Sobering Reflections For the Past While

Lately, I've started to see how transient things in my life really are. Especially in this day and age where we live in. Highschool friendship season. University friendship season. Seminary season. North American season. When I was in university, I thought that there would be a point in my life where I just would settle down in Toronto, get a pretty good and stable job, then stay here and get established. God has showed me more and more how that is how my life is not going to be, at least for the long-term.

I get the sense that I'm going to be a person who travels from place to place. Not for tourist purposes, but for the work of God, where I need to be. There's tradeoffs with each lifestyle. The amazing part of such an itinerant lifestyle is that one meets people from new cultures and gets to experience how broad, wide, and multi-faceted human existence really is, not to mention the Kingdom of God. I find that when I interact with Christians from different cultures, I experience a different aspect of God. The downside is that one begins to build deep relationships with treasured friends.... only to have to move on because God calls you to another geographical place.

I've learned not to suppress feelings that I get. It's really damaging in the long run, and the damage could be subtle. So when this sentiment of me being a somewhat itinerant person surfaces in me, I get a "Wow...." feeling. It's not exactly, unpleasant. It's not exactly pleasant either. But it feels very... thick with meaning. Much like being in the middle of a very rich movie.... like Lord of the Rings. When Frodo has to "move on", whether from the Shire, Rivendell, Gondor, or Mordor, there is a "Wow.... things are moving on" sort of feel as he continues his journey.

If I'm reading my path right, I feel that I'm going to arrive at the next subway stop of my life's trajectory pretty soon, and when I get off this stop, it'll completely shift everything in my life again, with a whole new set of relationships. 

Life is such a trilogy-like movie.

***

For the past 6 years, I've learned a TON about myself each year. I've learned university-amounts of insight about myself. And with each increasing year since 2008, I've learned even more about myself than the year before. I would have never expected this path of self-discovery spiraling into something bigger and bigger every year as the telescope of my self-awareness extends deeper and deeper into the galaxy my soul. The consciousness, subconsciousness, and unconsciousness of a person really is a whole inner universe, and before, I only had the self-awareness of one solar system in it. Now, the Lord's shown me that more and more solar systems exist inside the galaxy of the image of God that he's implanted in my being. If the image of God in a person is the image of a God who is infinite, I believe the image is, in a way, infinite as well.

I feel that this year has been especially thrilling in its discoveries because God has used the insights of contemporary psychology to help me discover more about the image of God in me, how I "tick", and what are the secret inner drives that unknowingly dictate how I live my life. I read a marvelous analogy in a book lately, where the unconscious desires and energies in one person that unknowingly drive one's behaviour are compared to a magnet underneath a sheet of paper driving where the iron fillings on top of the paper go without the iron fillings knowing it. Let's just say this year I discovered a TON of "unconscious magnets" that have been destructively steering my conscious behaviour all my life. And it has been humbling and sobering to discover these things. At the same time, I'm extremely thankful to God that he has shown me this stuff, namely so that he can heal it. I've become convinced that the most dangerous things in a person are the shadow drives in a person that one isn't even aware of. They cause conflicts in oneself. Conflicts between oneself and others. Disruptions in one's relationship with God. And they also give a foothold (Ephesians 4:27) to demons in one's life.

I am forever indebted to certain insights from modern day psychology that God has really used to sanctify me more and more. Carl Jung is so wicked.

Mothers in Christ

"Treat ... older women as mothers..." - Timothy 5:1-2

Although there is a fairly "masculine" side of me that enjoys working out, playing sports, having a quest to conquer, being a "gentleman", and gets inspired by male comic heroes like the Christian Bale Dark Knight, there is another side to me. This other side is not "feminine" per se, but really enjoys interaction with certain older wise Christian women who are a generation or more older than me. God has used many of these "mothers in Christ" to build into me and shape me into a "son of God" that I am today. Over the past few years, these spiritual mothers in my life have been wise, caring, encouraging to me in my spiritual journey and I am just so thankful beyond words that I know them and am privileged to grow under their spiritual motherhood.

Theologically speaking, I believe this is very healthy actually. I learned a lot about theological anthropology in my class with Victor Shepherd this past year at school. One of the points he repeated really stuck with me and influences my conscious and subconscious thinking to this day.

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." - Genesis 1:27

Being a male, I know that the full representation of the image of God is not contained in my manhood. Since God created both male and female in his image, I understand that females have the other portion of God's image. I choose not to interpret this in a quantifiable manner where 50% of the image of God is in man and 50% of the image of God is in woman. I'm not against anyone who does, but I just don't see it that way. The way how I see it is that the full representational image of God is achieved when both parts are experientially linked through relational interaction with each other. This includes but is not restricted to romantic interaction. In my view, it definitely includes platonic relational interaction. The same goes with sisters in Christ, where if they never interact with their brothers in Christ deeply, something will be missing in their experience of image bearers of God and as a result, their experience of God himself will be severely limited. Only when members of both genders have existential communion with each other can the image of God be fully represented and experienced in humanity. And it is only when the image of God is fully manifested in an incarnational reality that can people experience a full (yet finite) representational experience of who God is.

