"Love means that there are no visible habits— that your habits are so immersed in the Lord that you practice them without realizing it."

status quo

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/world/asia/23southkorea.html?_r=2&hp

This is really sad. :(
It seems like the young people in this country are expected to grow up too fast. It reminds me of Lynbrook, but on a bigger scale.
Maybe I'm slightly biased, but in any case it's a generation "dying for love, crying for truth, aching for You". Don't let me forget there's a reason why I'm here.


The other day on my way home, a fifty-something man got on the subway and started to walk around and loudly share the gospel. Everyone pretended like he didn't exist, the same way Korean passengers always ignore the people shoulder-to-shoulder to them on the subway. It shook me from my mental slumber. Not only to hear the gospel in another language, my parents' native language, but to hear the gospel, period, spoken aloud in a most mundane, unresponsive setting.

There's a Chinese middle-aged woman who walks around campus to invite random Chinese students to Bible study. She asked me around fifteen times, no joke, if I were Chinese, and I tell her every time that I'm Korean. Some of the archis were making fun of her, and I didn't do much at all to defend her. Partly because I couldn't respond fast enough (which is often the case when I'm around people I'm not super close with...it really bugs me sometimes), but it was also because I wanted to keep a distance from the crowd that shouts the gospel in people's faces most unlovingly, kind that completely turns off several specific people in studio, if not everyone who isn't Christian in the room.

While I'm cringing or brushing it off though, I forget that Paul said that it doesn't matter, "the important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached" and he rejoiced.
This is why it should offend me when someone who knows I'm Christian invites me to a "post-rapture looting" event on Facebook. This is why it should hurt when people, sometimes even Christians "learning a lesson" from others' downfalls, put down Rick Warren, Harold Camping, the Chinese Bible study lady, and the ajusshi in the subway. I have no idea whether they truly understand His love and are truly saved, or whether they share the gospel out of love for others or out of love for an idea. Even if I'm pretty sure I have a good idea, it doesn't make a huge difference when it comes to being a part of the body. If the whole body suffers when one part suffers, the whole rejoices when one rejoices, it should probably hurt more than humor me.
People sometimes say they "really see Jesus in me" because I'm a "genuinely nice person" or because I'm really involved in "Chinese Christian Fellowship". Sometimes a part of me wants to and does believe it.

The first entry I wrote on this blog was about Jesus' question to the disciples, "But who do You say I am?"

My answer comes out all clumsy. Where is the Shekinah in my life. What is it now that I'm clinging onto that's blocking its surge, while I cry Lord, Lord.


This is not my life. This is not my life. This is not my life. This is not my life. This is not my life. This is not my life. This is not my life. This is not my life.

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

like one more mouth to feed

You act like you don't need nobody else
And you dance like you don't need nobody else
And all the other moths need light
To circle round while you just fly
Around yourself.

tumblr!

Constructing a tumblr for my eighty-nine days in Seoul. The trendiness just seems to better suit a blog with lotsa pictures and hasty writing than blogspot does. Also, I don't plan on sharing everything on a rose in my backpack pocket with everyone on Facebook anytime soon. o_O

post script...

Some really striking and rebuking words I found in my diary from sophomore year of high school:


"Remember, sinner, it is not your hold of Christ that saves you, it is Christ."
C.H. Spurgeon


"We are to order our lives by the light of His law, not our guesses about His plan."
J. I. Packer


"A Christian who is careless in Bible reading is careless in Christian living."

In 9 hours, I'll be in Cali. In 19, Seoul.

Nervous about everything.........what to say, what to wear, how to use money, getting around places, meeting the extended family, sharing a tiny living space with the immediate family...working...safety...stress...making the most out of time...finding a community...reaching out...maturing while not being hardened/discouraged by whatever I come across.

This trip really comes at the perfect time though. I am incredibly fortunate - I easily forget that and get all self-centered in my worrying and daydreaming and general unproductivity.

Also, song from a cool album that will keep me company until I leave the house at four a.m.



Peace, lovers,

H

Abandonment is not for anything at all. We have got so commercialized that we only go to God for something from Him, and not for Himself. It is like saying, "No, Lord, I don't want Thee, I want myself; but I want myself clean and filled with the Holy Ghost; I want to be put in Thy show room and be able to say - 'This is what God has done for me.'" If we only give up something to God because we want more back, there is nothing of the Holy Spirit in our abandonment; it is miserable commercial self-interest. That we gain heaven, that we are delivered from sin, that we are made useful to God - these things never enter as considerations into real abandonment, which is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.

Utmost, March 12th

what a thought. and it's something we knew all along.

L: How do you know she is the one you are going to marry?
D: I don't. But I want to take care of her in a way that her future husband will thank me for.


Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

This semester, more than ever, I've wavered between feeling refreshed and feeling exhausted by friendship, if that's the word for it. And while I'm honestly not that excited about going home, I'm glad in a way that there's a date set for everyone to go their separate ways, at least just for now.

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edit: yeah, this is one of those entries that are probably not as depressing as they sound...but were still worth writing down.

He's All You Need