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).