the night before

Nothing can be more stressful to me than a 65-question final exam that looms like a gigantic crocodile on my horizon, ready to devour me, eyeglasses and all. Especially when I'm only half a night and a hundred textbook pages away from the dread event itself.

Plainly speaking, I'm a grade-conscious control freak. Although I may not seem to be one in light of my irrepressible predilection to take 5-minute power naps while in class, I am a perfectionist to the core. Every week I spend countless hours planning my daily to-do list in my organizer and jotting down the most minute and mundane tasks I need to do. while dreaming and fantasizing of the prospect of getting a perfect column of A's on my transcript at the end of the semester, all at the same time.

And when the going gets tough, I get anxious. Terribly anxious. My palms begin to sweat so much that I can almost see the drops of sweat dripping on my handouts while I hastily leaf through them. Sometimes my stomach gets really queasy that I throw up what's left of the last meal I ate.

There's something definitely wrong with me.

"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" Matthew 6.30

Why, oh, why can't and don't I trust You? In spite of my filthy wretchedness, Lord, give me the will to toss my puny hand-made idols into the fire and the heart to treasure Your name above all else, instead of myself. Please, let me rest. In You.

PDL and a rediscovery

It's amazing how much treasure can be left untouched and undiscovered in the dusty reaches of a small church library. It's even more amazing to find it in the leaves of a book that's been widely acclaimed and embraced by popular Christian-lite culture, and yet lambasted and cast aspersions at by hard-core conservatives.

This morning I felt drier and emptier and more wasted than I've been in months. I've long broken my habit of morning Bible reading, I haven't prayed for anything or anyone, I haven't prayed AT ALL, and I've been lashing my acerbic razor-sharp tongue out like a cantankerous curmudgeon to everyone who comes near me. Especially my brother. And, most certainly not the least in this list of woes, (to save you, dear reader, from the chore of dirtying your mind, I'd have to use a special, custom-made figure of speech so I can hide my shame) this week I went back, a mud-loving hog, to my mire, not just once, but several times.

So I picked up the Purpose Driven Life I borrowed from my church's library last Wednesday. (Steve Urbina had started a 40-Days-of-Purpose-DVD-study kind of thing long long ago, even before we went to the family camp. I was supposed to read it along with everybody in our Sunday school class, but I, not unexpectedly, neglected to do it, and managed to put it off until the study series was almost finished.)

For the usual Pharisaical log-impaled me, at first it was not hard to notice what was wrong with the book. Despite Rick Warren's denials that this was a non-self-help book, it was obvious to me that he carefully chose his words to woo the reader into believing that reading it will "reduce your [the reader's] stress, simplify your decisions, increase your satisfaction, and, most important, prepare you for eternity." Sounds too sweet and cheesy for something substantial, I murmured. And it pampers the reader too much by catering entirely to his own desires -- his decisions, his satisfaction, etc.

But then I realized that God Himself used the very same sweetness and "cheesiness," if you will, to woo His unfaithful wife into coming back to Him despite her gross adulteries. In Isaiah 1:18 He beckons,

Come now, and let us reason together... though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.

And in Hosea, He says,

I will allure her, and speak kindly to her... I will betroth you to Me forever... then you will know the Lord.

And in the New Testament too, did Jesus not use the multitude's innate desire to be happy in His Beatitudes, for the sole purpose of leading them into God's embrace? Did He not say, "Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be made full?" John 16:24.

This isn't too bad, I thought. I continued reading.

My doubts gradually chipped away as I read the first few chapters. Although there was one which I did not particularly like -- the one about not being an accident and being made in God's image -- for the writhing, backslidden sinner, being called a "precious and perfect unique design" offers little comfort, if any, in view of his self-inflicted pain due to sin -- most of them I liked and definitely agreed with.

The first dealt with setting one's perspective straight and basing it on the Absolute, the fourth and fifth dealt with how eternity matters more than this one parenthesis of a life, and how seeing from God's perspective makes all the difference. All that he said about the impermanence of the world's riches and the unsatisfying thrills they offered to the weary soul, made me shift in my seat a bit. Rick Warren, I thought, your words are close to hitting home!

