Tim and Olive's Blog

a story from my pastor:

a little boy was out playing in the sandbox one sunny afternoon when he came across a large rock in the middle of the box. not wanting it there, he tried to remove it. but small as he was, he could not lift it. it didn’t even budge when he kicked it. finally, after a lot of pushing and straining, he managed to inch it over to the edge of his sandbox. but he still couldn’t get it out. just then, his dad came out to check on him. seeing his dismay at the rock, the father asked him one question, “did you use all your strength to move that rock?” “of course, dad!” the child replied, “i’ve pushed, and kicked and tried with all my might! but the rock is still there.” then, bending down to pick up the rock, the dad said, “no, son, you haven’t used all your strength. you didn’t ask me.”

how many times we try to struggle on our own, thinking we’ve used all our strength, when there is a greater Source we haven’t considered as ours.

ONLY A LITTLE BABY GIRL

a song by A.B. Simpson (public domain)

Only a little baby girl, dead by the riverside;
Only a little Chinese child, drowned by the floating tide!
Over the boat too far she leaned watching the dancing wave.
Over the brink she fell, and sank, but there was none to save.

Only a little baby girl, dead by the riverside.
Only a little Chinese child, drowned by the floating tide.
But it has brought a vision vast. Dark as the nation’s woe;
Oh, has it left one willing heart, answering, “I will go?”

“HELPING” DADDY

on top of my piano, there is a collection of pictures ranging from my baby photo to my high school grad portrait. nestled among the more faded ones is one that i’m particularly fond of. it was taken when i was about three. i was outside of our old house with my dad. perhaps it was a saturday afternoon when he didn’t have to work, but anyway, the task at hand was transferring a large mound of topsoil from in front of our garage to the backyard garden. so there my dad was, metal shovel in hand, vigorously pitching the dirt into his wheelbarrow. beside him, i too was holding my little shovel (except mine was made of blue and red plastic) , trying to get the dirt into my toddler-sized wheelbarrow. my face had a look of concentrated determination. of course, i wasn’t really helping all that much, but i think my dad enjoyed having my company and sharing the experience together.

i’d like to think it’s the same with the way God chooses to let us “help” Him in His work. be it showing love to others or bringing about the salvation of the world by sharing the Good News about Jesus, God could really just do it all by Himself (and do it faster and better). but because He loves and desires to share the experience with us, He lets us in on what He’s doing and gives us our own set of tools (our toddler-sized wheelbarrows, so to speak). we may make messes He’ll have to clean up or we may need repeated instruction, but because He is a Father who delights in His children, that’s what He does. and our role as children is simply watch what Daddy’s doing and jump in and copy!

LITTLE SEA TURTLE

God is moving. God is calling Chinese people who are scattered around the globe to go back to the homeland to serve Him. people have named this movement after the sea turtle because sea turtles return to the shores where they were hatched years after they first leave it. they return to hatch a new generation of sea turtles. and likewise, God is calling people so that Asia can be a great sending ground.

i am a little sea turtle. and i am praying for more to come.

WHEN I AM WEAK

when 24 hours in day seems too short.
when i am wasted from lack of sleep.
when my brain feels like mush pulled in 50 different directions.
when deadlines loom and things are left undone – again.
when tension resides permanently in the space between my eyes.
when people around me are crumbling under stress.
when darkness seems to be stronger than light.
when i am faithless.

YOU ARE

strong.
faithful.
unchanging.
perfect.
rest.
love.
YWH. Almighty God.

