LATE UPDATE
I haven't written for almost two months.
I think I was afraid to. Afraid I wouldn't be able to figure out what mess goes on in my head. Yes, I truly have no desire to write. I don't even want to motivate myself to do so.
My reflective capacities have slowed down sharply because of a lack of Scripture. I'm also afraid to read Scripture. It will break me, in order to revive me.
I currently live in a room alone. I enjoy it. Finally, a time of solitude before I'm launched into a 6-person room with RA duties to boot.
I've indulged in my personal temperament too far these past two weeks. I watched more than 10 movies and reached combat level 36 on Runescape. Part of that was because I didn't go to work for a week due to a sprained wrist.
I haven't felt this empty in a while. I've lost my sense of purpose. Some comfort zone; I don't feel right whether I'm sleeping or awake, reading or on social media, watching movies or doing homework, with people or alone. I need God, but I am not willing to go to him.
I've been thinking a lot about my past and my future, trying to figure out who I am so that I can determine who I will be. Particularly, I thought about my past creative works. In my stories, I observe consistent themes of loneliness, fantasy, awakening, and purpose. I hated using narrators in my stories, because I felt that they ruined the mysteriousness of life. Except for my childhood works, my characters are never heroes; they are passive people flowing downstream until something alters their perception of the world and of life. My stories usually end in medias res—in the middle of things—with something to look forward to, usually so that my audience could finish the story with their own lives.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Threefold Mystery: the Spirit of God, of Man, and of the Universe
SOME REFLECTIONS
These are some of the things I've written down in the past few months. As my hectic college schedules have not allowed me to really organize my thoughts into a coherent system, these bits and pieces are the best I could do.
These may seem very obscure and incoherent. They may very well be. Understand this to be the process of building a philosophical perspective on life and everything.
Take everything written here with a grain of salt. A lot of this may turn out to be untrue or incorrect in some respects. I'm merely letting my mind run wild here.
* * * * *
December 3, 2015
In the modern world, time has become a tyrant, always pulling us forward away from the present, in essence dividing our souls from our bodies, our minds from the here and now.
I've always wondered whether man is meant to become more abstract or more concrete as he grows and learns. And now I know: the answer is yes (both). To pursue one without the other is to lose both, and to be filled with emptiness.
When a human being grows, he becomes more and more full, physically and spiritually. If growth is the continuation of creation, then in growth we must seek to be both dense and expansive, being fully grounded in the physical here and now while our minds and spirits reach for the heights and depths of unseen realms. How to do so is a mystery to me. But I suggest to myself a few places to start.
The first starting point is revelation from God, which comes down to earth from heaven, connecting the spiritual and the physical in an explosive connection of love that bursts outward with fruitfulness and glory. Revelation is found in creation (natural and artificial), providence, and especially Scripture. Fellow Christians contain all three aspects of revelation; cherish them.
The second starting point is worship, which goes up to heaven from earth, laying hold of revelation and filling the worshiper with spiritual and physical fullness. Worship is looking to God, reaching for His presence and glory, at once both committing to the world and abandoning it.
Think of the physical and the spiritual not as separate categories, but as the ends of a spectrum. Both comprise the mystery called life and being.
The physical is valuable for its uniqueness and ephemerality.
The spiritual is valuable for its commonality and immutability.
A prayer:
Father, teach me
To be myself and to be a member,
To be present and to be everywhere and every time,
To be at rest and to be at war,
To strive and to wait patiently,
To be self-conscious and self-forgetful,
To be on earth and in heaven,
To be full of sorrow and full of joy,
To give and to receive,
To hold on and to let go,
To seek knowledge and to honor mystery,
To love and to hate,
To die and to live.
Amen.
[Additional notes]:
Oh, the mysteries and paradoxes of life. Oh, the wonder of God.
* * * * *
December 7, 2015
After English class, I started reading chapter 2 of Ronald Dworkin's Religion without God, which I don't really like but which intrigues me with some interesting ideas, especially when he delves into motivations for physicists to seek out a single, unified explanation of the universe.
Why would physicists do that, if not out of some religious instinct? They have some deep assumption that somehow, there is something out there, at least an invisible natural law that they do not yet comprehend, which unifies the universe under its power. Therefore, Dworkin calls them "religious atheists".
I'm also reminded (ironically) of the importance of mystery in religion. There is no religion without mystery, and that is something I have to remember in my walk with God.
* * * * *
Modernism, the Loss of Wonder, and Being a Weirdo
(date written unknown)
The Kantian Divide made enormous waves in philosophical and cultural thinking when it divorced the natural from the supernatural. Science and technology began to rise in prominence, while things like religion and miracles were relegated to the realm of the mysterious. The mysterious eventually became the fictitious, and today these are but the stuff of movies and fantasy novels.
How does this affect everyday life? In societies that are "enlightened", God is almost completely shut out from the conversations of people. At least in pagan idol-worshiping societies, men could engage in discussions or even disputes that are based on the assumption of an existing god(s); they only need to figure out which is/are real and which are false. But the modernist naturalist mind dismisses any possibility of something that's otherworldly or supernatural. To such people, the mechanics of our world are all that exist, and if any irregularities are perceived, there has to be a scientific, natural explanation for it.
Thus, the craving for something that is beyond and transcendent has been suppressed, and we occasionally feed this desire by watching a Marvel superhero movie, for example. We have, in fact, lost a sense of belief and hope that there is a magical world that we could possibly come into contact with; such ideas are, for the most part, mocked today. (But of course, there is also the secular science version of mythology: aliens and UFOs.)
Certainly, we don't want to fall back into superstitious paganism, which diminishes and reduces God as much as modernism does. But we must not let the ideas of naturalism keep us from living with a bold strangeness, as Christians.
Because the truth is that there are, indeed, two worlds: heaven and earth. These two worlds that had been separated by sin are now reconciled because of the blood of Jesus Christ. The supernatural power of heaven has entered into our natural world, and the evidence of that is the Church, who still stands and proclaims the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit.
We must not let our sense of awe be diminished. We must not be afraid of the people who would scorn us for believing in the resurrection of the soul and body, and in Christ coming down to earth again from the sky. We can be bold in our testimony because we have also come into that supernatural world, those of us who have experienced the regenerating power of the Spirit. We understand in our hearts that we belong to another world, and therefore it's only normal to be thought strange when we speak of God's gospel and act in selfless love towards men.
The cost of being Christian is to be a weirdo in the world. We must expect that, and not let modern standards of "normality" cause us to doubt ourselves. We must stand fully with Christ. We are right in doing so.
Let us speak boldly of the magical world of heaven, for we are not normal. We are the messengers of the divine.
* * * * *
December 19, 2015
Visited Dr. Miller Thursday afternoon for a chat to end my semester. He introduced me to an environmental vision of the world and of life. Perhaps "agrarian" would be a fitting term to use.
"Honor the land as a start," said Dr. Miller. Very interesting. But what is the concept of land? That's something I have to ask him next time.
When I was going to leave, he prayed for me and gave me "an American hug". Thank God for providing me with a professor who loves so deeply.
[Additional notes]:
It actually makes a lot of sense for Christians to have an environmentally-friendly perspective. Sometimes we focus too much on the sanctity and honor of human life that we forget the value of the rest of creation. I think as sinners we are more prone to devalue non-human life as a way to pretend that we are raising our respect for human life.
However, a correct vision of the world sees everything as connected. We are connected biologically and even spiritually. As Wendell Berry remarked, it is idiotic to say that a person can be "healthy" when he is standing in the midst of polluted air. At which point the air and his person coincide, the air is him and becomes him.
Do animals have souls? I used to adamantly say NO, but now my perspective has changed. I believe that animals do have souls, in a sense; not souls that have eternal individuality like humans do, to be sure. That should be uniquely human, I believe. But I think that even plants and rocks have a spiritual element to them. This is only consistent with my belief that it is by the Spirit of God that all things hold together. Nothing is purely physical. In fact, who is to say that the physical is not simply an aspect or a dimension of the spiritual? God is Spirit, and thus His creation cannot be void or independent of His Spirit. To say so would be idolatry.
