the one with some thoughts on Exodus 33

I’ve been reading through Exodus and came to chapter 33 and saw something I never noticd before: God tells Moses

"Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, 'To your offspring I will give it.' ²I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ³ Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people."

What? God didn’t go with them? He sent an angel, but He didn’t go with them? I mean, that’s huge right? I guess an angel is pretty powerful and can do some supernatural things – but no God?

Well, this is why you keep on reading… Moses intercedes for the people (and himself) and pleads for God to continue to go with them.

See – receiving God’s provision without His presence is a lesser blessing. Receiving God’s promises without experiencing His presence is not fulfilling.

Am I like that? If God said I’ll give you everything I promised, everything you desire, everything you need, and you will have protection & security & even comfort- but You won’t have me – would I be satisfied? Would that be good enough for me?

Or would I fight? Would I plead? Would I cling to God til HE came with me?

Would I be like Orpah or like Ruth. They both were clinging to Naomi, but then she said go from me and you’ll get what you need. Orpah gave up and went, but Ruth clung.

Do I live for blessings or for God?

Do I desire God’s provision or protection or promises more than I desire His presence?

Often, if life feels comfortable- then I feel comfortable. If I am not suffering want or need, then I am content. I don’t think of myself as a “health, wealth, prosperity” guy… but how much am I hungering for God’s presence?

And if I want God’s presence, do I want all that comes with that? All the complexities of His will, of His grace, of His wrath, of His majesty, of His holiness, of His glory?

God’s presence is greater, is better than His provision, His promises, His protection.

The Gospel is God gave us His Son, so we could experience intimacy with Him. The greatest blessing He has given is His Son reconciling us to Himself. He offers not just eternal life, but eternal life with Him. We receive His promises, come under His protection, know His provision and experience His presence. Let's not settle for anything else.

the one with some thoughts on Exodus 33

I’ve been reading through Exodus and came to chapter 33 and saw something I never noticd before: God tells Moses

"Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, 'To your offspring I will give it.' ²I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ³ Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people."

What? God didn’t go with them? He sent an angel, but He didn’t go with them? I mean, that’s huge right? I guess an angel is pretty powerful and can do some supernatural things – but no God?

Well, this is why you keep on reading… Moses intercedes for the people (and himself) and pleads for God to continue to go with them.

See – receiving God’s provision without His presence is a lesser blessing. Receiving God’s promises without experiencing His presence is not fulfilling.

Am I like that? If God said I’ll give you everything I promised, everything you desire, everything you need, and you will have protection & security & even comfort- but You won’t have me – would I be satisfied? Would that be good enough for me?

Or would I fight? Would I plead? Would I cling to God til HE came with me?

Would I be like Orpah or like Ruth. They both were clinging to Naomi, but then she said go from me and you’ll get what you need. Orpah gave up and went, but Ruth clung.

Do I live for blessings or for God?

Do I desire God’s provision or protection or promises more than I desire His presence?

Often, if life feels comfortable- then I feel comfortable. If I am not suffering want or need, then I am content. I don’t think of myself as a “health, wealth, prosperity” guy… but how much am I hungering for God’s presence?

And if I want God’s presence, do I want all that comes with that? All the complexities of His will, of His grace, of His wrath, of His majesty, of His holiness, of His glory?

God’s presence is greater, is better than His provision, His promises, His protection.

The Gospel is God gave us His Son, so we could experience intimacy with Him. The greatest blessing He has given is His Son reconciling us to Himself. He offers not just eternal life, but eternal life with Him. We receive His promises, come under His protection, know His provision and experience His presence. Let's not settle for anything else

The one with seven things that seem super spiritual, but actually may be quite the opposite

1. These are some recent thoughts from conversations I’ve had and books I’ve been reading… you may not agree… I may not be clear… so be gracious… and I hope it imparts grace…




   1.  Not having time for people because you are having a Quiet Time
2.     Feeling Guilt because of what a bad person you are
3.     Reading
4.     Only serving others, giving to others when there is a chance to evangelize
5.     Being a nice person
6.     Holding firm to Truth
7.     Sharing the Gospel in every situation

Spending time with God is a noble thing. If you want to impress people, talk about your devotion to your devotions… mention how early you get up to have a quiet time…  people will think you are great… and you will feel you’re great too.

But far too often a Quiet Time is used as an excuse for actually engaging with others.

It is an excuse to not go share your faith or to not help a friend in need or not do a loving or serving thing for another.

