Saturday, October 25, 2008

Hell is Real


A Story of My Uncle.

One Sunday afternoon in 2004 my dad got an international call from Korea. My grandmother who usually shows as much emotion as a block of marble was in tears on the other line. "Your brother... he's in the emergency room. The doctors told him to prepare for the worst."

Apparently my uncle drank himself to the point of no recovery. The last time he was in a similar rut the doctors told him that if he was to have another drop that would be the end of it. He did not listen.

The experts came up with this ridiculous number, 300 percent fatality rate. Blood filled his lungs causing an infection in his veins, a temporary kidney failure, and his prior diabetes along with the alcohol shot up the sugar level way above the norm. The complications were enough to kill him three times over.

My parents got on a plane the next day, praying all the while that at least someone would share the Gospel with him before his death. Dad was worried that he would lose his brother the same way he lost his father, without ever having the chance to tell him about Jesus.

When they had arrived at the emergency room however, my uncle was in stable conditions, awake, and in his right mind and proceeded to tell of what he saw while he was in his coma. The following is an account of his experience.


My uncle had been in the emergency room for two days and in the intensive care unit for one day. But he was adamant in claiming that he had been in the hospital for a total of ten days. Day in and day out he saw doctors and nurses fighting and arguing over where to place him. Through the opening of the ventilator shaft in the ceiling he could see figures staring intently at him. The stucco patterns of the ceiling panels morphed into an image of hell, of men, women, and babies tangled up together in piles. The same image played out like a film projection onto the sides of the hospital wall. Voices of deceased hometown friends whispered behind the window curtains all the while a pastor was saying the last rites. The most peculiar thing that he saw was a white misty glow, like lightning, near his feet. At the time he did not know what to make of it. He thought perhaps it was either an evil force that was draining his life source or a benign one that was protecting him.

To explain something about my uncle, he is not religious. He is a "non-practicing Buddhist" as a lot of Koreans of his generation are. He does not know a thing about the Bible nor has he ever been a churchgoer. From his father he inherited a rice winery and in his younger days he would take free rice wine to the local home for the elderly for several years without telling anyone. Eventually the local newspaper found out about it and acknowledged him as a "Good Samaritan." He was sort of a hometown hero for his charitable contributions to improve the welfare of the poor.

The only person who is Christian in his family is his daughter. After her conversion, she was concerned for the spiritual well-being of her family and had been praying for their salvation ever since. When this tragedy struck, all she could do was to pray the Lord's Prayer near her father’s side. Instinctively she knew that if she stopped praying her father would die. In the midst of her desperation, she saw a vision of Christ reaching over to her father on his deathbed and lay hands on his chest. At that point a quiet calmness and assurance came over her that her father would live.

By the time my parents had arrived at the hospital room with the heavy burden of trying to convert a dying, obstinate sinner they found that the job was already finished; he was healthy, converted, and giving a testimony to a room full of unbelieving relatives. This was the sovereign work of God.

My parents and I had been praying for the salvation of the relatives from my father’s side for over ten years. We had never had the courage to share our faith with the stout, traditionalist, mostly Buddhist relatives. They were not entirely known for being gregarious either; rather they spoke mostly in silence and in watching TV or eating together. In such an environment I can understand why sharing something as personal as one’s own conversion account or religious beliefs would have seemed as unnatural as singing bluegrass at a funeral.

The breakthrough had come when the aforementioned uncle’s daughter had come from Korea to live with us for over a year. During that time she was gradually introduced to the Gospel and naturally attended church along with us. Eventually she was converted. As she left for Korea we were worried about how she would fare amidst her non-Christian family members and relatives, especially since she was the frail and sensitive type. God had other thoughts in mind however.

This was how God had answered both her and our prayers. He had caused a supernatural breakthrough in the wall of unbelief in my father’s family through the conversion of its eldest member, my uncle, and this through the intercession of a frail, burgeoning recent convert. All the more surprising, it was exactly out of my uncle’s lips the rest of them were able to hear of the eternal realities of the Gospel, not out of some well-trained preacher. In this way God had put to silence all qualms my parents had in confronting the non-believing relatives directly regarding matters of faith. This was the way God worked. It also spoke of a greater truth that God was sovereign in bringing about his works of salvation despite human shortcomings.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Post Secret


I found this posting on the Post Secret website.

As much as I know of Buddhism, it is about trying to reach enlightenment or a godlike state within you. All of your life is spent trying to free yourself from your desire, your ego, and attachment to this world. Once you reach that place of complete selflessness called nirvana, you have become in a sense a god- a Buddha. This is self-realized awakening is attained by following the Noble Eight Path: right view, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. It leaves all of the struggle and striving for freedom and spiritual perfection to our own devices.

This is essentially different from what God has done in Christianity when he entered the world as a mortal man. The essence of Christianity is rooted in the event when the holy, perfect God broke into this imperfect world, in the likeness of an imperfect man, to dwell with imperfect people. This was the meaning of the term Immanuel- “God with us.”

His job wasn't to call morally spotless, “good” people to himself. Jesus mentions to the religious people who were claiming to be perfect and sinless, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17). If perfection could be reached by the mere efforts of sinful people God would not have come to this earth in the first place. There is one person who lived the perfect life however. When Jesus died and resurrected, no one helping him along in this feat, he is in essence saying, "Look, you're not perfect. That's why I am perfect. I lived it. I died it. You look to the perfection that is me. Don't trust in your own perfection." The ones to whom God's grace was offered were those who were willing to admit their brokenness, their imperfections, their need for a Savior.

