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This blog contains articles documenting my spiritual journey as a Confessional Calvinism and my eventual surprising departure from it into Eastern Orthodoxy. Since I posted many articles with which I now disagree, I have a choice: 1) delete them or 2) leave them. Deleting them destroys my history, which I am loathe to do. But I if I leave them and continue posting on it, I feel like I am giving tacit support to views I no longer hold. The solution on which I have decided is to retire this blog and start a new one. For all future posts, please visit http://journeyintodivineintimacy.blogspot.com/

A Monastery As the Best Of All Worlds

A phenomenon I noticed as a Protestant is that there were good things available but they were seldom all together. For example, this church had good preaching, that church had good music, this denomination had liturgy, that denomination was welcoming to the Holy Spirit, this ministry work with the poor, this ministry emphasized personal accountability, etc. One attractive feature about the Orthodox Church is that you don't need to keep looking or hopping churches. Unlike Protestant churches that need to discover forgotten treasures of the authentic, ancient faith, the Orthodox Church never lost them.

When people ask me why I would consider entering a monastery, there is no simple answer. But I have thought of an illustration to make it a little bit more accessible: A monastery is a place where many of the best aspects of Protestantism have been organically coming together for the last 1,700 years:

Feature	Example in Protestantism
Full-time, residential discipleship program like those under Elisha (2 Kings 2, 4 - 6, 9) or Jesus.	YWAM's DTS (http://www.ywam.org/Training)
Communal life like in Acts 4:32 – 37	Jesus People USA (http://www.jpusa.org/)
Retreat Center	http://www.bethanyministries.com/personalretreats.htm
Hospitality. Monasteries provide 3 days free lodging. Before the development of commercial hotels, this was the main way that people traveled.	http://www.christianhospitalitynetwork.com/
24/7 Prayer	IHOP (http://www.ihop.org/prayerroom/history/)
Servant-leadership Residential leadership development program (all bishops in the Orthodox church are selected from monasteries)	Willow Creek conferences (http://www.willowcreek.com/events/leadership)
Self-sufficient communities	Amish (http://www.amish.net/faq.asp)
Hospital for the soul	Leanne Payne (http://www.leannepayne.org/); Mario Bergner (http://www.redeemedlives.org/)
Personal Accountability	http://www.promisekeepers.org/

My Journey To Orthodoxy

My journey that finally brought me home to Eastern Orthodoxy started many years ago started in 1992 when I was at Moody Bible Institute. It was then that I first visited an Orthodox Church. As for any first time visitor coming from a Protestant background, it would be hard to capture the experience in any one word except different.

Even at that time I could articulate that Protestants had thrown out too many babies with the Reformation bathwater. What bothered me the most was the Protestant abolition of the the sacrament of confession. James 5:16 was so clearly missing. Some groups, realizing the loss, started incorporating a form of it into men's groups, but the fact is that it could never take off because it ran contrary to individualistic Protestant values. Knowing nothing about Orthodoxy at the time, I remember going to Roman Catholic priests and begging them to receive my confession, but they refused because I lacked sacramental communion with them.

In 1996 I converted to Calvinism, and I won't deny the emotional stability that it brought to me. At last I had a relatively old document (The Canons of Dortrech) that could give me a sense of rootedness. But I still did not how to pray, much less how to live. Around this time through the ministry of Leanne Payne, I was introduced to the Anglican Communion and liturgical prayer. I began praying the Book of Common Prayer. It was very meaningful to me, but I only could practice in isolation. The fellowship I kept did not generally value liturgy.

I would run across articles or patristic writings that would remind me that there was something more than Protestantism, but I was too entrenched to ponder it deeply. In 2001 an interest in Orthodoxy flared again, and I read a couple books introducing Orthodoxy. I also visited a couple Orthodox churches, but there were none near where I lived and besides the non-English liturgy was not accessible to me, so I again put it aside. Eventually, I moved to China, where the spiritual desert compelled to me keep digging wells deeper than Protestantism. I took a 5 day retreat at a Roman Catholic monastery in Taiwan. God spoke to me while there, but I did not feel a leading toward Rome.

When I went back to the mainland, I decided to retrench in the Reformation since I could find no better alternative. A friend introduced me to the free online courses at Reformed Theological Seminary. I started eating at the table of Westminster. I read, memorized, and meditated on the Westminster Standards, looking for a sense of rootedness. It was good while it lasted, but I needed something deeper. I went back to the Book of Common Prayer, but that well had already dried up too.

About this time I was taking a course on Church history at RTS. The professor's goal was to get to Rome as soon possible so that he could turn toward Wittenberg, but he could not just completely ignore 1,000 years of history, so we visited Byzantium. And that it where I came face to face with the early church. And I no longer could deny that the early church had little resemblance to Protestant Christianity. This was not necessarily welcome information because all my friends and family and everything I had known was Protestant. But I had to face the discrepancy. I began researching Eastern Orthodoxy with desperation.

I discovered the Horologion, which provides a structure for the ancient Christian practice of praying at fixed times of the day and began praying it as best as I could with no guidance. I devoured these podcasts:   

• http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/eastwest
• http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/ourlife
• http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/orthodoxyheterodoxy
• http://ancientfaith.com/specials/lutheran_colloquium.

I wrote many emails seeking guidance but kept getting refused because of my physical location. Finally, one Father Dionisy in Hong Kong responded favorably. He put me in contact with another Orthodox believer named Christos in Xiamen. Christos and I started meeting every Sunday morning to pray matins, and he began to catechize me. I continued to read voraciously, but these were the really important reading materials at this point:

• The Orthodox Way by Bishop Kallistos Ware, and
• The truly devastating Sola Scriptura: In the Vanity of their Minds by Fr. John Whiteford

At this point I took a trip to Hong Kong to meet Fr. Dionisy and to inquire how to proceed toward conversion since I lived in a country where this faith was illegal, and it cost $300 to take an international flight to the nearest Orthodox Church. He said that he would accept my time as a Protestant as my catechumenate, and that I could convert whenever I felt that I was ready. He alerted me to the fact that I would have to publicly renounce Calvinism, which gave me significant pause, and lent me two books both by Fr. Peter E. Gillquist:

• Coming Home: Why Protestant Clergy are Becoming Orthodox and
• The captivating Becoming Orthodox: A Journey to the Ancient Faith

I went home and searched my soul for the courage to publicly renounce that thing that had given me identity for 16 years: Calvinism. I read everything I could find here: http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/inq_reformed.aspx and just could not make the leap. Finally, The Original Gospel by Fr. James Bernstein got me over the hurdle. I realized that the primary attribute of the God I had been worshiping was wrath, not love. And so that is the reason I had reduced the glorious Gospel from a Christlikeness-creating love relationship with God to a wrath eliminating juridical transaction. I was ready, so I contacted Fr. Dionisy again, and he invited me to be christmated on January 6, 2012 (Christmas Eve on the Julian calendar).

