Sunday, April 24, 2011

Prayers: Sharing vs Slandering

Recently, my apartment mates and I have started meeting up three times a week to pray for one another and keep accountability. It's been a huge blessing. I'm not going to go as far to say that whoever is not doing this is wrong, but I really didn't know what I was missing out on and I'd never go back. In fact, the Lord says something very encouraging on this:

Matthew 18:19-20

“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

God has already answered our prayers and it's been great to grow closer to my room mates. However, as my title explains, I've been convicted about a different topic of prayer. I'm not saying the prayer meetings in my room consist of these things (at least to my knowledge), but it's something God has revealed in myself and others in past experiences.

What is prayer exactly? I'm not a theologian or bible scholar, but I think prayer is mostly dialogue with God. One particular prayer I'm thinking about is:

Matthew 26:39

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will."

I think most of my prayers consist of first, acknowledging that God is God, something I still don't do enough of and can easily forget about. Secondly, formally telling God what is on my and what I would like to see in accordance with his will. And lastly, acknowledging that God is God and asking that his will be done over mine. Those are my more private prayers, at least.

What do I do when I'm with my friends? I do a lot more story telling. My friends don't know about me like God knows about me. I have to explain a lot of background to them and things are always told from my perspective. Sure, my prayer might be like, "I need prayer for this class. I'm struggling really hard but it's not going anywhere." But in the background story I talked about how much my professor sucked, how my TA needs to learn english and how my group members are stupid.

This is slander. My real prayer should have been in repentance to God for my callous heart and most likely laziness that led to my bad grades, asking for transformation only the Spirit can give.

And what's worse is that my friends probably don't think anything is wrong. They've hated a professor before and been frustrated with a TA or some nonchalant group members. They know where I'm coming from and they justify their sin with mine and I with theirs'. If anything, we should be praying for this professor, this TA, or these group members. Jesus tells us to pray for your enemies (not that they're actually your enemies or anything).

God will give us everything we ask in Jesus Christ's name. These are things of love and forgiveness, not hatred. "Father in heaven, let me forgive my professor, forgive my TA, and forgive my group members. Heal the anger in my heart because, like the wicked servant, I am still so hateful in light of how much I've been forgiven. Make my heart into one that is like your Son's, filled with a love that covers a multitude of sins. Amen"

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Easter Testimony

I was baptized last week so my testimony is still very fresh in my mind. Unfortunately, I don't think my story is very entertaining. I don't have many huge moments where God showed me everything in an epic moment, but rather God has tended to enlighten me gradually through my daily walk. I am going to write this from scratch so it won't be too organized, but I'd rather it be this way than sound like an essay.

So it all started with my first girlfriend. Just a quick background: my entire teenage years were devoted to girls. I wanted to take French class just because I thought there would be more girls than Spanish classes. I switched from violin to double bass in orchestra because I realized there were many violin players...only one bassist. It'd be easier for a girl to notice me. And you laugh...but it actually worked! I "initiated" my first girlfriend in December of eighth grade and it lasted until my February of freshman year. I remember. I had the date in my AIM profile.

This girl was my world. I talked to her constantly. I thought about her constantly. I'd visit her constantly. I walked two miles one way to see her. I'd envision what we would do years and years from now. Every holiday was an excuse to celebrate her. Quite literally...the object of my worship. But then...someone gave her a gift for Christmas. I was very, very jealous for her. It wasn't just that she got a gift from someone, but that she had even told me that this guy had confessed his affections to her before. And she accepted his gift. I wasn't very happy. My jealousy eventually pushed her away and she broke up with me.

I was a wreck for a couple months. My friends would tell me that I was a zombie. I never talked to anyone in school. I just wanted everyone to see my pain, how badly this was affecting me. There was a huge hole where there used to be an overflow of attention for me and I wanted to repair it so badly. I would go home and run blunt knives across my arms. I wanted to kill myself but I was too scared to die. I asked everyone for help, my friends, my enemies, her new boyfriend, and even my parents. Nothing worked.

However, my friend, Sam, asked me to go to church with him one day. I had no idea about what church was like so I went. They sang songs and I liked singing. Enough by Christ Tomlin was a song we often sang and each time, I related it back to my ex-girlfriend. I was still stuck. But something kept me there. There was wisdom in what was being preached. And I liked singing songs. So I kept going and I kept going. Eventually, I attended the summer youth retreat where the guest speaker asked us..."If you want to be saved, ask Jesus to come into your life". And I did that. I knew I was broken and had to be fixed. God didn't need to me to be the best because he knew I was the worst. And I knew I was the worst. And God healed me of my anguish. But at the time, I really didn't know what I was getting into.

I think I lived with a kind of moralism for most of my high school years. I was big on forgiving people because I had been forgiven. No drugs, no alcohol. You weren't supposed to steal. When I got challenged to a fight, I made up my mind to just show and let the guy hit me until he was satisfied. I'd be like Jesus then, right? Suffering for an enemy. But I still had a lot of pride. I wore my arrogance around like a badge of honor. The confidence I exuded made a lot of people respect me. And I was after the respect and admiration...of girls. Still after girls.

I got good at manipulating people. I would purposely not respond to texts or IMs or give the cold shoulder. I played a lot of mind games. But to me, I was always the good guy. I still had my share of heart break and betrayal. And I did my share of my breaking hearts and betraying others' trust. I remember a point in time during my senior year when things were at their worst and I prayed to God to take it away from me. Whatever hold I had over girls...I didn't want it anymore.

I was still a sinner. Moralism was failing and I couldn't do it on my own. But by the grace of God, he was still working through scum like me. Some of my friends were coming to know God through our interactions. Granted, it was me arguing harshly with them, it was me pushing a truth that I didn't even understand onto them, but God was working nonetheless.

