A Refreshing Breath of Honesty

“Every writer must overcome a kind of shyness, putting out of mind the fear that we are being arrogant by thrusting ourselves upon you the reader, and egotistical by assuming our words are worth your time.  Why should you care about what I have to say?  What right have I to impose myself on you?”

I’m not sure what you think of me as a person, but I can be insecure.  Sometimes when expressing the truth of God which is so powerful, the person stating it often seems to be wielding the same power….but often times I feel like I’m spraying the world with a squirt gun when the rest of the world has rockets and missles.  I can feel so inadequate, I over-excenuate my failures, I test people at the boundaries b/c at the core I have such a difficulty trusting anyone.

I think Frederick Buechner states it best…
“If you tell me Christian commitment is a kind of thing that has happened to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say go to, go to, you’re either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine.  Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself:  ‘Can I believe it all again today?’  No, better still, don’t ask it till after you’ve read the New York Times, till after you’ve studied that daily record of the world’s brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible.  Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day.  If your answer’s always Yes, then you probably don’t know what believing means.  At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so.  The No is what proves you’re human in case you should ever doubt it.  And then if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes, it should be a Yes that’s choked with confession and tears and…great laughter.”

I find this perspective so counter-intuitive to the prevailing thought of the church today…here is his quote on the condition of the church today….

“So many churches remind me of dysfunctional families, full of loneliness and buried pain, dominated by an authority figure”

I have found that these days, I helplessly throw myself at the foot of the cross.  I live with both certainty and uncertainty…I wander like a child in the woods from one thought of God to another thought of something so horribly sinful and then wander back wondering how God can love such a flawed creature like myself.  Then this thinking takes me to the cross and wonders how could this God die for such a flawed creature like me….and finally I step onto the scene and the question asked of me as I stare out into the faceless audience is…  Will I let God love such a flawed creature like me?

Some days I shout with all the gusto I can muster YES!…and other days I pound my chest with an agonizing guilt saying NO!…other times I blush and feel my palm get sweaty and other days I simple don’t have time to deal with what I deem such a trivial question b/c I have MUCH more important things to do like go to work… indulge in my sins or throw my own pity parties.

The discovery I’m seeing in the pattern of understanding myself is that I sometimes take a truth and then try to line up my life according to that truth while not being true to myself.  I want to believe the truth that God loves me so I do everything I can to be lovable to God…I realign my life so that I can feel that in some way I’m incredibly lovable and irresisitable.  I deny the ugly parts of my life…I don’t deal with the issues, but I replace them so that no one will know….then I take this lovable life and proudly show it to the rest of the world while joyously exclaiming God’s testimony.  I join a small group, I sing louder and then the truth comes out…

I’m exposed and it all comes
tumbling
down.

The horrible cycle continues again…

But this time, I realize that I don’t start with God’s truth and try to make my life perfect according to His truth… but I start from where I’m at.  I start with my ugliness… my horrible insecurities, my magnificent pity parties and then I start attacking them with God’s truth…  I don’t hide the embarassing fact of “me” but I allow God’s truth to illuminate “me.”  I take the courage to step into God’s truth with my baggage that I wished the airline lost and show my white boxers with the heart on them…. I tell God…hey that’s me…  I feel the eyes penetrating my soul as I feel so embarassed….I look at the kid who burries his face into his mother’s leg b/c he’s so embarrassed for me.  I see the teenage kid whisper to his friend and cackle from behind…..

But then I look to my God… *shrug*…and He gently whispers….”even you, I have a plan for… and no matter how hard you fight it…You will never outlast my love.”

I stare into His face with my eyes filling with tears…my lips trembling and my hand holding my own pair of white boxers with hearts on them… and the crowd fades away….everything that seemed to matter so much matters no more….  I’m caught up in this moment….a holy moment, a delicious exchange of grace.

This feeds me….it allows me to stand in the truth….each day I take something out of my baggage.. some days I turn from him, but other days I have the confidence to remember that I can never earn this love by becoming more lovable, but I am reminded of His truth that I will never outlast His love.

2 Peter 3:8-9  “⁸But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. ⁹The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

The Orange Revolution

I’ve been reading the book “What Good is God” by Phillip Yancey.  I’m enjoying it immensely and there’s this short story that I wanted to share today.

Orange Revolution (From “What Good is God” by Phillip Yancey)
Have you heard of the Orange Revolution that occured in the Ukraine in 2004?  Let me tell you a little-known story about the unlikely heroes who helped spark that revolution.  Like other parts of the Soviet Union, Ukrainemoved toward democracy as the Soviet smpire collapsed, though in Ukraine democracy advanced at a glacial pace.  If you think our elections are dirty, consider that when the Ukrainian reformer Victor Yushchenko dared to challenge the entrenched party, he nearly died from a mysterious case of dioxin poising.  Against all advice Yushchenko, his body weakened and his face permanently disfigured by the poison, remained in the race.  On election day the exit polls showed him with a comfortable 10 percent lead; nevertheless, through outright fraud the government managed to reverse those results.

That evening the state-run television stations reported, “Ladies and gentlemen, we announce that the challenger Victor Yushchenko has been decisively defeated.”  However, government authorities had not taken into account one feature of Ukrainian television, the translation it provides for the hearing-impaired.  On the small screen inset in the lower right-hand corner of the television screen a brave woman rasied by deaf-mute parents gave a different message in sign language.  “I am addressing all the deaf citizens of Ukraine.  Don’t believe what they [authorities] say.  They are lying and I am ashamed to translate these lies.  Yushchenko is our President!”  No one in the studio understood her radical sign-language message.

Deaf people, inspired by their translator Natalya Dmitruk, led the Orange Revolution.  They text-messaged their friends on mobile phones about the fraudulent elections, and soon other journalists took courage from Dmitruk’s act of defiance and likewise refused to broadcast the party line.  Over the next few weeks as many as a million people wearing orange flooded the capital city of Kiev to demand new elections.  The government finally buckled under the pressure, consenting to new elections, and this time Yushchenko emerged as the undisputed winner.”

As I look into God’s Word, whether it’s scanning through the OT or the NT, there’s a consistency of seeing unlikely heroes.  In Esther 4:14, it speaks of this thought….”For such a time as this…” and as I begin to collide into my 30′s, I can’t help but start wondering how is this life going to make an impact in this world.  I have this picture of myself making this incredible impact….but lately, I’ve been thinking that what matters isn’t this need to make some glorious splash on the landscape of society, but a quiet steadfast faithfulness in meeting with God.  I’ve been so caught up with making an impact in this world that I get so driven…to ”DO” something.

Instead, God is teaching me to quiet my heart and my mind to start thinking of how I can impact His heart.  To ponder that thought…to think of how my actions can bring Him joy…  I’ve realized that spending time with my maker, reading about Him, and just talking about Him would please Him….

I am inspired by the boldness of this woman to stand up for what she believes.  I hope that as I continue to grow in my relationship with God, He would teach me how to stand so boldly for the things that He is passionate about.  He would empower me to live with passion for the things of His kingdom.  There are so many things in my life I want to change, but I think change begins at the smallest places in life.

God, would you begin to change this heart..help me to spend those quiet moments with you…to learn what your voice sounds like, to hear what is on your heart, to feel your presence.  Lord, make my life one that pleases you, that makes you smile…help me to seek you fully with a heart so passionately set on loving you more and more each day.  Your child, Jason

Close Enough to See…Not Close Enough to Matter

I feel like my life is a slithering slowly through the desert.  Can you believe its 2012?  Over the past 4 years, life has continued to move forward.  Our lives have radically changed and more than that, “who we are” as people has changed drastically.  I think back and 4 years ago, my life was so different.  I was working, going to seminary, and serving at church.  At that point, I felt like I finally made it.  I wasn’t this overly immature 20 something year old trying to find himself, while shamelessly saying tag lines at Abercrombie but I had found exactly what God had called me to.  I was “on fire” and passionate.  I loved what I did and I would sacrifice whatever it took to continue to serve, whether at my job or the college students.  It fed my heart and I loved it.  I was “in my element” …. knowing that in many moments during those years, I was doing exactly what God has called me to do.

I guess in the past couple of weeks, I’ve spent time reflecting a lot.  I see this current season coming to an end real fast and I’m trying to make sense of all of it.  Not sure of the what the future will bring, but at the same time, slowly plodding along until my time here is complete.  I have spent my Sundays listening to Ravi Zacharias and leading my own worship.  It has been awkwardly blessing.  Sometimes it makes me feel alone, sometimes it makes me feel sad.  Other times, I feel blessed… but in it, there’s a certain comfort in being in God’s presence that brings me back.

