Today was an amazing experience. It started in the morning at 7:30, when my brother and I went to eat an early breakfast to catch the bus. The bus left shortly after 8am, after everyone had been divided into groups with leaders. One of the buses was for jr high students, and the other was for us older folk.

The hike itself was long and difficult. Just a few minutes in, many of us were already breathing heavily from the steep incline. As we slowly moved higher and higher, our hearts began to thump harder, and we were easily lightheaded. A few times on the way up I had a headache. Many people turned back before reaching the top, but we eventually made it up after quite sometime. The whole hike took hours.

If I were to appear on the Simpsons, this is what I would look like when wearing church clothes, and in normal clothes.

Devotion notes and thoughts:

2 Samuel 10

Bad things happen with people listen to bad advice.

Isaiah 28

Woe to Ephraim

1 Peter 1

for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Christians should rejoice in the face of trials because they help them test the authenticity of their faith.

1 Peter 2

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth."When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed."

Recently, I watched Spike Lee's interpretation of the life of Malcolm X in his film of the same name. Though sympathetic to his story and cause, the film does not ignore the hypocrisy that plagued the Nation of Islam's leadership. Elijah Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam and one of the leaders in the Black Muslim movement, was discovered to be having many affairs with the women working for him, and this caused Malcolm X to question many of the things he previously stood for and leave the Nation of Islam.

Though I don't share Malcolm's beliefs, it's important to remember that Jesus led the blameless life he call all of us to live, and practiced all the hard teachings that he preached.