jesus branded

Jesus Branded shirts rock, they are an awesome organization, and I've been wearing shirts since they first released stuff.

check it out now and get your own shirt: Christian Apparel


Here is a picture of me wearing one of their shirts ("God is Love") and with musical artist Jon Mclaughlin:

What is Essential

I began to thank God today for showing me how unreal my relationship with him was.

It is rare that my faith really gets tested, and even more of a spectacle when I ask the right questions. Maybe it is because I am afraid of the consequences that arise from these questions. Sometimes it is because I have twisted reality so much that I can hardly tell the difference anymore.

When I first became a Christian, I read that Phillip Yancey (one of my favorite authors) went away for 2 weeks at a time and would read the whole bible through. I read that John Piper would also go alone to a cabin and study the bible, pray, and worship God. I always thought to myself, "if I had that kind of time I would do the same thing." I found this to be far from the truth this week. I was almost unable to leave my room this week because every time I left, in order to get back in I needed to call someone that I did not know to let me in. This would take hours most of the time because she would usually not be in the dorm or be asleep. This should have been the perfect opportunity to pray, fast, and spend time alone with God but I never imagined that it would be this hard to actually spend time alone with God. Phillip Yancey and John Piper would spend weeks alone with God, but I could not spend one full day with Him. Then one of those big realizations hit me. What I see so often as ideal in the Christian faith, is actually essential to the Christian faith. What I mean by that is we often look at things like going to a cabin for 2 weeks and reading the bible through, or giving all of our money away, or constantly loving and telling others about the galvanizing power of the cross, or clothing the poor, or sexual purity, or actually seeking what God has called us to do (instead of simply what we are good at or feel like we should do), as ideal and unattainable. Every person has different examples of what they think is unattainable in Christianity. The list ends up stretching so long that soon we have taken out every single essential tenet of Christianity except what is convenient for us.

It was the first thought that came to my mind when I couldn't spend more than an hour alone with God. "Who actually spends time alone with God? Only perfect, ideal people do things like that." Then I thought well that is actually essential... If you can't spend time alone with someone you can't be in relationship with them. Maybe this is my idea of fulminating myself and all American Christians for our lukewarm lives. I'm sorry that it took so much to come to the same conclusion that I always come to. That I can never be a passionate Christian by my own effort, and that I am chief among sinners and least among saints.

see xanga for pictures

First Day in New York

I’ve decided to try to blog as much as possible while in New York and Little Lights and bought a camera to enable me to make it more colorful. I’ve always taken snapshots of my life using words and music. I’ve never really used pictures so this will be a nice change.

The first thing that I noticed when I arrived in New York was that I am afraid to be alone. I guess I sort of felt like that first time my parents dropped me off at Emory. I clearly remember the exact place that they dropped me off. As I entered my room in tears and sat down I was like what do I do now? It reminds me of Jerry McGuire and how there was a video during Jerry's bachelor party where everyone he knew echoed the fact that, "Jerry can't be alone." I realize how utterly insecure it is for me to be unable to function alone and that we must always find the places where we are relying too much on other people and too little on God.

The noise in New York can sometimes act as a distraction. Cars and buses honk their horns in a patterned motion with the emphasis of a subway that runs directly underneath my friend's apartment. Every couple of minutes I feel a tiny rumble, like a small earthquake. It happens so often that when I asked about it, my friend said that she did not even notice it anymore. It reminds me of the victims of a larger earthquake in China that has taken more than 15,000 lives. I hope that noise does not make me indifferent to the outside world stifled by a constantly cluttered lifestyle.

As I walked the streets of New York today I tried to figure out north from south, and east from west. I learned that if you are on an even avenue cars are going north, and if you are on an odd avenue cars are going south (ENOS). I learned that avenue's go south to north and streets go east to west (for the most part). What I found most of all though is that a house does not become a home until you know where you are. I guess that is why Atlanta is not my home. I don't ever know where I am and I never cared enough to figure it out; I couldn't tell you the difference between peachtree street, peachtree avenue, peachtree hill, peachtree road NW, peachtree road NE, and peachtree drive. GPS systems are home killers.

My pre-employment appointment is tomorrow morning at 8am and the real fun starts Monday. I'll leave the rest up to the pictures and captions.

