Love Poured Out

It seems as if I could be plagiarizing, but I am not sure what song. Oops.

Oh great God, matchless King;

Ruler over everything.

We give our hearts and our lives;

Let us dwell in Your sacrifice.

Living God, consume our souls,

Let us not our love withhold.

Focus our gaze; enlarge our hearts;

Faithful One, You will not depart.

You have come and set us free

And we’ll always dwell with thee.

You took our sin and our shame;

You are coming back again.

Hallelujah, hallelujah sin is gone and Christ’s alive!

Hallelujah, hallelujah to the One who reigns on high.

Human Trafficking -- Video Links

Video links for quick-hit information:

To research more: US Trafficking
I highly recommend: Nefarious: Merchant of Souls 
Another highly recommended: The Pink Room

Praise Him

“The primary business I must attend to every day is to fellowship with the Lord. The first concern is not how much I might serve the Lord, but how my inner man might be nourished.” (The Autobiography of George Muller 138)

“Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face was shining.” (Exodus 34:34-35)

“Heaven will be hard and bright, and the winds will be strong. You will have the body and the eyes and the purified, well-aged soul to bear it. We will remake this world with blistered hands. […] When we have eyes that can stare into the sun, eyes that only squint for the Shekinah… ” (italics mine; Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl 154)

He has convicted my soul with the reality that I am a selfish beast. I don’t LOVE people; I use them. I don’t LOVE Him above all, only when it’s convenient and/or necessary.

But I want that to change. I want to love Him (and others) more, more, and MORE. And part of this must be seen in my actions.

Are you ready for not just Heaven, but the NEW WORLD?! Are you ready to labor in His Presence and to see His Face?

He is in control of all things and because of Him all things exist.

God is holy.

God requires me to be holy.

And so, I must be.

How GREAT and AWESOME is He.

May He save many more people from their wretched state.

May He bring many people to KNOW Him and to LOVE Him.

May hearts be turned to repentance!

May we have ears and eyes to see and know.

Only by the grace of God.

GRACE! – Let it flood down.

Beauty in China

I am about to be honest. I have really been struggling with the meaning of beauty here in China. No, okay. I don’t think it’s just “here in China”. I think it’s just more clearly evident in China. (As are MANY of my deeply rooted sins.)

In China, I am beautiful…and yet…I am not.

My skin is white, my hair is light, I have a nice smile, and I have blue eyes, BUT!!! I am fat.

The deceitful Chinese people will call me “healthy” or “strong”. The friendly Chinese people will tell me I am looking thinner when they see me after a long while. My Chinese friends (usually) just don’t say anything about the matter, but they are always shocked and awed when I climb flights of stairs with no trouble, or tell them I “play” various sports, or tell them that I have been running -- farther than 10 meters. Strangers and students call me fat, in English and Chinese.

I just got back from watching Titanic 3D. Not the proudest movie choice of my life, but a Chinese friend invited me and it offered some wonderfully HUMOROUS Chinese experiences (good laughs,) and provided for a good time with a Chinese friend. (I did cover my eyes and ears in those sinful parts.)

While watching I realized that I was analyzing “Rose.” I began thinking “Maybe if I just dyed my hair her color, penciled-in my eyebrows, figured out how she did her eye make-up, and discovered her waist measurements, I would be counted as beautiful in China AND the States.” 

I figured, if the Chinese people sit here and admire her for her beauty and allurement, maybe I could try harder to make myself look like her. (Someone once…or twice…compared me to Kate Winslet, afterall.)

But when I began pondering the thoughts in my mind I realized: I am more willing to pursue and replicate the image of a person than I am to pursue the process of being refined into the image of the One who has purchased my life with His blood.

I would forsake our “daily” fellowships together in order to burn calories. (I have been doing such things. All, it would seem, to no avail.)

I would forsake eternal and heavenly thoughts for obsessions over what people think of the way I look, the chub on my body, and the make-up painting my eyes.

My mom has seen this coming and has tried to remind me of eternity. She quotes Proverbs 31:29 to me, but I struggle to accept it. Beauty is deceitful, vain, and passing away. Yeah, yeah. But it’s still valued. You’d rather have a beautiful wife who fears the Lord than an ugly one, right? Come on, we all know that there were BEAUTIES in the Bible.

