As Iron Man sharpens War Machine, so one die-hard disciple of Jesus sharpens another

Proverbs 27:17 says

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

I experienced this today.

I just came back from 4 hours with Jesse at Second Cup where we engaged in a time of mutual sharing, encouragement, strategizing, and dreaming together about how things could be in Toronto.

It's so refreshing to be with another brother who is so passionate, radical, and willing to not only die for Christ but live for Christ. God has given us similar passions, similar experiences growing up in the same Christian sub-culture of Toronto CBC spirituality, similar experiences living an extended time out of Toronto to learn more about the world as well as about Toronto by being outside of it. God has given both of us a heart for Toronto. While we're not sure whether or not he's gonna be in Toronto soon, it was refreshing just to dream with a fellow spiritual Jack Bauer.

Spiritually refreshing. emotionally motivating, intellectually stimulating, strategically innovating. Invigorating on multiple dimensions. I really appreciate this brother of mine.

It's not that I don't know any other passionate Christians in Toronto my age, I do. But I don't know too many who have the same commonalities in the following respects:

1)from personal experience, being somewhat disillusioned with "traditional North American church"
2)who have lived outside of Ontario for a long period of time
3)who are convinced that spiritual formation (understood biblically) can change the world
4)who are initiative taking/proactive "Jack Bauers" for Christ

This brother is, and I was greatly blessed catching up with him today. I really hope I get to work with him in the future. It would be a dream of mine to collaborate with him. He's gifted in ways that I'm not. He's experienced in ways that I lack. He can see potential blindspots in idealistic dreams. He's not afraid to straightforwardly challenge my ideas/thinking/strategy when he sees potential implications of my train of thought.

There is a certain type of brotherhood that one can only experience when one is in the trenches together with a fellow soldier, where both are fighting and sacrificing for a cause that is greater than themselves. Although I do not know this brother too well, I feel this way when the Lord blesses me with opportunities to go to war against the enemy with him.

Because Jesse has "been in the game" longer than I have, I feel like he's iron man, and I'm war machine.

He has had experience "putting" and "being strong" in the full armour of God to struggle against the rulers, authorities, and powers of this dark world, and using the power of various portions of God's spiritual armour to engage in the invisible warfare against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:10-12)

I would be privileged to collaborate with him like the following scene with iron man and war machine and to take a stand with him for Christ "when the day of evil comes" (Ephesians 6:13). When it comes to the spiritual armour of God, intentions aren't enough. One cannot just have good intentions, put on the armour of God and passively sit there without training oneself how to use it. One has to be trained how to use the armour, and to proactively "be on guard, stand firm, and be strong with courage" like what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:13. For example in meditating on the Word of God, there is a world of a difference in mechanically saying verses like a spell Harry Potter style and expecting that in and of itself to expel demons compared to using creative/novel/deep ways of actively meditating in the Spirit on certain verses in certain ways in certain contexts to ward demons off.



God has given me a vision to raise up a spiritual army of soldiers of Christ to combat evil, hate, destruction, with Christ's power of love. Spiritual warriors well trained in the experiential use of God's spiritual armour. God has given me the passion to raise up a generation of spiritual "iron mans" for Christ who put on armour that enables them to engage in spiritual warfare in ways that would be impossible without it, just like how it would be impossible for iron man to fight the bad guy in iron man 2 without his iron man body suit. Just like iron man, we soldiers of Christ must not passively put on the suit and do nothing, but learn how to work with the suit to fight evil. The suit of armour is grace. God has given it to us, and we do not deserve it. Nevertheless, we must learn with hands-on experience how to navigate, work with, and control each part of the suit until it feels like each part of the armour is like part of our body itself. I have a desire to be trained in as well as train others how to consistently have the armour of God with us, so that when the day of evil comes unexpectedly, we may be able to take a stand our ground against the enemy, not by our own ability, but by proactively working with the grace of God's armour and his mighty power. Demons can attack us at any moment. They come and assault unexpectedly like thieves. And when they come, we have to have the armour of God with us on hand and fight.

With the belt of truth, we can do more than just "memorize and recite to ourselves what is true". We can also take lies in our head (it is important to get what I want right now) and extend those lies all the way out to their logical conclusions in our imaginations to show their utter absurdity (I don't know what's best for myself and I have regretted what I wanted a lot in the past, and God in "birds eye view" knows what's best for me and looking out for me, so I don't have to look out for myself).

With the breastplate of righteousness, we don't just merely remind ourselves that "Jesus makes me righteous" (although that's true). But we create habits of righteousness with our bodies (Romans 6:13) so that our physical bodies end up with embedded righteous habits and rid themselves of destructive habits [such as holding our tongues {our tongues are so powerfully influential on our whole being like what James says in James 3:5-6} when someone disses/insults us rather than naturally just responding back in direct or indirect retaliation with it, and blessing those who curse us by natural instinct due to bodily training of the tongue].

With the Gospel of peace, we do not merely intellectually remind ourselves of the gospel, but we walk, jog, and run according to the rhythm and "spirit" of Good News that makes us more agile in battle, since we take ourselves lightly and live in an attitude free of self-condemnation due to deleting the "negative emotional programming" of getting down on oneself when one fails, and in turn installing the "positive emotional programming" of not putting one's hope for success in one's own efforts/abilities, but in God's providence. This gives one spiritual agility.

With the shield of faith we, on the subconscious level, learn to live with an interpretive framework that makes sense of all of life's events in light of Romans 8:28 (and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose) and use our imagination to imagine how the huge rocks that Satan throws at us to prevent us from crossing an uncrossable river get caught by the hand of God, and placed in front of us as the next stepping stone to cross on.

With the helmet of salvation we learn to live all of life in the psychological context of eternal life, which defined in John 17:3 by Jesus himself as knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent. We recognize that the "knowing" that Jesus himself is talking about here is not intellectually acknowledging the existence of God like Judas, Pharisees, and demons also did, but actively engaging in interactive relationship with God every moment of life. With training in putting on the helmet of salvation, our minds are protected from the dangerous tendencies to encounter life's events without acknowledging the concrete/social/immediate presence of God with us in whatever circumstance that we're in and instead we have the attitude of "wherever we go, God will be right beside us to experience everything with me inside of me."

