CEFC July 17, 2005 A Real Hymn

Lord, i have seen you today.
Just like i have seen you in my youth.
Real, unsearchable, undeniable.
Mountain moving.
For the first time in years, i have seen the power of God that can move mountains.
Not talk, not idle chatter. No spiritual handouts.
I finally saw a true act of love.
And it was even to me.

Somebody sat down with me and honestly asked me how i was. And heard me.

Thank you P. Fab, and Ruth.
It may be a small act, but it is means so much than we can know.
No wonder they say faith can move mountains.
Faith in God. Faith in Jesus.
Faith in each other.

Matthew 18:19
(Jesus said) Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.

That's the true element of what God intended in His urge for us to agree. Not cheap verbal agreement. Symphony. Symphilos. A resonance. A resonance of heart. A resonance of dreams. Mountains will move. Mountains have moved in my heart.
I've seen it today.
I've finally seen someone doing for me what my own life goal was about... reaching out to the hopeless.
I'm in pain with the eczema. i've lost vision in one eye. I've been wrongfully misunderstood and treated with courteous indifference for months. I've suffered for years. I might have been apparently handicapped.

I've been seeing into other people's soul for so long.
I've been believing in others when others stopped believing in them.
But today, someone saw into my soul.
But today, I am the most fortunate.
I'm still holding the hankerchief that held my tears of joy.
This is a Real Hymn.

Love
ken

T-Minus 1 day - Buildings & the Master Builder

Only one more day before i terminate my Neoral (anti-rejection) drug intake. My skin crying out, never did it want to be reduced to an imflamed painful wreck like last time.
Two weeks. All it took was two weeks for the flesh to fail. To fall. But the mind and the heart chooses to ignore.

Doctors orders.

Can a man's being be in three pieces at once? The skin cries reactively. The mind braces the inevitable. The heart gathers up as much faith as possible as can be found within broken memories, fragments from past experiences... but i realize it will take more, adundantly more than that. Through their importunity at length the skin persuaded, the mind prepared himself to avoid the hidden odium cast upon him. By his own neighbour, his flesh, his own being...

Help. Anyone... just anyone...

If i said i wasn't apprehensive, i'd be bluffing. I could imagine a hero mutter an impenetrable resolve, a steely bravdo with a blazing white teeth (which is the color of NJC - not white, blazing white... erm... right...), but that is not me. I don't have blazing white teeth. Although many close ones have affirmed an amazing resiliency within me. Ironic. I never felt that way. I think they must have saw someone else. Maybe God? (Deafening applause within the silence of my heart)

A metaphor.

I remember how i used to spend quality time experiencing God when i was sitting next to the swimming pool. Bible open, heart pensive, head braced and re-braced to accept any change of schema God would have on me - i observed a metaphor opening up right in front of my eyes.
As i sat next to the rippling waves of the small swimming pool, i realized that i was surrounded. 15 floor high rises giants of concrete and glass towering over me, like the small fragile humanoid i was, who was i compared the massive solidity of mass around me? How often do we allow our problems to magnify themselves? Problems and pains... the world seems to whisper to you and beckon you, and at the moment of proximity shouts out hopelessness in your ear.
But my eyes could not help but to perceive the wonderous spectral light blazing around the high rises as reminder that there is something much bigger, more powerful, more massive... and uncannily more beautiful. The magnificant sky, that beholds the stars and sun beckons subtly and confidently behind the high-rises. Concrete and glass... backdropped by spectral lights, vast skies, the power of the wind and rain. Buildings and remnants will long pass away while the skies will acknowledge it's own eternity, so to speak.

Psalm 89:
8 O LORD God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty, O LORD, and your faithfulness surrounds you. 9 You rule over the surging sea; when its waves mount up, you still them.

There are problems that are unimaginably big ... but there is a God that is unimaginably bigger than them. There are problems that surround you... but there is a God whose vastness surround everything. There are problems which work mechnically against you... there is a God that works lovingly, dynamically for you.

Psalm 61: 2
From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

Have we stood to closely to the wrong thing?

