devotional

CBG: Calling

April 18, 2020 — Leave a comment

Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God. And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following him, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”

John 21:17-22

After sitting with the pain and shame of rejecting Jesus, Peter was gently and patiently pulled back in. This is probably Peter’s rawest, most vulnerable moment. He knows his own weaknesses and experienced the gap between what he wants to do and what he does. And here is beckoned by Jesus. Jesus doesn’t recount Peter’s fall. Jesus doesn’t do that sort of nasty human judging. Jesus doesn’t need to show that he was right. Jesus moves in a way so that Peter, the wrongdoer, can heal. Damn.

In that soft quiet intimacy, Jesus tells Peter his greatest calling: Peter will live and die just like Jesus! Peter will truly lay it all down, till the end, for the one he loves. I wonder how he felt learning his fate. Fear? Inadequacy? Regret? What times in your life have you felt the certainty of God’s calling on your life? You could feel the closeness of Jesus, the stirring of the Spirit and the declaration of God. You were too unarmored to defend yourself from the wave of truth. It’s pretty scary to experience God like that, especially when he puts a seemingly impossibly task in front of you. Callings don’t always feel like soft marshmallows and look like joyful rainbows. How do we respond when we receive something so profound it freaks us out?! Do we redirect the focus out and onto others? What about them? What about that? Can we instead sit with our God-given unique path, recognize it can only happen with the Spirit’s guidance and then take one step forward? It’s all one step at a time.

Prayer: Pray your desires, unabashedly. Listen to what God has in response. Are fears that arise human-driven or God-given? Pray for a sensitivity to the Spirit in your feelings, your energy, your relationships, the Word.

Creative: Look back at a text/book that has inspired you in the past.

Brave: What have you wanted to ask for but have been afraid to voice? Can you do it today?

Generous: Do something sweet for a family member!

CBG: Garden

April 17, 2020 — Leave a comment

And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights he was hungry. And the tempter came.

Matthew 3:16 – 4:3

What if right now is the lent we needed but didn’t have the power to give to ourselves? In lent, we often choose a thing to give up in hopes that it would turn us back to God. Often, as soon as the 40 days are over, we are right where we were before our “sacrifice.” The hope of Jesus on Easter eclipses our non-change. Easter has passed and we are still here. Hope is for sure and the current uncertainty is as well. This season is a stripping that is out of our control. It’s a wilderness. We can feel alone. We can feel tricked because just earlier, God was seemingly on your side. To friends it can feel like we disappeared. Some friends may be the ones we’ve needed to strip off. In our hunger for a sense of normalcy, where do you feel tempted?

Prayer: God, lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil.

Creative: Write an encouraging note to yourself.

Brave: Do less.

Generous: Write an encouraging note to someone else.

CBG: Esther

April 16, 2020 — Leave a comment

Moredcai also gave [Hathach] a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people. And Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say, “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law — to be put to deaf, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.” And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who know whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.

Esther 4:8-11

You hear a need. You contextualize the need in the system you exist in. You hear that the system you exist in is fallible and unjust. You make a promise to address the need, acknowledging the consequences of acting in such a way within the system. You pause in solidarity with those who are being crushed by the system.

We all exist in this system of patriarchal capitalist money is God. Whether you hate it, love it, use it when it’s to your advantage, that is the system we live in. What does it take to courageously and wisely address the injustice with the system it mind? It doesn’t mean you have to choose between working within the system or outside the system. Radical ways usually exist in a plane all to itself — neither for or against, but completely different.

As an Asian-presenting female that exists in a fairly established black and white tale, whether that is reality, projection or most likely an amalgamation of both, it is wrong for me to stay complacent in a state of white-adjacency or inappropriate to stand merely ally in world of black suffering. What can I learn from Esther?

  1. Who are your people? Who are you affiliating with or grouping with? The strong or the vulnerable?
  2. Who seems to be in charge? What can this person/system do to me?
  3. How has everything that has happened in my life shaped me for this particular moment?
  4. Who do I need on my team?
  5. What supposed necessities do I need to surrender so that I can make room for better?

Prayer: Help me to live in your kingdom while in this kingdom. Help me to see my place in today. Release this lie that I’m in this alone. Help me give up that which is less, which might have served me once upon a time, but now is actually an obstacle. Give me courage and wisdom to stand with those who are forgotten and vulnerable.

Creative: For 15 minutes, put the screens away and connect with the world and with your body.

Brave: Who or what have you been afraid of? How can you challenge it/they?

Generous: Who or what have you pushed aside? How can you bring it/they in?

CBG: 26

April 15, 2020 — Leave a comment

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Lover never ends.

