Perspective

When your life has situations that you cannot understand, it is easy to blame God, or to try and figure it out yourself, but I am learning to wait for His perspective in the situation. "His" being God's perspective, thought I should just clarify that. I thirst for His perspective and yet am afraid of it at the same time. Afraid that it will mean pain, it will happen if it has to, but I don't want it to. I want a perspective that is pain free, but how often does that happen when we so often try to control our own lives. I don't know why this situation was brought into my life, I did not seek it out, and I cannot run from it. All I can pray for is perspective, patience, and wisdom to see this clearly, because quite frankly, it so easy to be blind. This sucks....

The Results

I did not win in the Art competition, but I am okay with that, because two far more talented artists won. If the other two people in my category had won, then I would be sad, but they lost too, so all is well. Here are some pics of everything like I promised:

If I love...

The deeper I dive into my Bible study with church, the more I see how active love must be. If I love the Lord, I must obey Him. Obedience always requires action, sometimes the actions are not fun or easy. Right now, I am learning life lessons about obeying, and seeing that God will give you the same opportunity to obey Him with an area that you failed in in the past. He did it all the time with the Israelites, there were many tests that were repeated so they could learn to obey the Lord. This time, I want to obey, I do not want fail like I did in the past. Redemption is beautiful, and having a patient God that wants you to learn so much that He would give you a second chance is amazing to me. Here I am, under construction as always, but welcoming the changes that are taking place. I hope that I can leave Korea in September and say that I have no regrets about these 12 months.

On other exciting notes, I got to share the gospel with my friend Beth on Wednesday night. We talked a lot about the reality of hell, and there has to be a hell for there to be a loving God. It was definitely an answer to prayer because I had not gotten to share with her yet. She said that she likes talking about these things with me and does not know exactly what she believes yet. She does however believe that we are all essentially gods at different levels, and that we should all love each other. I told her I agree that we should all love each other, but that Jesus was the only one who came in human form and was also God. I am hoping that we will get a chance to talk about the depravity of man soon, I am looking to proding her a bit about the fact that we are all gods. What a scary thought, may it never be!

My last point is that tonight is the awards ceremony for the art show. There are only 5 people in my category, so that makes my chances a lot greater to win. They will give awards for first and second place. I will let you all know what happens. Even if I do not win, I will not be too disappointed, I am just happy that I got the opportunity to participate in something like this. They also have our artist statements posted up for everyone to see as they look at the art, I will show you the pictures of it all later. Hope you are having a blessed week!

Learning...

A new English teacher here had his birthday yesterday, and a friend asked him what he learned in the last year. After she asked that question, I began to think of what I have been learning in my 23rd year of life. Here are a few of the things:

-you are never too young to be in the center of God's will
-worrying about things can make you physically ill and tear you apart
-it is never too late to say "I'm sorry" for mistakes in the past
-obeying God is the most freeing thing in life
-walking by faith requires living in discomfort
-not being comfortable pushes you closer to God
-God doesn't promise me wealth, health, or happiness, but He unceasingly loves me and says that His love is enough
-Loving people requires time, humbleness, and willing to be vulnerable
-you don't need what you think you need much of the time
-God is always at work around you, watch to see where He is working and join Him
-share the gospel at every chance you get, it could mean life for someone else, and it will definitely remind you of your own life that have been given
-people aren't meant for trophies, pedastools, or idols, they always fail you
-spend lots of uninterrupted and uncompromised time with God
-when you ask Him to speak, He does, so make sure you know what you are asking for
-don't let the mole hills become mountains and distract your walk with the Lord, they aren't worth it
-when you have a hard time spending time alone with God, it is not a scheduling issue, it is a heart issue, or better stated, a love issue
-I am here to do one thing, "Love God, know God, and love others."
-I have so much more left to learn....

New Art

Over the last month I have been creating three paintings that will be displayed in a gallery/competition May 20th-23rd. Here they are:

-The first one with the pollution mask symbolizes what Korea lets in and keeps out. They hold very tightly to their traditions, but do not let much of the outside world in.
-The second one with the words and the mouth is about the power of our words. Your words can change lives, move cities, nations, and the world, so don't waste your words!
-The last one is my favorite. The girl is facing the rain, and the rain is not normal water, it's buttons, because you never know what the rain is going to be. You never know what will cause a tragedy in your life, and the buttons are happy at the same time, because these tragedies/hardships shape us closer to the image of our Lord. They can be beautiful, so you can face the rain with joy.

Hope you guys enjoy them.

