spelljack

[spelljack]

Thesis Defense

10 days to go and I still need to finish this paper. I am quite stressed, to say the least. I am clinging onto God with all that I can, trusting that He is the one who gives me strength when I am weak. It says that He will take my burdens and give me rest, but trusting in it can be difficult.

[spelljack]

Alumni Weekend 2021

Yesterday, we had another CBS alumni weekend. Contrary to regular alumni weekends however, we were forced to zoom due to COVID restrictions. Despite the unfortunate inability to meet in person, the online nature also brought unexpected blessings. Normal CBS is about 30ish people; we hit 100+ people in the zoom call, with people ranging the gamut from recent grads to the 1980s. It really is a testimony to how God has been faithful to us for so long. It was really good to see some old faces and catch up, to share advice and old stories. I wish I had more time to catch up with everybody and meet some of the older alums; there just isn’t enough time.

Being my 10th year at Cornell, it’s a lot for me to process all the years I’ve been here. So many things have changed, and so many things haven’t. Being a pessimist, my reflections tend to be about all the negative things. However, alum weekend is a good reminder to me that there were many positive things that happened as well. I am glad that God put that encouragement in my life in such a timely manner.

I definitely feel my age. I might not be old in the strict sense, but I’ve interacted with so many different classes as they come through Cornell. It’s an old in the sense that there is a weight of memory, a realization of the length of time and the number of lives and memories that I have accumulated over the years. Being a bit in and out emotionally and living day by day, its been a long time since I’ve swept my mental house and organized my thoughts. That’s part of the reason I wrote my thoughts; in the past, writing was my primary method to crystallize and express my thoughts.

Moreover, I am forgetting a lot. I always had bad memory, but I think talking to people about old stories makes me realize that I need to compile them. It reminded me of an old thought way back in my high school days that I enjoy talking to people because I want to listen to their stories. I want to remember and cherish those precious moments. Not only that, it’s biblical; the call to remember the Lord is repeated over and over because people are so prone to forgetting the good things that God has done. Cherishing and reminding oneself of the past is potent remedy, and hopefully this post is another such stone of remembrance.

There’s another brunch hangout tomorrow, so that should be fun. I might have more to write later, as I have a lot to process, but in the spirit of making promises that I will keep I won’t make any promises.

P.S.: Making the music video with the old praise team members was fun. I wish that one day we could come back together and jam again sometime. I’m so out of practice though.

[spelljack]

Hello Friends

Hello to everybody who still reads this blog on this platform, anon or not. After responding to the previous anon question, I took a look back into some of my older posts and had a brief reflection moment on why I chose to write.

Honestly, I was a bit surprised to see all that I've put on here, and how honest I've been with an invisible audience. Now that this blog is roughly 11 years old and almost a teenager, it's an interesting record of my life and the things I've learned along the way. I started doing all of this in part because I wanted to have a way to reflect as well as share my life with others. I have especially been surprised by the amount of anon interactions I've had and the reach of what was intended to be mostly a non-descript friends-only blog; I assume those people were true anons in the sense that I've never met you, and that thought intimidates but also encourages me a lot. Thanks to the many of you who have left kind comments in various forms, as it lets me know that there are those of you out there who's lives are impacted, perhaps just a little, by what's left behind by my ramblings.

I hope this blog has blessed and continues to bless those of you who stumble onto it, however that may be. I especially hope that to anybody who is struggling in life that my reflections would be an encouragement to you.

P.S.: Just as a brief life update, we've hit the 1 year mark of COVID shutdown at Cornell now. It's kind of wild to imagine that about 1 year ago, the March Meeting conference in Denver got shut down, and I had to figure out a way to get back to Ithaca and then everything shut down. Grocery stores were empty and people were leaving in a panic. Yet here we are still living our maskful lives as if its normal.

Personally, life has been a bit of a struggle. Most recently, I am wrestling with disillusionment with people, just feeling tired and exhausted after all these years. I didn't really have any intention to write or to share; in fact, I kind of wanted to stop engaging people altogether. God has other plans, however, so here I am writing.

