I had an odd but profound experience today. I was flipping through my US passport, and to be honest I have never really took the time to look through the pages of the passport. Yet for some reason I felt compelled to examine the little booklet a little more closely as I picked it up, admiring the beautifully printed and designed pages. Each page had a quote on the top, and as I was reading each quote I began to be more inspired and fell in love once again with America, because I saw the fingerprints of god written in our documents. I felt as if I was going back in time and revisiting history and the building of the foundations of our country—and that’s when it became so so clear to me: our nation was founded upon Christ!! When our fathers drafted the constitution, they had made God, and essentially the laws of this nation, upon the values and the beliefs of the bible! Truly, jesus was the CORNERSTONE, the center, the foundation, in which everything else was built—and my heart melted.
As I held my passport in my hand and looked at the front cover which says, “United States of America” and I felt as if I was living in a surreal moment. For a split second, I could not believe that I was actually living in America. The phrase “land of the free” and “in god we trust” was just ringing in my ears... and I began to be overwhelmed with thankfulness. Wow, I am blessed, I am blessed, I am blessed, I am so so blessed! I couldn’t fully grasp the reality of me living in America, because I feel like for me to be living in such a privileged and prosperous nation is also so surreal—you have no idea how blessed you and I are.
Can you imagine??
Do you know many people die a day from starvation simply because they do not have the financial means to acquire food? To think that there are people who are literally starving at an unbearable and inhumane rate until their stomach eats themselves up from the inside out, until their bones fall apart, and until they feel so weak that they can no longer have enough calories to even take another breath of oxygen just completely wrecks me from the inside. If you think that you cannot go one day without food, and if you cannot have the energy to function if you do not eat for a couple of days, can you imagine what it is like for a child who can only have 200 calories a day? How can one even sanely survive without such a basic necessity as food?
Can you imagine??
Imagine a world without technology and internet. In the first world countries, our whole lives depend on technology—what would it be like without phones? Computers? Or even electricity? Goodness, we would not be able to last a week! Or even imagine what it would be like without the opportunity to learn, to go to school, to get a college education? Even as im writing this, im stirred to remember how absolutely priviledged I am to have the rare opportunity to study at a university—wow.
And what about the fresh, nutritious, delicious food that we eat, the clean and refreshing water that we drink, and the nice homes that we live in? there are soo many people in this world that don’t even have homes, but live in slums, have no access to clean water, and don’t have the luxury of eating fresh food. To think that there is extreme wealth and extreme poverty co-existing together in the same planet makes me think that we are actually living in worlds apart. So apart are we first world countries from third world countries and so great is the dichotomy that most times we do not even care about the sufferings of others—they literally don’t exist.
And for me, the greatest privilege of all, the thing that I am most thankful for, is that I am living in the land of the free—that I can have the right to practice religion freely, that I can have acess to a wealth of resources on the internet as well as novels on Christian literature, that I can go to church and pray freely and publicly. Wow! Let me never take my freedom for granted, or even the ability to own a bible for granted lord!
Sorry...I did not intend to go off a bit tangent and pour out my thoughts regarding America and what our country was founded upon. I guess, my point is...i feel like god is opening my eyes to see truly that HE is the one who blessed us, because we were founded on HIM. Our nation was able to stand because the temple of the constitution was built upon the solid Rock, Jesus Christ, in whom He is the only one who can hold all things together. He was truly our cornerstone, the focus of our country and thus we who trusted in Him and built our lives upon Him will never be disappointed or put to shame. Seeing who we were before and how far weve gone away from Him reallybreaks my heart. Lord have mercy on this nation... bring is back to you lord, bring us back.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
- last stanza from Star Spangled Banner
my heart is burning for the children in uganda and the horrific sitauations they are being forced into because of a corrupt leader named joeseph kony. Every fiber of my being is crying out for justice to be done, for the reign of the kingdom to be restored, for all the wrongs to be made right. i am left utterly speechless at the immensity and density of the great dimensions of evil and injustice in this world—this evil is simply paralyzing.
reality check.
where has my life been these past few months??
have i been only engaged in myself, too consumed with my own life and problems, too weighed down with my insecurities, too focused on my ever revolving thoughts that i could not take my eyes off of myself in order to see god or other people?
sadly, the truth is, I realize that i have been wasting too much time looking at myself and the suffering in my life that i could not notice the cries of another. There are so many people in darkness, so many people in need of hope and light, so many people in need of authentic love, so many people undergoing extreme hardship and pain. life is not worth living until you are living it for a cause that is bigger than yourself. a life that has not been given up everything is not worthy of gaining anything—to die is to gain, and in dying one can truly live as christ lived, because to live is christ.
father i want to live for a cause that is so much bigger than myself. life in abundance is truly a life that is poured out onto you and onto others; it is not a life in which the oil in the alabastar jar is selflishly kept intact and unbroken. help me live a life that is completely poured out to you. help me not to withhold even a single drop of oil in the jar, but help me to willingly break my life so that I can be wholly poured out onto you and be used to the greatest capacity. help me to be a broken and empty vessel for you to use in whatever way you please. help me not to hold on to any of me, but for the sake of your glory, let me empty myself i order to gain all of you.
