This powerful rendition of “Cardboard Testimonies” was done after my Large Group talk on craving after identity. These 23 UCSD students shared about the old identities they carried, and the new identities given to them by God. Many in the audience were brought to tears by this powerful display of God’s transformative power in our community.
For an audio version of my entire talk listen to “Crave: Identity” found here: http://josephjlee.com/speaking/
Thank you all for your continued prayer and support! Here is a recap video of all that God did at UCSD during REVIVE09!
REVIVE09 in numbers:
I want to share a cool God moment from tonight. The church I go to, Coast Vineyard, is connected with a larger group of Vineyard churches, and there is a guy in this network who is really prophetic and just hears from God really clearly. For the last two summers, we’ve invited him to come teach us about hearing God’s voice and just give words from God to the people in the room. I must say, I’ve never seen anyone hear from God like this guy does. When he does ministry he receives some of the most specific details of people’s lives even to the point of naming an individual’s children! I mean he literally just seems to know stuff that he could not know on his own. And for those of you who aren’t familiar with the prophetic, all this is done not as a show, but to remind the person receiving the word that God is with them, sees them, and hears their cries. Every time I see him do ministry, I just leave feeling like God’s presence and power is so real!
All this said, last summer when he came, he gave me some words… and some pretty detailed words at that, and honestly I was sort of disappointed. Only about 20% of it made sense to me, and the other 80% I sort of just “put on the shelf” and forgot about. Then this summer he came back and barely gave me anything, and once again I felt sort of disappointed. Now, let me make clear… I don’t think we need prophets to tell us what God is speaking over us as I believe we are perfectly capable of hearing God’s voice on our own, but when everyone else is receiving crazy words around you it’s a little hard not to want the same. Read the rest of this entry »
How can we embrace poverty as a way to God when everyone around us wants to become rich? Poverty has many forms. We have to ask ourselves: “What is my poverty?” Is it lack of money, lack of emotional stability, lack of a loving partner, lack of security, lack of safety, lack of self-confidence? Each human being has a place of poverty. That’s the place where God wants to dwell! “How blessed are the poor,” Jesus says (Matthew 5:3). This means that our blessing is hidden in our poverty.
We are so inclined to cover up our poverty and ignore it that we often miss the opportunity to discover God, who dwells in it. Let’s dare to see our poverty as the land where our treasure is hidden.
-Henri Nouwen, from his daily devotional (click here to subscribe)
I am realizing more and more that it is not so much that I have done something wrong or that God has left me, but rather as I discover myself… my strengths, my desires, my dreams… I inevitably run into my poverty. I run into the places of lack, loneliness, sin, broken promises, and lost dreams. It is so tempting in the collision to wonder what have I done (or not done) to deserve this, but truly I am learning that God is actually in the midsts of my poverty.
We love to see God in our abundance, celebrations, and when all is going well, but when confronted with our poverty we seek quick solutions and masks. We do whatever it takes to numb, avoid, explain away, rationalize, over spiritualize our brokeness; and what is most disturbing is that we do it in the name of Jesus. We try so hard to proclaim a victorious gospel that we forget that that victory was bought by blood and we too have been called to carry a cross.
This sounds almost masochistic, but the greatest gift that God has given me during this season is the revelation of my poverty, because it is in the midsts of my poverty that I am discovering Him. One who loves, calls, takes, blesses, breaks, gives, empowers, strengthens, empathizes, and ultimately redeems. It is in this experience that I may not feel His presence or His joy… but I know it. It is like a quiet peace that dwells deep inside of my heart. God is with me. He is for me, not against me. I am truly his favorite one… His beloved. And because of that… everything will be alright.
Here is my unofficial entry to the “Sovereignty of God Blog Series” on the Man of Depravity blog and really my first attempt to articulate thoughts I’ve wrestled through for the last 5 or 6 years. This entry was really a comment or response to Pastor Eugene Cho’s contribution to the series (of Quest Church, Seattle). His simple but clear articulation of his view on God’s sovereignty and our free will really helped me clarify some of my own thoughts on the subject (which is usually a jumbled mess).
Here is the thrust of Pastor Eugene’s thoughts (read his full entry for more detail):
Creation is a beautiful reflection of God’s character. And in that creation, he gives to humanity what I often interpret as the greatest expressions of His love: Freedom or Free will. What’s even more amazing is that God gives us the gift of freedom knowing the possibility that humanity could sin and rebel. For me, this is stunning. In giving the gift of Free Will, I believe God actually chooses to “relinquish” power. He still remains in control because power or authority isn’t stripped away from him but in His love, benevolence, and grace, God chooses to give the gift of ‘free will’ to humanity. (An idea Eugene later refers to as “self limited sovereignty”)
Perhaps one thing I could add to the conversation as I see it is that although I do generally agree with this idea of “self limited sovereignty,” I still do believe God can reasonably in love exercise His sovereignty over our free will from time to time. Read the rest of this entry »
Meet Spots. My sister’s new dog (taken on my new iPhone). Spots looks sort of like a cross between Bolt (from the movie) and a HUGE white rat. Nonetheless, she’s pretty cute, and my sister spared no detail in telling me all kinds of stuff about her new pet that only an 8 year old would care about. Apparently, she’s only 10 weeks old, but she’s already 90% potty trained and can already play fetch with a ball (but good luck getting the ball back). Also, if you just let her run around in the backyard to go potty she gets lost (probably would get eaten too…), so you always need to walk her out and watch her. Finally, because she gets lonely at night, she has to sleep in a cage in my sister’s room where she remains quiet through the night and waits eagerly the next morning for Jessica to wake up.
Tonight, I came home. As usual, I’m not particularly excited to be home. But tonight is a rare night. My parents are out of the house, so I got to spend some rare one on one time with my sister. We played DS, watched movies, and played with Spots. She taught me how to fight with a staff (she’s taking some kind of kung fu performing arts class) and she almost hit me in the nuts and the head with it. Now as she falls asleep, her head is on my lap and Spots on my other lap. She just smiled at me. I’ve been missed. She’s been waiting for me to come home for awhile now. I’m glad I can make her happy. This is definitely a moment of pure bliss. I’m not sure what the rest of this week will bring, but as for tonight… it was a good night :o).
I had my first session with a Christian counselor yesterday. I wanted to do some counseling to just begin learning more about myself and figure out why I act and feel certain things. I’ve had multiple pastors in the past few months tell me that counseling is a wonderful time of self discovery and healing that every minister should go through in their 20s. Honestly, after my first session I’m pretty convinced that everyone should probably go through some counseling in their lifetime.
Anyways, one of the things I really want to figure out about myself is why I feel so lonely when I’m alone. I mean I literally dread being alone sometimes. I could be having the most wonderful day and going home to an empty house can just bring me a certain sense of dread. I mean I definitely have learned to cope with it (watching TV or just not coming home till late)… but I really hope this time in counseling can really help me get to the root of what I’m feeling in those moment.
After sharing parts of my life story, my counselor told me that there were two elements of my story that stuck out as potential contributing factors for that loneliness. The first one, which I’ve thought about before, is just certain instances of trauma with my parents and past relationships that I don’t really want to talk about here. The second one was something I’ve never thought about though. She said that another contributing factor could be the fact that I’m bi-racial (Korean/Chinese). Bi-racial, tri-cultural (throw American into the mix) in fact. Read the rest of this entry »
11 am on Sunday still remains the most segregated hour in America, and for most Christians the best way to deal with race is to be colorblind and simply disregard it as not important. With that said I’m really proud to be apart of an organization that has kept ethnic reconciliation and multi-ethnicity as a core value of our movement. Since its conception in the US, InterVarsity has remained a catalyst of racial reconciliation not only in the church, but in the culture as well. I believe what we have done and what we are going to do is going to continue to bless, challenge, and transform the church’s view on culture and ethnicity for years to come. It is so exciting to be part of what God is doing!
Here are a few examples of our multi-ethnic legacy from our history that I am particularly proud of (from Multi Ethnic Ministries Website):
Some have complained already that my post yesterday was too dark and scary. I still stick to my initial thought that the film presents a reality that we often try to avoid and ignore, but oh well… keep taking that blue pill.
Anyways, on a more hopeful note, I’ve been reflecting on the value of the presence of God. I’ve often said that being in His presence was really important to me. I’ve led worship for years saying that I want to “experience” or “enter” His presence. I’ve prayed time and time again for his presence to fall. And how did I know I was in His presence? Well for most of my Christian journey I knew by feeling an emotional connection or a “spiritual high.” You know the one you get when you go to a fun praise night or a retreat. That emotional feeling of joy, excitement, and conviction. Or perhaps God’s presence means bawling during an intense prayer meeting or feeling “filled with the Spirit” to do ministry. And so certainly when things are depressing and ministry is failing it means that I’ve somehow run away from Him or that His presence has left me right? I mean there has to be more to it, and God has continually been expanding my view of what it means to abide in Him. Read the rest of this entry »
I rarely watch a film (especially online) that both chills me and moves me at my core as much as this one (video and link at the bottom of the post). This short film by Joaquin Baldwin is about a voodoo doll that sacrifices itself for the sake of the other dolls in the basement. I don’t think this video in any way was intended to be Christian. In fact, even from the title and the dark sadistic tone it’s pretty obviously not your typical Vegetales CGI film. Despite all this it portrays a reality of Christ’s sacrifice and defeat of Satan (and sin) in a way better than most Christian portrayals I’ve seen. Makes you wonder why it seems like people who don’t even try to talk about Jesus in their films seem to do it better than those who actually try.
There are definitely many holes in how the film parallels the actual death of Jesus (for one Jesus didn’t kill Himself). So just get past that. What it does marvelously though is paint the absolute bleak and ugly reality of the evil that ensnares and ultimately kills us. It is a dark, sadistic, absolutely scary type of evil. It is an evil that is just set out to torture and destroy us. One that just sees us, the image bearers of God, as faceless dolls to abuse, to use, to defile, to kill. One that just leaves us with no hope, hanging on a sharp hook waiting for our disgraceful end. This is the true face of evil in this world. It is oppressive, deceitful, and ugly. It is absolutely terrifying and chilling. Read the rest of this entry »