See here for pictures too lazy to post twice

Inadequate

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” 2nd Corinthians 5:17

As Christians we are supposed to show others love, forgiveness, grace, and other fruits of the spirit. It is so humbling when others do such a better job. Not just a better job through their actions, but even a better job at explaining what it is. My residence hall director (or boss) explained to us today what it means to be blessed and it was explained better than I've ever heard it explained. In the back of my mind, I was thinking to myself... this isn't the accurate biblical definition! Isn't that ridiculous? Today was our last staff meeting of the year (as resident advisor's), and as we all closed our eyes with our heads down and went around thanking each other for a truly unique and amazing staff I couldn’t help but think if there was a weak link in the staff it was me. Of course the first thing that came to mind were excuses, “I was really busy this year, this was a key year for me, I know my residents better than the other RA's do…” Everybody thanked someone and I knew if someone thanked me it was only out of pity that I was out of place. While everyone was crying about the end of the year I just sat there and smiled. There’s no doubt I was happy that everyone was so sentimental but it was never more clear to me how far I was from being a new creation. When people mentioned my name the only thing they could talk about was my accomplishments: about my coveted internship, my 1st place showing in business competitions this year, treasurer election, and all of that. That is when I realized if there is anyone that looks like the world, if there was anyone that failed to love others, and if there was anyone that was not unique it was me. Of course, I should have seen it before, I study more, go the gym more, and play more video games than anyone on staff. Have you ever had one of those moments where you realized how inadequate you are? It is a realization like that, that makes the gospel so much sweeter. The gospel that says it is not what you do, but what Christ has done. The gospel that imputes or credits Christ’s righteousness as our own. The gospel that recognizes that even our belief is not of our own ability but of God’s grace. Please forgive me God.

"So that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written,"Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."" 1 Corinthians 29-31

Grateful

Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
Daniel 6:10

It has come to my attention that I have every reason to be extremely grateful for all that has happened in my life. I spend most of my time being cynical so this is a delightful change. When human beings have something for a long period of time we forget that it is there and we take it for granted. This has happened in several areas of my life and it takes a lot of effort to remember why I should be thankful. I don't remember if it was Angelo or Hosive that told us to write down 10 things that we are thankful of weekly. Well here it is, an entry for the past 208 weeks (4 years) that I didn't do what you told me to do.

First off, I began thinking of this topic over a phone call with my parents. I love my parents very much. It was always hard for me to fully appreciate them because they've always loved me more than anyone loves me on earth, trusted every single decision that I've made, and treated me much better than they treat themselves. When I really think about all my parents have done and sacrificed for the growth of my brother (http://www.djsleeper.com) and I, the list would really never end. One of the main reasons we moved to Hong Kong was because my mom wanted to get us international exposure, the main reason we moved into one of the richest areas in the world was because they wanted to get us the best education possible. I can't think back to all the different teachers and tutors they got us: french tutors, SAT tutors, A+ math tutoring, clarinet teachers, guitar teachers, piano teachers, and all the honors bands (mcyo, pvyo, all state band). They paid for my own electric piano, 2 accoustic guitars, 1 electric guitar, a sax that I never played, and 2 clarinets not to mention two grand piano's in my living room (ok, I guess those were for my dad). My parents have always drove old ass toyota corrolla's while buying us both new cars and they were never able to buy anything nicer than those corrolla's because they were robbed by Indiana and Emory because it was the best school we could get into (without any aid). They never cared that every single one of their co-workers would lease rich german cars and act like they were wealthy while they would drive their unwashed cars and spend their life savings on our colleges. They left their beloved home church in Silver Spring because they thought that we would be able to grow as Christians more at CBC even though they really didn't like it. As soon as we graduated (and even a little bit before) they left the church. And that is literally all just off the top of my head, I could keep going if I wanted.

Second, I first remember when I first became Christian all I prayed for was a group of best friend's that I could struggle and grow with. I have had that for my entire time in college mainly through Jabez, Alex, and Will. There has sure been ups and downs for all of us and even times of slight resentment towards each other, but we have always been able to relate because of our brokenness. It has been a real testament to James 5:16 (Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed) and I could not have made it this far and kept my sanity without them. There is something beautiful about being able to struggle together. Even after failing over and over, I know that there is someone else who failed as bad as I did. It is a scary thought that in one month my best friend Jabez will be going back to Singapore.

I went on to pray that I would find a church because at my first 2 years at Emory I was unable to find a church I felt alive at. Soon after I found Veritas. Veritas has been the most unflashy, unpoliticized church that I have ever been to and it has really shown me that God isn't in the hype but in the prodigal. I needed to know that Christianity wasn't all about the media again and that a pastor that is broken, honest, and insecure could be called to lead God's church.

I heard Piper recently preach about remembering that the cross should be measured by God's glory and not our worth and it reminded me to be again be thankful of the cross, something that we all take for granted daily. He talked about how he would always get in arguments with his wife about taking out the trash. He would angrily grab the trash and take it outside and after putting it in the bin he would look up in the sky, feel the breeze on his skin, and wonder why he had not been struck dead by God because of his sin. As I sit here and type and breathe in and out I am reminded that each breath is an undeserving breath and a gift.

As summer begins I am as anxious, scared, and excited as I've ever been. As I was talking to Carolyn about her summer before coming to Emory, I couldn't help but relate my feelings now with my feelings before I left for Emory. In the story of Daniel, a law was made that prayer would be illegal, Daniel got on his knees three times a day and thanked God, just as he had done before. He was thrown in a lion's den after that "And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God" (Daniel 6:23). God am I grateful of God. I know though that it is time to go into the lion's den. Maybe it is the beginning of an end, and about time that I begin coming to terms with growing up. I have several more reasons to be thankful. This summer I will spend most of my time at my dream internship I've always wanted at Lehman Brothers in New York, coupled with a month at my dream missions field right after that at Little Lights in DC (God willing). The more I've realized that I'm scared and unable to function as a Christian in the environments that are to come, the more I've realized that I need to rely on God. As Coldplay sings it, "help is just around the corner." (I had to get that in there because there CD is coming out June 16/17 pee in my pants). I give thanks for the the undeserving grace that has and will be given.

new cd

http://www.djsleeper.com
download my brother's new cd it is hot

the pride of Arenas

Huge win against detroit today. (http://www.nba.com/games/20080323/DETWAS/recap.html)

Arenas fired his trainer because his trainer told him he was working his knee too hard over the summer. I thought Arenas' comments over the summer about his trainer were hilarious considering he reinjured his knee shortly after returning to the court.

