Day 164: Trusting Patiently

Jesus said to her, "Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?"  John 11:40

Don't we all need to remember this message more?

It is so easy for us to turn to fear whenever things in our lives get tough.  When we are out of a job, or if we are facing some conflicts with our families or friends, we might try to go straight to stressing out about the situation and fearing for the future.  Rather than comforting ourselves, our response only serves to harm us more.  We end up turning away from our faith and even downright cursing God whenever we start to rely on fear.

I'm certain that we all enjoy having instant results for everything we do (just look at where our feats of technology have brought us in that regard).  However, when we live our lives with such a fast pace, we start to think that everything should be moving quickly; or, conversely, we think that things that take time are faulty.  Just taking a look at practically any passage from the books of Samuel, Kings, or Chronicles will show how the nations of Israel and Judah were struggling with that.  When things didn't go quickly for them, they turned away from God and went to other idols.  In the same way, we will start to turn to idols.  We will start to throw money at our problems as if that will save us.

But Jesus has told us time and again, if you would believe you would see the glory of God.  How many times have there been miracles in your life?  I can count so many.  I was born into a family that supports me in all my endeavors.  My family loves me for who I am.  I have great friends in my life.  I have been supported throughout my school and as I transition into having a full-time job.  God has provided so much for me, and I witness God's glory in every aspect of my life.  When I start to fear or turn away, it is because I no longer want to see God in every situation.  Rather than trusting in God, I would rather trust in other things.  But God is the only one who will set things straight in my life.  When we believe, we see the glory of God all over our lives.

Day 162: Knowing God's Voice

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.  And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand."  John 10:27-28

This is a message of reassurance, and I am sure that many of us need this message this very day.

This reassurance comes with instructions, though, and we cannot avoid those instructions.  Jesus says My sheep hear My voice...and they follow Me.  Easy enough, isn't it?  When I was in grade school, as soon as the bell rang, I knew it was time to change classes.  I followed the sound of the bell.  Following Jesus should be just as easy, right?  Of course it can be that easy!  We just have to make it easier for ourselves.

As I'm on the way to the Viola da Gamba Society of America Conclave, I remember when I was at another historical music festival a few years ago, the Texas Toot.  I took a lesson with a professional, and I played in an ornate way that I thought was impressive.  She replied, however, that what I had done was not in good taste.  It was good playing, but not tasteful.  From then, I sought to understand what good taste in Baroque music was, and I feel now, especially after receiving guidance from many teachers and performers, that I have somewhat of a sense for this good taste.

What did it take?  Well, it took, and still takes, lots of listening.  I listen to many different artists and many different pieces to understand what is going on.  I read countless pages by teachers of the time period and modern commentators just to get a sense about the style of music from back then.  I have sifted through many do nots just to start doing.  Any profession will require this sort of dedication, and we all have a certain calling that we pursue with all our time and attention.

However, the good news is that we have a simple way of getting in touch with God.  We have the Bible with many quotes from great people and from God.  We can only understand the sound of God's voice when we surround ourselves with God's voice.  We can get a sense for it by sitting in church, where we all hear the word of God being read to us.  Even easier is just to grab a Bible and start reading.  Nowadays, we have an even easier step: listen to an audio Bible.   When we get connected with the Bible, we start to understand that God is calling us constantly.  We will learn that God reassures us more than scares us.  Rather than listen to the loud voices that are trying to scare us into voting one way or another, to scare us into killing ourselves, to scare us into killing and hating all those around us, we will find comfort in all that Jesus has to say.  Jesus tells us that times will be tough, but he reassures us so many times more than just telling us to be afraid.  As Christians, we are called to be brave and bold in all our tough situations.  We shall know God's voice, and we shall receive eternal life.

Day 143: Walking in Love

"He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now.  He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him."  1 John 2:9-10

This passage highlights a truth that we ignore too many times: hatred is a gateway to many other sins.

Just at the very surface, we know that Jesus has commanded us to love one another.  It's the second of two commandments, and it seems to be a continuation of the first commandment - to love God.  We cannot walk in the light of Jesus if we are disregarding a key commandment of his.  It's very important because we need to be able to show our love in every aspect of our lives, not just our devotion behind a closed door in our houses.

