I fail at this.
So much have changed since last time I wrote a post. I ended half of my college years. Soon enough, graduations are going to come around and I'll be the one walking while my name is being called. That's pretty crazy.
Going back to dead week, I was pretty lazy and refusing to study. I kept up with all my work (most of my classes), and I was doing well in all of my classes. There was no point in me trying too hard especially because I didn't really care about getting an A. Not that I didn't mind not getting an A. My pride would probably be hurt, but then again, I just reasoned with myself that I don't need to get an A because I am a CS major, and grades don't matter too much with experience. While I was feeling this, I never bothered studying and always had no motivation to study. While I tried to study at DL, I got distracted in 10 minutes and walked around to see what other people were doing. In my heart, I was feeling that I should study because I want to get an A, but intellectually, I kept refuting myself and proving myself wrong that I don't have to study. I probably was going to be ok, but I felt somewhat frustrated that I didn't have enough motivation.
One day, I just wanted to gain more motivation and let my leader know about this, and he unexpectedly called me right away. I wasn't really expecting a response, but I'm glad that he did because I was motivated to study after talking to Joe for 15 minutes. One of the things he said was that diligence in one area leads to diligence in another. So if I am lazy about my studies, I am more likely to be lazy in my spiritual area. Another thing he said was to use what God gave you as much leverage as you can. What he meant by that is that God gave each one of us different talents and different strengths. It is our responsibility to cultivate that and use it for God's kingdom. The parable of talents come into mind. Joe said that whether I go to Grad school or not, I should still try my best in my field because they need Christians in all fields. If I have higher authority in academics, then I'll have greater impact when talking to someone. This led to him talking about how if I am reaching out to freshmen next year or the years to come, I'll have a greater impact if I have a higher GPA and do well in my classes. Think about same EECS major GPA 3.2 and 3.7. I would listen to the guy with 3.7 more carefully, not that I am discriminating with GPAs, but it's just the inherent respect. In any case, he said that I should try my hardest in anything so I don't regret.
I guess this really inspired me to study more. This small talk made me want to get A's in my classes. I think the reasons why I didn't want to study were that one, I could probably get an A without studying; two, I didn't want to fail. I wanted to attribute my failure to my lack of effort if I were to fail. This has constantly been my struggle where I never want to seem like I failed. I wanted to say that the only reason I failed was that I didn't try hard enough. If I were to try harder, I probably could have done better. I know that this is not a great thinking, and I should change. From now on, I want to try my hardest in every area so I am not lazy in other fields too.
So summer is here. Finals ended. I am back home in Irvine, and I have made some commitments that I want to keep for the summer. I am not going to waste time sitting idle like I usually do. One thing I wanted to do was read through the gospels because if I want to spread the gospel, I have to know fully about the gospel right? And another thing is I want to read other books, such as the Shadow of the Almighty.
One cool thing that I'll be doing over summer while I am back in Irvine is do something with my home church. Some of us from Gracepoint who went to my home church thought that our youth group needed something more substantial. Like I explained in the earlier post, the youth students are just going to church and thinking that they are Christians because they go to church. When the pastor speaks or they have bible studies, I'm sure it goes through one year and out the other. Just thinking back when I was in youth, I did the same thing. I didn't know what being a Christian meant or didn't know how to view my relationship with God, if I even thought that it was a personal relationship. Knowing this, we wanted to start a Course101/SK1/other stuff course to promote independence in the youth students that they'll never be complacent in their spiritual growth. The short time I am here, I can contribute, and Lloyd, who is staying down here the entire summer, is going to try to do it every Friday. It seems exciting to do something like this, actually being proactive about what I saw during Spring Break.
I pray that God will speak through us and use us to spark the interest of the youth students. There needs to be a lot of preparation done, but I pray that God will provide, and he will prepare the hearts of the youth students.
One quote that I liked that I read this week. "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot
