You are All Glorious

Falling in Love with God

beautiful how Matt Chandler writes his journey on The Village Church's webpage:
"in the middle of all those doubts, in the middle of all those intellectual barriers, I think Jesus just got tired of playing with me and said, “No, you’re mine.” He rescued me and captivated my heart, and I just immediately fell in love."

Hope for the day

当太阳还没升起时，
黑夜的沉默透入每一个角落
希望静悄悄地爬上树叶
滴入你的心中   一滴一滴盛满你的心房
给予你力量  面对新的一天
这就是每一天，若不经意就会错过的奇迹

Before the sun rises,
When the silence of the night permeates every nook and cranny
Hope quietly makes its way up onto the leaves of the trees
and drips into your heart
Drop by drop
filling the recesses of your heart with strength to face the new day
This is a daily miracle, one that you would miss if you hadn't paid enough attention to notice it

Who can fathom the depths of God's love for His people? Those who have returned as well as those who have not yet returned. How He yearns to be reconciled to us, yet when will we realize and deeply appreciate how much our souls really truly want to be reconnected back to Him? For He is the source of the meaning of life. God is love.

We grieve but not without hope.

Gluttony

Came across this article today - the socially acceptable sin
Truly we live in a society where having what we like and want is not difficult, and getting more and more is possible. At some point, "having more" goes from being "I would like to but would do perfectly well without" to "I have to have more!" Food is but one way that this can manifest, I could want more friends, more affirmation, more clothes, more results, more sun, more hobbies - so how much will be enough for me?

chpt7 TTTAY

The boat functions, not in the shed or boathouse with other boats, but in the water.
The boat functions in the water, but not when the water is in it.
Even so, we are human beings not human doings.

Grow

link here
Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year? What parts of my childhood faith am I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep with me for this leg of the journey? Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?”
Now is your time. Become, believe, try.

so, where is home?

It is possible, I suppose, to miss home terribly, not know what home really is anymore, and refuse to go home, all at once.
I hope this NYtimes article doesnt become unavailable..

5 bible verses often misused

These are from http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2014/04/01/five-bible-verses-you-need-to-stop-misusing/31534

But in sum:
Jeremiah 29:11 “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you...’”
NOT all about me. NOT about my personal fulfillment. God may need to move me somewhere difficult so I can learn what it means to show who God is in this difficult place.

Romans 8:28 “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . ”
“In all things, God works for the good of those who love him.” In other words, whatever your circumstances, good or bad, God is still fighting for you.
The happy ending promised is the ULTIMATE happy ending, the renewal of ALL THINGS. To quote N.T. Wright, “The world is still groaning, and we with it; but God is with us in the groaning, and will bring it out for good.”

Luke 11:9 "Ask and it will be given to you"
It’s not, “Ask for anything you want.” It’s more like, “Ask for my kingdom, and you will have it.”

Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me"
It's about contentment and hope. What Paul was saying is not so much “I can achieve anything,” but “I can endure anything” – which, in his case, included prison.

Matthew 26:11 "You will always have the poor among you"
Jesus was referencing Deut 15, where the writer says “There need be no poor people among you,” the writer insisted, “if only you fully obey.” A few lines later, he added, “There will always be poor people in the land.” This was a concession to reality, not an excuse for apathy. In fact, it was all the more reason to be openhanded with the poor.

Good teachers

In watching my pastor and my boss, I realised good teachers don't just teach what/how they have been taught, they teach what they think should be taught. *in awe*

The beautiful transformation of Christianity

I continue to be amazed at how much of a genius CS Lewis is to come up with something as beautiful as this: "And that is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there is a rumour going round the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life."

From the teachers at my old school

I was never taught by these teachers, but what he wrote for his farewell interview is really nice. Quoting his friend, “if you leave this school with your four grade As and you don’t feel slightly fraudulent about yourself, there’s something wrong with you.”

When making decisions

And afraid that I'm not in God's will, ask:
"Where do I see myself joining God's redemptive work?
How will this decision affect my participation in God's work?
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/practical-faith/what-if-i-miss-god%E2%80%99s-will

Humility

When you offer advice/opinion, people say, "yea yea, now you're Christian, only you know what is best."
When you make a poor choice, people say, "so what if you're Christian? You're no better than any of us."
True, just as we are, no man is any better/worse than any other. Turning to Jesus allows a teacher into our lives to guide us, a father to lean on, a chance to be forgiven and make right. Turning to Jesus doesn't mean we'll never make mistakes again - human as we are, we don't always remember to surrender all decisions to Him. But we are given multiple chances to fight the same temptation if need be, drawing strength from our God, until through Him we are victorious over these challenges, again and again. Every "wrong decision" is a lesson in diminishing myself and leaning on Him, surrendering to His will, until hopefully one day it may become second nature to us. None of us are there yet, but our Father in heaven loves us anyway, and will always be encouraging us. He will not give up on us, neither should we give up on ourselves.
So when we make a mistake and men judge, it's ok to say, I was wrong. Men are poor representation of who Jesus is. Don't judge Jesus or God based on men, find out about Him by reading His word and talking to Him in prayer.

