I'm constantly amazed by the sisters in church, who all seem to manage to put God number one, while I constantly struggle with the question if God alone is enough for me. It's somewhat discouraging to find out that God is indeed enough only if He is all you've got. But the optimist in me strikes back defiantly. You'll never understand that He alone is enough until you put Him first in your life. David shared this amazing advice: Christians often misunderstand that we are expected to place God above all else in our list of Life's Priorities, which is not to say that we should not do that. But the Lord is truly pleased when His name is beside each item on the list. He needs to thoroughly permeate our lives.

It's funny how I strive to be righteous (often too self-righteous for my own good-that is veering towards arrogance) but I seem to be giving in to temptation increasingly these days. Perhaps it's the fact that I'm more aware of temptation, whereas in the past, I'd dismiss them as mere fun normal teenagers enjoy. Living in hall is complicated. Communal cohabitation brings along with it so many intricacies and minor tensions. But then again, so does every single human environment. Everyday, I seem to be struggling with the same old temptations, but they present themselves to me in such enticing new forms that I almost always end up being engulfed by them anyway.

(Non-)Ownership of myself is something that I haven't quite come to terms with yet. In the past, whenever I wasted my time, whiling away in front of the TV or gossiping with friends, I'd fret about it afterwards, mentally subtracting that amount of time from the time I could have otherwise spent productively studying. There are shreds of my old behaviour left, but now there's an added layer of guilt- wasting away God's gift to me. I'm constantly trying to remind myself that while Time is God's gift to me, what I do with it is my gift to Him.

I think I may be too idealistic sometimes, and I'm thankful that I have friends who see fit to bring me down to earth. While it's fine and dandy to want to excel in all things, it's highly difficult and can be done only with divine concentration and perhaps intervention. Qing told me that one can't have the cake and eat it too, but I beg to differ. Gwen offered similar advice, but from the other side of the spectrum. I believe that God wants me to eat my cake, but according to His will; meaning I don't frantically stuff my face with confectionary (while we're still in the business of gastronomical metaphors) but that I should take my time to nibble and savour it at my own pace.

All that's left is a cold and broken Hallelujah.
I'm sure most Christians find themselves in situations like this, but there's really nothing to do except plough on with faith! And Amen to that.