better than i

April 29, 2005

for your listening pleasure: http://www.pixelsparks.com/mp3s/betterthani_leo.mp3. to download, right click the link and go to "save target as" or "download linked file as"

eliot, steve and joyce came over yesterday to record. i think the first time i heard this song was when joyce and eliot sang it together at SALT for their "get to know you" sharing. beautiful song! eliot's been wanting to lay down this song for a while now, so they finally got a chance to do it. you can hear their version here: http://www.pixelsparks.com/mp3s/betterthani.mp3. this morning i decided to give the song a shot, just to see how i would sound with, with joyce. i had no idea how tough this song was to sing until i tried it out myself!

i think the song is by joy williams, and the lyrics are as follows:

I thought I did what's right
I thought I had the answers
I thought I chose the surest road
But that road brought me here
So I put up a fight
And told You how to help me
Now just when I had given up
The truth is coming clear

For You know better than I
You know the way
I let go, the need to know why
For You know better than I

If this has been a test
I cannot see the reason
But maybe knowin', I don't know
Is part of gettin through
I try to do what's best
And faith has made it easy
To see the best thing I can do
Is put my faith in You

For You know better than I
You know the way
I let go, the need to know why
For You know better than I

I saw one cloud and thought it was the sky
I saw a bird and thought that I could follow
But it was You who taught that bird to fly
If I let You reach me, will You teach me

For You know better than I
You know the way
I let go, the need to know why
I'll take what answer You supply
Cause You know better than I

children and fathers

April 20, 2005

yesterday morning i came across a sight i have not yet seen in the pool before (i'm talking context-wise, the specific pool i swim at). a dad and his young son were in the pool together when i arrived—they were the only two in there. i didn't want to interrupt their activities, so i decided to swim in the lanes reserved for lane swimmers. normally i like swimming in the space they were in because you aren't restricted by how much space you take up. if you swim in the lanes, you run the risk of hitting the floating dividers with your hands/arms/feet if your stroke is too wide. in any case, the two of them were having such a great time, i couldn't bear to ruin it by jumping into my preferred swimming space.

as i swam, i couldn't help but notice their interaction with each other. there was a lot of fun, laughter and smiles going on. it was a beautiful scene. they'd splash water on each other, see how far they could splash water, and a host of other things. i didn't catch everything they did because i didn't want to stare at them.

the more i swam, the more i thought about their relationship together. and the more i thought about that, the more i thought about my relationship with my Heavenly Father. did i really and truly enjoy spending time with my Father God to the extent that the little boy did with his father? did i long to spend time with Him? could i enjoy simply being in His presence that much? i don't think i can say yes to those questions on a day-to-day basis. though, i have been there in the past. i remember waking up morning after morning truly thankful to be alive, and genuinely excited to get to the pool so i could spend time with Him. it's been a little more difficult as of late because my body hasn't been agreeing with me as much when i get up. it's more lethargic nowadays and there's a lot more pain. it's hard to feel excited and joyful when the pain sensors in your body are firing when you get up. but man, i so long to be like that little kid, delighting in my Father's love and presence.

on the flip side of things, that father reflects the heart of our Heavenly Father. God delights in us. He delights that we come to Him and desire to spend time with Him. He longs for that. He would want nothing more than for us to know Him in an intimate way. isn't that what worship is? isn't that what we were created for? He delights that we would choose to splash water with Him and He delights equally in splashing water with us.

i think one of the major highlights for a parent, is to hear their child say back to them, on their own free will, " i love you." the "i love you" cannot be elicited from a "i love you" to the child, nor can it be elicited from any other factor. it must be of their own free will. when that moment happens, i cannot even begin to picture what must go on in the heart of a parent. i think the same happens with our Father. He created us to know Him. He put everything on the line, His own Son, so that that would happen. if and when we say "i love you" to our Father, it must make God so delighted because the child He created and knew about since before the beginning of the universe, finally responded to Him the way He always desired.

i thought back to what it was like to be a child. i thought back to what it was like when we took road trips or went places with my parents. i remember that whenever i got into the car, i'd fall asleep, especially on the trips home. i trusted that my dad knew where he was going and that he would take me to our destination. i didn't question or fuss about it. realistically speaking, i didn't know where our destination was, nor could i have gotten myself there if i wanted to, but that's not my point. the point is that i trusted my dad to take me there, both in terms of his ability to get me there and his knowing where there was. i wasn't one of those "are we there yet" kids. if my dad wanted to take all the time in the world to get there, that would have been fine with me.

