Taiwan Update #1

Tension is to be loved…

I’m sitting here at the San Francisco airport waiting to board my flight to Taiwan and reflecting upon the jam packed emotional roller coaster I’ve been through for the past few months, feeling compassion towards those who’ve witnessed my freakout sessions during this period. The only way I can describe how I feel right now is how one feels after returning from a missions trip. Words do not suffice when you try to relay to others what it was like to be in a different country, totally out of your normal context and experiencing a greater dimension of  God’s heart. It’s HUGE!!!! So as I sit down and try to document and articulate everything, I’m finding it hard yet helpful for myself to share God’s goodness to me in these past months.

Looking back through my previous update videos for my supporters, I remembered how back in February God woke up a hunger in me for His Word to be written deeply in me.  As I committed to reading the Bible and understanding the book of Joel, I saw how God did answer my prayers and began to write His Words in me.

In my mind, I envisioned this process as memorizing all the End Times’ events and His promises.  Instead, He began to make His Word come alive in my life through studying it and through relationships in my life.  He began to show me how good He is.  Rather than holding on to the same fear and anxieties I first approached the topic of End Times with, I began to see what all the Old Testament prophets saw, that God “is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity..” (Exodus 34:6, 2 Chronicles 30:9, Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 86:15, 103:8, 111:4, 112:4, 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2)

Though I was reading about the coming calamities, about Jesus’ robe drenched with the blood of His enemies, I didn’t see an angry God, I saw the intensity of His love.  God’s goodness grew increasingly tangible as I dove deeper and deeper into the book of Joel and now finally into Revelation.  I truly believe that God gave John the apostle the task of writing Revelation because he is the beloved, the one whom Jesus loved. As my friend Pat always says, Jesus had his twelve, His three (James, Peter and John) and His one, John the beloved.  God chose John for the task to show all His believers, that the book of Revelation is a book revealing who Jesus is, love.

I have to admit I was severely intimated by the End Times.  I felt that I would never be able to comprehend the enormous atrocities the earth will soon face. But my friend Christina and I decided that we would meet once a week to go through the book rather than stand far off from the event most talked about in the Bible, held back by our fears.  As we encouraged each other to devour the End Times, we saw how God does bless those who read and study the End Times, just as He promised (Revelation 1:3 “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near).

Not only did God reveal the truth of His love, the foundation of the End Times, but He also broke my heart with His goodness. God invited me into trusting Him with my heart.  As He invited me in through various opportunities, I realized how scared I was of what He would do with my heart.  But He showed me, as He led me through many fears I have towards myself and Himself, that He is good. His goodness is not just a statement the prophets are taught to memorize to repeat back to the people. But it’s something so deeply engrained and experienced by these individuals that they would proclaim this truth in the face of the harshest enemies and instruct them, in love, to turn from evil and back to their patient and loving Father.

I wanted nothing more than to avoid these times where my weaknesses are revealed and tested.  But as the book of James proclaims (James 1:2), God tests our faith in order to prove what’s there and to produce strength in us rather than to make us fall flat on our faces.  Sixpence puts this into words most articulately, “tension is to be loved, when it is like a passing note to a beautiful, beautiful chord.” I’m slowly beginning to see now, what He is producing, great fruits for all to enjoy, including myself. Praise the Lord.

Tension is to be Loved
By: Sixpence None the Richer

but tension is to be loved
when it is like a passing note
to a beautiful, beautiful chord

rock to this…

so there’s still a lot i’m in the middle of and processing….so rather than a straight up update, i thought it would be nice to share some good music with you lovely people. so here’s some lovin’:

You’re Beautiful 

by: Phil Wickham

I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say 
You’re beautiful

I see Your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of the stars
It’s all proclaiming who You are
You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful

I see you there hanging on a tree
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne
Soon we will be coming home
You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful

When we arrive at eternity’s shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring 
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful

I see Your face, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful
I see Your face, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful
I see Your face, I see Your face
I see Your face, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful

 

i highly recommend purchasing this cd:

Increase of Italian doctors refusing to perform abortions

check out this interesting article in the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/europe/23fbriefs-RISEINDOCTOR_BRF.html?ex=1366689600&en=6a1bd490f0c1599f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

what’s going on God?

