sickness hath overcome me

Tonight I'm just going to stay in bed all night, read my book and take my monster horse pills every 4 hours.

Woohoo.

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found

Today was the first day of the mission conference at DCCC. Our speaker rev. Brian Newton gave us 3 promises of god and 3 words of encouragement that might bring us into a closer relationship with our God. Among the 6, one of them was this:

We can never be so isolated that God cannot find us.

The speaker emphasized the importance of having personal encounters with God.. being intimately close with him. And then praying earnestly for others to experience His holy presence as well. There's another meaning for me..

My heart swells knowing the truth of his ever presence because oftentimes in my loneliness I feel forgotten by those around me. And yet my Saviour knows how low I am and would dig through the trenches just to reach me.

These days with mom and dad in Taiwan and Ja being busy with Chara it's hard to pick up the phone and spill the details of my life to them. And my friends.. well..


God, let me let you be enough.

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lesson from gideon

last sunday george led the sunday school lesson on judges - the story of gideon.  the last question of the study was a .super bonus. question that asked whether it is okay to test god.  my answer.. is that maybe gideon just needed a pep talk or a rally to boost his courage and confidence to lead his army against the midianites.  so technically, he's not really testing god in the sense that god's answer would determine whether or not he'd actually go through with the cause.  but rather, we was seeking a faith boost and affirmation to his calling.

i dunno.. i'm not a bible scholar but that's what i was thinking.

then tonight, i reread the chapter and a little more. 

in chapter 7, god decides to thin out gideon's army in order to show that victory doesn't lie in his own strength, but by the strength of the Almighty.  sigh.  this is what i struggle with so much.  for whatever reason, i have the confidence of a nut.  zippo.  and while it's almost crippling what it does to my ability to carry out neccesary functions, i still, with great stubbornness, try to do everything on my own.  consequently, it comes to no surprise that at the end of the day, i'm moping over the fact that i just can't do it.  why can't i just give it up to god??  i so much want to be a part of this ministry.  but i constantly feel like i have nothing to offer.  in all honestly, i am not smart.  i cannot retain any information or any kind.  i'm not creative.  i have a hard time expressing how i feel in spoken words.  and i'm constantly at battle over the right things to say or the correct way to act.  inadequacy is a word that sits right on top of my heart.  i feel like this is an obstacle (real or self-made) that i can't overcome. 

but maybe this is god's way of thinning out my abilities from 32 thousand to 300.

reading a little bit further, gideon's army completely defeats the midianites.  with what?  trumpets and torches?!  and it's not like they killed them by burning out their eardrums either.  so what's the lesson learned here?  maybe it's not really about my personal abilities rather than god's greater power. 

at this point i have no idea what this all looks like in reality.  i'm still serving on acacia core, i'm still working in the hospital, i'm still going to school, i'm still volunteering.  maybe it sounds like i'm doing a lot.  but while i enjoy each day and find small joys in everything i do, many times i still come home feeling like a failure; wishing i'd said one more thing or acted another way or asked another question. 

father, i pray that you would help me to realize that i can only do things through strength that comes from you.  help me to accept your hand in every branch of my life.  thank you for your patience with me.

tell it like it is.

i'm weary that this will never end.


on a separate topic, more and more i'm realizing how important communication is.  and it's a funny thing because there are situations where we might rather not share in discourse with other people.  yet in doing so, there is the tragedy of misunderstanding, which leads to faces that look like this: O_o??, which lead to bitterness and harboring of bad thoughts.  all of which are recognizably poor and unwelcomed.  but remain nonetheless.  that is, until this invisible wall is broken and truth is disclosed.

i'm prone to blame others; but like all events of distorted feelings, it's never one-sided.  and so i'm praying for god's grace to help me put down my own prideful accusations and misconstrued ideas and humbly come before my brothers and sisters with a humble heart to listen and learn.

and along the same lines, i do hope that if anyone has anything to say to me about my words or actions, that i might be the sole recipient of those words.  to say the least, it hurts to hear it from other people.  could it be, that this is precisely the reason i am led to harbor mean thoughts? 

fasting

last night for acacia, jerry led a study on mark 2:18 to 3:6.  i've always read through these verses not quite knowing what the examples represent.  i get the part about not being like the pharisees - rigid and law-enforcing, without paying attention to the heart of the matter.. to honor god and love men.

but patches and wineskins?  i guess it should've been obvious but again, i'm not the sharpest tool in the box :D  the pharisees represents the old traditions and perhaps.. laws that weren't even commanded by god for men to follow.  (in my group we went through the old testament and found no example of god commanding people to fast.)  jesus represents the new law.  it's impossible to mesh the old mosaic rituals to the new covenant that comes with the arrival of christ.  simple enough = ]


then.. what part does fasting play in our lives today?

i asked my friend john macarthur.