What we do matters
Faith that doesn't change the way we think, the way we do things, our attitudes really isn't faith at all. But acting like Jesus, doing the things He does, teaching the things He teaches without faith recognizing him as God's son, without experiencing His love for each of us will cause us to go wayward. What we do becomes a chore, and no longer out of the joy of His love. At it's root, Christianity isn't about changing the kind of person you are, or what you do, or what you say. It isn't about making life easier. It isn't about building a life that the whole world envies. It is primarily about building a relationship with Jesus. Everything else is an extension of how that relationship shapes our hearts.

Surrender

Everybody surrenders to something or someone in life. If not to God, you'll surrender to popular opinion, to money, to resentment or fear, or to your own pride, lust, and ego.

7-year post doc

Because for sure I will need to come back to read this
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/07/21/the-awesomest-7-year-postdoc-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-tenure-track-faculty-life/

Snippets - The gospel is not a behavior control program

fr http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/god-our-generation/gospel-not-behavior-control-program

...we often put our energy into changing others’ behavior, rather than introducing them to this astounding grace. I know I am far more comfortable when people do what I believe they’re supposed to be doing. And although it’s a complicated formula, I suspect I’ve desired it with more passion and energy than I have desired that the same individuals truly encounter God’s great love for them as they are.

The love that is meant to mark us as Christians is meant to receive people in the generous and gracious way Jesus received people.

To receive an “other” as they are, without first mandating behavior changes, requires us to tolerate a bit of anxiety or discomfort. It demands that we release, or at least relax, our natural impulse to announce our opinions. To receive another as they are, and not as we wish them to be, is to agree with the apostle Paul’s conviction that it is God’s kindness that leads to repentance.

This is the guy who, ignoring the opinions of others, bee-lined toward those His culture had identified as sinful.

Before He ever suggested, “Go and sin no more,” Jesus first welcomed and received unrepentant sinners.

This Momentary Marriage

Marriage is patterned after Christ’s covenant relationship to his redeemed people, the church. And therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display.

Staying married, therefore, is not mainly about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant. “Till death do us part” or “As long as we both shall live” is a sacred covenant promise—the same kind Jesus made with his bride when he died for her.

http://cdn.desiringgod.org/pdf/books_bmm/bmm.pdf

Does family matter?

Warning: This is going to be long.
In a world of broken families and self-fulfillment, why should we fight for the institution of family?
It probably wasn’t long ago when you heard someone say, family is where we find the richest of joys and the heaviest of burdens. Perhaps you recall a fleeting thought such as, my family members are so annoying, I can’t wait to pick my own family members, and everything will be perfect. Try as we may we can never escape the imperfections of family, and some struggle to find that “richest of joys” others claim to experience with their family.

Let me be slightly distracted. I was watching Now Is Good on the flight home, about a teenage girl who is suffering from leukemia, is into her 4th year with the condition, and who hasn’t got much time left. A rebellious teenage girl who doesn’t have much of life left has the perfect excuse to run off and experience life as she would like to define it – and she does, by coming up with a list of things she wanted to do before she dies. Here’s a snapshot of what made it to The List: Having sex, taking drugs, breaking the law. No she isn’t a wild one, if anything she has the most mellow disposition despite her wild desires. I recall a scene where she turns around and says to her parents how she is tired of her father’s desperate attempts to control and her mother’s absence, where she states matter-of-factly: “you are both wasting my time” and walks away alone. Her runaways alone stresses her father out, and there came a point where her father sits in the middle of her trashed bedroom, sees The List, and said crying, “I could have helped you with your List, I don’t want you to go”. Indeed, for the father, her dedicated care giver, he can’t let her go when he has invested so much time and energy into her. Maybe with the list she was seeking thrill, but when she later walks into the life of the neighbour boy, she finds that she was really looking for acceptance, encouragement, an unimposing caring presence, one who probes her reasons for the things she does, one who asks, what would you like me to do? And she tries to be just that to her little brother, when she brings her brother out saying “It’s your day, we will do whatever you want”, and brings her brother to indoor sky-diving when he said he wants to fly. She eventually finds her thrills of life, unexpected as they come, with her own try at indoor sky-diving, running into frigid waters of the English beaches, seeing the white cliffs of the Dorset coast, sitting high up in a tree in the middle of quiet woods: all times shared with people she loves. In one simple moving scene, she watches her brother play in the garden, as she thinks about who and what she is leaving behind. Maybe I could use all that as an example.

