The million dollar question is: can a guy and a girl be really really close friends?
Ricky Pak says: Yes, so long as you keep the friendship in a group setting.
—————————————————————————————-
Man, did I have a great week or what?
Thank you Jesus.
Hardened hearts are a joke.
I have definitely been sulking for way too long. I took off my ranting post because I remembered that when I first started this blog, I had promised myself that I wouldn’t post anything that is not edifying.
And, it took me a while……but I just discovered that I am actually so, so amazingly blessed. All the things I ranted about and wished I could do, I basically got to do them all in the past 3 days.
I had a nice little dinner with a real kindred spirit friend of mine. Listening in to her conversation with her sister and bosom friend (whose parents adopted like 3 kids, amazing) helped me to see how life can just be so much better if you learn to appreciate the smallest moments. Like being able to drive into the sunset, or being able to walk barefoot around your frontyard while having a sandwich dinner, or being able to dream about getting married and having kids, or being able to listen to great music like Sufjan Stevens.
Inspired by this kindred spirit friend, I took the time this morning to bike a couple of blocks around Richmond, hoping to catch the sunrise. Sadly though, being in Vancouver, the rain clouds were of course in the way. Nonetheless, it was still a very refreshing bike ride. Definitely first of many more bike rides to come.
Plus, last Friday I actually had a proper jam session for once. Yeah, like a real jam session, where we didn’t have any format or agenda. Just start a riff, and follow along. And I am pretty certain that a big chunk of my first paycheque is going into investing in either a MicroKorg or a Korg R3. They are such nifty little synths. I’m tired of carrying around my 88 key.
And then, tonight, I went to a friend’s birthday party, which really was a friends appreciation night. He decided that birthdays aren’t about the birthday boys, but about his friends, so he actually got everyone of us a gift. How thoughtful. And the gifts that the friends got him were mostly homemade, too. The creativity, the thoughtfulness, the beauty of friendship.
One of his friends actually made him a potato canon, how cool is that!
Actually, all this reminds me of the two Girls Appreciation nights we managed to pull off for the C4C girls. I suppose I was once part of something thoughtful, too.
And tomorrow I get to go see Radiohead.
Great.
Oh, and a friend suggested that for all of us guys’ bachelors party, we’re gonna have to wear the Borat swimsuit. Now that would take some balls……
This year has truly been an extraordinarily wonderful year. I have been placed around some very fine young men and women. Whether it is first years, third years, grad students, thirty year olds, or even sixty year olds – I have gotten the chance to meet a good handful of people who truly know and love God.
I used to think that you could just put on a good face and pretend to serve others – even against that evil voice only you can hear inside your head – and not a single soul would be able to notice a thing. This year, after meeting people who wear their hearts on their sleeves (a phrase I am stealing from a friend’s note), I have decided against such a naïve view of things. It’s a naïve view of life, to think that I can do anything well without aligning my heart to it.
It always occurred to me that to become a man (or a woman) is to be ignited with passion – to the extent of becoming selfless for a cause. To become a man (or a woman) of God then is to simply plug in “God and His people” as the “cause”. This is truly a cause worth suffering for. And guess what, nothing gives you more passion than the Word of God, as I have learned from the people I have met this year.
This is the passage that I believe sums up the attitude we ought to have when it comes to the Word:
2 Timothy 4:1-5 (ESV)
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
Paul calls Timothy to preach the Word and to do the work of an evangelist. I think it only requires simple logic to deduce that this ought to also be the calling for EVERY Christian young and old.
I have been privileged to personally witness the transformation process: that people who truly love God’s Word become people who genuinely love God and His people. Their lives become displays of authentic Christian living. They lift up every concern in prayer. They reprove, rebuke and exhort one another, doing so with complete patience. They can’t stop thinking of ways of which God can use them to transform the world.
Notice that I am talking about “them” and not “we” or “us”. I am still so immature. Most of the time I am.
A teen complained to us leaders that he got told off by the aunties at church to not play the drums, as it disturbs them.
My initial reaction was, “So what? Back in the day we didn’t even have a drumset at church. We practiced weekly at my place only to get a chance to lead worship once in a blue moon. Yet we didn’t complain. You are enjoying the fruit of our labor you spoiled kid!”
That’s how I felt. And no, that definitely does not fall under the “boasting in Christ” file cabinet. It’s a disgusting attitude to have.
Time to meditate on 2 Peter 1 again.
I leave you with some photographs of me and (most of) the lovely people I’ve gotten to meet this year:
Well, welcome to my new blog!
What better way to kickstart it all than by beginning with the pics from today’s BRL (Blogger Reunion Luncheon):
Steph, Myself, and Paulman
Well, after all these months of stalking each others’ blogs, we finally got to sit down to talk about Hillsong United, C4C, and all things related to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was very good to have conversations that were edifying. Yes, indeed. But on my way home, I couldn’t help but ponder upon the question that has been bugging me for the past few weeks (ever since I started telling people that I am graduating). This is indeed a very sensitive time in my life. This is indeed a question that deserves the bugginess. It ought to bug me for the rest of my life, really:
“What are you going to be doing after you graduate?”
Well, here’s what I have been doing since the exam period started (note: not ended):
You see, if life carried on like this, I can safely say that I will most certainly become a 21st century North American middle class adult-lescent “Christian”. In fact, that might just become what I desire for my life – to live a life that is comfortable and self-serving. Find some random job. Live for the weekend.
Isn’t it a sin though – to want to remain middle class and comfortable? I mean it is most definitely fine to be middle class and comfortable, but to confuse it from being the means to actually the ends?
But this must all sound very cliche. There must have been millions of people – especially the millions who are involved in the financial advising business nowadays – who have already said things like “I don’t want to sit in an office from 9-5; I want to do something exciting, something I love, like helping people”. I am sure we have all heard it all. So, if I don’t want to sound cliche like them, shouldn’t I just be realistic and accept that life isn’t going to be exciting like they tell you in storybooks, but that I should consider myself lucky to even make it as a middle class North American?
“You should learn to count your blessings”, some might say.
Nevertheless, these are some bible passages that I very luckily read through in the past few weeks:
—————————————————————————————
Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
1Corinthians 9:24-27 Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
Romans 5:2-5 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
—————————————————————————————
Do they bring instant conviction or what? Isn’t it challenging to see what biblical manhood actually looks like?
This all reminds me of one of my “dreams” from a few years ago. I had always hoped that one day I could go to a music school, meet some friends, and start my own band. I had always wanted to figure out a way where I can have a career that ties football, music, cognitive psychology (used to be Physics), and theology together.
But, back down on earth, in the past year or two I have totally given up on playing music, as I have slowly come to accept that I have little talent. I play weekly at church but you don’t need a charismatic to tell you that I am not exactly inspiring as a worship leader.
I am reminded of one of my all-time favourite verses:”Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I really need to have a checkup on what I delight myself in.
A friend at church asked a very insightful question. She asked, “Are you scared or happy [about your life after graduation]?”
I told her I was excited about my future after school.
But I’m not so sure anymore. I don’t know what I have been abiding myself in of late.
It’s sick.
Recent Comments