Make-believe

      Last Friday night I watched a movie about the WWII Holocaust:  "Life is Beautiful."  It is so sad and so not sad all at the same time.  Sometimes I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!  It was interesting how Guido's irrepressibility changed as his naivete morphed into a grim grasp of reality.  Yet he never gave in for the sake of his son, and I couldn't help but admire his stamina and his resourcefulness. 
     Over the course of the film, I couldn't help but wonder how much we Westerners shut our eyes to what's going on in the world--what's going on in our very backyards.  I wonder how many stories we fabricate--not only for our children but for ourselves!--to explain away the horrors happening around us... slavery, abortion, abuse, gangs, the sex trade, murder...
     Stories are ok for children, I suppose.  My heart hurts with the hurting child's.  But as adults we need to face our problems and climb our mountains.  We as people are the ones who bring in these horrible regimes, we as people are the ones who must take responsibility to change them.

     A make-believe world proffers peaceful complacency.  But it doesn't satisfy God's call for justice and action--“Keep justice, and do righteousness, for My salvation is about to come, and My righteousness to be revealed" (Isaiah 56:1).  And it doesn't change what is reality for many people. 

     It is easy to view the Nazi concentration camps as an unequalled epitome of cruelty and inhumanity.  And yet people now suffer just as much, or perhaps more, in North Korea, China, the Middle East...  These victims are all fellow humans, and usually our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as well.  
     ...But do you know what the saddest part of all this is?  We don't even care enough to fabricate stories about them to placate our consciences.  We just ignore them.
     Lord, give me a heart for justice that mirrors your heart.  Give me the vision to see clearly and the courage to act on it.  


"So you, by the help of your God, return; observe mercy and justice, and wait on your God continually."  Hosea 12:6

Bits and Pieces of my Family

Today I want to tell you some about my family. Family is so important! And even though I have not personally met all of my family members, I love them all very much. I am so blessed with all my brothers and sisters who challenge me, encourage me, and help me grow. And so allow me to share with you about a couple of these special people.

My one brother is Nick Vujacic. I've never met him personally. To tell the truth, there's not a lot of him to meet, physically. He was born without arms or legs, but with enough attitude to make up for it—attitudes of gratitude, action, empathy and forgiveness. His fun-loving spirit, passion for God, and joyful abandon have encouraged me to see past my circumstances and dare to dream big. He is an older brother who challenges me and encourages me to live for God without limits!

I have another older brother, with all his limbs but without his freedom. His name is Youcef Nadarkhani and he is in an Iranian prison. There he is pressured to recant his Christian faith and tortured for protesting Iranian laws which required my nephews, his sons, to study the Quran in school. His wife has also been imprisoned several times. My heart hurts for him, his wife, and his sons, and yet I feel honored that my brother remains firm in his convictions. I pray that God will give him strength to continue!

Then I have a sister, Somchi. Right now she is living in a small village in Laos. We look very little alike on the outside, but I hope that my heart will be forgiving like hers when I grow up. Her neighbors make fun of her, and one day when she was not home they came into her house and burned her Bible. But she never gives up-- “It's the world's right to hate us or love us,” she says. “But for me, I will follow Jesus.” I am blessed and encouraged by her dedicated heart and forgiving spirit.

I have another sister, Yubelina. I hear from her very infrequently, but I hope that she is alright. She lives on Halmahera Island, Indonesia, and a little while ago her village was attacked by militant Muslims. Her face, chest and hand are very badly burned, and it looks like she can no longer see out of her one eye. Her features are badly scarred from the burns, but she can still smile. And the reason that she can still smile is because, though she is burned by hatred and distrust, she has a hope in God that will never rust, mildew or incinerate. Though I don't know when or if I will be able to see her and tell her that I am thinking about and praying for her, our love for Christ still keeps us close in this difficult time.

As for my sister, Joni Tada, she looks a bit more like me with her blonde hair. Yet while she does have her limbs, she can't use them. When she was only three years younger than I am now, she was paralyzed by a diving accident and is now a paraplegic. Yet she has been more places than I have! She has encouraged countless people in hard times, written books (someday I might be an author, just like her!), and helped provide wheelchairs for countless other people who are paralyzed through her organization Joni and Friends. She is another amazing sister who challenges me to aim high and keep perspective when it seems that life is kaputz.

