f l o o d

Part of the Disease

behold, my children and rejoice! i have returned to restore the light and joy to your dull, meaningless lives!

*ahem* sorry...got a little carried away there. but yeah, here's a new post for any of you who decided to stick around through my little sabbatical.

so let's see...do you guys wanna hear everything that's gone on in the last week? yes? well too bad cuz i'm not gonna write about it. and i'm not gonna do my anti-corporate/media rant (hey...stop that cheering!).

i was late for church yesterday. somehow i slept right through my alarm, which is strange because i'm a pretty light sleeper and any little sound will wake me up. guess i must have been really pooped. so i missed most of worship, but i got there in time to catch the end of the last song, "God of Hope" by charlie hall. what a great song. it's a song that i was set on doing if i ever led worship again. but who knows when that'll be so i'm glad someone else introduced it to our congregation. ralph's sermon was really amazing. one of the best i've ever heard him preach. he spoke on the Armor of God (Eph 6), something i've heard dozens of sermons on before. to be honest, ralph didn't say a whole lot i hadn't heard before, but the message hit me on a different level this time. what made it so meaningful for me was that it gave me a new revelation into where i am now and where i've been this past year.

when i look at my spiritual state as the Armor of God, i could better understand my own struggles. to put it simply, i dropped my sword. and with no way to fight back against the enemy, my shield of faith was being weakened under the relentless assault of satan's firey arrows. and it all snowballed from there. i could see how satan struck at my faith and my righteousness. i became so beaten and battered i lost even the will to pick up my sword and fight again. and i guess that brings me to where i am now. a broken warrior, swordless, shield cracked, and armor battered. but all is not lost. when all this was being revealed to me, i also saw hope, because now i am among other warriors who can raise their shields around me to cover me while i re-equip myself. that is what being back at ROL means for me. having people who care about my spiritual well being and keep me accountable. it's good to be home, and i am so grateful to all of you who are here to watch my back. it hasn't been easy for. there's still something in me that struggles against getting myself right with God again. but the helmet of salvation is still upon my head and the belt of truth is buckled tightly around my waist. though i am not equipped for battle, i know who i am and i know with whom the answers lie. it may take time, but i will be back in the battle someday.

sometimes i don't understand myself. i feel like i've still got so much truth within me. so much that God has revealed to me and that i know from having been in the church my whole life, but living it has become so difficult. i'm tired of being a hypocrite, projecting a certain image of myself on sundays while not actively seeking God the rest of the week. i'm struggling and fighting with this, but maybe the answer is to just stop fighting, and turn back to the Grace that has brought me this far. if only i knew how to do that. it is strange though how even in my current state i still experince a sense of righteous indignation (uhh...maybe that's not the right term to use) regarding the church and spiritual things. perhaps it's because of all the things i've been taught over the years, particularly growing up in a baptist church. but i see so many of the youth at ROL now who seem to completely lack respect and decorum, especially when it comes to behavior at church. i do like the casual atmosphere we've established, and i know that it is difficult to hold the attention of young people for extended periods of time, but the gall of some of these kids shocks me. the other week there were two kids playing with their cell phones during the sermon. maybe this doesn't seem so bad, but they were sitting in the front row! right in front of ralph! that's appalling! if you don't want to listen, heck, we can't stop you. i know that i've spent plenty of time sitting bored in church watching the clock. but man, i'd be embarassed if i knew that the pastor could clearly see that i didn't give a crap about what he is saying. i don't mean to rag on these kids, but geez...i hope this doesn't continue. eventually i quietly asked both of the kids to stop playing with their phones, explaining that it was disrespectful to ralph and disruptive to others, and i think they understood. or at least they were embarassed enough that someone called them on their screwing around that they stopped.

i dunno, maybe this upcoming retreat will be something good for the youth. or at least be the start of something. i know a lot of people believe that it will be. i really want to go now. i mean, i did before, but after seeing the list of people signed up for the retreat...wow...its huge. i-ting is gonna be there! she like, totally disappeared for years and poof! she's there. maybe the fact that steve liu is gonna be there has something to do with it, but we haven't seen him for a long time either. i believe the last count was over 140 people, including people from daughter churches and fly young and stuff. i can't believe that all these people would gather and God would not use this to do something. give a spark, a breaking, anything. a guy named roger from the chinese congregation is on a 21 day partial fast praying for this retreat. this is gonna be good.

alas...i will not be there.

ok, this post is pretty long already and i'm getting tired, but i can't pass up the oppurtunity for a bit of ranting. we talked about homosexuality in the media in class today. now i know that i come off as liberal in most of my rants, but let it be known that i am unwavering in my belief that homosexuality is a sin. but i learned of something in class today that sickened me. most of us have heard of matthew shepard, the gay wyoming college student who was beaten, stripped, hung up on a fence crucifiction style, and left to die in the snow. while this tragic story was widely reported, we did not hear about an incident that followed. a reverend from wyoming set up a monument to matthew shepard after his death; an eternal flame with a counter marking off the days since his death. was this to commemorate his life or even to mourn his tragic death? no. the reverend put it there to count the days shepard's "perverted soul has been burning in hell." i can't believe this. this is why christians are considered hateful, intolerant people. these people make me sick! who the hell gives some christians the right to proclaim that God hates anyone?! God abhors sin, but loves all people. if these people are considered christian, then i don't want to be called christian anymore. imagine celebrating the eternal damnation of a soul! we should mourn and weep for every lost soul. why christians condemn homosexuals in this way is beyond me. if i lust after a woman, i am as guilty of perverted sexual sin as any homosexual. and yet we've ostracized these people and put them on some sin pedestal.

*sigh* how have we strayed so far from love and mercy?

ok, this post was kinda all over the place. went from the Armor of God to homosexuality. guess i just had a lot to get out of my system. alrighty, i guess that's enough until i update again next year. ehhh...just kidding. won't be more than a couple of months. promise.

if youre wondering what the relevance of this post's title is, there isn't really any. it's a lyric from a coldplay song: "am i part of the cure, or am i part of the disease?" it came to mind when i was thinking about ralph's sermon because he's been preaching on how we are either fighting for the kingdom of God, or enslaved by the kingdom of this world. good stuff.