Oh What a Waste: Before "I Kissed a Girl" there was...

God has given every single one of us talents, gifts, things that we are naturally good at. Do we use it to garner personal fame and money? Or maybe we buried it up somewhere in the backyard? Oh what a waste if they're not used to glorify Him and serve His people! Here we'll look into people, things or events that went awry or in some cases, under-appreciated and overlooked to be of use or could've been used in the Kingdom of God.

I know my title sounds a little AHEM, but hey(!), it certainly got your attention, right? :] Nah i've not kissed a girl or anything like that, plus my first kiss went to my grandma on her 85th birthday (BUT it's not on the lips kay!). So what is it?

Ever heard of Katy Perry?

If you're a staunch non-secular song listener, then most probably not. However if you're not, then you would've heard her songs on the local stations, or in my case, my sister's playlist. So here's the explanation of the title. "I Kissed a Girl" was the song that shot this lady to fame in the modern music world. Now before "I Kissed a Girl" there was, "Trust in Me"; before Katy Perry, there was Katy Hudson, a christian songwriter, singer and an awesome guitarist.

You could check youtube out for the above two songs. An "oh-what-a-waste" thought might come to your mind, and following that a couple of judgmental thoughts, now stop (i'm not here to bring your attention to her so we can all judge her together but rather to learn and examine our own lives). Now let us examine ourselves. If you're young adult (like me, yay! :D), you would've probably seen a bit of the world, thru whatever the means, TV, mags, friends, internet, etc. It really is full of glitz and glamour. And it's really enticing, the promises of fame, fortune and pleasure.

Have you ever felt kinda strapped up, as if confined by some moral obligations that you once thought you cherished?

Katy Hudson is born and raised by conservative pastor parents. Well, it was said in many online sources that she was only allowed to listen to gospel music but meh, i found them rather baseless. Anyway, watching a couple of her vids online testifying before her live performances, it seem to me her faith was genuinely her own, not like she was living off her parents' faith. Look, we are living in an age of declining morality, what she faced then is probably not much different than what we are facing today, whatever her faith went through, ours' will too, unless you're living in an isolated monastery far far away from civilization.

One of the things that struck me as i was reading bout her was that living off convictions is simply not enough, sure they are essential and all but in times whereby your faith is on the brink, it's kinda the last thing you want to think of. Depending on where you are right now in your walk with God, you could either feel that convictions are like seatbelts in a car, protecting you from a spiritual wreckage or you could feel that they are straps to an electric chair, strapping your "freedom" to certain death, how dreadful eh!

I guess it was a wake up call to me to go back to the basics, building up that relationship with God, spend time with Him daily in an un-ritualistic manner and stick it hard with Him in times of temptation and even if i fail, keep going at it. So God help me and grant me grace to live right for Him!

p.s: here's an embed youtube of her song.