Today, I came across a video clip about my hometown. It was a video made by four people, no one special. They wrote a song singing about my hometown. It's funny, and entertaining. in the clip they showed parts of the city, and it just got me. I didn't realize how much I miss home, the streets, the tea houses, the scene of old people playing Taichi in the morning. I just want to be home, and be embraced in that environment again. I watched more clips. I remember it was these scenes that constantly came to my dreams at night when I first came to the U.S. Like what it said in one of the video clips: Chengdu, a city you don't want to leave. I forgot about it for a while, and now I am just reminded of how beautiful it is and how much I love it.
At the same time, I thought to myself: Heaven is just like home, except it's Home, it's where I am going to be ultimately. It's the most beautiful place. I remembered all the encounters I had with Heaven and the God that created it. I remembered the joy and peace that it brought to me, the hand that picked me up whenever I fell, the laughter when I was laughing, and the tears when I was crying. Ironically, I forgot where Home was, forgot that even though I am not there right now, there is room for me. I forgot who is waiting for me there. The memories of home brought me memories of Home. At Home, my Father is waiting for me.
To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. (Deut. 10:14) Where he is is where home is.
2010/01/28
2010/01/17
what a beautiful sight
This morning was the last service, and the service was really good and inspiring, but i was really touched by our communion. we went up row by row and took the bread and the cup, and i was standing in the last row, and as the first couple rows empties out, I see people walking up with a humble heart one by one, and coming down, and when I saw the brothers and sisters who accepted jesusthe night before go up and take communion for the first time, it was just an incredible sight, I was so touched by them. They took a step of faith to walk into God's kingdom, and to walk into this community of christ followers. It was really touching.
However, I also noticed that there are still a couple friends who were sitting and waiting for their row to come back--they cannot take the communion yet. It just break my heart seeing that they still don't know christ yet, but seeing the new believers also gave me hope that someday, the non-believers will also come to the front and praise God and take communion with their brothers and sisters.
So Lord i pray that you bless and protect the brothers and sisters who decided to follow you. Thanks for choosing them, and make yourself known to them. Please grow them according to your image, so that they may go out and represent you immediately, and influence other people. I also pray for those who still don't yet know you, may they someday put on their glasses and be able to know that you were with them all along, and they could finally see your kingdom and the hope you are offering them. May they take a step of faith to believe in you and to follow you.
Amen
However, I also noticed that there are still a couple friends who were sitting and waiting for their row to come back--they cannot take the communion yet. It just break my heart seeing that they still don't know christ yet, but seeing the new believers also gave me hope that someday, the non-believers will also come to the front and praise God and take communion with their brothers and sisters.
So Lord i pray that you bless and protect the brothers and sisters who decided to follow you. Thanks for choosing them, and make yourself known to them. Please grow them according to your image, so that they may go out and represent you immediately, and influence other people. I also pray for those who still don't yet know you, may they someday put on their glasses and be able to know that you were with them all along, and they could finally see your kingdom and the hope you are offering them. May they take a step of faith to believe in you and to follow you.
Amen
running on empty: Combating burnout
This is saturday night's sermon, and the passage is all over the place. but mainly Pastor Dave talked about some reasons why we have a spiritual burnout. I agree that we should not blame God for the things that are going wrong, but really look into our hearts to see what's going on there. He talked about four falures in ourselves that causes the burnout--intimacy fail, perspective fail, integrety fail, and Capacity fail.
First of all, the intimacy fail, a lot of times, we start doing things excitedly, but after a while it becomes draining. We cannot even stand thinking about it. How come? to put in Pastor Dave's works: "we are so good for doing stuff for stuff's sake that we forget the person we are doing it for." Basically we got too caught up in the deeds. a lot of time I really need to check my heart before serving, or else it just becomes routinely smile, shake hands, lead people to their seat.... I forgot that I am providing service for God's people or future children of God. I forget that I am doing all these for him, not for me to earn any glory. At least it should be the case. If my heart is not right, then there's no meaning in serving God.
Second, the perspective fail. "We think what we have is awesome until someone else comes over." I tend to compare and judge a lot, which gives me a lot of insecurities. However, knowing God should be already a blessing instead of comparing the worldly things--who's car is the best, who has the prettiest wife.... When we have the right perspective, we won't have a burn out, we would just keep wanting to do it. I really like the glasses analygy that he gave: when my eyes starts to go bad, i won't immediately realize this, but someday when someone tells me to get glasses, and when I put on that glasses, I would suddenly realize that "the world has texture." like in Psalm 73, where Asaph was complaining how God does care how the iraelites acted toward him, they could do whatever they wanted to, but Asaph as a follower of God had to obey so many rules. He was bitter, until one day he entered into the tabernacle, and there he found God. There, he put on his glasses, and saw the texture of the world. The same with me, but God is really patient with me, and he provides me glasses to see the world and myself clearly. and I pray that I will not lose my sight again.
Third, Integrity fail. this is what I always do. I am in God's fan club but forgot to personally spend time with him, to talk to him. I am like a gypocrite who was good at acting, being others, but fail to recognize who I really am. and in matthew 6:24: no one can serve two masters.... This is really true and I like the brutal example he gave where a man betrays his wife and has affair witha nother woman. the man might still love his wife, but after time, the wife that he promised to commit to starts to look differently, and this is exactly how we are with God, that we have affairs with the worldly idols and when we fall deep enough, we forget about the God we once knew. So we get burnt out. because we no longer have the interest in doing something for the one we stopped loving.
the fourth one is Capacity fail, we always linger on the former glory we had and forgot that we stopped practicing and stopped growing that we could not reach the level we once were, and if we still try to do the same things, or carry the same burden, we would just fail. Even though we don't believe ourselves, and we always say: "I used to be able to do it!" yes, I USED to. that's because we used to have the capacity to do it. When we stop growing, time will get us hard. though our memory was in the past, the reality goes on. same thing, if we want to grow spiritually, we need to first keep the capacity, and then expand it. We cannot do the adult work with the faith like child. and Jean you fail at this all the time as well. and if you want more challenges from God, and if you want to see him work more powerfully, you gotta challenge yourself, and be faithful!
the things you learned at this retreat will count as nothing unless you start carrying them out after learning about them.
First of all, the intimacy fail, a lot of times, we start doing things excitedly, but after a while it becomes draining. We cannot even stand thinking about it. How come? to put in Pastor Dave's works: "we are so good for doing stuff for stuff's sake that we forget the person we are doing it for." Basically we got too caught up in the deeds. a lot of time I really need to check my heart before serving, or else it just becomes routinely smile, shake hands, lead people to their seat.... I forgot that I am providing service for God's people or future children of God. I forget that I am doing all these for him, not for me to earn any glory. At least it should be the case. If my heart is not right, then there's no meaning in serving God.
Second, the perspective fail. "We think what we have is awesome until someone else comes over." I tend to compare and judge a lot, which gives me a lot of insecurities. However, knowing God should be already a blessing instead of comparing the worldly things--who's car is the best, who has the prettiest wife.... When we have the right perspective, we won't have a burn out, we would just keep wanting to do it. I really like the glasses analygy that he gave: when my eyes starts to go bad, i won't immediately realize this, but someday when someone tells me to get glasses, and when I put on that glasses, I would suddenly realize that "the world has texture." like in Psalm 73, where Asaph was complaining how God does care how the iraelites acted toward him, they could do whatever they wanted to, but Asaph as a follower of God had to obey so many rules. He was bitter, until one day he entered into the tabernacle, and there he found God. There, he put on his glasses, and saw the texture of the world. The same with me, but God is really patient with me, and he provides me glasses to see the world and myself clearly. and I pray that I will not lose my sight again.
Third, Integrity fail. this is what I always do. I am in God's fan club but forgot to personally spend time with him, to talk to him. I am like a gypocrite who was good at acting, being others, but fail to recognize who I really am. and in matthew 6:24: no one can serve two masters.... This is really true and I like the brutal example he gave where a man betrays his wife and has affair witha nother woman. the man might still love his wife, but after time, the wife that he promised to commit to starts to look differently, and this is exactly how we are with God, that we have affairs with the worldly idols and when we fall deep enough, we forget about the God we once knew. So we get burnt out. because we no longer have the interest in doing something for the one we stopped loving.
the fourth one is Capacity fail, we always linger on the former glory we had and forgot that we stopped practicing and stopped growing that we could not reach the level we once were, and if we still try to do the same things, or carry the same burden, we would just fail. Even though we don't believe ourselves, and we always say: "I used to be able to do it!" yes, I USED to. that's because we used to have the capacity to do it. When we stop growing, time will get us hard. though our memory was in the past, the reality goes on. same thing, if we want to grow spiritually, we need to first keep the capacity, and then expand it. We cannot do the adult work with the faith like child. and Jean you fail at this all the time as well. and if you want more challenges from God, and if you want to see him work more powerfully, you gotta challenge yourself, and be faithful!
the things you learned at this retreat will count as nothing unless you start carrying them out after learning about them.