I began to prepare for chrismation by participating in the Nativity Fast. I typed my life confession since Fr. Dionisy's first language is Russian, and he was concerned that he would not be able to understand me if I confessed orally. I was sad that I would be chrismated with no friend to witness it, so I asked Christos to accompany me to Hong Kong, and he agreed. So we went to Hong Kong together. Around 6 p.m. on January 6, 2012, I received the sacrament of confession for the first time. Then around 8 p.m. I received was chrismated. Shortly after midnight, I received the sacrament of Eucharist for the first time. And then at 1:30 a.m. January 7, 2012, the feast began and went on until 3:30 a.m.

Although my chrismation was the culmination of a long journey in itself, I realize that it was just the beginning of another journey. But the prospect of this continuing journey no longer scares me because now I know that the God whom I worship is love, and I know that He has lovingly provided me with the Holy Tradition of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church to support me along the way.

How to Think of Those Who Have Fallen from the Faith

This is a difficult question​ for me because it has implications for my brother, who​, when younger, was a very passionate Christian, but who died after he fell away from the faith. Being raised in a "once saved, always saved" church, my family members too​k​ comfort in ​their doctrine of eternal security.​  It seems that their doctrine is naive because it overlooks Scripture that indicates that perseverance is a condition of final salvation. For example, Colossians 1:21-23 says, "And you ... he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard...." This makes stably and steadfastly continuing in the faith a condition of being presented holy and blameless at the last day.​ Also, Hebrews 3:14 says, "We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end." Again, the evidence of having an interest in Christ's blood is holding confidence in him firmly to the end.  At the end of the day, whether a person once had salvation and lost it, or never had it in the first place, is a less important question. The important question is whether the person who has fallen away from the faith currently is in a state of grace.

There is no definitive way to know the answer to this question because we cannot see a person's heart. However, as humans, it is impossible to have conversation or interaction with someone without having preconceptions or making assumptions. So as pastors we have to strive through prayer to have our assumptions informed by objective evidence while at the same time maintaining a willingness to change our assumptions if we uncover new evidence. So, for example, if I am talking to someone who formerly was a passionate Christian but now shows little gracious fruit, I would start from an assumption that he has not yet been experienced the grace of regeneration. If he pointed to his past laurels of praying a sinners prayer or other good works, I would acknowledge them as good thing but focus him back to the present, emphasizing the verses above as well as the things that Murray discussed concerning 1 John on page 101.​ At least in my religious tradition, there is a habit of looking to one's past evidence of grace rather than one's current evidence of grace. In consideration of texts like this one from Ezekiel 18:24, this is really incorrect: "But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice and does the same abominations that the wicked person does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, for them he shall die." We need to stress the persevering aspects of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints in order to fight widespread self-deception.

The Interrelatedness of the Design, Nature, and Extent of the Atonement

The doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement teaches that Jesus offered up himself as a sacrifice to vicariously satisfy divine on behalf of sinners. When considered together, the nature and design of this atonement necessarily decide its extent, i.e., that it was for the elect and only the elect that Christ died. Let's first consider three aspects of the nature of the atonement: its objectivity, it vicariousness, and its actual effectiveness. The atonement effected an objective change in the relation of God to those for whom Jesus died; it did not merely effect a change in the attitudes of those people. Romans 5:10 says, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” From God's perspective, Jesus' death caused a group of people to objectively transition from a state of enmity to a state of friendship. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” Again, Jesus' death caused a group of people to objectively transition from a state of dominion by Satan to a state of ownership by God. In addition to being objective, the atonement was also vicarious. Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” The means by which Christ objectively effected a change in God's relationship with certain people was by becoming a substitute curse-bearer for those people. The third aspect of the atonement, its actual effectiveness, is illustrated both by the above verses as well as by Galatians 1:4, “[W]ho gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of God.” The effect of the atonement was not just a possible or conditional deliverance but an actual one. The decretive will of God was the driving force behind the deliverance, so it was impossible that the deliverance had some contingency. In short, by means of his vicarious sacrifice for a group of people, Christ actually and objectively effected a change in God's relation to that group of people.

This naturally lead to the question, “What is the identify of this group of people for whose sin Christ vicariously paid?” Christ's once-for-all sacrifice and his continual intercession really are two sides of one atonement coin, and Jesus drew clear boundaries around those for whom He interceded in John 17:9, “I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” It would be irrational for Christ to intercede for those for whom He did not die, so we can conclude that He died for those whom the Father gave Him. And Christ said to those whom the Father had given Him, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). Thus, we see that the identify of those for whom Christ vicariously suffered is the elect of God, and Christ objectively and actually effected a change in God's relation to these people alone.

Strongest Objection to the Doctrine of Unconditional Election

The strongest objection to the doctrine of unconditional election, which, to be honest, is also the one with which I am currently struggling, is the charge that it is unfair. Note that I am making a clear distinction between fair and just. The argument that infralapsarian election is unjust has no leg to stand on because the decree logically took into account the results of the decree to allow the fall. So this objection is only that it is unfair. The OED defines fair  as "treating people equally without favoritism or discrimination". Based on this definition, I would say that election genuinely is unfair: 1) By definition it treats people unequally. And 2) even granting that election is "without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto", at the end of the day, it is just inescapably sovereign favoritism. So in my mind, given the fact that it is unfair, the question boils down to this: "How can I still worship a God that I consider unfair?" I have found four answers that help me.

​The first reason is that my intuitive sense of fairness, although originally deriving from my being created in God's image, has been corrupted because of original sin. Thus, it is no longer a reliable standard for measuring fairness, and I, in fact, am unable to rightly judge fairness. It is for this reason (as well as for the reason that by nature there exists an infinite gap between Creator and creature) that God says in Isaiah 55:9, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." And again in Romans 11:33, "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" The second reason is that God through the free external gospel call in fact equitably gave the non-elect a chance to believe. It is for this reason that Jesus can speak of people's decision not to follow him in John 8:43-44, "Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires." And again in John 5:40, "[Y]ou refuse to come to me that you may have life." The third reason is that Adam in the covenant of works knew that the wages of sin was death and still sinned. God cannot be faulted when he gives us our consensual wages, nor can he be faulted when he generously spares some their wages. The logical inverse of Matthew 20:13-15, "Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? ... Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?" The fourth, and frankly the most silencing, reason is that as the creature I have no right to impose on the Creator my intuitive sense of fairness. This is the force of Paul's argument in Romans 9:20-21, "But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?' Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" In summary, these four reasons enable me to still worship God even though election offends my human sense of fairness.

The Seriousness of the Pelagian Error

The reason that Pelagianism is such a serious theological error is that the glory of the gospel (and thus of God Himself) is necessarily dimmed. This happens in two way: 1) by representing the bad news of Adam's fall as less bad and 2) by representing the good news of God's grace as less good.