Even with the preeminence of the human race, the way God structured the world shows us how much we are connected with the world and rely on the world. What could we do without the sun? What could we do without the soil? These things were set in place so we remember we are not gods.
* * * * *
December 20, 2015
Service today morning. As I walked into the hall, I immediately felt a strong contrast. There was definitely something different. I did not understand this until after the service.
I told Chi Xin that I felt something different between Chinese and white congregations. I hypothesized that the Chinese have more of a sense of fatalism, while Americans tend to believe more strongly that their choices can defy the impossible; such mindsets carry into relationships, I presume. Thus, Americans see friendship as a gradual process wrought by effort, while the Chinese have more of an all-or-nothing approach based upon the circumstances; if the circumstances are right, it seems more likely that Chinese people would "submit to fate" and accept whoever is before him as a friend, and even be candid about what they dislike about each other.
* * * * *
December 21, 2015
I read half of Francis Schaeffer's Mark of the Christian today. Pretty much reinforced my thoughts on love and apologetics. If I could combine the concepts with Wendell Berry's "Health is Membership", I would have an interesting theory for Christian apologetics.
A few important concepts I have at this point that I want to jot down:
1) Love as the most central quality of God; a supernatural thing;
2) Love is thus the ultimate apologetic, because it displays something that makes no sense (exceeds the natural) in a selfish, fallen world;
3) Love as the greatest health, bring together people who need each other and therefore making all things complete and whole;
4) Therefore, the need for love to pass through suffering (alienation & disintegration).
* * * * *
January 5, 2016
Something remarkable and full of grace happened today. I was praying, telling God, "I failed you, I failed you, I need your help..."
Somehow my thoughts led to the philosophy of the self, and in an instant, I was given the understanding of who I am. I am created in the spiritual image of God. We all are. That's why it is so hard to define a person by one thing or even multiple things. The soul of a man is infinitely multifaceted, because God's soul is.
Thus, as we dishonor God by reducing His person to one thing (idolatry), like the sun, or the trees, or the earth, or an abstract law, we also dishonor man when we seek to simplify human personalities into external appearances or mannerisms. We are more than that.
What a breathtaking duty: I reflect God's spiritual existence, in all my various intellectual perspectives and affections and volition and characteristics of soul, all too deep to comprehend at once.
I had a renewed sense of this just now as I read Scripture and prayed. I realized that I have been faking before God, and He is not pleased with that. I have become so used to trying to be cool and charming and witty in front of people that this has affected how I pray. A lot of the time I feel like I'm trying to touch God's heart. And I always feel like I fail.
Today I was given the understanding that God is God, and I should stop visualizing His responses in my head. That's idolatry. God is spirit, and His thoughts and feelings in response to my prayers isn't as simple as happy or angry. He is God. I will revere the mystery, and I will revere the truth that He takes the initiative in the covenant. I don't charm Him through prayer to do so. We are both not so simple. We are more. We are spirit.
From a physical perspective on the world, things are what they are. From a spiritual perspective on the world, things are more than what they seem. God is one and three, fire and water, meekness and majesty. God is Spirit.
Thank God. Now I can be myself, more and more.
* * * * *
January 26, 2016
Attended a memorial service for Nate Ferraco, who died in a car crash over the weekend. Sitting in the balcony of John White Chapel, seeing the soccer jersey that used to belong to him displayed on stage, watching his teammates huddle and sing and his girlfriend sob... reflecting on death and how vulnerable every single person is before its great power... it all really sobered me up.
For all the things we hate about life, it still seems a devastating thing when someone passes into the darkness.
* * * * *
February 2, 2016
Spent about 6 hours in total talking to friends and family over Skype this weekend. Really put a strain on my homework, but I feel like it's worth it.
The most important thing I got out of talking with my dad in particular is the idea of awesome holiness, and a renewed sense of the importance of reverence. I've been so soft. I need to hold fast to God's standards while remembering the mercy that has been shown me.
Whenever I feel like I have been wronged, rather than deny it in my "forgiving niceness", I must confess that I really have been wronged, and that I have wronged God in ways worse than that. Then I must remember that He has forgiven me for doing so; He paid the awful price for my hate towards Him. Then I will know how to treat others. I must demand perfection from all, and suffer the pain of their falling short. That's what Christ did.
* * * * *
February 4, 2016
The highlights of today was learning about society and economic systems, with an emphasis on the vices of capitalism. In society class today, Dr. Suhr led us in a discussion of the article about Marx that we read yesterday. Very insightful. I'm beginning to see more and more clearly how much capitalism has shaped us, and how much we as a society set it up as a god.
Also talked to Kara quite a bit tonight, which contributed significantly to my understanding of urban society versus rural society and to my envisioning of the agrarian life.
Agrarianism prizes freedom from reliance on others, self-sufficiency of local communities, commitment to a certain place and people, and historical existence.
Capitalism prizes individual self-sufficiency and liberty by (paradoxically) making every person in the system deeply interdependent. The city man is not tied to a place or community (only to the capitalist system), and his sense of identity is disconnected from his past, for it is his future successes that will establish who he is. He is the self-made man.
Interesting. Worth reflecting on more.
* * * * *
February 6, 2016
In times past, God called Israel to live out her faith in the arena of warfare. A nation of freed slaves, with no heritage of warfare, actually managed to conquer the Promised Land.
You too shall prevail. God has called you, a fool, into the arena of academia. Do not fear, but trust Him, and turn your heart not to idols lest He give you over to defeat.
* * * * *
February 10, 2016
I had an interesting thought when reading for society class:
The books we read, the perspectives and systems of thought we absorb, etc. are meant to prepare us to learn people, no less the One Person from whom all peoples came. Study of inanimate objects or impersonal laws are not an end in itself. Love is the goal, to see people and to unite with them, seeing through their eyes.
The direction of eternal joy is from impersonal to personal, from death to life, from nothingness to fullness.
A complaint of the heart:
How far am I from You. The fire in my heart is not there. I've been entangled in many concerns of the world.
But know also, Father, that I do these things because You call me to.
I pay attention to people because they belong to You and need You.
I overload myself with work so that other people may be relieved of theirs.
I do it for You.
I am not running away like I used to. I'm in the fray.
Guard my mind and heart. Make me sensitive to my thoughts and attitudes. Fill me with the compassion and the righteous passion of Christ.
Please, Father, remember my faith.
When I resolve to forget myself, please remember me.
Now, let us fight sin. Onward! I fear no evil and no death.
* * * * *
I've joined the school choir, and this is one of the awesome songs that we sing, called the Pilgrim's Hymn:
Even before we call on Your name
To ask You O God—
When we seek for the words to glorify You,
You hear our prayer.
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know;
Glory to the Father and to the Son
And to the Holy Spirit.
Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name;
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You.
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.
Both now and forever, and unto ages
And ages. Amen.
These are some of the things I've written down in the past few months. As my hectic college schedules have not allowed me to really organize my thoughts into a coherent system, these bits and pieces are the best I could do.
These may seem very obscure and incoherent. They may very well be. Understand this to be the process of building a philosophical perspective on life and everything.
Take everything written here with a grain of salt. A lot of this may turn out to be untrue or incorrect in some respects. I'm merely letting my mind run wild here.
* * * * *
December 3, 2015
In the modern world, time has become a tyrant, always pulling us forward away from the present, in essence dividing our souls from our bodies, our minds from the here and now.
I've always wondered whether man is meant to become more abstract or more concrete as he grows and learns. And now I know: the answer is yes (both). To pursue one without the other is to lose both, and to be filled with emptiness.
When a human being grows, he becomes more and more full, physically and spiritually. If growth is the continuation of creation, then in growth we must seek to be both dense and expansive, being fully grounded in the physical here and now while our minds and spirits reach for the heights and depths of unseen realms. How to do so is a mystery to me. But I suggest to myself a few places to start.