“Rehabbing Like It’s My Job
I’m feeling 50 percent better. I’m halfway there, halfway back to Agent Zero. I’m just ‘Agent’ right now. I can walk, ride the bike and I can shoot jump shots (just don’t tell the trainers that). I go in to train at about 12 o’clock and work on my upper body, my basketball stuff and cardio, and then I go back in at night from about 7:00 p.m. until 10 and I work on more cardio and I work on my legs. So I get about three hours of that and do balance work.

It’s different. I’m hesitant. The trainer, I had to fire him and kick him to the curb. We’re beefin’ right now. You know, I’ve never done this before. Me and trainers, it’s usually just like, ‘OK, get my ice.’ So all these drills he’s telling me to do, for some reason I just think they’re stupid. So I just fired him. I told him when I come to the facility to just pretend like I’m in California, even though I’m here. My body is here, mentally I’m in California, so I’ll just see you in training camp ‘ I don’t think he liked that very much.”
Today Arenas said this when uncleared by doctors, "Y'all don't have to write any more. I'm not coming back this year."

Don't be prideful be patient.

Tim Keller is a beast

please watch this video if you have time:

tim keller speaking to google employees at google headquarters

Far From Heaven

My pastor had me write a mission statement for my life. I thought it to be really useful, and think that everyone should do one.

Mission Statement: I have a passion for being honest with people in everything that I do because honesty is at the heart of being genuine and “love must be sincere” (Romans 12:9). I want to tell those who Christians don’t think can be reached the good news that is actually good news through prayer and patient love that does not seek results.

One of the greatest events in my life occurs when either my music is on random shuffle and plays exactly the song I need or when I watch a movie that is able to articulate my thoughts clearly. Doesn’t that sound trivial? I think more than half of everything that I’ve written has been a result of either listening to a song or watching a movie. So this is of course written off the movie “far from heaven,” which is an extremely depressing look at a couple in the 1950s.
I am one of the last people left in my dormitory at Emory. I have been on-call this weekend so I was forced to stay for spring break for the weekend. I’ve been meaning to sit down and write something but I guess I had to watch a movie to force me to do it. Not going to lie, it is kind of scary being all alone in this big dorm but I’m not sure if that’s because it is actually scary or because I am feeling alone recently. I had to think twice about whether I should write that because it is always difficult to be honest with others because it means you have to be vulnerable. The verse on Wheaton College’s wall pushes me to be more open, “therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” (James 5:16). The movie for me portrayed pretty clearly what a big struggle is for many people. None of the characters in the movie were able to reconcile what they loved and what they wanted. That is not very clear so I’ll give an example. A black male in the 1950s wants the best life for his daughter but also has an inherent love to stand for equality among blacks and whites. White people stone his daughter and black peole throw rocks at his house. Because of his love for his daughter he leaves his dream and goes to another place so that his daughter can have a better life. All my life Christians have told me that the choices that I make are black and white. There is a right choice and a wrong choice, one that will glorify God and one that will satisfy my own desires. I’ve found that a lot of times we come to a decision and we don’t know what the right decision is and I wanted to pat myself on the back and let everyone else know that it’s ok when we aren’t sure.
I also thought it would be important for me to remind myself that though it looks as if we are far from heaven and that this world looks even more broken every single day the kingdom of God is in us. “you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16) And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (John 14:16-17) This is good news.

Lehman Brothers

It started with the alluring color green. Green has always been my favorite color and so it was not surprising that I was drawn to Lehman Brothers who uses green as their main color. Seriously though, for some odd reason I always felt like I was going to end up at Lehman Brothers so I have to take you through my journey of how I got there or rather how I was taken there. I posted a week ago after my interview about the lessons I learned in order to show that I wasn’t bluffing. It has been a wild ride and test of my faith in Jesus and it was no coincidence that every verse I’ve read in the past month has been related with faith (see the bottom for all the verses that have had significant impact on me in the past 2 months).

