It got me thinking– what’s my stand on the gay marriage issue? I choose not to have one. I think I’ll just stay here, right in the middle. I don’t really know where I should stand in this issue, what I do know is that I don’t want to be defined by what I’m against for, nor be known for judging people (who does?). Love requires me not to hurt other people, to know their stories first before I get to have a say in their situation (if I have to in the first place). Jesus approached people differently, He didn’t have the same approach for every person he encountered in His ministry. Come to think of it, he was rather tough on the church people in those days…

While I’m still trying to figure out this whole, “What does love require of me?” thing, I’m not going to encourage more anger and hate– especially online, where it’s just so easy to get people going with a single post. I’d rather encourage and give grace and healing, light and love where there is hurt and ignorance and hate. I can’t say that I’m wise/wiser or I’m better than everybody else. Gosh, I’ve made more than a lifetime’s worth of stupid statements and stupid mistakes. By myself, I’m no better than anybody in this world.

All I know is, if Jesus were here today, he’d be hanging out with those we Christians call the “lost” and the sinners. And he would love them, they would feel loved, even if they are so different from each other. They would feel Jesus’ acceptance even as He would show them the way, the truth and the life. Jesus would certainly not be hanging out with the likes of us church people (who would probably wondering, “If he’s the Son of God as he says he is, how come he missed out on the weekly fellowship?!”).

If I want to be where Jesus is, I should be right smack in the middle, where all the action is, being the embodiment of truth and love. I would want to be His disciple, learning, observing (most likely baffled by his closeness with people who don’t have anything in common with Him but accepts Him just the same) and trying to do things just like how He did them.

I’m sorry if I’m rambling, I’m still trying to figure things out (help me?).

My friends (and I do have a lot of gay and lesbian friends– one of my closest friends is gay), if you’ve ever been hurt by a Christian, or by any of our statements or rash judgements, I apologize for us. Most of us (all) are still trying to learn our way through Jesus’s command to love one another just as He loves us (John 13:34-35), and learning is kinda messy.

Someday, maybe, there will be a time for me to take a side on an issue, but I don’t think that this is the time. Not at the cost of misrepresenting Jesus Christ to people whom He loves as much as He loves me.

I know I should pray–I’ve asked people to pray for me, but for some reason, I didn’t. Not until this morning. 

I know I have just been coasting along with God. I have treated Him much like my friends these days, I know He’s just there, on call. But for some reason, I never called or texted. I just know He’s there, but I chose to languish in my sickness alone. When I wasn’t sick, I worked and worked and worked. Sure, I mentioned Him all the time, listened to songs and talks about Him, but to actually be with Him? Not really.

This morning, I decided to call Him. Acknowledge that I miss Him. Apologize for not calling until now. It sucks to treat my Creator– my Lord, God and King– my Father this way, but for some reason, He let me.

Of course, there are days when He drives us into a corner until it was either face a wall or Him. Sometimes His presence is just so palpable that we’re reduced to tears even before we even knew it. Sometimes He’s Pillar of Fire. Sometimes He’s a landslide. Sometimes He’s a still small voice.

And sometimes He lets us come to Him in our own time.

I don’t know why He does this, but I find it amazing that in the midst of everything that screams out His name, He chooses to be silent and lets Himself be found, when we feel like it. Patiently waiting, never asking what took us so long?

Oh, how He loves us so.

As the eldest sister in our family, I grew up with my parents leaving me in charge whenever they were away. I’ve gotten so
used to being officially bossy that I actually became really bossy and started telling, not just my siblings, but also my friends and people to behave, be good, do what is right, do what you’re told. I would take it personally whenever they would get in trouble after warning them about it. It became such a burden for me, that I would often cry to God, “Why won’t they listen to me?!”

Yep. That was me. I apologize for the me from ten years ago, and for whenever bossy me pops out.

These days God and I have been working on the living with the tension between truth and love, to embrace the messiness of lives that are still in progress. This world we live in is broken and messy and it is God’s job to transform lives and for growth, not ours. As His co-workers (naks! Isn’t that awesome?!), our jobs are to plant the seeds and create the right soil for growth.

