New Blog

Henceforth, thebananadestiny.wordpress.com will simply be my photoblog.

I’ve decided on a whim to start coming back to the Internet. I’m starting off by trying to write more. One day I’ll write about why I got off the Internet. Maybe I won’t. That’s not a promise.

- stevench4ng.wordpress.com

Beginning…Summer 2010

I acknowledge that not everyone is out of school yet.
But I am. So there.

I got my Canon Rebel T1i in the mail on Monday and ran a few test shots with it at home on Tuesday. I’m still a total noob at DSLRs, but criticism is welcome. Please be merciful! I’m planning to read all the basic startup guides and experiment with it while I’m on the plane to Taiwan today (at approximately 3:15pm ^^).

First run photos:

So that’s that. I’ll hopefully be spending the time on the plane reading the Bible, finishing up Reasonable Faith, working with my new DSLR, and hopefully writing a reflection about sophomore year. It’s been a crazy few days back in So Cal, and I haven’t gotten a good opportunity to get some good reflection time in. Starting to slip a little on DTs already…but I’m determined to not let this summer pass by passively.

I’ve also been MIA on the internet for a while. Hopefully I’ll be blogging more and putting up more pictures, but I don’t really want to get back onto the net as much I was before. Life is a lot simpler without it, for now.

Sustain

I’m sitting here in Mainstacks, C level, just outside the connection to Moffit Library. It’s my first time sitting at one of the one-person desks with their personal plugs and lights.

I’m currently listening to Sovereign Grace’s album Come Weary Saints. I haven’t been really listening to the words, but musically it’s along the same level of most contemporary Christian worship albums. But it definitely is growing on me.

What hits me more is the title of album: Come Weary Saints.

I was reading the Bible out of Mark 1:1-8 today and I reflected on what it meant for someone to prepare his or her own heart for the Lord, to make His paths straight, to let Jesus into their hearts.

John the Baptist preached the baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sin. So that’s the first step. Confession of, forgiveness of, and repentance from sin. Inevitably I was led to think about the cross, the death and life of Jesus, which makes this impossible reconciliation so possible and wonderful.

I realized that most times in my life I have a very twisted view of my Christian walk. It goes something like this: I walk on my own strength, and then I find that my own strength is not enough as I fall and stumble and get hurt. In those moments, I find God’s strength as He picks me up, and in that confidence, I continue to walk on my own strength. I’ve not so much made a decision to reject or forget God in those times of strength, but there is a sense of “I’m doing what I need to do and walking faithfully, so I must be good.”

I’m starting to see more and more that God is the one who sustains abundantly, the one whom, apart from Him, all else is insufficient.

I do not walk on my own strength and fall in my own weakness, but Jesus’ blood and His Holy Spirit sustain my every step. It’s as though every single step I take and every stumbling and falling is cushioned by His pierced hands. He truly breaks my fall.

How daily am I overwhelmed as I let the Potter mold me. Sinful woe, exuberant joy, quiet contemplation, tearful gratitude. How small I am!

Daily, I learn to be a foot soldier, to be a fool, to be a plain and simple jar of clay, so that the treasure inside shines brightly, past the fleshly covering on my outside. It is so hard, but so fulfilling, and yet so easy because of the grace and hope I have in God.

What else could I ever need?

Fighting My Inclinations

I hope some time to write a blog post on the Mexico Mission Trip sometime soon. I will have one up for sure because I have to write an reflection about it and submit it to my mission leaders. I’ll have to get on that soon.

I would however, like to share shortly about something that I had to struggle against when I was in Tecate, Mexico. I know that I have a knee-jerk reaction to things very cliche or overused. My reasons for this reaction and my opposition to the use of such phrases aside, I think that sometimes the downfall of this is that I do not let myself completely absorb things that I should, nor am I vulnerable enough for them to impact me the way they should. Instead, my heart can be come cold, hard, and numb.

I saw a lot of poverty in Tecate, Mexico. Everyday when we drove from our living quarters to the work sites I was stunned by the way people were living just across the border. The poverty of the town really reflected the state of the people as well – most of them had lost all their money trying to get to the border by failing to cross into America.