The first starting point is revelation from God, which comes down to earth from heaven, connecting the spiritual and the physical in an explosive connection of love that bursts outward with fruitfulness and glory. Revelation is found in creation (natural and artificial), providence, and especially Scripture. Fellow Christians contain all three aspects of revelation; cherish them.
The second starting point is worship, which goes up to heaven from earth, laying hold of revelation and filling the worshiper with spiritual and physical fullness. Worship is looking to God, reaching for His presence and glory, at once both committing to the world and abandoning it.
Think of the physical and the spiritual not as separate categories, but as the ends of a spectrum. Both comprise the mystery called life and being.
The physical is valuable for its uniqueness and ephemerality.
The spiritual is valuable for its commonality and immutability.
A prayer:
Father, teach me
To be myself and to be a member,
To be present and to be everywhere and every time,
To be at rest and to be at war,
To strive and to wait patiently,
To be self-conscious and self-forgetful,
To be on earth and in heaven,
To be full of sorrow and full of joy,
To give and to receive,
To hold on and to let go,
To seek knowledge and to honor mystery,
To love and to hate,
To die and to live.
Amen.
[Additional notes]:
Oh, the mysteries and paradoxes of life. Oh, the wonder of God.
* * * * *
December 7, 2015
After English class, I started reading chapter 2 of Ronald Dworkin's Religion without God, which I don't really like but which intrigues me with some interesting ideas, especially when he delves into motivations for physicists to seek out a single, unified explanation of the universe.
Why would physicists do that, if not out of some religious instinct? They have some deep assumption that somehow, there is something out there, at least an invisible natural law that they do not yet comprehend, which unifies the universe under its power. Therefore, Dworkin calls them "religious atheists".
I'm also reminded (ironically) of the importance of mystery in religion. There is no religion without mystery, and that is something I have to remember in my walk with God.
* * * * *
Modernism, the Loss of Wonder, and Being a Weirdo
(date written unknown)
The Kantian Divide made enormous waves in philosophical and cultural thinking when it divorced the natural from the supernatural. Science and technology began to rise in prominence, while things like religion and miracles were relegated to the realm of the mysterious. The mysterious eventually became the fictitious, and today these are but the stuff of movies and fantasy novels.
How does this affect everyday life? In societies that are "enlightened", God is almost completely shut out from the conversations of people. At least in pagan idol-worshiping societies, men could engage in discussions or even disputes that are based on the assumption of an existing god(s); they only need to figure out which is/are real and which are false. But the modernist naturalist mind dismisses any possibility of something that's otherworldly or supernatural. To such people, the mechanics of our world are all that exist, and if any irregularities are perceived, there has to be a scientific, natural explanation for it.
Thus, the craving for something that is beyond and transcendent has been suppressed, and we occasionally feed this desire by watching a Marvel superhero movie, for example. We have, in fact, lost a sense of belief and hope that there is a magical world that we could possibly come into contact with; such ideas are, for the most part, mocked today. (But of course, there is also the secular science version of mythology: aliens and UFOs.)
Certainly, we don't want to fall back into superstitious paganism, which diminishes and reduces God as much as modernism does. But we must not let the ideas of naturalism keep us from living with a bold strangeness, as Christians.
Because the truth is that there are, indeed, two worlds: heaven and earth. These two worlds that had been separated by sin are now reconciled because of the blood of Jesus Christ. The supernatural power of heaven has entered into our natural world, and the evidence of that is the Church, who still stands and proclaims the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit.
We must not let our sense of awe be diminished. We must not be afraid of the people who would scorn us for believing in the resurrection of the soul and body, and in Christ coming down to earth again from the sky. We can be bold in our testimony because we have also come into that supernatural world, those of us who have experienced the regenerating power of the Spirit. We understand in our hearts that we belong to another world, and therefore it's only normal to be thought strange when we speak of God's gospel and act in selfless love towards men.
The cost of being Christian is to be a weirdo in the world. We must expect that, and not let modern standards of "normality" cause us to doubt ourselves. We must stand fully with Christ. We are right in doing so.
Let us speak boldly of the magical world of heaven, for we are not normal. We are the messengers of the divine.
* * * * *
December 19, 2015
Visited Dr. Miller Thursday afternoon for a chat to end my semester. He introduced me to an environmental vision of the world and of life. Perhaps "agrarian" would be a fitting term to use.
"Honor the land as a start," said Dr. Miller. Very interesting. But what is the concept of land? That's something I have to ask him next time.
When I was going to leave, he prayed for me and gave me "an American hug". Thank God for providing me with a professor who loves so deeply.
[Additional notes]:
It actually makes a lot of sense for Christians to have an environmentally-friendly perspective. Sometimes we focus too much on the sanctity and honor of human life that we forget the value of the rest of creation. I think as sinners we are more prone to devalue non-human life as a way to pretend that we are raising our respect for human life.
However, a correct vision of the world sees everything as connected. We are connected biologically and even spiritually. As Wendell Berry remarked, it is idiotic to say that a person can be "healthy" when he is standing in the midst of polluted air. At which point the air and his person coincide, the air is him and becomes him.
Do animals have souls? I used to adamantly say NO, but now my perspective has changed. I believe that animals do have souls, in a sense; not souls that have eternal individuality like humans do, to be sure. That should be uniquely human, I believe. But I think that even plants and rocks have a spiritual element to them. This is only consistent with my belief that it is by the Spirit of God that all things hold together. Nothing is purely physical. In fact, who is to say that the physical is not simply an aspect or a dimension of the spiritual? God is Spirit, and thus His creation cannot be void or independent of His Spirit. To say so would be idolatry.
Even with the preeminence of the human race, the way God structured the world shows us how much we are connected with the world and rely on the world. What could we do without the sun? What could we do without the soil? These things were set in place so we remember we are not gods.
* * * * *
December 20, 2015
Service today morning. As I walked into the hall, I immediately felt a strong contrast. There was definitely something different. I did not understand this until after the service.
I told Chi Xin that I felt something different between Chinese and white congregations. I hypothesized that the Chinese have more of a sense of fatalism, while Americans tend to believe more strongly that their choices can defy the impossible; such mindsets carry into relationships, I presume. Thus, Americans see friendship as a gradual process wrought by effort, while the Chinese have more of an all-or-nothing approach based upon the circumstances; if the circumstances are right, it seems more likely that Chinese people would "submit to fate" and accept whoever is before him as a friend, and even be candid about what they dislike about each other.
* * * * *
December 21, 2015
I read half of Francis Schaeffer's Mark of the Christian today. Pretty much reinforced my thoughts on love and apologetics. If I could combine the concepts with Wendell Berry's "Health is Membership", I would have an interesting theory for Christian apologetics.
A few important concepts I have at this point that I want to jot down:
1) Love as the most central quality of God; a supernatural thing;
2) Love is thus the ultimate apologetic, because it displays something that makes no sense (exceeds the natural) in a selfish, fallen world;
3) Love as the greatest health, bring together people who need each other and therefore making all things complete and whole;
4) Therefore, the need for love to pass through suffering (alienation & disintegration).
* * * * *
January 5, 2016
Something remarkable and full of grace happened today. I was praying, telling God, "I failed you, I failed you, I need your help..."
Somehow my thoughts led to the philosophy of the self, and in an instant, I was given the understanding of who I am. I am created in the spiritual image of God. We all are. That's why it is so hard to define a person by one thing or even multiple things. The soul of a man is infinitely multifaceted, because God's soul is.
Thus, as we dishonor God by reducing His person to one thing (idolatry), like the sun, or the trees, or the earth, or an abstract law, we also dishonor man when we seek to simplify human personalities into external appearances or mannerisms. We are more than that.
What a breathtaking duty: I reflect God's spiritual existence, in all my various intellectual perspectives and affections and volition and characteristics of soul, all too deep to comprehend at once.
I had a renewed sense of this just now as I read Scripture and prayed. I realized that I have been faking before God, and He is not pleased with that. I have become so used to trying to be cool and charming and witty in front of people that this has affected how I pray. A lot of the time I feel like I'm trying to touch God's heart. And I always feel like I fail.
