God worked in a tangible way to bring me here this week to UCLA. My family and I planned to take a cruise vacation from Friday until Monday (today), plans made long before servants' team meeting. Min gave me a call a week ago, with a challenge to skip the cruise in order to be here this week. But it wasn't that cut and dry, considering we already paid in full (some $300) for a cruise without a refund policy. My parents even wanted me to go to servants' meeting and be there during fall rush. So what to do?
I saw no way to both honor my parents and my pastor simultaneously. I could complain and guilt my parents into letting me go, but fortunately I correctly deemed such an idea as immature. On the other hand I could completely skip fall rush activities, an enticing option after participating in two previous grueling fall rushes. But I really wanted to be at UCLA, on the ground, with my fellowship, growing and laughing and laboring together, for God and for each other.
I drowned in worry for a few days, unsure of what steps to take. Even my typically active imagination failed to concoct a scenario in which all parties, my parents, my pastor, and myself, felt satisfied. Twas a sad time.
But I did one thing correctly: ceased striving and gave it up to God. In the context of submission to my elders (parents and pastor) in 1 Peter 5, I gave up my worries, "casting my anxieties upon God," trusting He cared for me. Honestly, this may be one of first times I've ever truly attempted to cast my cares upon God consistently over the period of a few days, in heavy contrast to my typical shotgun-style prayer life.
And He answered. On Sunday after service at my home church in San Diego, my dad stopped me and told me he wanted me to go to LA, thus forfeiting family time and the money. Pastor Steven preached about seeing the world through the lenses of the gospel, a message specifically honed to inspire my dad to kingdom-driven action.
That one moment with my dad, standing in the courtyard with his hand on my shoulder and a smile wrapped on my face, will be a treasure one day in heaven we will share with each other and with Christ. This is what it means to store up treasures in heaven. And that is why I am here this weekend.
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I'm facing a similar situation right now, so if you could keep me in your prayers, we can rejoice together with God's answer, whatever it may be: my parents let me go with the condition that I work on my pharmacy school secondary applications, and that if I did not finish, I would come up for a couple days before school starts in order to finish the apps. Despite making sure to work on these applications, I am still a good ways away from finishing. However, going home to work on them does not seem like a good idea from a ministry standpoint (i would miss a lot) nor a practical standpoint (i would struggle to write quality essays in such a short time). So please pray that I would be able to do the same thing: cast my cares to God, not trying to manipulate Him into an answer (and thus misusing the promises of John 15:7 and the like), but being confident that even if I have to go home and forfeit ministry time, I will glorify God by honoring my parents. Pray that I would have wisdom, yearning to seek the approval of God above the approval of my parents and my pastor and my friends. The latter three approvals may not always be there and many times will clash, but the one approval that matters is between me and God.
He believes in me, enough to call me out and give me the world if I want it. How freaking cool is that, that He would entrust me with His work of healing and reconciliation and peace and love and joy and all goodness. Who, me? But He believes in me. And that is enough to make it through one more day.
hey!
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing about your parents and the whole fall thrust thing. i just heard a good message today that talked about how there are no separate compartments of our lives in terms of what's worship and what's not, and i feel you in the struggle not just in terms of competing human approval but even just to know what it means to worship him as son/brother in ministry/ student /etc entrusted with family/relationships/ministry/education/etc...and learning to live all of life under his authority, in worship to him. it's a challenge but exciting...and brings us to walk in continual dependence on him.
about what you wrote in the end, guess i got kinda antsy.. because it isn't so much that Scripture writes about God believing in us, but that knowing all our depravity/sin/confusion/hangups/failures (past, present, future), he knows exactly what he's going to do and what he'll give grace for. he entrusts you with his work because he himself will and has given grace for it. he says to us "from now on you'll be catching men" not because he knows we can do it, but because he knows what he'll do in us. don't want to sound nitpicky or anything, but just wanted to share that..cause it'll keep you standing solid on him and his work..Christ-centered, drawing from him, and resting in his grace to his glory. =)
rest in that, bro!
yea yea for sure faith, that's totally what i meant to say. =) thanks for the clarification...it is all by grace, agreed. i haphazardly threw that part in at the end because it's a little snippet from a message we heard sunday at WHEC from a guest speaker. he talked about the cultural context in which Jesus called out his disciples. apparently, rabbis, who were the best of the best, would call out disciples to pass their knowledge unto, disciples who were usually smart and educated and ready to learn. this is why Peter and Andrew dropped their nets...not necessarily because they had this immense faith to leave their livelihood, but because such an opportunity to follow a rabbi would probably never come again to such two lowly fisherman as them. but Jesus saw potential in them and believed in them, in the sense that even though they did not fit the prototype for the typical disciple of the day, they would one day do greater things (john 14) not because they were great, but of course, because of God's grace and the work He would do in them. so yea totally agree with you, thanks for making sure i'm on line =P.
ReplyDeletebtw, loved your latest post. if you don't mind, imma make a shout out to it in an addendum to this post...despite the fact that our readership probably overlaps quite a bit...but that's ok =) hope you are doing well faith, we miss ya a lot.