Have you ever found yourself asking this question to God? Have you ever prayed enough for your desires, did the work, and all the necessary steps to turn a desire into a pursuit bearing fruit but waited long enough on God to discover that is either a no or wait answer? There’s a quote that says, “Desire is the root of suffering” and as human as we are, our hearts yearn for something more than about ourselves.

The culture of instant gratification has been rampant in this new millennium as we live in a age of rapid technological advancement. Everything shifted into having faster systems from day-to-day operations in our homes and in the communities, we belong to. If you’re born in the late 80s to 90s, we are the sandwich generation of living a colorful childhood filled with the rise of technology and entering adulting life with the innovative impact of internet on how we live our lives today where information is not confined to library shelves; it is now at our fingertips, accessible through a device.

With this radical change in how our society moves, fast and efficient, our capacity to wait has also been affected, perhaps more on emotional and mental aspects. Who wants to wait anyway? The longest waiting period I’ve ever been was that 21-day quarantine period in 2021 during COVID when I was locked up in a hotel room. I was battling covid that time but the hardest battle was more on the mental and emotional side. I had no one to talk to; it was literally excruciating for me as someone who loves to converse with people.

It was a transformative experience and I’ve gained deeper appreciation for life more after I got cleared of covid. Another great lesson was those days in quarantine were not wasted as it was one of the deepest encounters I had with God. I had brought my Bible and journal with me to keep my sanity intact which I later on realized, more than the mental and emotional, the greatest battle was the spiritual.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  

-Ephesians 6:12

Waiting is definitely a game changer. It builds our character more before our prayers are being answered. Three of my core passions and pursuits are Faith, Fitness, and Fashion.

This blog was only a vision back in 2024 and I waited for two years for it to be solidified into what it is now. A vision where I can tell stories of my life philosophy and how my faith in Jesus affects the other two pursuits. Faith is the central and core of what I do and this blog is one of my altars of worship to the One who had given me this desire to build this. During those two years of waiting, I did my part and put in the work, waited patiently but life happens, there are things that are simply not meant to continue and that’s totally okay. It teaches us valuable lessons to uphold and healthy boundaries to navigate, after all no matter how we try to push things our ways, God’s will prevail. All gratitude and respect I hold now for that season. It was more of a humbling experience. One of the primary reasons this blog exists is my heart’s desire to exercise my creativity and leadership capacity.

First time Facilitator for BTLR 2022

I’ve always wanted to serve in leadership in our church ministries but the opportunity for me isn’t there yet. I’ve been active volunteering in B1G Ministry since 2022 but I chose to step away in 2024 after accomplishing my commitments in the singles ministry of our church for I knew my heart wasn’t in the right place. My intentions weren’t glorifying and honoring to God as bitterness and resentment were crippling my eyes to focus on Jesus as I was focused on other leaders and volunteers and deep in me there’s that thought “I can do better”.

It was self-absorbed of me and a call out on myself realizing that comparison and pride were taking root in my heart, it wasn’t about serving God anymore, it was that desire to be noticed and perform, the glorification of self. I was crying out on to God: “How can others have that privilege and here I am chasing something that is clearly not Your will? I want it Lord but I know can serve You and others without being in the leadership circle nor a title.

BTLR 2022

(6) Don’t demand an audience with the king or push for a place among the great.

(7) It’s better to wait for an invitation to the head table
    than to be sent away in public disgrace.

Just because you’ve seen something,

(8)  don’t be in a hurry to go to court.
       For what will you do in the end if your neighbor deals you a shameful defeat?

Proverbs 25:6-8

From 2025 to the present, I’ve made it my goal to focus on what’s essential: Discipleship.

Not knowing God allowed this blog to exist this year, it’s a perfect avenue that I get to channel my creative energy, vision, and voice as the platform God meant for me to serve and exercise my leadership skills was never bound into the corners of our church community alone, it was beyond it as this blog is meant to cater for those who seek stories, reflections on faith and find it. I’ve realized that when we constantly chase things with the self-seeking intentions and apart from what God intended, it will only lead to downward spiral of disappointments and bitterness because God freely gives and reveal His will when we rest on Him. Abiding on Him rather than chasing fleeting pursuits.

I am content to the platforms God has given me now and that serving Him is a privilege whether it is personal initiatives or inside the corners of the church. Faith in motion is finding ways to serve and honor God with what He has already given us. Leadership is measured in one’s faithfulness especially in the unseen and I am deeply grateful for the satisfaction to where He had led me now.

