| This is my living testimony which is kind of like a journal or diary. It's a testimony because its about my life and it's living because its constantly changing and being added too. |
| Amazing Grace | Wednesday, August 2, 2006 |
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Much has happened over the past year and a couple months and looking back all one can say is that my God is so good and gracious to me. Thank You Lord. I am now graduated and headed to Stanford for graduate work in EE. God separated Sandy and I late last year but brought us together and we've been together again for almost a year now. God has been growing me, especially through being discipled by Justin.
A chapter has ended and a new one has begun. The road ahead has grown increasingly turbulent and divergent. Now, the pilgrim must decide his path and this college graduate must decide what he will live for. Indeed, he must decide what he will die for. Upon which altar will he place his hope and for what prize will he desperately and earnestly pursue. How will he live his life? No, much better is for what will he die? Will he daily take up his cross and follow his Savior? Will he deny himself and hate his own life, losing it so as to find it in the end? At what price and for what prize will he sell his soul? I have found a treasure. "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field." - Matthew 13:44 O Lord, give me the courage to forfeit all for the treasure of the joy of Your kingdom. |
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| Spring Break Frustration | Monday, March 28, 2005 |
| Arrrrgh. I'm frustrated. Spring break is supposed to be fun and a million times better than school but its actually a lot worse. I need God, that is my central problem but I can't get myself to do anything about fixing it. I feel as if I can't sit down and think, and instead need to play guitar, surf the web or some alternative means of vegetation. Maybe I just need to get out of the house, or maybe I'm looking at the entire situation wrong. Gah. |
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| Gracer? Crusader? Christian. | Saturday, January 8, 2005 |
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Okay. I'll be honest. I love Campus Crusade for Christ, which I consider my "home" fellowship, and I also love Grace on Campus, which I attend with occasional regularity. However, when I'm visiting a new church or a new fellowship I find myself constantly critiquing, comparing, evaluating and judging how the fellowship is run. For example, I rate Grace on Campus and Campus Crusade's worship, messages, skit, people, atmosphere - probably everything down to the snacks! On my part, this is just stupid! It is a complete disfiguring of the truth of who we, Christians, are.
Who are we? We are one body. "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit." -Ephesians 2:19-22 Having realized who I and other Christians truly are I understood why it is so hard for me to love Gracers sometimes. It is because I think of them as Gracers, non-Crusaders or "fellowship competitors". But everything changes when I see them as brothers and sisters and fellow christians! And I can love them because I realize that they are family. The same applies to when I am at Campus Crusade for Christ. To enjoy being around my brothers and sisters, I have to realize that that's who they are! I must understand that they are first and foremost my siblings and remember the relative unimportance of any other title such as small group leader, band member or staff person. "I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me." -John 17:20-21 |
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| Death | Saturday, January 1, 2005 |
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What does it feel like to die?
Maybe it feels like being sick, just worse. Maybe all of a sudden you take a last gulp of air, your heart stops and then the entirety of your life freezes - and you're gone. You fall asleep and everything material and earthly slips away and its over. The thought slipped into my mind when my Dad and I saw my grandma, uncle and aunt off to the bus station, to return to Taiwan. I realized that I do not understand my own mortality. For the vast majority of my day, I don't realize how my body will one day be rotting in a coffin and that the bodies of those around me will as well. I have never died and so I have become inclined to believe that I never will. But when the truth becomes apparent, I think about my parents - I know I need to love them more. My friends as well, saved and unsaved. It seems that in the acknowledgement of death life becomes more meaningful and precious; all the stupid, cheap garbage that I fill my life with vanishes and only the eternal remains. Oh, let there please be something that remains. Two verses that I am reminded of: "Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil." -Ephesians 5:15-16 "Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." -1 Corinthians 3:12-15 |
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| Bored. | Friday, December 31, 2004 |
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Wow, its been a while since I've added anything here but I've been working on the info page for a while. Anyways, its the last day of 2004 and I am bored. Wow, I can't find anything interesting to do. More importantly I can't find anything productive to do. For some reason I don't want to just have fun or hang out with friends. I want to make something, to create something, anything like that. But I can't find any outlet. I even tried to buy my chinese textbook early so I could get a head start but Barnes and Nobles doesn't have it. I do have another option; working on the networking for our house. I have to strip cat-5 wires and connect them to a ethernet switch but that has been only a source of frustration. I can't even strip wires right, gah!
