A Great Book

I just finished reading a great book. Great in the lessons it offers and in the literary style bound up in its pages. I highly recommend it. "Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me" by Dr. Karen Swallow Prior. Two lessons will stay with me that I gleaned from it. I'd like to share those with you here. The first is the difference between "self-esteem" and "self-possession." The former is all the rage these days. Virtually all bad behavior is now attributed to the lack of self-esteem. Psychologists turn perpetrators from what they are to helpless victims, deprived of love by their peers or their parents, unable to tolerate the lack of that love and approval any longer. When a child is struggling in school we focus on "building up" their self esteem so they think more highly of themselves. We've seen the effects of this philosophy for the past couple of decades but so few of us are able or willing to link the cause with the effect. It's a strange thing because before our grandparents' generation, elevated self-esteem was thought to be the main problem. Focus was placed on lowering people down to have a more accurate view of themselves and their rights in society. Anyway, this is all beside the point. The lesson the book was trying to get across was that, where self-esteem is an attempt to make oneself like oneself, self-possession involves looking at oneself simply to see where one fits in this world. "Know thyself," says the ancient proverb. So few people these days truly know themselves. The story of Jane Eyre figures prominently in the chapter's message. The story follows the formation of the titular character's "self", keeping it unpolluted from other's expectations and desires; fighting the temptation of trying to find itself in something that is not integral to the character; maintaining the integrity of "Jane". In short, keeping Jane as her own person rather than making her subservient to anyone else. The temptation to find ourselves in the stories of others is something we all face and we all give into some time or another. It was while reading this chapter that I saw that "finding oneself" is so integral to the spiritual journey we have been called on. So much sin is traceable to trying to find our identity in things that were never intended to provide it. What's more, I saw that part of the sanctificative process is becoming the individual that God created. God revels in individuality. He created each person unique and each person's walk with Him to be unique. It is in trying to emulate other people's walks with God that we fall into discouragement and frustration or disintrestedness in God. The more like yourself you become, the greater joy you will experience and the more pleasure you bring to God. The more like Christ we become the more fully "ourselves" we become. And only when we are conformed to the image of Christ will our individuality be shown; each of us created just exactly as we were created to be. Some will connect with God in books, some in movies, some through music or puzzles or drinking coffee or rock climbing or swimming in the ocean. The reason so few of us know ourselves is that this journey is so much harder than finding our stories in the lives of others. Isn't it easy just to emulate someone else? You don't have to think or be creative or figure out where you do or do not fit. It's lazy, though. And, ultimately, we'll never have quite as much fun as those who take the time and walk the path of figuring out what God created them to be like. We'll always be frustrated that we're not enjoying life as much as we want to and that our souls are chafing so much for some reason that we can't figure out. So my first "resolution" for 2013 is to start this path and figure out what Wes Rosselet looks like as his own man and where he fits in God's plan. The second lesson is that life, most of the time, is not sensational or melodramatic but that doesn't mean that enjoyment is impossible. In this chapter, the story of Madame Bovary figures prominently. Her life is a story of waiting for life to pick up its pace; for adventure and romance and tragedy to sweep in and blow away all this mundane, ordinary, day-to-day stuff. In her youth, she absorbed book after book of this sort, longing for her life to become more exciting and filled with passion. Her husband arranges her marriage to a man who has learned the joys of normal, down-to-earth things; walking home, eating dinner, freshly pressed clothing, etc. Essentially, he is a bore. He's awkward and dull but he's happier with his life than his wife is. Learning to enjoy plain, old, ordinary people is one of the keys to a happier life. Not spending time pining after sensationalism or excitement is necessary. "The world of the mundane is here and now and is not to be rejected but to be loved. Just as people are to be loved for who they are, imperfections and all, not the versions of them we make in our own image" (Prior 164). I have spent a great deal of my life engorging myself on movies. It's a different medium but the same concept. What I decided was lacking in "real life" I decided to get from movies. I inherited that tendency from my parents. Daring rescues. Exciting adventures. Heroic, determined, uncompromising men and women in situations where the stakes were high and the risks were bold. That's what my young soul has thrived on for most of my life. And those things were always lacking in my life. So I sought them vicariously through movies. I fed my idealism with those pictures. My walk with God has suffered accordingly. Everything was always so melodramatic in my walk with God! I always had to be doubting and fearing or standing boldly and powerfully. I get thrown from one extreme to the other so often. The day in day out salvations were constantly missed because they were too subtle for my idealistic heart to see. "Of what use [is] eternal salvation without a salvation for each day?" (198). That's what my next resolution is. To seek the salvation of the day. To learn to enjoy the mundane in my walk with God. To learn how to walk day to day with him without fearing that because I'm not burning with excessive heat for Christ in my heart that I've somehow received God's displeasure or that He's up and left me or given up on me in any way. Learning how to become more rooted in less extravagant expressions of His love for me. To get used to life on the mountain rather than on the peaks or down in the valleys. Because today is where eternity touches time and this is the place where most of my real, actual salvation is going to happen.

