Christ still died for it

Acts 20:28b: "Be shepherds of the Church of God, which He bought with His blood."

As frustrated as we get with the church, Jesus died for it. Them. Us. We have to take it on faith that it's worth loving. Though sometimes it doesn't seem that way.

Here are some of the commentaries:

Gill's Exposition

Jamieson Fausset Brown

Miracle reunion

I almost didn't go. I was feeling kinda bummed and anti-social, and unstructured get-social occasions are often very stressful for me. But I elected to stick around since so many of the women's fellowship are leaving the country soon. I stuck around for fellowship, and afterward to go to supper with them.

Yesterday a new guy in Korean class had introduced me to a new pizza place. I suggested that we go there. Ann, one of the other girls, endorsed the place, particularly their garlic bread. So it was off to the pizza place we went.

Since I was the one who knew where it was, I led the way and was the first in the door. So I sat at the furthest seat, which was facing the windows at the entrance. This way I could make room for the others that were following me.

As we were enjoying our pizza, I looked up to see a Korean girl addressing me. "Excuse me," she asked. "Are you Christina?"

"Oh my God! HELEN!"

It was an old student from my old hagwan, a girl I'd tried to contact for two years to no avail. I coudlnt' get any email server to send mail to her account! And there she was, standing in front of me, in the flesh.

I got tangled up in the chairs in my rush to leap up and grab her. We stood there hugging and crying in the pizza place.

Helen had been walking past with some friends, and they'd pointed into the pizza place to say that there were a whole bunch of foreigners. Helen didn't think it could possibly be me; she was sure I was in the states. She called her mother and her mother said that it wouldn't hurt to go in and ask. If the person who looked so much like Christina wasn't Christina after all, no harm done. But if it really was Christina, did she want to miss the chance?

And how did she recognize me? I'm older, and I aged a lot living with my mom. My hair is much greyer. I got it cut. I stopped wearing my contact lenses and went back to wearing glasses. I've changed. But she spotted me.

So many choices would have prevented this reunion. Deciding to go home rather than be sociable. Deciding to eat someplace else. Deciding to sit with my back to the entrance. Helen's friends not commenting on the gaggle of waygooks. Helen convincing herself that it couldnt' be me because I was in America. But there it is. And there she was. I held her beautiful face in my hands. I heard her voice. I gave her my phone number.

She had to leave right away. I found out just now that she was on her way back to class from supper break from an academy she's going to. But we're gonna meet during supper break next weekend. I'll see her again in a week!

What's really freaky is this:

My morning glories have been ailing since I got back from China. I prayed over them this morning, just saying that it'd be a very nice gesture of affection. That part of why I ache for a mate so much is that I want those little gestures of affection, and that I'd really like one and that a miraculous healing for my sick houseplants would be nice.

Instead I got Helen. Who beats a healed houseplant any day of the week.

I'm stunned. Coincidence? I think not.

China trip pictures.

I'm still organizing them here.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof

I get frustrated with my preschoolers, always asking who will be Teacher's Helper tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I keep telling them not to worry that far ahead, just deal with who will be Teacher's Helper today, because if I tell them, "Sung Bin tomorrow, then Min Gun on Monday, and Ye Eun on Tuesday," Sung Bin will be sick tomorrow and it'll throw the whole schedule off and Ye Eun will be ticked off that she'd been promised Tuesday. "Don't worry about it," I tell them. "We'll deal with it when we get to it."

And I wonder why it's so important to them to know who will be Teacher's Helper on Friday, anyway.

Every time we get into one of those tussels I think of how I need to be trusting God to tell me things when I need to know them, and not be all in a tizzy wanting to know what the future's gonna hold.

I wouldn't mind being single so much if I knew that I was going to be going on a mission to Sudan and getting kidnapped. I'd not want to have a husband in agony over me. If I'm single because hardship is ahead, or even martyrdom, I'd not mind.

I'd not mind being single so much if I knew Mr. Right was around the corner, just not ready yet.

I'd not mind drifting along in my work life if I knew what was ahead.

It's the not knowing that drives me bats.

And in that I'm like the preschoolers.

I've really absorbed the whole "Five Year Plan" thing to the point where I sound like Chairman Mao! God will let me know when I need to know.

But I still don't like it.

Small fear, but fear conquored. For now.

The girls that have been the core of our praise and worship team are heading back to Canada soon. They'd been asking for somebody to step forward.

