psalm 90

psalm 90 is a chapter that i go to a lot at the start of a new year. at a time when everyone is talking about and planning new beginnings, fresh starts, and invigorating resolutions, it's helpful to recall the truth of psalm 90:

new beginnings and courageous endeavors are rooted in eternal, never-changing Reality.

so let's remember the nature of this Reality together.

"Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations" (v. 1).

You, Lord - the triune Jehovah, the great I AM, the only true and living God where all life and all beauty has its origin, in whom i daily live and move and have my being - YOU have been our dwelling place. You are the cleft in the rock where weak, vulnerable animals like us can hide (proverbs 30:26). You are the unchanging, never-shifting place of refuge and safety and rest that we are always searching for and never find in this world. You are like a door that is perpetually open, always welcoming Your blood-bought children to come in and feast on the abundance of Your house. and this is who You have always been. You never "became" this. there was never a time that this was not Your character. for all of eternity past and future, this is who You have been and will be.

"before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God" (v. 2).

to humans with such short, fleeting lives, nothing appears more ancient, more solid, or more enduring than the lofty, rugged mountain ranges, or than the earth itself. and yet, this verse points to Someone greater, Someone more ancient, Someone more permanent, Someone who shaped the mountains and formed the very earth itself. this is Someone whose existence is from everlasting to everlasting, from alpha to omega, from beginning to end, from eternity past to eternity future. length of existence is relatively easy for humans to compute regarding their own life spans - most people can answer the question, "how old are you?" but the length of God's existence stretches the capacity of our minds to comprehend, let alone compute.

this is a God who is more than sufficient to be a dwelling place, a stronghold, and a refuge during times of uncertainty and change. He has seen it all, and has never been shaken.

rest in Him.

and out of that rest, resolve. secure in the hand of One who never changes, be bold and persevering in your pursuit of changing to be more like Him.

our weakness is no stranger

"i could never believe in God, if it were not for the cross...in the real world of pain, how could one worship a god who was immune to it? i have entered many buddhist temples in different asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. but each time after a while i have to turn away. and in imagination i have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. that is the God for me! He laid aside His immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. our sufferings become more manageable in light of this."
~john stott, the cross of Christ

this christmas, if you're not quite feeling the "holly jolly" part of the season, remember this. Jesus wasn't born a baby buddha, detached from the suffering and sin and thorns and pain all around Him. He came to take it, to bear it on His shoulders. He lived a hard, tempted, painful life and became "a Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." He became sin so that WE might become the righteousness of God.

this is the God for me.

first and second things

nothing on earth is an end in itself. 

there is no beauty or love or treasure or security or glory on earth you will find that stands on its own. all of it is derived, contingent for its value on the supreme Value of something that completely transcends this world. as soon as you become enraptured by the beauty of something in and of itself and forget that its very beauty lies in the fact that it is an echo of the only Beauty that can stand on its own, you lose the beauty altogether. 

think of this statement: "one converses better when one does not say, 'let us converse.'" it may seem like a strange concept at first, but it makes sense. as soon as you focus all your attention on the mere act of conversing, you destroy it, because the nature of conversation is to be a medium by which you commune with another human being. conversation, by its nature, exists for something else. if you lose sight of that, you lose conversation as well. the same is true of everything in life. communication, art, science, marriage, family, friends, sunsets, sports, good meals, holidays...none of it is meant to stand on its own.

i think we know this instinctively ("He has put eternity into man's heart"), but it's so easy to forget, or even intentionally ignore. c.s. lewis has taught me a lot about understanding "first things" and "second things."

"the woman who makes a dog the center of her life loses, in the end, not only her human usefulness and dignity but even the proper pleasure of dog-keeping. the man who makes alcohol his chief good loses not only his job but his palate and all power of enjoying the earlier (and only pleasurable) levels of intoxication. it is a glorious thing to feel for a moment or two that the whole meaning of the universe is summed up in one woman - glorious so long as other duties and pleasures keep tearing you away from her. but clear the decks and so arrange your life (it is sometimes feasible) that you will have nothing to do but contemplate her, and what happens?"

this is how the world is wired, because it has been created. nothing we find here was ever meant to exist for itself. "every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made" (lewis).

as with many worthwhile lessons in this world, this one is illustrated very well in j.r.r. tolkien's middle-earth, and this 3 and a half minute video will show you how:

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/interviews/how-the-harrowing-journey-profits-the-hobbit

you can't get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.

and in the end, we know that the only One with glory enough to sustain the weight of being a "first thing" is Christ.

"nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. but look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in" (lewis).

"He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together" (colossians 1:17).

"belatedly i loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new; belatedly i loved Thee. for see, Thou wast within and i was without, and i sought Thee out there. unlovely, i rushed heedlessly among the lovely things Thou hast made. Thou wast with me, but i was not with Thee. these things kept me far from Thee; even though they were not at all unless they were in Thee. Thou didst call and cry aloud, and didst force open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and didst chase away my blindness. Thou didst breathe fragrant odors and i drew in my breath; and now i pant for Thee. i tasted, and now i hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and i burned for Thy peace" (augustine). 

the hopes and fears of all the years

i'm sharing this article because i live such a comfortable, insulated life, and unless i make intentional efforts, i'll be blind to the reality - this kind of living hell - that the majority of the world's population can't afford to ignore.

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/12/world/cambodia-child-sex-trade/?sr=sharebar_facebook

i'm also sharing this because i believe that i know Who is the answer. only Jesus has the capability and the willingness to heal and redeem not only the girls who are exploited and abused, but also the parents who sell their children, the "sex tourists" whose perverse desires created the demand for this industry in the first place, the traffickers who deal in human life and have almost single-handedly destroyed the lives of who-knows-how-many children, the corrupted government officials who turn a blind eye and refuse to deal out justice...and us, as we read this article and instinctively despise the ones who are to blame for the whole mess. of course, hatred is a perfectly good reaction to this kind of wickedness, but do i loathe the sin in my own heart as much as i loathe what i see in the world outside of me?

photography by Jeremie Montessuis of CNN

sometimes i wonder how happiness and beauty - the very things that are so tragically missing from these exploited children's sad lives - how does it relate to the brokenness and unspeakable depravity and seeming hopelessness that flood over me when i'm willing to open my eyes to it? more specifically for the season we are in now, how does the jollity and celebration of christmas relate to what we read in this article?

maybe the "christmas spirit" isn't about shielding ourselves from anything negative, dirty, or unhappy that may potentially disturb our happiness as we decorate and shop for gifts...maybe it's having our eyes wide open to the mess and pain and sorrow and still daring to hope that the Christ whose birth we are celebrating really is the One who "makes death itself work backwards," and "who comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found."

so read the article, and let yourself feel the gravity of the tragedy, but don't despair.

"o little town of bethlehem,

how still we see thee lie.

above thy deep and dreamless sleep,

the silent stars go by.

yet in thy dark streets shineth

the Everlasting Light.

the hopes and fears of all the years

are met in thee tonight."

lessons from an orchestra 1: the conductor

last week, my best friend and i went to an orchestra concert. i went with the expectation of being blown away by the beauty of the music i would hear, but i didn't quite expect what God actually had in mind to unfold to me during that two hour concert. i've decided to write a few posts to try and sum up what i saw and heard, both because articulating it helps me to process it and learn His lessons more thoroughly, and because it might prompt someone who reads these thoughts to slow down and open their eyes to the Beautiful Reality that is all around us.

the first thing i saw was the conductor. honestly, i've always wondered what the precise role of the conductor is. after all, the musicians in the orchestra are all well-trained, extremely talented and accomplished musicians, and they are all reading the same music. why do they need the conductor? my first clue came as one of the lead violinists of the louisville orchestra spoke before the start of the symphony. he made a comment about a long-time conductor of the orchestra who once led them in a piece with extremely complicated rhythm and constantly changing time signatures. he said that "every time you lose your place in the music and can't find the beat, you look up and see him [the conductor] and he had it right there." so, even this experienced violinist needed a director, a guide, one who could feel the beat when he had lost it, one who knew the music even better than he did.

once the symphony got underway - it was rachmaninoff's symphony no. 2 op. 27 - i found myself drawn to watching the conductor's face every time it showed up on the screen. his back was to the audience, of course, but at times the image on the screen would pan to his face. every time, i was amazed - the expression on his face and his body language seemed to perfectly match what i was hearing the musicians play. i saw so many emotions on his face - intensity, expectancy, delight, serenity, and above all, sheer joy. it was almost like watching someone eat a delectable meal - sometimes he would even lick his fingers after a particularly pleasing note (reminds me of the psalmist's urging to "taste and see that the Lord is good").