"I am deeply grateful that God has been teaching me to channel my desire for leadership toward the platforms He has entrusted to me. He has also opened my eyes to the gift He has given me to create platforms that bring people together and integrate others into His purposes, rather than pursuing influence simply for the sake of being seen or recognized."

Early days of my fitness journey. I've really prayed about on getting a gym membership for I started taking action of this pursuit in Bakal gyms.

The pursuit of building strength, muscle, and my desired physique in my fitness journey has taught me that patient endurance and waiting gracefully is part of the process. Building my body for function and longevity has taught me that it takes time for my body to grow and build the strength, discipline, and consistency. I started taking this journey seriously in the fourth quarter of 2020. The attitude of showing up in the gym has allowed me to overcome my fear of judgment and face my deepest insecurities on both internal and external attributes. Signing up for a gym membership was an answered prayer in the middle of the pandemic.

I patiently waited for that moment for ever since early childhood to teenage years; I had hidden this desire to work out and hit the gym for I experienced the kind of environment where expressing your desires are being downplayed by other people.

"I realized as I grow older, those downplayed moments I had received from others were more of a reflection of themselves and their limiting beliefs."

It’s hard to navigate that kind of environment where being ambitious as I am and curious of pursuits, being downplayed and discouraged because of one’s opinions were something I had to heal and unlearn.

As I waited on the opportunity to arise even when I started making money, I had to constantly wait and prayed consistently for this pursuit if this desire was God’s will all along. I really wanted to do this for myself and not to prove and get back on those who did downplay and discouraged me. I am grateful I had to go through that season for I had learned that you have to know what you really want to pursue because if not, somebody or someone will dictate it for you but it comes with a cost and waiting for the right timing is one.

6 years of hitting the gym has brought more internal transformation for me. It started with the goal to look and be strong like Jeff Nippard (still at present) but more than the masculine beauty, aesthetics, function, and other external intentions, I’ve got to love more this pursuit for it really taught me to be more curious, grounded, open minded, consistent, and patient to appreciate the small wins and focus more on the showing up attitude than the initial intent to achieve a physique like Nippard’s.

At present, October 9, 2026 at 75kg!!! Gainssssss!!! 😁😎😗

That young boy in me is joyful and fulfilled as he saw and inspired by Tobey Maguire’s transformation in Spiderman 2002 in his mirror scene feeling jacked after being bitten by the spider. That scene planted the desire in me to build physical strength as I grew up, apart from the reason that I was a bullied child. I’ve got to really resonate with his character and even up to this day, spiderman is still my favorite superhero character.

A small seed of desire as a young boy now I am deeply grateful of living that dream in putting the work to get stronger as I navigate this adult life. More than pursuing an active lifestyle, I am delighted that hitting the gym consistently has fully integrated in my system as more of a habit that I get to enjoy, focusing on showing up more than the desired goal. I can see myself doing this for a lifetime. Working out brings me joy that I find it more than a physical pursuit but more of an internal therapy for my soul and spirit.

“but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”

– 1 Corinthians 9:27

Creating beauty through Fashion has helped me stay curious and driven to build something valuable that brings joy and delight to others. Fashion became one of my earliest outlets to express my vision and creativity. I find it natural for me to be drawn and attracted to beauty, aesthetics, and style. It’s like an oxygen to me as it feeds the curiosity I have towards connection, emotions, intuition, and discernment on how one defines what is beautiful. Fashion is like a vessel where I get to pour in to people who find what I do valuable to them.

My pursuit in fashion has taught me to wait for God’s timing, in my attempts to speed up the progress in my career and life, before the Gospel was shared with me in June of 2019, I consulted a tarot reader, once in April/May of 2019. It was born more out of curiosity and a desire to control the outcome, to make things happen the way I wanted them to. Yet in God’s mercy and grace, He did not spare me from facing the consequences of those choices. I had to confront the spiritual oppression that followed.

But even there, God met me with His mercy. Through the powerful name of Jesus, I was delivered from what had taken hold of me and redeemed from the consequences of my disobedience. What I once approached out of curiosity became a deeper reminder that there is no freedom in trying to control what belongs in God’s hands.

Practicing divination goes against God and it became the clearest manifestation of my impatience towards God. Today it is packaged in the forms like “manifesting”, “law of attraction”, “feng-sui”, and the likes more of the new age movement. I had been keenly tempted to dwell on these things, something magical aspect of the unseen, as I get to see it being presented harmless on how people who practice it seems to prosper materially fast but I know deep in me it has corresponding consequences and it is explicitly rebellion against God.

