From My Reading #5: Bible Verses For A Day Such As This

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." -John 10:10-11

"Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good." -Romans 12:9

"Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." -Romans 12:12

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication." -Ephesians 6:10-18a

From the Notebook #4

Be Thankful #3

Sorry I kind of fell off the map for the last week. Last week was CRAZY.

I'm thankful for God being present and active in all the crazy stuff I go through, both the good and the bad.

I'm thankful for a GREAT spring break! Two trips to Yosemite with great friends, three days of a sports camp for kids, the best, God-redeemed swing dance night, and a crazy-stressful weekend that God demonstrated His power throughout!

I'm thankful for my friendship with Daniel Haynes. (and check out his nifty, new blog here)

I'm thankful that my boss is also a great friend and man of God.

I'm thankful that even my best efforts blow up in my face and cause me to make a fool out of myself. It reminds me that everything worth having is given by the grace of God and not because of my "merit".

I'm thankful that God is orchestrating my future.

I'm thankful for grace offered by Godly men.

I'm thankful for family, both mine and others.

And I'm thankful that great things in life do not come easily. It makes me appreciate them so much more when I do eventually get them. Some things are worth all the effort in the world.

God, may your name be glorified in our lives. May many people come to experience your love directly and through us, and may they come to know You, Father.

"Anything that comes easily and without sacrifice is rarely significant." -Cameron Strang, Relevant Magazine

Life Lessons #1: Yosemite Hiking Trip

(This column will list some good lessons that I've learned through everyday situations.)

1. The path that you think will be easier is sometimes much harder.

2. Sometimes turning back is harder than just pressing forward.

3. Working on a challenge that isn't too easy or too hard for you can distract you from the discomfort of that challenge.

4. Any challenge is better faced with others, rather than alone.

5. If there is a challenge ahead of you that's really hard, but it also must be done, it is a lot easier to do.

6. After you've done something really hard, things that were only hard before are now easy.

7. Always get two extra-large pizzas, not just one.

The Big Picture #2: Wanting to Know the Future

So I recently got into a special academic program at my university. Because of that, I know exactly what classes I'm going to be taking next semester. I have guaranteed spots in my classes for the first time. This is a good thing and a bad thing.

I like the fact that I don't have to struggle to get classes next semester, but I don't like actually knowing what my schedule will look like this early on.

As some of you know, I like to keep everything in my life straight and organized. I don't like forgetting about commitments or losing track of time during big projects. But now that I know my schedule next semester, it's firmly planted on my radar screen, and it's stressing me out.

I often think that the solution to my anxiety about the future is figuring out what it'll look like (such as knowing what classes I'll be taking next semester.) Surely, if I can just know what'll happen to me, I won't be worrying anymore. Surely, if God in His infinite wisdom would just tell me what'll happen, then I could stop worrying.

But if I knew what was going to happen to me in my life, I probably wouldn't want to do it. How much suffering is ahead of me still? How many friends' and family deaths are yet to happen? How many lost jobs, lost opportunities? How many harsh, heart-damaging wounds will I take? How many will I give to others? Others that I love? How many sicknesses, how many cancers will I face before I leave this world?

I don't want to know about those things. I don't want to see my future. Because, as sure as the sun rises in the morning, I would surely focus on the negatives and the pain in my future if I were to see it.

How many joys will I experience? How many people will I get to see put their faith in Christ? How many will I lead there? How much will I get to love my wife? How many times will I get the privilege of sacrificing my desires and rights for her sake? How many times will I get to hang out with my kids at the park on a Saturday afternoon? How much thankfulness will well up in my heart to God on account of the future blessings and faithfulness that He will shower down on me in the future?

My desire to know the future is not the root desire. There is an underlying one, hidden deep in my motives. What I really want is to know that everything will be okay. Knowing the future is just a means to that end, and not a very effective means at that. I would desire to see with my own eyes and determine that everything is okay. But God speaks with words formed from a vision unhindered. Nothing is hidden from His eyes. He has planned amazing things for us, and He tells us to trust Him that it is good; that everything will be okay. Things that I would think are bad He would say are good, and He would be right. Things that I would avoid He would want me to go through.