I can't promise that I'll be super consistent in writing. PhD and life in general has robbed me of the 2-hour blocks that I usually spend writing and condensing my thoughts to be somewhat presentable. But to anybody who is still reading, and also to my future self, thanks for being here.

[spelljack]

Hi I'm taking AEP/ENGRI 1200 right now and I'm struggling. Do you have any study tips or old worksheets/psets (for a final/semifinal) since there no textbook/study problems? Especially on the quantum unit? Thanks.

Hello anon,

Super sorry that I don’t check tumblr much anymore. I’m honestly quite surprised anybody still checks in/finds this tumblr from anywhere. In any case, I’m probably really really late and unfortunately I have no idea when this message was actually sent to me. Hopefully your experience in AEP 1200 went okay despite all your struggles. 

Unfortunately its been ages since I took that class, so not only do I not have materials I’m not sure how much of what I did was relevant. In addition, without more info on what specifically you’re struggling with it’s hard to give super direct advice. However, I’ll try to share some general tips regarding how I study/studied (do I even “study” anymore since I don’t do classes? haha).

There is always a core idea. Make a practice of sifting through the noise and try to distill your course material into organizing ideas. Despite appearances, courses and exams are always organized around a few key principles they want to teach you. This is especially true in physics, where all you need to know in a course can generally be boiled down to a few equations and ideas. 

Don’t let math distract. Part of many students’ difficulty with physics is actually not the physics itself, but the mathematical details. Physics ideas are usually simple, while the math is the background support. That’s why we have the meme of handwaving physics! Try to distinguish the two. If you struggle with math, you’ll need to isolate and identify your issues and practice that. However, math in physics is generally fairly repetitive and mechanical, so knowing your math issues is half the battle.

Keep it simple. Especially for intro classes, they are generally not designed to be complicated or confusing. Most problems are solved by the application of a single equation or formula (see point 1). Understand the formulas inside and out are generally a good way to understand the entire course.

Ask questions. It is your professor’s job, as much as he/she may dislike it, to teach you. If there’s something you don’t understand, don’t be afraid to ask. Better to be a fool for a moment then to stay quiet and be a fool forever! However, I would encourage you to ask your professor how to think. This is much more important than learning how to solve your homework, and your professors have a lot of wisdom in this regard. Efficient learning is all about efficient thinking!

Anyways, hope this is helpful to you and hope its not so late that this advice is completely useless. Also, thanks to everybody who keeps reading this (pretty dead) blog despite my half-attempts to keep it afloat.

[spelljack]

Overcoming Fear

Hey guys, it’s been a while. After this trip to Boston, I had a lot of thoughts so I wanted to write some of them down somewhere for the future me. The lack of documentation of my past few years, coupled with my poor memory, is causing me to forget and lose a large part of my history. 

I used to write a lot more here; this blog has been around for almost 9 years now. This space used to be where I just dumped my thoughts and feelings as openly as possible. It wasn’t important whether or not people knew my innermost struggles and conflicts. In some sense, I wanted to be open and vulnerable through this platform in the hopes that it would be a blessing to others. I was not afraid to tell my story.

As I got older, went through college, somewhere along the line this began to change. Some of it was just busyness, but ever more it was an increasing sense of fear. As I became more “public” and “prominent” to people, more of a role model, did more ministry, held more secrets and cared for more people, it just became harder and harder to write. I felt more and more strangled in what I could say to people. At what point does sharing about me spill into sharing about other people who have entrusted me with secrecy? Will some of my worse thoughts be taken the wrong way and interfere with how people feel cared for by me? And as the age gap between people grew, the more our life stages differ, the more I felt that a single thought of mine would run over other people like a truck. 

It’s ironic and sad, really. I used to be such a strong advocate for being open, but over the years I’ve closed myself up. I used to not care what people would think of me, but now I am silenced by the fear of judgment by others. I have to set the example, I have to carry the burden, I have to be that person who has it all together; all the while slowly burning on the inside. After all the years and the experiences, maybe I just wasn’t as open with others as I thought I was. 

