Summary of recent lessons and God's direction in my life.
Spiritual Journal:
Continuation of lessons on China trip:
- humility
- trust God rather than lead on by my wants and desires, no matter how strong
- Airport incident: my fallability
- Pastor Huang's sermon: spiritual humility, danger of unknown in spiritual realm
My recent incident of project termination at work:
- forces me to look at my situation
- what do I want to do in life?
- Professionally: realize that the areas I have been sneering against, such as business practices, project management, etc, which I am weakest at, have now come against me
- No longer consider myself higher than others
- Learn to submit to God as the sevoreign ruler over everything
90-mins in Heaven:
- heaven is real,
- pain on earth is temporary
- how real and faithful God is
Praying through Deeper issues of Marriage:
- The series “Power of a praying ..." illustrates how powerful prayer can be,
- challenge me to pray and fast seriously
- challenges me to envision and build a better marriage,
- accept God's design and ways for marriage, rather than what I demand
John Ortberg's “walk on water” book
- inspire Christian to take chances wisely
- find one's vocational calling in life
- find or create a job that is fulfilling
- take on smaller projects that have potential to grow
- side searches, without endangering current job
- take risks, don't be excessively conservative at every step
General observation of risks in life:
- We see only results, never value the conservative risks
- People are ready to excuse failures, but not of inaction
- All the people who “succeed” are those who shot first then aim, wasting resources along the way: financial analysts, traders, politicians, leaders, etc
- people are not optimizing, but still at the stage of rough seeking
Papa Prayer
- relational prayer rather than intercessory
- like a fireside slow and deep chat
- earnestly seek God as #1, more than the #2 things that may distract
- Papa prayer: focus in on the relational aspect, before the requests
- The red dot: where am I in relationship to God?
These lessons convinced me that
- God is for real,
- He is good, with good plans for us
- He is in control of everything
- He cares about our details in life
- until I find what I truly meant to do, I won't be satisfied
- time to re-explore
Go into intense prayer for
- big goals worthy of God
- totally rely on Him
- pray for everyone
- fearless, out on a limb
- Lay Leader training for God
- help others with career, calling, transitions (much like John Ortberg), transition ministries
- facilitate changes with minimal risks
Evaluation: what am I good at?
lessons from failure at work:
- micromanaged
- didn't work overtime
- lack tools
- lack vision, leadership, say no
- maybe such jobs are not my calling
Instead:
- training or mentoring people
- lead them to explore
- but what is my real value-added?
Normal jobs: help people be part of the economy, consumption
Calling: help people to adopt the lifestyle of living for God
Frugal, help others, live minimally,
Lessons I discovered from Art class:
- I parameterize the composition and work out each case,instead of zooming in on the solution
- same as in research
- same as in my faith
- keep asking the extereme case questions, toy models
- not focus on the core isssue or practices
- Thus, I should start homing into the solution space,
- and grab the low hanging fruits.
Separate fronts:
- humility
- God's absolute reality, goodness (Heaven)
- prayer
- marriage
- in general
- life calling
- Christian Business Network
Deep reflections
Looking back at my journal newletter articles:
- first I see the passion we have for God
- then seeing that we need to live a distinctive life of compassion
- then the vision/mission statement for personal faith
- having identified the goals and directions, and the “MI6” tactics, I start to realize those goals
- Then the China Mission Conference and the recent Chinese trip re-emphasize the need for achieving those goals, and show great examples of faithful Chinese christians
- In the past months, I see a clear series of lessons to teach me the deeper meaning of knowing God deeper, trusting Him deeper, and genuine prayer, including many previously bypassed difficult subjects
- Several simultaneous fronts: humility, prayer, knowing God, personal desire: marriage, career, ministry
Knowing God:
PE's series on Trinity, my frustration of the Concept of Trinity, don't know who I am praying to, how to address properly, or forming pictures in my mind. The focus on Holy Spirit, gifts of the spirit, and Jonatha Edward's work on Trinity, all help me feel more clearly focused in relationship to the Trinity.
Reason For God by Tim Keller refreshed the rational side of faith, and his argument of using rationality against rationality reaffirm my conviction toward evangelism. I no longer feel that rational arguments only lead to deadend and impasse. This inspired me to talk to nonChrsitian friends and coworkers more.
Along the lines of evangelism, my discussion with Juliana about the way Chinese Christians evangelize, and point out my own way of rationally approaching God with the series of questions: is the Bible faithful, is a creator possible, is Christ the Son of God, ... She pointed out that what I am doing is in reality to present “WJ's gospel”, rather than God's Gospel. We should trust God more and let His Word do the speaking, rather than our own rationality.
Lesson on Humility in the last journal entry.
Hoping in and Trusting God:
Not having seen God's miraculous rescues in my life for a while, I start to treat Him essentially as what Larry Crabb described as “pygmie on a wheelchair” (in the book Papa Prayer).
As I have been humbled, I desperately needed hope and reassurance that God is in control, sovereign, and carries our eternal hope. The books “90 mins in Heaven”, the Don Piper series, and other similar books (as well as my memory of our small group discussion on Heaven), gave me a vivid depiction of heaven that agrees exactly with what the Bible said.
This more literal confirmation of heaven assures me that God is truly faithful for what lies in the future for us, how literal his promises are, and not just metaphorically. The consideration of Heaven gave me tremendous hope and trust in god, as I face my own daily struggles and doubts.
Praying
Stormie Omartian's series inspired me to renew my view in prayer, that prayer is essential, especially when we are not able to physically do anything.
I am inspired to pray the big things:
- for my marriage, even if I am the only one praying;
- for my wife and children, no matter how I feel they may turn out
- for those I desperately ask for Salvation
- for my sister's marriage, no matter how bleak it seems
- I no longer feel anything as too hopeless or futile, not in the sight of God.
Then the Papa Prayer impacted me tremendously, reminding me what is the central focus in prayer: our honest view of relationship to God.
Vocation and Calling
Books like “If you want to walk on Water” inspire me to take action against my job failures, that I am free to take any step for tomorrow. Encountering YouVersion as a possible alignment of my gifts and ministry, I am excited at the possibility. At the same time, I am able to follow the book's advice, and wait on God. For the case of David, he rather living in the cave and be with God, than to oppose God's ways and be king by his own hands (of killing Saul.)
By staying put at my job's new post, I am learning a lot more about database, methods of operation, the realistic skills and tactics to implement my many ideas. I now feel fully willing to take on a CMS system, and learn mySQL for real.
God's intent for us is good
- In heaven, we will be satisfied in every way, as God prepares every aspect for our fulfillment.
- The fact that we are not in heaven now means that God has a purpose for us otherwise.
- While He longs to satisfy us in every way, as seen in his plans in Heaven, the fact that we are not satisfied on Earth means that it is not time yet.
- Just as a parent doesn't satisfy the yearning for every toy for the kid, maybe for his own good, or that it is not time yet, or that he has other developments to focus on, means that we are meant to take on the challenges of not having everything the way we wish.
- There are various issues with us that we need to change, develop, or learn. In time, God will satisfy our yearnings.
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