First, it represents the bad news of Adam's fall as less bad. The brightness of an object is made more apparent by its background. The glory of the gospel is most clearly seen against its real backdrop of human desperation and neediness. However, Pelagianism removes this backdrop in two ways: 1) it denies that humans have original sin. It teaches that only individual acts of the will can be described as sinful—not natures, dispositions, tendencies, or characters. As such, Adam did not acquire a sinful nature in any sense of the word as the result of his sin, and, thus, it was impossible for Adam to propagate a sinful nature to his descendants, much less any guilt for that sin. 2) It denies that humans suffer from radical corruption. It teaches that all humans are morally neutral, having no tendency to commit sin. In fact humans have an absolutely free and independent will, completely able to decide between good and evil and and execute those decisions with no limitation. As is pretty clearly seen from these two points, Pelagianism casts the human estate in a pretty positive light, completely contrary to the orthodox position that “The sin of the first man has so impaired and weakened free will that no one thereafter can either love God as he ought or believe in God or do good for God's sake, unless the grace of divine mercy has preceded him” (Canons of the 2nd Council of Orange). And as such, Pelagianism diminishes man's neediness and thus diminishes the glory of the gospel.

Secondly, it represents the grace of God as less good. Grace is reduced to external operations. For example, it was God's grace to give His law and to give Christ as examples of righteousness in order to make it easier to abstain from sin. But this is a very minimalist notion of grace. It makes grace helpful but not strictly necessary. The fact is that salvation is by grace from beginning to end. Election unto salvation, effectual calling, and perseverance in faith are all the result of God's free and unconstrained grace. God's grace is both the necessary and sufficient cause of salvation; it is not merely helpful. So it is clear that Pelagianism detracts from the glory of the gospel by also devaluing the grace of God.

In summary, Pelagianism dims the glory of the gospel both by pretending that man's estate is better than it really is and by pretending that God's gracious involvement in our salvation is helpful but not necessary. Therefore, for this reason, it is a serious theological error.

Spiritual Direction, Chapter 2

The art of sculpture is, first of all, the art of seeing; and discipline is the way to make visible what has been seen.

This reminds me of the definition of imagination from Redeemed Lives (as modified by my selective memory): the human faculty for perceiving the unseen real. Perhaps this the reason my life is going nowhere: I have no vision. Thus, nothing compels me to pursue and persevere in discipline. In the absence of a vision, discipline is of limited value.

We may feel unfulfilled and wonder if being busy but bored, involved yet lonely, is a symptom of the absurd life: the life in which we no longer hear the voice of the One who created us and who calls us to a new life. This absurd life is extremely painful, because it makes us feel as if we are living in exile, cut off from the vital source of our existence.

This is pregnant with highly accurate descriptions of my experience of life: bored, lonely, living in exile. I need a home, a set of arms to which to return, a paternal embrace. Daddy, where are you?

We suffer from a fear of empty space. We are so concerned with being useful, effective, and in control that a useless, ineffective, and uncontrollable moment scares us and drives us right back to the security of having something valuable to do.

 Do you feel the tension between this and "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is" (Eph. 5:15-17). I just live in guilt that I am wasting my life, yet I really have no idea how to remedy this. Perhaps the possibility of wasting my life should "drive me deeper", yet I do not even know which direction deeper is. I feel so discouraged.

Spiritual Direction, Chapter 1

I am reading Spiritual Direction by Henri Nouwen and wanted to record some of the good quotes I found:

I started explaining all my problems and difficulties--trying to convince her of how complicated it all was! When, after ten minutes of elaborate explanation, I finally became quiet, Mother Teresa looked at me and quietly said: "Well, when  you spend one hour a day adoring your Lord and never do anything which you know is wrong ... you will be fine!

That was really good. Perhaps my emotional challenges are really complicated; I at least convince myself that they are. But if I could remove the focus from off of myself and my badness and brokenness to the beauty and glory of Jesus, even if it did not resolve the challenges, it would at least put them into a different perspective.

By creating sacred space, you reserve a part of yourself and prevent your life from completely being filled up, occupied, or preoccupied. Spiritual direction provides an "address" on the house of your life so that you can be "addressed" by God in prayer.

My sacred space is dysfunctional. I have something like a devotional time so that is an allocation of time for sacred engagement. However, being silent before God is very scary, so I fill it up with readings and petitions. Maybe I should allocate a portion of my time for silence.

In our world we are constantly pulled away from our innermost self and encouraged to look for answers outside of ourselves. If you are a lonely person, you have no inner rest to ask, wait, and listen. You crave people in the hope that another will bring you answers. You want them here and now. But by first embracing solitude in God's presence, you can pay attention to your inner, clamoring self before looking to others for community and accountability.

 I have been in "accountability" relationships before. They did not bear much fruit. Perhaps it was because I sought accountability before I sought solitude. I am ambivalent toward solitude: It theoretically seems a good thing, but my positive experience of it is so limited that I have trouble believing in it enough to give me the courage to practice it.

Frequently, we are restlessly looking for answers, going from door to door, from book to book, or from church to church, without having really listened carefully and attentively to the questions within.

 My book-buying compulsion testifies to the noisiness of my soul. My soul is really in a lot of pain, and I look for a way to end the pain by reading. I mindlessly read because it at least can distract me from the pain I feel. And I can justify it because book-reading is looked upon as a ok thing to do--even a good thing. And I only choose content books, so on the outside it looks like I am doing a good thing. Really, I am, as Luke Wong said, abusing my mental/spiritual appetite for real nourishment.

In the past I went from conference to conference, deliverance worker to deliverance worker, or even liturgy to liturgy looking for an answer to the pain. What does it mean to listen to the question within?

The Sabbath Right

Imagine for a minute that you are a farmer. Everyday you get up early to feed and water your animals, to milk your cows, to repair your equipment. At different times of the year, you have to plow your fields, plant your seeds, pull your weeds, irrigate your crops, harvest your crops. Every morning, you wake with a sense of fear, "If I don't feed my animals, they will die. If I don't plant today, the rainy season might start before I finish planting. If I don't irrigate my crops today, they might die under the hot sun. If I don't harvest today, the crops might rot in the fields."

Every day you have a strong sense of urgency that you have to work, or else…. You fear for your survival; you don't have time to rest; and so you work seven days a week. Slowly your body begins to break down. You get strange pains in your body. Your organs don't function properly. Even more importantly you have no joy in life. Fear of not surviving drives out every positive emotion. No peace, no thankfulness, no satisfaction.

Now, as that farmer, what is the one sentence that your heart longs to hear someone say to you? My guess is it is this: "I will take care of your duties so that you can rest." Well, that is what God wants to say to each one of us today. But His promise is even stronger. He actually says, "If you will believe my promise and rest one day in seven, I will not only take care of your duties, I will also do a better job than you could have done. And as a result, you will be more successful than you would be if you did not rest. But you have to rest."

This principle of resting one day in seven is often called the Sabbath Principle. But I like to use a different expression because I think it captures the essence better: the Sabbath Right. In this article, when I say "exercise one's Sabbath rights", I mean "to rest one day in every seven". Today let's look at three aspects of the Sabbath Right: the promise, the purpose, the parallels, and the practice.

