Category Archives: faith

A Musical Disaster

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Everything was going wrong.

I was part of a recent workshop for the pianists in my church. My assignment was simple. I just had to play a hymn, everyone would sing along, and then discuss the song together. I mean, I played the piano for worship at VOICE for years. I wrote musicals. I would of course come up with something profound for the other pianists to learn from.

But it was absolutely awful.

I sat down at the piano, and I suddenly felt my vision narrowing. I couldn’t think. I didn’t know what my fingers were doing. My rhythm was nonexistent. My introduction didn’t make any sense. I played way too fast.

I was so embarrassed.

I began to analyze my failure. I thought back to my first ever recital when I was seven years old. That was also a flop–I completely forgot my memorized piece, and I burst into tears while on stage. Was I forever doomed to bad nerves? I didn’t think I was nervous, I was confident in my abilities. So what happened?

Simple. I was focused on myself.

I wasn’t focused on learning how to better worship the Lord, I was focused on showing my own skills. I wanted everyone to see how special I was, surprise them with my musical genius. Deep down inside, I was also afraid of ruining my reputation as a pianist in front of all the other pianists in the church.

If I really believed that God was real, then should I be making music for my own glory or for His?

The right answer is pretty obvious, and yet this is a lesson I still struggle with. So often I am more concerned about what others think, forgetting what really matters to God.

Lord, please do not let me use my talents for myself, but to serve you, and to bring all honor to you.

Thanks To God

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Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks, for telling others and ourselves how thankful we are for things in our lives. Usually it’s a time for looking at the bigger picture and declaring how thankful we are for various “big” things.

“I’m thankful that I got a job.”
“I’m thankful for peaceful evenings.”
“I’m thankful for my family.”

There is no person that we could be thanking for these kinds of things…except God. No human, or even group of humans, could really take responsibility for these things and say, “You have that because of me.” Thankfulness is a quality that requires two people. Without God in the picture, all we have is a kind of happy feeling that says, “Man, I love the fact that I have this!” Without God, Thanksgiving Day is just Warm Fuzzies Day.

I recently read God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, a well-known atheist in America. He talks about places in life where we seem, coincidentally, to have exactly what we need. Many people have claimed that this shows God’s goodness in giving us what we need. But Hitchens claims just the opposite: that it shows there is no God because we get what we need without him.

This perspective would eliminate most of what we talk about at the Thanksgiving holiday. If someone decides to give me a bowl of soup, it makes sense for me to thank them. But if a coin is flipped and without anyone’s good will I am given the soup, where can my gratitude be directed? To the coin? There is no place for thankfulness in that case.

But of course we are thankful for the kinds of things mentioned above. As we celebrate this holiday, realize what a significant statement you are making by simply declaring what you’re thankful for. You are declaring that God is real-– and living like it.

Truth that Transforms

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People often warn about the danger of having only head knowledge about God and no life application. It’s true that simply amassing Bible facts isn’t of much worth if that knowledge doesn’t affect you.

But on the flip side, it’s also meaningless to try to do what is right without first knowing the basis for why you should do good. It should be knowledge of God’s character and the gospel that motivates us to do what is right.

I read recently that when Jonathan Edwards preached, he didn’t have to persuade people to start doing the right thing. He simply told them the fact of God’s holy wrath and that truth convicted the listeners; that knowledge drove them to repentance.

Yes, Christianity is about a change of heart and life, but it’s knowledge of truth that brings it about.

So! What do you know about the faith you profess? Do you pursue a knowledge of God? (theology) Are you interested what the Bible says about everything? (doctrine)

What motivates you to live like you know a Christian should?

True, knowledge shouldn’t stay in the head, but it starts there. Learn the Bible, so that its truth can reach your heart, and then be evidenced in a transformed life.

Is Jesus Christ Good Enough?

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How many of you take Jesus at His words? I don’t mean with just the promises and the sayings that make us feel good, but I mean the really hard words. Let’s look at Luke 9:57-62. A guy came up to Jesus and said something like, “I’m going to go wherever you go, Jesus.” And what did Jesus say? He bluntly told him to expect homelessness! Picture the next verse, where another guy wanted to go bury his father before he followed Jesus. Can you imagine Jesus telling you to not go to your mom or dad’s funeral?! But that’s what Jesus did say, and if we look closely at the words of Jesus throughout the entire four gospels, you’ll see that Jesus said extremely difficult things time and time again.

