waking up

Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.
Messing up is okay.

Perfect love casts out all fear.

God is silent for a reason.

Don’t be afraid.
I am here.

The disciples were so afraid. What had they gotten themselves into? They were afraid of the Jews. They were afraid they had placed their hope in a dead messiah. They were disappointed in themselves. They sat in a room, afraid of going out, afraid of living life again. After such a deep wounds were inflicted, what could possibly move them into action again?

And then He just appears and says, “Peace be with you,” as if to say, “I am here, so you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

Fear after fear after fear. I was pretty traumatized.

I remembered the words of the guide; they were echoing in my head:

“Go through the center archway of the three under the bridge… then you’re gonna take the right side of the left channel. That’s your gonna be your smoothest ride.”

Referring to “Mother,” the affecionately-termed white-water rapid, the most ferocious of them all in Cache Canyon, the tour guide explained a number of things rather quickly, when juxtaposed with my ignorance. I had never been river rafting before, ever. I didn’t know what a “Level 3″ river meant for me. I didn’t know I would be at the mercy of a river with many dangerous rocks. The rafts looked safe enough… air-filled, heavy duty rubber.

The trip started out fine and fun. I was paired with Brian Lesko, who also had no idea what he was doing. We laughed in the beginning, and pretty much thought we could learn and hoped not to get owned. We quickly learned that a two-man raft requires a lot of teamwork and direction if you value your lungs.

Things started to get real when we flipped for the first time. We were headed backwards down some rapids and we were headed straight for a huge rock. I was in the back, and as we crashed, I just flew straight out of the raft head first, facing the wrong way. I was plunged into the river, swallowed some water, and lower body hit some rocks before I surfaced. A jagged part of another rock caught Brian’s lower back. He emerged with a red spot on his back. We had to float through the rest of the rapid water on our own, holding on to our oars, and with our life vests. When it happened, I was utterly frantic because I had never been down a rapid before in my life, ever. Much less without a raft–a raft to keep me safe from all the rocks smashing against my legs and knees and arms, and a raft to keep me from being sucked under the surface of the river for seconds at a time.

But when I saw we were okay, I laughed it off, and we jumped right back into the raft and kept going.

We were capsized 5 times.

Some of these flips were just as bad as the first one, others were not as bad. They basically made me feel very insecure. Any sense of ego I had before coming had been thoroughly trampled. But we stopped at a spot for our baptism…

And the baptism was awesome. I was very moved by both Nathan and Christine’s testimonies, sensing that God was truly rejoicing over them. We ate whatever we had waterproofed, and Al and Luanne even brought an ice chest tied down to their raft, complete with sodas and a summer sausage. People passed around sandwiches and carrots and trail mix, and all was good fun.

In the middle, Brian asked me, “Are your glasses gonna be okay?”

I thought nothing of it.

“Yeah, sure, they haven’t fallen off yet, and we’ve been through some crazy stuff.”

But we still had more than half of the rafting trip to go. Brian had poked fun of me to everyone, saying that I was a bad rafting partner (he jokes a lot). And I began to sense this incredible tension between feeling responsible for how much fun we were having, and at the same time, having no control over how we rode the rest of the river.

And then came “Mother.”

Mother is the hardest section of the river, and the guide had told us how to handle it best. Among the flurry of other instructions, I only had the clarity of mind to really take things as they came–”Rock!” I would shout if there was one 10 feet away.

We took the middle archway underneath the bridge. And the next part is blurry.

Coming up on the rapid, I see Al and Luanne on a rock, their raft pinned by the rapids. And we are headed straight for Luanne. Our raft is no longer maneuverable. We hit her straight on, and our raft flips upward. In my mind, I am thinking, “We are pinning her, smothering her, and possibly pushing her off the rock. This is very bad.” I instinctively bailed as the water continued to rush into our raft.

I was under for a good four seconds. In that time, I reached for whatever I could… and I knew I could feel the raft. I just couldn’t grab a hold of the rope on its side. I grabbed and I grabbed as the river thrust me under several times, each time swallowing more dirty water, and quickly gasping for air when I would surface, fearing the next time I would go down. Then I grabbed it.

I held on with all my life, thinking that I would need this raft to survive. As I surfaced again, I saw Al floating downstream near me, and heard him shouting, “Where’s my wife? Where’s my wife?” I feared the worst, and I felt responsible. I looked at the raft I was holding on to, and I saw an ice chest. How the hell did I end up with Al and Luanne’s raft? I continued to cling to the raft as I felt this immense despair take hold of me. It all felt so futile.

