wisdom

God’s pleasurable will

January 18, 2021 — Leave a comment

With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment — to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

Ephesians 1:8-10

God’s will is to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. This happens in Christ and when the times reach their fulfillment. The need to bring things into unity means that presently there is a separation. The notion that there has been mystery in God’s will shows that there is a time of not knowing and a time of knowing. To tell us that times will reach their fulfillment means we are currently unfinished and in progress.

What is the wisdom of knowing what is God’s plan and intentions, in the present in-progress moment? How does unity and fulfillment under Christ affect how we live today?

No matter how grim today feels, the end is good. That is hope. How can hope loosen your grip on things you are difficult and you don’t have control over? No matter how unfinished and stuck this moment feels, we are living into a pleasurable unified fulfilled future. How can you see this moment still as a foreshadow of what is to come? On the days of extreme loneliness and separation, know that God’s heart is unity and pleasure. Is there any space to let the latter break through?

However, knowing in our minds doesn’t always translate into knowing in our bodies and souls. How can we digest knowledge and wisdom into a holistic understanding in our body? Our bodies are pretty intelligent. If you have a moment now, take a breath, close your eyes and mediate on a time when you felt integrity and play in your body. When things seemed possible. When you were curious and full of wonder? When your body was quicker and braver than the doubtful and loud voice in your head?

Where were you? Who were you with? What were you doing? Where is that feeling and sensation in your body?

Sit in that. Swim in that. You have access to this as well. Your body knows the mystery of what God is talking about already. Live from this.

Hide & Seek

September 20, 2020 — Leave a comment

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden and in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’

Genesis 3:6-9

What makes me so sad in this passage is the need to cover up exposure and nakedness. Wisdom robs us of an innocence that allows us to be free and naked, unafraid to trot as we are with everything we have out there. Wisdom somehow made our nakedness and another’s nakedness something that was not appropriate for the public. Somewhere between innocence and wisdom, shame snuck in. And I hate shame.

The shame that causes us to hide from each other. The shame that causes us to hide from God. The shame that causes us to hide from ourselves. Shame put barriers between us and other, us and God and within ourselves. Because this shame can be planted in us so early, it’s hard to know what life feels like without it. What does life feel like without shame? What will it take to reclaim a sense of innocence and openness? What “wisdom” is helpful and gives us a way to draw boundaries and separate from that which is evil? But what “wisdom” only seeks to separate and cover up because it gives you an impression of “safety” even if underneath that is shutting in/shutting down? I hope we can hold to wisdom without anger and guilt because truth is we are post-Garden of Eden and we have access to wisdom now. So while you hold to your wisdom, how can you also find the early seeds of innocence that allowed you to be open, to trust, to feel so connected to another, you didn’t ever need to hide or curate?

Imogen Heap – Hide & Seek: Isn’t that our life anthem? Can we shift to more of a Keala Seattle – This is Me soundtrack?

CBG: Public Pause

June 11, 2020 — Leave a comment

And they said to me, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.”

As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was the cupbearer to the king.

Nehemiah 1:2-11

Nehemiah knew that the king was somehow the answer to his problem. He knew that this person that he had gained access, intimate access to, was a key in the freedom of his people. But Nehemiah didn’t ask the king right then, right there to help. He didn’t ask the next week or the next month. It was months later that he finally found the right timing and right moment to ask for exactly what he needed.

I wonder how Nehemiah felt in those between months of knowing there was oppression and not doing anything about it. Well, at least, publicly. I wonder how the people who told him about the oppression felt about Nehemiah’s lack of action. Well, at least, publicly. I wonder how the king was witnessing Nehemiah’s shift because it was the king who eventually saw Nehemiah’s overt sorrow and pain on his face. That was super public.

Did Nehemiah feel guilt? Did he feel like he wasn’t doing enough? Did he feel judged for still living his life as if things hadn’t changed? Was he a coward or was he waiting for the proper time to drop a radical ask? Was he apathetic or was he having heart transformations privately? Was he nervous about what people thought about him or was he unmoved because he was centered on his goal and purpose? Both? Yes and yes? And yes and yes. What mattered was when he was put right on the spot, he had an answer. When his skill and the opportunity aligned, he didn’t miss a beat.

How are you feeling about your timing? How are you holding your responsibility in the face of oppression? How are you sustaining between seeing the reality of injustice and doing the thing YOU are called to do?