During this trip to Boston, I had the chance to meet a number of old friends. I’ll write more in subsequent posts, but I want to highlight my friend Mark here. As we were hanging out on a few occasions, he was talking about how much dating/marriage has changed him and smoothed out his rough edges. Unabashedly he would talk about how terrible of a person he was for 19 years, how people were surprised at how much he changed, how he realized how much of a jerk he was and how much people disliked him in the past. Placing myself in his shoes, it wouldn’t have been easy for me to come to terms with that, much less go around telling people about it all the time. It forced me to reflect on my own sharing tendencies, and wonder how far I have fallen, in a sense. It reminded me of Christ’s saving mercies, that we have the freedom to bring all our dirt into the light because of what He has done for us. Not only that, it can even be a blessing to others, just like it was for me.

All of this reminded me of the original purpose of this blog: to write about my life honestly, and hopefully being a blessing to others. So here I am, teasing a flavor of a lot of thoughts that I don’t have the space to write in this post, trying to restart my writing for the nth time. Part of this is to hopefully restore and refresh my soul, but also for others to be encouraged and challenged. From comments both from tumblr and in person over the years, my life on this blog has been of use to people, so here’s to another crack at this business of sharing my experiences. 

[spelljack]

“Home” Thoughts

So I’ve been back at home in Austin for a bit now. It’s the beginning of my 8th year at Cornell, meaning that I’ve been away for 7 years already. Coming back this time feels a bit strange though. I guess it’s primarily triggered by the fact that James’s family is moving. Mostly, it’s the fact that most of the people I know are gone. Partially, its the fact that I’m starting to feel awkward/out of touch with people after being gone for so long. I’ve changed, and so have they. It’s like I don’t really know how to hang out with them anymore, sort of. I mean, is it really home anymore after I’ve been gone so long?

It’s also kinda weird that I enjoy talking with the parents a lot more now. I would want to sit down and hang out with them and talk; I wonder if its a sign of me being an old soul, as some would put it.

Despite all the awkwardness, God encourages me through them somehow. I don’t really know how to describe it, whether it be a breath of fresh air or just a certain feeling of familiarity, but I am reminded and encouraged of God’s goodness. It’s a bit strange and hard to place, because at the same time I wonder how everything would have been different if I made different life choices. If I didn’t stay at Cornell and came back, if I stayed for undergrad instead of moving off, how different would these relationships have been? I see the effects of the choices I made, not that they were bad per se, but I guess its another sign of growing up.

In going home, God has somehow given me more resolve to fight for righteousness. I don’t understand it. It’s as mysterious as Elijah’s sudden willingness to follow the Lord again after his suicidal plea to God. I just pray that the Lord keep my eyes on the things above in everything I do, above the waves of the roaring sea beneath, to be strong of faith and to not lose heart.

[spelljack]

Hi spelljack, I have been following your blog since I was a freshman at Cornell, back in 2015. I've always admired your determination to continue writing in your blog. I am sorry to hear that in your senior year, you experienced some burnout. If it is any consolation, so did I which is why I don't attend Cornell anymore. I read that you are now pursuing your doctorate and I was wondering if you would share which field you are studying, and what your post-graduation plans are.

Hi anon!

Gosh, I’m slightly surprised and honored that people still read my blog, especially since I post so infrequently. And it’s been even longer since I’ve been asked a question on here, anon or otherwise. I’ve been meaning to blog more, but writing can really take it out of me, so this is encouragement to keep/restart writing! I’m also sort of curious to try to figure out if I actually know you, but that’s neither here nor there. I hope you’re doing well despite your burnout, and that some of the things here serve as an encouragement for you despite the tough times you might have had at Cornell!