at 23, i want to know know where there is. i want to know all the details before embarking on the trip and i want to get there myself. this is the mentality of the western world. why is it that our childhood innocence was lost in that process? what happened? perhaps the cause can be attributed to the process of maturation, leading to greater individuality and responsibility.

as Christians we must fight the desire to do things our own way. our lives were bought with the blood of Christ—we are His. when we accepted Christ as the Lord of our lives, we gave Him the right and authority to govern our lives. so why is that we try so desperately to hold onto that which no longer belongs to us? why is that we get so upset when He decides to intervene and our plans are interrupted? why do we question and wonder God about the future? do we not trust Him enough? do we not believe that He is able?

if we want to live life fully—the life God intended us to live—we must die to our self. we must surrender everything and not hold back anything. we have a choice. God's given us the ability to choose. but remember this, as Christians, the life that we think we own is under the lordship and authority of Christ. this means it's up to Him which destination we arrive at. when we decide to rely on ourselves and go our own way, we insult Him, for we do not believe in who He is—all knowing and all powerful. Jesus says in luke 9:23 [NIV], "if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." it's in our daily act of volitionally surrendering our will, that we find life abundant.

if we could return to our frame-set we once held as children, we would trust our Father to get us to the right destination without all the doubt and questions that we have now. we would be able to jump in the car and trust that the Father knew the best way. and if, for some reason, adjustments (i.e. unexpected turns) had to be made, they'd go by unnoticed. we would think they were just part of the trip. circumstances would not have mastery over us. unexpected life events would not phase us. oh, what joy it would be to be like a child again.

"i tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" - matthew 18:3 [NIV]

the cool down

April 18, 2005

last week i began to wonder about what i should be doing this summer. while i had decided that i needed to take it easy this summer, i was unprepared for the onset of all this free time so soon. i got scared. i wasn't familiar with having the time to do anything i wanted, when i wanted. going from crazy, intensely busy to having all the time in the world is a huge contrast. it's unsettling. and it's been a dramatic change for me. human don't deal with change well. we like the comfortable and familiar. in fact, we cling to it. i am no different.

i figured that i needed to pray more about what i should be doing this summer. i made plans like taking vocal lessons, playing more with videography and photography, learning how to do more motion graphics for the church, basically a summer of learning, at my own pace, in my own way. i knew that i needed to rest, but i was a little bit scared in how that would pan out, so i wanted confirmation. i even started considering finding a part time job, but in retrospect, that was probably more to fill out my schedule, so i would have something to do (aka, not relaxing). i've been working hard for four straight years, and not once, have i taken the time to relax. i'll be honest, i don't know how to relax. what i consider relaxing, most people would consider working. some of my friends are great at relaxing. they go on vacations or just unwind after school or work. i don't know how they do it, because if i did similar types of activities, i would feel like i'm "wasting time."

my answer came yet again in the pool. i find it really interesting how God can teach me so much simply by going to the pool. He's opened my eyes to countless analogies, from the steam room, to the sparkling bricks, and now to the cool down. He uses the everyday and makes it come alive to me in so many different ways. i love that. who would think that you could learn so much by going swimming in the mornings? that's creativity right there. and what's really amazing is that God teaches me through images/visuals/experience, things that i really understand. it's specific to me. that's how personal our God is. how unfathomable is it that a God who created the one billion galaxies in the universe could be so close to us and care about us so much; a God who would come speak to us in the ways we understand best? it boggles my mind.

the answer to me that morning was simple. when i was cooling down after the swim, it suddenly hit me. every time i swim, i make sure i stretch before AND after so i don't pull any muscles. pre and post swim stretching takes 10 minutes. i swim for 30 minutes. proportionally speaking, that's a 1:3 ratio, stretching (warm up and cool down) to swimming. more specifically, the cool down to stretching ratio would be 1:6 (five minutes to 30 minutes). if i took so much care in warming up and cooling down for the swim, shouldn't i be doing the same for the rest of my life? i know that i'm fabulous at working hard, but i'm terrible at resting.

i've been working nonstop for four years now. ever since i was accepted into the design, i have not rested. i took summer school for the first two years, i worked for the past three years, did a missions trip last summer. my summer schedules were as busy, if not more than my school year. this summer was my time to cool down, plain and simple. let's translate those terms into what i'm really getting at. the cool down equates to rest and swimming equates to work. resulting in what i call the rest to work ratio (1:6). let's apply that ratio to my life. four years is 48 months. that means, i should be resting for eight months. there's four months from now until i start school at tyndale in september. taking these four months to relax and take it easy doesn't seem so crazy after all. the challenge lies in fighting off the mentality of always having to do something in order to be productive/useful.

work must always be balanced with rest. workaholics are prone to many dangers, including: burning out, loss of vision and direction (if you look at only what's in front of you, you'll miss what's ahead), neglecting relationships, and neglecting one's own mental, emotional, spiritual and physiological health. we need to know when to work and when to rest. there is a time and place for everything. and as i enter into the time of resting, i look forward to the times of restoration and renewal.

this is what the LORD says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls" jeremiah 6:16 [NIV]

finally done?

