2007 has been a year where I have been learning to go back to the basics. I am so thankful to God for working in me and through me this year despite my failures and setbacks. I still remember the joy I felt when 2007 began. I really messed up in 2006 because I was so locked up in my own pride that refused to grow or move in any sort of way. I was doing things for the sake of just doing things. For example, I was meeting with students because that was what was expected of me as staff, not because I really want to know them and love them; going to prayer meetings because that was expected of me, not because I was hungering for that time with God. I thought that I had everything figured out and everything just became a routine. I lost a sense of fear towards God and it became all about how I felt and guarding my pride. Knowing how miserable I was last year, I approached 2007 with more humility.

My first priority was going to be time with God’s word. I had neglected my time with God as I juggled working life and ministry. I used to do DT whenever I had time throughout the day. But as things got busier with life and ministry, there seemed to be less and less time to just sit and do DT daily. And soon, there were more days where I did not do my DT than the days than I did. I decided to go back to the basics. Although I have heard it many times and read it many times, finally I took on the advice on how to have good DT. The first thing was to find a regular place and time to do DT. I am so thankful for Northloop. It is so close to home and very quite in the morning. It is the perfect place to do DT. I chose to do DT in the morning because I wanted my time with God to be the first thing that I do before my mind becomes cluttered with daily activities. Because I am a very task-oriented person, once I get my day started my mind does not stop until I hit the bed and it becomes very difficult for me to have quality DT when I keep thinking about what I have to do next. In the beginning, it was very hard for me to wake up and drive myself to NL and do my DT. I asked Susan and Sarah to keep me accountable. Knowing that someone will be there became an incentive to wake up in the morning. Although first couple of weeks was difficult, and the days during GLive were very difficult to wake up, I have learned to push through and really learned to cherish my times at NL. There have been numerous occasions when God would speak to me during those times or how that particular morning text would give me strength or encouragement whenever I had a tough day at work. Now, I really depend on my time with God at NL. I never really realized how important DT was until now. I can see it clearly how different I am on the days that I do DT and the days that I don’t. On the days that I don’t do DTs, I feel restless and isolated. It is not out of my self-will that I do DT every morning, but because I know that I need God’s word daily to keep me sane and to find strength to face another day. I am thankful that God has taught me to depend on His word daily. Although I do not enjoy my work, it has taught to me depend of God’s word daily to draw strength and encouragement. That is why I get up early every morning even though I am tired because God has taught me to love that time in God’s word.

Another aspect that God has added to my spiritual life is prayer. Often, prayer meeting is the only time I take time to pray to God, and it did not feel right that my prayer time has not grown for past four or five years. Beside doing DT in the morning, I decided to set aside fifteen to twenty minutes after dt to just pray. Once again, I am thankful for NL for being that perfect place for me to pray. These prayer times helped me to depend on God more. The things in my life that I would not even bothered praying about, I have learned to leave my concerns to God through those times. These times helped me to have more regular prayers for my girls, for ministry, for church, for mission, for my spiritual life. It also helped me to be more expressive in my prayers. I am thankful to God for teaching me how to pray and depend on him. I realized that it is in prayer that God stretches my heart to care about other things beside my own agenda. As I pray for different things beside my own concerns, I have experienced numerous times where my heart would pour out in prayer to my own surprise. I know that this is not because I am a spiritual person, but because I am making myself available to care about what God cares about. I’m thankful that I have just begun to learn to share in God’s heart and to experience something outside of my own sphere of concern.

After the winter retreat, I was inspired to memorize scripture more. Before, my cynical attitude would be against memorizing the scripture because I would get discouraged because of numerous different references. Instead of letting my cynicism getting the better of me, I have decided to memorize a whole chapter at a time so that I don’t have to worry about the reference. I decided to memorize one verse every other day. I started with 1 Corinthians 13 then Psalm 130, Isaiah 53, Romans 8, and Philippians 2. It took a lot of discipline on my part to review and memorize verses. I would memorize the verses while I was driving on local streets, then review the verses while I was on freeway or when I exercised. In the beginning, I did not know how this would enrich my spiritual time. Time and time again, certain verses I memorized would enhance my understanding of the DT text. Or, when I would feel discouraged and began to doubt God, certain verses like Romans 8:28 ("And we know that in all things God works for good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose") would quickly wash away my doubts or cynicism. Or verses like Psalm 130 have really helped me to cry out to God as I borrow the word of the Psalmist to express my need for God’s presence in my life. I am thankful to experience God’s words becoming so real and powerful. It has been more than what I expected from memorizing the scriptures.

As I watched the 2nd and 3rd grade Joyland children perform and sing and recall their lines virtually flawlessly on the night of the Joyland Christmas Celebration 2007, I was able to reflect on how God had truly coordinated and made all the pieces come together. You see, many (myself most of all) would consider it something of a miracle that the skit was a success.