There is something marvelous and mysterious about this. It is marvelous because I know that when I interact with sisters in the faith, there is a "female dynamic" that brings extra colour to the social and spiritual interaction that defies exhaustive description. I know that things are different when it is just me and the boys. My mind can attempt to understand this to some degree. Generally speaking, there is a greater graciousness to female being. There is a more caring aspect to them. They know how to empathize in a "female" way. Their texture of thinking is somehow linked to their physiology of having a female body. But I don't reduce the "magic" to such named traits. I think ultimately it defies description yet it is undeniably understood on an intuitive level.

I know that there have to be boundaries, even when I meet with these women who are about a generation older than me. Some things, I think, should only be shared with other males. But I think there's a lot more stuff that can be shared in an intergender context than we think. I think that treating the opposite gender with purity does not mean treating them with emotional distance or Nazi-like relational boundaries. I know such friendships are not for everyone. But I believe they are for me. I not only think that they're healthy, I think they're a necessity for my spiritual well-being. I am a better Christian man because I am I know these women of Christ.

Here are some of the spiritual mother-son relationships that God has blessed me with in the past year or two (in no particular order):

1) My Mentor. Yes, I have a female mentor who is 12 years my senior. I met her in seminary when I first started. I saw her because I wanted some counsel and I heard that she had "the gift of discernment". I didn't really know what to think. Some people may say that certain people are "discerning" when in fact, in my honest opinion, their level of discernment skills is just okay. Nothing spectacular. Not this lady. Holy crap she's discerning. I'd say it's a mix of natural sharp observation skills coupled with supernatural/prophetic discernment, the latter meaning that she has the ability to discerns things accurately which cannot be done with mere human abilities. She knows things (supernaturally) about me that I don't even know about myself which I only discover a few months after she tells me. By far, out of all the people I personally know in my life, she is the wisest and most discerning person I know. And she doesn't brag about it. She's responsible with her powers like Peter Parker.

I call her a Holy Spirit empowered Jean Grey (cuz the Holy Spirit literally enables her to read your mind at times, and you know it's not because she's reading your body language). She laughed when I called her that once. She knows my weaknesses so well. And she can describe them in a texture and tone as if she's "inside" of me describing the subjective experiences of those weaknesses in a way that intuitively resonates with my day to day experience. And her prayers are so powerful.

2) My Spiritual Director Supervisor. Being a Spiritual Director Practicum Student this year, God has really blessed me to provide spiritual direction to different kinds of people and help them respond to God's unique promptings in their lives. It has been a unique journey. Really. But it also comes with its own sets of trials and tests. In such a practicum, my own weaknesses have surfaced to a whole new level, and I'm discovering new blindspots and underdeveloped parts of me that are somewhat embarrassing to be aware of. However, my Spiritual Director Supervisor has been such a blessing to me. She actually really, really cares about me. Being a spiritual director herself, she really knows how to really enter into your inner world with lots of compassion and grace when you share your weaknesses. Her "spiritual direction" flavour of encouragement is really uplifting for me. She never condemns me.She never is impatient with me. She understands. She doesn't "tell me what to do" with my problems, but she encourages me to take them to God and work them out with God. I know she's guiding me through stuff that she's had to deal with on her own in offering spiritual direction to others. She's really good at allowing me to "figure things out on my own" with the Holy Spirit and to dig deeper inside to see what's really going on with things while she asks reflective questions and perspectives that are very beneficial. She's great.

3) My Psychology Professor. Although I only had 1 class with her, she's been such a big blessing to me. Honestly speaking, a year ago I had very little respect for Christian psychology. The Christian psychology that I was exposed to seemed like the substance of secular psychology superficially clothed with Christian terminology. However, taking a course with her and talking to her really changed my view on this. I never knew that legit Christian psychology could be soooo insightful and helpful in helping one deal with spiritual strongholds in one's life! Instead of merely "trying harder in spiritual disciplines" and then failing in one's signature sins again, her and other Christian psychology resources have helped me understand the psychological root of a lot of my behaviour, feeling, and thinking that I was previously oblivious to. I am forever indebted to this stuff! I never knew that a set of questions that were razor sharp with insight could help one uncover the secret/hidden source of one's sin! I am now convinced that if we don't deal with the secret/hidden sources of our sin, although we can still be forgiven by God, we won't be able to stop these sins recycling themselves destructively in our lives. Talking with this prof has really helped me understand a lot of underdeveloped parts of me from a psychology standpoint and I am beginning to experience freedom through this. And the cool part is that these sets of insightful questions has helped me begin to set others free too!!

