God is at Work in Me

Recently I have had some discussions with non-Christians and seen a few videos by non-Christians on the subject of God. There have been many ideas I ran into in these experiences that I had struggled with before my conversion but which nonetheless came as a shock as I had left them behind so long ago that I had completely forgotten them. What really startled me though, was the way God was discussed as some kind of immobile theory and the believer was discussed as the one around whom everything was centered. I have indeed learned about God as a foundation of philosophy (as the Foundation of philosophy) and the central subject of theology, but for a very long time I have also viewed Him first and foremost as a person. How could I not? He has approached me as a person.

As much as I love philosophy, it aches sometimes to talk to people and have to get caught up in a conversation about the intellectual theorem of God when all I want to do is tell them as much as I can about the Father and Lover and Savior that it is my delight to worship. Once again, how can I not? He pursues me, comforts me, romances me, teaches me, rebukes me, urges me, suffers for me!

Even in my boyhood I see His hand preparing me. It was then that I struggled with the question of purpose. Why do we exist? Is it for our own happiness? Then why do we thirst for purpose? Is it to obey moral law and be good to each other? If it is then either we are good to one another so that we can all be as happy as possible and we are really going back to the first failed answer or we are saying that acts of goodness are themselves our purpose, but that can't be right because we do good acts out of love for someone and not for the acts themselves. In the end I could never give myself an answer. It was not until I became a Christian that I saw the truth I had been both desiring and fearing: if there is purpose, it must come from something that is so good that it is its own reason to exist and we all exist for its sake. It is no great leap to see that this thing is in all likelihood a person. When I finally accepted this truth, that God is the ultimate good and the source of all other goodness and purpose, it became central to my faith. I came to see how He is the premise of all morality, all science, all philosophy, all art, all happiness, and all knowledge. I learned why He called Himself the great I Am.

As I passed through high school and then through my first year of college I continued to develop in my knowledge of the Lord. I read all the classic writings of C.S. Lewis, I read Love Your God With All Your Mind by J.P. Moreland, and I ate up as much apologetics as I could find. But the really astonishing thing was still to come and in my senior year the groundwork was being laid down as I learned not only of theology but also of prayer, servanthood, and God's miraculous activity.

At the end of my first year of college I listened to a recording of Kingdom Triangle by J.P. Moreland and realized that though I had grown greatly in the Christian mind, I had grown little in terms of action. I began to try developing skills in this area but progress was meager at first. I entered fellowship more and eventually I started attending HELP Ministries, which I had attended in my senior year and stopped going to when I totalled my car at the start of my first year of college, but there was little else. Then God moved in on me.

I tried to start a Christian philosophy group. The project died. I began to pray daily and reached the point at which I would pray when I woke up, when I got on the bus for classes, when I got back on the bus to go home, when I went to bed, and before any other endeavor that happened to come up. I fell into complacency and laziness and the prayers stopped. The entire semester I was constantly passing through spiritual peaks and troughs, both more intense than I think they had ever been before.

Then the next semester came and after some flatlands I was back in the peaks and troughs. I found the revival in encouragement from poets at a Black History Month event who spoke openly about the greatness of God, in a Spring Retreat, in a struggle lasting over a month with procrastination and sloth and shame. I had already faced serious academic failure the past spring and that semester I saw God reach in again and again at the very last second to deliver me from academic habits, from missed deadlines, and from unmet requirements so that I could make it to Fresno Pacific University this coming fall.