With nothing left, they try to make some sort of a life in Tecate. Houses with less square footage than my room at my home in Rowland Heights made of nothing but cinderblocks and plywood roofs. 4-5 people in that house. And more, but I won’t go into the details.

It was a struggle for me to let myself absorb all of these details and let them shake my soul. With the taste of social justice activism that I encountered in high school, the proliferation of such clubs in Berkeley’s campus in the tradition of such activism, and an even further growing trend of people picking up on social justice issues, I really let those things become just another cliche. “Let’s raise awareness!” became one of my most hated phrases (that is for another post).

I found that in Tecate, faced with such a picture of reality, I could no longer allow myself to become numb or cold to poverty or respond in an attitude of false sophistication to it. I think working with the children of the community everyday struck me in very deep ways. And so I realized that I had to continuously fight my emotional inclination to revert to a numbness towards the very examples of poverty in front of me.

I have found in the last few months of sophomore year that I am too often controlled by my emotions. In SK1 I did this exercise where I looked at different areas in my life and evaluated the way I made decisions in those areas. I believe out of 5 sections, I could only put “Scripture” in 1 area, “Intellect” in 1 area, but I had to put “Feelings” into 3 areas. I was very tempted to put Intellect instead of Feelings into those areas, but in all honesty I realized that the way I was feeling often swung the way I was thinking.

Now, back at home, I was shocked and stunned to learn of the situation in Haiti. Today we prayed for Haiti in prayer meeting and Kelly said something very challenging to me:

“Even though we are thousands of miles away, that does not mean this has nothing to do with us.”

It was a reminder for me to not simply let my emotions drive my inclinations. It was a reminder for me to cling onto the Word of God and to my God to remind, push, convict, and strengthen me. It helped me to become genuinely saddened over the 500,000 lives lost in Haiti. And I don’t know when was the last time I felt genuinely sad towards a distant tragedy.

So here I am, facing the new year and taking this entire month to think about what I want to dedicate myself to and what spiritual disciplines to grow in. And here I am, hoping to mature by letting “Scripture” be the lead in my entire life. Hoping to be able to fight against my emotional defaults and try to find the appropriate, reality-embracing, truth-desiring, God-glorifying response to what comes up in my life.

Movie Review…and Then Some.

Well, in the past week, I’ve watched two movies – Avatar and Sherlock Holmes. Consequently, movies have been on the mind lately – movies, why people prefer some over others, what makes a movie good, etcetera. And, as always the case (or is it always?) there’s a lot to think about and ponder when I’m chewing over movies – one, because I like movies, and two, because I like pondering.

I won’t talk about Avatar, but I will mention something about Sherlock Holmes, only because the movie is fresh in my mind (despite how mind-numbing I allowed my brain to be during the film) and because, for some reason, today, my thoughts have decided to organize themselves quickly and coherently enough for me to feel confident to release them to the blogosphere.

Well then, Sherlock. You’ve made a nice movie. But is that all we want to settle for? Nice? You didn’t make a bad movie, but you could’ve done a lot better, you know. Or is it the other way around? That You could’ve done better, but you didn’t do badly? Is there a difference? Anyhow, I should’ve expected Moriarty to come in some way or the other. With a name as big as yours, it’s no wonder that Hollywood would want to milk you for all you’ve got. Not that they don’t have a good actor for you or anything – it’s just that I don’t know if I should be sad that I’m indifferent towards it or if I should accept the way things work. I can’t expect art to be pure all the time – or at least the way I want it to be.

It’s doubtful you (the reader) understood what that paragraph above meant – I’m not sure I do. But hopefully the general sentiment is there, because it reflects upon something I’ve been chewing on for a long time. Since I’ve gone off to college I’ve started realizing that I no longer form concrete ideas as quickly as I used to in high school. In high school, I would crunch over things quickly, come up with some sort of thought or idea, and then talk and write about it. I blogged and wrote constantly because of it.