It has really been an amazing journey, to interview with many investment banks, to go where few Christians have gone before, and to get rejected many times. I believe that God really wanted to push my faith to another level by making it my last interview so I had no other option but to rely on him. I remember the night before I was going to my Lehman interview in New York I had not taken a rest for months but I just stopped what I was doing and went outside and laid down outside Dobbs Hall on a picnic table for over an hour. I lay there with my ipod and I just remember telling myself, I will remember this moment for a long time. It was the first time I had really trusted God in this whole process because I knew that everything was leading up to everything else. I flew out to New York the next day and every single person that I had interviewed with was a perfect fit for my personality. I have always known that I have a pretty polarizing personality. It was so obvious that God had just set up the perfect group of guys for me to interview with. One of my interviews consisted of speaking to a guy about poverty in New York and China and what businessmen can do to change the world for one hour (the interview was supposed to be 30-45 minutes). I was supposed to find out within a week, meaning you usually finding out before one week but I knew that God was going to make me wait the full week to make sure that I remembered that he was in control. During that week I went to church and Jocelyn reminded me that it was meant to be because the person that spoke at church was named Rabbi Lehman. It was even more hilarious when I received a rejection letter during the week I waited. I sat there after I got the rejection letter from Lehman in utter confusion… what had I done wrong? I thought God wanted me here? After 10 minutes I e-mailed the recruiter and said, “sorry about the confusion, but is this for the equity research position at Lehman Brothers?” She responded in 2 minutes and said, “please disregard this message as it was sent in error.” Who sends rejection letters in error?! It really showed me that if God wants to get you somewhere even rejection cannot thwart his plan. I found out on Tuesday, a week after my interviews, that I was accepted and I was so happy in the end because I realized if I had been accepted into any other positions I would have taken it right away and missed out. It is hard to remember in our small perspective that faith is at the center of everything just as Jesus is at the center of everything but it often takes crisis to remind us. I am much more excited for the summer now because I know that it is only by God that I go. May we seek God and find his will for us.

He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"
Mark 4:40

"Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
Mark 5:34

Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, "Don't be afraid; just believe."
Mark 5:36

22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,[i] through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:22-26

20Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." 23The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, 24but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
Romans 4:20-25

Faith is being sure of what is hoped for and convicted of what is not seen
Hebrews 11:1

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Hebrews 11:6

PWARCHIVE

http://www.pwarchive.com is being shut down because of Church Music Publishers Association. I think they should be ashamed to put church in front of their name. This is the letter I wrote them,

By not allowing free movement of chords for the church to use you are hurting the movement of Christ across the world. You are hurting the movement of Christ. Do you get that? I am a business student so I know all about business but this is some bull shit, turning the church into a den of thieves because you all don't make enough money off CDs and concerts. You all need to examine your lives. If a church is large enough it will just have some guitarist figure the chords out and write the lyrics down for free. If a church is small and has to pay for your useless sheet music just because it doesn't have the resources to figure out the music is RIDICULOUS. It is absurd to make a small church have to pay to play music.

American capitalists and their copyright laws at their finest defiling the church of God.

Investment Banking Interviews

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." 36And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" 39And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?"
_Mark 4:35-40

I thought it would be beneficial to write down my thoughts before the end result of all this madness I’ve been going through recently. That way no matter what happens I could solidify the lessons that I learned. These past 2 months have sadly been 2 of the most trying months of my short life. I guess it was kind of like SAT + college apps on steroids. When I realized that God was calling me towards investment banking I had this vision of what that would look like. I’ve always wanted to work at this place called Lehman Brothers, but I wanted 10 backups just in case to make myself feel safe. I did not have any backups going into my interview with Lehman in New York on Tuesday. Someone told me when you give your plans to God that you have to make sure you give all your plans to God and not to hold on to what you think that plan looks like. I’ll make this a lot shorter than I normally do but this is probably one of the most important lessons that I have ever learned. The first is that when the pressure and stress comes it is really not about the result of what you are striving for. It is not about your test scores, or the college you get into, or where you work, or anything else. The only thing that matters is that God gets you to the place where you can say it does not matter where I end up because I have faith that God knows what is best for me. As my friend in investment banking so eloquently put it, “I would have never realized how selfish I was and how faithless I was unless I went through this process.” Thank God that I can relate with that. Aren’t we so blind when we think that God does not care because of the rain? When the storm comes may we have an attitude that is like Jesus’, who slept through the storm because he had so much trust in what was going to happen.

2nd Semester Junior Year

"This is what the Lord says: 'Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me."
-Jeremiah 9:23-24

Review of Kite Runner: Kite Runner has been the first novel I've read in a long time. Perhaps I'm learning a lot because Kite Runner is the first novel that I've read in a while or maybe it is indeed a good book.  It has certainly taught me more about myself and about life than I expected. The book really shows how sinful human nature can be.  At one point after reading about how the main character, Amir, betrayed his best friend, I had to hold my breath as I could hardly take in the tremendous burden. Maybe I am truly emo at heart but it is the dark moments that remind me about the greatness of it all.  When I think about suffering it reminds me that God in heaven suffered for us, when I think about sin I am reminded of grace, when I think of pain I am thankful that I do not have leprosy, and when I think of how much time we waste I am reminded of God's rich plan for us all. 
Kite Runner is themed around the idea of guilt – one unforgivable sin that haunts Amir throughout his life.  What is the benefit of reading a book about guilt?  I haven't in a long time considered the goodness of grace embodied in the character that is betrayed by Amir.  The book slows down significantly after the fast paced beginning but it is fitting for a book that talks about the weight of guilt, perfectly embodied by a laborious tone.  The story is about much more than guilt but the road to redemption, and while Amir runs away from forgiveness, and runs away from redemption, he is kicking and screaming, perhaps the way C.S. Lewis did when he first found that the gospel was real.  We often run as fast as we can away from the acceptance of forgiveness and truth because our pride is too fat that it clouds our judgment.  The one part that Amir may have gotten right is that he was consistently convicted by his guilt.  The road to redemption is much more beautiful than we would ever expect.  It is inherently human to yearn for forgiveness, grace, and redemption only to be denied by the clout of our own rational and logical thoughts, but being able to accept these inalienable needs is where we find true joy.  We will never understand forgiveness, as Alexander Pope says, "to err is human, to forgive is divine," but we must nevertheless learn to accept it so we may be free.

