See yourself the way you really are

Tonight I watched Kung Fu Panda 2. This might be juvenile, but I find these movies really inspiring. The panda is not especially trained or skilled. He is not physically fit. He tends to be bumbling and screws things up a lot. He doesn't even really have a plan most of the time. But he lives up to his destiny and accomplishes the impossible.

It reminds me of these Scriptures:

2 Corinthians 4

⁷ But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. ⁸ We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

2 Corinthians 10

⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Mark 10

²⁷ Looking at them, Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”

I was recently praying with my mentor about my new purpose in life. I have had to renounce the old purposes I have lived for based on an image of myself that was not true to God's purpose for me. She asked God to give me a picture of what it looks like to live for my new purpose. I got the image of The Awakening statue.

In case you have never seen it, it is a giant "awakening" from his underground slumber to emerge from the earth. I remember seeing this as a kid. I think I could fit my whole person in one of his hands.

This is the image God gave me... of ME! I thought that was awfully flattering of God, but perhaps a little unmerited. "Me... a... giant?" And then I warmed up to the idea, like finally bursting up from the earth like the beautiful buds and sprouts which long laid dormant during the winter. Sure, why should I NOT be a giant? A giant in faith, in love, and in relationship. Who is to say these things are unattainable for me? Who am I to disqualify myself from the purpose that God has for me?

And I think this is what most of us do. We see ourselves as small and unqualified. We embrace all the limitations that people and life circumstances have shackled us with. The lack of promotion at work. Or worse, the lay off. And then not getting hired during the recession despite sending out umpteen resumes. Or perhaps your spouse never believed in your dream. Or you had kids and never got to use your degree that you worked so hard for. Or your vision for your life does not meet the expectations of your family. The limitations have unlimited possibilities.

But how does God see you? We know how he saw David, as a King who was currently occupied as a lowly shepherd. He saw elderly, sterile Abraham as the father of nations. Cowardly lion Gideon as a valiant warrior. Insert your favorite here...

Why not ask God how He sees you today? What would happen if you awoke from your slumber of a poor self-estimation? No matter what life has dealt or others have done to you, as is the message of the panda, it is up to you to determine your future.

So rise up sleeping giants!

“Wake up, sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

(Ephesians 5:14)

Standing on the corner waiting for destiny

I like strangers. This is no secret. Sometimes it's as if a particular stranger has a bull's-eye on their chest or a big neon arrow sign over their head flashing as if to say, "This person needs to encounter God today!"

One such man was standing on the sidewalk in front of my friend's house.

I was walking down the street to go to Bible study at my friend's house when I happened upon a man standing squarely in the middle of the sidewalk looking at the sky and appearing quite perplexed. He had on a backpack like he was about to embark on a trip. Or a hike. But he was in the city.

So I said to him, "Are you waiting for somebody?"

"No" he replied.

And then I said, "You look like you're waiting for your destiny!"

He actually was waiting for his brother. But we engaged in conversation and he volunteered that something very horrible had happened just recently. Before we got into the details his brother emerged from a nearby house and I invited them to Bible study. I said that it very well could be that God would show them their destiny! The brother asked if God would do that for an atheist. I said "Sure!"

They had somewhere to go, so the conversation was left there, but I can't help but wonder what was the horrible event that had happened. In any case I hope it was an encouragement to the man to hear that God has a destiny awaiting him!

I don't know where life finds you today, but I pray that wherever that is, you would know what you were put on this earth for.

1 Corinthians 2: 9

“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him”

A Dose of Profundity from Desmond Tutu

Ubuntu and so restorative justice gives up on no-one. No-one is a totally hopeless and irredeemable case. We all remain the children of God, even the worst of ones. We all retained the capacity to become saints. For us as Christians the paradigm was provided by our Lord and the penitent thief on the Cross. He had led a life of crime presumably until he was crucified.

Some might be appalled at this death-bed repentance and conversion, but not God, whom we seek to emulate - "be as perfect as your heavenly father is perfect" is Jesus' exhortation. We are not able to declare categorically that so and so has a first class ticket to hell. We shall be surprised at those we meet in heaven whom we least expected to be there and perhaps also by those we do not find there whom we had expected to be there.

