Worship & Humility

Worship, i think, is a higher form of enjoyment.  When you worship God, you’re saying that God has qualities that are worthy of being praised and acknowledged.  But worship of God doesn’t stop there.  You’re also saying that these qualities are far beyond your own, that God is better than everything else in all creation, and that God is just qualitatively above all things in nature.

I think the idea of worship can help us enjoy everything else like they were meant to be enjoyed.  If you are an musician, you  won’t be able to enjoy someone else’s music if you’re thinking “Oh that’s not bad, but I would have played it differently.”  Or if you’re a poet, you’d say “Oh, that’s a nice poem; but really, what crude form!”  and so on.  You can only truly enjoy something if you assume the position of humility and admit that you cannot express the idea in quite the same way.  You cannot enjoy something as long as you’re primarily a critic and not a fan.  Now, certainly, you can be a discerning fan, but by definition, you can’t be a fan if you do not enjoy the work.

So maybe we should stop telling ourselves what an annoying melody or bass line a certain song has, but just admit that it’s that much far beyond what we’d be able to fathom.  Then we’ll be liberated in this position of humility to truly enjoy that piece of work.  So it is with the Cross; the only proper position to assume in front of Calvary is kneeling.  When we have in humility submitted ourselves to the Cross, we’ll truly see how beautiful the Story really is.

Selfless Love

My maternal grandma is dying. She’s had a really tough life. Raising 7 kids out in the country on a farm, living through the Korean War. At one point my grandpa went to Japan to make money while she raised the kids on her own. Grandpa and grandma sold most of their land to put all their kids through high school, even the girls. Back then, even middle school and high school required tuition… For most families, sending even one of the kids (likely the oldest male) through high school was a big investment.

Before I visited Korea couple years ago, the only thing I could remember about her was her gentle warm voice (and that sah-too-ri / accent!) , the deep grooves on her forehead, the caring eyes, and that sweet smell of the Korean country-side.  She was constantly looking after and concerned for her kids and her grandkids. When I saw her again couple years ago, she was just that: selfless love. A lifetime spent loving other, all selfishness long crumbled away.  And yet even this picture of love teaches us that something as good, beautiful, and even divine as selfless love can fail us. You can only gain yourself by losing yourself.  But you won’t necessarily gain yourself if you lose yourself. For example, you may lose yourself in drugs and quickly realize that you’ve not found the meaning of life. You may lose yourself in something as good as music and not find lasting joy. You may lose yourself even in loving others, and not realize why it brings such joy…

It’s hard to imagine a point at which God would declare “Enough!” and allow the miniature camel to walk through the eye, and declare that it need not to be killed. I hope that if she cannot muster enough consciousness to listen and to understand… that if she could have heard, and she would have known that all her love was actually a love for Him all along… that if she could not put a finger on who or what she was trusting in, that “unknown god” who was just beyond the grasp of her reach, whose shouts could not be heard… that nonetheless, that God may declare that she had rested on His righteousness all along even unknowingly…. If she passes away without having heard clearly, what else could be my hope? For even though she may have heard, all her language and thought has been so shaped by years of caring for others that the concepts of God and forgiveness itself may be foreign to her. For her there may not even be a category for forgiveness, for she forgives her kids out of pure impulse, without even thinking about the costs to her. How could she conceive of her sins when she cannot conceive of the sins of her children? And yet maybe her unconditional love for her kids, may it not grant her the ability to see how beautiful, how lavish our Father’s love for us really is, that we should be called the children of God?

There is yet time to make the calling sure. My parents are there now, by her side. Please pray for her salvation. It is a matter of eternity. Please pray that she may recover enough to recognize and cherish and rejoice in the truth of the Gospel. That God may give my parents words of wisdom to be able to explain to grandma and make plain to her the beauty, the wonder, the truth of the Cross, and the necessity of putting our trust in Him. Nothing matters more than the fate of your soul.

empty set

i was having a conversation with this dude… it was so hard talking with him because he wasn’t very focused.  he was so easily distracted by other things and people…. even when i tried to make eye contact with him, i could tell he wasn’t there with me.  but when i talked about math, a subject he knew about, he became interested in what i was talking about…

but i find that happening to me too. the older i get, the more closed off i become. maybe it’s age.  or maybe it’s sin. we become more cynical and skeptical and we filter out the information that bombard us. we judge and categorize  everything we take in according to our metrics – a constant, unending, laborious task. so we’d rather live inside ourselves and the fantasy in our minds where we are our own gods and no one can point out the cracks in the walls of our imaginary castles.

how can the Gospel shatter all this in our minds and in theirs? we have to find the trace to goodness and truth, the remaining link to reality that exists in their minds.  we have to find a way in through beauty, through logic, through pain, through anything that conveys objective truth that exists out of themselves.  something they have seen and still have a source of strength outside of their own prison.  the whole of the creation exists for that very purpose of pointing to the Truth.

