I don't need a gunbuster machine

Recently I watched an anime series called Gunbuster 2, which is about giant robots (called Gunbuster) fighting alien monsters. Well it's more than that. It is pretty enjoyable as there are some epic outrageous fights that are very memorable, and the series emphasizes the importance of hard work, self-confidence, and friendship.

The pilots of these Gunbusters are pilots gifted with special mental abilities that allow them to crazy things (like tunneling), but they are also arrogant and full of themselves because they are the only ones able to fight the monsters. So people see them as a the top of the society class. Unfortunately, their special powers are temporal, so once they lose them, they become devastated.

So one humble girl was able to join their team of pilots because she had the potential to acquire these special abilities. But since she didn't have these abilities, then all the other pilots look down on her, and avoided hanging out with her. So this girl goes on a journey to get herself a Gunbuster machine because she wanted to be recognized by another pilot (who she looked up as an older sister). For the sake of making the story short, the pilots are ambushed, and this girl suddenly comes back and "awakens" her true power which is like thousand times more powerful than the current Gunbusters.

What is awesome is that she realized that having a Gunbuster or not, it is not important, that she is not defined by what she has or by what she can do. Her worth is based on her inner person, and she works hard to cultivate a stronger character in her.

Many times, I struggled with the fact that I tend to define myself with what I can do in school, at work, and in church. And I am driven to do these things so that I can accomplish something and that I can find my worth based on what I have accomplished. This often has led me to be over-worked, exhausted, and burnt out.

Truly, I always need to be reminded on my identity as a loved child of God. Christ has shed his blood for me, so my identity is based on Christ! I don't have to accomplish stuff to prove my worth, because God has already ransomed me at a very high cost. So instead of working hard to prove who I am, I should focus on working on my inner character with the help of the Spirit, so that more of Christ can be manifested in me, and accomplish great things so that people can give glory to God.

Character

This weekend I had a great time in a bachelor's party, and it is truly a joy to witness a brother (who I know for very long time) to grow in the maturity of the Lord, and now committing to marriage.

We did a wide variety of events including paintball, wings night, watching the worst movie ever, manly breakfast, wall climbing, all you can eat sushi, cheap steak lunch... it was pretty awesome. As well, we had a time of prayer to encourage our brother in this new journey. Also, we had very late night sharing, where we talked about various spiritual topics, and it is really encouraging to see a brother sharing about their God-given burdens, and the desire of their hearts to walk with the Lord. Really treasure these times (not sure why it has to always happened at post 1am).

Of course we talked about the role of the man in a marriage relationship, and the aspect of "spiritual leadership" was brought up. For most of us, we see this accomplished through investing time in prayer time and bible study with the spouse, and serving the Lord together. But this brother shared that these activities are very good, but it is not just about that. It is also about growing in the character of Christ, to grow into a man who can love his wife unconditionally, who can make the right decisions in difficult times, who can make sure the relationships stay centered in Christ. I think this is good.

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." - Ephesians 5:25-27

Revelation Song

Recently I have been really affected by this song called the "Revelation Song"

Such a beautiful song because...
 it expresses the infinite greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ
 it portrays how powerful Christ is
 it centralizes in the constant worthiness and holiness of our God

I have no more words, but to listen to this in different languages:

 

knowledge vs knowing

Recently I had the joy to catch up with my home pastors from Guatemala. They are originally from Vancouver (from the Chinese Alliance Church), and they served in the missionary field for many years. During my high school years (very long ago), they both influenced me a lot in my early spiritual walk, and I learned so much from them. Actually, now that I look back, I can actually appreciate more the lessons they taught me.

It was great to meet up with them, and to be able to catch up like friends. Even though they are far older than me (finally I felt young for once!), we were able to share with joy what's going on in our lives. More importantly, we are connected with the love of Christ, and that is a bond that we as fellow brothers and sisters are privileged to have.

As pastors, they deal with a lot of church issues (we are sinners, and there will be issues in a community), so I was sad to hear about a brother that recently left the church in Guatemala. He is a very smart person, and soon after he became a Christian, his knowledge in the bible grew a lot. He was commended in my home church as the brother who possesses a vast theological knowledge. And apparently he had read through the whole bible several times (in Spanish and English, not sure about Chinese).

He was in charge of many important church ministries, but he suddenly notified the board members that he will be leaving (in a month). And now he and his family is going to another church. The part that saddens me is that he will still attend the men's group, and criticize and accuse my home church... making comments like "I was never edified in the last x years", causing grieve and disruptions among the group of men.

