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| Through a series of events, I'm learning about how to pray about everything and having faith that He will answer.
I just prayed to God about which book I should read for my assignment: Hunger for Healing or The Making of a Leader.
I asked God to search my heart and then I waited. Thinking about nothing, God reminded me of the dream I had last night:
I was in the passenger seat of a car with a few other people who I knew were some part of adoption organization. At this time, I knew we had adopted two other South American girl(Not sure, but def. were Hispanic). Then this little girl came and asked to be adopted too. For some reason we couldn't and I started to bawl. I saw the little girl's mother and grandmother outside our car with a look of....I'm not sure. Almost emotionless, yet I knew they wanted us to adopt her. In my sadness, I decided to adopt her by giving them a dollar bill.
When God reminded me of this dream, I felt like he was saying that I've been adopted into His kingdom. I am His child. And the reason why I was crying reflected God's love for us. He loves us SOOOO much and I felt that in my dream when I was praying. He wants to adopt every single child, but His heart breaks when he can't.
I could be wrong about all of this, but the fruit of all this was knowing His love for me runs so deep and another weight of burdens, pain, etc. just lifted right out of me. I want to know His love for me even more deeply!!!!
So I decided to get A Hunger for Healing, and just reading the first few pages have blown me away.
In the preface, the author describes his childhood and the lack of love he received from his father.
"Unable to get love from this distant man, I turned to achievement at a very early age."
"I now know that I worked so hard for recognition because underneath I was terrified of being rejected by others, as I felt I had been by my father."
I realize how much healing I need. How much healing everyone needs. And in the Korean church. Aren't a lot of Korean parents like this? It's astounding to me how many similar stories I hear from kids and adults, esp. because I never really grew up around Koreans until I became a Christian 5 years ago. But anyways.....
There is so much freedom in Christ. So much healing that can occur. Jesus IS freedom!!!!
God works through a series of events, through dreams, through people, through miraculous and mysterious ways.
But are our hearts open to Him. Most of the time, we aren't because we don't make ourselves available to Him, but He wants to speak to us all the time. He wants to guide us. He wants to do all these things because he loves us sooo much.
Thank you God for even loving us! Your love is so deep.
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| Max Records deserves an Oscar!!!
People don't realize how great an art acting is. How great an art, directing actors to stay consistent in selling the story. How great an art writing a story is. How great an art, editing a picture from nothing is. How great an art, putting sound and music together to evoke certain emotions and feelings. What a great art!!! What is art? I think there is no true definition to describe in words what art is except that it is a creation of God. What makes art great art? Depends on the person and God created individuals so complex-ly(is that a word?) that we all have our own biases and opinions. Maybe the definition of art is "something that you think is good" Maybe "art" became more complicated after the Fall. Actually, of course it did! If no sin occurred and humanity continued in their sinless behavior, maybe everyone would have agreed on what "art" is; that it's a beautiful creation of God. But who knows just how great sin affected our perception of art?
Anyways, I can talk about art on and on because of my Touchstone class I'm taking at school. On to the movie review.
There was so much realism in Max's performance, as the lonely, angry, abandoned 9-year-oldish, Max(character name as well), that I couldn't help but get sucked into the story, especially when we see his imagination/character traits get embodied in that of the Wild Things. The Wild Things themselves were imagined so well on film. Combined with puppetry and CGI....ok, writing movie reviews are not my thing. I'm gonna speak in my own language.
i felt like a kid watching this film esp. when Max was having fun with them. I loved the ending. I loved Max's self-reflections, something I have trouble doing with myself because of my fast paced life. The voice acting from the Wild Things was pretty awesome.....I cried because I related with Max's sense of loneliness through the abandoning of the father. My father left for Korea when I was 10 years old with the intention of not coming back I think...I've been asking myself these days:
1) Did I turn my loneliness/sadness/anger and trick myself into thinking that I was strong and that everything's ok and the reason I've been crying over my absence of my dad this year, was that I never grieved in the 10 years that I've barely seen him and the ONLY reason I've been crying was cause I missed him?
2) Is crying the first step into truly breaking the ice between my other emotions. After tears, will come anger for all the hurt he's caused in our family?
3) Did God create me to be the type of person that easily forgives, pushes through with strength and perseverance, merciful, and not easily to be angered?
4) Am I overanalyzing all this and I've just been crying because I never grieved?
Who am I?