And then I came to chapter 7. The Reason For Everything. What the entire Universe is for, with the trillion blinding mind-bogglingly massive galaxies contained in it, he says, "It's all for Him." My jaw almost dropped at what I read next. I'll quote it here at length for your benefit, dear reader.

The ultimate goal of the universe is to show the glory of God. It is the reason for everything that exists, including you. God made it all for His glory. Without God's glory, there would be nothing.

What is the glory of God? It is who God is. It is the essence of His nature, the weight of His importance, the radiance of His splendor, the demonstration of His power, the atmosphere of His presence. God's glory is the expression of His goodness and all His other intrinsic, eternal qualities.

He continued to describe how everything in redemptive history -- the fall of man, the Exodus through Moses, the tabernacle and the temple of Solomon -- was orchestrated to demonstrate and reveal "the Creator's glory." And he also described how God's glory shines most brightly in Jesus Christ, His Son. "He, the Light of the World, illuminates God's nature." And then Warren wrote how we humans failed our responsibility to cherish and worship and delight in this magnificent, perfect, glorious God.

When I came to page 55 I practically jumped from my seat and almost yelled with relief and exuberance and joy at having rediscovered a treasure long-lost: Warren says of worship, which he considers our primary purpose in life, "We worship God by enjoying Him."

What? I thought. Is this for real? Did you just say that, Rick Warren of seeker-friendly infamy? On the very next sentence he quotes CS Lewis. "In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him." Then came the ultimate shocker for me.

He quotes John Piper.

John Piper, of all people! Who else but John Piper can anybody more appropriately quote on this matter! And most importantly, he quotes the sentence that summarizes all that Piper's taught and preached: "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

Then everything came rushing back to me like a flood.

God asks us to worship Him not because He is like a vain woman looking for compliments, but because he wants us to consummate our enjoyment of Him by expressing our emotions of delight in Him.

God has given us His glory, Himself, as a gift to be enjoyed, marveled at, and seen by us! And as unparalleled love and admiration for Him rise in our souls, nothing is more natural and more fitting than to express what we feel to Him! This is why we worship! This is our chief end! To delight in God and display His glories to the world, and finally, to Himself.

And then --

Guess what happens next.

I wrote this blog entry. Hihi.

Stay tuned for more good stuff from good ol' PDL.

How will my life end?

I was lazily surfing the Net, looking for nothing in particular, when a thought struck me like a lightning bolt. I suddenly realized how apathetic and oblivious I am to the horrific suffering this world undergoes day after day.

There's that Andes-rocking earthquake in Peru which entombed hundreds of people under tons of rubble in a span of minutes. And there's the Darfur conflict, whose death toll has been reduced to a mere statistic in the minds of the populace by excessive publicity.

And of course there's that category 5 hurricane (translated: weather monstrosity) which, having just pounded the sandy beaches of Jaimaica a few hours earlier, is about to hit the western coast of Mexico in a few days. (The latter I haven't shaken off my shoulder that easily because there's a slim chance of us getting hit too. :-X)

The point is, every time I draw a breath in, hundreds of people breathe their last, some with a grim death-rattle, others with a quiet sigh. And yet I treat the preciousness of my existence like oxygen -- it's in the air, I desperately need it, yet I don't give much less a thought of gratitude for it.

You know, realizing now that my life is as tenuous as spiderweb thread and can be cut and torn and whisked away from me when I least expect it, makes me a bit nervous. Even though I am a Christian, and have been one for three years already, the uncertainty and fragility of it all still causes a substantial measure of discomfort and unease to well up my bowels.

So I thought about it for a while. The poem below is a half-baked result of my musings.

How will my life end?

Will it be like
the inglorious white-hair fuzz
of a balding dandelion clock,
scattered into the wind by
the soft, steady puffs of old age
with the memories of years long-gone?

Will it be like
a gleaming crystal goblet,
lofty and proud amidst a shelf of medals --
that suddenly shatters in an instant,
amidst choking grunts
and an urgent call for 911 --
due to a tiny blood clot
fatally out-of-place?

Will it be like
an unwitting and docile heifer
about to be slaughtered
in a hell-house of rusted steel blades,
out of whose butcher-stabbed neck
warm blood spurts out and collects
into a bucket of nickels?

