Age and the bible

           When I was 13 the thought of growing up was probably the worst thing I feared that could happen to me. What benefit was there in being old? I always heard people recite their age and then moan helplessly about how time had passed them by with a loud sigh. With age your thinking goes from invincible to cynical or naïveté to pride, seriously what is so great about being older? David was a boy when he defeated Goliath (1 Sam 17:41), most of the disciples were around their twenties when following Jesus and Samuel was a leader since his youth (1 Sam 12:1-3). Now that I am 26 (Still young! At church we learned that in Proverbs 1 the reference to youths were those under 30) I am finally starting to fully respect people older than me for what they experienced in their own lives. Not that I did not respect any of my elders or anything like that, I just never appreciated the age difference. At our regional staff conference last year I remember Chris Nichols recalling a conversation that he had illustrating the complexity of human life, he compared the process of dismantling a toaster and then put the pieces back together versus doing that to a human being. Human life is so complex and filled with stories of loss, regret, hope and courage that at age 13 you can not even comprehend what that all looks like. I take that back, in your typical American life this is true and I am sorry for those that had to experience the complexities of human life in suffering so early. 

      I write this because I think of the passage where the adulterous woman was caught and was about to be stoned in the passage of John 8:1-11 especially verse 9 hit me like a tornado. Jesus knew exactly what to say but I wonder what he thought when his words rang true for the oldest people first. They understood the weight of what Jesus was saying when he says "if any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her" the message paraphrases like this "the sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone" all I can say is wow such powerful statements from our God. The statement casts a mirror on their WHOLE lives, it would be different if Jesus just said, "if any of you is without sin in the last 20 minutes, let him throw the first stone" Again this shows who God is as savior but I also see this passage as an indication to what older people have gone through. I want to learn from those who are older because they have gone through so much more. 

        I used to get a bit frustrated when someone like James Choung would always mention how he was 10 years older than me, I knew he purposely did that too! But I didn't know why (haha), I did not understand until recently how different I was back then and who God has made me now. I did not realize that James was telling me he had 10 years of learning, preaching, teaching, encouraging, studying...etc. All I heard was something like, "I'm older and thus an authority figure". What hit me recently however was that James threw this statement back at me 2 weeks ago, I don't even know if he remembers. At Ignite in L.A. we had a somber divisional meeting because we found out that both James and Jeff, our supervisors for IV, were leaving next year. Everyone seemed to be in deep conversations afterward in the room and I just stepped out to get some fresh air, when I came back through the double doors I saw James working on his computer. I approached James and thanked him for focusing on Jesus in the rather tense situation and then in a sort of complaint mode said something muffled and blurted out "now there is going to be less older Asian American staff". His reply was "You're it" and mentioned that he was only 29 when he came to San Diego and how leaving also makes more space for people to step up. 

      Granted some people get older and have nothing really change in their lives, I think it is because maybe they stopped learning or maybe they just needed someone 10 years older to knock some sense into them hahah. 

           

Difficult places

    As an InterVarsity campus staff worker I have found that Christians have been the most difficult to work with. The reason is because Christians have been so deeply covered in church language. The language has become so foreign to Christians with words such as atonement, sanctification, glory and admonish that they automatically pour out of a Christians mouth. It is like speaking a code that is just handed down generation to generation. I know this because I am the best example of this "Christianese", I knew every hand motion or Sunday school answer and memory verse. Church culture becomes so natural that many of us forget how non-Christians do not even know what any of these words mean. We have created an inside and outside culture which is very similar to the Pharisee environment that Jesus saw when he was on earth. We are suppose to teach and model Christ and not a church program or else we are like Pharisees. What is lost is even an understanding of why those words were made in the first place. 

   I feel that I have to challenge every student that I meet who has been deeply embedded in the Christian culture so that Jesus can be represented as more than the t-shirts, bumper stickers and God videos. When we look at Scripture we have to push for a more critical thinking than just taking "because Jesus is the light of glory who shines in the darkness for sinners" as an answer for why Jesus had to come, we need to ask why it is important in context and what do those words even mean? There is absolutely no entrance for someone who does not follow Jesus to even understand what that means because it is hard to understand without explanation. I think of it in the way that God came incarnate down to man, something so ridiculously mysterious but revealed so that our limited minds could fathom how deep and important Jesus' life as God on earth, how crazy that really was. We have a job of interpretation, everything that we have experienced or learned about God must be translated so that the world can understand who God is. 