Prayer: God, you are the judge and no other. May that give me wisdom, courage and humility.

Who or what do you believe holds the answer to a pain you have right now?

CBG: Wisdom

April 29, 2020 — Leave a comment

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” —

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of god. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord also as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

One annoying thing I experience in Christian culture is the language we use. There is nothing more irritating to my ears than Christian-ese, the terms and the tone we employ to explain the spiritual plane. I fight hard against this by concrete examples. I may be tempted to say God is my provider, has never forsaken me and instead will say well for the last…forever of my life, I have always had food and shelter. Or instead of the hope of Christ keeps me going, I’ll say, I know evil and death are not the end of the story; I don’t believe that and I know that in my core. Even that smells slightly Christian-ese. (Cringe.) I can’t speak for others, as much I want to generalize my own experiences to the general J.C. community, that sometimes I drop Christian-ese because it’s a means of protection. It’s a bubble around what’s tender and precious work in my insides, yet nonetheless a bubble others can nod and say AMEN to. And in those moments, when I am approached with a gentle, patient and safe curiosity, the bubble can pop.

However, however, there are times when our explanations full of hearty evidence fall short. It’s this feeling you can’t fully put into words. It’s this depth of peace that feels fraught to box up for another. It’s this immovable knowing that feels precious reserved for me and God. The wisdom and the strength of God are often unexplainable in humans terms. It’s a relationship that is so core and so unfathomable that we can merely attempt to describe in part by our inability to describe it fully. It’s that wave of the sacrificial love on Good Friday, the utter pain of Holy Saturday and the speechless victory of Easter Sunday. It’s those moments when I feel the most faith and certainty about God. It’s also in those moments when I wish more than anything that those around me can feel it too. How much I long for everyone to know and experience the love of Christ. May we all “understand” and “experience”, without boundaries that plane of holy existence. This is the power of faith that the Spirit of God is indeed at work. Oh no…Christian-ese…

Prayer: Ask God for the wisdom, hope and love you cannot fully explain.

Character: What do each of our fears need to experience peace?

Grace: Where have you seen provision that is beyond what you thought was possible?

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?

George Saunders – Failures of kindness

July 28, 2019 — Leave a comment

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

It’s hard to put kindness in a box, yet when you’re in the presence of it, you feel it. Some people are naturally kind — what is it? This generosity of spirit? The authenticity of presence? This lack of sauntering their own ego? Their insistence on others’ well-being? All that is part of it. It’s hard to define kindness, yet when you experience it, it transforms you. You too want to be kinder. You feel a little lighter. You feel more capable of being you, nothing more. Being open to kindness is hard because it breaks your insecurities and propensity for evil down. Being open to kindness begins a journey of our own lack towards our true worth. I want to open to kindness. I am open to kindness. It’s my first openness to it that can lead me to my own kindness to others. We love because God first loved us. I am loved. I am love. I can love. I choose to love. I am kind. I choose to be kind. Let us experience heaven here.

Day 23: Rules, Rules, Rules

January 8, 2019 — Leave a comment

Exodus 19-21; Psalm 23

Here comes the rules. Rules are a imperfect manifestation of wisdom and social justice and goodness. It’s a way of making sense of a less tangible sense of holiness and right way of living. It’s an asymptote to living for God. If we follow all the rules but without consent and knowing the heart behind them, it’s not love. It feels like prison and a system of trying not to cross the line. I’m not saying rules are bad. If you look at the rules and commandments and understand this helps us prioritize God before self, this helps us trust our provision, this teaches relational goodness, and you agree with the foundation of these said commandments, then you’re not following out of obligation but rather living according to a good way. So don’t fall pray to a need to follow 10 commandments and 52 other ones to be a “person of God.” What do the commandments say about God, you and people? How does each commandment help us live in just relationship with God, others and ourselves? Because when Jesus comes he revamps these rules, not by abolishing them but actually by revealing the impossible-like heart of God’s way. Do not lust? Damn that covers a lot of ground and makes us really think through our ideas of intimacy, relationship and love. Forgive fully? Damn that makes us rethink reparations, revenge, Grace, mercy and endurance. Those ideas are big and broad and require wisdom and freedom and a continual conversation with God. I can follow rules; now living a life where each moment is surrendered to God’s wisdom and freedom? That requires faith.