I want more of you and less of me. as you break my life, would you also break my heart for what breaks yours. would everything i am be for your kingdom’s cause alone. would you help me to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before you all the days of my life. open my eyes to see, open my ears to hear, open my mind to know, open my heart to feel the sufferings of others in this world.
Father, i need so much more of you, and so much less of me.
***please, watch this invisible children video and support the cause for justice—>http://s3.amazonaws.com/kony2012/kony_5.html
having such a hard week and realizing more and more how crippled and desperate i am for his redeeming love and his grace in my life. every day and every moment i am fighting for his joy to be my strength, fighting for his truths to become a reality for me, and fighting for his love to overcome every fear and obstacle there is in my life.
sometimes i ask god when these struggles will end; i can feel myself being bombarded with temptations and worldly desires, other times i feel myself drowning in waves of negativity and not being able to see the light and His truths. i guess i just didnt know how to express all that i was going through... until today i just threw my hands onto my piano and started letting the holy spirit play the keys with and through me. And all of a sudden i was led to play the Dessert Song, by Hillsongs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlgUUeQh0CQ
and i was playing the verses and the bridge of this song i started to break down and cry.
"all of my life, in every season, you are still god, i have a reason to sing, i have a reason to worship"
the words that i had trouble articulating in order to express my mind, my thoughts or my heart were found in the the flow of the verses. This song spoke through everything that i was going through and everything that i wanted to be-- to ultimately bring praise to the lord even in my desert, even in the fire, and even in the battle. If god is always my god, then i should be able to rejoice no matter what i am going through, no matter what season i am in, no matter what my earthly lot or circumstance is. i began to weep as i realized that my worth was not founded on him and him alone, and that my joy came from my life circumstances, what I had, or what i did. A part of me places too much worth on these things, which is why i grieve the loss of the ability to sing and speak so much. My grief in these losses reveals the condition of my heart, that i am not yet fully satisfied in God alone because i give so many other things worth in my life. Can I truthfully say that it is well with my soul, even if i am stripped of everything, absolutely everything in this life? Honestly, at this moment i dont think i can. If i truly am satisfied in Him alone, then i would be able to say to him Blessed be Your name despite what he gives or takes away, just as Job did the moment that all his mighty and numerous possessions got stripped away and his sons and daughters suddenly died, and everything he knew to be his world all crumbled in an instant--
At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.[c]
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised.”
-job 1:20-21
god i am in so much need of your strength.
i need your grace to praise you in times like these...no matter what season i am in. i need your love to sustain me... i cannot love you on my own. i need your strength to help me surrender. help me to see the absolute magnificence of your worth and beauty so that all these afflictions will become but light and momentary. help me to remember that you are faithful, that you are good, and that you deserve the utmost glory and praise. help me to take my eyes off of myself and my circumstances so that i can lift you high and give you the praise and the glory that you deserve. please lord, let this to be true in my life, let this song to be the cry of my heart--
I believe it, i believe it--when i see your face, its going to be worth it all. Even through trials and tribulations--
when i see your face, its going to be worth it all."
i need
your grace.
i need your grace to get through my day, to sustain me through the night/ darkness and into the daytime, where there are new mercies each day and a joy that comes in the morning.
