The Reminder I Need Today

Preserve me, O God, for in You I put my trust.

O my soul, you have said to the Lord,
"You are my Lord,
My goodness is nothing apart from You."
As for the saints who are on the earth,
"They are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight."

Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another god;
Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer,
Nor take up their names on my lips.

O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
You maintain my lot.
The lines have fallen to me pleasant places;
Yes, I have a good inheritance.

I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel;
My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.
I have set the Lord always before me;
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will rest in hope.
For You will not leave my soul in Sheol,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

~ Psalm 16

Languages, 道, and Isaiah 35:8-10

"A highway shall be there, and a road,
And it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.
The unclean shall not pass over it,
But it shall be for others.
Whoever walks the road, although a fool,
Shall not go astray.
No lion shall be there,
Nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it;
It shall not be found there.
But the redeemed shall walk there,
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
And come to Zion with singing,
With everlasting joy on their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness,
And sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

A year and a half ago, I would have read this passage and thought of the Highway of Holiness as the path created by God's commands. Obtaining life by following his laws and living according to his ways would have seemed to fit with my immediate assumptions concerning Israel. I probably would have bypassed this passage's obvious arrow to Christ.

But the Body's diversity is a really cool thing and I am impressed with the splendor of a multilingual community at the moment. I know it is important to understand Hebrew and Greek in order to get the best original meanings of the text, but as with the case of the above Isaiah passage, I am finding reading God's Word in a variety of modern languages is also beneficial. I can't help but think God reveals himself through the languages he has created and allows for unique scriptural insights in each translation of his Word.

"道“ is a very interesting word in the language I am currently studying. I obviously don't know as much about the word as a native speaker or any more serious scholar, but I do know a little about the word and it intrigues me. It is a complicated, ancient word connected to Taoism and loosely means the way, principle; path, road; and to speak, say.

It's an amazing word scripturally because it ties together so many of Christ's attributes. In translations of John 1, 道 is used for "the Word" that existed in the beginning and when Jesus calls himself "the way, the truth, and the life," 道 is used for "the way". When scripture uses 道 in John, it lends a fullness and roundness to who Christ is whereas English translations piece together multiple individual meanings to give us the same picture.

Back to Isaiah. Because I now have another translation of the Bible floating around in the back of my mind, when I read Isaiah 35, Christ is immediately visible. This passage is talking about a path that leads all who walk on it straight to holiness and redemption. There are no precursors to getting on the Highway - even a fool can come and find safety and direction. When I think of the word 道 rather than my own word of highway, religious laws quickly fade from my mind and a person comes in view. I no longer think of a way of life to follow, but rather THE 道. The road to redemption is a person, not a system.

I am thankful for God's creativity in language so that I might have a fuller understanding of what he is communicating to the world and that I might reach that understanding in connection to my brothers and sisters half way around the world.

A Few Favorite Quotes About God's Love

"We have to keep finding new ways of saying the same thing: 'You are the beloved of God.' But it is important that we not become sentimental about this love. The Scripture makes it clear that God chastens and disciplines those who are loved... This is no ordinary lover we have; this one will be impossible to manipulate. It is God who molds us, and sometimes that hurts. Love isn't always easy on us, but it is always our salvation." - M. Craig Barnes in The Pastor as Minor Poet

"There's a wideness in God's mercy
I cannot find in my own
And He keeps His fire burning
To melt this heart of stone
Keeps me aching with a yearning
Keeps me glad to have been caught
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God

Now I've seen no band of angels
But I've heard the soldiers' songs
Love hangs over them like a banner
Love within them leads them on
To the battle on the journey
And it's never gonna stop
Ever widening their mercies
And the fury of His love

Oh the love of God
And oh, the love of God
The love of God

Joy and sorrow are this ocean
And in their every ebb and flow
Now the Lord a door has opened
That all Hell could never close
Here I'm tested and made worthy
Tossed about but lifted up
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God"
- Rich Mullins, The Love of God

"He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets"
- John Mark McMillan, How He Loves

The Love of God And Doubting His Goodness

I don't believe in God's goodness towards me. It is something I want to believe in and an area of faith where I am progressively growing, but it remains true that at the core of my heart, I doubt God's goodness. It is easy for me to believe all of his other attributes and I consent rationally to his goodness, but the degree of stress, anxiety, worry, etc. that I keep around in my life shows that regardless of logical agreement and correct theology, there is a doubting disconnect between my mind and my heart.

Two weeks ago, God used some frustrating circumstances to give this disconnect a lesson. I was with friends in Siem Reap, enjoying the first delicious days of vacation and very ready to move on to the beach so I could completely unwind and let go of an exhausting semester's lingering stress. In a twist of events, though, my passport was stolen and I lost any chance to rest as I battled embassies, immigration control, crowded international buses, and sickness just to be able to return to start a new semester. The stress was almost unbearable, primarily because its roots lay in my anger that God wasn't giving me what I needed. I needed rest and he wasn't being good enough to give it to me.