“What a horrible and senseless way to die,” I thought, “rafting down a river…”

Then I saw Luanne, and I called out to her, “Are you okay?”

“Yes!”

“Are you okay? Are you sure?!”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine!”

I felt relief, and as soon as I felt relief, a new horror gripped me. Where are my glasses?

In the rushing water, they must have been ripped clear off my face, without my knowledge. No one saw them ever again.

I swam and I swam with the raft in one hand, but I couldn’t fight the current, and kept floating for another minute. Another group of rafters saw me and helped me to a small clearing.

Fear became anger. I knew my glasses were expensive, and money has never mattered more to me than now. I knew it could have been prevented by using a simple attachment. I was simply disgusted with all the fear, the unexpected nature of it all, and the loss of control. I felt so broken. I punched my raft with hate.

Brian found me, but Christine’s partner, Danny, ended up taking the rest of the trip with me. We didn’t flip once.

***

For the rest of the day, I went without my glasses. When I was in the car, the rumble of the road only reminded me of the rocks I rafted over, the water surrounding me, enveloping me, the rush of the river. All of a sudden, the car and the road did not feel safe anymore. And I think this is healthy because it is true; uncertainty and danger is real. And we are not safe.

Our lives are lived on paved roads and in swimming pools. We have luxury SUV’s with airbags and homes fit with security systems. We work in big buildings where people wear suits and ties and expensive watches. We live in a world that is not real. Everything revolves around the comfort and security of people. I get a picture of a bird’s-eye view of a city… with all of the lights sprawling from a city center, as if to say, “If we live here, we will regain control over our lives.” We have built our own little Towers of Babel.

And yet, no matter where you live, how nice your house is, or how perfect your family, pain will find you. You could blow a tire on the freeway. Your loved one could be hit by a drunk driver. Your child can be daignosed with a terminal illness. You could lose a limb. This is true.

The good and the bad of life are true.

I’m not so sure we are good at dealing with these things… good and bad. I know that when I have a good thing going, I don’t really thank God that often. And I know when bad things are happening, from time to time I silently blame God for being seemingly absent.

What if I felt I had something to prove to the river, and I went back the very next week? Would that be brave or foolish? Maybe both…

What if I just resigned, and said I would never go rafting again?

Both of those responses are rather shallow, if you can see what I mean. Neither of them reveals any sort of maturity. What if the experience was more traumatic? What if someone died? Would I just retreat? Would I hang my head low, with my tail between my legs, and just look for some peace of mind away from anything and everything that could hurt me?

Big and small… hardship must produce growth into manhood. And growth requires more than shallow responses to hardship.

For example, If you were to give a homeless man some money, only to find him buying beer with it later on, how do you respond? Would you resolve to never give money to a homeless person again? Or would you resolve to give only food to homeless people, because you deem them all irresponsible? Black or white?

Both responses minimize the responsibility of the homeless person. And both ignore the idea that the homeless man is Jesus (Matt. 25:31-46, try reading the NASB).

How do you handle the difficulties in your life?

Submission… what a concept.

So my mom likes to tell me lots of stuff. Work, people, anything, because we are very close. I tell her everything, too. But sometimes she even tells me how she has issues with my dad and stuff. And part of me wants to just plug my ears and say, “I don’t wanna believe that you guys have problems! You are supposed to be perfect! My parents are always happily married!” But this is not reality. And so the other side of me empathizes… because I know my dad, and I know he has good intentions, and I know he loves her and cares for her a lot. And it just hurts seeing anyone have disagreements.