QUESTION: Okay, in Matthew 6 it talks about giving alms, or when you give alms, and in Matthew...and then further on down it says when you are praying, or when you pray...and then it says when you fast. It looks as though that fasting should be just as regular as praying and giving alms, and I was wondering how should we be applying fasting in today's day and age?

JOHN: Well I think fasting is a very important part of Christian experience. I...he's talking about verse 16 of Matthew 6, "Whenever you fast do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do." A couple of things to say about fasting. First of all, fasting is never commanded. Prayer is. Pray without ceasing, praying always with all prayer and supplication, watch and pray, repeatedly we are called to pray. We are commanded to pray. We are never commanded to fast. In fact, fasting is obviously identified with unique circumstances. And I...the best way to illustrate that is that when the disciples of Jesus were confronted by the Jewish leaders, the Jewish leaders said to Jesus, "Why don't Your disciples fast?"

Now it was typical of devout traditionalist Jews to fast twice a week. And you remember the publican in Luke 18 said, "I fast twice a week," so he was following not the biblical prescription but the traditional prescription that if you wanted to be spiritual you fasted twice a week, you deprived yourself of food twice a week. And to them that was emblematic of holiness. So He...so the Jews came to Jesus and they said, "Your disciples don't fast. Why?"

Well that's very interesting. Jesus' response was, "When the bridegroom is with you, you don't fast." In other words, this is not a time for fasting because this is a time for joy. And Jesus was telling us that fasting is a unique experience that's identified with times of grief and sorrow and pain and isolation, loneliness, fear, those kinds of times that would not exist while you were walking around in the presence of Jesus Christ. So the first thing to remember is that fasting, at least in the teaching of Jesus, was for those times of great concern and great sorrow, great anxiety, great prayer, all of that kind of issues in prayer and fasting is always associated with prayer. It's not isolated from prayer. It is a part and parcel of times of prayer. And so I think that the time to fast is, of course, those times when we are swept up in prayer to the degree that we are so somber, so serious, so engulfed that we have no desire to eat, no desire to satisfy any of the cravings of the flesh. And, in fact, in times like that it may be that the flesh doesn't have such cravings because one is so overwrought with prayerful concerns.

I think that's all that we can really say in the New Testament about fasting. That there are times when it wouldn't be appropriate to fast because you're enjoying the fullness of the presence of God and all of His blessing. There are times when it would be appropriate to fast and that would be associated with times of importunity which means time of relentless prayer and concern about those matters that are on our hearts.

I can give you some personal experiences from my own life when great crises come into my own life, fasting is a somewhat normal response to those kinds of exigencies. I can think back to the...to a...the longest time of fasting that I ever experienced in my life was a nine- or ten-day fast in which I ate nothing. That was a time when I was in great concern and prayer over the fact that my son Mark had been diagnosed as having brain tumor which could be fatal. And immediately, of course, he was in his last year of college at that time, I think it was his last year, and, of course, it was a tremendous amount of concern over that. And there was just a very...sort of a very immediate response to fast and pray on behalf of that kind of serious situation and come before the Lord and God was so...so tremendously gracious during that time. I remember when the doctor told me, the neurosurgeon at Cedar Sinai, that it could be fatal, it was just immediate that I wanted to come into the presence of the Lord and beseech Him. First of all, naturally, you pray for the well being of your son, you ask the Lord...are You sure You've got the right kid, this is a good one, you know, he can...You could use him, you know, down the road. And I prayed and fasted and, of course, Patricia was aware and Mark was not aware of the seriousness of his tumor situation. But during that time I can honestly say I spent nine days taking him back and forth to the clinic while they were doing non-invasive techniques to determine what this tumor was before they drilled a hole in his skull and went in and actually got inside because the implications were so severe because it was near the optic nerve and the piamater gland, and things like that. They didn't want to do any invasive things, and so those were times of intense prayer.

