"Conversational Apologetics"

Those clever folks over at New Attitude have been talking about apologetics lately. They had the European Director of RZIM Zacharias Trust, Michael Ramsden, come and give a message on engaging the culture with the gospel entitled: "Conversational Apologetics." It's a two part series that is hysterically funny, theologically deep, and gospel-oriented. I have to admit that I've already started listening to it for the second time. This is definitely one to bookmark or take the time to download and listen to as well.

Here's the link to download it off of New Attitude's site.

Saying goodbye...

Our last evening with Sunny Moon before she flies back to Seoul (and yes, that is her name). Besides chocolate fondue and a good hearty round of "Apples to Apples" (a moment here to make a note for my family: no one in this group went for any of my cards either... should I change my tactics? Haha), we had a great evening as ISI staff and housemates prayed together over Sunny "sending her off." This truly is the hardest part about ISI and ICF, though -- having to say goodbye constantly. But, hearts are joined together for eternity as the Kingdom continues to advance throughout the nations. And that is exciting.

This evening... and a request for prayer

I'm looking forward to tonight. Sayuri and I are meeting together with a friend of hers this evening over bubble tea on the Ave -- and I'm excited, as we've been intending to meet for the past three weeks. The friend (whom I've never met) is a young man from Japan who was a classmate of Sayuri's last quarter. From Sayuri's description, he sounds as though he is a very bright and intelligent university student who is studying for a year here in the States. He's not a Christian, but he likes talking about the meaning of life.

Alot.

He is, as he told Sayuri, "open to all religions" rather than limiting himself to one at the expense and exclusion of others. Sayuri and he have had several interesting conversations unfold as a result. Knowing that a great delight of mine is talking about worldviews with unbelievers while asking questions like "what do you think the meaning of life is," Sayuri told this fellow that she wanted him to "meet my friend who likes to talk about this stuff." He told her that he would like to discuss with me why I decided to become a Christian, and thereby exclude all other religions by my decision. When I heard about it, I readily agreed. So long, I emphasized, as Sayuri went with me and we met in a public place.

And that's why the three of us are meeting tonight.

So, the purpose of this post is to ask for prayer. It is always my temptation to attempt to sound as relevant and informed in these sorts of discussions as possible. I in no way, however, ever want to do so at the expense of the clarity of the Gospel. I would like for an intelligent conversation between three young adults. But I don't want Emily in the way. I want to be led of the Spirit in this conversation. I need prayer. I need wisdom. I need humility.

I need grace.

I want the truth of the Gospel to be proclaimed. Loudly. I would rather appear "foolish" in the wisdom of the world and let the aroma of Christ permeate, than appear "wise" in the eyes of this fellow, but foolish regarding eternal matters. My desire is that as we meet and discuss, both Sayuri and I would be able to take every opportunity to express, in great humility and compassion, Christ and Him crucified. That it would be as Paul writes when he says:

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (1 Cor 2:1-5)

That Jesus alone would be high and exalted tonight. I'm echoing a poem penned by C.S. Lewis, which was sent to my email earlier this week:

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

4/4

It's kind of neat when all of the wall clocks downstairs in the ISI House are in time with one another (I didn't mean for that to be a pun) -- between the dining room and the TV room, the clocks are ticking together in a 4/4 rhythm.

Class Today

In Elizabeth Elliot's book, Discipline: The Glad Surrender, she quotes C.S. Lewis:

"Heaven understands hell and hell does not understand heaven... To project ourselves into a wicked character, we have only to stop doing something and something we are already tired of doing; to project ourselves into a good one we have to do what we cannot and become what we are not."

In order to write this, Lewis had to have an understanding of Romans 1, which teaches that evil is within as a result of sin. And apart from Christ, there is no good thing within me. "BUT God in His mercy" sent His Son, and it is because Christ came that I may "do what [I] cannot and become what [I am] not."
I was reminded of this... again. Over the weekend, we were assigned a book for one of my classes that embraced evil so fully, that I couldn't bring myself to read beyond the first chapter, which was more than enough to get a flavor for where the plot was headed. How quick I am to judge, though, as thoughts like these did run through my head earlier:

"How could anyone read this and consider this to be 'good' literature?"
"What are these professors even thinking when they assign books like these?!"

