clamoring

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what does it look like to put god in a box? how do we seek to discern his voice while avoiding an inclination towards either the extreme of ignoring wise affirmation from brothers and sisters or depending solely upon opinions of brothers and sisters? who is it that i ultimately fear, and why? when does being cautious and thoroughly thoughtful tread into the world of cowardice and distrust? how do you discern boldness from recklessness and/or stupidity? to whom do i feel a need to prove myself to, if at all? in the stillness & quiet, god i wait for you. my desperate heart, be still, be quiet

sidenotes;

weh

counterintuitive faith

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where do i even start?

i serve a God who is gentle and patient with his children. just as he patiently answered a distrusting gideon’s impertinent demand for confirmation, and how he patiently encouraged a disheartened elijah & a fearful moses, he will prove faithful to be patient with me. he knows the manifold fears intrusively clamoring in his children’s hearts, and his presence remains stalwart in the fluctuating levels of conviction and uncertainty, of fearlessness and of overwhelming terror. he is entirely unafraid and capable of meeting me in the messiness of my humanness — after all, was this not the sentiment in jesus’ life and mission? he who knew no sin came down to earth, took on human form, and walked about on this earth. everything he did oozed “i love you, i’m for you, i’m with you. follow me.”


it is in the character of this very real and literally down to earth God that i can draw my sense of well being from. i would be lying if i said i was fearless, or that i feel completely sane making the decision to live in tenderloin for twelve weeks, or that it’s easy for me to ignore the warnings of friends. i ask myself if i somehow lost my brain whenever i see in my mind’s eye the red quadrilateral of thriving crime on the sf map. i have the street smarts of a manic deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming race car (& although this is an exaggeration, i can’t be too sure). my brief exposures to inner city environments are insubstantial: a timid exploration of a small block in santa ana during homeless ministry, a onetime foray along the downtown sd streets filled with sleeping homeless on my way to a jazz concert, an uneventful encounter with a crazy man in fancy downtown la jolla after 7pm, a fleeting & horrified glance at an armless man kissing the ground for measly NT coins in taipei’s bustling & otherwise apathetic shilin night market. i wonder if he’s still there. in short, i got nothing.


i suppose that’s the nature of faith: it is thoroughly counter intuitive. i don’t go into this ill-informed & i still am painfully aware that worrying about my physical well being in the public sphere is a novel and unwelcome experience for me. i feel crazy, but there is something in my gut (rather, Someone in my heart) that tells me He will be faithful to my meager attempts to obey. He multiplies bread & fish, He moves mountains, & i get to be there to see it. my world is going to be flipped unceremoniously upside down & i will be uncomfortable and terrified. but i do know that i serve a really, really big God. and i know that He loves me. that’s what i got. it’s everything.

sidenotes;

i'm tiredddd

renewal

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Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8

People no longer ask “Is it true?” but “Does it work?” and “How will it make me feel?” Those latter two questions serve as a working definition of truth in our society that rejects the concept of absolute divine truth. Truth is whatever works and produces positive emotions. Sadly, such pragmatism and emotionalism has crept even into theology. The church is often more concerned about whether something will be divisive or offensive than whether it is biblically true...Too many people go to church not to think or reason about the truths of Scripture, but to get their weekly spiritual high; to feel that God is still with them. Such people are spiritually unstable because they base their lives on feeling rather than on thinking...Salvation involves the transformation of the mind. -Macarthur 

Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God...It is an activity of holy thought, consciously performed in the presence of God, under the eye of God, by the help of God, as a means of communion with God. -J.I. Packer 

Satan wants to turn your mind into a cesspool and have your mind occupied with that which ultimately must corrupt, defile, and spoil the whole body, distort the life, and produce sin. The battle is not first in the field of action; it is in the field of thought. Transport yourself to the pasture, consider the cow chewing her cud, and learn that lesson from nature that the psalmist learned. Your delight must be in the Word of God, and in His Word you must chew your cud day and night. If the battle is lost, it is lost because you do not meditate on “ these things.” J.D. Pentecost

