There is a worship song by Hillsongs called Rest in You. It is one of their songs that I like a lot, since I feel that it holds a simple truth that is a very useful truth to remember.
The lyrics are short:
Your faithfulness endures always
Where mountains fall and reason fails
And You calm the raging seas
And You calm the storms in me, againAll I know is I find rest in You
All I know is I find rest in YouMy heart will praise throughout the night
Where singing seems a sacrifice
Your grace is all I need
Your grace is all I need
This song serves as a reminder to me what I should be doing when things aren't going so well. I know these past few months, I hadn't done these things so well. And a lot of times, I ended up writing up rather depressing blog entries. Part of me just wanted to get it out there, and I didn't really expect anyone to read it. But as it turns out, I later realized that I had a lot more people following my blog who could read 漢字 than I originally thought.
This served as a reminder to me to get back to perhaps what I should be doing.
The other day I was thinking about a lot of things, and when all my housemates stepped out of the house to work on their design projects, I figured, this is a time when I just need to worship. So I pulled out my guitar and worshiped and worshiped.
It was an amazing time to just be real before God. And it also brought to light to me that there are a lot of things in life that I still held before God. Things that I needed to give up to Him and release.
One thing that I've been coming to appreciate more and more is that personal worship and personal reading of the Word. Church gatherings are great, and fellowship events are awesome. But there's something different about being able to read, pray and worship in a small room with the door closed and with no one around you. All pretense is gone. In part, I believe this is why Jesus tells us to go into our rooms and close the door behind us when we pray.
There is a lot of expectation within the church to act a certain way or to participate in service in a certain way. During sharing night, Ken was sharing about how he was lenting musical worship. And how maybe people might look at him weird if he wasn't singing during a time of musical worship, opting to maybe read his Bible instead. And in a lot of ways, I really thought how wrong that is that there actually is an expectation of how we should worship God in the church. Worship is about the heart. So singing without the heart is not worship. You can be completely silent and be completely worshiping. In fact, is that not what Ecclesiastes suggests? "Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know what they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few."
This is why I realized how important personal worship is. Whether it be singing, sitting quietly, reading the Word, praying, interceding, etc. Doing all these things not only corporately, but personally is a really refreshing thing.
God is a God to be revered. And to worship Him out of an attitude of looking good or fitting in is fairly misconstrued. I know I'm sometimes guilty of this. Which is why personal worship and meditation on the Word is a good check for my heart.
Not engineered
topic relations: faith
There was an occasion once a while back where in talking with friends without technical background that the concept of imaginary numbers came up. I don't remember the context of it, but I remember that in commenting about the usefulness of imaginary numbers, I mentioned something to the effect that, "they make the world go round."
A lot of times when people question the usefulness of engineering, I put forth the consideration that practically everything around them is engineered. Sure it is easy to point out obvious products of engineering such as planes, cars, space shuttles, etc. But if you stop to think a little bit more, you'll realize that the shirt you're wearing was manufactured in a facility that had machinery to produce the fabrics, perform silk-screening, etc. The jewelery you are wearing is made of precious metals that had to be mined using engineering know-how for both tools and safe tunneling. The sandwich that you ate for lunch had bread that was produced in a bakery that used an oven that was specially designed to bake your bread in a semi-efficient manner. The list goes on.
In modern society, practically every industry hinges on or makes use of engineered solutions.
The very fact that you are capable of reading my post right now is thanks to the efforts of countless electrical, civil, mechanical, computer, environmental, chemical and systems engineers. (No the internet wasn't just built by comp-sci people - think of the infrastructure).
Yet amongst all of this engineered "stuff," I was humbly brought to Palm Sunday. I attended Elevation this past Sunday, and for the worship service, they had kids pass out palm branches. As I sat holding the palm branch, I store at it for a bit. And suddenly appreciated the beauty of this simple plant. I was holding something that wasn't engineered. Sure the bio-engineer and chemical engineer might argue that we now have the ability to breed plants, modify their genetics, etc. But that's exactly what it is - modifying.
