Two things

What I've been learning recently:

I didn't really fear God, though I thought I did.
It is so easy to think it's the big things that matter because it's the major things that matter. But Jesus again reminds me of the perfect standard of holiness that God demands from all believers. Lk. 16:10 "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." Fearing God didn't seem much an issue since the Gospel is all the rage now. While being "Gospel-centred" draws us to Jesus as the heart of our lives, our living, our pursuit for holiness, I had singularized its focus on forgiveness and gratuitous justification into the only concern for my life from now on. I had thought that was the only means for Christian hedonism, but I had ignored the many verses in the Bible that call us to fear God if we want Him to be pleased. Also, I had replaced a life-changing pursuit of God for intellectual Christianity: a voracious appetite for reading Christian books and acquiring theology which didn't change my life.

Here's how I didn't fear God: suppressing my conscience and privatizing or culturalizing biblical imperatives. God blesses us with material wealth so that we could use it for His ministry, but in my reluctance to part with fashionable clothes, fancy gadgets and hanging out at unnecessarily expensive restaurants and cafes, I decided to see only some people who live comfortable lives have been called to give. So many human rights and social justice campaigns call for alleviating poverty in different parts of the world - they got one thing right: anyone who does not have to fret over food, shelter and water, but have home phones and cell phones, Internet access, a computer, a decent variety of clothes, access to transportation etc are rich. What we try to do in defense is to deflect God's call for us all who are rich to give to cultural standards of wealth. "Look at him, why don't you ask him to give instead of me? He's richer than I am. I have a Toyota but he drives a Lexus!". If the world is not our home - us being strangers that are in the "contrast society" as Greg Boyd calls it - why use our money as though our home is on earth and we are here to stay?

I can share the many other areas I have allowed myself to remain conformed to the world, but that would take all day and I want to go to bed because something exciting is happening again tomorrow! Also, you might be bored to tears, haha. My point is, it seems to me that deliberately conforming to the world, thereby quelling the Holy Spirit's provocation on one's conscience, is a way of not fearing God. Sin is trivialized: gluttony, chocolate addiction, determining one's life's worth by how updated he is with movies and how many DVDs he bought, scandalizing others, pornography, immodesty and the attraction to immodestly-clad women...sounds so ridiculous but it happens to almost everyone. All fall prey, and with help from the Holy Spirit, believers have the ability and the choice to triumph over the world. Again I recommend Jerry Bridges' Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins we Tolerate (2006). Jerry Bridges is by far the author that has had the greatest influence on my life.

Just in this week, I have experienced shame from confessing sin, fear for my own safety, anguish at folly...my heart was shredded and mutilated. But beyond the pain and shock, I am so thankful that the cross shone so brightly again no amount of tears could blind my eyes from it. Because things are tacky and sensitive, I am praying for wisdom..and when I first came across Prov. 2, things fell in place: wisdom lies in fearing God, and can be attained if you seek God (which sin not repented of bars both the believer and non-believer from).

"and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God...
Discretion will protect you,
and understanding will guard you."
Prov. 2:4-5, 11

Lifelong singlehood is a very viable and desirable possibility.
A few days ago, I've had the chance to talk to a sister whom I think is beautiful before the eyes of God, and she pointed out that the climax of God's creation was the creation of both a man and a woman for companionship, friendship under the institution of marriage. Marriage and romantic love is sacred because God intends for us to see Christ loves the Church, and to the utter and perfect sense that He lowered Himself from heaven to be murdered like a lamb. I don't think many of my experiences of romantic love (infatuations, wondering what it'd be like if I were with A or B, relationships) were God-glorifying, given the measure in 1 Cor. 13, but I do know that romantic love is such a fantastic and unique bond - no other inter-human relationship in the world allows for this special physical, emotional and spiritual intimacy. I have sometimes violated this bond in friendship, especially since it doesn't entail responsibility afterwards. I am so glad because only Jesus is the true Lover of my soul, I can claim the promise of I Jn. 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." I can look to the other side of the cross: the victory over shame, guilt and fear. So, I want to stop doing these things, and I know God will give abundant grace to help.

