The Story Of My Life

     Hi! It's going to be almost 2 weeks since I last posted my thoughts in 'I'd Rather Be Shot' during my trip to Victoria. I'd fallen sick with a cold and sore throat after I returned to Vancouver, so spent the last week trying to recover from that. Although I haven't posted here during that time, it's been good in some ways. God has been using the down time to draw my attention to some things in my life that I've needed to see more clearly.

    Through 'Humility: True Greatness' that I read on my trip to Victoria and back, I've had to closely look at and acknowledge areas of pride in my life, and accept the blows of God's loving chastisement, rebuke and correction. I have to say that I've come out a much better man for it, seeing myself as a 'proud man pursuing humility by the grace of God', as C. J. Mahaney so succintly expressed it. I comprehended the magnitude of His gracious kindness towards me so much better now, and have had my thought process and perceptions changed; I constantly find myself thinking about how I can cultivate humility and mortify pride everyday. I've leared to see each day that I live through differently, as I realize God's graciousness and kindness to me and all of humanity in an abundance that we're all so totally undeserving of. In the process, I'm so much more aware of the depravity and sinfulness of my own heart, and the intensity of the battle for sanctification as God works on the transformation of all that needs changing...and there is so much that needs changing. Most of all, I understand and experience the person of Christ and the power of the Cross in a way that I have not grasped before.

    A. W. Tozer brilliantly described what I feel, along with anyone else who comes to that powerful experiential comprehension of the holiness of God, in the chapter on the holiness of God in his book 'The Knowledge of The Holy':

    'The sudden realization of his personal depravity came like a stroke from heaven upon the trembling heart of Isaiah at the moment when he had his revolutionart vision of the holiness of God. His pain-filled cry, "Woe is me! For I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts," expresses the feeling of every man who has discovered himself under his disguises and has been confronted with an inward sight of the holy whiteness that is God. Such an experience cannot but be emotionally violent...We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God's holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God's power and admire His wisdom, but His holiness He cannot even imagine.'

    'Humility: True Greatness' reminded me that I have not even scratched the surface of understanding the holy God in front of whom I should tremble, having gained a small glimpse of the wretched sinner that I am without Christ and His Cross. God chose to use my favourite song of my favourite music artist to convict me about all of this during the last week. I first heard this song almost 12 years ago, played in the car of my dear friend and brother Kelvin Goveas, when starting my undergraduate degree in engineering at UT-Austin, Texas. This is 'Never Been Unloved', by Michael W. Smith:

    That song sums up my life without Christ. Every adjective rings true to the kind of person that I have been, the nature that still raises its rebellious head against the loving hand of my Heavenly Father, and every brother and sister that I have. This, truly, is the story of me: un-faithful; un-worthy; un-righteous; un-merciful; un-reachable; un-teachable; un-willing; un-desirable; un-wise; un-done; un-sure; un-broken; un-mended; un-easy; un-approachable; un-emotional; un-execptional; un-decided; un-qualified; un-aware; un-fair; un-fit; un-able; un-godly....

    BUT (And I'm glad that there's a 'but' in my story), the story of my life thankfully doesn't stop there. Because Jesus cared enough to love me, because of all that He suffered for me, I know that I have never been unloved by the holy God who has been kind and gracious in giving me the privilege of calling him 'Father,' calling him 'Papa'. Because of Jesus, grace upon grace beyond all measure has been poured out upon the life of this undeserving sinner, for which I am silent in humbled gratitude before my awesome God. He has accepted me where others have rejected, stood by me when others deserted, loved me when others hated, blessed me when others cursed, comforted me where others inflicted, lifted me when others struck down, been there when others have not. He was, is and always will be what none other can ever be. That's why, as Michael W. Smith so eloquently put it, 'He is still God, and I am still not.'

He is still God, and I am still not.

    I have said it before on this blog, and I will say it over and over till the end of my life and even beyond - I am a man who has nothing good to say about himself, and everything good to say about his God. I'm going to go listen to that song again. God bless. See you in the next post!