Will it be like
a languid morning mist
that slowly vaporizes,
basking under the warm rays
of a rising egg-yolk Sun,
while it humbly whispers,
"You must increase,
and I must decrease?"

Will it be like
a rickety closet door
that opens into a Narnia
of unimaginable and blinding splendor,
ruled by a Lion-King
who welcomes me,
weak-kneed and trembling,
to rest my head on His glorious mane?

I'll never know for sure,
But this I do: that it will end
in the tender hands
of One who promised
"I will never leave you,
I will never forsake you."

pagsisisi

Ba't kaya laging nasa huli ang pagsisisi?

Nakausap ko ang guro namin sa Espanyol iilang araw pa lang ang nakakalipas. Wala akong ibang tunguhin kundi tanungin siya tungkol sa mga marka ko. Sabi ko sa kanya, gamit ang boses na may kaunting nginig at pangamba, "Sir, may I know what my tentative average is, as of now?"

"Oh, I don't have your averages yet, but from what I see now, you're doing fine, Jose. I could say your grade's between a high A and a low B. It's because you have a couple of quizzes with extremely low scores. Just do your best on the last two chapters. Your marks in the following quizzes will make the difference."

Yun ay bago ko dinanas ang hirap ng apat na pagsusulit, tatlong "maikli" at isang pang-kabanata -- lahat sa isang araw -- nitong nakaraang Lunes. Nabanggit ko na ba na muntik na akong mahimatay sa hirap ng mga tanong? Nagtataka pa rin ako hanggang ngayon ba't kailangan ng guro kong magsinungaling sa pagngangalan ng mga exam -- dalawa dun sa short quiz, lampas ng sandaan ang bilang ng tanong, na kailangan namin matapos sa tagal ng isa't kalahating oras. "Sino ba naman ang hindi mauulol ng ganon? O baka ako lang yun," sa isip-isip ko.

Sa sumunod na araw, nagkatotoo nga ang kinatatakutan ko. Mga marka? 58, 69, 73 sa "short" quizzes. medyo mataas naman ang nakuha ko sa huling examen; pinapadali talaga niya iyon, kadalasan may pagpipilian yung mga tanong, di kagaya ng mga quizzes, na ang karamihan ay kailangang sumagot kami ng buong mga pangungusap. Kaya 50-50 ako ngayon -- nakasalalay ang kapalaran ng final grade ko sa resulta ng mga examen ng huling kabanata na itatalakay namin.

Inaamin ko, kasalanan kong lahat kung bakit nagkaganito ako sa Espanyol. Kung binasa ko sana yung aklat ng mas maigi, kung nagsulat ako ng mas matinong notes, kung inulit-ulit ko yung mga bidyo kung pano isalin sa nakaraang kapanahunan ang mga pandiwang Espanyol, kung nagpaturo ako sa mga kaibigan kong Hispaniko, sana... Sana.

Kaya kaninang umaga yung hitsura ng mukha ko ay tila namatayan ako ng kapamilya. Mahaba ang nguso, nakakunot ang mga kilay, nakayukod na balikat -- bad trip, ika nga. Sa inis ko ay muntik ko na ngang murahin yung kaharap ko sa salamin dahil sa sobrang katangahan ko niya.

Hayun ako, nakahilata sa cubicle sa aklatan ng UTPA, habang inaantay ko matapos yung klase ng kapatid ko. Dahil wala akong magawa, at dahil wala na akong ibang maisip na tunguhan para mabigyan ng kahit kaunting ginhawa ang kaluluwa ko, inabot ko yung luma ngunit mapagkakatiwalaang Bibliya ko (sa tita ko siya, sa tutuusin, pero hindi na niya ginagamit, kaya akin na siya. Diba, tita? Hehe). Medyo nagaalanganin ako, kasi bahaging inaasahan ko na ang tanging payo na maibibigay ng Diyos sa akin ay, "Yan ang napala mo, magdusa ka!"