The real leap forward in my spiritual life, however, came when Osama bin Laden's death was announced. It is possible that my entire Christian journey until then had been planned around that one event. That night I wrote a facebook note entitled "Mourning Osama bin Laden" in which I poured out love for my brothers and sisters in radical Islam and broken-hearted sorrow over our reaction to Bin Laden's death that could only have come from God. It was a wonderful opportunity to bless and admonish my fellow believers and I am thankful that I had the privilege to be used by God in that way. But, as had been the case so many times before, there was greater yet to come. Inspired by the response to my note, I set out to organize a prayer meeting to come to God on behalf of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Throughout the scheduling process I experienced constant difficulties in getting people to give me available times and at the same time received incessant encouragement from God in various ways until I finally decided to just trust Him by setting a date and time without waiting to get the thumbs up from everyone. When the time came, I was the only person there as every single interested person had either finals, work, transportation problems, sickness, or simply fell into forgetfulness. Fifteen minutes after the prayer meeting was supposed to start, I decided to lay down and pray for all the things that we had been planning to pray for and that if there was still no one there when I opened my eyes I would go catch a bus home. In the time afterwards, I was surprised by my own calmness and realized that if God had simply not shown up there would have been one or two other people and that having no one but myself was just as miraculous as if one hundred people had come to pray with me. I saw on the way home how, in addition to resulting in my being invited into my college groups leadership, the prayer meeting had taught me that I was emotionally capable of standing around looking like an idiot because God had other plans. Serious prayer and faith involves a risk of just that humiliation and disappointment and I knew now that I could take that risk.

To understand how incredible that experience and the events leading up to and following it were, you must understand that I am not an extrovert. In fact, I am not just shy but was actually diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome (a "mild" form of autism) as a child. Until about the fourth grade I didn't even know the names of my classmates, many of whom I had been in the same class with since first grade. In my free time, I would automatically seek out some place of absolute solitude and stay there for hours. Even in high school I would invariably choose to spend my breaks this way until the end of sophomore year, and while I began to choose companionship more and more to choose companionship during my free time I still will frequently seek out solitude for enjoyment. I was often shy and I was absolutely terrified of social interaction, but I was also antisocial. A person who is shy wants to talk to others but is afraid to, but an antisocial person has no desire to speak to anyone else and may even be resentful of others. Quite the snob, I was very resentful. Fear and distaste characterized my view of all but a few carefully selected friends.

So how can be through anything or anyone aside from God that I called for that prayer meeting an nagged and announced and put myself out there in everywhich way? How else can it be that I went on an inner-city mission trip one month later and found myself in constant fellowship and upfront servitude and loved every minute of it? How else could I have come back full of ideas on how to serve and fellowship even more back at home and then gone online to nag everyone else about those ideas? How else could I have resolved to go out onto the streets every week with a sign and a song when others much more extroverted than I have expressed admiration for my "boldness?" Is there anything besides God's delight in confounding worldly expectations that could possible have made a snob like me a beacon of joy and boldness?

I have accomplished much since my conversion and my accomplishments have all been accompanied by failures. My discoveries of my honored place as a member of the Kingdom of Heaven have been followed up immediately by reminders of my absolute sinfulness. I have no explanation but the Lord.

Press On*

Press on good soldier
Through the muck and mire
Despite fears and insurmountable barriers
Against ancient powers
Towards the prize
That is your inheritance

From the start
The tasks you have avoided
And the acts of servitude
I have dreaded
All came my way

Press on
In the face of exhaustion
And apathy

I want to take a break
I anticipate the next task
With sheer and utter terror
Yet I do it anyway
And discover fervor
And victory

Press on
Through misery and failure
Into stumbling and wounds

I also fall into defeat
There are a hundred people
With whom I failed to speak and pray
I let someone else take the lead
I falter

Yet I march on
I climb sheer cliffs
And navigate lightless labyrinths
I am beaten and bruised
But not balked

Press on
Past the place of the Fall

I am at odds against myself
With pride mounting
I bite back my tongue
So ready to boast
Or at least, sometimes I do
I flit back and forth each minute
Between humility and hubris

Press on
With strength and power
And Heaven's arsenal
Should you ask for it

I say a prayer
Nervously
With everyone else praying along
And He is eager to answer
I discover how meaningless
That word "practical" can be
I practice that art
Which I am still learning
And am shocked to find myself
Leading in it

Press on good soldier
Bearing with you winnings
From the week's battle

Press on
The war is still ongoing

The Writer's View

Author's Note: This is something I wrote for the CRC literary journal. It didn't make it in but one of my teachers who is on the board for the journal said she really liked it and when I went back to it I thought it was surprisingly good. It's also rather secular (know your audience) but it is still very theologically informed and I think I may write an edited version at some point with more attention to the spiritual aspects of the ideas explored.


