a minor sidenote:
i read a chapter out of Donald Miller's "Searching for God Knows What" about how what we should really be doing is showing compassion to everybody and trying to promote God's love by showing it to everybody and not worrying about what people might think of us. the idea is that we should not be worried about our value being confirmed by whether or not we are better than someone else or even the best in the world or even respected in the world. value comes from God. if value could come from being better than someone else, and that's really what american culture boils down to, then man would not be made equal and man would not Jesus, because the whole idea of Jesus is that He is the one who gives man value. being a better person will never matter in Jesus' eyes. knowing Him will make all of the difference, but trying to say one deserves heaven more because one is somehow better than the rest of his competition suggests that man needs no savior - that he is good enough. man is not good enough.
i say this because i am not happy. if i was ever good enough, i would be happy. if i was good enough, i truthfully think i could beat the system - that, strictly out of hard work, i would be able to fulfill all of my dreams out of my own initiative. that if i studied for a test long enough, i would get a 100 or if i wanted it enough, i would be able to outrun an Olympic sprinter or that if i trained enough and then wanted it enough, i would be able to outrun an Olympic sprinter. man does not control himself. there are too many factors in the way. i want to be able to say to someone like a girlfriend, "i know exactly what you need, and i'm going to make sure that you get it. i'm going to make sure that i'm gonna get you the very best," and very quickly, i don't know what that very best is and truthfully, i can't manage my own life or someone else's. maybe i can make myself or her happy, but i can't give the best because i, along with everyone else, have yet to discover what the best is. if we were good enough, we'd reach anything we set our minds to and that would be fulfilling. easily put, it's not - we're not good enough.
back to the book, Donald Miller is talking about how we need to embrace the whole idea of knowing God, rather than performing items off a checklist, because that is immediately simplified to being good enough for heaven. life is who you know - very clearly. keep me the same, but give me a different father and i will always end up a different person. if i had the right coach, i would have been seriously able to contend for some competition. life is relational - and so, we do what God asks. we love people, our enemies even, and the idea is that in doing so, we know God more and we promote His kingdom, which we look forward to enjoying.
Day 1 of the Week To Get It Back:
at church, daniel from OU talked about faith and how it is like bungee-jumping. before that, someone who had once attended TCCC spoke and rose the question "what would you do to follow Jesus?" this guy was disowned by his family. he says it's not that uncommon to face such a persecution, either by your friends or your family for getting so involved in religion. but you also get disowned by yourself, a point which he didn't make. it takes sacrifice, restraint from the idea of instant gratification, patience to change a mindset, and willingness to change, not to mention not being content with how things are. daniel talked about how bungee-jumping is putting your faith in a small bungee to save your life, and how once you jump off the platform (his was about 75 feet), you free fall for about 40 feet before it starts to catch you. and how you have to be listening to what the instructor is telling you or you can get seriously hurt and you can jump too soon, and you have to have the right equipment, and you are going to be the only one who can take the jump.
and with God, you really do have to listen to what He is telling you and you have to be prepared to be able to take the leap of faith. and if you jump too soon, you're going to fall until He catches you. but you also put yourself in a spot of danger by being disobedient, and we are really jumping for anything that God calls us to. maybe it's a dream like becoming the head of a giant revolution, or maybe it's something simple and not necessarily elaborate. something like quiet subservience or a life of anonymity. would it be worth it? no one's going to lie. it's worth it. whatever you have to do to feel the glory and exhiliration of the experience - maybe that means jumping off to a life of waiting and nothingness, but i don't think God would keep us waiting. i think God would have our lives read just like the Bible - with action. "now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
the thing about faith is that it is really when our eyes are on God. it is when there is more of God and less of you...if it was only completely all of us, then we would have no higher purpose. "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."...to live is Christ. to live is not us, or having fun, or being smart or being revered. it's Christ. very simply put - Christ is the only one worth living for. and then to die is gain, because of what we have to look forward to. being with God. simple.