St. Patrick's Breastplate

I bind unto myself today

The strong Name of the Trinity,

By invocation of the same

The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this today to me forever

By power of faith, Christ incarnation;

His baptism in Jordan river,

His death on Cross for my salvation;

His bursting from the spiced tomb,

His riding up the heavenly way,

His coming at the day of doom

I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power

Of the great love of cherubim;

The sweet Well done in judgment hour,

The service of the seraphim,

Confessors faith, Apostles word,

The Patriarchs prayers, the prophets scrolls,

All good deeds done unto the Lord

And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today

The virtues of the star lit heaven,

The glorious suns life giving ray,

The whiteness of the moon at even,

The flashing of the lightning free,

The whirling winds tempestuous shocks,

The stable earth, the deep salt sea

Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today

The power of God to hold and lead,

His eye to watch, His might to stay,

His ear to hearken to my need.

The wisdom of my God to teach,

His hand to guide, His shield to ward;

The word of God to give me speech,

His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,

The vice that gives temptation force,

The natural lusts that war within,

The hostile men that mar my course;

Or few or many, far or nigh,

In every place and in all hours,

Against their fierce hostility

I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,

Against false words of heresy,

Against the knowledge that defiles,

Against the hearts idolatry,

Against the wizards evil craft,

Against the death wound and the burning,

The choking wave, the poisoned shaft,

Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,

Christ behind me, Christ before me,

Christ beside me, Christ to win me,

Christ to comfort and restore me.

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,

Christ in hearts of all that love me,

Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,

The strong Name of the Trinity,

By invocation of the same,

The Three in One and One in Three.

By Whom all nature hath creation,

Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:

Praise to the Lord of my salvation,

Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Hope for when you're in a pit

There is a story of a donkey who stumbled and fell into a pit. His owner comes along to rescue it, but the task is impossible. To put it out of its misery, the farmer called upon his friends to help him bury it alive. However, every time they heaped another shovel of dirt on this little donkey, he'd just shake it off, and step up on the fallen pile of dirt. Shake it off, step up, shake it off, step up. Finally he walked out of his imprisonment on level ground. As time passed, the very thing that should have buried the donkey became his way to freedom.

"No pit is too deep that He is not deeper still." ~Corrie ten Boom

Psalm 40

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

¹ I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
² He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
³ He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the LORD
and put their trust in him.

Spiritual Truths in Kung Fu Panda

Today I went to yoga and watched Kung Fu Panda.

There are great spiritual principles to be gleaned from Kung Fu Panda.

My dad has been talking about it for a long time now. He always says how much he loved the movie. He quotes, "Panda, we do not wash our pits in the pool of sacred tears."

And after yoga today I spoke to a college student. It was her first time. She said she loved the spiritual teachings. Indeed, I have been encouraged by yoga. Today we did dancer, a balancing pose where you stand on one foot and then pull your other leg behind you while you extend the opposite arm forward. You sort of end up looking like a bow and arrow.

I was doing the pose just fine, all balanced with a slight tip forward. But then I decided to try and push myself to try and tip forward more. I got off balance and had to drop my foot and start over again. As I wobbled it was as if God posed the question, "Why do you push yourself to the point of instability?"

What does Kung Fu Panda have to do with yoga? To me it is the realization that the Christian Church is so scared of spirituality that it has relegated all things "spiritual" to New Age philosophy and Eastern religions. In order to preserve doctrine, mainly mainline branches have shunned the movement of the Holy Spirit and have labeled any display of power, miracles, and even spiritual gifts, as counterfeit and disruptive.

I think this is sad. This means that people hungry for rightful spiritual influence are left to go to Eastern philosophy.

I am happy to let the Spirit move and to find encouragement from Him wherever I find it. Yoga has reminded me to remain present in the moment, to honor myself and not to compete. To accept my best and be content with it. Kung Fu Panda reminded me to believe and to be ok with not being in control.