The promise

In order to understand the bigness of the promise, it is important to keep in mind the fact that the promise was originally given to people in an agricultural society. They did not have the labor-saving devices we have. They were not a society of leisure. If they did not work, they did not eat—just like in the opening story. Let's read this passage:

You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Yahweh.

If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect. (Leviticus 26:1-13)

Notice that keeping the Sabbath (resting one day in seven) is put in the context of other statutes and commandments such as not worshiping idols. The promise is that if you keep these statutes and commands, including the one about resting one day in seven, you would have abundant harvest, safety, victory over enemies, etc.

Yahweh also gives the other side of the promise: what will happen if you don't keep His commandments. It includes disease, agricultural disaster, defeat, starvation, deportation. We won't read it all because it is long, but let's look at three verses that specifically refer to the Sabbath:

And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it…But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. (Leviticus 26:33-35, 43).

You can see that Yahweh is serious about our intentionally resting one in seven days. He promises great blessings if we obey and great curses if we do not. But if we just think in terms of promises on obedience and disobedience, we will miss the point. The point is that Yahweh gave his people the right to rest. In the US, we often talk about inalienable rights (不可剥夺的权利): life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Here, Yahweh is saying, "You have an inalienable right to rest one in seven days. As long as you exercise this right (行使权利), I will guarantee that even nature will respect the right (尊重权利)."

There is a story in the Old Testament that simply illustrates the promise in operation:

In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: 'Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.'" And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. And Moses said to them, "Let no one leave any of it over till the morning." But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.

On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, "This is what Yahweh has commanded: 'Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to Yahweh; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.'" So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to Yahweh; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none."

On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And Yahweh said to Moses, "How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! Yahweh has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day." So the people rested on the seventh day. (Exodus 16:13-30)

The reality was that manna naturally rotted after 24 hours, which meant that people had to go collect it to eat every day. But this was in conflict with the right to rest one day in seven. So Yahweh said that people should collect two-days worth on the sixth day and then He would do a miracle of preservation on the seventh day. Look at verse 29 again: "Yahweh has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days." That is the promise succinctly: "Yahweh has given you the right to rest one in seven days. Therefore, on the sixth day he will provide for you what you need so that you can exercise that right."

The Purpose

Second, let's look at the purpose for the Sabbath Right. The most obvious reason is the biological necessity. God designed our bodies to operate most efficiently if they had rest one in seven days. But that begs the question (引起疑问): Why did God design our bodies this way? I believe the answer is this: to create a regular opportunity to meditate on three blessings: our creation, our salvation, and our sanctification.

To Meditate on the Blessings of Creation

Let's look at two passages:

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. (Genesis 2:1-3)

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. (Exodus 20:8-11)

Both of these passages say that Yahweh did two things for the one in seven day rest: He blessed it and he made it holy. What does it mean for a day to be blessed? It means that the day becomes a source of blessings. What does it mean that God made a day holy? It means that Yahweh set the day aside for special focus on what is holy, namely, Yahweh and his holy works. Thus, when we by faith exercise our Sabbath right, we place ourselves in a position to receive the blessings that He pours out on those who exercise that right. Furthermore, while we rest, if we meditate on the fact that all true blessing comes from His grace, not our labor, then we give Him our special attention on our rest day, thus keeping the day holy and honoring Him. This is a quote from John Piper where he imagines what God would say to explain the reason for the Sabbath:

Let my highest creature, the one in my image, stop every seven days and commemorate with me the fact that I am the creator who has done all this. Let him stop working and focus on me, that I am the source of all that he has. I am the fountain of blessing. I have made the very hands and mind with which he works. Let one day out of seven demonstrate that all land and all animals and all raw materials and all breath and strength and thought and emotion and everything come from me. Let man look to me in leisure one day out of seven for the blessing that is so elusive in the affairs of this world. (http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TopicIndex/115/510_Remember_the_Sabbath_Day_to_Keep_It_Holy/)

So the first purpose for the Sabbath right is to create an opportunity for us to meditate on the blessings of creation.

To Meditate on the Blessings of Salvation

The second purpose for the Sabbath right is to create an opportunity for us to meditate on the blessings of salvation. Let's look at this passage:

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore Yahweh your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:15)

Yahweh is saying, "I saved you from the Egyptians; therefore, keep the Sabbath." That therefore is an odd conjunction here. I think it means this: Yahweh saved us and He wants us to intentionally meditate on that fact once in seven days. Not only did we not make ourselves, we cannot sustain or save ourselves without his grace.

To Meditate on the Blessings of Sanctification

The third purpose for the Sabbath right is to create an opportunity for us to meditate on the blessing of sanctification. Let's look at this passage:

Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, Yahweh, sanctify you. (Exodus 31:13)

It is God who chose us and set us apart. It is God who is conforming us to the image of His Son. Our sanctification totally flows from his free grace, and the Sabbath is an excellent time to reflect on this fact.

The Parallels

I think that it is useful to look at two parallel laws in the Old Testament in order to understand another purpose of Yahweh for the Sabbath: testing the faith of His people.

The Sabbath Year

Let's first look at the Sabbath year law:

Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired servant and the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food.

Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. And if you say, 'What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?' I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives. (Leviticus 25:2-7, 18-22)

Obeying this law took an incredible amount of faith. Can you imagine what the farmers thought when Yahweh said this to them? They probably thought, "Are you stupid? We will starve." But Yahweh was asking them to give Him a chance to show that He is a big God. He was asking them to show through their actions that they really believed that Yahweh was their provider, that their survival ultimately depended upon His grace, not their labor. It is one thing to say, "I believe in Yahweh." It is a completely different matter to show through your obedient actions that you believe that Yahweh is trustworthy.

Tithing

The other passage is about tithing:

For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, 'How shall we return?' Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, 'How have we robbed you?' In your tithes and contributions. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 3:6-12)

Giving away one-tenth of your income is another big challenge to one's faith. But when we do it, by our actions we are shouting the truth that we believe that Yahweh is the ultimate source of our provision. We are also protecting ourselves from the disease of greed. Luke Wong once described greed, guilt, and grudges as viruses of the heart. What better way to vaccinate ourselves from greed than by giving away one-tenth of our income?

In the same way, when we choose to exercise our Sabbath right, we are declaring to ourselves, to our neighbors, to the angels and demons, and to Yahweh that we believe that He is the source of our provision, and we vaccinate ourselves against greed. For hourly wage-earners, it is all the more obvious since they are choosing to set aside the wages that they could have earned on that day.

