This season of my life is dominated by a new focus on prayer.  Every growing Christian comes to a point in their lives where they realize that the outcome of their lives is directly a result of prayer or the lack of prayer. 

Any life or ministry that goes long without a true focus and passion for God through prayer and worship through Word and song will prove in time to be shallow and the efforts of weakened men and women. 

I’m coming to realize that when we do not love to be close to God through these means, we do not truly love Him because we do not know Him.  It’s humbling to know that I was this person for much too long.  I’m coming closer to understanding Paul’s exhortation to never cease in prayer.  It drastically changes and informs the course of your daily life.   

Maranatha.

God is good.  He knows that I love no-school Mondays.  I love these days just to have a slow start and get my engine going.  Especially given that my Sunday didn’t end till half an hour into Monday, I appreciate the nothingness of today – just Transitional Youth night in downtown with some EMers.  It’s actually warmer here than it was all the four days I was in Pasadena last week.  I just remember being cold the entire time, except when sleeping on my friend’s heating mat at night.  Pretty strange.  I kept thinking that I must have brought Oregon with me when I flew into LAX.  But when I left, I felt strangely as if I had left something very important behind.  Must have.

Life can be supremely difficult when you find a lack in the number of people who truly understand you.  And often, the people who try to understand are not necessarily the ones you want to be understood by.  An odd dilemma.  Much like the idea of unwanted attention that I wrote about a while back.  I was utterly exhausted when I got to LA, but I also felt so relaxed and comfortable in my own skin with my friend.  I felt safe enough to be so tired that I was almost sick the whole time I was there.  And I miss that kind of comfort dearly.  But God is still bigger than the things that I see in front of me or the things I feel.  God is gracious enough to keep us from comfort sometimes. 

I feel the pressure to be well and happy at church, and although I wear my heart on my sleeve for the most part and try not to hide my emotions or thoughts, sometimes I wish I could be completely exhausted in front of the people I spend a significant part of my life with in terms of hours and days in ministry, but even that can be useless at times.  There are always parts of your life that you share with certain people and not the public mass. 

One day I’ll have to step back into the normal grind of things and get over this sense of wanderlust until my time to leave really does come, but there is a part of me that wants to just feel safe where I am.  A part of me that wants to know that there will be someone at church to protect me when I need it most.  There is no one person that I’m looking to for this – not a single person comes to mind.  Again, I’m longing to find this safety in Christ more than I ever have before.  Never have I felt so strange being at a church where I serve, never so out of place yet in at the same time at my own home church. 

Christ, be my Safety.

Maranatha.

I feel very normal traveling.. I almost never feel uncomfortable when I travel.  I seem to enjoy that slight tension of being in a new place, the twinge of dissonance, but at the same time, it feels normal.  And I’ve known this feeling ever since going to Thailand for the first time in 2005.  And all too often, I miss it.

I’m sitting here in the corner food court of the Sacramento International Airport (SMF for airport geeks) and thanking God for the free Wi-Fi they offer.  It’s Sunday morning and the sun is up.  It seems as though I will miss corporate worship this morning.  I was planning and looking forward to visiting Lake Avenue with my friend after about three years, but God has other plans for me this morning.  I struggled to deal with the fact that my plane was delayed for so long and had to gather myself after realizing that all my emotions were coming out negatively.  God, help me!

I am legitimately tired, but genuinely refreshed at the same time.  It feels very supernatural at the moment knowing that I haven’t slept much these last two days, which is a reflection of the last couple of months.  I sense that God wants me to sleep more.. but when you’re on the go and have things to do and places to go, God’s grace will get you through and all the way home.  But choppy thoughts and scattered blogs are not on the priority list of things to worry about, so I apologize to you, reader, for such smatterings incoherent.

