A Specific Kind of Uncertainty

I used to really dislike uncertainty, but recently I thought about it and decided that I was okay with uncertainty. But today I felt uncomfortable with uncertainty again--with not knowing. And I wondered why. My whole career and life path is uncertain, yet it doesn't bother me. But something so small bothered me. and suddenly I realized that there was a pattern. I feel very uncomfortable and anxious when there is uncertainty in my relationships with others, or if there is great uncertainty in my mind of what people think of me--if I feel like they are getting a wrong idea of me or my heart based on things I know they observed, or things that I think they think. Of course people are always thinking things, and I don't mean that. This is hard to explain, but the bottom line is that I know I shouldn't care about what others think, at least for the most part. That's what I've been told. I should only care what God thinks, and aim to please God alone. He knows my heart. And even when my heart is wrong, He loves me enough to change me. And He loves me even when I fail to change. It's hard to change. It's easy to cover up our tendencies and make them more subtle.

A lot of times, when I am anxious about what other people think of me, I just go: "whatever. I don't care what they think" and then I block them out of my mind and try to worship God. Sometimes I am able to worship Him and sometimes things bother me so much that I am unable to worship Him with all my heart/mind/soul. When I am able to worship Him, I go into this mentality of: I just need you God. which is true. But it's the hiding mentality. When I go into that mode, I just want to hide in my room and worship God and not have to face the world where I feel like I must defend myself from judgment. (I only feel this way occasionally).

I'm not sure if that mindset is wrong or not. I guess it does prevent me from shining His light to the world. and from reaching out. from loving people. because it's risky. It's easier to love at a distance.

Soon and very soon

I'll be going to the place He has prepared for me

There my sins erased

My shame forgotten

Soon and very soon

When I first heard this song, it was so sad for me. My heart really ached. It is such a beautiful song. It describes our longing for God. It's like when you miss someone so bad, your heart aches and you have no appetite. I heard this song over the summer. And it just put me in a completely different mindset/heart of longing for God, and the feeling was so different that it made me sad/grieve over how all the things I had been talking about with sisters and things that I had been concerned about didn't matter. All the girl talk and stuff was meaningless. (even though they were good too... )but really, when we truly see God, we will forget the things of this world

I miss you God.

I say that to Him a lot. What I really mean is that I long for you in a way that feels like I miss you.. even though you are always with me.

The message we hear

One of my favorite quotes is:

"You preach what you know, and impart who you are"

~(forgot which pastor/missionary said this)

Larry Randolph, a pastor, once said that everyone has one life message. It's the message that you would preach if you knew you were going to die tomorrow. All other messages you preach in your lifetime have that one life message as an overtone. It doesn't matter what you're preaching about.

Even if you look at the gospels. A lot of the gospels have repeated stuff, but if you read them side by side, it's still a little different. Each of them mention/notice/remember different parts or different perspectives. And John. I always thought it was cute that John referred to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. Just by reading the gospel of John, we can get a sense of who John is. Likewise, we can get a sense of what the preacher is like just by listening to a sermon or two.

If you give two preachers the same sermon outline and ask them both to preach, I'm sure the messages they preach will still be pretty different--or at least have different overtones. We preach from what's inside. Knowledge is good. Knowledge is very good. People die for lack of knowledge. But knowledge doesn't always change us. Knowing God changes us. Loving God changes us. God loving us changes us. God changes us.

In fact, everyone you love and value and treasure changes you. That's a reason why we should not love anyone above God. It is dangerous to do so.

So yea, we preach what we know, but more importantly, we impart who we are.

Sometimes when people preach to me, I don't remember what they said (because they said a lot and went seemingly 'off topic' a lot), but it was still good. I come out with a satisfaction for the preaching/answer they gave and I come out feeling like I understand God better and have a deeper grasp of who He is and His word. But I can't always summarize the sermon or the answer or the conversation. ... yea dude, a lot of preachers preach like that. They don't preach in bullet points; they don't do the three/five step/point preaching, but their preaching is continuous going from one idea/concept to another and usually in the middle of their preaching I feel like what they're saying is really awesome/good/helpful but I have no idea how it connects with the topic. But I'm like whatever, it was good. And at the end of the sermon, I feel like they preached on 20 different things all in one sermon. Probably because everything is connected. And you can't really expound on one thing without going into another thing. (hence my super long blog post) And everything connects back to your core beliefs and your understanding of God.