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in my journey of introspection and prayer, i have always been stubbornly inclined towards the framing question, "why?" i ponder about something for hours which become days (and eventually i surprise myself with the realization that months have passed and i have not given this issue rest). i wonder at why i react the way i do to certain situations, to people; i wonder whether my reactions have any credibility, what they say about me, what they say about God's work in my life. it is a knee jerk reaction and i find that it is a wonderful process of sifting through all that is in my mind to discover truth which i can embrace. sometimes though, i am distracted by the goal of finding an emotionally satisfying answer to these "why" questions that i become frustrated and dwell obsessively upon the lack of a conclusive discovery that can shed light upon the whole process.

i am learning that my inner life is never as linear or logical as i would like it to be; it is not an input-output system. it gets messy & that's okay. i can bring these messy things to my Father and have Him shed light and untangle in due time. in the meantime, i can content my soul with the captivating work of dwelling in Him.

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mmmm, yes. :)

contradictions

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“Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart.Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.” -Henri J.M. Nouwen

i am, frankly, a mess. i am a bundle of contradictions made up of unspoken heart desires and rational trains of thought that rage forth and then timidly meander about without direction, conviction, heart. i come once again before the throne of my gentle king and desperately pry my hands open, fall to my face, bask in nothing but His love for me.

ponder; what does it mean to worry? to dwell obsessively and be preoccupied with something to the point that it hinders your sense of emotional stability in everyday life. i suppose this is why philippians 4:8-9 comes right after philippians 4:6; it is unreasonable to expect us to just "stop thinking (worrying)" -- rather, we must replace the thoughts with things that are "true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy." i guess it just goes to show that god created us as singularly focused beings; we were made to worship, to fixate our gaze/orient our beings towards something. if that something is not God it will inevitably be something else. there is no way for us to not worship, to not meditate on something.

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sigh. walk on
i'm weary
five classes, never again

daddy

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i had a wonderful dream that daddy was hugging me tightly and i was safe and warm and content

this week i barely read the bible. i might have gone through one chapter in 2 kings. but i also find that this week, in the midst of my sleep deprivation and my stress eating, i was intimately aware of His presence and His patient, father-like love for me. this week was a blessed, first-hand experience that my relationship with Him is not so much about being able to spew a sermon off the top of my head about some hotly debated theological issue, but about a sweet, simple, quiet intimacy -- a lens through which i am able to see myself, see other people, see situations, and see God as He sees all. because of this intimacy, i can call out to Him with the simple cries of a child interspersed throughout the day: "help me" -- knowing that He hears and is not pretentiously turning His nose at me with disapproval.

ponder; i find it slightly off when people tell me, "i pray from this time to this time, and i read bible everyday" or "i didn't read today" or "i didn't pray today" [therefore God must not be pleased with me] ... do you know God's heart towards you? that His heart towards you doesn't depend on what you do -- rather, reading bible/praying/going through the disciplines of the faith are vehicles through which you see God's consistent heart -- not marks that determine your status before Him?

i am blessed in this moment of quiet intimacy & sweet awareness of His presence. i know i am not always going to feel this way.

sidenotes;
going home for the afternoon today :) going to smother my siblings in hugs and go running and drive my car and make dinner for mommy

beloved

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"The greatest gift you can give to another human being is a secure you in Christ because that's the only way you'll ever liberate them to be all that God's called them to be." Christine Caine 