The past few months God has been pruning my heart. I’m still in the middle of it so there’s still a lot of ambiguity as to what exactly He is doing with those shears in His steady hands.  But, I know He is doing a good thing despite all the emotions this process is stirring up in me.  He is beginning to break my understanding of who He is, giving me new wine and new wineskin. This is waaaaaaaaay uncomfortable and I feel confused and silly a lot of times. Pray for me please : )

 

God has been showing me how I unconsciously hold back negative feelings I hold towards Him. I was tired of being me and blamed Him for it.  I was tired of being “broken and contrite.” Tired of offering broken things to the most high God all the time.  I wanted to give Him something perfect, something beautiful and worthy of His glory and splendor.  As I broke down in tears crying out painfully, facing disappointments I have toward myself, my Abba began to speak.  He told me as His friend, I should to be honest with Him. Real friends tell each other how they honestly feel rather than conceal their brokenness and pretend everything’s fine when it’s totally not. The revelation of the truth of how God knows my weaknesses so intimately yet love me so deeply, pursues me SO relentlessly gives me strength and desire to love Him. (Psalm 139, 1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us”)

 

Another area that God has been shaking up the false foundation in my heart is in the area of how He receives my gifts.  Through a conversation with a friend, I realized just how much God is moved by my heart. What I conceive as trifling insignificant sacrifices I bring before Him, He highly esteems. I’ve walked in the deception that God feels that He is entitled to everything I give Him and is constantly demanding more from me. I began to cry as I realized how He carefully records everything I give Him, how His heart is touched by my heart’s desires for Him. He is touched, GOD IS TOUCHED that I moved away from my family, my friends, all that was familiar, that I gave up my teaching job because I love Him and know He is worth it all.  He hasn’t forgotten anything I’ve given Him. This encounter has transformed how I approach Him and how I pray.  I’m now a bit more confident before Him and want to pray even more because His love compels me. 

 

God has designed each of His children uniquely. Rather than appreciate every detail He has carefully chosen and sewn into me, I’ve been trying to run this race in someone else’s shoes.  I’ve been trying so hard to quiet quirky things He has put in me in my pursuit of holiness. I have bruises and disappointments from running in the wrong shoes.  During these past months, God’s been revealing to me what His fullness looks like in my life.  What He has shown me looks dramatically different from what I imagined.  I feel Him stretching my faith through this because I have to go to Him and wait on Him.  I can’t just settle for answers from people anymore.  Even if I do go to other people whom I respect and honor as spiritual and holy, their answers can’t satisfy me no matter how much I want them to.  God has awakened this longing in me to hear His heartbeat and I can’t quench it!

 

Every time I ask Jesus for the map of my life, He only shows me the next step.  In His kindness, He gives me my daily bread rather than the ginormous storehouse I am asking Him for. He is SO so so dedicated to transforming my heart to one that communes with His daily rather than every once in awhile.  He is committed to helping me live totally dependent on Him in every way.  Funny how this is exactly what I want, yet I rebel from God giving me the deepest desires of my heart.  Thank You Jesus, for Your commitment to me obtaining the fullness of joy both now and for all of eternity. 

 

Theme song of this season:

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
O how bright the path grows from day to day,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the everlasting arms;
I have blessèd peace with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

 

Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the everlasting arms.

 

 

Taiwan Missions Summer 08

This summer I will be taking a team of five FMA (forerunner music academy) students with me to Taiwan to spread the message of intimacy and support the houses of prayer there.  Please read our support letter and pray about supporting us through prayer and finances. 

in Christ alone

I love this song…

In Christ Alone

Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart TownendCopyright © 2001 Kingsway Thankyou Music

In Christ alone my hope is found;

He is my light, my strength, my song;

This cornerstone, this solid ground,

Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace,

When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!

My comforter, my all in all—Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,Fullness of God in helpless babe!

This gift of love and righteousness,

Scorned by the ones He came to save.

Till on that cross as Jesus died,

The wrath of God was satisfied;

For ev’ry sin on Him was laid—Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,

Light of the world by darkness slain;

Then bursting forth in glorious day,

Up from the grave He rose again!

And as He stands in victory, Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me;

For I am His and He is mine—Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—

This is the pow’r of Christ in me;

From life’s first cry to final breath,Jesus commands my destiny.

No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,Can ever pluck me from His hand;

Till He returns or calls me home—Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.

   

CRY!

Been pondering on why God tells and wants us to cry out or even the fact that multiple people in the Bible tell God to “look”, “listen” etc. If His eyes are always upon us why do we even need to ask Him, yell at Him and tell Him to pay attention to something He already knows (Psalm 139, Psalm 34:15)? He is not simply telling us to tell Him nicely, the original Greek of the word for “cry” from Romans 8:15 means “vociferate-complain, shout, loudly/vehemently, particularly inarticulate cries.”   I especially love the last definition, “inarticulate cries” simply because I’m the queen of that.  In Psalm  56:8, where it talks about how God puts our tears in a bottle, I chuckle at that verse  because I bet when I get into heaven when God shows everyone bottle of tears He has kept, my bottle will most likely be one of the largest bottles He has.  That bottle will probably be as large as multiple water towers combined.  I just love how God is moved by our inarticulate cries and tears.Interesting video on this subject from Rob Bell’s Nooma series:  

feed me

Recently I visited my hometowns Chicago and Naperville, Illinois during break. I was truly encouraged by what I saw God doing in my friends’ lives. During my stay there, I visited the University of Illinois at Chicago ’s (UIC) house of prayer led by my awesome sister, Grace and Tobias. Though there were only five of us there praying and worshipping Jesus, it definitely rocked.