With the sword of the Spirit, we learn to meditate on the word of God in creative ways appropriate to different circumstances that require flexibly prescribed methods that change hour to hour. Just like playing different piano keys at different times on the piano according to the "will" of the song's notes at certain times, we meditate on different scriptural verses of the Bible at different times according to God's specific "will", or "chapter"/"mood"/"spiritual weather" at the time. The Word of God is living and active. If something is living and active it is organic/dynamic/spontaneous to a certain degree. This is far from being like Harry Potter's wand.

We also learn to pray in the Spirit. There are probably over a thousand ways of praying. A lot of us western churches only regularly practice 2-3 methods.

So learning how to apply the God's gracious tools of spiritual armour and becoming familiar with how to use them in active combat, we will be able to deal with unexpected spiritual terrorist attacks when they come at us without warning by having the armour of God with us wherever we go. So when the day of spiritual terrorism arrives, we will be able to stand our ground, and after we have done everything, to stand (Ephesians 6:13)



Just imagine a whole generation of spiritual iron mans who can do this!







***






Since I want to become a cop, I've been trying to equip myself in multiple ways which I think would come in handy if I do get hired as one. Therefore, I've been researching and applying ways to read people's microexpressions (what emotion psychologist Paul Ekman is known for researching and specializing in [i.e. the book "emotions revealed") more in social situations. I've also applied some of the stuff I've read about body language in Joe Navarro's book "what every body is saying".

The results are shocking (assuming that I'm applying the instructions properly). It's like I can (sometimes but not always) see more through people's smokescreens of false/artificial facial expressions (especially false smiles). What subtle giveaway signs of masked emotions that used to escape my awareness are starting to register on my "social emotion radar" and its shocking! What a deceitful world we live in!

The Kingdom of God is like Batman begins to Chris

I've lost count how many times I've rewatched my favourite clips of Batman begins on my laptop. I think out of all the movie characters I relate to most, Bruce Wayne (in the newest batman series) is the one I relate to the most. It's crazy how much I identify with his character in Batman begins. So many parallels between his life and my spiritual journey the past couple of years ever since I went on my 2-year trip to East Asia.



In Batman begins, bruce wayne is fed up with Gotham and just wants to leave it, go to the East for a while, and fight crime there. He goes around, studying the world of crime and comes upon a school of crime fighting masters, who train him how to fight crime effectively.

"You know how to fight six men. We can teach you how to engage six hundred." *swords clash*

The spiritual version is:

"You know how to fight six demons. We can teach you how to engage six hundred." *swords clash*

After he's done training (for 7 years! I was only gone for 2), he boards the plane back. On the runway Alfred greets him with the words "Master Wayne, you've been gone for a long time." Bruce replies "Yes I have." and boards it.

On the plane ride back, Alfred asks him "Are you coming back to Gotham for long sir?"
Mr. Wayne replies "As long as it takes. I want to show the people of Gotham that their city doesn't belong to criminals and the corrupt." He also adds later on that "People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy."


This is more or less what I've been going through spiritually the last 2 years or so. I was fed up with the spiritual state of the church in the West, Canada, and Toronto. It seemed so apathetic. In the spiritual realm, it seemed ruled by spiritual criminals (that break God's spiritual laws) and the spiritually corrupt (Go against God's Kingdom and his governing). I wanted to go where the spiritual action was, in East Asia. I sort of unexpectedly came across Christian spiritual formation masters that taught me the ways of the spiritual realm, how the spiritual world worked, and how to fight "spiritual crime". My spirit was trained, not so much with intellectual facts, but with hands-on engagement of spiritual sparring with sparring equipment.I learned how to use the sword of God. I learned that it's not good enough to just hold the sword of God (the Bible), but one must know how to wield it effectively in live battle (meditate on it skillfully and prudently during heated situations/circumstances). I was taught timeless principles of spiritual warfare not through second-hand downloads of armchair theological books, but through first-hand experience.

After I felt I had enough training, my heart wanted to go back to Toronto, to contribute towards the spiritual revival of a sleeping city that's been in a spiritual slumber way too long (we even have a company called sleep country Canada). I believe God, the storywriter, is the one who has returned this burden for Toronto in my heart, to see spiritual revival here, just like how Christopher Nolan returned a burden to redeem Gotham in the character of Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins.



When Bruce Wayne first reappeared in Gotham, he had compassion on the people in it, for they were like sheep without a shepherd. But he didn't just impulsively go in right away and start the action (this is something crucial that I'm learning right now). He started to plan his courses of action, design equipment, and strategize how to strike. He understood his culture well. He understood specific conditions of his city as he gathered intelligence about how things were going. And he started to design his Batman equipment in a way that would allow his principles of crime fighting that he learned in the East to be effectively applied to his own Western city. He took time and effort to do this.

I feel like I'm in this stage right now. I'm learning (sometimes the hard way) that I can't just impulsively jump into things without any thought and planning right away. I need to figure out the conditions of this city more. The state of spiritual allies and enemies and the status quo here. I need to design my "equipment" that will help me to apply the timeless spiritual principles effectively when things start rolling. Just as how Bruce Wayne used scientific gadgets and technology to help him navigate and strike in the physical realm and work with the physical laws (e.g. gravity) and not against it, right now, I am trying to learn about the "psychological realm" of our age in the West, understand neutral laws of psychology and construct and equip myself with psychological tools to effectively and relevantly apply these timeless spiritual formation principles in spiritual warfare here. I should not rush this. Practically, this includes how the process of digesting concepts and ideas affect the human, how images have a subtle yet strong effect on the mind, the power of analogies in how they help the mind organize and arrange seemingly mutually irrelevant data, the power of connotations from carefully chosen words, the power of hidden assumptions in images etc. I feel like I am renovating my "psychological batcave" right now.

I also thank God for mentors that act as my "spiritual Alfreds" as well as various resources that resource me like "Lucius Foxes".

