J.S. Park

Church: Keep Afloat

Your church can be ridiculously frustrating, and you’ll want to give up and walk out and say you were right about them the whole time.

I know you’ve probably had a million ideas they didn’t listen to, and you want worship to be deeper, the Bible studies to be harder, the activities to tone down, the atmosphere more gracious, people more real, the pastor to be more serious or more in-depth or more thoughtful or more attentive. You want more missions, more conviction, more change, more open dialogue.

But please, please, please hang in there.

You’ve probably been trying for a while. I know it hurts to not be heard, to see others halfway committed, to hear the stories of two-faced lives.

Please consider that the “hypocrite” might be someone on their first lap of faith, and they just don’t know yet, and not everyone is paced at your speed. Consider that your pastor has a vision that he is desperately trying to tie together across dozens of conflicting opinions. Consider that what you feel are glaring flaws in your church are NOT sins against anyone, but simply a preference that rides against yours.

Church is exactly the place for you to endure through disagreement and discontent: because it teaches us patience when nothing goes “your way.” It doesn’t mean we remain complacent as things unfold: but that we extend grace for the growing pains of our church body, and we offer solutions lest we become part of the problem.

Fighting for unity is not the same thing as complaining about what’s wrong. I get this confused a lot too, and people can always tell the difference. The church knows when you can’t handle being told “no” and if you are pushing a vengeful reactionary agenda. You know your heart on this one, and if there is bitterness there, you probably wouldn’t listen to you either.

If you’re really hurting for your ministry: I just hope we act to restore and not out of righteous vindication. People walk into church with a divided mind already. They don’t need more of that. If you’re secretly venting to others about what is wrong, even in a “humble” articulate manner: you are poisoning the well. If it’s a legitimate concern, there are better ways to be heard and move forward.

People hear the ones with their sleeves rolled up, and nothing less. They will know if you really care or if you are really bitter. There is certainly a lot wrong with your church: but that’s because we attend them. There could be a time to walk away: but not in anger. There is a time to confront: but not to look back, and only to bring healing.

Have room in your heart to struggle together in the mess we call church. You will be heard this way. More importantly, God will speak this way.

It’s not easy, but don’t give up. Don’t give in. You are needed. Keep afloat, dear friend.

— J.S.

Around The Corner: A Second Wind

You’ve been in meltdown before, when the world felt unusually cruel and your insides collapsed and there weren’t enough tears to cry through your heaving convulsing sobs.  Like the wind was uppercut out of your soul.

It’s not pretty.  Not like the movies.  It’s not dramatic or cathartic or ironic or Oscar-worthy — it’s ugly, snot all over, face puckered in fifty places, bowled over with all kinds of noises spewing from your guts.

I was reading John 20, and Mary Magdalene was there too.

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying.

I read this and grew horribly sad, imagining her hunched over and hopeless.  Her world was punched through.  I knew how she felt.

The man they called Savior, who had rebuked seven demons out of Mary and had been bathed by her family’s precious perfume, was now just a cold lifeless body in an airtight tomb.  Along with his body were the dreams of a different future.

Mary was demon-possessed: so she wasn’t allowed to shop, marry, have friends, go to the Temple, or travel freely.  She was one of those fringe losers on the edge of everyone’s radar.  Maybe Jesus would’ve changed all that: but they killed him on a dirty wooden cross.

Only — around the corner — something was happening.

The dream was not dead.

She turns to see two angels.  They ask why she’s crying.  She laments over her Lord, whose body she thinks has been stolen.  She doesn’t understand yet. 

She turns again and there is a gardener.  He asks why she’s crying.  She thinks he knows where the body went.  She doesn’t understand yet.

Some of us live in this space — we don’t know yet.  We are sitting outside a broken dream weeping into our hands and watching the sand fall through tired fingers.  It’s gone.  We can’t possibly know how it will get better.

God understands this.  It’s partly why He sent His Son — to turn back the clock on every fallen grain of sand.

Jesus, in a miraculous meta-cosmic reversal, finished the sentence of humanity with his resurrection.  Entropy died.  Tragedies no longer defined the end.  On the grandest scale, hope weaved itself into broken human hearts and we were revoked every reason to fear.

Then on the smaller scale: for Mary Magdalene, and for you and for me — we await the miracle around the corner.

We lost our dream in a garden once.  But the gardener is here.

He is alive: and so now, are we.

It could be that nothing around you gets better.  But He is there, extending grace within the swirling mess of a hostile world.

It could be that people around you don’t change.  But He is there, growing you to change when others do not.

It could be that you get stuck at that obstacle once more.  But He is there, having already removed every obstacle between you and Him at the cross, empowering you for so much better than you think.

In your crushed swollen chest where the hurt pulls in: Christ comes to fill the broken places like so much water in cracked earth, new breath stretching your lungs, so we may thrive and bloom and stand on our shaking feet again.

Turn.  He is there.

Because I live, you also will live.

— John 14:19

— J.S.

Question: Battling That Anger and Bitterness

Anonymous asked:

I have a really hard time dealing with anger. I bottle it up inside because I don’t know how to let it out. When I do let it out, it’s an explosion! What is the biblical way to deal with anger and how do I keep myself from getting angry/bitter so fast? P.S. You answer peoples questions very well and straight forward. Thank you for taking the time to answer! P.S.S. I think you’re quite handsome!

Hey friend: First of all, thank you for saying I am “handsome.”  I’m guessing you saw my recent pictures from Alabama.  I hardly ever get told that (except by my girlfriend and mother).  I was pretty much bullied about my looks since forever, so I really do appreciate it. 

And hey: I am right there with you on anger, more than you could know. 