Then, for some reason, I stopped blogging for a while. I don’t know why. It wasn’t only because of my media fast, because I could’ve written blog entries into word documents and then waited to post them – because that’s what I used to do when I had something I wanted to write about but didn’t feel it to be ready yet. I did, however, write a bit in my journals. But even then many times when I was trying to wrap my mind around something I wouldn’t write anything down, which was very unusual because I like to think that way – pen, ink, paper, keyboard, computer, whatever.

I got to the point where I surprised myself by letting go of whatever I was trying to work out in my mind. Usually, if I was occupied with some sort of concept or idea or theme in my head, I would write and work until I got that idea out concretely somehow – that way I wouldn’t forget it later and that way I could feel a little closure. But recently, whether it’s because I’ve been busy or lazy or I-don’t-know-what, I’m more willing to let myself let go of something and come back to it when it naturally rises up in my life again. But this is for another post.

Ever since I watched Star Trek of last year with a handful of friends from Berkeley thoughts about movies and media and entertainment in general started working themselves into my train of thought. This was probably the first time where I started to do the actions mentioned above – let go of a thought to let it come back again. Most of the time I’d form an opinion about a movie and it’d be set in stone, but with Star Trek it was different. It was weird, actually.

I felt like I liked it, but my favor towards the movie wasn’t…sincere. At all. Even though other people’s favor towards it comforted me with my judgement of the movie, I still knew, that for some reason, I was dissatisfied. I soon figured out it was because of my expectations – I had expected Star Trek to be as deep as Ender’s Game or Ray Bradbury’s science fiction but it turned out to be a typical summer blockbuster. If I had gone into the movie expecting a summer blockbuster, I might’ve enjoyed it a bit more. I think the same goes for Iron Man for me.

As late as this realization could’ve come, I’ve realized that movies are in different categories and different leagues. And it all depends on what the director chooses to emphasize. Some movies are flat out escapism. Others are simply entertainment. Others emphasize a certain character so much so that the character becomes the icon, and that icon becomes part of pop culture. Others emphasize a certain story so well that the story becomes repeated over and over again, to the chagrin or delight of the audience. But I think the movies that are the strongest emphasize certain underlying themes (and do it well) through the utilization of the story and characters and whatever other mediums movies use – because those themes (which are, in many cases, tied to a certain character or story, although I think a timeless theme is more pure of an art and actually is the reason for a timeless character or timeless story) speak powerfully to the human soul.

It is those movies which do this that I really love.

Is it sad then, that I’ve come to accept that not all movies do this? That I’ve come to accept that people will prefer movies that I absolutely would never watch because, though there is valid objective value to draw from movies, ultimately whether or not someone likes a movie is up to them? Because it is a subjective decision – I like this movie, I don’t like this one, etcetera. That’s why I will never understand why crude humor and horror movies continue to be made – only because there is an audience for them.

Or is it simply acceptance of reality? Not every movie can be breathtaking, inspiring, and soul-moving (e.g., Sherlock Holmes, which was “nice.”) because that’s the way it is. And because that’s the way it is, we can recognize the diamonds among the pieces of coal – in short, the poor quality of some movies really makes the good ones stand out. Or maybe actors, directors, producers, and the entire movie industry just sometimes settles for mediocrity instead of shooting to make every single damn movie the best one they’ve ever produced? Humanly impossible, though, isn’t it? To keep up such good quality of work?

Maybe it’s for all of this that my grip on quality control of movies (and music, and art, and all else) has somewhat loosened. I’ve found a little more mercy to give to friends and strangers that like/dislike certain mediums of entertainment. But a nagging thought continues to come up in the back of my mind – am I settling? Have I gotten soft? How have I reconciled my belief of objective truth to the subjective nature of opinions and judgements and criticisms about movies? Have I contradicted myself? Have I placed my reconciliation in a wide spectrum of possible actions?

Because a part of me wants to scream and shout at the injustice towards these mediums of arts by our media today. I want to scream, “You call that a movie?” And still another: “You call that a SONG?” Because a part of me believes in the higher standard of things and wants the masses to rise above the demand for movies like Beverly Hills Chihuahua and The Hangover (and music artists like Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears).