Perhaps I lack the general context of this whole scenario. I have nothing against people switching churches, but the fact that he is talking bad about the church with the group of men is not loving at all. For sure, I can point out many shortcomings from my home church, and some of this had hurt me in the past, but the proper response is not to talk bad. The reality is that we are all sinners, and it is natural that issues will arise. The difference is that we as Christians understand that we have been forgiven, that our transgressions against the Holy God have been removed, because of the great sacrifice of Christ. And because of this, we are empower to forgive others' transgressions towards us (Col. 3:13). We are to extend God's grace towards others. This applies to all context of relationships (marriage, family, friends, church).

What I am really trying to get at is that there is gap between knowledge and knowing about living the Christian life. The sheer knowledge of theological truths might not do anything good if it just sits in my intellect. Actually, for me I find it dangerous at times because the more knowledge I gain can make me more prideful, and I have tendency of looking down to others. This is not good.

The reason why we want to gain more knowledge of theological truths is that we can get a better understanding of our great God, and be marveled for His greatness, so that we cannot anything else but to bow down and worship Him. So we need to internalize this knowledge in our hearts, and really "know" Him more and more.

On a similar note, I want to share this message from Francis Chan, who speaks about how to stay humble:

Barcelona 0 - 4 Bayern Munich

So a couple of weeks ago, my favorite soccer team lost very badly against Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League semifinals. It was a very shameful lost. The game is played in two matches, so Barcelona lost the first match 0-4, and lost the second one 0-3. After the first match, I knew the chances to revert it was very low, but I was hoping that Barcelona would lose in a more dignified way.

There are many reasons why Barcelona lost so badly (injuries, long season, lack of key players in certain positions), but simply Bayern Munich is the better team at this point in time.

And many critics saw this defeat as an indication that Barcelona winning cycle is coming to an end. Barcelona has been the most dominant team in the last 5 years, and it is considered one of the best team in history. But I am confident that this is just a "small defeat", and that Barcelona will come back next season as one of the favorites to win the title. Of course, Barcelona will have to make some readjustments like strengthening their vulnerable defense, and find players that can take the team on their shoulders when Lionel Messi is not there.

As I think about my spiritual walk with Christ, I have experienced many defeats in my battle with sin. I often feel that Romans 7 reflect my life very well, I know what is the right thing to do, but I end up doing the contrary. It is really because God's steadfast love and mercy are new very morning, and His grace unfathomable that I can keep on walking with Him.

Whenever I feel down and ashamed of my sins, I am reminded that God loved me while I am a sinner (Romans 5:8) and that He has taken away the sin from me (Psalm 103:12) by the death of Christ on the cross. The constant reminder of the gospel, which is full of grace, compels me to keep living my life for the glory of God!

There are times when we need to make readjustments in our lives, so it is good to spend time reflecting how my walk has been with the Lord, what are the areas of my life that I need to submit to Christ? Was I able to know God more in the recent months? What I have learned from Him lately? Some good questions that I asked myself once in a while.

When we experienced a defeat, it's ok, as God is with us. His love never changes, and He is faithful.

Tim Keller posted something based on John Newton's "Blemishes of the Christian Character": http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/05/24/forgive-us-these-faults/, which I think it is a good read because often we are blind to our own faults while we think we are acting in a Christian way.

to be or not to be

In the recent times, many of my friends are either getting engaged or getting married. I see couples that get engaged after a considerable long period of dating (e.g. more than 2 years), as well I have seen couple getting engaged after very short period of dating (e.g. within 6 months). So this led me to think about whether there is a recommended period of time a couple has to date before entering engagement, which leads to marriage. I have spoken to different groups of people to get a spectrum of opinions regarding this topic.

About dating longer

As Christians, we get into dating relationship with the purpose of marriage. We believe that marriage was ordained by God  (Genesis), and that marriage is also an illustration of the love that Christ has for the Church (Ephesians 5). Marriage is a beautiful relationship that God designed and we ought to take it very seriously.

Hence, we during dating period, we should take the time to get to know our partner to determine if we can find any "deal breaker" that will end the relationship. It takes time to get to know a person. My analogy is poor, but I work as a Software Tester, and it is impossible to test a product 100%, so we try our best to test it within the time given to us, ideally we want to find all the "show stopper" bugs, so that we can release guaranteeing the product will be ok. Similarly, we want to date well so that we can find and sort out "deal breakers" so that the marriage can be smoother.

Another argument for this is that when a couple starts a dating relationship, there is a "honey moon" phase, where emotions are strong, and the couple sees sunny days, rainbows, butterflies and flowers even when in reality we are in a Canadian winter day. So it takes some time to "cool down" before the couple can maximize their objective thoughts regarding their relationship. As well, there are probably not much heated arguments during that "honey moon" phase. It is part of our sinful nature that we will hurt each other in a relationship or disagree on things, so understanding conflict resolution as a couple is a very helpful exercise to grow as a couple.