“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there. For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling, or use sorcery, or interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord. It is because the other nations have done these detestable things that the Lord your God will drive them out ahead of you. But you must be blameless before the Lord your God. The nations you are about to displace consult sorcerers and fortune-tellers, but the Lord your God forbids you to do such things.”

-Deuteronomy 18:9-14

If you had been doing it, I’m not here to judge or condemn you. I pray for you and with you and there’s a way out only through Jesus. Consulting a tarot reader once was a wakeup call on me that I wasn’t walking by faith, that I was trying to be in control of my future, that it highly exposed my impatience to wait on God. It was my pride, envy, covetousness, and comparison towards my peers that why they seem to prosper and here I am still on my waiting and building seasons. My eyes were focused on myself and of others rather than on Jesus. The attempt to foretell and know the future or manufacture the outcomes based on my desired direction for my career is blatantly telling God that my plans are better than His. The counterfeit offers the enemy tries to deceive us in these practices will only lead us to destruction and separation from God.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly.”

-John 10:10

I find comfort and peace in God’s Word and His promises to me. I wouldn’t trade His presence for the fleeting and temporary comforts of the material when it is achieved on the methods that are opposed to His laws and principles. The God I serve is the most powerful and being redeemed of the blood of Jesus, I find rest on His Spirit to comfort me when I get confronted of my desire to control and my impatience to wait for His promises to unfold.

I’ve realized, it’s better to bring our desires before God daily for He isn’t surprised on it anyway. He knows, He sees.

It takes a child-like attitude and faith to be emotionally naked on our Abba Father. With all the shortcomings and my attempts to control and manufacture results based on my liking, it’s humbling to experience a foretaste of His promise that I once had a fashion studio of my dreams and now I still get to do my passion for fashion as my bread and butter after pandemic and even when I did things my own way before and now being guided by Him and surrendering to Him that I know His promise on me for this business is abundant life according to His riches and glory. I rest on His faithfulness that this season of constant building will eventually lead to an abundant harvest in His time.

Devotion and Dominion Collection

“It is the blessing of the Lord that makes rich, And He adds no sorrow to it.”

-Proverbs 10:22

God’s blessings are truly meant to bless us not merely for our own enjoyment, but to point us back to Him, the Giver of every good and perfect gift. What the enemy offers may appear lucrative, appealing, and promising to the eyes, but it can never truly satisfy. What seems like an opportunity can ultimately become a snare when it draws our hearts away from God.

Only God can satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts. For the enemy’s goal is never to give life, but to steal, kill, and destroy, to deceive God’s children and pull them away from His presence and purposes.

But what comes from God carries a different kind of blessing: one that does not require us to compromise our obedience, lose our peace, or distance ourselves from Him. His blessing draws us closer to the One who gives it.

Behind the waiting, I’ve learned deeply to rejoice and celebrate with others in their harvest seasons for we never know what’s caused them behind the scenes, their sacrifices, tears, failures, and heartbreaks for them to achieve where they are now. It is to simply care and celebrate with them with no judgment and prejudice. To extend love and compassion.

Behind the waiting, I’ve learned to deal with my insecurities, envy, and biases, to simply see people from the lens of gratitude, inspiration, collaboration, and appreciation, for only God can tell what is genuine from the counterfeit.

Behind the waiting, I’ve learned most to depend and trust Jesus whenever I lose hope or find myself doubting. For in waiting, God sharpens our hearts to rely on His presence more than the blessings He brings.

Whatever you are waiting on God for, career advancement, a relationship status, a home, health concerns, financial matters or perhaps growth in life holistically, know that the life Jesus brings is full of abundant peace, love, and joy. I assume you’ve asked yourself: “When will it be my turn?” The kind of security and satisfaction of knowing that Jesus alone know the beginning and the end, I am content and proactively pursuing what He already had given me. No more chasing, but waiting and believing that one’s turn arrives daily in the ordinary moments of actively pursuing His will and His ways.

Desires, after all, are not the root cause of suffering. Desire is good when surrendered to the One who knows the deepest longings of our hearts.

Maybe the answer isn't to want less, but to want Him more.

To chase Jesus above all else and trust Him with everything else.

 Sealing this with love,

FROI

#DoulosDos