I wanted to make sure I had a good start and make sure the guys knew they could count on me, I had a good feeling about my game all day.
Hold On, No Matter What: One Year After (A Photo-Blog)
The title came from Ptr. Ryan Tan (above), who said this on the first time I attended church at Victory U-Belt on June 16, 2011. It’s been almost a year since my first time at church. Wow, how time flies.
On the first time I went to church, I was invited by my blockmate, Fay (above right), to attend the 3:00 PM youth service (which I decided to attend from the start). Prior to this, I listened to podcasts from our U-Belt church. I met so many people that I’ve never known before. Before I decided to become a Christian months before attending, like many of us here, I only attend church for an hour on Sunday just to complete the whole mass. Then I’m ready for another week of sin. Ptr. Ryan mentioned this mindset in several of his preachings. I admit I had this, as mentioned. But today, I find it more fun to be in church because of this. Since I had my One2One sessions with my Victory group leader, Mon Gajo, I became more active in our youth organization called Lifebox. I’ve made more friends, since I started. And made more today. I bonded more and more with UST Lifebox, here are some photos below:
I know it’s a lot of pictures, but it’s just one of many ways to tell you how blessed I am being a part of UST, Lifebox, Victory, and Every Nation. I’m really thankful to God that I have a second family in Christ. Every time I have a vacant period, I would immediately go to the place we call “Tambayan ng UST Lifebox” at the Plaza Mayor. We would talk about our every day problems with the people around, seek Godly advice from them, and the like. As the title says, no matter what happens, let us all hold on to the Word of God, because His love endures forever. :)
No Christian is complete without a pastor. Quoting Ptr. Steven Furtick, “Every pastor (let me change this to CHRISTIANS) needs a pastor.” During my walk with God, I even made friends with our pastors, no wonder why lagi kaming may picture. Hehehe. Here are some of my pictures with pastors below:
Ptr. CJ Nunag:
Ptrs. Tito Falguera and Ferdie Peralta:
Ptr. Ryan Tan, whom I consider as my pastor:
Ptr. Gilbert Foliente, U-Belt’s senior pastor (and one of the best, too!):
And of course, who would forget our very own Kuya Rodnel Gascon!
Being friends with people who preach God’s Word is truly a blessing, but we must always remember to apply what they preached to us. It’s essential and that’s what we need to strengthen our walk with Jesus Christ, who died on the Cross for all of us over 2,000 years ago.
God really blessed me with friends, pastors, and other people who would help me in my walk with God, as our life verse says:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” - Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV)
Honor God. Make disciples. That’s our purpose. God bless us!
-Aric
For those of you praying tonight, please pray for peace, not revenge.
King Uzziah and Respecting Family
A week ago, I made a blog post on my trials as a Christian. Three days later, my parents scolded me because I used the word “persecution” in that said blog. They told me that they weren’t persecuting me at all. They asked for Ptr. Ryan’s cellphone number. When they dialed the numbers on the landline, I first thought they would shout in rage or curse at him. However, they were able to talk to him politely like any other religious or Christian leader. They told them their side of the story: As I said earlier, they told Ptr. Ryan that what they’re doing weren’t persecutions at all. They are open-minded, in terms of faith. What they didn’t see in me was that I wasn’t open to them. Yes, I am admitting that I still have to attend my family’s Catholic masses on Sundays, as a sign of respect to my family, even though I’m a born-again Christian. Yet, I listen to preaching podcasts to encourage myself every day, or watch Victory Fort Bonifacio’s live streaming services, to keep me updated on the preaching series in our churches.
Minutes later, Kuya OJ, one of our staff, called me and asked me if I’m OK and what was happening. I just felt absolutely terrible that night. And so as they (parents and Ptr. Ryan) were talking, it made me realize how much they love me. When my mom handed over the phone to me to talk to Ptr. Ryan. I remembered what we talked about hours before I made that blog, about Ptr. Steve Murrell, who founded our church back in 1984. Before he reached out to Filipino students in the U-Belt consortium, Ptr. Steve also faced tough times with his father, in terms of faith. Eventually, after several years, they reconciled. Ptr. Ryan told me that my family is concerned about me and they did a lot to give me everything. After the phone conversation, I apologized to my parents and removed the blog, which doesn’t seem pleasing to them.
In our youth service, we just concluded a series entitled CSI. We talked about three kings with high-profile cases. First week was on lust on King David. Second week was on jealousy on the part of King Saul. Tonight, we discussed about King Uzziah and pride. Here was our passage:
16 “But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the Lord his God, and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. 17 Azariah the priest with eighty other courageous priests of the Lord followed him in. 18 They confronted King Uzziah and said, ‘It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord. That is for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who have been consecrated to burn incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful; and you will not be honored by the Lord God.’” - 2 Chronicles 26:16-18 (NIV)
Uzziah was crowned King of Judah at the young age of 16 and ruled the land for 52 years. He was really faithful and on fire for God until his pride got the best of him. Now, I would actually compare myself to King Uzziah, in terms of family relations. When my family corrects me, I get even and answer back. That’s not the way how we show ourselves as born-again Christians. The Bible says:
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” - James 4:6b (NIV)
After the 5:00 PM youth service, I approached Ptr. Ryan so that we would talk about my family situations. As we were talking, he told me that I need to start changing my perspective on my family: Whenever they start correcting me or getting mad at me, the thing that I should thinking about is not proving that I’m right and they’re wrong, but to think about “How can I bless my family? How can I win them to Christ?” I’ve been blessed with a family who takes good care of me, who gives me an education, who gave me cool gadgets, and even allowing me to attend our youth services. Isn’t that awesome? Now, I must be grateful for all these things they’ve given me. That’s how God gave me blessings since then. And these four words must be the best way to win our families to Christ: LOVE, OBEY, HONOR, RESPECT. (Ephesians 6:1-2) Although it’s still a concern for me that my family members are not yet Christians, what’s important is that they love me and I must love them, just like Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25b).
