Prayer

My recent prayer requests have been about prayer itself. I listened to a few sermons on prayer, and it never occurred to me that praying was so difficult. Tim Keller says that it's easier to preach for 30 mins than it is to pray for 30 mins, and it's so true! Our minds get so distracted when we're praying. The mere sound of an IM or text message will tempt us to put our prayers on hold just to see what they say.

But more personally, I found my prayers so repetitive, and pretty much like a groceries list. There was no love or adoration in my prayers. It was pure business. Especially being a fourth year now, so many different things have been occupying my mind: school, future career, family in Korea, living situation for next year, church, small group, and the list goes on.

I realized something though. It is okay for our prayers to be repetitive. It is okay to constantly ask God for things. Christ, in fact, commands us to pray like this--to be persistent, to constantly knock at his door even to the point where we pretty much bother him. Why can we do this? It's because we have a basis for our prayers. Our basis is that God is "Our Father". Notice that when Christ teaches us how to pray, he doesn't say "Our King" although he is, or "Our Creator", although he is. The first two words "Our Father" state our basis for our prayers, that it is only because we are his children that we can come to and pray to him intimately.

Just as children ask their parents for things, we should be praying to God about everything we want or need. And then as Our Father, God will either give us what we ask for, or he will give us what we should have asked for. Our Father will always answer our prayers.

-Simon

Sin Is Everywhere!

Every Sunday night, I've been going over Tim Keller Bible studies with Yoejin and Joe to prepare for small group. So far it's been going really well. I feel like I've been learning so much about sin, gender roles, and Genesis 1-3 in general.

There are two things that blew my mind.

1. I always knew that men and women had different gender roles. I also knew that these respective gender roles do not entail differences in status. Men and women were created to compliment each other. Men are better at certain things than women are, and vice versa, women are better at certain things than men are. I love this one quote by Matthew Henry:

"Not made out of his head to top him, not out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected and near his heart to be beloved."

But what blew my mind was how both men and women together were made in the image of God. It's not "man was made in the image of God and woman was made in the image of God". It's "man and woman were made in the image of God". See the difference? The only time God refers to Himself as "we" or "us" is when he is about to create us as male and female. Since both males and females "reflect" the being of God, it means that God has all the traits associated with human maleness and femaleness. Hence, only as male-female together can we show forth and understand the full range of God's character. The relationship men and women have is a reflection of the relationship within the Godhead itself. God is both unified and diverse.

2. The second thing that blew my mind was the fact that the fall caused sin to touch upon all aspects of creation. In one sense I knew this, but only on surface level. When I thought about sin, I only thought of it as affecting humans directly (fleshly desires, which encompasses a whole mess of crap in the world, spiritually, culturally, etc.). But sin affects every part of creation including psychological disorders, physical illnesses, and even natural disasters. Always in the back of my mind, I knew this. But restudying all of this again kind of opened my eyes again. My answer to "why are there natural disasters that kill innocent people" was always "sin", but I always just said that as a cop out answer. But it's true, and now I know why "sin" is the correct answer.

Tim Keller. Why are you so smart?

-Simon

Gas

Joe: "dude, who freaking burps while they're doing ab workouts?"

I normally have a lot of gas, but these days I've been feeling it a little bit more. I don't get it. It's not like my diet has changed. My stomach always makes all these funny noises. I don't know whether it's because I have gas or if I'm hungry, but it's embarrassing. It's weird cause it's not even just farts. But I burp A LOT. I even burp when I'm running on the treadmill and apparently when I do ab workouts.

Although most people around me get annoyed of my gas, I see it as a blessing in disguise. Farts and burps just sound funny. No matter how angry someone is at me whether I fart or burp, they're always smiling. Gas brings joy into our lives!

There are many times when I fart alone and I can't help but giggle out loud.

This was a pointless post. But I suppose some of you have gotten to know who I really am. hehe.

-Simon

Another New Year

2010 has treated me well. It was filled with many blessings and trials. In 2010, I completed my first year at UCLA, my family got to spend time together in Korea (before that, my family had not been together since 2005), my mom moved to Korea, and I finally got to experience what it's like to literally be out on my own.

I realized that ever since I moved out on my own, money has become a bigger issue for me in terms of idolatry. I found myself constantly listening to Tim Keller's sermons on generosity and money. I had to keep reminding myself to love Christ more than money. Reading Dinko's blog on idolatry was a great reminder to me that the result of idolatry was not because we love the world so much, but we don't love Christ enough.

I'm not much of a guy to make resolutions or anything, but I hope that I will grow in grace, patience, love, and ultimately love Christ more in 2011. Whatever blessings and trials may come in 2011, I hope that God will prepare me for them!

Thank you 2010.

-Simon

Internet is my Idol

Internet was out half of the day today. I felt so lost. I didn't know what to do. So after my friend and I did some hardcore studying, we played puzzle fighter for like 2 hours. When internet still wouldn't work, Joe and I were so lost since we always watch shows or youtube clips before we sleep. After I come back from taking a shower, I see Joe searching through the DVD collection to pick out a movie since we have nothing else to do. After seeing his desperate search for a fun movie to watch, I decide to check the internet ONE MORE TIME. The internet was back. We rejoiced, went to our separate computers, checked our emails and facebooks in silence, and after a few minutes, we both realized that the internet was evil.

The end.

-Simon

Venting

I want to run
I want to hide
I want to tear down the walls
That hold me inside
I want to reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name

I want to feel sunlight on my face
I see the dust cloud disappear
Without a trace
I want to take shelter from the poison rain
Where the streets have no name

These lyrics are so perfect right now. I feel so stressed. I know everyone else out there is stressing as well. I'm not asking for the reader's pity or anything. The more stressed I am, the more I learn about myself.

The past few weeks have been chaotic in my mind. I am so tired, emotionally. I've never had such a difficult academic year in my life. I've never felt so discouraged about academics. I dread at the thought of the future. Too many times I find myself trying to escape from reality. Everything is just so cloudy and muddled in my head. The worst part about all of this is that it's distracting me from God. I listened to a great sermon today, and had Communion as well. But I still felt this emptiness inside of me. I felt like my heart wasn't fully there.

Now that I got all of that out, I can stand back, observe, and reflect on all the stupid words I just wrote down. First of all, it is so apparent where I find my identity in. I try to center my identity on academics. The thought of an uncertain future frustrates the crap out of me. So that already tells me that I have little faith. The thing I want most is to have control. Have control over all things around me. Why is life so hard?

When I look at myself, all I can do is sigh. The thought of grace silences me. Why did Christ redeem me? Why was I made righteous? Why did He justify me? This mystery always gives me hope. Though I have little faith, Christ is sufficient.

In the end, everything will work out.

-Simon

My Professor

Let us begin with a quick introduction. My Calculus Theory professor looks exactly like Sigourney Weaver. She has a very thick lisp. When she's in her zone, she enthusiastically writes proofs on the chalkboard nonstop without even asking the class if they understand. She jumps up and down when she's super excited. She is the hardest math professor I ever had.

Last Wednesday, I walked into class thinking that it's going to be the same ol' crazy professor with the same crazy proofs, crazily. But something happened that day... that made my day. As she was writing furiously with the chalk, she had an itch on her nose. Of course, since she is in her zone, she just wipes her nose and continues to write furiously. Little did she know, she wiped with her right hand. So when she turned around, she had a white powdery mark on her nose. At the same time, she was passionately waving her hands talking about all these Calculus theorems that we were all confused about. She looked cracked out (literally). I know, it's silly. But it's these little things that make my day. :)

-Simon