Crux spes unica

지쳤다

A semester is only about 4 months long and man I’ve never been so weary. I wasn’t too stressed or uneasy but it was just very..draining. I think I legitimately sat on my desk, looking at papers for 12 out of the 24 hours a day. I need rest. But not just the lay in bed and knock out for days kind of rest but genuine, replenishing rest that only the Lawd can provide. It’s been such a spiritually confusing semester. Both my hands were all tied up all the time. You know how after a trip from Han Ah Reum you carry all the grocery bags from the car to your house and you want to do it all in one trip so you put like 10 bags on each arm plus the pear box on top after. Yeah, never a time to just sit back and reflect these past few months. My quiet times have been mere rants of frustration to God. But one passage in Psalms 13 said “..I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.” God is not a God who frowns upon your failures and then reluctantly shows you mercy and grace. This psalm clearly told me that God doesn’t just TOLERATE me and my sinful nature but He patiently DEALS with every detail of my life. I realize in the midst of this busy semester, these are the kind of people you want to keep close to you. Those who are willing to understand, care and empathize with this phase in your life. There aren’t a lot but God provides.

It’s hard to believe that if I was at a normal undergrad, I would be entering my LAST semester of college soon. Ah! back to studying mindlessly..zzz..school is NOT for me! 

Disorganized and Frustrated

My thoughts and priorities seem so disorganized. Little insignificant things frustrate me. WHY! I need a stop, backspace and fast forward button in life.

One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

Sigh as school is approaching, I feel this sign perfectly sums up my summer of 2011. I have taken big steps forward but double the amount of steps back. I’ve wasted these precious days of my youth, my PRIME, on my bed, doing absolutely nothing. This summer is actually the LAST summer that I will ever have with the joy of having absolutely nothing to do. Summer 2012 I am no longer an undergraduate student and I need to face the real world. That’s a scary thought. 

This summer I feel I walked out on God on so many occasions. I’ve mentally pushed him out of the equation and enjoyed the creation so much more than the Creator. A book that I’m reading says, “Christ is to be CHERISHED, not just CHOSEN.” Ah how true is that! Forgive me, I am guilty Lord! I definitely feel I have chosen Christ in many situations this summer but I have so often failed to cherish Him with all my heart. Foolish foolish sinner. 

As this summer comes to an end and as I am pathetically trying to “get my spiritual self together,” this verse from Romans gives me hope once again.

“For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. So then He has mercy on whomever He wills and He hardens whomever He wills”    

God has a great purpose in all that He does. He may have hardened my heart to show me once again the of beauty of Him in me. I want to believe that two steps back in the Flesh but one step taken in the Spirit is still a GAIN, a POSITIVE in the eyes of the Lord. Hallelujah!

My dead heart now is beating!

Jesus, the one who is Just and the Justifier of my faith. Yes Lord!

Mongolia 2011

In about 10 hours, I will be on my way to Mongolia. M.O.N.G.O.L.I.A. Genghis Khan’s crib. Ah, I can’t believe it. The past two years, I’ve gone on missions out of pure passion and excitement but this year I am going with a deep sense of burden and expectation. 

God already revealed to me that this missions trip is not going to be easy, its going to be very different, and that there is a good purpose in it all. The past few months have been such a long and draining spiritual battle within me and for the first time in my life I’ve cursed and blamed God. It was a spiritual dryness where I was aimlessly walking in a desert, being nonchalant and passionless about anything and everything in life. The devil really got the best of me and by the end of it all, I was so broken/depressed and I had completely lost the joy of my salvation. It would have been so easy for me to reject going to missions this year with this state of mind, take some summer classes for my benefit and I did -in a heartbeat. But God took a hold of me and shook me vigorously the very last day of decision making and I ended up going on missions.

As missions drew near, God began to slowly loosen my grip on the things I’ve held close to my heart. He revealed to me varying things I had to resolve and showed me mercy through it all. He even showed me so much grace in fundraising and reminded me once again that this is HIS missions trip and I am nothing but a BOLD instrument.Through it all, my spiritual “eyes” began to open and it was crystal clear that all this time, God was in a deep pursuit after me. I saw my God was a God who would willingly put me through this long, arduous warfare because He loves me THAT much only to mold/shape my character and to essentially have His name be magnified in this life.

There MUST be a purpose to this missions trip. There must be a reason why I had to endure the toughest few months of my spiritual life just prior to this trip. There must be a purpose and God revealed to me these two words, “Start Over.” I believe He wants me to restart and renew my walk with Him all over again THROUGH this trip. He wants me to re-evaluate my relationship with Him and rediscover Him with my own five senses, my own heart and my own intellect. 

As I picked up my bible sincerely for the first time in a while, God revealed to me this verse. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it AGAIN: REJOICE! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” Philippians 4: 4-5 

God radically changed the definition of the word rejoice. I found out that you can measure how much joy something can give you by observing how much devastation that same thing will bring you if you did not have it. The past few months, God showed me what a sinful, self-centered, and broken human being I can become without Him. Without Christ in my life, as cliche as this sounds, I am really nothing. What I need to do is rejoice SOLELY and WHOLLY in Christ alone. Nothing in this world can ever satisfy me as much as Him and if I don’t desperately cling onto Him…I don’t even want to think about it. 

So YES! I am very expectant of my summer in Mongolia. I expect my God to reveal His endless glory in Mongolia and to magnify His beautiful name in my heart. BYE! See you in a month!