So once again, life is characterized by tension. Struggle. Change. But I still hate Britney.*

Tension. So instead, I hold onto that which gives peace, which brings joy in struggle, and is forever unchanging. That which really matters, and all else is considered loss – the Gospel.

Merry Christmas to you all. And even though Christmas was originally a pagan holiday and Jesus wasn’t really born in the wintertime, He still is the reason for the season. I find no better reason to celebrate than Him.

* – Sorry, Spears, I don’t hate YOU specifically, but you’re simply the figurehead for a lot of entertainment that I abhor. I understand that as a celebrity, you are someone, but as a person, you are someone else. It is that celebrity, that figurehead, which stands for much more than we think it does, that I have major problems with, and right now, you just happen to be the good name stylistically to throw in there because I referenced you in the last paragraph. Why not Miley? Well, it’s a little too cliche to insult her now. And take that statement more as a joke, hence the smiley. It’s more of a just a throwback to the overarching theme of tension in this little insignificant blog entry. I hope you’ve had a Merry Christmas this year, away from cameras and the media.

I Won’t Lie

Reading some of my friends’ blogs makes me extremely sad.

Worth My Blood

How long has it been since my last blog?
Here I am, on a whim, deciding to blog although I have mounds and mounds of work to do. Perhaps it’s the momentum I’m carrying from answering emails to close friends and from not being able to blog for so long.

Life has been busy, and it just keeps getting busier. The curious thing is, I find it becoming busier as I let go of more and more things. As I let go of watching TV (which I’m committing to, now), of playing videogames, of leaving childish behavior behind to truly grow up, and as I just continue to let go, it seems as though my schedule becomes piled up with more.

Why more?

I would sum up how I’m doing, what I’ve been learning, and what God has been hammering into my life into a few phrases, with some explanation:

Integrity
I used to think integrity referred only to virtue. Now I know how wrong I was. God has really been teaching me that integration is the essence of integrity, integration here being the opposite of compartmentalization. The challenge here, which excites me, scares me, drives me, kills me, brings me to life is the full integration of Christianity into my life. I realized that much of what I did for Jesus in highschool was alleviated by the fact that I could pad up my college applications. There were moments where my attitude was one of a user, essentially using ministry for selfish gains – building my character, updating my resume, growing into a better person. But this Christian walk is NOT about me, it’s ALL about God. And therein lies the struggle. ALL ABOUT GOD. Everything. My relationships with others – God first. My academics – God first. My career – God first. My life – God first. My future – God first. These translate differently into specific actions, but the value of integrity here is the same. I feel as though I’m learning the BASICS all over again, and who I am is simultaneously dying and being filled with abundant life.

You and I were made to worship
You and I are called to love
You and I are forgiven and free
When you and I choose to surrender
You and I choose to believe
You and I will see how we were meant to be.

Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the Body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

The Undeniability of God’s Work in My Life
So often my vision for my life and the church is something small, something limited. Then I was reminded of this goal. “When people see me, they no longer see me, but they see Christ in me.” This has really reworded itself into the title of this section – striving to a point where people can see the undeniability of God’s work in my life. David Robinson, NBA Hall of Famer, in his acceptance speech, spoke boldly and claimed that all who knew him could see the evidence of God’s hand in his life. Basically, it boils down to this: If you take God out of the equation, my life makes no sense at all. Translate that to the vision of the Church, as one Body: If you take God out of the equation, you can’t explain the church and its ministry. Without God, there is no explanation! The prospect of that lights a fire like no other in my heart, spirit, and body.

Is it Worth Your Blood?
This is another phrase that keeps popping into my head. How do I want to live my life? Or, rather, how do I want to live the life God has given me? If these goals of integrity and undeniability of God’s work in my life shall be reached, my life shall necessarily reflect a narrow path. A narrow path because it is the path of integrity and single focus. It is a path devoted to one thing, one desire, my Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. A narrow path because of the struggle and difficulty in walking it, and the constant challenge to step outside of comfort, to step against culture and society, to fight the principalities. I was reading the Bible from Matthew 6 and this phrase kept popping into my mind. On the fly I wrote a short poem/paragraph/whatever:

That which we treasure
Must either rot or last forever
Because something in between
Is bathing and settling
In void and loss.