And you could see a flow going from...Lord, you know, spare his life...and so forth and so on, to a sort of a middle ground in a few days where you're saying...Lord, whatever Your will is, whatever Your will. And by the time I got to the end of it I was saying, "You know, this world isn't a fit place for anybody, he belongs to You, take him out." You know, you go through the whole process. And, you know, I conducted his funeral about a hundred times, you know, just going through the process of yielding up to the Lord this young man.

And I remember being up in my office on a Wednesday night, it was the ninth day, the next day the doctor was going to tell me the results of all the tests and they were done at the Frank Norris Clinic over at the USC Medical Center by the finest cancer specialists around and pediatric tumor specialists and all of that. And I was waiting for the next morning. For the first time I was actually hungry. It was the first time I actually felt any hunger pangs. And I actually got hungry sitting up there, it was on a Wednesday night, it was between the end of the kind of the day and the office is closed and Wednesday night services were going to start in an hour or so. And I was up there and everything was locked up and I was just praying and thanking the Lord for the perfect peace, that if He was going to take him to heaven, wonderful, glorious for him and we would rejoice in that.

And there was a knock on my door and I don't even know how anybody got in there because there are four sets of double doors you have to go through and they were all locked. And a lady was knocking on my door and I was so surprised because everything else was closed in the office and I went to the door and opened the door and there was a lady standing there who had been in the church for many years but had never been in my office ever. And I greeted her and said, "Hi, how are you?" And she said, "Well," she said, "Pastor I saw your light on up here as I was going by and I thought you might be hungry and I brought you a sandwich."

And I think I said something like, "Haba...haba...haba...haba." I don't think it was any more coherent than that. It might have been less coherent than that actually. And that woman had never given me a cookie. That woman had never done anything. She had never been in the office. I don't...I didn't even know she knew where my office was, but somehow the Lord had impressed upon her heart to make me a bologna sandwich. And I...I took that sandwich in a little bag and I went back to my desk and I said, "So, Lord, You're that involved in my prayer life that when the fast is over You deliver the sandwich." I mean, that was a pretty profound moment for somebody who is not every mystical. And I just rejoice that God had concluded the fast in a most appropriate and gracious way. I mean, I just couldn't bring myself to going down to In and Out, or something, it sort of seemed too carnal. It needed to be something more (laughter).

So I only say that, give you that little recitation to say that there are great times of fasting that come along with great times of prayer. And the next morning the doctor called me and he said, "We're happy to tell you this is a benign epidermoid, it's a piece of misplaced skin tissue, it is not any problem at all, it is not even anything to worry about. We're just rejoicing down here. We like really like your son and we're so happy for him and we just wanted to let you know that all of the news is good. And we don't think it's a problem and never will be a problem."

I was so thrilled, I went to the college where Mark was and I told him. And then I told him the whole story. And he hadn't known all the behind-the-scene details about the potential fatality that they had told me about. He said to me, "You know, why do you think the Lord put me through that?" And I said, "Put YOU through that. You didn't know what I knew. The question is, why did the Lord put me through that?" And, of course, the answer to that is in order that the Lord might accomplish His purposes in our hearts and draw us to Himself. So God put Himself on display and was gracious in that regard.

Three years ago you know Patricia had a car accident, broke her neck, gave her less than five percent chance to live. That was another time when prayer just kind of takes over your life. You just...you just go into instant communion, unrelenting communion with God and food has no place as other kinds of indulgences and things that entertain us don't.