I think my inability to let go is the reason why I let these deeper things continue to plague me.  I know that is why I live in moments of frustration and I am where I’m at in life today.  “Successes are temporary but failures are permanent.”  The truth is I have lived in my failures.  I have allowed to eat me from the inside out.  They slowly gnaw at my soul…

I can’t let go b/c I have made it a part of who I am.  It’s funny how easily we look at addicts and think, you just need to quit doing what you’re doing.  It’s not healthy for you…but the problem is that much of those things that we become addicted to become who we are.  We cannot let go of it without feeling like we are letting go of a piece of ourselves.  And we just don’t like that…we don’t like the unknown, the uncertainty.  We would rather live in what we know and suffer, than to choose otherwise.  We don’t have to recalibrate our expectations, we don’t have to take a step of faith to be disappointed.  All we have to do is go through the motions, we know what to expect, and so we go through the same cycle over and over again.

“Failures are only the starting point of success…”

I am tired of the cycle.  I am tired of “me”  I remember those moments in life where I felt like the world was crumbling around me.  I remember telling myself, “These are the moments where my life is defined…this is the time I choose how I will live…”  Because it doesn’t take much to live in success, but it takes a whole lot of character to deal with failures and setbacks.  How would I respond to them?  Will I persevere…to push through.. to continue to fight with a holy strength and resolve?

Fortunately or unfortunately, that fight starts at the foot of the cross…it starts right here and right now.  Learning to take this part of me that has been “me” for so long, and laying it gently at the Cross.  I have sat at the foot of the Cross…I have felt the nail pierced hands reach out…but then I would turn away.  I wouldn’t dare let “holy hands” grab my filth…. I feel so naked and ashamed; so afraid and unsure.  Would He accept me again?  Would I let him accept me?

Even my Savior, I keep at arms length..close enough to see, but not close enough to matter.  But there comes a time when it’s not enough… it just simply not enough to be seen.  My heart cries but so many walls are built that no one hears.  Others knock down the walls, but I have learned to quickly raise more… my heart is waiting to be rescued and I know the only one that can is Christ.

So Lord, you know me…please come rescue me.

Snapshots

Snapshot is my active way of describing the word “a memory.”  I remember we used to have this saying back when I was a kid about “that’s a kodak moment.”  Its a moment that needs to be forever saved by imprinting it on film.  I look at my spiritual walk with Jesus and know that there have been those “kodak moments”…those experiences so intimate, so formative that they are forever saved on the imprint of my soul.  Whether it’s todays way of looking through photos on facebook or going through an old year book or photo album, those snapshots give rise to memories that stir emotions in our hearts.

I think sometimes the most beautiful pictures are those “candid” moments…where everything seems so mundane, but in that very moment, the picture expresses what words cannot.  I wish I had that gifted eye for photography, to be able to see beyond the mere physical and sense with my artistic heart the depth of the moment.  Unfortunately, in my soldier like world, everything needs to be neat and orderly, perhaps it is a push-back from my completely non-sensical mind!

I remember seeing this picture on these drink coasters my mom made of my dad and I.  I was probably 4 years old sitting on my dad’s lap…giving that cheesy smile.  There’s one thing looking at pictures when you’re young, but as I approach the same age as my parents in those pictures, it gives it a different depth and perspective.  It is almost bewildering as I think of them as my age…think of their struggles, their thoughts… that picture, probably taken by my mom… what were their dreams for me?  Did they think it would turn out like this?  Could they have possibly imagine their son heading off to a war in the Middle East?  Maybe I take in to an extreme, but seeing that picture make me want to turn back the clocks and ask them those questions…

The picture not only signified the questions I had of my parents during that time, but it is a reminder of my dad’s constant love for me.  It makes me emotional to think of how extravagantly my dad loves me.  If I tripped and fell, my dad would be proud of me b/c I was his son.  There was nothing I could do to ever have him love me any less.  I think of how powerfully he loved me, how he fathered me through so many stages of life…how he “connected” with me and enjoyed time with me.  I think of all the times he would sacrifice so I could have more.  I think of the sacrifices my parents made so I could have just a little more…and it honestly breaks my heart.

I have prayed to God that I could be something close to the man my father is.  Its amazing how one memory of one picture creates so much depth of emotion and heart.  I share that about my father b/c he is the greatest man I know and also b/c His love is only a glimpse of God’s love for me.  This is what overwhelms me….in my father, God has shown me such incredible love, but that love is only a shimmer of God’s love.

I think about that moment at AFC’s parking lot where I had just spoke with PD about my future.  I remember PD telling me that he sensed God’s call on my life.  I was at a place to except the brunt of that statement with open arms.  It was July 2005.  It was the clearest, breeziest summer day.  PD had left and I remember sitting on those benches next to the park by the parking lot thinking….God, if you’re all in, I’m all in.  I closed my eyes as I felt the sun’s rays pulse upon my skin and the breeze casually brush my cheeks.  With the acceptance of that thought, I also felt some anxiety b/c I was unsure of what the future would bring.  As the sun set, I went inside to the room closest to the entrance on the left and took out a guitar and just sang praise.