Their house of prayer meets Mondays through Thursdays at 9pm and usually lasts for at least an hour. God profoundly called both Grace and Tobias to build this house of prayer. After both struggling through how to go about doing this weighty task, they just went ahead and did it.This house of prayer meets in the Montgomery Lounge, a relatively large student lounge which many students who live in the dorms pass by on their way to the cafetaria. Muslim students would often gather here for their daily prayers.

I attended UIC from 2001 to 2005. During my first year I would attend prayer meetings and prayed for revival to fall on UIC, but after running on my own youthful zeal and energy which was not grounded in God’s Word or intimacy with Him, I gave up contending for revival. It’s awesome to see how passionate and faithful God is in His desire to see this college and the entire city of Chicago turn to His love. This little house of prayer’s fervent and genuine prayers to God that night, their cries for the fire of revival to fall on their campus roused my hunger and anticipation to see God do something incredible!

Two of the students who attend this house of prayer have received intense End Times dreams from the Lord. Neither of these two attend spirit-filled, end times believing churches! One girl shared with me how in her dream, water rose in a common area where students often gather. The water receded and at once she began to urgently share with all that were there about Jesus. Then an army of angels flew into the quad and past her where she saw a sword in the middle of the quad. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to hear the other student’s dream. God IS waking up this generation to the season they are living in.

Apart from UIC-HOP, another encouraging encounter was with one of the girls I discipled when I was back in Illinois. She recently messaged me on facebook one morning with a dream God just pounded her with. She woke up frightened, having never encounter a dream like the one God gave her that morning. I believe it was God’s way of waking and equipping her to walk in the fullness of her calling.

Lastly, despite the fact that my friends from my church back home are all scattered in various places, (Ohio, Missouri and Illinois), it’s encouraging to see how God is moving all our hearts toward the same direction: intimacy. We are all beginning to see how ministry should not be the prime focus of our Christian walk. Rather ministering from a heart that is alive and on fire for our Lover, Jesus, is the true place to be. Anyone can put on great programs to heal depression, save marriages and fix financial issues, but only Jesus knows how to touch the depth of man’s heart, bring healing and hope. There is only POWER to make lasting changes when we shut our lives down and put the first commandment in its rightful place. In the recent month, I’ve realized how futile it is to live a life dancing around the fire of God is. I wanted so desperate for God to put me in the flames of His all consuming love, giving Him all of me in exchange for all of Him. There is no power in a burnt out, Wordless (lacking Biblical foundation) life hanging by yesterday’s manna (encounter with Him). We need new revelations, encounters, go deeper into the depths of HIM every single day. We have NO time to waste.

“for the Lord Your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God” Deuteronomy 4:24

Recommended Resource:

while in Chicago, my sister introduced me to this film by Darren Wilson. It documents his two year pursuit and discovery of some of the signs and wonders God has been doing all around the world. Places he visted include Bethel, Toronto Airport Church and Heidi Baker in Mozambique.I was so encouraged to see these miracles captured on film. Some of the miracles include gems, gold dust, healings and the testimony of a man who was resurrected from the dead then forgiving those who killed him.The testimony which most encouraged my heart was the one about a monk who was dead for three days. On the third day while he was being prepared to be cremated, he sits up in his coffin and says to all the monks around him that it’s all a lie! Only the Christians know the truth. He saw monks and buddha burning in a lake of fire. Many monks converted upon hearing his encounter.

If you’re offended by authority figures in your life, I highly recommend this book. Gene Edwards tells a narrative story of three Kings who each ascended into thier throne in different ways. These Kings are Saul, David and Absalom.One of the many wise words the book spoke was, God brings Saul into our lives in order to work out of us, the Saul that is in our hearts. Also, that we can’t tell if the authority in our lives is a Saul or David even though we are so certain they are one or the other. Only God knows.

Hitler and the occult

contrary to what many believe…Hitler was deeply involved with the occult. interesting Discovery Channel documentary on this topic. It’s a series of 12 videos on YouTube, check it out: