Jay Kim Thinks…

my heart and mind on a digital page
April 22, 2013

What I’d Tell 23-year old Me

Stop trying to be smart.  Be curious.  Yes, you read half [or 17 pages] of that one Kierkegaard book that one time.  Yes, you [just barely] graduated from college.  Yes, you’re pursuing [or crawling toward] your Master’s degree.  Yes, you’ve doled out some [terrible] advice to a few prepubescent boys about their girl problems.  But none of this makes you smart.  In fact, the “smartest” people in the world are the ones who know just how little they know and how much more there is to know.  It’s this acute awareness that allows them to contribute much to our world.  You think you’re smart and that you should write a book or something to let everyone know just how smart you are.  But when you sit down to write, you find that you really don’t have much [or anything] to say at all.  Don’t be discouraged.  You’re not alone.  Most of us don’t have much to say.  And it’s in accepting this truth that you will be inspired, challenged, and motivated to learn more.  Something amazing, almost mystical, will happen when you take the posture of a learner.  You will begin to embrace the joys of curiosity.  The blinders will come off and you will begin to see the world for what it is – interesting, wondrous, maybe even a little magical.  You will find God in new, life-giving ways as you ask questions and open yourself up to all sorts of answers.  The Bible will speak to you in a new voice.  Incredibly, you will find that many of those annoying axioms your mom used to drill into your head as a child are actually pretty accurate.  The people and places you categorized neatly into your little boxes of opinions will be unleashed and they will teach you what it means to be human, fully and humbly.  Speak less.  Listen more.  In the words of Dallas Willard, “Practice the discipline of not having the last word.”  Master the art of asking questions and you’ll discover answers bursting forth all around you, with life and grace.

Keep dreaming.  No, really.  KEEP DREAMING.  First, stop believing the lie that cynicism is an undeniable symptom of old age.  Some of the most amazing dreamers I’ve ever met are men and women in their retirement years.  And some of the greatest cynics in our world are privileged, bright, well-educated twenty-something’s with their entire lives ahead of them.  Cynics are simply dreamers who stopped dreaming and think everyone else should stop dreaming right along with them.  Cynics are trying to sell you the lie that things will always be as they currently are, that change isn’t possible, and that love finds its end in the grave if it ever really existed at all.  But none of that is true.  Things will not always be as they currently are.  Restoration is coming.  And there are those who are giving their lives to the work of restoration here and now, believing that it will all culminate in a glorious someday, when all is healed and made well.  Change is very much possible.  We’ve all seen it – both in the world and in ourselves.  Yes, human history and our personal histories are marred with the blemishes of evil and injustice.  But woven into even the darkest portions of the fabric of our histories are the threads of heroism, grace, sacrifice, and love.  Most importantly, love is indeed real and it will not find its end in the grave.  Jay, in your early 30’s you will lose your father.  And in losing a father you did not know, you will discover a love for him that always existed somewhere deep in the recesses of your heart.  Beautifully, his story will reveal to you that love does not end in the grave but in fact finds its truest form in the celebration of Resurrection, the rescue offered us by the One who’s name is Love.  So let the cynics make their noise.  You just keep your head in the clouds and keep on dreaming.  Continue to believe in the possibilities all around you.  Give your heart recklessly to love.  Run hard after the things of God.

You’re not here just to change the world; you’re here to let the world change you.  You think you’re here because you have so much to offer the world.  And you do.  You think you’re here to change the world for the better.  And you are.  But you’re also here to let the world change you.  Like I said earlier, our world is a big and wondrous place, full of interesting and amazing people.  Sure there’s a ton wrong with it and some people lose their humanity to the point of harming others.  But don’t forget that there’s also so much beauty and goodness here.  Experiencing it with an open heart and open hands will leave you changed for the better.  So let God do that work in you through his world.  Pray that God would give you eyes to see and ears to hear his grace incarnate in the people, places, and things surrounding you.  Pursue childlike faith, believing that there is good even in the bad.  Stop keeping the world at arm’s length.  Let it in.  Don’t be afraid that it will contaminate or ruin you.  Keep God at the center of your soul, and then let the world come in close to you and watch as God redeems even the worst of it to shape you into the person he’s always intended for you to be.  Get rid of that NOTW jacket in your closet.  You are not of hell.  You are of heaven.  And heaven isn’t a distant place on the other side of the galaxy.  It’s God’s reality, where all things are recreated and renewed.  So work toward that.  Join God in recreating and renewing this world, here and now.  And let him recreate and renew you through it.