Today I was given the understanding that God is God, and I should stop visualizing His responses in my head. That's idolatry. God is spirit, and His thoughts and feelings in response to my prayers isn't as simple as happy or angry. He is God. I will revere the mystery, and I will revere the truth that He takes the initiative in the covenant. I don't charm Him through prayer to do so. We are both not so simple. We are more. We are spirit.
From a physical perspective on the world, things are what they are. From a spiritual perspective on the world, things are more than what they seem. God is one and three, fire and water, meekness and majesty. God is Spirit.
Thank God. Now I can be myself, more and more.
* * * * *
January 26, 2016
Attended a memorial service for Nate Ferraco, who died in a car crash over the weekend. Sitting in the balcony of John White Chapel, seeing the soccer jersey that used to belong to him displayed on stage, watching his teammates huddle and sing and his girlfriend sob... reflecting on death and how vulnerable every single person is before its great power... it all really sobered me up.
For all the things we hate about life, it still seems a devastating thing when someone passes into the darkness.
* * * * *
February 2, 2016
Spent about 6 hours in total talking to friends and family over Skype this weekend. Really put a strain on my homework, but I feel like it's worth it.
The most important thing I got out of talking with my dad in particular is the idea of awesome holiness, and a renewed sense of the importance of reverence. I've been so soft. I need to hold fast to God's standards while remembering the mercy that has been shown me.
Whenever I feel like I have been wronged, rather than deny it in my "forgiving niceness", I must confess that I really have been wronged, and that I have wronged God in ways worse than that. Then I must remember that He has forgiven me for doing so; He paid the awful price for my hate towards Him. Then I will know how to treat others. I must demand perfection from all, and suffer the pain of their falling short. That's what Christ did.
* * * * *
February 4, 2016
The highlights of today was learning about society and economic systems, with an emphasis on the vices of capitalism. In society class today, Dr. Suhr led us in a discussion of the article about Marx that we read yesterday. Very insightful. I'm beginning to see more and more clearly how much capitalism has shaped us, and how much we as a society set it up as a god.
Also talked to Kara quite a bit tonight, which contributed significantly to my understanding of urban society versus rural society and to my envisioning of the agrarian life.
Agrarianism prizes freedom from reliance on others, self-sufficiency of local communities, commitment to a certain place and people, and historical existence.
Capitalism prizes individual self-sufficiency and liberty by (paradoxically) making every person in the system deeply interdependent. The city man is not tied to a place or community (only to the capitalist system), and his sense of identity is disconnected from his past, for it is his future successes that will establish who he is. He is the self-made man.
Interesting. Worth reflecting on more.
* * * * *
February 6, 2016
In times past, God called Israel to live out her faith in the arena of warfare. A nation of freed slaves, with no heritage of warfare, actually managed to conquer the Promised Land.
You too shall prevail. God has called you, a fool, into the arena of academia. Do not fear, but trust Him, and turn your heart not to idols lest He give you over to defeat.
* * * * *
February 10, 2016
I had an interesting thought when reading for society class:
The books we read, the perspectives and systems of thought we absorb, etc. are meant to prepare us to learn people, no less the One Person from whom all peoples came. Study of inanimate objects or impersonal laws are not an end in itself. Love is the goal, to see people and to unite with them, seeing through their eyes.
The direction of eternal joy is from impersonal to personal, from death to life, from nothingness to fullness.
A complaint of the heart:
How far am I from You. The fire in my heart is not there. I've been entangled in many concerns of the world.
But know also, Father, that I do these things because You call me to.
I pay attention to people because they belong to You and need You.
I overload myself with work so that other people may be relieved of theirs.
I do it for You.
I am not running away like I used to. I'm in the fray.
Guard my mind and heart. Make me sensitive to my thoughts and attitudes. Fill me with the compassion and the righteous passion of Christ.
Please, Father, remember my faith.
When I resolve to forget myself, please remember me.
Now, let us fight sin. Onward! I fear no evil and no death.
* * * * *
I've joined the school choir, and this is one of the awesome songs that we sing, called the Pilgrim's Hymn:
Even before we call on Your name
To ask You O God—
When we seek for the words to glorify You,
You hear our prayer.
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know;
Glory to the Father and to the Son
And to the Holy Spirit.
Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name;
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You.
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.
Both now and forever, and unto ages
And ages. Amen.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Memory: Arrival in the U.S.A.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Farewell at the Airport
To be honest, this has been an overwhelming experience, and I will find it very difficult to describe it. But I will try my best.
I choked back tears as I walked away from my family and friends in the airport. It wasn't that I was afraid of being far away from them, nor was it the prospect of how long four years would be. It was just the feeling of them seeing me leave, watching over me affectionately, loving this undeserving wretch and worm, that tugged at my heartstrings.
In that moment I felt the sacrifice that they made for me by sending me off to a foreign land, believing that I would learn well and grow into a man. I realized that they truly hoped for me to be happy, even at the expense of not seeing me for several years. And deep inside, I had a dreadful fear: that I might fail these people who love me, that I would return home, having spent much time and money, without having changed much as a person. I was afraid that they might be wrong in banking their hopes on me. Thus is the pain of being loved.
In fact, I recently thought that the feeling of disappointing someone who loves you is what hellfire probably feels like. Every human being who went to hell has experienced the (common) love of God before, most having lived for decades in a world where they could feel their way towards God. God bestows innumerable blessings on each person as well as uses suffering to prod people towards Him, the Comforter. Yet, without effectual grace, these only harden sinners; and at the judgment, God rightly casts them away and stops loving them forever.
This is perhaps why I fear being loved, which is strange considering how great is my desire to be loved. I want to be loved, but understanding my sinful nature and my limitations, I know that I will eventually become a disappointment and incur wrath upon myself. My love would run dry, my hypocrisy would be exposed, my selfishness would take advantage of the grace that is shown me, etc. I would show myself as one who is unworthy of love, and be cast into a figurative hell in the hearts of the people whom I have failed.
This, then, is how my journey began: afraid, in need of divine assurance, seeking salvation. Yes indeed, I traveled halfway around the world to America not mainly to get a degree, but to embark on a quest for God. I now realize that everything in my life boils down to one thing, and one thing only, which is to find out whether God loves me, and if so, how deeply.
In the airport, I successfully suppressed the tears and gave them a cheery final wave before I walked out of sight.
* * * * *
Hong Kong
As Jarrett and I traveled through the skies, I felt a fierce sense of independence gradually developing inside of me. Freedom. I felt like I finally get to decide who I want to be. For the first time in my life, perhaps, I felt free of anyone's expectations. This was a fresh start.
We had a thirteen hour stopover at Hong Kong, so we stayed overnight at a hotel. I sat for a long time in the shower trying to take it all in. The experience was quite overwhelming. I couldn't believe I was actually flying to America. It was too surreal. But most importantly, I couldn't believe the amount of freedom I suddenly had.
Then, for one terrifying moment, I realized why I didn't feel sad about leaving home at all; it was because I've always wanted to make my own decisions, and being away from authority figures gave me that freedom. It was a strange realization, because I've always been a very dependent child. This independent, almost rebellious, side of me has been suppressed for so long, and in that moment it emerged with great strength.
Immediately I found the need to pray. I gave the days ahead over to God, asking that He be the one to decide what happens to me. I asked that He would lead me into suffering that would increase my holiness. I asked Him to make me His own no matter what happens, and no matter how much I want to shape myself into a personality that my fleshly self desires to become. I need to be who He wants me to be. And there in the shower, I knew that God heard my prayer. He never rejected any petition to become like Christ. He's always willing to make it so, to glorify His children in Him.
I also tried to imagine what my future days in college would be like, and I wasn't successful. I realized that I truly didn't know what to expect, and I knew what that likely meant: I was going to change dramatically as a person.
One of the times this happened in my life was when, as an early teen, I decided to join theater. The challenges to my deeply introverted and insecure personality were so unexpectedly intense that I was pushed past a certain point. I had some kind of a breakthrough. Suddenly I had an interest in the real world and in real people. I started to drift away from my virtual online life, and at some point I made a painful commitment to say goodbye to my world of fantasy. It wasn't that I decided fiction was bad or anything, but I had to break the innate escapist tendencies in my heart. I couldn't go on pretending that the character in the online game was the real me.