So far as being stuck at the airport goes, I’ll be worshipping online today.  It’s 7:00am right now and I’m trying to decide which church service to “go” to this morning.  The online church can be very consumeristic, but it can also be edifying, in such cases like mine.  I love the idea/prospect of having a worship service at the airport.  Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to go to church on your way to your next destination?  A group of airport pastors to minister to thousands of people from all over the world.  It’s a natural way to evangelize and outreach.  New church strategy here!

TheCall ended last night after a marathon prayer and fasting gathering.  I was amazed at the constant focus on God and the leaders’ hearts so set on honoring and inviting God’s presence and activity in our nation.  We saw results within hours of our corporate prayers.  Constant pressing in and coming before the cross to plead mercy and grace upon our nation.  There is expectancy that God will move on our behalf.  That He would hear our humble cries of confession and repentance and bring healing to our land.  It’s true that when you pray for something or someone, your love increases in the same direction.  I’m not the all-American girl.  I don’t sport flags of the US and tend to think of the US as a passing kingdom, but I love the US because I realize that God’s love for the people of this country is astoundingly great and immeasurable.  I sensed that all throughout TheCall and know it now. 

Everything about TheCall was great.  I’ll remember the music and the speakers, but I remember those intense moments of coming before God as one group and inviting God to meet us there in front of the capitol building, inviting His reign over our lives and our nation, inviting His movement to invade our distorted reality, and pleading with Him to give us pure hearts.  The message was clear – the Church has to get right with God before we can pray on behalf of our nation.  Any compromise or tolerance of sin in our own hearts impairs our ability to love in God’s power for the nation.  So we prayed, and we prayed, and laid our hearts before the altar of God, confessed sin, and prayed over each other.  And amazing things happened.. God shifted the course of specific destructive forces that hold our nation in bondage, and when we heard the news, we rejoiced and gave thanks and praise for His goodness. 

I have so much respect and love for men like Lou Engle.  Men set on fire for God.  He and so many others are living examples of the grace and power of God and His constant faithfulness to His people.  I can’t say that I’ve never been to any gathering of believers where the focus was so fully placed upon God and our absolute need for Him.  This was not about any person or any leader or any group.  It was simply a gathering where we followed God’s prescription for renewal, obeying and passionately seeking after Him.  Incredible and faith transforming experience.  We give all the glory to God.

I’m off to LA for some rest before going home. 

Praise God for days of rest, but praise God all the more for His presence in our days.

Peace.

I’m at the beginning of the week and already, I am done for this week.  I’m exhausted!  Topped off this month with the longest wedding I’ve ever been to since the last longest wedding I’ve ever been to, which was a long time ago.  But to my friends’ credit, it was long because I chose to stay there and catch up with dear friends.  I had fun, it’s just that I’m getting older and can’t stay up when I’m already sleep deprived and looking into the eyes of chronic fatigue.  I wonder sometimes if I have such an illness..

The first real taste of fall was last night during our church’s youth camp out.  You could see the trails of white coming from your mouth each time you breathed out, and then in classic style it started to sprinkle a little in the hours of the late night,  just to let us all know that she’s coming soon.  Or should Fall be a ‘he’? 

I dislike how exhaustion makes me feel.  I never thought about how it would actually feel to be so exhausted.  It’s one thing to be physically exhausted constantly, but to be mentally wrung out is altogether confusing.  I’m glad that life always goes on whether I’m actually with it or not.  I’m enjoying all the things that I’m doing, but I just want to take a breather for a moment.  I think God breathes into us a sigh of relief when we stop striving to do so much for Him.  He is already the much of what we’re all truly striving for.

The process of preparing for my visit to California has begun.  I know that I’ll be restless until I’m on the plane early Friday morning.  I’m excited to be in a different place and to be around people with a different energy and passion, and actually to go to TheCall by myself.  I need some genuine thinking with God and no one else around me time.  Space to go to the places that I don’t know without knowing how to get there, without having people asking me constantly for a plan or timeline, no meetings or run-on email threads.   Now that the wedding and rehearsals are officially over, I can afford to move around on the weekends and put my mind to other things.  Even though school started today, I have the blessing of having classes only on Tuesdays and Thursdays and observing and teaching in the days between at PCC.  By the end of this year, I shall be dunzo with shcool school.

