+FillUs

Ran through Uptown Charlotte and climbed 683’ with over 1300’ elevation change along with a couple thousand runners, I finished my half marathon in 1:48:09 last Sunday. Here’s me with my finisher’s medal, adding to my collection of six this year. The concept of a finisher’s medal is foreign to my grandma. She still thinks I’ve won all the races. (Wouldn’t that be nice…)

Today is the first day of Advent - the fourth Sunday before Christmas that marks the beginning of a time of waiting and expecting. It is only appropriate that it follows right after Thanksgiving which leads us to enter into this period of time with thankfulness. At church today, we sang: Jesus paid it all; All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow Think about it. The two biggest problem all humans have to deal with are sin and death. And Jesus has taken care of both. Talk about freedom. Jesus has broken the chain of death and our slavery to sin. 2 Corinthians 5 says: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. This is the scripture which led me to Christ and I was being reminded of this once again today. Talk about a new life. When we were young, my sister once asked God for a new sister, a replacement. Last time I heard, she was pretty happy with the “new” sister God has granted her. I hav...

Without a car might be a hindrance in many ways, but it is also a blessing in disguise in many ways. Over the years I discover how much riding a bike, or running for that matter, has in common with our Christian walk. In difficult times, in times which I want to stop, it teaches me perseverance and what faithfulness looks like. Exhaustion doesn’t just happen during physical activities. Prophet Elijah asked God to take his life after a day’s journey in the wilderness. At the brink of giving up, I learn that faithfulness is a long obedience in one direction, as Eugene Peterson says in his book. It’s keep-going when every part of you scream stop. People like to say, “If marathon is easy, everyone will be doing it.” Likewise, there’s no turning back in being a Christian and it’s not easy. I have also learned the importance of one step at a time. When I’m getting tired on hills, I tend to put my head down and pedal. Looking at that formidable hill doesn’t give me energy but instills fear....

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” Holiness is a description of God, a sum of all His divine attributes. His glory is the radiance of His holiness displayed. In essence, there is nothing worth desiring more than the holiness of God. When John Piper unpacked what it meant for our lives, he asked: How [and/or when] do you feel being loved by God? Perhaps when He gives us what I want? Perhaps when I feel like being used by God? Maybe when He is making much of me? This can’t be more wrong. Think about it. What does God desire? As much as He loves us, He ought to desire The Best, the infinite valuable, which is His holiness. Jesus, “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (Hebrew 1:3),” is His holiness make accessible. Logically speaking, this implies that the goal of salvation and of creation is not us, but His holiness. His love for us is not so that we could make much of ourselves, but we could make much of Him and ...

I can now testify to the truthfulness of running the last third of a marathon with your heart. Physique plays an important part of the game, but at mile 20, everyone feels crappy. At the end, it is the mind who keeps one going, keeps one persevering, and keeps one enduring pain. During the last few miles, I really wanted to stop. My legs are sore, my feet hurt, and my knees feel like they could buckle anytime. My body probably really hated me for not listening, but I had to go with my heart that said no stopping. To my rescue, my friend Greg Hassen from Southcoast Road Runners found me and ran me in at mile 22. That was tremendous help. Perhaps I would have really stopped if he didn`t pace me and kept me companied. Thank God for sending help right when I needed it. Although I didn`t meet my arbitrary goal of 4:30, I was happy about the race. It was arbitrary because I never ran 26.2 miles in my life. Running an 8 minute pace on a 10 mile run doesn`t mean I could do the same for another...

“In Jesus’ name, amen.” We all close our prayers with that. However, how often do we left Jesus out in the bulk of our prayer until the very end? How often do we begin our prayers with a list of request, follow by more requests, and just reiterate “In Jesus’ name, amen” like we always do to close it off. In Praying Backwards, author and president of Covenant Theological Seminary urges us “to use that routine phrase as the premise and basis for prayer,” rather than stamping God’s name at the end to seal the deal. For architects, our list (and the clients’) of requests is replaced with programs and budgets. Perhaps it would be more feasible for clients (in our case, churches) to come to us with just a budget and a list of programs, do away with BlueSky and charette and dive right into the solution. But without first listening to God and without God’s vision as our premise and basis of our design, what we are responding to are just needs. In Who’s your city, author Richard Florida named a...

The Social Network, a film which narrates the inception of Facebook reminded me the joy I had learning programming as a high schooler. I remember writing really simple programs using C++ and made my first web page in basic html in grade 10. The joy came from creating and problem solving. Nothing like spending hours cracking a puzzle and in the process, creating something out of nothing, ex nihilo. Type in a string of codes and integers and something wonderful comes out of it. This makes me wonder whether God had the same satisfaction creating the world. He is the only one truly created something out of nothing (“creatio ex nihilo”). He spoke, and the world came into existence. He saw what He made, and “behold, it was very good.” We are all on God’s Facebook. He invited all of us to be His friends.