8. 1 thing you want to change about the world

I want everyone to know the Lord. What a world that would be. 

7. 2 ways to win your heart

• Have confidence and know/own who you are.
• Challenge me.

Today was a good day.

A part of a song keeps playing in my head from when I shared my testimony earlier:

When Satan tempts me to dispair
and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look and see him there,
who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless savior died,
my sinful soul is counted free
for God the just is satisfied,
to look on him and pardon me
to look on him and pardon me

All in all, I’m thankful that God has given me this opportunity. Looking forward to getting to know this group of guys better.

6. 3 of your favorite songs

• Beautiful - Talib Kweli/Mos Def
• How Will I Know - Whitney Houston
• Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It - Will Smith

5. 4 of your favorite shows

• SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Law and Order: SVU
• Modern Family

4. 5 places you want to visit

• Greece
• South Africa
• Australia
• Korea
• Thailand

As I’m reading “When Helping Hurts” to get ready for Catalyst Group, one of the passages I came across was 1 John 3:16-18:

¹⁶ By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. ¹⁷ But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? ¹⁸ Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Having grown up with influences from both the city and the suburbs, I feel like I’ve always grown up with this concept that Christianity and having faith in God was basically a relationship between God and myself. In terms of how that affected those around me, it was basically like, be a good person, then people will see God. 

If you’re not familiar to the city or to Philly, there are lots of homeless that live on our streets. Some a bit crazy, some a bit lost, some a bit broken, all in need. As a kid going into the city, if we saw a homeless person on the street, we would flee from them or be disgusted by their hygiene, or make judgments on how they ended up homeless. As I got older, I realized that maybe I was not as judgmental and disgusted towards them, but my attitude had become indifferent to their need and presence. Oh that’s just how the city is. Oh Philly just has lots of crazies. Shrugs. Chuckles. Life goes on. And clearly that’s not that much better of an attitude to have. 

It didn’t really hit me how bad my attitude was until I found out a few years ago that my uncle was moving to Philadelphia, and at the time, the plan was to live with our family. My uncle was homeless, and through a series of tumultuous and difficult events, it was difficult for him to really support himself. At that time, my dad had recently gotten laid off from DuPont and was transitioning into full time ministry, and my parents were struggling to support me in my last year or so at Pitt. Rather than welcoming my uncle with open arms, the idea of him coming made me angry instead. Why couldn’t this grown man support himself? Our family has enough struggles and here we have another mouth to feed? Were his problems really that bad? Rather than thinking about his needs, instead I labeled him a helpless hopeless case who would be a leech to the life I was comfortably living. After talking with my parents and really understanding his situation more, I realized how unloving I was. I could tell my dad felt that this was a burden, because he loves his family so much, he hates to see them suffer, but it wasn’t just about that, but hoping that our family would support him in this too. The root of most of my uncle’s problems, were that there was a lot of mistrust and brokenness in the relationships in his life. From his relationship with my grandma, to his messy divorce from his wife, to his estranged relationship with his son, to the negative reactions he gets from society, he was a really broken man with major trust issues. What he needed wasn’t so much money, or even a roof over his head, but needed a sense of family, love, and trust. 

Having this idea of homelessness hit so close to home, really humbled me, not just in how I interact socially with those around me, but even more so what it means to be a Christian, and what that calls of my actions, my words, my life. Part of the reason why I really joined this catalyst group was because I was drawn to the intentionality of the group to not only invest in each other, but how to specifically invest in the city around us, and even more locally, the homeless in the Callowhill neighborhood surrounding our church. As God continues to draw me back into the city, I hope he can give me his eyes to see what he sees, the needs, the people, the brokenness, and I pray that he would give me a heart and ability to love them in deed and truth. I’m not really sure what exactly I’ll be doing, or how exactly this will all play out, but I pray that my heart would be in tune to his calling, and that I would follow Him in faith.

3. 6 things you see in your room 

• blankie
• box i haven’t unpacked since I’ve moved back in august
• clothes…everywhere
• bible
• fan
• bed (time to sleep)

2. 7 likes and dislikes 

likes:

• razzy fresh
• taboo (the game)
• makeup
• puerto rico
• good conversation
• sleeping
• puppies