From the beginning, we couldn’t figure out a decent script after weeks and weeks of brainstorming. Somehow, we handed our humble ideas to a couple of our in-house drama ‘contractors’ Richard and Andrew, and after a single night at the 24-hour diner, a new, complete script had been cranked out. Thinking that the hardest was over, we dove into preparing costumes and props and kid assignments and coaching. I quickly found my hands full, and myself scrambling to keep up with all of the variables that needed to be considered. Members of my team were constantly asking me “Errrrr… shouldn’t we be doing _____ now? And … uh… don’t you think we need to ____?” Moreover, the kids were having a hard time speaking with any expression or consistent acting.

With all of these issues and more, I knew that I was in over my head with this skit, and only with God’s much-needed help did anything happen. My team seemed to always remember what needed to be done when I didn’t, and they worked tirelessly for many late nights to get every aspect to be the most thorough or complete as possible. Other members from different parts of our church volunteered hours to help our kids emote appropriately. Many of our ideas or plans flopped but with just enough time to modify them.

In the end, I saw that God wouldn’t let my incompetence get in the way of making this a special time for each child involved. I am humbled and amazed at how God worked in spite of my failures and shortcomings, and in the end, it gives much such security and joy in Him to know that He is so faithful.

Graduate program can be a spiritually trying time for the Christian students in the International Student Ministry (ISM). The work load, the uncertainty of research, and the pressure from advisors to produce results can cause our graduate students to put aside their time with God. To proactively make room in our schedule for fellowship with God and with one another, we scheduled to meet together for DT at one of the students’ apartment near campus every Thursday evening.

We had about four students and a few staff members in each meeting. Starting with dinner, we would catch up with one another’s life over the past week, study that day’s DT text with the help of the DT questions, have a time of group discussions and reflections, and share prayer requests at the end. The discussion time is my favorite part of the meeting because the students would engage each other with questions and answers about the text. Through the discussion time, we would delve deeper into God’s Word and share how God spoke to each one of us personally.

I was concerned about the consistency of these meetings in the beginning. The students could easily miss a meeting here and there because they had an unexpected meeting with their advisors, or because their experiments ran long, or because they were too tired from a day’s work. However, the students tried hard to make it every week so that they could connect with God and with one another.

Several years ago, an overarching sentiment I felt can be captured in the words of “How can you?” It is an episode of my life I am very ashamed about and not anything I ever want to relive again. In the summer of 2003, I was burnt out with law school and with life in general because I experienced failure on a worldly and spiritual level. No matter how hard I studied, I had terrible grades. I had no spiritual passion or focus. I didn’t know what I wanted except that I wanted to get away from all of this and so, I decided to take a leave of absence from school and go off to Korea. And I did this without telling anyone- my family, this church, my friends- except at the very end when I told them that I was leaving. Going to Korea isn’t so much the problem as much as the sudden bomb shell dropping manner I let them know, through which people were devastated. I thought people would try to stop me but what I didn’t expect out of my cluelessness was that they would be deeply hurt. Seeing how much pain I caused everyone and feeling bad about this and over the fact that I wasn’t going to change my mind nevertheless, I left feeling awkward and like an even bigger failure. I hated myself and my sentiments towards myself were “How can you?”

I mention this anguishing moment of my life because it underscores how grateful I am for God rebuilding me this past year. This is not to say that God hadn’t started the rebuilding process before this past year. But as I look back on this past year, I see more of the visible fruits that I can point to as a testament to God’s grace and faithfulness. It has been over a little more than a year since I started doing SFSU college ministry and this happens to be the particular vehicle which God happened to use in rebuilding me and through which, stems the many other things that I am thankful for.

The fact that I am even in ministry and that God would want to still use someone like me has been grounds for tremendous adoration throughout the year. I think back to my disillusioned sophomore year when I was utterly depressed and didn’t see the point to anything I did nor would ever do. I think back to more recent years where all the failures I brought upon myself left me resigned to accepting that it meant the death of any spiritual excitement I once had, and that nothing much would come out of my life. Yet throughout this past year, my mind was filled with a lot of questions. As I was leading games for our TFNs and facing the audience of staff and students, I caught myself wondering how a guy like me could be allowed to lead games after all that I had done. As I was on campus flyering and tabling for the New Student Welcome Night and facing a large oncoming crowd, who was I that I should be the one inviting all of them? After all, I am only some screw-up who didn’t have his life together and you wouldn’t put your money on me to help a ministry advance. Yet still, I found myself on the SFSU campus explaining to a crack addict that God makes all things new and that only in him can we have a high like none other. I encountered an African American student and told her that God’s light shines brighter than anything else and no matter what darkness we have in ourselves nor encountered in our past, there is still hope because God’s light will still shine brighter. When a Chinese international student asked me why I asked to pray together before the meal, I motioned towards the sky saying that everything belongs to God and we thank him because of his goodness. Of all the people who could have represented God in those situations, why me? Though years ago my life was headed quickly towards a downward spiritual spiral, how did God bring order to the mess I created such that I am now arranging rides for students, in charge of the curtain setup for Sunday services, helping out with gym nights, directing the New Student Welcome Night skit, going to the DCs to be the first point of contact students would have to our group and probably to God altogether, leading freshman small group, counseling impressionable college students, being the house manager for the first pseudo Dana House of SFSU, and overall, being entrusted with the souls of other people? A lot of these are otherwise mundane and ordinary tasks. Nonetheless, they have been for me heavy with meaning as I felt myself unexpectedly moved to tears when by myself, because not too long ago, I didn’t see myself doing any of this. And I just felt so lucky because somehow, God immersed me with purpose and reawakened the once dormant spiritual zeal buried deep within me.

