Something I've never done before: gone to a Chinese Church

So February is a great month because I'm going to be doing two things that I've never done before. This is the first one and it was great. I love China and Chinese people, and I love Jesus, so these two things went well together. Here's how it all went down.

One day Angela was at Target and met two Chinese girls. She got their info and asked them if they wanted to hang out on Friday night. They said that they couldn't hang out on Friday because they had church (not a bad reason) and then they invited her to come with them. Knowing that I also love China and Chinese people, she invited me to come along with her, which of course I did.

As I have said before, I love China and Chinese people. I think it's amazing how God has created each culture differently and uniquely and at the same time in His image. Whenever I have been in China, the people are so kind and hospitable and just want to help you. They are more of a community based society than individualistic like here in the US and I think it's such a great picture of who God is.

The first time I went to China, I was walking around with one of the guys that went with me, and by walking I meant wandering because we were totally lost. We ran into some guys who noticed us carrying our map with lost looks on our faces and came over to try to help us. Then they brought their friend who knew a couple words in English to try to communicate with us, and then he was practically pushing us into his car so that he could take us where we needed to go. We had no idea who these guys were and they didn't know us, yet they were so willing to help us despite that. It's beautiful. God loves us and while we were still sinners sent Christ to die for us. Maybe giving complete strangers a ride in freezing weather isn't quite the same, but they still showed us love and kindness and had a servant's heart, asking for nothing in return.

So being in a room full of Chinese people warms my heart and fills it with joy, and even more so than normal when we are all singing praises to the same God. One of the coolest moments of the night was during the worship time. Most of the songs I didn't know, but I did my best to practice reading Chinese and sing along. Then we sang Amazing Grace. A song I know very well and have sung since I was a kid. Now I don't know this song in Chinese, so I sang it in English while simultaneously everyone else (except Angela :) I'm pretty sure she was singing in English too) was singing in Chinese. And then I realized that this was what Heaven was going to be like (except way more people of course). One day every tribe, tongue and nation will be worshiping and praising God together. In every language! How cool is that. So once again God changed my life and with a song that I have sung a million times before. It was awesome.

The night was also very interesting in that, when it was time to study the Bible, we all broke up into smaller groups. Now, I know some Chinese, but I wasn't confident enough in it to try to go to one of the Chinese groups, but lucky enough they did have one group in English, which consisted of mostly middle schoolers. Talk about fun/interesting/crazy/way more tangents than I've ever had in my Logos group. 1. I'm glad I'm not in middle school any more. 2. Was I really like that when I was 13??? 3. Wow. Really that's all I can say. It was a lot of fun. Angela and I definitely got a lot of laughs (especially when Vicki said that David never needed to study or be worried about anything because he is Asian...and the poor 10 year old got to read all of the long verses with big words). So Chinese Church was great, and I'll definitely be going back.

I feel like this post was a little all over the place, but oh well. I'm definitely enjoying this "do something new every month" resolutions, and be sure to check back after Valentine's day for my 2nd new thing I'll be doing this month.

I love Angela!

She's awesome and loves Jesus and China, so we're close, and I'm very sad she is not going to come over this semester...

New Year's Resolutions

So here it goes. There are several things that I have resolved to do in this year. Some are frivolous, but there are some more serious things that I want out of this year. More and more I realize how important it is to take a look at the previous year and do an inventory of how things went, and make serious, realistic goals on how to change where needed.

Why?

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” – Galatians 5:1

This verse says it well. As a Christian, I am called to be more like Christ. Every day I am to choose death to my old self, ways and habits, and practice holiness. God has been teaching me a lot this past year and looking back at 2009, there are some things that need to change. I’m excited! I know what God has convicted me to work on, and I think that writing it out makes it more real, will help me be mindful of what I need to work on, and keep me accountable to what I’ve committed to (especially with all my friend reading it and helping me out in this – thanks guys!).