But, as I was thinking about this, the Lord gently reminded me of His work of grace and His gospel which has changed (and is still changing!) my heart and mind. Were it not for that, I would see nothing wrong with this book. Of course books such as this one are considered bestsellers. Why? Because of sin. It is impossible to distinguish between that which is of God and that which is not when the veil has not yet been removed. For, just as Paul writes, "the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Cor. 4:4). Although I still didn't read the book, I counted class discussion today as a privilege as I had the opportunity to listen fully to those around me, pray and then speak up. And, my prayer for my own life today is the same as that of David's, when he wrote:

"Surely You desire truth in the inner parts; You teach me wisdom in the inmost place... Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." (Psalm 51)

It's snowing again...

Ah... the crunch of snow while walking is a purely delightful symphonic sound.

Our Broken Window Story...

I just got these pics sent to me from Hannah, and I had to share them (although the story isn't necessarily "recent"). Last month, Seattle had some major storms blow through which caused loss of power and great damage throughout the area. Thankfully, we didn't lose power here in the U-district, which was a major glory to God -- we had a Christmas party/play/outreach that weekend and the loss of power would have been disastrous. BUT! We did have a broken window! Which, I thought was pretty exciting... hence, the post.

Our story took place on the Thursday night in December when 6omph winds were ripping through the neighborhood, causing the ISI house to shake (let me tell you, it is an unusual experience when your own bed inside of the house is being shaken by the wind that is outside of the house...), trees to bend over and shingles to fly throughout the entire night. Needless to say, sleep was difficult. Around 2am, I heard a crash coming from the second floor, and so, rather excited at the thought of being a hero, and having given up on sleep altogether, I jumped up and ran down the flight of stairs to where the crash had sounded from. One of the young ladies in the house, Sunny, was in England at the time, and sure enough, the crash had come from her room. After Mary Beth and I were able to push the door open (there was a significant amount of pressure building up in the room resulting in the need for force to get the door open), we saw that the window was completely opened and allowing cold wind and rain to blast into the room. We ran over to the window and reached around to grab a hold of the clasp and pull the window back in, only to find that the wind had forced the window to open all of the way and crash against the wall of the house -- breaking a couple of the glass panels in the window (it's an older-style window with wooden frames surrounding the individual glass squares). While Mary Beth held the window in place, I ran and found some cardboard and duck tape around the house (and my jacket -- it was cold!) and then taped the window up. We realized, though, that the clasp on the window had broken completely as well when the wind had wrenched it open, and so there was no way to lock the window shut and keep it in place. I thought about what to do, and then ran downstairs again to look for some twine of some sort. After looking through all of the shelves with all of our equipment and tools for fixing things, I managed to come up with only a funny-looking twine which was white and on a spool. Oh, well. Good enough. So, up the stairs I ran again (all the while Mary Beth was still holding the window in place). I managed to wrap the "twine" through what was left of the clasp on the window, around the table and across the room around the bedposts. I did this several times to ensure that the window wasn't going anywhere. And, by the time I was finished, it looked as though Spider-Man himself had been in the room. Immediately after securing the window, though, I noticed that my hands felt irritated and had little cuts all over them. I couldn't figure out why -- the glass had broken outside of the house, and so I knew it wasn't from the glass. But,before I had too much time to puzzle over the mystery of it all, Hannah woke up and came into the room and insisted that we pose for a couple of pics so that Sunny could see all of the fun that she had missed while visiting the mother-land. By now it was about 2:30am, and so Mary Beth and I called it quits, and I forgot all about my hands. The next morning, the winds weren't quite as bad and so Jeff Nelson came over to "officially fix the window" (the pics show how haphazardly I "fixed" the window -- hey! It was 2 in the morning!). I heard some laughter coming from the room, though, when he entered, and so naturally curious, I followed him and asked what it was that made him laugh. Jeff turned to look at me and said, "You know Emily, this is the most creative use of this that I have ever seen." I noticed he was referencing my "white twine" job, and so I smiled at him and said, "Well thank you, Jeff!" On reflecting what he had said, though, I thought I better ask the question: "Um... what's it supposed to be used as?" He then said with a grin, "Emily... this is what you normally use in a weedwacker."

Oh.

No wonder my hands hurt. Oh well, makes for another good story. And, now I have the pics to prove it.

It is a very special day...

Congrats, Peter and Katie, my "precious friends"! (Hehe -- there's our catchword, KT) Isn't the Lord kind?! May you both be especially blessed today, and may your marriage be a reflection of His grace as you continue to let His heart be yours for the world. Wish I could be there! I love you, guys!