April 15, 2005

in the blink of an eye, the grad show that we worked so hard to prepare for is gone. our last official act as ysdn students was taking down our panels yesterday. it seemed like a dream. it still does. so many of us have been so used to working so hard every day for the past four years, words do not describe how it feels to not have stress or obligations to meet deadlines. a lot of us don't know what to do with ourselves, now that we have time on our hands. my immediate tendency is to do something, anything that makes me feel productive. like i'm making use of my time. the same goes with mostly all my classmates.

after being design hermits for four years, we've all finally come out of hiding. the thing is, we're really comfortable in those places that we've been. coming out of hiding is new for us, and we don't know how to respond just yet. i sure don't. monday morning marked the first day (in years) that i've had absolutely no deadlines or obligations. it scared me. i didn't know what to do because for the first time in a long time, i didn't have anything to do. i was bored. i remember a while ago, my friend asked me what i like to do in my free time. i didn't really give her a straight answer back then because i didn't know how to answer it. i didn't have free time. free time was a luxury that designers don't have. and now that i have it, i'm lost at what to do.

sunday was the first day of our show. we put our panels up in the afternoon to get ready for our family reception that evening. as i stood there setting up my panel, i could not believe that the end had come so fast. it seemed like only yesterday i was entering into the program... it was surreal. after i was finished, i took a look at my panel. had the end already come? so soon? had four years passed by already? was this chapter of my life already closing?

i went into reflection mode for a moment, wondering if my presence had made a difference in the lives around me, if i could look back and see how God had used my life to better the lives of the people around me. i had lots of questions–all of which i attempt to answer or discuss after i finish my last exam. there's a lot of things to reflect about. needless to say, the whole day seemed like a dream as if it wasn't REALLY happening. but it has, it did. i didn't even realize at the time that i now have a degree (not physically, but everything is all done, minus last exam which doesn't matter much since it's not part of design). when i was scoping out my friend's business cards, i saw that they had put the B. Des. designation beside their names. and then i remembered i had one too. how weird.

there were some presentations that night, people gave a few speeches about this and that. our class has such a sense of camaraderie, we're family. we've been with each other through thick and thin, through all the ups and downs, all the struggles and challenges, all the joys and successes. we've seen each other emerge from young budding designers, to graduates, professionals, ready for the work world. we understand each other. we have in-jokes, design jokes that no one else gets. we're a weird and crazy bunch. i love that. i've had a lot of great times hanging and talking with people in my program, and it gets me sad thinking that i'm not going to see them anymore. really sad. they're all such beautiful people. and not having them in my life anymore, i don't know. i mean, yeah, i could stay in touch with them, but it's not going to happen with a lot of them. that's just the way life is. it was the same with my cti team from the summer. i've wanted to stay in contact with them, but due to time constraints on both sides, life events, it just wasn't possible. i only get to talk to them on the very rare occasion now.

God brings people into your life at certain times, and the way i see it, we have to cherish every precious moment, because we don't know how long they'll be in our lives for. death comes, sickness comes, circumstances comes that move/take them away from us. you can't hold on to that which cannot be held on to. we can't stay in the past forever. we must move on. the present and future is all we have and that is where we must look. if we dwell on the past for too long, we will become paralyzed. easier said than done.

tomorrow (saturday) is going to be the last time we'll all be together as a class. we're having an after party for the grads. i'm hoping and praying that we'll have good conversations about our next steps, our plans for the future. i've come to learn that a lot of people respect me as a designer. and i think a lot of my friends think i'm heading into design. why wouldn't i? i've been told by my assessors that i'd make a good design professional. one of my old profs yesterday was literally shocked that i wasn't heading into design. he told me that i was one of his top students and it was a shame that i wasn't going into it. i totally didn't expect that. i don't think i'm a great designer. i'm good at it. i don't come up with ideas or solutions that are earth-shattering or ground-breaking. there are people in my year that do things that just blow my mind. ideas that i wouldn't ever come up with if i had all the time in the world! my work is clean and it communicates what it needs to do. in any case, it'll be interesting to see how my friends react when i tell them that i'm going to seminary next year. perhaps it'll lead to other places of conversation? or maybe it'll "click" with them that the reason why i am what i am, is because i'm Christian.

