Oh Lord! I need so much more wisdom in caring for others and sometimes counseling others! I feel so inadequate and often not sure if I damaged more than I helped! I really need to learn to leave the results in God's hands...! So much to learn!

A few things I've realized lately....

- Christians are saved in the spirit, as in God has saved our soul for salvation, but we must continue to be saved emotionally. I didn't realize the reality of it until I started to see lot of Christians, very God loving and God fearing ones not truly holding on to the truths in the Bible most likely because a lot of their emotional areas were really hurt, therefore they mixed their hurt and the way they view the world with what they think true theology is. I think that's why God wants us to continually renew our minds in His words and to be transformed to His likeness (no longer conformed to the way the world views things).

- I also realized that another way to teach new things to other ppl is to show them. I guess it's not a brand new way of teaching, but I've always thought that ppl will be able to learn well if I just give them detailed instructions, or just show them once. But lately I've seen examples of times where when I lead a person to show them exactly how to do it, where they get to do it hands on, they quickly get a hang of it and is able to do it independently than if I just gave instructions. Giving a bit of my time to demonstrate and to coach turns out to be better time spent than giving tons of instructions that lead to nowhere. 

- Lastly, I realized that ppl take time to learn. Maybe I just have a tendency to want to see results quickly that I tend to give a lot of speeches, nagging remarks, and hoping ppl will get it quickly and learn. But things with growth take time and ppl need time to learn. And I also realize that if I really want that person to learn, I have to learn to be a patient coach, to be able to coach that person to follow the right direction, needing my constant attention in their growth process. 

Alright, a little jumbled.... Need to work on my writing skills!

詩篇 73:28
"但我親近神是於我有益"

Psalm 73:28
"But as for me, it is good to be near God."

How true is that. It's been a long time since I make it my regular activity to seek God in the morning. Even though I've been trying to do that this week, I was really only successful 2 days out of the whole week. But what difference it makes! As I draw near to God, I realize very instantly that He is the ONLY ONE who can ever get rid of the dark areas inside my heart.... to change me entirely. I've been trying to use my self will to get rid of all sorts of evils inside of me, but it seems entirely impossible to get rid of the root. When I draw close to God, I feel like He just changes me entirely from the inside out.

Some other thing I realized lately is that.... to my shame, I am more concerned about my popularity than about Jesus' popularity. I water down the gospel and Jesus so much so that I preserve my "image" in front of others at the expense of God's truth. Watched a sermon today and one thing the preacher said that really convicted me: "Jesus is not a means to an end. He is the end." I realized how often I play down the whole Christianity and Jesus to non-believers so that "Jesus" sounds more acceptable to them. "Just pray to Jesus and He'll help you get ______." "Oh, don't worry about that, God will help you, just trust in Him and your ____ will be ok." I am afraid of telling people that what Jesus really want from them is for them to give up their lives and follow Him. I try to play it down that they're still growing to the point of wanting to follow Him, when Jesus says in the Bible that it's all or nothing. When someone says whether it's ok to follow Him halfway, Jesus will say it's all or nothing. Really need to come back and draw close to Him daily to change me inside out.... because there is no me without Him.