a little moody tonight, but the promise of joy in the morning actually kinda puts things in perspective. instead of demanding that God come through for me in comfort, i can kinda look back and see that He has already done so much more than enough, that He doesn't have to prove Himself anymore, doesn't have to come through anymore for my faith to be in Him. hasn't my faith been put in the fire long enough that it can stand past circumstances, past even emotions or unpopularity or inconvenience?
today was the first day of classes. one of my brothers in Christ Vincent told me of his past weekend, how he felt so much grace, that God was right there with him, showing him favor. it was honestly so uplifting, the kind of story that makes your day. that put things in perspective too, since i had been moody. but when he asked about OU, i had to say that it has almost begun to feel a bit overwhelming. i am completely wiped out - though i think that has something to do with spending a bit too much time at the gym playing basketball.
i guess i just feel a bit alienated, a bit like i'm fighting a lost cause. i don't know what exactly it is i'm doing. is it now God, anyways, when we go out and do ministry? is it not obviously His power that is at work, and not our own? isn't that our hope?
the thing is, i'm one of the few Christian Asian Americans on campus, it seems. the other ones almost seem underground, like hidden treasures waiting to be found. just yesterday was the student organization fair, in which all of the different organizations grab tables and hit up freshmen... i passed out EPIC business cards and generated little to no appeal over the course of almost two hours. there was a single guy i met who might have been interested... and why isn't that enough? i was so excited just to have that one guy.
and then there's another guy i met who's hindi, and i've been hanging out with him a lot lately. and i'm wondering if God will do something through me - i almost feel like my love is contingent upon that. like i'm saying "i will love you if there's a chance you will end up believing what i believe" and "i wouldn't love you if i knew you really don't care about my God." i really kinda feel this way...um, honestly. i think that's what you would see if you looked into my heart.
---
i remember the nights that i had as a sophomore in high school, a peaceful time i phrased an "ideal moment." i would sit on a freshly made bed, just out of the shower, hair wet and jeans baggy, sitting with a devotional book feeling closer to God than i ever had before. i remember early morning runs and overcoming doubts, i remember late night swingsets and running away to the lake in Michigan, lock-ins when we would end up praying for hours on end, and yet it would feel like minutes. i remember the last night of my sophomore year at OU, the last time i played basketball in tulsa, those pivotal moments at Acquire the Fire and in Mexico City and oneThing in Kansas City and the Labor Day retreat in Missouri.
i remember holding fast to the promise, resting my hope fully upon His grace. there wasn't anything i couldn't do, anything that could intimidate me, anything that could hold me down. in a kind of youthful recklessness, i called out and challenged Satan, knowing my God is so much bigger. not even i, but we all, looked forward to Sunday mornings, Friday nights. it was a sort of party or refuge. it was a defining moment.
and God proved Himself, stole me away, proved Himself. proved Himself to be bigger, worthier than friendship with this world. and i am forever ruined.
---
gonna catch some sleep before it gets too late. been reading (almost finished!) with a book by John Eldredge called Fathered by God. still in desperate need of buying me textbooks. things are well though. everything's good..
Monday, August 24, 2009
Thursday, August 06, 2009
what the world needs (nostalgia)
"don't ask yourself what the world needs. ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
my future almost comes alive and lies before me like a book. i am simply amazed and blown away at what God has done for me in the past, in bringing me to the very point that i am at. i am grateful for the joyous triumphs i have shared and seen, and still, the painful falls, my weaknesses exposed, my heart abandoned without reservation, without bounds or safeties. i remember being on a swingset one late night at a church retreat alongside my youth pastor, mike, ready to tell him that i don't think he would have liked me a year earlier - that i had changed that much.
i remember running away from home, holding grudges and rebelling. i remember investing myself into things that let down, things that left me hating myself. i remember feelings of failures and worthlessness, realizations that things weren't the way they should have been, wishing i could breathe when expectations pressed so hard, too hard. i remember feeling so lost, so wretched and incapable, so helpless in this world. i felt like the only one who didn't know what he was doing - and it hasn't been so many hours since the last time i felt like this, i'm sure.