Remember the post where I wrote about a strange and melancholy feeling when I saw a picture of my nine-year-old self? Where the idea that I've changed haunted me for quite a while? There, in the shower in a hotel in Hong Kong, I foresaw that I was possibly going through such a change again. It is the kind of change which is so dramatic that you can't even remember what life felt like prior to that. I couldn't remember what it felt like to be a nine-year-old me, indulging endlessly in my wonderful fantasies. Right then, I was afraid that in a few years I would forget how it is like to be a nineteen-year-old Josh, cool and boyish and shy and full of angst and philosophically reflective and trying to see humor in everything and having little worry other than to love God by serving my brethren.
I sat there for quite a long time, allowing the shower to fall on my head and flow down my face, dripping off my eyelashes and nose and lips and chin. I was almost mourning. Somehow I felt like I was going to die, just like my fantasy-addicted childhood self died. He was gone, and so will I be.
* * * * *
Welcome Week
A.k.a. orientation week, albeit probably much nicer than most other universities.
After checking into our rooms, the first official event was meeting with those in the same department on the lawn in front of Memorial residence hall. I walked over to the history/sociology/political science circle, and there I met the super-friendly Rachel Stevenson. I remember a mini-twinge of annoyance because of how easy God made it for me, as if my social skills were so terrible that I needed someone to warm-up with before I moved on to other strangers. To say the least, she was pretty much a godsend and a very pleasant surprise, because she was very Reformed and very caring. I didn't think it realistic to expect that my first friend at Geneva College would also be one of my closest friends later on, but what do you know, God is exceedingly kind and gentle towards me.
In the meeting for new international students, I met another godsend: Nathan Moelker, the Canadian native who lived in New Zealand for the last five years, who has a Reformed pastor dad like Rachel does, and who later turned out to share four classes with me during the semester. He is also six feet and six inches tall. We would turn out to be an interesting pair, the dwarf and the giant, two international students walking around campus talking about classes, books, movies, the Puritans, and other fun stuff.
Nathan and Rachel and I now go to the same church, Grace OPC in Sewickley. Their respective significant others now also worship there. Good company.
I also met with my academic advisor, Dr. Eric Miller, for the first time. I don't remember much from that meeting, except for the moment when I was leaving his office—he told me with the utmost gentleness and sincerity that if I ever needed him, I could seek him out. I then knew that I found someone who was truly filled with Christlike love, and that drew me to him immediately.
One night, the First-Year Honors Program had a special dinner. As God would have it, Dr. Miller was the new director of the program. Halfway through dinnertime, I went out to get another drink, just as Dr. Miller began introducing the program. Seeing me as I reentered the room, he loudly announced, "Josh!" And he began to clap. Everyone else followed.
"Did you all know that Josh literally came from the other side of the world?"
Farewell at the Airport
To be honest, this has been an overwhelming experience, and I will find it very difficult to describe it. But I will try my best.
I choked back tears as I walked away from my family and friends in the airport. It wasn't that I was afraid of being far away from them, nor was it the prospect of how long four years would be. It was just the feeling of them seeing me leave, watching over me affectionately, loving this undeserving wretch and worm, that tugged at my heartstrings.
In that moment I felt the sacrifice that they made for me by sending me off to a foreign land, believing that I would learn well and grow into a man. I realized that they truly hoped for me to be happy, even at the expense of not seeing me for several years. And deep inside, I had a dreadful fear: that I might fail these people who love me, that I would return home, having spent much time and money, without having changed much as a person. I was afraid that they might be wrong in banking their hopes on me. Thus is the pain of being loved.
In fact, I recently thought that the feeling of disappointing someone who loves you is what hellfire probably feels like. Every human being who went to hell has experienced the (common) love of God before, most having lived for decades in a world where they could feel their way towards God. God bestows innumerable blessings on each person as well as uses suffering to prod people towards Him, the Comforter. Yet, without effectual grace, these only harden sinners; and at the judgment, God rightly casts them away and stops loving them forever.
This is perhaps why I fear being loved, which is strange considering how great is my desire to be loved. I want to be loved, but understanding my sinful nature and my limitations, I know that I will eventually become a disappointment and incur wrath upon myself. My love would run dry, my hypocrisy would be exposed, my selfishness would take advantage of the grace that is shown me, etc. I would show myself as one who is unworthy of love, and be cast into a figurative hell in the hearts of the people whom I have failed.
This, then, is how my journey began: afraid, in need of divine assurance, seeking salvation. Yes indeed, I traveled halfway around the world to America not mainly to get a degree, but to embark on a quest for God. I now realize that everything in my life boils down to one thing, and one thing only, which is to find out whether God loves me, and if so, how deeply.
In the airport, I successfully suppressed the tears and gave them a cheery final wave before I walked out of sight.
* * * * *
Hong Kong
As Jarrett and I traveled through the skies, I felt a fierce sense of independence gradually developing inside of me. Freedom. I felt like I finally get to decide who I want to be. For the first time in my life, perhaps, I felt free of anyone's expectations. This was a fresh start.
We had a thirteen hour stopover at Hong Kong, so we stayed overnight at a hotel. I sat for a long time in the shower trying to take it all in. The experience was quite overwhelming. I couldn't believe I was actually flying to America. It was too surreal. But most importantly, I couldn't believe the amount of freedom I suddenly had.
Then, for one terrifying moment, I realized why I didn't feel sad about leaving home at all; it was because I've always wanted to make my own decisions, and being away from authority figures gave me that freedom. It was a strange realization, because I've always been a very dependent child. This independent, almost rebellious, side of me has been suppressed for so long, and in that moment it emerged with great strength.
Immediately I found the need to pray. I gave the days ahead over to God, asking that He be the one to decide what happens to me. I asked that He would lead me into suffering that would increase my holiness. I asked Him to make me His own no matter what happens, and no matter how much I want to shape myself into a personality that my fleshly self desires to become. I need to be who He wants me to be. And there in the shower, I knew that God heard my prayer. He never rejected any petition to become like Christ. He's always willing to make it so, to glorify His children in Him.
I also tried to imagine what my future days in college would be like, and I wasn't successful. I realized that I truly didn't know what to expect, and I knew what that likely meant: I was going to change dramatically as a person.
One of the times this happened in my life was when, as an early teen, I decided to join theater. The challenges to my deeply introverted and insecure personality were so unexpectedly intense that I was pushed past a certain point. I had some kind of a breakthrough. Suddenly I had an interest in the real world and in real people. I started to drift away from my virtual online life, and at some point I made a painful commitment to say goodbye to my world of fantasy. It wasn't that I decided fiction was bad or anything, but I had to break the innate escapist tendencies in my heart. I couldn't go on pretending that the character in the online game was the real me.
Remember the post where I wrote about a strange and melancholy feeling when I saw a picture of my nine-year-old self? Where the idea that I've changed haunted me for quite a while? There, in the shower in a hotel in Hong Kong, I foresaw that I was possibly going through such a change again. It is the kind of change which is so dramatic that you can't even remember what life felt like prior to that. I couldn't remember what it felt like to be a nine-year-old me, indulging endlessly in my wonderful fantasies. Right then, I was afraid that in a few years I would forget how it is like to be a nineteen-year-old Josh, cool and boyish and shy and full of angst and philosophically reflective and trying to see humor in everything and having little worry other than to love God by serving my brethren.
I sat there for quite a long time, allowing the shower to fall on my head and flow down my face, dripping off my eyelashes and nose and lips and chin. I was almost mourning. Somehow I felt like I was going to die, just like my fantasy-addicted childhood self died. He was gone, and so will I be.
* * * * *
Welcome Week
A.k.a. orientation week, albeit probably much nicer than most other universities.
