Month: May 2013

“Meeting Him Face to Face” Journal of Reflection 5/26/2013

Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.

Last Friday, my wife and I went to pick up our daughter at college because we missed her. Though the rainy and windy weather was against us, by God’s grace, the trip went well. At my daughter’s summer apartment, I was astonished to see her living condition is not as clean as she was in school’s dormitory. She told me that this is just a temporary solution and is a good rental in terms of staying around the campus in summer. I didn’t say much but thought now she is thinking. 🙂

As I look back my old college days, I went through a similar condition as she did. I have to learn how to manage my very limited support from my family, finding a cheaper and convenient place to stay around the campus. As the tuition and expense are hiking each year, it becomes very challenging for families with limited resource but still have to support their college kids. We always sighed, “Life is getting tougher and tougher in these days”.  Then, a question comes to my mind, “Is our life going to get better and better in this world?” “I am not sure”, when I search for an answer.

You could argue that the advancement of modern technology does make our life easier, faster and convenient. The drawback is we become more like slaves of the technology – spending more time with our gadgets, TV and internet surfing without talking to people face to face. Under the similar trend, I observe that the used to be face-to-face meetings in my working place are also being replaced by conference calls and emails. The result is emotional indifference getting bigger and bigger nowadays.

Last Saturday, a supposed to be “outdoor” Memorial weekend BBQ turned into an “indoor” picnic gathering in our church, due to a persistent rainy weather. The weather, however, didn’t dampen everyone’s excitement who had attended the gathering. It is amazed to see so many new faces that we have never met before, around the area. Though it was busy for many of us, we were all very excited to talk to new friends, face to face. The emotions ran high when games and songs were played. From this experience, I realize that it is always preferable to meet people face to face since human is created in God’s image, having passions and feelings.

To express His love and to communicate His plan to us, God sent His only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to meet us “face to face” in this world. Without Jesus’ great act – the Word becomes flesh – we couldn’t realize how deep is God’s love and how holy He is. After Jesus’ resurrection, in one of the occasions, He met His disciples face to face by the Sea of Galilee (John 21:1).  Jesus’ action reinstates Simon Peter’ lost faith. Later in the book of Acts, he was filled with the Spirit and had the courage to preach to the crowd. What a transformation from a “fisherman” to a “fisher of men”!

When a man meets the glorious God face to face, he will immediately realize how incapable and how weak he is. This is the beginning of his transformation! A vivid example is from the book of Acts chapter 9. When Saul met Jesus in the road of Damascus, his life was totally changed – his name changed from Saul to Paul and he became an apostle of the gentiles instead of a Pharisee of persecution. My dear friends, it is an invaluable experience to meet the Lord face to face. May you have the opportunity to meet Him in person.

“Are you helping?” Journal of Reflection 5/19/2013

Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.

About two weeks ago, I spent one afternoon to install a new toilet to one of my bathrooms. The old one has developed an annoying leak, after decades of usage. I had it fixed twice but it didn’t last long. Finally, I decided to replace it by myself with a new one.

As you know, replacing a toilet is a smelly job but unfortunately, someone has to do it 🙁 Besides, the heavyweight toilet could be a problem to my back – because, I need to hold it steady in the air and align it correctly with the two dangling bolts on the flange of the drainpipe at floor. The tricky part is you have to do it right at the very first time. Any subsequent take-it-up and re-alignment work would otherwise destroy the wax ring that is supposed to seal the toilet to the drainpipe.

In light of this, my wife asked my son to give me a hand. You can guess how willing he is – it took a while for him to come down to the bathroom. 🙂 Then, he asked me what he could do to help. Due to the limited space in the bathroom, I didn’t ask him to do much but help me to watch the alignment and give me tools when I need it. After a brief stay, feeling he is not of use, he quickly lost his interest and disappeared. I continued to finish the installation work.

The interaction between my son and myself makes me think. I realize that my own spiritual walk with our Heavenly Father is sometimes, just like my son: not knowing His heart intimately, reluctant and not persistent in His ministry. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate my son’s help. However, this leads me to ask myself two questions.

The first question is, “Does God really need my help?” I’m sure the answer is “Certainly not!” He is omnipotent and He can do everything without my help, as He is the creator of this universe. Then, why He needs me in His ministry? There is a question in the Old Assembly’s Catechism, “What is the chief end of man?” could give us a hint. Its answer is, “To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” God created us and He gives us opportunities to serve in His ministry and to enjoy Him forever. Our responsibility, as His children, is to listen to His calling, learn His will and carry it out persistently in order to glorify Him.

The second question is, “Do I serve Him out of love or because of someone’s demand or order?”  I need to examine myself how often I serve God out of guilt instead of out of love. In other words, “Do I serve Him passionately or grudgingly?”  Admittedly, this is where I fall short most of the times.  I could understand my son’s reluctance in some extent because it would take his time off to help me and besides, this is not an enjoyable job. If he were not my son, he may not even show up. This is a good reminder to me.

My dear brothers and sisters, the author of the book of Hebrews told us that “In the past God spoke to us through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son神既在古時藉著眾先知,多次多方的曉諭列祖,就在這末世,藉著他兒子曉諭我們(Hebrews 1:1-2a) ”. Let me ask you, if I may. “When God speaks to us through His son, do we listen to Him attentively? Do we react grudgingly or passionately?” Hope your answer is, “Yes, I listen to Him attentively and I respond to Him passionately.” 🙂

“Please Come Home” Journal of Reflection 5/12/2013

Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.