The Practice

Lastly, how do we apply this truth? How do we exercise our Sabbath right? I started thinking about this on Sunday, February 28. The previous Sunday I served all day at ZCA. Then the previous Monday – Friday, I worked as usual. On Saturday morning, I attended a kickball outreach. Then in afternoon, I attended the monthly outreach. I did not take any time to physically rest on Saturday, much less to intentionally meditate on God. The next day I played the piano at church. By noon my back was in so much pain that I just had to go home and could not serve at the Bridge in the afternoon. While I was at home recovering, I meditated on the situation and realized that I had not been exercising my Sabbath right. Sunday cannot be counted as a day of rest for me because I serve all day on Sunday; it is physically and emotionally tiring. I work on Monday through Fridays. That means that I need to guard my Saturdays so that I can use them to exercise my Sabbath right.

That means that I need to say no to non-restful activities on Saturday so that I can have enough time to rest physically and to meditate on God's creation, salvation, and sanctification. And if for some reason, I must be active on Saturday, I need to schedule a replacement day of rest in the immediate future. For example, I had to work last Saturday. I told Nate that I did not want overtime payment. I said that I wanted a day off. Money cannot compensate for lack of opportunity to meditate and draw near to God.

I think that if someone asks me to serve at an outreach on Saturday, I will respond, "I could, but only in exchange for not serving on Sunday, and there are no other pianists right now, so I won't." From my perspective, it is a matter of setting boundaries. The Sabbath is my right. It is also my responsibility. If I don't exercise it, I am the one who has to shoulder the consequences: physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. In the US, we have saying: "Either we exercise our rights, or we lose them." I choose to exercise them now.

In addition to the meditative aspect of the Sabbath, I think what John Piper said about rest is helpful:

And so, one of the things we should do is do things on the Lord's day that refresh us for his service, intellectually, physically and spiritually. So if you sit at your desk all week, probably you should walk or ride a bike on Sunday. And if you work on the farm, breaking your back all week (which is what they did in the Old Testament), then sit down and take a long nap on Sunday.

That's the way I think with myself. I'm working six days a week, and on Monday—which is the day I take off—I'm putting my feet up and not thinking in terms of work. But rather, I pray at the beginning of the day, "Lord, whatever happens today, may it be energizing for Tuesday. May it be energizing for the week that's coming. Give me strength, give me energy."(http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TopicIndex/115/3465_What_does_it_mean_practically_to_keep_the_Sabbath_holy/)

Essence of Trappist Monasticism

The Chinese have a traditional form of seasonal decoration called a Dui Lian (对联). They are red strips of paper that go on the outside of your door at the top and on the sides. Sort of like putting the passover blood on the lintel and two side posts. Then on the strips of paper are written seasonally relevant poetry in calligraphy. A monk at the monastery taught me a Dui Lian to capture the essence of Trappist Monasticism. He wrote it down for me, and I reproduce it here without explanation. Try just to feel the gestalt sensation of an ancient monk trying to teach his understudy the essence of his art in a concise way using Latin verse (since this was also conducted in my 2nd language).

　坚弥爱信

恒　　　　读

徒　　　　祷

忠　　　　工

贫　　　　谦

贞　　　　隐

简　　　　融

严　　　　静

A Retreat In Taiwan, Part 1

On October 2, through a combination of boat, plane, and car, I traveled to a Trappist monastery in a village called Shuili, in a township also called Shuili, in the county of Nantou, in the country of Taiwan. The monastery was located about an hour by foot up a mountain. There were only three resident monks, all of them priests: the current superior Father Paul and two aged former superiors Fathers Raphael and Francis. I stayed for five nights and had the opportunity to partly participate in their strictly regimented lifestyle that involved among other things rising at 3:30 a.m., retiring at 8 p.m., daily Mass at 6:30 a.m., and corporate prayer six times per day. (Although I set my alarm clock for 3:30 a.m. with great earnestness, each time that it arrived, I could not find within me the passion for 3:45 a.m. corporate prayer requisite to mobilize my slothful body. Thus, the earliest round of corporate prayer to which I could ever make it was the 6 a.m. round.)

Since Vatican II Trappist monks no longer observe a vow of silence; nevertheless, the monks were generally taciturn. This was frustrating initially since I am a highly relational person. Clearly, I am not called to a contemplative lifestyle. I asked for a directed retreat. I had wanted to be able to confide my hopes, dreams, visions, goals, and frustrations with a priest and receive wise counsel how to proceed. Unfortunately, Father Raphael was unpracticed in the art of active listening. Each day when he arrived at 8:30 a.m. to give me direction, he gave an impassioned monologue with his eyes closed, instinctively knowing when an hour had passed and promptly leaving at 9:30 a.m. I never had a chance to speak more than twenty words. It almost seemed that his hour with me was a release valve for his pent-up need to talk, and he had no capacity to listen. This was also frustrating.

Father Paul was very fascinating. During corporate prayers his facial expression was so hard to interpret. If it had been on my face, it would have indicated boredom, but I am not convinced it had the same meaning on his face. He led the corporate prayers like a parliamentarian, with a timer to guarantee that each devotion was exactly the prescribed length. When he spoke with me, he never once looked me in the eyes. When he delivered my meals to me, the interaction lacked the greeting and leave-taking civilities that I had taken for granted that everyone used, and I realized that phatic communication in fact functions to lubricate interaction. I mentioned in passing that I planned to go to Sun Moon Lake one day, and he volunteered to take me. I could not quite visualize what it would look like to do something touristic with someone whom I had not yet seen smile, but I agreed.

Father Paul and I set out together at 10 a.m. He blankly asked if I wanted to see some ethnic dancing, to which I responded in the affirmative. We had polite conversation while he drove me to the lake. We stopped at several different places for different views of the lake. Being a very food-centric person, I kept asking myself, "I wonder what we will do for lunch. I hope this is not a fast day. Has he been to a restaurant before?" At last he interrupted my internal debate and said, "Let's go to Starbucks for lunch." This surprised me on a couple accounts:

1. Even in America, I would not eat at Starbucks because the price of a sandwich is high relative to its size. I assumed a vow of poverty would not allow eating at Starbucks.
   
2. Although I consider coffee to be a near necessity, I still consider Starbucks coffee to be a luxury. I assumed a vow of poverty would not allow drinking Starbucks coffee.

Through this one lunch, I began to see that Father Paul was human too. I asked him questions like, "Does following the same routine every day ever start to feel boring or monotonous?" He answered, "Yes." I followed up with, "So how do you handle it?" He followed his pattern of interpreting my every you as a plural "you monks" and said, "We talk to our superior." I tried again to elicit a personal answer to which he responded with the results of a personality inventory, said that he is not emotional, is well-suited to a contemplative life, and does not have those types of feelings.

The next thing that happened really helped me to see his humanity. In follow up to my response about my wanting to see some ethnic dancing, he took me to an "aboriginal village". I was very surprised how much the entrance fee was, but I did not think about it any more. As we walked around, I kept thinking that this was an odd place. I had expected to see at least a reconstructed but functioning aboriginal Taiwanese village. Instead, I saw a reconstruction of a British earl's house and garden and fountain in one place. Then an area with stocks and totem poles and quasi-American Indian stuff. Then he pointed to a building and said, "Let's go in there." I followed him and got in a little boat, expecting it to take me to the aboriginal village. As we slowly went along, the man-made scenery was very early American West. The ride ended with a hide speed drop resulting in a huge splash of water. It was a water ride, not a boat ride to an aboriginal village.