11:11

11:11 is my favourite minute of the day. and whenever i catch it on my clock, i get all smiley. why is it my favourite minute? it’s completely symmetrical! yes, i know, i’m a nerd. but it’s true, i love it because it mirrors itself both verticaly and horizontally. i know 10:01 also does that, but i like 11:11 better. sometimes, when i notice my clock reading 11:10, i keep glancing back at the clock hoping it’ll read 11:11. but waiting for it seems to take forever. and when 11:11 finally hits, it seems like less than 60 seconds before the clock hits 11:12. as if the clock knows it’s my favourite minute so it runs a little faster.

why am i writing this sillyness? no, it’s not so you can be even more convinced that i’m a nut. i realized that just like life, many times we wait in excited anticipation for something good to happen. and when it does, it seems to come and go so much quicker than we want it to. but in the process of being so focused on that one event, we neglect to treasure the time leading up to it. 11:10 is one minute of life, just as much as 11:11, but in waiting for the favourite minute, i forget to be present in that minute before. and what’s true for this minute is also true for many other aspects of life. in waiting for the summer, the wonder of spring is overlooked. in waiting for “life in the real world,” the freedom of being a student is trivialized. and in anticipation of the day i find my husband (or, he finds me), i neglect to truly treasure all the friendships i already have. so while 11:11 makes me smile and do a happy dance, it also reminds me to love 11:10 and 11:09 and… because every minute is a gift from above.

BEEF

postings coming fast and furious, aren’t they? ;) too bad ideas for school projects aren’t flowing at the same rate…

aaaanyway, HUGE DISCLAIMER: the following is a rant. while i hope it contains some solid reasoning, i also realize it may potentially ruffle some feathers. please correct me if my thinking is off track. but i think i should speak my mind. ‘cuz too often, i don’t. take it as an invitation; an excercise for the brain.

many people have asked me if i have seen The Passion of The Christ yet. i have not. and until last thursday, i had no intention of seeing it in the theatres. i had wanted to watch it at home for several reasons, one being the fact that i don’t like seeing violence to begin with, much less blown up to much larger than life proportions on a huge screen. having said that, please keep in mind as you read this that this is coming from the perspective of one who has yet to see it.

i am going tomorrow. but for now, here we go…

i have a beef about this whole church hoopla over The Passion movie. as someone trying to be a witness for Christ amongst a class of skeptics, it makes it really difficult when my friends see hypocricy stamped all over this item. just because the movie is about Christ, it doesn’t mean everyone should mindlessly go skipping to their closest movie theatre. maybe i’m being self-righteous, but it seems to me like most Christians are going because everyone else is going and church leaders are endorsing it. and if people are going because they want to identify with Christ’s suffering so they can appreciate Him more, something is wrong. the way i see it, Christians should not need a movie to be deeply distressed about their sinful condition or grasp the enormity of Christ’s suffering. anyone who actually lets the Bible sink in – especially certain passages in Isaiah, like Isaiah 53 – will be brought to their knees in tears. please tell me that after reading something like “his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man

and his form marred beyond human likeness” (Isaiah 52:14) someone doesn’t still picture a clean, pastel coloured Christ, hanging gracefully on the cross. i guess it annoys me that Christians are touting the movie as “a great chance to outreach,” a fact that i don’t dispute. my problem is that when outreach is not backed by love and a lifestyle consistent with the message, it’s superficial and non-Christians are the first ones to see right through the veneer. how you live before this movie and after this movie is worth way more than the act of watching the movie with a friend. people are hurting everywhere, dying, and we say, let’s go see a movie? perhaps i am just bitter because the zeal of religious groups has turned my friends off and it hurts me to see that.

i do agree that the movie has its merits. it has generated a lot of discussion and lifted off some of the taboos about talking about Jesus Christ. it has also meant that instead of sitting in a Missions Conference, discussing about missions, people are actually inviting their firends out and actively involving themselves in missions.

i have a problem with the Christian consumer culture that’s seen also in the latest music CDs and WWJD paraphenalia. i don’t think the tools are wrong, i just think it’s wrong when they become the focus. the gospel of the grace of God is power in itself and the Word of God is weapon enough. people will be attracted to Christ when they see Him alive through our love, not because of a big screen movie or any other item or event.