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It’s another Saturday night bible study. The praise is over, the message is over, dinner is over, and the small group time is over. We’re all just sort of milling around North Loop in that aimless but enjoyable time during which teachers and parents round up their wandering youth students to go home. I’m chatting with a bunch of fellow Element members. One of them says, “hey, can I sleep over tonight?”

Thus begins another night of fellowship with my fellow youth students. For the past two or three years, such nights have been fairly frequent occurrences, with anywhere from one to five of my youth brothers coming over to hang out and sleep over. Essential of course in every night is first and foremost a time of food. Ramen and Spam are two of the essentials, along with generous amounts of Evergoods and fried rice, plus any leftovers that happen to be just lying around.

Then it’s time to go to bed. Of course, having just eaten a meal, we don’t fall asleep right away. Contrary to the generally accepted stereotype of teenage boys as simple punching machines who wrestle each other into exhaustion whose only other two common activities are sleeping and eating, we generally just end up talking. Late into the night, we talk about school, life in general, various questions they have about Christianity, and (most often) absolutely nothing at all.

Now, being just one of two senior guys in our youth, all of these guys who come over are at least two years younger than me. So in a lot of ways, I’m simultaneously a buddy and an older brother; as the oldest, there’s a lot of responsibility put on me. I have to make sure they don’t blow up the house, or leave a mess, or kill each other. A lot of time I double as a tutor, helping them with homework and stuff. Other times our house is a sanctuary—if for some reason they don’t want to go home that night, their easiest alternative is my house.

So what started out as just fun and hanging out has slowly evolved into something more. It’s been yet another time in my life where the distinction between “my life” and “church” has become blurred to the point of disappearing, and afterwards I found myself better off.

A lot of times I miss being the youngest in youth: just having a bunch of older people to rely on, look up to, and feel in a sense protected by as a more junior member of the same group. Now I’m the oldest, and with that comes a new sense of responsibility. I’ve been forced to grow quickly. Having the youth over, having my life open to them, has forced me in a lot of ways to re-examine my life. Am I comfortable with the younger guys, to whom I’m supposed to be a spiritual older brother and role model as well as friend, seeing the way I live at home? I can’t just play the perfect Christian at church. They’re seeing the way I live at home too: my habits, my interaction with my family, particularly my siblings, and even how I spend my free time. My life has become less and less my own.

Having such knowledge in the back of my mind has really shifted my mindset. No longer is it about what I want. The question becomes, “am I being a good representative for God?” No matter what I might wish, I am older, and also the son of the pastor. With that comes a certain stigma. The way I act will reflect very directly on our church. I feel that this realization has helped me to grow. Although many times I still wish I was just a carefree freshman, in many ways I’m thankful that I’ve received the responsibilities and the opportunities to grow placed on me as an older youth student.

A while back, there were two youth guys in particular who started sleeping over somewhat regularly at my house. At that time, it was still just about having fun together: eating, talking, wrestling, playing foosball, and all that good stuff. The two guys seemed to enjoy it a lot, but to me, there was no greater significance than the fact we were having fun together I didn’t see the whole thing as really related to church: it was just hanging out with friends.
It wasn’t till quite a while later that I heard that these two boys had highly disliked coming to youth before. Every week, one of their moms said, it was an ordeal getting them to go. The turning point, as it turned out, was when they started joining other youth guys in the weekend overnight fellowship times at our house. After that, she said, she found that they came to youth willingly, seeing it not as a torturous ordeal but actually something to look forward to.

I heard this whole story second hand, as told by my mom. It was then that I began to see the whole thing not as just time for fun, but as a form of ministry in and of itself. It was another time when I had been compartmentalizing my life, and I realized that this, too, was a God-given opportunity to bring youth closer into the fold of our church.

So I’m thankful for those times, thankful especially since both of those boys have made decisions since then, thankful that God has blessed me. I used to dislike being the pastor’s kid, seeing it as putting me in a position to be surrounded by five hundred police officers watching my every move. Now, I see it as a grand opportunity: parents of the youth trust that there’s no wickedness going on at the pastor’s house, and thus 8 Avondale Landing has become a youth haven in which many a night of memorable fellowship have taken place. I’m thankful that God has blessed us in that way. He’s brought us closer as well, bonding us in ways that only a night spent chatting about life can. And of course, I’m just plain thankful that we have a body of Christ here in which such times of just good fun and fellowship can take place.