We got a keyboard player, a Korean fellow called Poet. But no native English speakers, nobody who knows the music or who could do the co-ordination and lead the congregation came forward. So, with my widow's mite I stepped up.

I've been really struggling with this. The whole music thing is very sensitive to me. And the girls just have no appreciation of how difficult it is for me. There they are, three beautiful, talented young women fresh out of studying music at university, and who do we have following them? A frumpy middle-aged woman who was in chorus in high school, a quarter of a century ago. Yikes!

I've found the prospect very scary. I'd been praying for somebody else to show up, somebody else to volunteer. But nobody's coming forward.

And the thought that kept going through my head is, "I'm nobody's first choice." Well, evidently I am Somebody's first choice, since nobody else is stepping to the plate, and I can assume that God can muster somebody when He wants somebody. Not that that keeps me from feeling like I'll come across like The Fat Lady in the painting in the Harry Potter movies. So I was praying about it, and finally went to the Bible and prayed some more and said, "Show me what I'm supposed to be doing here. This scares me. Am I really supposed to be doing this?"

I opened up the Bible at random and got Psalm 68: 24-27a:

Your procession has come into view, O God, the procession of my God and King into the sanctuary.
In front are the singers, after them the musicians, with them are the maidens playing tambourines.
Praise God in the great congegation; praise the Lord in the assemly of Israel.
There is the little tribe of Benjamin, leading them....

I'm taking that to be a "go ahead and make music." I can be "the little tribe of Benjamin", something small, something not particularly impressive, and still lead the procession, so to speak.

Then I glanced to the next page and saw Psalm 69: 19a and 20b:

You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed; .... I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none.

'Nuf said. I understand that and don't need to elaborate.

Then further on, Psalm 69:30-31:

I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.
This will please the Lord more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hoofs.

Personally, I can't see my music being much of an offering. God wanted an unblemished firstborn, not the leftovers. But the fear certainly can be offered up.

Well, I got through yesterday. I joined in the rehearsal, and got through the praise and worship, and Trish told me I did great. Even though I had to fudge through a couple of sections where I coudn't come close to managing the chords that fast.

Victory is victory. I'm gonna rejoice in it. Nobody but God knows how scary that was for me and how much it took for me to do it.

In Everything Give Thanks

From "A Devotion"

18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 THESSALONIANS 5:18 NKJ)

Just because things are not going the way you would like is no excuse. The Bible clearly says that God's will for you is to be
thankful -- always.

The Bible does NOT teach that we're to thank God for evil, because God is not responsible for evil. .... What the Bible does teach, is that we should always be thankful -- even when evil happens. Being thankful is part of an attitude of faith, and faith will overcome evil.

....

God doesn't do bad things to people. He's not the one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. That's the devil, and people
motivated by selfishness and demonic influence. So you have the devil "to thank" for the bad things in life.

Yet, during the bad things in life, we are to continue thanking God, no matter how we feel. This helps us keep our eyes on God and keep things in perspective.

No matter how dark and hopeless the situation may look -- give thanks. This is God's will for you.

Thank God for the opportunity to see His deliverance. Thank Him for His mercy and grace. Thank Him for His faithfulness. Thank Him for defeating the devil and setting you free in Christ. Thank Him that Jesus is Lord. Thank Him that your name is
written in Heaven. Thank Him for loving you and taking good care of you. Thank Him!

SAY THIS: In everything I will give thanks to God for what He is doing. All God does is for my good.

A tough one

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."
Luke 6:27-28

I was fighting with my friends at CH Refugees. And it was getting nasty. They were nasty, I was nasty. And I was interpreting their nastiness not as sarcasm or just trying to win an argument, but as a fierce personal attack.

At some level I recognized that we were all under attack, that there was something outside of us, working with us to generate hostility and bitterness and resentment and (in my case), even hatred. I really was starting to only see people who were condeming me for wanting to protect the dying, and wanting to just attack them.

And when you clear away the crap, I don't hate the other members of EMHAC. They're my friends. But what I was feeling was pretty nasty. And it followed me and turned inward. I got lost on the subway trying to get to Itaeowon. A place I've been to scores of time! I was so frustrated and discouraged and demoralized. And I realized I was under some sort of attack. But all I could do was hate Korea, hate the subways, hate my life.

Jesus' admonition isn't just niceness. It's a key way to get out of that downward spiral. It's a spiritual strategy for resisting attack, for armoring oneself against Satan's attempts to derail us.

It's a lesson I need to internalize. I need to learn to recognize spiritual attacks the way I recognize flashbacks.