only mist

"... yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life?

For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes."

- James 4:14

I came back from the KUC YG retreat today. It was centered around the Bible - the theme of the retreat was "Sola Scriptura", which means, "Scripture alone". It was moving - the GCC NJ praise band led our hearts in worship before every sermon and throughout the prayer sessions. It was life-transforming - the speaker was Emmanuel's Pastor Dan, and I learned so much from him.

One of the sermons he gave was based on James 4:13-17. If I had to pick just three lessons that I learned from this sermon, they would be:

1. There are four types of God's Will: His sovereign will - His will for our salvation; His moral will - where we get a sense of what is right and wrong; His revealed will - His Word (the Bible), which shows His heart for us; and His unrevealed will - His will for our individual lives (whom we should marry, what career we should pursue, etc.)
2. The most dangerous life is not in the Word of God. The most dangerous life is outside the Word of God. The safest place to be is in the Word of God. If that means inconvenience, persecution, etc., that's the safest place to be. It's better to be in the middle of the storm in God's Hands than to be on a peaceful and quiet beach on vacation apart from Him.
3. Real obedience is trusting God completely - even if it means killing your dreams; even if it doesn't make sense (think: Abraham's obedience when God called him to kill his beloved son Isaac).

Simply put, I want to love God more. However, how could I love Him if I do not know Him? So I will continue to memorize a Bible verse before each meal (as we did during the retreat) and read the Bible every day (even if it's only for a few minutes). As Pastor Dan told us to do, I promise not to let a single day go by without touching (i.e., reading) the Bible. Hopefully, I will become a daughter of God of whom He says, "I have to be careful what I tell Christine to do - because she will do it." I want to be that available to God.

new beginnings

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD,

plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."

- Jeremiah 29:11

I thank God for my accountability partners. It takes a lot of patience, courage, and love to rebuke and encourage me. After many conversations, thoughts, and prayers, there will be some changes in my life, which will take effective immediately.

My commitment to stay single for the rest of this school year is over. Various people have given me different reasons for why this is not a good idea. I had good intentions, but it was not a conviction that I got from God. After a very difficult break-up with someone I thought would be my husband in the near future, I knew I needed a lot of time before I started considering dating again. I also knew I needed time to spend with God after He heals my heart from the break-up and before I date someone else.

Well, after nine long months, my heart is completely healed. Looking back, I realize that God did not wait for my heart to heal from the break-up to mold me, change me, and challenge me. In fact, He has never stopped doing any of these things - and more! He has been actively working in me all along. God loves me so much that, as Dr. Edgar, my Introduction to Apologetics professor, once said, "He sneaks in through the side window or the back door."

In retrospect, I am able to see that waiting until the end of this year to think about dating has been more of a stumbling block than a blessing or a helpful guide. I have become so legalistic about it that if God had put it on a guy's heart to ask me out, I would have turned him away (no matter how much I liked him back!)... simply because he asked me out before the end of the year. On the flip side, I have been viewing the end of the school year as if it were the end of a term sentence. Therefore, instead of putting God in a box or having an unGodly view of this year, I decided to be prayerful about the future. Of course, this may mean that it will be shorter or longer than a year, but I think this is a much better way to approach life in general. After all, as John Piper once said, "He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

However, in order to focus on God, I have also decided to actively make some other changes, including deactivating my Facebook account, signing out of gchat, and not studying at the WTS library. All three have been great ways of keeping in touch with friends, but I need some time and space because I have been struggling to see and treat a particular brother as a brother.

Please keep me in your prayers. Also, since I will be MIA, please e-mail (cychung06@gmail.com) or call me (551.655.0192) with any updates and/or prayer requests. Finally, if you are in the Philadelphia area and want to grow and pray with Westminster seminary students on Monday and Wednesday mornings, please meet in Room 1 of Van Til at 7:30am!

humbled

"Look on everyone who is proud and bring [her] low

and tread down the wicked where they stand."

- Job 40:12

This morning, I wrote an e-mail to one of my accountability partners. I doubt many people read my blog, so if you are reading this right now, I believe it is no mistake. Please hold me accountable! So my e-mail reads something like this:

Hey Jen*,

I've been getting that rebuke a lot - that is, to see and treat brothers as brothers. It's been a process that's been taking me many years, and I've been getting a lot better, but I still struggle. I'm just really assertive, aggressive, and outgoing, so it's unnatural for me to chill out sometimes, haha. Also, often times, my self-esteem is based upon who views me as a potential.