I sense a few things happening in the future that happened to Bruce in his journey of returning to Gotham and fighting crime in it.

I feel that I will fall down many times in the future (like Bruce) and will need Alfreds to pick me back up.

There was a part in the movie where Bruce Wayne felt like he failed to save Gotham.

“I wanted to save Gotham… I failed” - Bruce

“Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up” - Alfred

“You still haven’t given up on me?” - Bruce

“Never” - Alfred

I already kinda felt that I fell down a few times.

Also, just like how Batman has some people that don't like him as well as another bunch who do like him. He gives a mixed impression, and is portrayed as a controversial figure. Some ppl support him. Some ppl are against what he does. He doesn't abide by the human-made laws just for the sake of abiding by the human-made laws. He doesn't purposefully go against them just to be a jerk, but when he sees higher principles that supersede human-made laws, he sticks with the higher principles, and by doing so, offends the traditional cops who "go by the book" in every single case just because that's the way how they've been doing it in the past. He sees flaws in the human-system of crime fighting so he doesn't wait for the traditional law enforcement guys to do their thing. He starts his own "unauthorized" crime fighting. He is a vigilante not for the sake of going against the cops and doesn't try to stop what the cops are doing. He doesn't disrespect the cops for pleasure. He just sees more effective ways of doing things and therefore does his own thing.

In some ways, I can identify with Bruce in this respect as well. I know (and am starting to prepare myself) that not everyone who wants to see spiritual crime abolished in Toronto will agree with my non-traditional means, but I will continue to start a grass-roots spiritual crime fighting movement. I know I will encounter opposition from others on the "same team" as me in the future. I think it would be naive to believe otherwise. I should just psychologically prepare myself for it.

I find so much inspiration from this Batman begins movie that I find myself rewatching my favourite motivational clips from it about once a month (at least). It's crazy how many spiritual parallels I find with Bruce Wayne. Or perhaps maybe it's becoming more of a self-fulfilling prophecy ever since these parallels entered my mind a little over a year ago.

I feel God speaking to me sometimes as I watch this movie. Of course the analogies are not all perfect with lots of flaws, but nevertheless it really concretizes a lot of things I feel in my soul as I journey in this chapter of my life.

Plus, I believe that God speaks to his people not outside the cultural symbols of the person's own culture, but within them. In the Gospels, Jesus always used cultural symbols inside of the culture of the person he was talking to illustrate Kingdom principles in a very relevant/real/immediate way. He did not use Chinese illustrations to a Jewish audience. Nor did he use African analogies to the Romans. He used cultural symbols originating from the Jewish culture to communicate Gospel truths to the Jews. He used Roman terminology to illustrate Kingdom truths to the Romans.

I strongly believe that if Jesus were living in the West today, he would use symbols within the Western culture to illustrate the unchanging truths of the Kingdom of God. He would totally say stuff like "The Kingdom of God is like McDonalds because..." or "The Kingdom of God is like the White House..." or "The Kingdom of God is like the TV show American Idol...". With his wisdom, he could take any everyday object in his sight and illustrate profound spiritual truths from it, like an SUV, or a bowling ball, or a 747 in our culture.

With that in mind, I feel God speaking to me a lot in modern day movies. By that I don't mean that he tells me new apostolic truths through them. But I mean that he really fleshes out abstract principles that appear far away from my soul in a really in-your-face realism through modern day movies that contain modern day symbols/analogies. Of course the truths being fleshed out are (or should be) in line with the truths and the general direction of the truth laid out in the Good Book.

Yes, the Kingdom of God is like Batman begins.

Oh yea. And I do plan to work with "Commissioner Gordons" (people who feel called to remain working "within" the traditional system to continue capitalizing on the strengths of it in ways vigilantes can't) in the future. Batman can't crime fight without Commissioner Gordons that work with him. I don't feel that it's an either/or distinction of God redeeming Toronto EITHER through non-traditional grassroots spiritual movements OR traditional systems. He can, and I feel like he will use both to team up with each other, each with their own calling.


*The final action scene where the bad guys want to poison the entire Gotham hydro system by sending a train full of poison into the main city's water supply*

“The narrows is tearing itself to pieces” - Commissioner Gordon

“This is just the beginning. If they hit the whole city, there’s nothing to stop Gotham from tearing itself apart from mass panic” - Batman

“How they gonna do that?” - Commissioner Gordon

“They’re going to use the train. The monorail follows the water mains to the central hub beneath Wayne Tower. If the machine gets to the station, it’ll cause a chain reaction that’ll vaporize the city’s water supply. “ - Batman

“Covering Gotham in this poison” - Commissioner Gordon

“I’m gonna stop him from loading that train, but I may need your help” - Batman

“What do you need?” - Commissioner Gordon

“Do you drive stick?” - Batman

signs of the Kingdom in the last century

While I was in Hong Kong 2 winters ago staying with Johnny, I picked up the book "Rumours of Another World" by Phillip Yancey that I found lying around his house and read it. Among the many amazing stories that Yancey briefly described one in particular captured me. I ended up buying the original book online immediately which was written by someone in the middle of the original story. Since I have a ton of books on my ever-increasing to-read list (one distinguishing hallmark of a bookworm), I only got around to reading this book I got from Amazon last week. I finished it yesterday. Since Yancey does a way better job of condensing the main storyline than I would ever do, I'll just type it up here verbatim:

Another story with poignant parallels comes from World War II. The classic movie "The Bridge on the River Kwai" Starring Alec Guinness, gave some of the background, but not until recently did the book and movie "To End All Wars" fill in details of the extraordinary life of Ernest Gordon, a British Army officer captured at sea by the Japanese at the age of twenty-four.

Gordon was sent to work on the Burma-Siam railway line that the Japanese were constructing through the dense Thai jungle for possible use in an invasion of India. For labor, they conscripted prisoners of war they had captured from occupied countries in Asia and from the British Army itself. Against international law, the Japanese forced even officers to work at manual labor, and each day Gordon would join a work detail of thousands of prisoners who hacked their way through the jungle and built up a track bed through low-lying swampland.

