God doesn't want us to have a relationship with him because he feels lonely.
God is okay without us. he doesn't need us.

God is love.
he loves creating that which can give love and know love.

having a relationship with God is for our own benefit. the most important thing for us is to experience this relationship with a God who created us. when we experience God and his love for us, we become transformed by it. we come to know God's love and we learn to love God in return. only after we learn how to love God are we able to love others.


"the most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'hear, o Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' the second is this: 'love your neighbor as yourself.' there is no commandment greater than these."
mark 12:29-31

miracles. do you believe in them? it's hard to believe that such things as miracles can happen to us because it requires us to believe that there is something greater out there that can make such a thing happen. even followers of jesus have a hard time believing that miracles can happen in their life, that God is one who is capable and willing to do such a thing.

i consider myself to be a pessimist. in a way, i've always been sort of proud to be a pessimist. i thought that it was better to be pleasantly surprised as a realist than constantly be disappointed as an idealist. when it comes to miracles, i am hesitant. i believe that they can happen, that jesus performed many miracles while he was on earth, but i hesitate to say that i believe miracles happen in my life.

john 6:1-13 talks about one of my favorite miracles of jesus, the feeding of the five thousand. the one part that got my attention was philip's response to jesus when jesus asks him where they should buy bread for people to eat. philip immediately thought about how much it would cost to feed all those people and didn't even try to think of a way to feed the people. however, andrew finds some bread and fish and jesus ends up feeding everyone until they were full. it is phenomenal to see how jesus took so little and made so much.

jesus could've easily fed all those people with nothing, yet he wanted to test the faith of his disciples by asking them first. i wonder how philip felt after jesus fed all the people. he was too busy thinking about what it would cost him to remember that jesus is capable of doing anything. then i realized that i am just like philip. i get caught up with this world and how it works that i don't stop to consider that nothing is impossible with God.

nothing really is impossible for God. he can come through for anything we are going through, big or small. what's more is that he wants to come through for us. he wants to be there for us and to help us through the hard times. the catch is, we need to believe that God can and wants to come through for us in all situations.

look at every opportunity as one where God will come through for you.

note to self: don't be a pessimist. by being a pessimist, you are refusing you believe that God will act, that he will come through for you.

do you believe that God will come through in any situation?

there will be problems in your life, but don't be afraid.
take your faith and go.
God will provide.

as a political science major, i am always interested in the state of governments all around the world. one thing i learned in political science is that there is no perfect government, that every state has problems, both internal and external. it confused me how this was so because these governments are supposed to work.. in theory. so i began to ask, why are there no perfect governments? were we not meant to be ruled in a state? if God had appointed kings over his people, why would he allow it to be so faulty?

my search for an answer led me to 1 samuel 8. israel asks God for a king to rule over them. God did not willingly appoint a king over his people, they asked for one. they saw that other nations had kings and believed that they needed to have one in order to be safe. this angered God because his people didn't see him as their king. however, because israel insisted on a king, God gave them one, but only after warning them. he warned them that israel would have to sacrifice some of their things in exchange for a king. a king will have the power to do anything and the people must follow his orders.

there aren't too many kings who are currently in power. however, there are many heads of states who hold the same kind of power as kings. most governments have all its power concentrated into the hands of one person. no one person was ever meant to have that much power. power, even in small portions, changes people. it manipulates, it covets, and it corrupts. there are many broken governments in this world because people have been seduced by power and are unable to see the ways their greed has eaten away at their country.

God knew that we are weak when we come face to face with unlimited power. although it wasn't his will to have nations ruled by one person, he made it so because his people asked for it earnestly. however, in the end, we are only crippling ourselves.