If you've been following my blog you probably know of my recent struggles. I've been working in a city away from home, I've been struggling with work, with family, with depression and with my spiritual walk with God. There are many things in between, but again I'm trying to keep this short (like I always do, but somehow end up rambling on and on and on haha).
To sum it all up, I haven't been able to go to church and since I'm away from home I find it sometimes difficult to have support and fellowship with friends. I was a new Christian at the time I moved to work in my current city and I really needed the guidance, if not I get lost. Well... I did get lost at one point, but God uses all His resources and reaches out to us when we get lost. In my case, he sent me a few good friends and YouTube. Back in 2014 my world turned upside down again, I got so tired of waiting and relying only on God to get me through my struggles, so then I put God aside and told Him, I will get my problems fixed my way and it will be faster and my suffering will end sooner. Little did I know, without God I became a 'lost cause'. I had no direction, it was like heading into a battle field unprepared, not knowing what was ahead and not planning how to make my moves, or you can say it was going with the flow. I tried to fix problems one at a time as they hit me. I was lucky in some cases, but the biggest underlying problem was still there. It became even more tiring. I put God aside and still didn't call out for Him. I heard His call to me, but I was also too ashamed by then to go back to Him. I told God to just wait, cause I'm gonna make you proud papa. I'm going to get this all done all on my own like all of the struggles I've overcome in the past. I always fought alone and I thought this was no different. And look at me now, 2016 is already coming to an end and I still struggle with those same problems in 2014. I will elaborate on 2014 in a separate post dedicated to that year. But what I want to share is that because of my friends reaching out to me and telling me that they're worried, I started opening up and talking to them and through them I heard God speak to me. He still loved me even when I pushed him away and even when I was too embarrassed to go back to Him. He still waited with open arms for me to turn back. Thankfully I did. Things have been tough but a lot less lonely now.
So what exactly is it that I want to say? Recently I've been struggling with staff problems and that leading to working longer hours because of the shortage of workers. It's been difficult for me to find time to go to church and then spending quiet time with God. I usually do my daily devotions before I go to bed, but with the super late work hours I've been making excuses to skip or rush through my devotional time. It's true that by the time we finish work (3AM) I'm already too tired and struggling to focus during prayer, so then i tried to change things and scheduled my devotional time to be done in the morning. It went well at first, but again I've been too tired and waking up later since I'm sleeping later. I feel guilty to leave all the work to my parents and so, I skip out on this devotional time and head over to work. I'm able to catch it sometimes and sometimes I make up excuses to not do it... I find myself spending time doing other things (like watching YouTube) during my breaks, I feel guilty afterwards when I find out that that time could've been spent with God. Occasionally I open YouTube to play some worship music to find encouragement. Sometimes when I'm feeling down or out of energy I listen to some Christian songs and oddly enough I stumble upon the ones that speak perfectly to me in my situation.
(What I do is that I open YouTube and search a song I'm familiar with. Usually I start with my favourites which are '10,000 Reasons' or 'Mighty to Save'. And then from there I click on random songs on the recommended bar.)
It's weird how God can speak to us through many ways... and he's been using YouTube to speak to me. I say weird, but I mean it in a good way. God knows us well and he knows that I've been spending a lot of time on YouTube. Recently (about 2 weeks ago) I stumbled upon this guy's Channel. His name is Woojong. I was watching a vlog from one of my favourite youtubers. I've been into kpop and Kdramas for over 10 years and have been trying to learn how to speak Korean. The YouTuber that I watch is a Korean language teacher and so I usually only watch her lesson videos and not her Vlogs. I really don't know why I decided to check out her vlog that day especially since it was just a vlog of her recent Meet and greet. (I'm usually not interested in those kind of vlogs). But somehow I did watch it, something about the title or thumbnail intrigued me I guess haha. And this Guy, Woojong was featured in her video since he was her cameraman for the day. I don't even know why, but I found him funny and interesting and so I decided to look him up...I watched a few of his videos and thought it was quite funny. I then started following him... but not knowing what was in store for me 2 weeks later.
Fast forward 2 weeks and that's today! I opened youtube to see the notifications for new videos. And I came across this one. The title immediately caught my attention as I was thinking to just quickly check YouTube and then do a quick devo before getting back to work. I didn't know that this guy is Christian and it really surprised me in a good way to see someone posting this kind of video. I've been struggling with this and now I kinda have a 'buddy' to walk with in this journey. Everything he said in this video was very relatable to my situation, sometimes as Christians it's not addiction or lust that we struggle with, but rather just taking time out of our busy lives to talk to the one who gave it to us, God. Seeing Him post Videos in this new series that he's embarking on will be a reminder for me to spend some time with God as well, especially if I have time to open YouTube, then I have time to talk to God. This guy doesn't know it yet, but he's somewhat of an accountability partner haha. Watching this video and reading some of the comments made me feel like there is a community there. Since I'm not able to go to church or attend fellowship, I think interacting with fellow brothers and sisters in the comments section acts in a similar way. I know that God's working on something here and I really like what he's doing to try to help me on this journey. I am very thankful for this friendly reminder that God is listening to our prayers, he's working on something and when the time is right, we'll see or hear His answer. In the mean time I'll keep waiting and working on strengthening my relationship with God.