As I sat on a bus from Cambodia to Bangkok, I read something in George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind that has started to dissolve the head/heart disconnect. MacDonald tells the story of Diamond, a little boy who meets the North Wind and progresses through a series of adventures with her. North Wind is at times an allegory for God and in one particular chapter, MacDonald uses North Wind to give one of the best illustrationa of God's infinitely wild love and goodness towards us, even though it is often almost impossible for us to comprehend this kind of love.

Two keys aspects of the story stand out to me. First, being as close to North Wind as Diamond is brings pain with it. Diamond could choose to stay on the safe side of North Wind, benefiting from her and having relationship with her, but keeping a safe distance. Instead he desires to be close to the very heart of North Wind, regardless of the pain it includes. Being at the center of God's loving heart is simultaneously the best and most painful place to be. Diamond makes the statement, "I begin to think there are better things than being comfortable." Knowing God's love is a tremendously powerful thing, but there is nothing comfortable about it.

Second, it is only possible for us to doubt God's goodness when we think we have done anything for him; when we realize we have never done anything for God, that only he has done on our behalf, we can start to make sense of God's wild goodness. As North Wind holds Diamond in her arms, she sets out to sink a ship. Horrified by this, Diamond questions her goodness. He knows there can't be two North Winds, one good and one bad, so he is faced with deciding if North Wind is completely good or completely bad. Diamond admits he has never done anything for North Wind and therefore their relationship is based entirely on North Wind's goodness to him. Because of this acknowledgment everything about his relationship is based on North Winds desire to do good, Diamond has faith that sinking the ship is within North Wind's good character and they continue on their journey.

It's a difficult argument for me because at times I think I see God's goodness and at times I seem to see God's badness, for a lack of a better word. What is to keep me from deciding that God is entirely bad all the way through? When the ship is sinking in my life, why shouldn't I decide God is bad? And it can only be harder for others. It is one thing for me to flip flop back and forth on this issue because sometimes inconvenient things like stolen passports happen in my life. But what about the really bad stuff in this world? What about sex trafficking? What about people I love going to hell? What about starvation? What about earthquakes that kill thousands of people? Based on the collective experience of humanity, what is to prevent us from concluding that God is bad all the way through? Grace.

George MacDonald got it right when he highlighted grace as the evidence in our lives that God is good. If I think I have contributed anything in my relationship with God, or on the large scale, that people have contributed anything, then yes, there is enough in this world to think God is bad. But if I believe that I have not been able to give God anything, that even my best is worthless, that God is in my life simply because of his own desire to be in my life, then that is enough goodness for him to be thoroughly good. MacDonald's point is that if I accept God's grace in my life, then I also accept his goodness, even when I don't understand the sinking ships.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this. No, I am trying to wrap my heart around it. I want it to transform the way I see my life and my God, so that stress and anxiety don't define me. If I lived like God was good to me, fear would have nothing to control. I want belief in God's goodness to sink down into me, deeply and completely. And it will. Just as the North Wind's billowy and blustery presence changes Diamond and leaves her mark in his life, so will God's powerful and loving presence leave its mark in my life.

John Donne's La Corona... Possibly My Favorite Poem

La Corona

Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise,
Weav’d in my low devout melancholy,
Thou which good, hast, yea art treasury,
All changing unchang’d Ancient of days;
But do not, with a vile crown of frail bayes,
Reward my muses with sincerity,
But what thy thorny crown gain’d, that give me,
A crown of Glory, which doth flower always;
The ends crown our works, but thou crown’st our ends,
For, at our end begins our endless rest;
The first last end, now zealously possessed,
With a strong sober thirst, my soul attends.
‘Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high,
Salvation to all that will is nigh.


Annunciation

Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is All every where,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful Virgin, yields himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though he there
Can take no sin, not thou five, yet he’will wear
Taken from thence, flesh, which deaths force may try.
Ere by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in his mind, who is thy Son, and Brother;
Whom thou conceiv’st, conceiv’d; yea thou art now
Thy Makers maker, and thy Fathers mother;
Thou’hast light in dark; and shutst in little room,
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.


Nativitie

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves his well belov’d imprisonment,
There he hath made himself to his intent
Weak enough, now into our world to come;
But Oh, for thee, for him, hath th’ Inn no room?
Yet lay him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars, and wisemen will travel to prevent
Th’effect of Herods jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my Soule, with thy faiths eyes, how he
Which fills all place, yet none holds him, doth lie?
Was not his pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss him, and with him into Egypt go,
With his kind mother, who partakes thy woe.


Temple

With his kind mother who partakes thy woe,
Joseph turn back; see where your child doth sit,
Blowing, yea blowing out those sparks of wit,
Which himself on the Doctors did bestow;
The Word but lately could not speak, and lo
It suddenly speaks wonders, whence comes it,
That all which was, and all which should be writ,
A shallow seeming child, should deeply know?
His Godhead was not soul to his manhood,
Nor had time mellowed him to this ripeness,
But as for one which hath a long task, ‘tis good,
With the Sun to begin his business,
He in his ages morning thus began
By miracles exceeding power of man.