For some reason, out of a deep place in my faith, I started to speak… hoping that what I believe would be real enough for this situation. And I believed when I told her, “But when God is in the picture, we shouldn’t have to settle for less… And although it hurts when people are defensive and insecure, you have to continue to strive for that ideal picture of what your marriage is supposed to be, because we have God, right? We believe that God can do anything! So we can’t really pick and choose how we apply our faith… Like somethings we just deal with and manage how we feel, but other things we will have faith for. I mean, what would it look like to everyone if one minute I believe that my friend is going to be healed from past hurts, but then the next minute, when it comes to my family, I don’t believe reconciliation can happen?” Trust me, it sounded a lot more sensitive and understanding in person…

And I realize this is all very idealistic, and I have no right to be talking to my mom this way (for you asians out there), but do we really believe Jesus when He says, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you?” If we did, then how would our marriages look? Surely we would find it a lot easier to love and bear with and pray for our spouses, right? And how would our churches look? It seems like many churches have extreme difficulty just building healthy communities, and simply getting along with our brothers and sisters. And we don’t deal with it, we don’t confront each other, because we are afraid of what the other person will think or how they might react… We effectively render the truth useless, and we let love (which “does not rejoice in iniquity” [NKJV of 1 Cor. 13]) disintegrate into passivity. Mushy and powerless “love.”

Oh, but it’s hard, because then we would have to be vulnerable and sincere, and actually practice what we preach…

But isn’t that the real beauty in the Gospel? I’m not talking about what we say and sing and pray on Sundays, but I mean the real power of the Gospel, the truth (reality) of the Gospel, the worth of the Gospel, the emotional response to the Gospel…. is this not it–that we have lost our way, can’t figure things out, and in admitting our poverty and brokenness, as we truly die to ourselves (including how we think and do things) we somehow find the power of God working so mightily within us that we cannot boast in our achievements nor claim anything to our credit?

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves…”

2 Corinthians 4:7 (NASB)

Even though Paul is actually talking about persecution here, I think it is relevant. It only becomes irrelevant if we only seek to maintain pain-free lives with safe, non-confrontational relationships.

And after my mom told me today, “No one is custom-fit for you,” even though she was referring to girls, it made me think later about how I have friendships at Haven with people who are so different. I told Nathan the other day that we simply would not be friends if it weren’t for Haven. He agreed. People are brought up to think so differently, to act so differently… it’s a wonder we ever form meaningful connections with people! This fact is just covered up when you have a congregation of 300. Haven has none of that pretense. We can’t afford it. We have to get along. It’s almost like a short-term mission attitude, when we have to uphold our team members in humility to get the task done. And I think Haven’s success has to do with this idea of submission to God. In our spiritual poverty, we admit that God is the desire of our souls and somehow in that confession, He brings us closer together in community. We all see our need for God, and then we are filled with compassion for other people in their brokenness. So your church is probably pretty healthy if the people who attend are very different (according to Nate Chan). In that same vein, you know you have healthy friendships when you befriend people who are very different. And you definitely know you have a healthy marriage if you can somehow make it work with someone who is your polar opposite (most married couples fight enough to say they are opposites anyway). Because when we submit to God, His power has room to work. Things like trust, honesty, confession, and vulnerability become so much easier when we see how much God has ordained those ways as ways to experience more and more of Christ. I was not ready for this last year at this time.

So my interpretation: “And so we carry this precious gift in broken bodies and vulnerable relationships, so that when people look at us, they see only the power of God.”

Somehow we have this idea that our faith should be manageable. But we need to wrestle. Would you believe in the Gospel if it were any less absurd?

A recap of my BAAYF experience for those who did not go nor heard my side of it…

After years of church-going, ministry experience, and BAAYF planning, thinking I should have figured things out by now, God yet again blew my mind.

The worship team I had to work had a very different dynamic… different people with different expectations and strengths and shortcomings. I thought I could treat them like I treated all other teams in the past, but I was wrong. My words sometimes fell on seemingly deaf ears as I tried to guide the team throughout the week… and even though I believed the team was wrestling with my counsel, it was frustrating. I put so much pressure on myself as their leader that I took responsibility when I didn’t feel like the team was living up to my expectations. And this is where I should have given it up to God immediately, confessing that He is the One who is in control, and that He is the One on whom we fix our gaze. I wrestled until Wednesday morning.

Then there was breakthrough…

I think coming into camp physically drained was part of the dilemma I was experiencing (after going to Nate’s freakin’ album release party). Another part was the stress I was putting on myself as a leader. But another was the spiritual warfare aspect of being at camp. Up until about Tuesday night, I pretty much kept all my feelings to myself, turning thoughts over and over in my head, trying to find my way through the haze. It wasn’t until Craig T. began venting some frustration that I began to resonate with someone else feeling the same way. In the staff cabin, one by one, we began some of our difficulty coping with the way camp was going. Some of us were more ready than others to face it, but we all pretty much had the same conclusion: camp feels sucky right now.

