SELAH

I was just telling Sarah on the phone last night that I needed a pause sometime soon. "I think I wanna pause and rethink so I can make some minor but intentional decisions about how to posture my learning. I need to selah." "Oh, totally! Selah's good." "Most likely Friday." "Sounds great!"

Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Earlier in the afternoon before that conversation, I had just spent some time thinking with Jesus, when I was reminded of Psalm 103...

Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits -

It hit me. Since I got here in June 'til now, with trainings and a trip to Asia and back, I had not fallen sick. Not a hint of flu or whatever. So thankfulness just welled up inside of me...I don't wanna take good health for granted. I'm so thankful that I'm healthy and alive :)

who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

I had such a good chat with my fam on Skype yesterday morning. It was super-early and I was like a dead fish at 7am, but it was so good. Don't you just love technology? So I got to see Tipper (my sis' lil puppy) and call out to him over the internet and watch him perk up his ears. Been catching up with lots more people on a more consistent basis. Not regular, just more consistent. Those of you who haven't replied my emails, it's ok, I forgive you. Just like you forgave me.

who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 

From one of my classes, our study of leadership in the Bible focuses on 2 particular persons: Habakkuk and Nehemiah. It occurred to me that selah shows up in Habakkuk's 3rd chapter a remarkable number of times - 3 times in just that chapter! So imagine : Praise. Pause. Praise. Pause. Praise. Pause. Praise.

(If you have two kids, it'd be fun to name one Praise and the other Pause. You can get some worship rhythm goin)

God takes you through awesome moments, but He also shapes you through narrow circumstances. Even when you can't see any good in your life, even when you question God's solution to your prayers, even when all the trees around you wither up and die and bear no fruit.

who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

Habakkuk struggled with God, we see that in Chapters 1-2. But come to Chapter 3, it's almost like a different person. Hmm...maybe he WAS, huh? Maybe a different perspective (yours vs God's) shapes you to become a different person (your you vs God's you). Like, you go through a narrow place and you get squeezed out of shape and come out from the other end looking different. More importantly, the change happens inside. Your substance becomes strained and strengthened and you squeeze through SOARING...like an eagle.

So, from meditating on 103 yesterday and thinking when my selah will be, today's chapel (every Wed 10am) introduced a very mindblowing word. Yup, you guessed it. SELAH.

No way!

And THEN the chaplain says, "Let's meditate on Psalm 103 together."

My heart skipped a beat.

Daddy God, you set me up.

Nice one.

I get the message.

eklektos

If the purpose of the church's existence is to fulfill God's mission on earth, what IS God's mission? And to what extent has the catholic church grasped that purpose, the very reason for its existence, throughout these 20 centuries? Consider that God chose to reveal Himself through the unfolding drama of redemption from the time of creation, of which a primary means of that revelation was in establishing a covenantal relationship with the man we know as Abraham. Then since the sealing of that covenant, all of Scripture show glimpses how we can know that God is a God of faithfulness, because He both provided (1) the contract itself, a 'measure' to which He can be faithful (with or without man's faithfulness), and (2) the circumstances in which His faithfulness can be revealed, as we now have that 'measure' to which faithfulness can be directed. An example would be like me making a promise to a friend to be there for her when she's in trouble, and then making sure she experiences enough situations that would prove my intent to keep my word, until she is fully convinced. It's not the most well-pondered example, but for today's meditation this would suffice.

God says throughout the Bible that His chosen people are His treasured possession, "...a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation...". To be elect = to be chosen. The Greek word 'eklektos' is defined as those who are picked out of the larger group for special favor and privileges. Was it for privileges, or were privileges a subset of the entirety of God's missional intent? Perhaps the reason for God's election was not so much for privileges as much as it was for service. Perhaps to be God's elect means to serve the nations of the earth, that they may know "[He] is the Lord Almighty, God of heaven and earth." And where that purpose of election is remembered and demonstrated by the eklektos, God's people are playing their part in the missio dei. Adversely, when the eklektos become exclusive, concerned only with themselves and appropriating God's favor and compassion purely for their own preservation, God's people then suffer from a lack of purpose, become blinded to God's revealing of His nature by their selfish inwardness, and cease to take part in the unveiling of His glory until "the waters cover the sea". In other words, the church loses its meaning.