My heart cries
For something more
To give my tears
My blood
My sweat and work
My life to.
What would you bleed for?

Is what you’re living for
Worth your blood?

You bled for me.

Yet I am so little
What can I do
So take the little that I have
and make much
of, for, and in You.

Last Remarks
I haven’t been able to share very much of what’s been happening up here with people back home. This is barely a fraction of the amount of things I’ve been through already in this first month and a little more of college. It seems as though I am growing in my faith so much, and undeniably I am, but don’t be mistaken. The struggle, the confession of sin, the prayer, the mistakes, the sins committed, the falling and rising, the emotions…there is so much left out in these words – so much that would give this more dimension, more accuracy in portrayal. I wish I could share life with you, reader, so that you could see. I wish that I could speak in ways more clear, more succinct, more creative, more informational.

I’m doing something called Interhigh with Gracepoint Fellowship Church. I’ve been twittering about it and such, but to clarify for the folks back home – It’s like Impact, but with a focus on mentorship, fellowship, and Worldview/Apologetics training. With the covering of a church it’s more stable, and it has grander vision because of the experience of everyone on the team. Interhigh aims at providing these 3 things for Christian youth who aren’t well fed in their churches because of limited resources, no youth pastor, etc. I’m extremely excited to be a mentor to high school Christian students. www.interhigh.org

I love city planning, by the way. It’s been going great so far despite and because of the immense workload. Studying rocks.

Wow. Probably one of my most open posts.

Back to work now. Jesus loves you all.

Opportunity Missed

Well, this sophomore year has gotten a little more intense. I’ve been playing a bit of catch-up already. One more late night and I should be pulling more regular sleeping hours. Should be. =).

The Story (Warning: There’s going to be some language here)

Today I was walking to Econ Discussion about half an hour early (I have an hour break with nothing much to do) when I happened upon a group of 4 teenagers skating down the Evans Hill. I didn’t expect them to talk to me because they looked like high school students who were at Berkeley just to skate and hang out.

Out of the blue, one of the high school students looked straight at me, shouted, “Class of 2013! This is our song!” and proceeded to play a song on his phone that resembled mainstream hip-hop. Semi-English lyrics and everything. This kid had a high school swagger to him – you know, when you try to be older than you really are. I could tell these guys were kids even though they claimed to be in college. I could also tell they were trying to be cool, or how they felt “cool” should look like when people were in college.

He then asked me what class I was going to, and I replied “Economics.” Another one of his friends came up to me and asked what I was going to do after college, and I replied “Probably get a job.” Looking at me with wide eyes, the same teenager asked me, “Does a job get you vagina?” I wasn’t sure what I heard, and so I mumbled, “What?” with disbelief. The first skater that spoke to me piped, “Hey, have you gone partying at those frat parties? Have you gotten bush?”

I was pretty shocked at how they were acting. I told them that I wasn’t at college for that. I wasn’t the type of guy that lived that type of life, and I made that clear. They replied, “Oh, so you’re at college doing the real thing, like studying and stuff.”

“Yea,” I replied.

“Well, I don’t want to keep you from your class. Nice talking to you, man!”

“Yea.” I gave him a high-five/handshake.

“Hey, can you take us to one of those frat parties?”

“No way, dude. To be honest, man, I don’t think you should be going to those. Not exactly the best lifestyle. And you know what? They’re overrated anyways.”

By the time I said my last line, they had stopped paying attention to me and went back to their skating. I went into Evans and sat down to do some reading before section.

What I Wished Happened

“Oh, so you’re at college doing the real thing, like studying and stuff.”

“Hold on. I want you to listen to me because you need to hear this. Someone – I don’t know who – or something has told you that, for some reason, all college guys act like the way you’re acting right now. And you know what? You need to stop doing this. You need to get it in your head that whoever is telling you this is feeding you a bunch of bull about sex, about women, about yourself, and about becoming a man. You should be ashamed of the way you’re talking because it doesn’t make you look cool. It makes you look stupid. It makes you look immature. It shows how you’ve been duped by some other idiot who follows this lifestyle and will probably find himself hurt, broken, and empty, but too prideful and busy with his life to pause and admit his own folly. Don’t put your value into this. Don’t put your life into this. Please. Please. Because once you fall, you might get up, but after that first fall, you’re never the same. Don’t listen to what the media tells you, don’t listen to what those boneheads told you.”

