meet Bob

Meet Bob. He's all of the 1 centimeter diameter of a festering-bloody-sore-blistery-mess that is on my lower lip. It feels like Jello, and it's dulled my nerves to the point where when I touch it with my index finger I can barely feel anything at all. Bob is the incarnation of every pain and every sin within me. A bloody mess covered with a layer of pearly white.

I need purpose and vision in my life. As much as that sounds like the theme of some inspirational speech delivered courtesy of Mr. Jonathan Sprinkles, it is true. No inspiration ever lasts as long as an eternal one.

Growing up surrounded by international missionaries, I always had to wonder - what are they doing in South Korea teaching over-pampered children who go to an "international" school that has a homogenous Korean-American population? It means a lot more, even looking back on today's sermon and remembering that I need to be faithful with church, relationships, vocation, etc... Everything I do needs to be an offering of praise.

I always think about this whole predestination/free will issue, and how it affects how I should live my life. If I don't do anything, will God bring people to know Him? Sure. If I do something, will God bring people to know Him? Sure. (I mean, technically, that's a maybe either way, but He CAN, right?)

But something hits me:

"Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory."
- 2 Timothy 2:10

From God's point of view, there might be the "elect," but from our point of view, all people are people - and we definitely don't know who the "elect" are. That being said, we do evangelism for the sake of praising God by wanting to offer up our lives and help lead these "elect" to Him. No doubt God can bring them there a different way.. but isn't it such a privilege to know that God's willing to use me?

now

I've always been a firm believer in living in the present, but now when I think about it, what I'm looking toward in the future determines how I live now.

It really does matter what happens beyond the now. Living eternally isn't something I usually think about, and this past week I looked at things and wanted them for the sake of this life, but I realize that no matter how valuable they seem at this exact moment, they won't be worth anything in a year.

It's frustrating. Living faithfully is hard.

If I'm asked to look back on the past week, the past month, the past year... I can probably say that Jesus is making me a better person. Not a good person - a better one. There's still so much to learn, so much to explore in life...

I think and wonder... if I didn't take 2 steps back every time I take 1 step forward..

If I didn't let go of what I believe when I make every decision..

If I knew where I was going all the time...

If I didn't project my insecurities on a God that's so much greater than anything I can imagine...

If I didn't love myself and succumb to my desires every moment..

How would my life be different?

enough to let me go

Lately I've been listening to the new Relient K and Switchfoot albums on repeat. On my latest listen, I fell in love with the song "Enough to Let Me Go."

Part of the reason is, the lyrics speak a truth that resonate with me, especially these days when I feel like I understand so little about this world and my part in it.

The chorus that persists through the song is "Do you love me enough to let me go?"

This helps me understand God's love a little more. His love is a little bit of faith poured into us, trusting us enough to let us go if we want, but also to let us fall for Him if that is what we want. It's the strongest sense of free will - it's the heart of a father that loves the prodigal son so much that he will let go and wait no matter how long it takes, no matter how much it hurts.

I just wanted to say that because I wanted to reassure myself that there is still an ounce of sensible thought left within me.

joy

Be joyful always.

Seems like joy is always fleeting for me - one second I have it, the next I lose it. But today, for once, I just want to sit (or stand) and rejoice. Because the little blessings I have are all worth it.

Isn't it good to know you're welcome? When people have a genuine smile on their face; when they're glad to have you over. No obligations, just relations.

I believe: God's got the biggest smile of all.

sifting through

What if what I believed all along was wrong? I am undoubtedly a doubter at heart. I want so desperately to be right but I discover that I never can be. Life is a million steps of faith and I just hope I make the next hurdle...

Emotive, unstable like an unwinding cable car... I just want to forget these thoughts and praise with passion.

lies

I like telling hate telling tell lies.

It's so much easier to stretch the truth than not. You know, when you've got one thing wrong, might as well make it seem like a thousand things are. Just for dramatic effect. Because I do enjoy melodramatic moments.

Just one way I think that having life the way I imagine it to be (much like a Diehard movie) is better than having life the way it is. I just won't have it the way it is, in fact. Yet I won't even challenge myself to make the right choices. It's sometimes just so hard for me to expend my energy to actively try to be obedient.

You know, by the time I'm done butchering the truth away in my life, we'll be left with so little that I won't be a light to the world, let alone a flickering bulb with a near-broken filament. Maybe I'll end up being like a laser pointer. Lights nothing, pinpoints things, and ends up searing peoples' eyes until they go blind.

Maybe, by the time I'm done living out the gospel I've made up for myself, Jesus will be a 1st century tribesman from Northern Africa who was planted on earth by God to take over the world, and he was consequently reincarnated as every winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Sensational, but untrue.

I've been trying to learn to focus not on who I am. Because digging back through 70 pages of my journal from this past year, every page is about a struggle I'm having, a lesson I'm learning, a way that my life is being changed. So little is actually thankful to God for it. So little actually acknowledges His sovereignty in my life (except for the ones where I'm struggling to learn He's sovereign).

When it comes down to it,

life is not about my actions,

life is not about my heart and my motives,

life is not about what state my soul is in,

life is about who God is.

perfection

It is in the dark when one most appreciates the light.

It is when I am the clumsiest that I'm glad someone will catch me.

I wish I could slap myself and tell myself that I would do well to leave my own life alone and know that the way I am is the way I was made, and the way I am isn't yet going to be perfect on its own. And it won't be. 'Till the day I die.

And I don't know why it is that I reach out for so much perfection or I want it so badly, but I will do anything for it. For righteousness. It's why I strive, but it is also why I always wander.

"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
- Matthew 5:48

This is part of the Gospel presentation I learned. But it's not part of the Gospel that I learned.
I cannot be perfect, therefore I will always be short of God's standards.

"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."
- Philippians 3:8-9

disown

I feel like Peter right now.

*sigh*
I need a second chance.