These are just a couple members of my big family. I can't rightly even tell you how many siblings I have, but I know that one day I will meet them all in my Father's house. And there we'll be able to meet each other face-to-face, praise our glorious heavenly Father together, and share all our stories and how God has led our lives. I hope that you will have the privilege of meeting some of them someday. And who knows, maybe we're related too. If we are, I look forward to meeting you someday as well!

Jesus said: “For whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother.” Mark 3:35

Information taken from persecution.net, Voice of the Martyr's Newsletter special edition volume 2 (2011), and Nick Vujacic's book “Life without Limits (2010).

WHO AM I?

     Who am I?  What a loaded question!  Right now in intercultural studies at university I am studying how people define themselves based on their culture, their language, and how they think other people define them.  It's funny to think that we don't even know ourselves fully!  Just like I find it almost comical how my body is performing all these high level, complex functions like blood screening and message transmission through neurons and regulating blood sugar levels (well, okay, as a type 1 diabetic, that is one function my body has given up as too complicated...).  Still, my body is doing all these amazing things, and yet I have to go to school to consciously learn about them!  It's like my body knows all this stuff because it is doing it, yet the knowledge isn't in my consciousness yet. 
     So how do I define myself?  Am I just the sum of my body processes?  Or do I define myself in relation to what I wear, what I know, what I do, and where I live?  Am I even the one who actually defines who I am?  Or does someone else define who I am--someone like the God who made me? 
As I was thinking about this, I came across a poem I wrote a while ago.  I would like to share it with you:

WHO AM I?
O Lord my God, who am I to see your face,
to presume upon your glorious grace?

Who am I, to be God's son,
to know the Lord--God three-in-one?

Who am I, who slapped His hand,
spat in His face, scorned His command?

Who am I but a sinner before Him?

So, who am I that the Father should love me,
the Son should redeem and the Spirit set free?
Me, unworthy, unloving, undeserving...
In Christ
who am I but a child of God
--by GRACE

     Some more musings... But this time on logic.  It is truly comical to contemplate what different cultures call convincing.  In rational North America, it is a compliment (supposedly) for someone to say "I think that I love you" (of course, with the appropriate expression and hushed tone).  However, in emotional Latin America, anything less than undying love from a captive heart is a demeaning insult! 
     What do you find persuasive?  Is it logic, evidence, feeling, analogies, parables?  Some court cases in tribal Africa are solved by applying sayings and folklore that fit the situation.  In the Bible, Moses solved court cases according to God's revealed law.  In North America, judges appeal to 'precedent', or they set precedents according to the whims of the masses. 
     I had a funny little experience just a little while ago with persuasion.  My friend called me downstairs to examine a suspicious mystery puddle in the middle of the room downstairs.  I cogitated that in this empirical culture, we believe that there must be a rational reason for it:  Did the roof leak?  Well, everything else was dry, and it hadn't rained lately.  Did she spill water on the floor when she was watering her bouganvilla plants?  If so, though, why did she spill in that strange spot instead of closer to the actual plant?  Hmmm... Maybe someone let in a stray cat or dog?  We were beginning to run out of ideas!
     Empirical cultures do complicate things, don't they?  If we lived in a more spiritist culture, I could simply attribute it to some spirit's piddle and that would be that... But my friend didn't find that very convincing!
     But seriously, what is your ultimate court of appeal?  Do you believe it if you see it?  If it makes sense logically?  Let me just warn you that man has often been deceived.  Our senses can be deceived.  I've heard that our brains will manufacture sensations if our senses are cut off from the outside world.  The only unchanging and trustworthy source in this world is God's Word, the Bible.  The very 'laws of logic' which so many people swear by in opposition to God's Word cannot exist without an unchanging, immaterial God behind them (Greg Bahnsen has a lot more to elaborate on this interesting topic!).  God's Word is truth, it stands unchanged, and it speaks to every area of life with the authority of God Himself.