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” -A.W. Tozer 

“When we claim and constantly reclaim the truth of being the chosen ones, we soon discover within ourselves a deep desire to reveal to others their own chosenness. Instead of making us feel that we are better, more precious or valuable than others, our awareness of being chosen opens our eyes to the chosenness of others. That is the great joy of being chosen: the discovery that others are chosen as well. In the house of God there are many mansions. There is a place for everyone - a unique, special place. Once we deeply trust that we ourselves are precious in God's eyes, we are able to recognize the preciousness of others and their unique places in God's heart.” -Henri J. Nouwen

i am increasingly finding that as i delve deeper into the radical and living knowledge of God's heart towards me, and as i allow this meditation to contagiously permeate everything from emotions to thoughts to actions, i am simultaneously becoming aware of a desire that everyone in my life would also come to a knowledge of this love. it is my dream and desire and desperate prayer for young girls embrace and claim their identity as His beloved; for earthly fathers to know this for themselves so as to communicate it to their wives and children -- daughters and sons who, given an earthly modeling of Christ's tenderhearted gentleness and the protective but emboldening nature of His love, can stand before the lies of this world and step out in fearlessness to heal brokenness.

ponder; is this not a core question we all come to wrestle with at one time or another: does anybody care? to delve into deep and scary places with me? i am so blessed to have people in my life who care.

sidenotes;
stinky people who sit in front of me makes me so incredibly nauseated ):
i miss my siblings and my sisters and brothers in irvine. my heart is in irvine. i miss the company of those who really know me

stream of conscious death week updates

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"The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity and held safe in an everlasting embrace... We must dare to opt consciously for our chosenness and not allow our emotions, feelings, or passions to seduce us into self-rejection." Henri J. Nouwen

"To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that God moulds us according to God's love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control." Henri J. Nouwen

“But intimacy is not found on the level where fear resides. Intimacy is not a happy medium. It is a way of being in which the tension between distance and closeness is dissolved and a new horizon appears. . .When Jesus says: ‘Do not be afraid; it is I,’ he reveals a new space in which we can move freely without fear. This intimate space is not a fine line between distance and closeness, but a wide field of movement in which the question of whether we are close or distant is no longer the guiding question.” Henri J. Nouwen

monday 4am // i am grateful for the gentle rain on my concrete windowsill while i write my essay after a few consecutive days of unbearable heat. i am grateful for the presence of His inexplicable peace at this quiet hour, and that my little succulent plant in the tin bucket sits on my desk in resolute, stout victory, reminding me that growth can be imperceptible but is so very beautiful.

EDIT monday 1pm // praise be to my Father God who is so inexplicably able to sustain me in His mysterious ways. i don't know how He does it. i slept at 5am after writing 5 pages, woke at 8:45am, and finished at 12:30pm, ending with a grand 8 pages. i don't even know how. i am thankful for the soothing rain today because it quieted and uplifted my heart & if i didn't know any better, i would very well have assumed it was a rainy friday. what a sweet and gentle Comforter i serve, at whose feet i find perfect joy.

EDIT tuesday 2am // okay God. coming before you to ask for more strength. can't keep my eyes open and i still have so much to do.

EDIT tuesday 8am // after sleeping at 5:30 am this morning, i was woken at 8am with an awful calf cramp (that still kinda hurts right now... iono). i finished my second essay about hyper-sexual portrayal of super-heroines at 10:30am. busted out 1 of 2 of my tuesday reading responses. tuesday, bring it on.

EDIT tuesday 12:45pm // i am feeling increasing dislike of my ethn185 professor for her merciless (ab)use of her professorship in the display of power and fear: pop quizzes and strict punctuality and relentless assignments that, i feel, disregard my busyness outside of these brief times on tues/thurs of lecture.

EDIT thursday 3:28am // how quiet it is in my apartment. how unhappy my tummy is for drinking caffeine. how peaceful my heart is for no reason. presently undergoing essay #3.

EDIT thursday 4:38am // i have my intro and a bombtastic thesis and shall now commence to word vomit like none other.

EDIT thursday 7:38am // i don't know how i am still alive lol

EDIT thursday 10:30am // good morning

EDIT friday 10am // i'm so tired. have used up all of my brain for the first three essays

EDIT friday 5pm // done done done done

sidenotes;
i can do this. He will bring me through.