The Heaviest of burdens
There are those who, based on what they see/hear through various mediums, understand that you are supposed to help your family, it is your duty, your responsibility, which maybe you would not have picked up (that much of?) if given a choice (instruction). There are those who love their family enough to want to do anything, even denying themselves, to help the ones they love, whether or not they feel that particular family member has been instrumental in their life or not (conviction). It is not difficult to see which scenario causes one to find the family burdensome and leads to burn out. Maybe it could be affected by how others view what you do – “It is Dad’s duty to do this for me” vs “Thanks Dad for finding time to do this for me”. But regardless of how others view what you do, I think ultimately it’s about how you rank yourself with respect to your family in the importance scale. One could be in a place where you feel what you are doing is most important, like the absent mother who couldn’t make it to the hospital in time for her daughter’s chemo procedure. Or one could be in a place where you give and give so willingly and lovingly, like the father who always wants to be there. But we still see him breaking apart, which leads the next issue.

Getting sucked in
The more we give, the more we expect from those we give to. The father was trying so hard to keep his girl in as good health as is possible, yet he sees her destroying his hard work when she stays out late, goes drinking, dunks herself in cold seawater. One can only imagine her father’s disappointment and heartbreak. Yet we cannot control the decisions that another takes, we can try to advise them in an attempt to sway their judgement, but the decision eventually lies in their own hands. It is hardest to try to help someone yet not see cooperation from the ones we are helping. And depending on the situation there are times when it may be better to stop helping, there are times when it may be better to keep helping. With respect to convincing people, there is a “tactic” or “skill” of talking to another, where you try to lead him/her to (your) conclusion, but have them think they came to that conclusion themselves. Sometimes that works sometimes that doesn’t. So regardless of your tactic, one should always leave room for the other to make their own decisions – there is only so much you could help, you cannot make their decisions for them. Bracing yourself to let go could reduce disappointments when it doesn’t turn out as you would like, or lead to pleasant surprises if it does.
One may say her neighbour boy didn’t put in as much as her dad did to reach a stage where he could be disappointed. There may have been a moment, where she thought he was leaving her for college, and seeing how upset she was disappointed him. It was a different situation though, for to him, she was the one who helped him out of his hermit state and gave him the courage to go to college again after the death of his father. Yet to her, he was the one who helped her discover what she was yearning so badly for, and news of his leaving disappointed her. It was a misunderstanding. So perhaps they did put enough into each other for both of them to be disappointed. Disappointment is inevitable, but perhaps what is more important is managing how badly it affects you.

What about the self?
I remember a time when I said to myself, “If I focus on myself, rely on myself, and don’t bother about others, I won’t be disappointed.” And a voice replied, “Really?” And I recalled the times I messed up, I gave up, and I knowingly walked into shit because my will was weak in that moment. I remember being in a place where I had so much focus on myself that other people’s encouragement did not affect me at all – “what would YOU know about what I’M going through?” I did not care about others enough to be able to understand what others feel when they spoke to me like they cared about me. Put in another way, I did not care for others in the true sense of the word, so I thought others care about me in the same untrue way. In the movie, she had no cares in the beginning. With her good friend they went about leading the thrilling life – meeting random guys, kissing, trying to have sex, stealing someone’s credit card, leaving without paying. When she found out her good friend got pregnant, she cared enough to go to the clinic with her, and when her friend decided to keep the baby, she cared enough to want to be around when the baby’s due. And from then on, she was less hostile to her father’s care, perhaps because she was at a point where she just didn’t have that much energy, or perhaps because she was able to receive other’s care. Until you learn to give, you may never learn to receive.

Where is the “richest of joys”?
Short answer: In all the little things. It is amazing that the most moving scene was one as simple as watching her brother play in the garden. It was great that the scenes with family sitting by the bedside watching her as she drifts off were quick shots, with a nurse narrating what will be happening, as opposed to tired long drawn-out dramatic sobbing scenes (where I would struggle to cry because I keep reminding myself I should be crying). Spend time together, not just anytime, but quality time. Celebrating little achievements but magnifying them. Celebrating effort so they are never undermined. Birthdays that are not about eating cake but about the hurdles one overcame over the past year. Meals of thankfulness celebrating how one has been a blessing to loved ones. And especially, if one is lucky enough to be in a situation where everyone’s been working together towards one goal, perhaps helping someone reach their dreams, perhaps putting something together like a surprise party, and seeing it all come to fruition.

The importance of family.
True, we don’t get to pick our family. But that’s why family is training ground (for the future family). There is no such thing as perfection – we can only tend towards it. It is not about starting perfect. It is the walk that people take together through time. If it was all about choice, there will come a point when things fall apart and it is so bad that people say, “I don’t choose you anymore, I will choose another”. But it is not about choosing another, but choosing to learn to love one another, to fit one another, to serve one another. Whosoever might be naïve enough to think that 2 years or 5 years with one person, when we are all in our youthful prime, is enough to judge how this person will be like 20 or 50 years from now? People change with years, and we may never know our family members completely. But that should not keep us from loving the imperfect people that we all are.