Don't Be Mastered!

Do Not Be Mastered

I refuse to be mastered by anything. Under the authority of Jesus I declare that I have freedom. I will not be a slave either to food or to dieting. I will choose my foods freely, choosing to eat healthily as this will bring me the greatest pleasure in the long run. I will not count calories or monitor levels of nutrition but will learn to let my body and spirit inform me what to eat and when. I will not be a slave to sin, nor to self-righteousness. I will freely choose the grace offered me by Christ and embrace the pure lifestyle that is becoming in a child of light. I will not be a slave of technology nor a slave to a primitive lifestyle. I will own a computer. I will use the wisdom that God offers me to determine how to spend my time, whether engaging in Internet use or exercising my body and mental faculties. I will not be a slave to entertainment nor to the absence of the same. I will discern through the grace of God how to spend my time alone and with others; whether to pursue entertainment or not. I will not be a slave to flippancy in my financial affairs nor to strict bookkeeping. I will spend money at my discretion and in regard to the guidelines set forth in Scripture. When I fail to make wise decisions I will not beat myself up or subject myself to the unbiblical, ungodly feeling of guilt or self-condemnation but will calmly set my heart and mind to make wiser decisions in the future.

Come Back!

I just turned to the Bible a few seconds ago. Just seeing the text in front of me again made me want to cry tears of joy. I haven't even hardly read any yet. I just turned there and read a few words. He is SO KIND! He will take you back! Just thinking that he is now looking down at me not with an "It's about time!" expression on His face but with a "I've longed for this moment!" expression. I listened to a very brief snippet of a sermon on the radio while back home. I turned it to a different station within a few minutes but the speaker said something that just seemed to be God's message to me. No matter how long you've been away… come back! If you've been out of His word for months or years even… just come back! There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! He doesn't look down at you impatiently from the heavens! There is love in His eyes and a deep desire for communion with you!

My soul has been so harried this last long while. There have been days where I've even wanted to get into His word but it's like something is blocking me and pressing down on my soul the notion that God is a taskmaster or a stern grandfatherly figure rather than a warm, caring, compassionate Father who does not lay burdens on me but draws and pulls me in to experience His love firsthand. Sin is a strange disease that struggles with you to keep you from taking the medicine! I don't spend time in Scripture because a wrong picture of God is being pressed down on me; and when I don't spend time with God, the result is that this picture gets pressed down harder on me! If I just spent time in the Word, my vision would be corrected but it's like my vision doesn't want to be corrected so it tries to keep me from spending time in the Word.

All that to say, come back. Be harried no longer. Come back to the Word. Come back to Christ. He is so desirable! And He is so forgiving and compassionate toward you! Just get into the Word! Hang whether it's for the right motives or not and just get in there! Healing comes from God's hands! Get touched by Him even if you're covered in sickness!

Things That I Think About

1. How to break inhibitions in myself and become more expressive and creative.

2. How to love more creatively.

3. How to become unconventional in my relationship with God without becoming unbiblical.

4. The fact that time spent judging others is time lost enjoying them, serving them, and loving their beautiful personality.

5. How to become more confrontational with unbelievers without departing from a real and beautiful love for them that shakes their world.

6. Should I keep a balance between walking in absolute freedom that Christ's love for me brings without caring whether or not fruit is produced or should I be concerned with the fact that my sometime lack of love for Christ indicates a missing of how precious He is?