Like what I mentioned in most of my blogs, having a (born-again) Christian life is NOT a walk in the park. We may face obstacles in our way, but we must know that with God, everything is possible. (Matthew 19:26)
So, allow me to conclude with this verse:
“But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” - Joshua 24:15 (NLT)
So, there you go. Remember, we have a family. Even though our views differ from each other, we must not run away from them. Don’t answer back at them, LOVE them, just like Christ loved the church. OBEY them, because it is right. HONOR them, to disciple them to Christ. RESPECT them, because they’re authority. Therefore forming the acronym LOHR, coined by Ptr. Eduardo Alanzalon back in my high school days. God bless us all! :)
-Aric
I’m not disappointed with bronze today because the big difference is between gold and silver, not silver and bronze.
I learn something new every day, One thing I figured out is that I play best when I compete. A lot of times, I haven’t competed hard enough, I don’t win my faceoffs, I don’t win my battles. I have to compete every game. If you succeed at the little things, you get more confidence and everything goes better.
It’s a challenge and, for me, it’s an exciting challenge.
There wasn’t a lot of room out there. We knew it was going to be a battle.
Going Back to My Rough Past and Moving On
(As I am making this post, I was listening to Ptr. Manny Carlos’ preaching podcast in Victory Metro East from last Sunday.)
Just today, I’ve looked into my old pictures from 2006-2010. I missed my 2nd and 4th year high school days so much! But, when I spent my two first years there (yes, two, because I got retained, and I’m not afraid to share it), it was really rough. Obstacles are here and there. During that period, people talk bad about me. Araw-araw, ginugulpihin ako ng mga kaklase ko on both first years and on my third year. I know I’ve moved on, but sometimes, I get to reflect on what happened back in the past. Gusto kong i-share dito yung mga karahasan ng pag-aasar mula 2005 hanggang 2009.
In my first year in high school (SY 2005-2006), I remembered being so rowdy. I crawled under the teacher’s table (with the teacher there), I hit a girl hard with the lunch box (will not name the girl but I’m not afraid to share this, yet I super regret doing it), and even wished negatively against my English teacher. It was so hard that I had SEVEN failures during that year, in one grading period alone. As a result, my results continued to deteriorate then my cousin (who is a Christian and an alumna from Grace, where I studied), called us, while we were on the road to Monterey, CA, that I got retained and at risk of being excluded. Yet, from afar, we wrote a letter to the administrators and through community service, I stayed in Grace yet facing the humiliation of retention.
Staying in first year was so tough, even one former classmate of mine wanted to influence the students of my new batch to poke fun at me because of my physical features. In my first class with the new batch, people continued to poke fun at me and I became the laughing-stock of the entire class. Let me share some blog posts (will not name who he/she is) to prove it. Well, at first she didn’t want to be near me, at all! Here are some quotes:
- Aric was moved to another seat! WOOHOO!!! Let’s PARTAY! We won’t have to put up with his unbearable smell anymore.
- We had a new seating arrangement AGAIN. I am now between Iris, in front of Lance, and behind Edmond. OMFG! I sit near Aric *coughPIGcough* and Kristoffer *coughBOOGERcough*. LIKE EW! God must really HATE me.
If it were still 2006, I want to tell her, “di mo ba alam na nababasa ko din iyan?” Golly! Doesn’t she know that I would be offended and drop out of school if blog posts like that come up? But months after that, we became good friends. Come on, now! An enemy later turned into a friend. This verse should be a reminder for all of us, Jesus said:
“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” - Matthew 5:44 (NIV)
In my second year in high school, this was the time I started making friends. It took me an entire year to make good friends who cared for me. On November 17, 2007, they came over for my 15th birthday.
Awesome? :)
My third year was a complete opposite of my second year. The entire class was my enemy. I was so irritated that one other class, which had my future best friend, being isolated in the fourth floor. With my class? I hated most of them that I even wanted to demand a change of section. One classmate even threatened (via SMS) to kill me that over and over, I bring him over to our departmental discipline chairman so that he would be reminded that he should stop poking fun at his classmates. I don’t know how he’s doing now but I’m praying that he would be saved one day, and that if he surrenders his life to Christ someday, he would be a better person.
My fourth year was one of the best years of my life, all thanks to my parents who decided to write a letter to the supervisor to transfer me to another classroom. This group of friends changed my life drastically.
The people in the photo above helped me start a walk with God. However, that time, I wasn’t that interested and held on to my old faith. A couple of days after graduation, I cried because I would miss them so much, but after a year, here I am now:
I’m close with my pastor and my people in Lifebox. Really blessed to be a part of Victory U-Belt and being a born-again Christian today. If it weren’t for my friends in high school and if I relied on my past more often, it will bring me nowhere and I would not have met people like these.
So, let me end with this verse:
2 ”Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” - James 1:2-4 (NIV)
As I stated before, having a Christian life and being a Christian is NOT a walk in the park. We may have a lot of obstacles to overcome but remember, God will not give us trials that we couldn’t overcome! God bless us all!
When you are going good, everything seems a little slower, like you have more time. Right now, it’s been like that for me but I want to keep it going, keep scoring and keep winning.