The scene was straight out of Dante. Naked except for loin cloths, the men worked under a broiling sun in 120-degree heat, their bodies stung by insects, their bare feet cut and bruised by sharp stones. Death was commonplace. If a prisoner appeared to be lagging, a Japanese guard would beat him to death, bayonet him, or decapitate him in full view of the other prisoners. Many more men simply dropped dead from exhaustion, malnutrition, and disease. Under these severe conditions, with such inadequate care for prisoners, 80000 men ultimately died building the railway, 393 fatalities for every mile of track.

Ernest Gordon could feel himself gradually wasting away from a combination of beriberi, worms, malaria, dysentery, and typhoid. Then a virulent case of diphtheria ravaged his throat and palate so severely that when he tried to drink or eat, the rice or water would come gushing out through his nose. As a side effect of the disease, his legs lost all sensation.

Paralyzed and unable to eat, Gordon asked to be laid in the Death House, where prisoners on the verge of death were laid out in rows until they stopped breathing. The stench was unbearable. He had no energy even to fight off the bedbugs, lice, and swarming flies. He propped himself up on one elbow long enough to write a final letter to his parents and then lay back to await the inevitable.

Gordon's friends, though, had other plans. They built a new bamboo addition onto their hut on high ground, away from the swamp. They carried his shriveled body on a stretcher from the contaminated earth floor of the Death House to a new bed of split bamboo, installing him in clean quarters for the first time in months.

Something was astir in the prison camp, something that Gordon would call "Miracle on the River Kwai." For most of the war, the prison camp had been a laboratory of survival of the fittest, every man for himself. In the food line, prisoners fought over the few scraps of vegetables or grains of rice floating in the greasy broth. Officers refused to share any of their special rations. Theft was common in the barracks. Men lived like animals, and hate was the main motivation to stay alive.

Recently, though, a change had come. One event in particular shook the prisoners. Japanese guards counted tools at the end of a day's work, and one day the guard shouted that a shovel was missing. He walked up and down the ranks demanding to know who had stolen it. When no one confessed, he screamed "All die! All die!" and raised his rifle to fire at the first man in the line. At that instant an enlisted man stepped forward, stood at attention, and said, "I did it."

The guard fell on him in a fury, kicking and beating the prisoner, who despite the blows still managed to stand at attention. Enraged, the guard lifted his weapon high in the air and brought the rifle butt down on the soldier's skull. The man sank in a heap to the ground, but the guard continued kicking his motionless body. When the assault finally stopped, the other prisoners picked up their comrade's corpse and marched back to the camp. That evening, when the tools were inventoried again, the work crew discovered a mistake had been made: no shovel was missing.

One of the prisoners remembered the verse "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Attitudes in the camp began to shift. Prisoners started treating the dying with respect, organizing proper funerals and burials, marking each man's grave with a cross. With no prompting, prisoners began looking out for each other rather than themselves. Thefts grew increasingly rare.

Gordon sensed the change in a very personal way as two fellow Scots volunteered to come each day and care for him. One faithfully dressed the ulcers on his legs and massaged the useless, atrophied muscles. Another brought him food and cleaned his latrine. Yet another prisoner exchanged his own watch for some medicine that might help the infection and fever. After weeks of such tender care, Gordon put on a little weight, and to his amazement, regained partial use of his legs.

The new spirit continued to sperad through the camp: [Gordon himself writes]

"Death was still with us - no doubt about that. But we were slowly being freed from its destructive grip. We were seeing for ourselves the sharp contrast between the forces that made for lief and those that made for death. Selfishness, hatred, envy, jealousy, greed, self-indulgence, laziness and pride were all anti-life. Love, heroism, self-sacrifice, sympathy, mercy, integrity and creative faith, on the other hand, were the essence of life, turning mere existence into living in its truest sense. These were the gifts of God to men....

True there was hated. But there was also love. There was death. But there was also life. God had not left us. He was with us, calling us to live the divine life in fellowship."

As Gordon continued to recover, some of the men, knowing he had studied philosophy, asked him to lead a discussion group on ethics. The conversations kept circling around the issue of how to prepare for death, the most urgent question of the camp. Seeking answers, Gordon returned to fragments of faith recalled from his childhood. He had thought little about God for years, but he would later put it, "Faith thrives when there is no hope but God." By default, Gordon became the unofficial camp chaplain. The prisoners built a tiny church, and each evening they gathered to say prayers for those with greatest needs.

The informal discussion group proved so popular that a "jungle university" began to form. Whoever had expertise in a certain field would teach a course to other students. The university soon offered courses in history, philosophy, economics, mathematics, natural sciences, and at least nine languages, including Latin, Greek, Russian, and Sanskrit. Professors wrote their own textbooks as they went along, on whatever scraps of paper they could find.

Prisoners with artistic talent salvaged bits of charcoal from cooking fires, pounded rocks to make their own paints, and managed to produce enough artwork to mount an exhibition. Two botanists oversaw a garden, specializing in medicinal plants. A few prisoners had smuggled in string instruments, other musicians carved woodwinds out of bamboo, and before long an orchestra formed. One man blessed with a photographic memory could write out the complete scores of symphonies from composers like Beethoven and Schubert, and soon the camp was staging orchestra concerts, ballets, and musical theater performances.

Gordon's book tells of the transformation of individual men in the camp, a transformation so complete that when liberation finally came the prisoners treated their sadistic guards with kindness and not revenge. Gordon's own lief took an unexpected turn. In an about-face from all his previous plans, he enrolled in seminary and became a Presbyterian minister, ending up as Dean of the Chapel at Princeton University, where he died in early 2002, just before the movie about his life was completed.

Two worlds lived side by side int he jungles of Thailand in the early 1940s. The miracle on the River Kwai was no less than the creation of an alternate community, a tiny settlement of the kingdom of God taking root in the least likely soil, a spiritual fellowship that somehow proved more substantial and more real than the world of death and despair all around.

...

Perhaps something like this was what Jesus had in mind as he turned again and again to his favorite topic: the kingdom of God. In the soil of this violent, disordered world, an alternate community may take root. It lives in hope of a day of liberation. In the meantime, it aligns itself with another world, not just spreading rumors but planting settlements in advance of that coming reign.