I met up with her several times last semester in her office to not even talk about course related stuff, but to just explore what the heck is going on inside of me from a psychology point of view. The rewards were rich beyond ocean treasure.

4) My Spiritual Director. I enjoy meeting with female spiritual directors. This is partly due to the theological reasons stated above. 4 out of the 5 spiritual directors I met with in the past few years have been female. I've informally talked to the one I'm meeting with now for a couple years on and off, and I started seeing her recently on a regular schedule. She's really good at offering different perspectives for me on my journey in becoming more like Christ. She's good at not projecting her experiences on to my experiences in order to try to understand where I'm coming from. She made me realize that it's helpful to view the attempt to balance different tensions in the Bible (sovereignty of God, free will) in my experiential journey with God as something that is very healthy. She encourages me that my holiness is not a matter of suppressing my humanness, but embracing it. I'm thankful for being able to journey with her. Her companionship is really appreciated on the "Lord of the Rings journey of spiritual formation".

I'm thankful beyond words for these Mothers of Christ that God has provided for me in this chapter of my journey. They've changed me so much. It's scary to imagine how I'd be if I never met them. Thank God I did.

The Coexistence of Paradoxical Qualities Simultaneously Exhibited

If we study the life of Jesus in the Gospels we see the seemingly opposite characteristics of immensely powerful authority and extremely meek humility simultaneously radiating from the aura of his presence in a curiously attractive way. If one carefully observes and meditates on the collective reactions of the people who had live interactions with Jesus in the New Testament, one can begin to taste this mysterious coherence of paradoxical qualities in cool Jesus. One time, without threats or weapons, he told the law enforcement officials of his day, who were sent by their superiors to cuff him in, not to arrest him because it wasn't the right time to do so. They ACTUALLY went away and didn't arrest him because they felt that "no one ever spoke the way he did" (John 7:32, 45, 46) when they heard and felt the immense weight in the spiritual authority of his words humbly and gently spoken to them. When he was falsely accused or unjustly mocked, he lovingly turned the other cheek (Matthew 5:39), stayed silent, and immediately love and forgave his enemies in extremely meek humility (Mark 14:60-61, 15:16-20, Luke 23:33-34).

It is impossible to simultaneously embody these paradoxical qualities if one simply "finds a balance" between 2 extremes of contrasting traits on the continuum of personality traits that are merely human. You have to stand and operate from another supernatural continuum that has extraordinary effects on the "normal human" one in order to do so. You have to have divine empowerment. It is simply unattainable and hopelessly futile to attempt to incarnate this mysterious coherence of these paradoxical qualities with mere human effort or capacity. You can only do this if you are God.

Now, here's the daring conclusion that ought to rock one's socks. If Jesus' life incarnated the coexistence of paradoxical qualities simultaneously exhibited, and if his followers are expected to be like him (1 John 2:6) through the enablement of the Holy Spirit, then his followers should also be able to grow increasingly in the coexistence of paradoxical qualities simultaneously exhibited as well. Not because they're special. But because Jesus gives his eager followers a promise that they can actually, in this lifetime, begin to "participate in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4) and, through supernatural assistance, incarnate this mysterious coherence of immensely powerful authority and extremely meek humility just like Jesus.

Translating the Personality of Jesus

Let's say someone doesn't speak English and is foreign to hip-hop music. In order for that person to understand the English lyrics of a hip-hop song deeply, more needs to be done on top of merely translating the propositional content of those foreign English lyrics into his native tongue. More crucially, he needs to hear those hip-hop lyrics rapped through a living and breathing human being in front of him who organically incarnates the hip-hop culture in a thoroughly native manner and capacity. Merely translating the content of the hip-hop lyrics into the target culture's native language will not suffice. It needs to be rapped by a living personality that has a mind that has spent years being squeezed the mold of thinking with "hip-hop"py psychological structures, emotional programming that has a hip-hop type of texture of emotional reactions to life's events, a physical body that is thoroughly conditioned to engage with one's physical environment the way a native hip-hopper would (e.g. one's literal "walk"/gesticulations), and social relational habits that conform to an unspoken order of social norms in the hip-hop culture. In other words, the rapper who embodies the hip-hop culture in his very own living personality is the very context for the hip-hop lyrics that he bilingually raps to the foreigner. An example is MC Jin successfully transporting the hip-hop culture to Hong Kong not merely by translating his English rap lyrics into Chinese, but rapping them with his living personality that is thoroughly native with hip-hop consciousness.