When do you hear that one of the patriarchs (or any Bible male,) loved his wife because of the beauty of her heart rather than the appearance of her face? Is anyone ever quoted as saying, “She may be ugly on the outside, but her heart’s desire is really gorgeous.” Did Pharaoh or Abimelech go for Sarah for something other than her good looks?

Are you horrified and disgusted with my words?

Do they shock you?

I am not shocked by my words, but I am horrified.

I know they aren’t biblical. They are sin FILLED.

I post them here, then, to document my mental transformation and process. I also document them because this is how the Lord is using China to refine and mold me. (Is it too open and honest? Let me know.)

Until a couple weeks ago I didn't realize the issues of beauty I have in my mind. The Lord is using China to show me SO many of the various layers of my sin. I didn’t realize how many horrible things are entangled in my soul. 

(So, He is refining me. PRAISE THE LORD!)

Sifting Beauty

I have now determined to think in light of eternity, not just culturally. Coming from one culture and its push and proclamation of beauty and being inserted to another culture and its push and proclamation of beauty has shown me my sin in understanding beauty and in my hope to be beautiful.

This won’t be easy to decipher.

I am slightly ashamed to type such a thing.

Why won’t it be easy to think of beauty in a biblical manner??

I didn’t realize this until a few moments ago, but it will be difficult because I have never (really) tried to actually do it. I have heard words from “Christian songs,” pulpits, and university speeches, but I have never really listened. I have never questioned it myself and I have never tried to define it. Plus, beauty is hard to define.

(What makes the various arts beautiful? Why is creation beautiful to behold? How valuable is beauty? Why do our souls long for beauty? What is God’s beauty? How do you balance a pursuit of beauty, being as you are, working out, finances, etc? How important is physical beauty? Are physical and spiritual beauty connected, in opposition, do they reflect one another?)

This sinful way of perceiving and chasing after beauty is actually the root of and a signpost that reveals other sins in my soul. There will be much sifting.

What I have realized:

--I define beauty based on what my culture calls acceptable and how the people around me (men and women) will accept me based on those cultural demands.

--I (greatly) desire people’s approval. This often seems to outweigh my pursuit of the Lord’s approval. 

And so, here's a "first step" in taking off the sinful thoughts, making them my captives, renewing and disciplining my mind to think biblically, and to put on His righteousness:

I came across an article in the spring issue of The Journal of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood because of a link on Tim Challies' blog. The article is Women, Stop Submitting to Men by Russell D. Moore. I wasn't expecting it to say anything about beauty, but Moore's words have caught me by surprise and made me think. He points out that the pursuit of physical beauty is a type of submission.


Whoa. I hadn't even contemplated that perspective.


Here's his words. First with a bit of article background, then the point:

Too often in our culture, women and girls are pressured to submit to men, as a category. This is the reason so many women, even feminist women, are consumed with what men, in general, think of them. This is the reason a woman’s value in our society, too often, is defined in terms of sexual attractiveness and availability.

Submitting to men in general renders it impossible to submit to one’s “own husband.” Submission to one’s husband means faithfulness to him, and to him alone, which means saying “no” to other suitors.
Submission to a right authority always means a corresponding refusal to submit to a false authority.  

(Clincher)

[Women, your] beauty is found not in external (and fleeting) youth and “attractiveness” but in the “hidden person of the heart” which “in God’s sight is very precious” (1 Pet 3:3–4). And it will be beautiful in the sight of a man who is propelled by the Spirit of this God.

 Sisters, you owe no submission to Hollywood or to Madison Avenue, or to those who listen to them. Your worth and dignity cannot be defined by them. Stop comparing yourselves to supermodels and porn stars. Stop loathing your body, or your age. Stop feeling inferior to vaporous glamor. You are beautiful.

Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as unto the Lord. Yes and Amen. But, women, stop submitting to men.

To whom have I chosen to submit myself? Why? Will I choose to meditate on and live out 1st Peter 3:3-4? When did I choose to forget the reality of 1st Peter 3:3-4?

--"Vaporous glamor"-- Is that the treasure I want to pursue? Vanity of vanities. A literal chasing after the wind. My heart has been deceived and I was quick and easy prey! Be watchful and soberminded -- gird up those loins!