Only God.

Psalm 127

"Unless The Lord builds the house,
The builders labor in vain.
Unless The Lord watches over the city,
The guards stand watch in vain.

In vain you rise early
And stay up late,
Toiling for food to eat -
For he grants sleep to those he loves.

Children are a heritage from The Lord,
Offspring a reward from him.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in ones youth.

Blessed is the man
Whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
When they contend with their opponents in court."

I have such a bad tendency of picking up all these responsibilities and putting extra stress on myself. But whatever I'm doing, if I am building up something for myself, it's never gonna work. Everyday is a battle between the self. I feel like with all the things are happening in life, as much as I tell God I want to cling on to him, I start to resort to my own strength failing to realize only God grants anything to those he loves.

I've been feeling a load of stress lately because I have too many things on my plate once again. It's causing me to e anxious, it's hard for me to focus, and I get headaches because of it. I'm not doing any good to myself but at the same time, I ask why I even do this to myself.

God, today I trust and commit this day unto you. With all the stress and work I'm putting myself through, it's in vain if you are not the center of it all. Only you grant me peace, only you can grab Ke rest, and only I can be blessed by You. So today, would you please guide me and help me every step of the way because I cannot do this on my own.

THIS is what Nyack is about.

I've been working at Nyack College for 11 months already and this morning, the director walks into the office and calls the admissions team and registrars office in for a prayer meeting. She said she couldn't sleep last night because she was so stressed out by the pressure of the goals we have to reach. Because we are stressed are in a bad mood, we serve our students in a bad way. There are many times, I get frustrated at the work environment, especially because we are Christian but don't act like it in the workplace. I get angry at the team I am apart of because many times, it seems like our focus is lost and we are focusing on the business aspect of everything instead of investing into the future students of the school.

Times like these make it worth it for me to work here because it brought the whole team back to it's original purpose and focuses us on who the real leader of this team is, which is Christ. He's the only one that can sustain us and help us in our stressful work environment. Hearing their honest prayers really blessed me and made my day and I hope that the leaders of the office will continue this all the time. One coworker says that they used to pray at the beginning of the day all the time in the office, but we've strayed a long way from it. After the small prayer time we had, I said to myself, "Now THIS is what Nyack is about." This is what truly keeps us holy and set apart.

During small group at night, we read Psalms 3 and verse 5 stuck out to me. "I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me."

God sustains us, always, even in the work place. Thank you, God.

Keep God First

In regards to ministry and doctrine scripture alone is our guideline. We go not to tradition or culture to decide how we run our churches or bible studies. As soon as we do that we start to replace the higher ways of God for human methodology. this leads us down a slippery slope towards relativism and a gospel that isn't a gospel.

Claudette

On my way to work this morning, I was on the train figuring out what songs to sing for this Sunday. I had a list of Christian songs right in front of me. Right after I put it away, the lady right next to me asked if those were Christian songs I was looking at and I said yes, I'm preparing for this Sundays worship. We had a nice little conversation regarding our work, our faith, our church. It was nice to see people randomly sparking conversation with another sister in Christ. She said she'd visit EMC sometime or the school. If every Christian just took the time to spark conversations with people and make people's day, how would life look like?

Second Semester OVER!

Second semester is over! Whoah, this semester has definitely been different from the first. The first semester was overwhelming, but this semester was even more overwhelming. The two classes that really hit me the most was my Marriage and Family Counseling course and Group Dynamics class. I've learned so much about myself in that class, did a whole bunch of self-reflection and I was just doing too much overanalyzing. I learned a lot about the patterns that went on in my family and how that had affected me from childhood until now. I learned about people.

"Hurt people hurt people" & "nobody does nothing for no reason" were some quotes that stuck out to me throughout the semester. Classes like these help me to really understand people. Most of all, I enjoyed the classes so much because the professors were professional and they loved what they taught, it was so evident through their lifestyles. These are professors I would love to continue to learn from and keep in touch with in the future. I must say, I'm really enjoying what I'm learning. God is good. And despite all the distractions that prevented me from studying in excellence this semester, God has much grace on me and blessed me with all As. I don't deserve it for sure, but God is good. I want to learn so much, I want to read so much, I want to absorb so much but I haven't even digested half the things I learned the past two semesters. I wish everyone was learning what I was learning!