In our day, in addition to the need for accurate textual translation of the "lyrics" aka teachings of Jesus in the Gospels to a secular culture that is foreign to it, there is the more pressing need for the translation of the actual living personality of Jesus (1 John 2:6) in order for people spiritually foreign to Jesus to "really get his spiritual lyrics". These personalities have the mold of their mental furniture squeezed into supernatural psychological structures and subconscious thinking patterns that Jesus himself has (1 Cor 2:16), emotional programming that has Jesus' supernatural texture of emotional reactions to life's events (Philippians 4:6-9), a physical body that is thoroughly conditioned to engage in one's physical environment the supernatural way Jesus would (Romans 6:12-13), and social relational habits that conform to the hidden supernatural order of norms that Jesus wired his relational habits to follow (Philippians 2:5-11). In other words, mere translation of the propositional content of Jesus' teachings from Greek to English, while good in and of itself, will not suffice. It needs a context of a living personality that, through the Holy Spirit's supernatural assistance, organically embodies a supernatural texture of Christ-consciousness that teaches or "raps" it to the world.

Unexpected Discoveries about Oneself

I just watched the Hobbit again to refresh my experience of the first installment's story of the Peter Jackson series before I watch the Desolation of Smaug in the theatres, which I plan to do soon.

My soul was touched. I felt it being stirred in the parts of the film where Bilbo made some unexpected discoveries about himself. He acted on things he wasn't even aware of existing inside of himself. The first case of this, was when he was challenged to go on the dangerous adventure with Gandalf and the 12 Dwarves to help Thorin and his fellow dwarves reclaim their old Dwarven kingdom. At first, he was just too comfortable in his own hobbit home to set foot outside of it. Then, the next morning, when the rest of the crew were heading off, he realized that he needed, or wanted to go. He not only surprised the Dwarves. He surprised himself that he would voluntarily put himself in danger in pursuit of a noble cause. Deciding to do so would put his life in jeopardy and sacrifice any comforts he enjoyed previously.

The second example that caught my attention was when Thorin was about to be beheaded by an orc soldier, only to be body checked and then gutted by a presumptuously brave and screaming Bilbo out of nowhere. Out of all the others who would come to the rescue at the risk of their own lives, who would have expected him? But he stepped in and put his life on the line to save another. He had no training in how to fight. Yet he still had to do something, and acted on it. The official movie synopsis puts it best: "the unassuming Bilbo Baggins... discovers depths of... courage that surprise even him". When Thorin expressed his gratitude to Bilbo for saving his life later on, he said to him "I'm sorry I doubted you". The humble Bilbo then humbly responded, "I doubted myself".

My eyes watered. It's films like these that touch my soul, because they capture and express what I myself have experienced on my own journey multiple times.

This idea, that one has something valuable hidden inside of themselves that others, including themselves, aren't aware of only to be discovered when unexpected challenges arise, touches my soul very deeply. Whether it is courage to accept an overwhelming challenge for a good cause, finding something within you (that surprises yourself) that wants to be radical for the cause of Christ in some concrete calling, or simply being enabled to do something by grace what one previously thought was impossible, these moments seem sublime to me.

This relates to another thing I`ve been learning about in the spiritual journey. It has to do with how God`s supernatural grace and human free will concretely work together to produce extra human effects in accomplishing God`s will and advancing the story that God writes.

I used to try to understand how divine grace and human free will practically work together in a very mechanistic/quantifiable way. After going through frustrations in coming up with a coherent framework where the two can harmoniously coexist, I then tried to leave it all up to mystery without overanalyzing it.

Now, however, I think I have come up with a partial understanding of how the two work together. It has helped me understand previously puzzling verses such as "... continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:12b-13).

It is indeed God who supernaturally transforms us. We have absolutely no power on our own to live a supernatural life in words (Acts 2:37), actions (Colossians 1:29), and power (1 Thessalonians 1:45). That comes from God. However, such a supernatural lifestyle comes from "abiding" (John 15:4-7) in God. In more colloquial terms, I believe this means to connect with God relationally. This is more than just praying things to God in a one-way flow of communication. As David Benner said, prayer is much more than just praying. It is a way of being in experiential communion with God. And a lot of it is nonverbal. I think the majority of it is without words actually (at least in the stage where God has led me to currently). And this takes a huge sacrifice of time to abide deeply in God. It takes a lot of hours each week. I'm not talking about reading the Bible mentally where one tricks oneself into thinking that one is "interacting with God" when in reality one is just interacting with ideas about God with one's mind. I'm talking about relationally communing with God whether or not words are involved for the sake of "chilling" with him. And that takes a lot of sacrifice of time. It involves sacrificing extra time from email/facebook/entertainment/socializing if it steals away time from relationally connecting with God without any other agenda other than just knowing him as a real friend (John 17:3).

