Renovation.

So I just finished renovating/moving my room around. I went to Staples today to buy a computer desk because the table i was using were one of those huge plastic church table thangs and it was bugging me out. It took up a lot of room and it just wasn't convenient. So I bought a nice little computer cart/desk for $40 today and I assembled it like the man I am. Haha. Change my room around and now it looks cooler than before.

Here are some really bad pictures of my room from different angles. It's small, but I like it. It's very personal feeling.

Peace.

It has been 2 days since I came back from Gloria Retreat 2010 and it's been great. I'm not saying that I'm like spiritually high or like I'm so hype for GOD right now or anything because of the retreat, but the retreat let me experience God in a very solitude way once again. Just to meet God away from everything else. It's really sad that it was only 2 days and 1 night long, but I definitely got the most I possibly can out of it. It was good, real good.

So from this retreat, I got many new insights on the way my life and how my mind should work. The sermons from Pastor Ken were not some philosophical, intellectual, well-thought out sermons, but they definitely hit home for me and most likely for everyone else. The series of questions. The way the words and everything just had to do with my current situation. My stress. My problems. How do they get solved? Where is God in the midst? How can there be PEACE when there is NO peace?

For the past year I have been living from home and going to school in Manhattan. The reason being is because I felt like i needed to stay home and solve issues going on with my family and such. It has held me back from doing what I really want and possibly what God is leading me to. It has been a huge distraction and beyond that, it has been my stress/idol. Many people know where my heart is and what I want to do after I graduate. I want to be involved with the less fortunate and homeless within cities. Going to school in Pennsylvania and being 40 minutes away from Philadelphia just made everything so accessible, but now I'm home and I began to get really involved within my church and it's ministries since the beginning of this school year, but it's not what i planned.

This stress, this storm, this idol, in my life was really just killing me inside. Only a limited few know of this issue fully and it kills me inside because it's holding me back from living. I know I'm a silly, energetic guy, but deep down inside and behind the smile and the laughs, I have a lot of pain stored up. A lot.

So we learned about peace and false peace. The difference and how we can replace one for the other in our lives. Is peace the absence of stress? The answer is no. The passage that Pastor Ken was preaching from the for the first message was Jeremiah 6:13-19 and I also used it for my Bible Study yesterday as I tried to bring the same message to my students.

¹³"For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely.

¹⁴They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, 'Peace, peace,'when there is no peace.

¹⁵Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown,"
says the LORD.

¹⁶Thus says the LORD:"Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'

¹⁷I set watchmen over you, saying,'Pay attention tothe sound of the trumpet!'But they said,'We will not pay attention.'

¹⁸Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them.

¹⁹Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.

So this passage is Jeremiah speaking to the people of Israel that are in exile in Babylon. They've rejected the Word. They rejected the Law. They rejected God. God is saying, "Look to the ancient paths. Look, people have gone before you. That is the road. You have read and seen the great guidance of God. Why do you not take the road? Open your eyes." But, they did not look, nor did they walk on the road that God has shown. We do this all that time, but if we just took a step of faith. If we just listened to God when He tells us the truth, we would have peace.

Peace is not the absence of stress. No it isn't. Peace is in Christ. Peace is when Christ is overflowing from you, so that NOTHING else matters. All the stress, the sins, the problems that you are dealing with becomes so minor compared to Christ. Christ is always on your mind and because of that everything else has less worry. We worry about being Christ-like, we worry about being holy, and being obedient to the calling. Peace comes to us when we just give it to God and we are so indulged in the life of God. Peace comes to us because Christ covers all.

Christ is called the Prince of Peace.

Now how has this began to shape me for the past 2 days? I've been thinking about all the people that I love, the people that I hate, and the people that I don't even know. As I said with my family problem and all, I'm starting to let go. I'm letting God have His way. I do have an influence on it, but if it is putting a hold on my life to glorify God then it must not be right. I love my family and all, but I think my family in Heaven must come before all things and it has begun to give me peace. Not that I don't care, but I'm letting go. Also, I'm starting to think about the friendships and relationships with people I have and had. The friends that I have are so dear to me and I don't wanna lose them. I don't wanna fight with them. I was talking with Jessica yesterday on oovoo and we were just talking about relationships, marriage, and FRIENDSHIPS. Half of my conversations were about Ben, but it made me realize the "niggas" that I have in my life. How much they mean to me. Because when I'm 80 years old, Ben, Mark, Jungmin, Will, and Jason will be smoking a nice fat pipe with me on rocking chairs on one of our front porch. It's gonna be amazing. And our wives are gonna be hanging out together and we're gonna grow old together. Just the thought of that gives me peace because right now I feel like I'm growing too fast and I wanna be a kid again. The friendships and relationships that I've lost or are on pause need to be mended and I've begun to sew. A few minutes ago, I confronted a friend about how we're not friends anymore and it's awkward and all that and now we're straight again haha. So praise God because I've missed that person. There's still a few more I must get to as well, but I will get to them. Trust me.