I remember shouting to God, “Humble King”
Oh kneel me down again
Here at your feet
Show me how much you love
Humility

Oh Spirit be the star
That leads me to
The humble heart of love
I see in you

You are the God of the broken
The friend of the weak
You wash the feet of the weary
And embrace the ones in need

And I want to be like you Jesus
To have this heart in me
You are the God of the humble
You are the humble king

Perhaps in that snapshot, I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the first time I let go.  I let go of trying to be something and allowed God to do His thing in my life.  I stopped striving to be a dentist, to be a missionary, to be something significant and took the moment to say, “God, here I am, weary and broken, all I want is to be like you, to have your heart in me, I want you to be my humble king.”  From that point, I solidified that decision that ministry would be a big part of my life.  August of 2005, I would meet Chris (my buddy from Hawaii) who would answer a 101 questions about the Army and would encourage my decision to join.

Amazing how that snapshot, captures so much of where I’m at today.  I wonder what snapshots we are capturing today?

Sacrifice in the Quiet

Philippians 2:3-8

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourself.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:  Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death–even death on a cross!”

There’s something inside of me that says I can do better.  I look around me and find myself living at a standard that is dictated by the surroundings.  Its that lingering thought that says as long as you’re ahead of those around you, you’re doing alright.  If you can gain the respect of those that you lead, then its enough.  But should that really be the case, or should we strive for a standard not set by the surroundings around us, but by the conviction inside of our hearts.

To put it simply, do we settle?  Do we sub-conciously observe our surroundings and try to live by the standard set by man, or do we actively look in God’s Word to seek what His standard is.

I think of Philippians 2 and as I read it, I am devastated by Christ’s Humility.  The will power and conviction it took to take aside what He felt He was entitled to so that He could be that “sacrifice” I depend on.  Christ’s decision to come and experience both the joys and travesties of humanity…to die at the very hands of those He came to save.  To willingly lay down His life to those that would never recognize his actions….I fall horribly short of such holiness.

And the continued problem I see is my own need to be recognized by the eyes of men.  To live according to their standards, b/c I get fed off the respect they offer me…which is often short-lived and fleeting.

I think of Christ….dragging Himself and the Cross He was to be nailed with….and it provides me a mental picture of my own need to imitate such an example.  With my own selfishness and conceit, I dragged them with every ounce of energy to that Hill of Calvary to offer them as sacrifices to God…to ask for in exchange an attitude that would emulate Christ…  To know that until I bring these to the Cross, I am helplessly bound by them…w/o God’s Grace, I am helpless.  God, help this poor child of yours, b/c I You definitely know that I need Your grace.

Short Changing Ourselves

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.  I don’t believe in circumstances.  The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, they make them.”  George Bernard Shaw

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.  Dream.  Discover.”  Mark Twain

If I took an honest assessment of myself, I haven’t been “right” in a long time.  It’s coming to a point where I almost don’t remember what that is like.  I have moments, glimpses… I remember talking with a student and as he’s sharing, there’s something inside of me that comes out that isn’t me.  I see and experience God’s gift inside of me come alive and the words I’m sharing aren’t mine, but they seem to be God’s.  It’s funny because it feels almost effortless.  In that moment, I feel as if this is what I’m made to do and I don’t think of my insecurities and my sins…  All the things I had worried about seem to fade as God helps me to engage with another human being in talking about things that matter.

Those brief moments help me to understand how we are made for something greater than ourselves.  But these days, those moments are so far and few between…they almost feel like hazy memories of a person that I can never be again.

“Up until I as 19 years old, I wasn’t really serving God’s purposes.  I was asking God to serve my purposes.  My intentions were good, but I wasn’t revolving my life around God.  I wanted God to revolve Himself around me.”  Mark Batterson

I read this quote and see so much of myself in it.  I wonder if the reason why I feel the way I feel is b/c I’m asking God to revolve around me.  In this constant asking, I only collide into moments such as the one with the student where my need for God to revolve around me coincides with the idea of myself revolving around God.  Sometimes I think these collisions are little ways of God showing His grace in my self-centeredness.

And then I have to ask myself, what am I not willing to give up.  In what areas of my life am I truly short-changing myself…and God?  I lived so willingly in this mire…poor decision after another, choosing selfishness instead of Godliness… I have gotten so used to my own ways that I don’t know how to live any other way.  My stubborn mind still believes that my way is best and I continue to trudge in the mire, falling and slipping, while growing tired and disenchanted.

