Faith

Without pausing to assess your highs and lows, it is impossible to celebrate what is working or honestly reckon with what needs to change. A case for building regular reflection into work, faith, and life.

Every domain of life — business, relationships, knowledge — moves faster when unnecessary resistance is removed. Identifying and eliminating friction is one of the highest-leverage moves toward greater effectiveness.

Each season brings a new set of priorities. Recently, I started to shift my attention from my priorities to understanding my faith calling (a.k.a. values).

As someone who personally struggles with leadership, whether it’s leading a bible study or making decisions in a startup, I’ve been inspired to keep the end in mind.

Our spiritual lives are heavily influenced by our physical and emotional well-being.

There have been many people who have inspired me through their words of encouragement. Words that motivated me to pursue coding, enter into entrepreneurship, and serve as a leader in my church.

Playing both mentor and mentee across work, church, and entrepreneurship, Eric reflects on why intentional investment in someone else changes both people in ways that only become visible in hindsight.

Marriage is not a contract or a romantic endpoint — it is a covenant, an imitation of the unconditional love God extended to His people even when they failed Him.

Growing out a man bun during quarantine became an unexpected lesson in faithfulness — the same small daily disciplines that keep hair healthy are what it takes to show up well at work and in life.

A bike ride past police officers became a window into the daily reality that Black friends carry, and it challenged a comfortable silence. Examining privilege and choosing to step toward justice and grace is a responsibility that does not stop at awareness.

Baking from scratch — cookies, pizza dough, homemade tortillas — becomes a window into how God views His creation: with the same pride and joy a maker feels for something poured into with care.

From surgery and job loss to quarantine and roommates moving out, a year of back-to-back transitions revealed one consistent source of peace: letting go of the need for control and trusting that God holds what you cannot.

Teaching is one of the fastest ways to move from knowing something in theory to truly understanding it — including the gaps you did not know you had.

Learning to express yourself authentically means shedding the image of who you think you should be and returning to the foundation of who God made you to be.

A prayer for lonely people — forgotten by the time the next day arrived — was answered anyway, a reminder that the power of prayer lives entirely in the One who hears it, not the one who says it.

Quarantine became an unexpected space for reckoning with years of slowly distancing from God by demanding explanations before trust. Relearning childlike faith — submitting what cannot be controlled — opened the door to a relationship that had grown too complicated to feel real.

Three weeks into quarantine, the pressure of uncontrollable change becomes a lesson in two things: receiving grace instead of measuring yourself against who you were before, and trusting that God is sovereign even when the season makes no sense.

When life spirals into chaos and relief feels out of reach, the practice of worship is not an escape from the storm — it is the anchor that holds you steady inside it.

Juggling the demands of early working life means learning what drains you, protecting the time you need to recharge, and trusting that God holds the season ahead even when it feels uncertain.

Daily devotions require a deliberate choice to block off time with God's Word — a practice that is easy to deprioritize but, when kept faithfully, produces fruit both inwardly and in how you love others.

Believing in God is one thing — actually living in freedom from the identity He gives you is another. A reflection on what it means to move truth from the head down into the heart.

A church retreat on calling clarified a core truth: each person is a finite expression of an infinite God, and faithfully stewarding the gifts, hardships, and passions He provides is how we prepare for greater responsibility.

A church fast becomes an unexpected catalyst for openness — turning a moment of hunger into a conviction to share faith with coworkers and head into a weekend retreat asking bigger questions about calling.

Eric sets his 2020 aspirations — 12 books, 12 posts, 4 ventures, and 2 speaking events — while anchoring the year in a theme of Focus and Rest, prioritizing faith over accomplishment.

How can we chase after pointless and empty dreams that lead to despair? Why do we mindlessly pursue after the many broken pieces in life that are insignificant — like grains of sand that struggle to fill the gaping hole of desire in our hearts — when there is a spring that brings about the living water of life which desires to completely engulf the darkness and fill us with peace, joy, hope, and love?