Afterward, he kept saying like a kid who tasted candy for the first time, "That was very exciting." Then he took me to another building, where I sat in another seat that turned out to be a roller coaster. It finally dawned on me that we were in a "Aboriginal" theme park. I could not believe how dense I had been. I just so did not have a category for riding a roller coaster with a monk in a theme park that it blocked me from realizing where I was. The total absence of lines did not help. At Six Flag Great America, you sometimes wait in line >45 minutes for a single ride. It was a rainy day, few people, no lines, no loud music, and both "rides" so far had been indoors so my senses did not have the data to interpret. After the roller coaster, my eyes were opened and I could see the other rides and games and other trappings of a theme park.

Eventually, we took a cable car to the top of a mountain where there were nine imitation tribal villages, and we watched a performance of the courtship dances of a particular tribe. Then we headed back to the monastery, where Father Paul put his robes back on, and we headed off to Vespers. The other monks probably thought we just went and serenely looked at the natural scenery of the Sun Moon Lake, but I knew that I had ridden a roller coaster with this monk.

Breakthrough

The following is a letter I sent to my nephew a couple weeks ago. It captured my thoughts so well that I chose to reproduce it here for everyone's benefit:


Josh, do you know what happened to me two weeks ago? I came home. I don't know how it happened, but I went on a very distant journey that left my soul in deprivation. I remember distinctly my gratitude, passion, hope, and confidence in 1996 when I meditated daily on Dad's sovereign grace. My email address at that time said it all calvinist5pt@juno.com  

But somehow I stopped meditating on His sovereign grace. I am sure that my environment contributed. Sovereign grace is no emphasis of the Vineyard. If during the last 13 years you asked me my theoretical doctrinal position, I would have responded that I was a Calvinist, but it had stopped being a live-giving truth and become a long undiscussed academic question. And then I came to China where thoughts of survival completely replaced meditations of sovereign grace.

About a month ago, my soul was in very, very bad shape. I said, "The message of the good news is not good news because it all still falls back on my meeting the condition of persevering faith, which I can no longer produce." I read the epistles over and over and wanted to believe that they offered something substantial in which to hope. But my eyes had become veiled to the effectuality of the redemption. Using imagery Piper used in sermon I listened to after the fact, my experience of salvation had become fragile because it depended upon my continuing to meet the condition of faith, and there was nothing in which to have faith since the message offered no good news. I am failing to capture it verbally, but it was basically a vicious cycle.

On a Sunday a brother Nathan discerned my frame and asked if I wanted to talk. He asked me to tell him the story of my conversion. Then he asked who was the initiator in the story. I responded "myself", and then he said that my answer showed that I was full of pride. Then out of no where, he started preaching sovereign grace to me. I do not know if you can probably grasp my shock: No one talks about sovereign grace here. I had not interacted with the concept in years. I mean, it was so removed from my consciousness that I had just responded that I was the initiator in my own conversion.

The HS used that conversation to ignite a spark in the darkness. But I could still only fumble around for several days since I did not even remember how to fan the spark. Using Milton Vincent, I preached to myself, but the spark kept dangerously fading and then reviving. I was in and out of the darkness of confusion for days. The next Friday night another brother Charlie spoke the words to equip me. He said that he listened to sermons almost every day. At first, I could not grasp what he was saying since I equated sermons with the epitome of boredom and could not imagine a situation where I would voluntarily subject myself to listening to a sermon except due to social pressure.

But the words stuck with me, and the next morning, I saw them for what they were: the means of grace to fan the spark. I listened to two hours of Piper and then worshiped with the CD you sent for another hour. I had a breakthrough. I could see hope again. I could see that it did not depend upon myself again. I could believe that the redemption was eternally and really efficacious. I could rejoice in the message again because I could see good news in it. It no longer was just a potential redemption whose actualization depended upon this broken man. The darkness lifted. I came home. I returned to my Reformation roots. I did not even know that I had left, but I am so glad to be home now.

I took the Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholic feeds out of my RSS reader. I don't need to scavange there since I am home again and there is abundant food here. I don't have to starve anymore. Praise Daddy.

The photographic evidence

Here are the photos from my time of quarantine: http://picasaweb.google.com/HaoBole/QuarantinedInXiamen

Freedom

I remembered how when Paul and Silas were in jail in Acts 16, they sang praises to God. And then God sent an earthquake that broke open the jail. I thought I would try. No earthquake.

But about 5 p.m. on the June 12, a nurse buzzed my room and said I could go. I asked about what paperwork I would need to complete, and she said that she would put a certificate in the compartment for passing food to me. No further commentary.

This struck me as very odd. It felt like again like the situation from Acts 16:

But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, "Let those men go." And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, "The magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace." But Paul said to them, "They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out."

I thought, I have been unjustly accused of carrying the swine flu. Before I had a chance to exchange dollars for RMB and visit and ATM machine, I was forcibly abducted to somewhere on the mainland where I had never been before. And it is almost dark. I called the nurse back and said that I needed to be escorted back to a known location on the island. She said, "Oh, just take a taxi." And I stood my ground and insisted that taking a taxi from the mainland to my home on the island would be prohibitively expensive. Well, it became a test of wills. 1 1/2 later she called back and said that if I would just leave, an ambulance would escort wherever I wanted to go.

Well, then I tried to leave. You have to understand that an isolation ward is locked. I could not get out, and no one would help me. I found the front desk of the ward, and they had this mortified look like, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I cannot get out." They waved their hands for me to go, and I just wandered around pounding and on and shaking locked doors. After a half hour of waiting, a security guard appeared and with great effort managed to unlock the door. Then he demanded to my certificate, and he escorted me through another very scary ward, and we rode down the biohazard waste elevator. I nearly started pyschologically dissociating. When I finally reached the ground floor, I found the ambulance waiting for me. I was so thankful for that ambulance. I had no idea where I was I. I did not start recognizing the road until 5 minutes before he dropped me off.

In a subsequent blog entry, I will put the photos that I took.

Quarantined, Part 2

A doctor visited me yesterday about 7 p.m. I was very happy to have a visitor. She said that my throat culture came back negative, but that since I came from the US, I needed to have two consecutive negative throat cultures. So she took another one, remarking that my throat was hyperemic (I did not know the Chinese word either, but fortunately my computer has a Chinese-English dictionary) and I needed to drink more water. She also said that it was not up to her when I could be set free. It was up to some government agency whose name I could not catch.

I find it ironic that this is the second time a doctor told me to drink more water, but I literally have to beg the nurses to bring me water. Remember that one cannot drink tap water in China, so I have to rely on outside help to give me potable water.