Because… of course you should prioritize God over another person.

But is this what God requires of us? Does He require us to have a quiet time every day at a specific time for a specific duration?

Isn’t He more pleased when we love mercy? When we do justly? When we serve others? When we love others? When we go out of our way for someone?

If a quiet time is to grow in love for God, shouldn’t we prioritze the things that show love to God – namely loving other people?

Many can spend a lot of time reading the Word, but then don’t do what the Word says, and often we don’t do what the Word says because we are spending time in the Word.

Obviously having regular time with God is good. Being in the Word is vital. And prayer is our breath.

But do we need a quiet time to do this?

Can we not walk with God in any moment? We can meditate on His Word all day long as we do other activities. And we can live out what the Word says.

Jesus got up early in the morning to meet with the Father, but He also stopped praying to help those around Him.

Quiet Times though, seem spiritual. Because it is so personal and requires discipline & conviction. Doing things with & for others just seems like a fun things to do.

On the other hand, it is much easier to read the Bible and to pray than it is to serve others, to sacrificially love others, to give our time and money to others.

American culture has built this feeling. A quiet time is of highest importance… in an individualistic society. But the Biblical mandate is actually more communal than individual… something to think about.

Feeling guilty.

Romans 8:1 Says “There is therefore now NO Condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. This means we are free from sin & from guilt & from shame.

Henry Cloud says we don’t take this far enough. He says this means there is never a right time to feel guilty.

The Holy Spirit convicts, but if we feel guilty, that is our own response.

He goes onto explain the difference between godly sorrow & guilt. Godly sorrow is sorry about the pain you caused another person and caused God. Guilt is being sad about what you did wrong.

Guilt is very self-focused.

While I am still fleshing out this idea of no guilt at all, I think Cloud is onto something. Guilt is very self-focused. It’s what I do when I mess up. I think I’m a bad person. I don’t really want to change, I just want to feel bad. And I want that to be enough. Instead of focusing on the hurt I cause my wife, I say I am such a bad husband. Instead, I should feel heart-felt sorrow for the hurt I cause and work on doing things differently.

When someone shows guilt over their sin, it seems like they are spiritual to feel so bad. And while hating sin is good… we ought hate sin for the hurt it causes God, not because we hate that we’re so bad.

True faith would not hold onto guilt, but abide in grace.

This is hard… for when I do confess my sin and move on and don’t feel guilt… I often feel guilt for not feeling any guilt.

Guilt & shame are from the devil. We need to abide in the love & grace of Christ & enjoy Him, enjoy His forgiveness, worship Him after we sin for how great is mercy & faithfulness is.

Reading

Reading is a good thing… it can help us come closer to God and grow us in areas we are weak. But is it always more godly, more mature? It really could just be a personality trait. And worse yet, it could be a source of spiritual pride. We feel like we’re better because we’re spending time reading… but maybe we just enjoy reading… maybe we are doing it to gain knowledge and feel superior.

I’m not saying reading is bad or all our motivations are bad…

I like to read and believe the more you read, the more you learn….

but just reading more doesn’t necessarily mean you are more mature.

Only serving/giving when there is a chance to evangelize

This is a major pet-peeve of many… and I’m starting to get it.

Many out there look down on organizations if they are not doing evangelism… seeing as giving to the poor, building church buildings and other such things as less important work.

The thing is, every aspect is important. While we don’t want to shy from sharing the Gospel- we must use words… to look down on others who are serving & giving is immature.

In fact, giving/serving others without being able to see fruit may be more difficult. Most of the time those actions are done with hopes of results in long-term.

Giving your time & money to strangers is probably more difficult than to share a message with them. At least for me.

Being nice

Many have seemed  to interpret loving our neighbor as being nice to our neighbor. If it’s not nice, how can it be loving? But in fact being nice is sometimes not really not that nice and is indeed not loving.

Much like allowing an alcoholic to keep drinking or a someone drunk to drive… we sometimes need to do things people may not feel is very nice to truly be loving.

In being nice, we avoid sharing the Gospel… we avoid confronting our brother about sin in his life… we allow a friend to hold incorrect doctrine…

Really when we make our goal to be nice, we are making how people perceive us the number one thing in our lives.

People like nice people… but they are not always the best for us… and it is not always the most loving way to act

Holding firm to truth

In the opposite spectrum is the one who holds so strongly to truth, he doesn’t care how another person may feel.

