Abraham

My Joanne had her tonsil remove surgery last Tuesday. Even though the surgery is considered as safe and easy, it was not that easy on me. I never put my children to any surgeries before so it was a anxious moment for me. I can tell that I am a brave person who am not afraid of being cut, or poked but I am a very weak person who am afraid of seeing her child being cut or poked for sure. The anxiety was not from my lack of faith. It was matter of denial of my parentship.
I had a moment to give up on my parentshipe to God totally when Christine was born. I had 45 hours of labor with her, ended up having C section. Not only that, right after the birth, I had a deep postpartum depression. I was worried totally about how I can keep the fragile new born baby in safe. One thing was surely helping me a lot to get rid of the fear and worries was prayer. Through the prayer, I could see who is the Ruler and King, so I could give up on the parentshood over the baby with faith.
However, I did not have a chance to think about it with Joanne. She was the second one, so I was not afraid of anything about birth, baby, or even the depression. Also, I delivered her naturally with God's enormous grace and peace. She was an easier one than the first one in many ways and so strong and full of confidence in her personality. Basically, I haven't worried about her much at all. That was why I had more difficult time with this a small surgery. I never had a chance to have a moment of giving up the parentship with her to God totally.
I confessed my weakness and sinful nature of being a typical mom, and thought about Abraham at the waiting room in the surgical center. I honestly knew how faithful Abraham was throughout his life trusting God. However, in my deep mind, I was questioning why he was called a father of faith. Somehow, I could agree about Abraham being considered as a father of faith and why God loved him so much even though he made lots of mistakes in his life. In Genesis we can find why. He always just trust God without any questionswhenever God asked him something to do. Especially when God asked him to sacrifice Issac to Him, Abraham did not ask even one question why, or doubted about who God was. And he just simply obeyed. I think Issac was the most precious one for him. But he just obeyed what God told him to do. I even could not imagine how Abraham felt at the scene about to kill Issac.

Even though it was a small surgery, I have felt that God asked me total denial of parentship on my children, and showed me that I do not have any power to control over anything for them. However, I am deeply grateful that I could give up totally with trust on Him who is the perfect, Almighty, and loving Father.

Indulgent

I do not like a word, "indulge". Well.. it may be because of my lack of understanding American culture, or English itself. However, I do not like the word. The word gives me negative image of powerless Christians. I have thought about how to live as a good Christian in this world, found several causes to make believers powerless. One of them is this self indulgent. I think that it is easy to compromise between indulgent and acceptance. We compromise to make things easy on ourselves in every single moment in our daily life; making reasonable excuses, being comfortable, being easy and so on. For me, it is a true challenge to discern and not to judge in many occasions. For example, people do not come to church on Sunday because it is cold, they are tired, and somewhere to go and so on. They send me e-mails or leave messages to let me know why they missed worship service. I usually respond that I miss them and hopefully they are coming back next time. However, I honestly feel very sad often that people even do not realize that it is not right. I rather want to tell them " You should have come no matter what... because this is the day to worship the Lord."

It is also same toward "prayer". "Oh... I am too busy to kneel. By the way, God is love. He knows what my heart is. He blesses me always. I am very happy now, so I am good. So, I do not need to pray. "I do not want to judge people because I am also one of the people. That is why I do not like indulgent. We make so many excuses to be reasonable, but hardly repent. We do not want to accept that we are sinners without God's grace. My feet are so fast toward running away from the Lord, and finding something else than the truth.

Hearing and learning about John Wesley's life and the Methodist origin yesterday made me sad with thinking of how the origin has changed in many ways. However, I found an important fact through the class.The Holy Spirit is the answer to renew our powerless lives as Christians. When Jon Wesley had an experience of the Spirit, his life was changed totally. His sermon became powerful and working in people's hearts, and he started ministering effectively. How can we get people having desire to be filled by the Holy Spirit? how? How can we chose not to indulge ourselves but to chose to obey God's commands?

I do know one thing to do; pray for His Holy Spirit to fill us wholly, fully! If we want to get filled by the Holy Spirit, He always fill within us. Sadly, it is matter of our hearts whether we desire or not. I pray that we all desire to be.

Grow in His Spirit, be fruiteful to glorify Him!

God has given me a new motto in 2010: " Grow in God's Spirit, and bear fruitful!" I pray that I grow more in His Spirit to not only deeper my knowledge to know Him, but also bear fruits of His Spirit to glorify Him throughout my life. In Colossians Paul prayed for people in Colosse that " ...we have not stopping praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the king of light." (Colossians 1:9-12)

I am very excited to start 2010 to observe how He will lead me. I will continue to have intimate time with God every morning with His words and prayers, also keep on praying for others and His kingdom and righteousness.

I have lived forty years in this world. Now, it is time to get mature deeply so whenever God tells me to do, I can obey Him without hesitation whatever God says.

Life is fragile and short! I need to handle with prayers for sure.

I pray that I can have more kneeling time to the Lord, more meditation with His words, more actions to obey His will, more sincere hearts to Him, more being sensitive to His Spirit, and more love Him. I love you, Lord!!