Mind and Muscle

For various reasons I've been doing the Grace Valley reading schedule recently instead of the Gracepoint one for DT's. Grace Valley Christian Center is my friend's church in Davis, and for their reading schedule they read a couple of books from the Old and New testaments every day. It's been going over 1 Samuel recently.

One thing that strikes me about David during his time as a fugitive is his complete reliance on God. In 1 Samuel 26, he's running for his life with his ragtag band of followers and he hears the news that the Israelite city of Keilah is under attack by the Philistines. He inquires of the Lord whether he should go save Keilah. The Lord answers in the affirmative, but David's men are afraid, saying that as it is they're scared for their lives, and how much more if they try to take on these Philistines. David inquires again, the Lord answers again with a promise of victory. David and his small band go and defeat the Philistines, saving the city of Keilah.

How do I face difficulty? Come up with a better plan, try harder. Mind and muscle. David's certainly intelligent, strong, and brave, but he takes no stock in these things. In an honest assessment of the situation, the soldiers were right; they didn't have the military capacity to be going of and fighting whole armies of Philistines while they were running for their own lives, they didn't have the strength, it wasn't a strategic move. But David, a man after God's own heart, relies entirely on the Lord for his strength, and in simple obedience fights the Lord's battle and emerges victorious.

This is the only way to face life. Things are too uncertain for me to take stock in myself. God is faithful, God loves me; neither death nor life, neither angles nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus my Lord. These are the truths I need to grab hold of, and only in these things, not myself, can I have stability and certainty and security.

Proximate Responsibility

So I've had this view on responsibility for a while that I'd like to sketch out in brief, though I've touched on it in my post "Demandingness and Compassion Sunday." First off, something I first heard in a moral psychology class. Let's say that I'm walking along and I see that there's a baby drowning in a pond. I don't want to ruin the nice dress pants I'm wearing so I just keep walking along and let the baby drown. This is clearly NOT an appropriate reaction. Despite the loss of my treasured pants, the loss of time, and the uncomfortability of wetting my socks, the moral duty to save the baby clearly outweighs any such considerations. The right thing to do is to say "oh my gosh a baby is drowning," and immediatly jump in and save the baby.

Okay, so saving a life is more important than retaining your nice set of cloths and that 10 minutes. Why do we not give that same amount of money to prevent a child in Africa from starving to death? It seems that the inconveniences that we once mocked as uncaring and selfish we now cling to in our defense; we'd rather spend that money on slightly better meals, morning coffee, and a shiny new pair of shoes than the starving kid. Point granted: we really ought to care about the affairs of others, even those in foreign countries, more than we do instead of spending all of our resources on many of our own concerns which are in comparison trivial.

However, one assumption that's implicit in the comparison is that you know for sure that your ten dollars is gonna save the starving kid. Quite likely, a good portion of that is going to be consumed by overhead transaction costs and corruption. You don't know for sure that your money is going to save the kid, and so that uncertainty does play a role. It doesn't justify giving no money at all, but it does explain why you'd be more obligated to give money to save a starving child in front of you over a starving child a thousand miles away.

I think this idea of proximity is in part why Jesus said "love your neighbor as yourself," rather than a simple "love everybody as yourself." It's more concrete, and it's more sure. While we do have obligation to the starving child far away from us in Africa, our obligation is first and foremost to the starving children next to us. Most likely the people around us aren't starving; but they have real needs which we should be trying to meet.

This is in part how I deal with prioritization and how I choose what to do when there's many pressing obligations and things that would be good to do. The needs that are immediatly presented to me take priority; the people in front of me take priority. True, if this idea is taken to the extreme then it provides justification for neglecting people who ought not to be simply because we might think that we can't do anything or we don't know enough; and that self-justification of "it's okay not to care about this person because he's in the wrong category" is specifically addressed in the preceding story of the Good Samaritan. But, in summary, I think that decreased proximity increases responsibility.

Anyway. I should be studying more for the lsat. But it's far away =)

Fish and Man

"Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream." (Malcolm Muggeridge)

Today is the lucky day when you, the reader, can offer me assistance! Got a couple of questions for all ya'll. First off, I've recently discovered that some people for whom I am responsible have been cheating in a class. What would you do?

Here's a question posed by a friend of mine. Let's say you lived in a part of China where the only way you can do business is to give bribes to the government officials regulating the process. Would you do it?

His Own Purpose

"But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life - not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace." (2 Timothy 1:8b-9a.)

It's been interesting these past couple of weeks. I feel a bit split between Davis, Berkeley, and Alameda. Unlike before I don't have one place which is mainly "home"... I kind of have three homes. It's good in some ways, but I miss the old days when I come back home to Dwight or Dana house and just hang out with my peers again, and always have people to talk to and eat with.

But why have I been called to this life? Is it because I've done something bad and am punished for it, or is it because I am particularly awesome or specially qualified? Neither. It's because of God's own purpose and grace. My duty now is to be faithful where I am at now, at this peculiar juncture that God has called me to be at. And what does being faithful entail for me now?

"And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others." (2 Timothy 2:2)

I think this is my primary duty right now; equipping the youth and the youth group staff so that they can in turn minister to others. To preach to the whole group is good; but the particular need is for those with open ears to hear these words. I see my job as one of equipping and training and building up. Along those lines, I'm glad to have the opportunity to teach Course 101 right now.

There are many different skills that are useful for ministry, and most of them I don't have or am not very good at. To love people concretely requires some skills; but I'm not particularly good at cooking, I'm not particularly generous with my time or money, I'm not particularly good at keeping things clean... though I'm trying to work on these things, slowly. Also, I'm not musical at all, and I'm not good at photoshop and making things like picture frames or writing cards. One of my few strengths is teaching, and so teaching Course 101 is one of the best ways that I can serve the youth.