Perhaps what this is what Paul meant, at least partially, when he used strenuous athletic imagery in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 saying:

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do  not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize".

I think what Paul was getting at here was not to try to produce supernatural results strenuously in his ministry, character formation, and relational experiences with God with an attitude of struggling to make things happen. On the contrary, I think he was getting at the rigorousness that is required in sacrificing time to spend with God relationally. This is something that is up to man's free will. God can woo us to sacrifice time from hobbies/entertainment/socializing to connect with him in long periods and hours, but at the end of the day, he cannot make this decision for us. We have to make it ourselves. But once we make the human decision to spend an ample amount of time abiding in him, that's when the Holy Spirit comes in to do his divine work that creates supernatural effects in us, including extra-human effects in ministry, extra-human effects in character formation, and extra-human effects in one's relational experiences with God.

Like Bilbo, we have to do our part and make sacrifices to respond to the call. But once we have done that, we are open to unexpected discoveries of what God has planted inside of us every chapter in the journey.

Pursuing the Will of God Like a Sports Car Under Fire

There are some vivid contemporary analogies that illustrate spiritual truths that require huge disclaimers to prevent heresy, blasphemy, misinterpretation, and false implications of theological truths. Still, some contemporary analogies are still worth using because they capture the street-level-colloquial-feel of spiritual truths that one experiences in one's first person consciousness in the spiritual journey.

First off, I would like to make the disclaimer that I do not endorse or condone the vulgar language in Bad Boys 2. There is a ton of coarse language that I do not really appreciate hearing in the movie. Also, there is a kind of determination to overcome one's enemies that results in anger, hate, and impatience, all which are not the fruit of the Spirit and should not be imitated by the serious follower of Christ.

Nevertheless, the notion of a sports car accelerating at a rapid speed on a highway amidst obstacles, threats, and intimidating danger illustrates the Pauline attitude of pursuing the will of God in a way that is more colloquial to our 21st century context.

Jesus describes in John 4:34 what "substance" his will is pursuing. For him, to "do the will of the Father" is to follow a course of action that will satisfy his spiritual hungers. From this passage, we know what we are supposed to pursue the satisfaction of our heart's eternal hungers, namely the will of God.

In Philippians 3:13-14, Paul says that he "strains toward" what is ahead in the will of God, and "presses on" toward the goal of his heavenward prize in Christ Jesus. In order to reach this goal, the path/journey to be taken is the will of God. This shows us the attitude of how we should pursue the will of God.

In Jeremiah 8:6b, Jeremiah says "None of them repent of their wickedness saying, “What have I done?” Each pursues their own course like a horse charging into battle." The comparison here, is a person's will going in their own life course's direction being equivalent to a military horse charging into a battle. This verse implies that people's "wills" sometimes go in their own way with the speed and ferocity of a horse galloping in a certain direction. I think, by implication, we can conclude that people's wills can also race into the direction of God's will with the speed and ferocity of these military horses. Horses were Old Testament era vehicles in Jeremiah's day. They were powerful. They were that era's "horse power". Our era's "horse power", however, is in cars. Just like a military horse in Jeremiah's day, I believe that our wills can pursue the will of God with the attitude, determination, and ferocity that Will Smith and Martin Lawrence exhibit on the highway chase scene in Bad Boys 2.

In this parable of the Bad Boys 2 highway chase scene, Martin Lawrence represents a human's emotions. Sometimes, the emotions can assist one's will in ferociously and single-mindedly pursuing the will of God. Sometimes, they are your ally. Sometimes, however, they can "spazz" on the obstacles, threats, and bullets of the enemy. Sometimes, they overreact to intimidations of the enemy. On the flip side, they can also cause us to rely on God more and pray against the enemy trying to throw us off track. These are our wavering emotions.

Will Smith represents the human mind. There is a I-don't-care-what-gets-in-the-way-nothing's-gonna-stop-me kind of focus and concentration on his face in this scene that I find so metaphorically inspiring. The job of the mind is to focus. Dodge the distractions of the enemy. Keep one's focus on the path towards the goal. Don't get swayed by one's emotions if one's emotions are "flipping out" and are complaining to one's mind. Stay the course. I do recognize that, psychologically speaking, yelling at your emotions doesn't tame them. On the contrary, one needs to sometimes be gentle and delicate when dealing with one's distorted emotions in order for them to heal from past wounds/pain etc. Nevertheless, the attitude of ignoring one's emotions when they get in the way is important sometimes. (I learned a while back that to "slaughter" one's emotions can actually be counterproductive. It is ideal to "convert" them and spiritually baptize them, rather than to kill them.)

