the power of context

My 1000-day battle rival blogged something interesting about me: http://josesfromhalifax.blogspot.com/2011/12/man-among-men.html

I am quite encouraged by the title, but I am compelled to explain the situation in case people think I am too scandalous. I was born and raised in Guatemala, though both my parents are Chinese. In Latin American culture, the salutations are very physical. Girls will say hi or say farewell with a kiss on the cheek, no matter if she just has met this person. Meanwhile handshakes are performed between guys. Obviously this is very outrageous for Chinese people, because the way to say hi or farewell in Chinese culture is to like take a step back and raise the hand to make a signal of hi or goodbye (which looks the same).

So regarding the blog post, we were just saying farewell in the context of the Latin American culture (since the girl went for an exchange to Uruguay). Nothing scandalous here if you know the context.

This is actually a great illustration for interpreting some texts from the bible. A lot of times, we tend to read certain passages and get fond of certain verses that we can relate to, and I do that quite a bit. But there were cases when I was taking bible verses out of context, which is dangerous because I can interpret the bible incorrectly. For example:

"'Meaningless! Meaningless!' 
   says the Teacher. 
'Utterly meaningless! 
   Everything is meaningless.'" - Ecclesiastes 1:2

I used to go to quote that as an excuse to skip tutorials, because seriously 99.99% of our tutorials were useless. (By the way, I was jokingly quoting that verse). If we take this verse as it is, then we can say that everything we do is meaningless, therefore I have an excuse to not do well in school, to not work hard and just spend the entire day playing video games. But that's not the case! We need to learn about the context of the entire chapter 1 (and the entire book) so that we can understand the author's intent.

Another cool thing about context is that it helps us uncover a greater meaning of the a passage. Let's look at  the Parable of the Lost Son in Luke 15:11-32. This passage is very familiar, we are often identified with the younger son because we naturally run away from God. For the longest time, I focused on debating who the older son is (whether is refer to the Jews or not), but then I realized that this passage is not really about either sons, but about the father's compassion.

Verse 20 is very key because it says that the father ran towards his son. Normally, this is not a big deal, as we can say that the father indeed is compassionate and misses his son, so it is quite normal for him to run. But if we dig into the Jewish culture, men do not run, like they do not run because it is considered shameful because in the way they are dressed. So here, the father didn't care whether running was shameful, but went out of his way to kiss his son. And in similar manner, our God who is almighty, powerful, indescribable, glorious, and awesome, has gone out of His way to save mere sinners like us. And this understanding makes me see how much more gracious and compassionate our God is!

Christmas gift

Feliz Navidad!

It's a joy to write about my favorite day of the year, Christmas! It is definitely a time of joy and peace, because we are celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. The glory of God is really magnificent because an all-powerful God will come to be born as a little baby, who will eventually grow up to be a man who live without sin, and die for the sins of the whole earth, so that everyone who has faith in Him can be saved. And this not by our merits, but all by the immeasurable amount of God's grace.

The last sermon from Simply Church (by Pastor Lew) was about Christmas gifts, and I want to elaborate a bit on that sermon. Why do we give gifts to people during Christmas? God gave us Jesus during this day, so perhaps we are to be gracious to give gifts. On the other hand, there is crazy push for shopping (boxing day) that make this season very materialistic. And this influence us to make this gift-giving aspect of Christmas to be more about buying cool stuff to our families and close friends rather than giving what is more important.

Pastor Lew talked about 4 things that we should give: presence, forgiveness, reconciliation, and I don't really remember the last one (sorry it is getting late for me).

I agree those are the more important things to give, rather than the actual physical gift. I am not saying that giving the physical gifts are bad, but the previous items should be given first. For example, if a son can just give their parents a Christmas gift, but choose to not spend time with then during Christmas. Or there is a quarrel among siblings, but they still give each other a gift, but don't really ask for forgiveness and reconciliation.

As Christians, we are called to imitate Jesus. And the result of Jesus' ministry on earth is that man can come into the presence of God, attain forgiveness of sins, and be reconciled with God. So we ought to spend time with people dear to us, to forgive others from their wrongdoings to us, and to seek reconciliation. Doing all these things are really great gifts, and gives God the glory He deserves!

