A different perspective...

I just finished watching the movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and I find it fitting as I reflect upon this summer and remembering the love theat God has shown so graiocusly to me. Its interesting how in so few months so many things change. And even in seeing God's gentle hand guide me, I can have relapses of forgetting the one that has done the work in me. I came from a sense of brokeness...lost and afraid, unsure and insecure...wondering if I royally messed up and staring at the reality of my life in my face. The difficulties of seeing it was overwhelming. Those days, I prayed ofr change....my prayers were formed under the context of desiring that the situation around me change. I didn't want to change, but I pleaded with God to change the circumstances. His gentle no became the greatest blessing as I realized in those moments of heart wrenching yelling that the circumstances did change. I had lived my life with the knowledge of God, even experiencing Him every so often, but in these moments that the days went by....it was only with Him that I was able to get through it all.

As He filled me, I sensed even my prayers changing. All I could ask is not for the circumstances to change, but that I would see His purposes through the circumstances. The desire was to change and be a better man. Perhaps it was prayer that fell too short for the aim He desired for me. My own self-fulfillment and realization became a goal, but one that only centered around me. In my heart, I knew there must be more....

He was the potter and I was the clay, Jesus was shaping not only me to a better man, but me into Him. From those prayers 8 years ago, questioning whether He really exist to now....I had asked if He did, that He would give me a heart after His own. That He would shape this self-centered heart to reflect the selfless heart of Christ. That His name and not my own would be known and the people that would see me would see an amazing God who is able to do amazing things through those that offer their lives to Him.

As I look forward to see what God is gonna do, I can't help but feel my heart lurch a bit in expectation of the blessings God has for me.  I was reminded today to keep all doors open to allow God to move in the way He wants to move in my life.  Each moment that I took this uncertain hands to give over a portion of my future to Jesus, I had in my heart that certain sense of angst, but each time I look back, I cannot believe how good He has been to me.  May you help me to continually hand this life over to You, my maker, my Father, my Savior....

What are we searching for?

Its 1:58AM and I don't know why I'm up. I don't know what is compelling me to even journal at such an insane time or that I even have an inspiration to write. Who knows what's really going to come out, but perhaps I write at night because my inhibition aren't as strong, the walls are a bit weaker and with hope, I wonder if I can take a peek into the depths of my own soul.

Lately, I've seen how the thoughts of insecurity keep me from really being who I am. I am afraid of what people think, what people wonder, what people care about...in the end I find that as I think of myself in the context of the center, it makes me actually very scared to be in the center.

The funny thing is that as an only child, we're suppose to play the main part. We are the leading role in the lives we live, but there's something oddly uncomfortable about that thought. I only want to play the leading role when the lime light is shining brightly on me, with the makeup and the nice suit, perfectly taylored. I want to think that people admire me or want to be like me...but when the cameras are off, and I become naked in my own self, I wonder if all of that was a mere illusion, a dream perhaps...

Living in this false sense keeps me from living in security....it has been my struggle...only glimpses of freedom do I really get to experience and how liberating it is. The ability to tap into the depths of my soul to cast away all the other misconceptions of other people's thoughts to care only to be the man that God has created me to be. It is the freedom I desire...that I sometimes taste and become so intoxicated with.

Perhaps the search I'm seeking for is the search for me. However, I have found that every attempt that search beings at myself, I find it to be incomplete....as if there is something inside of me that desires something to be greater than the search for myself. I wonder if the error begins at the beginning. Those glimpses of freedom, that breath of fresh air came when I did not begin with me, but stood at the hill of Calvary....

It is here I stare at the face of the one who loved me so deeply. It is here I seem to always find myself at during the worst of times asking those questions for which I cannot answer. It is here that I begin to find myself. However as life starts happening again, my starting point shifts....further from the cross and closer to the ideas of others. I live in this eerie in between of in the cliche sense living for this world and living for Jesus.

I might have to restate my first question. Maybe the search isn't something we find, but a place of reference. Maybe what we continually search for isn't the destination, but the starting point. The discovery of this starting point begins to draw in all the other experiences into a beautiful tapestry of experience that has coherence and understanding.