The car is one's will. With the car, one can travel at high speed as long as one dodges the enemy's attacks, which are distractions and intimidating threats that cause fear. The enemy can throw confusion, disturbances, interruptions, and general complications in attempts to divert one's focus and determination from pursuing the will of God with highway-level speed. Distractions include unloving comments from brothers and sisters in the faith. Insults from non-believers. Busyness with too many activities that are good in and of themselves. Forgetting to take one's Sabbaths. Too much worldly entertainment. Too much facebook. Intimidating threats from the enemy include situations that seem discouraging, seemingly "impossible" circumstances to surmount, persecution (whether social or physical), church politics, and a seeming lack of financial resources to carry out God's will. However, it is the mind's role, ideally with the assistance of one's baptized emotions, to focus on the path of God's will and stay the course at high speed, hopefully without fighting each other in the car. Spiritually speaking, the sports car has a supernatural engine (the Holy Spirit) that helps it accelerate at a supernatural speed that could not be achieved without it.

The filmography, the highspeed accelerating noise of the car, the determination on Will Smith's face, and the background music all capture a street-level feel of what this spiritually should feel like in one's first person consciousness in the midst of spiritual-street-level cosmic drama! Thank you Michael Bay!

Just like that

I remember shooting around a basketball in the gym about a couple months ago at Tyndale. It was only me and this other university student. We shot around for a bit, then we introduced ourselves to each other. I asked him who his name was. He said Gabriel. He said that he was an exchange student from Germany.

Fast forward to a couple days ago, I hear that a German exchange student from the university side of my school had committed suicide. I was shocked. I wondered... could it have been that guy I shot around with in the gym a couple months ago? I googled him. Yeap. It was.

I didn't really build a bond with him aside from those few minutes, so there's no sense of grieving of loss here. But still. Shock. Wow. Just like that.

Wow.

Cool Jesus

Jesus is just...... so.... cool. I don't know how else to say it. I'm not talking about a pubescent-Justin-Bieber cool, fashionably vogue cool, or a worldly popularity cool. But a spiritually refined cool. A type of "hallowed coolness". What's one trait of this hallowed coolness? Proverbs style wisdom from the Spirit of wisdom (Ephesians 1:17).

King Solomon had a dose of this cool wisdom of God in his life when he unconventionally and astutely maneuvered to discerned which prostitute was lying to him in a snap (1 Kings 3:16-28). This texture of King Solomon type wisdom was only a preview/sample of a greater anointing of its cool effects on Jesus, "one greater/wiser than Solomon" (Matthew 12:42). With this in mind when reading the Gospels, one can see that Jesus was just way cooler than Solomon, as cool as Solomon was with his wisdom. I grew up treating Jesus' words to others in the Gospels as merely doctrinal statements. Now, I'm learning that although his words can help secondarily with doctrine, when they were first spoken, they were live and original words full of Solomon-style-wisdom "fresh off the press of the moment". The way he made extremely perceptive distinctions that transcended scholarly thinking categories of his day (Matthew 22:15-21). The way he could have penetrating insight into a unique person's root issues (Mark 10:17-22). The way he could make astute observations about patterns of life and illustrate them with random culturally relevant symbols within sight (Luke 46:43-45). The way he could gently speak (threat-free) with supernatural wisdom to the temple police who were sent to arrest him but couldn't simply because "no one ever spoke like he did" (John 7:45-47). Personally, I find him "cool" in the sense that Gandalf is "cool". Except even cooler.

I can only imagine how it would be as a bystander in the scene of John 8:1-11, watching the suspenseful (and frightening) build up of a woman being dragged to the temple courts to likely be killed in front of everyone by heartless teachers of the law who knew the law inside and out. But then, Jesus is on the scene. Rumours have gone around about this guy who has unconventional wisdom that causes unconventional effects in his dialogues with people while being in hot water. If I had a son with me, I'd probably say something along the lines of "Man! I wonder how he's going to unconventionally maneuver out of this one! Oh boy, you're in for a show tonight son!"

Who would've thought that part of what it means to "worship Jesus" is to delightfully and thrillingly admire just how "hallowedly cool" he is?

The Intuitive-Experiential Path Towards Understanding Spiritual Paradoxes

Paradoxes are a very mysterious thing.

Dictionary.com defines "paradox" as

"a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth." 

Although this dictionary definition captures the denotative meaning of what a paradox is, the connotative sense and texture of what a spiritual paradox is is absent here.

Spiritual paradoxes, in their very nature, cannot have their depths plumbed by humankind's mental faculties. For the Christian dealing with spiritual paradoxes of the Christian faith, one will never fully understand these mysteries intellectually. It's impossible for the finite mind to wrap itself around a universe of spiritual mystery that is more vast than the physical universe itself.