I put it forth, and said, “Well, if we’re the staff at this camp, aren’t we supposed to be the ones sensing spiritual warfare and stuff? And seriously, how different would it look from what we’re going through right now?” After getting a bunch of contemplative nods from around the room, I concluded, “Either way, I think this is a call to prayer.”

And so I awoke the next morning with the same sense of burdened unrest. I made my way out of my cabin without any Scripture with which to lead the morning prayer meeting (I had agreed to lead that morning), and the first thing I saw was Craig Ng. Known by many in the BAAYF circle as the prophetic, father-figure staffer, I have gone to Craig many a time in the past with my spritiual struggles. I told him how I felt, and immediately he interjected, “Yeah–spiritual warfare.” I told him how the guys seemed to all agree that it was a call to prayer. I was going to tell him I didn’t have any Scripture to lead with that morning, but as our conversation flowed, he pulled out his Bible saying, “I have a passage for you, if you want to see it.”

I gladly accepted the invitation.

He read:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12)

and

“His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence” (Eph. 3:10-12)

and finally,

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:14-19).

So this idea that these deep struggles Paul talks about are not simply with people and physical circumstance; rather, they are spiritual (Eph. 6:12). And in fact, it is through the Church that His wisdom is made known in the spiritual realm (Eph. 3:10). And we, the Church have the security of knowing our place in God being assured in His love (Eph. 3:14-19). In this way, we can have faith (assurance of what we don’t see) when we pray, especially when things feel like a struggle. In short, I know God loves me, so I can be unashamed when I ask Him to work things out.

There was such boldness and confidence being stirred up as I read the Word… I knew I had to claim God’s promises for BAAYF. And as I led the prayer meeting, I knew God was really leading me to that place of assurance. I prayed with faith.

Craig told me later that he got a picture of spiritual breakthrough as we prayed that morning…

Wednesday night was crazy. The worship was pretty crazy, the message was sweet, and when Victor gave the most un-emotional, monotone invitation to the altar for prayer, I saw what is pretty much the closest thing to evidence that God was moving… the crowd of youth gathering in the front and back into the aisles in tears and brokenness, asking God to begin the reconciliation process between them and their friends, their families, their churches. And for me, I feel like it all began to turn around that morning.

And it is hard to say that it is something I did. No matter which way you look at it, God made it happen. But at the same time, the things He stirred up in me through Craig, through the Scripture, through the prayer meeting, and through the night-time worship time all pretty much–I can’t think of a better word–”hinged” on my willingness to embrace the part God had for me. I’m not saying that God wouldn’t have done those things without me, but I really saw that God uses us, and somehow all the glory still goes to Him. At least in my view, it’s all Him. Maybe some girls thought I gave off this spexy (Sarah Wong-Lin’s word creation from “spiritually-sexy”) worship vibe and fell in love with the Steve Zissou t-shirt I was wearing that night. I’m being self-effacing, if you can’t tell.

Some kids shared during fireside that they were never really knew how to worship until the present. I listened to other testimonies of how divine purpose and providence seemed to lead them to experience what God had for them in a specific way that week. What do you do with all that?

By the end of the week, I was exhausted, yet filled up with contentment and peace that a totally different, difficult, confusing, and strange year for BAAYF ended up in praise and thanksgiving.

All of this only served to give me more of a hunger to see God do more in Haven. It felt like we were settling for less–a nice community, good food, a few tears and prayer requests here and there–and kind of letting circumstance dictate how much we truly longed for God. What about people in droves coming to salvation, experiencing transformation, finding deliverance, and being healed? I’m beginning to believe the Jaeson Mas and the Lou Engles have it right in more ways than people like me are willing to admit.

Anyway, this post has become a lot longer than I expected. I guess this is what happens when you are sick, without a TV, and don’t feel like sleeping.

***

ALBUM REVIEW

So, Leeland is pretty good. Some nice gems on the CD. However, they failed to meet my expectations because their three songs on myspace showed much more promise. “Tears from the Saints” seemed epic… listen if you get a chance.

I have since pre-ordered the new Jars album, and got access to listen to all their songs online, too. It is growing on me.

God, You are worthy to be praised, trusted, adored, feared, and blessed!

I heart chesty. Forever.

http://www.myspace.com/jarsofclay

http://www.good-monsters.com/

AND

My gosh, I call it right now, Leeland is gonna be the next great Christian group.