Thoreau

While waiting in the hallway for a class that meets before ours to finish so we could then enter the classroom, a friend of mine turned to me and asked if I wouldn't mind listening to her "mumble on." As I invited her to continue, I also braced myself -- I was in a class with this young lady last quarter, and I always enjoyed listening to her during class debates. She is a very insightful and intelligent young lady, but not a believer, and so we've had some interesting discussions together. She then went on to discuss the dilemma of the main character in a book that we had read for class that day, and ended her short speech by saying something that surprised me: "Don't you ever fear that one day we too will realize that the decisions that we are making now have limited us or our potential by the time we have reached our fifties? I don't like that. I don't like the idea of boxing myself in such a way -- but it seems it can't be avoided." I didn't expect that coming from her. Interestingly though, for English Lit. we end up reading books or essays written by philosophers for literary criticism and theory. While reading Thoreau earlier in the week, a particular line caught my attention which for some reason I recalled while my friend was speaking to me: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." And, as I thought back to what Thoreau had to say, more importantly, I thought back to what it is that Jesus has to say in answer to this question. And out of that I was able to formulate my response in the very short amount of time left to the two of us before the hallway transformed into a whirlwind of students, professors, bags and papers. Yes, actions that spring forth from ideas do have consequences. And, choices made in college (and outside of college) will play a role in the shaping of a life. Like my friend, I want to consider that very seriously. But, thank God for His Holy Spirit and His direction. He can, and He will lead, direct and guide. In knowing the eternal God who gives eternal life, we do not have to live lives that are governed by fear of making a mistake, or "lives of quiet desperation." When we are led by His Spirit, we cannot fail. It is while walking in the peace of God that we hear a voice saying, "This is the way -- walk in it." That is it -- it's a matter of hearing His voice, of walking in obedience, and whatever the hand finds to do, doing it unto the glory of God. And, the consequences and results of an obedient life are His. Where we end up and what it is we are doing when we get there -- there are no regrets because it was an obedient life following the leading of the Good Shepherd.

A delicious meal

The ladies of the ISI House decided to go out for Indonesian food in the Northgate area (the real deal -- not the inauthentic Americanized type) tonight before Pamela’s mom and sister fly back to Indonesia early tomorrow. Now for the record, I do really like spicy and hot food. But, the level of spice in the food we had before us this evening was beyond even that of my friend Weiping’s famous Mapo Tofu. I have a new level of appreciation and respect for Linda and Pamela, the two ladies of the house who are from Indonesia (if that were even possible – I had the highest respect for them before we went to the restaurant). The food tonight was absolutely delicious and we are definitely planning on going back again soon. For now, though, I must say that several of us are also very glad to still be alive and to have mouths that are no longer feeling the effects of lingering numbness. =) Although probably not even close to the level of spice that they are used to, I think that tonight even Miki and Twin would've been proud of me…

A Heart of Wisdom

I've been thinking about wisdom lately -- what the Word of God has to say about wisdom itself as well as what it means to be wise and to walk in wisdom. So, I was pretty excited when I saw that Josh Harris just gave a great sermon at his Church entitled A Heart of Wisdom this past Sunday, and focused his message around Psalm 90. In light of the new year, this a good word reminding me of what the Psalmist wrote: "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12). If you have a few extra minutes, this is a good word to hear.

A prayer from "The Valley of Vision"

I read this while concluding my devotions this morning, and it was a good reminder for my soul:

LORD GOD ALMIGHTY,
Thou art beforehand with men
for Thou hast reconciled Thyself to the world through the cross,
and dost beseech men to accept reconciliation.
It is my responsibility to grasp the overtures of grace,
for if Thou, the offended party, act first
with the word of appeasement,
I need not call in question Thy willingness to save,
but must deplore my own foolish maliciousness;
If I do not come to Thee as one who seeks Thy favor,
I live in contempt, anger, malice, self-sufficiency,
and Thou dost call it enmity.
Thou hast taught me the necessity of a Mediator, a Messiah,
to be embraced in love with all my heart,
as King to rule me,
as Prophet to guide me,
as Priest to take away my sin and death,
and this by faith in Thy beloved Son who teaches me
not to guide myself,
not to obey myself,
not to try to rule and conquer sin,
but to cleave to the one who will do all for me.
Thou hast made known to me
that to save me is Christ's work,
but to cleave to him by faith is my work,
and with this faith is the necessity of my daily repentance
as a mourning for the sin which Christ by grace has removed.
Continue, O God, to teach me
that faith apprehends Christ's righteousness
not only for the satisfaction of justice,
but as unspotted evidence of Thy love for me.
Help me to make use of His work of salvation as the ground of peace,
and of Thy favor to, and acceptance of me the sinner,
so that I may live always near the cross.

~The Valley of Vision. "Reconciliation." p.45