Jesus, I am Resting

I am a meaning-making creature, someone who seeks to find deeper and significant meaning in my day-to-day life, relationships, conversations, work, eating, and drinking. My thoughts are often consumed with how I can be involved in continuously meaningful encounters, trying to see deeper and beyond what naturally meets the eye. This started from a very young age in my life, as the reality of eternity sprung into my little mind very quickly, filling me with fear and wonder. Meaning, significance, purpose...words and concepts that are indelibly impressed on my soul; words that I long to experience, feel, and know more and more deeply in my everyday life. When I feel they are present in my life, my thoughts are consumed with wonder, zeal, and energy; when I feel they are absent in my life, my thoughts are consumed with frustration, striving, and anxiety.

As image bearers of God, it is quite apparent that all people are born with a longing for eternity, wonder, meaning, and purpose. Questions of meaning and significance consume the thoughts of men and women, as we and others help us analyze (directly, but more often than not indirectly) whether or not our lives possess those sought-after qualities. We all want it. We all talk about it. We all compare ourselves to others, trying to measure up to it. Yet, very rarely does the meaning we desire in our lives feel like a present, fulfilled reality. Most of our days, we feel that meaning is the continual unfulfilled longing of our hearts that will never seem to move from the state of hopeful longing to actual, satisfying reality. Why? Why are so many people in a constant state of striving after meaning, and yet so few people ever seem to find it, and know it in their everyday living?

I want to answer this question of meaning by saying that people have this struggle, because they're searching for significance in all the wrong places: sex, drinking, drugs, and all the evil practices that consume our postmodern, existential world. The problem--that answer doesn't even begin to do justice to this issue of meaning. The reality: the person who is seeking meaning in good things--work, school, relationships, art, ministry, helping the poor--is no different in his heart than the person who is seeking meaning in the supposedly "evil" practices of our world. The problem in both is a heart that is seeking meaning and value in himself, others, and the things around him--irregardless of what those things are. It's the story of Israel, Sodom and Gomorrah, David, Peter, America, you, and me: we make created things ultimate things. We worship the creature rather than the Creator. We worship whatever that "It" is in our lives that we think will bring us peace, joy, rest, happiness: relationships, a career, ministry, you name it. The list is endless, as our sinful hearts are idol-making factories that can turn any blessing into our Savior, our only hope, and our only way to happiness.

My "It" in Korea, and through so much of my life, has been ministry, because it addresses a crucial desire of my heart: approval from people. I long for, desire, and value being seen as having a meaningful life, so that others will like me, want to be around me, and value who I am. Many people would call that a "good" heart when the reality of such a disposition is enmity and opposition to God. Thankfully, God stopped me in my tracks this week, even at the expense of the health of the Yoo family: all the Yoo's caught a really bad flu, being sick for over a week, and are just now getting better. God used their sickness to show me how deeply and desperately my heart needs Jesus Christ for significance, not approval from people and passionate, impressive, successful, glamorous ministry. Once again, He showed me that significance is not about circumstances--whether really wonderful or really hard--but rather about where your heart's treasure is. In other words, our search for meaning will never be fulfilled because of changes external to us in relationships, location, work, and circumstances; our search for meaning will only be satisfied when we rest in Christ alone. He alone can provide day-to-day meaning in our lives that will leave us able to rest in peace with joy in our hearts, and He does this in ways utterly other than what you and I would think. I have to re-discover this almost every day, as God's idea of meaning is so foreign to my self-consumed life I have built around my own little wants, needs, and desires (my little kingdom). His idea of meaning can come, as is so often the case, in the mundane, seemingly meaningless events of everyday life, work, and relationships. Why? Because God's true idea of meaning is not about re-shaping, re-forming, and redeeming our circumstances; His idea of meaning is about re-shaping, re-forming, and redeeming us through any and all circumstances He brings into our lives. Thankfully, He does not leave that redemptive work in my own hands, but He has guaranteed for me and all who believe in Jesus Christ that He will accomplish His beautiful and good will in our lives: "he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).

