dear beloved

I wish I could tell you. I wish I could pry. I wish I could force you to believe things, as a parent wishes that they could protect their child from hurt.

But no matter how many times my dad tells me to exercise or my mom tells me to eat my vegetables, it's futile. It's only after I've personally reached the conclusion that I need to exercise and eat well for good health that I finally come to the conclusions that my parents came to before I was even born.

And maybe now, they can say "I told you so," and/or look proudly on their child growing up and finally learning things. People are stubborn, what can I say. We learn through mistakes, through struggles, through the fights of life.

Who can read the bible and simply accept it and be changed? No. It takes much struggle and continuous mind strain and heart tearig to make active change, and even then sometimes it feels like nothing is happening. Sometimes we may even feel like we're moving backwards. But I guarantee you, if you seek Christ, you will see progress. It's not until 6 months afterward or maybe even a year that we realize...."I don't think I'm the same person I was back then."

And that's beautiful. Who in this world is so content with their life that they can say they want to be the same exact person they are in 6 months?

So dear beloved, I can't force you to believe. I can show you how Christ has been real and relevant in my own life, I can share with you the world perspective I have now, I can share with you my struggles and how Christ even works in them...

but as for you, I can't show you these things for yourself. You must seek for these things yourself, and you must see the importance in them. Our God is a great God and doesn't need the affection of us and isn't desperate for our attention. But rather, we are the one desperate ones, we are the one who are afflicted and in need, and we CRY OUT and YEARN FOR HIM.

Dear beloved, I pray that you can see this. I pray that your eyes and ears are opened and tuned to be able to see the beautiful Christ laid before you.

No one can push you through that door. Only you can walk through that door yourself.