my favorite part was how he would "cue" certain instruments or particular musicians. he used everything in him - everything except words - to draw out a particular quality of sound from a part of the orchestra. it was almost as if he was coaxing it out of them. and the look on his face when he heard the sound he was calling for was pure joy. he loved what he was hearing. it seemed to satisfy some deep place in his soul.

in one breathtaking moment, it dawned on me that the reason this struck such a chord with me [by the way, does anyone realize how many of our idioms are based on music??] is that GOD is the ultimate Conductor. the reason the conductor was doing what he was doing, and the reason it captivated me, is because it's an echo of God.

do you see it? God asks for a certain quality of life - of beauty - from His children. sometimes it may be the sweet melody of brotherly affection. sometimes it may be the crescendo of boldly, prophetically proclaiming truth. sometimes it may be the diminuendo of meekly taking the lower place. sometimes it may be the triumphant notes of rejoicing with those who rejoice. sometimes it may be the minor key of weeping with those who weep. He, as the Conductor, gives the cues for each quality as the time comes for it to take precedence. "for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven" (ecclesiastes 3:1).

and i have to believe that when He sees these qualities emerge in us, as a product of His grace alone and as a reflection of His ultimate beauty, it brings unspeakable joy and delight to His heart. just as it brings satisfaction to ours to catch glimpses of the beautiful sound He miraculously draws out of our lives [by the way, to any john piper fans: this is christian hedonism, isn't it?].

watching the conductor direct his orchestra made me love the Sovereign Conductor of my symphony all the more. with Him giving us our cues, why wouldn't we give Him what He is asking for, to both His delight and ours?

"...we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (colossians 1:9-10).

"God is delighted with our obedience when it is the fruit of our delight in Him. our obedience is God's pleasure when it proves that God is our treasure" (john piper).  

"one of the main motivations for obedience is the pleasure of God" (kevin deyoung).  

on the final day i die

i want to hold my head up high

i want to tell You that i tried

to live it like a song

~switchfoot, "where i belong" 

watch the entire symphony here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvuitFzDxDg

prisoners of despair...or prisoners of hope?

prisoners of despair...the A Che people

39,000 people who live in remote regions of the Yunnan province of China

no Bible in their language

no one who even speaks their language

can't read or speak Chinese, the language of their countrymen

so utterly unknown and uncared for that they have never even been listed in a missions organization's list of unreached people groups

prisoners of despair..."In the past, they claim they were closer to the gods, but then their line of communication with the Creator was broken. Therefore, they are now unable to enter heaven" (joshuaproject.net).

thus, they believe in a multiplicity of gods that they have no hope of ever gaining favor with

the words of their Creator that would set them free and give them life are not even available to them in their own language, and there is no project underway for making them available

the A Che...prisoners of despair, of Satan, and of the futile ways they have inherited from generations before them

do you see them, Father?

You do see..."from heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind..."

will you also overlook them, Jesus?

no, You won't..."I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb..."

did You really mean every language, Father? even the unknown language of the A Che? did You really mean every people and tribe, Lord? even these 39,000 who are enslaved to darkness and to whom the rest of the world is oblivious? even them, Jesus?

yes.

even them.

they, too, have been formed in His image. they, too, have the knowledge of God that stares them in the face every morning when they wake up and see the same sunrise that i see day after day. for them, too, Christ died. and His work is not complete until they, too, glorify His name.

and what will it take to reach them?

how will they call on Him of whom they have not believed? and how will they believe in the One of whom they have never heard? and how will they hear without a messenger?

a messenger who sees the beauty of Christ with such clarity that no obstacle is too large to take His name to a people who are still waiting to learn of it. whose faith in the living God is so real and vibrant that no challenge will daunt them and no darkness will seem impenetrable. who are willing to be made like their Master, who became like a seed that falls into the ground and dies in order to bear much fruit.

a messenger who will have to be stirred and shaken by Almighty God before they will surrender whatever is holding them back from venturing out in faith on a mission that the world would call foolhardy and ridiculous.

