Okay, here's to Blogspot. My first "official" post I guess.

Preface: The other 3 previous entries I don't consider official because I posted them from certain times and certain experiences while not really making this blogspot public to those I know that use it. So this post is "officially" the first post. That's not to take away from those first 3 posts. They pretty much show what kinda blogger I am. But the thing I love about blogging is it shows progress ... not so much in my writing (though I think it does actually), but in my growth as a follower of Christ ... to see year after year how crappy/disgusting/poop like! I am and how awesomely/fearfully/lovingly big our God is. Anyway, enough with this "preface." I think I'm going to steal Justin's idea and kinda sub heading/title each paragraph.

Blah: Hello, my name is Jon Lau. I guess that's my official name here at Baylor University (according to my ID card). I think blogspot (at least this particular one) will serve as a good tool for recapping my college experience ... all the highs, lows, confusions, joys, hurts, sorrows, laughter, etc. I'll try to keep it up to date as I don't know if I'll ever stop using xanga ... After all it has posts ranging from my high school year to this point. I value those posts very highly as it shows growth that only God can take credit for. I hope that I will be able to use this in the same way ... So that when I am a confused 22-23 year old college graduate, I will be able to look back on this site for encouragement, recanting of memories, preaching to self ... who knows. Btw, I'm very very verbose/wordy. I like to use the parenthesis to paraphrase what I mean and I like to do run-on sentences to further express what is meant.

As of today: I am about 8/10 done with my first year of college. God has growed me quite a bit here in ways that still confuse me into laughter. Whether it be His 180ing of pretty much everything, His comforting/instill peace/rebuking/showing his mercy through busting me from His word, or the people He has brought into my life, I do thank Him. Some days are tough. Some nights I feel like I'm the only one fighting this battle for truth (namely the truth that Bible tells of). I am confused on quite a bit of things. I still ramble/rant/preach way too much on such blogging posts. But it's who I am. I'm very much concerned where I'm headed with this life given to me, but I more often than not go with the "do your best with the opportunities given you and whatever happens happens" philosophy. After all, God will get done what He in His timelessness intends to get done. I honestly fail at the first part of my statement though. I should deeper into that.

Life's gotten a lot worse ... since becoming a Christian. Worse only in the sense of circumstantially/wordly. But I wouldn't trade the nights of despair and angst, the days of sorrow, or the moments of all my pride getting destroyed for anything. In the end, it's these moments that have grown me and led to the cross and repentance. I wouldn't understand joy without such experiences. I look forward to the awesome things God will continue to do.

The thing I struggle with most with: Pride. Once the Holy Spirit convicts me of it and busts me when dwelling in it, I find myself completely broken for I see the true state of the wicked heart of man (when I look in the mirror). And once I repent and God forgives, I find it incredibly frustrating to find myself back at the barren land of pride shortly after (if not the day or 2 after). It's a sick cycle. I believe it happens to all in some way or other and I believe it's what ultimately is what the entire Bible shows humanity to be ... A rebellious, adulterous, broken people whoring around with man-made gods. We'll run from God even though He's the only one who proves to be good, the Holy Spirit will convict us of our sin, point us back to the cross and we'll either repent and humiliatingly run back to God only to become self-righteous and repeat the whole process again or we'll prove that our hearing of the Word had no root ... expressed through the telling of ourselves that we're good enough without God, and thus reject Him. Pride I believe is universal and Luke 1:51 fearfully explains why there are some who don't even see their own pride. All struggle with pride. And the tricky thing about pride is that the moment you say you're humble/not prideful, John 3:20 nails humanity to the tee.

Vindicated: Thank God for Jesus ... Or shall I say ... Thank God the Father for sending His Son, Jesus ... haha. I'll make a separate post on this word "Vindicated."

Concluding Thoughts: I believe this post summarizes me fairly well. I'll go into an entry trying not to type too much and end up ranting what I've been learning.

Grace and Peace: I doubt I'll continue with this sub heading/title thing but I figured it'd make this first post look nice and neat. Anyway ... Here's to the glory of God through the teaching/reproofing/correcting/training ... rebuking/loving/ from God to college Jon Lau.