So I think fasting needs to be associated with times of prayer. And I say that carefully because I think some people think that if you just arbitrarily don't eat that there's some spiritual virtue in that. The fact of the matter is we ought to fast more because we ought to be more concerned to pray more strongly about more things, right? So the real issue, I think, is in the prayer area. 

well put.

i think it's interesting that he says the act of fasting is a natural process where you are so overcome with prayerful concerns that you do not even desire the cravings of the flesh.  what if this were a more frequent occurence in my life?

a place for my words

hooray!

i have figured out a purpose for this blog!  this particular one is actually a spinoff of a previous one that i started when i graduated from college.  at that time, life was rough compared to what i'd known before.  thus, posts were very sad and i've since unpublicized them to the rest of blog world.  this one was supposed to detail brighter days and be a collection of loosely gathered thoughts.  deBOtions.. like devotions = ]

i don't remember why i stopped.  but months later, my brainchild that is amaranthine joy came about and i've been pretty consistent about keeping it well fed and groomed.  this child somehow got left behind though.

i think about the things i learn sometimes or about issues that are a little more spicy compared to narratives about my grocery shopping, and i want to share them.  to me, blogging or journaling helps me understand my thoughts better.  unusually enough, i find that writing is an essential part of my ability to digest information.  (also helps with my hamster brain memory)  oftentimes, my fingers seem to be a better means of vocalization when compared to my mouth.  for the more dicey topics, i'm sometimes afraid of offending people with my views.  and other times, i'm afraid that by writing things that are true to my heart, i may possibly lead readers to think of me in ways i do not intend.  it's a funny tug of war, these topics that i choose to share.

should this stop me from writing?  or make me be more cautious?  i don't know..  another option is keep my words in the journal that lives on my nightstand.  some might ask what the difference is..  yeah, that i don't know either.  but this little blog here has not yet met the world (at least not to my knowledge).. and so to me, it is free range.  what i hold back on aj i'll bring to the table here.

i also thought this would be a good place to jot down notes that i scribble down during bible studies and sermons.  i always find handouts and half-sheets folded between pages of my bible or between stacks of papers and i'm reluctant to throw them away.  as if i'd be tossing out great nuggets of wisdom and gold or frankincense or something.  so i've decided that this will be the place to dictate my chicken scratch, in hopes that they too will be digested into the tiny compartments of my heart rather than the municipal recycling center.


 

a dire propensity

we're a very sick culture that loves to raise people up and then tear them down.  there's this seeding pessimism and self righteousness in us that loves to do that because in us we think if they came down, we're as good as they.  be very, very careful about that.  be very careful at your workplace that if your boss completely self destructs, there there isn't a sense of joy in that.. cuz that's sad.  be very careful that you don't take gratitude and joy in human misery, and failure and fall.

be careful that you don't receive christ, and give criticism.

and some of you are in positions of leadership and it's going to be very hard for some of you to learn to have selective hearing.  when some people critique, consider it instruction.  if it's someone who loves you and loves god, then pay close attention.  but if it's someone who just loves to cause trouble and make criticism but isn't part of making solutions, reconsider.

- mark driscoll


for me, there is caution to be taken on both ends.

take a chill pill

there is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve. this too, i say, is meaningless. so i commend the enjoyment of life, because nothing is better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. then joy will accompany his work all the days of the life god has given him under the sun.

when i applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe man's labor on earth - his eyes not seeing sleep day or night - then i saw all that god had done. no one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend.

ecclesiastes 8:14-16

i've been reading and trying to understand the book of ecclesiastes over the last month. no one's lying when they say that the word will bring about a reflection of your soul. and to say the least, my soul sucks. while thinking about a few key verses, the song .refiner's fire. come into mind.

purify my heart
let me be as gold and precious silver
purify my heart
let me be as gold, pure gold

refiner's fire
my heart's one desire
is to be holy
set apart for you lord
i choose to be holy
set apart for you my master
ready to do your will

this song must have come about in the 80s.. i feel like i've sang it all my life. but this time, it means something. and it sucks, also. refining gold means burning it. i hate getting burned. especially with my stupid hair straightener. but to say that this is my heart's desire? insane! ...right? but deep down, i want it. and more. there are things about me and things i've done and things that i do that i wish i could just erase. if only i can be completely taken apart and rebuilt again, then i think i might be okay.

amazingly enough, god knows that and that's why he speaks to us through his word. i just pray that i let it seep into my heart. psalm 119 me! these days, the message of the cross and the truth of renewal is so much clearer to me.

despite everything i'm fighting for, in wins and losses, and these days it seems like it's mostly losses, this wise teacher tells us that the matter is in god's hands. with that explanation i should feel completely satisfied.