My empty energy reservoir has long been a strain on some particular relationships and I would very much like to see a change in that.  If we don’t focus on the relationships that are most important to us, we’ll miss out on the joy of growing and nurturing those friendships and connections.  As my circle of friends gets wider, I sense the need to protect what is already rooted in me, which are relationships that I have with the very people who I love and trust, my ever-growing family and closest friends.  So, I’ve concluded that this is a good pursuit – to expand this circle as God grows the natural connections and relationships, yet go deeper and plumb the depths of the friendships and relationships that have proven themselves to be of greatest worth.  God, give me eyes to see what you see in those around me.

Thoughts for today..

Peace.

My day today has been filled with numerous attempts to book and plan my visit to Sacramento for The Call in early September.  Partially accomplished.  At least I can say that I'll be in Sacramento.  That, and I've got a one-way ticket to SMF and a rental car.  Don't know exactly how I'll make it back home quite yet!  

After the conference is over, I'll be heading south to San Fran, San Jose, and then LA to visit friends.  Although I've never been to The Call before, I'm really looking forward to joining others in prayer for the nation.  Joel is such a powerful book that shows God's heart for His people.  Though we sin extravagantly, repentance is the opening for God's immense grace to flow through into our lives and into our nation as a whole. 

In all honesty, I'm a little bit tired of all the labels that come with going to a conference like this.  We ought to care less about the affiliations with certain ministries that don't fit our personal preferences.  Isn't the body of Christ all about affiliation afterall?  Lord, fill us with godly understanding and grace!  I, for one, am going simply to pray and fast and seek God's face in the midst of growing evil in our culture and world.  I hope others would understand that, especially my more conservative brothers and sisters in the Church.

By the way, is anyone else going?  As usual, I'm flying solo.

It's also high-time to bump up my level of brain activity.  Not only does the all important last semester of TESOL and teaching begin in a couple of weeks, but the future never waits for us to be ready - not school, not ministry, nor life.  It comes whether or not we are prepared.  Thinking clearly, soberly, is a godly activity in my book and therefore, I must pray myself to do it!  By God's grace, I will think!  Lord, I truly need You in order to make anything of my brain.  How true, how humbling..

"And [if] My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land." - 2 Corinthians 7:14 (NASB)

God's dreams will come to pass.  Let's not doubt this for our generation!

Peace.

Regardless of what people say, I really love Xanga.  I honestly do.

Someone had looked through my archives, so I took a peek myself and read some of the posts I had written circa 2005.  Goodness, my life was much more interesting in a "light and breezy" kind of way.  But I laughed at some of the things that made me laugh back then, like how my little brother used to say "mm.. that's yummable" and "noona, can you play with me this?"

I also wrote about two guys who came to my door trying to sell me magazines so they could raise money to go to London and work at the BBC.  When I told them I had no money, one guy said, "I'll take you out on a date.."  No, thanks, but no, thank you!

Needless to say, I'm glad that I have such memories recorded.  Now, I can laugh at those times even when my present days are filled with clouds and rain :)

Peace.

The orphan clings to Your hand
Singing the song of how he was found
The widow rejoices
For her oppressors are silenced now

You sit at the table with the wounded and the poor
You laugh and share stories with the thief and the whore
When You could just be silent and leave us here to die
Still, You sent Your Son for us
You are on our side

The runaway falls at Your feet
You are what he has searched for
The rich man is broken
When he stands beneath a sky full of stars

You sit at the table with the wounded and the poor
You laugh and share stories with the thief and the whore
When You could just be silent and leave us here to die
Still, You sent Your Son for us
You are on our side

Still, You sent Your Son for us
You are on our side

Peace.