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March 29, 2013

Good Friday in the Laughter of Children & Aged Lovers

Our world is a difficult place to live.  A quick glimpse at the news, the neighborhoods we live in, and our own families reveals the story of the world as a story full of dysfunction and pain.  We long for something else.  Something different.  Something divine.  And so we run hard after things that fool us with illusions of healing and wholeness.  Money.  Success.  Social change.  Legislative reform.  But when all that we run after reveal themselves as illusions, we are left disillusioned.  When they don’t fix things the way we thought they would, we’re left wondering what went wrong.  We decay slowly from the dreamers of our childhoods to the cynical shells of ourselves that many of us know far too well.

However, there is a different story unfolding.  Today, Good Friday, we remember that a man died two millennia ago, believing he was dying for each and every one of us.  Jesus of Nazareth was either out of his mind or God himself in human skin.  Whatever he was, we can all agree the he is not easily forgotten.  He is undoubtably the most transcendent figure in human history.  His legacy is obvious, here and now, even in the midst of suffering and pain.

Yes, his followers have often done evil in his name.  Over the centuries, genocide and bigotry have been carried out under the banner of the Christian flag.  But his followers have also done tremendous good.  Education for the poor.  Medical care for the marginalized.  Freedom for slaves.  These are just a few examples of global reforms that were initiated by those who bore the mark of Christ in their lives.  It is a complicated story and its nuances are far too many to understand with just a single, narrow perspective.  Careful and humble consideration is required.  A learning spirit and a willingness to admit that we don’t have it all figured out is where we must begin if we are to experience the shalom, the peace, that Christ himself promised.

Today, as we ponder the cross and what it means for the world, may we open our eyes, ears, and hearts to the hum of new life in the air.  It’s all around us.

It’s in the joyous laughter of children too young to know that there’s nothing to laugh about.

It’s in the embrace of lovers celebrating decades of faithful commitment to one another, too old to care about the acrimonious taunts of a generation that doesn’t believe in love.

It’s in the restoration of broken relationships, brought about by the relentless grace of those who refuse to give up even when it feels like there’s nothing left to fight for.

It’s in churches and bars.

It’s in our hearts and the hearts of our enemies.

Good Friday reminds us that Jesus believed in all of us enough to give up his own life in order to afford us an opportunity to join him in writing a different story for the world.  So may we yes to this invitation to write a better story.  May we give ourselves wholly and completely to the work of making certain that the story of every person on this planet doesn’t end on Friday, at the cross, in the grave, but instead culminates in new life, resurrected and restored, on Easter morning.

christ cross

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March 4, 2013

Lent & Fasting

In her book The Overspent American, Harvard economist Juliet Schor notes, “Twenty-seven percent of all households making more than $100,000 a year say they cannot afford to buy everything they really need. Nearly 20 percent say they ‘spend nearly all their income on the basic necessities of life.’”  $100k on basic necessities.  Clearly, necessity is a relative term.  Schor continues, “But while 70 percent of the sample described ‘the average American’ as ‘very materialistic,’ only 8 percent felt they were materialistic themselves.”  Relative indeed.

For Lent, our community is fasting from a few things.  It’s nothing novel but it’s been significant and formative in a number of ways.  Currently, we’re fasting from all drinks other than water.  In the larger scheme of things, this isn’t much of a sacrifice.  But not drinking coffee has been tough.  A headache greets me every morning.  And just the other day I found myself in the grocery store, staring at a bottle of Snapple like I was a meth addict in Walter White‘s RV.  I like Snapple but I can’t remember the last time I drank one, much less craved one.

When we wean ourselves off of the excesses and luxuries of our indulgent lives, the addict in us rears its ugly head.  We find ourselves longing for all that which we cannot have.  Our desire becomes inflamed and takes on a life of its own.  If you’ve ever fasted from anything, you know what this is like.  At a certain point, we realize that what we’re most addicted to is addiction itself.  Its not that we need coffee or Snapple or meth to survive.  Instead, we discover that we have physically, emotionally and even spiritually acclimated to developing addictions and the temporary rush of satisfying them.  But this is a toxic habit that moves us further and further away from our truest selves.  Our addictions weaken us to no end and damage our ability to enjoy deeply the most meaningful things of life.  This is why practicing the discipline of fasting is so significant.

Fasting reminds us that the distance between what we want and what we need begins in our heart and mind.  It reminds us that this distance must be bridged with resolute discipline and a broad perspective.  Fasting strengthens us in ways that the addictions we long for never could.  It reminds us that every fiber of our being was made for a reason and that God is the reason, nothing and no one else.  To be loved and to love – this is our purpose, the reason we live and breathe.  Fasting reminds us that everything else is secondary.  Fasting during Lent reminds us that we look forward to Easter morning, when Love did what only Love could do – rushed into the grave, beat the hell out of it and rose victorious.  And because victory has been won for us, we no longer have to live enslaved to anything less.  God is Love and fasting reminds us that He is to be our only addiction.

