It’s Sam

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11 The House Of God Forever.mp3 (6659 KB)

Even though I love to write, I'm often left itching because I don't feel words fully capture the entirety, the fullness, the sincerity, the humor, the truth, the bias and the beauty that are the thoughts that runs through my mind. Maybe that's why I so often post up music. The expression of life in music. But behind music, I appreciate more how it leads to me to meditate and worship, in a day and age where mainstream music, even Christian music, is the consumer's Entertainer and culture's Master. But when I listen to the likes of Jon Foreman, I am brought to quiet and joyful and yet even more humble moments. And even to whispers of smiles.

I think Jon's EPs are some of the most gentle yet powerful tools that have given me good worship. His albums are named after the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. I'm reminded of Vivaldi's own composition of Four Seasons, where in each piece, Vivaldi tries to capture the mood and beauty that each season brings. Ecclesiastes speaks of the same - a time for each season, we are taught and reminded. Over the past years, I see the contents of my own writing change - good change, bad change, seasons of highs and joy and seasons of low and disparity, and my hope is that with each change, God will teach me to love Him more.

Even as I write about my thoughts on the seasons God leads us through, I want to also say that we need to approach each season with both a narrow and broad vision: Too often, we rush through our life trying to find the next step - to find the answer before fully considering the question, that we miss what God has led us to that season for. God does not lead us through seasons because it is part of a predestined journey. He does not lead us through seasons so that we can find the answer. We don't experience times of sorrow and of joy so that we can say 'Been there, done that'. He leads us through different seasons of life, so that in that season, we will learn to love Him in a greater way and that that love would glorify Him. And so by considering each season with a narrow vision, we put our hearts in the postures of grief, of sorrow, of humility, of rejoice and glorify God in that season.

But in the same breath, we must also hold a broad vision; a broad vision that even as we consider a question, we know that the answer has been given. That Christ has rectified all the sorrow and grief and brought us salvation and victory. And that He is the answer. In the same way, that is the Gospel. Grace that assures us salvation is no more important than the law that reminds us that we are sinners, desperate, vile and disgusting enemy of God. He is the one that brings life to the Valley of Dry Bones,

While re-watching Prison Break (great show for 2 seasons only), I picked up this quote. "Living by hope is for those who don't already live in grace". But my friends, I pray that God would teach us to meditate and walk through each season in grace and know that hope in Christ's victory is ours even more so.

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Not in those exact words.

Well, not at all.. in fact, I'd probably have a steep learning curve in front of me.

But it does seem I'm on my way:

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1156_6_reasons_pastors_should_blog/

Pay heed to the first line in point number two.

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We be (road) trippin' ! HAHA I'm hillarious !!

                           

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ECCT_Day_2.zip (10161 KB)

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East Coast Canada Tour: Day 1
 
Officially on the road and on the go (not to be confused with lowonthego)!
 
What a day ! We are still in Quebec and today featured quite a lot of driving (With yours truly behind the wheel. I am quite the natural. Putting my name forward for F1 is a maybe).
 
No time to go into details, but we spent time in St Maurice and the national park there. It was pretty beautiful, but the clouds and rain let us down.
 
I had decent pictures for you but while canoeing in one of the lakes in the country park, we managed to capsize (yes, capsize). Thankfully, everyone is okay but we did lose the 5 cameras my dad and sister were carrying.
 
We were eager to leave that behind so we hit the road en route to Quebec. But the adventerous side in us took hold and now we're in good old L'Acienne Lorette, enjoying Boston Pizza.
 
The plan is for QC tomorrow. Stay tuned for more stories of how we will deviate from our itinerary !
 
Praise the Lord for the iPhone and GPS. And once TomTom comes out, that with the powah of the Holy Spirit, I'll be untouchable !

Featured: Scenic views from the road

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Thoughts and ideas in the comment section, please !

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It's been a while since I've updated. Precisely how long I've been dating for, actually. Maybe it would be half accurate to say she has murdered my blog. But no more; I've imported into posterous, and with everything all synced up and updating each other, hopefully I won't let you faithful readers down again.

But yes, I've been off the Single's Market for a while now (aka every other guy's stock just went up). Maybe it's because I process so many of my thoughts with L, that I'm never motivated to let out my thoughts twice. But I've definitely found something out about myself - I talk too much. (Which is why now I will write instead). I have found I am quite adept and turning the simplest thought into a full scale brainstorm about random topics. I believe it's called Spreading Activation in Psychology. But I digress (lol).