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." - John 1:14

Reflect

Just recently I went into Village 1 (V1) main area on campus to deliver something to a frosh, and as I walked in to the area I couldn't help but to feel  nostalgic about this familiar place. I used to live there when I was a frosh 6 years ago. The place has not changed much, and I can still remember some of the feelings of anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and excitement when I was a frosh, a new person into Waterloo, knowing nobody, embarking myself into this new adventure called university.

A lot of changed since then. God has been so gracious in molding my character through the power of His Spirit, to give me the desire to go after His heart. God has blessed me so much and as time goes by, it is easy for me to take this for granted, or to even forget. 

So during this Christmas time, one of the things I like to do is to quiet down myself, and think about how good God is, how much He has changed my life, how gracious He is, how I need to humble myself and acknowledge His greatness! This is a great way for me to refresh myself in the Lord, to be encouraged for the challenges of next year.

"When I  think about the Lord

how He saved me, how He raised me

how He filled me with the Holy Ghost

how He healed me to the uttermost

when I think about the Lord

how He picked me up turned me around

how He set my feet on solid ground

It makes me wanna shout;
"Hallelujah, thank you Jesus,
Lord you're worthy of all the glory
and all the honor, and all the praise!"
It makes me wanna shout;
"Hallelujah, thank you Jesus,
Lord you're worthy of all the glory
and all the honor, and all the praise!" 

    - When I think about the Lord by James Huey

This is the first picture of me in a CCF event! Guess what event this is and where I am:

Favorite anime of 2011

My favorite anime of 2011 is Steins Gate. It is a thriller about time travelling, consisting of a great story (unpredictable most of the time) and involving many unconventional characters. I actually really enjoy the main characters which is one of the main aspects I looking into when watching an anime. There were also other great anime that I watched like Madoka (yeah, I was astonished about the quality of this one) and Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae (the name is not that good, but the show is the total opposite).

One of the reasons why I like Steins Gate more is probably because the show is about a very cool and interesting topic like travelling through time, and alter the past to make a better future. To a certain extent, I have thought of wanting to change something from the past because of silly mistakes I made that I regret now or I want to change events to turn into my favor. I can think of tons of things.

And with this, I realize that mistakes or struggles from the past have actually taught me much, and if I haven't made these mistakes in the past, I could probably be making them now. As for making choices (selecting school, career, fellowship and church to attend, classes to take, people to invest in, etc), there are things that I could have done differently which will affect me and the people I hangout with. It is interesting, there were probably better choices that I could have made.

But here is where I need to trust in the sovereignty of the will of God. In the moment I made a decision, I can barely see a small snapshots of the bigger picture. And as life goes on, I start to see additional snapshots that reaffirm me, that even if a decision done does not seemed to be the best, it has provided me a valuable impact that is for the best.

When I started going to church, I went to this intensive seminar for basics of Christianity. And there I learned to definition of the "will of God" for me. And it is defined as "the best plan for me if I knew all the circumstances". Yeah, I don't see the whole picture, that's why I need to trust God even in times of uncertainty, taking each step at a time being convicted that God is always good.

So yeah, there is no need to travel back through time.

Being

One recurring struggle that I have is that I tend to define myself based on what I do, and measure my worth based on my performance in serving and doing things for people. That's one reason why I find vacation times or breaks very weird because I don't really have anything to do. This is probably part of the Waterloo-workload-conditioning because there was usually no free time at school, and whenever I had free time I was in a state of shock.

Sometimes I find it hard just to enjoy the company of people because my mind is constantly thinking about doing more things. And it is easy for me to have the attitude of just wanting to fulfill a duty and not really put my heart into it.

Also, I believe one of my spiritual gifts is serving, and I really take delight in serving others and do good especially to the family of believers (Gal 6:10). But there are also times that I go overboard in doing good to others, so that when my effort is not appreciated or accepted, I tend to get disappointed.

And we are "human beings", but it is easy to be a "human doing". We tend to be defined by what we do and place our worth in how good we perform in school, work, ministry. Many of us get easily stressed about exams, busy times at work, serving at a big church event because it is a big deal that we do well in those areas. I think it is a good thing to pursue to do well, but we should not put that as our first priority because the pursuit of doing well can become our idol.

 Instead, we should be defined by who we are. And who we are?

