#NOREGRETS: 2015

2015 has been a crucial year for me, filled with survival tests almost around every single day of the year.  Now that it is about to end, I could but only attribute to the Lord how I not only survived but thrived this 2015. There are many lessons I’ve learned, but they all revolve on these principles.

1. The year started with the initial decision to hold fast to the path of obedience, this I used to coin ‘the straight path’ way back 2014. This year, I realized that the straight path is more difficult than the crooked. Challenges don’t end the moment you choose to walk on the straight path but what really matters is how you endure the process. Greater challenges await the straight path. Temptations to return to the crooked gets higher as the way gets tougher. Nonetheless the Lord who enabled me to step here sustained me to stay here, and I only had to hold on to His Word.
2. After being in this process for some time, I understood that this process doesn’t only deepen my relationship with the Lord, deepen my gratitude for His love, mercy and grace, but it also fortifies my faith in Him, as well as my convictions. This process did everything in order for me to almost literally grab and hold on tightly to what He says ALONE. 2015 is the year where I started to relinquish everything that is NOT ‘as sayeth the Lord’ and everything that is subjective, relative and all that falls outside His Absolute Truth. 2015 is the year where my standards are anchored back to what is Truth—God’s Word and that ALONE.
3. Having my convictions firmly rooted in His Word, I discovered that in this world that upholds plurality, relativity and subjectivity, it’s getting tougher and harder to stand for the Truth. I then knew that this process, this path of obedience, is often a lonely, narrow road for majority are being easily carried away to believing their own beliefs rather than the Truth since it has always been easier to compromise. However, for me, every single time I tried to compromise, the Spirit is telling me otherwise—I knew I’ve strayed far from God. I knew I was going back to the crooked path that would eventually lead to my destruction. Truly, it has become a struggle for me staying on the process because not only were the roads difficult, but there were times that it seemed like there was nobody to accompany me except the Lord. But then I always reminded myself that the Lord is more than enough to accompany me. I shouldn’t be asking Him to bless me with something else, for I am blessed enough to have Him by my side. Then suddenly and surprisingly, the Lord even blessed me with more for my obedience (which I call grace because despite of my obedience and repentance I do not deserve any of His blessings). He never left me empty-handed. NEVER. In the middle of a tiring day the Lord has His ways of reminding His child that ‘I’m not sleeping. I’ve heard your prayers. I know your struggles, and I am working out all of these to strengthen you a My child and to draw you closer to Me’. So many blessings—from academics, work (the best time of the year were the 2-3 months where I was able to fulfill my dream of teaching), new friends/companions/co-laborers with the Lord, as well as my few old companions who all chose to stay on the same road and process with me. Looking back, words are not enough to express how grateful I am to the Lord for blessing my life too much when for once I thought that ‘that was the end’.
4. Lastly, through all these experience, I’ve learned that serving the Lord and living for Him are not a bed full of roses alone. Rather, they are a garden filled with BOTH roses and thorns, or rather roses DESPITE of thorns—the beauty of God’s grace and love despite the ugly of man’s sin, the victory and sweet success the Lord gives despite of the fiery trials around and the Lord’s sustenance on His children despite of the world’s decay. Truly, it is not and will never be right to stop serving Him just because we got pricked by all those thorns. Beholding the roses matters more. It makes enduring the thorns worth-it. It is looking unto Christ—His love, His grace, His mercy, His sustenance, His power, His strength—that makes enduring all these struggles and challenges worth-it. Indeed, God intended that both the roses and the thorns work together for my good, for my growth, and ultimately for His glory—not just to be experienced, but to be shared.

All throughout 2015, these 4 principles molded me, shaped me into who I am now, and I believe ultimately that the Lord has greater and grander things that await me once 2016 begins (both literally and figuratively), that’s why I am thankful for this process because it is a needful one. I need this to carry on to my next big journey in life which would start next year.

Finally, I’d say that 2015 has been a tough year, filled with humanity’s imperfections, my imperfections. Nonetheless I thank the Lord for keeping me, preserving me here in this process, this path of obedience, for it left no room for any regrets this 2015. Now my prayer is that for the rest of the years to come, may I always end it having NO REGRETS because I did what the Lord has told me to do.