I’m pursuing a PhD in Applied & Engineering Physics, more specifically studying theoretical condensed matter physics. Roughly speaking, it’s about studying the properties of materials from a physics perspective, especially their quantum-mechanical and other such novel properties. 40ish years ago, a chunk of the subject was about studying semiconductors, which led to the development of computer age. More recently, people are interested in things like superconductors (materials with 0 resistance) and quantum computers. Most of my research involves understanding the electrical properties of materials, so-called “strongly-correlated electron systems,” or systems in which the effect of electrons on each other cannot be ignored. In a more technical sense, they are systems in which one cannot apply Taylor-series expansions or perturbation theory because the expansion terms are not small (hence strongly-correlated or strongly-interacting).

After graduation, tentatively I’m seeking to pursue a tenure-track faculty position, which means applying for a post-doctorate (post-doc) right after my PhD. Those typically last 1-3 years. Afterwards, I’ll apply to a faculty position and seek out tenure. However, we’ll see where I end up, because the academic field is long, difficult, and competitive, not to mention underpaid.

[spelljack]

Alumni Weekend 2018

Hello there, it’s been a while. This blog has been pretty neglected for quite some time, but I’m back now. So many things have happened in the past few years without documentation, unfortunately. Hopefully some this writing will alleviate that and help me crystallize my thoughts again as it did in the past. I’m back to stream-of-consciousness writing! Though, honestly I’ve changed so much now that looking back it’s like I’m a different person (for better or for worse). And oh gosh I feel the rust in my non-technical writing capabilities...

Anyways, CBS alumni weekend happened again recently on April 13-15. You know you’ve been here a long time when it’s your third alumni weekend and you’re still here. I still remember being a freshman at alumni weekend with all these old people that I didn’t know, going to Chesterton house and hanging out and the cooking ppl left a mess (oops) and sitting in a room on saturday morning with a bunch of academia alumns (and no other undergrads lel) and just hearing their wisdom and insight poured into me. And then the following one was when I was a senior, when I got to see all my upperclassmen come back and see a full 7 classes worth of history that I got to be a part of. But this time I was the “alumnus,” though the one who never left.

It’s a strange feeling, being the one who stayed behind. In some ways, you’re robbed of many things. You throw the system out of whack. You become the odd one who stayed behind and is old and is a bit out of place. Especially in a college environment like Ithaca, after you become “old,” nobody really has the same life experiences as you anymore. Slowly but surely, the people whom you related to about past events leave, until you’re the only one who still remembers or cares. It’s not anybody’s fault, per se, but just the fact that I’m in a life-stage transition, but rather than the sudden abrupt change of graduation like most, I get to watch it slowly, excruciatingly dissolve away.

The Friday of alumni weekend, Bo and Kelvin came to my place in the late morning and got settled, and then we went up to campus together because I needed to work in PSB. Eventually, alums started coming to PSB en masse. PSB is still the place to be! It was so good to see all of them again. They basically just invaded the PSB atrium space as an imposing group haha. Though, to be honest I had just seen most of them recently, either from my roadtrip up the East coast the past December or in California/Colorado quite within the past month.

Shortly thereafter, since I was on set with Justin and Wes (of course it would be old pteam), we went over to practice at Goldwin Smith. It was quite interesting, the shift in dynamic between the old and the new. Justin, Wes, and I, being old hats at this (though somewhat rusty), were trolling and having fun a lot while young Jeff was taking his time slowly thinking about song roadmaps ad things. It showed to me how much things have changed from the praise team that I once led, and also how God is training up the new generation in a unique and different way from the past.

As usual, the alumni shared for large group. But this time, what I appreciated the most was seeing just how much people have changed over the 5-7 years that I’ve known them. Really, truly, God has changed their lives so much, and I kept thinking, “man the undergrads don’t even know.” The experiences, the struggles, the joys, the shifts from the time when I was a freshman to the present for the people who shared has been drastic. God truly is a God who changes lives.