"If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains" (John 9:41).

I remember one incident in the Light of Love Class, a church service for people with developmental disabilities. One of the students with mild mental retardation had misbehaved; he did something so utterly inappropriate to the environment of worship. It was one of those moments you get a glimpse of someone in their stripped bare human nature that it makes you uncomfortable. My face grew red hot with disgust and turned the other away; it embarrassed me. I found myself paralyzed to do anything at that moment, either to reproach him or to excuse him. But another volunteer teacher, much older than I squarely confronted him without blinking an eye, reproved him gently and gave him a big bear hug.

That same week I did something terribly shameful (for privacy I can’t disclose what it was). Afterwards I felt like utter trash and wanting to crawl into a hole. That's when I heard a quiet still voice in my heart.

"David I see you. I will not turn my eyes away." It was not a voice of condemnation but one of reassurance. "You want to run away from yourself. You want to separate yourself from this "real" you. But I see you. I see the whole you, even the parts you utterly despise. You don't have to hide it. I will not turn my eyes away in disgust. I will be here." It was an affirmation that God was accepting me, the whole of my being even with such fallacies.

I wondered how I would have fared if I were left completely and utterly to fend for my own spiritual well-being. Perhaps it would cure my laziness and dispel all my excuses of why I shouldn’t be in an exercise regimen, but would I really learn compassion? Would I really learn to love and accept myself the way I have? Would I really have a peace of mind and rest in God?

My LIfe in a Nutshell




I was born in Masan Korea in 1981. My family moved down to Salt Lake City, Utah when I was 9 in 1991. I guess my dad thought a small mostly white city of Mormons would be a good place to raise a family.

I had always been a good, obedient child...until I got to be the age of 15. That's when my brother left home for college and I moved to a new high school. That is also when I begin to question whether I had had a real personal encounter with God or just holding onto spoon-fed religion from my parents.

I heard stories of people who lived recklessly and by some miraculous act of God get in a car crash and survive and now they are changed forever. I was jealous of such a surefire encounter with God. It seemed like a good excuse to live life the way we want to and pay for it later.

So for about the next three years I turned off the light switch on God… Not that I was going out and causing havoc. Exactly opposite. Most of my time away from school would be spent in my room with the earphones on. I couldn't talk to people. I was all nerves. It was simply the worst time of my life. Looking back I think it was a severe depression.

When I just couldn't take it anymore I finally threw in the towel. For whatever reason, I could never deny the existence of God. I said, "God, if I can't find happiness and satisfaction in life unless I surrender to you, then go ahead. Just do with my life as you will."

Things started to open up in my life. I stopped hating and despising my utter being. I started to see that God wasn't some tyrant trying to take away my freedom. He knew what was in my heart. He was just waiting for that moment of surrender.

It took some time later for me to surrender to Christ as my Lord and Savior.
Yet, even after that initiation, it wasn't all an easy ride. Being in art school and on my own for the first time had its share of temptations. Yet I think I was so desperate not to go back to the cycle of laziness and self loathing in high school that I was all the more desperate in trying to hold onto God. College was when I seriously delved into the Bible. I felt that without His help I would not be able to face another day.

Looking back I believe it was God who had led me through all of that to come out still intact, still me, still holding onto the faith. Since I have let Christ into my life, one thing is different however. I have never felt that utter sense of vacancy and hopelessness that I did when I had turned my back on God.

Invitation

Prayer


Prayer

The act of prayer is the most selfless thing one can ever do.
It is admitting that we can do nothing to change ourselves, the nature of who we are.
It is an act of surrender to God.

The most selfless, yet most powerful way to reach out to another is by prayer.

In prayer, we admit that we fallen mortals cannot truly affect others' souls. We cannot unlock and bandage up those secret wounds of the heart. We're mere mortals. All we can do is as a fellow mortal and sinner bring that person to the feet of the Savior-
Christ who is our Healer saw our infirmities; He saw through us. He didn't just see our infirmities, He lived and breathed them in the flesh. He is the only one who is able to remove the stains and the scars of sin in man's heart. He is the only One. And prayer for another person is admitting that. We are as helpless to help ourselves as we are to help others.

Sometimes I wonder if God has a big scarred heart.

Praying Hands


These were photos we had taken in the Navajo Reservations.
The reality of these native lands are terrible. Domestic violence, drug use, sexual abuse, and no prospects for the young. Sounds much like L.A.? Plus they have a long list of white settlers who've in the name of Christians raped an pillaged them.

All we could do was to pray, and cry with them. These people who've lost their connection with the Creator, because of others and because of themselves.

Prayer is powerful. To such broken people we can only reach them when we're broken. We hold their hands with God's broken heart.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Let the weak say I am strong





Let the weak say I am strong,
Let the poor say I am rich,
Let the blind say I can see,
It's what the Lord has done in me.

Hosanna, hosanna, to the Lamb that was slain.
Hosanna, hosanna, Jesus died and rose again.

When I am with the Light of Love Class (service for people with mental disabilities) the lyrics to this song becomes real. We are all fractured and weak in our human, sinful nature. But there is one who is greater than us, who has gone through the worst in humanity's suffering, who has experienced the hunger and the pain of cold. Who received death as ultimate price in order that we might have life in Him. That is our God Jesus Christ. And I see that He does exactly that to us in the class each week. That's why I keep going back.