You and Harry Potter

Song, my absolutely wonderful friend, came to visit me tonight. 

While we were talking, she said, "All of my favorite people have green eyes... you and Harry Potter."

 Love her.

Words Words Words (5/19/14)

“Let us never preach the doctrine of total depravity without also declaring there has been a great earthquake, and that an angel of the Lord has rolled away the stone in front of that imposing doctrine”

-Douglas Wilson

Transient Beauty

As the last cold days of winter fade away, the campus of Zhengzhou University turns into a wonderland of pink and green, full of cherry and peach blossom trees. On the weekend, thousands of visitors come to see this transient beauty. Students say that our campus becomes 郑州大学国家公园 (Zhengzhou University National Park). The flowers have come and gone, but I hope you can enjoy some images that I captured. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord will stand forever.”  (Is 40:8)

This is in the running for my favorite picture taken in China...

I've never quite understood why most of the trees in China are painted like this...

Words Words Words (5/4/13)

For every one hundred men who can stand adversity, there is only one who can withstand prosperity.

- Thomas Carlyle

Invalid Excuses

We live in a day and age where almost any behavior is excusable by saying, “Well, that’s just who I am.” A person is extremely aggressive and constantly belittles others: “That’s just who they are.” Someone never finishes a task and isn’t reliable: “That’s just who they are.” Etc. etc. etc. But, should we overlook these things and cast all the blame on personality? I feel that this has become so prevalent that I sometimes don’t even think twice before excusing someone’s behavior or even my own. Thankfully, I have a loving Father who has promised to carry on to completion what he started in me, who enlightens my eyes and heart to areas which need his chisel.

I’ve asked some friends to speak into my life of things they see in my personality or behavior that need to be checked. I often use hyperbole in conversation. Is that just my personality, or should I be consciously making a change so that my words are always clear, so that I speak things like they are? Is this a personality quirk, or something I need to submit to the Father? I often look to others for approval, wanting others to be pleased with the work I have done and who I am. Is this just my personality, or do I need to learn to find myself more in His grace and only seek approval there?  I can be forgetful, forgetting to email others back, return phone calls, or do something needing to be done. Is this a quirk? Or, do I need to lay this before the throne, and beg the Father to help me be more reliable and consistent, to be actively disciplining myself? I think that, in most of these cases, the latter is the correct answer.

Something I have often been asking the Father over the past few weeks is, “Dear Lord, please let me clearly see sin as sin.” I know that my heart is deceitful; I have a little attorney inside my brain who spends all her time justifying my thoughts an actions. But, I also know that sin can be subtle. It’s not only cheating, lying, stealing, and other “well-known” sins that pose a danger to me, it is a thousand seemingly small thoughts and behaviors that focus my attention on my own comfort and needs, rather than seeking to know and glorify the Father.  It is ‘personality quirks’ that society has taught me to embrace when really they need to be surrendered and subdued.

So, what am I to do when all of society is shouting, “Be who you are! You were born this way! You’re a firework! Embrace who you are”? I should shout back, “No! I am not my own. I have been bought with a price, paid for with blood. I am His!” The Father has made me individual and unique, and I love how He crafted my brain and my heart, and I want all of me to be beautiful and honoring to Him. That takes work.