Jesus, may I start at the cross each morning to remember where my existence begins....as I kneel at the foot of the Cross, I offer this mess to you again... I offer my heart leaking and bleeding through the crevices of my shaking hands....however, I sense myself changed this time, knowing that I do not doubt the work you will do, the victory you have already won. Maybe this is the change that is beginning in me, that I do not doubt whether You will do what You will in my life, but as I offer this heart again, I know You will do it, b/c the work has already been done. I live in victory, not defeat, not even in question or wonderment, but in confidence knowing that You are love and You displayed on that cross is the very definition of You.

Thank you Jesus.....

Phil Wickham - True Love
Come close, listen to the story
About a love more faithful than the morning
The Father gave His only Son just to save us

The earth was shaking in the dark
All creation felt the Father's broken heart
Tears were filling Heaven's eyes
The day that True Love did, the day that True Love died
When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Search your heart you know you can't deny it
Come on, lose your life so you can find it
The Father gave His only Son just to save us

The Earth was shaking in the dark
All creation felt, the Father's broken heart
Tears were filling Heaven's Eyes
The day that True Love died, the day that True Love died
When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Now, Jesus is alive
Jesus is alive
Oh, He is alive
He rose again

When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Come close listen to the story

Feel....

Do you know that feeling where your heart is pounding and your palms get sweaty and a million thoughts are racing through your head but you can't actually catch one of them because they are going beyond the speed limit, and then it drops like a bomb, the bad news......it hits and your heart shatters into a million pieces leaving you almost numb to the actual reality of what happened.

I remember one time I got mad b/c my mom told me to lock the car door after I shut it and so I locked it and then slammed it on my finger.... the moments as my mom let out a blood-curdling scream and ran to the car to unlock it were the moments where I knew when I saw it, the pain would be amplified by every push of my heart beating..... but there was a moment where I felt no pain, the blood seem to go out of my head and my world started spinning off a different axis...

I remember this quote I thought of...."Physical pain may hurt for a moment, but emotional pain scars for a lifetime..." and this thought led to another quote from a movie, "Wounds are the roadmap to a person's heart."

So as I share this, what am I to think of all this? The hurts and pain we feel, the numbness we desire when we are going through the midst of it and what do we do with all of it?

As Matthew Elliot says:

"I have come to believe that our emotions were given to us by God to drive us to our best."
"I have come to believe that emotions are among the most logical and dependable things in our lives."
"I have come to believe that emotions give us a window to see truth like nothing else."

"I have come to believe that the true health of our spiritual lives is measured by how we feel."

I believe certain struggles come in our lives to break us from the walls that keep us from feeling the depths of emotions that God desires of us and our hearts. So much of the struggles of our lives force us to build walls within us so we don't have to deal with the reality of the pain, or perhaps the walls are there so all we can do is deal with the pain. I think the hardest part of going through struggles is that it requires us to trust God b/c the struggle is always greater than what we can handle on our own. So the temptation is to "deal" with it on our own by creating walls to manage the pain, while what God desires is to take the brokenness of our souls and to knit it in a way that redeems our brokenness.

The freedom to begin to feel comes to our ability to feel secure. It is here where I found that I had to take steps of faith to believe that God can be counted on. I always knew it intellectually, but I never took the step of faith required to actually live out in His love and in His trust. This summer demanded that I made a decision to either do so or not, and I am so thankful that I did. As God continues to overwhelm me with His love, I have come to agreement with the quote, that our relationship with God is correlated with our ability to feel our heart which is one of the most precious gifts He's given us.

When I am doing spiritually well, the smallest things trigger an overflow of emotion and expression that used to make me wonder about my manhood until I came to terms that who I am is who I am!!!

I guess I end with things song...because it reminds me of those difficult days of bottling in everything. This season is a time to take all that I've held to the cross and to give to Christ freely what He chose to die for.