Crucifying

By miracles exceeding power of man,
He faith in some, envy in some begat,
For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious, hate;
In both affections many to him ran,
But Oh! the worst are most, they will and can,
Alas, and do, unto the immaculate,
Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a Fate,
Measuring self-lifes infinity to a span,
Nay to an inch. Lo, where condemned he
Bears his own cross, with pain, yet by and by
When it bears him, he must bear more and die.
Now thou art lifted up, draw me to thee,
And at thy death giving such liberal dole,
Moist, with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul.


Resurrection

Moist with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul
Shall (though she not be in extreme degree
Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly,) be
Freed by that drop, from being starv’d, hard, or foul,
And life, by this death abled, shall control
Death, whom thy death slew; nor shall to me
Fear of first or last death, bring misery,
If in thy little brook my name thou enroll,
Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,
But made that there, of which, and for which ‘twas;
Nor can by other means be glorified.
May then sins sleep, and deaths soon from me pass,
That wak’t from both, I again risen may
Salute the last, and everlasting day.


Ascension

Salute the last and everlasting day,
Joy at the uprising of this Sun, and Son,
Ye whose just tears, or tribulation
Have purely washed, or burnt your drossie clay;
Behold the Highest, parting hence away,
Lightens the dark clouds, which he treads upon,
Nor doth he by ascending, show alone,
But first he, and he first enters the way.
O strong Ram, which hast batter’d heaven for me,
Mild Lamb, which with thy blood, hast mark’d the path;
Bright Torch, which shin’st, that I the way may see,
Oh, with thy own blood quench thy own just wrath,
And if thy holy Spirit, my Muse did raise,
Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise.

One Woman's Story of Abortion And Merciless Redemption

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I just finished reading Chi An's A Mother's Ordeal and I couldn't recommend it more. During the first few chapters, I was bored with the typical tales of the Cultural Revolution. You can read a slew of other books, all full of horrible, dehumanizing descriptions of China's chaos. But by half way through, Chi An's tale grabbed me in the gut and I found myself waking up to an extremely personal admission of victimization and guilt unmatched by other such memoirs.

Chi An tells her story of growing up, finding a husband, and starting a family, all against the backdrop of China's population control policies. After suffering the cruel delivery of her first child and the forced abortion of her second, Chi An finds herself bitter and self-focused. Willing to do anything for the benefit of her own family and despite deeply suppressed ethical qualms, she takes charge of enforcing the One Child Policy within a local work unit. It is not until she accidentally becomes pregnant for a third time while living in the US with her husband that Chi An wrestles with her deepest longings and deepest guilt. The couple decide to fight to keep this new child alive and in the process are forced to separate all ties with their homeland.

Better than any educated argument or theological belief, Chi An's words from the heart reveal a universal longing for life and the guilt that ensues when it is prematurely ended. Growing up in a world where logical and practical arguments for abortion abound, Chi An continues to be plagued by the human desire to conceive and bare children and when in the end, she becomes complicit in the forced termination of a generation, she and her colleagues suffer from nightmares, recurring sights and sounds, and emotional torment all oriented around the "little hands" that will come after them for justice in the next life. There is no reason Chi An should suffer from guilt considering the positive environment towards abortion in which she came of age, and yet something inside her refuses to accept the actions both committed against her and by her as innocent.

What finally intrigued me most about her account lies within its closing chapters as Chi An retells her first experience with Catholicism. In a beautiful reflection on why people would worship a "dying God," Chi An simply and movingly describes the apologetics of the cross from an outside and Asian perspective. I am doubtful if Chi An took time to catch up on John Stott or Tim Keller's theology before writing down her thoughts on a couple pages (nonetheless predating Keller! ;-), and yet she sums up all of their grand arguments and thoughts through the layman's lens of a Chinese woman who has lived through hell and for the first time ponders what kind of God would be so real that no person could dream him up.

And yet, Chi An falls short of reveling in the grace that lies waiting for her. She senses that there is a vast significant meaning to Christ's death, but she cannot find what it is. Instead, she finds redemption and hope through confession and a new calling in life to set right her imbalanced scales of justice. She declares to have found redemption, but she dares not hope to have found mercy and grace.

The whole of A Mother's Ordeal is well worth reading, but if you never pick it up, at least read below. It will save you the gruesome operating table scenes, but fill you in on one woman's heart full of fear and hope. Fear of a Heavenly justice that she cannot understand and hope in the value of life that she has both betrayed and protected.

"Two hours later, after I had been moved from the recovery room to a regular hospital ward, my baby was brought to me. As Wei Xin looked on, I stretched our my arms to take her from the nurse, suddenly aware of the significance of the moment. It was for the sake of this tiny human being that I had endured so many months of long-distance blackmail and personal torment. I drew my infant daughter close to me, thankful that Wei Xin and I had chosen to defy the authorities, exulting in our triumph.

..."'You are safe now, my little 'illegal' daughter,' I whispered. 'Whatever happens now, no one can ever take you away from me.'

"By the time I returned from the hospital, the first article written by Steve about our case had appeared in Catholic Twin Circle magazine. It closed with an appeal for concerned readers to appeal the INS on our behalf. A surprising number did...