shake and stir that person, Father. make the Word like a blazing fire in their bones that would burn them up if they dared to keep silent. don't let them love their families or their homes or their safety or their comfort more than they love Your name, more than they desire that You be lifted high among the nations. send them forth to the A Che people with love, power, and reckless abandon.

is it i, Lord? or is it one who reads these words even now? O God, forbid that we would deny You if You are calling us..."to hope's end we ride and to heart's breaking" (J.R.R. Tolkien, Return of the King).

and let those who now walk in darkness see a great light. let the prisoners of Satan's waterless, hopeless pit become prisoners of hope (Zechariah 9:11-12).

"For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed..." (Tolkien, Return of the King)

living upon the God who is invisible

~journal entry from a couple days ago...

“On Mine arm shall they trust.” Isaiah 51:5

“Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” 2 Corinthians 1:9

“O God, You are my God, earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1

“Blessed are those whose strength is in You, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage…They go from strength to strength.” Psalm 84:5, 7

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:5-8

“Learn the divine skill of making God all things to thee. He can supply thee with all, or better still, He can be to thee instead of all.” C.H. Spurgeon

Father, forbid that I should go through this year relying on the god of mustered willpower and self-sufficiency, rather than on You. Have mercy, dear Lord, and save me from myself…if an easy year where everything goes smoothly would cause my heart to turn away from full and humble reliance upon You, then please, dear God, don’t give me an easy year. I surrender myself to whatever trial You may bring, and all I ask is that if You send storms, let them wreck me on the rock of my God; and if You send hurricanes, let them drive me to You and You alone. Don’t let me, or my team, be so at ease that we cannot pray with urgency or passion…if we must be tried and tested and burdened beyond our ability to bear in order to learn to pray individually and together, then so be it.

“Now that thou has only thy God to trust to, see that thou puttest thy full confidence in Him. Dishonour not thy Lord and Master by unworthy doubts and fears; but be strong in faith, giving glory to God. Show the world that thy God is worth ten thousand worlds to thee. Show rich men how rich thou art in thy poverty when the Lord God is thy helper. Show the strong man how strong thou art in thy weakness when underneath are the everlasting arms. Now is the time for feats of faith and valiant exploits. Be strong and very courageous, and the Lord thy God shall certainly, as surely as He built the heavens and the earth, glorify Himself in thy weakness, and magnify His might in the midst of thy distress. The grandeur of the arch of heaven would be spoiled if the sky were supported by a single visible column, and your faith would lose its glory if it rested on anything discernible by the carnal eye” (from this morning’s Morning and Evening by Spurgeon)

O God, forbid that I should be known to the world or my team or people around me as a strong, capable person. Let them not say that I am a rock that can’t be moved. Let them see me as a weak person whose God is strong, as a lacking person whose God is all-sufficient. Let them see that my God is the Rock, and let them see that I have nothing, and am nothing, without Him.

Kinmen Team 2011-2012 - A Page is Turned

“’Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot always be torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do…I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them…your part of the Story goes on.’” These are Frodo’s final words to his dear friend and comrade Sam in The Return of the King, as they are getting ready to part ways and experience new chapters in their lives.

We are living a great tale – a tale of the sovereign King Jesus extending His reign of mercy to hearts in every tribe and tongue and people and nation. It’s a story, with a grand plot and with purpose and significance in every twist and turn and in every word and deed and entrance and exit of every character. It’s a war, waged with a self-sacrificing love that wields the gospel after the example of our Commander, with many fronts and many battlegrounds. It really is a beautiful story, how it weaves together heartache and sorrow and partings and greetings and new and old so that all of it is essential to the completion of the final goal and seen to be infinitely worth it at the end. In the story of this great war, which will carry on until our God’s final victory at the consummation of it all, there are many characters. Many soldiers, who come and go in the telling, but who each have their own unique roles in the fight.