At this point his concern isn’t for the person’s soul as much it is to be right.

I believe we do need to be honest with people about what we think of their actions or beliefs. At the same time our speech needs to be seasoned with salt that it may give grace to the hearers.

The purpose of speaking truth should be to edify and to proclaim Christ… if it is not accomplishing this then maybe we should reconsider our actions & words.

Sharing the Gospel in every situation

Bill Bright looked at interactions with others as a “Divine appointment.”

And I think he was right.

When we interact with someone, it is an opportunity to be God’s ambassador, to reflect Christ, to show love, to give grace, and help them understand the Gospel.

But we have to be careful.

Sometimes the people we are talking with may not be ready to receive all we want to say.

I once heard someone say that he “did my job” as if he felt good about himself because he shared the message, even if the guy didn’t respond well. While our job may be to simply proclaim the Gospel and allow the Spirit to do His work, our goal/hope should be the person would receive Christ.

I’ve come to realize it often takes more faith for me to not share the Gospel than it does for me to share the Gospel. I have to believe God will work in someone’s life, even if I don’t get to share the Gospel with them.

I want to give every person a glimpse of the Gospel (at least)… but I don’t need to force it, I don’t need to make it happen. I need to trust God, even if I don’t see the fruit…

There are probably other things and more that could be said about these things both positively and negatively… I’m really just processing & starting the discussion here.

Our Hong Kong experience

Soon after pregnancy, Soo started experiencing some sharp pains in her stomach accompanied by chills & aches. I took her & Halle to the emergency room, and soon after we checked in, all the pain and everything went away.

The doctor attributed it to gastritis and our doctor furthermore gave her nexium for heart-burn.

The attacks would come every couple weeks… we began to assume it was something she ate… as we cut certain items out she seemed better… she cut out all tomato-sauce based items & all spicy food… then all citrus & acidic fruits & foods… and coffee… basically, she couldn’t eat anything except rice & grilled chicken…

The problems never seemed to go away… and after some other concerns we went to the local doctor here.

We have been blessed to find an American doctor at the Red cross hospital. We knew of the OBGYN last year, but didn’t know about the regular doctor until this year. He is great.

And it is so cheap here!

Doctor’s visit: $3

Blood Tests: $3

Cat Scan, X-rays: $5

Prescription medicine: $3

Even an overnight hospital stay is only like $17

After checking out Soo, he thought gallstones… but we had to do a few more tests… there is another foreign surgeon here who could have removed the gallbladder, but some of the other tests we needed to go somewhere else.

This is part of the experience of living here… leaving the city or country to go to the hospital

so we got in contact with a hospital, set an appointment… and made plans to go to Hong Kong…

The doctor there seemed to know what he was talking about and insightful.

The scariest part for Soo was the fact she would be put under… she had a gastropacy done here with no medicine. Usually in the states they’ll at least give a local anisthetic… here they could prescribe a pill… but that was too much… so she did the gastropacy w/o anything…. But hey, she gave birth without any medicine either!

So, we went to HK and Soo got knocked out. The doctor put 4 keyholes in her, removed the stones & sucked out her gallbladder… they gave us a DVD of the surgery… but we haven’t watched it... Movie night anyone?

They brought a jar of the stones to the room… we weren’t like Joey when he got his kidney stones… but we did look at it… I counted the stones: 81!

81 stones!

That’s a lot.

Soo was also scared about Halle. How would I be able to take care of Halle & her? And what if Halle won’t eat? She doesn’t really take a bottle, and doesn’t sleep well away from home…

However, God was gracious!

We fed Halle formula for the first time & she loved it! She took the bottle without any problems.

Actually, if Soo was around, she wouldn’t want the bottle, but if not, she wanted the bottle all the time.

We were also blessed by Joy Ford. A person we didn’t know; And a person my parents had never met, only corresponded with thru email.

That is the body of Christ!

We really felt God’s hand upon us & the blessing of the body of Christ thru her.

Even though some family were not willing to help because it may be too much trouble, someone we didn’t know went out of her way to come help us & went the extra mile to bring us food & stuff we didn’t ask for, but knew would bless us.