Like, two people can hear the same message and come out with different interpretations/lessons of that message. A pastor talks about God's love and grace, and two people summarize what they learned. One person says the preacher said that God is so loving that He washed us clean and He loves us as we are. Another can say that he thought the message was that even we are so bad, God still loves us. There is a difference in emphasis.

Version 1: God loves us because of Him, because He chose to love us. He has washed us clean.

Version 2: We are so bad, but God still loves us. God loves us even though we are so horrible.

[I heard that among Asian evangelical Christians, the second one is more often used, especially in prayer "thank you Lord for loving us even though we are so horrible"]

So it's not just the literal sermon, not just the knowledge that the sermon contains. It's the pastor who preaches it--his life, his understanding of God, his life message/overtone in the preaching. It is also about our understanding of God.

Figurative Language

Numbers12:6-8 And he said, "Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD.

John 16 ²⁵"I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. ²⁶In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf

^{John 16: 12}"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

1 Cor 2:¹²We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.

Isn't this all so cool? In the old testament, we would have to be like Moses to know God and have God speak plainly to us. But now God has give us everything He gave to Jesus. And He has given us the Spirit who is in us, who teaches us all things.

I came across tons of these verses because I had questions about this one passage: Mark 4:10-12, but then I found the parallel verses which explained it better (Matthew 13:10-15), and then somehow I came across more and more verses on this topic of God hiding things in parables. It is really cool how the bible works--how it's so rich in meaning and how there is no way you can completely understand all of it. And things are more precious when we find it ourselves or when we finally understand it or can relate to it. (prov 25:2?) But God reveals things to us as we seek Him and ask Him.

The more I seek you, the more I find you

The more I find you, the more I love you

~Kari Jobe

How do you count cards?

I was playing Dutch Blitz (card game) with friends. Each person playing has a deck of cards, and has to put a stack of 10 cards in front of them, as a part of the setup of each round. So I would hold my big deck of cards in my left hand and use my right hand to count out& place 10 cards in front of me. At first, I would count the cards in my head, 1 2 3.. etc as I placed each one down. My friend next to me would actually count out loud, but in another language so she wouldn't mess the rest of us up, while we counted in our heads. (usually I would double-check myself and count my 10 cards again just to make sure I had counted 10 out--it's easy to doubt). One round, however, I counted my 10 cards out using a different method. I didn't try very hard to focus on counting the cards. In fact, I wasn't even looking at the cards while I counted. I used the swishing sound of the cards as I placed each one down to keep count. Using this method I could count the cards much faster and had greater confidence that I actually had counted out 10 cards---I didn't have to double-check anymore.

After this really cool realization, I stopped the game and asked my 3 other friends whether they focused on counting when they counted or if they counted subconsciously while looking up (not at the cards). Two of them said they counted in their head (or, out loud) and they counted better when they focused on counting. One of them said that she also counted better when she didn't focus on counting but instead subconsciously counted. She also said that she didn't really hear herself/her voice counting in her head, but she just counted subconsciously like I did.

Okay yea. that was really hard to explain. But, it was a really cool realization. because it's really useful, for me at least. Because I tried to count out loud in my head at first, but that didn't work as well for me. But I did it anyway because I thought that was how everyone is supposed count. I didn't realize that I counted better subconsciously, when I didn't focus on counting. I can't help but wonder if there are other areas of my life where I'm trying to learn/do things the way I think "everyone" is supposed to do things, but it's actually not the best way for me.

Isn't God so amazing? We're all wired differently, in very specific and unique ways... even down to the little things like ... counting. And He allows us to discover new things about ourselves, His creation, Him, His Word, etc. It's so rewarding to discover even these little things. How much more rewarding it is to find wisdom, to find understanding, to obtain revelation from God.