And in that great story that encompasses and makes sense of every seemingly pointless, random event in this world, there is a chapter about a little island 3 miles off the coast of China. An island called Kinmen. The battle for human hearts has been waged here for thousands of years, and I believe with all my heart that the final, decisive victory is still to come. This front in the war has seen many warriors come and go. In this story, many characters have had to come and go in the telling…people who come from all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of nationalities, with all sorts of personalities and gifts, but who have one thing in common – a love for our Savior King and for the people of this little island that some would call insignificant. But we know better. Because He’s chosen us to spend and be spent for these people, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. We all have had different roles in this story – some are Kinmen people whose hearts have been captured by the one true God and whose hearts break because for the most part, He isn’t acknowledged on their beloved island. Others are Americans, some of whom love Kinmen from afar because of the stories of those who have been there, and without whose prayers Kinmen may never be won for Jesus. And then there are those privileged ones who have been called to GO to this little island and be poured out as a drink offering for the sake of its joy in Jesus.

This is dedicated to my team members from last year who have been called away from Kinmen for a time. Whether you were in Kinmen for one year, two years, five years, or seven years; whether the Author of the story of your life ever calls you back to serve here again; no matter where you taught or who your friends were or what your burden was…your part in the great story of Kinmen being won for Jesus was, and remains, indispensable. Every role is indispensable. Because for a reason only He fully knows, He has chosen to use each of us to make His Name glorious. “In the Lord our work is NOT in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

And this post is dedicated to the new team of 2011-2012, because your part in the story is just beginning. Because of you, I am even more convinced that Kinmen has a special place in our Father’s heart, because the people He calls to serve here are always special. Your enthusiasm for His kingdom, willingness to serve, and immediate love for this island bears witness to the fact that it is nothing less than HIS calling that has brought you here, and I feel incredibly privileged to see how He’s going to use you – US – to further His cause still more and push back the forces of darkness still farther.

Jarita, Raechel, Cami, and Bek ~ you are not forgotten. And whether or not you ever set foot on our precious island again, rest assured that nothing is in vain. By His grace, you’ve left a mark on Kinmen…and Kinmen has left its mark on you.

Eunice, Christina, Bethany, Peter, and Johnny – let’s see what our God has in store for us this year. What victories He will give us for His glory and for the sake of the people of Kinmen. If God is for us, then who could ever stop us; and if our God is with us, then what could stand against?

Another page is turned in the story…what elapsed on the pages that have already been turned will never be erased, and will make sense when we all get to the end. As for the pages that have yet to be turned…we don’t know what twists or turns or joys or sorrows they may hold, but we know who has written the story.

And that is enough.

“As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight” (Psalm 16:3).

“At last the three companions turned away, and never again looking back they rode slowly homewards; and they spoke no word to one another until they came back to the Shire, but each had great comfort in his friends on the long grey road” (Return of the King).

“…we were torn away from you, brothers…in person not in heart…” (1 Thessalonians 2:17)

“We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3).

Trusting the One who holds each thread of our lives and makes sense of them all,

Bethany

home in Him

haven't updated in a while...that's what happens when too much happens and I don't know where to start. I usually just never start, which is a habit I want to break. I still don't know where to start, but I figure a good place would be to say...I'm home. at one of my homes anyway. and thinking about what it means to only have my home in Him. because tying yourself down to a place or a job or a person or a group of people and calling that place your "home" in the permanent, this-is-where-my-heart-is sense has a tendency to make you rely on whatever makes that place home for you. and the fight of our earthly life is to only set your heart and hope on Christ. so for now...I'm home in Him.

naked, exposed...and loved

"Every time you remember that you are out in public, then you live an out-in-public life. “I AM WITH YOU” means you’re always out in public. In order to sin, you’ll have to drown out the voice of reality, put your fingers in your ears, and switch channels to the fantasy channel, the lie channel, the death channel. And even if you switch channels and sin by high-handed choice, you will still be in broad daylight before God’s searching eyes. You can shut your eyes and plug your ears, he’s still right here. You’ll never get away. And you only have to open your eyes, listen, and turn around in order to find help. After all, he who loves you says, “I am with you,” mainly to encourage you."

~David Powlison

husks and ashes

"Most men are not satisfied with the permanent output of their lives. Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within his followers except the adoption of Christ's purpose toward the world he came to redeem. Fame, pleasure and riches are but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfillment of his eternal plans. The men who are putting everything into Christ's undertaking are getting out of life its sweetest and most priceless rewards." ~J. Campbell White

allen

he just graduated from 6th grade, but looks more like a 16 year old.

spiky hair. earring. (it's real, unlike most wanna-be-punk 6th grade boys)

his mom is a mail-order bride from vietnam, his dad is the taiwanese equivalent of a redneck.

two brothers...one's a troublemaker in junior high now, one's in 1st grade and is still sweet.

