Ninth Week

It's the ninth week, and there are only two more weeks of lecture phase and we're off to do a full outreach in SF for one month. How amazing is that? Sure there's a lot of bumps, but that's what makes my journey in DTS exhilarating. It keeps me reminded that I don't have control over my life and that God wants to just show that He can get me out of my hardships by His power and not mine.

Well moving on! This week was all about discipleship and its nature. The first thing know about discipleship and probably the hardest is to really understand God's love. It's hard to imagine an unconditional love, because there's no such thing in this world. Sometimes we try so hard to live so God will love us, rather than living because He has already loved us first. The Bible is prove of His love to us. His love is not just a story in the Bible, it's THE story. It's basically about how humans is rejecting His plans and God keeps trying to reach out to us.

Discipleship should be a transformational process by which we learn how to live, act, and think like Jesus. It's not a "sometimes" thing. It's an ongoing process. One quote that stuck to me this whole week is, "Our direction, not our intention, will determine our destination." BAM! I probably wouldn't forget that anytime soon or later. We can have so much good intentions, but it doesn't matter unless we do it. Whatever we're doing for God won't last long unless there's an intimacy with God, because that's what will sustain us. Our desire and love would only last so short.

Everybody knows the story of David and Goliath. In a part of the story Saul questioned David's strength and David answers something about being in the pasture taking care of his sheep and a lion came and he tore that lion apart with his bare hands and the same goes with the bear. The point of the story? Before we start defeating our giants, we need to deal with our lions and bears first.

Okay... that's what I got this week. Now to ministry... My friend and I did a prayer walk around the Castro, which is said to be the central of the homosexual community in SF. Prayer walk can seem so pointless, because people think it's just a prayer. My friend and I got our hearts re-broken by God. We walked around being silent asking God what to pray about and God just starts revealing us what He wants us to ask of Him. We prayed for restoration, whether it's hurt, family, or their self-image. We also prayed for the restoration of an image of Christians in their mind. Statistics says that people tend to think Christians are judgmental. Nobody is to be blamed for that, but pray for the restoration of the image of Christians if you will.

God has put this in my heart for a while. I came to DTS at first hoping to change and transform the city. My thinking was completely wrong at that time and I learned that my ministry is not to save people and to redeem them. That's God's job. My job? It's simply to love them like how God would love them. This city just needs to be loved and if we don't do it then who will? God wants to use us and the simplest thing we can do is to love people. You'll be amazed how much you can change a person with just love.

I guess that's all for this week. I will be updating all of you again next week. Thank you for reading and please keep praying for me and also for the support. I miss you all back home. I miss Indonesian food. I miss eating rice everyday. So yeah... Don't take those for granted. Have a blessed week.