"I was moved to tears of gratitude by these letters, even as I struggled to understand what had motivated their authors to write. Why should these people, strangers all, care what happened to us and our baby? What did they hope to gain from such an act? I had grown up in a culture where only people who knew you well - kinfolk, coworkers, classmates, or close neighbors - exerted themselves on your behalf, and even they expected favors in return. And yet hundreds of Americans from across the country had taken time to petition their government on our behalf. I did not know what to make of such generosity of spirit. 'The American people have good hearts,' Wei Xin and I told Steve wonderingly.

"'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' Steve replied. 'Americans would not like to have their government forcing them to abort their unborn children,' he added, 'so naturally they sympathize with you.'

"This 'Golden Rule,' as he told us it was called, had a familiar ring to it. The Analects of Confucius contained a similar precept: 'Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.' But the more I reflect on the two formulations, the more I realized how different they in fact were. Confucius had merely forbidden people to wrong one another, not encouraged them to perform positive acts of charity. Living under such a rule, no wonder so many Americans had written letters on our behalf - and with no expectation of a return.

"The awareness of what others were now doing for me convicted me anew of what I had earlier done to others. Not just once but a thousand times I broken both this new rule and its Confucian variant. I had done to other women what I did not want, and had finally not allowed, to be done to myself. The horror I had hoped to leave behind me in China came back to torment me anew. What good is your regret? I sneered at my reawakened conscience. How does it help the troubled and despairing women, now forever barren, whom you tortured, aborted, and sterilized?

I abandoned myself to the care of my tiny daughter in the weeks following. Holding her in my arms, I could finally let go of the memory of the other little girl or boy who had been taken from me twelve years before. But the joy that my ‘make-up’ baby brought to me was not untempered by sorrow. She was both balm and wound, consolation and accusation, for her very presence seemed to speak to me of all those other children who were absent, who would never be. I had won my struggle to give birth, but how many hundreds of women had lost theirs? I was able to hold my daughter, but how many others would never hold theirs? What right do I have to this child, I thought bitterly, after what I have done?

“One day Wei Xin, looking rather abashed, told me that he wanted to go to church. ‘I know that we were taught by the Party that all religion is superstition, but a lot of my friends at work go, and I would like to find out what it’s all about. Besides,’ he said wryly, ‘if the Communist Party is against it, maybe we should be for it.’

“Wei Xin’s suggestion came out of the blue. There were no Christians in either of our families. My parents had been atheists, while Wei Xin’s had been Buddhists. I had been force-fed Communism, which was virtually the state religion of the People’s Republic, since I was old enough to talk. I was not about to submit myself to some new cult, however pleasant sounding its rules. I didn’t know whether the benevolent heaven of Chinese folklore existed or not, but trying to find out had never seemed to me worth the trouble. I thought Wei Xin foolish for even suggesting that we make the attempt.

“It was by appealing to my concern for Tacheng, who would be entering the sixth grade that fall, that Wei Xin convinced me to go. As far as I could tell, he was receiving no ethical instruction in the public schools at all. Teachers in China placed a heavy emphasis on learning right from wrong, even if it was confounded with Marxist ideology, but all that was missing here. Wei Xin told me that it was in America’s churches, not in her schools, that such things were taught.

“Walking through the doors of Saint Michael’s Church the following Sunday, I had a strong sense of trespassing on forbidden ground. Attending services in China was either discouraged or entirely banned. I had never before been inside any religious edifice, unless one counts the Buddhist temple I had helped a horde of fanatical Red Guards demolish during the Cultural Revolution. The only Christian church I knew of in Shenyang had been converted into a warehouse in the fifties by the government.

“I looked over the hundreds of people present with interest. Mixed in with the Anglos were Mexican Americans, Filipinos, Korean Americans, African Americans, Vietnamese, even a Chinese family or two. No one had ordered these people to come. Like Wei Xin and me, they were all here because they wanted to be. As we sat down I was struck by the realization that this was the first time I had ever taken part in a meeting not organized by the Communist Party for its own purposes. But for what purpose had these people voluntarily gathered here? To practice the Golden Rule? To improce themselves? To socialize? To adore the deity of love?

“I understood almost nothing of what followed. It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be so much chanting and singing, so much standing and kneeling, and so much invoking and summoning in a religious service. I followed as well as I was able, which was hardly at all. I caught only the odd phrase. ‘As it was in the beginning, is now…’ What was in the beginning and is now? ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’

“I was fascinated by the painful figure on the cross that hung over the altar. Why would anyone worship a dead God, I thought to myself. Chinese god images were always robust and happy – fat, laughing Buddhas without a trace of suffering in their features, or sturdy figures of Guan Gong, a famous general whose body carried no scars from his numerous military victories. Of course they were also easy to dismiss as mere excrescences of human desires – happiness and success embodied in little wooden divinities. But the idea of a dead God was simply absurd. Surely the fact that this man had been killed proved that he wasn’t God at all. Who would want to kowtow before a defeated creature, I thought, unless he was not a mere creature at all but the Creator? But then why had he allowed himself to die? It was almost beyond belief, certainly beyond the human imagination. The wildest dreams of human beings, I was sure, could not have begun to conjure up a dead God. Perhaps there was something to all this after all.