I've never heard anything but filthy, crude, spiteful words come out of his mouth. never seen anything but hate and darkness in his eyes. never seen him treat another human being with anything other than cruelty and roughness.

at Easter, I told his class about One who came to die...One who came to save them...One who can give them new life. One they desperately need. One [I hope] I would die to see them meet.

allen scoffed occasionally, but was unusually quiet. listening...considering.

until, at the urge of a Voice inside my heart, I went directly to him and told him,

"allen. 耶穌愛你. 你相信嗎?" (Jesus loves you...do you believe that?)

I've never seen a child - or anyone, for that matter - with such a violent reaction to the news that Someone loves him.

his eyes were filled with nothing but pure hatred. he scoffed. he spat. he was literally shaking in his seat.

in the middle of his fit of repulsion, he could only spit out the words "不相信" (I don't believe it), along with an array of foul words in both Chinese and Taiwanese that I wouldn't want to repeat. something in him completely, totally despised both the name of Jesus and the thought that He loved him.

in my natural self, I would only want to turn and run from such hatred and darkness. it scares me, because it's so beyond me. he's so beyond any human help.

but the same Presence in me that made my heart incline toward allen in the first place told me to remain calm, to stand my ground, to respond to his rejection with patient, firm, resolute love that wouldn't back down.

so instead of giving up on him like everyone else does, and turning away from him like I was tempted to do, I said, "不管你信不信, 耶穌愛你. 祂真的愛你." (no matter if you believe or not, He still loves you...He really loves you)

"我不相信, 我不相信." was all he could say...almost like he was trying to convince himself that it wasn't true.

I pray that one day, when he doesn't know if anything else is true, he'll remember those words...and come home to the One who made him.

that's allen. he graduated last monday. but his face will always haunt me.

darkness is brief

Across the field and through the trees
of Ephron, slumped upon his knees
Beside the cave of Machpelah,
The old man scorned anathema
For love and kissed the ivory lips
Of his dead wife; then laid the strips
Of silk and linen on her face,
As beautiful today with grace,
He thought, as when Abimelech
Desired her once, without a speck
Or blemish to this day, but now
As cold as snow upon the brow
Of Mount Moriah. Abraham
Thought to himself, "This time no ram
Caught in the thicket for her life,
You spare my son but not my wife."

He rose with Sarah in his arms
And laid ten thousand days and charms
To rest within a Hittite cave,
And in the dark paused once to save
The union for a moment more.
But in the dripping dark before
His mind the awful scene arose
Again: first one, then two plateaus
The boy and he, alone he thought,
Had climbed Moriah while he fought
The tears and coughed away the sobs.
He felt again the way it throbs
Behind the eyes when there's no vent
To grief. The wild bewilderment
On Isaac's face when he perceived.
And then the fear, deep unrelieved,
That his own son might curse the Lord
And tear his flesh against the cord
To save his life; and kick and bite
And scream and writhe with all his might
Like any ordinary boy.
But Isaac knew he was the joy
Of this old man. By wonder born,
By wonder he would die, and scorn
The pain and look into his eye
With childlike trust and say goodbye.

"The greatest moment of my life,"
Thought Abraham. "O precious wife,
The darkness of this cave is brief,
And we've been trained in strong belief:
‘Is anything too hard for God?'
And should we not now kiss the rod
And wait until the angel voice
Express the everlasting choice
Of our appointed substitute?
This time, my love, it did not suit
The sovereign will to interpose
A ram for you—or me—He chose
Instead to test me once again
If I will trust him now as then?"

Then father Abraham walked out
And spoke these words without a doubt,
"As sure as I stand in the light
The Judge of all the earth does right.
The Lord is not God of the dead
But of the living, as he said."

C.S. Lewis on the dignity of human souls

It is hardly possible for [us] to think too often or too deeply about [the glory] of our neighbor . . . It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. (The Weight of Glory, pp. 14f.)

ruins

there's something forming in my heart that I've been pondering how to put into words for a couple of weeks now. I think it will have to come out slowly.

as usual, I'm finding that other people can articulate it better and less messily than me, so for now, here's what I want to share...just a couple verses from Bebo's song "Ruins."

