demand more from us because they know that we’re better than what we’re settling for. I’m glad that even as I’m now an adult, God’s still on my case, cheering and oftentimes pushing me to excellence, because He knows what I’m capable of. He’s the one who made me after all.

A calling is simply God’s shaping of your burden and His beckoning you to your service to Him in the place and pursuit of His choosing. Finding your home in your service to Christ is key to noticing the threads that God has designed just for you. When you find it, you inevitably feel that hand-in-glove sensation. Finding it gives you the security of knowing that you are utilizing your gifts and your will to God’s end first, not yours. When you align your will with God’s will, His calling on you has found its home. A true call of God puts a tug on your soul that you cannot escape, no matter how unattractive the cost of following it may feel. And what is the starting point for this process? The Bible leaves us in no doubt: do what you know to be God’s will, and then watch how He will lead you into what you do not yet know. you are God’s temple; so act like it. God reinforces his call as your respond to His nod.

(Ravi Zacharias, in The Grand Weaver)

Sometimes I still really don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. But whenever I try to stall and claim ineptness, a problem or a task pops up in front of me and forces me to solve it. Because, for some reason, I can’t help but do the job in front of me.

Before I know it, I now have a curriculum vitae of jobs that I did just because they are right in front of me. I don’t know how many articles I’ve already written since I graduated in 2002, but it’s safe to say that they’re in the hundreds. I’ve been a personal assistant, driver, editorial assistant, features editor, PR writer, curriculum writer, teacher, and now managing editor. I tried getting out of this trend, but it’s like I’m always being herded back here.

I’m still waiting for that “tug” on my soul that I cannot escape… Sometimes I know for sure that this is my calling– to be a writer, an editor–and other times it just feels like I can’t escape (hah!). So for now, I’ll just keep on doing the job that’s in front of me and trust my Creator that this path will eventually take me somewhere I can recognize as my “calling.”

Then again, it could just be the difficult day talking.