So if I can take God at His word, I can have complete peace about the future right now. It is God who orchestrates it, it is God who will lead us.

"But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousnes, and all these things will be added to you." -Matthew 6:33

Visual Messages #1: Resurrection Loon

Hey, check it out! A new column! This column will showcase art that I've done that I feel has an important message to convey (so not just my normal school assignments, haha)

Here's a piece I painted that I called "Resurrection Loon":


Resurrection Loon by *simon38 on deviantART

The above link will take you to my deviantart.com page, so, totally safe.

I made this in my Interaction of Color class as my final. The assignment was to make an original design in the cultural style of a certain people group. I chose the Tlingkit people of the Northwest Coast Native Americans.

In my brainstorming and research, I learned that these groups of Native Americans actually hated loons. They made an eerie sound that made them the object of negative folklore. But, you see, I like loons, so I thought I'd make a flying, elegant-looking loon in response.

At the same time, I definitely wanted to stamp my faith in Jesus on this piece somehow, because it's the most important thing about me. I put an open tomb on his belly, symbolizing our Lord Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Just like people have the wrong idea about loons, people definitely have the wrong idea about Jesus. But that doesn't change the facts. Loons are awesome. And Jesus rose from the dead.

From the Notebook #3

(I apologize for the sporadic posts these last two weeks. School's been crazy. I hope to be back to consistent daily posts ASAP.)

From My Reading #4: Impossible Odds

In honor of the fact that I got one of the thirteen available spots in the Fine Art Graphic Design program at my university despite an incomplete portfolio, a horribly-less-than-perfect academic record, and an application letter that should have disqualified me, I give you this edition of From My Reading:

Referring to the Feeding of the Five Thousand in John 6:1-14...

"In God's economy, 5 + 2 = 5,000 with a remainder of 12.

They actually end up with more than what they started with after feeding five thousand people. And God is glorified because He defied impossible odds. It honestly doesn't matter how many Moabites you're facing. It doesn't matter how tall the Egyptian giant is. And the size of the lion isn't really an issue.

The issue is this: How big is your God?"

-Mark Batterson, In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day

Just For Fun #2

Check out this guy's blog here and his other videos here.

Get Real: Brutal Honesty for Brutal Times #2

Why I Consistently Get Up Late on School Days

Every morning, my alarm goes off exactly an hour and a half before my first class starts. And every morning, I turn it off and go back to sleep.

Every morning, I'll wake up again about an hour before my first class starts. And every morning, I justify fifteen minutes more sleep.

Every morning, I sit up in my bed forty-five minutes before my first class starts. And every morning, I don't want to get up.

I worry about what I have to do that day. I get frustrated at the fact that I'm not where I want to be in life yet. I stress out about how I'm going to get ready and get to class on time, since I'm now behind.

When the fear of being late overcomes my other worries and stresses (not to mention fatigue), I get out of bed. After I turn on the shower, I'll read some Bible, get on my knees, and pray to God. 95% of the time, I have to just confess my out-of-control worries, desires, and stresses. Then God starts to reset my perspective.

I thank Him for His faithfulness, for His promise to take care of my needs and bless me in the future. I declare that I just want to dwell with Him, know His peace that defies my circumstances, and effectively love people today better than the day before.

But a lot of the time, I still feel... burdened.

Why?

I definitely don't have the full answer of why this happens each morning, but I do have some thoughts about this.

1. I think that I feel burdened much of the time in the morning because, though I trust God to bless me in the future, I don't believe that any of those blessings will come that day. Things of great value tend to take a long time to come. You don't build a house in a day, at least not one you'll actually want to live in. It takes a while. A long while. Some days can feel like nothing more than a holding pattern; just flying around the airport in circles waiting to land (especially if you feel unworthy or unable to land.)(Of course, God does give blessings daily, and joy and peace come later in the day.)

