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!

Just Enough

Hi all. To give a quick update on my life, I'll be living in Berkeley this next year, commuting to work in Daly City to work for LAN Engineering, and commuting every weekend to help with the DCCC youth group. I'll no longer officially be a part of Gracepoint, though I will do my best to keep up my relationships with my friends and leaders.

It'll be a hard commute. About two hours of commute by Bart every weekday, and three hours of commute by car for the weekend. I think it'll be draining for me emotionally and physically, and I'll also have to handle the stresses of transitioning to working life. I've wanted God to give me some kind of surge of courage to take on the next new year, but I think it's not gonna happen.

Rather, this: "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1:9). I don't know what this new year will bring, or how hard it will be. But what I do know is that God will be faithful, and with that knowledge I have the courage to boldly keep going, at least for this next step.

Vision, Fear, Dependence, Prayer, Courage

We're going through Nehemiah 1, and one of the questions asked about what we can learn about fear, courage, vision, prayer, and dependence on God from Nehemiah.

First, Nehemiah has the vision.  The messenger comes back and tells of the disgraceful state of Israel, and Nehemiah's heart breaks.  From that he gets the vision of going back and restoring Israel.

But what does it take for something to actually happen?  First of all, Nehmiah's a cupbearer, not a politician or a general, so he probably doesn't have a lot of experience or abilities that are relevant to the task he needs to carry out.  Second, much depends at this point on the will or favor of the king.  When Nehmiah presents his request to the king, if the king's in a bad mood, there's no way to move forward.  Success is outside of his ability to secure.

That is why vision can lead to fear, because there is something to fall short of.  With a vision of accomplishing some difficult task, just thinking of all the obstacles and measuring ourselves against them will naturally lead to fear, because the possibility of failure becomes real.

At this point, though, fear will bring the one who depends on God to prayer.  Recognizing that he's not able to secure success on his own, he turns to the Sovereign God in whose hands are all things: his own soul, the will of the king, and all future events.  From this prayer comes confidence.  This is not a foolhardy confidence, as would be the case if he was trusting in his own abilities.  Rather, this is a confidence that comes from the knowledge that God is with him.

I'm somewhere in the middle right now.  A little afraid to dream right now, actually, because there's a fear that I won't be able to do it all.  That it'll be too hard.  That I won't be able to handle the demands of work and ministry, that it'll be too physically and emotionally draining, that I won't be able to adjust.  Fear of failure.  And this fear threatens to restrict vision, because the more I aspire to, the more failure is possible.

I'm trying to turn to God and depend on him, trying to pray through this struggle.  Can I trust that God is sovereign?  That God has the whole world in his hands?  That he who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus?

I really like that kind of bold confidence of being able to jump in headfirst, despite real possibility of failure.  If there's no chance of failure, it's probably too easy.  The possibility of losing makes winning fun.  Life without challenge would be a bore.  I want the courage to say "time to ante up and kick in...  like men!"

Soon.