Here are some random lessons that I have learned recently in a sermon I heard at midtown community church in Atlanta:
The world would make us believe that it is difficult to be successful.  Instead, the most difficult part in life is can we be successful at what matters?  This is such a simple point but so hard to get.  Being successful at what matters would assume that we know what matters. 
The greatest suggestion I have heard for finding out what matters is constantly reminding ourselves what the mission is.  We must constantly ask ourselves: what was the original mission?  For a long time I have wanted to go into ministry but last week was the first week I pondered what it would be like if I didn't go into ministry.  This is dangerous water for me.
When you do anything long enough you somehow forget what your original mission was.  When I chose not to go to Wheaton and to go to Emory my mission was to reach out to non-Christians.  After being at Emory for 3 years my mission sort of became a little of how can I expand the Christian fellowship, and a little of how can I get the top job on wall street so I can reach out to those unreached people in investment banks, and a little of a lot of a lot of other things.  These things in and of themselves are not bad, but you can see how the mission can be forgotten in the fog.  We ought to ask ourselves every morning when we wake up: how can I love God well today?  Our metric for the success at the end of the day when we close shop ought to be: Did I love God well today? 

Road trip: New York
I have probably been most joyful when I have been able to forget about everything and go on sabbaticals from Quebec, to Atlanta, to New York.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. 


Here is a video we worked on for youth group:

Weekend

This weekend was nuts, road trip to North Carolina mountains, clear starry skies, trespassing in farm land, winding roads, almost getting arrested, no sleep, mute math & eisley @ the tabernacle, and Jesus and great football.

Welcome to Chicago (the concise version)

This fall break I had something inside me urging me to write, for the sole reason of getting my thoughts out. I almost didn’t end up writing anything, but after watching “in the wild” in the theaters with Alex I just told myself I not only wanted to write, but I wanted to write a book. Forgive me if this post is quite long.

The windy city, taught me about truth, music, brotherhood, and the pursuit of joy. It is amazing how school can bind you up in a clutter as to make you forget about how to put your thoughts down. I remember the day before taking my old testament interpretation test, I was up till 4 or 5 am studying for it and my attention deficiency order took over and I started look at all these modern art photographs. I was so intrigued and just kept flipping through pictures for over an hour and a half. I completely forgot about my test at 9am. As critical as I am about modern art I thought to myself isn’t life so great? That you can almost take a picture of anything and find something beautiful about it. You can take that analogy and expand it on so many different levels. Art, to me, is about finding beauty in anything. This definition makes me appreciate art all the more. I wished all weekend that I had a camera and I almost spontaneously bought one. I realized though that when I write it’s all about painting a picture, something I can look back at and smile. I’ll either wonder “what was I thinking?” and laugh, or relate to what I was thinking and laugh.

Before fall break I was so frustrated with all my busyness and assiduity. You know when you are in one of those moods where you want to have nothing to do, or where you want to drop the industrialized things that you have to do and take a road trip across the country (not that we ever satisfy this craving)? I just laid out on the grass, headphones blasting, and hands lifted high, and I just wanted to breathe life in, like a dude coming out of a burning house gasping for air. It’s that feeling you get when you look at something so much bigger than you and you are in awe, and you just can’t get enough of it (of God). I listened to David Crowder’s song “stars” with that line that goes “you should the see stars tonight, how they shimmer shine so bright, against the black they look so white, coming down from such a height, to reach me now.” I was just living vicariously through those stars, wishing to be as missional, wishing to reach the world with that kind of light.

I’ll start from the beginning of my fall break trip to Chicago. I got in a car with Jocelyn, Nick, and Kelsey and set out for Airtran standby-style, the way I love it. To summarize my fascination with Airtran standby it teaches me every time in a metaphorical way that when you leave things up to God, you end up in the place where He wants you to be, and this is the best place of all. The security line for the Atlanta airport was about an hour and half wait and I heard comments like “this is the worst line I’ve seen in 15 years of working at this airport.” You can imagine how many people missed their flight so the standby waiting line for my flight to Chicago was 26 people. This marked the closest time I came to giving up on getting on my flight. There happened to be only one person that did not show up and you can guess what happens next. “Mr. Chen… please board the plane.” I genuinely felt bad, sort of like I had sold them a bill of goods. I just looked back at some Emory students, snug business men, and other people that had been waiting hours longer than me. I got evil comedic thoughts like if this plane crashes they’ll be really happy and say, “I was so close to getting on that plane but there was only one seat open and a little Asian guy got on it.” I got to Chicago and we went to Chinatown to grab some of the best food I’ve had in a long time along with a honeydew grass jelly drink, and a banana smoothie with mini tapioca. In the morning, Alex and I sat down next to Michigan Lake and just talked about struggles, successes, frustrations, and anything funny we could think of.

