Walk on Water

Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.

In Peter Pan, it was easy for the Lost Boys to fly.  It was even easy for the baby Peter..  But if you've ever watched Hook, you'd have seen how difficult it was for the adult Peter to find the faith to fly.  In the Chronicles of Narnia, beyond a certain age, you're forbidden to come back to Narnia.  Or maybe it was more that they could no longer find their way back to Narnia.  In fact, the entire kingdom of Narnia was ruled by..children. 

I read just today that the king of Uganda turned 18 and for the first time, he can make decisions for his kingdom without consulting his advisers.  He became king at age 3, and my first reaction as I read this article was "how ridiculous."  But maybe I'm wrong - perhaps it takes a child's eyes and a child's dreams to realize the greatest aspirations into actuality.

When I was younger, I believed I could change the world.  Somehow, someway, God would open the doors for me to become a mover and shaker of this world, even if just one neighborhood at a time.  With time I threw that idea away as I realized I couldn't even change myself.  When I was younger, I lived carefree.  My life was secure in Christ, what could be more important?  Yet, doesn't the world scream at me today that there are a million and one things more important? 

 You still don't have a girlfriend?  Are you sure you're trying hard enough in school?  Don't disappoint your family Eugene.  Shouldn't you be studying?  Do you really go around dressing like that?  Why don't you try and make more friends?  Are you going to end up in Korea one day?  What kind of doctor will you be?  Why can't you commit to your church?  What happened to wanting to form a prayer group at school - became too busy?  Eugene..are you worthy?

Quiet.  quiet.  You are my freedom, Jesus you're the reason I'm kneeling at Your throne.  Where would I be without you here in my life?  You're my freedom.

I'm getting older - that will not change.  But doesn't His Word say:  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  And if with age, we are wasting away, can't I also inversely consider this to mean that inside, I am getting YOUNGER with renewal?  That inwardly, I am becoming more like a child?  And isn't my goal to:

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved CHILDREN.  And forever, I have to picture that powerful image of a child who follows his father adoringly around, mimicking every action in hopes that he would be more and more like his dad with each motion.  And so, with great excitement and with great gusto, we adore and imitate our Father in heaven.

And God's Word says that our inward child-ification is a consequence of FAITH - the same mighty faith through which we resound "I believed; therefore I have spoken."

So by faith then, I will walk on water; I might dare to even RUN as an eager child.

I have never walked on water, felt the waves beneath my feet,

but at your Word Lord, I'll receive Your Faith to walk on oceans deep.

And I remember how you found me:

In that very same place, all my failing surely would have DROWNED me

but YOU made a way.

Easter 2010

Easter Day Fast 2010


Dear Father, I'm hungry.  It has been a while, a long while since I have fasted, even such a short fast as this.  I've become so used to the habit of immediately satisfying my appetite that I have long forgotten true and sustained hunger, again, even hunger such as this.

How terrible is the noncommittal life; how tragic is the apathetic or lazy existence?  I am reminded now of what you have said in Revelations:

"so because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth."

By your MERCY alone, you have not spat me from your mouth.

When I'm hungry, I CANNOT concentrate on anything else.  When I am hungry, the mere thought of food gets me salivating, and the anticipation of forthcoming food is near UNBEARABLE.  The scent of eminent satiation strikes all other thoughts from my mind.  When I am hungry, truly starving, my idol and foremost priority is food.  I long for it - I feel as though I may perish without it.

Father, I hunger for you.  Though at times, recently, my hunger for you has been like a quiet buzzing, I pray you fan it to be a savage lion, with a longing for you so fierce that I may declare as David once did that to spend just ONE day in your courts would be better than a THOUSAND elsewhere, that I may declare my very SOUL thirsts for you Lord.  And all the while that I hunger for you, Father I know that "my soul will be satisfied as with the RICHEST of fare."  And truly Lord, You are sweeter than the sweetest honey, more filling than the juiciest steak, more permanent and sustaining than anything I could partake of in this life.

Creator of the universe, Father of all nations, grant me a heart after yours - a heart that longs for the things YOU long for.  My wants, my desires, my iniquities, my anxieties - what are they when You satisfy my soul?

Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart and lean not on your own understanding, and in ALL your ways acknowledge Him, and He WILL make your paths straight.

Delight yourself in the Lord and He WILL give you the desires of your heart.

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. - Romans 8:5

Thank you for the cross.  Thank you for the resurrection.  Thank you for all the hope I have.  You are faithful.

Amen.

06 March, 2010

 I've just gone through one of those experiences you only ever have one shot at living - my brother's wedding.  It's really amazing at how far I've come with my brother in just a year's span.  One year ago today, my relationship with him was no stranger or familiar than it was maybe 5 years ago, maybe even 10 years ago.