What changes us?  Do people really change?  I remember hearing a quote from a TV show…the character was asked this question by a person who was so desperate to change.  His response to her was….”I don’t believe people change….but I’ve seen it.”  It reminds me of the story in the gospels where the person comes to Jesus and says, “I don’t believe, but help me to believe, I want to believe…”

So that’s where I’m at today.  Knowingly living my life selfishly, dreaming of living for Him, and understanding that the bridge to join these two are built on choices that I make today…in the small ways that soon resound bigger and bigger as the circumstances of our lives change.

As I reflect on the new year,  I feel a whirlwind of emotions.  I hope and pray that I would continue to serve my country and my God faithfully.  I pray that this risk would reap eternal rewards, and God would refine my relationship with Him and my character as a man…..God, make something of my life….

Christmas Post – In Our Shoes

Philippians 3:12-16  “12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

15All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”

I remember a long time ago praying this prayer that continues to “haunt” me today.  It was a message I heard a long time ago speaking about King David.  One of the distinguishing marks about King David was that he had a heart after God’s own heart.  What an amazing gift that is!!!  And so during a dry period of my own faith freshman year of college, I prayed to God that He would grow a heart after His own in me.  My oh my, how faithful God is to those kinds of prayers…and b/c of it, I would have to say that I have been placed in positions that have forced me to go completely against my own nature.

In Romans 7, Paul speaks about how our sinful nature often takes over and we allow that to guide our actions while the Godly nature God has for our own hearts only exists in our head and it takes time for it to become part of the new nature God is forming in us.  The key word is definitely “forming.”

Philippians 2:1-8  “1If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 
 6Who, being in very nature^[a] God, 
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 
 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature^[b] of a servant, 
      being made in human likeness. 
 8And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself  and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

This is the amazing thing about Jesus Christ is that He not only saw our situations but He put himself in our shoes.  It is a phrase that we often remark here and there, but the challenge for all of us is to not just put ourselves in another person’s shoes….but to get into their heart and see through their eyes.  It is almost to become that person to see their perspective.

I know that in relationships, I have had the tendency of just placing myself in their position.  Of course I wouldn’t come up with any sort of compassion because I still have my heart as I look at their position.  My judgements and my logic still made sense except that I stood in their position and wondered why the heck they didn’t see it the way I saw it.  Funny how that is?

The increasing challenge is not to only put myself in their shoes, but to almost become them in the situation they are in and usually one that I precipitated through my own actions.  Christ Himself did this very thing for me.  He did not just put Himself in my shoes, but looked at my situation through my eyes and saw the hopelessness that was in the world that I’m in.  Without Him, I cannot say for certain I would be here today.  So seeing my situation, He provided hope for me through the cross.

So the question that I ponder today is not that I just understand people’s situations, but am I being Christ to them?  Am I taking the time to see through their eyes, to feel through their hearts?  This is the next challenge I face and one that God is continually confronting me with….  It’s funny because until this moment of reflection comes, there grows a continual frustration with people…a wondering why they don’t see the world as I do… and so I force myself to be patient, to try to be more understanding, to hold my tongue and in it all I just find myself trying……so hard….and growing so disillusioned….

Perhaps the goal is not to try so hard, but it is to start being Christ to others.  And as Christmas time slowly approaches, the place that I need to start first is to learn through Christ’s example of being born into a world He didn’t have to.  He endured what wasn’t fair and sacrificed so much for a cause so few believed in…

And the question that pounds like a migraine is why!?……Why?  Christ….for an obstinate group of people…why!?  For the people who would spit in your face why?  For the people who would stone you, that would whip you?….for the disciples that would turn their back on you?  Why?!…..for what reason would compel you to go to such extreme to save a people who would have no regard for you!?…

Is that not the million dollar question!?  Is that not the reason we find our own thoughts continually hit a road block?!  A love incomprehensible…one that does not make sense… it literally sits in defiant of logic….as to rebel against even the nature of own our understanding…how are we to interpret such a love?

It only continues to plague my own heart….for God, the creator of this universe could have chosen any way to save this world…a plan of redemption, a carpenter’s son, a group of rag-tag fisherman and other ho-hums of society….3 years, a life or ridicule, unbelief…..to the son of the creator, the created laughed, prodded, made fun of, plotted against, conived…against the only son, the created chose to crucify and so I stand in wonder, in mystery, in humility not knowing how to react or how to comprehend…

Jesus why…..and it is here, in the face of his very torturers He pleads for their forgiveness….in the moments leading to his death, He pleads for those that are going to crucify Him….but why?!