2. I read the Bible EVERY DAY, but I fail to live by the truth of God EVERY DAY. You can read the entire bible and completely miss the point; completely miss God. (John 5:39-40) God is more than just a bunch of characteristics ABOUT Him that we assemble together. It's when we believe that He will actually apply His characteristics in relationship to us that we begin to actually know God. If you remember that God will judge you, but forget His grace for you, you have a distorted, inaccurate picture of God. If I wake up to the knowledge that God will bless me later, but forget that He will walk with me every step of this day, offering love, grace, counsel, joy, peace, hope, a shining sun for my path, beautiful plants to remind me of His blessing, beautiful people to know and love deeper and deeper, and a promise of eternal life; a promise that anything that goes bad that day does not ultimately define me or hinder me, then I walk with blinded eyes and a heavy heart. I walk untruthfully. The truth is there to be had if I would just go after it.

So I will keep setting my alarm to go off an hour and a half before my first class. I will keep getting on my knees before my heavenly Father. I will keep waiting on Him, looking to Him alone for the fulfillment of hope for my future, both the distant future as well as that very day, for God wants to do great, powerful, healing, sin-crushing, despair-erasing, joy-inspiring things in my life (and your life!) each and every day, and to open my eyes (and yours!) to what He has already done in Jesus' death and resurrection. That's what it means to live in light of the Gospel!

Be Thankful #2

I'm thankful for the liberation of God from the fear of life circumstances.

I'm thankful that my value as a person isn't defined by my performance.

I'm thankful for such great Godly friends from the Lord!

I'm thankful for the great opportunities that are hidden in fearful situations.

I'm thankful for Psalm 146, and the God who inspired it!

I'm thankful for the (God-given) ability to love people tangibly and effectively.

And I'm thankful for the fact that God is not defined or hindered by my flawed perception of Him.

From My Reading #3: The Fear of Failure

"Here is my point. The cure for the fear of failure is not success. It's failure. The cure for the fear of rejection is not acceptance. It's rejection. You've got to be exposed to small quantities of whatever you're afraid of. That's how you build up immunity. . . One of the greatest things that could happen to you is for your fear to become reality. Then you would discover that it's not the end of the world. Your fear is worse than the actual thing you're afraid of." -Mark Batterson, In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day

I love this because it disables fear. It takes power away from our circumstances and gives it back to God. Even if every single one of my greatest fears came true, God is still bigger than all of that, He'll still hold me fast, He'll still have a direction for me to walk and a Kingdom for me to build and live in. He will still be faithful, satisfying, world-defying. Surely, if we as Christians saw the big picture, that the Lord establishes our steps (Prov. 16:9), that He can get us where He wants us to go, even when we fail, our present circumstances would not affect us as severely as they do.

From My Reading #2

"Think of every opportunity as God's gift to you. What you do with those opportunities is your gift to God. I'm absolutely convinced that our greatest regrets in life will be missed opportunities." -Mark Batterson, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day

Hmm. I think I would rather seize opportunities and fail than never take the risk. What opportunities are available to me right now? And what does God want to do in those?

Just For Fun #2

Whoa, sorry. Long day. Here's one of my favorites, no extra charge.



Higher quality version here.

Old Wisdom #1: G.K. Chesterton

(In this column, I'll find some quotes from someone who lived long ago who held views rarely heard of in our current time and culture that I think are worthy of remembrance and application.)

G.K. Chesterton was an English writer during the early 1900s. Check out his biography here.

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." - A Short History of England, Ch.10

"The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right." - ILN 10-28-22

"Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative." - Chapter 2, Heretics, 1905

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around." - Orthodoxy, 1908

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." - ILN, 1/14/11

"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man." - Chapter 19, What I Saw In America, 1922

"There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions." - ILN, 1/13/06

From the Notebook #2

Just For Fun #1

(This column will be a break from the norm. I'll just post something fun I found online. Pretty self-expanatory.)

Here's a great short film about a blind girl that'll warm your heart, haha.

Get Real: Brutal Honesty for Brutal Times #1

(We all know that things are not how they should be, in the world nor in our own hearts. But we would be foolish to avoid or ignore these things, for they speak of our true condition at the time. When we allow the truth of God to come up against these raw, messed-up situations, that is where healing begins. In this column, I'll write about a situation like this from my own life.