We cannot create nature or life. And despite all of our advanced engineering know how, we would still die if we were not already provided with the things we need to live. If we had no water, could the chemical engineer synthesize enough H2O for the planet to survive? But what if the chemical engineer didn't have 2 H's and an O? Could the physicist put enough electrons, neutrons and protons together to make enough H's and O's for the chemist?
Similarly, could the civil engineer build a bridge if not already given concrete for compression and steel rods for tension? Could the concrete and steel be made without the raw materials found within the earth?
Could the electrical engineer connect your phone call through a cellular network without the electromagnetic spectrum?
Everything is built upon the life already given to us using the creativity already given to us.
And so I appreciated the plant for what it is. A product of something that I could not engineer.
Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm. He said:
"Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me."Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimension? Surely, you know
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone -
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?"Who shut up the sea behind the doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in the thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt'?...
"What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!"...
The Job replied to the Lord:
"I know that you can do all things;
no plan of yours can be thwarted.
You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?'
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know."You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you
and you shall answer me.'
My ears have heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes."
When I was sitting in numerical methods today, I suddenly noticed that a tree started growing to the right of the description of Euler's method.
And then some words popped up around it. Who would have thought trees grew on engineering notes.
Either that, or someone wasn't paying much attention in numerical methods at all today.
Nevertheless, I couldn't help but try to finish it before going to bed.
So I'm no artist... but ok, good night!
Wrote this earlier while on the bus... thought I should post it despite maybe the way I've been feeling lately.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Here I sit on a GO Bus, heading east towards Mississauga. Having just come from CCF, my thoughts still linger a bit on the Bible study. Perhaps not exactly what the actual study was about, but my thoughts have recently been concerned with knowing God. It sounds like such a simple thing, in some ways. We always sing it. We always pray it. God we want to know you.
Recently I've been trying to read some of the old testament. And in the Bible study at CCF today, the name David came up in the passage. And of course, the ever quoted phrase was also brought up: "a man after God's own heart."
But what exactly does this mean? And why was David such a great king? Take it a step further, and I wonder, what exactly is it about some of the old testament characters that had them find so much favour or so much peace in their God?
After finishing the book of Joshua, I had began reading the book of 1 Samuel this week. And I read a couple more chapters on the bus just now. And it came to Hannah's song. And reading her song, the thought that crossed my mind was: she knew God. She knew God's heart. And this made me think. You know, all these old testament characters that had so much faith, or did great things for God, or who really walked in the favour of God, the thing they all had in common was they more or less understood God's heart.
In reading Hannah's song, what really struck me was the theme of God's paradoxical nature. For example, note 1 Sam 2:5, "Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn."
This kind of backwards contradiction is one of the themes in some of Jesus' teachings hundreds of years later in the new testament. Yet, what struck me is that out of the song of Hannah's heart, she seemed to understand this kind of paradox. She seemed to understand the Kingdom.
Take David now. You find strewn throughout the book of Psalms his songs of worship to the God he served. And in so many of these Psalms in his crying out, he too seemed to understand God's heart. Even in his sin, after committing adultery with Bathsheba, we find his cries in Psalm 51: "For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise."
David, remember, is in the old testament. Under old testament law, animal sacrifice was the de facto form of atonement. Yet David is somehow prophetically realizing that it's not about the sacrifice. It's not about the physical ceremony. It's about the heart. David knew this. David knew God. This is maybe why he was counted as a man after God's heart. Not because he was a great king. No. He was a great king because he understood God's heart.
Hannah and David are just two examples that come to mind, who to me, appear to exemplify knowing God, knowing his heart, and understanding Kingdom principles. I am almost certain now that if you study other old testament characters who were highly favoured by God, whether blessed socially, economically and/or spiritually, you will see that they each knew God. They had an understanding of being driven by eternity. They had an understanding of faith. They had an understanding that God's ways were higher than theirs. And with this understanding, they submitted their lives, wills and everything they had to God.
So where do I sit? Where do I invest my time and my energies? Is my faith important to me such that I would invest in knowing and understanding the God that I claim to worship? I sure hope so.
I had recently been quite challenged by Ally's blog posts. In particular, Transformation and Reality. Well worth a read since you've already reached the end of my post for today.
subscribe