There this mantra or theme God has placed on my heart…  “God meets us where we’re at…”  And I have to say that God is revealing this in so many ways.  He meets me where I’m at….often times on a broken road….so far away…with my head down wondering if all of “this” really matters.  Wandering through the forest of my frustrations…..going through the path of my situations wondering where this is all going to lead?  Taking one step forward….feeling the bitter chill of the wind hit my bones and the leaves rustling around me.  Is this a path that God had led me to or am I just walking alone…

Jesus meets us where we’re at.  He meets me on this path…..He meets me in this road where my wounded heart cries for comfort, where my chilled bones seek warmth…the desire to curl up in front of a fire having the flames radiant the soothing heat into my despondent soul.  A lick of warmth lights the flicker of hope that becomes rekindled….God meets me where I’m at….

But was it necessary to go such extremes?  Why the harshest of situations…does He know my heart that well?  Does he know how hard it would be for me to believe in His love for me.  Perhaps it in the recollection of the brutality that He faced that my heart can find comfort that His love goes beyond even the cruelest of people.  His forgiveness breaks through the barriers of doubt and I can find security in that.  His desire to go so far was His desire to show me that His love is beyond my own actions of hurting him.  I cannot put into doubt the love that He has for me regardless of what I do, say or think.  Even to the point of crucifixion, His love is made available.

I do believe that as Christ prayed and took up the daunting task of being the Savior of the world, He took a glimpse into my own life.  I am convinced that He had to.  He understood our situation and He understood how desperate our hearts would be for a Savior.  I know that I am oh so thankful so many days when I don’t think I’m going to quite make it.  He meets us where we’re at…and so in doing so, the place we meet Him is at the cross…The cross reminds us that He meets us where we’re at…it reminds us that His work has made us complete, and we don’t have to try so hard anymore…

The cross also reminds me that the challenge in following Christ is to meet others where they’re at.  It does not matter what is fair or unfair…what is right or wrong, or if I got hurt or not, but what matters is seeing the other person through their situation, heart and circumstances.  Often my heart turns from indignant righteousness to humbled brokeness….and perhaps it is in this place that God is forming my heart after His.  It is in the moments where I want to exert my own righteousness, where I want to feel like my way is better than someone else’s, it is where I want to scream….”What about my situation….what about mE!!!!…its not FAIR…..”  God gently reminds me that God has called me to love Him and His people.  I do not have to seek fairness or love from others but I am called to provide it to others.  I am called to die to myself and take up my cross daily…not to wait for someone else to take this cross for me…God has called me to love His people irregardless of the fact that I am loved or that anyone sees my perspective.

Selling Dissatisfaction

I remember the moments being out in the field when I was on duty for the Army.  Cold, tired, hungry….wanting to get back home, just to take a warm shower.  But instead, you have to pick up your gear, answer the call and march forward to the next mission.  Inwardly, you begin to yearn for the things back at home.  You begin to appreciate the simpleness of sleeping on clean sheets and taking a warm shower.  I remember times where I was so cold that I would go to the port-a-potty just to be warm.  I’d sit there thinking…I cannot believe I signed up for this!  But in it all, those experiences make coming home so much more rewarding.  Finally taking off your gear and hopping into the shower, there’s no feeling like that.

I share this b/c sometimes our lives need to be re-calibrated.  We live in so much luxury, our hearts are fed without restraint, and we begin to see how easily our hearts begin to feel entitled to every want or whim that it desires.  You watch a commercial, you see something in a window, you see a nice car pull around and all of a sudden, you feel your heart tug and tell you, Jason…. you deserve that, you work so hard!  And I’m like, “yea heart, preach it!!  I deserve it!”  And so I hopped on to the Internet, start looking around and then it produces this maddening cycle of wanting more and more.

This world sells dissatisfaction.  It wraps up some beautiful image into believing that if I have this, I will be happy.  I will finally be “complete” but the feeling fades away, something better comes along and we are stuck with what we bought and we watch as empty promises slip through our fingertips.  The world makes us believe that as we work harder, we will be able to obtain those things that can finally make us complete.

