Thoughts before WYD

This Monday, I leave for WYD (World Youth Day) - the mega catholic event happening in Sydney this year.

Before leaving, my thoughts centre around of course, my spiritual life - coz after all this is a spiritual event - a 'pilgrimage' they call it.

I ponder over the difference in the "feeling" of closeness of God - as there were times previously where I felt so close, that God was so real, and yet times where he seems really just like a notion that man creates. A false entity.

I also ponder over the purpose of myself. I can go into the "eternal" - and suddenly, life can be so meaningful, each day is a build up towards our meeting with God at the end of life. And yet, i can also go into the specific dissatisfactions I face in daily life - and wonder what's the meaning of it all -- like the perennial question "Why can't I be really happy?"

The point is - we can't be really happy all the time. Then I'll be like a kid - "But.. Why not?" And the idealism sets in... and it is really killing.

We want to be satisfied -- but we are not satisfied that JESUS is the answer to it all. So we search. WE search and deny that Jesus is the true source of life.

As St. Augustine says - My Heart is restless until it rests in you, O God.

Sometimes, we know it in the head. but in the heart,... we just can't accept it.

I can accept it logically - but i still feel the pain of the "longings" of this world - of a natural human person! -- of a normal person whether christian or not -- and so I wonder, is being a believer something so alien as opposed to not believing?

As much as I deny it -- the answer is yes.

Once you believe in Christ, the old is gone and the new has come.

Our minds, bodies, spirits are made new in Christ - we are transformed. As much as I deny being the new me, being a christian and wanna feel what it is like to be "free" without a religion... sometimes... that is just foolish thinking.

Why stop what God has already started in me? This life of renewal, life in Christ, wonderful future in Jesus?

And so i worry about life and future, and job and everything from head to toe, clothes, money, friends, status, etc etc etc.

Why do we worry?

And yet if I embrace Christ it seems like it's for the "Weak". I tell you... it is the "Weak" people who will worry about all the latter.

If we are strong in Christ, we have no worry. We are fearless. We have Victory. We have joy. We have the inward guidance of the Holy Spirit. We have Jesus. We have eternal life.

I am preaching to myself... so pardon me.

So ... much as I understand this, my heart is slower than my head. I hope that during my 2 weeks at the WYD over in Melbourne-Sydney... i will be able to be really renewed... mind, body, spirit....

To find a new direction.... to be confident in the things that I once believed strongly in...

To be a history maker... To be a revolutionary of love..

These things which excited me long ago - i want to be excited again...

Feelings of sadness to be overcome once and for all...

I wanna be a victor in Christ Jesus.