“I remembered the hundreds of women I had forced to have abortions, how they had writhed and screamed and cried. And I remembered my own abortion, and how I had writhed and screamed and cried. If this tortured figure was God, then surely he understood the pain and suffering that I had felt and caused. Was there in his death some larger meaning?

“From the time I was a small girl, I had been eager to help others. It was for this reason that I had become a nurse. At time, I had allowed myself to be twisted by selfishness into acts that I regretted, but my one true desire was to serve, to love. How could I have gotten to be thirty-eight years old and not realized this? That I had hurt and injured others was a failure to love.

“Wei Xin and I enrolled in adult classes, Tacheng in catechism. Months later I made my first confession – and felt at peace with myself for a long time. The little hands that had been clawing at me could no longer reach me in the new place where I lived. My mind laid to rest the little-boy-who-wouldn’t-die to his rest. From now on the only baby’s cries that would wake in the night were those of my newborn daughter.

“I was forgiven, but justice demanded that I do more. I would spend the rest of my life doing good to others – a goal I happily adopted, for it corresponded to my own deepest wishes. I did not know which way the scales of justice would tip when I had completed the course; I would only try to weight them in favor of mercy. In caring for others, I would be atoning for my past crimes. But how could I help women still in China? I resolved to begin by telling my story to Steve, however painful that might be, so that he might write it.”

More Thoughts from Real Christianity

"Knowing that the journey of faith will not be easy, they do not become discouraged when difficulties come. Knowing an adversary will oppose their efforts, they are not surprised or unprepared when the enemy attacks. As they set out on their way, they expect the early going to be difficult, but they know that the end of the journey will be great.

It is not without merit that those who pursue authentic faith in this manner are called pilgrims and strangers. A pilgrim is one who is on a journey. When the journey transcends his normal borders, he becomes a stranger. He is like a businessman who is sent into a new territory with the task of executing his job with diligence and tenacity and then returns home as soon as possible. Whatever pleasures he enjoys along the way, he enjoys with moderation. He is thankful when the weather is pleasant but is not diverted from his task when storms come.

He is a traveler. He expects the unexpected. But as he travels, he knows he traveling to 'a better country' (Heb. 11:16). He can observe the practices of this strange land and associate with its inhabitants. He even attempts to speak their language and where appropriate adopt their fashions, but he makes sure that he is not sidetracked or delayed along the way from accomplishing what his master has sent him to accomplish. He has business to which he must attend. He knows there will be temptations and distractions. He knows the enemy wants to delay and derail his advancement. This means that he must maintain his focus and direction. To make sure he is on the right track, he needs periodically to stop and take stock. Is he traveling in the right direction? Has he become distracted? Often he has the sense that he is making good progress. At other times he feels as if he is getting nowhere. All the passions of life are experienced along the way.

...This is no dreary duty! This is challenge and excitement. This is the ultimate adventure. This is what life was meant to be."

Thoughts from Wilberforce's Real Christianity

"What is good in only a matter of opinion in secular society. Using society's own standards of goodness, careful observation of the bigger picture of the bigger picture may reveal that a particular good has been outweighed by general evil. When a society defines its own morality and then applies it to itself, that society can justify its own serious breaches of character. It is able to lower the standard to the detriment of all.

Even in the best of cases, the fundamental problem still exists that the motivation for life is still man-centered instead of God-centered. Goodness is no substitute for devotion. In its culturally defined forms, goodness can exist where love of God and passion for His glory do not."

Thoughts from Piper's The Dangerous Duty of Delight

"Life is war. The casualties are millions, and the stakes are eternal. What we need today is not a call to simplicity, but a call to war. We need to think in terms of 'wartime lifestyle' rather than a 'simply lifestyle.' I have used the phrase 'necessities of life' because Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:8, 'If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.' But this idea of simply necessity can be misleading. I mean it to refer to a style of life that is unencumbered with nonessentials - and the criterion for 'essential' should not be primitive simplicity, but wartime effectiveness... Life is war. All talk of a Christian's right to live luxuriously 'as a child of the King' is this atmosphere sounds hollow - especially since the King Himself stripped for battle."

"Jesus did not ask us to be indifferent to whether we are destroyed. On the contrary, He assumes that the longing for true life will move us to deny ourselves all the lesser pleasures and comforts of life. The measure of our longing for life is the amount of comfort we are willing to give up to get it."

Thoughts On Mary During Advent

During my senior year of college, I was researching early 20th century feminist philosophy and struggling deeply with God's design of the sexes. I had not intended to find myself in such a quagmire; rather, I started the research project with the intention of better understanding feminism's roots in order to better refute it. And yet, by Christmas break I was fighting against bitterness and questioning what role womanhood played in God's eternal plan. It's a typical question among women who start to think through these things, but I couldn't escape wondering why God seemed so male-centered. He revealed Himself in terms of the male gender, He created Adam first, He gave headship to the male half our race, and when He came to be one of us, He entered the flesh of a man. None of these issues shook my faith in God for redemption, but I just could not help ask... why? Was there any way God acknowledged my sex as important to His plan, or were we just along for the ride, to sit and watch God's grace unfold from the sidelines?

