Redeemed.

thoughts&things. Just a basic tumblrlog/stream of conscious. Usually ramblings, thoughts about faith, encouragements, discouragements. Here is where I can be organic, I think, at least in my own thoughts. -- Things tagged by day, week, month, year, season, as well as Bible books, major events, commitments. Tags

[brokenponderings]

9:20

Tuesday, December 6, 2016.

My older sister (who’s not really my older sister, but she is) just got engaged. What is life TuT

[brokenponderings]

22:16

Friday, November 25, 2016 (Taiwan time)

Wow, I wonder if anyone still reads this ol thing?

I’ve been on a 1.5 week-long trip with family to Taiwan, and have been learning many lessons from my experiences thus far.

- Greater awareness for the lack of knowledge of gospel and unreached people.  We’ve toured the entire border of Taiwan; as I watch the people frying up food for their livelihood, squatting near their gutters, I wonder what their lives are like.  Jesus says they need him, too.  Will someone carry the gospel to them?  Much less the thousands of people in Berkeley, at every church plant, every city of all nations.

- Greater appreciation for my friends back at home.  Realized just how sorely I miss all of them when I arrived in Taiwan.

- Greater burden for my brother, actually.  All these years I’ve been the younger. But on this trip, I’ve realized in many ways his role is of the younger--because of certain events, his reactions to circumstances, and the like.  I feel a great sadness and a little grief for realizing this.

[brokenponderings]

22:56

Well, somewhere I plucked up the courage.  Nothing in my life prior to this point has required more courage, but by golly I did it

[brokenponderings]

23:11

Night thought--

If I’m going to make a fool of myself tomorrow, I might as well make sure my teeth are dang white.

[brokenponderings]

15:44

Wow, I have not written in 8 months!

Maybe will write some reflections soon.  8 months -- long story short, I survived through senior year, with a lot more joy and strength than I deserved. God is good.

[brokenponderings]

17:48

Ahoy, I am still alive somehow.

Senior year is upon me. Upon us.  And despite all my preparations and prayers and asking for supplication, I still think I am in all of this for the wrong reasons.  Fused tangled motivations and emotional nights and pettiness on my part.  Feeling attacked by people I love for trying to follow Jesus even a little bit, foolishly allowing that to make me question if I really am crazy for sowing fruit for the next life.  Career looming in the horizon, except that horizon is not so looming because it’s less than a year away.

Somehow I am still alive, trying to love people who don’t bother to respond to texts and working out 2 year-old relational strains, knot by knot.

Yet somehow I find myself praying more, repenting quickly, basically begging for mercy and strength to get me through the afternoon.  Right now, it doesn’t feel like it makes a difference, but my future self who will have enough faith to trust Jesus simply will be thankful for college years.

“The hardest thing to do in the whole world is God’s will on your own strength.”

I wish I had passion and zeal for Jesus.  But as Arie told me before -- if only I could learn to redirect my discipline, devotion, ambition for the world to Jesus, what I can possess is just that.

[brokenponderings]

23:33

boop boop, here’s another RRR week, approaching Thursday.  I’m nervous bc the last spring RRR/finals week I had so much doubt I almost walked away from Jesus... and I feel like if I continue in isolation study mode the same will happen.  must not.  be emo.  stop being emo

in other news I am just straight up scared of senior year.. wee

[brokenponderings]

10:04

Woops, I haven’t reflected in awhile poops.  Anywho. 