Looking back, I don't think I had very much guidance. No one reached out to me too much and in the same way, I didn't think of the church as my home. I would usually go for the message and leave shortly afterward. Sometimes it was because not many people talked to me, sometimes it was because I didn't want to talk to anyone. By the middle of my freshman year in college, I had left altogether. I drifted for a while, dissatisfied with how my life was going. God was humbling me. I wasn't doing very well in school, I wasn't finding any cute girls to like.

Some time in between all this, my friend, Henrik, invited me to a bible study for KCM. I was floored right away. These people actually seemed like they cared about me! And they were smart! I kept going to KCM and during the next semester, I started learning theology with many of them. One week, we were going over the characteristics of salvation. There were seven, none of which I specifically remember. But at the time, I realized I didn't have any of them. So I prayed. And I prayed over those seven things for a month. When I came out of it, I've experienced this lasting transformation that has lasted to this day. I've been far from perfect. I'm still a sinner but God can love sinners. He killed his Son for sinners. I was talking to a Muslim this week, and I explained...this is why we believe the Gospel! Where have you found love more compelling, more offensive, more invasive? Praise God for crushing the Son of Man for our sake. All glory belongs to him alone.

Monday, April 11, 2011

The Will of God

I've been consciously aware that I've been living the past six months of my Christian life with an eye and an ear towards God. I've been living with the intention of trying to discern God's will in real time, as he saw fit to give it to me. My thesis was that because we can usually see what God was doing in our lives in hind sight, there is a level of logic to his will that we can understand. If there is a level of logic to his will that we can understand, perhaps it is not too far fetched to understand his will in the present reality, perhaps in every thing we do. This line of thought was incredibly arrogant and misguided.

Now, I don't mean to say that none of his will is discernible or understandable to us. God has given us the Bible, part of his will that is readily available. However, a large part of his will is hidden and while we may be to able to partly discern that will, much of it will remain a mystery to us in the present time. In the way I lived my life, I severely underestimated the grace of God in revealing how he was working in my life after the fact.

In one aspect, we are seriously limited by our purview. We do not see how God is working because we can't see the big picture and therefore just cannot fathom what God is doing. In another aspect, he does things that transcend our understanding, like sending a righteous Son to die for unrighteous sinners. Again, we can't fathom what God is doing.

In short, it's not possible to completely know the will of God. So how do I live? How do I know if God is telling me something and what exactly is God telling me? Is there anything I can even do if God's will is absolute and he has ordained everything from before the beginning of time?

We can surrender to that will. Logically, that is about the only thing we can do if God's will is absolute. None of this trying to interpret stuff. None of that is important. Instead, I can surrender my life as a living sacrifice and maintain faith given by the Holy Spirit in the promises of God.

This one is particularly relevant to me right now: What is God trying to tell me I get along really well with a girl? I have no clue and I shouldn't pretend to know! There's the possibility that God has introduced her into my life so that we get married later. Sure. There's also the possibility that I'm merely supposed to be a vessel through which God can exhort and encourage her, that I am growing closer to her so I can protect her as a brother. There are many more possibilities and I have no idea which one is the "will of God". All I can do is surrender and have faith in the promises he has given me.

Promise. Matthew 6:33

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Thanks be to Brian Chen for illuminating this to me.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Exploring The Idea of Marriage

I'm not going to lie. Relationships and marriage seem to be concerning me a lot more lately, most likely because I think they're more relevant to me now as I'm in my final half of my undergraduate college career. I've been asking my peers on their views and I've gotten a pretty general answer every time: "I really don't know".

There are a lot of views out there but none of us really have anything formulated. I'm going to lay out an idea sparked by Kevin DeYoung's blog a few days ago. He was briefly listing a few things he learned from John Calvin's biography. It says:

"13. Some traditions must change. “He argued for the freedom of the marriage contract and mutual consent of man and woman, a fundamental point he continually defended in his sermons. Consensual engagements were essential; children were not to be forced into unions by their parents” (295)."

Now, DeYoung's point is not focusing on marriage, but that traditions must change. Marriage was merely the tradition that Calvin argued should change. However, Calvin's thoughts made me think about how my peers and I are thinking about marriage. Ever since Pastor Robert's sermon at KCM, the words "contractual agreement" have been ringing in the ears of most guys at our fellowship. The emphasis has been on continual commitment to the relationship/marriage even when "love" dies down between either or both parties. The biggest role model we have for this policy is of course, God's covenant with us. We see this a lot in Genesis, God's covenant with Adam and Exodus with his covenant to the Jewish people. In the end, we see the truest fulfillment of his covenant with man, including the Gentiles, through his Son, Jesus Christ.

So once we're in a marriage/whatever...we need to commit. There are usually no arguments there. It idealizes the love that God has for us, so why would anyone disagree? However, I feel like there is a danger of thinking about it...as just a covenant. Just a contractual agreement. That little bit from Calvin's biography really made me think about how we approach relationships. I've talked with some guys about whether they think a "click" or a "spark" is necessary for a relationship. The answer is always no. There is still in my mind, no. But some used evidence like parents who had arranged marriages that worked out really well, etc. Here, Calvin is taking an opposing stance. Is Calvin wrong?

I'm tempted to say no just because he's John Calvin. I haven't read his biography so I don't know why exactly he pushed this point but I can think of God's love for us as an example of this. Does God love us because he made a covenant with us? Or does his love for us entail the covenant? Which one causes the other? 1 John 3 will tell us that God IS love. While having commitment in the relationship, I don't think we should be so quick to dismiss love. If you have love, the commitment should naturally follow right? Perhaps the reverse is not necessarily true.