Are we creating a good environment for people to grow closer to and stronger in the Lord? Growth, as you know, is a messy process, filled with joys, spills and scrapes, triumphs and mistakes. Outward appearances and actions often hide what is going on beneath a person’s defenses. Are we quick to judge, to point out others’ mistakes and slow to forgive and accept people as they come? Or are we creating a place of absolute safety for the people among us and for the ones who are seeking Jesus?

My prayer is that we continue to learn how to love, just as Jesus loved, with arms open wide for people who are the least like Him, the sinners– like you and me.

M: How’s it been?

Me: Good. A little busy. A little lonely. A little awesome. GOOD.

M: That’s good. Aww… a little lonely? (Haha thought of lonely island just now)

Me: Haha. Yep. That’s me. Stef, the lonely island.

M: Do you see this as a ‘problem’ that needs to be solved?

Me: Not really. It’s more like a season for me. I know I’ll eventually drift back into a continent someday.

M: Yeah totally understand that season. Enjoy drifting! I just love the unplanned surprises that fall along the way. That’s the awesome part.

I said, “I do that all the time.”
I do right, I eat right,
I try not to say the wrong things.
I make friends with all the right people.
I go out of my way to help people
(and try not to complain (much) when it’s too out of the way)
I give my change to the poor and 10 percent to church.
I try not to get upset when You don’t answer my prayers.

When You said, “Follow me.”
I thought You meant to just go where You might’ve gone.
I go to Bible studies, small groups, fellowships every week.
Sometimes I go to far places.
I go to church and pray and read the Bible
even if I don’t feel like it.

I didn’t really know what else to deny myself
Then You showed me when prayed,
“Not my will, but Your will be done.”

And when You told me that if I want to be Your disciple,
You said to take up my cross and follow You.

I didn’t really know what a cross was
until You brought it up Yourself on that hill.

(From Luke 9:23)

Thoughts from our church’s prayer meeting tonight, where Pastor Erick asked (as soon as I came in through the door), what is the cost of discipleship. And I replied, “Everything.” I didn’t know what I was talking about, and the question followed me all the way home.

Sometimes when I’m confronted by the cost of discipleship, I go for it– sometimes; sometimes I hesitantly walk away to “think about it,” and sometimes I try to haggle the price down.

Like what I’m learning from Andy Stanley’s current series at Northpoint Community Church, “Christian,” it’s easy to call myself a Christian because it can mean a lot of things, but do I dare be a disciple of Christ?

This is going to be an interesting season.

“He’s dead! What are we going to do now?”

“I don’t know… I don’t know.”

“I’m scared. What if they come for us next?”

“Didn’t He tell us that this was going to happen?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it would be that bad!”

“We need to get out of Jerusalem, as soon as possible.”

“I thought God was on His side. Why did He let this happen to Him?”

“Didn’t Jesus say that He was His Son?”

“And I thought He was the Messiah.”

“Me too.”

“What are we going to do now?”

“I don’t know.”

(imagining the first Black Saturday)

For last year’s Good Friday, my friend Menen and I went to Ayala Center and walked around with placards that declared “Jesus Lives!” We got some people’s attention– mostly guards, but we shared the gospel to them anyway, even if they tried to turn us away by assuring us that they know already and would rather do something else than hear about it again.

Today, my family and I went to Church Simplified’s Stations of the Cross at High Street. I was with Sky and I explained the stations to her and encouraged her to participate. While going through each stations, I noticed people wiping tears from their eyes, I got teary-eyed myself as I reflected on Jesus’ crucifixion and also the present day applications that each stop suggested. At the end, when wewere taking communion, I also got Sky the juice and cracker, we sat down and tried to explain to my 3-year old niece what communion means. The bread stands for the body of Christ that was torn and beaten and crucified for us; the juice was His blood (I had to explain the blood part by pointing to her latest booboo on her knee, that blood is the red stuff that came out of that), we are doing this to remember what He did on the cross for us. We ended with a simple prayer: “Thank you, Jesus.”

Mom said earlier this evening as we waited out the annual Good Friday procession of the statues of saints of the Roman Catholic church here in Imus, the parade’s pretty long because of all the people who didn’t go to church the whole year and wanted to make up for all those Sundays they missed by carrying a candle and marching in the procession. I hope it’s not like that with us, but in the sense that we don’t just be “devout Christians” during Holy Week, but remember Christ’s sacrifice for us and reflect on and apply what it means to our daily life.