The creative spark
This is the topic of friday night service, the passage is on Genesis 1. pastor Dave Lee talked about four characteristics of God which opened my eyes. He said that God is explosive, Imaginative, life-loving and beautiful.
The thing that stuck out to me the most is that in terms of his explosiveness, when God is creating something, he doens't do it tentatively, he does it boldly, with all the guts. Like the stars in the sky, to put it in Pastor Dave's words, he was in his "star phase" and he speaks those countless stars into existence, adn they are beautiful. So don't try to stop God--don't try to take control, only when I let go, will God take full control and do things in my life boldly. And I will realize in the end that they are all the best for me. so I needed to let go and let God explode.
In terms of his Imaginativeness, he is the god that creates different kinds of things, and i agree with the example Pastor Dave gave, that he's created so many human, but not one of them are indentical. And he hasn't grown tired of it yet! If I were to do something repeatedly with variety, I'd be so bored, yet he does it generation after generation.
In terms of his life-lovingness, God created what's seemingly disorder orderly. What we see the stars in the sky might be completely random, but he knows the patterns. In terms of the oneness of the church, we should be like a schools of fish that swim individually but in the same direction.
In terms of his beautiful, it is complete, and satisfies the recipe. I am really inspired by his saying about the earth, that it is most beautiful to look at from the outer space. The one being that could afford to appreciate everyday is God. no one else. He created all these for him and him alone. It's all because of HIS glory and honor, it's none of our business. and we are God's housekeeper, and that's it.
I realized after the sermon that after listening to people emphasizing on how God is a personal God, I forgot that he is also the creator of the universe. He is the most vast being in the world, and I was just minimize him and his power. This sermon is such a good reminder that all these beauty and the creativity is also in us. and we are also called to create beautiful things to glorify his name!!
The thing that stuck out to me the most is that in terms of his explosiveness, when God is creating something, he doens't do it tentatively, he does it boldly, with all the guts. Like the stars in the sky, to put it in Pastor Dave's words, he was in his "star phase" and he speaks those countless stars into existence, adn they are beautiful. So don't try to stop God--don't try to take control, only when I let go, will God take full control and do things in my life boldly. And I will realize in the end that they are all the best for me. so I needed to let go and let God explode.
In terms of his Imaginativeness, he is the god that creates different kinds of things, and i agree with the example Pastor Dave gave, that he's created so many human, but not one of them are indentical. And he hasn't grown tired of it yet! If I were to do something repeatedly with variety, I'd be so bored, yet he does it generation after generation.
In terms of his life-lovingness, God created what's seemingly disorder orderly. What we see the stars in the sky might be completely random, but he knows the patterns. In terms of the oneness of the church, we should be like a schools of fish that swim individually but in the same direction.
In terms of his beautiful, it is complete, and satisfies the recipe. I am really inspired by his saying about the earth, that it is most beautiful to look at from the outer space. The one being that could afford to appreciate everyday is God. no one else. He created all these for him and him alone. It's all because of HIS glory and honor, it's none of our business. and we are God's housekeeper, and that's it.
I realized after the sermon that after listening to people emphasizing on how God is a personal God, I forgot that he is also the creator of the universe. He is the most vast being in the world, and I was just minimize him and his power. This sermon is such a good reminder that all these beauty and the creativity is also in us. and we are also called to create beautiful things to glorify his name!!
submission
God is truly a loving and personal God. He knows what to say to me, and how to say to me to help me realize the whole in my pants. During break, I got a phone call from Andrea and when we were talking, I asked her if she was doing summer missions. I know she wanted to do it. But she needed to check with her parents. She told me after talking to her dad, she decided not to do it according to his suggestion. After the conversation and thinking about what she said i was really shocked about what she said. Not about the content, but about her attitude. I don't even remember when the last time was that I submitted to my parent's decisions. It's always :" hey mom, hey dad, I want to do this, so support me!" I was trying hard to pretend that I was all independent--coming to the US, deciding on schools and majors, pulling out my wisdom teeth.... Yet, they had to take the consequence of my decisions--huge financial burden, separation from the only child in the family....
Most of the times, to my mom, i tell her what I want to do, and I will agree to her suggestions if it goes along with my will, but if it doesn't i would fight until she says yes to my decisions, and looking back, there's no sign of submission at all. To my dad is even worse. I never told him what i was going to do. I always tell him what I did and all his can say was just "oh, okay, so how was it?" But God used that phone conversation to wake me up. He said: " stop living in the dream of you are an obedient child as all the others told you. You are not at all. Just look at what you did...." it was like cold water pouring down from my head, I was suddenly awake.