Can you please keep me in your prayers? Please pray that:

• I will not think that it's okay for me to treat brothers and sisters the same - since I'm really outgoing and friendly, I should be extra careful to treat guys as brothers.
• I will be very alert of my boundaries with guys. I have been really careful with physical boundaries (i.e., not giving them hugs, not punching their arm, not pushing them away playfully, etc.), but I need to be more careful with emotional, verbal (i.e., being intentional with my words), and temporal (i.e., not talking to them for a long time, not gchatting with them late at night) boundaries.
• I view myself through God's eyes, so that my self-esteem will be based on Him

humbled,

me

* The name has been changed to protect the person's identity

have Your way

I went to GCC's Passion Revival last night, and they sang this song for the first time: Hillsong United's Arms Open Wide

I hope it blesses you as much as it blessed me!

i love You

"No one can serve two masters,

for either he will hate the one and love the other,

or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and money."

- Matthew 6:24

I surrender the idols of my life - the things I cling onto - the source of my happiness and security - the things that preoccupy my mind most of my waking (and sleeping!) hours. I trust You. Have Your way with me. I trust You. No matter what happens.

Knowing myself, it may be a step-by-step, moment-by-moment kind of trust, but at least for the moment, I trust You.

You are sweeter than anything in this world. Everything else is so fleeting. You have used Your words and actions to convince me of Your unfailing love and faithfulness.

Forgive me for turning to other things and people for my security and happiness.

I will rejoice in You... even if You never give me the desires of my heart, I will choose to love You. I know I am able to love You only because You loved me first. That's all I need to love You despite my circumstances. You are all I need. I acknowledge that You are God. You give and take away as You see fit. You need to provide me no reason. Everything I have is from You, anyway.

You will never forsake me. You are always with me - through the good times, but especially when I'm sad, afraid, or in despair.

How did I not see You there before? How could I have been so blind?

But now I see You have been, You are, and You will always be with me... holding me close, never letting me go. Thank You. I love You, too.

the fruit of the Spirit

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh."

- Galatians 5:16

In my previous post, I shared how I am utterly hopeless without Christ because I fall short physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually even according to human standards. But what does it look like to live your life as a transformed person in Christ?

Every Sunday evening, my family and I have what we call "family altar", which is essentially family Bible study. My dad chooses a book in the Bible to study for the month or so, and we study a chapter each week. We have been studying the book of Galatians lately. Tonight's focus was on Galatians chapter 5, and the timing could not have been more perfect!

After going around the table, reading a verse out loud, we spend some time in quiet, picking out a verse from the chapter that was significant to us. The one I chose tonight was verse 16: "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." When I read this verse, I felt like I found the answer that would free me from my anxieties and hopelessness! Who wouldn't want to live a life free from the shackles of their fleshly desires?

What are these desires? "Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these" (Galatians 5:19-21). Although I am not guilty of all of these fleshly desires, I admit that I am guilty of many of them. In fact, sometimes they become so strong that I hardly put up a fight. If this were not bad enough, I rarely take complete ownership of my wrongdoings.

However, as my professor said last Thursday, when you sin, you sin because you choose to sin. You cannot shift the blame. No matter what my parents have done wrong while raising me, no matter what kind of day I was having, no matter what my significant other said (or failed to say), and so on, I must take full responsibility for everything I say and do.

So if those are the fleshly desires, what is the opposite of that? "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law" (Galatians 5:22, 23). The reason why the word "fruit" in the phrase "fruit of the Spirit" is singular is that the fruit of the Spirit is incomplete if any of these attributes is missing. In other words, if I had love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control, but I were critical and insensitive (lacking kindness and gentleness), the fruit of my Spirit would be incomplete.

As you may recall from my first entry, I have committed this year to the LORD by not dating. Furthermore, as you may have gathered by now, I am in no shape to date in the immediate future because I need God to heal me and renew me in Christ, or I will hurt the person I date when it is time. Although there are times when I get lonely, I want to wait on God because that is the only way I know that when I date again, I will be equipped to be his best friend and greatest supporter.

my only Hope

"The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance,

that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost."

- 1 Timothy 1:15

As a Protestant, I understand the importance of reading the Bible and praying. As a pastor once said in a sermon, reading the Bible is your spiritual food and praying is like breathing. You need both to have a relationship with God in the first place, let alone one that is vibrant and alive.

