Holiness

"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." - Colossians 1:21-22

I think one of the most frequent questions that I ask as a Christian is how does God see us as holy when we're still so broken and sinful. The verse in Colossians is a promise that when we believe in Christ's death on the cross, God no longer sees us as the way we are but the holy, perfect being like Christ. It's mind-boggling to think that such a great God can be so compassionate and loving. I think it's easy for us to say to ourselves: God doesn't love you more when you're being sinful - there's no way God can forgive that, how could you do such a thing! But every time I'm tempted to believe these thoughts in my human head, I'm reminded of God's promises to His people. God's love is so all-encompassing that we can spend our whole lives investigating the depth of that love and will never fully understand just how big God's heart is for us. When we do sin, we need to view God not as a God that just shakes His head in shame and turns His face from us, but rather, God runs to us even faster, longing to hold us safe in His arms. When we begin to view God in that way, it's hard not to acknowledge His presence in ours lives and the good work that He's doing within all of us.

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You Can Run But You Can't Hide

In service today, Pastor Dick preached on the story of Jonah. Being one of the greatest prophets of his time, Jonah received a special calling from God to speak the message of repentance to the Ninevites, Israel's enemies. However, Jonah was scared -- he always brought messages of growth and expansion to the Jews, he didn't feel comfortable bringing a message of God's potential wrath to these Pagans. And so he did what we all would of done -- ran (or rather sail away). How do you escape from the creator of the world? You can't. God shook Jonah with a storm comparable to the one in Noah's time. However, through a merciful God, Jonah was rescued and brought to safety and eventually did the will of God.

What does this story remind us?
1) We all have a little Jonah in each of us. We all want to run away sometimes from the will of God. But...
2) Our God is relentless. He loves us way too much to just let us go because of our arrogance and ignorance. He will pursue you to the ends of the Earth.

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No Hassles Please

Credit card companies suck. I think they purposely make it so hard for you to decide just what's the best for you. I literally spent the whole day reading about which credit cards give the best rewards, miles, points, you name it. And I've come to the conclusion that, well, there is no best credit card. Actually, I think I've approached this all wrong -- rather, I should try to find the credit card that sucks the least. If you spend the time to read all the fine print involved with every rewards program, you'll be shocked to see just how sketchy these companies really are. Hidden annual fees, reward cap limits, expiring points, etc.

However, even with the difficulty in finding one, we still have to decide on one unless you just like carrying around rolls of cash. I offer my advice: start here. Find out just where you spend most of your money monthly. From there, the website will help identify the right card(s) for you and just what will get you the most bang for your buck. After that though, it's up to you to decide on one of the top choices as all come with their own restrictions and fine print. Even after all that and you're still scared off by these devilish companies (and I don't blame you), I would suggest these as they're the most reliable rubber bands in the business.

My Picks:
Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards - 5% cashback on groceries/gas/drugs for 1 year, $50 gift card for signing up, no fees, 75,000 points limit/year, Mastercard
Citi Professional Cash Card - 3% cashback on restaurants/gas/office supplies/car rentals, no fees, $500 reward limit/year, Mastercard
Bank of Americard Rewards - 1.5% cashback on everything if you have a Bank of America account, no fees, no reward limit/year, Visa

Day-Maker: Receiving my college diploma.

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Hired

Seven weeks after graduation, I have landed myself my first job. Okay, so technically, it's not my "first" job, but you get the point. Through the months of searching, I've finally found something that I want to do and a place that's willing to pay me to do it. The interesting part is how God totally paved the way for me through all this. About a month ago, I was set on finding a job back at home where I could be with my family; my career would be in the energy/power field since that was the focus of my technical areas in my degree. However, in the matter of just 3 days, God has revealed to me and my family a plan beyond our expectations. Our prayers have been answered and He's provided for us His plan. Praise God.

Now, I'll be known as an IT consultant working at Affiliated Computer Services, Inc -- working in Austin where our family might be moving to. What a turnaround!