There was a lot of hanging out and catching up to do. Just like old times, though honestly more like the later half of my undergrad days. In some sense, it felt like half my college life was missing. But anyways, there were just so many people. It was hard to really talk to all of them. Definitely missed some people, was only able to really just say hi to them. Some highlights of hanging out were going to the really nice airbnb where the class of 2016 stayed and hearing about Jevon’s second revelation of his Valentine’s day story as well as playing Two Rooms and a Boom. There was also the cheese event, courtesy of Matt and his Wisconsin cheese, as well as brunch at St. Luke’s in the morning as well as Appel brunch after church for the final goodbyes (except for a few like Jerry, Myung, and Edward, Elbert and Noel). As a side note, I’m glad I got to see Newton smile. I haven’t seen him that happy in a long time. In general, I’m glad I got to see a lot of people enjoy themselves and relive the past and be happy and forget a bit about the sorrows they were carrying. 

But, I think the most powerful thing for me was just being able to be around people at the same life stage, particularly the people who went through life with me in the past. I was able to talk with Tim Hu about some of the ministry and personal struggles and to listen to his wisdom again. I got to talk to Elbert about some life stuff and the future. And last, but certainly not least, I was able to have a prayer meeting with my class again. 

We did it late, and we did it last minute, as per usual. It was right after the cheese event, late on Saturday night/Sunday morning cause it was already past midnight. We were going from room to room in the Duffield complex, trying to find a room to talk. It’s hard for me to express how good it is to be among brothers where I can share openly and who truly understand the depth and complexity of my struggles. Not only that, it is good to be with brothers who are also struggling and fighting for their faith, knowing that time is precious and that God is precious, that it is worth it even though we have all been fighting tooth and nail and struggling in the race towards God. I forgot how good it was to have class prayer meetings, what it was like to have a class with you. I really miss that. 

Time froze for me at the end of my senior year, somewhat. Because of all that happened, it completely distorted and discolored my view of my undergrad days. I could only see the sorrow, the anguish, the sadness. I didn’t really know if I could fondly look back on that time, and in some sense my senior year overshadowed/obliterated memories of when I was younger. But with alumni weekend, seeing the joy and all the good and all the love that God has wrought and shown to me with the entire fellowship back in the same place, I was reminded of these things. I was reminded that I really do have lots of things to cherish and look back upon, and not just meager scraps. Something in me began to reconcile the things of the past, finally. Time began to move again. 

Alumni weekend was quite the whirlwind. And I pushed myself too hard and got a bit sick, trying to squeeze out every last drop of precious time I had with my precious CBS family of a time gone past. I don’t remember who said this, maybe it was Zoe, or maybe multiple people, but they said something along the lines of “This is the last time it’s going to be like this.” And as I thought about it, I came to the realization that it’s true. There really won’t be any time on this earth after this where we would all be gathered like this to just sit and hang out and enjoy each other as one CBS fellowship. Well, unless David Cui’s CBS retirement home plan goes into effect. 

In any case, I see God rekindling the love in my life for people again. I’m both scared and waiting in anticipation, but also a bit regretful. Time froze for me for an entire three years. I wasted so much time wallowing when I could have experienced the joy of caring for the classes that I got to spend extra time with. I squandered time with my prayer partners. I passed the majority of my freshman class’s time with them without really caring for or investing in them in the way I know I could have. And for all these things, I’m sad and regretful, in some sense of what could have been. I briefly touched on it this past Friday, where I shared a bit of all these thoughts regarding my regrets and my apologies particularly to the senior class. It was hyper cryptic, and probably confused a lot of the freshmen as Mel talked to me about today. I hope to be able to talk to some of the current seniors about all of this more before they all leave. But more on that for the next post.

[spelljack]

Obedience and Freedom

The cardinal doctrine of the obedience of Christ as the ground of His redemptive work is stated fully in Romans 5:12 ff. which is the best commentary on the operative word, obedient. His obedience is a sure token of His deity and authority for, as Lohmeyer says in a brilliant insight, only a divine being can accept death as obedience; for ordinary men it is a necessity. He alone as the obedient Son of His Father could choose death as His destiny; and He did so because of His love, a love which was directed both to His Father’s redeeming purpose and equally to the world into which He came. “I come to do thy will” (Heb 10:7 f.) was the motto-text of His entire life, and it is this quality of undeflected submission and complete embracing of the will of God which gives value to His culminating obedience unto death.