the youth crew heading off to New Mexico this friday was prayed for in the combined service. i don't remember much, besides thinking "we are Yours" and how we need to be prepared and enabled for it all to really be as amazing as it could be. it shouldn't be as casual as i have just made it. we're going out to find God and people will be changed, very simply. for our work though, we need to be ready to hear God's voice and at least somewhat ready to perform our skit and somewhat physically ready for the hike and work the church might have for us. so that's much of what this "week to get it back" is all about.
we ate lunch, and phong, jojo, and i stayed about an extra hour and a half helping out with the church, working the sound and then helping clear the brush around the church. i went home, and jojo and phong arrived later, with intentions to sell Fisher Space Pens to help jojo raise some funds. i did a bunch of house work and had some serious cleaning improvements on my closet. i enjoyed it. we sold only one pen (a Military Cap-o-matic), but received plenty of donations for Jojo, and we will be going to the Cityplex Towers tomorrow to sell, which should be mildly productive with God. it is notable that during a missions trip, God is working on both sides - the witness and the one being witnessed to. i guess this is the same, to an extent - God is preparing the vender and the consumer, or the missionary and the benefactor. preparing the missionary to be able to communicate his mission and preparing the benefactor's heart to give and know their contribution as a crucial one.
i tried to play worship and get into the presence of God, but it didn't exactly compare to what all of us have experienced before. it is notable that God knows what He is doing, and He has this master plan that works out in the end. i read in 1 Peter how the end result of faith is a saved soul. that is all anyone could ask for, especially considering that it is operating under the foundation of grace. i very briefly considered the possibility of rebuliding relationships when structuring this week to get it back. i left it out, but God has done some amazing things relationally with me in these past couple of hours. 4 months have flown out of the window in about an hour or two. time is a strange thing like that. i am counting on Him to come through with some other relationships, and such a dependence is really what i need to have and understand.
noteworthy song: Even When, by Seven Places:
[chorus]
Even when my eyes are dry
even when my soul is tired
even when my hands are heavy, I will lift them up to Yu
It's not about how I feel, oh Lord I am here for Yu
I exist for you
i read a chapter out of Donald Miller's "Searching for God Knows What" about how what we should really be doing is showing compassion to everybody and trying to promote God's love by showing it to everybody and not worrying about what people might think of us. the idea is that we should not be worried about our value being confirmed by whether or not we are better than someone else or even the best in the world or even respected in the world. value comes from God. if value could come from being better than someone else, and that's really what american culture boils down to, then man would not be made equal and man would not Jesus, because the whole idea of Jesus is that He is the one who gives man value. being a better person will never matter in Jesus' eyes. knowing Him will make all of the difference, but trying to say one deserves heaven more because one is somehow better than the rest of his competition suggests that man needs no savior - that he is good enough. man is not good enough.
i say this because i am not happy. if i was ever good enough, i would be happy. if i was good enough, i truthfully think i could beat the system - that, strictly out of hard work, i would be able to fulfill all of my dreams out of my own initiative. that if i studied for a test long enough, i would get a 100 or if i wanted it enough, i would be able to outrun an Olympic sprinter or that if i trained enough and then wanted it enough, i would be able to outrun an Olympic sprinter. man does not control himself. there are too many factors in the way. i want to be able to say to someone like a girlfriend, "i know exactly what you need, and i'm going to make sure that you get it. i'm going to make sure that i'm gonna get you the very best," and very quickly, i don't know what that very best is and truthfully, i can't manage my own life or someone else's. maybe i can make myself or her happy, but i can't give the best because i, along with everyone else, have yet to discover what the best is. if we were good enough, we'd reach anything we set our minds to and that would be fulfilling. easily put, it's not - we're not good enough.
back to the book, Donald Miller is talking about how we need to embrace the whole idea of knowing God, rather than performing items off a checklist, because that is immediately simplified to being good enough for heaven. life is who you know - very clearly. keep me the same, but give me a different father and i will always end up a different person. if i had the right coach, i would have been seriously able to contend for some competition. life is relational - and so, we do what God asks. we love people, our enemies even, and the idea is that in doing so, we know God more and we promote His kingdom, which we look forward to enjoying.
