Imagine going to school, you bring a bunch of cupcakes, cookies, and brownies for your friends, classmates, teachers, and principals—and they really love it!  In the middle of class, your classmate next to you realizes he doesn’t have a  pencil, so you give him your favorite and only pencil so that he can use it  while you wait to use it later. At the cafeteria, someone falls and drops all of  their food. You help them up and you also help the custodians to clean the mess. You are always on time and you pay attention in class. You are always in dress code, and you never pick a fight with anyone. After school, you stay back to  help your teachers clean the room or file papers. You also go to the front office to help direct traffic or clean the hallways.  Then you go to the library to tutor a classmate.

You are the star student! You don’t expect anything from anyone else either. You are doing all these nice things so that others can have a nice experience at school

The next day you get to school, and the friend who you gave your pencil to, trips you so that you fall flat on your face. The other person who tripped in the cafeteria the day before starts to yell insults at you and makes fun of you in front of everyone. Your classmates who you gave the cupcakes, cookies, and brownies to start to gang up on you and want to beat you up. The teachers and the principals who you helped the other day decided to look away when people start to beat you up.  They want to expel you from school forever. They want you  gone.

Sounds like a clear case of bullying, right?

Last week, I introduced a new newsletter series that I am doing on bullying. Bullying can happen
anywhere—on the playground, on the Internet, on Facebook, at school, after school, even at home.
The reason that I feel that it’s important to talk about bullying from a Christian perspective is because it is a huge issue facing youth today in very impactful ways. Eventually I will want to explore how bullying is a direct result of sin and how our reactions to bullying are examples of our brokenness because of sin. But I first want to show you that the situation I described above is exactly what happened to Jesus.

Jesus Christ was bullied, and bullied in the most dreadful way. He came to the earth, gave gifts and blessings and healings to everyone around Him, and then everyone turned their backs to Him. They wanted Him dead and gone. They wanted to put him on the cross.Jesus was being bullied by the people He came down here to save. What if after they expelled you from school, beat you up, and made fun of you, all you wanted to do was make sure that they were all okay? You still wanted to help them. You still wanted to give them blessings. You probably wouldn’t want to do that. But  Jesus did. He still wanted to shower blessings on us.

That is the beauty of the gospel. Jesus was bullied and had no reason to love the people who bullied Him. But He did because of his surpassing love for all of us. Every time we sin or go against God, we are in a way “bullying” God and yet He still chooses to love us each day. 
 
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5

 Until next time,

Have you ever been called a bad name or been teased by a classmate? Have you ever called someone a bad name or teased another classmate? Have you ever thought that you were better than someone else because you had something they didn't have? Have you ever had someone look down on you because you didn't have something they had?All of these things are normal occurrences for kids, and I'm sure you can find an instance in your life where this has happened, and it probably didn't feel that great. 

For the next few weeks, I am going to be doing a series on a Christian perspective of bullying. This is a new topic for me, so it will also be an interesting exploration to tie Scripture to real-life issues. 

This week, I'm going to give a brief overview about what bullying is and why it is important for Christians to understand bullying.

Bullying is the use of superior strength or influence to intimate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants. Growing up, this often comes off as teasing someone for who they are, what they wear, what they believe, or what they look like. According to some recent statistics, 1 in 7 students from kindergarten to the end of high school are bullied, but I believe that more children are bullied than these statistics show because some kids don't even know that they are being bullied.

Why is this important for us as Christians?

a) There is no reason to bully someone because we are not the authority. Only God is our authority.
b) God is love. Though He is our ultimate authority, He reigns with love and calls each one of us to love one another.
c) God has called us to advocate for those weaker than we are and to reach out to those in need.

 I want to explore how we can react to a bully when we are bullied as well as learn how to make sure we are
 not being a bully.

 Until next time,
 

Yesterday was Columbus Day. Columbus was an explorer who was sent by the Spanish kings and queens to find other lands to conquer. He was given a goal, and he did his best to obey. It was on one of these voyages, while he was trying to find India, that he actually found America. Now we celebrate Columbus' mistake each year because he brought knowledge of our country back to Europe.

Today my friend sent me a message telling me that she did not receive a job that she had applied for. She had done everything she could do and tried her best, but she stil didn't get the job. She is waiting to hear back from other places to see where she will get a job.

Both are stories that point back to God. Did you know that God has a plan for us? Can you imagine a time when time didn't even exist? Well God was there. He created time, and He created what would happen in time. Sometimes, we go on voyages or make a plan with the expectation that we will get a certain outcome. For Columbus, he thought he would find India, but found America instead. For my friend, she thought she would receive this job, but she is waiting for now. They both did everything they were supposed to do, but they still did not get the outcome they desired.

Why is that? Because sometimes God has a better plan in store for us. Because God knows everything that has happened, that is happening now, and that will happen, He can see things ahead of what we can plan. That means sometimes He allows "disappointments" in our lives because it accomplishes something more glorifying to Him later on. God wanted Columbus to find America instead of India, and God wanted my friend to not work at this job...all for a purpose. 

One of the best ways we can see that is through Jesus Christ. In Genesis 3, we learn that God allowed Adam and Eve to sin, and therefore brought sin into the world. We, as humans, were incapable of escaping our sin. We had no hope. We could do everything God wanted us to do, but we would fail, and we would never be able to save ourselves. It seems like God wasn't granting us what we were working to achieve. However, God had a bigger and better plans and hundreds of years later, God brought Jesus into the world so that Jesus could live a perfect life, die on the cross, conquer death (which is sin) by raising to life, and giving us the grace to be saved from all of our sins. God had a bigger plan than what humans could have expected because God can see all of time.

Think upon your reactions to disappointments in life. Are you looking at just what is happening now or are you trusting that God loves you, wants what's best for you, and has a plan for you?

Until next time,

Over the weekend, I took a trip to visit my alma mater, which means the place where I graduated from school! Every year Cornell has a beautiful Apple Festival with yummy apples, apple cider, apple cider donuts, and crafts. For the last six years, I've been able to make the trip to the Apple Fest, and it's always been a treasure hidden in the middle of a small town like Ithaca.
 

However, the highlight of my time in Ithaca was when I went to a retreat for college students hosted by Campus Crusade for Christ, or Cru for short. I was only able to stay for one of the messages, but I believe God divinely brought me to hear this particular message.

The message centered around the phrase ";Well done, my good and faithful servant." When we finally get to the gates of heaven and we are to go through everything we have done in our lifetimes, we will have to explain all the sinful things we have done, but we will also give an account of all the things that we have done that have been for Christ. The speaker encouraged us to examine our lives and determine, what things would spur God to say "Well done, my good and faithful servant." What things are we doing that will last for eternity?

What things are you doing that will last for eternity? I realize that this concept my seem abstract. How can we know what will last for eternity and what won't? Instead of agonizing over what those things can or can't be (because there really isn't a set of rules that can fully answer every decision you make), I would take some time and see if you, in your daily life, have God on your mind. When your mind wanders, when you are motivated to do something, when you are motivated not to do something, do you have God in mind? Do you have His fame and not yours in mind? Do you have His standards and His approval in mind? Or do you want to do things for yourself? For your parents? For your friends?

This is a hard concept to understand, and still challenges people who have been Christian their whole lives. I would suggest that if you want to know more, to read your Bible to find out more, to pray that God would reveal to you how this works, or to ask people you trust (parents, pastor, teachers, or me).

After hearing the message, I was motivated to stop fearing failure and to stop fearing the disappointment of people and really seek after what God would have me do with my life. In the end, His approval is what matters, not the approval of anyone or anything we can get here on earth. 

Until next time,