Even a coin, no matter how small it is, when placed in front of your eye, can block out the most magnificent sunset through mountain heights and crystal lakes...
but that coin will never change the fact that there is a magnificent sunset beyond the mountain height - they shine for you.

Do i have big fears? Yes.

But we focus our eyes not on the problem, but on the wondrous loving God. Pray with me. Pray along with me. Stand with me, stand along with me. We stand next to the Master Builder... bigger than the buildings that pretend to be.
...
"Death whispers words of defeat in my ear. My God, i draw near. My God i draw near."
John Reuben

The Great Reversal

The air-con cutting biting through my skin like a blizzard. Walking up the SKS bookshop aisle, I felt so vulnerable, so lonely. As i reduced the anti-rejection drug this week... the skin is painful; and i see the inflamation diffuse ever so subtly, yet it rears it's head in poignoit pain - a reminder of how vulnerable we are. Hobbling ever so slowly as vast arrays of books peer my intrusion, it seemed that my own shadow was looking at me, with eyes of understanding - my own friend. In the myriad of thoughts, between feeling the physical pain and tasting God's Grace; a callous thought ventured through - a realization, an i-epiphany so to speak... that for that moment, i was alone... i felt unloved.

My eyes gleaned through many titles, a silent satire, as if i was seeing my own movie. "Disappointment with God"... "Finding God in the most unlikely places", "The Jesus i never knew" were titles blitzing through space. Even as my mind was ever reaching for God, as I let my thoughts analysis and co-relate what I want so much to tell my neighbours about the wonderful grace of God, one simple thought pierced the unrest that was undertowing all these wonderful themes. No one called to ask me how i was doing for the last 3 weeks. No one. If i had died anytime, no one would have missed me. They might have missed my work, or what i produce daily; but that is NOT me.
Please.
I am more than what i do.
Can anyone love me for me?

Maybe that's why my agnostic professer in college liked me so much, even though we had such potentially volatile differences in ideology. She believed Jesus was a man. I believed He is God and has the ability to change the hardest of men. But we agreed resonantly, harmoniously on one thing. We both agreed that what the world is sorely deviod of - is LOVE. Funny, i remember the converstion we had... she said, "the one thing the world needs the most is... " and i cut her off and said love - to which she stood amazed. Today i felt unloved. Worldly thoughts intruded my mind - that people who are pained and handicapped are lonely.

Perhaps i was. I am?

Waves of turmoil of past known ideology of love and today's realization swirled around like a whirlpool in my heart. One pairs of eyes i had, but seeing two things... loneliness, hopelessness on one side, and God's hope on the other. Or perhaps it should be more accurately, hopelessness everywhere upon my play/stage of life; yet with eyes that once knew... there is more in any play than what is on stage. The is a director. For every one action appearing on stage, there are multitudes of thoughts, plans, actions and executions happening simultaneously back stage. There is a greater world behind or even above the world in front of us. That's when, when i was in self-pity, thinking no one prays for me... no one cares for my hopes and dreams... when God brought to mind that JESUS not only died for me, but He also prayed for me. Wow, the Great Reversal. The Great Reversal of God.

Psalm 34
17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles. 18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Every human inclination or religious ideology naturally appeals to humans praying to God - on an unknown power. Only in Jesus Christ do we know, that here is the God of the Universe praying for me. He is our intercessor. He bends His knees for me.

Hebrews 7:25 "because He always lives to intercede for them."

Every human inclination or religious ideology commands us to only think of humans singing praise to a God too far perfect to be close to us humans. We serve a God that sings over us. A King singing to His servant? Awesome.

Zephaniah 3:17 The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

Thats when the loneliness melted away into something even greater. My heart was lovingly chastized - from feeling disappointment from the "coldness" of people around, i myself realized how I have gone cold. When was the last time I interceded for my friends? When was the last time i spent time with God? When was the last time i understood the people around me through the eyes of God's Grace? There were so many things I never deserved, but God gave it to us anyway. Why not us? I proceeded to spend the whole time driving home worshipping God and praying earnestly for all of my friends and family - with tender mercy and joy. What started off so self centered melted away with the love of God, and directed me outwards to love. What power could ever do that?
An Awesome God.
The Great Reversal.
He is the God of the Great Reversal.