something about grace…

i’m currently working quite a few books right now. i guess i get pretty ADD when it comes to keeping up with ONE book. but anyway, i’ve been reading “what’s so amazing about grace?” and some things just kinda hit me.

“forgiveness is ac act of faith. by forgiving another, i am trusting that God is a better judstice-maker than i am. by forgiving, i release my own right to get even and leave all issues of fairness for God to work out. I leave in God’s hands the scales that must balance justice and mercy”

what a good idea! i think the amount of love that God has allows Him to fully be just, whereas in our human nature, our lack of love takes over in most of these justice seeking situations. there’s always that nagging voice about, what about those people that take advantage of grace? but you can’t deny those stories of people who’ve been transformed by grace, who they themselves go on to become gracious to others. brute force will cause someone to physically submit, but grace can change the heart.

“When Joseph finally came to the place of forgiving his brothers, the hurt did not disappear, but the burden of being their judge fell away. Though wrong does not disappear when I forgive, it loses its grip on me and is taken over by God, who knows what to do.”

instead, we seek out God to heal the wounds that others have inflicted on us. revenge doesn’t heal, it triggers more revenge.

i think i still have yet to learn to receive this grace. despite being a Christian for so long, i still find myself trying to exercise judgment on myself, feeling like one confession wasn’t enough. but yet it is true, even though it seems too good to be true. only when i’ve overcome that mindset then i think i’d be able to be fully gracious to others.

angry post

i just did a whole splurge. and then i clicked publish and it disappeared. boo.

now i don’t want to blog about that i did anymore. bah.

psyc100

In psychology, we explain human behavior, personality, even biological factors all contributing to nature and nurture. The general consensus that my textbooks seem to have reached are that there’s a balance between the both. Nurture can only change so much of our nature, and there’s only so much nature “pre-sets” in us. Today in church, pastor Lo said that disregarding nature/nurture, God can change us and that got me thinking (now that i’m typing it out, i don’t even recall how it ties into his sermon, although i’m sure it does) how true that is.

How pessimistic this view that psychology takes, leaving us at the mercy of the world, and of the genetic make up that was randomly handed down to us. So say you have screwed up genes, and a screwed up family, that pretty much predisposes you to acquiring some mental disease, and furthermore, it usually indicates poor prognosis. I wish it was more elaborate, but it’s as simple as Pastor Lo put it, that God can change it all. That we have something greater to hope in, that not only has the ability to transform and change us, but also builds in us the faith to see others transformed.

i used to think how psychology has so many atheistic ways of explaining away the Christian experience. yet, even during the summer, God is, even academically faithful i suppose if you could say that. i sound so geeky.

if there’s one good thing a friend of mine said while i was figuring out what to do w/ this blog was that it’s MY blog and i get to write whatever the hell i want. i’m so glad those years of raging teenage insecurities are some what over. =P

misc.

today was a rather interesting day i suppose. soaked up a bit too much of some Canadian sunshine. i think i could get used to this red-brown look. matches well w/ my new green capris? anyhow.

i finished the kite runner, which is a great book by the way. and now i’m reading 28 days in AIDs or something like that. a bit heavy of a read on a nice lazy sunny afternoon. the author kept talking about the neglected epidemic of AIDs in Africa, and the various countries in that beautiful continent and that all was just breaking my heart, i found myself wishing i had brought a lighter read to the lake, and i realized. that’s what we do. we choose to shy away from this kind of stuff because it makes us uncomfortable in our comfortable homes. we choose to take this knowledge and shove it to the corners of our minds, which might just distance ourselves from the matter even more than it geographically is, desperatly wanting to feel as if the world was still a happy place, at least your world. i sound like such an AIDs activist all of a sudden.

so today we had worship practice we played “king of majesty” for one of our songs. after being on worship team for so long it all kind of comes naturally and you just play, but ofcourse i’ve definetly learnt so much about just worship alone but that’ll be a topic for another post later on if i feel like it. i guess it just really brought back memories of the very first time i ever a major set for worship at our school camp in grade 11. i remember being so nervous for that song, timing every thing exactly at precisely when i was going to do what. i remember praying so hard that God would really take the worship into His hands because i knew for certain that i could not do it without Him. i remember the desperation for God’s peace and reassurance over nervousness.  and i ultimately recall the rush of….i dont’ even know how to describe it! just worship. just letting go and playing my heart out and hearing everything fall into place, feeling God’s presence and our hearts unified under the same God. it was amazing. beyond the crazy hours put into preparation, and the mad nervousness, a bit of me misses those good old newb days.