About the time these questions were the most pressing, I happened to go see The Nativity Story. I had no big desire to see it originally, but went along with my family for some holiday entertainment. It is beautiful how God often uses the unexpected to answer some of our deepest questions. The movie was beautiful, but what struck me most was the harshness it displayed. In particular, watching the birth scene clicked with me. Watching Mary scream as her body is ripped by the Child leaving her to enter the world on a mission of redemption started to awaken in me the idea that the nativity is evidence of God's deep love and commitment to both genders in His eternal plan. I didn't continue exploring the thought at the time, but it gave me enough peace with the issue to finish out my senior thesis with peace and confidence in who I am as a woman.

Today, though, I was looking through an art book and being drawn to the Medieval section, I was reminded again of the nativity as a sign of God's value for both sexes. The Gothic Catholic paintings depict an importance in Mary that we Protestants have missed for centuries. Mary was not a deity, neither was she purer than any other human under the sun. But Mary was an integral and crucial part of God's plan for redemption and the ripping of her body foreshadows the ripping of Christ's body for the sake of humanity.

Not to be taken lightly (particularly in the ancient world), giving birth is a bloody, brutal, and beastly sacrifice of one body for another. If women feel undervalued in the redemptive plan, it is because we have not recognized in Mary the inclusion of womanhood by God. The male gender was acknowledged for redemption when Christ used a man's body for the work of atonement on the cross. The female gender was used for redemption when Christ submitted Himself to the blood and screams of birth.


Our visual culture misleads us concerning womanhood, particularly at Christmas. Birth is not quiet and peaceful. Mary was no gentle angel. The problem of the Medievals was not that they liked to paint Mary and the Christ child. Their problem lay in failing to recognize the true significance of her story. No wonder woman's role in God's plan has been lost - they took the nativity story and cleaned it up to be decorative art. A true understanding of the nativity would have produced terrible scenes of placenta and umbilical cords, blood and sweet, tears and pain. We would think of the nativity as gruesomely as we think of the crucifixion. And we would be inspired to worship the true and living God for the splendor of His will.

The story of the nativity in its true meaning points us to the cross. In these two events, Christ's earthly life began and concluded, and both were marked by bodily suffering. In Christ, God reconciled both sexes of a fallen race to Himself and declared grace and mercy for those who seek Him. There is peace between God and humanity, and as a result, between man and woman. And at the end of time, we will both be resurrected, our bodies complete and renewed. The story of redemption is a story of wholeness and one where God forgets none of his creation in the drama.

The Christian community fears feminism, and rightly so, but I believe some of feminism's roots stem from the same questions I dealt with during my senior year. A history of misrepresentation and misunderstanding of Mary's role in God's redemptive story has played a disastrous role in the church to the point where we see her either deified or forgotten. If only recognized God's use of her as similar to crucial male figures (such as Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Paul, etc.), maybe modern women would have a better understanding of their status as God's daughters whom He chooses to use. I don't know if the makers of The Nativity Story share any of these thoughts, or if anyone else was as struck by it, but I am extremely grateful that the movie dignified Mary with a painful birthing scene and recognized (perhaps unwittingly) that woman's greatest moment was being included in the redemptive story so intimately that God would submit Himself to her bloody body.

Surrender

This world is just a shadow of a stronger, more real time to come;
In this lies my hope.

"I surrender all
to the promises you made
and I will give it all
to the maker of the day

No one knows your heart
and no one knows your fears
When no one solves the mysteries
or even wipes away the tears

Can you hear the sound of laughter
from the other side of life?
There are days when I feel like a stranger sometimes
Tell me, are there any other fools like me?

This reliance on another world
has a great effect on this world
This conscience of another world
has a great effect on
grace recollection

He doesn't love us 'cause of who we are
He only loves us 'cause of who he is

We all were children once
so will we return
So let those days return
let us all return"

A Study On Loving This Culture - Kindness

"Love is kind." I am stumped. How to exert kindness towards a new culture? But I want to truly love this place, so I must reflect. In doing so, I suspect kindness towards a different culture may be the most convicting of love's attributes.

Trying to understand kindness towards a whole culture is a little confusing and makes my head swim. On a lofty level, the word "charity" comes to mind. But thinking of synonyms doesn't actually help me define what it means to be kind to this part of the world. I need something more practical, more rooted to the ground I actually walk on. I don't want some saintly challenge which will cause my feet to float three feet higher than everyone else, but keep my heart frozen and cold.

If I am going to be kind to this culture as an expression of love, I must keep my thoughts and words in check. I am going to use the women who just sat down across from me in Starbucks as an example. Culturally, I do not have the natural inclination to show her kindness. She is wearing a frilly, sparkly dress; she assumes I don't understand her as she speaks about me to her friend; she is picking something out of her teeth with her fingernail. This would be the moment for me to roll my eyes, turn to my American friend, and talk about all the things I think are strange or unacceptable about these people. But is kindness my heart's motivation when I do such? Self-righteousness, insecurity, and ignorance are more like it.

I think kindness to my new culture means not rolling my eyes at things. It means keeping my mouth shut more often. It probably means refraining from judgment unless things truly are against Dad's design for life. But it also means more. A kind person is someone who goes one step further than refraining from being disparaging; a kind person is someone who positively encourages and smiles upon others regardless of differences. I probably will never want to wear a frilly, sparkly dress, but kindness towards my new culture is to understand that the girls here do want to wear such a dress and smile upon them as they do, enjoying their delight in such different expressions of beauty. And if I can become kinder in this sense towards the surrounding culture, I believe I will actually learn to treasure it.

My conclusion is that cultural kindness is in the small things rather than the big things. It's the differences in fashion, manners, food, etc. that seem the most inconsequential, and yet those are the areas where it is hardest to show genuine kindness rather than forced politeness. Kindness is a daily exercise in love and one the biggest testimonies to it when practiced.

A Study On Loving This Culture - Patience

I have been back in my second home for a little over a week now. Tonight, as I was driving in a taxi, I felt deeply moved to love for my host culture. I felt alive and happy to be back, in addition to passionate for the work at hand. I can't wait to get back out there and engage. My heart is burdened with supplication to the Father.

In the midst of the taxi ride, though, I reflected on last year and its hardships. Tonight I was worlds away from the immense frustrations of last year, but I know how easy it would be for that sense of frustrated apathy to return. I reflected on what pushed me to persevere last year and my mind returned to a passage that kept me inspired last year to stay engaged with this culture.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
Last year, I was reading this passage and it dawned on me that these words of wisdom can, and should, be applied to much more in this life than just individuals. How many times have I thought of this in relationship to a friend, family member, or stranger? Plenty. But how many times have I tried to apply this to my new culture?
When, in the midst of a bad day of pollution, traffic, strange food, etc. have I stopped and said, I will LOVE this culture by being (fill in the blank with any of the above attributes of love?) Last year, I was constantly reminded of "love is not easily provoked" and tried to push myself let go of anger in frustrating situations. This year, I want to go beyond that one attribute. I hope to reflect on each of the attributes of love in connection to my new culture.
The first is patience. If I am going to love East Asia, then I must learn patience with it. And there is so much to be patient with. My poor language skills immediately come to mind. So does the difference in organizational abilities and expectations. Of utmost importance will be patience with my teachers. And I hate hate hate standing in line, which is a daily trial over here.
Oh boy. This is going to be hard. But I don't want to bear the burden of this culture - I want to thrive on it. And to thrive on anything you must love it. And the above passage describes love as being patient. Loving something is a big task. Loving a culture seemingly opposite of my own seems almost impossible. But the Master who created both me and this crazy country also has given me His Spirit which happens to be patient to the utmost with His creation.
So maybe with increased patience, I really can keep on loving this place for the rest of the year.

Blindness

"There are a whole lot of people who are blindly stumbling their way through life. But their blindness is made even more powerful and dangerous by the fact that they tend to be blind to their blindness. A physically blind person is never blind to his blindness. He's immediately confronted with the fact that he's unable to see, and he gives himself a whole catalog of ways to live inside the boundaries set by this profound physical deficiency. The scary reality is that one of the things that keeps spiritually blind people blind is that they're not only convinced they see, but they're also convinced that they see quite well! And so they don't seek help for their blindness. Why seek help for a condition from which you are convinced you don't suffer?

So, whenever you encounter a person who sees himself - or herself with precision, clarity, and accuracy, you know for sure that grace has visited that individual. It's only God's grace that can enable blind eyes to see, and it's only God's grace that can produce in us the willingness to accept what we've seen." - Paul David Tripp

"I can't even judge myself. Only the Lord can say, 'Well done.'" - Sara Groves

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the past few years, but particularly this last one, I have started to realize just how dependent I am on the Father's grace, particularly when it comes to seeing my sin. I used to think by default that grace was needed in the act of repentance and the process of change. And of course it is, but how can I know of what to repent or in what direction to change if I cannot truly see what is in my own heart?

The students I know in Asia have particularly revealed this to me because as we talk about sin in their lives, I am forced to wonder about sin in my own life. It is easy to think of common answers to the question, "What do you repent of?" But it is much more difficult to see what is deep in my soul causing fights with roommates, an unwillingness to be honest, fear of man, selfishness. Even in times of reflection and quiet, I find myself simply asking God to reveal my sin to me so I can repent. I know something is wrong, I feel it is wrong in my soul, but I can't see or name it. I cannot create holiness in myself because I am blind to what is unholy about me in the first place.

There is peace in Sara Groves' words "I can't even judge myself. Only the Lord can say, 'Well done.'" It is impossible for me to live by my own standards with open eyes - I'm blind to failings against my own personal code of life. No amount of endless navel-gazing could reveal to me my shortcomings. I can't fully know the recesses of my mind, my heart, my soul. Resting in the Father's grace starts at the most basic level of trusting he knows me better even than I know myself. He is my Creator and my Sustainer whose mercy opens my eyes to areas of sin. Because he knows me, I can know myself. Because he reveals sin, I can repent. Because he has a plan, I can know in what direction to change. I can't judge myself, but rather hold on to the guiding hand of the One who sees and knows all things as he slowly opens my eyes from a sleeping blindness to a glorified wakefulness.