I've no fear of height or depth

I've no fear of crashing

The single thing I fear the most

Is simply feeling nothing

that's one lesson...it's more like a longing. a longing to have no fear of anything, except of deadening my heart and making it incapable of love and pain. but it's so natural to us to fear...to be afraid of letting go and crashing...and how else can this heart be set free to love recklessly unless He's the One setting it free? only faith in Something as big as Him can free our tangled hearts to love like that.

Let my ruins become the ground You build upon

Let my ruins become the start

Let my ruins become the ground You build it on

From what's left of my broken heart

and that's the lesson I can't quite put into words yet. but it goes something along the lines of...

"Behold, I make all things new."

why I'm in Kinmen

what I'm about to say may sound cynical, but it's not. it has the danger to turn into cynicism, but if viewed in faith it can turn into passion. I guess it's like that every time we see a problem...focusing on the problem itself beats us down, but focusing on the solution ignites a fire in our soul because we HAVE the solution. we KNOW Who holds the answers.

people. life.

is it just me, or do people always seem like they're running? running around desperately trying to find the point to everything? doing so many things...get up every day, go to work, go to school, see people, eat food, do homework, feed the dog, call your mom, exercise so you can live longer and do it all over again more times...and never finding the point of it all. have you ever walked down the street and actually paid attention to the people around you? to their faces? their eyes...are always dead. lifeless. is it because they used to be painfully aware that they don't know why they're alive? maybe they tried to find the purpose for a while, but they looked and looked and couldn't find it so they choose to give up and deaden themselves. resign themselves to a pointless existence. their souls are already dead...now it's just their bodies that are still living.

and if we stop there, even those of us who KNOW the point to life will want to give up and stop trying. but we can't. the God who holds the purpose of life and death also want to show Himself to people who have given up trying to see Him.

and that's why I'm in Kinmen.

one bright hour

He'll chase away the fleeting dark

From broken earth and broken heart

The holy line where joy and sorrow meet

And You will sing redemption songs

Making new what we made wrong

On the day the story is complete

One bright hour, You will come for me

One bright hour, You'll set the captive free

And one bright hour, You will wipe the tears away

From eyes that now can see one bright hour

~Bebo Norman, "One Bright Hour"

forsake me not

"There is no moment of our life, however holy, in which we can do without His constant upholding...'Forsake me not, O Lord,' now; and forsake me not at any moment of my life. Forsake me not in my joys, lest they absorb my heart. Forsake me not in my sorrows, lest I murmur against Thee."

~Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

a life of cynicism or a life of prayer?

"a praying life...engages evil. it doesn't take no for an answer. the psalmist was in God's face, hoping, dreaming, asking. prayer is feisty. cynicism, on the other hand, merely critiques. it is passive, cocooning itself from the passions of the great cosmic battle we are engaged in. it is without hope."

~from Paul Miller's book, "A Praying Life"

the God who holds hearts

going to school today, I didn't want to give anything...I wanted to hide, to close up, to harden myself and make my heart an impenetrable fortress of apathy. I felt like a dead person walking, and I wanted to teach like a dead person teaching. I didn't care, and I didn't want to care either. because it's too hard to care, to look past yourself and your own throbbing, hurting heart and care about the person next to you.

but ten minutes before the first bell rang, He called me away. and He told me that even if I don't have it all together, even if my heart is shaky and scarred and unsure, I can still give it away. I can still love, because He's loved me first. I'm not helpless...I don't have to be eaten alive by my wild, untameable emotions. because He is the strength of my heart. because He is my portion in the land of the living. because He is greater than my heart, and He knows everything (1 John 3:20).

so I don't have to waste it.

why is it the default state of human beings to close up, to want to protect themselves? as a Christian, is there really anything left to protect? of course it's scary to love...it makes you vulnerable. but what do I have to lose by giving myself and my imperfect heart? I have Christ, and I'll never lose Him...so why can't I give everything else away?

I'm asking Him what it means to throw open wide the door of my heart...

"We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you...open wide your hearts also."

~2 Corinthians 6:11-13