“It is imperative that we recognize that our particular model of civilization is actually designed to produce suffering.  If we simply work harder and longer and more efficiently to make it work better—without stopping to see what we have built—we will simply produce suffering more efficiently.” -Thomas Mueller-

I can see it in myself and others.  By no means are we neurotic money driven monger..but money builds that security and the more money we have, the more security we feels.  But the problem is, there will always be a want for money b/c money isn’t security.  It only produces a feeling of security but cannot fulfill that need in our hearts.  The truth is, there are moments for all of us to take this need to “want” and take it to the cross.  To bear this burden upon our hearts only weighs us down from seeing everything we have been blessed with.

“Spend a day napping and eating what is left over in the refrigerator; play a game with your children, take a walk, have a cup of tea, make love, do nothing of any consequence or importance.  Then, at the end of the day, where is the desperate yearning to consume, to shop, to buy what we do not need?  It dissolves.  Little by little, it falls away.” -Thomas Mueller-

The richness of life cannot be bought with the luxuries this world sells, but only can be recognized in the posture of thanksgiving for everything we do have.  We count beauty not by superficial facade, but by the inner depth of character.  For money cannot buy these things, but they can only be born through the decisions we make in life.

So I am reminded that my ambition isn’t to make more so I can buy more.  It isn’t to obtain some great position and be recognized by society.  Instead, it is to become rich in the treasures of Christ and the power of His resurrection.  It is the “memories” we share in life…the opportunities to love, to serve, to give out of our abundance.  It is the ability to share Christ with everything we have.  Whether that’s a kind gift or a simple text, I find the joy and passion in life measured by this gradient.  I need to be reminded time and again…I need a Sabbath to sit back or a field training exercise where my butt is getting kicked and I realize how blessed I am to have a shower and food on the table.

I hope that when others see my life, they wouldn’t comment on my nice house, or my awesome car, but in the richness of the life that I live.  I look at my father and I give him googly eyes.  Outwardly, he is just another korean man.  But inwardly, he is a man respected by so many.  His life has touched so many others, his actions have been above reproach, and his public persona shines just as brightly as his family persona.  When my life comes crumbling down, I thank God for giving me a father like him.  B/c what he offers me will be with me even as he passes away…his gift to me is not money I can squander, but a legacy that I can learn from.

Prayer
Jesus, I thank you for this life.  I thank you that I have what I have.  This education, a place to sleep, parents that love me, friends that care,…..You have given to me so abundantly… even as I see myself at work, it is you that has fashioned this heart.  You have given me this drive, this ambition to succeed and to live with passion.  You have formed out of my lack of discipline, a sharper keener sense of discipline, out of my failures, humility, and out of my differences, compassion.  Each experience, you have used to shape me into who I am today…and although there are many times where I feel like I lack, I am reminded that even in the areas I lack, you give so abundantly.  Where I can’t sing, you help me to appreciate the beauty of music, in my struggle to speak publicly, you grant me humbleness…in my cant’s… you grant, and how amazing that is; where I feel like I lack, you are still giving but sometimes I don’t see it b/c I’m so consumed in focusing on what I have or don’t have, and I forget all about you.

So thank you…grant me a teachable heart, all of my days so that I may be like soft clay, molded to give you the most glory.

Wish

“The day that each person willingly accepts himself or herself for who he or she is and acknowledges the uniqueness of God’s framing process marks the beginning of a journey to seeing the handiwork of God in each life.”  -Ravi Zacharias

I’ve been staring at my laptop for the past hour trying to write down my thoughts, my reflections of the day….wishing all the while that the words would flow so freely from this mind, but I’m stumped….

Wishing…

I don’t know why this thought came to me now.  Oh man, as a kid, I did a lot of wishing!  I remember each holiday I would wish for that perfect toy, and I remember that faithful Christmas day as a 5 year old tearing into the wrapping and holding my very own Nintendo!  My eyes lit up and I’m sure at that moment, my parents eyes’ lit up too seeing their son so ecstatic!  There was such an innocence to wishing… to have that hopefulness pervade our souls and feeling like we could speak into our chest a silent promise hoping that one day it would be fulfilled!

As I grew older, I remember wishing for all kinds of things.  I would wake up in the summer hoping for that beautiful summer day where I could go outside and play.  My days were filled with football, baseball, and basketball with my friends.  We’d start in the morning and play until the sun set.  I remember during those days I’d wish that someday I would be this great football player!

I remember laying in my bed praying to God (who was the grantor of all wishes at that time in my life) to grow me.  I would stretch and stretch, then tell God, make me taller.  I actually have a “Watch Me Grow” poster in my bedroom where I would see if I grew any.  Unfortunately, I would always be the 2nd shortest kid all the way until High School.