Life is peaceful because Christ is within me. It's how i feel. That's truth.

So all in all, retreat was great and I've learned a lot and took away a lot. Thanks Pastor Ken and Phil for teaching me and revitalizing me. Now pray that I won't fall away and that I'd be like this from here on out.

The boy with the smelly feet and the dirty stache,

Charles Chung

Fashion.

Shalom peeps. I'm in my sociology class right now and as you can see, I'm very bored. This class is so bad and it definetely is not a class that I expected when I chose it. A friend of mine dropped it after the first class and I shouldve done the same haha. But I'm sticking around so we'll see how this goes. After this class I have to go to work, but I'm thinking about stopping by soho to buy some stuff.

Clothes and the such are such a drug. Just like alcohol can consume, just like weed can be addicting, or even gambling and betting can be a problem. Shopping an spending money on material things are a drug in itself. We all know but to what degree. Don't we all have enough clothes, enough shoes, enough bags? I know I do and I don't even shop or buy as much as some other people I know. On top of that, I'm a super cheap dude so I probably spend a lot less money than others, but I still have way enough. And you do too.

A problem of mines last year while I was attending PBU was always trying to look good and making sure I had attractive clothes on. People would walk by me and say, "Hey Cheech. You're looking spiffy today!" or "Looking good Cheech." It goes on and on, but towards the end of the spring semester my closest friends and I had an intervention. It was called "Hot Seat." We told each oher everything that bothered us about the person in the hot seat. The problems, the sins, and the things that that person most likely did not want to hear but needed to hear. When I was in the hot seat, I got hit hard too as the rest did. One of the issues about me was how I try to look good too much with clothes and accessories. Very true, but it hurt a lot because I didn't think about it back then.

It still hasn't fully gone or even gone a bit at all. I'm still trying to look good. I'm still tring to impress eveyone that I encounter. Maybe it's a NYC thing but it's something that I still struggle with.

What if we all just went back to the days where we could just walk around naked. No shame. No clothes. Just leaves. Haha. That would be crazy.

Well I'm about to go on break now so imma go eat some Subway because they got any regular footlong for $5 baby. Now I can get something else besides oven roasted chicken breast. Lol. And after class I might go to soho and buy something or I might not. There's a lot that might go through my mind within an hour and a half so who knows. We'll see what happens people.

Hope you enjoyed me being vulnerable haha. Food for thought my hungry brothers and sisters.

Later gators,
Cheech.

Yo no se.

So currently I am at work doing absolutely nothing. Literally. I've been on my phone for the past hour just facebooking, emailing Benjamin, and texting with Hannah. So I work from 11:30am - 6:30pm today and i'm wondering how im gonna make it if there are no customers. But I'm really bored and I just felt like typing some more to kill more time so here I am typing on m iPhone. It's my first time writing a blog post on my phone but I always wanted to do it since I have the blogger application that allows me to do so.

I just finished writing an email to Ben in Espana. There's supposed to be a squigly thang above the "n" but too lazy to do all that on this phone. As I was writing to him I realized how much this fool means to me. No homo but seriously. We've been through everything together and without him here in the states and mark in Pennsylvania, it's hard to get around. One, I don't have a girlfriend or even a real close buddy here in Brooklyn that I can confide in. Now for those that know me personally might ask, "what about Jungmin?" But Jungmin is a different kind of dose friend. Jungmin is like my nigga that would die for me. A genuine friend but not a friend to confide in and feed off of. It's nothing personal, but it's not his personality to me. But yea back to my point of missing my bros. It's wack haha. I miss this nigga Will too dang. Cracking jokes all the time and just making me laugh and giving motivational speeches randomly on our way home from Queens haha. Good times with some good people.

I guess the reasons why my post is titled, "yo no se" is because I don't know what this post was about. For those of you that don't know Spanish it translates to "I don't know". The next reason is because Ben is in Spain right now and this post is coming as a result of emailing Ben in Spain. The last reason is because I'm working with my Ecuadorian dude which is in the back doing his thang. We have simple conversations in Spanish which is pretty cool.

People listen to my favorite song right now.
Dynamic Duo - 왜 벌써가 (Be my brownie).
It's such a nice and soothing song especially the chorus.

