"fear is a lie"

when i was younger i used to wear this shirt that said "No Fear"...and yees, that is me a la izquierda...and yees, i was a wee bit chubster back then...dun be jealous! anyway, let's talk about fear slash no fear.

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding."

colossians 1:9

my people, i, too, want to know the knowledge of His will, because i am more than thoroughly convinced that I am definitely in the middle of a lesson learned. 

you will probably remember 'essay time,' especially since it was only written two days ago...which is good since this is basically part two.

SO, the day is sunday, and i'm coming home early in the morning to go to church. i'm taking BART back with my homey, who just so happened to be present at la burrita during said events of 'essay time,'  and when we're waiting for the bart train, these four gangsters come over and start messing with us. basically they're like "where you from..." "i know you can't be from berkeley cause I am from berkeley" etcetchera etcetchera... so when the train comes they don't get into the same car as us so i'm like "whoo, relief" so we go sit down in these seats that i thought would be safe, since there were a lot of people in that area. but...negatchory. they come into our car and surround us and start messing with us. one of them sits in front of me, turns around and like puts his hand on the lump my cell phone is making in my jeans pocket and i'm like "it's over, i'm dead and in heaven." then one of them goes to my friend and is like "what you got in your pockets" and he starts jiggling his belt as if he got a gun stashed under there...and the true azn gangster i'm with says "nothing for you" in an excellently intimidating tone that would've made me laugh under any other circumstance.  luckily*, all of this is going down right as we're about to pull into the next station, so we get up and go to leave. then one of them puts his hand into my butt pocket and grabs my wallet...and i really should've let him just take it, but instead i like turned around said "excuse me" and yanked the wallet back...oh man i could've just died. so we get off the train and i'm pretty surprised they don't follow us.  so we're unscathed, but i'm mildly/very shaken up and like "what the why............it's only 8:30...the gangsters should be getting they rest right about now!" so to wrap up this juicy anecdote, we make it back into the city all safe and sound, and we're physically unhurt afterwards...the whole situation ended much better than i thought it could've.

so what are the chances that mastersamuel has encounters with shady characters twice in one weekend?!?! especially when they've never happened befo'? i don't know the chances, but i do know that it happened on purpose. see...i was supposed to meet my friend at a bus stop to catch the bus to the bart station, but i took too long to, i dunno, put on my contacts, so i made us miss that bus...if we had made it, would we have eluded said almost-mugging? i'm not sure.

but anyway, when we got off the bart train we waited for the next one and i'm standing next to this pillar where someone graffitied the phrase "fear is a lie" next to this telephone. 

and i'm just like......"WHAT MY WORD!" definitely, without a doubt, a sign. and then i remember, from teaching this verse like three summers at kcdc:

"do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the lord your god will be with you wherever you go" joshua1:9b

such truths! God was def with us...for one, we didn't actually get mugged (although it felt like we did), we got out safely, and God definitely allowed me to learn from this situation. 

so was God teaching me just to not fear...to face a frikkin scary sitch and in the middle of that, feel no fear? that's kinda difficult, yo. but again, i'm not sure...i'm asking Him to reveal his will to me...see what he wants me to take from this. 

cause i'm pretty sure there could be other lessons taken from this incident.

afterwards, i was definitely glad i was with somebody...and during the rest of our trip back home i tried to put us in the middle of a lot of people...is God emphasizing the importance of company to me? the security when you can surround yourself in others?

or is he teaching me a lesson about blending in...when we were alone in the bart station we were easy targets...the only ones there (except for this one homegirl on a bike, who i thought would stick with us so we could stay safe in numbers...but instead she bounced once she saw the gangStarz....which is a good thing i guess because i was semi-tempted to thieve her bike and get out of there with a quickness)....but if we hid amongst others we'd def be safe. is god saying: when you were alone and exposed and vulnerable you def went through some hardships, and a difficult and uncomfortable experience, but in the end you learned from it and you came out of this tribulation stronger...but when you bury yourself in the crowd and hide behind others, sure you'll be comfortable and safe but you won't learn through experience...?

i'm not sure. 

all i know, is that it was one KLAYZIE weekend and God deserves some surrrious praise for taking us through it safely. oooh to the whee....things be crazy!

if i experience a third strike in this Showdown Series, imma transfer! berkeley you one crazy place!

*however, i'm fairly convinced it wasn't luck. it was g-o-d in a-c-t-i-o-n.