Soul of a Nation

“A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”

“It is finished.” The final utterance that established His kingdom.

Come, Lord.

Foxes Have Holes: Gospel Lessons from an Immigrant

I was born in Korea and came to the US when I was 8 years old. While being from another country had presented certain challenges, once in a while I realize what a blessing it can be. For my experience as an immigrant has allowed me to understand some aspects of the Gospel that may be harder to see for someone who was born and raised in America.

For one, being a foreigner and a minority has allowed me to understand the idea of my allegiance and identity being tied to another country. While most people around me cheered for America during the Olympics, I cheered for South Korea. When I traveled to a different state I’ve never been before and I met a Korean person, we instantly formed a bond. Perhaps South Koreans are overly proud of their country and ethnicity. How much more, then, as Christians, should we align our allegiance to no temporary kingdoms but the Kingdom of God? How infinitesimally unimportant is America that will burn away like chaff compared to the Kingdom that was and is and will be coming, on earth as it is in heaven? If the ideals of American democracy conflicts with the command to love our enemies, to which shall we submit? Being from another country has allowed me to see that there can be a reality of a kingdom that isn’t immediately perceivable around us; that this invisible kingdom can manifest itself by the citizens of that kingdom living in the here and now. As John the Baptist has proclaimed, the Kingdom is here!

Second, I’ve realized in the last two plus decades that I’ve become more and more Americanized. I do not know when, but I’ve stopped identifying myself as Korean and instead identified myself as a Korean American. The switch wasn’t overnight but gradual. How important, then, is it for Christians to remain Christians. Were it not the preserving grace of God, no saints would be left to endure until the coming of Christ. Oh but how earnest is the battle! How hard shall we struggle against sin, not that we as Christians fear losing our status before God, but because we hate our indwelling sin more and more as Christ sanctify us more and more! So fall asleep not! The devil prowls, daring to stumble even the elect if he could! How gradual is the slide, how gentle and easy the slope to perdition!

Third, I’ve realized that the sacrifices that my parents have made will change the way I live. Because they have left behind everything in Korea – their careers, family, friends, support system, everything – I could live in America, to study here, to have opportunities that they never had.  Through their sacrifice, I was given so much more. Because of their sacrifice, I can’t waste these opportunities; my life is lived in humble gratitude, not begrudging duty. For to have the inner attitude of gratitude is the proper response to such self-less sacrifice; any other inner response would demonstrate that I have not fully understood their sacrifice at all. How much more thankful then, should my attitude be for the greatest sacrifice of all? How much more shall all avenue of my life be centered around thankful praise to Jesus? For the proper response to my parents’ sacrifice of their career would be for me to have a successful career. The proper response to their sacrifice of the support of their family and friends would be for me to care for my family, to get married and enlarge the family and to love and cherish many friends. What then would be the proper response to Christ’s sacrifice of the comforts of his home but to find my comfort, to find my home in heaven and no where else. What then would be the proper response to Christ’s sacrifice of his life but for me to sacrifice my selfish desires and submit to His will?

Because of my parents sacrifice, certain choices don’t make sense for me. My mind just loses any categories to comprehend them anymore. How can i live in a way that would dishonor their name? Likewise, because of Christ’s work, because of my new identity, sin loses its hold on me and my grip on sin is loosened. It just doesn’t make sense any more. How, or why would I do the things that I used to do? It would just be inconsistent with what He has done, with who He declares me to be.

Oh how small and inconsequential are all of life’s great calamities if through them we may peek into the mysteries of heaven. Oh how unimportant are the broken branches for those who are rooted in Christ!

Dominance of Personality

There is no face of a man on the moon; it is just that our mind interprets the craters and the shadows in a way that makes sense to us. The tree that falls makes no sound when there is no one around to hear it. The dog acts neither “friendly” nor “aggressive” when there are no human beings around to label his behavior. If this were the case, the higher would be conquered by the lower. Chaos overthrows order, and the darkness blots out all light. All traces of personality would eventually be extinguished with the death of the last person in the universe. Any trace of personality is due to our childish tendencies of anthropomorphism.

But Personality does not flow from bottom up. It can only flow from top to bottom ontologically. This can be shown in two ways. One, if personality flows from nothing to being, then it ceases to be personality and merely deconstructive chemical responses. Two, whoever claims that personality flows bottom up would have just made a claim regarding personality using his own intellect, an essential part of his personality, and thus have injected his own personality into his own proofs. Unless he is then ready to concede the transcendental properties of personality, he is trapped.

There is then, theologically, the “making new” that happens through the dominance of God’s personality. It is He who makes all things new. It is He who gives us names and calls us His own. Such is true to a smaller degree with humans and animals; thus in our roles as custodians we worship God in humble imitation. Such is true with humans and all created things. That is how we will rule with Him, as co-heirs.