After checking into our rooms, the first official event was meeting with those in the same department on the lawn in front of Memorial residence hall. I walked over to the history/sociology/political science circle, and there I met the super-friendly Rachel Stevenson. I remember a mini-twinge of annoyance because of how easy God made it for me, as if my social skills were so terrible that I needed someone to warm-up with before I moved on to other strangers. To say the least, she was pretty much a godsend and a very pleasant surprise, because she was very Reformed and very caring. I didn't think it realistic to expect that my first friend at Geneva College would also be one of my closest friends later on, but what do you know, God is exceedingly kind and gentle towards me.
In the meeting for new international students, I met another godsend: Nathan Moelker, the Canadian native who lived in New Zealand for the last five years, who has a Reformed pastor dad like Rachel does, and who later turned out to share four classes with me during the semester. He is also six feet and six inches tall. We would turn out to be an interesting pair, the dwarf and the giant, two international students walking around campus talking about classes, books, movies, the Puritans, and other fun stuff.
Nathan and Rachel and I now go to the same church, Grace OPC in Sewickley. Their respective significant others now also worship there. Good company.
I also met with my academic advisor, Dr. Eric Miller, for the first time. I don't remember much from that meeting, except for the moment when I was leaving his office—he told me with the utmost gentleness and sincerity that if I ever needed him, I could seek him out. I then knew that I found someone who was truly filled with Christlike love, and that drew me to him immediately.
One night, the First-Year Honors Program had a special dinner. As God would have it, Dr. Miller was the new director of the program. Halfway through dinnertime, I went out to get another drink, just as Dr. Miller began introducing the program. Seeing me as I reentered the room, he loudly announced, "Josh!" And he began to clap. Everyone else followed.
"Did you all know that Josh literally came from the other side of the world?"
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Spiritual Warfare Pt. 4: Surrender
THE POWER OF PRAYER
Up until now I have been writing about external forces in spiritual warfare. This post will address the warring aspect of spiritual warfare from our point of view. In this cosmic warfare between God and the forces of evil, Christians participate in the fight by means of prayer.
In my second post, I discussed the "divine armor" (assurance of salvation) that Christians put on in order to stand against the powers of darkness. In the third post, I said that we gain this assurance (find the "pieces of armor") by hearing the Spirit speak to us through the Word of God. In this post, I will show how prayer is the putting on of the divine armor and the active hearing of the Word, as well as the actual motions of combat performed by Christians in spiritual warfare.
Remember that all people are born sinners; thus, everyone starts off on the side of the devil, as part of the rebel force against God. How do we change sides? By means of surrender. From the rebel camp, we run over to God's army, white flag in hand, begging for mercy. We realize that we've committed cosmic treason and are worthy of eternal death and that we have nothing with which we could please God. This, then, becomes our prayer and our cry:
By surrendering to God in prayer, we in effect declare allegiance to King Jesus. In His grace, God does not make us prisoners or slaves but grants us immeasurable honor by enlisting us in His army. From then on, God's power is our power, His army is our army, and His victory will be our victory.
Hence, we understand why prayer has the power to move mountains. It is not because there is power in prayer itself; in fact, prayer is essentially an act of weakness and reliance, as I have just mentioned. Rather, prayer is powerful because God is powerful. When weak men rely on a strong God, He becomes their strength. As John Calvin says, "Prayer doesn't change things - God changes things in answer to prayer." This implies that the nature of prayer is not humans telling God what to do—which is how a great majority of Christians treat it—but it is about humans submitting to God. It is recognizing that God is the one who is in total control and responding to Him as such.
Now I digress slightly to address this question: "If God has already determined in His mind what He will do, what is the point of praying to Him?" This question involves a faulty view of the purpose of prayer; again, prayer is not about controlling God, it's about submitting to His will. Think of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. What was His petition? "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done." (Luke 22:42)
Jesus did not think it pointless to pray just because He expected God to say "no" to Him. On the contrary, that is precisely why He prayed. He prayed so that He could align His own desires and wants with the will of God. And that should be the way we pray too; we don't primarily seek to change things, but rather we let God change us through our prayers. Humble persons will see the importance of this; because if Jesus, who was not a sinner, prayed to align His will with the Father's will, how much more should we as sinners allow God to correct and mold us!
Although the Bible contains the view that God has already predestined everything that will happen, that does not mean that God does not respond to prayer in a real and personal way. In fact, the Bible contains passages like these:
"Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob."
(Exodus 2:23b-24)
"Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."
(James 5:14-15)
"And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him."
(1 John 5:14-15)
Here we see the tension between God's sovereignty and man's free will; as a Calvinist, I affirm both wholeheartedly. Nothing is outside of God's control, and that does not negate our freedom to choose. This might not make sense to the "enlightened" mind, but this is the only way life can make sense: life would be meaningless without predestination, and it would be loveless without free will. Thus, in prayer we uphold both; we pray with the understanding that God responds to us personally, also knowing that He already has His will in mind. That is true submission.
How, then, should we integrate prayer into our lives? What does that look like? The final passage of our text in Ephesians gives us an answer:
"praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak."
(Ephesians 6:18-20)
Here we have our seventh piece of armor, so to speak. This is what John Bunyan calls the weapon of All Prayer. There are two characteristics of it that we can see in this passage.
First is the constancy of it. Note that Paul said to pray at all times. How does one do that? Clearly, Paul does not mean that we should do nothing other than shut ourselves in our rooms and pray. Rather, this refers to a consistent attitude of the heart, in which the default inclination of the person is to pray. This default inclination, I believe, may be termed faith. A Christian who has true faith will experience a growing desire to direct all things in prayer toward God.
Remember that faith is a key requisite for salvation. Faith unites us with Christ and consequently justifies us. Therefore if the heart of prayer is faith, and the exercise of faith is prayer, then we can attain the assurance of salvation ("put on the divine armor") by praying. Don't get me wrong; I don't mean that God washes away our sins because we pray. It is Christ's imputed righteousness that covers our transgressions. However, it is by our God-given faith that we lay hold of that righteousness. Now, faith is unseen because it is in the heart. But prayer is the visible exercise of that faith which God personally responds to. That's why we have verses like:"And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." (Joel 2:32) And when we see ourselves pray, that becomes a visible sign to ourselves that we have faith and are saved.
In light of this, it is good for us to understand prayer in a broader way than it usually is understood. Prayer may be understood as essentially a way of life, a life of surrender to God which flows out of a heart of faith. In a way, everything we do can be done as a "prayer" to God, as long as it is done out of faith in Him. Our petitions can be presented before God by making decisions with a mindset of submission to God's will. We can demonstrate our thankfulness to God by helping others who are in need. We could confess our sins with practical actions of forsaking sin and pursuing holiness. That is how we are to pray at all times. It's ultimately about a heart of faith flowing into daily life, in both word and deed.
Remember that faith is surrender; it is an act of receiving. Therefore, it is also how we ought to receive the Word of God. The way we pick up the sword of the Spirit is by believing in it. For how are we to use Holy Scripture effectively in our lives if we don't believe what it says? So we must have faith in the Word of God. However, again, faith is an unseen thing which is visibly exercised by prayer. Thus, I may conclude that Scripture is worthless to us if we do not pray it and in response to it. Prayer and meditation is the means by which God's Word takes root in our hearts (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2). And prayer is also the evidence that the Word of God has taken root in good heart soil and is bearing fruit. Therefore, if a person feels like he is not really "getting" the truths of Scripture, he should do well to pray. He is not called to "wait until something happens". He is called to ask and be given.
Note that the constancy of prayer is something that we must strive for. "To that end keep alert with all perseverance," says Paul, because he knows that as sinners we are constantly tempted to a prayerless attitude. Thus, prayer is not only resting in God but also striving in God. We must be prayer warriors; we wage war against our flesh in order to surrender ourselves to God and be weak and broken before Him with all our flaws and our wants. It probably seems strange that Christians in a sense "strive for weakness"; remember, however, that only in weakness do we find strength in God.
