We’re being hit by lots of snow, here in Toronto. Here’s a few videos and photos of this memorable day of snow

Video 1:

Snow Storm 12-19-2008a from Alex Leung on Vimeo.

Video 2:

Snow Storm in Toronto 12-19-2008b from Alex Leung on Vimeo.

Photos:

As my third semester at Southern comes to a close, I have to admit that it has been the most trying semester yet.  I’ve been trying to gather my thoughts since Thanksgiving, searching my heart for the lessons I have learned in these past six months.  I wish I could figure it all out, but I have not been able to do so.  I have sought the Lord for an explanation to all this, asking him what is the meaning, lesson, or purpose behind what He has permitted to happen in my life.  In this blog post, I want to share with you what I have figured out so far.

Peace in His Purposes

At the end of the day, I have not found a complete answer.  The Lord has revealed His macro purposes to all this (repentance, reliance, righteousness, reward, reminder), but I have come to be convinced that this is an instance when God in His divine sovereignty does not fully explain pain.  He has not revealed His micro purposes to what I have experienced.  And so, while I still have some anxiety from not having all the answers, I have also received ample peace of God through remembering and embracing that I have peace with God.  The pilgrimage of the past couple months has thus been to trust the LORD that He knows what He’s doing, in spite of me having absolutely no clue as to why He has picked on me (in this painful way) to work out this minute detail in his redemptive plan.

15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

–Colossians 3:15-17

. . . . Until you become thankful, you will never find joy.

Being thankful is not telling God you appreciate the fact that your life is
not in shambles. If that is the basis of your gratitude, you are on slippery
ground. Every day of your life you face the possibility that a blessing in
your life may be taken away. But blessings are only signs of God’s love. The
real blessing, of course, is the love itself. Whenever we get too attached to
the sign, we lose our grasp on the God who gave it to us. Churches are filled
with widows who can explain this to you. We are not ultimately grateful that
we are still holding our blessings. We are grateful that we are held by God
even when the blessings are slipping through our fingers.

Only when we see this are we able to be truly joyful, because then we have
made God our joy. We still cherish the blessings, but not because we have to
have them. We cherish them because they are our windows into heaven.

Gratitude is our ability to see the grace of God, morning by morning, no
matter what else greets us in the course of the day.

__________

M. Craig Barnes, Hustling God: Why We Work So Hard For What God Wants To
Give, Zondervan, 1999, page 155.

Here’s an excerpt from President-Elect Obama’s Fascinating Interview with Cathleen Falsani.

I’ve highlighted an intriguing response by Obama in bold/italics below:

FALSANI:
Do you think it’s wrong for people to want to know about a civic leader’s spirituality?

OBAMA:
I don’t’ think it’s wrong. I think that political leaders are subject to all sorts of vetting by the public, and this can be a component of that.

I think that I am disturbed by, let me put it this way: I think there is an enormous danger on the part of public figures to rationalize or justify their actions by claiming God’s mandate.

I think there is this tendency that I don’t think is healthy for public figures to wear religion on their sleeve as a means to insulate themselves from criticism, or dialogue with people who disagree with them.

FALSANI:
The conversation stopper, when you say you’re a Christian and leave it at that.

OBAMA:
Where do you move forward with that?

This is something that I’m sure I’d have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and prostelytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they’re going to hell.

FALSANI:
You don’t believe that?

OBAMA:
I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell.

I can’t imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.

That’s just not part of my religious makeup.

Part of the reason I think it’s always difficult for public figures to talk about this is that the nature of politics is that you want to have everybody like you and project the best possible traits onto you. Oftentimes that’s by being as vague as possible, or appealing to the lowest commong denominators. The more specific and detailed you are on issues as personal and fundamental as your faith, the more potentially dangerous it is.

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