Focusing on the Right Priorities

It's been strange, but I feel that lately, God has really been humbling me. I've moved into a new location, I've started a new job, and I've lost a lot of the support that I've come to lean on in the last few years. God completely threw me into a whole new experience, and I felt completely like a fish out of water.

When I initially arrived in Wilkes-Barre (apparently I've heard it pronounced Wilkes-BEAR and Wilkes BEAR-E...nobody REALLY knows how to pronounce this town name after all), I was disappointed at how small it looked, and how uneventful the city seemed. Coming on a weekend to this sleepy town is not for the urban city dweller. Most everything is closed, or closes early. Many of the buildings LOOK abandoned, and many buildings which look like they should be occupied ARE abandoned. Since none of my work craziness had really started up yet, I found myself with overwhelming amounts of free time, where I had nothing to do, or didn't know what exactly to do with myself.

The workaholic in me decided to pursue my projects hardcore over the new few days, and I tried desperately to keep myself busy trying to prepare for the project days I knew were going to be crazier and busier than I could even imagine. In the midst of that, I found myself easily distracted, and in being so, I sought more time to reconnect with God, as well as taking more time to exercise and work on keeping healthy. I started pushing myself to run everyday, read a little bit of my Bible everyday (which is still just as hard as when I was barely reading at all), and spend more time in prayer and speaking with God.

Only a few weeks ago, I had grown tired of the routine that is the Christian life, and I started questioning why I even needed to go to church when I was just going because I couldn't imagine NOT going from force of habit. There was not heart or desire to seek God, and find purpose in my life again. After recent events, I started realizing how wrong my thinking was, and how seriously I needed to address these issues, and start reflecting on what was causing me to turn so far away from God.

Being on my own again after a year away from college, it's been really great to take control of my own schedule, and be able to do things at my own pace. I've always been really independent, so even though it was tough having all this free time, I think i'm really enjoying just meditating on the beauty of the nature around me. In addition, I've been meeting new people, who have such interesting stories of their own to tell.

I made a point to find a church nearby which I could attend, because as much as I've tried to rebel against the Christian routine I've been brought up in, I've always felt that God has mandated obedience. For me, church has always been a part of my life. Like I said before, I can't imagine myself NOT attending church. Even on my own, I want to find a place and a community where it may be possible for me to meet Jesus, even when I don't feel Him near, or even when I don't feel like I am in the right place.

Google is literally a lifesaver. I google searched churches nearby where I was staying, and found that one of the closest ones was "First Baptist". A walkable distance from my house, I decided to attend. Partially because it was close, but a big part of my decision was based on the fact that I had never attended a baptist church, and something about attending a baptist church made me think of a Bible-thumping black congregation where shouts and hollers of "hallelujah"'s and "amen"'s were commonly heard. It's weird that I was so drawn to such a different kind of service.

Having seen some pretty evangelical/enthusiastic churches, I thought I'd seen it all. I thought I knew it all. But as I entered the church grounds, the first two people I was greeted by, were Bobby and Linda. Both very friendly, and so excited to speak about their church and the great people there, and the great pastor, Shawn Walker. I was also really humbled by their stories of faith, and their testimony.

Bobby had been working for a while, but recently got laid off, and came back to try and reconnect with his mother, who'd previously been a drug addict. Both of his parents are now separated. His dad works 12+ hours a day. As a boy looking up to his dad, Bobby made a point to work hard and go to a school that wouldn't cost his family money, in order to save them from having to pay off his tuition. He entered Drexel University and graduated with a full-scholarship without any loans. Just hearing how hard he worked in order to save his family from the financial burden of a college education, I was so touched by how much he sought and found Christ in the midst of a broken family, and sought to repair the strained relationship he had with his mother.

I was further humbled, when I heard Linda's testimony. Part of a 12 step fellowship program for recovering narcotics addicts, she was helping others like her to full-recovery at a rehab. house. Her only duty was to make sure the women went to their meetings, and made an active choice to fight the addiction. She also fought her own addiction to smoking, and had been sober for (i think) 5 weeks. it was her own determination to say, "hey, this isn't healthy for my body. Why am I doing this?" that took me aback, and made me reconsider the addictions to worrying that I had been dealing with the past month. When she mentioned one particular woman in the house that her heart really broke for, who had gotten in a seriously bad relationship with another homeless man, and refused to take control of her life, despite her insisting she wanted to get custody of her kids back, I could see how much Linda really cared for this woman, and how much she wanted to reach out to her, even though she knew emotionally she couldn't, due to the nature of her job.