With all that said, it should be an encouragement to Christians that although we might not always find something clear to pray about, yet in a way we are always praying. Paul says that "the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." (Romans 8:26) I wish I could write more about the profound, mysterious, miraculous union between our spirit and the Holy Spirit, but that will have to be a topic for another day. Here, it will suffice for me to say that the Spirit of God prays through us, even wordlessly. That constant and deep desire for God that is found in the heart of every Christian, though sin may sometimes overshadow it, is actually a prayer in its essence. It is a wordless prayer for God's kingdom to come. Thus, in a way, we are constantly praying. With confidence, then, let us by God's grace cultivate that seed of prayer to grow into our lives and bear fruits of thanksgiving, petition, intercession, confession, and praise.
The second characteristic of prayer involves its content. We are to make supplication for all the saints, first of all. We pray for the people of God, the body of Christ. At this point I think it worth mentioning that Paul is speaking to the entire church; when he says "you", he means it in the plural sense. We must remember that we are not fighting this war alone. We fight alongside our brethren under one Christian flag, and thus our disposition to prayer must exceed a focus on our individual conditions.
Therefore, Paul here asks for a mindset that seeks the glory of Christ and His body, rather than a mere determination to "set my life straight". We are to have a heart for God's people, wishing that Christians, as Christ prayed in His priestly prayer, "may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." (John 17:21) This is perhaps the most practical and direct way to love God and love people.
And since the concept of prayer can be understood in terms of lifestyle, our lives should reflect the intercessions we offer up to God on behalf of our brethren; we must "do all to the glory of God... just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved." (1 Corinthians 10:31b, 33) Note especially the connection between God's glory and man's edification. God is glorified when man is saved and sanctified because this highlights God's great mercy and also restores people as glorious image-bearers. Therefore, everything we do must in some way work toward man's salvation (which includes his sanctification) and, consequently, God's glory.
With this in mind, we understand why Paul prays for the churches in the way he does:
"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." (Philippians 1:9-11)
"And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. (Colossians 1:9-12)
We must not neglect to pray like this, praying that the church will be filled with knowledge which leads to good works. This is especially needed in our individualistic modern/postmodern culture, where a great majority of Christians see their relationship with God as merely a means to personal happiness. That is not the selfless love of Christianity.
Paul also tells the Ephesians to pray "for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak." I find it striking that Paul says he needs words to be "given to him" in preaching the gospel. That phrase poignantly communicates the truth that every Christian and every minister relies completely on God to help them live rightly. Although sometimes ministry may seem like something that man is doing for God (which is also true), ultimately it is something that God is doing for man. In which case, we really need to pray for God's grace, so that the proclamation of His great gospel might glorify His name and save His elect.
Paul uses the phrase "ambassador in chains". At this point in our text, I can really taste the reality of our warfare. Up to this point, we have been talking about warfare at the spiritual level. But the spiritual world is unseen. The evidence that we are fighting in the spiritual realm is that we are suffering as real people in the physical realm. For Paul, the practical consequence of his spiritual warfare was being put in prison and being tried unjustly and being persecuted and hated by people he was lovingly trying to minister to. Therefore, Paul asks the Ephesians to pray for his courage; he uses the word "boldly" twice. And it's not hard to see why. It's a tough calling.
How do we fight alongside Paul and other servants of God? In this passage about spiritual warfare, Paul tells us to pray. Pray for the elect. Pray for the ministers. And God will strengthen them somehow. God will strengthen them by His Word, or even by the fellowship of other saints. Perhaps in leading you to pray for certain people, God is also leading you to encourage them in person by some word or deed. Perhaps God is leading you into some Christlike suffering as well.
This has been an immensely difficult subject to write on, and I am fully convinced that I have not done it justice. There are so many things to tie together, and it is hard to explain clearly in different parts what I see to be one great tapestry. To me, assurance of salvation, the Word of God, and prayer are all united in a profound way, almost like different aspects of the same thing. But to sum up what I know so far about prayer (spiritual warfare from our perspective), it is this:
Prayer is how we receive the Word of God and cultivate it in our lives, and therefore prayer is how we put on the divine armor (increase our confidence in God's saving of us) and use the sword of the Spirit (receive and respond to the Word). Prayer, like faith, should be constant and selfless, seeking the glory of God and the good of man at all times.
If all of this sounds easy, I may not have described it well. Prayer is impossible. It requires that you completely surrender to God's will and fight on His side, which means that you are to suffer with Christ and His body, the Church. None of us sinners have the willingness to do that. We are morally unable.
But of course, it will be easy in the sense that it will not be your strength, but God's strength. God's Spirit quickens us to take the leap of faith, or rather the leaps of faith throughout our whole lifetime to trust in Him for our own souls and for the souls of those we are called to love. And certainly, He is worth trusting. He gave His only Son for us.
This concludes my amateur reflection on spiritual warfare. Thank God for a meaningful year, and may He ever help us to fight this impossible war.
"There you are, Ivan Denisovich, your soul is begging to pray. Why don't you give it its freedom?"
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Up until now I have been writing about external forces in spiritual warfare. This post will address the warring aspect of spiritual warfare from our point of view. In this cosmic warfare between God and the forces of evil, Christians participate in the fight by means of prayer.
In my second post, I discussed the "divine armor" (assurance of salvation) that Christians put on in order to stand against the powers of darkness. In the third post, I said that we gain this assurance (find the "pieces of armor") by hearing the Spirit speak to us through the Word of God. In this post, I will show how prayer is the putting on of the divine armor and the active hearing of the Word, as well as the actual motions of combat performed by Christians in spiritual warfare.
Remember that all people are born sinners; thus, everyone starts off on the side of the devil, as part of the rebel force against God. How do we change sides? By means of surrender. From the rebel camp, we run over to God's army, white flag in hand, begging for mercy. We realize that we've committed cosmic treason and are worthy of eternal death and that we have nothing with which we could please God. This, then, becomes our prayer and our cry:
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.
—Augustus M. Toplady, "Rock of Ages"
By surrendering to God in prayer, we in effect declare allegiance to King Jesus. In His grace, God does not make us prisoners or slaves but grants us immeasurable honor by enlisting us in His army. From then on, God's power is our power, His army is our army, and His victory will be our victory.
Hence, we understand why prayer has the power to move mountains. It is not because there is power in prayer itself; in fact, prayer is essentially an act of weakness and reliance, as I have just mentioned. Rather, prayer is powerful because God is powerful. When weak men rely on a strong God, He becomes their strength. As John Calvin says, "Prayer doesn't change things - God changes things in answer to prayer." This implies that the nature of prayer is not humans telling God what to do—which is how a great majority of Christians treat it—but it is about humans submitting to God. It is recognizing that God is the one who is in total control and responding to Him as such.
Now I digress slightly to address this question: "If God has already determined in His mind what He will do, what is the point of praying to Him?" This question involves a faulty view of the purpose of prayer; again, prayer is not about controlling God, it's about submitting to His will. Think of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. What was His petition? "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done." (Luke 22:42)
Jesus did not think it pointless to pray just because He expected God to say "no" to Him. On the contrary, that is precisely why He prayed. He prayed so that He could align His own desires and wants with the will of God. And that should be the way we pray too; we don't primarily seek to change things, but rather we let God change us through our prayers. Humble persons will see the importance of this; because if Jesus, who was not a sinner, prayed to align His will with the Father's will, how much more should we as sinners allow God to correct and mold us!
Although the Bible contains the view that God has already predestined everything that will happen, that does not mean that God does not respond to prayer in a real and personal way. In fact, the Bible contains passages like these:
"Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob."
(Exodus 2:23b-24)
"Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."
(James 5:14-15)
"And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him."
(1 John 5:14-15)
Here we see the tension between God's sovereignty and man's free will; as a Calvinist, I affirm both wholeheartedly. Nothing is outside of God's control, and that does not negate our freedom to choose. This might not make sense to the "enlightened" mind, but this is the only way life can make sense: life would be meaningless without predestination, and it would be loveless without free will. Thus, in prayer we uphold both; we pray with the understanding that God responds to us personally, also knowing that He already has His will in mind. That is true submission.