I know we cannot deny the influence of sin in our lives, and the Church must address it, but I would really like for the teaching of the Church to get back to things that more spiritual practices have taken up in our absence- things such as the teaching of personal empowerment through inner spirituality and truth. In the meantime I'm going to appreciate it when I see it- animated or no!

My thoughts on Yoga

I have been thinking that it will be sad to neglect my blog as I am studying for Bar Exam #2. I could have done more today, but it is Saturday, and it is hard to convince my brain that I should be cramming law into it today. Weekends are weekends.

Today I am going to write about yoga. I really like yoga. I don't like what I dub 'crazy yoga'- of which there are many varieties. This is yoga where you beat your stomach with others beating their stomachs while counting to 10 for 5 mins. This is supposed to stir up energy or something. I call it crazy. Or yoga where you lay down for 30 mins in the dark and think about every part of your body and then when you finally sit up you just snort air out of your nostrils. I don't have time for that. I need exercise. I need to relax. I can lay down and think about my body in my own bed while I am about to fall asleep and am not needing exercise.

Anyway, doing yoga as a Christian has gotten me in trouble. I got kicked out of a ministry for it because the person in charge of the ministry was so against it. She thought that there was no separating the exercise from the spiritual practice.

A lot of Christians feel this way. They don't think that it is possible to engage in the exercise without inherently immersing yourself in the spiritual element. I agree that if you are insecure in your faith and you go in blindly without the awareness that there is a spiritual component to it, you may get off course into some spiritual philosophy that is not in agreement with the Bible. But I find it ridiculous to assert (sorry, my mind is still in legalese here) that there are certain things that cannot be separated from their symbolism. If that is what Christians believe then they should not have a Christmas tree any more because the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol.

So basically I try to avoid crazy yoga and look for yoga that is minimally spiritual. A few Oms are ok, but don't start getting into a treatise on yogic philosophy. As aforementioned, I'm here to release tension (because law school has turned me into Type A) and exercise.

I found this great special at a studio nearby. It as $40 for unlimited classes for an entire month. You can't beat that. Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to screen the place for craziness beforehand. I decided the deal was worth taking a chance. I got a report from a friend that it was a legit place. So I was relieved.

But then I go in and there is this huge podium of Ganesh at the front of the studio, with a background of Buddha, and another Hindu god. I do not want to stare at Ganesh for the entirety of my yoga class. I am thinking this may disrupt the peace I have. And then I sensed that God wanted me to stay. I need not be threatened by the presence of these figures. Indeed I felt like Jesus was not threatened by them. I felt like I could bring the presence of Jesus into the studio. And I said a nice prayer for everyone there. That was that.

I once tried out a free yoga class put on by this non-denom church. I was excited. I was so stressed out and I was grateful for free yoga. But it was so lame. In the attempt to make the yoga "Christian" the instructor started the relaxation time by reading the first chapter of John. Do you know how long it takes to read an entire chapter out loud? Like 5 mins. So I am trying to relax and instead am getting annoyed and am just wanting her to stop reading Scripture. Seriously, this is something ridiculous that Christians do. God can be present in an activity without adding something to make it overtly Christian. That was the first and last time I went to "Christian" yoga.

After my pagan yoga I got to talk to the teacher and this other guy I had been in 2 classes with. I shared with them a little about my healing classes. I asked about their yoga practice. The one guy from class had a Sanskrit name and everything. I started talking to him because he mentioned Osho, this meditation guru I became familiar with when I was in Burma. I told him I had the opportunity to walk around Osho's meditation center in India.

I left thinking that if as Christians we are so put off by the practice of other people's religion, how in the world do we ever expect to engage people? Are we that easily tainted by being in the presence of an icon we find idolatrous? If that is the case then our faith has very little influence or power behind it.

Now I'm not going to go seek out the Satan worshipers to infiltrate their meeting to prove that my God is more powerful. No reason to needlessly seek out darkness just to prove the light is stronger. But I think it's time to stop disengaging situations where another religion is prominent. If that is how Christians want to focus their efforts, then you need not wonder why we have a limited impact on the culture around us.

So I'm going to keep going to yoga!