i remember the friends i made. late night talks and worship sessions, the slow development of a new Christian, who began to see what it looks like when what you do and what you believe become the same thing. i remember new hope and stability, new life. a purpose, a meaning for being. it wasn't just a community of people who believed in God...it was to feel, for the first time, favor and pleasure and unparalleled love and kindness that i couldn't shake, i couldn't lose or move away from. it was to hear someone saying, "i see you. i understand you. you're all right, i'm going to take care of you"
i changed so much so fast, and the person you see now is nothing like the person you would have been looking at just a couple of years ago. i can truly say that i make mistakes - even a lot - but it's neither my nature nor what defines me. may i take no confidence in what i have done - good or bad - my worth has nothing to do with how much i've succeeded or screwed up. it has nothing to do with how much of a man i may be or whether others think i can play a piano or whether i am deemed worthy of attention. my value has beautifully nothing to do with me.
my second year at OU, i found a great group of friends. at the peak of it, we would spend at least every night together, hanging out, and it would feel like we could talk forever. i realize that i'm grateful to be at OU, because if i was anywhere else, i wouldn't be doing what i am doing - and i love what i'm doing. when school ended, we threw a big party for everyone, and i had been so stressed, but that night, i couldn't help but think that i was the luckiest guy in the world. i had a ridiculously close group of friends and a beautiful girlfriend, and i knew that i didn't need or deserve any of it, but God was giving me more than i could even ask for. that night, suzi pulled me outside in the rain to tell me how much she had wanted to break up with me, and how, for some reason, none of it mattered anymore.
later, we broke up, and it wasn't so much that we didn't care for one another, just that we thought we should focus on God rather than a relationship, especially if we weren't ready for marriage. i'm not sure what the point of this note was, or if i was simply feeling nostalgic, but the thing is - i just can't wait for what God has in store for me ahead. so much He has already given, and yet i really doubt that He is finished with me yet, and that He will continue to give and lead and hold. i want to say that i really can't get over how great His love is, and how He personally answered Psalm 51 for me.
a week from chaos, everything is as simple as this - God has taken my life and rocked it, transformed it, broken and built it, humbled and moved it. i find that just what King David prays for in Psalm 51 - that is exactly how God has responded to me. "wash me, and i shall be whiter than snow. make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice. hide your face from my sins...create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me..." i find that i have never had so much confidence in myself than before. and i'm not sure why, but i feel more like a man than i ever have before
tonight, i couldn't help but feeling like the luckiest guy in the world again. things with suzi are amazing (i feel so honored to be hers) and i ran a great basketball session with a bunch of my closest guy friends, playing better than i should have played. not even a week from what seemed like rock bottom, God is just so good to me, too good, even. the position that i am in makes no sense. people like me should find themselves buried under the pressures and stresses of making something of their lives, alone and cold because it's so hard to let go of failures and mistakes, hurting and broken because it may be so easy to love and forgive someone else, but it's indefinitely harder to love and forgive yourself.
and yet here i am. complete. satisfied.
moulin rouge said the point of life is to love and be loved. and having tasted real love...isn't this what is so beautiful about life? when you allow yourself to be loved, you will wake up one morning or play basketball with friends one night and realize that you are the luckiest person in the world. and having received that love from God, i don't think we can help but love Him with the same intensity, with unrelenting risk and uncomfortable danger. and to find that in this, we come alive
my future almost comes alive and lies before me like a book. i am simply amazed and blown away at what God has done for me in the past, in bringing me to the very point that i am at. i am grateful for the joyous triumphs i have shared and seen, and still, the painful falls, my weaknesses exposed, my heart abandoned without reservation, without bounds or safeties. i remember being on a swingset one late night at a church retreat alongside my youth pastor, mike, ready to tell him that i don't think he would have liked me a year earlier - that i had changed that much.