"But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness ”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
-2 cor 12:9-10
when i heard this verse being spoken on a friday night worship, it stung my heart. i have been wrestling with my loss of voice for over 3 months now...i strained my voice while singing the wrong way, but ever since that day, my voice has been oscillating and spiraling between an inability to utter sounds, to an ability to speak just loud enough for people to hear me in a quiet room. it has certainly not been easy--to be honest, its been a huge struggle. i remember nights just intensely trying to battle the warfare of the enemy and my mind because I was in such a state of confusion and fear; i lost sight of god's truth and love. I remember some nights where i couldnt pray, didnt know how to pray, didnt know what to pray for, days when i felt discouraged and wanted to give up seeking god's love. i thought my voice was getting better, but then all of a sudden it would spiral down and i would lose it completely again. like paul recieving a thorn in his flesh, i never realized how crippling it could be to lose something so simple-- the ability to talk, and even to sing/ worship--until it was gone.
but just as god spoke to paul in his weakness (while he had a thorn in his flesh) and told him "my grace is sufficient for you," i want that to be the same for me during my time of weakness. by his grace, each day is a new day. each day is another day that i am desperate for more of his grace to wash over my life, to sustain me, to keep me from falling, to remind me of his truths and his love. lord, where would i be without your grace? i would be long gone, i could not keep living.
yesterday i was talking to a friend and expressing my struggles to her, and she reminded me again that it is in my time of weakness that god will be strong. it is in my weakness that his power and his love will be made perfect in me. for the things that i used to be able to do so easily, i will now need to rely on his strength and his grace alone. now i cannot do anything without his grace. perhaps he wants me to emphasize loving people through actions, not just through words. perhaps this physical incapability is an opportunity for me to be solely dependent and desperate for god alone. i am reminded of how utterly weak/ incapable i am, how weak my flesh is,and even, how weak my faith is. but despite this struggle, there have been many times when god's grace would comfort me in my pain, when god's love would carry me through the night. these are the things that i want to recount, these are the thing i want to remember,these are the things i want to hold tightly onto. i want to blog later about and how i am discovering and rediscovering how weak i and how his grace has been sustaining me through this time.
i have yet to see how this whole situation will unfold. i have yet to see this struggle fully redeemed. living in the present of my circumstance, i cannot yet grasp god's perfect plan and redeeming love, how he will turn around all things bad and make all things new. but i know that when i look back on this time, when i have fully overcome this struggle, then i will understand and see how perfect god's plan is, and how his love carried me all the way through.
for now, i want to be content in my lack of understanding concerning my present condition, i want to trust fully and whole-heatedly in him even when i cant see, i want to praise and worship him even in my time of despair.
oh heart, remember that when I am weak, He is so, so strong.
let your grace be sufficient for me. i need your grace.
as i was standing by the ocean admiring the calm tides melting in and out of the mass body of water,
i felt the lord telling me
"my love for you is more vast than the ocean"
and i tried to visually picture what that meant. my eyes began to scan the waters and search the ocean to and fro, to try to measure the length of the ocean, to try to fathom the depths of the sea, to grasp my head around the amount of water that must lie in just the pacific ocean. and as i searched the ocean, i could see the waters dominate for hundreds and hundreds of miles on end; so vast was this ocean that the towering moiuntains just faintly rose from behind this sea of goliath.
wow. how far even just this body of water stretched i do not even know, nor can i fully grasp it all. there came a point as i was examining the ocean when i could no longer see it anymore. perhaps that was where the ocean ended, or perhaps that was the point where my limited peripheral vision could no longer see any further. whichever the reason, god reminded me that yes, no matter how immeasurable and immense the ocean may seem, there is a point where it ends, and where i wont be able to see it. but there is no shore to god's ocean of love. its waters continue on and on, stretching millions and billions of miles on end. there is no boundary line of his love where the land meets the sea, where the waters stop rising and falling. and even when i cant see it with my own limited mind and eyes, even when i think it has stopped after a certain amount of enormousity-- gods love still continues, even when i cant see it or even when im not aware that its there. even when i think that god has loved and given enough to me -- no, there is still more love that god wants to pour out, more of himself he wants to give because there is no limit.
it amazed me that at the moment when i was marveling at the utter vastness of this ocean, the lord would tell me that love is even greater than this. how much more unsearchable, unfathomable, and unlimited his love for you and me must be!
lord help this limited mind grasp the full depth of your limitless love. i confess lord that my view of you is still so narrow and small, and i do not know if i still fully understand this revelation of your love... but please, help me to really know your love, beyond what i knew growing up, beyond what little i know of it now. give me eyes to see when i cannot percieve and give me ears to hear when i cannot understand.