I had the privilege of reading the full book this past week. It was very moving. There was actually a point where Gordon was shifted to another Japanese prison camp for prisoners of war where it was also originally bleak as well. Then, long story short, something similar happened where hope, love, joy was cultivated and grew amongst the prisoners of war in that camp.

It was so inspiring how Gordon's life after the war was so thoroughly transformed. It was no short-term/"moody" temporary change of feelings. This guy's spiritually DNA underwent a holy mutation. He was a completely different being after those few years of experiencing a raw and living "valley of death" right in front of his eyes. Other former POW in that camp also were thoroughly transformed, both in terms of length as well as depth of character change.


I am discovering more and more, as each month passes, that God has done tons of similar things in North America (and Europe) as recently as the past few centuries! I mean, when I think of the Church explosions of growth (real spiritual growth, not those Crusade abominations), I usually think of stuff that happened before the 17th century after all that Enlightenment stuff. That's because the popular media doesn't talk about this stuff. They hide it from us. Man... I'm realizing one just has to do a little research to see the fingerprints of God move through every century in church expansion ever since it started 2000 years ago.

If God can, does, and will bring revival (seemingly so casual for an omnipotent Being) for the church around the globe in all time periods without temporal of geographical restriction, I firmly believe with all my heart that He can TOTALLY bring about revival to Toronto in the 21st century. Heck, if he can do it in a world war 2 prison camp, he can definitely do it here. Perhaps Toronto needs to look a little more like that prison camp first to get us desperate enough to fully bow ourselves to the very inch of the ground, but God can do it!

Oh God! PLEASE DO IT! People are so spiritually hungry here.

I recently bought a used book from Crux called "A survey of 20th Century Revival Movements in North America." by Richard M. Riss. The title caught my eye and it totally jives with the theme that God's been putting on my heart more and more recently: city-wide all out spiritual revival for Toronto, something like the scale of Pentecost happening in the 21st century. On the back there is an endorsement that says:

"A welcome addition to the growing literature in the field. This little volume will be particularly helpful to those who are interested in understanding how a variety of lesser known movements - such as the Latter Rain revival of 1948-1952 - are related to more familiar events."

Part of what it means to be a "body" of Christ means to get encouraged not only from God directly, but from other parts/members of the body, through their lives, words, as well as sincere confidence in God. In my university years, my mind increased in its confidence in God as a result from reading apologetics stuff. However, now, it is my heart that is increasing in more and more confidence in God and his power to induce revival as I read more and more accounts of these true stories of supernatural revival happening to modern man and modern societies. As time moves on, it sometimes may make one feel that the portal to the Kingdom of God that seemed wide open to the 1st century early Christians seem light years away from us. I am learning that that is a flat out lie. It's as close to us as the wardrobe in our own house.


I learned today (in a security guard course I'm taking) that there's 3 elements required for the existence of fire. Oxygen, fuel, and heat. It hit me very quickly.

God is like oxygen. It's practically everywhere around us. The only thing missing for this fire is fuel and heat, prayer and action. Although God is Sovereign, he has chose to exercise his sovereignty in cooperation with human free will (I'm Arminian). Although humans cannot control things, we can nevertheless influence how God implements his will. Under certain conditions, we can "change God's mind" just like how Moses changed God's in Exodus 32:11-14. Also, our actions also affect the destiny of other humans (1 Timothy 4:16).

I believe God wants to bring revival to Toronto. The oxygen for the fire is here. The oxygen is just waiting for fuel and heat (both prayer and action, for one without the other is useless). Oh Lord, I want to be part of the Christians in Toronto that faithfully produce the fuel and heat to spark a supernatural fire to sweep Toronto, Ottawa, New York, and the ends of the earth!

The Kingdom of God is like a playoff basketball game

What does one want to do if one wants to be an efficient basketball player? learn the skills. Let's talk about one skill in particular. Dribbling.

What does one have to do if one wants to be a good dribbler? One has to submit to the physical realities of basketball. What the heck does that mean? One has to learn the how the ball interacts with the ground after one applies a certain amount of controlled pressure from one's fingertips with a certain amount resulting in the basketball reacting in a certain way with the ground, also learning to angle the push of the fingers in a certain way to result in the ball bouncing back in the reverse direction that it has impacted the ground with etc. In the beginning, if one wants to be "free" and just does whatever one wants and expects the basketball to listen to one's mind, then the newbie will not become a proficient basketball player. Even though one wants to be able to control the ball like Kobe Bryant/Steve Nash/Allen Iverson, one cannot be like them just by "doing whatever one feels like" without submitting to the physical realities of the basketball realm. It is not the case that the ball has to listen to us (at least at this stage). On the contrary, we have to listen to the ball. We have to learn how the ball reacts with certain kinetic energy in whatever direction from whatever various causes. One has to "cooperate" with the nature of the workings of how dribbling a basketball works. This is VERY hard in the beginning. If one has never played basketball in one's life before, dribbles for the first time, one is for a challenge. It is friggin hard to control that stubborn sphere! It just doesn't go wherever your mind wants it to go! It's really restricting of one's movements (if one is to dribble while moving)! And it seems unthinkable in the beginning to be able to one day dribble proficiently with one's non-dominant hand, through the legs, behind both legs, and do extended dribbling without looking at the basketball.

What happens after a while after the baller submits oneself to the physical realities of basketball, learns how it works, creates subconscious "automatic bodily responses" to keep the ball in one's control, and renders one's whole being so familiar with the physical realities of basketball? One learns how to then control the basketball as if the basketball itself were another body part of one's body! One becomes so familiar with the physical realities of basketball that one can then start controlling where the ball goes, not because one "takes over the mind" of the basketball, but because one knows how the basketball functions and works alongside in coordination with the basketball's functions, and as a result, in a sense, can "control" the basketball. In this sense the basketball submits to the baller's mind now, not by violating physical laws, but by obeying them! It is the baller who has become familiar with the physical laws so much that one can do what was unthinkable before. The baller can now dribble proficiently with both one's dominant hand as well as one's non-dominant one. The baller can dribble between the legs without any trouble, behind both legs, as well as dribble without looking at the ball and just look straight ahead. If the baller's REALLY good, one can even dribble between the legs while simultaneously walking up and down stairs!

