From the Land of The Dying to the Land of The Living

 I thought I'd launch my New Year with a powerful idea that hit me last year. It happened a few days before my Master's thesis defense in late April. Looking at my hand one morning, a thought struck me:

I'm dying.

   The words of 2 Corinthians 4:16 came almost immediately to mind: "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day." A few days before that realisation, I had listened to a sermon from 2004 by John Neufeld, Senior Pastor at Willingdon Church where I attend. Titled "The Precious Event of A Believer's Death," it covered the death of Abraham's wife Sarah in Genesis 23. Contemplating his sermon, it finally sank in with more than an intellectual understanding - this world really isn't the Land of the Living; it's the Land of the Dying. From the moment of my conception, the clock ticks away and I'm only growing older, not younger, till the time of my death. For all our social, scientific and technological advancement, the reality of our mortality cannot be we smoothed away by any amount of anti-aging cream. Pastor John went on to point out that The Land of the Living is occupied by those believers who have taken the final journey through death, welcomed with rejoicing by God and all who have gone on before.

  Contemplating that, I followed it to its conclusion:

    If this is the Land of The Dying, I'm not going to be around for very long.

   That made a lot of sense. Even if I made it through another 50 or 60 years, that's still insignificant in comparison to eternity that is waiting on the other side. I had read plenty in the Bible about the fleeting nature of this life and heard it preached from the pulpit, but I think the implications still remained somewhat intellectual and vague until I heard that sermon. Having it finally sink in, I was left with a question:

What do I want to do with my time here?

    I thought long and hard about the lat 5 years, and all the grand plans and swelling ambitions that I had constructed for myself after having finished my undergraduate degree. So much had changed along the way after starting out with an almighty roar in hot pursuit of high achievement. God had redirected my obsession with Aerospace Engineering to do a graduate research program that I accepted as a last resort, at a university that was my last choice, in a city that I did not have any plans to move to. Along the way, I have met so many wonderful people, had my perspectives changed, assumptions devastated, grown and changed tremendously, experienced trial and heartbreak...

   So what do I want to do? I know what I don't want to happen. In my final moments before I take the road that exits this life, I don't want to look back and just see a diligent student who did well in school, got a high GPA and academic accomplishments to boot. I don't want my life to become about a great professional who always put the project first. I don't want to just see an hard-working engineer who wrote great code and built impressive systems; no one will remember either of them. I won't want to see my possessions, certificates or accolades that only accumulate ever thicker layers of dust; none of them will give me any comfort at that time. An impressive resume will become meaningless, for no one will ever use it to make a hiring decision ever again. Any money (or lack of it) that I accumulate will have an exchange rate of zero on the other side of this life.

   I want to pour my life out to the very last drop for that which will bring life to people's hearts. I want to tell them about the Living One, the Christ without whom there is no Land of The Living. Loving people has become very important to me. I want to love those around me with all the risks that come with it, even if I get hurt in the process; the hurt won't matter anymore on the other side of this life. What good is it being a stingy miser with my words, affection and actions? Who am I saving all my capacity for love, anyway? Am I planning to hoard it carefully and spend it all on those whom I meet when I cross over into the Land of The Living? That's so stupid!

   I have come to the conclusion that as great as it is that we are able to develop innovative technology, building better systems of any kind will not ultimately change the condition of the human heart, out of which all things flow. Neither will the approach of taking power out of the hands of the few and putting it into the hands of the people; it is pointless if the heart doesn't recognize the One who possesses and bestows all power, understand what true power is, and how to wield it. Without bringing people to the knowledge of the Living One, the Giver of Life, I have come to the belief that every other accomplishment in my life is ultimately meaningless.

   I want to shine the light of the Living One in the Land of the Dying, so that those who are dead will see His light and come along with me on my journey with Him to the Land of the Living. If I die in the process, I'll get there all the faster.

  This post is dedicated to my dear friend Julia, who brought her grandmother and grandfather to know and accept Christ, shortly before her grandmother passed on a few days ago.

- The Wisdom Seeker

Run Hard. Full Stop.

   This is my first post for the New Year! Happy New Year, everyone!

   I had a great New Year's Eve, as Angie, Tim, Jacky, Alana, Paulman and I attended Willingdon's New Year's Eve Service. It was a wonderful time of reverent prayer and worship, as we sang songs reflecting the guiding hand and strengthening presence of God - 'Everlasting God', 'Great is Thy Faithfulness', and many others. There was a time of testimony, as people shared about the marvelous ways in which God had touched their lives the last year, many describing how they had accepted Christ for the first time, returned to Him after years of wandering, seen God bring family members to salvation, healing from cancer, and much more. I was so moved listening to these stories, and I'm sure others were too. God spoke with powerful impact to many of us through the simple yet convicting message from Hebrews 12:1-2. 

   From there, it was off to Jamie's for a New Year's Eve potluck, and a wonderful time of food and fellowship, and a hospitality shown to all of us that reminded me so much of my mother's care of any guest that has crossed the threshold of our house. It inspired me to take care of people better when they come over.