My brother was always a mysterious guy, and I bet I owe a lot of my own mysteriousness and reclusiveness to what I copied off of him growing up.  There was once a time when I would have said I was close to my brother, but that time is long off.  I remember the first time Kinsey went off for a whole winter break to the States without me - I cried and my parents laughed.  They said "형이 있을떼는 그렇게 싸우고, 이제 형이 가니까 울어?"  And of course I cried harder because my parents were making fun of me.  

I wouldn't say my family is poor, but I would deny my family was by any means rich.  I tell my American friends I lived in a tiny rented 빌라 (which I learned later was not the same as a "villa") in an alley I'd struggle to describe to you.  In that small apartment, my brother and I would shoot BB guns at each other when my parents were away (one hit me square in the eye), we'd physically fight for fun (I broke his pinky finger) and we'd even play baseball with a plastic ball and bat - each "base" was a piece of furniture 2 feet apart in the living room.  Then my brother entered high school, and I began to forget who he really was.  I saw very little of him for those 4 years.

To some extent, I was eternally jealous of my brother.  I got into a lot of trouble growing up, and my behavior worried my parents to no small end.  I envied how my brother could laugh his way past any punishment.  There were even times after I fought with my brother that I relished telling my parents what he did when they came home, but invariably, they laughed when he laughed, and I received the scolding of a lifetime.  After a while, I realize I must have subconsciously begun to imitate my brother - I thought that if I was more like him, I could laugh my way through punishments, and if I were more like him, maybe my parents would love me more like the way they did him.  And still, I did not know my brother.

Last summer, I met his fiancee in Korea.  If I could have imagined my brother with someone, it would not have been a missionary kid from Sri Lanka more fluent in Korean than she was in English.  And yet, wouldn't you know it, they were perfect for each other.  That very first night I met her, I felt comfortable enough to ask Hana to help me grow closer with my brother and draw our family together, and she promised me she would.  And because of that promise, because of Hana, 7 months later, Kinsey is still a mystery, but he is no longer a stranger to me.  He is my brother, and I can say I love him.

Congratulations 형, 누나.  오래오래 행복하게 사세요.

Desert of This

I tread lightly upon these, the sands of despair

Lest I wake up the demons that slumber around,

Tired from the feast of their most recent fare,

The last poor soul’s stumbling they’d found.

The winds desperately destroy what my feet create

Until I forget how far I’ve come, if at all.

The sun dries me with thirst I barely sate

With tears demanded by fear’s stifling pall.

Still I know from the screams of my legs

And the growing insanity of my mind,

If I keep one foot ahead as the other begs,

I’m moving somewhere , just moving blind.

And in the dark recesses of my heart,

As the answer to my most urgent wish,

A light shines that these sands cannot part

To walk with me in the desert of this,

The desert of loneliness where soon I can rise

To walk hand in hand with Him to paradise

everything is meaningless

We're reading through Ecclesiastes in small group right now.  The main theme: everything is meaningless.  Under the sun, everything is meaningless.

And doesn't life really feel that way?  We wake up, we do whatever we do, and by the end of the day, we sleep for another day.  If life is one of the most precious gifts given us, then why do we find that days blur together?  How come MOST days of my life are forgettable?  I might as well have been asleep for half my life for all I got out of it...right?  I love God, and I know God loves me, but too often, and all the more recently, that realization doesn't seem to be epic enough to answer the ultimate question of life: "how do i find meaning in it?"

Today, some profound things were uttered, and I began to understand how to answer that question.  A brother shared this passage:

"I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little"

Paul knew the answer.  It will be an ongoing lesson to learn how to serve God in trials and through the most difficult of situations; yet I've found that I'm most in danger not when I am suffering, but when I am thriving.  I am closer to knowing how to live on almost nothing than I am in knowing how to live with everything.  And now, don't I have everything?  I have people to talk to, more food than I can eat that I have to store things for later and keep leftovers, a bed with several layers to keep me warm, movies and books to keep me entertained, the Bible to read and believers with whom to fellowship with.  If I keep studying and follow a program already laid out before me, then I will be a respected doctor with a salary.  And what is my greatest problem?  that I am bored.

And for now, the answer I have come up with is that I lack compassion.  In my abundance, I am not giving.  In my everything, I ignore those with nothing.  Instead, my first thought is study.  When 30 minutes pass by, I think to myself "that was 30 minutes I could have studied.  or at least worked out."  I study and forget to pray.    Compassion.  There is a small section in Matthew, a prelude to where Jesus sends out the Twelve.  It reads:

"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few..'"

