Missing In Action.

Today was one packed day. From sunday morning 9:30 am until 1 at mbcp, 1 to 3:30 pm was TCK meeting, 4-7 was my house church girls meeting.

It was a full day indeed. Though I am tired, I feel filled to the brim with the Spirit.

The TCK meeting was really something.
I felt so energized, so moved, so encouraged. Hearing all those exotic people talk about their life, difficulties, and sharing. Especially since we are all aliens, unable to identify, having moved at least 3 times, speaking everything from Spanish, Farsi, Hindi, to Chinese. It was one exotic tropical group of Europeans, Chinese, Americans, to who knows what.

I felt energized and stimulated. I felt at home. Because see here, is where I find commonalities. I find commonalities in the ways we have conquered battles, battles of moving, of being made fun of, being different, being outcasted. Healing occurs in discussion. And suddenly time flew, and it was 3:30. I had to speed home to meet with my girls.

At my home we talked about the topic of marriage, the fears and hopes of it. Hot guys, sexy guys, spiritual guys. And what we hope to become, who we hope to be to glorify God.

Somehow, I feel God is doing a new thing in my life. Helping me find home with some of the same kind- TCKs as well as girls that have the same visions, especially for world missions. I am saddened though, that few find moving appealing or even mentionable. The harvest is plentiful but the workers truly are few. I hope that my "going" would inspire a sense of calling to them...

I really pray that they too would be convicted to reach the poor and lost in this world. NOT in our complacent and comfortable homes, or apartments...I can only pray.

Tomorrow is the first day of work, I am weary thinking about the 18 units of homework as well as working 40 hours a week.

Where too has God called me? Despite my desire to go back to Taiwan, lately, God has been laying on my heart Germany. FOR SOME ODD REASON. As I look at my book "History of Ireland", I keep thinking of my friend there. I can't understand it, can't understand a thing actually. But as I remember dancing with Spanish, French, and all nationality peoples' at the Paris Hostel, I FEEL DEEPLY CONVICTED that I will one day dance at a Rave or some kind of dance club with different nationalities. I don't think most organizations see this yet, but being able to dance in a club is a huge bridge builder to different cultures. AND I LOVE CULTURE. I LOVE DANCE, ART, and LITERATURE. AMONGST many other things.

If I go to Hamburg next summer I want to:
1. Go visit my old home
2. Go visit my mom's grad school
3. Go to Berlin, Ireland, England, Belgium....
2.

While I was reading, I kept thinking to myself...the occult of self.

I wanted to write on this topic all of a sudden, remembering my conversation with a friend in Taiwan. We were talking about our parents not showing love, not loving us. We started talking about different matters of love. Later on, he said, "you know, I think, above all, our problem isn't that we don't love God, our parents, or even ourselves. It is that we love ourselves TOO MUCH".

Wow. How powerful. The occult of self. We are selfish beings, we don't want God's will, we want ours. It is amazing how Christianity in recent times, have become a self- indulging religion. When in fact, "all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" 2 Timothy 3:12.

This is what I've seen in myself, as well as other Christians:
1. "God please bless us, bless me"
2. "God I pray everything will go well and smooth" (for me)
3. "God I pray I will get this job" (so I can be rich and live comfortable)
4. "God I will obey your will, if you obey mine first...which means giving me this and this and this"
5. In short, we want everything to go our way, for ourselves...and not to glorify God.

The occult of success. Is directly linked to our selfishness.

Examples of Jesus' suffering: And scripture on suffering.
1. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit..." (1 Peter 3:18).

2. "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not" Isaiah 53:3

3. "He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him." (John 1:11) - talk about rejection...

4. "Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" (Luke 24:26)

5. "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. … Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. … For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. … Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer.... For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors" (Isaiah 53:3a,4-7,8c,10a,12b).

6. "But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

7. “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” (2 Timothy 3:12)

So if we are to be like Him, if we fervently seek Him, suffering is not only inevitable, but will definitely COME for those that really want His will to be done. However, as Paul would say, I am not speaking these things as though I am better, in fact I am amongst all most guilty. The only reason I am writing this is because God laid on my heart to write this and I am only being a messenger. We can either put self on the throne, or Him. Folks, I don't think the times are going to get frillier, it's only get harder (read Revelations). If you have kids, pray that they will be able to stand in face of persecution. For those that are going to have kids, pray for them now.

I write this with all seriousness.

"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them." (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

"...always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth." 2 Timothy 3:7

"The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth." (1 Timothy 4:1-3)

As a warning, as a call to rescue. I pray the Lord will help you in all our weaknesses.