So, here is a list of my resolutions (in no particular order):

1. To be more disciplined. This one is hard, because it’s pretty abstract, and encompasses many aspects of my life. Over this past year I’ve learned a lot about being disciplined, and the importance of it, but have failed to put it into practice. Whether it comes to spending time in the Word, or in prayer, even to the less spiritual side of my life like what I eat and school (and not hitting the snooze button for an hour every morning), I have not tried very hard to be disciplined. I think it really hit me when I was watching my weekly SVU marathon on a Tuesday. What was I doing? I would come home from class and watch SVU all day until I went to my late class and then Logos. Not that watching SVU is bad, but a whole day of it is just a complete waste of time. Then recently, while I was out running, I realized just how intertwined not being disciplined in one area leads to a lack of discipline in another area. Now I’ve realized this before over a year ago, but all of the steps I took to be more disciplined in one area of my life were all a self effort and it didn’t last long. This attempting to transform myself on my own was futile, but still it is one of my resolutions to be more disciplined this year. It’s a difficult balance, because at first I was trying the “do it yourself” method which failed miserably, then I fell into the “not actively doing anything to change” method, which also failed miserably. There is, thankfully, a solution, and Richard Foster in The Spiritual Disciplines (good book, read it!!) puts it well:

“If all human strivings end in moral bankruptcy (and having tried it, we know it is), so if righteousness is a gracious gift from God (as the Bible clearly states), then is it not logical to conclude that we must wait for God to come and transform us? Strangely enough, the answer is no. The analysis is correct – human striving is insufficient and righteousness is a gift from God – but the conclusion is faulty. Happily there is something we can do. We do not need to be hung on the horns of the dilemma or either human works or idleness. God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that He can transform us.”

So that’s number one. I said they were in no particular order, and the rest of them aren’t, but I feel like this is my most important one. As I stated earlier, as a Christian I am always going through the process of sanctification, to be more like Christ. In my life right now this is something that God has really convicted me of and I believe is currently the biggest hindrance in becoming more like Him. I know this is pretty abstract, and I do have specific goals, but resolution #1 is getting pretty long.
2. Play the piano once a week (at least, since I’m taking less hours hopefully I’ll be able to more often).
3. Cook more often and eat out less (more about this to come in a future blog – get excited!)
4. “Wherever you are, be fully there.” (This can somewhat be wrapped into #1, but I felt like it should be a resolution of its own.) A very wise woman (and probably one of the coolest people I know) told me this while I was in China this summer. I have a really hard time living in the present. A lot of the time I find my mind wondering off to thinking about the future, and sometimes about the past, and not being where I currently am. Right now I am still a student at Texas A&M and have one more semester to go. I find it hard to stay here. Whether it’s worrying about the next step in my life (or even the next 10 steps after that) or imagining how I want a situation to turn out, or dwelling on how I would have done something differently etc., I don’t do a good job of being where I am. This has been a struggle for years and more and more I see how this affects my life and how desperately I need to change. This past year I have learned a lot about trusting God. I have always been one to try and plan my life 10 years in advance. I don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen and a lot of this comes out of a lack of trust in God and knowing that He already knows what’s next and is working everything out for my good. I am learning. Romans 8:28 has been an important verse in my life this year. I have realized I can’t control everything but God does, and that’s comforting. And honestly it’s a little more exciting not knowing what’s coming. Before I came to college I never would have thought I would be working on moving to China after I graduate, or that I would have even gone there (three times!). If I planned my own way through life I would be graduating with a degree in business of some sort, and be going to law school to become the next Jack McCoy (I know I’m obsessed with Law & Order). God truly does know me better than I know myself, and knew that 3 years of memorizing cases wouldn’t have been my favorite past time and that being engulfed in a new and different culture that has won my heart would be a much better fit for me. As I said, I’ve learned a lot about trusting God this past year, and I know that all of my worries about the future come out of a lack of trust. I have also seen how much time I waste worrying about controlling what I can’t. I’ve come a long way for sure, but still have much to work on and God is still teaching me. I have a purpose in being where I am right now, and I need to use this time well while I have it. In order to do that, and for God to really be able to use me in the here and now, I need to stop living in the future (or in the past) and trust Him.
5. Blog more often J Right now I’m at three posts this year (and in one week I might add) which is already more than last year. I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job at this one so far.
6. Take more artsy photos J
7. Read more (for fun, not necessarily for school, although that probably would hurt my GPR). This also includes reading through the New Testament in a year. My church Central Baptist is doing a really cool thing this year where we all read through the NT. Last year we read through the whole Bible, but this year we’re doing it a little different. We also have been given the assignment of journaling (YES! Homework I like). With each passage we read we are to journal about 3 things.
a) What the passage tells us about prayer (i.e. how to pray, what to pray for and what not to pray for).
b) How the passage reveals that we are significant in God’s plan.
c) What the passage says about God’s love for us
I’ve been very blessed to be at this church, and to have a pastor who does a great job of sheparding his congregation and I am thankful that he has commissioned our church to do this together, and excited about learning (I wish I could say that about POLS 359…).
8. Do something once a month I’ve never done before.
9. Have a rock solid 6-pack with Julie Millsap thanks to http://twohundredsitups.com/index.html