And to Go a Little Further

I walked away wishing I had been more firm, more action-oriented, more conscious of what action I should have taken rather than walking away. I wish I could have instilled into them there the biblical view of manhood. I wish I could have shaken the scales from their eyes and taught them about an alternative lifestyle – a counter-culture lifestyle – that would demand everything from them but give them more, to the infinite power, than they could have ever believed.

Maybe what I wished would have happened wouldn’t have really done anything at all. And I’m convinced that in that time frame I had I couldn’t have done much. But instead of tossing in their general directions clues and hints as to who I was as a disciple of Christ, I could have at least dug a hole in the soil, planted a seed, and covered it to let it grow.

High school students.

God, I pray and hope for this teenager and his friends. I pray that as small as our meeting may have been, these boys would have seen that there existed on college campuses guys who weren’t doing all that “college stuff.” Not everyone partied. Not everyone treated women that way. Not everyone treated their own life that way.

And then at least, maybe from that point, they would ask, “Why?” and perhaps begin an intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual journey that would lead them to Your heart. It’s a stretch, God, and I’m asking You to make much out of a whole lot of nothing. But Your Word says You’re in that business. Making much out of little.

Heck, I’ve experienced it myself.

PS: Check out www.interhigh.org. Gracepoint Fellowship Church is part of holding an awesome event to train high school Christians and mentor them to grow in the faith and learn more about God and each other. It’s a crazy parallel to Impact, City to City, and other organizations back home. High school ministry? I’m feeling a small push…

First Thoughts of Sophomore Year

Well, there’s always the obligatory blog post one must write before school starts. Unfortunately things got a bit hectic the few days before I came home, and I never got around to it. If I found myself with time to write an entry, I decided to journal about it instead. But, for now, writing this entry feels like an appropriate step to take, because I really want to share what’s been going on this first week of my sophomore year of college.

I don’t even know how I’m supposed to start this. I’ve barely done any homework – that fact alone itches at the back of my mind and constantly makes me want to forget about writing about this blog. But procrastination rules at the moment.

Weakness

It’s a common desire for students to renew their commitment to academics once school starts. We want to start off our semester/quarter strong, studying, not procrastinating, not wasting time, and having stable, healthy relationships and valued activities. But even before that semester started for me, God showed me not Strength or Inspiration but Weakness.

Weakness within my family, Weakness within myself, Weakness within the relationships I hold with friends, Weakness within the church, Weakness of my intellect, Weakness of my emotional stability, Weakness in the self control of my anger, Weakness in my patience, Weakness in my character, Weakness in my integrity, Weakness in the very foundations of who I am and why.

It was on an important day of transitions – my sister working and living in Downtown LA, my parents moving into a next phase in their business, my brother starting high school, my cousin starting school in USC – that God exposed weakness. On a day in which the family hoped for the family to be strong together, on a day in which friends hoped to be strong for each other, on a day in which support is most needed, God showed me loneliness, meaningless pondering, and disappointment.

Interestingly, my entire mindset going into sophomore year dealt with the concept of “Strength.” Not just strength academically, but strength spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally. Strength integrated into every aspect of my life. Improvement. Growth. A building said to be structurally sound is said to have structural integrity.

Yet, despite how positive these first few days have been, and despite how optimistic my personality is naturally inclined, I can’t help but experience weakness. When I am alone, weak. When I am with others, weak. When I am in conversation, weak. When I am in activity, weak. I can’t help but feel overwhelmed (already!) or disappointed, frustrated and even at times disillusioned.

I had a very intense talk with my room mate Samuel Oh yesterday night. We spoke for about 3 hours from 1am-4am. We became very open in sharing our frustrations with the amazing church we attend, our disappointments in our own Christian experiences, our intellectual struggles, our emotional and spiritual difficulties, and though we are very different people, we both reached a point in recognizing the “impossibility” of the goals of Christianity, of Jesus’ vision for the church, of God’s Kingdom fully fulfilled. We ended the conversation in prayer, in weakness, in uncertainty, in desperation towards God.