-Ralph A. Martin, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: The Epistle of Paul to the Philippians

I have been preparing for a sermon I’m giving in August on Philippians 4:4-9, so I’ve been studying the entire book in depth. It definitely has been a challenge for me to really dig deep into a few verses that, on the face of it, seem very simple and straightforward.

In any case, I was reading a commentary and I came across this passage that struck me. I have been thinking a long time about what it means to lose my life for Jesus’s sake, so that I may find it. As Bonhoeffer eloquently put it, “when Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” Honestly, that thought is quite overwhelming.

I could talk at length about that, but I’ll table it for now to focus on this idea of the freedom of new life in Christ. As new creations in Christ, we have a new freedom, yet many times I don’t really understand what that freedom is or even looks like; sometimes it feels like nothing has really changed. But to share in the life of Christ, and the sufferings of Christ, means also to experience the freedom of Christ. And it was precisely this freedom that allowed Him to choose his death.

For me, I am not sure what that freedom looks like. Very much so I am still ingrained in my old ways, fearful of many things and not desiring to change. What would it mean for me to choose my death? For the apostle Paul, he thought to live is to emulate Christ, yet at the same time to die is gain. Not only in the sense that he would be in the presence of Jesus, but also that in his death he would serve to advance the gospel. Such gruesome imagery is not one people in the United States would normally think about, but even so I wonder what things I would consider it being worth dying for. What does it really mean to take up my cross and follow Jesus, and in the end will it really be worth it? Will I have the endurance to get to the end? These things I must take on faith, and only time will tell.

[spelljack]

Apathy and the Closed Heart

I guess I’ll start my reflection of the past year on this topic. It’s been a tough year between God and I. After my senior year and all the mess, I think something in me gave way and shattered. I wrote a while back that I didn’t want to care about people or things anymore; and that’s what ended up happening. I lost a lot of joy in doing many things, whether that be church or fellowship; many things became mechanical and chore-like. I didn’t have much of desire to love and serve people, and definitely had no energy left for pursuing people. In short, I was experiencing some form of burnout.

I don’t think I ever gave myself time to fully process that year. I didn’t really want to think about it that much anymore. I couldn’t understand God’s intention and found it very difficult to trust Him to that extent anymore. Therefore, I hid it in a corner of my heart, not having to really think or deal with it anymore, and insodoing distanced myself from God. All that pain and suffering I walked headfirst into, and had no desire to do that again. I felt lonely, yet even more so I just wanted to be left alone.

In some ways, this change was good. I learned to have more time for myself, to learn to take respite and quiet. I started to eat out by myself and watch the world go by. However, looking back I have a lot of regrets as well. There are many people who I love that I should’ve met more with, or who I could’ve gotten to know better, or people I should’ve pursued harder. In particular, I was pretty bad about being insistent on meeting up with my prayer partners. I would schedule times, but frequently just let things slip and not have a strong desire to meet up with them as soon as possible.

During this time, I felt far from God; by God’s grace He gave me words to speak and His Spirit to teach. In those moments, from somewhere hidden inside of me God pulled things out so that I could lead, but on a day to day basis I was pretty dead. And I’m sure too that I tried to do things on my own strength; by God’s grace those things didn’t completely crash and burn either, to my knowledge. All in all, it was very much a stop and go relationship with God.

Ironically, this year many people gave me random verbal encouragements. Not the year previous, when I was slowly dying in serving, but this year, when I felt apathetic and was avoiding pouring out my heart I was told how much people appreciated me for doing so much. It was nice, yet at the same time felt a bit strange.

