create

be a planter of seeds

create

for your fulfillment and joy

the fruits will bear on the by

produce something

not for the success

(which, if it does come by, great,

if not, it's fine)

no more consuming

more creating

more planting

shalom

"The Hebrew word for this perfect, harmonious interdependence among all parts of creation is called shalom. We translate it as 'peace,' but the English word is basically negative, referring to the absence of trouble or hostility. The Hebrew word means much more than that. It means absolute wholeness — full, harmonious, joyful, flourishing life."

— The Reason for God, Tim Keller

2024, 안녕 .

Another year - tumultuous, erratic, lonely, uncertain - gone by.

It's hard to believe that I made it, yet... here I am, at its end, bidding it farewell.

I wish that saying goodbye to 2024 could also mean a parting with sadness and all the problems and worries of life. Alas.

Yet as I welcome in the new year, I hope my strength is renewed, and that I've developed more dimensions to my understanding/perspective of life. Of people. I hope I have deeper wisdom and bolder purposefulness and resolve.

God... it was difficult but thank you.

It is still difficult but thank you.

Even if it will keep being difficult, please continue to be with me.

Help me to be aware that you are there even when I feel alone.

2024, 안녕.

2025, 안녕.

some things .

a season of saying 'no' to myself,
and following through.

----

my thoughts have become so big.

it's good for us to prepare before anything takes place. but i've become so used to preparing myself for the worst with my thoughts and my brain goes into overdrive, and now in many situations, rather than confronting anything head-on, the thoughts have become decision-makers themselves. they no longer are just "thoughts" or "plans"; they've become too big that they sap all my energy for whatever they've been made to prepare me for… (does this even make sense). i guess sometimes, that's why spontaneity can be refreshing.

so it's important to resist my thoughts, consciously. if i don't, they'll just keep going, and on harder days it'll be easier to cave in with my own attempts to distract/console myself. resisting can be, for example, thinking/saying 'no' to myself (when i'm able to actually catch a thought lol). and of course with the Word and talking to God. thinking is just a natural part of us and thoughts can just flow on their own that you don't think twice to stop in your tracks and catch them.... i want to be more active in that.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

— phil4.6

Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

— psalm86.11

dear eo,

Dear 2020 eo,

If God had told you about the outcomes of life's future chapters that would unfold ahead of you, would you still be willing to try? If you knew you were going to fail at certain things, would you even start?

Randomly remembered a sermon psam preached and him saying this. A lot of the times, we move based on the potential of "success," whatever that may look like. There's the saying, "What would you do if you knew you could not fail?" I get the intentions of the quote, and there's definitely power in it for certain times, but... what would you do if you knew you would fail? But isn't that also the reason God doesn't always reveal the full picture to us? Because we probably won't give a second thought to fails.

But God's definition of success and failure is different from ours. And what happens and who we meet along the way are, in a sense, the true "prizes" of any journey — our characters being molded...  us developing different perspectives of things... the community and friendships made along the way... And most of all, knowing God more and experiencing His deep, deep love for us in every circumstance... T___T

So, 2020 eo, (or rather, eo of years way past), if I had told you about all the things that would happen in your life and categorize them under "Successes vs. Fails," you would probably make many different choices to avoid the fails. But I wonder if you would be able to get as close to God as you would have without the same choices and the same experiences. Relying on God would look quite different, I think. And I'm truly coming to know how much love God has for us in it ALL.... (though there is so much more to know...) and developing deeper gratitude for the people He's put into my life. I'm so so thankful T_T

Dear 2024 eo,

Let's keep trusting in God. Despite not knowing the end results... even if things don't work out expectedly... we know God is in the details, and He can turn what we think are the worst things into good, if we place our life in His hands.

Hwaiting!

— Phil 3.13-14

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

_________________________

"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

vs.

“Many times people think if God has called you to something, he’s promising you success. He might be calling you to fail to prepare you for something else through the failure.”

— Timothy Keller

happy 2022.

weird to have as a "theme" if you can call it that but a verse that's been recurring since end of 2021-

 jeremiah 17.9

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

but also, must remember:

jeremiah 17.14

Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise

— c. h. spurgeon .

There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, “Behold I am wise.” But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumbline cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild ass’s colt; and with solemn exclamation, “I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.” No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God.... 

But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it. He who often thinks of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe.... The most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and Him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity.

And, while humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatory. Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore.

Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of sorrow and grief; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead. It is to that subject that I invite you this morning.