Paradoxes such as:

How God's presence is simultaneously the most powerful thing in the universe, yet the most peaceful as well.

How God is 3 persons, yet of 1 exact divine nature at the same time.

How fully denying oneself and dying to one's own desires leads to finding Real life and living in it.

How the humble person is both the "lowest" and also the "highest" in a group at the same time (of course, without aiming for the latter).

We see these spiritual paradoxes incarnated in the Gospel accounts of Jesus the Nazerene. Not only by what he said, but by how his observers responded to him when in his presence. When he taught, his teachings were intelligible to the uneducated masses of his day, yet they had a depth to them that dwarfed the religious understandings of the religious scholars/experts of his day. When he was in social settings, little children didn't feel intimidated by him at all and easily came up to him to interact with him, yet when some religious and political authorities (Pharisees and soldiers) wanted to arrest him and finally encountered him, they were so intimidated that they collapsed to the ground when in his presence (John 18:6). These 2 paradoxes have been very thematic in my personal experience with God in the past couple years of my life. God's presence is so mighty and powerful, like a mighty earthquake or a powerful thunder roar, yet at the same time, it is the most peaceful and calm-inducing presence in the world. When God, in his grace, manifests himself to me very imminently, I experience this spiritual paradox and sense the dual, seemingly opposite, traits of his very presence that exhaust my rational understanding. It is has trans-human effects. It is beyond what a mere human presence is ontologically capable of. And the fact that when Jesus teaches me, his teachings are so very simple and non-convoluted that people of any age can understand them, yet at the same time, they are the most deep and profound insights in the universe that people with PhDs have trouble grasping with their minds. If you were to ask me "what is experiencing this paradox first-hand like?" I could not tell you if I tried. You.. just have to encounter it yourself to really know what the mystery is like... like if I were to try to explain the effects of gazing at the Mona Lisa, I'd be at a loss for words. One just has to gaze at the painting itself to fully know what its effects are. Of course the difference is that with Jesus, his effects are superhuman, where no worldly analogy can fully do justice to its supernatural effects.

There are no contradictions in these 2 paradoxes in and of themselves. It is not a contradiction to say that the presence of God is so mighty and powerful yet so peaceful, nor is it a contradiction to say that Jesus' teaching is extremely simple, yet extremely deep at the same time. It's just a paradox. It's hard (I'd say impossible) for the finite human mind to wrap itself fully around these greatly expansive mysteries.

Experiencing the paradox first-hand seems to be the key to intuitively understanding it in a way that defies exhaustive verbal comprehension. Although I can't fully explain the enigmatic coherence of these paradoxes of God, I have come to develop more of a visceral awareness of them through my direct experience of God.

Perhaps an illustration can help express, to some degree, what my journey of understanding the paradoxes of God through a non-rational (though not anti-rational) and intuitive way is like.

If an 8 year old asks a thoroughly reflective 60 year old "Did the 60 years of your life pass by quickly? Or slowly?", The 60 year old can legitimately say "Both." You can then picture the 8 year old reasonably say to the 60 year old man in response "What? Stop joking. I'm serious. Really. Tell me. Did the 60 years of your life pass by quickly or slowly?" The sincere 60 year old can legitimately repeat "Both. Really." It would then be understandable for the 8 year old to seriously question the legitimacy of the answer, and think that it is a contradiction, when in fact, it only seems like a contradiction, but really isn't one in reality. Each individual day of the 60 year old's life, probably, for the most part with some exceptions, passed by slowly when he experienced each one of them day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. Yet, as he got older and reflected on each New Years' Day regarding how each previous year went, he probably had a sentiment that the past year zoomed by so quickly. He has a non-rational way of understanding this paradox with his experience-seasoned intuition. It is not that his finite mind has intellectually grasped the depths of this paradox. It is that he has experienced the simultaneity of seemingly contradictory phenomena at the same time in a mysterious way. His soul has experienced the coexistence of two seemingly opposite aspects of the same coin of chronological reality that only make sense in a transrational way after one has had a first-hand encounter with the paradoxical mystery itself.

The same goes with understanding the spiritual paradoxes of the Bible. We can try all we want to exhaustively wrap our minds around them by rummaging through biblical commentaries, scholarly exegesis/hermeneutics, and academic research. Those endeavours have its place and help to some finite degree, but after we reach their limits, they fail to assist the human mind in exhausting one's mental comprehension of spiritual paradoxes. The only thing that will "fill in the gaps" of one's mental understanding is direct/immediate first-person experiences and encounters with the person of God. And I would argue that although it is totally by the grace of God that he reveals his manifest presence to individuals and allows them to sense his presence, he usually reveals his manifest presence to people who seek his face/presence and seek it with all their heart. This seeking is both demonstrated and cultivated in persistent classical spiritual disciplines such as prayer, fasting, meditation, solitude, silence, and I would add listening prayer. These have no power in and of themselves to invoke the presence of God. However, they are like doors and portals that open oneself up to what's already there, God's presence.