Ngunit hindi yun, sa laking gulat at tuwa ko, ang narinig kong binulong ng boses Niya. Pasalamat sa Kanyang pagtitiis sa akin kahit sa matinding pagkukulang ng tiwala ko sa Kanya, ay tinuro sa akin ng Espiritu ang mga susunod na taludtod:

Romano 8:28 -- Alam natin na ang lahat ng mga bagay ay magkakalakip-lakip na gumagawa para sa kabutihan nila na mga umiibig sa Diyos, sa kanila na mga tinawag ng Diyos ayon sa kaniyang layunin.

Genesis 50:20 -- Binanta niyong saktan ako, pero binalak ito ng Diyos para sa kabutihan ng marami, ang pagligtas ng maraming buhay na isinasagawa na ngayon.

Mateo 6:8 -- Alam ng Ama niyo ang mga kailangan niyo, bago pa man hingin niyo sa Kanya ang mga ito.

Una, natutunan ko galing sa mga bersong ito na hindi nasa labas ng kapangyarihan ng Diyos na ipigil ang katamaran ko. Kung nabago niya ang puso ni Pablo, isang kriminal na nagpatapon at nagpapatay ng mga Kristiyano, at ng ipinakong magnanakaw, ay mababago niya din ako.

Pangalawa, alam (at hindi lang iyon! itinakda Niya rin, sa tingin ko) ng Diyos ang lahat ng mga pangyayaring magaganap sa buong buhay ko, at sigurado akong kasama dito ang mga bagsak na markang nakuho ka sa Espanyol.

Pero bakit, ang tanong niyo, Niya hinayaan akong maging tamad sa klase kong ito? Sa tingin ko, isa lang ito sa libu-libong liksiyon (na kahit mahirap) na kailangan kong matutunan upang maging mas tulad ang pagkatao ko sa Kanya. Siguro, gusto Niyang matutunan ko ang halaga ng tamang pagpaplano ng oras at walang tigil na kasipagan. O siguro, gusto Niyang matutunan kong talikuran ang sarili kong kakayahan at kahusayan at magtiwalang buong-puso sa Kanya. Maaaring mas mainam para sa kalinangan ng kaluluwa ko ang matuto ng mga aral na ito, kaysa makuha ang isang A sa aking transcript.

Pangatlo, gaya ng sinabi sa Romano 8:28, "lahat ng mga bagay" -- kabilang ang dinanas ko nung dumaang Lunes -- ay "gumagawa para sa kabutihan" ng sinumang tumiwala sa Kanya. Ang pilit na pagbibili kay Jose (hindi ako, yung Jose na anak ni Jacob. hehe) ay tumungo sa kaligtasan ng mga kapamilya niya sa mga araw nga tag-gutom. At dahil sa paghihirap ni Jose sa ilalim ng kanyang amo, ay nabuo ang bansang Israel, na kung saan nanggaling ang ating Panginoong si Jesus.

Kaya purihin ang Diyos dahil sa Kanyang kapangyarihan at kaalaman! Purihin Siya dahil sa Kanyang kabanalan at katarungan! At higit sa lahat, purihin siya dahil sa Kanyang pagmamahal, awa at pagtitiis sa ating mga makakasalanan.

of green cards and Mt. Everest

This morning I woke up to the sound of my father bellowing in his usual on-full-volume voice at his cellphone.

"Totoo? June 2005 na yung pinaprocess? Sige, thanks, thanks..."

One of his friends had called and told him that the USCIS just updated the visa bulletin for employee-based immigrant applicants. I'll spare you the drudgery of trying to understand immigration terms, but it all boils down to this: there's a very good chance that before school starts this fall my family and I will be granted permanent residency -- those highly coveted green cards that would grant us Social Security numbers and qualify us for federal and state financial aid and permit us to be gainfully employed.

Doubtful of hearsay as I often am, I discreetly sat down in front of the computer as my father and brother were leaving for school and checked the website for myself. And on the screen was displayed the small white table containing the priority dates.

It was true indeed.

Strangely enough, I didn't suddenly erupt with eager excitement. Two years before, the prospect of being able to work for myself and not depending on my parents for income would have left me giddy, nervous and elated at the same time. It's not that I, being a mature 19-year old, now take lightly the possibility of me receiving a fat monthly paycheck. Nor because I've latched my sights tight on the City of God that I've ceased to care for my family's immigration issues, or anything worldly, for that matter. No.