I want to be an encouragement to other Christians and a living testimony to non-Christians. Not because I'm perfect. Not because I want to be noticed. Not because I have the ability. But because when the Pharisees asked Jesus to keep His disciples from shouting His praise, Jesus replied, "The very stones will cry out" (Luke 19:40) if His disciples were silent.

Last night, I was sitting in my Dynamics of Biblical Change counseling class when the professor said something that I will not soon forget: "Sin is serious before God. The temptation is to see your wrong in your eyes (guilt) and in other people's eyes (shame). See your wrongs in God's eyes."

I have been really sick with food poisoning today - and I'm sure my psychosomatic tendencies aren't helping, either. As I was crying out to God for mercy and for His healing hands on my physical and emotional brokenness, I recalled last night's lecture. I confessed to God that I am nothing without Him. I know I fall short physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually according to human standards. I am utterly hopeless according to God's standards!

I have been trying so hard to make it appear as though I have everything under control - in hopes that by convincing other people, I will eventually be able to convince myself. However, I have been tremendously humbled.

Thankfully, my professor didn't stop there: "Be in a world where someone's [God's] opinion matters and can help you."

More importantly, the Bible says, "The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning" (Lamentations 3:22, 23).

Furthermore, Jesus is the Word of God (John 1). So, in order to develop your relationship with God, it is critical to read the Bible. Do not be discouraged from reading the Bible if you feel you are not ready to approach God because He will meet you where you are. If you doubt that the God of gods and King of kings will welcome a sinner like you and me, just skim through the Bible. You will see that God used flawed people like you and me to do His sovereign work.

If an answer of generalities doesn't work for you, how about Jesus' response to the Pharisees, when they asked why He ate with tax collectors and "sinners": "Those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17).

As I write this entry, I find so much comfort in this verse because I am physically, emotionally, and spiritually sick. I hope you find comfort in His words, as well.

sermons by David Gibbons

The past week, I've been listening to Pastor David Gibbons. He is the founding pastor of New Song church in California. Here are the links to the sermons. You won't regret it.

God is in control

Title: Chaos
Text: Genesis 45:1-15, 50:15-21
Pastor: David Gibbons
Link: http://www.sarang.com/bbs/zboard.php?id=pray_sermon&page=1&sn1=&divpage=1&category=&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=7&clicked=1

true worship

Title: The Purple Cow
Text: Isaiah 58:1-12
Pastor: David Gibbons
Link: http://www.sarang.com/bbs/zboard.php?id=pray_sermon&page=1&sn1=&divpage=1&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=8

beloved

Title: Misfits
Text: Luke 15:11-30
Pastor: David Gibbons
Link: http://www.sarang.com/bbs/zboard.php?id=pray_sermon&page=1&sn1=&divpage=1&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=9

walking the straight and narrow

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

- Proverbs 3:5, 6

As the oldest of four children in a traditional Korean family, I am expected to be a good example for my younger siblings by excelling in extra-curricular activities, school, and career. My parents expect nothing less than perfection. When I was younger, I practiced playing piano five hours a day and I memorized science and history textbooks word-for-word. Even more recently, I was in an accelerated training program at a global financial company. If I were not born a perfectionist, the fear of disappointing my parents shaped me into one.

However, after 25 years of trying to please my parents, I spoke up for the very first time: I told my parents that I wanted to take a break from my career path in order to attend Westminster Theological Seminary for two years. Although my mother was reluctant at first, she finally conceded. My father was supportive and, after prayer and fasting, he admitted that although he is my father and wants what he thinks is the best for me, God is my Heavenly Father whom I must obey. Needless to say, I was speechless and I broke down in tears when I recognized God had answered my prayers.

Much to my surprise, what I had thought would bring a sense of liberating freedom has caused much unanticipated confusion. My Korean name, Yehjin, means “wisdom,” but there have been times this year when I felt so lost and clueless. However, letting go of the firm grip I had on worldly wisdom and financial comfort, and grabbing onto God’s promises in Proverbs 3:5, 6 has brought much comfort and peace.

I have decided to commit my first year of seminary to the Lord. To be more specific, I have made a covenant with Him that I will not make post-graduation plans or date this year so that I can focus only on His ministry and my relationship with Him. Consequently, I am surrendering my “need to know” – not because ignorance is bliss, but because I am developing a deeper trust in Him for all areas of my life. He may not reveal to me a “10 year plan,” but I know He will at least show me the next step at the right time. He will provide wisdom, and even if I make mistakes along the way, He will steer me in the right direction because He is sovereign.