questions, questions.

Doing this survey about "spiritual gifts" for ministry teams at Harvest, I think I've learned a lot. I can speak multitudes about how multi-talented I am or try to distinguish myself from the crowd, but I find that when I come back to this simple list of things such as "giving," "teaching," "encouraging," "inspiring," I fall short.

I believe that I should be cultivating something more than my own natural talents or pride, maybe something less professional and more spiritual. I know that you know sometimes I just want to take it easy and have the others do the hard work, and take the credit.

But something about yesterday's lesson from Matthew 6, about doing things in secret (fasting in secret, giving to the needy in secret), tells me that the way I've been living and doing my so-called "serving" is so skewed that I find that much of my spiritual relationship is based on my attempt to meet others expectations of me.

Oh, I need a wake-up call. I just want to find that someday God will look down on me with favor. I know that he's always loved me, I know that I am a constant sinner, but I want to be obedient.

worries.

These past two days have been a blur.
Mostly because I went and saw a doctor about my leg pain and he seems to think it may either be a stress fracture or a bone tumor.
And that's where the worries begin.
If it's a bone tumor, is it malignant?
If it's malignant, has it spread?
If it's spread, how is the outlook?

The questions can go on and on.

With my selfish mind, I'd love to pray for healing. I think maybe that is what I will do. But I'm not so sure as to what I should do. Should I give myself up for lost and look to serve Him and please Him continually?

Certainly.

But I feel that stewarding my body is another one of God's goals for me in life. And I have to admit, I have fears, fears that it might be something serious... And in many ways it is my fear of the things that are NOT God that causes me the worst harm. So I seek for serenity, for peace, and for certainty that my Lord is always there for me, through better or through worse.

I pray he sweeps my worries away... Turns my mind off of my worries... And helps me set my eyes upon serving Him and Him alone.

He who suffered, He who died looks upon me ... and all I can sputter is "Life's not fair" every moment something goes wrong or might be wrong with me. Maybe my perspective is all wrong.

Heal me so that I may serve you.

Looking back at my previous posts, it seems my life is still within that theme enveloping me - the brevity of life. I asked for urgency, and I got it, I can not feel more urgent about serving.

tearjerkers.

Of course, as a guy, I can't really freely admit that I cry when I see or hear about touching stories.

But let's be honest. There are certain things that at least make my eyes water (for a very very short moment, of course).

Of all the stories that make me tear up, there is a recurring theme that runs through many of them - sacrifice and humility.

The story of a man who gave up his titles in order to take the blame unfairly for what someone else had done, the story of a man who shunned his authority and took it within himself to serve others, the story of a boy who gave up his Christmas gifts in order to help less privileged children, and the story of a perfect man who was perfectly humble and lived a life of suffering and torture before dying for the undeserving.

In many ways, the stories that touch me are the stories that relate to Christ's attributes - and that is the man I should strive to be. Selfless, courageous, but most of all, with a heart of servitude.

witness.

Lately, I've been thinking about the word "witness" and what it means.

I have this vague idea in my mind as to what it might mean, but pretty much it has nothing to do with the word itself but rather the context I always hear it in. To me, witness has always meant that I need to represent Christ and my beliefs in a certain way.

But today, I feel in many ways I've had a revelation.
witness: n. a person who gives testimony
I am a witness, a person who gives testimony about Christ, through my actions, my beliefs, and my life.

Here's a couple of verses I heard in sermon today:
"For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life."
- 2 Cor 2:15-16

I want to be that aroma of Christ - a witness, of the character of Christ and of his love and grace. For then I can be a warning and a hope, a sign of God's kingdom to come.

utter failures.

Looking on Christianity, it's so difficult to grasp the idea that I must depend on Christ alone, and place my faith in Him.

Of the things that C.S. Lewis writes about, one thing that I can now attest to is that I am an utter failure. When I have hope that I, through my own righteousness, can be perfect, then I can not trust in Him fully. But today I've experienced and lived through the fact that my own will against temptation is weak, that it is impossible for me, through my own volition, to resist all temptation.

Simply, I cannot and I will not ever be perfect.

So when I say I want to throw away my pride, that I want to depend solely on Him, it is a moot statement. I know that my own strength is never enough - there will never be hope for me and my sinful nature. And what have I to give up, when it is already all His?

So, to put a long story short... I'm an utter failure. The sad thing is that I know that I'm going to need a constant reminder that I am indeed such an utter failure. All I can do is ask Him for guidance.

life's too short...

I seem to go through "themes" in my life where for a certain period of time, all my moral lessons revolve around one thing - right now, that thing is simply the brevity of life.

I easily seem to determine what's fair and just and "normal," and that I should live to a ripe old age of 80, or whatever the life expectancy for a male in the US is these days, and then die a happy old death from old age. But what I envision seems not to be the case - it's not "fair," so to say, because I don't deserve to live that long. I've constantly been learning that I have to give myself and my will and desires up.

Recently, when I was back home in Blacksburg, my friend James told me that one of his dormmates passed away in what you could call freak accident. This dormmate was riding down a hill on James' longboard, and when he hit a turn, the board fishtailed and he fell off and skidded down the hill on his back, except that his head snapped back and hit the asphalt. He went into a coma and died a few days after.
That sent me a wake-up call, to be sure. Pastor Seth always talks about urgency and how urgent it is for us to act in ministry, for us to do the kingdom work while we're on Earth. But I put it off so easily - after high school, after college, "I'm too young now," etc.. The excuses never end. Even a simple "I'll do missions during the summer" seems ridiculous now, thinking about it. I wouldn't expect a servant of mine to put things off like that, especially when his life is within my control, so why should I expect God to?
No longer do I want to have to have my own time and my time for God separate - to combine them is to be able to serve him wholly as a man of God, and that's what I should be aiming for, not a half-hearted commitment.

And when teenagers, people I know, and people I hear about are dying at exactly my own age, maybe even younger, I feel as if I have no right to proclaim the fact that it's "unfair" for me to die now. He will keep me as long as He has work for me, and my duty is clear: to work for Him, day in and day out, because life's just too short for me to be wasting it on useless things.