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[b]—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
-(1 cor 2:9-10)
theres a cry in my heart
for your glory to fall
for your presence to fill up
my senses.
theres a yearning again,
a thirst for discipline,
a hunger for thigs that are deeper
could you take me beyond?
could you carry me through
if i open my heart could i go there with you?
cause ive been there before
and i know theres still more
oh lord i need to know you.
for what do i have? if i dont have you jesus
what in this life could mean anymore
you are my rock
you are my glory
you are the lifter of my head
wow. as this song was running through my head, i shockingly realized how much the words paralled exactly what i was going through in my life, word for word.
i had listened to this song 4 years ago and it was one of my favorite songs back then, but i didnt really understand it. the chorus was the most catchy to me, as it resonated with how i felt about having jesus mean the world to me.
but now listening to this song, i realize that its a song that most depicts the prodigal son. how the son left the father in search for his own desires and riches but after dabbling in these worldy pleasures, he relizes that he has nothing and is nothing without the father. the son returns to the father in search for a life more than what haswhen he was living as he pleased. he realizes everything he once had and everything hes lost through the cry of his heart to be once again in the presence of the father.
and after trying to live life my own way,
i am exhausted.
there is no joy in following the things that i please, in placing more gravity on the ephemeral rather than the eternal. i want to return back to the father--and there is a cry once again in my heart for his intimate presence, a thirst and a hunger for things that are deeper, for things that cannot be found by merely searching in the physical. i realize that this need cannot be satisfied through the people i surround myself with, the things that i buy, the identity that i try to create, the love that i find, or even the amount of "holy" things that i do. this ringing yearning for more-- only god himself can satisfy.
could you take me beyond? can you carry me through? if i open my heart, could i go there with you? lord, i want to go to a place beyond that is more heart-penetrating, more wholesomely-satisfying, more thirst-quenching than the shallow waters that i have been setting foot in. but at the same time im scared. i dont really know why... i dont want to hold any of myself from him but i feel hesistant to pour everything i have. i feel as if a part of me is scared to let go of the things that i have because i am too focused on the death of self, the sacrifice, than the resurrection and exceeding life that follows. lord could you carry me through, because i dont know if i can ever make this on my own. lord, if i open my heart, could i go to that sweet, secret place with you? can you take me there once again, even if the attempts of my heart are still so feeble?
for surely i have been there before, and i know that there is so much more. i know in the deepest deep that there is so much more than the life that i am living now. lord, i remember. i remember those times when i would go so deep with you, when i was filled with exhilirating joy at every word of the living scriptures, when i would gaze at the sky with love-struck wonderment and daze at the beauty of your majesty, when i would wake up every morning afreshed and awakened by the overflowing love that you poured into my heart.
when all i wanted was to be intimately and deeply in communion with you.
oh lord... i need to know you.
for what do i have, if i dont have you? what in the whole universe could possibly replace you? what in the whole world could compare to you? what in this life could mean more than you, could hold more weight or significance than you? if i dont have all of you lord, i have nothing. no amount of intelligence or beauty or glory or talent or relationships or possesions or passion would be sufficient enough to even come close in worth.
oh lord, i need to know you.
please take this wandering heart of mine and fulfill the cry of my heart.
i have experienced the joy of knowing what god feels when one sinner repents, when one soul turns to jesus and all of heaven is rejoicing and celebrating over this seemingly small, but truly great victory.
in japan i had the amazing oppurtunity to share the gospel to three people, and out of the three, one of them accepted. although the numbers are so few, i felt god's heart and his love when i was sharing the gospel to that one individual who accepted the gospel and wanted to receive jesus christ as his personal savior and lord! hallelujiah! and as we prayed together for the first time (his name was shogo), i was moved to tears to see how his heart was so open to Jesus, and how he was asking God into his life. truly, all of heaven was dancing and celebrating because the stronghold of hades has been broken from his heart, because of this small but truly life changing and significant decision to follow after Jesus. even though he was just one person i know god was pleased.
a lot of people call japan the missionary graveyard. coming out of japan, i can understand and see why. i was told that it takes an average of about 10-20 years for a person to truly accept christ into their life. No doubt, japan is definately hard soil to toil in, and i dont know if i can explain all of their social, cultural and religious barriers by just blogging about it here. it was personally very hard for me as well, but one thing i am thankful for is the oppurtunity to share the gospel with a few people in japan, because even getting the oppurtunity to share is more difficult.
even though it seems like god's spirit is moving slowly through the country of japan, i know it doesnt have to be. i know that the lord has the power to turn hearts and transform lives in an instant. i know that once a person encounters the living love of christ, their life will never be the same-- because god's love is that strong. oh holy spirit, would you truly enliven and enlighten the japanese's hearts to the knowledge that there is an amazing father in heaven who loves them beyond what they could even fathom, that there is a love greater than what they could ever hope for or imagine. abba father would you encounter your japanese sons and daughters with your love in a way that is life changing--and in a way where they cannot deny surrendering all of their past for the sake of following after you!