i think some people have lost perspective that it is only a movie. while i believe strongly in the use of the arts to touch people (i’ve spent the last 9 years studying it!), in the end, it is a tool. this movie is a work of art, one man’s interpretation of what happened. for all we know, the violence could have been worse – or less severe. i had a booklet on my desk titled, “The Passion of the Christ: True or False?” it was subtitled, “see the movie and decide for yourself.” my friend picked it up and snickered, “right, as if i couldn’t just, oh, read the Bible and decide?” i think i’d have to agree with her.

along the lines of torture, i also think we’re forgetting that Christ’s physical pain and agony was not the worst part of it. if you read the Bible (see a theme emerging?), it tells us that Jesus’ spirit was separated from His Father when He died on the cross. the truly excruciating part of the ordeal was the spiritual experience none of us will never be able to grasp fully – precisely because Christ went through it. Jesus went to hell – the place where God is absent, the place where love is absent. THIS, in my mind, was the most agonizing part of Christ’s Passion – what we cannot see on a screen.

sometimes, i wish people would think for themselves more. and Christians, of all people, are called to be in but not of this world. we are called to love God with all our minds. yes, i am grateful for this movie. i’m glad it is generating so much buzz. but why are you going to see it? to catch the “Christian,” church-approved wave? i surely hope not. i’m not saying i haven’t fallen into thinking any of these things i have just spent half an hour venting about. but we just have to remember: this is a movie. this is a tool. God’s WORD is what our faith is based on and God’s LOVE is what people notice. let’s keep some perspective.

EXCUSE ME, I LOVE YOU!

my pastor was talking about Outrageous Love today and he shared an illustration from his own life. almost a year ago, his four-year-old son was diagnosed with cancer and every day since then, my pastor has made it a priority to tell his son that Daddy loves him – at least three times a day. “lately, however, [my son] seems to be outdoing me,” he explained. “about twenty times a day, he’ll look at me and say ‘excuse me! excuse me daddy, i love you!’ right in the middle of whatever we’re doing. and i, in turn, will look at him and tell him ‘i love you, too.’ it doesn’t matter where we are, at home, in the hospital, at a restaurant, in the washroom, he’ll say it.” my pastor continued to tell us that it feels like he’s squeezing in a lifetime of love into whatever time they have left. and in the same way, Jesus, while He was on the cross, was squeezing in a lifetime of love into those few final hours.

i think that just like my pastor’s son, Jesus was (and still is) also saying to us, “excuse me, i love you!” and really, we wouldn’t be worse for the wear either if we made a practice of saying it to those who are dear to us.

BECAUSE

i was studying Revelations chapter 7 the other day, thinking about the worship songs the angels and saints were singing when i realized that those worship songs were different from what we tend to sing in north america today.

verse 10:

verse 12:

notice how God is praised so much more for who He is rather than what He’s done. and i got to thinking, God deserves our praise and worship simply because He is. even if He had never given us a way out of our sin, even if He was not the gracious and loving God He is, the simple fact that He is so beyond us warrants praise from us. so if that’s where we start, how much MORE does He deserve our praise in light of the gift of Jesus Christ!

THIS IS LIFE

at least for now, here on earth, this is life. i just received a phone call from a staff at UrbanPromise, the inner-city ministry i worked with four years ago. one of the youths i worked with was killed in a shooting last night. i was asked if i could go in today to help give counselling and support the rest of the kids. but logistically, i can’t. and i haven’t seen the kids in so long that i don’t know how helpful i would be. the most (and perhaps best thing?) i can do is cover them all in prayer.

God, i feel so helpless. so small. and why You would choose to allow me to step into BlueBoy’s life for that brief summer remains a mystery to me. Lord, give me the faith to live by the truth that You are good, even in times like this. help me not to take any day of life for granted, whether it be mine or anyone else’s. Jesus, i eagerly await the day when there will be no more tears, no more injustice, no more suffering children. may your great commission be fulfilled soon so that this day can happen.