How sweet it is to lose myself in the gospel--to have the blinders over my own little kingdom's eyes removed, and my self-absorbed, hardened heart softened in order to gaze upon the beauty of Jesus Christ and His all-sufficient grace and perfect righteousness. How sweet it is to be swept away into the Lord's far greater and better Kingdom by virtue of the self-giving, sacrificial love of God Himself in giving His Son for us. No longer do we have to waste away in striving after meaning in ourselves or things around us. Finally--thank you Jesus!--we can rest securely in our union with Jesus Christ, being completely and solely defined by His merit, righteousness, and love; all the while, inviting others to take and eat and drink fully and freely of the sweet, satisfying, unending riches of God's gospel mercy, grace, and holiness by looking to Christ alone.

How incredible God is! In what I first thought to be an uneventful, far from extraordinary week--where I had to stop striving, working, and doing--that God would do the most important work imaginable that can alone bring meaning to ministry, work, and anything: the work of continual, life-long heart change through exposure of my own idolatrous sin and the revelation of Jesus Christ as the only hope for my wandering heart; the all-sufficient Savior who alone can bring meaning, change, and salvation to me and people around the world; and the God of steadfast, never-failing love, who bids sinners to come to Jesus and find rest for their souls.

"Jesus, I am resting, resting,
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
of thy loving heart
Thou hast bid me gaze upon Thee,
As Thy beauty fills my soul,
For by Thy transforming power,
Thou hast made me whole.

O, how great Thy loving kindness,
Vaster, broader than the sea!
O, how marvelous Thy goodness,
Lavished all on me!
Yes, I rest in Thee, Beloved,
Know what wealth of grace is Thine,
Know Thy certainty of promise,
And have made it mine.

Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus,
I behold Thee as Thou art,
And Thy love, so pure, so changeless,
Satisfies my heart;
Satisfies its deepest longings,
Meets, supplies its every need,
Compasseth me round with blessings:
Thine is love indeed!

Ever lift Thy face upon me,
As I work and wait for Thee,
Resting 'neath thy smile, Lord Jesus,
Earth's dark shadows flee.
Brightness of my Father's glory,
Sunshine of my Father's face,
Keep me ever trusting, resting,
Fill me with Thy grace.

Jesus I am resting, resting
In the joy of what Thou art,
I am finding out the greatness
of Thy loving heart."

Beginnings and Impressions

Annyong haseo from Seoul, South Korea! Above is my friend Samuel Yoo, the young son of Pastor Jae Yoo. He, along with the entire Yoo family, have been such a blessing to me in my first week here. I spent my first couple nights in there home, ate many delicious Korean meals with them, shopped at Costco with all of them, had many uplifting conversations with Jae and his wife Hannah, went with their family to a local church via the subway, and have been so richly and wonderfully blessed through their fellowship and kindness. I will try to take a picture of the whole Yoo family soon and post it here, so those of you who don't know them can have personal faces attached to their names and stories.

My first week here in Seoul has been primarily focused on assimilating into culture and life in Seoul, along with many preparations and meetings with Jae Yoo for the actual work of our Covenant Church Plant. The first few days were quite busy, as my dear friends Michael and Dorothy Preston were here to visit in Seoul and stayed with me for the weekend. Michael and Dorothy have been teaching English in Gumi, South Korea--which is about a three hour bus ride from Seoul--for a year, and will continue teaching through the end of February. Having them here was a tremendous blessing, as we spent one night eating with the Yoo's and playing Uno; the second night was spent traveling around Seoul to the famous Seoul Tower from which you have a beautiful, bird's-eye view of the entire city (see the header picture of my blog).

God has been very gracious in making the process of cultural adjustment smooth and growing. For the most part, I am moved in to my apartment room, being unpacked and comfortable in it. I am learning my way around the area I live in, and am so happy to be only 10 minutes from the Yoo's apartment. The food has been tremendous and quite cheap, as I've enjoyed great Korean dishes such as Bulgogi (marinated beef), Dduk (Korean rice dumplings--delicious!), and Galbi-jjim (Korean short ribs). Just yesterday, I traveled to Gumi, South Korea with Jae Yoo (Gumi is where Jae has primarily lived in Korea) where I am contracted to teach at Cornell Language Institute. God was gracious in enabling Jae and I to accomplish many important tasks there: purchased a cell phone, had a medical check-up required for teaching English, started a bank account, and established my schedule of teaching once a week after I shadowed one of the professors at the school for a couple hours. I am very excited to teach in Gumi once a week for many reasons. First, because I get to stay over night with Michael and Dorothy each time I go till they leave near the end of February. Second, I get to teach some hilarious and funny Korean kids, which will be highly entertaining, though I know frustrating at times too (to be expected, but that's where the growth comes!). Finally, it will be a great break from city life, since Gumi is a beautiful mountainous area of Korea, as I will especially get to see each time I ride the bus to and from Gumi. How good and gracious God is and has been in my first week here.