Now, although following Jesus hasn’t really put many of us into hard situations, this is reality for many around the world, especially in countries where they don’t have the freedom to become a Christian. Has living in a free country like Taiwan, America, or even Hong Kong made us not understand what the gospel is all about? I don’t really have a solid answer for that. But what I am chewing on is this: is Jesus Christ enough for me? I mean, if He did tell me point blank to become homeless (Luke 9:58), not go to my father’s funeral (vs. 60), and not even say goodbye to my family (vs. 62) and to just follow Him, would I, or could I do it?


Our beloved Father
Please come down and meet us
We are waiting on Your touch
Open up the heavens
Shower down Your presence
We respond to Your great love


We won’t be satisfied with anything ordinary
We won’t be satisfied at all


Open up the sky
Fall down like rain
We don’t want blessings
We want you
Open up the sky
Fall down like fire
We don’t want anything but you

(Deluge Worship, 2008)

The Quest for Humility

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The Quest for Humility

I own my own business, and this title has been the theme of my business interactions for the past 6 months. Humility is not something that I have found in a “How to Start a Business” guide or on the cover of the latest Entrepreneur magazine. However, it is something I find all over in Scripture. The classic passage that comes to mind is “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Let’s imagine for a moment that God is real, that He really is who He says He is, and that He will really do what He says He will do. “God is opposed to the proud…” Does He really mean that? What does “opposed” mean? Will He wreck my business? Destroy my relationships? Waste away my money? I do not know, but if He’s real…

Now quit pretending and start living. Drop the fronts and be who you are, nothing better, and nothing worse. Acknowledge your mistakes. Build upon your successes. Be the man or woman you were made to be for the glory of God.

Rowan Gillson

What is Good?

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I’m taking philosophy classes at the University of Oklahoma, and enjoying it a lot. Many issues come up in philosophy that also come up in Christianity, but I think that Christians often don’t think about it. For example:

Why are good things good?

Of course, we believe that the things that are good are the things that God has commanded for us to do. But consider:

  1. Does God command them because they are good, or
  2. Are they good because God commands them?

I think that many Christians would say they believe the second definition, but act as if they believe the first. Think about it: we all walk around with lists of “good things” and “bad things” in our minds, and when we think about any of those things, we simply look at the list and exclaim – “Oops! Skipping Church! Bad thing!” or, “Yay! Praying! Good thing!” Is there anything important missing from those exclamations? Think about it. There is no mention of God.

The problem is that we are now starting with these ideas of “good,” and when we now think about God, we will assume that He will follow these ideas of good that we have. We think this way:

  1. These things are good
  2. God always does good things
  3. Therefore God will always do these things

Our “good things” are at a higher level than God! In fact, since they are telling God what to do, they might as well be god themselves. If God brings something unexpected into our life, like the need to skip church or our normal prayer time, we will almost certainly miss Him because we are focused on “doing good.”

It takes effort to learn, but living like God is real means acting as if good things are good…simply because God commands them. Put God at the top of your thoughts. Only then will we be motivated to seek a relationship with Him – so that we can hear from Him what the good things are for us to do.

Joy in Sorrow

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Tears crept down my face, sobs shook my shoulders. I tried to concentrate on conducting the song, but to no avail. Every note, every chord, brought to mind my grandfather, who was the inspiration for the song; my grandfather, who I would never see again on earth.

I was in the middle of directing our final dress rehearsal for this year’s VOICE musical. In a little over an hour, it would be time to wrap up and get ready for our Chinese New Year dinner, followed by the performance later that night. In every VOICE, the day of the Chinese New Year dinner has always been crazily busy with last minute preparations and practicing. This year, it was compounded by the fact that my grandfather, my roommate for the past ten years, passed away in Taiwan that morning.

Was God real, even in this situation?

Yes, He was.

I saw Him bless the peaceful rehearsal that day. Things went so smoothly, everyone worked together so well to get everything done in the short amount of time we had.

I saw Him as I burst into tears listening to fifty people pour their hearts into rehearsing a song, one that I began writing the day after my birthday, the last day I had seen my grandfather. I saw Him in the fact that for the first time in four years, I had enough time to relax and enjoy my Chinese New Year dinner with my coworkers before the performance. I saw Him work in the actual performance, as everyone’s hard work came to completion. Instead of bursting into tears as I thought I would, I found myself grinning with joy. I knew that God was real. And I knew that He loved me.

