Brace for the darkness.

This is going to be the least time I've spent on a blog. I am sitting in the 2nd floor of WPH building where my Portuguese class will start in 8 minutes or so. It was a great weekend, which I will elaborate more on at a later time. Today I have a OChem lab exam at 3:30PM... the last time "OChem lab" will ever pop up into my mind. It reminds me of what is to come during these next 2 weeks... I keep calling it hell week out of fear... an anticipation of mental pain, stamina strain, and physical labor due to lack of sleep. But moments ago I found hope in something.. The night is darkest before the dawn. The darker the night... the more difficult hell week is... its going to make the dawn all the more beautiful and fulfilling. So bring it on, hell week(s)! Suddenly, even darkness/adversity itself is overshadowed by what is to come after. Kind of like the idea of going to Heaven.

Making Pots

A friend of mine taught me, via facebook, something I should have realized long ago.

"When a potter molds clay, he must use lots of water. After the vessel is made, it is baked in fire."

Happy thinking :)

Love and Passion?

This past weekend, my family members went on a camping/fishing trip with the Boy Scouts to a place in Malibu. I ended up having to stay home to study for an upcoming O-Chem exam on monday, not to mention that I didn't get work cleared 2 weeks ahead of time. My mom, of course, was home as she needed to work as well, so in the midst of the little bit of studying I was able to accomplish, I didn't go hungry :)

With my dad and my brothers gone, I went shopping with my mom (upon her request). It was time to do so anyway, because lately I've been running out of clothes to wear! I think I wear more USC t-shirts than my regular shirts.. Anyway, as I accompanied my mom to shop around the Americana, we stopped by this one store (can't remember the name) where they had some books and nice places to sit. I chose to read a book about haikus, in an attempt to learn what the nonsense was all about. I'm not much of a poet :P

So apparently, haikus are supposed to have a lot of meaning. As obvious as it may be to you, I had no idea. Laugh at me, punch me, think you're cooler than me, whatever you do, I read this one haiku that I'd like to share. There were actually several that I read, but this one really caught my attention. The haiku was written by Masajo Suzuki:

shall we die together,
my lover whispers-
evening fireflies

Now the analysis that followed up regarding this haiku said some pretty interesting things. At this point, I'm not too comfortable putting the whole passage here since I don't know much about internet copyright on blogs... so here is the website I found that shows what I'm talking about. You can read what the haiku means here.

Upon reading this passage, while sitting on a nice comfortable sofa at the mall, I began to wonder... wow. I guess this is what love is supposed to be.. and I'm glad the old lady was trying to tell me so. At least for myself, I saw a disconnect in the way love was defined here. Don't get me wrong, I'm no love guru. I was actually trying to find the balance between the very human side of love that was described in this haiku, and the love God has for us. Maybe you know the answer? Before I share my thoughts, maybe you'd like to think about it a bit first. I've a midterm to study for anyway. This time, it's "The Nature of Human Health and Disease". Wish me luck, and happy thinking. More on this after my test :)

The Skylight and Conciousness.

In the midst of a little fear from school regarding grades and financial aid, I thought I'd write a blog to help me relax a little, just thinking about the omnipotent one. I'm in an empty classroom. Perfect :)

I was reading a book I got from the Resolved conference, and it talked about our conscience, and what it is. John MacArthur wrote in his book, The Vanishing Conscience, that our consciousness is like a skylight. It's not the source of light, but rather, a skylight. What he means is that if we imagine the sky, all bright and filled with clouds, the beautiful scenery can change dramatically once the actual source of light disappears.

Here is how our conscience is like the skylight. The state of the conscience can be altered by changing the source, or the motivation. In the mind, this source is manifested in the form of human thought. When we think, we fuel the conscience... and this has major implications on a lot of things regarding us.

Have you ever been so frustrated, fearful (like me ATM), or sad, that you began to have.... certain thoughts? Certain.. destructive... sinful .. thoughts? These thoughts, although you may be able to hide it within your mind from people to see/hear, we know that God sees these thoughts. However, MacArthur's point was that these thoughts influence the state of our conscience directly. Though people don't see what we think, and though God usually doesn't give a visibly and audibly clear sign stopping us from thinking such thoughts, you can be sure that something inside you is changing.