7. How can I see God as bigger and myself and others' opinions of me as insignificant?

8. How can I get this computer and entertainment in general out of my life forever?

Things I Want to Say to Students at Liberty University

I have a few messages I wish I'd heard when I was attending Liberty:

1. Strive to grow in Christ. It's easy to assume that because you're going to convocation three times a week, church on Sundays, and prayer groups on Tuesdays, that you're growing spiritually. There is a BIG difference between doing spiritual activities and growing in Christ. Growing in Christ is hard work. It means spending time in prayer and in the word. It means fasting. It means being broken over sin. It means dying to yourself daily. It is not hanging out with Christian people or talking about Christian things or listening to Christian music or going to church at every opportunity. It is SO EASY to look at all the spiritual activities you're doing and think that you are growing in your relationship with Christ! Don't be deceived! It is so easy to go to church, prayer meetings, worship services, etc. and not even know Jesus Christ! Labor to know Christ! Wrestle with God just like Jacob did! Don't let Him go until He blesses you!

2. There is a real world out there past the Arby's restaurant and the Sonic. You study things in your theology classes, your GNED classes, Creation Studies classes, etc. and you hear about the people who believe different things from you. But until you're out there and you meet these people it's easy to let them be lumped into a huge massive group of faces you've never seen. Don't slip into the trap of focusing on their ideas and their arguments and their thoughts while missing their humanity. One day you're going to be in the "real" world and you will not be surrounded by people who believe Jesus is the only way or that human life begins at conception or that God created the world or that the Bible is true. When you meet these people you might be intimidated because they DO know a lot! They have arguments of their own. They are real flesh and blood people. People who want to be loved and cared for and acknowledged rather than steam-rolled over with arguments. And if Jesus is not more real to you than arguments and propositions and doctrines, you might get scared. That's why message number one is so important. Don't just know ABOUT Jesus Christ. KNOW Him. Open yourself and let Him start living His life out in you. Then you will go and love and serve and humbly point others to Him as the most precious thing in all the world.

3. Do uncomfortable acts of service. It's easy to be a "Christian" at Liberty. It costs you next to nothing. Nobody looks at you funny or asks why you're so obsessed with religion. Almost everyone there goes to church and convocation and knows a lot of worship music and uses big spiritual words like "compassion" and "mercy" and "grace". It costs nothing to be a "Christian" at Liberty. But a real Christian life is always costly. Christianity is more than going to church and having Chris Tomlin on your ipod and reading Christian books and watching Christian movies. Appearing to walk with Christ is easy. Walking with Him in reality is hard. It's going to cost you earthly comfort. Of course we are not saved by works or by anything that we do, but when a person sees how beautiful the cross of Christ is, they naturally forsake smaller pleasures for eternal ones, Christ-sized ones. So be uncomfortable. Pursue uncomfortability. People didn't find Christ living the cushy, pleasurable life while He was on earth, you won't find find Him by living that way yourself. Christ chose the path of costly love. It cost Him greatly. You have no idea how greatly it cost Him. It cost Him everything. So walk after Him. If you want to find Christ you must walk the paths that He chose. The greatest blessings in eternity lie waiting for those who take the lowest, most humble paths in this world. So do that. Do uncomfortable things. Loosen your grip on this world. Hold onto Christ.

4. Don't turn your political views or your knowledge of God into a way to get right with God. For a lot of my Christian life I have struggled with using my knowledge OF God as a claim that I know Him personally. I was using reading and studying theology and knowing the right books and the right authors and praying a certain way and reading so much of the Bible as my means of getting right with God. Simply, theology was my god. If I knew things that other people didn't I felt smug and I often looked down on them for not being as wise and well-read as I was. That's all crap. You don't get right with God by knowing the right things or saying the right things or reading the right books or anything like that. You get right with God by Jesus Christ dying for you. THAT is the only thing that matters. Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That is Christianity. Christ took my sins on Himself and gave me His righteousness in its place. Don't gather all the "right" knowledge of God and miss the realization that Christ really did die for people who simply put their faith in Him and believe that His sacrifice was enough. And when you realize that He died FOR YOU, nothing else really matters. Don't complicate your heart and mind with a lot of other stuff. Certainly, you should study, certainly, you should have good theology and go to church and pray; but don't let those things turn into your justification or you'll be in serious trouble on judgement day.

Sinking Sands

Korea is much different from the US. In the US, I had this real sense of stability and security. True, people leave the US to live abroad all the time, but I didn't know any of them. Things were constant. The same routine day in and day out. Adults usually work the same job for years and years on end. The church remains mostly the same. One's classmates remain mostly the same. There is no threat of war or, except in a few areas, natural disaster. I felt relatively safe in the US. The few things in my life that were unpredictable were small enough that I didn't really care about them.