But this dominance does not happen by sheer force. It happens, paradoxically, through self-denial, through Love. It is like the dialectical process of emptying out one’s mind to truly realize what one had sought to remember. It is forgetting what’s behind to take hold of that which Christ has secured, for He remembers who we are. Through this process, then we are then more of ourselves, when we are more like Christ. Our personality is fully restored when the core, the will, is submitted.

Defeating Pride

Pride is a monster that can hide in every corner of our lives. It is easy to take pride in our accomplishments; but more insidiously, we take pride in our failures through self-pity or inventing other measures of success. It is also easy to take pride in our moral behavior.  Conversely, we also take pride in our open-mindedness and our tolerance of those different from us, and claim that we are therefore better than those intolerant moral conformists.  No matter what we turn to, we are tempted to claim that we are better than others, that we deserve praise, that our good work or character should be acknowledged, that our faults are to be minimized and that our mistakes are justified by our past experiences.

Why do we do this?  We are struggling to exist; we want to remember ourselves because we are afraid being forgotten. Oh, how sweet is the doctrine of election! For we are chosen, not because of anything that we have done (because then we could just as well lose our salvation based on the whims of our fallen hearts), but through the finished work of Christ! We are remembered. “My name is written on his hands.”

Where then is room for pride, for self-pity? All self-aggrandizement is unnecessary, and incompatible with this grace. We cannot add anything to Omniscient God’s perfect recall. He will not forget you. He will not forget the work He has done. This gospel reaches into every corner of your being.

How then shall we face success? We shall praise God but we will not let them define us. For it matters not that people know us; they will soon forget. But rather we will seek to know God, even as we are known. How then shall we face failures? We will embrace them if through them we can taste the sweetness of the Gospel!

Pride is defeated, not by anything we do, not by us turning to different parts of ourselves, but by grace; we boast not in anything we do, but in what is given us. We boast not in anything that we do, but only in the cross.

In Not Of

Let us look at the example Christ sets for us. Yes he hung out with the so called sinners of the society. But he didn’t participate in their sins nor did he condone their sins. But rather he accepted them, not for “who they are” but because of (or with the goal of steering them towards) repentance. Jesus did not tell the tax collectors to continue ripping people off and steal money; no, he commended Zaccheus for giving back seven-folds all the money he has stolen. Jesus did not tell the adulterous women to continue on in her scandalous lifestyle; no, he forgave her and told her to leave her life of sin!

In engaging this secular culture, the biggest danger is becoming a pharisee; we should not isolate ourselves and condemn the world without a heart of love. On the other hand, we cannot give the world the impression that sin is okay by us, that Christianity doesn’t really inform the way we live or shape the way we view everything.

1 Peter 1,2

Musings about Angels

most musings about angels and demons are probably inaccurate and mostly conjectural since the bible doesn’t say too much about them. still, one cannot help but to think about them sometimes, drawing out inferences from the scant passages and impressions of the light and shadow and dreams on fragile minds.

I wonder whether angels bow down to worship.  It’s rather difficult for me to picture them bowing down, not because they’re proud but because in my mind they’re always standing alert, perpendicular to the ground, straight and upright, ready to serve God as a warhorse is ready to serve a king.  Even before the throne of God, I picture them covering their faces rather than prostrating themselves.   i can’t imagine even the humblest angels on their knees or bowing their head in prayer. it is as if their spiritual joints have not been made to bend that way.  it is as if they are made to constantly glance upon the face of God.  in their absolute angelic innocence, even a trace thought of self is an impossibility.  faith isn’t required of them for they do see the spiritual things, just as we see the material world.

I suppose some angels *are* proud – namely, the fallen ones.  and i can picture them hunched over, not because they worship God but because they have been broken by the Son.

Just a Dream

White, shining, wings; gentle and kind.  These are some of the common words used to describe angels.  And these descriptions are accurate, mostly.  But there is another side to the angels that we often forget about; they are also strong.  Very strong.

I saw one enter to my room last night.  It marched in, unannounced.  It was at least 9 feet tall, but it did not need to stoop down or bend his golden silvery white head.  He did not greet me or even acknowledge me in any way.  Instead he dragged out this creature out of me – this scrawny, squirming, red-black creature that i shall call “clum.”  Now this clum was no friend of mine and yet i recognized his voice; i recognized that he was a part of me and though i hated him, he had been my companion for a long while.  As the angel dragged clum away, i felt at ease, but also feared what would happen to me without clum.  The angel threw clum into the bathtub and struck him with a powerful thrust of his silvery blue broadsword.

we are to put to death our sinful selves.  We are not without help.  The Holy Spirit resides within us.  We also have powerful allies.