The most humbling thing in the midst of these stories, and the midst of these people that I met, was not the fact that they cared so much for these people, but the fact that the loved Jesus so much, and had come from such broken backgrounds. I attended Bible study Wednesday night (June 28th), and i heard even more stories of people who had lost jobs, people who had surgeries and were fighting fears of sickness and ill-health, people who had suffered from drug addictions, alcohol addictions, or just homelessness. it was a wake-up call, because I was surrounded by people who had come from much humbler backgrounds than I had. Some of these people I met had never lived in a real home, that was their own, until now. They had lived in halfway houses, or rehab homes, where addictions had come to rule their lives, and they had only recently broken free of them. There were people who had lost their way, and had grown up in what I can only call ghetto neighborhoods, and arrived at this church, and were rejoicing that they had found Jesus here in this place.

I think I am so often forgetful of all I have been blessed with. I have a roof over my head, more than enough food to feed me, a bed to sleep on, parents who would do anything for me, a safe neighborhood to walk in. Not to be racist, but when I entered the church, it was a very shabby place and the people were dressed very differently than I was used to. To say I am privileged is immeasurably more than I can say for these people. And if anything, I realized how much I, unknowingly, had looked down upon them at first glance.

At Bible study, I was immediately greeted by several people. I'm not going to lie, initially I felt really uncomfortable and completely out of place there. The first week I went to church there, it wasn't really a service so much as a celebration of the closing of their VBS program. Still, I stayed for the "service" and for their bbq lunch. I was greeted very cordially, by the Pastor, who looked young enough to have been an older brother, and he was so welcoming and friendly. He even suggested, that if I didn't feel comfortable at that church, or if I was looking for a different style of church, he could pass me along to some other churches in the area. Ironically, when he told me this, I heard God saying, "I know you're uncomfortable, but this is my challenge. You need to be here. You need to see this. You need to meet these people, and put yourself out of your comfort zone." I'm not gonna lie, a big part of me wanting to stay here was the challenge. Sure I felt uncomfortable, but I saw it as a test, and I saw it as a way for me to meet new people, in a new setting, in a new kind of environment. I've always been one to explore and experience new "cultures", and I really saw this as a completely new adventure.

When I went to Bible study, I was immediately greeted by several people. Kurt was a man who gave me his testimony of having turned away for so long, and finding Jesus in this church, which led him to stay here in Wilkes-Barre for two years. Betty, another woman who had lost a lot of teeth, but was so talkative and friendly, and just seemed like she really wanted a friend, and wanted to get to know me as well. She recently had hip surgery, and was also estranged from her eldest daughter, but you could hear it in her voice, she loved them so much, and was sad to know that they did not care for her the same way they used to anymore.

I was introduced to Audrey, and her daughter Diane. I met James, and Eric, who is one of the friendliest big black teddy-bear of a man you could ever hope to meet. He already had a nickname for me by the end of the night, and gave me a HUGE bear hug at the end of the meeting. I have never felt so welcomed, and so humiliated at the same time. Humiliated, because I had made such a presupposed judgment about these people, and instead they had returned that with utter kindness.

Pastor Shawn remembered me from Sunday, and introduced me to everyone else in the room, hoping to make me feel welcomed and accepted into their church. They didn't treat me like the outsider asian (I was the only one), and I just became a part of their family. Everyone knew everyone else, and everyone knew everyone else's business. It was just a natural part of the way the church was run.

I'm not going to lie, once I left Bible study, I felt like a literal weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I've been dealing with a lot of self-reflection, and reassessment of my life and how fulfilling the path I've chosen has been. We talked about how we are so easily distracted by other "priorities". We make excuses to forget the most important priority of them all--God. He has a plan for our lives, and He knows our choices may lead us on a detour. But in the end, God knows that things will work out for us. He knows that He has a plan for our good, not for harm.

Pastor Shawn used one illustration which I found so visually stunning. We are like dogs on a retractable leash. God allows us to go so far, but once we hit that point where we've past the "safe" zone, God will pull us back in. He will not allow us to go so far that we will be in harm's way. He tests us, and allows us to go to a certain point, in order to test our faith, and try us, but He will never let us be overwhelmed. In that way, He is the constant protector. It just made me picture myself, so easily drawn to other things, and the worries of my life, that I lose sight of my Father, who is always behind me, even when I don't feel it.

I truly would be lost without Him. It's not any easier these days. I am still worrying about my future; about what will happen; about why it is, that I can't be more confident, or more trusting, or more open, or more loving, of more affectionate. The list continues. But I want to gain confidence in knowing that I am EXACTLY who God has made me to be, and no other job, or status, or success, will bring me the joy and the peace of a fulfilled life than serving God as my first priority before all other things. It's hard to remember that everything else will fall into place once you trust and obey God. But that's how it's SUPPOSED to work. It's not about our agenda.

God, it's time for your wake-up call to take effect. Start....NOW.