I remember the days in High School hoping my pimple would go away, or that I would catch the attention of that one girl….  I remember wondering why my voice was changing and cracking and wishing that I would somehow fast forward through this awkward time of puberty!  I definitely did a lot of wishing in High school

The truth is, when you get older, all that wishing somehow fades away.  I don’t do that much wishing these days.  I think it shows how I feel like anything I want, I can obtain or I know how to get it.  Or maybe, it’s because I lack the idealism to think of things that are out of my reach.  I mean, I do “wish” but often they are wishes that I would be better so I wouldn’t make a silly mistake again…. but it doesn’t have that same innocent ring that it had as a child.

I think tonight, I’m going to spend it “wishing” with a child-like faith…. recalling those memories, realizing how easily we lose our innocence.  Whether its for world peace, that perfect girl, or just to feel God’s love in a furiously passionate way…..I want my heart to wish again, to see this world not as something that is confining, but realizing that as children of the Almighty God, we can metaphorically jump across any boundary and scale any wall that this world tries to erect in our lives.  We are meant for so much more!

There was this message I heard at J-Gen…I can’t even remember much of the message itself, but I do remember that he was a pretty outstanding speaker. Anyways, what I do remember is the exercise he asked us to do.  He asked us, what would our lives look like if we allowed God to dream our dreams….

I remember getting goosebumps picturing myself speaking to a crowd of people about God.  I remember thinking, man it would be awesome to be used in that way.  But these days, those thoughts of grandeur are replaced with more simplicity.  Maybe my dreams are those of grandeur, to continue to progress in positions of influence, to attain positions where I can have influence in people’s lives…but when I think about God’s dream’s for me, I see myself walking the hallways silently praying for those that pass me by… I see myself taking a moment out of my day to buy a coffee for a stranger, to learn in the most simplistic ways how to share God’s love…and knowing that in these seemingly mundane acts, I am living out God’s dream for me….  It encourages me so much b/c even in such a difficult time, I sit in another country typing away on this journal, but in it, I’m living God’s dream and that is so powerful…so amazing and perhaps as others read this, they are in some way connected to that dream God has for me…

I hope that as He touches me, we are moved by His grace, captured by His love, and floored by His amazing plan for our lives.

“It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things”  -Donald Miller-

“I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked jazz music.  Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.” -Donald Miller-

Chasing After the Illusion

1 Timothy 6:9-10  ”People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.  Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

“One works hard to prop up an illusion that sucks the life out of them, and the other works hard to make their home a place that restores them, nurtures them, and gives life to others.” -Craig Groeschel

As I’ve gotten older, I have seen how easy it is to get caught up in the whirlwind of this consumer culture.  I am the first to admit that I want everything that has a lower case “i” in front of it…..iPhone, iPad, iMac….iPod…but at the same time, I wonder what cost we are paying for the convience of technology?

I remember coming home for R&R and realizing how intrusive smart phones have been to everyday culture.  I was rocking my 2003 pay-as-you-go cell phone while everyone else was seemingly distracted playing with the new app or reading updates on one of their social networks.  It was weird coming from a place where there are no smart phones to a place where it was the norm.  Even eating a meal made me feel weird b/c a meal used to be a customary event where two people sit down to share one another presence with each other.  Unfortunately, technology is robbing us of such luxuries to provide us other luxuries which ironically create more shallow connections at the risk of losing deeper connections.

We have become a society more connected but yet increasingly isolated.  People are starving for community, but yet their immediate need is to superficially feed it with immediate updates of people’s lives.  Two liners that describe how they feel at the moment…provides this false sense that you really know what’s going on with people….(I’ve come to realize how I “think” I know what’s going on in people’s lives that I haven’t spoken to in 10 years…by their facebook updates)

Fastfood can only sustain a person for so long….just as much as superficial communication can sustain community for so long.

Why do I share this?  Because I feel like this is becoming the “norm” of today’s culture.  We are to continue to build up this illusion…of friends, wealth, and success.  We display our successes for the world to see….our immediate opinions and rebuttals.. it is becoming pervasive in the sense that we are living in a time where perception is how people view reality.

I am deathly afraid b/c I know how compulsive I can be.  I know that in the effort of doing good things I can often miss the best thing.  I am afraid that my own life, if not held accountable, will follow the path that is normal today.  I want to believe that people care more about the depth of a person than the resume of a person.

The real question is….are we chasing after “the illusion” media and society has created?  Is it really healthy?

I don’t know…but I do know that these our questions that I need to wrestle with on a daily basis.  I fear to allow myself to continue to accept the “norm” as the “norm” and soon realizing that chasing the “American Dream” has left me empty and still wanting.