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" - 1 John 3:1

This is intense because our identity is a child of God, and this is only possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God love us not because we are doing good to make us love-able, but Jesus died for us while we're still sinners (Romans 5:8). Our worth is based on the sacrifice that was paid for our sins, the work of Christ on the cross. Our identity is in Christ, and we are blessed to be called God's children, and we should remember this.

I like to give the cliche encouragement "Do your best, and leave God the rest" because I think we can only do what we can at the best of our abilities, and trust that God is pleased with us, and that He will carry us for His best plan. In the end, our first priority is to glorify God, and He is not glorified when we put a higher focus on other things.

This is something I am in continuous need to remind myself and learn!

Butterfly and cat

On my undergrad convocation, I was given a folder with my undergrad diploma, and inside it was also a letter from a famous professor from the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. This letter is about a story of a butterfly. Basically, it talks about a butterfly struggling to get out of the cocoon.

So the butterfly struggled for several hours to to its body through a little hold of a cocoon, and a man was observing. And the man decided to take a pair of scissors to help the butterfly get out of it. But the butterfly had a small body and wrinkled wings. And the butterfly could not fly, but for the rest of its life it had to crawl. Apparently, the process of the butterfly struggling to get out of the cocoon is a way to force fluid from the body of the butterfly to is wings so that it can fly.

Basically, the point is that Engineering is a very tough where all students faced many struggles. But the struggles are what we need in life to form our character. 

To a certain extent, this sounds very biblical because suffering and trials are ways in which God refine our faith in Him, making us more dependent on Him, and molding our character to be like Christ. That's why it is considered to be a joy to go through suffering (James 1:2-4 and 1 Peter 1:6-7).

Even though I complained about school many times, I realize that there are many important skills I learned. And it is not so much about the theory of technicalities about the courses, but more in certain sets of skills:

• retaining information in very short amount of time
• managing stress in crunch weeks
• prioritizing among many deliverable (assignments, projects, tasks, exams, etc)
• organizing my time

And now that I am full-time working, I can definitely see the benefits of my education (even though I had very tough days during the process of getting that education, especially a 3 consecutive all-nighter).

This brings me to an anime that is very relaxing, called Aria. It is really relaxing, and it took me a very long time to finish it because I was not able to watch more than 2-3 episodes a day. But the quality of the series is great because it has great character development, neat character interaction (the setting is a character itself), and gorgeous animation.

There is this female gondolier (person who "drives" gondolas) named Alicia who is like the nicest character in all anime history. And she has a fat cat that is kinda dumb. And there is a scene in the cafeteria where she makes the cat deliver a candy to kids from a different table (which is a fairly complex task for the cat). And it takes a while for the cat to deliver the candy. Then another gondolier comes and ask why she is not helping the cat (or at least guiding the cat to the kids' table). Alicia's reply is that even though it might be easier (and take less time) if she helps the cat, she wants the cat to learn and feel rewarded for such difficult task. She believes that's the best for the cat.

School is challenging, and life is very challenging, with much struggles and trials. But we have faith in that God is sovereign over everything and that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). Even though we might not realize at the moment of the trial, God is purposefully using every situation for our own good.

Appreciating variety

It is really interesting that within the living room of my place, 4 different seasons can co-exist:

This is really cool!

It is also cool that within the CCF fellowship there is a variety of people from different places, different backgrounds, different ages, different academic programs, different Christian denominations, different personalities, different skills, etc... all come together to worship the same God, living our lives for same goal to live as Jesus did, and share the gospel to others. 

CCF is a great community, but we fall into the danger of getting too exclusive within the subsets of the fellowship that share a specific trait such as same year, same academic program, or same background. I am not saying that getting close to people who share a similar trait is a bad thing, instead I think it's beneficial to have a group of brothers/sisters who you are close to. Because there are so many people in the fellowship, and it is impossible to get to know everyone in the same depth. And we need to choose the people who we want to build a deeper relationship and share each other's burdens. But at the same time, we have to be careful to not be exclusive to the point that we just spend time with the same group of people, and neglect the rest of the fellowship. 

It's actually a great blessing to be in a fellowship like CCF because one can learn so much from people who are very different, whether they are younger or older, engineering or non-engineering, born in Canada or born in Hong Kong, extrovert or introvert, etc. The great joy is that in midst of this variety, we all share in the love of Christ, and we live to glorify Him.

Overjoy

This week I went to an all-day training session about computer programming for my job with a person who worked at Microsoft. It was nice to take a break from the every day work and to learn more about some of the good practices about coding.