That I Might Know Him

Tonight, I read a sermon by Charles Spurgeon. It was 8 pages long, so I had to take a few breaks for my brain to comprehend the whole thing, but it was awesome. Spurgeon, if you have never heard of him was a really amazing man. He was not educated formally in seminary to be a pastor, but felt God's call in his life, and followed it. He became one the most influential preachers in England. He has a really hard life. He battled depression, many people were lying about him maliciously in the newspapers, and people would often give him death threats. I am so highly encouraged by his life, there are times in my past where I have given into despair and I never thought that I would read about such an influential servant of the Lord who struggled with that. It always seemed like there was something wrong with me, that people who loved Jesus really didn't have this problem, but they do. I do far better with this now then I did in the past, and I think Spurgeon had it more severely. Yet, you see how God used his life so greatly.

Secondly, he suffered. I am learning that if you love the Lord and live out the gospel, you will suffer. It may not have happened to you yet, but it will. This not an exciting thought for anyone, but here is the joy: we can share in His sufferings. It is not meaningless, it is not pointless, it lets us be closer to and know our Lord.

Which brings me to my third thing, his whole sermon was about knowing Him. We can know the deeds and actions of Jesus, but if we do not know Him; what is the point? You can know what someone does without really knowing them. Only when I experience Christ as my Deliverer, my Portion, my Hope, my Grace, can these things become more than words off of a page. I like the sermon because he talked about the different stages of a relationship. You can have a relationship with someone you hardly know, but there are certain things you do in order to know that person well. You want to know their thoughts, concerns, passions, dislikes, heart ache, and joy. Spurgeon was saying that His Word should point us towards wanting to know Him. In His Word we can find His heart. We always talk about our relationships with God, but how often do we forget what that is? How often do we forget that it is about knowing Him? Knowing Him with a balance of passion and intellect. I know I forget often, I hope this reminds you if you find yourself in that same position.

Living Contrary to my Nature

I somehow always fool myself into thinking that I have gotten away from my pride, or that it has decreased over the years. To my great displeasure I have found this morning that it has only morphed from one type of pride to another. Many people love being right, and they love justice. I am the foremost front-runner for both of these. You will have a hard time telling me I am wrong, and I love justice, especially towards myself. Don't treat me badly or look out, you will have another thing coming for you! The longer I am here, the more I am convinced that Korea is a place where people lie often in business. I feel bad saying that, but is my first hand experience. I had learned to live with the reality of that and was fine until last night. My sister will be visiting me in June, and my co-worker, Chloe's ex-bf is visiting her. He wants to work so he can make some money while he is here, so I felt like it was perfect timing. I would get a week off to hang out with Jess, and he would be making some money. Last night, Chloe and I approached our manager to ask her for permission. She basically said that it would be impossible, but it's not impossible. Chloe's ex-bf has a teaching degree, and will be working for Andrew for one week before he would replace me. He would know the ropes of Reading Town, and it wouldn't be hard for him. Our manager was still saying no, so then we brought up the fact that our contract says that we get 10 days paid vacation. We told her that she owes me time off. I told her that I did not appreciate the fact that I was lied to. I told her when the director took on the contract, she took on that part too. Then she said to me, well I think you better pack up your things and let him take your job if you want a week off. Chloe went bolistic on her, and then we informed her that he is just visiting, not staying. After 40 minutes of arguing with her, she said she would "think" about it, and tell me tomorrow. EVERYTHING in my nature wants to walk into her office today and tell her that I have no respect for her, that she is a two faced liar who only cares about money, and not about people. Yet, when I woke up this morning there was this tiny voice in my head that said, "You're wrong." I went for a walk, on the walk the Holy Spirit was reminding me that I am not to live driven by my passions and pride. I don't want to let her win, but I know there is something bigger at stake here. Jesus loved those who betrayed Him, lied to Him, disowned Him, who killed Him, and He loves me. I am not my own, I do not have any right walk into that office and give her a piece of my mind, because I am to love her despite everything she does to me. I do not have to agree with her, but I cannot walk around with this sense of entitlement. Honestly, who am I? What do I deserve? Today the Holy Spirit will need to banish all of me from myself so that I will be able to walk into that school and be honest, but loving. It is NOT natural, and it is NOT easy. All I feel now, is remorse, I do not feel that I have represented the name of God well. I don't know if I ever do it well, but this time was not my brightest moment. I am still debating whether I need to apologize to her or not. Pray for me, because I have a LOT of pride to overcome before I take that step.

"GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE." I Peter 5:5