Funny how an attempted movie review turned into a deep self-analysis....that's why I love movies!!! But seriously, who am I? | | |
| 2nd week of grad school has ended. I didn't even know what grad school was for the longest time. Grad comes after undergraduate. You only get your BA for your undergraduate. Ohh, iccc....I never took school seriously growing up. After realizing that people are smarter in me in junior high, I accepted defeat. You see, I thought I was the smartest kid in elementary school. Getting honor rolls every month, all A's. Spelling bee placements, etc. This pride led to my defeat which led me to rely on my smarter friends in passing by, esp. in AP classes. Other than AP Calc, I cheated my way into college. At UCI, I cheated even more without the help of my friends. School was pointless to me. Just going through the motions.
Why am I writing this?
Journaling REALLY helps you reflect on yourself, others, God, your sins, past, present, future, everything. I spent 3 1/2 hours in solitude with God today for my class called Spiritual Formation in Young Adult and College Settings. We already had a retreat for this class which is so cool. There're about 50 people in our class and at the end of the 6 hr. retreat, a lot of people shared what they experienced with God in solitude.
Some people that never journaled, journaled for the first time and experienced such joy and peace from hearing the voice of God. Many different and variety of stories.
I was so encouraged to hear these stories because I had the opposite effect. I was so excited to hear God, but I only ended up dozing off and on, off and on, with such a high burden to pray. But I just couldn't. I couldn't hear the "inner voice" today.
But I did hear a lot of "journaling" sharing and I remembered how healthy I felt in releasing my thoughts out onto paper, in this case, the web.
People experience God in divine ways, differently. But the amazing thing is, God is waiting to be active in your life, everywhere, anytime, all the time, as long as we put human effort into creating that open space in solitude, silence, fasting.
Let's practice solitude more!!! | | |
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Possible ministries to improve our church:
1) Have the church become like a seminary
2) Have one-on-one counseling sessions for those in need in some room that's not being used(Healing ministry)
3) Hold screenings of documentaries/movies/etc. to inform and educate people about the world and its many different religions to ultimately equip us in evangelism/teaching.
4) Media ministry(which I plan to work on next year)
5) Welcoming lunches/dinners with newcomers.
6) Be like the early churches.
7) The gathering of believers to specifically share in His sufferings and to pray for each other and to carry each others' burdens and to encourage daily.
8) Rejoice always, pray ceaselessly, give thanks in everything that we do for that is the will of God in Christ Jesus
- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
And most importantly......
9) Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind which will help us to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Are the last two general? No, because they are included in seeking first God's kingdom and His righteousness. So they are the MOST important because the last one is the greatest commandment ever told in the history of this world. So we obey, right? Yes! He is our King! Our Savior! He saved us from death!!!
Please, please add on to this list!!! I'm sure there's much, much more.
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| It's hard to update when your free wifi gets disconnected forcing you to sign up with Charter Communications which is a major rip-off of $33/mo.!!
But it's okay cause God always provides! Jesus teaches me not to worry because His kingdom and His righteousness is more important. Why store up our treasures here on earth when it won't last? Store up your treasures in heaven! Focus on the eternal. The word temporary came into existence upon the fall, I believe. God has so many definitions including eternal. So shift your mindset to the eternal things of heaven!
I'm on the set of a Jack-in-the-Box commercial and I finally get to see the guy inside! He's some 50-year-old looking European man who says he's African. And the guy who does the voice of "Jack" is actually directing the commercial. Apparently he writes, directs, and provides the voice for almost all the commercials. Cool, huh? Is this eternal talk? No, but sometimes I give in to my fav. food there, Jack's Spicy Chicken Sandwich!!!
Now I'm at home. As I was driving back home, I was contemplating, can we really have conversations talking about God like 90% of our existence? I think it's DEFINITELY possible!! Imagine how great an environment that would be and look like at all churches.
I know our church isn't perfect. No church is because churches are people, if you think about it. And people are sinners. But we can't lose faith in our church. Sometimes I get so disappointed in people and myself and feel like things are starting from ground zero, but I'm getting disappointed because I'm not putting that energy and focus into Jesus Christ.
Paul David Tripp touches upon this in Chapter Two in a little section entitled "Why hope rests on a person"
Great book so far!
Anyways, faith can always increase. Faith in creating an environment like that at a church. Faith in receiving spiritual gifts. Faith in your family members being saved. Faith in paying off all your debt. Faith in God. Faith in Jesus Christ.
Let's ask God for more faith!
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