Going deeper into this notion, we find that love is great because it removes any opportunity for stumbling from our lives.  We wander around, hoping to have a cure all for our problems in our lives.  Yet, here is one that is truly a solution: love.  When we hate, we put away the love that we have been shown by God.  Then, we start allowing our minds and hearts to be filled with feelings that grow in us.  These are feelings of pride, that we are always in the right; fear, that others will be better than us; greed, that we may be better than everybody else we encounter; anger, murdering everybody we know in our mind, if not in real life.  All of these feelings will grow until we have fallen so many times that we could convince ourselves that we are no longer humans made in God's image, but creatures of the Devil.

That's not the direction we need to go in.  Love is not always difficult.  If we have attached ourselves so much to the pride that compels us to hold grudges that it makes forgiveness or love difficult, then we need to evaluate our relationship with God.  We cannot be walking in the darkness of hatred and claim to be following Jesus.  We need to let go of all of these negative feelings so that we can head towards Jesus without stumbling blocks in our way.  When we truly accept the love that God has for us, then we will be able to continue in the light of Christ.

Day 142: Examples of Light

"This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.  If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."  1 John 1:5-7

This passage should give us all hope.

It first defines how we are to live our lives.  We need to make sure that our faith manifests itself in our lives through our actions.  We teach the best and spread the Gospel the best through our actions, for that is how others can conceptualize things.  Over the past week now, I have made many Chinese dumplings (餃子 and 小籠包).  I'm a guy who likes to learn things from books, and that works quite well with most recipes I've encountered.  However, the trademark of dumplings is their pleats.  I have read countless instructions on how to perform them, but they all turned out to be disastrous and plain odd.  But, after watching one video, I was able to understand how to fold them properly.  After a few dumplings for practice (and eating, of course) I feel that I have made quite some progress.

The way we live our lives becomes a light for many who are around us.  If we demonstrate our faith, just like a video, people will be able to understand all that they have heard from Christianity.  In fact, we too will begin to understand the bible and teachings better when we live our faith.

The latter part of this passage is what should give us all hope.  It says that when we live our lives faithfully, we will have fellowship not just with God, but with everybody around us.  Now, it is amazing enough to have fellowship with God, but it must be reassuring to be in the company of the many faithful who are walking in the light.  People who live around us, going through many of our same challenges, should make us feel closer to God.  The reason why we'll be in good company is because we will all be heading in the same direction, albeit from different starting points.  When we wander without God, we will end up in so many places that are unfulfilling.  Many will actually find themselves heading backwards towards destruction.  But, when we walk towards and in the light of God, we will find all of those who are walking in the same direction.  Those people will be able to dust off your shoes, provide you with water, hand you a coat if you need one, and will welcome you to the glory of God.  We need to provide that fellowship, because it is our duty as Christians.  The light of God is God's unconditional love for all of us.  When we provide that fellowship, we will see the light grow not only around us, but also in us.

Day 141: Finding Peace with God

"He who seeks the Lord will find knowledge with righteousness, and those who seek Him rightly will find peace."  Proverbs 16:4

This proverb suggests a progression.

The first part of this proverb talks about the beginning of a life of faith.  In the beginning, we will find out about the bible, the different stories, some of the lessons, and maybe a bit about theology.  We will learn how to pray with the favorites selected from different parts of the bible and from tradition.  All of it, at first, is knowledge.  And this is great for all of us.  We need our minds to be filled with good knowledge, for the mouth only speaks drawing from what the mind and heart know.  Think about a dialect of a spoken language.  The people who speak different dialects do so because of what they are surrounded by.  If there are many people saying "y'all" as a second person plural, then you probably will, too, over time.  I know of many foreigners who adopt "y'all" after living in the South for a while.

The latter part of the proverb gets to a core message.  When we seek the Lord rightly, we will find peace.  Today, we all need more peace in our lives.  We are being bombarded with society telling us what we need to know, how much money we need to make, what job we need to do in order to make said money, whom to marry, what to buy, what house to live in, how to speak, how to live "well".  That's a lot for us to handle.  But, the last thing we need is to go to church, or even to approach the bible, or God, and come out even more stressed than before.  That's not why we are Christians.  We are Christians because Jesus came into the world to bring us peace.  We don't need to worry about what's going on around us.  We don't need to concern ourselves about so many societal rules because our salvation has come for us.  We have a place prepared for us in heaven!

