Aug 29, 2012 | Faith, Life Reflections
The longer I am a Christian
The more I find out
How much of a sinner I am
How incapable I am
To be like Jesus
My understanding increases
My nature struggles to catch up
Still wretched, still poor
Thus I fall shorter, shorter of the mark
The longer I am a Christian
The more I desire to be real
In the heart, not just on paper
In the flesh, not just in debates
But it’s easier to be an intellectual Christian than a real one
And when I go home to my mirror
The light of God shines
In my reflection I see two faces
The longer one is a Christian
They say one sees his sins even more
Because Jesus is closer
But for me that is often questionable
And it is very distressing
To be seen more pious than I really am
The longer I am a Christian
The more desperate I become
Because I am helpless
And powerless to obey
But the longer I am a Christian
The more I know the all-sufficient grace
That covers me just the same
The more I know of me
The greater I need my Savior
And He saves me
Yes, even today!
And that is why
The longer I am a Christian
This grace is just more amazing
Than when I first believed
My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things; That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour. – John Newton, author of the hymn Amazing Grace.
Aug 24, 2012 | Life Reflections
…is the view I get when I head home from campus. I have come to associate it with the peace of homecoming, the quietness of a day’s end, and the coming rest. It is especially precious on Fridays. On this particular Friday, this certain poem seems to match the mood of my day, my week.
Intimate Hymn
From word to word I roam, from dawn to dusk.
Dream in, dream out — I pass myself and towns,
A human satellite.
I wait, am hopeful, as one who waits at the rock
For the spring to well forth and ever well on.
I feel as bright as if I tented somewhere in the Milky Way.
To urge the world to feel I walk through lonesome solitudes.
All around me lightning explodes sparks from my glance
To reveal all light, unveil faces everywhere.
Godward, onward to the final weighing
overcoming heavy weight with thirst.
Constantly, the longings of all born call out, “Is anyone around?”
I know each one is HE, but in my heart there writhes a tear;
When of men and rocks and trees I hear;
All plead “Feel us”
All beg “See us”
God! Lend me your eyes!
I came to be, to sow the seed of sight in the world,
To unmask the God who disguised Himself as world–
And yes, I wait to be the first to announce “The Dawn.”
– from “Human, God’s Ineffable Name,” by Abraham Joshua Heschel
Happy Sabbath.
Apr 28, 2012 | Life Reflections
One of the things that my childhood best friend and I used to do a lot was to dress up in the same clothes. Our moms would buy us the same t-shirts or the same dresses in different colors, as if to say to the world, “Yea, we hang together.” There was one time though when our moms bought us Minnie Mouse t-shirts, but whereas my friend’s mom let her wear it right away, mine was stored in my mom’s closet for a long time. In fact, it was so long that by the time I wore the ‘brand new’ t-shirt, my friend was already using it as PJs.
I think generally it’s a good value to teach kids to wait vis-à -vis instant gratification or self-indulgence. The problem is when that mentality bleeds into the realms of dreams, ambition, and pursuit.
In my mid-twenties I’ve realized that many times I’m still trapped in that ‘save the best for last’ mentality, relics from my childhood past. I’d buy something nice or mildly indulgent, and store it and wait until the perfect day and time to finally use it, be it a nice towel , a journal, bath gels, etc. Usually they are in the personal items category. What happens most of the time is that I forget about them, so there they are, nicely stored, unused.
While those things are not that deep, I find myself using the same mentality when I think about certain dreams or things I want to do in life. Things like writing a book, going on mission trips, or going to exotic vacation trips. Somehow there’s a guilt-tripping voice in my head that says, those good things are for one day, one non-descript time in the future, when everything’s perfect.
It’s only relatively recently that I started questioning those voices, and shutting them up, pretty much. What is this ‘one perfect day’? Am I to wait until I’m old and have backaches to start enjoying life? No. Way.
So I am going to write a book. This year, for real. I am going to go on mission trips (which I did last year and will do it again many more times). And I am going to Paris this summer. Some good things are for now, and there’s no need to wait.