Remember how when you guys first encountered alcohol in high school, or for the first time you had to lie to your parents about your grades.... you had a feeling deep inside that gave you great discomfort and uneasiness? MacArthur describes such feelings of inhibition a warning sign from our conscience telling us to be very wary and alert of what we are about to do next. Sinful thoughts are the primary means by which our conscience is weakened. People with a weak conscience have no problem committing sin, because they have, by their sinful thoughts, completely and utterly silenced the what was once a loud and booming conscience. We are all sinful people, however, the state of our conscience is different for all of us. Whether your conscience still speaks loudly to you, or if you have silenced it completely, we can all be sure that once we meet God, even the ones that forgot they had a conscience will realize that it was with him/her all along, when fear strikes them like a really well placed punch to the face.

I learned from the book that our consciousness, if anything, is one of the greatest and most honest part of us. It reflects exactly who we are because our thoughts and motives change it within us. It shed light to another great weakness of mine... that I may indeed have a frail and quiet conscience, and that I need to pray that God helps me be pure. Pure in my thoughts, my actions, and therefore, in my conscience.

Anyway, OChem lab is about to begin in 8 minutes. Time to go, but I am definitely more at peace. Till next time!

_______

OK I am done with lab. Great lab session by the way :) before I post, I wanted to quote some things from the book. Here it goes!

"Seeing that sin is so sinful, it is evil even to be a thinking sinner, or a sinner though only in thought. It is too commonly said that thoughts are free. They are indeed free in respect of men, who cannot judge us for them, but God can and will. Many people who seem to be modest and sparing as to evil words and deeds will still make bold with thoughts and, as the saying is, pay it with thinking. Such are speculative, contemplative sinners." - Ralph Venning

"No sin is more destructive to the conscience than the sin that takes place in the arena of the mind... Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny." - John MacArthur

-DK

Time to remember.

I was JUST listening to the radio after I got back home and heard a refreshing sermon:

Idolatry is much broader than just a guy sitting with a pig figurine juxtaposed to candles and such... Idolatry begins when we first try to postulate anything about God that is not God. When we seek God in something that is untrue, we are committing idolatry. The most advanced stage of idolatry leads to the formation of a new god of our liking.

God's supremacy, nature, and attributes are revealed in only one place. The Bible. However, it's impossible to understand his nature... to know what He is like. Thus, the only way of understanding some of Him is by seeing what He is NOT like. Most of our descriptions about God include a negative. What I mean is, or what the guy that was talking on the radio means, is that that we cannot say God is holy without referring to the only thing we DO know... sin - we know that God is NOT sin. In the same manner, when we say that God is love, we automatically refer to the love we know here on Earth. So when people say "God doesn't love me" they are saying that the love they know is the supreme, perfect and the ultimate design and form of love in the universe. Hmm...

The same way that we say God is omnipresent, people have come up with pretty good questions: For example, if God is really omnipresent, doesn't that mean that He is tainted... that He is impure, because that would mean everything on Earth, including all of the atrocities of human beings is within God. Doesn't his omnipresence also mean that when the Bible says "and He was far from them" or ... He was near them... it's placing a flaw in God's attribute? The man on the radio said this: We have to think of God in 2 ways: Both essence, and relation. God is everywhere in essence, but He may be indeed be farther or closer to some in RELATION. One thing is for sure... there cannot be the RELATION part without the ESSENCE part being omnipresent in the first place. Lastly, God is not affected by/changed by the impurities of this world. He is everywhere in essence, but He does not mingle with impurity.

Lastly... God as an infinite being. Holy smokes... This one got me. I'll let you think about this one :)

Outside of the box... outside of your mind.

One day at school, I receive a call from someone a lot older than me. I met the man in one of my classes last semester (can you guess which one? lol) and he wanted to get lunch. He's a very nice guy. Has a girlfriend. Studies hard. It's obvious that he prefers speaking Korean over English. I decide I'm going to buy some Wolfgang Puck and he chooses to eat the same thing as well. Then, he says he's going to pay for my food.

I reacted with a frantic "what?!" and I suppose I startled the guy. To be honest, I don't really know him TOO well and I thought it was asking too much for him to buy me food, even if he was older than me. In Korean, he tells me not to be so suspicious of him. I apologize and we just laugh it off. A bit awkward, even for me ^^:

As we're eating, however, he tells me that he has been lonely. Apparently, he doesn't have too many friends, since they all graduated already, and is constantly just studying. Though he goes to church regularly, and has, I bet, an awesome girlfriend, he was still lonely. At the moment, I didn't quite know how to react. I mean... how many people come to you and say that they're lonely? Of course, we went into a discussion about his faith and his silent study habits, and we finished the conversation by me offering prayer and giving him resources where he might find satisfaction and joy learning about God. But at the same time, I learned that loneliness is an issue that most of us keep to ourselves. Hence, I was very thankful that this man came with such a humble heart and in need of companionship because if he hadn't, who knows what he or the other person he asked to lunch might have done.

