Struggling faith

Am in the midst of one of those seemingly 'pressing' seasons. The upcoming mission trip has understandably been taking a huge chunk of my thoughts. Assignments have just had to occupy whatever that's left.

Due to the mission trip, my prayer life has been greatly challenged(an area that I sense the Lord wanted to work on since the beginning of this year). There has been moments when I find myself arguing with God, pleading with Him and just bringing my worries to Him. I have been joyful, distressed, afraid, discouraged, hopeful, filled with faith at times and yet hopeless at other times in the last few weeks. One of my young people who has also been contemplating another trip mentioned to me that she marvelled that I was so seemingly sure of what I wanted. I told her- if only she knew the struggle that's within. I was so discouraged at some points and have just wanted to give up and call the whole thing off. Last week was just one of those times.

One of the few things that keeps me going is that during the lowest period, I see God intervening - through friends and family, through His Word. Without all these things, I seriously do not think that I'd keep on keeping on. I was also challenged when one of my young friends from CUG shared about her mission trip to Cambodia last week. She shared about how God challenged her prayer life - how sometimes it's been so easy to pray and just walk away. This resonated something within. I realised then how afraid I've been to ask God for what I really wanted in fear of being disappointed. There has been times lately when I've just prayed and my faith has been so small. There has been times when I've wondered if He'd answer especially when my prayers have been coloured by doubts. However, I've come to the conclusion that this struggle I have is not a bad thing. Deep inside, I've been needing a huge challenge to my faith for a while now. The last main one was the challenge of coming to seminary and coping through the first semester.

On another note, assignments have not been taking as much priority as I'd like it to at the moment. I was lamenting to one of my girlfriends earlier this afternoon- I worry that I don't seem to be worried about assignments and its deadlines these days(compared to the first semester where I was literally terrified). Some days, I find my attitude towards assignments this semester rather worrying - somehow it's been a struggle to give 100% to my assignments instead of just going through the motions to meet the course requirements. *sigh* I really hate that. I wish that I feel that I'm learning something instead of doing it just for the sake of doing it. Of course it's not like this for all the subjects, but it's just a general feeling for most of my subjects.