- The Wisdom Seeker

I'd Rather Be Shot

    The last three days have been really intense after getting to Victoria, with intense 8 AM to 5 PM sessions at the company where I'm doing a work-related training course. It's been really tiring; I haven't had much time to study after getting back to my hotel room, let alone explore the city. Massive amounts of snowfall and sub-zero temperatures in the last 24 hours pretty much reduced the prospect of sight-seeing expeditions to zero. So I thought I'd use this time to post some thoughts over the last few weeks that I tried to organize in my head on the ferry ride to Vancouver Island from Tsawwassen. I thought I'd use this time away from Vancouver to look back, reflect and evaluate.

    With everything that had happened in January, especially the death of my friend Yeswanth (see "Death Came Calling...And Took My Friend") and getting hired after 6 months of hard job-hunting, I've been doing a lot of thinking and planning regarding what I want to do. Life is picking up speed as a lot of things are suddenly coming together, and it's exciting! There have been plans that I've had to change, redefine, abandon, realize weren't what I wanted to do, or just became unfeasible. In the process, there have been new dreams and aspirations that God has introduced or replaced the old ones with. As circumstances come together for take-off, He is now providing the capability to accomplish things that I've had on my heart for the last few years, and I've been so happy as I've been able to get started on some of them.

    God has been incredibly kind and gracious in granting me a job that I love, with people that I like working with, in a company that I like working for, so that I can stay and serve a city that I have come to care deeply for, with a church that I love immensely. As He has done innumerable times before, God has proven once again that the biggest dreams we concoct for ourselves are dwarfed by His smallest dreams for us. And His smallest dreams are immense indeed, next to the paltry and feeble concoctions of men. So I suppose the question I've been trying to work through really boils down to this:

What am I going to do with God's dreams for me?

    I wrote a bit about some of the realizations I had come to earlier last month, in "From the Land of The Dying to the Land of The Living" and "I Wish None Of This Had Happened." Over the last couple of weeks, I've been thinking over something that my friend Sam said one evening. "If my life ever becomes about a big house and driving a Denali," he said, "I want you guys to shoot me." (I should hasten at this point to add that neither of us have anything against people who own big houses or drive Denalis). Although not quite the way I'd express it, that sentence neatly summarizes the posture of my mind and heart. If the main thing in life is to keep the main thing the main thing, then my main thing must not be forgotten. With all the opportunity for growth and service that is being put into my hands, there is also being provided the capability to carry them out. And I don't want to squander either of them. The movie "Spiderman" eloquently expressed Sam's sentiment in words that have now become famous: "With great power comes great responsibility."

    With all that God has been doing in my life - personally, publicly, on this blog and otherwise, I have a much clearer idea of what I can and want to do, both in Vancouver and elsewhere. I have been increasingly coming to this conclusion over the last couple of months - that I will do everything I can with everything I have for the sake of this city, to the glory of the God of this city and the King of these people; to give Vancouver hope in the midst of darkness, and as beautiful as their surroundings may be, show them the only real source of life in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

    There are so many things I want to do. And they will all get done because He who empowers me will keep my heart beating until my time is up and I've done what He sent me for. And my time will be up very soon. As I once used to say, everything will have a happy ending :)

    If Sam and I ever end up as one of the "walking dead" with the kind of shallow lives that terrify us, you know where to find us and how to put us out of our misery. I'd prefer to be shot alongside him. It's been a long day, time to get to bed and head out for another day of intense training tomorrow. I'm looking forward to going back to Vancouver. See you in the next post!

- The Wisdom Seeker

Heading Out To Adventure!

     Hello! This is a quick post before I leave home on a solo trip to Victoria in about half an hour. I'll be there for the next week on work, and my bags are packed and ready to go! I'll probably be posting from there sometime in the next few days, on some thoughts that have been circling in my head in connection with all that I wrote last month about life, death and purpose.

     Since it's going to be a 6-hour trip via transit, I'm taking these two books with me to read:

There should be plenty of time to plow through these! (I hope)

      God has been using "Humility: True Greatness" to speak to me in a very powerful way since I first saw it at my friends Sam and Esther's house during Christmas time, when we went caroling with a lot of our friends. I've almost finished it, hopefully I'll be done by the time I get to Victoria, and then I can start on "Knowing God!"

     This is going to be a very interesting trip. I love the job that God has blessed me with! See you from Victoria!

- The Wisdom Seeker