Thanks you God for showing me this, I took a first step by realizing it and facing it. Please help me with the latter steps of fighting it and perservering through it. i want to learn to submit to my worldly parents, so I could submit to you.
Most of the times, to my mom, i tell her what I want to do, and I will agree to her suggestions if it goes along with my will, but if it doesn't i would fight until she says yes to my decisions, and looking back, there's no sign of submission at all. To my dad is even worse. I never told him what i was going to do. I always tell him what I did and all his can say was just "oh, okay, so how was it?" But God used that phone conversation to wake me up. He said: " stop living in the dream of you are an obedient child as all the others told you. You are not at all. Just look at what you did...." it was like cold water pouring down from my head, I was suddenly awake.
Thanks you God for showing me this, I took a first step by realizing it and facing it. Please help me with the latter steps of fighting it and perservering through it. i want to learn to submit to my worldly parents, so I could submit to you.
God's grace
God is really good because he never lets me fall too far before picking me up. This was represented in both physical and spiritual sense.
Spiritually, I was growing really slowly last semester, because I was really callouse, and dry. I thought I could do things my way, i thought I grew enough, that i didn't need god to teach me lessons anymore. however, I was wrong. I was apathetic most of the times, and stopped reaching out to people. More over, I was bitter. i was bitter at the fact that I was callouse, apathetic. Even though I was not blaming God verally for such things, my actions show my dissatisfaction to my savior. However, God's love never stops. He picks me up time after time, and shows me his love everytime i am unsure of it. He restrains his wrath from this sinner who was betraying him every single day. I could not possibly do this if I were to be put in his shoes.
Another thing that I was left speechless is that during break, when we were skiing, I went through the woods, but hit a bump and fell. I didn't remeber how I fell, didn't remember the pain, and when i woke up, i was able to remember things correctly even though it did take a while for things to come back into my memory. i threw up in the ambulance, and the nurse told me that I could possibly have a head injury. However, when I went to the hospital, underwent the CAT scan, they found out that i dind't have any injury, my head was fine. Only my brain fell out of place a little-- I got a concussion. Even that, God is very greacious to me. I didn't break a bone, didn't injure any part of my body. And the fact that a lot of people die from falling when skiing, getting a concussion was not a big deal at all.
I am also really thankful for my family, for their taking care of me, and just their heart for me. i am very very touched by my aunt and uncle waking up every 3-4 hours to wake me up, according to the doctor's instruction. they just care so much for me that they didn't care i smelled bad, every time I stand up trying to do something, they always tell me to sit down or lie down to rest my head. they asked me at least once every 2-3 hours how I felt. some of these are little things, and they don't take much effort to do or say. But it's just these little things that warmed my heart. They are the gift that God's put into my life. I am very thankful of them and am very blessed by them!
God is pulling back to him, I will come back, and try my best to follow him.
Spiritually, I was growing really slowly last semester, because I was really callouse, and dry. I thought I could do things my way, i thought I grew enough, that i didn't need god to teach me lessons anymore. however, I was wrong. I was apathetic most of the times, and stopped reaching out to people. More over, I was bitter. i was bitter at the fact that I was callouse, apathetic. Even though I was not blaming God verally for such things, my actions show my dissatisfaction to my savior. However, God's love never stops. He picks me up time after time, and shows me his love everytime i am unsure of it. He restrains his wrath from this sinner who was betraying him every single day. I could not possibly do this if I were to be put in his shoes.
Another thing that I was left speechless is that during break, when we were skiing, I went through the woods, but hit a bump and fell. I didn't remeber how I fell, didn't remember the pain, and when i woke up, i was able to remember things correctly even though it did take a while for things to come back into my memory. i threw up in the ambulance, and the nurse told me that I could possibly have a head injury. However, when I went to the hospital, underwent the CAT scan, they found out that i dind't have any injury, my head was fine. Only my brain fell out of place a little-- I got a concussion. Even that, God is very greacious to me. I didn't break a bone, didn't injure any part of my body. And the fact that a lot of people die from falling when skiing, getting a concussion was not a big deal at all.
I am also really thankful for my family, for their taking care of me, and just their heart for me. i am very very touched by my aunt and uncle waking up every 3-4 hours to wake me up, according to the doctor's instruction. they just care so much for me that they didn't care i smelled bad, every time I stand up trying to do something, they always tell me to sit down or lie down to rest my head. they asked me at least once every 2-3 hours how I felt. some of these are little things, and they don't take much effort to do or say. But it's just these little things that warmed my heart. They are the gift that God's put into my life. I am very thankful of them and am very blessed by them!
God is pulling back to him, I will come back, and try my best to follow him.
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