i remember running away from home, holding grudges and rebelling. i remember investing myself into things that let down, things that left me hating myself. i remember feelings of failures and worthlessness, realizations that things weren't the way they should have been, wishing i could breathe when expectations pressed so hard, too hard. i remember feeling so lost, so wretched and incapable, so helpless in this world. i felt like the only one who didn't know what he was doing - and it hasn't been so many hours since the last time i felt like this, i'm sure.
i remember the friends i made. late night talks and worship sessions, the slow development of a new Christian, who began to see what it looks like when what you do and what you believe become the same thing. i remember new hope and stability, new life. a purpose, a meaning for being. it wasn't just a community of people who believed in God...it was to feel, for the first time, favor and pleasure and unparalleled love and kindness that i couldn't shake, i couldn't lose or move away from. it was to hear someone saying, "i see you. i understand you. you're all right, i'm going to take care of you"
i changed so much so fast, and the person you see now is nothing like the person you would have been looking at just a couple of years ago. i can truly say that i make mistakes - even a lot - but it's neither my nature nor what defines me. may i take no confidence in what i have done - good or bad - my worth has nothing to do with how much i've succeeded or screwed up. it has nothing to do with how much of a man i may be or whether others think i can play a piano or whether i am deemed worthy of attention. my value has beautifully nothing to do with me.
my second year at OU, i found a great group of friends. at the peak of it, we would spend at least every night together, hanging out, and it would feel like we could talk forever. i realize that i'm grateful to be at OU, because if i was anywhere else, i wouldn't be doing what i am doing - and i love what i'm doing. when school ended, we threw a big party for everyone, and i had been so stressed, but that night, i couldn't help but think that i was the luckiest guy in the world. i had a ridiculously close group of friends and a beautiful girlfriend, and i knew that i didn't need or deserve any of it, but God was giving me more than i could even ask for. that night, suzi pulled me outside in the rain to tell me how much she had wanted to break up with me, and how, for some reason, none of it mattered anymore.
later, we broke up, and it wasn't so much that we didn't care for one another, just that we thought we should focus on God rather than a relationship, especially if we weren't ready for marriage. i'm not sure what the point of this note was, or if i was simply feeling nostalgic, but the thing is - i just can't wait for what God has in store for me ahead. so much He has already given, and yet i really doubt that He is finished with me yet, and that He will continue to give and lead and hold. i want to say that i really can't get over how great His love is, and how He personally answered Psalm 51 for me.
a week from chaos, everything is as simple as this - God has taken my life and rocked it, transformed it, broken and built it, humbled and moved it. i find that just what King David prays for in Psalm 51 - that is exactly how God has responded to me. "wash me, and i shall be whiter than snow. make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice. hide your face from my sins...create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me..." i find that i have never had so much confidence in myself than before. and i'm not sure why, but i feel more like a man than i ever have before
tonight, i couldn't help but feeling like the luckiest guy in the world again. things with suzi are amazing (i feel so honored to be hers) and i ran a great basketball session with a bunch of my closest guy friends, playing better than i should have played. not even a week from what seemed like rock bottom, God is just so good to me, too good, even. the position that i am in makes no sense. people like me should find themselves buried under the pressures and stresses of making something of their lives, alone and cold because it's so hard to let go of failures and mistakes, hurting and broken because it may be so easy to love and forgive someone else, but it's indefinitely harder to love and forgive yourself.
and yet here i am. complete. satisfied.
moulin rouge said the point of life is to love and be loved. and having tasted real love...isn't this what is so beautiful about life? when you allow yourself to be loved, you will wake up one morning or play basketball with friends one night and realize that you are the luckiest person in the world. and having received that love from God, i don't think we can help but love Him with the same intensity, with unrelenting risk and uncomfortable danger. and to find that in this, we come alive
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