Our faith will progress from knowledge to peace.  The good thing, though, is that we don't have to wait for years to get this.  We can do it now.  We can find peace through our religion.  It all comes down to how we live our life.  We have to live knowing that God is in control.  We have to pray knowing that God is taking care of us and hearing us, and - more importantly - God is speaking to us.  We need to read the bible knowing that there is wisdom that we can apply to everything in our lives.  We have to go to church knowing that God is great and that we will achieve peace through our prayers, our praise, and our love.  We have to take the love that God has given us and spread it all over our lives so that we can make the world that much better.  When we live our faith, we will find peace.

Day 132: Direction

"Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow.  For what is your life?  It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away."  James 4:14

Right off the bat, we should remember that our lives are in God's hands.  God has the ultimate say in everything that goes on.

Imagine how great it would be if we could predict everything that would happen in the next year, next day, or even the next hour.  We would be able to plan for absolutely everything.  But, at the same time, we wouldn't have all too much to live for.  We would have all the answers, and we wouldn't have much else to do.

We live where we can't tell what's going to happen next.  So, we work on ourselves so that we can be ready for absolutely anything.  One of the greatest tenets of Jesus' preaching is, "be ready".  But that's all we can do.  It sounds pretty restrictive at the start.

Our lives our precious.  We can't control everything that affects them.  I like the metaphor of the vapor.  It's similar to smoke.  When you look at smoke, it floats in so many different directions, and I'm sure much of that depends on how the molecules of air are moving in around that smoke.  Then, there are also basic traits of heat, such as the circular motion that comes from the source.  Eventually, no matter which way the smoke goes, it dissipates as it reaches higher and higher.  We cannot grab smoke and manipulate it.  All we can do is prepare everything from the source and hope that things go in the direction that we want it.

Right now, our lives are going.  They are going in so many different directions.  You might get a call for a new job offer.  You may receive a message about the death of a relative or a friend.  You might get hungry.  You might do nothing.  The only thing we can do is prepare ourselves.  The way we prepare ourselves for the future involves realizing where we want to be.  This will involve prayer and meditation.  This will also involve lots of study and practice.  If we don't prepare, things will only go in different directions, whether we like them or not.  We can't complain if they don't go in the way we want them to go.  At the same time, we cannot say that everything will go according to plan.  We just need to remember that our lives are in God's hands.  God is working in our lives.

Day 119: Standing Up

"He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much."  Luke 16:10

This is a harsh call for all of us to remember where we belong.

We all live in this world where there are lots of jet streams that are beating against our heads every day.  Those winds consist of discrimination, disrespect, and pure hate.  However, we cannot let those things bring us down.

I thank God that I am living in a time when the American people are getting over their fear of non-heterosexual relationships.  Sure, there are still many challenges, and I do receive a curse from time to time, but I do have quite a bit of support, not the least of which comes from my very family.  At the same time, though, I know of countless people living in this same country, and even in my same city, who face discrimination from their own families for various reasons.  Traditions can be harmful, just as they can be comforting.  I have friends whom I talk through these situations they face.  I can usually come away from these conversations with a praise to God for helping me have an easier time than others.

And that's where this verse comes in.  Many times, when we see everything going quite well for us, we start to lose sight of what actually is going on around us.  There are wars going on in different countries, and there are terrors being made both abroad and in our backyard.  There are governments sanctioning the murder of countless people for being who they are, and there are mobs of people who want to make sure that things won't get better around here.  There are many poor people wandering the streets, unable to afford any sort of healthcare for some seemingly simple diseases, and there are yet even more people who won't have a roof over their head when it rains.