Jesus had compassion everyday for those he walked amongst.  Who am I amongst?  I don't walk among the hungry in Ethiopia or the oppressed in Indonesia.  For now, I walk among secular medical students - but I have no compassion for them.  Rather, the temptation to live a secular lifestyle, reinforced by the demands and motivations of the medical profession keep me actively trying to distance myself.  And so, I don't have compassion.  and I don't know how to live on a full stomach.  and I am bored, and I question the meaning of each of my days.

The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.

Doritos

I bought some doritos today.  The Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch kind.  They say that smell and taste are the most closely linked senses to memory (and now thanks to medical school, I know what tracts make this true), but as I was eating those Doritos, I had some major flashbacks.

Back when I was growing up in Korea, American food was RARE.  Instead of skittles, I had these misshapen, slightly off-tasting Korean copies (Unfortunately, I cant remember the name).  Instead of m&m's, I ate chocolate covered 해바라기씨 (sunflower seeds).  Fruit rollups?  Gushers?  Get out of here, every blue moon, someone would bring some from their vacation in the States and they were everybody's best friends for all of the 30 minutes their stash lasted.  I remember one time, I got punked into getting a free fruit-by-the-foot if I ate some "candy" this guy gave me.  Turns out the candy was some bitter bitter medicine that numbed my taste buds and I couldn't taste the fruit-by-the-foot at all.  Lucky for that person I don't remember who it was.

Yet there was a way I could eat Doritos.  Sometimes, I could get on the American Base (gate 52!) and persuade the clerk to sell me candy without a base pass.  Sometimes.  Then after a point, I must have begun looking too much like a terrorist to pull it off.  No more Doritos.  Compared with the tiny 500W bags of korean chips I could get, those humongous $2.50 Doritos bags were a kid's dream come true.  I would love eating them with my fingers and then licking my fingers clean - sometimes it seemed that the chips themselves were just a way I could get to licking my fingers.

When I was feeling down, my mom would make an extra trip out to the base to get me the only New York style pizza you could find in Seoul - Anthony's Pizza on the base.  She'd get me a fresh box of pizza and the only Taco Bell in the entire city - on the South Post.  I'd sit at home until she'd call me, then I'd come out and help her balance the big Taco Bell cup on the pizza box as we climbed the stairs.

Life was simpler as a child - I think I felt America was such a bigger place than Korea, with much better snacks, more freedom and more opportunity.  Every other summer, I'd go to America and spend an entire day sitting in the Barnes and Noble, catching up on my Redwall series and browsing through the comics.  Then we'd get our annual Panda Express at the mall before I picked up my one Nintendo game that would last me the rest of the year until I came back to the States.  and I was happy.

Now with everything that I wanted as a child, I'm living the paradox of wanting to return to being a child.  I don't think its a matter of the grass being greener on the other side.  I've seen a lot more of the world, and I've realized that there's fewer things as precious as the childhood I spent growing up in Korea, between two worlds, and between Doritos.

February 2010

It's already February of 2010.  I find one of life's biggest ironies in just how much we can't wait for time to fly faster as kids, then when we're adults we only wish for a way to turn back time.  What sparks that ironical transition?  I guess I haven't experienced life enough to say for certain.  Maybe right now I'm living that transition - a part of me wishes to return to halcyon college; another part of me can't wait until I'm a resident.  Or maybe it's just the present at the moment that I'm having a hard time biding by.

Where was I 10 years ago?  2000.  Wrapping up 8th grade year.  That year actually signifies very little in my life beyond discipleship with Myong.  It was probably my first time really studying the Bible as something of substance outside of sunday school.  We spent all of 6 months studying the book of James - something of my time in that Bible Study gripped me, and I believe it to be the time I first became a real Christian.  As I think upon it now, I think that finding some small semblance of community in that discipleship group after a socially rough past 2 years may have contributed a lot to my hunger for affirmation in God, and my finding Him in the book of James.

For some reason, I remember sitting in on a high school concert and asking Julian, do you think you'll do Psalms next year?  And that very first morning psalms of 2008, my first week as a high school freshman, I stepped into the cave and sat down on the first of many mornings with Mr. Raatz and my Psalms upperclassmen.  Psalms was a continuation of the community I felt a little of from 8th grade.  The smelly carpet, the pictures of Jazz Band, AGAPE, I love you Charlie Brown, Fiddler on the Roof lining the walls, the closets of mysterious violins left overnights - I found much comfort and encouragement among them over the next three years.

But 10 years ago.  I didn't think about my career - I didn't think about being a missionary, a doctor, a pastor. I sought friendship, social acceptance, emotional affirmation.  And I waited on God.  and God was faithful.  Today, I seek much the same things.  I seek friendship, social acceptance, emotional affirmation - I guess now I would call this community.  God was faithful.  I believe He is faithful still - I will wait on God, be it 2000, 2010 or 2050.