Our true family is our family in Christ

Unfortunately because of the procedures, the day before the surgery Soo couldn’t eat anything, and the first few days after she didn’t have much of an appetite… too bad, b/c going to Hong Kong means a lot of good food…

Before we went, Soo was convinced after the surgery she’d be able to move around and do whatever she wanted… I kept on telling her we probably won’t be able to do much…. After the surgery, Soo vented she just had surgery and I was planning too much…

Still, Soo loved HK. She called it one of her favorite places.

I hated it. I would never want to go back

Hong Kong is expensive.

Hong Kong is hot.

Hong Kong is big & busy.

We were at the mid-levels, which means it was just a series of hills…. The places we were going were supposed to be walking distance… but it was all uphill, thru tons of traffic, and winding roads… and it was hot.

I never sweated so much in my life.

The taxis charged for baggage.

I don’t like big cities.

Still, Soo got to go to H&M and we bought some toys for Halle at Toys R Us.

We got Bubba Gump’s Shrimp (Amazing!), pizza, salad, Fo, Dimsum, Italian & Steak… and of course McDonalds.

The favorite though may have been going to the grocery store and getting deli meat… and of course, my favorite: Tim-Tams!

We got to go to the Peak for a little bit… though I don’t like it so much, Hong Kong is a beautiful place.

We also went to one of the small islands before the surgery as it  was much cheaper there…

Anyway… the HK trip has made me think of a lot of memories… and thoughts

1.     I miss riding mopeds in Chiangmai with Billy Van Elk

2.     I miss going to mid-year conferences in Thailand… last year we were in the states having a baby… year before we got married… and the year before it was in Malaysia…

3.     We should have planned better… or what if we got married in June, had the baby in May… at the very least I could have gone to Mid-year last year and been there when Ken came… been there for Asian friends leaving EA… and then been back this summer for CSU to hear Francis Chan & go see David crowder and Tenth Ave North… and we would have been around in the fall & I could have led the team, wouldn’t have start all over…

4.     The ferry reminded me of Turkey… could you imagine us living there.. taking the ferry every day… hm…

5.     Cold showers reminded me of WW02… taking showers outside… cool showers on hot days & warm showers on cool days outside… it was pretty sweet

6.     Of course I’m in HK, so I got to think of Kelvin Ng

7.     With all that, how about Ghandi’s 5…

8.     And I thought about the fun with Adam Anderson when I went back in 05… the girls were fun too and the students… but Adam & I bonded… got cheesesteaks and hung out weekly… joked around a lot…

9.     This place is a lot like Macinac Island in Michigan… no cars, bikes, lots of small shops… no fudge though

10. Ah, Traverse city was a fun summer… and then today Soo gave me & hug after getting out of the water… reminded me of when Chris Woods said he would accept a hug after being out in the rain and Matt Sfura jumped at the chance… what a memory…

11. This place is like a retreat center… retreats used to be so much fun!

12. Also reminded of the dream I had a few weeks ago: I was on a summer project in India… but hald the students were Americans, the other half were Indians… but we were on one summer project, but like a state-side project… students didn’t realize how lucky they were… Mitch Sheehan was the project cook… Soo & I were there- no baby I think.. Christine Major… not sure who else

13. I don’t think I’ve ever sweated so much in my life… my goodness it is hot here! And the uphill climb didn’t help.

14. Nutella tastes good when it is fresh

15. Saw Ring-tailed lemurs, which of course reminded me of Steve Tanzek & the TC project again… 15 years later & I still remember

16. I really like sitting in starbucks, drinking a frappacino & writing & reading…

17. Whenever I feel like I’m going to get a lot of reading done, I read nothing at all

18. Wow, I miss deli meats, seeing the case was like walking into heaven

19. I don’t like big cities

20. Can’t wait to get home… where at least we know where things are, and feel more freedom to be normal

Well, that’s me processing our trip…

Thankful for…

1.     Soo getting the surgery and hopefully can eat now and won’t have much pain

2.     There were no complications with the surgery or big problems created by the kidney stones

3.     Experiencing God’s grace & kindness thru the body of Christ as Joy, a complete stranger, but sister in Christ- came to help

4.     God taking care of us, getting us where we needed to go

5.     Everyone’s prayers and concerns for Soo & us

6.     God providing for all our financial needs, that even with all these expenses, we have what we need

7.     Halle taking the bottle & sleeping well while there

8.     Being able to bond with the baby more – as I got to feed Halle, helped me feel closer

9.     God using this to build Soo & I’s marriage

10. Tim-Tams

11. Good food

12. Being able to communicate with all of you!