Building 429 - No One Else Knows

My world is closing in
On the inside
But I’m not showing it
When all I am is crying out
I hold it in and fake a smile
Still I’m broken
I’m broken
Only one can understand
And only one can hold the hand
Of the broken
Of the broken

When no one else knows how I feel
Your love for me is proven real
When no one else cares where I’ve been
You run to me with outstretched hands
And You hold me in your arms
Again

I need no explanation of why me
I just need confirmation
Only You could understand the
emptiness inside my head
I am falling
I am falling
I’m falling down upon my knees
To find the one who gives me peace
I am flying
Lord I am flying

When no one else knows how I feel
Your love for me is proven real
When no one else cares where I’ve been
You run to me with outstretched hands
And You hold me in Your arms
Again

I have come to you in search of faith
Cause I can’t see beyond this place
Oh You are God and I am man
So I’ll leave it in Your hands

I will rise

Micah 7:8-9, 7:18-19 (NIV)
8 Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light.

9 Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the LORD's wrath, until he pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness."

18 Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.

19 You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

As these reflect my heart and the shimmer of truth that is beginning to gleam through the hazy of this past summer. The difficulties, the trials, the tests, each knocking down another pillar by which I so desparately clung to as my own security, my own sense of control, my necessity to hold on so tightly. Each area that I cared to not give up, God slowly and painfully tore my grip upon them. As I was left grasping, wondering, uncertain, I found myself naked. In the things I found so much confidence and comfort, I now was left to wonder...does God really care? That question pounded at my soul daily as I managed to struggle through the difficulties of this summer.

With my hands left empty, I was tempted to grab at the dirt of the ground violently and shake my fist at God who seemed to be wanting to take away everything I loved. He left me heartbroken and scared....what was to be of this life? How was I suppose to endure? The clarity I wanted kept on turning into mud with each fist full of dirt I shook at my creator.

And it was in a desert God brought Himself. Those hands that were left empty with nothing but wounds were slowly beginning to heal into scars. Each scar became a reminder of the road my Redeemer walked for me. I stared at my hands that were healing only to find the heart inside breaking with an indescribable love. A love that can only be tasted at the bitter taste of desperation...a love so consuming, that the hands that clutched the dirt, slowly lifted up...it was the moment of broken submission....it was the culmination of years of frustration, years of hurt, years of wanting to be more finding a purpose and sense of healing in letting them go to Jesus.

Yes, it was this moment I had been waiting for....to no longer hold on to this sorrow....this pain....this guilt.... No more feelings of letting others down, not being more than I could be..... it was the bondage of years upon years of repression being let free... a second chance, and a need to live out this redemption.....yes, it was this moment....a Holy moment....

Jesus had arrived in a way that my eyes had been reawakened to a greater passion and a deeper understanding. It was more that a feeling, more than a perspective shift, it was an awakening. As alluded to the past of the great awakenings in the historical context of the 1800's in American Christniaity, my heart found its own great awakening...

So I sit here in such joy for life and the life God's given me... The hands that tried so hard to attain what I needed to attain, to ensure that I got what I got have come 3/4 circle to a place where I'm learning to trust God in both His timing and His provision. I no longer have to prove that I am worthy, for Christ has deemed us worthy by His sacrifice. I don't have to fight in the ways I used to fight to try to be somebody because in Christ, in daily obedience I will continue to grow in the man He has created me to be. This identity as a child has also given me full access to a God that fills that void that is spoken about in Ecclesiastes "....eternity is set in the hearts of men..." His love is the only love that can fill me and satisfy me and daily I find myself running into the arms of my Savior so thankful for this love.....only praying that I could share it at whatever cost to all...

I am unsure of what the next steps will bring. However, I am sure that regardless of what happens, that my God will never leave me nor forsake me. He will uphold me and walk with me...even through the valley of the shadow of death....and shadows can only be formed in the presence of light, and that light will always be there.