for His glory.

holy expectancy

April 11, 2005

i had a chat with a friend of mine about worship last week. he was asking me if i ever got distracted by things that took place on a sunday morning, which in turn hindered my worship experience with God. my answer was yes. and in fact, it happens a lot for me, especially with regards to music. since i listen to tons of music, i've developed an idealistic view of how i'd like to see music done in the church. this can be summed up in one word: excellence (i'll discuss this more at length in a later post). when this doesn't happen, i start to analyze what can be done to improve the current situation. and it can become distracting for me, because i'm in analyzing mode, rather than worshipping God freely.

after our discussion, i was reflected on the topic some more the next day and an interesting thing happened. i was stopped at a red light, driving home with bobby in the passenger seat. he noticed that the driver stopped beside us was trying to get our attention, so i opened the window. he was asking for directions. i didn't think much of that, but the next day it struck me. if bobby hadn't been sitting there beside me, i probably wouldn't have even noticed the driver beside me. windows closed, eyes forward, music up, i was in my own space, waiting for the light to change.

for many of us, i think the same thing happens when we go to church on sundays. we've got our windows rolled up tight and eyes forward while God tries so desperately to get our attention from the car beside us. that's the heart of our loving Father. He longs for us to know Him and be with Him. but we don't hear Him. we don't notice Him. we're too busy caught up with our own stuff. maybe we're holding on too tightly to our lives and only looking ahead to what's in it for our us, our goals, our ambitions. or perhaps we're listening to something, the voice of the world, the voice of western culture, the voice of mass media. from this, we wonder why we don't seem to be able to engage with Him and experience Him. God seems distant and far to us, like an abstract concept that we just can't grasp.

there's a concept called holy expectancy that i learned it back in high school. in sum, if we want to meet with God, we must expect to meet with Him. it is not enough to simply want to meet with God. wanting to meet with God and expecting to meet with Him is not the same. wanting, is simply a desire, a drive for something. it does not imply action. expecting means action. when you expect, you prepare yourself, you get ready.

say you were a parent and were expecting your child to be home at 11 pm. it's now 11:15 pm. your child was late. being the concerned parent that you are, you'd be up waiting for their return. you might make some calls to find out where they were. you might even go out and look for them. the bottom line is, you'd take action.

while we take physical action to go to church on sundays, do we really expect to meet God? if we're honest, i think some of us would answer no. church can become very ritualistic and legalistic. we go because we should. or sometimes we get to church with so much going in our minds, that even if God did show up, we'd completely miss Him because our focus and attention is elsewhere. for latecomers, they stumble in at some part of the service. most people forget to take the time to refocus and simply join into the activities right away without thinking.

when was the last time you expected to meet with God? when i don't expect to meet with God, i don't meet with Him. it's as simple as that. if we went to church expecting to meet with God, the whole process would be different. we'd arrive early, prepare our hearts and possibly meditate on His Word. we'd do things differently. we'd be in the proper frame of mind to meet with Him. and if He moved, if He wanted to get our attention (like the driver who wanted to get my attention), we'd be ready for it, because we were expecting it.

holy expectancy is a lot like prayer. if we pray without expecting God to answer, He doesn't answer. praying without expecting God to answer is a grave insult. what we're really saying is that we don't believe God is able. we belittle God because we don't believe He has the power or the authority to do what we ask of Him.

so the next time you go to church, and you start wondering why God isn't meeting with you, ask yourself this: are you expecting to meet with Him? or are you acting like the way i did that night when i drove home, eyes forward, windows rolled up with the music turned up, unable to have your attention captured by someone else?

"you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart" - jeremiah 29:13 [NIV]

more recording fun

April 4, 2005

for your listening pleasure: http://www.pixelsparks.com/mp3s/crymercy.mp3. to download, right click the link and go to "save target as" or "download linked file as"

we did some more recording at my house last night, me, eliot, steve and eventually mike lau. we fixed up "who am i" and laid down "this is your life." mike recorded two of his own songs. if you want to check them out, you can find them here: http://www.pixelsparks.com/mp3s.html.

needless to say, after yesterday, i was inspired to do one of my own recordings, so i decided to try out "cry mercy" by jeffrey b. scott.

let me know what you think! this one is completely on my own.