Another Break Gone By

"Well, that was quick." - something I've said every time I approach the end of a visit to Edmonton.

I'm not quite sure what I did all week, which is kind of troublesome. I wish I could stay a couple more days, but I'm going to be preaching on Sunday; so I need to go back down tomorrow. Today doesn't even feel like a Friday, honestly.

I just had the craziest idea today. Given my reluctance to leave home every time I come back, I wonder what the popular opinion would be if I graduated next year, and then just took like half a year off before I even started to look for a church to work in (assuming I gradute - hey, you never know for sure). I could potentially just come home, maybe find a part time job, and then work here until the fall/winter time before looking for a church. I think it's a legitimate idea, no? With the exception of one year, I've been in school for 18 of my 22 years. Wouldn't it be great if I did something different? Like travel or something. I don't know; I feel like that wouldn't go over well with my parents, so I'd have to see. Obviously, this assumes that I stay single, which I'm willing to bet that it's more likely that I do than don't.

Anyway, I should sleep soon since I need to drive tomorrow and I've been sleeping from 2am-11am all week.

Happy weekend!

A Difficult Task

Hello, from Edmonton!

I love Reading Week, but it's too short. It's already Wednesday and I have basically done nothing since coming home last Friday. Part of it has been because it decided to get cold for whatever reason, and I don't like cold.

This coming Sunday, I'll be given the privilege to formally preach for the first time as a guest speaker at a Korean Presbyterian church not too far from my school. I am definitely nervous about it. I think that it will be a fantastic experience, but I just hope that it goes well.

I won't lie, I am nowhere near the preparation that I feel I need to be for even a short 20 minute sermon. It's been tough. Whenever I would want to sit down and read or prepare for it, I get distracted so easily and reading the Bible just became difficult.

So far, I have a very broad outline as to where I'll be going with my text, so hopefully it works out. The last thing I want to do is get up in front of the people and say something that I was not prepared to say. With all of my public speaking/sharing history, I have been someone that tends to just have a general idea of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to talk about, and I would do it. Preaching, though, I think will need to be something that I have to prepare what I say 100%. If I don't, then I pray to God that what I'm moved to say is from him and not from me.

I've always told people I could lead worship in front of a thousand or more people. Let's see how I fare preaching in front of a handful.

Hope this week has been treating you well!

Ephesians 2:1-10 (NRSV)

You were dead through the trespasses and sins ² in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.

³ All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.

⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us⁵ even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— ⁶ and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, ⁷ so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— ⁹ not the result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Forgiven

Although this "holiday" has pretty much been nonexistant for me over the last three years, happy Chinese new years! I won't lie, I've missed receiving red envolopes. Any form of being Chinese has pretty much been wiped away from me since starting bible college, so I've missed the celebrations a bit.

Since last post, quite a bit has happened actually; but it's rather late, so I don't think I'm going to talk too much about them. To highlight a couple of things, I was blessed to have my family visit me last Saturday to have a little birthday dinner for me at Earl's. I've never wanted my family to come down under any circumstance because I always felt like it's a waste of a day trip for them to come down just to see me. However, it was nice that they drove the hours, and I appreciate it a lot!

One other thing that really stands out for me was being reminded of what it means to be forgiven. I was sitting in my preaching class and my prof was talking about giving a gospel message. When he started talking about forgiveness, I think that it hit home pretty hard.

Basically, my prof was saying how people can be so hard on themselves sometimes for stupid things that they do or mistakes that they make. We KNOW that we don't deserve much in life because of our faults and all our weaknesses - we know it, it's engrained in our soul. But, like always, there's a difference between head knowledge, knowing it, and heart knowledge, REALLY knowing it.

It was a pretty profound moment when I heard that we can be so hard on ourselves for things that we do that sometimes we don't even want to be forgiven. We've failed so hard, fallen so far away from our "standards" or whatever we were aiming for, that we don't even think it's worth a second chance. That's pretty much me. I don't know how I became like this, having such incredibly high, and sometimes even unrealistic, expectations and standards, that when I fail to meet them, I kind of just bow out. I expect so much out of myself, and even other people, that if I see or hear them describing something as somewhat of a success, or a decent accomplishment, when to me it clearly could have been better, I get frustrated.

Then I remembered that God usually picks the people that are most reluctant, those who don't feel like they're skilled, the "lowly," so to speak, to do his good work. God's grace is bigger than our unforgiving selves. Even when we can't look ourselves in the mirror, God does; and not only that, he picks us up, dusts us off, and washes us clean.

I beat myself up like CRAZY when I don't do something the way I wanted to do it, and I don't want to forgive myself. It's almost laughable to me to know that God doesn't care that I've failed endlessly. He's still bigger.

Kind of like my previous post about healing, it's the same thing. We deserve death But God has forgiven us! He forgave you and me! That means, it doesn't matter what we've done; he's willing to look past that, and still bring us back together with him. That's insanity, man! We can't even forgive ourselves for not acing a test, or not playing well enough; but God sees through all the sins that we commit, and when we should be killed for it, he says, "it's okay - I forgive you." I don't know about you, but my reaction is basicaly.. HOLY !@#$

And that's what I've been reminded of a lot since 2013 started: God is bigger. I can just take any presuppositions I have about anything, everything that I've learned in school, all that stuff, and just throw it out the window because God is still bigger. His willingness to forgive our sins is the best news anyone can ever receive; so how do you not just stand there amazed?

It's great news.