Chris Tomlin - I Will Rise
There's a peace I've come to know
Though my heart and flesh may fail
There's an anchor for my soul I can say "It is well"

Jesus has overcome
And the grave is overwhelmed
The victory is won
He is risen from the dead

[Chorus:] And I will rise when He calls my name
No more sorrow, no more pain I will rise on eagles' wings
Before my God fall on my knees And rise I will rise

There's a day that's drawing near
When this darkness breaks to light
And the shadows disappear
And my faith shall be my eyes
Jesus has overcome
And the grave is overwhelmed
The victory is won He is risen from the dead

[Chorus:] And I will rise when He calls my name
No more sorrow, no more pain
I will rise on eagles' wings
Before my God fall on my knees
And rise I will rise
And I hear the voice of many angels sing, "Worthy is the Lamb"
And I hear the cry of every longing heart, "Worthy is the Lamb" (x2)

[Chorus:] And I will rise when He calls my name
No more sorrow, no more pain
I will rise on eagles' wings
Before my God fall on my knees
And rise I will rise

God, are you on my side?

Psalm 130
A song of ascents.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
2 O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
3 If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.
5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.
6 My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.
7 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.
8 He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.

In those quiet moments of desperation where I feel alone and unsure....this question continues to plague my heart...God, are you on my side? There are moments where I feel so sure that He is, but in the moments of my own greatest anxiety, the question continues to pound against me.. I have this mentality of me against the world. It'll leave me alone in this life for sure, and I find it being tested and tested again. My mind continues to run its course through its various thoughts and ideas.....

The question in the uncertainty of life is who am I going to trust? Or am I going to trust? I have worked so hard and done so much to try to prove myself to the rest of this world....

God, I come to you giving you all of me.....I am small and I am weak, but you are great and you are strong....God take this life, all for your glory, fight the fight in my heart and set me free, bring joy in this heart.....

Inpsire this heart to see your dreams for me....

Pain....makes a man...

Isn't there something about suffering that makes up the depth of a man? The real question is, what type of men are we becoming? Through the pain, our response begins to forge the path that decidingly forms the heart of who we're to become.

The first step we take is what we do with the pain...do we confront it or do we run from it. As we run from it, we find ourselves living in our fantasy world not really recognizing the reality of where we live. Due to that fact, we will continue to stunt our own maturity as we are unable to fully confront reality.

However, as we confront the pain, we take a step into manhood. As we take that step into manhood, the question is, what kind of men will we become?

Just because we are growing into men doesn't necessarily mean we're growing into respectable men. Our decisions begin to shape the character of our hearts and so it is in these most opportune situations that we make those choices to grow more in Christ or to grow more of this world.

There are apathetic men, there are ambitious men, there are evil men, there are good men, and the list goes on.

My father is one man that I would love to grow to be. He is a man that speaks straight...no games, no runaround... He is a man of his word, if he says he will do something, he will do something. He is a man of integrity, of trust, of honor, of selflessness, he is a man that God has placed in my life to show me how to be. He treats his wife with love and compassion, he is in so many ways a man of greatness....

I wonder what that cost was? The loss of his father, the experience of the korean war, the immigration to another country right after the civil rights, surviving by himself in a new country that he can barely speak the language, how many times did he hurt?

And so the real question in all of this, is looking at Christ is realizing the pain that He endure only helped to exemplify those Christ like qualities that we all can attest to. His kindness in his suffering, his discipline in the emotional times, and his trust when all circumstances dictated otherwise show an example of how to be.....

And the encouragement comes from realizing that the Holy Spirit is with us to grow us to be like Him. In these moments of toughness, God will form in our hearts a heart of a lion, able to fight, to protect and to lead this generation.

God, lead me in your ways....

We aren't who we were and things aren't the way they were...

Accept the past as what it is...celebrate what needs to be celebrate, grieve what needs to be grieve and accept a new spirit for today

What does it feel like to .....let it go????......

I've realized I have quite the Savior complex. I guess that would be somewhat indicative of the job title that I take on, but I have to realize that I am gainfully employed by the one that is the Savior. I can be like that guy who tries to be the only show in town, but forgets that he is only the opening act to the main event...

And so....this is something I have to let go...the desire to try to save everybody, to think I'm so dutifully important and the life I live is so integral that Christ can't work without it....

....I'm tired...thank you Jesus for my dad and for helping him through the surgery

You are faithful