Jae and I have spent a great deal of time meeting, discussing, and preparing for the work of this Covenant Church Plant. Our current primary efforts are focused on establishing the values and vision of the church, as we are preparing to begin our church launch team, which includes 10+ people so far. I have been working on writing a short vision statement for our church geared toward expressing first, the overall vision of our church, as well as expectations and goals for the launch team. Our focus and energy will soon revolve around networking, connecting people, and spreading the word concerning this church plant to the people here in Seoul. In the next few weeks, we are hoping to find an affordable office space where we can have Bible studies, classes, and meetings with the launch team as well as any individuals interested in hearing about or being part of this church. The work has only begun, and we are entirely dependent on God for fruit. Jae and I have expressed and felt this reality each and every day, as we are learning and being continually reminded of the importance of resting in, depending on, and believing in Jesus Christ for this Church Plant and for our own continual growth in repentance and faith.

On my flight to Korea last week, I read Luke 4, which looks to Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. The passage begins showing Jesus' current difficult state: "for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry" (4:2). As Satan so craftily works, he uses Jesus' state of hunger (his momentary, present need), and seeks to deceive Jesus through trying to make that current need most valuable to him and make him use whatever means he can to fulfill it. Jesus responds with a very brief quotation of Scripture, just as He does in the following two times Satan tempts Him: "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.'" What? That's a pretty brief and basic response, I thought, for Jesus to make after He is obviously feeling unspeakably weak and hungry from fasting. But then, I looked to Deuteronomy 8, the passage Jesus quotes from to Satan, and discovered the brilliance and gospel wisdom found in His response. As God speaks through Moses to His people Israel,

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (8:1-3; italics are mine)

Just as with the Israelites, so it was with Jesus, that there time in the wilderness for forty days was about far more than mere hunger. God was testing them and showing them how important it was to depend entirely on Him for their every need. In other words, there is far more in view here than food in Satan's temptation of Jesus: Satan is seeking to lead Jesus to make his present felt needs more valuable than God, trying to lead him to not trust that God will provide and take any means necessary to personally meet his own need. What is on the line here is our salvation, as Jesus' response would change the scope of our redemptive history. If he were to follow the voice of his own present felt need, our hope would be crushed, and we would be left to our deserved inheritance: judgment. If Jesus would have, we would not be judged unfairly, since as the rest of Deuteronomy and the Old Testament shows, Israel failed to live dependent lives of faith in God's promise. Instead, they obeyed and listened to their present felt needs first and foremost, forsaking God in times of hardship and famine, while forgetting Him in times of prosperity and blessing, even as God warns them later in this passage. Israel's story is not alien to our lives; it is also our story. As a professing believer in Christ, I continually seek refuge in my own present felt needs, valuing them more than God. When times are difficult and I am in need, I seek refuge in people, pleasure, and worldly comforts, rather than in the God who has made me and continues to sustain me. When times are great and I am blessed, I exult and delight in the blessings and gifts God has given me, rather than in God Himself, forgetting Him just as Israel did. But thankfully, Israel's and my story is not defined by our own failures; rather, our story is Christ's story, one of faithfulness, obedience, and victory; one of dependence and complete faith in God in the face of being forsaken, despised, rejected, hungry, hurting, and needy. Jesus felt the same hurting, evil, needy reality that we experience every day, and that Israel experienced every day; yet, He was without sin and perfectly righteous in depending on His heavenly Father to remain faithful to His promises to uphold him and through him to bring salvation to all people's through His life, death, and resurrection. Wow--a response I once thought so basic and insignificant suddenly contained the whole story of our redemption!

"Hallelujah, What a Savior! Hallelujah! What a friend! Saving, helping, keeping, loving, He is with me to the end!"