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Life In The Fast Lane

It takes big events in your life to make you feel like life is just flying by. Going to high school. Going to college. Graduating from college. Finding a job. Which leads me to think, do we just take the mundane things that happen in life for granted? Why does life seem slower when we're just cruising from day to day? I offer a notion that perhaps we just don't stop to smell the roses anymore. Who has times these days, right? I have to get this errand done, turn in this, attend that meeting, etc. I wish there would be days in my life where I can go to sleep and say to myself, today was a good -- no, great day. And to say that without having anything extraordinary happen.

Couple of years ago, I started this thing called my day-maker. What did I do or see today that made today special? I hope to be reminded of my day-maker every time I visit my blog and to share that with you. Today's day maker was seeing Penny purr at my feet when I walked in through the front door. And unlike other times, her catfood bowl was full.

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It's All About Confidence

Walk into any room like you own the place. That's one of the mottoes to finding success in the business world. It really is all about how you sell yourself. You can be the biggest jerk in the world but in that 30mins of meeting you, that someone can believe you're the second coming of Mother Theresa. That's really the trick to an interview. How well can you present yourself to be the perfect fit for the job? Acquire the skill to do that and you can land yourself anywhere.

Where do we find this confidence?

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The On-site Interview

After my phone interview with ACS, Inc. today, I was fortunate enough to get a 2nd, on-site interview tomorrow. Preparing for an on-site interview can be as intensive as studying for your finals. It's your one shot to make that great impression that you're a perfect fit for the job. Fail and well...you fail. And just like studying for your finals, you probably learn more about the subject through those late night cramming sessions than you did for the previous 3-4 months of attending the class.

Now let's see, what else do I need to know about windows and linux...

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So what are you doing now?

I probably face this question about 5-10x a day from various people that I come in contact with. And to be honest, I am what you would call 4.8% of the USA population right now -- unemployed. I spend most of my days doing research on various companies and adjusting my resume to meet some of those companies' job qualifications. In addition, I started to play around with Linux and Perl scripting. To the engineering world, those are fundamentals to almost any job (if you haven't graduated and pursuing an engineering career, pick those up now!).

I feel like unemployment can be more tiring and arduous than working at any job. My mom was right when she said how her 3 months of unemployment after she got laid-off was the most tiring time of her entire computer programming career. Advice to all who are graduating soon, it's never too early to start job searching!

Some things that I've picked up through the past few months of job searching:

• Writing skill is KEY -- whether emails, letters, resume, etc. (a top reason why I started blogging again was to improve my writing skills)
• Fully charge and carry your phone -- you never know when someone is going to call you about a job.
• Connections, connections, connections -- there's no shame when it comes to job searching; meaning, go through every route possible, whether it's your mom's cousin's boyfriend's friend, or that facebook friend whom you've only talked to once in person, seek those options out! The world is competitive so don't expect a job to fall right into your lap.
  

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An Introduction

It's been almost 3 years since I've last written on my blog. And after spending a fair amount of time today re-reading some of my posts in my archives, it's given me inspiration to continue to document the happenings in my life. However, aside from just using this as a soapbox to release all of my emotions, I hope to encourage you, the reader, through the journaling of my innermost thoughts, the struggles of finding myself in the real world, and God's story of redemption and love in my life. What a better way to begin a new chapter in my life than to write it all down so I can revisit it when I'm 80 and sipping on my cup of tea at the retirement home!

The first thing that strikes me as I'm starting my blog again is how much my writing style has probably changed. Looking back on my posts in high school, my words were filled with fervor and enthusiasm. Not to dissuade you from ever visiting this blog again, but I've definitely "mellowed out." Which is a good thing because keepin' it real is something worthy of respect these days, right?

Moving on. I've titled this blog "Quest: A Young Man's Journey Into The Real World." Inspiration for this title comes from many different parts. The word "Quest" brings the connotation that you're striving for something. There's an end goal, and you want to get there no matter the cost. Such a definition brings to mind 1 Cor. 9:24-27. As for "A Young Man's," atleast for the next 6-7 years, I would consider myself a young man. And finally, "Journey Into The Real World" is inspired by the small group that I led last semester -- where we explored the difficulties of living a Christian life post college graduation. And so, let this day mark the beginnings of my journey into this unknown!

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