I've felt challenged through C301 and through some things at the Bethel concert. 1. C301 Suzanne challenged us on Tuesday to really understand that we're here for the right reasons, and warned us against being here for community/friends.   When she was talking about how, when cost outweighs benefit, the above people tend to take off... if I'm honest w myself I would consider myself such a person.  Right now, yeah, there is a lot of benefit for me to stay for my friends or for a large community or a safe place.  But realistically, I know that that will not sustain me because being Christian means following Christ and not all these things.  So I am here because I know the gospel is real here, but I'm allowing all these secondary gifts from God to outweigh my primary desire to know God.   That's just my honest assessment of my heart, and I can tell this because of the reasons I hesitate to personally sacrifice my time, money, and energy. 2. Bethel concert - winning my heart In one of the songs sang at Bethel ("Be Still"), there's a line that says "And you have won my heart, more than any other."  I paused to consider the implications of that, and I realized how I have been missing out on that joy of being won by love.  My reality is that I am very practical and calculating, considering benefit and cost in every little aspect of my life, including spiritually.  Relatedly, they had a project called "18 Inch Journey" (the distance bw your head/heart); it resonated with me because translating head knowledge to heart knowledge is something I have so much trouble with. 3. Sunday Message - Israelites I've heard about these fickle Israelites in at least 10 instances (messages, Prince of Egypt, etc. etc.), and I always thought them to be pretty dumb for wanting to turn back to Egypt and slavery.  That's why I was so surprised that, when Kevan presented Exodus 14 to us again, I really could identify with them. I wish for my old life, where I don't have to struggle against sin.  Even though the Bible warns me against that life as being unfulfilling, I'd be lying if I said I didn't want it. 4. Desiring God I'm currently reading a book called When I Don't Desire God (Piper), and it addresses where I am now.  I should want to know God and to hunger for the Bible and want to make his name known.  However, if I am honest with myself, I instead desire fleeting pleasures and comfort in this life.  The only thing that stops me from completely giving up is... that I desire to desire God.  Does that make sense?  I want to hunger for the right things, but I don't. "To be satisfied by the beauty of God does not come naturally to sinful people.  By nature we get more pleasure from God's gifts than from himself ... God would have to transform my heart to do what a heart cannot make itself do, namely, want what it ought to want." So every time I pray, I pray to desire God and to help me know that my idols will not satisfy.  I ask the Holy Spirit to teach me to want God.  But beyond that I do not know what to do.

[brokenponderings]

15:07

Some thoughts regarding this time of my life:

1. How much I am exceptionally inept at being thankful for what I have.  People don’t have to care for me, but they do; don’t have to pray for me, but they pray; don’t have to send verses to me, but they send.  Didn’t have to be a place for me to stay prior to my flight, but there was.  Friends do not have to love me thru my cynicism, but they persist.

2. How judgmental and snobbish I am without even realizing, not to say that my ignorance excuses me (I think I am beginning to understand what Piper says when he says our ignorance only deepens our guilt).  The way I prepared the message, the way I interact with non-Christian family members.  I was so fortunate to have leaders read my message and give me feedback, for my mom to speak about having grace on non-believers.

3. How important the word of God really is.  Thankful for Piper’s book and his advice on how to wield the word of God as a weapon.

4. How voids are truly only filled by hopes and promises that God provides.

Thankful for ACTS, thankful for the body of Christ, thankful for hope, even if peace is not... yet.

[brokenponderings]

22:12

Cynicism is the sickness of my culture

[Well, more like cynicism is my sickness.]

[brokenponderings]

"Sometimes, I don't even know who I am; I'm just a collection of the expectations of others."

[brokenponderings]

4:12

Wednesday, February 11, 2015. I've never met anyone crazier in my life. To even begin to comprehend how... how we are up at this ungodly hour, how she wept as she told me she is mad at Satan because he's getting to me, how she's so sad at watching me fall into cycles of despair. Utter madness.

[brokenponderings]

[brokenponderings]

0:20

Tuesday, January 20, 2015.

So many thoughts I need to sort through and wrestle with from winter retreat.  I attempted to do so tonight but failed, literally because all of the other thoughts continuously kept popping up and bothering me.  So exasperatingly I just jotted down what I wanted to reflect about and set some time aside tomorrow.  Hope things will be made clearer.

Leave with this thought: to be sure, my desire pulls me in the opposite direction of what I know to be my duty.  I pine after worldliness, yet know that this really can't be all there is.  Wonder if they'll ever become united.  Desire and duty, enemies of my heart.  It would be a wonder if they ever became acquainted, much less friends.

[brokenponderings]

23:03

Monday, January 12, 2014.

I’m so stressed about future I feel sick.. Realizing only now and upon M’s advice the importance of praying about it. Even then, still feel sick.

[brokenponderings]

21:53

Sunday, January 4, 2015. How on God's green earth can one love and hate doing something with the same intensity? (If such people were labeled insane, the world itself is their mental asylum.)

[brokenponderings]

23:11

Saturday, January 3, 2015. Realization of my under-appreciation of a new year. Freshness, new beginnings. Sheepishly remembering also that I haven't finished my 2014 reflection yet. Gratitude in realizing that I don't have to wait for the year's beginning to have new mercies. -- Just... all in all hoping that this seeming absence of emotional involvement is a step towards emotional maturity and not ambivalence, as the trend has been for the last few breaks and indeed the last month. I pray to Father like crazy when I catch myself, to change my heart like I know only Love can.