I've come to understand that only the presence of God can be superhumanly powerful yet superhumanly peaceful at the same time. No human (without the supernatural presence of God active in them) can have that effect on people. And only God's teachings can simultaneously be simple and profound at the same time (once again, humans, if the Spirit of the supernatural God is actively at work in them, can accomplish this as well, i.e. Dallas Willard). These are 2 paradoxical qualities of God that cannot be replicated by people of the world, who live without the accompanying assistance of God's presence. It's not that people of the world can do this but they are stopped from doing so. It's that they simply can't. They have no ability to. Neither can carnal/worldly Christians who do not seek an overall lifestyle that cultivates the growing activity and liveliness of God's presence in their human bodies. Only something, or more like Someone, literally out of this world can produce these paradoxical effects on people. And only those who have direct/non-institutionally-mediated experiences of this God can understand it.

What does "Jesus is the Living Word of God" really mean in everyday/colloquial language?

If we consciously or even subconsciously treat the Bible merely as a theological textbook, then our actual relationship with God, Christian platitudes aside, will only be as dynamic, organic, and lively as the other textbooks on our bookshelf.

I do recognize that one role of the Bible is for educational/instructional purposes, like a modern day textbook (2 Timothy 3:16). I just think that if that's the ONLY way we approach the Bible though, things get super dangerous (and also boring, bluntly speaking).

I think that the more important role of the Bible is to act as a living and active (Hebrews 4:12) supernatural medium that interactively connects us with God. With the exception of a few denominations, I think us Western Protestants fail to emphasize this aspect of the Word of God, and we sometimes fall into the John 5:39-40 trap of the Pharisees where we fail to use the Scriptures as a means towards experiencing the supernatural life that Jesus offers us everyday.

I think in our day and age we need to emphasize this role of the Bible being the "medium that relationally connects us to God". It's like a cell phone that connects person to person. But more. It's full of dynamism, life, and organic-like connectivity that buzzes with divine electricity in relationally connecting people to God.

(The following gets somewhat technical if you want a theological/philosophical elaboration on this without saying pretty but empty Christian cliches that don't really explain anything)

The Bible itself says that Jesus is the Word of God himself (John 1:1, 1 John 1:1-2, Revelation 19:11-13). Jesus, himself, is the message of God. And since God is alive, when he freshly communicates to humans live, his messages are also live and fresh, just like how since I'm alive and I'm freshly communicating messages to you live, when you receive them, they have a live and fresh quality to them. They are not just "dead words spoken 10 years ago". What I freshly say to you one minute/hour/day may be different from other minutes/hours/days, and what God freshly says to us one minute/hour/day may be different from other minutes/hours/days. However, when I freshly speak to you, what doesn't change are the 24 letters of the English alphabet, English vocabulary, and English grammar (I realize that letters, vocabulary, and grammar can change in a human language over time, but this is just for the sake of an illustration). I use the same letters, vocabulary, and grammar structures in every fresh message I give you, but the letters, vocabulary, and grammar structures don't change. Yet, the English language here is acting as a medium for lively, dynamic, organic relational interaction between me and you with non-stop originality in freshly constructed English sentences. In this analogy, the English language itself is the medium of fresh communication between you and me, and the fresh/original content of each sentence I say to you acts like the "Jesus" of me. It is fresh/original/live because I am fresh/original/live.

The Word of God and Jesus are like that. The Word of God provides the medium of "letters, vocabulary, and grammar" (Biblical verses, Biblical/Systematic theology [this is where the Bible appropriately has a role of instruction somewhat like a textbook], and Philosophical Christian principles that don't change) of God that the Father's communication to us involves. Jesus is the "Living Word" because he is the fresh/live/original communications of God the Father to us. Just like how a human is always creatively/freshly giving new communication to others using letters, vocabulary, and grammar principles of a language that don't change, God is always creatively/freshly giving new communications to us in original ways (through Jesus, the living Word) through non-changing Biblical verses, Biblical/Systematic theology, and Philosophical Christian principles. And the Holy Spirit's role is to "translate" all this spiritual communication in a way we can understand as we approach biblical meditation with an open-ended heart.

Practically, what this means is that although the content/theology of 1 Corinthians 13 will never change, What God wants to say to us through the "Jesusization" of 1 Corinthians 13 today may very well be different from what he wants to say to us through the "Jesusization" of 1 Corinthians 13 a week from now.

This is attitude is very different from treating the Bible merely as a textbook with "dead words on a page" as Jan Johnson put it once.