Smiling on what God has given you

     Yesterday I had a great talk with Mr. Joon Han who I am meeting about once a month to get some wisdom. Joon is a father of 3 and founded Better San Diego, he was also on staff with InterVarsity in San Diego back in the day when Asian American staffers were few and spread out. A couple things stick out about Joon, he has extremely long hair like a Japanese Samurai and he does say some pretty audacious things that others would not. I think that is what makes him a good minister of the gospel even though he is not in full time ministry... both the hair and his words. 

      What Joon and I talked about ran pretty deep, all of which can't be written. One of the things that stuck out to me was about not living in the past. This might seem straight forward, but when you are really aware of your past circumstances and experiences every piece of that history really is inside of you. It makes you simply who you are today. We use Bobby Clinton in InterVarsity as a staple of leadership, you lead out of who you are and who you are becoming. Joon also has an uncanny ability to put things into perspective saying things like "if you wake up in the morning about 30,000 other people will have died and you have seen another day" If you have experienced any loss like I have you know that there is significant weight to that statement. We can't live in the past because it does not have any more good for us. We would have wasted years of our lives asking why and holding onto bitterness. 

I guess what I learned from Joon and just observing how he treats his family is that Joon is trying to live for what he has now. To become a better husband and father despite what hardships he had to face before stepping into such a role. This is why I need to really smile on what God has given me. I thought about one story that Joon told me of a guy who was in charge of pastoral counseling at Fuller and how he had a limp hand and open sore on his foot. How this man loved to play golf but could not because of his physical condition. And how Joon asked him if he ever asked God the why question. The man's reply was that he could not live always asking and what good would it do now. 

I know this is cliche but it is true. 

The past is history, the future is a mystery and the present is a gift. 

I'm going to try to play golf this weekend with friends, not to mock the other man but to really enjoy life and what God has given me. 

The difference in morning

    For me personally and probably a good percentage of the collegiate world, I am not a morning person. It has been difficult to read scripture in the morning or to meditate on God without falling asleep (can I hear an Amen!). Theologically, God is no different in the morning than our evenings. I change as the day progresses but God has probably been showing me who He is throughout my whole day. There is a real sense of loss when you miss out on what God is trying to tell you and what your own body pushes for. This radically different and opposing force of the body and its needs must be disciplined. The motivation for discipline should not be centered around fighting off laziness or to be disciplined. But the motivation should be centered around what God is doing in the morning. 

     I am starting to transform in my own thought about the importance of the morning. I hope this continues to improve for me. This might be normal for some of you, but to the "snoozers" and "night owls" in the world this is a good reminder (especially for myself). There is depth in the morning, great conversations that do not occur at night but in the early morning also. It says so in scripture "But his delight is in the Law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night" Psalm 1:2 

We know that the morning was created for amazing purposes just because of who the creator is. "God called the light 'day', and the darkness 'night'. And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day" Genesis 1:5 Each day is a CREATED day, none of us can create a September 17th but it is only God who calls forth each and every day that we NOW experience. The proper response to this realization and to others like it is simply praise for the Almighty, who in His wisdom and goodness created the days for man so that man would in turn praise Him. 

       Now the crazy part is that Jesus is God. So the same attributes apply because this is the same person. Through the incarnation we now see the actual separation of darkness and light in spiritual form. Jesus as God was creating (came down as) light for human hearts. "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" John 1:4-5 Jesus is our new day and this is why we call Him the light of our lives. Not for some "churchy" over used statement, we should understand why Jesus is the light of the world. 

Psalm 118:24

"This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it"

This is the day, This is the day 

This is the day that the Lord hath made, that the Lord hath made

I will rejoice, I will rejoice

and be glad in it, and be glad in it!

This is the day that the Lord hath made, I will rejoice and be glad in it!

This is the day, This is the day 

That the Lord hath made.