The same is practicing the presence of God in order to accomplish God's will. Dribbling well (to the point where the ball can be controlled to the degree where it feels as if it's part of one's body) can be roughly equated with mastering practicing the presence of God. Playing basketball well (scoring on the opponent, maintaining the posession of the ball and keeping it out of the opponent team's hands, defending the ball from being sunk into one's own net) can be equated with doing loving acts, remaining in God's will and not doing anything against God's will (sin).

Ladies and gentlemen, that's how it works in the spiritual world. One can try to develop the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5) one's "own" way, by just trying to "will" it with one's mind and demanding it to appear on the spot without really understanding how the spiritual realm works, and how God transforms lives to naturally and effortlessly do his will as an outflow from one's heart (Hebrews 10:16). It's not that God can't change anyone in anyway, but he has chosen, in general, to change his chosen people through certain patterns of working (not legalistic rules, but nevertheless consistent principles). And it is our job to find out how he works in the spiritual world and work alongside with him, work with the "rhythm" of his working and let him change us in the process. "Remaining in the vine" (John 15) is not something that is to be merely studied in an academic bible study, attempted for 2 days, then not taken seriously ever again. It is a lifetime skill that takes years to get a good grasp on. I've been at it for over a year and a half, grasped quite a bit relative to where I was when I first started but still have such a long way to go to fully master it. In the beginning, just like first learning how to dribble a basketball, it is STRENUOUSLY hard. One cannot just demand to immediately master it in a week. One has to submit oneself to spiritual reality, realize how the Spirit works, and learn how to constantly remain in a position where one can stay consciously connected with God throughout the day (e.g. mercilessly get rid of distractions while ruthlessly seeking the Kingdom first, keeping emotions as servants in our lives but not masters [1 corinthians 6:12], physically breathing slower with more peaceful body movements in general, consciously interpreting all "scenes" of one's life in God's sovereignty while denying oneself, recite and meditate on scripture throughout the day as a regular habit, in general talk less and listen more to others in interaction [James 1:19], frequently pray and hope that others become better than oneself, be in a state of conscious dependence on God for both big and small things and not trust in one's own abilities for success etc.) so that the Spirit can then transform us and produce the fruit of the Spirit in us while we do our part in "remaining in Jesus" aka practicing his presence. These spiritual laws have to be recognized, submitted to, and learned to be cooperated with. Once again, it is EXTREMELY hard in the beginning.

However, after a while, it starts to become more "natural" as one cooperates with how the spiritual world works and how the Spirit works. As a result of submitting, learning, and becoming one with the laws of the spiritual world/Holy Spirit, one can do what one thought was the immpossible: Remaining in Jesus aka being in conscious awareness of Jesus throughout the day in activities such as talking to one's friends, listening to a speaker, working out, playing games, reading, attending a party, watching a movie etc. These activities, which one used to forget about God in and where one was completely unaware of God's presence during their happening, now lead to producing the fruit of the Spirit in us naturally. We do the connecting with God, and God does the transforming while we remain connected with Him. It starts to become second nature. The presence of God starts to become a portion of one's natural consciousness, just like how the physical basketball starts to become like a portion of one's physical body. But in practicing God's presence, it's different, it not only becomes a part of one's consciousness, it starts to influence the whole consciousness and transform it! We then start to play the game well, for example "dunk" like Carter, "sink in jumpers" like Kobe, control the ball like Nash. In the spiritual world, we start to do God's will more and more naturally taking God's presence with us! For example, we learn to bless those who curse us, we learn to genuinely not care if we unjustly get yelled/scolded/mocked at by others, we learn to start wanting others to do better than us, we start to not worry about things that we used to worry about, we learn to love others in action and listen and actually care about their existence without any hidden motives! In God's world, when we keep possession of the basketball (Jesus), the basketball transforms us to play like Kobe.

The cool thing is, that there is no one way to practice God's presence. Although there seems to be commonalities among saints throughout the ages who have mastered it (just like how there are commonalities between the dribbling styles of NBA stars), there is nevertheless individual distinction in personal styles in how people find certain styles resonating with them more than others.

Christian history celebrates the diversity of how different Christian traditions have mastered it.

It is just like how all these NBA stars in this Nike commercial have mastered the art of dribbling/handling the basketball and also have their own styles.



In the Christian traditions who have mastered practicing God's presence, there are likewise different ways or styles of "divine dribbling". Some, like the Quakers, "center down" into the "center of their spirit" and find Christ living there. Some, like Frank Laubach, have made it a habit to literally pray (a fraction of a second) for every single human being they come across as well as learn how to literally make every movement of one's body, including every limb, finger, mini-joint consciously for the glory of God (Brother Lawrence mastered the latter too). Some, like the Eastern Orthodox dudes, have disciplined themselves to say the Jesus prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner") until the Holy Spirit makes their heart say it automatically (literally automatically, so that they can go about doing their own tasks normally while this prayer keeps going on in the background of their minds, even when they sleep. Yes, this prayer does not stop when they sleep! That is their interpretation of 1 Thessalonians 5:17~!). Each tradition has its own style. There are no legalistic rules, just what style works for you. Different styles. Same principle of remaining consciously aware of God's presence. Same results that produce the fruit of the Spirit. That's because John 15 and Galatians 5 are connected.






That being said, I've been listening to some epic basketball competition music for the past while! They help me keep this analogy (and also the God and his Kingdom) in my mind! (Yes, I do play them in my head as I go through the day!)



as well as



Matthew 24:14 records the words of our franchise owner: "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."

Ladies and gentlemen, there are many missionary organizations that believe the Great Commission will be fulfilled in this generation of ours. Who knows, it may, or it may not. There are some signs of stuff that Jesus talked about that came as warnings of the end (wars, famines, earthquakes etc.). Either way, my personal opinion is that we're somewhere in the 4th quarter of this divine playoff game. I can sense the "drama" of it in Toronto. God seems to be preparing people to play the 4th quarter in Toronto. It's exciting! I want to be a part of contributing to this through spiritual formation, to strengthen God's team by training people how to "dribble the ball" aka remain in God's presence throughout each moment (literally) to play the game!