Not too long ago, author and youtuber John Green uploaded a video in which he reflected on a town he and his wife were visiting. The whole thing was quite poetic and filled with musings on appearances and nostalgia and hidden stories but one observation stuck out. This observation was of a headstone which bore the names of both a husband and spouse but which did not indicate the year of the wife’s (Gussie Audrey Manlove) death. Precisely one week later, John’s brother, Hank, uploaded another video in which he described all that the surviving records could say about Gussie. Hank, John, and all their online followers had managed to discover the seven different names Gussie had gone by throughout her life, her three marriages, her occupation as a typesetter, the child she had while still a teenager, her last home (which was currently for sale), and her final resting place.

      There’s a lot that can be said about this strange and wonderful event but as I watched it play out what it really did was remind me why I am a writer and why I love being a writer. Being a writer means being able to step outside oneself and then to step into another self entirely. It means practicing the art of writing pages and pages about a single leaf. It means pouring all of one’s knowledge and imagination and passion into a stranger glimpsed for a half-second until the writer loves the stranger a dearly as his or her own kin. It means walking into an empty classroom and passing by each desk one at a time, noting each mark, running a hand over each surface, wondering at all the inhabitants throughout the years and all the lessons and laughs and covert discussions and notes and doodles. It means walking through a crowd and asking how much is hidden behind those bored masks or being shouted down by ipods and cell phones. Being a writer means being awed and astonished and delighted and moved and saddened by absolutely anything.

     Writers do not exaggerate. They do not invent astonishment or uniquity where there is only the everyday and humdrum. In fact, a real writer finds a blade of grass or a slice of bread or a breeze astonishing not only for the way it is itself but for the way it is common and categorized. Even the ordinary is extraordinary because in it there is the shocking and delightful combination of order and individuality. How much we would miss if a snowflake was so unique that there could only be one or so neatly categorized that all should be in every way the same. Everything from the most unobtrusive pebble to the grandest of mountains partakes in a world of thousands of varieties all bound together with reason and brotherly love. This garden is not so wild that we cannot live off it or fail to remember our lives for its oppressively dazzling arrays and yet neither is it so monotonous that a sane person can possibly look at it deeply and find it boring. All that is ordinary is extraordinary.

     And yet we are often bored. Everything around us is lit up and yet we, the ones blessed enough to see their eternal rays, are frequently submerged in murky shadows. We look to drugs and sex and adrenaline and vanity and social approval for the joy that has always been in reach. We live in the most beautiful and substantial world imaginable and yet we descend into nihilism, crying out that there is nothing. It’s time to stop crying over milk that is neither spilled nor spoiled. It is time to open our eyes, climb out of the garbage pit we dug for ourselves, and step out into the grandeur and fullness of life.

Don't Overlook Us

Am I supposed to be impressed? Was it the marble pillars or the overabundance of the feast that was supposed to make me ooh and aah? Did you expect the soldiers and guards to astound me or was it the quick, cold efficiency of the servants that was intended to give me chills? Did you really think this pitifully extravagant display would strike awe into me? Don't underestimate us.