welcome to 41 clergy! (or as stephen calls it, castle 41)

this morning a friend calls at 830am and wakes me up, wondering why i hadn’t been woken up already. so i venture upstairs to discover my newly heavy-sleeping skills…i guess i’m a beast when it comes to sleeping through construction. well, any kind of construction EXCEPT that annoying drilling.

this…is outside my living room window

and as i’m walking to my morning lab….

and come home to find that….

on the bright side… i finally got my AE flipflops that i’ve been obsessing over. i think the delivery guy was kinda confused this morning when he went to my house.

write more later…

school and such.

I HATE QCARD.

the end.

the little prince.

and the little prince said to the man “grownups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always explaining things to them”

untitled.

according to social psych, we tend to have this balance or whatever thingy, i forget what the technical term is? but it’s about how we tend to like those who like is. it is so true, i mean when people are nice to you, you either reciprocate because you feel like you owe them, or because you genuinely enjoyed their company and would like more of it.

then why so many times it is so much harder with God?

i was reading Cannery Row by Steinbeck the other day at starbucks (what a North American thing to do EH? =P)

“I think they’re just like anyone else, They just haven’t any money”

“They could get it, they could ruin their lives and get money. Mack has qualities of genius. They’re all very clever if they want something. They just know the nature of things too well to be caught in that wanting.”

back in the ktown…

i know i’m going to sound like a total whiner but i came back to canada to experience the nice warm summers in canada that are not too hot but NO i was wrong. this morning i wake up to 10 degrees -_- and it’s only suppose to go up to 20 today. i guess i might just have to move to california? the search for the place with perfect weather =P although i do have to say it’s pretty nice how they have make up holidays in canada when the public holiday falls on a sunday they make monday holiday too. nope, never going to see that in hong kong.

 honestly i don’t know what i’m doing back in kingston. i mean i told everyone that i’m going to find a job and work which is 100% true, but i really could have done that in hong kong? and yes the pay is higher in canada but also the standard of living, but then i suppose i do spend a lot more in hong kong since there’s nothing really to spend your money on in kingston. BAH. sometimes i don’t understand these decisions of mine lol. big part of me wants to stay in hong kong, to spend more time with my friends and family there, in which i definetly did not have enough time there with certain friends or anytime with some friends at all!! but the insecure part of me i suppose kept tugging me to go back to kingston. hong kong by now is like a transition place where i’m just there for a few months and then i’m gone. during these 4 yrs of university it’s just been very temporary and i feel like i just want to settle down and know where i’m going to be for the next few years at least but i guess i can’t and i won’t know. living in rez for a year and then having to move out, going back to hong kong for the summer only to know that you’re leaving soon. just knowing that you’re going to pick up and leave kinda puts me at the edge of my seat, not allowing myself to fully plunge into things and fully enjoy them i think. bah. i guess this is what happens when you study abroad. or maybe i’m just being a spoiled brat. haha. either way, there was my little rant that is quite incoherent.

 and did i mention? i hate goodbyes. it’s like everytime i go home, there’s less of a chance i’ll be seeing those wonderful home friends. yes i’m emo like that. i leave kingston and miss my queens’ friends. i leave hong kong and miss my home friends. toronto people are so lucky =P

yesterday i went peoples’ church in torontoand the dude that was speaking talked about that passage about “let your yes be yes and no be no” and i found it pretty interesting because i’ve definetly read that passage a few times, but never fully understood what it meant. one thing that stuck with me was that so many sins that are commonly addressed are not the actual problem that have to be fixed, but are a reflection of deeper roots of evil. such as adultery is a lack of loyalty/honestly and stuff like that. so many times we screw up and then immediately tackle the problem that is in front of us, but end up screwing up over and over again and it’s not until we muster up our courage and allow God to show us what’s really inside of us, then we can address the problems. it’s like in this book i’ve been reading called “The gift of being yourself” how you can’t really allow God to transform you and change you into a new person until you are willing to face the person you really are inside. i feel like this all sounds so elementary but it’s all so true.

it looks so pretty outside right. i doubt it’s warm but maybe i’ll pretend. peace out everyone!