Happy Holy Week everybody.

Reading references:

He knew this moment was coming 
Even before His Father called light to come forth
He knew the road that began in manger
Would lead Him to the cross.

He knew He would feel everything
Hear everything
The voices that sang “hosanna to the King!”
Would soon cry, “Crucify him!”
The lies that follow lies
Denial and fear
His silence
The sentence
Then
The lashes, the gashes,
The crown of thorns
The hot blood pouring out
The splintered wood, the stones beneath his feet
The cold nails warmed by hands
That did not know what they have done
Oh God, they had no idea what they had done.

The weight—He was never this heavy before—
It drags on his hands stuck fast to the wood
His feet that once carried him from town to town
Village after village
Are failing Him now
The weight. The weight of this world bears down.
Each breath drowns
He hangs on for a few words more,
So parched—his last taste of thirst
He saw his mother and his friend
Watching and crying
His Father turns away
He was never this lonely before
The weight is so hard to bear…

“It is finished!”
He says in his last few breaths
Who can find victory in this broken frame?
But victory still the same
A work of eternity now completed
Forgiveness and salvation have been purchased
From beginning of creation until its end
For all of creation.
It is done.

It is finished.
In His life, He has shown us how to live
In His death, He gave us life
Death has lost its sting
It is finished.

****

Today I walk on asphalts and pavements
Under the scorching sun
And everybody moving on.
I work to make a living
In this desert of glass and stone.
Today,
I hear of wars
Of famine, of people dying
So much suffering
That I can’t see how it will ever be
Done.
I see my own sins and failures—
I make new ones each day—
is it really finished
The cross in history,
Is that the final word in forgiveness
Is all my debt paid and gone?

Jesus said, “It is finished!”
There is nothing to be owed
All suffering for sin, He has taken on alone
I believe, but oh at times,
My hold on faith isn’t all that strong.

But I will hold on.

For He who started on me
Will finish—and did finish—strong!

It is finished
And now will my hands work because of faith?
Work and love
because it is done?
Not ‘cause I still have to pay
But from a grateful heart
For that day
Of the cruel cross
Where my Savior breathed and bled
And died.
For me. For us.

Today we live in love,
Love for Jesus Christ first
who finished it for us
And love for all our brothers and sisters
All the saints God has redeemed
Through His Son.

It is finished.
Go tell the world it is finished.
Jesus said it “It is finished.”
God’s will, it was done.

P.S. Just for intellectual property purposes, if you would like to share this poem on your site or social media, just please put “by Stef Juan (Godspotted.com)” on the byline. Thanks!

 

⁴¹ As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it ⁴² and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. ⁴⁴ They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Anyway, it’s almost 2am here and I know it’s 3am at home and I’m still wide awake, so I’ll get on with today’s Bangkok Godspotting edition–

This is the Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn) taken from our river boat dinner cruise. It’s this awesome monument that reminds me of intricate necklaces and jewelry, for some reason. Bangkok has thousands of temples to Buddha, I even saw golden statutes of Buddha in different poses along the freeway coming from the airport. There are altars in almost every block. Even the river cruise boat has an altar at its prow. But when I saw Wat Arun, I was immediately reminded of the other religious monument that just overwhelmed me by its majesty: St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City. I remember walking into that enormous cathedral and was just reduced to a sobbing mess because it is just so BEAUTIFUL. While I didn’t cry at Wat Arun, I murmured to myself, “Oh, the things that men build for their god.”

I wonder how long it took to build Wat Arun, how many people labored to raise its tower high. How many skilled artisans worked on the details and finishing? All the love, the worship and fear poured into that one great monument. The same goes for St. Peter’s Basilica. But I’m not going to do any comparative theology here, but rather ask– how’s my worship?

While God does not require great monuments built in His name, I wonder when was the last work of my hands became worship to Him? When was the last time my blood, sweat and tears were poured out for His glory? When did my life inspire amazement that pointed to my Maker? Worship is not supposed to be confined in temples or cathedrals, it’s to be done out there where it would be good for the world too.