On another note, I did the salt water flush today per Ben's recommendation. It was fun insofar as it was novel, but the drinking of the salt water and the leaving of the salt water were both not very fun. Oh yeah, another random thing. I'm working at this civil engineering firm, and yesterday my coworker was explaining to me some of the construction work that's being done and he mentioned the base and superstructure and I just thought "Marx!" Haha, silly education.

Swined

I think I got swined. All the symptoms of it match, anyway. According to Paul, Annie Song said 90% of the flus in the Bay Area right now are Swine Flu. Yeah: fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue.

Started on Saturday... just started feeling really cold, then a slight headache and getting tired. My body started getting drained of energy, and by the time it was evening, my head was just totally out of it. Sunday morning I was well enough to teach Course 101, but by the time I got back, I just rolled around bed until evening. You know that feeling after pulling allnighter... when even the times that you're awake you're not really there? That's how I've been feeling this week, at BEST. It was like my whole body shut down on me.

Anyway, today I was driving home with a pounding headache, and then all of a sudden it dissapeared and I felt better and fully recovered. It was like I woke up from a long nap... haha, like, whooo, I'm finally alive now!

Yeah, pretty excited to get back to life as usual. Had some pretty pitiful moments this week, but it's over now =)

Life After College

In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)

Is that good or is that bad? The plan is for things to go according to plan; it's a given that when I plan something to go a certain way, I want it to go that way. I'm a person who trusts a lot in his own thinking, my own way of seeing things in the world, my own logic. I want the world to fit my picture of it. I'm glad God knows better. In my foggy moments, I think I see clearly, but in my clearer moments I realize I'm nearsighted. It turns out I'm a silly sheep, following his own small mind trying to do things that seem good, unaware really of what I'm doing. Thankfully I have the Lord as my shepherd, who watches over me in every way.

I've officially been working a week and two days now. I found out on the first day that because I'm now in the construction industry, I'll be working 7am-3:30pm. Discovering that, I determined to wake up at 5am to have time to do DT's, and I've been successful so far. My first reaction is to say it's thanks to exercise and a regular sleep schedule. My mom would say it's the Holy Spirit. Someone else might say it's the testimonies of others (like the one given at winter retreat, and some other old friends). I think all of the above. It's been hard to go to sleep early, and I need to get better at it, but I'm working on it.

The commute from Daly City to Berkeley can be brutal sometimes, taking up to an hour and fifteen minutes. One day last week, I was particularly frustrated because I had to make copies of these 24" x 36" schematics at Kinkos, and the copier was particularly uncooperative, making the whole trip take maybe three times as long as expected. The boss was having me run some errands that day after which I could go home early and miss traffic, but because things took longer than expected, I hit traffic anyway and was stuck in painfully long traffic jams. I was getting pretty unhappy with myself and the situation.

At the same time, Pastor Ed's words kept bothering me. I remember him saying in his sermon once that we have a warped, ungrateful perspective of the world. People come to him complaining about their jobs, and he wants to respond wait, you HAVE a job to complain about? Thinking about that quieted me down a bit, because I realized yeah, I am really lucky to have a job, a lot of people don't. And even though I'm still stuck in traffic, I'm actually still getting home earlier than I would have. But... I was still not happy.

I turned the radio to NPR, and I listened to a boy from India talk about his job as a metalwelder and the harsh conditions there. Because his family has no money, he has to work in a factory handling scorching hot metal with his bare hands. When his bosses feel lazy and want to take a nap, they make him use the metal blowtorch, without any safety equipment. If his hand shakes at all when cutting the metal, the blowtorch will cause metal sparks to fly up and hit him. Listening to the boy, I felt thoroughly rebuked for being unhappy with my comfortable American job.

On a different note, this past weekend was pretty fun. On Friday, visited Acacia, the young adult group for DCCC. On Saturday, met up with Emmanuel in the morning, went to the library, came home and knocked out for a little while, played tennis, went to youth group. On Sunday, went to church, played nerf wars, drove back to Berekely. Starting this upcoming Sunday, I'll be teaching Course 101 for Sunday School. Pretty exciting! Gotta put some more time into it. Please pray for that.

Earlier this week, I locked my keys in my car, which added stress to some other thing I was stressing about. Mostly, I get upset at myself for making mistakes. After everything was resolved, though, I felt pretty happy at how things went. Yeah, things may not go according to plan... didn't end up doing staff intern like I meant to, didn't mean to mess up so many copies at Kinkos and hit traffic, didn't mean to lock my keys in the car. But the Lord watches over my steps, and everything, even my mistakes, are not outside of his sovereignty. He watches over me and directs everything for my good.

And, well, He directs not just through circumstances, but through His people too. "Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain guidance" (Proverbs 20:18). The guidance I've gotten from friends and older people have been invaluable, and they've been really good at giving me direction, encouragement, while at the same time grounding me. Yep, really thankful for my friends.

So yeah. I'm pretty happy right now. Thanks to me? No. But thanks to my shepherd, who watches over me and determines my steps, and guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. God is good, therefore life is good.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow's my first day of work.  Looking forward to it!  Kinda excited, I wanna see what it's like, find out what I'll be doing.  I hope I do well!  From the looks of it tomorrow's gonna be somewhat of an easy orientation day, filling out forms 'n stuff.  After that I may start going on site.

"One Day More," Les Miserables

Tomorrow we'll discover

What our God in heaven has in store

One more dawn

One more day

One day more!