In the afternoon we got on a train set for Wheaton College. I was sort of cautious about the whole thing. I was afraid I would love Wheaton so much that I would decide to transfer. The history behind this is that I wanted to go to Wheaton all throughout high school and at the last minute I decided to apply to Emory because I felt God calling me to a non-Christian school. I loved Wheaton more than I ever dreamed I would, but at the same time realized that my struggles at Emory were something that God in his sovereignty, wants me to go through. On the way back from Wheaton Alex and I were just like… man, that felt like coming back from a retreat. We were hosted by Stephen Huang, his 3 roommates Alex, Nate, and Andrew, and Janet Tong. We only stayed at Wheaton for about 2 days but the relationships spawned so fast that after the weekend I felt like I had known them forever. To give you a feel of what it was like, the first night after talking to them for about an hour about different things that I had been struggling with (such as women’s rights issues in the bible, the sovereignty of God, and inconsistencies in the bible) one of them just goes, you guys want to pray? I’m just thinking to myself I have never had anyone so open to prayer. I found out later that this guy wakes up at 7:30am every morning and prays.

These are some of the lessons I remember learning at Wheaton. I talked to them a lot about church planting because that’s what I want to do in the future and I was telling them how careful I was of mega churches even though some of my favorite speakers are part of them and Nate just tells me the problem with all these Buckhead screen churches and mega churches is that church becomes more about the personality of the pastor than the personality of God and it just pinpointed my feelings of discretion. Discipleship and being a Sheppard seems to me the most biblical and truthful way to be a pastor.

I got to juxtapose Matthew 13:17 (For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it), and John 5:39-40 (You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life). This just showed me that you can be righteous and memorize the entire bible (as the Pharisees did) and still not get what the heck God is talking about or pointing to. To sum that up knowledge and righteousness surely does not lead to understanding.

I got to apply that to my frustrations with understanding 1 Corinthians 15:19 (If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men). I always wondered why I could not relate to Paul when he found his hope in heaven. But then I read 2 Corinthians 11:24-28:

Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches!!!!!!!!!!!

How can we as Christians in America (or Disneyland) relate to this? Of course Paul finds his hope in heaven! I can’t relate to desiring heaven which tells me that there will one day be no hunger, sickness or death, when I’m never hungry, sick, and nobody I really care about is dead on earth. We must learn to live a life that can understand the bible. When Paul says “pray at all times,” I can find no relevance in that, but it is because I do not live a life that can understand that. I’m going to blog later on about the difference between humanism and God glorifying Christianity but I wanted to mention my growing frustrations with human rights, good works, and utilitarian religion overshadowing the glory and kingdom of God. This had gotten me so upset that I could barely talk at one point. Just because we can not understand something doesn’t make it not true.

Finally, Alex and I got to experience the movie “Into the Wild” Monday night which spurred me to write all of this. If you haven’t watched this movie, watch it. While looking at the yearnings of a human soul that was so realistically presented in the movie “into the wild,” with its flaws and successes, I was able to really see God. In the movie it said sometimes it’s not important to be strong but to feel strong. That’s sort of how I feel about joy. Sometimes it’s more important to feel joyful that to be joyful (even to the point of rejoicing in sufferings). The whole movie was awesome but I had this constant frustration with the main character because I knew he had gotten it all wrong. He had tried to find love and God alone. I was so happy when he finally got it at the end. He wrote “happiness is only real when shared.” This trip was only beautiful because it was shared with one of my best friends Alex. May you find someone to share your love with.

I came to Chicago lost, confused, and filled with sin and I came out with a better wrist, new hope, and still weak as ever but with Jesus. Welcome to typing with TWO hands, welcome to a new perspective, and welcome to Atlanta (where the playas play).

Struggling through: Everything (Honesty)

The toughest part about writing is actually sitting down and doing it. I guess that’s how most things are in life that are important like maybe taking some time to listen to an orchestra, or taking time to practice scales, or reading a book that is sort of boring (aka The Brothers Karamazov), or almost anything your parents told you to do but you didn’t feel like doing. If I don’t write for long enough period I feel like I’m losing my life because I’m really forgetful and if I don’t get it on paper, I’ll sort of just forget it and it’ll just disappear into thin air. Its kind of like how girls treat pictures.