I have to remember to show the same love that God has shown me.  God has reached down to my level to hold me, and I need to do the same for everybody who is around me.  The Gospel calls all of us to reach out and spread the Kingdom of Heaven.  And what exactly is that Kingdom?  It's a kingdom of love.  It's something that we haven't ever seen here on earth, what with all the corruption, money, and greed that has existed in every single government known to history.  The Heavenly Kingdom is the realm of love that exists between gays and straights, cisgendered people and transgendered, colored and not, the rich and the poor.  If God can reach for each one of us, who waver in our faith and abandon God entirely from time to time, so too can we reach out to all those who live in our same world breathing our same air.

Day 077: Fear

"Behold, the Lord your God is delivering the land to you in our presence; go up and take it as an inheritance, in the manner the Lord God of your fathers spoke to you; do not fear or be afraid."  Deuteronomy 1:21

Imagine that somebody calls you on the phone right now to tell you that your dream job is set up for you: you will do what you love, and you will get paid to do it - no risks.  Would you turn it away?

I find that the story of the Israelites going into the Promised Land is a great example for us to learn from.  God, who delivered them from Egypt and who led them through the desert with a sign of a cloud by day and fire (an entire pillar!) by night, told them that their land of promise, one flowing with abundant resources, one that they would be able to clear for themselves, was prepared and ready for them.  Almighty God told them this.  But they, in response, asked to reconsider everything, to make sure that everything was 'safe' and 'ready' to their arbitrary standards.  They became afraid because they reconsidered every single detail and found things to be afraid of, despite God's promise.  This, obviously, did not end well for them.

However, we face this same sort of situation frequently in our lives.  We can go to church and pray and read the bible, but when it comes time for challenges in our lives, we cower.  We turn away from everything we have been taught and have seen and run away to our own detriment.

God used Mosaic Law to teach the people of Israel how to follow God.  Then, when the time was appropriate, God sent Jesus to free us from the tutelage of the Law so that we could walk in faith towards him without any reservations.  Jesus made it so much simpler for us.  But, we continue to walk away, saying it's too scary to follow, too risky to become a disciple, too good to be true.

And then, we have all of the blessings that we receive every day.  We can't seem to be thankful for each one of them.  Instead, we go to God, asking for God to make things the way that we want them, for the moment, for the minute that it sounds good.  Instead, God shows us the bright way, but we find the things to make it scary for us.  God shows you the dream job, but your investigation shows that you would have to put in a greater effort.  God shows you the dream house, but your investigation shows that you would have to mow the lawn.  God shows you salvation, but your investigation shows that you would have to follow God.

This Lent, take some time to thank God for all the blessings you have received.  Ask God for courage through every situation in your life, so that you might be able to become the best that you can be.

God Provides

"Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they said among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away—for it was very large."
Mark 16:1-4

"Ugh! There's no way I'm going to get through the entrance."
Imagine that: three women are ready to perform a funeral rite of purification, but there's a large stone in the way - three women who were probably told that they were weak; three women who had only one thing to do.
We live our lives every day, going through many different issues.  I'm pretty sure that everybody who reads this has some sort of issue s/he has to face every day.  And, yet, we all get through them.
There are things that are difficult for every other person.  Perhaps my going to the gym every weekday is something that another person would think of as being impossible.  On the other hand, though, I think that getting up at four in the morning to report to work is impossible for me to do.  Dealing with taxes of many clients is something else that I see as impossible for me to deal with, yet one of my best friends does that day in and day out with the greatest joy.
We all have our own issues, and that's the situation here.  A woman's job would have been to anoint a dead body.  A soldier's job would have been to roll the stone in front of the tomb and away from it.  Yet, I'm sure that a soldier would not have known how to deal with anointing a dead body, just as the women would not have known how to deal with the large stone.  Add in the stereotypes - that the men were muscular brutes, and women were delicate homemakers - and these extremes become impossible to overcome.
But, today's Gospel is very clear about what happens: the stone will be rolled away.  God provides us with ways to overcome all of our trials.  This is something we need to believe in all of our tasks.

The women could just as well have chatted in this manner after buying the spices, "I forgot there's a huge stone in the way...let's not go".  But, it is with their dedication to complete their task that they saw the glory of God before them: a miracle of God providing.  For God provides us a way, and sometimes that way is something that we won't perceive until we get to the supposed "impossible stone" of our tasks.