Given that it took about 30 hours for the results of the last sample to come back, I don't anticipate getting free until Saturday morning at the earliest.

Quarantined in Xiamen

I must share a bit about my return trip to China. The story began in Chicago, where my flight to Los Angeles was delayed 1 1/2 hours. When I finally reached Los Angeles, my next flight had already boarded, and I was not quite sure how to find it. It was not just at another gate; it was in a different terminal. I frantically searched and ran to the other terminal and went through security again. As I was running to the gate, I could hear the announcement: "Would the following seven people immediately board the plane: ... Philip Hallstrom ... The door is ready to close." I needed to poop, but dare not stop at the toilet. I was dreadfully thirsty from racing, but dare not stop to buy water. I reached the gate and boarded in asthma attack. The remainder of that flight was uneventful.

I arrived in Hong Kong at 5 a.m., passed the Swine flu checkpoint, and braced for a four-hour layover. I exchanged some money and ate breakfast at Popeye's Chicken, which advertised some Halal-certified selections. Right before boarding, I splurged on my last gourmet coffee for a long time. On the plane, they served me a second breakfast. I looked at the pork sausage and cheese sandwich, and immediately discerned that it was not the kosher meal that I had pre-ordered. I reported this to the stewardess and after several minutes, they found my special meal. I must say that this was the best Kosher meals I've ever had. Go Dragon Air! What I don't understand is the reason that Cathay Pacific's Kosher meal was so lackluster. They are owned by the same company.

Upon arrival in Xiamen, the stewardess announced that they would be doing the Swine flu checks on the plane instead of in the terminal like in Hong Kong. The officials boarded the plane, visited each passenger, and touched a instrument to our foreheads. When she touched my forehead, a solemn look came over her face. Then she touched it again, and there was no improvement. She asked me to stick a thermometer in my armpit and went on to assess other passengers. She came back, saw my reading, and went to confer with some other officials. When she came back, she demanded my passport and travel papers and ordered me to follow her. I slowly exited the plane while all the other passengers looked upon me like a Jewish leper.

She took me to a room where officials repeatedly interrogated me about my itinerary and my symptoms. I repeatedly recounted all the places I had been in the US. I repeatedly reported that I was only a little hot. They looked at my throat and became more agitated. They took a throat culture and then told me that I needed to go to the hospital. My friends Jordan and Eveline had come to the airport to pick me up. I contacted Jordan and told him that an official would be delivering my suitcases to him and could he help me by taking them home for me. When the official returned, she said that when she took my luggage through customs, the customs agent had found an entire suitcase full of theological books. I deflected as best I could by saying that it was actually a mix of theological and psychological books, and it is because I have an interest in those topics. I still do not know what became of my books.

Anyways, other travelers of questionable health came and went. This other girl Tammy and I were the only ones they decided to quarantine. Tammy was an American-born Chinese, but she could only speak Cantonese, not Mandarin. I ended up translating for her. Everyone was perplexed why she could not speak Mandarin, but I, a white guy, could. We waited a desparately long time until finally an ambulance arrived and escorted us to a hospital outside the island. They EMTs were dressed in gear like out of the movie Outbreak.

We were locked in separate quarantine rooms. The room was relatively comfortable except for being quite hot and there not being any windows to get circulation. It had a little door that opened into a chamber where people would leave food for me to pick up.

Another decked out doctor visited me and took another throat culture. He said that I could get out when I met both of two conditions: 1) My body temperature was normal and 2) My throat culture came back negative. A nurse asked me what I would want to eat for supper. I replied that I did not like pork, so could I just get green vegetables. She said that would be fine. When dinner arrived, it was pig intestine soup plus pig ... I cannot even identify the part of the body. I mean, if I am suspected of swine flu, is it too much to ask not to give me swine to eat? I ate it anyway.

My mobile phone had no money on it, so I could not make any calls or send text messages, but I could receive calls. Jordan called me, and I asked him to put some money into my account, which he did and for which I am very thankful. Not having a phone would have been hard. Over the course of the afternoon and evening, several friends from the Bridge sent text messages expressing their concern.

The hospital did have wireless internet, but it required an account with China Telecom, which I did not have. I contacted Jordan, and he let me use his account, and so I got online and was able to send my family an email to report my situation. I am so thankful that the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Oak Park gave me a laptop computer three days before I left the US. Being in quaratine without a computer would have been much harder.

They slipped me a piece of paper advising me of my right to be visited by a US consul. I declined the right since I fully believe that this is a false alarm. Every couple hours I took my temperature and eventually the fever broke. The throat culture was outsourced to another location, and the report had not yet come back, so I had to spend the night. Quite jet lagged, I went to bed at 7:30 p.m.

When I woke up on the morning of June 11, I really wanted to take a shower. Remember that the morning of June 8 was the last time I showered: I was ripe. The odd thing is that the bathroom did not even have hand soap. This struck me as really odd considering that I am trying to fight an infectious disease. Breakfast came: congee, breakfast cake, hardboiled egg, and milk. Eventually, a nurse offered to give me hand soap, a towel, and some hospital clothes. So I joyfully showered at 10 a.m.

It is now 5:14 p.m. I asked the nurse, and she said that my report has not come back. From reading the news, I see that it can take 3 days to process a throat culture. I guess the labs are overrun with samples. The doctor has not even visited me today since other people are much more severe than I. Note: I am not severe; I don't even have a fever any more. I just cannot get the results of my test back to prove that I am fine.

I will update this blog more later when there is something more to say.

A Coming Together

Introduction

Last week my brain had a coming together. I was finally able to see the truth and co-applicability of three things that over the past year had struck me as odd yet potent. I will share these below.

Lust Inflicts Injury That Needs Healing

Last year I started seeing a Christian counselor. He prescribed for me a weekly checklist of disciplines that I was to observe. This was a negotiated checklist: if I felt that his suggestion was beyond my then-current level of healing, I could reject it. One thing that he suggested was this: if I lusted, I should send him an email reporting this so that he can pray for the healing of the self-injury that occurred. At the time I considered this to be a very odd discipline for two reasons:

1. It presupposed that lust was discrete. In other words, it presupposed that there was a definitive boundary between sexual temptation and lust, such that I could in fact know whether I crossed it. At the time, all the motions in my soul seemed like the unbroken flow of a river with no recognizable national boundary, so I resisted this discipline. In the end after he quantified lust, I accepted the discipline: if I looked at someone with sexual desire or sexually fantasized about someone in excess of three seconds, that counted as lust.
2. It suggested that there was something beyond forgiveness that I needed after lusting, namely, healing of an objective, specific wound. This struck me as very odd--especially since it was he who would pray for the healing of that wound. I mean, if I can pray for my own forgiveness, I certainly can pray for my own healing. In retrospect, his request was quite wise. Since I did not yet believe that each incidence of lust discretely and objectively wounds my soul, I hardly could pray with faith for the healing of this wound. But he wanted to make sure that it got healed regardless of the state of my faith, so he took it on himself to pray for it.