I personally come from divorced parents, and experienced the consequences of a broken family. It's not pretty. As a Christian, I have a firm conviction that divorce is not a choice, therefore I think the decision to be engaged has to be made very carefully. In most cases, carefulness involves taking time to think about it and getting more information (to mitigate risks).

But, I also think that having a prolonged time of dating can be dangerous because it can show insecurity or lack of commitment as a couple to move forward.

About dating shorter

I will go back to the illustration of marriage, which is Christ loving the church and dying for the church (Ephesians 5). Christ died for the church, not because the church loved him or the church could add more value to Him. We know that when we were sinners, enemies of God, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8), and that God loved us first (1 John).

So we can see from these that love is not purely emotions, but it is driven by a will. A will to do something (an action) on behalf of its object (from a sermon from Voddie Baucham). Christ loves us even when we were his enemies!

Going back to the relationship aspect, a man chooses to love a woman even though he might not know all the possible "deal breakers", but he will still love her even if a "deal breaker" is known because love is a conscious choice he made.

"Momentary Marriage", a book by John Piper, emphasizes in the aspect of covenant, which involves serious commitment. Even during marriage, there will be difficult times, when we will know more of the shortcomings of our partner, but one learns how to love despite these shortcomings. Loving a person is not just about the "good" things of our partner, it is also about the loving him/her in spite of the "bad" things.

This view focuses on the commitment aspect, and when a couple starts dating, it is expected that their commitment is as close as to be ready for marriage, hence there is really not much point of dating. And a prolonged dating period can be seen as having more "room" for the couple to bail out from this commitment.

Though this view seems to have a lack of emotions, I don't think this is the case at all. Though love is driven by a choice, it is also accompanied by emotions that confirm the choice made.

Any conclusion?

This is really hard to answer because there are many factors that we didn't take into account:

• maturity, age, life stage
• parents' viewpoint
• life vision
• character compatibility
• spiritual depth
• serving roles
• etc

There are more questions that are interesting to answer:

• How well you need to know the other person before going towards engagement?
• What factors (or deal breakers) will lead a couple to break up?

I think that the question of how long one couple should date before getting engaged has to be really treated case by case. Though there are safe guidelines to follow, they might not be a must. There is a need to have a conviction that a marriage relationship can only survive by the grace of God, marriage has to be Christ-centered, otherwise it will fall apart as adding 2 sinners into an intimate relationship does not make it easier.

I personally will ask myself these questions:

• Am I willing to lay down my life for this person? (no matter how long you date, you just cannot know a person entirely)
• Am I willing to share in her burdens and life baggage?
• On a very dark day, can her smile make my day the brightest? 

will of the fire

So I have been quite busy with work that I am neglecting this blog a bit, but I cannot wait to write something about one of the first manga series that I started to follow, which is the famous ninja series Naruto.

This series is often criticized because there are many ups and downs, and sometimes it is just ridiculous. But there are certain aspects of it that I really like it. There is a common theme throughout the series, and that is the "will of the fire". Perhaps it is not explicitly portrayed, but it comes out on almost every arc.

The main village is from the Fire country, and it is ruled by a leader (called Hokage) which main job is to ensure the peace and safety of the people under his rule. It starts on episode 1, when we are told that the 4th Hokage dies protecting the main village against a fox monster. So the sub-themes of becoming strong to protect your town, become self-less for the sake of your friends, and living in harmony with others are very apparent in this show. And this overall idea is called the "will of the fire" and it is passed down from generation to generations, through example where leaders live it out, and the young ninjas are inspired by them.

It makes me think about one aspect of fellowship, where we meet up to encourage one another in our walks with God. For sure there is relationship-building and mutual support in fellowshipping, but there is also the aspect of being partners in the gospel, to live our lives serving God.

One thing that I want to see through a fellowship, is that the love (manifested through caring, actions, service, gifts) that we have for one another does not end inside the fellowship, but that each member will carry this "will of the fellowship" wherever they go, so that the gospel lifestyle can be experienced by others.

Recently, the pastor John Piper retired from being the preaching pastor at his church (he is transitioning into other ministries). It is encouraging to see the video that his church prepared based on his faithful service:http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-legacy-of-john-piper-in-the-lives-of-real-people-video-tribute

A joy to see that the passion that John Piper has for living our lives for the glory of God, and enjoying ourselves in Him, is impacting the people at church in multiple facets.