A few weeks have passed and I now find myself in a similar situation as him. Suddenly, I find myself guilty of not following my own advice and hence am a hypocrite. Always was. But this made it oh so clear...

There is definitely a very human and tangible side to all of this... loneliness. In the midst of trying to find a way to vent and express my thoughts, I realized that there is no one to listen. Not only that, even if there are a few people online on AIM, who wants to bother them right? It's one of the difficulties I face when I get too caught up with school, work, and just.. the daily routine. Hence.. I've concluded that I need to meet people. That I am at my best when I am in front of another human being. Reason being... I come out of myself. We all do, when we are in the presence of another human being. Perhaps it explains my great joy when I am able to help someone out - it gives me that sense of accomplishment, but also, it reminds me that the very act of communicating is crucial. I don't know if you've seen the "Clerk Expression Compassion for Robber"video that was on the news, but it serves to emphasize the importance of communication. I'm starting to feel better already :) Check out the first minute of the vid.

Now this doesn't change the fact that I need to change the way I do things when it comes to loneliness. Yes, there is the very human communication aspect and we should make sure we're communicating with others often, but this is another place where God's glory can also shine brightly. It's actually quite simple. Humans are social beings, and God is wanting and willing to talk to us/with us. If you see things in such a perspective, there's a magic that happens here... suddenly, loneliness becomes a joy, when we imagine the loneliness that God faces in a world that is lost. Our Christ on the cross must have been so lonely... despite the many people there that were weeping for him. To understand, even a fraction of this loneliness and His suffering, all of it becomes a priviledge and an amazing opportunity to further understand His love for us, which is so amazing, so compassionate, and so inclusive. It makes me close my eyes, breathe deep, and think about the possibility that what I feel now, might have purpose too! That God is teaching me, growing in me, even during a time when things appear dry, cold, and devoid of human presence. God hasn't forgotten my prayer during the good old elementary school days that I may one day become a great man, and He continues to refine me, even during the quiet times at night, when you and I are alone.

Let's not forget to truly love our neighboors. Sometimes, the person in need is hiding right around the corner. Human communication is a gift and we should do our very best to do it in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. In that regard, let's not forget about the constant communication that is always happening between Him and us; the all powerful, and ...well.. lonely little us.

-DK

A Shaky Start... Strong Finish.

This is my very first blog entry. Wow. So cool...

Tonight, I'd like to begin by writing about something I wasn't originally intending on writing. My apologies if you have to reread a few sentences ^^;

I would like to begin tonight by saying that for the first time, I told someone that FAIL = MY LIFE. I said this because I experienced a series of unfortunate events after having enjoyed a great Saturday. My friend and I laughed this statement off at first, but I later realized that this "equation" is a really good summary/description of what a lot of people feel - That because they are.. for example, not smart enough in school to get A's in his/her exams like in organic chemistry, not good looking enough to face the camera with confidence when someone says "PICTURE TIME!", and not physically fit/adept enough to want to go out for church/school ministry fellowship, that their life at that moment is, in short, a fail.

When I undergo such trains of thought, I realized that I seriously have to question my motive. Reason being....

Failure is relative. We might indeed fail to carry out our duties to our family and friends, fail to study early enough for an exam, and ultimately, fail to do our best or what is expected of us from society. If someone is indeed seeking a life of failure, their lives will be ... a fail, in the sense that his/her relationship with people have become detrimental, not just disappointing or frustrating, to the point where he/she is a social outcast - nobody wants to be near you. That means jail. Oof....

In the discussion of failure in life, however, I did not mention once about eternal failure after this life on earth. Eternity was left out entirely. This is where I need to ... well, look sharp - 정신 차려 - snap out of it - w/e way works best for you, and realize that the equation FAIL = MY LIFE is the wrong equation/mentality to have. In short, the real equation that matters is JESUS + MY LIFE = WIN, because that's the only equation that will earn you and I the A+ that we want so much in the field that actually matters. We as believers should always have an eternal perspective in mind. With such an eternal perspective, our outlook and motive of our life should completely be transformed. Failures now have meaning. Failures now become opportunities for transformation of our habits and life styles. Failure is now no longer our fear. Our focus becomes pleasing Him. Eternal consequences. Such a mentality should give us a sense of urgency to what matters most! Life in Heaven. Suddenly, my goal is now to bring as many people to Heaven with me. To save, by the grace of God. Suddenly, my life has meaning. I win not just in life, now I win eternal victory.


If you think I'm telling you that your life on earth doesn't matter, you need to look sharp - 정신 차려 - snap out of it - etc. :)

-DK

Testing.

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