Alex Tran

I dropped the F-bomb last week.  While spending time with God no less.

It was the culmination of a lot of things.  Feeling the burden of sharing a message with College Life.  Having a wound stay open and unhealed because of obedience to God.  Insecurity.  Doubt.  Realizing you don’t have it all together.

But despite all that, my life has never been better.

I am closer to life in the Garden (Genesis 2:25).  A life where I walk with God in an intimate, personal way.  A sense of being naked, vulnerable and broken yet completely filled by God (Ephesians 3:19).

It is these times of chaos, yet contentment in Jesus that I go to sleep in peace and with a smile on my face.  A smile knowing I am exactly where Jesus wants me to be.  In his arms and confident of His love.

Perhaps we should stop praying for peace in our lives and start praying for peace in our spirit?  A peace that knows the Lord is near (Philippians 4:5b). And having that knowledge produce a peace which transcends all understanding and guards our hearts and minds (Philippians 4:7) from an otherwise chaotic world.

A peace not because our external lives are running smoothly, but because our internal lives are.

Connected to Jesus – the very source of life.

The one whose love radiates within us bringing warmth and comfort when it seems so cold outside.

Ezekiel 24:13-14 (NIV)
¹³ […] I tried to cleanse you but you would not be cleansed from your impurity, […].

¹⁴ I the LORD have spoken. The time has come for me to act. I will not hold back; I will not have pity, nor will I relent. […]

It’s easy to read the Old Testament and see God’s wrath and judgment resulting in a ridiculous amount of death and violence. And we wonder as we read the New Testament how is it that God is supposed to love and desire everyone to have eternal life?

The real reason for God’s wrath and judgment isn’t because God enjoys bringing those things in our life, it is because God is ultimately trying to clean us but we refuse (v13). We miss the mark.

Ezekiel 24:27 (NIV)
²⁷ […] and they will know that I am the Lord.

That is the mark we are missing. There is no blaming God for that.

Job 9:11 (NIV)
¹¹ When he passes me, I cannot see him;
when he goes by, I cannot perceive him.

God is constantly passing and going by us.  He is always around despite what our perception may be.

Job 9:5-9 (NIV)
⁵ He moves mountains without their knowing it
and overturns them in his anger.

⁶ He shakes the earth from its place
and makes its pillars tremble.

⁷ He speaks to the sun and it does not shine;
he seals off the light of the stars.

⁸ He alone stretches out the heavens
and treads on the waves of the sea.

⁹ He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion,
the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.

Sometimes in our quest for knowledge and answers, we explain God away and sideline him.  Moving mountains and earthquakes (v5-6) are understood by fault lines.  Science (and Wikipedia!) give us all the answers.  The Bear, Orion and Pleiades (v9) have their own Wikipedia article telling us everything we ever wanted to know about each constellation and its history.

But don’t forget how big and amazingly creative our God is. He is the creator of all the things that can be described, dissected and analyzed until we have all the answers.

What if you read these Wikipedia articles and instead of knowing them to be written by educated scientists in the field, you viewed them as written by God?

In a society of smart people, that is the one thing we _can’t_ forget.

Dear Jesus,

I want to be able to soak and bask in the knowledge that you created the Heavens and the earth.  I want to stand in awe of your creation.  That the stars and sun in the sky are the work of your hands.  I want to forget about science and have that simplicity in understanding.

The cool, crisp winter breeze (does Florida have a winter breeze?).  The thick blades of grass that hurt to walk barefoot on.  The giant tree that I’m afraid will fall on my building at any time.

Those are yours.

I want to be able to smile from ear to ear when I see and experience your creation knowing you placed them there.

I want to forget adult etiquette and tell strangers how “awesome” and “cool” you are because you created the large and in charge banana spider by my mailbox.

For some reason God, I just want to have a grin on my face thinking about all this.

I laugh in the face of science! Hah!

. . . to be content in Jesus.