It was just probably a good dose of His medicine the night before that restrained me from being my usual self.

Last night I crossed off Luke 12 on my daily Bible reading plan and read the whole chapter. Though the words of King Jesus barely stood out on the faded pages of my Aunt's NASB, they seared my heart with such sweet delight that lifted me, albeit temporarily, from the cares of this world.

In Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tries to quiet the anxious hearts of his listeners (including mine):

Fear not, little flock; it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. Luke 12.32

Now I clearly remember encountering this verse in dear Pastor Piper's book, the Pleasures of God, and verbalizing my thoughts about it in this blog some time ago, but it wasn't until last night that the true meaning of His words dawned on me with such full-force again. I guess this particular verse must have been buried under an enormous dune of medical terms in the desert of my mind. But praise God for blowing the sand all away!

That God will do me good by granting me His kingdom is a magnificent revelation in itself. But that He would actually enjoy and take delight in adopting me as His son, unworthy wretch as I am, was just so great a thought that it dwarfed and overshadowed all worldly thoughts that were clinging to my mind then -- it was like placing Mount Everest and a molehill side by side. There simply wasn't any comparison.

And so when I woke up this morning I was still overcome with so much awe and gratitude and wonder at His abundant grace that the news of being one step closer to receiving my green card didn't tick my heart's ticker as fast as it did before.

But as the hours of today plodded by, the vision faded. All that's left in me, once again, are faint reverberations of the glorious thought. Which is why, dear reader, we need to graze on the pastures of His Word as often as we can and feed our souls with His promises.

a rediscovery

How great is God's desire to do you good?
(an excerpt from a John Piper sermon)

Behold, I will gather them out of all the lands to which I have driven them in My anger, in My wrath, and in great indignation; and I will bring them back to this place and make them dwell in safety.

And they shall be My people, and I will be their God; and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good, and for the good of their children after them.

And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me. And I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul.

Jeremiah 32:37-41

He rejoices to sustain you and he rejoices with all his heart and with all his soul. Now I ask you, not with any sermonic exaggeration or rhetorical flourish or with any sense of overstatement at all—I ask you, I challenge you, can you conceive of an intensity of desire that is greater than a desire empowered by "All God's heart and All God's soul"?

Suppose you took all the desire for food and sex and money and fame and power and meaning and friends and security in the hearts and souls of all the human beings on the earth—say about six billion—and you put all that desire, multiplied by all those six billion hearts and souls into a container. How would it compare to the desire of God to do you good implied in the words, "with all his heart and with all his soul"?

It would compare like a thimble to the Pacific Ocean. Because the heart and soul of God are infinite. And the hearts and souls of man are finite. There is no intensity greater than the intensity of ... the joy he has in sustaining you with sovereign grace: "I will rejoice over them to do them good . . . with all my heart and all my soul."

It's almost good to be true. But it is: God loves me!

It's amazing enough that God would pardon me, a perverted criminal, and send His only Son to suffer a wretched death in my place. But that He would desire to lavish me the greatest gift He could ever give, the gift of Himself, that He would engage every bit of His being to ravish and enrapture me with the manifold perfections of His glory for all eternity!

It's ---

I run out of words.

something to think about

I was taken aback by this passage from one of the featured sermons at Desiring God.

...There is a difference between feeling miserable because sin has made our life miserable and feeling broken because our sin has offended the holiness of God and brought reproach on His name... The issue is not admitting that we have made our life miserable. The issue is admitting that there is something much worse than our misery, namely the offended holiness and glory of God.

We all know how unbearable the agonizing emptiness of pursuing the idols of the heart is. Sinning is trying to fit the square of the world's pleasures into the immeasurably round hole in our soul.

And when we ram it in too hard, the jagged edges rip our own flesh into bloody chunks. Then we just break down to our knees and bawl like babies because our self-inflicted wounds hurt like hell.

But John Piper challenges us to further examine this heart-issue ourselves; shouldn't we feel far greater remorse for turning away from the perfectly fit Circle who offers all of Himself for our delight and satisfaction, for rejecting and insulting the sovereign and perfect God who loves us?

Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Jeremiah 2:12-13