I do not actually recall our discussing this mysterious wound, but the question certainly stuck in my mind, and I have continued ruminating on it for months after ceasing to see that counselor. Last week, I finally grasped the concept. It is implied by 1 Peter 2:11: Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. A passion (lust) of the flesh wages war against my soul; thus, if I permit one, it will inflict an injury on my soul. 1 Corinthians 7:9 and Romans 1:27 both metaphorically compare passion to fire, so a burn would be an apt description of this wound. This realization also helped to firm up the notion of lust's discreteness. If lust causes a burn and I have a lust burn, this implies that I in fact lusted.

Lust Surrenders Ground to Satan That Needs to Be Retaken

Last month I met with a different counselor for two sessions. He led me in prayer concerning a number of experiences in my life. For each experience, one of the things that he asked me to pray was I ask you, Lord Jesus, to take back ground given to the enemy through X and I yield that ground to Your control. When he led me in the prayers, I followed along, but I made a mental that I needed to meditate on this expression later. It struck me as quite analogous to the wounding mentioned above and again implied that there was something beyond forgiveness that I needed.

Last week I finally grasped the concept. Ephesians 4:26-27 says: Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. This word translated opportunity means place, any portion or space marked off, as it were from surrounding space. In other words, through sin we give ground to the devil. And if we merely ask God for forgiveness, it is possible that we will merely be forgiven and not recover the lost ground. I don't pretend to know what it actually means that the devil possesses ground in my soul, but I hypothesize that it at least entails this: Our conscience is desensitized a degree and thus repeating the sin that caused the ground-loss will be one degree easier.

Strategic Prayer

A while back Amy gave a teaching on being strategic in spiritual warfare. The gist was as follows: The powers of darkness know my weaknesses, have devised a personalized strategy to destroy me, and are actively trying to implement that strategy. Thus, it should not come as a surprise to me that the temptations I experience seem fine-tuned to trip me up with high degree of effectiveness. Furthermore, since their goal is not just my one-time failure but my destruction, it is wise to intentionally prepare a counter-strategy. When I heard her, I was reminded of 2 Corinthians 2:10-11, Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs. Unfortunately, I just could not envision what such a counter-strategy might look like.

Well, last month when I met with the second counselor, he proposed a pattern for combating lies that I believe. The strategy was very good, but I will just focus on the last step here: For each lie X that I am strategizing to overcome, I select a specific prayer target (PT), i.e., a specific person or group for whom to pray. Then when I am being tempted to believe lie X, I pray the following for the associated PT: I pray that you use PT to bring great destruction to Satan's kingdom. He explained that if I do this consistently, the Evil One will notice that every time he tempts me to believe lie X, his kingdom experiences great destruction at the hands of PT. As a result, he will back off tempting me to believe lie X. This struck me as a very valuable tool.

The Application

As I was driving in the car last week, all three of these came into my mind, and I envisioned a new better-rounded weapon for battling lust. This is the program:

1. Heal existing wounds and take back already lost ground. I listed every person for whom I had lusted at some time in the past. The I confessed the sin, asked God to heal me of the injury, asked God to take back the ground that I had lost, and then asked God to use that person to bring great destruction to Satan's kingdom. This took a significant block of time. When I could not think of any more people, I asked the Holy Spirit to bring more people to mind, which He did. This was important because I want to have a truly clean start.
2. Having taken care of the past, now use the concept in the present. When I am tempted to lust for X, I out loud ask God to use X to bring great destruction to Satan's kingdom. I keep praying along these lines until the temptation recedes.
3. If I fail again and lust in the future, I repeat step one for that person.

I feel much more hopeful than I have a in a long while because I feel empowered now to do battle. I would be interested to know if this post was useful to anyone else.

Fruits of the May 2009 Retreat

On May 1 - 3, 2009, I attended the semi-annual Red Tag retreat. One of the themes was God's four omni's: omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnibeneficence. Below I will try to share some insights with which I came away.

I basically have a mental block on the fourth omni (omnibeneficence) that has become the cords that bind me, and they were relentlessly tight all day Friday night through Saturday afternoon. During the free time Saturday afternoon, my friend Doreen proactively sought me out for some reconciliation issues. Then she began to run into the same mental block in me that made it impossible for me either to receive God's love or accept myself. She was inspired to ask some questions. Then when I could not answer a question, she instructed me to ask God right then and there and then waited until I heard an answer. I saw three pictures over the course of that meeting, and then another one Sunday afternoon. I will describe them below:

1. She asked me what God felt when the sperm penetrated the egg that would develop into me. The only thing I could think was that He was disappointed that a different sperm had not penetrated and created a different person. So she told me to ask Him, which I trepidly did. I saw a picture of a large deer with a huge rack of antlers rapidly jumping to the top of a mountain (Songs 2:8-9). When he reached it, he lifted his head and wave his antlers wildly. I instinctively knew that he was excited and proud because his fawn had just been born, and I felt the excitement and pride of God for me.
2. Then I shared the reason I was so afraid of being alone. God is omnipresent, but I feel that He does not like me. The result is a God who is rather peeved that He cannot help being in the same space as me. This has made it very hard to be alone because I cannot get the picture out of my mind of His disgust at being trapped with me. Doreen told me to ask God what He felt next time I was alone with him. I told her that that was not reasonable since my anxiety level at that point is already so high that I most likely would not be able to hear. So she told me to ask him right there what He felt when I was alone with Him. I saw a picture of a boy and his dad together going through a maze made out of tall stacks of hay. I instinctively knew that the father already knew the path to the end, so his purpose was not to find the exit but rather to enjoy the time together with his son. I saw the little boy run ahead several times, get lost, and then run back to his dad to ask which way to go. His dad would always answer, "Let's try this way." I felt God's pleasure at being alone with me.
   
3. I shared with Doreen that I long have had a picture in my mind of my sister getting injured as a child and running to my dad for comfort. He backed away from her as from one with leprosy and then called to my mom, "Janet, your daughter needs you." This picture symbolized what God felt toward me--disgust at my weakness and brokenness. As I prayed, I saw a wolf spider, carrying its children on its back (it looked like this) I instinctively knew that the spider enjoyed the closeness and physical contact with its children and was draw to them because of their weakness and inability to care for themself.
4. Something with which I have long struggled is God's seeming general unavailability when I seek him. While the red tags were sharing their testimonies on Sunday afternoon, I spontaneously saw a fourth picture. It was of a stalagmite and its accompanying stalactite. I remembered that they there were formed by water dripping down from the ceiling, first leaving a calcium deposit on top and then on the bottom. I instinctively knew the interpretation: 1) Even my capacity to reach up to God (the upward-reaching stalagmite) has its source first in grace coming down to me (the water dropping from the ceiling) and 2) At the same time that I am reaching out to God (stalagmite), God is simultaneously reaching out to me (stalactite), and in fact, he reaches out first (the drop leaves calcium on the top first and then the bottom).