If anyone is able to turn people’s desires towards Him through reading the words of faith by others, it can only be Him

I’ve always approached listening to people to understand where they’re coming from.

I see my imperfection so clearly. Whether it’s maintaining friendships, finishing my work, cleaning my apartment, cooking meals for myself, following after God, or living life day by day, I see so many ways I couldn’t meet a certain standard. Things I should’ve improved on, but became after-thoughts that were never acted upon.

Prayer is our communication with God. As communication is important in any worldly relationship, prayer is important in our spiritual relationship with God. Many things can hurt or further grow our relationships: whether it’s having small talk, sharing a story or life update, telling about your day, fighting over a belief or value, or making amends and asking for forgiveness.

Free from guilt and experiencing freedom from guilt are two different things.

My last UTCS blog post—seven life lessons from college on journaling, saying no, building habits, community, and learning to be imperfect.

With all these thoughts on my mind, you can tell one of the hardest things I wrestle with during this 2-week period is knowing where my heart is at. The question I always have to ask is: What is my intention behind this fast?

What is the connection between personal relationship with God, vulnerability, and biblical community?

Do you ever feel selfish whenever you ask someone else to pray for you?

Confessing my pattern of saying yes to everything—cramming courses, hackathons, orgs, recruiting—and how a summer mission trip finally taught me to aim before I fire.

When I went up to Michigan in the middle of September, I was so excited! But something was wrong. Michigan holds a special place in my heart — a place where I think about friends, food, and memories. But nowhere during the time had I thought about Him. Jesus. God. The Father. The Creator.

Processing a season of busyness and the disorientation that comes with it—and why turning toward community instead of clinging to feelings is what reorients me.

As I returned from my mission trip up in Michigan at the end of summer, I felt unsure in what the future held for my church.

Shifting from shotgunning resumes at every booth to recruiting with intention—researching company values, culture, and mission to find a fit worth rooting into.

Coming back from a summer mission trip in Michigan with a new question—why do I do what I do?—and drafting my first lifetime vision statement.

The hardest struggle regarding my faith is making sure my intentions are clear — where is my heart at when I do something? Whether it’s worshipping, praying, or fellowshipping with others, I wrestle with being fully present in the moment and wholly dedicating my time to God.

This past Sunday, I went to a Christian benefits concert, Helping Hands, and I didn’t experience God.

This past summer, I spent time up in Michigan doing a missions trip, doing an after school program for a high school in the Southeast part of Detroit During that time, I was challenged a lot in my faith, facing faith-crises and working through many insecurities that God revealed in my life.

Back from two months of missions in Ann Arbor and Detroit, reuniting with Austin, and looking ahead to junior year with a season of investment.

EarthHack's Pick It Up project using computer vision, coding a Gmail API script for a church grad night video, and prepping for SWE and Gov exams.

If I, who claim to be a Christian, am timid when it comes to sharing my testimony with people of the same faith, how in the world am I able to share the story God wrote in my life to others?

Spring Break camping in Texas, winning the SXSW hackathon with Credit Writer, and a staycation with church friends.

A mid-college crisis at the career fair—choosing a mission trip over an internship, discovering a love for teaching through proctoring, and questioning whether the industry is really where I belong.

Algo problem-sets, Netflix finished early, SWE group coordination for Spring Break, and the decision to do missions instead of internships this summer.

Church retreat debt, tedious Algo proofs, interviewing a UTCS professor on OS research, and changing a fiction story from zombies to tribal artists.

Liquids week of the One-Desire fast, IM basketball while running on empty, and learning to treat spec changes like real industry pressure.

Week one of a One-Desire meat fast, finishing Collatz after 15 hours of wrong optimization, and writing four simultaneous blogs at once.

Five days of JavaScript30, designing a social dance app with microservices, and a spiritual fast from YouTube and social media.