I HAVE ONLY BEEN SECOND HONOR IN GRADE 1.

Yes. I have only been second-honor in grade 1. After that, I promised myself to work hard to always achieve the top spot. And I did. I graduated valedictorian and was at the top of the class even in my first year of high school.

Until I was pushed to transfer to Pisay (Philscie) in my second year. It was hard. It was like jumping from the ground floor to the fifth floor and catching up with a lot of basics I wasn’t able to learn coming from a different school. There, I met a lot of minds better than mine. There, I saw I wasn’t the best. And there, I saw I wasn’t the most intelligent.

I did poorly in my second year. So I crumbled–lost all confidence and questioned my capabilities. I lost my passion for studying, my drive to become excellent. I shrunk to mediocrity and accepted nga bugo ko.

I carried this mentality until college and even carried the pain of defeat for a long, long time. I did not do good in college. I was always late, absent in class, and studied major exams just hours before the exam. Receiving exam results was always painful, hangtod nangubal nalang ko sa sakit.

For a time, I really felt unfortunate and blamed the Pisay move.

“If I had not moved to Pisay, I would have been a different person” “I would have been more confident” “My progress would have been continuous” “Perhaps I may have graduated with flying colors”…

It was years of regret until my knowledge of God increased.

When I started to have a relationship with GOD, I started to see things from a different perspective.

I was too self-confident when I was younger. I looked down on people. I did not want to be second. I always wanted to be first. Had I not transferred to Pisay, who knows how difficult it would be to tame my prideful spirit?

I realized that sometimes our defeats are often God’s providences so that He could write humility in our hearts. Though in the eyes of men we look like losers, but these losses are our teachers, refining the i am in us, so that the I AM could have His rightful space.

PRIDE is such a fearful foe that in its face, our defeats become blessings. They plunge us back to humility.

The triumph of Jericho is not the only win, the defeat in Ai also is.

SELF is a sneaky enemy. One moment of losing sight of Jesus allows self to creep, and sometimes, we don’t realize we were already engulfed by covetousness.

We always want to be richer than the others so that people would not look down on us. But once we become rich, there would always be people richer than us, so we desire to have more.

We always want to be better than the others, but there would always be people better than us, so we desire to be much better, or we shrink down at the thought of not being the best.

Truth is, this struggle never ends until self becomes dead.

Well, we never learned from history. Solomon was already at the pinnacle of all the things we ever desired. He was the best, in everything. But at the pinnacle of his success, he saw everything as vanity. Everything was vanity for a man who had everything.

An eye single to His glory.

Perhaps, this is what we need. When we compare ourselves with others to please the world, there will always be unrest.

Others may say, maypa siya, nakastudy sa US.. But the reality is akoy pinakabugo diri.. murag kog bata di kabalo unsay buhaton sa lab. I am struggling to finish my dissertation. Moreover, my money is just enough for my food and daily living.

We were never advised to look at people. We were just told to look to Jesus. The goal is not to become the best among others, but the best like Jesus.

An eye single to His glory. Best like Jesus.

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee..”

I am writing this to remember what I am learning here. My defeats are my spiritual victories. When I go back to the Philippines, I want to remember my lowest points, so that I will never forget that there is nothing in me that ever made me successful. It is what the Lord has done and can do for me that has given me and will give me success.

Being humble is hard. But workable… and, possible in Jesus.

Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.

Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.

Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever.Psalm 131