embracing community

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When I was still single, I remember hearing about different friends who were devastated when they miscarried their first baby. For some reason, I thought that if they had just kept their pregnancy a secret, they wouldn’t have been so disappointed. And so I made up my mind that when I was pregnant, I would try to keep it a secret until I was pretty sure it was “safe” to tell.

Last March, I miscarried my first child. True to my resolution, aside from Luke, I didn’t tell many people. In fact, it took months for me to tell my own family. I tried to be brave and strong, but the disappointment was devastating– especially since I bore it alone.

When I told a friend about it later that fall, she was shocked. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” she asked. “When I found out I was pregnant, I told people right away, because I knew I’d need the church’s support if anything were to happen when my husband was deployed.”

I’ve been pondering her words ever since. Why did I think it’d be better to tough things out on my own when God had designed a community of support for me in the church? Is it really better to hold those struggles inside? Is it really Christian to be “strong” by being private about my difficulties?

These last few months, as Luke and I have been adjusting to a lower income, his new schedule for work and school, the changes that will come with a baby, and certain issues in our marriage, I’ve discovered that I really can’t shoulder my problems on my own. Aside from casting all my cares on Christ (1 Peter 5:7), I’m also learning to humble myself and share my struggles with the believers God has placed in my life.

Sometimes, living like God is real means learning to embrace the church community by being vulnerable about our struggles and weaknesses. Don’t tough it out alone.

The Right Reason

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In the book of Colossians, the Apostle Paul tells us that no matter what we do we should “do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men”. (Col 3:23)  Often I find myself concerned about what other people think of me instead of what Christ’s opinion is.  Of course, this is caused by my selfishness and pride.

This past semester I started studying at home for a college degree.  Every time I sit down to study it’s important for me to remind myself for Whom I am studying.  The purpose of anything I do in my life should always be to please Christ.  By earning this degree, I am working towards something that will give me more opportunities and make me seem more successful to other people.  However, the real purpose for acquiring the degree is not so that I can have a great career or impress people.  My purpose in earning the degree is so that I will be able to serve Christ in different ways than I am able to now.

Sometimes when we do something good and right for the right reason (pleasing Jesus!) people may think we are doing it for a selfish reason and they become upset.  At other times when we do something right or wrong out of a selfish reason people will praise us.  God understands our true motivations.  “…man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)  Jesus should be the most important person and His good opinion the most treasured in our lives.

When Jesus’ opinion is my highest priority I always have a great peace.  I am free from the pressures and opinions of other people and can focus wholeheartedly on doing the best I can for Jesus’ sake.  However, this does not mean that I ignore my authorities’ wishes!  It means that when my authorities give me a task to accomplish I should see it as a personal commission from Christ and do it diligently with a cheerful attitude.  It also doesn’t mean that I can ignore other people!  It means that I should see each person as an opportunity to show Christ’s love.  Unfortunately, I don’t always do these things, but the Lord has been faithful to provide me with many opportunities to practice. 🙂 He will give you opportunities to practice in the coming year, too!

Happy New Year!

Empty handed & satisfied.

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Small or large, cloth or paper – I love Children’s books. I always have, and I’m quite sure I always will. A bookshelf in my room contains my own selection of all-time favorites, and one titled “The Perfect Gift” in particular has been on my mind recently.

The story line revolves around boy rabbit wanting to give the perfect gift to his best friend, girl rabbit. He searches high and low to find something special enough for her. In the peak days of autumn, he holds out his hand to give her a beautiful leaf he has found. Sadly the wind blows it right out of his hand, and he is left to think of something even more special, but that won’t blow away. The days begin to get colder, and he surprises her with a snowflake of winter. She reaches out to touch it, and it quickly melts. The grass becomes green with the rain of spring, and beautiful flowers bloom. His search is on to find still the perfect gift, one that can’t blow away or melt and disappear. He finds it! Hands clasped together, he presents her with a brightly colored butterfly – the most beautiful one she has ever seen! The brilliance of the sun soon attracted the butterfly though, and it flew away. Leo became very sad and disheartened. He had searched so hard and thought he found just the right gift, but nothing seemed to last! He knew there had to be something out there perfect enough to give her, and he was not going to quit until he had found it. He searched high & low, far & near; but still he could not find anything that would last, and returned empty handed. Ashamed to see Lisa soon after his return, he held his hands behind his back to hide the fact that he had nothing to give her. Lisa, being the sweet girl that she was though, exclaimed to him that it wasn’t the gifts that she wanted – it was to hold the hand of her best friend.

{Sigh} I just love this story. It’s so sweet, and yet, so powerful in a quiet way. With Christmas in just one week, it seems that everyone has become so focused on giving or getting his or her own perfect gift. After I read this story again the other day I couldn’t get away from how this simple tale of two rabbits plays out between God and me.

How often have I, and do I, try to give God something that I imagine to be what He wants? Does He truly want every penny I have? Maybe. Am I willing to offer it to Him, and if He asks me to give it away, would I? If His desire was for me to relinquish a life-long dream in pursuit of His plan, could I?

This Christmas, I’m offering to God my own two hands in full abandon to Him. Releasing my tight grip on finding, doing or being the “perfect gift” and focusing on giving what He truly wants – Me.

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.