1 Corinthians 13:1-8

This passage is so beautiful and so damn convicting. Who can love in this manner? It seems impossible. Love in this manner demands a constant need for God, for God’s forgiveness, help and presence. Is it not this that reminds us that without Jesus’ hope and redemption, we are unable to fully love.

Love softens the corners. Love is quiet strength. Love is a breath. Love responds rather than reacts. Love is physical and mental and spiritual and emotional. Love is not finite. While we think much about how we can love others — keep that going, we need that — can we extend this kind of impossible love to ourselves?

Can we be patient and kind with ourselves? Can we not compare ourselves with what we think we should be? Can we withhold judgment on our bodies that are doing its best? Can we listen to the whispers of the gut and intuition that are guided by the Spirit, instead of running with the timeline of the world? Can we rest when our body and mind and heart say they are tired? We are imperfect in our self-love and self-compassion, and again, come back to Jesus and how much he loves you. He fills in the gap.

Prayer: God show me how to love instead of prove. God show me how to love without borders while honoring my boundaries. God remove the limits of love. Grow our capacity to receive and to give.

Creative: Love your body — dance? food? move?

Brave: Where do you need to forgive yourself?

Generous: To whom have you given so sacrificially yet maybe haven’t loved without expectation…? What does it look like to shift?

CBG: #25

April 14, 2020 — Leave a comment

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore, prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, “I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.

Ezekiel 37:11-14

What do we need of God’s promises? Renewal and restoration? To come up for breath from the exhaustion and the uncertainty. To feel the lightness of new mercies and bright morning hope. To see that rainbow over New York City and declare, that is for me as well. Intimacy? To release the heaviness of loneliness and a need for survival. To not fall prey to the lies that I can only do what I do with my gift of singleness so I guess I should be content…To still believe that being seen, understood and held are good, good desires. Belonging and purpose? To quiet the restlessness and stand confidently exactly where you are. To not feel like a waste of space because we are wrapped up in the world’s measurements. To know that what you do for the least of these, you do for God.

What part of your soul do you need God to prophesy over? What promises and reminders do your part of the world need? God has really promised. He proved it. He will not walk back on his words.

Prayer: God you have new mercies for me every minute. Help that truth to shape the way I am brave and generous to those around me. Help me to see your work all around me. Help me to extend new mercies to things and to people around me.

Creative: Write a bunch of lies and heavy things on paper and rip it up.

Brave: Live in your power.

Generous: Live out your abundance.

CBG: #24

April 13, 2020 — 1 Comment

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another, saying, “What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name. So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

Acts 4:13-20

A well-received response is not evidence of an effective act. Peter and John have done something clearly undeniably marvelous. In response, they are told to stop and do it no more. They are threatened and intimidated by those uploading the system. In light of Peter and John’s miracle, the priests and the elders focus on Peter and John’s ordinariness and meager resume. Peter and John offended those in charge without those in charge able to find a wrongdoing.

How do we offend without wronging? How do we act in a way that is undeniably good while making the system uncomfortable? Where can God do the most work? Where do you find yourself saying: I’m not trained enough. I don’t have enough experience. Everyone already knows how to do that — those areas are exactly where God wants to show miracles. Because it’s your confidence and faith within your inexperience that makes the world pause and think it might be a work of God, not a human striving. It will be your lack that forces you to say like Carrie Underwood sings, Jesus take the wheel.

Prayer: Lord where have my fears of comparison and commonality made me shrink back.

Creative: Write 8 things you wish you were better at. And at the end of each, write, I’m good enough.

Brave: Of the 8 things, showcase one of them.

Generous: Call a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while.

CBG: Holy Saturday

April 11, 2020 — Leave a comment

Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus saw where he was laid.

Mark: 15:47
I imagine the quiet gray permeating from dusk to dawn.
The numb sweeping up and down your body 
Hope marred and crushed 
You are crushed
Love dead and locked away
All you have left is a cold stone reminder of everything you lost
How did we get here?
Your fragile heart is too afraid to lift its eyes
For fear of connecting with another heartbroken soul
Who will see you in your unarmored self
All you want is to be held and comforted
But will that even be enough?
It's a nightmare
Wake up
Rewind
Reset. Please. Please. I promise--
Negotiating in the waiting
Replaying those times when it didn't feel so heavy
Trying to be anywhere but here
Anything to not feel the powerless, the helpless, the human in us
The quiet gray ambient grief that is unable to utter any words to soothe 
Words are shit
Shut up
Stop trying to make this okay
Stop moving!
You don't even have the energy to scream or release
You hold it in to hold on 
Now what
Where do we go from here
When here was where we were meant to be

Prayer: Look up.