I praise God that the final word of Scripture and concerning my own and your story does not lie in our selves and our own merits or failures, but that the final word is Jesus Christ! For, "because of him [God] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30). My prayer for you and what I hope your prayer for me will be, as we face the struggles, and intense felt needs of life, is that you would know and love Jesus Christ alone--growing in love for Him, depending on Him, putting your faith in Him, abiding in Him, resting in Him, finding your value in Him, confessing and growing in Him, giving your sorrows and joys to Him, giving your work to Him, committing your desires to Him, and believing that He who began a good work in you will carry it on till the day of Christ Jesus.

In His grace alone, so long and good night from Korea (or for those of you who are 15 hours behind, good morning!). Thank you so much for your continued love and support. It means more than you could ever know.

The Journey Begins

After a 20 hour flight, I have traveled full circle from Jackson, MS 15 hours ahead to the city of Seoul, South Korea. The flight, surprisingly, didn't actually feel that long and was quite enjoyable. Sitting back, listening to great music (Jon Foreman, Matthew Smith, Over the Rhine, Coldplay), resting off-and-on, getting to speak to a little Japanese boy and his Mother and look out the window at frozen Alaska with them, and meditating on God's provision and love in my life, as He is leading me half a world away with His promise to sustain and grow me--yeah, a great time, indeed. However, there was one moment of sudden, unexpected fear. Having nearly landed in Tokyo, I checked my pockets to secure my boarding pass and passport before leaving the plane. I reached into my pocket to find my boarding pass, but my passport wasn't there. Slightly worried, I moved on to search my other jacket pockets, thinking it was probably there; I was wrong. No sign of my passport. Now, I was really worried. It was almost time to depart from the plane into the Japanese airport, and I didn't have my passport. I knew I had brought it on the plane, since you obviously have to show a passport in order to board an international flight; but it was nowhere to be found. Visions started flooding my mind of being stuck in the Narita, Tokyo airport without a passport, being forced to fly back to the States and go through the agonizing process of obtaining a passport and visa over a few months' time in order to finally arrive in Seoul, South Korea. "Not now, God...please not now, please not this, please help me find my passport!" were my frantic thoughts.

Once we came to a complete stop and the seatbelt light flickered off, I began a hurried search for my passport. I looked in my bag again as well as my pockets for about the tenth time...still not there. I looked under the seat I sat in...not there. I looked under the seat in front of me and beside me...not there. Then, I had to wait for about 5 minutes for everyone to leave the plane, so I could have room to further search. I told the flight attendants, and they began to help, assuring me, "It has to be somewhere on the plane." I knew they were probably right, but the possibility of losing my passport weighed more heavily than that probability. Having looked in most of all the places the passport could have been, the wonderful voice of good news finally came: "I found it!" One of the flight attendants found my passport hiding under the seat behind me. Fears were stilled; my continued journey to South Korea renewed, and God had shown Himself to be faithful in my first trial of this journey. Not only did He provide, but He used my lost passport to speak to the flight attendants, as they asked, "Why are you going to South Korea?" One of them mentioned how she had seen me reading my Bible, and asked if I was going as a missionary? I responded, "Yes, I will be going to help plant a church there for over a year." One of them asked if I knew what was going on in Korea (probably thinking more of North Korea), and I said yes. Then, they asked God's blessing over my trip as I left to make it to my next connecting flight.

What a way to begin this journey. God always has unexpected surprises along our life path that seem like nothing but frustrations and fears to us, but that are revealed to be moments of growth and blessing where He shows us He is faithful and how important it is to depend on Him for every need. Through the unexpected interruption/frustration of losing my passport, unknown flight attendants had become human beings that pronounced God's blessing over me, and who were genuinely concerned about what God had for me on this trip. What a blessing and what a reminder that as this major transition and life and cultural change is upon me in Korea that my faithful God goes before me throughout this journey with the desire to conform me to the image of His Son, making me rely solely and completely on Him for everything. What a God we serve, my dear friends and family. Never lose sight of His presence in your life. Never lose sight of His working in your seemingly mundane and very intense and fearful moments and trials. He is there and He is surely working to grow and change you for your good and His glory. May we all place our faith fully in Him and that promise, for our God is surely faithful, just as promises that His love will endure forever.

Happy New Year, dear friends and family from the other side of the world. God's blessing upon all of you throughout this year--He surely does go before each of us and all that we will experience in it.