I was a bit worried that I will be bored and fall asleep (since I haven't attended a lecture for a while), but the presenter made it very interactive, and we had some good group brainstorm activities (we were seated in tables). We also took 7-minute breaks every hour, and after every break the presenter will show us some interesting pictures that are a puzzle, as we need to guess what words of phrase those pictures represent.

I wasn't able to find anything in the internet, so I tried reproducing the most simple ones:

These ones are quite easy to get (if you can't get it, the answers are in the end of the post). There are others that were almost impossible to get, and some that were very neat, but I forgot most of them now!

I have a friend who like to use the word "overjoy" which I don't hear much nowadays. He often applies this word during prayers or deep conversations about our faith to convey how joyful we should all be because of the grace and mercy shown to us by the cross of Jesus Christ, and that the gospel that has saved us is still affecting us every day because the Holy Spirit is continuously working in us to be more like Christ, and He is filling us with joy and peace.

I am always encouraged by Paul, especially in the book of Philippians (which many know it's my favorite book). When Paul wrote this letter, he was in jail and not knowing if he will die the next day, probably going through many hardships, probably missing some of his closest fellow workers (like Timothy), probably not doing great in health. In spite of his circumstances, he was able to write some of the most encouraging words I have heard:

• I thank my God every time I remember you (1:3)
• In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy (v4)
• to live is Christ and to die is gain (1:21)
• Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ (1:27)
• I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord (3:8) 
• Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! (4:4)
• Do not be anxious about anything (4:6)
• And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (4:7)
• I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation (4:12)
• I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (4:13)

In a bible study in grad cell, a sister shared her insight that Paul was not thinking of his circumstances at all, but always thinking about God, about how good He is, and about how much He has blessed him and the fellow saints in Philippi. Because of that he was able to be joyful despite his circumstances; even more, he was able to encourage others to be joyful because his mind is set on God.

In this exam time, I hope that fellow brothers and sisters will commit themselves to the Lord, and be joyful in this mental and physical challenging times.

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Guess what this means:

Answers:
first 3 pictures: J-walking, breakfast, circular reasoning.
last picture: always overjoy

Gentle whisper

It has been more than 7 months since I last blogged. This is kinda ridiculous that I am slacking that much. I have to admit that laziness is one reason why I have not blogged for a while. Also, I have been quite drained by work (even though it is only 9-5, it can take a lot away from you), as well as busy after work with some sort of ministry. I tend to like to fill my schedule because I want to be useful to God with the time I have. But there are many points in my life when living this full-schedule has been doing more harm than good in my relationship with God, because I just don't enough spend time alone with Him, quiet down myself in prayer, talk to Him in prayer, and meditate on His Word. Sometimes it is just difficult to feel that God is near.

As time increases, symptoms of burnout increases.

This has been a struggle lately. And it is something that I was aware of, and was hopefully wanting to overcome it at the start of the fall term, but this term has been quite demanding. 

But somehow, God has been giving me certain realizations here and there, as well as encouragements from brothers and sisters, and just personal conviction that God is indeed near and He is gentle whispering to me to focus on Him every time. Now that the term pretty much ended, I have some time to rest up physically, reflect on the things I need to improve, and replenish myself with the goodness of God. And I look forward for this, to just really deepening communion with God every day.

I look forward to prayer walks, reading more (both the bible and as well as Christian literature), blogging, and writing personal emails (I really like personal correspondence!). Blogging is definitely good because it helps me to put in words the realizations from God, and it makes me discipline to be constantly thinking about God and His interaction with people, and I hope that by the grace of God this can be encouraging to others.

One of the most memorable CCF bible studies was on summer 2007, when we did 1 King 19, which talks about an ownage person like Elijah. He did great things but he fled when the queen Jezebel was persecuting him. Elijah feels lonely, unmotivated, tired, inadequate, depressed (all of these seems signs of burnout). Then the Lord speaks to Eljiah, but Elijah responds with much complains. Then the Lord manifests His great power:

"Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”" - 1 Kings 19:11-13

God is able to perform so many powerful things (very strong winds, earthquake, fire) but the Lord came and spoke to Elijah through a gentle whisper. This shows that God is merciful and gracious, that His gentleness breaks the tough hearts of men to draw them back to Him. God is intense.