Out and about,
Charliooooooooo.

Sovereignty of God.

What's good Brooklyn and others that are less important. Haha just joking people. I love you all dearly. How have ya'll been? I know I've been missing for the past however amount of days. I haven't posted a post on either one of my blogs in a while and I can blame myself for that. Just got a bit lazy and I got more on my plate these days. Spring semester 2010 has begun and it's been a tad bit busy and all since I'm in school one more day than last term, but one less class. It's a good time, learning a lot and struggling as well. Knowledge + Resources = Power. Remember that one people, it's true.

I finally got a job! What's really good baby? Woot. To be honest, it's a low paying job and it's not a great job at all. I'm going to start working tomorrow at BBQ CHICKEN on Nostrand Avenue, so if you guys wanna come by, you can. I just ring up orders and take orders off the phone and stuff. Easy job, but I hope the owners aren't so anal about everything you know. I already know that they're really cheap people and think about profit, profit, profit, profit, and more profit. All they think about is profit and how they can save more and more money. I guess that's business? But, yea I got this job and it's gonna be real nice because I can finally have some sort of income and have money coming into my pockets on a weekly basis.

How'd I get this job? Well let's go through it physically. I was looking for a job and I told my bud Jungmin about it a while ago. He then asked around and asked another friend Danny if BBQ CHICKEN was hiring and at the time they weren't, but a month later they were. So I got hollered at by Danny and I got it. Good deal I would say.

Let's see this in a spiritual matter now, because I believe everything goes through the one and only God (Deuteronomy 6:4). I knew this was a blessing from God because I really needed it and it was bugging me for so long because I couldn't support myself. Going to school in the city, driving, being involved in so many things require money. I got it, but why? I thought about it and I didn't pray about it really. Maybe once in the span I was looking for one, but it was an "eh" prayer anyways. There could have been only one thing that really stuck out to me. Someone was praying for me. I didn't know who it was, but I knew someone did. There are a lot of people and friends in my life that are currently committed and involved with Early Morning Prayer at my church and it's amazing to me how they can do it every single morning. I tried and I've failed, big time. But I've been witnessing and hearing all these testimonies of how God is answering their prayers and I just had to think back to prayer and how God has everything under control.

I found out who was praying for me this past Sunday, but I won't say who it is. Just for the sake of keeping it confidential between me and that person. I owe this person a lot of thanks and love for being my support and praying for me. It's so encouraging and uplifting when someone is praying for you, especially when you didn't even ask them to. Thanks _____ _____.

But, you guys must be wondering why the title of this post is called, "Sovereignty of God"? Maybe? Maybe not? Who cares because I'm going to tell you anyway.

So, I currently have one professor that I have taken before in my previous semester. His name is Professor Dongsu Kim. He has been my New Testament professor and he is currently my Romans teacher. At times I disagree with what he says and sometimes I enjoy what he says, but he probably knows way more about the Bible and Bible history than I do.

I bring him up because this post is dedicated to him and to the work God is doing in his life and for my witness. I have had the class of Romans twice with Professor Kim so far. In our last class together which was on Monday we were going over Chapter 2 of Romans and we came to a discussion where we were talking about election and predestination. I don't know how it got there, but you know somehow every theological discussion turns to that one. Haha. (That was probably only funny to a few people). Anywho, moving on. We were talking about that subject and the class ended. He was speaking to another classmate of mine and I was also on the side just hearing the conversation out of curiosity and location. Professor Kim was saying how he doesn't know if his father really believes in God. He said that his father professes that he does believe in God and all, but then ones actions should follow as well, but he did not know for sure. Either way God was the final judge as Professor Kim said. God knows everything and all he could do was pray for God's mercy and saving grace for his father.

The next day, I get an email from Professor Kim and class is cancelled. The email further explained that he would be attending his father's funeral service in Korea so he would be absent for the next class. He would return the following week.

It just made me think of how God gives and takes away. After hearing what Professor Kim had said about his father merely a few hours before his father's death. Just crazy. The way Professor Kim handled himself through the email and all must have been just a glimpse of his feelings, but I felt like he could be relieved. Just the fact that we were talking about his father just prior to his death is just crazy. It might be freaky to many people and it sort of is to me, but anything divine is crazy.

We should all think and re-evaluate our lives and the lives we are connected with. Where do we stand in the eyes of God? Are we just bystanders or are we the ones deeply involved? When people view us, do they see the image of God? Are we walking the path of righteousness or are we drowning in wickedness? Do we think we're bigger than God?

That is why this post is titled, "Sovereignty of God."