I love this definition (from Wikipedia, where else?!):

When kept in the context of the Scriptures, missio Dei correctly emphasizes that God is the initiator of His mission to redeem through the Church a special people for Himself from all of the peoples (τα εθνη) of the world. He sent His Son for this purpose and He sends the Church into the world with the message of the gospel for the same purpose.

Does God use the story of His elect and His dealings with them in relation to the nations/Gentiles to provoke His own people to consider His mission in its entirety? Does He want those who call themselves God's people, the church, to know that He directs His favor on them not because they are meant to keep it, but that it gives the 'outsiders' a reason to desire Him and experience His favor too? That God uses people like Rahab of Jericho who put her faith in Yahweh because she saw how the Lord God was with Israel is not just so Rahab is converted to Him but that Israel herself is converted to know her God in the fullness of His nature and character?

Apart from those who do not yet know Him (by 'know', I mean to 'have a close relationship with'), how would you come to understand that God is a God of love and compassion?

Apart from those who haven't experienced His power, how would you know God heals the sick and opens blind eyes?

And that they need Him too, because He has shown you His awesomeness?

Read it all the days of your life.

"It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left." Deu 17: 19-20

I've now had my 2nd week of classes. This quarter I'm taking 3 classes, I wanna attempt 4 for some quarters. Fuller has been simultaneously everything I expected and not. Which is great, I'm loving the challenge. As an international student, I can definitely feel the difference with which people respond to me once they know I'm from Malaysia. Very interesting...

On occasion people I meet on campus ask me, "What do you want here? What's your prayer?"

The only reply that I stick to when asked, the only prayer need I share most often, is that my time of studying here will not cause me to be puffed up in knowledge but void of life transformation. In essence, what I'm really desiring is a heart that reveres God more. To study the Scriptures (both in and outside of class) in such a way as to grow in reverence for my God.

(If the question was, "what brought you here, halfway across the globe?" I'd give a different answer altogether. Maybe that would be another post.)

One of my professors asked in class, "Have you been reading your Bible lately? What has God been speaking to you about?" Isn't it great that this Q is asked in seminary? Hilarious yet necessary. In reflection these couple of weeks, the verses God has used to shape my life over the past 10 years have been making a comeback in my thoughts and finding their way to my heart. You know how, like a Heroes rerun, you see some connections you never did previously? I love how God draws a person to Himself, directs him/her to grow in that relationship, and develops the character in Christ toward divine calling as part of His universal plan - so BIG yet personal. I can recall the first time the Word of God interacted with me, when His Word was more real than it ever had been before that day.

"Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." " Isa 30:20-21

That was one rhema I never forgot, and the 1st time I wept because I KNEW He was speaking to me. God does that. Getting a rhema word from Him like that can never be equated with any other string of letters, no matter how philosophically profound or intelligent or illuminating or inspiring. Inspired versus inspiring. Since then, there have been many other life verses. My own current definition of rhema = a timely word spoken out of the Divine's complete and perfect knowledge of you with exactness that both transcends yet speaks to your limitations and experiences.

So, I've been seeing some connections in this rerun that I never did.

When God gives you a word, cling on to it. Hold fast to His every syllable, but above all hold fast to Him. Over the course of your life, how He reveals His heart, His nature, His character to you...hold fast to that, never let go. You may look back 10 years (or less/more) from now, and marvel at His timeliness, His lovingkindness, His mind-blowing, heart-piercing, tongue-tying knowledge of who you are and JUST what you need to hear. Yet you can be assured that He will even go beyond that, and speak prophetic words that becomes your sustenance far into the future, words that decades later still find their way into your heart to further bring life transformation.

"It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him." Deu 13:4

No other book does that. 

No other GOD does that.