Creative: What message does your former self need?

Brave: Look in.

Generous: Look out.

CBG: #20

April 9, 2020 — Leave a comment

“I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

Genesis 45:4-8

One summer night when I was in college, I drove 12 hours through the night from Annapolis, Maryland to Martha’s Vineyard to surprise my boyfriend. He was vacationing with his family and had mentioned several times in our phone calls that he wanted me to join them. It was a long drive through torrential rain. Thankfully very few cars were on the road and there is coffee, though shitty still coffee, at gas stations. When I finally arrived the next afternoon in MV, my boyfriend said he couldn’t come pick me up from the dock because he was playing golf with a mutual friend of ours. I. Lost. It. Imagine the whitest happiest place on earth and smack in the middle of that joy is a sobbing Asian girl. I did not give a f*ck who heard me, who saw me and where I was. I was so angry and hurt.

Today while I was journalling that memory rushed into my mind. It often does when I need an example of how I had a shit boyfriend. As I was reminiscing on that time, it hit me that I had crashed my boyfriend’s summer vacation. I had crashed his family’s — a family that did not allow us to sleep in the same room whenever I stayed over at their house — long standing vacation. I sprung all of me — dramatic, expectant, pouty — onto his quiet calm vacation. Um. Oh. Ooops. A revelation a decade later isn’t too late, right?

Are we drowning in our side of a story because we are hurt and we have expectations? Are we unable to see the other perspective because one, we can’t, like Joseph pre-famine or two, because we don’t want to see our culpability? It is easier to put on the armor and view life through our hurt and our needs. I am not saying to be a door mat and never consider your own perspective. What I am encouraging myself and you to do is expand the story. Expand the plot so that you’re not the only main character. No good story revolves around one player, and your beautiful tapestry of a narrative involves everyone, their hurts and their needs as well.

Prayer: God show me the balance between perspective and presence.

Creative: Where are you wrestling between mind & heart, rationale & gut? Let them have a conversation.

Brave: What’s one thing you can say no to that you’re afraid to turn away?

Generous: Tell someone their testimony of redemption means a lot to you.

CBG: #19

April 8, 2020 — Leave a comment

Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asking nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive that your joy may be full.

John 16:20-24

We must give as much room to the pain and sorrow, as we do the celebration and the joy. Each gives the other meaning. Within the conversation between sorrow and joy is the presence of God. In the presence of God we can hold things loosely, give generously and express vulnerably. Our worth is not in question and out of this worthiness our asks are legitimate. It’s difficult to ask from hurt because it can further make us feel small and guilty. We might not ask when we’re feeling abundant because we lose our sensitivity to our fallibility and humanity. When we exist in a place of enough-ness and whole-hearted worth, it sifts our asks through gratitude and humility. These asks don’t involve a need; they are for connection.

Prayer: Grow my sensitivity to the world and to you. Grow my capacity for joy. Renew it. Restore it. Help me trust that there are times for sorrow and times for joy. Help me not to judge wherever I’m at.

Creative: Meditate on a strength and create from there!

Brave: Share how God has been at work in your life this week with anyone.

Generous: Is there someone we may have “forgotten” because they’re “probably fine?” Reach out.

CBG: #18

April 7, 2020 — 1 Comment

So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” They went out of the town and were coming to him…Many Samaritans from the town believed him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they ask him to stay wit them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

John 4:28, 39-42

What is a testimony? What is its purpose? When is it “successful”?

Whenever I share about how amazing someone is, I usually try to hook my audience with how amazing that someone is. He’s SO KIND. She has this ability to make you feel like you’re the only person in the room. They are a social justice warrior! That’s the hook. The centerpiece of our story. Then, if they need context on why we are talking about kindness, attention or social justice, I might share parts of who I am to showcase again why the person of my affections is that amazing. The goal isn’t to have the attention end up on me; I want it to illuminate person I’m talking about. How we contextualize God is already built in because the words we use, the way we express will showcase how we perceive. Give God the spotlight.

Right now, the world needs the parts of God that ripped you out of a lesser way of being, may it be despair, pursuit of worthless things, loneliness, resentment, anger…Let the world see and know God’s hope, the radical purposes of God, God’s enduring presence, God’s unceasing forgiveness, God’s justice. The way we share God is the way we share ourselves.

Prayer: God help me testify of you in my words, in my thoughts and in my actions.

Creative: Doodle.

Brave: Where have you been afraid to share who God is? Step in.

Generous: Pray for Health Care Workers. Reach out.