Day 1 of the Week To Get It Back:
at church, daniel from OU talked about faith and how it is like bungee-jumping. before that, someone who had once attended TCCC spoke and rose the question "what would you do to follow Jesus?" this guy was disowned by his family. he says it's not that uncommon to face such a persecution, either by your friends or your family for getting so involved in religion. but you also get disowned by yourself, a point which he didn't make. it takes sacrifice, restraint from the idea of instant gratification, patience to change a mindset, and willingness to change, not to mention not being content with how things are. daniel talked about how bungee-jumping is putting your faith in a small bungee to save your life, and how once you jump off the platform (his was about 75 feet), you free fall for about 40 feet before it starts to catch you. and how you have to be listening to what the instructor is telling you or you can get seriously hurt and you can jump too soon, and you have to have the right equipment, and you are going to be the only one who can take the jump.
and with God, you really do have to listen to what He is telling you and you have to be prepared to be able to take the leap of faith. and if you jump too soon, you're going to fall until He catches you. but you also put yourself in a spot of danger by being disobedient, and we are really jumping for anything that God calls us to. maybe it's a dream like becoming the head of a giant revolution, or maybe it's something simple and not necessarily elaborate. something like quiet subservience or a life of anonymity. would it be worth it? no one's going to lie. it's worth it. whatever you have to do to feel the glory and exhiliration of the experience - maybe that means jumping off to a life of waiting and nothingness, but i don't think God would keep us waiting. i think God would have our lives read just like the Bible - with action. "now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."
the thing about faith is that it is really when our eyes are on God. it is when there is more of God and less of you...if it was only completely all of us, then we would have no higher purpose. "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."...to live is Christ. to live is not us, or having fun, or being smart or being revered. it's Christ. very simply put - Christ is the only one worth living for. and then to die is gain, because of what we have to look forward to. being with God. simple.
the youth crew heading off to New Mexico this friday was prayed for in the combined service. i don't remember much, besides thinking "we are Yours" and how we need to be prepared and enabled for it all to really be as amazing as it could be. it shouldn't be as casual as i have just made it. we're going out to find God and people will be changed, very simply. for our work though, we need to be ready to hear God's voice and at least somewhat ready to perform our skit and somewhat physically ready for the hike and work the church might have for us. so that's much of what this "week to get it back" is all about.
we ate lunch, and phong, jojo, and i stayed about an extra hour and a half helping out with the church, working the sound and then helping clear the brush around the church. i went home, and jojo and phong arrived later, with intentions to sell Fisher Space Pens to help jojo raise some funds. i did a bunch of house work and had some serious cleaning improvements on my closet. i enjoyed it. we sold only one pen (a Military Cap-o-matic), but received plenty of donations for Jojo, and we will be going to the Cityplex Towers tomorrow to sell, which should be mildly productive with God. it is notable that during a missions trip, God is working on both sides - the witness and the one being witnessed to. i guess this is the same, to an extent - God is preparing the vender and the consumer, or the missionary and the benefactor. preparing the missionary to be able to communicate his mission and preparing the benefactor's heart to give and know their contribution as a crucial one.
i tried to play worship and get into the presence of God, but it didn't exactly compare to what all of us have experienced before. it is notable that God knows what He is doing, and He has this master plan that works out in the end. i read in 1 Peter how the end result of faith is a saved soul. that is all anyone could ask for, especially considering that it is operating under the foundation of grace. i very briefly considered the possibility of rebuliding relationships when structuring this week to get it back. i left it out, but God has done some amazing things relationally with me in these past couple of hours. 4 months have flown out of the window in about an hour or two. time is a strange thing like that. i am counting on Him to come through with some other relationships, and such a dependence is really what i need to have and understand.
noteworthy song: Even When, by Seven Places:
[chorus]
Even when my eyes are dry
even when my soul is tired
even when my hands are heavy, I will lift them up to Yu
It's not about how I feel, oh Lord I am here for Yu
I exist for you
posted by D. Chang at 8:27 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home