Today, I was being a bad kid in church and was reading Phillipians instead of really paying attention to the sermon. I’ll be preaching on Phillipians 4:4-9 in August, so I was trying to think and prep it a bit. In the very first verse, the Apostle Paul writes “Rejoice in the Lord always; I will say it again, rejoice!” As I was contemplating what that meant, I realized that I needed to reopen this old wound and let God work on it. The pain is still there, but healing won’t happen until I work all of this out with God fully. There’s a lot I still have to say about this topic, but I’ll write about it in the next post at a different time. Walking with God is not easy, but it was not intended to be easy. That was not the intent. God’s purpose is to bring the dead back to life, and the fact that its even doable is already difficult to comprehend. My encouragement to you all who are struggling with tough situations is to understand that the God who has the power to raise the dead to life can also do the same in your life as well.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

- Phillipians 4:4-7

[spelljack]

Extent of Love

We’re here yet again at that time of year. Graduation and goodbyes have to be said yet again, and unfortunately as a fresh PhD student in a college town, this isn’t going to change for a while.

The old adage of “you don’t miss it until its gone” is quite apt for me. I didn’t realize the extent of my love for these people until they began to leave. I’ve walked with this class from beginning to end, even living with them on North my freshmen year and being honorary member of their class and being in almost every felly dinner picture with them. Sure, I might not have been deep with that many of them; that doesn’t change how much I care for and love them.

As a side note, this graduation will be one to remember. It rained as people got into the stadium, and everything got sped up; they simply conferred all degrees simultaneously on commencement. Some outdoors ceremonies even got canceled halfway through so people didn’t actually get to receive their fake diploma!

In any case, I regret not spending more time with them this last year I had with them. I’ll write more in a separate post, but I was feeling exhausted and a bit calloused from everything, not wanting to give my heart out again. Perhaps, as some would say, “what’s done is done, no use in regretting it.” However, I can’t shake the sadness that comes with what feels like a missed or wasted opportunity. In some ways, they’re probably the last class I can fully feel “I’m a part of“, rather than some older guy or older mentor.

It really is surprising how quickly college changes people. They all really have matured and grown so much to the point where their freshmen selves are unrecognizable anymore. I am really proud of them and also amazed at how much God can do in such a short time even when at times everything seems to be crumbling. Of course, they still have a long way to go, but I trust that God will carry them through.

I too have changed a lot over these past 5 years. What I write about, how I use this blog, all of it has changed. I can’t ramble on and dump my thoughts as I used to, and a lot of the readership has changed. I’ll keep my musings about this to another post as well.

Oh I guess also if anybody wants to ask me about anything I write here in more depth, I’m always willing to talk about it more.

In any case, I’ll miss you class of 2016 (and members of my class). I love you guys.

[spelljack]

Nothing has changed, but everything has changed

[spelljack]

Love and Obedience

“If you abide in me, and my word abides in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.”

- John 15:7

Today at CBS large group, Stan spoke on the relationship between loving God, loving people, and being obedient to God. At one point, Allison had us do a spiritual exercise in scripture reading, and this verse caught my attention. At the time, it was kind of vague and I didn’t know why, but as I thought about it more it hit me: I’m not sure if I really believe this.

On the face of it, the verse can be taken to be very prosperity-gospel minded. I clearly don’t think that that’s what this verse is implying. The reason I personally struggle with this verse is that I’ve been in places where things that I’ve asked for did not happen. Hence, either this verse is not true or I didn’t abide in God and God’s word didn’t abide in me.

Especially in the times when I am most stressed and most broken, or when I am hurting for people, the things I ask for don’t seem to happen. Or maybe it hasn’t happened yet. Or maybe I was not abiding in God.

It really begs the question: What does it mean to abide in God? What does God mean when He says “ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you”? I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps the reason why this is being pointed out to me is that I have a small view of God. There are so so so many things that I could ask for, but my faith is too small to trust in God. Maybe I’ve gotten used to comfortable prayers where I have confined God to a box. I’m still thinking about it; I’ll get back to you on what God is trying to tell me.