Lent slide

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February 24, 2013

The Death & Gift of Sabbath

I love the thoughts of Barbara Brown Taylor.

Productivity is the universal means of valuing one another… Sabbath is a little death… it makes you almost faint for a while to give up all the things that keep you propped up for the rest of the week.

Today is the Sabbath.  A day of rest and rejuvenation.  A weekly moment to be restored to fullness.  The Sabbath is an opportunity and a gift.  It is the gift of a reminder.  The reminder of why we are here.  We are here on this planet at this time in human history not simply to produce but to be produced into the wholeness of God’s wonderful plan.  Wonderful is the operative word.  Full of wonder.  Full of uninhibited splendor and awesome beauty.  This is not a splendor and beauty any of us could ever craft in and of ourselves.  And so we rest.  We rest in the work that God is doing in us.  As we quiet ourselves, stop the chaos and busyness of our days, we allow God to do his work in us.  It is a work that is beyond our capacities and imaginations.  It ushers us into a space where we are helpless and so we simply open ourselves up and watch as God does what only he can do.  For those of us who are entrenched in the rush of church-world, moving about with a million things to do so that church can go off without a hitch, today is a reminder that the work we produce is nothing more than space-renovation in order that soul-renovation might occur, for ourselves and for the friends who will join us.  So learn to rest today.  Be restored and rejuvenated.  Let God do the work only he can do and be fulfilled in knowing that you are not good-for-something but rather, that you are simply good.

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January 28, 2013

Dayquil Thoughts on Perfection & Weakness

I’m sick beyond belief today.  I have the sort of cough you have to brace yourself for; the sort of cough that hurts so bad, an involuntary groan concludes each one.  I’m hopped up on Dayquil and trying to drink as much tea as I can.  But nothing seems to help.  It hurts and I feel weak and I want this to be over.  I don’t feel like myself.  Instead, I feel like some weird, inebriated carbon copy and it’s a version of me that’s not much fun to be around.

But being sick does provide some perspective.  I worked from home today.  To be specific, I worked from my bed.  I’ve been laying here for hours, fluctuating between typing away and nodding off to sleep.  I had to cancel a couple of meetings.  It stressed me out at first.  I went back and forth between cancelling or just trying to grind it out.  And it was in the tension of this back and forth that I gained a little bit of perspective.  It’s nothing new.  You’ve probably heard it a thousand times.  It might seem like a redundant idea.  But it’s in the Bible so pay attention (that’s what my Sunday school teacher told me when I was seven):

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”… that is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses… - 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

There it is.  Nothing immensely profound.  Definitely not new or clever.  I laid in bed today, cancelled meetings and wasn’t terribly productive but the world kept moving on and God continued doing the stuff only he could do anyways.  Physical sickness is a helpful reminder of this truth – that Christ’s power rests on us most distinctly and dynamically when we are weak.  Rather, when we are aware of our weakness.  Because the truth is, we’re always weak.  We’re never capable or able on our own to accomplish all that a meaningful life ought to accomplish.  When we catch a cold or the flu or something worse, it’s our bodies catching up to what has always been true about the human condition.  We’re imperfect.  But it is in our weakness that Christ’s power is made perfect.

Contrary to popular belief, the Bible doesn’t actually talk about perfection all that much.  This is a rare occurrence.  Paul was a good Jew, well versed in the ways of the Torah and astute in his understanding of Hebraic thought.  The Jewish understanding, and in turn, Paul’s understanding, of perfection is different than our Western understanding.  We think of perfection as a static reality.  If a flower arrangement or a song is perfect, then rearranging a single stem or a single note would make it imperfect.  But the Jewish mind thinks of perfection as a dynamic reality.  Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote this:

“To the Jewish mind, the understanding of God is not achieved by referring… to ideas of perfection, but rather by sensing the living acts of His concern, to His dynamic attentiveness to man. We speak not of His goodness in general but of His compassion for the individual man in a particular situation.”

So when Paul writes that Christ’s power is made perfect in our weakness, he does not mean that in our moment of frailty, we are made suddenly, statically whole, without defect or flaws.  What he means is that our very weakeness is what creates the space for God to enter our stories, to reveal his dynamic attentiveness to us, to display his compassion on us perfectly in our particular situations.  When we are weak, our eyes are opened wide to watch as Christ rescues us perfectly.