It's been a really tough past few days for me in that respect. I don't feel strong in the Lord and I feel really lazy and just tired of not doing anything. I've been trying top get a free game off the web but all games are lame anyways, they wouldn't satisfy. I can't get myself to do anything. Sigh. |
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| It feels like missing | Wednesday, November 17, 2004 |
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I feel empty. A constant, unattributable gnawing at my soul these past couple of days and I wonder why? It might be a simple case of sloth, of not being able to rouse myself to any academic productivity. Actually, my CS 111 project has been frustrating me to no end. It involves creating a linux kernel synchronization function but every attempt to even start has been halted and it seems like God Himself prevents any potential progress. Then again, the incessant inner nag might be trivial; a matter of getting enough sleep or enough physical exercise. I know that my grades are not suffering, my girlfriend is lovely and that I am enjoying the fellowship of my friends. What then? What is it that I carry wherever I go, that pulls at my mind and teases my spirit?
I can guess but in the end I just don't know. All this would be tragedy if it were romanticized, if it were just the work of an unbridled imagination. I do want it to be real, I know that much. Sometimes I think that it must be God but I am completely unsure. It might be God and my problem might be spiritual and maybe He's what I'm missing because, after all, beside Him all else becomes minute. I am sure, however, that I need help of miraculous nature and titanic proportions. Help me friend. Help me Lord. |
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| Joy, of course! | Friday, November 12, 2004 |
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I was sitting on my bed last night and was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. I was thinking about how I wanted to serve God after college. The subject came up while hanging out with Sandy last night and as I stared up at my ceiling I pictured myself as a pastor, an engineer, a programmer... What will I be impassioned to do? What can I do of eternal significance? What will I be happy doing?
The picture of a father and child then seeped into my thoughts and I was reminded of my sonship in God. My mind, curious of the father's reaction, prodded the child to ask, "Daddy, how do you want me to serve you?". The father chuckled, picked up the tot and sat him on his lap. I don't know what was said but I realized how the child had misunderstood his father, who did not desire to be served, only to be enjoyed. It made sense. The idea that God desired my love far beyond my service rang in harmony with my heart and fit with the knowledge already in my mind. After all, how could so loving a God, who gave His very Son for me, be so calculating or utilitarian? There are passages in the Bible that show God's desire to be served as well as passages that show His desire to be loved; I have not studied them but it would be amazing to understand the heart of those pieces of God's word to us. In conclusion, this, "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say, rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4) |
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| How am I doing? | Monday, November 8, 2004 |
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I just restarted this today. A good question to ask oneself is always, "How am I doing?". And to be able to answer that question honestly may just be one of the most important skills to master in life. So how am I doing? I am doing okay. School is tough and busy and stressing me out because I can't concentrate and actually get work done. My girlfriend of 14 months and a few days, Sandy Tran, and I are doing really well too. I haven't been in contact with my family much however. Also, in terms of friends everything is pretty chill. But all that is simply the periphery to an honest answer to the question of how I am doing, for at the core of the question is an evaluation of the state of the soul. How is my soul doing? I feel like its struggling along. Like its slowly relearning things from two or three years ago and hopefully learning them a little better. I'm refinding God. He's showing Himself to me again. It's good. He's good. I know I should be more specific but that's that for now. Pray that I'll get into His word more and more, because there really is nothing else that can be my center. Okay, grace and peace!
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| First entry | Monday, November 8, 2004 |
| Hi, my name is Jesse Lu. I am currently a third year electrical engineering major at UCLA. This site used to be called All4Him back when I started it, and didn't do much more than that, a couple of years back. Anywho, I got an email from a random passerby and was inspired to actually put something up here. I've never had an online diary or anything like that but this might possibly turn into one. I just want to put of stuff from my life here - friends, family, God. More about me later; for now, this will do. |