It's part of our deepest heart's desires to be a part of something that really matters. Where the stakes are high, and consequences have eternal proportions. Where there is a constant "tug-of-war"/"back-and-forth" struggle of falling behind and taking the lead by a few points within moments. Where there is a huge audience consisting first of the 3 members of the Trinity, the thousands of angels and heavenly creatures, as well as all the saints who have finished playing in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarter, retired into the heavenly stands where they now support and cheer for us. The audience easily outnumbers the magnitude of all the worldcup audiences combined. This playoff game matters. The stakes are high. It is the center of attention to our friends upstairs.



I just finished watching this Taiwanese drama about basketball. It has cool music that accompanies the "drama" of hyped up basketball matches where the stakes are high each time.



This is the opening theme song.



This song is the "drama" song. The lyrics are kind of arrogant/prideful (so I either try to ignore them or interpret them in a twisted way that helps me to boast in Christ haha), but the attitude of the beat evoking feelings of "This basketball game means war!" just hypes me up when I think of all the parallels of this basketball Kingdom analogy. It just hypes me up, especially when there's closeups of determined players faces, as well as slow-mos of cool walking haha.

Ladies and Gentlmen! We're in the 4th quarter here! When Jesus comes again, he'll take things over in overtime and finish the game in his way. But until he comes, GAME ON! WHO'S WITH ME IN BALLIN' 'GAINST THE DEMONS?

Spiritual formation illustrated in Inception

I saw the movie Inception on the plane a few days ago. I thought it was okay. I didn't fully understand all of it to be honest haha. However, whenever I come across stuff that has to do with psychology, I find myself interested.

Anyhoo, I found that this film really illustrates how spiritual formation works!

Spiritual formation, the pursuit of Christlikeness through training oneself to be godly (1 Tim 4:17), namely through spiritual disciplines, is basically the "proactive" sanctification process of the saint in his journey of following Christ. Okay, so basically spiritual disciplines such as fasting, scripture memorization, prayer, meditation, solitude, silence, esrvice etc. all are in themselves useless in changing oneself to be Christlike. They are merely the means to which God has chosen to work through to make us more holy and Christlike. They are the water-pipes but we must not mistake them for the water, which is the Holy Spirit who changes us from the inside out. It is our responsibility to proactively (but not legalistically) do the spiritual disciplines, not to earn righteousness or earn God's approval, but to become Christ-like and to live wisely without further destroying ourselves. Although God doesn't see his children as guilty of sin anymore, if his children don't proactively discipline themselves to be godly in Christian spiritual formation, they will be, forever in this life, haunted by the self-desctructiveness of sin. So we train, but we trust in God's power, not in our own efforts, although we go hardcore in our own efforts. As Dallas Willard said, we should try our best but not trust our best.

Anyhoo, with that background, I thought that the movie inception really illustrates how this works.

Picture sleeping (which then leads to dreaming) as something that is not within our control. We can't make ourselves sleep and dream. However, we can create the conditions where we will sleep and therefore dream. We can find a quiet/peaceful bedroom, find a good mattress, a good pillow, a good banklet, lie down comfortably and close our eyes. These conditions then allow us to fall asleep and then dream.

During the dream though, that is when the Holy Spirit acts like a sort of divine Leonardo DiCaprio, enters the inner most depths of our being and then "plants" an idea, and "steals/takes away" the bad ones. This happens on such a deep level where we have no control over ourselves (at least in a very direct way) and virtually most, if not all of the work is the Holy Spirit's. So when we wake up (finished with the spiritual disciplines) we wake up a changed person, not changed on the outside, but on the "inside" of us. The cool thing is that as one goes deeper and deeper into spiritual formation, there are always "deeper levels" in our inner selves that can and need to be changed by the Holy Spirit aka the divine Leonardo DiCaprio. If one falls into a "deeper" state of sleep and allows the Holy Spirit to go into oneself on deeper levels, one can be changed not only on level 1, level 2, or level 3 depth but on level 4 or greater, just like the final mission of the whole inception team did to that dude. The more I walk in this Christian journey, it seems like that there's always deeper and deeper levels that the Holy Spirit can and needs to change in me. Not only hundreds of levels, but potentially thousands.

The result after "waking up" is to be a person who is the product of the Spirit's sanctification, so that one is more loving, joyful, peaceful in God. Not from the "outside" but from the "inside".

Thanks Christopher Nolan, for giving grist for the Christian Mysticism mill!

oh Lord... my faith is weak.

I need you to transform me into the kind of person who trusts you more than a person trusts the law of gravity.

One can't help but to get a little mystical about a lot of little/mini "coincidences" occurring in one's daily life when one learns to walk more and more into the Kingdom of God.

My dad just recently got a new printer. I set it up, installed the drivers on my computer (which took a while), then tried to print out some stuff. There were some hardware errors with the printer. It was an HP, and it jammed! And it was pushing out blank pieces of paper without any ink on it! I was a little upset, discovering that our brand new printer got busted in its first attempt to print. I went upstairs to get something (while I was praying for it), went back down. Tried again, then voila! It worked!

Then my dad installed the printer drivers on his computer a few hours later to print some stuff from his laptop. It wasn't working. It was sending out blank pieces of white paper without any ink on it. I started to pray for the printer, I opened some of the sides of the printer (without touching anything inside), then "layed hands" on the printer while continuing to pray for it. We attempted to print one more time. Voila! It worked immediately afterwards!

Coincidence? Maybe. But as archbishop William Temple said "coincidences happen a lot more when I pray".

The mysteries of life. The "fortuitous accidents" of life. The Kingdom baby.





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Man! Quantum physics is so interesting!

I read a portion of Thomas Kelly's The Eternal Promise while on the subway today.