Whether you’re sick like me or feeling just fine, remember that we are all people in need of rescue.  We are too weak to accomplish anything great on our own.  And it is this realization that opens us up to experience the perfect power of God changing us and the world around us.

It’s 8pm.  I’m going to go take a Nyquil now.  Good night.

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January 25, 2013

Possibility of the Present

Here we are, more than three weeks into the new year and I’m still struggling with the idea of “2013.”  It doesn’t sound real.  It’s a little too futuristic for my taste.  Remember the second Back to the Future movie?  Marty McFly travels to 2015 and encounters a world of flying cars, hover boards and Jaws 19.  Now, 2015 is just a couple of years away.  There are no flying cars, hover boards or Jaws 19.  This is how time seems to work.  As the future marches toward us, it often loses the glow of possibility and in its transformation from future to present, its light grows stale, replaced by the dim glow of muted reality.

Unlike Marty McFly, you and I cannot travel into the future.  We are forever wed to the present.  It is our constant companion, with us in good times and bad, saturating every bit of our reality.  The present is our reality.  And we have a constant choice before us – we can choose to grow tired and weary of the perceived limits of our present lives or we can choose another way.

You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going.  What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope. – Thomas Merton

If we would stop for a moment and consider all that the present offers us – all of its possibilities and challenges – we might find ourselves living under what Chesterton calls freer skies.  We might allow ourselves to breathe in more deeply and enjoy more fully the wonders of today.  Instead of fixating on our resolutions for the next year, what would it be like to live with a resolve to embrace the reality of the next twenty-four hours?  How full might our hearts become if we took the emotional stock we placed in hope for the future and instead began investing in living fully into our today?  The truth is, today holds just as much possibility as any day that’s ever been and any that will ever be.  Today, the sun came up and it will shortly go back down.  This rhythm reminds us that today is finite and precious.  We will never get this back.  The present is literally once in a lifetime.  So let’s embrace it.  Let’s stop fretting about what isn’t and what should be.  Let’s immerse ourselves deeply and fully into what could be, right now.  Let’s give ourselves to big hopes, big dreams and let’s give ourselves to them in this moment.  Let’s open our eyes to see the possibilities of today and embrace them with courage, faith and hope.

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January 7, 2013

Dreaming Wide Awake

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. – Ephesians 3:20-21

I am on a journey, surrounded by dreamers who believe that redemptive change is possible.  They give me the courage to dream the same.  We are a flawed and broken people, acutely aware of our shortcomings.  We are intimately familiar with failure and there is much we don’t do well.  But we’ve learned to dream big dreams.  We believe in a God who is truly more able than we know.  The richness of this reality weighs heavily on us.  We’re beginning to recognize that we’ve been placed here, in our city, in our generation, in these days, to participate in something great.  Our eyes are opening up to see the story of God being written upon the pages of our lives, individually and collectively as a community.  It’s a story worth telling because it’s a story that can turn the tide of cynicism and apathy.  It’s a story of dead things coming to life.  It’s a story of love and grace.  It’s the truest story we could ever tell.

I love what Paul writes to the church in Ephesus – that God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.  God is bigger than our questions and larger than our imaginations.  Our capacity to dream is too small to hold what he can and longs to do.  So dream away.  Stop sleepwalking through life.  Wake up to the possibilities all around us.  Give beyond the limits of your means.  Share beyond the limits of your comfort.  Love beyond the limits of your logic.  Dream big.  Dream huge for that matter.  Dream wide awake.

This January-February, our community at Awakening Church will be exploring the idea of living with a God-sized vision for our lives in a series called Dreaming Wide Awake.  We get together on Sundays 5pm + 7pm at 1242 Del Mar Ave. San Jose, CA 95128.  All are welcome.  Join us.

DWA_mailer_front

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December 20, 2012

Advent: Rejoice

The first time any girl showed even a remote interest in me was in sixth grade.  Her name was Sunny.  I don’t remember a whole lot about her other than that she liked me.  I’m not sure I liked her, but I was madly in love with the idea that she liked me.  I asked her to be my girlfriend after school one day at a Carl’s Jr. over a bacon cheeseburger and criss-cut fries.  Classy, I know.  A week later, Sunny dumped me and started dating a guy named Terry.  I didn’t mind.  Terry was a foot taller than me and blocked all my shots during basketball in P.E.  I would’ve dumped me to date him too.  But it sure was nice to liked, even for a week.