I wrote this on my laptop last Saturday:

Why I (Sometimes) Don’t Like to Eat
• Due to how stressed I am, I often feel sick after I eat.
• I often end up eating alone, which isn’t fun.
• I don’t know how to cook good food.
• I don’t like to buy a variety of ingredients because they often end up going bad before I can eat them.
• If I don’t plan enough time to eat, I often end up buying something on the way, which costs more money.

I need to bring my eating into the Kingdom of God. But how?

The Big Picture #1

(Usually when I'm worried, anxious, depressed, or in some other way "out of it", it's because I've lost sight of the big picture in life; making insignificant things way more important than they should be, and forgetting or trivializing God things. In this column, I'm going to give a glimpse of this "big picture".)

I heard this song a couple weeks ago in my World Music class, and it completely floored me. It is a song from Peru, written in Quechua (a dominant local language). This song is unique, though, in that it is the earliest known polyphony (a musical composition written for many voices to be sung together) from Latin America.

The song itself reads almost like a psalm from the Bible. It was found in the cathedral in Lima, Peru and had been used in worship practices at some earlier time. The lyrics are honest and give glory to God.

Though the style of the composition is very European (which makes sense since the region was invaded and taken over by the Spanish), my professor said that, though the author/composer is unknown, it was very likely written by a native Peruvian rather than a Spaniard. Apparently, the enculturation process was very quick and effective.

This got me thinking. The Spanish came over and crushed the kingdoms they found in Latin America, and in their place, they built their own kingdom. But even through all of that turmoil and cultural destruction, God still built His Kingdom in the midst of that, getting the gospel to new, unreached peoples. And someone got it and wrote this song. And even now that Spain no longer has governmental influence in this country, the gospel continues to flourish.

Here's the song. The church in the video is the cathedral in Lima where this piece was found. (English translation below.)



English Translation:

The bliss of Heaven,
I will worship you a thousandfold,
revered fruit of a mature tree,
long awaited by your people,
protection of spiritual strength,
heed my call.

To escape from the sins of the devil
help me with your strength,
so that I your child,
this orphan of yours,
will have existence and life everlasting.
Bring me fortune.

Increase my store of gold and silver,
being well provisioned, it will be stored up.
There will be great food harvests.
Defend me from famine.
Let me rest well here.
For my salvation.

May there be glory for the Lord
and for his Son likewise
and also for the Holy Ghost;
may there by glory for all eternity;
for the life of all sustenance
may there be delight. Amen.

---

(Side Note: I read Exodus 19 & 20 (The Ten Commandments) out loud with this song playing in the background. It gave me chills! *Spirit Fingers*)

Be Thankful #1

(This column is meant to foster a spirit of thankfulness.)

I'm thankful for the hope God has given me for my future, that I will be provided for and continue to grow relationally.

I'm thankful for the fact that I have food to eat today.

I'm thankful for an apartment that actually has a working heater.

I'm thankful for my family of believers and my ever-growing closeness with them.

I'm thankful for the fact that God continues to give me strength and power to get through tough daily trials.

I'm thankful for the fruit that I already see coming from stepping out to love people more.

And I'm thankful for how hard it is, which reminds me that I'm actually working hard at it and taking risks; building up relational muscle, as it were.

From the Notebook #1

(In this column, I'll type or scan in something that I heard or thought of that I found important enough to write down recently. Since I write on whatever I have on hand, expect some variety here.)

From My Reading #1

(In this column, I'll take excerpts from my daily readings that stand out to me and post them here, probably with some of my commentary.)

"A common but futile strategy for achieving joy is trying to eliminate things that hurt: get rid of pain by numbing the nerve ends, get rid of insecurity by eliminating risks, get rid of disappointment by depersonalizing your relationships. And then try to lighten the boredom of such a life by buying joy in the form of vacations and entertainment." -Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience In The Same Direction

Ouch. Must keep taking risks and investing more personally in my relationships. I need to overcome my insecurity with my new identity in Christ and trust that God will preserve me through disappointment.

God has brought me this far. He will see me through to the end.