That all being said, I am seeing glimpses of the wonders of lifelong singlehood, not because I fear the possibility of being left on the shelf, but because my passion will be single. 1 Cor. 7:32 "An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit." If it is the Lord's Will for me to be single, I can be only passionate for Him, pursuing Him with zeal and joy as I get more deeply involved with ministry. The world, and shamefully, many self-professed believers equate physical beauty with romance and marriage like I do: one who falls below the cultural standard of physical attractiveness is somehow deemed less worthy and less expected to be married. If a good-looking person pursues only God through singlehood, this worldly mindset thinks that he must either have been traumatized by some bad relationship, have confused sexual orientation or other reasons that lament a perceived loss of using good looks for the benefit of romance and/or marriage. Now to think of it, this is just so perverted. John says all that is from the world is not from the Father, and vice versa. This worldview debases and distorts singlehood for pursuing God. Oh my goodness.

And so, lifelong singlehood is desirable and exciting. I am glad I have the chance to explore singlehood and serve God and others in the meantime. I want to be very glad if God brings the man whom I will be bonded with for life, and I want to equally rejoice (if not, more) if God calls me to pursue Him zealously, single-heartedly and unwaveringly for life.

Another two and maybe +one things I want to buy when I go home: a bike, the Qur'an, maybe the NIV Study Bible.

I love you

How do you say goodbye?

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
Rev. 21:3-4

Summer homework

This summer, I want to read and think more about Religion, Sexuality, Stewardship and, Spiritual Warfare.

The Bible
The Qur'an
The Myth of a Christian Religion, Greg Boyd
3 Crucial Questions on Spiritual Warfare, Clinton E. Arnold
The Prodigal God, Tim Keller
One Minute After You Die, Erwin Lutzer
God of the Possible: a Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God, Greg Boyd
Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, eds. John Piper and Wayne Grudem
The Treasure Principle, Randy Alcorn
A Voice in the Wind Trilogy, Francine Rivers
Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
Paradise Lost, John Milton

I don't think I can finish all in summer, especially when I have to honour my bond with that three-week school attachment programme in July, but I think this will be the general direction on what I'll be reading for quite some time.

Sweet childish days, that were as long as twenty days are now.

To A Butterfly, William Wordsworth

I.
I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! - not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister's flowers;
Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.

II.
Stay near me - do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father's family!

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey: - with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.

God of the Middle Ages vs. God in the Bible

Yes, it's versus, not and. And when you take an extreme humanist reading of medieval texts, sifting the "philosophical" from the "religious", it just confuses our understanding of this magnificent being whom the Germanic tribes have first called "God".

I've been taking a class that studies medieval texts such as Boethius' Consolatio Philosophiae, Christine de Pizan's Livre de Paix, and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Willehalm. And I'm writing about this because my professor said something about Johannes von Saaz's Death and the Ploughman that sparked me off to critique his interpretation: "God cannot give eternal life because it is contradictory to [inevitable] Death". Von Saaz words it this way in the last chapter of this intense philosophical and religious duel between Death and the Ploughman - God says, "...since every man is bound to give his life to Death, his body to the earth and his soul to Me".

This tedious imagined dialogue pitches the Ploughman, a noble who had lost his wife to childbirth and hates Death for robbing life, against Death, an allegorical figure who has emotive capacities and claims its inevitability. The Ploughman fights for life on earth, while Death defends his taking away of life from earth. Yet both arguments are flawed. I personally believe this overarching biblical inaccuracy falls in line with the general character of the Dark Ages - politicizing a faith into a religion at the expense of the Bible's authority. It reveals a distorted, Augustinian Christian faith, with rulers and nobles sake to justify their morality by decontextualizing verses from the Bible, and keeping the laypeople in their lowly, disenfranchised estate because they "always want war", and are "ready and armed to do all sorts of evil" (Livre de Paix 3.11, 12).