 Almost all the questionnaires and surveys I received during my school days have a question, “What is your mother’s profession?”  I always had a hard time to fill that one out. So, I asked my father, “What should I fill out for the question?” “Keeping the house (家管)”, he answered. I wasn’t clear what it means at that time. As I grew older, the more I think it, the more I realize how insightful it is.

I would never forget, in my younger days, how my mom takes care of our family. She gets up early every morning, wakes my brother and me up and prepares meals for us in order for us to take early morning train on time to our schools. Then she would need to wash our dirty clothes at a river near us, clean the house, do the food shopping and prepare daily meals afterwards. In addition, she would need to feel our growing pains – we come to her with our joys, our hurts and our frustrations all the times.  I can’t imagine how our life would be like without her to keep the house taking care of the family. Her tremendous effort spent in laboring and comforting for the family, however, is easily being taken for granted by us. Are we always appreciative? Not really!

This lets me think of a story told by Max Lucado, a pastor and prolific author. The story is regarding how an unappreciative daughter, who is from a small village, feels her strict parents have cheated her out of the joys of life and runs away from them to the big city Rio, Brazil.  Her mother found out the very next morning and dashed out to find her. The mom posted her pictures around the city trying to find the ran-away daughter. To her dismay, she couldn’t find the daughter and had to weep all the way home. Months later, the daughter has already worn down by life and her brown eyes no longer dance with youth but speak of pain and fear. She was longing to go back home but thought it was too late to turn back. As she slowly walked down the hotel stairs one morning, she saw a familiar face posted on the lobby mirror. Her throat tightened and eyes twitching as she walked across the room to get the photo. On the back of the photo, it writes, “”Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.” And she did.

The mother’s great effort in getting her daughter back home tells us how great a mother’s love to her child is. This is exactly what God has done for us. The hymnal authored by Eliza Hewitt, captured the calling from God. It says like this:

“Give me thy heart, give me thy heart,” 將心給我將心給我, 聽見嗎

Hear the soft whisper, wherever thou art, from this dark world He would draw thee apart; Speaking so tenderly, “Give Me thy heart.” 這隨時隨地呼召, 祂要救你脫離俗世漩渦,慈聲向你呼召, 將心給我 

My dear friends, the prophet Isaiah told us that “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 我們都如羊走迷、各人偏行己路.耶和華使我們眾人的罪孽都歸在身上。(Isaiah 53:6)” God loves us and He prepares a way of deliverance – His only begotten son Jesus Christ – for us to reconcile with Him. Just as the mother wrote, “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.“, we can boldly “come as we are 照我們的本相” to receive God’s love – acknowledge that we are all sinners and receive His son Jesus as our personal savior.

Someone once said, “Being a mom is a sacred partnership with God”, on this Mother’s Day, let’s remember our mother’s love and most importantly how great our God’s love is.

“God does not make junk” Journal of reflection 5/5/2013

Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.

Last Friday night, on my way back from youth group’s game night, my car radio was on all the time. I was not paying attention to the message, however, because of the distractions inside my car. In the middle of the broadcasting, the preacher popped a phrase that I haven’t never heard before. He said, “God does not make junk”. I find this is an interesting and enlightened one.

In general, “junk” means secondhand goods, rubbish or cheap stuff, or meaningless talks. Connotation wise, it could mean “unwanted” or “useless” stuff. I don’t know how many junk mails you received each day, in my case, at least 60% of our daily mails are in “junk” category.  Sometimes, it is hard for me to imagine why there are so many people interested in creating “junks”.

When the preacher said “God does not make junk”, he hinted two aspects to us. Firstly, he hinted that God is the maker – He has the ability to make something. In fact, the Scripture clearly tells us that God is the creator of the universe (Genesis 1:1). No wonder psalmist said, “Let all the earth fear the LORD and let all the people of the world revere Him. For He spoke, and it came to be 願全地都敬畏耶和華願世上的居民都懼怕祂因為他說有、就有。(Psalms 33:8-9a).” Secondly, the preacher indicated that God’s creation was “good” not “junk”, because “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. 神看著一切所造的都甚好(Genesis 1:31a) ”.  

Based on God’s view, we can deduce that the creation of Adam and Eve was good and there is nothing to fuss about.  The trouble comes when Adam and Eve decided to act against God’s will, their perfectness of creation was blemished. As a result, sin enters into this world and we have sickness, genetic defects and death, etc.  Once a while you may hear this kind of comment, “I was born to be like this 天生就是這樣 with a sarcastic tone. It has the smell of dissatisfaction against himself / herself. As the defects are so common among us, we have to call ourselves the “normal” human being.

Has God done nothing but let us to spiral down after Adam and Eve’s fall? If this is the case, then junks we shall be. The truth is He didn’t, the Bible told us that we are apples in His eye and we are precious to Him. He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to deliver us from the bondage of sins, preventing us from spiraling down to “unwanted junks”. As such, we can ask the question, “How precious are we in God’s eye?” The answer is it is as precious as His son’s blood! 

My dear brothers and sisters, it is God’s love and our Lord’s grace that we can be saved. Consequently, can we consider ourselves junk? Certainly not! Can we say God makes junk?” By no means! May we remind one another that we are precious ones!