There's one portion that really resonated with my soul. Here it is:

"What direction shall we run, if we would run away to God? I can only answer, He is within you already. Seek Him in the very deeps of your souls. But you say, "I thought we were to seek Him in the Bible." I should reply, He is not in the Bible, as such. For the Bible, as such, is a book, and words; and what you want is not a book but a living God; not words, but the Word, the Living Word. It is not the words of a book, but the Living Word who animated and owned those writers who wrote the Bible, that we crave. "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." The book points beyond itself, to Him who has been found by its writers. And because He is already in the deeps of your own souls, these words of the Bible are made living and vivid to you. Read your Bibles, and feel your way back into that Source and Spring of Life which bubbled up in the Bible-writers. And you'll find that Source and Spring of Life bubbling up within you also. And you'll find yourself in deep fellowship with these writers, because your life and theirs go back into the same Living Spring."

Quakers are awesome!

every moment has its own signature

A recurrent theme has been a common thread throughout the past 2 weeks. Whether explicity finding itself through explicit means or implicitly strongly imposing itself through, it seems to be "the theme" of this time period with God. It goes something along the lines of this:

each moment & circumstance (whether each mini-chapter of the day consists of an hour, 15 minutes, 1 minute, or even 10 seconds) is unique, with many different factors from the previous one as well as future ones.

I am not called to nor should I use what worked before (to commune with God and practice his presence) in other unique moments/circumstances to find, be empowered, & carry out God's will in it. I should not put God's will and/or the Holy Spirit's guidance in a box & subconsciously work at life formulaicly. Not only is the Christian life not meant to be like that, it's also boring that way. God is alive and although his character never changes, he is a spontaneous conversationalist and can & will frequently surprise his children. He is also infinitely creative and can & does come at us at an infinite variety of angles.


I like Thomas Kelly's thinking when he says:

Symbols are stationary, unchanging, frozen, while the Life of the Spirit which they symbolize is flowing, growing, changing, ever becoming richer. If we were successful, in any moment, in devising a symbolic expression absolutely adequate to represent the richness of our soul's experience of the Divine Life, then the next moment, and certainly the next day and the next year will find that symbol to be in some degree inadequate, antiquated, obsolete. For the Spirit's working, if we keep alive and sensitive to Him, is ever leading us into new vistas of truth, where the pastures become greener and the still waters greater beneath their limpid mirror"


A related theme to thsi is that I should not formulaicly impose how God is uniquely working in me to transform me & his interaction methods with me on others without any flexibility or discernment. This "messianic" way of regarding my unique pathway(s) to God should not be rigidly assigned to every Christian. Sometimes, the timing is not right. The Holy Spirit can work in however/whatever ways he wants & is not limited by the shackles of anyt radition. The only constant is his creative/flexible/fresh/variant methods which we have to keep an alert spiritual eye out for. This, in a way, can be liberating & make life all the more exciting! This way, each day has the possibility of having one's inner life unfold like a gripping novel/movie where one doesn't know what's going to happen next, but just has to wait for what the storywriter has planned to unfold. As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. Unpredictability (under the context of a good and non-evil storywriter) brings vigour, freshness, liveliness, & novelty to life. For the Christian, if one's outer world is not constantly shaken up, at least one's inner world should be.

The importance of both balance & variety, discernment & prudence. The possibility of thousands of angles & perspectives to view an issue or experience an existential reality. Throughout the past 10 days or so, God has been imbuing this theme to be constantly through different means. These include conversations with Bobby & Pui Wing, reading "A testament of devotion" by Thomas Kelly, reading the foreword of "The Sacrament of the Present Moment" by Richard Foster, stuff by Tilden Edwards, reading "Prayer" by Richard Foster, reading some of the Conversations Journal, some devotionals of Jan Johnson, and some crazy insights about metacognition (& the nature of thought expressed in language) while reading a novel called "Blink" by Ted Dekker. The only constant is to be open to the Spirit's often unpredictable movings that have a fresh & original scent of "divine sacrament" to each new moment.

Negative evidence in favour of this are looking at those Bible verses I wrote down & posted around in my room which at the time of writing them I was so impressed & deeply moved by the Spirit to write, memorize & embed them into my heart. Now, often times, I do not feel as moved as I did when I first wrote and posted these verses. As long as I still believe it is the Word of God & that I should submit to it, I don't think I should feel guilty by not being as moved by them as I was at the time of originally writing and posting them.

A good analogy to capture the essence of this theme in the past couple weeks is C.S. Lewis' analogy of the piano with all its appropriate array of keys, each which should be played only at the appropriately called time, that is when the melody that the composer wrote indicated on the music sheet shows that the timing is right for each unique & different note to strike at a certain moment. Certain keys which are perfectly appropriate to be played at their appropriate times should not be played during others. I'm always called to be "in tune" with the melody of God's musical will, but the melody is different every moment, whether God calls me to glorify him through concentrated praying, reading a book, washing dishes, talking to friends, or sleeping. To do one at the inappropriate time (even if well-intentioned) can screw up the beautiful melody. Done properly the result is a beautiful harmonious piece of music, that is, music for the soul.


Here are excerpts from a couple quotes I read which have really been jiving with my soul.

For [Caussade] Christ comes to us in a new and living way each day - indeed, each moment. What was a means of God's grace one moment may become a hindrance the next, since we worship a living Lord, not a static ritual. Hear the daring words of de Caussade: "These blessed results are not produced by any particular circumstance but by what God ordains for the present moment. What was best a moment ago is so no longer because it is removed from the divine will, which has passed on to be changed to form the duty to the next. And it is that duty, whatever it may be, that is now most sanctifying for the soul." We have in these words the invitation to the quickening life of hearing and obeying, rather than the stifling lief of rules and regulations. De Caussade continues, "If the divine will ordains that reading is the duty to the present moment, reading achieves that mysterious purpose. If the divine will abandons reading for an act of contemplation, that duty will bring about a change of heart and then reading will be harmful and useless." For those who want a life clear-cut and well-defined, such words will feel threatening. But for those who, like myself, have tried the way of law and found it wanting, de Caussade's words sweep over us like a spring breeze inviting us to the adventure.