When I came to Korea, all that was pulled out from under me. My life here changes. In big ways. And frequently. I've been put into a community that is very diverse and is constantly changing shape on me. People come and people go. The HICF (Hanbit International Christian Fellowship) I go to now is very different from the one I found when I got here. Our worship leader has changed, our sunday school program has been done away with, our Bible study location has changed, and now our Bible study *leader* has changed. There are very few things that really are constant in my life here. And tonight one of the things I'd really taken for granted, I had to say goodbye to. It's rough. I am a creature of routine and predictability and habit. I don't adapt at the drop of a hat. It takes time. Life in Korea has been difficult because the change is truly relentless. I have had to learn to take things as they come and accept change as something that's unavoidable.

Something that God is teaching me is to give up trying to maintain the status quo. One thing is unchanging. Only one. And that is God. My life needs to be held loosely. I can't grasp onto something and refuse to let it go because it will inevitably fail me and bring frustration and depression. God brought me to Korea to get the status quo off of His throne. Like I said before, change here is relentless. It's like God keeps throwing things at me telling me to deal with it, move on, and keep holding onto Christ. When one holds onto Christ, change, rather than bringing discouragement and depression, brings exhilaration and joy. Oh to walk with Him through all the shifting worlds is better to live in a world that seems secure without His sweet presence! Sometimes God stills the storm, and sometimes He stills the heart of His child in the midst of the storm. I prefer the latter.

Cutting a Hand

Brothers and sisters, I need you to pray for me. Usually when I say that I'm in some sort of depression or discouragement. This time, I'm on the verge of adventure, excitement, and change mingled with what will be a great pain for a while. This week I drew the conclusion that my computer, for most of my life, has been an idol in my heart. When I don't have other things to do, I get on the computer. Even when I remove most of the "interesting" features of a computer I somehow still get stuck on here. I guess I love the convenience of it. I've had a personal computer for most of my life. In fact, I can't really remember the last time I had no access to a personal computer. It's shaped the way I think even. Sometimes when I'm out and about a thought will come to me and I'll think "What a great facebook status that would be." or "I should write a blog entry about that concept." or after a long day at work, "Man, I can't wait to get back and crash with a good movie or TV show on my computer." It's an incredibly versatile invention. You can watch movies, play games, engage in socializing, plan a trip, find all sorts of random, useless information, read a book, and on and on and on. It plays so much to my "instant gratification" mindset. It gives me what I want when I want it.

So anyway, I realized what God wants me to do with this hunk of plastic and metal. Ever see the movie 127 Hours? It's about a guy named Aron Ralston who goes canyon climbing out in Utah. He gets to Blue John Canyon on Saturday. As he's climbing down a tight squeeze between two rock walls, an extremely heavy boulder gives way and falls a short way with him and then comes down pinning his right hand between it and the canyon wall. Over the next 4 days or so, Ralston tries many and various means to get his arm unstuck. On the last day, he comes to the conclusion that if he's going to survive he needs to take drastic measures. He breaks both of his arm bones and uses a dull pocket knife to cut his hand off. He's rescued; but barely. That's what I'm going to do with this computer. Just slice it off. There's a whole life out there that I've missed for a long time because my world centers around this electronic machine. There's a Savior to be known, a salvation to be reveled in, a crown to be won, and bunches and bunches of people to love and serve. So I say it's time. Be off with you, piece of crap. You've robbed me too long and too dearly already.

I can hear the questions coming. How will you stay in touch with your friends and family from back home? Does this mean no more emails or facebook or Skype or overseas communication in any form? No. It doesn't mean this. I'll still have my iPod. I'm getting wireless internet at my house soon. Then I can voice Skype, facebook, and email with my loved ones. They won't be able to see me as I don't have a camera on my iPod, but that's an inconvenience I'm prepared to deal with.

So why do I ask for prayer? Well, cutting out an idol doesn't automatically produce intimacy with Christ. It puts me under the fountain of blessing but God still has to turn that fountain on. There will be a great deal of pain. Most of my life, I've had a computer supporting me, giving me entertainment, taking my mind off of problems in my life, etc. Cutting that off isn't going to be a thrill ride most days. It's going to be hard and painful and frustrating and boring many days. Pray that doing this would rain down such a blessing of intimacy with Christ that I literally wouldn't know what to do with all my joy. And if He doesn't do that, pray that I would bear this patiently, persevering and walking with Christ daily. So yeah. Pray for me. Thanks, everyone!