Note: The song I mentioned is the one my sister Karen has posted in the previous blog entry.

Irrational Love

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I remember our baby in a crib who’s fast asleep,
He doesn’t see my tears, can’t hear me weep
And I wondered, “Was it worth it that we chose his life not yours?”
And I felt you smiling with me and answer, “Of course.”

It was the first day of VOICE. I was sitting in TESOL auditions as my brother unveiled one of the most important songs in his newest musical The Inheritance, based on the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. In Tim’s adaptation, the father finds himself wrestling with the rebellion and desertion of his younger son as well as possible professional ruin, so he questions whether he and his wife had made the right choice in giving life to their second son at the cost of her own at childbirth.

At the time, I was nearly 11 weeks pregnant, so the song touched a very sensitive spot in my heart. All my life, I’ve been learning to love others– family, friends, classmates, teachers, colleagues– but most of it was based on the other person giving or responding similarly at least in some small way. Even with Luke, I fell in love because he first loved me.

At this particular point in Tim’s story, however, we’re faced with the quandary of reconciling the sacrifice of a loving mother for her ungrateful and selfish son, who was recklessly destroying his father’s life work. Part of me cringed from the injustice of it. The other part of me, however, experienced for the first time what it means to be a mother– to love someone I have never met, not because of any merit of their own or because they love me, but simply because that is how God first loved us.

That is what Christ has done for us. He doesn’t love us because of anything we have or can do for Him. He didn’t choose me because I was a good girl. No, God demonstrated His irrational and wasteful love in that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

In God I trust.

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I like having things well-planned in advance. I like to know that everything is prepared before it happens.

It’s hard to picture myself having the kind of faith missionary
George Mueller had when he didn’t know where his next meal would come from or if he’d even get one. Advanced preparation wasn’t possible then! He could only trust God to do the next thing.

I’ve never had to go through anything as drastically faith-testing as waiting for your daily bread, but recently experienced a small-scale parallel of the uncertainty, not of the next meal, but of the next ride.

Two weeks ago, my family was at a conference and only after arrival realized that the sessions were held at a different place than our lodging. We had no car and thus no way to get there.

Four times a day we had to find a ride between the 2 places, and I was regularly uncomfortable in this position of waiting for the next unknown benefactor. Not in financial poverty living hand-to-mouth, but in simple need going from ride-to-ride.

It was a very small “problem” but it was a situation I couldn’t control nor choose to have transportation all planned ahead. I knew God would provide, but harder than trusting was letting that trust transform tension into peace about waiting and not knowing.

What is your unknown that is causing a lesson in trust? We know God is trustworthy, but do we live like it? Or does our anxiety say otherwise?

I like to know what will happen and be prepared for it. But trusting God sometimes means being willing not to know…the future, or where the next ride is coming from.

 

 

Your Last Breath

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OK, I have a confession to make. I’m a hypochondriac – meaning, that I always think I’m getting sick, and I get worried easily the minute I get sick with something. This doesn’t come as a surprise for those who know me really well, but hey, it’s not easy to admit something like this.

My eyes have been opened up in some new ways, however, as mainly because over the last few months, I’ve been experiencing some consistent headaches. What made it even more upsetting was that after I went to the doctor for a simple consultation, he was very concerned about the headaches and wanted me to have some tests done – even mentioning the possibility of a brain tumor. Now, I know that would scare anyone, but for a hypochondriac like me, this freaked me out. Although I got some tests done, and everything appears to be normal (doctors still can’t explain why I’m having the headaches), God used the whole experience to pound into me the whole area of sacrifice and surrender.

I know many of us take our health for granted, but when the doctor initially shared with me some of that scary stuff, I had an extremely hard time not allowing my mind run wild about the whole concept of death. For a couple of weeks I really struggled with the fear of dying and leaving behind my wife and daughter. It was during that time that I was listening to a song that really convicted me. “All that we have; all that we are; all that we hope to be we give to You” said the song, and as I thought through those words I realized that although I’ve given my life to God, I never considered that that even means giving up my last breath to God if He sees fit to call me away from this world. Would you feel cheated if you found out that you were going to die tomorrow? Every part of my life should be an offering, and if my King will get more glory by ending it, I will gladly give up all that I “hope to be,” knowing that He knows exactly what He’s doing.