This week I sat with someone who is a partner in an ad/marketing agency to get some counsel about the radio ministry, our youth mission, and my own upcoming radio program that I hope to begin producing soon.  She challenged me to carefully evaluate my passions and listen to my heart telling me the one thing I want to speak to and put my energies into.  I have pondered that question for quite some time, but it seemed like when she asked it of me it was a signal that a clear and final answer would now arise within me.  My challenge in the ministry is how broadly we are operating after 25 years in Asia. We help fund and administrate an orphanage, a radio network, a youth organization and a fund-raising operation to attract money from U.S. donors to needy Asian projects.  We travel all over Asia to teach on leadership and personal life management.  We administrate, write and do a fair amount of pastoral care and pre-marital counseling.  All of it is needed and must continue somehow, but it is clear that I do need some other administrators and workers for 2008.I do have an answer for the question, however.  If I could only speak about one subject for the rest of my life I know what it is.  I want to talk about Jesus.  I think that everything that is wrong with the church in every nation of the world stems from one constant failure–the failure to truly embrace and live according to the teachings of Jesus Christ.  Abuses of power, gossip, theft of funds, lethargy, pride, division–you name it.  It simply flows from refusing to become the servant of Christ and his servant to others.I believe that Jesus is our savior, but I also believe that he is the smartest, most integrated man who ever lived.  I believe that his teachings–if followed carefully–will purify every life and fix all that is wrong with it.  I want to know Christ.  I want to love him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and I want to prove this daily in the way I obey him and act as his servant to minister to others.  That is the organizing center for my work.  The rest is just details.

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 OK, here’s my first link to another site. After a week of observing the living conditions in Thailand’s tribes and urbanites, I thought of this link.  This one is clever and meaningful so I will post it.  It shows you how you rank in the world according to your annual income.  We all have more than we think.

Just celebrated another orbit around the Sun this week and got a nice, long email from a former student in whose life Sherry and I have taken particular interest. He had a moment on a bus when he was really living and I wanted to share it with you. He was on a crowded city bus and just became filled with worship. Here it is….

“Pastor, I also realize that heaven is not just a place of happiness but a place of satisfaction… A deep satisfaction which does not thirst for anything. The major problem of the world is that they are thirsty for something: food, water, sex, money, power. But heaven is a place where all the thirst would be gone and it would be a place of peacefulness which comes with satisfaction and contentment.

While I was in the bus this was what happening to me… A glimpse of satisfaction that I am doing God’s will in my life… God has given us this glimpse of satisfaction when we find our true love, when we eat the food that we really wanted, in the climax of the union between man and his wife, and so on… This satisfaction is priceless and it is from God. That was what I felt pastor when I was in the bus.”

Someone said to me this week, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him alone.”

lessons to learn

Today i am in snowy PA….I love it here! so many wonderful childhood memories….smells, tastes, sights, feels…..such warm cozy feelings…. being home. Yet, it is a painful time.

Went for a long walk tonight in the cold and snow. It was so invigorating…..yet, it was a time of searching…..I found myself praying that the Lord would take my dad…but then i had to question…is he really ready to go? Do i really want the Lord to take him now. He has been so miserable….this year sometime he has lost all will to live after having a brain surgery that left him partially immobile and dependent on others 24 hours a day. He has become deeply discouraged…..”discouraged people behave poorly” whoa……that is an understatement where my dad is concerned! i have NEVER been around someone as negative, contrary, mean, pitiful, demanding, selfish…totally self-absorbed, as my dad is at this time. As i was praying i had to ask….is this the selfish, carnal nature that has been kept at bay…? or is this medical?

it is so hard to not get totally fed-up when one is taking care of him night and day. not one word that comes from his mouth is pleasant or positive. and he is most demanding…when he wants “it” he wants it NOW! …and he wants “it” “ALL DAY LONG”!

its amazing to find out how (not so) deep our “well” is……how far we can (not) stretch when a relationship becomes totally one-sided? All of God’s relationships with his creation was at one time one-sided……how far did He stretch????

My dad told me he was asking to just die…..and i said to him, “well dad, maybe the Lord still wants to teach you something…maybe this is a test and you have not passed it yet….” trying to make the point about his bad behaviour.

As i was walking and praying …”.Lord, this is no way to live a life…..better to just take him on….” i was jolted with the thought….”am i passing my test???” am i loving him with agape love as he abuses me with his words and false accusations all day long and inconveniences me through the night. am i serving him as if i was serving Jesus Himself? is my every reply a “soft answer”? …..”a soft answer turns away wrath”……

NO LORD…..it is not time to take him on……i have not passed my test…..please fill me with your GRACE…..help me to die to self and allow Christ to reign…..help me Lord to serve my father with agape love and serve him as if i were serving Jesus Himself. Help me Lord to stretch……..

Yesterday was my birthday. This is always a time of celebration and reflection. I was reminded of a conversation I had with Rev. Kazumoto Yatsuzuka, overseer of the COG in Japan, a few years ago. We are both busy men who are trying to balance the important things and the urgent. I told him about a concept in Japanese art that speaks to me. Yo Haku, is the empty space on the canvas. In Japanese art, unlike western art, the white space is left intentionally blank. It isn’t filled up with trees and grass and bushes because the painting is about the bird, so they just show the bird and the branch he is on. The emptiness is considered as important as the bird because you need the margin around the object of focus to highlight its priority and keep things from being cluttered.

After a weekend of being together we went to a spa (I have learned to really appreciate Asian bath culture) and then out with our wives to eat a leisurely meal on a boat. As we walked to our car he remarked, “I have found another phrase that might interest you. “Yo Yu.” “What’s that?” I asked. “It means empty time. Time with no schedule. Just silence and a pause.” I smiled, “I must learn the way of Yo Yu.” (I balance my priorities pretty well. I just tend to schedule every possible moment of each day). This year I am going to try and leave some white space in my daily calendar. Stop the car and watch the sunset. Have a cup of coffee before driving home in the evenings. And just sit outside at night and listen to the silence of noisy Manila when it is asleep.