Anyways, the topic that I’ve set out to write about has to do with the foundation of my belief. I have recently been turned upside down and the stage I’m at right now is pretty lost and confused. I grew up a neo-Christian kid. This meant for me that I didn’t really believe in the bible, but I sort of believed in Jesus and I knew there was a God. When I became a real Christian in high school I moved in the opposite direction becoming more and more conservative theologically (relatively for a young person) because I felt this was the only way that I could come to terms with many of the verses of the bible, and inerrancy of the bible was the only way I could come to terms with who God was, and knowing who God was through the bible was the only way I could come to terms with Calvinism, and the only reason I came up with the sense that God was an all knowing, all purposing, all loving, perfect, indestructible, all glorifying, never failing God and human as incapable, sinful, evil, and completely and utterly selfish was because this was the only God I ever knew, and because this was the only me I ever knew. As all of these are connected when one became shaky, they all became shaky and as you can see many of beliefs are completely indefensible and unexplainable.

So I’ve always been so afraid to take theology classes at Emory because we are known to be a relatively liberal seminary, and I never wanted to lose my sense that I was the greatest sinner, and God was in all ways everything, but I ventured out this semester and decided to take New Testament Greek, and Old Testament interpretation. With one week of school under my belt, my entire foundation has been shaken and the only question that I could think of was to what end? Why all this theological struggling? The 2^nd day of my Greek class my professor puts up this quote, “He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all.” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Moral and Religious Aphorisms).

To get some sense of what I feel I began writing this song:

I’m scared to ask these questions, I’m afraid of new confessions, graft my soul upon the rock, I’ll fall on faith in all my walks. I’m scared because I left you, for all I chose before you, I put my feet on top of fools, And lost my belief because of all these rules. Take me in circles, unlatch my foundation, leave me without a platform to stand on, so I’ll fall back onto you.

When I was watching Shawshank Redemption tonight with a bunch of my Residence Life staff there were two parts that were really similar that confused me at first. When Brook (the old guy) and Morgan Freedman got out of jail they both talked about how they didn’t want to be afraid anymore. This led Brook to kill himself and Morgan Freedman to find his joy. The question that came up in my head was what were they so afraid of? I still don’t really know but for my own convenience and because it is what has gotten me so afraid and what I think makes everyone afraid. Here are two quotes: "Unbelief is not the only way of suppressing the truth about God... It is only the most honest" (Merold Westphal, Taking St. Paul Seriously.), and “love must be sincere” (Romans 12:9). I think honesty is what freaks everyone out. It is what caused Brook to hang himself. No matter if you believe in God or you don’t believe in God honesty freaks you out. If there is no God then we are all blindly running around until we die and we become part of the circle of life. Volitare the French philosopher said, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” Why would you want to invent God? Because the truth of there being no God would be too insurmountable for mortal humans.

Now if you are a Christian like me, you have to climb some pretty big honesty mountains too. What the heck do I even believe and what is the foundation of my belief? Or as Laurence Peter puts it, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to believe.” Both Christians and non-Christians alike like to get around these tough, and important questions and they’ll both use different excuses that sound pretty good to the ears. Christians can use the F bomb! Faith. As a Christian you can pretty much answer any question with faith, something like Ephesians 3:12, “in him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.” I’m not saying you shouldn’t approach issues with faith, because that will come in my conclusion, but most of the time I use faith it’s because I’m too afraid to believe anything else. Non-Christians always have the handiness of alcohol and drugs to go into alter-reality and reasoning to make them think they have things together.

I’m still in this confused state now so I have no easy answers now but all I can see is where you end up is all based off your response. Brook could have lived a good life if he had only been more willing to take on truth head on. Judas (the one who betrayed Jesus) could have served God even after he betrayed Jesus if he had only asked for forgiveness just like Peter did after he denied Jesus three times. I want to be really honest, and no doubt honesty freaks me out because look where I am now, I want to go in circles and find God more precious then he ever was in my life and I hope you will seek and find as well. “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and the heart of man is restless until it finds rest in Thee” (St. Augustine, Confessions).

There you go I killed two birds with one stone, writing something down and listening to music. I will warn myself again and again that after all my exegesis and pedagogical studies, that my foundation is grafted on Jesus Christ and that my faith is always in Him even if frogs start falling from the skies. Take that reason!

Struggling through: Do We Love Heaven or God?

I’m starting a blog series called “struggling through…” I plan to address Christian hedonism, all 5 points of Calvinism (especially the juicy ones predestination, and limited atonement), homosexuality, lust, pride, and other stuff like that. I want to mention that since I am a student, I’m not trying to teach (if you learn something that is great) but I’m just trying to struggle through stuff, learn, and be honest. If you disagree with something I would be blessed if you would tell me so that I can further struggle through it.

I have been struggling recently with combining these two ideas.

The first says that God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in him, or Jonathon Edwards puts it the chief end of man is to glorify God BY rejoicing in him (I may be writing something on my struggles through this later)

The bible would put it,

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. . . . Your steadfast love is better than life” (Ps. 63:1, 3).

“Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4)

C.S. Lewis would put it,

Pleasures are shafts of glory as it strikes our sensibility. . . . But aren’t there bad, unlawful pleasures? Certainly there are. But in calling them “bad pleasures” I take it we are using a kind of shorthand. We mean “pleasures snatched by unlawful acts.” It is the stealing of the apples that is bad, not the sweetness. The sweetness is still a beam from the glory. . . . I have tried since . . . to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I meant something different . . . Gratitude exclaims, very properly, “How good of God to give me this.” Adoration says, “What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!” One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun. . . . If this is Hedonism, it is also a somewhat arduous discipline. But it is worth some labour.