How, then, should we integrate prayer into our lives? What does that look like? The final passage of our text in Ephesians gives us an answer:
"praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak."
(Ephesians 6:18-20)
Here we have our seventh piece of armor, so to speak. This is what John Bunyan calls the weapon of All Prayer. There are two characteristics of it that we can see in this passage.
First is the constancy of it. Note that Paul said to pray at all times. How does one do that? Clearly, Paul does not mean that we should do nothing other than shut ourselves in our rooms and pray. Rather, this refers to a consistent attitude of the heart, in which the default inclination of the person is to pray. This default inclination, I believe, may be termed faith. A Christian who has true faith will experience a growing desire to direct all things in prayer toward God.
Remember that faith is a key requisite for salvation. Faith unites us with Christ and consequently justifies us. Therefore if the heart of prayer is faith, and the exercise of faith is prayer, then we can attain the assurance of salvation ("put on the divine armor") by praying. Don't get me wrong; I don't mean that God washes away our sins because we pray. It is Christ's imputed righteousness that covers our transgressions. However, it is by our God-given faith that we lay hold of that righteousness. Now, faith is unseen because it is in the heart. But prayer is the visible exercise of that faith which God personally responds to. That's why we have verses like:"And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved." (Joel 2:32) And when we see ourselves pray, that becomes a visible sign to ourselves that we have faith and are saved.
In light of this, it is good for us to understand prayer in a broader way than it usually is understood. Prayer may be understood as essentially a way of life, a life of surrender to God which flows out of a heart of faith. In a way, everything we do can be done as a "prayer" to God, as long as it is done out of faith in Him. Our petitions can be presented before God by making decisions with a mindset of submission to God's will. We can demonstrate our thankfulness to God by helping others who are in need. We could confess our sins with practical actions of forsaking sin and pursuing holiness. That is how we are to pray at all times. It's ultimately about a heart of faith flowing into daily life, in both word and deed.
Remember that faith is surrender; it is an act of receiving. Therefore, it is also how we ought to receive the Word of God. The way we pick up the sword of the Spirit is by believing in it. For how are we to use Holy Scripture effectively in our lives if we don't believe what it says? So we must have faith in the Word of God. However, again, faith is an unseen thing which is visibly exercised by prayer. Thus, I may conclude that Scripture is worthless to us if we do not pray it and in response to it. Prayer and meditation is the means by which God's Word takes root in our hearts (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2). And prayer is also the evidence that the Word of God has taken root in good heart soil and is bearing fruit. Therefore, if a person feels like he is not really "getting" the truths of Scripture, he should do well to pray. He is not called to "wait until something happens". He is called to ask and be given.
Note that the constancy of prayer is something that we must strive for. "To that end keep alert with all perseverance," says Paul, because he knows that as sinners we are constantly tempted to a prayerless attitude. Thus, prayer is not only resting in God but also striving in God. We must be prayer warriors; we wage war against our flesh in order to surrender ourselves to God and be weak and broken before Him with all our flaws and our wants. It probably seems strange that Christians in a sense "strive for weakness"; remember, however, that only in weakness do we find strength in God.
With all that said, it should be an encouragement to Christians that although we might not always find something clear to pray about, yet in a way we are always praying. Paul says that "the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." (Romans 8:26) I wish I could write more about the profound, mysterious, miraculous union between our spirit and the Holy Spirit, but that will have to be a topic for another day. Here, it will suffice for me to say that the Spirit of God prays through us, even wordlessly. That constant and deep desire for God that is found in the heart of every Christian, though sin may sometimes overshadow it, is actually a prayer in its essence. It is a wordless prayer for God's kingdom to come. Thus, in a way, we are constantly praying. With confidence, then, let us by God's grace cultivate that seed of prayer to grow into our lives and bear fruits of thanksgiving, petition, intercession, confession, and praise.
The second characteristic of prayer involves its content. We are to make supplication for all the saints, first of all. We pray for the people of God, the body of Christ. At this point I think it worth mentioning that Paul is speaking to the entire church; when he says "you", he means it in the plural sense. We must remember that we are not fighting this war alone. We fight alongside our brethren under one Christian flag, and thus our disposition to prayer must exceed a focus on our individual conditions.
Therefore, Paul here asks for a mindset that seeks the glory of Christ and His body, rather than a mere determination to "set my life straight". We are to have a heart for God's people, wishing that Christians, as Christ prayed in His priestly prayer, "may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." (John 17:21) This is perhaps the most practical and direct way to love God and love people.
And since the concept of prayer can be understood in terms of lifestyle, our lives should reflect the intercessions we offer up to God on behalf of our brethren; we must "do all to the glory of God... just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved." (1 Corinthians 10:31b, 33) Note especially the connection between God's glory and man's edification. God is glorified when man is saved and sanctified because this highlights God's great mercy and also restores people as glorious image-bearers. Therefore, everything we do must in some way work toward man's salvation (which includes his sanctification) and, consequently, God's glory.
With this in mind, we understand why Paul prays for the churches in the way he does:
"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God." (Philippians 1:9-11)
"And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. (Colossians 1:9-12)
We must not neglect to pray like this, praying that the church will be filled with knowledge which leads to good works. This is especially needed in our individualistic modern/postmodern culture, where a great majority of Christians see their relationship with God as merely a means to personal happiness. That is not the selfless love of Christianity.
Paul also tells the Ephesians to pray "for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak." I find it striking that Paul says he needs words to be "given to him" in preaching the gospel. That phrase poignantly communicates the truth that every Christian and every minister relies completely on God to help them live rightly. Although sometimes ministry may seem like something that man is doing for God (which is also true), ultimately it is something that God is doing for man. In which case, we really need to pray for God's grace, so that the proclamation of His great gospel might glorify His name and save His elect.
Paul uses the phrase "ambassador in chains". At this point in our text, I can really taste the reality of our warfare. Up to this point, we have been talking about warfare at the spiritual level. But the spiritual world is unseen. The evidence that we are fighting in the spiritual realm is that we are suffering as real people in the physical realm. For Paul, the practical consequence of his spiritual warfare was being put in prison and being tried unjustly and being persecuted and hated by people he was lovingly trying to minister to. Therefore, Paul asks the Ephesians to pray for his courage; he uses the word "boldly" twice. And it's not hard to see why. It's a tough calling.
How do we fight alongside Paul and other servants of God? In this passage about spiritual warfare, Paul tells us to pray. Pray for the elect. Pray for the ministers. And God will strengthen them somehow. God will strengthen them by His Word, or even by the fellowship of other saints. Perhaps in leading you to pray for certain people, God is also leading you to encourage them in person by some word or deed. Perhaps God is leading you into some Christlike suffering as well.
This has been an immensely difficult subject to write on, and I am fully convinced that I have not done it justice. There are so many things to tie together, and it is hard to explain clearly in different parts what I see to be one great tapestry. To me, assurance of salvation, the Word of God, and prayer are all united in a profound way, almost like different aspects of the same thing. But to sum up what I know so far about prayer (spiritual warfare from our perspective), it is this:
Prayer is how we receive the Word of God and cultivate it in our lives, and therefore prayer is how we put on the divine armor (increase our confidence in God's saving of us) and use the sword of the Spirit (receive and respond to the Word). Prayer, like faith, should be constant and selfless, seeking the glory of God and the good of man at all times.
If all of this sounds easy, I may not have described it well. Prayer is impossible. It requires that you completely surrender to God's will and fight on His side, which means that you are to suffer with Christ and His body, the Church. None of us sinners have the willingness to do that. We are morally unable.
But of course, it will be easy in the sense that it will not be your strength, but God's strength. God's Spirit quickens us to take the leap of faith, or rather the leaps of faith throughout our whole lifetime to trust in Him for our own souls and for the souls of those we are called to love. And certainly, He is worth trusting. He gave His only Son for us.
This concludes my amateur reflection on spiritual warfare. Thank God for a meaningful year, and may He ever help us to fight this impossible war.
"If prayer seems to you a diversion from productivity, remember God does more in five seconds than we can in five hours."
—John Piper
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