   I found myself back home with Paulman, Tim, Angie, Jacky and Alana as the final hour of 2010 began to tick away. And as the last remaining minutes went by, our "family" remaining in Vancouver (with the rest away at Winter Conference in Calgary) came together to do something that I have desired for many years, but never had a close community to do it with. With a deep intimacy that has been born through the saving, redeeming, transforming and healing power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives, we gathered in silence my living room. Paulman prayed, pulled up the lyrics for some wonderful praise and worship music on our wall with the projector and playing his guitar, we sang and worshipped our Faithful God who has seen us through so much in the last year and ushered us together into a new one. It was such a powerful moment of connectedness as our Shepherd who has tended to His family of 9 little sheep was present in our midst, touching our hearts and minds with His presence. Here's a photo or two that I took:

Getting ready to worship as a family, as the final minutes tick away

Woshiping to the lyrics of 'Blessed Be Your Name' in our living room

   As I write this at 3 AM while watching Francis Chan's 'Crazy Love' on DVD, they are still in my living room - Angie sleeping on the couch, Tim sitting in my chair to chat, Paulman playing Starcraft. I look forward to seeing Alison, Tommy and Sam as they arrive back from Winter Conference. I love them all so much.

   The following hymn by Charles Wesley is my prayer for this year, as I run with all my might for my Christ, my Lord, my King, my All.

O Thou, who camest from above,
The pure celestial fire to impart
Kindle a flame of sacred love
On the mean altar of my heart!

There let it for Thy glory burn,
With inextinguishable blaze
And trembling to its source return,
In humble prayer, and fervent praise

Jesus, confirm my heart's desire,
To work and speak, and think for Thee
Still let me guard the holy fire,
And still stir up Thy gift in me

Ready for all Thy perfect will,
My acts of faith, and love repeat
Till death Thy endless mercy seal,
And make my sacrifice complete

     I'm going to run hard for the sake of The Name Above Every Other Name with every drop of life I have, even if it kills me. And if it does kill me, I will stand in His presence that much sooner, seeing the face and hearing the voice of the One whom my heart longs to behold. 

Run Hard. Full Stop.

- The Wisdom Seeker

Salvation: The Guardian

"For the Lord God is a sun and shield..." (Ps. 84:11)

  After letting the impact of the last post settle in over the last two days, I have been contemplating a rather difficult and unsettling conclusion:

   The more I walk with God, the more I realise how little I really know or understand about Him.

   Why is this such a big issue? It follows from my foolishness in looking to impotent superheroes who never got off their comic book pages or animated series to come to my rescue when I needed them. I believe there is much to be said about my misplaced admiration of the celluloid and paper heroes concocted by man's imagination than the love, potency, and protective ability of the One to whom all power belongs. I've been infuriatingly slow to see the truth that's been staring me in the face all along:

   "El", The Powerful God, is the only One capable of being 
The Guardian that I have been searching for.

   I wonder why it has taken me so long to see all this - the greatness of God and the impotency of all that my mind and heart has sought for protection. Emulating the armour of my most admired superhero did nothing to protect me, as hard as I tried. Superman did not swoop down to be the "Man of Steel, Man of Speed, Man of Strength", rescue me from danger and deflect the proverbial "sticks and stones". Optimus Prime from Transformers, for all his size, powerful voice and grand words of leadership had nothing to show or say when he was needed. Wolverine slashed his way through countless enemies both in the comics and on screen; there was not a single claw mark to be seen in defense of the innocent in real life. Michael Knight sallied forth with K.I.T.T  in Knight Rider as "a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless in a world of criminals that operate above the norm". Neither was to be seen anywhere. I could write reams upon reams about the concoctions of the mind and heart of man both in creating and looking to heroes that are evanescent shadows at best, ultimately failing to meet the expectations of those who hold on to them.

   How immeasurably different from any man is the heart of the warrior God of the Bible who stands and fights on my behalf!

   Cain, son of the very first family, has no inclination to love and protect his brother Abel; he murders him instead. When asked by God where his brother is, he answers with the words "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4:9, ESV). How different is the promise of the Lord of hosts of whom it is written in Psalm 121: "The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand...The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life"! History testifies time and again that fallen man, with all his grandiose promises of stopping oppression, lifting the downtrodden, executing justice and bringing peace has proven himself unable to be the hero that follows through. It is thrilling to realize that no human leader of any kind will ever claim, or be able to wield, the kind of power attributed to God in the words of Psalm 91 or anywhere else in the Bible. And He demonstrated His desire to love and protect in the ultimate exercise of power through the Person of Jesus.

   "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age," said Jesus in Matthew 28:20. The writer of Hebrews echoed this fact with the promise of God in the Old Testament: "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Joshua 1:5, ESV). I am only now beginning to comprehend the magnitude of God's protective nature in the Person of Christ. Any superhero conjured into existence by imaginative writers and artists looks pathetically silly in contrast to John's description of His vision of the risen Jesus in Revelation 1:12-16. Any heroic words that writers put into the mouths of heroes and superheroes of comics and books pales in comparison to the assertion of Christ: "Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades" (Revelation 1:17, ESV) Though I gave my life to Christ in serious commitment 15 years ago, it saddens me to contemplate that it has taken me so long to internalize this deep truth of His person:

  Christ is the Guardian who protects my heart and mind, not through emotional barriers, but through the active, living, invincible armour of His Holy Spirit within me who wraps Himself around me tighter than any man-made armour ever could.

   Even as I write this post, my mind is struggling to digest the implications of all that has hit me. I'm going to stop here and go and process all of this for a bit. See you in the next post!

- The Wisdom Seeker