I think that I have been convinced of this, mainly through reading Dr. Piper.

Here is my problem though, I was listening to a sermon a while back called “the revival sermon” that I tried to advocate, but evidently was too weird for most people. The main sermon in it was given by a Pastor/missionary named Paris Reidhead in the mid 1900’s. He said a quote in it that was something like, “even if I go to hell, I will follow God because he is worthy.”

When I heard that I was like amen, because if we would not follow God if we went to hell then it would seem that we were worshipping the idea of heaven and hell more than the idea of God (of course this is only a hypothetical question as heaven would come along with the belief of God). This idea seems to go hand and hand with the idea of finding joy in God, on earth, and that was what I think was preached to me as a child, that finding joy on earth was plausible not just hoping for heaven. As I became Christian I found that this was true, at least most of the time I found joy in God on earth, and found that I was more joyful than people who did not have God in their lives. Then I stumbled across these verses which is the second idea which I will attempt to integrate with the above thoughts.

The second idea says that if heaven does not exist than our joy is in vain, “if only in this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men (1 Corinthians 5:19)

“ Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:13-14).

Or as C.S. Lewis put it, “It was when I was happiest that I longed most. . . . The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing . . . to find the place where all the beauty came from.”

My problem has been integrating the joy and satisfaction of God right now, with the idea that without an after-life we are to be pitied the most. These questions arose in my mind: if we have so much joy and satisfaction in God on earth (God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him), why would we be most pitied if it was only in this life? Is our faith a result of the idea of heaven or a result of God’s love for us? Is there a way that our hope in heaven and our joy in God right now can coexist?

The way that Piper explained this was that our joy on earth is in the hope of a heaven. When I began to think about this more and more I found that this idea did not match my idea of how God would win us. Assume that somehow it was proven that God exists to all people, and heaven and hell were real. Any rational person would ask Jesus for forgiveness because they wouldn’t want to go to hell. Since I believe in God it seems that rationally I should choose to live a life for God. My problem is not that Christianity could be rational because the bible says, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). The problem for me is in the focal point behind this rationality. I am choosing God here rationally because I get to go to heaven, not because of God. Because choosing heaven is a rational choice (since it is better than hell) Christianity seemed conditional to me, and I never saw Christianity as conditional before. You can picture yourself as a parent and you are trying to teach a kid to love you and you say, if you don’t follow me then I’m going to send you to your room. This is conditional… the kid will love the parents because he doesn’t want to be sent to a bad place.

After meditating through the conditionality of Christianity though, I began to realize that the idea of heaven and hell is not only biblical, it is love. As a child I hated street preachers with bull-horns that would yell, “you are going to hell!” Naturally, after I became a Christian I still hated these people, so it confused me a lot when Dr. Piper (my favorite teacher now) shadowed himself after Jonathon Edwards, whose most famous sermon was called, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” Although it is still uncomfortable to me, preaching hell and heaven precisely shows us how much God loves us, and precisely shows us how unconditional Christianity is. If you know you are guilty, and you know you deserve hell, grace becomes that much sweeter. No matter what religion you are a part of, humans seek to absolve themselves from their guilt. You’ve all heard the scene before, you are in a court room and you just murdered someone, and the judge comes in and says you are free to go I will go to jail for you. That is what Jesus did for us, and so the lack of conditionality is what we call unconditional love. Piper made me realize that biggest problem there ever was, and the problem that needs to be preached is not “how can God convince ME to believe in him?” it is “how can God justify such a horrible sinner and still be considered just?”

Finally I think we need to fix our view of heaven. Heaven is like the word Christian in that its meaning has been changed so much from its original meaning. A Christian was simply a Christ follower and would bring images of martyrs, love, grace, the cross, etc. Christians now have a shameful history, and I guess we’ll leave it at that. Heaven, just like the word Christian has been changed. Heaven is a place where God is present in every corner and everyone is worshiping God at all times. There is no way we can desire heaven without desiring God. Our desire for heaven should be our desire to finally know God! “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”(1^st Corinthians 13:12) As children, we are told that everything that is not God is bad because all we need is Jesus. Since many of us have disassociated heaven from God we think that “getting into heaven” is a bad motivation when in reality our hope is spending eternity with Jesus. Instead of thinking about spending eternity with Jesus we’ve replaced it with just a word. It is obvious that many Christians become Christians because of heaven, and many people still bow down to heaven (the word) and not God, but this is because we have skewed the definition of heaven to our own liking. I conclude that Paris Reidhead’s quote (“I will worship God even if I go to hell because he is worthy”), as hip and good as it sounds, is not only unbiblical, but misses out on the message of Christianity. We ought to love God AND desire heaven.

If you want to listen to Paris Reidhead’s sermon “Ten Shekels and A Shirt” (which I highly recommend and think is brilliant) it can be found here: http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=282