the image of the invisible.

maybe the invisibility of our faith is reflective of the way we think of Jesus.

i know we can't literally see or feel him, but the fact is that he was a real man, flesh and bones. and the sooner we embrace the reality of Jesus, the sooner we will be moved into real faith.

he showed his love for us to the world, and we are called to do the same.

i am troubled.

troubled because all i see are mental christians. people who internalize their convictions into beliefs and ideologies, never allowing them to take root in their life. never overcoming their fear of man, fear of rejection and failure. fear of breaking comfort, thinking that comfort is the source of joy. thinking thoughts of possibility and option rather than those of willingness and intention. why is God so hypothetical in our lives? we indulge in our knowledge of God and feel good when we can have deep conversations about him, but He is not manifest through our lives.

yet i confess that most of all, i am troubled by the man in the mirror.

jesus, help me to live out my convictions.

dreams of memories or memories of dreams?

sometimes, i'll have a recollection of a memory, only to realize after a brief moment of confusion that the memory is of a dream that i'd forgotten about.

recently, i dreamt that my father came back into our lives.

or maybe, i dreamt of a time when our family was one.

realization: i'm a man full of problems.

well i already knew this, but i am finding the details of my flaws and how difficult they are to fix. whoever has to deal with me in life... will have to be a really good human being. hopefully i can become one too.

but as for the new year, i am wide-eyed with excitement. i'm pointing towards the horizon and i'm filled with both anticipation and fear. and no matter how badly i might want to avoid it, time will take me there to reveal what lies beyond everything i see.

yames.

i'm not sure if this is what scholars and theologians have to say about it (not that it has to be to validate what i say), but when i read the book of James, what i saw was a physical illustration of faith. i believe faith is not a mere concept or a thought - it's the breathing out of the knowledge and convictions we so gluttonously inhale. faith lives in the form of perseverance and victory, in humility and wisdom, in good deeds, in submission, in prayer, and in love. it says that faith is dead without deeds just as the body without the spirit is dead. deeds are the spirit of faith, and this leads me to believe that the existence of faith is more dependent on deeds than the other way around. because it's easy to speak and not do, but an action speaks for itself. and this isn't to say that deeds save our souls, but it definitely salvages our faith from the abstract to the concrete.

in self-examination, i used to always wonder: if i were a mute, would my faith be visible? if i had not been granted the liberty of words, would i still be able to express my faith? and as you can imagine, this is a sobering, and potentially even discouraging, process. because all the things i say i believe are buried under my life of self-indulgence.

and in the context of physical manifestations, self-indulgence sounds a lot worse than what it can look like. i can easily assume that most moments of our lives are spent satisfying our simple desires that may not be blatantly evil. but the fact is that we are constantly indulging in our desires, from shallow to deep, simple to evil, justifying everything along the way to save ourselves from a guilty conscience.

so with all that said, the book of James is a double-edged sword. a book of challenging convictions. pride in high and rich positions? favoritism? friendship with the world? taking the weight of my own words lightly? we don't even have to go any further- count me guilty.

and so all of this takes me to a passage, one of the few that i have written upon my heart:

"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2P 1:5-11)

i believe in the importance of making sure of my salvation. not just by experiencing feel-good emotions and claiming that our lives have been changed. but to add to that all these things, and in doing so, saving my faith from idleness and ineffectiveness. and not in a legalistic way, but the way Jesus did it. raw and honest, passionate yet gentle, humble yet authoritative, and ultimately, loving. our eyes need to be opened, rather than to adjust to the darkness.

life is ______.

i think any adjective can fill that blank appropriately,

but today, the word is

...

tough.

life is tough.

but tomorrow is a new day. new hope! a new adjective to fill that blank, hopefully one antithetical to today's.

meaninglessful blabber.

a lot of times i start thinking about spirituality, and in many of those many times, i come to conclusions that i wouldn't fully be comfortable sharing with people. things that i know are true in my heart but i fear people may not understand because some of us are just wired differently. and this is not to say that i'm better and deeper of a person (although i admit i used to think this way for awhile); its just that i know none of us are made to fully understand each other. we were created in His image, so it only makes sense that we are endowed with a level of mystery.

i believe that sometimes, many times, we imagine God. and what i mean is this: when i was 7 years old and i had learned about God for the first time, i pictured him in my mind as one of those old asian emperor folk that you see on korean currency (pretty absurd, i know; i also thought that God and Mary were married... though i don't know what i made of Joseph). but it's silly to imagine God when he's not imaginary.

as a 7 year old, i had naturally assigned God to some form or image that worked for me. and though not as blatantly misleading, i feel that i still do this dangerous act of recklessly assigning God to things. i fit Him into a shape, boundaries that conveniently help me understand (or think i understand) who He is; or even just to make Him convenient altogether. i catch myself calling His name far too often in small moments of desperation, like when i'm frustrated about finding a job, or a parking spot, or when i know i'm speeding and don't want to get caught. it's so instantaneous, like how aladdin constantly called up genie as a last resort. but where is He when i'm busy spending time with my friends? when i'm sinning? do i still call Him then? it's like i want to choose when i'm with and not with God, forgetting that He dwells within me.

what's even worse than this childish habit, to me, is that i confuse my thoughts and beliefs with God's. christians seem far too clumsy with throwing God around to legitimize things like our political beliefs, our morals, our habits, our "christian biases" that can often translate as discrimination and/or ignorance. this isn't to say that God shouldn't influence our beliefs and morals - it's actually pretty important for us to try to mimic Christ. but is God controlling us, or are we trying to control God?

and this is one of those thoughts that i would hesitate to share, because it leads me to wonder about the realistic possibility that God can be a psychological security blanket for uncertainties and emptiness people feel in their heart. and this frightens me and shakes my faith, because i know many atheists are what they are because of thought processes such as this.

but this is why God is relational. if the Bible was simply a book of do's and don't's, all this thinking would've eaten me alive. if it wasn't a testimony of God's love, it wouldn't captivate us. and if i couldn't recall a single moment of intimate interaction with God, i would bend and break.

but to understand God's love... that it's impossible to understand. it actually makes more sense than the rules and guidelines we come up with.