Even now I’m not sure what to make of this. All I know is that I have experienced much weakness. All I know is that I am so, so small, and yet on these small shoulders I carry enormous dreams and visions because of Jesus Christ. I am so, so small, and this small life surrendered to God seems to do little.

How so very much I recognize my need for my Savior. How so very much I recognize that my yoke I bear is heavy, and that sometimes I stubbornly chain myself to this yoke. Sometimes, this yoke has been borne in such independence that I have convinced myself that I can bear this burden, yet in true reflection, I see the injuries and wounds I have sustained in carrying this weight on my own.

How so very much I need You, Jesus.

Everything Works Out

A common response to the experience of weakness and hardship is to push forward. We give ourselves pep talks, we somehow build up our strength, we talk to others, and we push forward, push forward, push forward. Subconsciously these actions work towards an idea that “Everything Will Work Out.” Numerous self-help books and inspirational speakers help us to see optimistically and point us towards a point where “Everything Will Work Out.”

What to make of this cliche?

I myself have an inherent abhorrence towards cliches and a rejection of the truth of these cliches.

On one hand, I consider this quote to be extremely immature. Why? In fact, aren’t all cliches immature in that they do not fully encompass life experience but attempt to sum it up and generalize it so as to make “profound” remarks? It is then, perhaps my fault and flaw in rejecting the truth of these cliches instead of attempting to mature the understanding and expression of them, both in myself, and others.

As a Christian, and through (hopefully) biblical perspective, I would like to try to mature this concept – that “Everything Will Work Out.” I would make the claim that many Christians today have a worldview framework in which their individual faith is less based in their faith in God but in their faith in this cliche. Life tends to work this way, so it will continue to. Thus, when hardship and difficulty are experienced, their mindset and goal is to push forward towards the ideal “Everything will work out” situation. That “Work Out” image is the close heaven they have in mind.

I would say then, that this is an immature response towards hardship and experience, and claim the maturation of this cliche is but another cliche.

One’s goal when experiencing hardship and experience is to grow. The deal is, there is no 100% assurance that “Everything Will Work Out.” In the Christian worldview, there is no 100% assurance of this in the immediate sense (although there is when we look in the long term claims and hopes in Christian beliefs). However, there is 100% assurance that God will be there for you. That one can have immense joy in the most intense of suffering. That one can have a tremendous sense of peace in the most chaotic of storms. But there is not necessarily a promise that “Everything Will Work Out.” In fact, the very opposite is more often promised. Suffering will come.

I have experienced much weakness very recently. My goal is not to reach the point of “Everything Will Work Out,” nor do I expect “Everything to Work Out.” But do you know what I do expect? I expect that God is still good, and that He has not left me, that He continues to guide me. I expect that my brothers and sisters in Christ will continue to support me as I support them. I expect that even if my life never fully “Works Out,” though I become bitter, angry, and hostile, God will be ever patient with me.

I have reasonable evidence to believe this to be so. I have faith.
I do not claim to know, although I would reject the claim that one must experience in order to truly know.

But I will say that there is greater reason for me to believe things will follow this trend, and that there is lesser reason for me to believe things will follow an opposite trend. Even as “Nothing Works Out,” as a Christian, that does not matter, for what control do I have? Very little. I leave the logistics of that to God, and do what I can. But as a Christian, even as “Nothing Works Out,” to hold steadfast to the only promise of that which “Works Out” – a life surrendered wholly to a good and gracious God.

Disclaimers

I have already begun in my own mind to argue against the many general claims I have made in this web entry. If you, the reader, responds negatively towards my claims, I would not blame you, and even in some cases, agree with you. But I hope you will understand, to a point, whichever point I am making.

Please, any Christians reading this, let me know if I’ve been a heretic.

Silence

I haven’t posted in a while on this blog.
I haven’t really blogged in a while.
I have been writing, though. In journals and devotions and such.
I don’t know how I feel about that.