I am reminded of this verse, which I think is really rich in meaning

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;

to search out a matter is the glory of kings

proverbs 25:2

Our Focus

This has been on my mind for a week now: how much do we focus on certain things? How much should we focus on our family, how much should we focus on right relationships, on Christian persecution, on greek meanings of Jesus' words, on the issue of sex trafficking, on giving financially, etc? When I say "focus on", I mean think about or strategize about during the day. I think the Christian fellowship I am currently with tends to promote thinking this question during the day: "how can I love person X today?" But it's not like that everywhere. When I went to Redding, the question running through some people's minds was: "Who in the grocery store does God want to heal today?" or "what prophetic word is God speaking to me and who is it for?" In other churches, it is "what sin is God revealing to me today?" In the missions field, it might be "how can I tell X person about Jesus?" or "how can I pray for person X in jail?" In seminary, it might be "what did Jesus mean in this parable?" There are so many "focuses", so many things we can think about--all of which are technically biblical. What we think about during the day--what we set our minds on-- influences our outlook on life, how we see God's Kingdom, what we think God's calling for us is, where our time is spent, where our heart is, our relationship with God, our relationship with others, etc. etc.

I used to think that there is no one "correct" way to go about it because we are called to different focuses at different stages of our life, but now I don't think that is necessarily the case. Not that I think there is one right way, or that we don't have different callings. We are called to different things, but we can't assume what we're doing now is what God has called us to do. We can't assume that what we're focusing on now is what God has called us to focus on. What is His will? and how do we know? What does His Word say?

the Word says to set our minds on things above, to seek first the Kingdom of God. But the Word also says to love our neighbors, to be reconciled with our brothers before we offer our gift to God (Matthew 5:24), to look after orphans and widows (James 1:27), to lead quiet lives gaining respect from outsiders (1 thes. 4:11), etc. Pick your favorite bible verse that is a command... Soooo... which one is it!!??

I used to make a list of all these commands/things we're called to do, so that I could remember all of them. I used to look at the list, point to my favorite one at the moment and be like: see we're ALL supposed to do that. I should go take care of orphans and be like mother teresa. And I would focus on that one verse. It's a good verse, but only focusing on a few verses in the bible is dangerous. That's how some Churches go astray; they overemphasize one thing and then point to one bible verse and are like "hey, the bible tells us to do it". But the bible also tells us to do... other things...

I was listening to short sermon clip on youtube by Bill Johnson. I think there's a lot of wisdom in what he said, even though he doesn't cite any bible verses. His explanation is that there are many truths (meaning many different bible verses of commands), and each truth has its proper place in the Kingdom. And no truth should be elevated above its proper place. So I guess it's just about where this "proper place" is. Some pastors say they are a husband first, a father second, and a pastor third, or something like that. Most of us agree that pastorship's proper place comes after the place of family.

There is one proper place all Christians can agree on---that is relationship with God is first.

"[God] will never take you to where your family is more important than God. Why? Because if your family is more important than God, then you have an inferior love for your family. But if God is first, you'll always have a greater love for your family than if they were number one" ~Bill Johnson

--

sidenote: this is my first time quoting from a charismatic pastor in my blog and mentioning his name instead of being like "some pastor once said this". haha. o jamie. you care about judgment from both sides. And yet, there are no sides within God's Kingdom. There is unity. Let us be one. There is only God's side. I am on God's side; who's with us?

If only we knew

The times when Jesus wept were when He saw people mourning over the death of Lazarus (John 11:35), and when He saw the city of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). In the first case, I believe He wept because of their unbelief. And in the second case, He was also grieving over the sin, unbelief, blindness of the people. The recorded times when Jesus wept were when other people were losing out, not when He was losing out. (Their unbelief means they don't know God, and when people don't know God, they usually "lose out" on what God wants to give them--either because they are not a son of God, or they fail to ask for what God already wants to give them)

If only they could know.

If only we would know.

God's love, God's truth, God's power. His greatness, His kindness, His beauty.

Then perhaps we would not forget. Then perhaps we would not have to struggle with whether or not to give into sin. Sometimes I forget what I'm fighting for, and I'm tempted to just throw in the rag, and be like whatever, I don't care anymore; I'm messed up anyway.

But God has called us to be pure, to be perfect as He is perfect.

Don't give up; don't forget!

"Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!" ~ Revelation 19:9

We can have hope in this verse: "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready" ~ Revelation 19:7

We are fighting for something worth fighting for!