Do not forget the countless others that came before you. Remember the ruined empires that once held these lands and the kings whose current descendants make their livings in mines and from behind small market stalls. Remember that in this empire you are a dynasty; you are here because one greedy man killed another greedy man and your line will be cut down just like the one before you. Laugh all you like at the commoners that I call my brothers and sisters but I will remind that one hundred such men as you have risen and fallen from sovereignty in the mere infancy of common farms. And if a mere farm goes on for centuries, showing no interest in the men and women of power who mark its longevity, until something finally comes to snuff it out, then what of the Church. What of the Body that is based neither in the ambitions and artificiality of the world nor in the ancient remnants of holiness in Creation but rather in the eternal power of the Creator?

Banners of war have been sent out and bloodied and scorched and forgotten, and we have endured. Cults and fashionable philosophies have spread like wildfire and burned themselves out just as recklessly, and we have endured. Capitols have been demolished and sown with salt, and we have endured. Skeptics have wallowed in their self-imposed ignorance until everyone ceased to care about their denunciations of knowledge, and we have endured. We have taken on worldly power and seen the gangrene of sin infect our leadership and by the endless grace of God we have endured!

And what of these weapons? Do you think these can bring us down? No, I tell you do not imagine for one instant that your bullets will last longer than our willingness to suffer for Him! Understand this: that guns do not win wars or put down revolutions, it is fear that does that. But what do we have to fear? If you are to make us afraid of death then I am afraid that fear has all been spent, it is what made us in the first place. And we shall respond with a weapon which is beyond worldly understanding. Already, our grace has broken through your frontlines.

You take pride in the strength of your war machine, but what is it in comparison to the Body? Can it possibly hope to even mimick our fullness, our complementary tones and balanced extremes? Do your analysts dine with your soldiers? Do your soldiers learn to write poems and your propagandists learn to fight while each still remain themselves? Ours do. We are as multifaceted, as random in appearance, and as strategically constructed as a forest.

If you think you are superior in lifestyle, that you can tempt us with feasts and treasures, you are to be disappointed. Look around you! The finer your feasts, the more preoccupied the guests are with appearance and reputation and the less real pleasure they are able to partake in. Do you take even the slightest enjoyment from those delicacies you gulp down? I would not trade one afternoon among my brothers and sisters for every pleasure you can offer.

And all this because the King of Kings is in our midsts. The One who set the world in motion and calls every star by name is our commander and He has called us His blessed children.

So I'll tell you one more time, for your own good. Don't overlook us.

Project Open Hand*

I knock
I wait
I knock again
I hear someone coming

A brief opening of the door
An open hand
A meal given out

That's it
It's not like on the street
With long conversations ending perhaps in prayer
But it's not like background work either
They see us
And this act of servanthood
Could provide their only meal for the day

Sometimes they don't come out
Sometimes the come out right away
None that I saw seemed to spend much time on us
I suppose that's expected since we're just delivering food
And they're right in their homes
Still, I think it's more than that

There's so much sadness there
And shame
And hardened hearts

The ragged, tired, open hand
Reaches out
The only part extending beyond the door
Beyond the boundaries of the dimly-lit cell
Of leprosy
And drugs
And abandonment

It looks so hopeless
Yet I trust
That God is breaking in

City Search*

I'm not ready for this
It's not like other times
It's too crowded
Too busy
Too surrounded by concrete and steel

I should talk to him
Or should I?
Five seconds pass
And the debate is settled for me

There's a short fight
I pray
But just on my own
I know I should do more
And then the time's up

I'm challenged again
And again
I fail again
And again
The hunched-over old man doesn't notice
That I almost asked to pray for him
The younger man in rags
Doesn't know the urging and resisting
That he inspires

I pass them by in the dozens
And rack myself with guilt over each one
But I still do nothing

Three Mexican men
We stop for them
I kneel down to talk with one of them

I should have done more
But it is unspeakable blasphemy
To say that one conversation wasn't worth the whole trip
That one prayer for them was not a cause to rejoice

For Brother Jesse and Richard*

I love tattooed Christians
With criminal records
And old addictions that almost destroyed them