Contrast

I just wrapped copies of C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity in Hello Kitty paper for friends who will seriously enjoy both. What a funny version of femininity. Guess what continent I'm currently on? ;-)

I Will Sing

"I will sing for the meek
For those who pray with their very lives for peace
Though they're in chains for a higher call
Their mourning will change into laughter when the nations fall

In spirit poor
In mercy rich
They hunger for Your righteousness
Their hearts refined into purity
Lord let me shine for them
Lord let me sing
Lord let me shine for them
Lord let me sing"

Sometimes I wonder how I ended up over here. But then I hear this song and remember my mom singing it at the top of her lungs along with Rich Mullins' voice coming through the stereo on any given day of my childhood. I am realizing more and more how much my parents shaped who I am and how I've carried on and out their values and beliefs. Listen to the song by clicking on the link below. It's beautiful. And remember to lift up your brothers and sisters around the world.

http://www.rhapsody.com/rich-mullins/never-picture-perfect/i-will-sing/lyrics.html

Why I Value The Traditional Church

I was riding home on a packed bus late one night last week. Bus rides are sometimes a battle against discouragement for me. The vast sea of lost humanity is shoved in my face as I pass sky rise after sky rise and the endless ebb and flow of people keeping traffic moving on the streets. There are just so many people and so few of them know their Maker. There are days when the reality of this city's brokenness seems distant and the hilarity of the bus brings me bubbling joy; but there are other days when poverty, physical disability and pain, perversion, arrogance, anger and temper, and so much more seem overwhelming. And in these times, I find myself crying out from the depths of my heart, wondering if such reality can ever actually change. I sit with people and talk all day, every day of the week, about an alternate Reality which can, does, and eventually completely will change life as we know it, but sometimes when I'm smashed up against the weight of sin on the public bus, that Reality can seem so far away and distant.

So last week, I put on my ipod to tune out everything around me. As I shuffled around, I came to a song by Rich Mullins called Creed and it reminded me why I deeply appreciate the centuries old church traditions. It makes me really sad when I hear people bash the traditions because they give me so much hope and joy. Mullins' singing of the Apostles' Creed reminds me that people have believed this crazy old story of a Reality with the power to change life for centuries, and they haven't just believed it, but these ancient generations have stood and died by it.

And yet, it's not just the ancients whose voices we hear in the traditions of the church. Mullins adds a chorus which declares:
"And I believe what I believe
Is what makes me what I am
I did not make it, no it is making me
It is the very truth of God and not
The invention of any man"
By adding his own voice to the ancient words, he shows that this truth is not stagnant, but alive. He acknowledges the Truth makes him, rather than the opposite, but in doing so, he adds a contemporary voice and perspective to the wisdom of the ancients. What we believe is for all time and all people, shaping us, but allowing us to add our current experiences and discoveries to the story. Man does not create it, but man does live it and express it according to every generation's needs and yearnings.
I might be isolated in a random dark part of Asia, but the voices of the saints throughout time encourage me through that which they have left behind in their creeds. I can listen to their passion and desperate hope and know that I am not alone. The traditions and creeds of the church are the way in which I participate in something older and bigger than me. And that's often exactly what I need in the midst of life over here. When I'm in the middle of millions of people who don't know of, understand, or care about the call of eternity, I want and need something to remind that the Kingdom is alive and persevering. What better way to remember this than to hear the ageless cheering voices of my brothers and sisters and to stand with them in our timeless declaration of what was and is and is to come?

Flying My Freak Flag

We've all got a freak flag. Mine is sometimes getting choked up by science. Yes it's true. Without a doubt, it's because I grew up in a physicist's household, but I don't understand why more people don't feel incredible awe at what we have discovered in the surrounding world. I especially can't understand those who have a relationship with the Creator of all and disregard or even disdain modern science. I just finished watching an hour long documentary that my dad gave me by the Discovery Institute on The Privileged Planet and while I don't think I could repeat back half of the ideas and scientific terminology discussed, I came away from the film with a heart of deep praise. The heavens declare his glory! All we see is fine tuned to reflect His wonder and point to something beyond us and I wish so badly that believers took more interest in the sciences. Modern science is not our enemy, but rather one of the greatest and most complex paths we can pursue to better understand the infinite beauty of the Creator. And so this is my freak flag - something I can't really claim to understand, but captivates my imagination.

A Thousand Questions

I can't watch this short film without getting choked up, and maybe even crying. Since high school, I have wrestled with how to hold the beauty of this world and life in one hand and the destruction and despair we all witness in the other. I still don't have any great answers, but I am learning to keep an eye out for those who do. This movie strikes especially close to home because the longer I live in Asia, the more I become convinced that understanding the Creator's larger story of redemption is the only way to accept the majesty and horribleness of existence without succumbing to one or the other and furthermore, that once we understand the story, we are propelled into playing out the story, being given roles and purposes in the advancement of redemption.