[spelljack]

Heaviness of Heart

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

-Romans 8:22

It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged, hasn’t it? Every time I come back to this, its always about something not so happy unfortunately. This past week has been especially strenuous for myself and emotionally heavy just from all the things that are happening to people around me. In my life, God always seems to eat up all my extra time with heavy people things. I wish I were wiser. I encounter all sorts of situations which I have never experienced or don’t really know what to say. I wish I were more confident, that I could say the things which are hard but necessary to say. I wish I were better at encouraging others, rather than not being able to offer anything other than my presence and my time and my ear.

My friend said to me today: “The one who listens has lived many lifetimes.” At least, something to that effect. People have this perception of me that I’m always taking care of too many people and I don’t have time for them. Maybe I’m just burnt out from everything, from “living” out all those lifetimes. I stepped back from loving people for a while. And now, stepping back into it my heart has yet again grown heavy. I guess it just comes with the territory. I really don’t know if I’m ready to go back yet.

Lord God, I don’t know. You know, but I don’t. I am weak, but You are strong. Please help me to find joy, and help me to be love and encouragement to people who are heavy of heart.

[spelljack]

True Sight

Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.

- Dietrich Boenhoeffer, Life Together

Lord, teach me to see as you see so that I might love as you love. Let me see things for what they truly are, and love your church and the people that you love as I come to understand their sin. Teach me to love myself as you love me as I see the sin that lies within myself. Let me not live in this dream world of appearances that we like to keep up, but to live in the truth with all its ugly aspects. Give me patience to endure, that I might return good for evil, to pour out love without expecting in return. Help me to be slow to anger and to speech, that my words bring healing and wisdom. Let my life shine your light, and give me humility to realize my own brokenness, as well as allow others to point it out to me. Be thou my vision.

[spelljack]

Herein Is Love

“But I say unto you which hear, love your enemies, do good to them who hate you”

- Luke 6:27

By our enemies, Jesus means those who are quite intractable and utterly unresponsive to our love, who forgive us nothing when we forgive them all, who requite our love with hatred and our service, with derision, “For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer” (Psalm 109:4). Love asks nothing in return, but seeks those who need it. And who needs our love more than those who are consumed with hatred and are utterly devoid of love? Who in other words deserves our love more than our enemy? Where is love more glorified than where she dwells in the midst of her enemies?

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[spelljack]

Not  Giving Up

It’s been about a month since I’ve come back home. Contrary to how I usually spend my time being back, I haven’t been actively seeking people to hang out with or talk to, but rather I’ve been spending time being alone. I’ve grown an aversion to being around people.

This past school year has left me in a emotionally and spiritually tired state. it was probably one of the hardest times of my life. I remember, when I came home, I felt so broken and tired. I was relieved that I could finally just pass out and not have to worry about anything. For weeks, every time I looked at my phone’s lock screen, with a picture of my head facedown in a math textbook, I thought, “That’s exactly how I feel right now.” 

Despite the great disparity between where I was before and then after, even now I’m still not sure how I got to this point. Even now, some things are still painful. My heart has grown hard and calloused, wanting simply to close itself off from pain. Through all the trials and suffering, I tried really hard not to give up on things or on people, but in hindsight I wonder if it was really all worth it. I’m not sure what God had in mind, or what I was supposed to learn from all of it. If anything, it was the difficulty and pain of loving people. 

At some level, I kind of want to just give up. I don’t want to try anymore. If I selfishly keep to my own business, then maybe life wouldn’t be so difficult. Looking at Jesus, I understand a little bit more the pain He endured as He walked to the cross; He lived a life dedicated to the Father, to loving the world, and not to himself. Rather, I identify more with Elijah: after fighting long and hard battles, at one point he just broke. He broke, and he ran far far away, just wanting to give up and die. It’s hard for me to see joy right now.

But just as God called Elijah onward to new tasks, God has also called me back to Cornell. I’m scared, because it will be more difficult than before. I’m not sure if I really could endure another year like the previous, especially if it will be harder. Even so, I’ll take things one step at a time. My God is a God who sustains and a God of hope.