The theme of the third Sunday of Advent is rejoice.  There is no joy quite like the joy that comes from knowing we are more than simply liked – we are wanted, desired and loved.  Advent reminds us that God’s love for us is so grand, so expansive, so deep, so all-consuming that he could not leave us as we were and went to the greatest lengths to make things right again between us and Him.  Advent reminds us that like a great composer writing her masterpiece or a brilliant poet writing his defining work, God wrote us the greatest work of love ever written in the body and blood of Jesus his Son.  Advent reminds us that fear and anxiety have given way to a deep, unspeakable joy.  It is the joy of knowing that all of creation is waiting in expectation for the great love story to be finished, for Christ to come again and write the final chapter and lead us on into the eternity God always intended for us from the beginning.  All because God loves us.  His heart is for us and we are his great desire.

Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let them say among the nations, “The LORD reigns!”  Let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them!  [1 Chronicles 16:31-32]

advent 3 candles

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December 14, 2012

Advent: Prepare

Today, as we stand in the dark shadows of the tragedy of Newtown, Connecticut, the bitter taste of evil reminds us that sin still runs rampant in our world.  We are given pause and faced with the reality that no amount of light we’ve tried so hard to produce on our own can drown out the darkness of injustice and brokenness in the here and now.  We are a people who cannot rescue ourselves.

Our hearts break and mourn today with families who must soon bury children taken far too soon from them.  We grieve with the families and friends of the teachers who were killed so needlessly.  Our words do little good and our greatest efforts to comfort fall so far short.  But we must give what we can.  We must send our love and pray our prayers, from up close and afar, because this is what we have to give and to not give it would be to coalesce into the destructive powers of apathy.

This past Sunday was the second of Advent.  Its theme is prepare.  Today we are reminded that we are indeed called to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah who can, once and for all, deliver us from these dark shadows.  We prepare the way for the Light of the world who will, with strong finality, crush the darkness with light brighter than the sun.  A light so bright that darkness will not just cringe but crack and crumble at its sight.  These ideas are of little use to those whose hearts are aching with pain greater than death today at the loss of loved ones.  But these ideas are embers that we who have a bit more strength today can reignite with love, so that those who’ve been weakened by pain might catch a glimpse of its hope.  Preparation requires participation.  We do not sit by idly watching for Jesus to descend on the clouds to take us away from this mess.  Instead, we actively work toward the renewal and healing of all things, being mindful of those who are hurting and broken and lost.  This is what it means to prepare.

So yes, our words fall short.  But the Word that has spoken light into our darkness and breathed life into death never fails.  Preparation requires focus and a realignment of our hearts on that which matters most.  May we realign our hearts today and participate in the work of preparing our world for the coming of the one true Word that has spoken an end to the grave, once and for all time.  May we center ourselves on peace and love so that they might disrupt evil and violence in such a way that they find their sudden demise.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

advent_2_copy

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December 4, 2012

Advent: Hope

There are those who suggest that the word hope shares etymological roots with the word hop, on the notion that to hope in something is to leap in expectation.  This might seem a bit of a stretch but a number of etymologists seem to think this a credible possibility.  Whether true or not, the idea poses an interesting point.  In our day and age, the idea of hope has been hijacked by passivity, neutered from a jubilant expectation of impossible proportions into a safe longing for mediocrity.

I hope I did OK.  I hope they don’t mind.  I hope we get that discount.

But the Biblical writers understood hope as a much more expansive reality.  They understood that if we are to hope in something, it ought to be ridiculous, huge, beyond our wildest dreams, bigger than our imaginations.  They said things like…

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. [Psalm 130:7]

But now, LORD, what do I look for?  My hope is in you.  Save me from all my transgressions. [Psalm 39:7]

In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.  May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you. [Psalm 33:21-22]

He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us.  On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us… [2 Corinthians 1:10]

This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance (and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe. [1 Timothy 4:9-11]

Their hope is for unfailing love, full redemption, complete salvation, continued deliverance and their hope is in God himself.

This past Sunday was the first of Advent.  We are now in the season of joyful expectation and anticipation, as we journey toward Christmas morning.  We remember that Christ has come, is coming again, and is strangely with us even now, in our hearts and minds, filling our air and our lungs.  The first Sunday of Advent is marked by the theme of hope.  It’s a massive hope of truly impossible proportions.  It’s the hope that what went wrong can be made right.  It’s the hope that what is broken can be healed.  Ultimately, it’s the hope that God can break into human reality and change our trajectory once and for all.  It’s the hope that a Messiah can indeed crush the serpent’s head and replace the period. after death with a dot dot dot…

So this Advent season, hope big.  God breaks in and changes everything.  It’s OK to hope that it won’t rain or that you’ll get a decent tax return.  But don’t stop there.  Hope big.  Hope that God can change your heart and your life. Hope that Love can conquer anything.  Hope that God can change the world.  He already has.  And He still is.

advent hope

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