I love my brothers and sisters
Who spent cold nights in prison
Who wore their sins on their sleeves
Who lived in open rebellion
Who learned firsthand
That we can do nothing apart from Christ
That we can do everything through Him
And that He will do just about anything in His reckless pursuit of us

I love testimonies
That make skeptics and "moderates"
Look down at their feet and blush
With embarrasment at their so-called "reason"
I love testimonies that fill the room with awe
And rouse tears

I love people
With big smiles
And open hearts
And faith to move mountains
Whom some cross the street to avoid

I love these people
And so did Christ
He went out in search of them
While they were still in their sin
And not just because they needed Him
But because He liked them

Friday Night Collision*

There's something coming
I can hear it
But only barely
As we decide on rooms
And debate sleeping arrangements

It's getting louder now
So strange
And yet so familiar
So weird
And yet so natural

I can hear it when we pray now
Clear and distinct
But I still can't understand it
It can be so loud sometimes
It urges me
It pushes me into discomfort
Into my inheritance

The whole earth is shaking with that noise
How can so few seem to notice?
There are cracks forming
Debris falling
And something in the world
Something inside me
Is resisting with all its might

It's losing
The thing in the flesh and the world
Is losing

It's from Heaven
Whatever it is
And I can hardly wait

It's here now
We're on our knees now
I'm laying hands on my sister now
I'm praying for her
Despite all insecurities
And now I've finished
And my face is an inch from the floor
There are tears streaming down my cheeks
There are sobs and gasps of shame and awe
Or am I laughing?

I know I'm overwhelmed
But the part of me that I call consciousness
The part that never shuts up
That can never be still
Can't find this thing called joy
It's like I've been evicted from my own soul
I'm not weak enough
Not yet
To fit into my own heart of hearts
When it's so brimming with holiness

Still I weep
And pray
And know that the whole world trembles

The Holy of Holies is in Harbor House

Heaven at War*

Heaven is at war
And He has carved out His territory
Camp has been made
In the Enemy's stronghold

The wolves prowl the streets
There's a fiend in every house
And poison in every pot
There's sadness on the sidewalk
And misery in the alleys
There's bloodshed every hour
And ODs thrice a day
And darkness all the time

There's hellhounds let loose
And the demons are forming into legions
Armed with all the terrors of Hell
Because the Usurper has heard
That the King is coming

But there are angels at the door
And the saints have assembled
With a song of unearthly power
The seraphim are at the ready
With faces and feet uncovered
And the encampment's banners are red with the blood of the Holy One
Inside there is a court
Full of the foliage of Eden
And tenderly walled up
In beautiful, red bricks
And overflowing
With laughs
And shouts
And joyful noise

Heaven is at war
And all for the little children

Afraid to Love*

I look down
I let them pass me by
I ignore my neighbor
But not out of coldness
It's not that I don't care
It's that I'm afraid I'll break if I care

Afraid of sympathy
Afraid to love
Terrified of guilt
With the shame already building
The street where He lives
Is the place of all my sin
And I'm eager to leave

I'm afraid I can't do anything
I'm afraid my heart will shatter
That I'll never put the pieces back in place
Afraid to love
But I am sanctified by the blood of the Lamb

So how dare I imagine I am so weak?!

The Taxman Comes*

Today the taxman comes
To extract a handful of joy
To bend our knees and demand
The burning of incense
The slaughtering of a bull
But today is not like the other days
Today we make our stand

Today we say
"NO!
Not today
Not this time!"
Today we put up a shield
Of heavenly Sacrifice
And bring to our lips
The wisdom of the Lord
Today we put on the full armor of God
And go on the offensive

Today we dig up the carpet
Of bones and grime and sagging bodies so full of unlife
And knock over the high places
Where we once bowed
And tear out by the roots
The glass roses of vainglory
On this day we throw off all the vestiges
Of worldly authority
And speak
With honor and reverence and tenderness
The Name of the King
First in a whisper
Then in a roar

Today is the day the taxman comes
Today is the day the taxman runs