Death says life "must all come to nothing" (10). Consider this dystopian speech Death makes (20):

..every man in the moment of birth swallows the drink which pledges his death. Beginning and end are kith and kin...No one may resist what must happen in the end. The individual may not oppose what all must endure. What a man borrows he must return. On earth all men till an alien soil. From being something they must become nothing. Men's lives flee swiftly away. Though they be yet living, in the twinkling of an eye they are dead. To conclude in a word: every man owes us a death and dying is his inheritance..Either age or death must destroy all human beauty. Rosy lips must lose their color, red cheeks must pale, bright eyes must dim...Do not lament a loss which you cannot recover."

This sense of vanity in all temporal things is reminiscent of Boethian philosophy and (especially, Zen) Buddhism. The Bible says similar things too, the Teacher says that all toil on earth is in vain, "a chasing after the wind" (Eccl. 2:11), and David writes that Man is a "mere phantom" who "bustles about, only in vain", whose days are like a "passing shadow" (Ps. 39:6, 144:4). On beauty, Lemuel records a family oral tradition: "Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain" (Prov. 31:30). Death as an inevitable end is a fearful truth we often seek to obliterate from our lives, because it reminds us that our toil on earth for comfort and pleasure is not only not going to last, but is going to decay.

But let's consider also the Ploughman's retort. He exposes Death as a "liar" for slandering Man, the "finest" and noblest of divine handiwork because he "alone possesses reason" (25). The Bible does tell me something similar, that we have been made in God's image (Gen. 1:27), and are "crowned with glory and honour" (Ps. 8:6). Reason as the celebration of worldly human existence carries a heavy humanist tone - God says that the noble quality that Man alone has is the image of God, thereby having the innate desire for the eternal, immutable, spiritual (i.e. intangible).

The Ploughman's idealistic celebration of worldly human existence and Man's God-ordained goodness is however only half-true. It fails to remember the Fall, which has since fully corrupted our moral and spiritual capacities, and carries grim and very fearful consequences for all in this life and after death. To the mind that perceives only the tangible, the end of mortal life is a "loss", as Death put it. But God says the contrary, that all men are "destined to die, and after that to face judgment" (Heb. 9:27). Like it or not, we are going to be judged according to His commandments on morality as revealed in the Bible. The Ploughman said that God could only be a "bad and culpable creator" if he were to create us in such moral filth (25). He's right too. God didn't impose sin on us. Death is the only and inescapable result of sin (Rom. 6:23), and God had commanded extremely early in the existence of the universe that whoever murders a man will be killed, for "God made man in His own image" (Gen. 9:6). And we know too, that Eve took that forbidden fruit out of idolatry, and Adam blamed God and Eve for causing him to sin - their feelings of idolatry and pride were not instigated, but points to our capacity to freely act and think how we deem best.

"On earth all men till an alien soil". As opposed to that bevy of Freud-Derrida-Jung theorists, Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Rahab, Hannah, David, Ruth, Paul, Peter, John and others in the Bible got it right. They were humble and honest enough to recognize their absolute inability to do that which is good (i.e. of eternal and spiritual value). What did they do that God honours and celebrates them in His Word? I'm reminded of the verse(s) I shared in the book I gave to Kat (Hi! Honorary mention, h_h_ > sekret joke)

They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth...Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."
Heb. 11: 14, 16

Returning to what my professor taught in class today, I say that YES, God can give eternal life and He does! We can do nothing to earn it, the Bible says many times that it is "the gift of God" (Jn. 4:10; Rom. 5:15-6, 6:23; Eph. 2:8-9; 1 Jn. 5:11 and others) It is gratuitous, yet freely available to all (Mk. 10:24; Jn. 3:16; Heb. 9:27-8 and others). The God of old - waaay older than the old antiquity - calls out to all men, His beloved creation, fashioned in His own image that He was and is giving eternal life, thus overcoming Death, inevitable as it is as a means to punish unholiness (i.e. sin).

Son of man, say to the house of Israel, 'This is what you are saying: "Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?" ' Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.

Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?'
Ez. 33:10-1

Dear God, thank you for this unceasingly wondrous promise of hope amidst bleakness and evil. Amen and Amen!