{"id":218,"date":"2006-05-30T00:33:41","date_gmt":"2006-05-30T00:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/?p=218"},"modified":"2006-05-30T00:33:41","modified_gmt":"2006-05-30T00:33:41","slug":"american-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/?p=218","title":{"rendered":"American Citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is certain that I'll leave this country. Only because I have no reason to stay. God has shown me what I needed to see. Things that I don't need to come to America to see. But I came anyway, yet God showed me still, because of His mercy upon me.<\/p>\n<p>If I stay, whatever I do, even God's work, would only make me a entrepreneurial businessman, a successful one, happy, surrounded by caring and loving family. Businessman? Never was my dream. Surrounded by happy family? Yes. I wanted a researcher's life too. A  scientist, with a love and caring family. A christian one. In fact, I wanted to do everything that came to mind, in addition to anything God has commanded me since youth. &quot;No one can do everything, no one can learn everything&quot;, my father once warned me when I was perhaps under 10. I was so eager to learn and gain the source of everything that I failed to see my own pride. I wanted all knowledge, not money, but the knowledge and power of obtaining money. I never had interest in money, only the interest of having anything I need at a snap of my fingers. The phrase &quot;Knowledge is Power&quot; had sunken me into oblivion with pride. My mother had once given me to God since my birth. What lies ahead I do not know. But I have come this far under His grace, how could I resist? There are enough of His servants here and they like it here. Many still will come. My calling has been to those who dare not preach. Even since I was young. I have no pride in this, for I am neither looking for a highway suicide. But perhaps the path that God lays ahead for me is something far worse than a suicide mission, yet such cross will be my glory, forever and ever.<\/p>\n<p>[@more@]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is certain that I'll leave this country. Only because I have no reason to stay. God has shown me what I needed to see. Things that I don't need to come to America to see. But I came anyway, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/?p=218\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nycphantom.com\/journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}