What makes me excited though, is how dating is pushing me to explore what it means to be spiritually aware. You see, our spiritual walks is similar to Economic's Business Cycle, where although there are inclines and declines, the aim is that there is growth in the long run. In the same way, walking with God features, for the average Christian, highs and lows, pending our filling with the Spirit. It's just one of the consequences of sin - we are prone to wander. But the overall hope and joy we have is that by His grace alone, each consequential low and high will find us closer and loving God in a new and greater way.

While being with L hasn't put me on the high peak all the time, I am constantly being reminded to set my trajectory high (see L's thoughts). Over the past few months, I've been asking myself questions on how I can be a more God-fearing person and how that would translate to me being a the guy in a relationship? Does it mean I carry around a bible study curriculum around with me and offer min-sunday school courses as a date? And through the course of asking these questions, I am constantly reminded that our lives need to be lives that point to the gospel, remind each other of attributes of Christ that we are prone to forget.

For myself, that attribute is the law and righteousness. I find that I often overemphasize grace; I am the type of person who becomes overly laidback and neglects to honor God with due obedience and diligence. This often translate to me feeling discouraged when I don't see enough love or grace at work, when the problem at heart is my failure to be diligent and persevering. A practical example is of MPD Support Raising and how it has been a great lesson of faith, trusting God for every single step - it's something I will have to do until I reach 100%. So far, MPD has moved at a slow pace. But it's moved at a steady pace. I enjoy seeing parallels, so I'm going to liken the slow pace to my slowness of my motivation and the steady pace to God's unwavering faithfulness. And it's seeing God at work despite my short comings, in MPD, in school, in my relationships, heck in my entire life, that gives me a motivation to keep pushing for more.

Grace, my friends, upon grace.

That is God's reminder to us of the law and righteousness that Christ accomplished on our behalf. I look around and I see God placing people and situations in my life, encouraging me.

In other news, I don't know how long my life might last, however grace-filled it is. I found out recently I have put on 30+ pounds in almost 3 years. Goodbye arteries, hello wheelchair! Of course, I'm motivated to go to the gym regularly again starting in August. My future laziness in that area and other stories are best saved for another time.

Some recent photographs (from my various iPhone replacements) I enjoy:

             

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murder_she_doesnt_writes...zip (366 KB)

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warning: not good writing ahead. in too much pain to edit.

anyone who knows me knows about me and my many dysfunctional body parts. where should we begin? first there are the fingers that, after repeated jabbing, have simply swollen to the point where most rings won't fit. then there are the ankles which have been twisted and sprained more times than mary-kate has been in rehab, the knees which can't move without the two joints rubbing against each other.. nothing WD-40 can't fix.

then there's the infamous back pain. my back has steadily gotten worse over the past 5 years.. there will be random moments when it spazzes out and there is immense muscular pain. and i am one who doesn't like to go to the doctor - my body is stronger than that, the doctor won't tell me anything i don't already know, ill get even better if i beat this without medication.. you name the excuse, ive ran it through my head before.

but lately my back has been hurting more and more, to the point where i finally made an appointment with an orthopedist. there would be times when the pain was just unbearable, and i would spend the night sleeping on the floor, just so there would be strong support for my back.. checking my back, the old viet man told me he saw nothing wrong. in fact, my back is very healthy. precautionary x-rays told the same story, but just to be sure, there's an mri lined up for later on in the year.

walking away with a perscription for some cream, i thought everything would be fine. until today, when all day, from zero to.. hero? the pain-meter shot through the roof. if there was a measurement for pain, mine would be The Todd plus one. i could barely walk, and it progressively got worse. i finally gave in and picked up the cream. but it did nothing. even lifting an arm or turning my neck would trigger the pain; who knew your back muscle was involved with so much?

i think my instinctive response would be to ask God to take this pain away. but i think of job and his sufferings and how this man of faith responded - he totally disregarded the pain and praised the name of the Lord. how can you do that? how can you be in the mood to praise God's name when your entire family and livestock just got crushed? how can you be in a praiseful mood when you can't even sit eat dinner properly because your back hurts just that much?

at this, job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. then he fell to the ground in worship
job 1:20

the lesson we learn is that we don't simply ignore the hurt or the pain; job tore his robe and shaved his head to lament, to mourn.. but the way he responds to the pain is astounding - falling on the ground in worship.

sometimes, the posture of my heart is so selfish, so fickle, coming and going with the situations around me, when it is Christ who makes me who i am, and in whom i have my trust and identity. so in the midst of my pain, i am learning to turn around and praise the name of the Lord, because i know in faith, He has overcame it on my behalf and He is a sovereign God who delivers.

of course, if i end up paralyzed one day or die, then you, dear 6 readers, need to throw this reminder back in my face.

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Explain your answer in the Comments

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