So that seems like an extensive list, but I feel like I did a good job of encompassing fun things with that I really do need to work on. So those are my resolutions. I’m excited for 2010. This is the first time I’ve really made a resolution list, at least one that I’m committed to, and I have a feeling that this is going to be a good year of growing and changing. As for the fun things, those are easy to take care of on my own. For the more serious/spiritual aspect of my resolution, I’m excited to see how God is going to change me to be more like Him and how He is going to use me through that to share His good news to those around me.

My Romans 8:28 Day :)

So October, 16 2009 was the 3rd best day of my life. All of the awesomeness started in the early hours of the morning (1 AMish) when I was "studying" for my test I had that day, which included typing up the key terms for the chapters we were going to be tested over and simultaneously facebooking/tweeting and watching youtube videos. It's a good thing I get distracted easily or I never would have found this.

T Pain Obama Auto-Tune

Needless to say I have already purchased this app and my roommates and I are now capable of producing some totally sweet raps (and by roommates I mean Sarah and I but I'm sure we'll get the others on board very soon).

Then later on that day, after very little sleep and a long Chem lab I was off to take my test. At this point I was a little irritated. I was not excited about taking this test because I only had one night to study for it because I found out a few days before that I had another test that week on Thursday that I was not aware of, so I spent all the time I would have used to study for my Friday test studying for my Thursday test and my lab went on forever so I didn't get time in the morning to study. So I'm on my way to class, which is in the Allen Building next to the George Bush Library, and as I'm walking toward the building I see Barbara Bush! She was out walking her dogs, so I got to talk to her for a little bit before I headed to take my test, which was really exciting to say the least.

So now I go in to take my test. I was really worried because I had been planning on studying at least 3 days for this and only got about 4 hours, and it was an open ended test so you actually have to know the material. All I have to say is it's a good thing I go to class (I knew that was good for something) because the test actually ended up being pretty easy.

So now I am no longer irritated and in a really excited because 1. I met the former first lady, and 2. my dream of having a 4.0 this semester is still realistic/possible. If that wasn't good enough, earlier that day I had received a text from Mark at my church telling me to call him when I got a chance because he needed to talk to me about something. For those who don't know I have been to China a couple times teaching English and am planning on moving there after I graduate for a year. In order to do that and go where I want to go I would have to volunteer which means that I would have to raise about $18,000 which is a lot of money. Well after my test I called Mark and he told me that he had been talking with the people living in the city that I am wanting to go to and they are trying to set up a new program with the organization I would be going with where I only have to raise $2,900 for the whole year and they would cover the rest. Needless to say that is a ton less than $18,000. $15,100 to be exact.

So yesterday was an awesome day! This day came at the exactly right time. Ever since I came back from China this summer a lot of things have happened that have been really difficult and have been really struggling with the concept of God's love. Growing up in church I've always heard and have known forever that God loves me, but there is a difference in just knowing that and really believing it and experiencing it for yourself and I realized about a month ago that even though I knew this, I didn't really believe it. This past week had been amazing in that things that I've read and heard and events that have happened have really helped to me to finally grasp His love for me in a personal way and not just in a general, yes I know this I've heard this my whole life, way. So yesterday was just continuing to teach me what I've been learning throughout this past month and this whole week has just given me a whole knew meaning to Romans 8:28:

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."