Before I go on, I’d like to shamelessly plug a sermon I preached recently on anger here called “Prioritizing Your Outrage.”  I’ll go over some of the same points.

1) Anger by itself is NOT wrong.

Every emotion we experience is a gift from God, but because of our condition called sin, sometimes those emotions go bad.  So jealousy is protection gone bad; worry is concern gone bad; greed is love turned inward; even grief is an indicator that something is not as it should be. Left unchecked, our anger can go rotten like a fruit — but anger is not necessarily “wrong” in the Bible. 

There’s a righteous anger that’s more like passion, and even God Himself is righteously angry against injustice and oppression.  Ephesians 4:26 says “In your anger, do not sin,” and some translations say, “Be angry, but do not sin.” James also writes in 1:20 that “human anger does not produce the righteousness of God.”

So there’s definitely a correct type of anger.  Think of when Jesus flipped the tables of the businessmen around the temple.  They had turned a sacred place into a money-scheme.  I’m not saying you should go flip tables at a megachurch: but I’m saying, Jesus was able to do this without sinning at all.

2) Anger has a purpose in your life.

If God created you with hot blood and a quick tongue, He did it for a reason.  But your personality will go one of two ways.

1) Towards your selfish agenda to control others and overpower them for a sense of authority and wholeness.

2) Or to passionately care about the things that God cares about and use your anger to heal what is broken.

Think of every kid who writes a selfish tweet saying, “I didn’t get an iPad for Christmas, eff my parents.”  That’s stupid anger.  But imagine a kid punching a wall and yelling, “I’m so mad about the poverty in Thailand!”  That’s weird, but it’s righteous anger.

God specifically wired you to be an aggressively outspoken ambassador for His justice, goodness, and Kingdom purposes.  So please don’t feel like your personality is wrong somehow.  God made you the way He wanted — and there’s no point suppressing it.

3) The more you redirect your anger, the less that “unimportant priorities” will bother you.

I used to think that when I get extremely angry — you know, the red-hot, ready-to-blow-up, throwing-things explosion — that I was supposed to count backwards from ten and repeat a mantra and think of unicorns.

This never worked.  The more I said, “Don’t be angry” at myself, the more exhausted I became.  Techniques can help you, but they don’t cure your heart.

But when I realized that God wired me to be passionate for the things that God is passionate about, I began to look at the suffering around the world.  The needs, hurts, lacks, misfortunes, disasters.  I became angry at death, disease, slavery, poverty.  I became involved in LiNK (Liberty in North Korea) and began donating everywhere I could (mostly to Samaritan’s Purse and Medical Teams International), and last year gave half my salary of $10k to fight human trafficking.

But all that to say: When I actually began caring about these bigger issues, the smaller stuff stopped bothering me as much. When you are angry at the right things, you are less likely to get angry at the wrong things.

Being on mission for God has a way of re-prioritizing your outrage for God’s work through you.  It doesn’t mean we are suddenly superior to “small problems,” but that we have fundamentally shifted our orbit around what really matters.  Nothing else so radically re-orients you than embracing what God actually cares about.

Doing what is truly important always turns down the volume of the less important.  When we chase after God, we automatically find sin less attractive.  When we funnel our emotions as fuel for God’s purposes, we find our emotions are more consistent, more sharp, more steady.

So I began having less “meltdowns” to contend with, and even after those explosive moments, I am quicker to apologize and admit my wrongs.  Even the other day, something that would normally set me off (cell phones in a theater) hardly bugged me, and I didn’t notice that I didn’t notice it. 

I am less likely to get bitter because I am so enraptured by God’s mission and His passion for people.  And I am learning that my “anger” — my passion — is meant to be used for His Glory.

This is a slow process.  It’s better than beating yourself up but it takes more time for God’s heart to become a part of you.  It’s not like you won’t ever go off, so show yourself some grace when you do.  It’s also okay to use some techniques to calm down your tantrums.  But all the while, press your heart into Christ.  Press your heart into the needs of the world.  The joy of serving with passion will overtake you.

Ultimately we are not doing these things just to overcome anger.  That’s not even the point.  As you approach the heart of God, something  greater happens. You will find that even your pride, greed, lust, jealousy, insecurity, and anxiety will melt away.  His life fills yours.  Find Him — you find yourself.

— J.S.

Making Prayer Harder Than It Really Is

I don’t know anyone who thinks they’re praying as much as they should.

When the preacher tells us to pray more, we really want to.  It’s a constant, itchy, burdening debt.  Days, weeks, months go by with a handful of failed attempts — and each prayer feels like we’re apologizing. 

I’m sorry I haven’t prayed in so long.  I’m sorry it’s not longer than a few minutes.  I’m sorry it’s not “deeper.” 

Prayer is hard though, if you ever really tried it.

I mean in the first five minutes, you start thinking of other stuff.  A lot.  Did I leave the stove on?  Should I send that email first?  Should I do some sit-ups after?  Did I respond to that text?  It feels like we’re running through an iron stocking, with all these distractions and interruptions and runaway thought-trains.

Then there’s the doubting.  We don’t know if it’s working.  Or if God is listening.  Or if we’re doing it right.  Or if we’re too dirty to pray.  Or if I even need to, since God does what He wants anyway.

There’s all these spiritually incriminating moments that make me want to give up.

I have probably said, “I’ll pray for you” a billion times, and then just forgot half the time. 

I always feel so motivated to pray at church in a big boomy atmosphere with more mature people — but then I feel that guilt accusing myself of convenient hypocrisy. 

Whenever I pray before a meal, it reminds me how little I pray elsewhere. 

When I pray out loud for a group, I’m often grasping for the right words, modifying my own voice to fit the crowd, self-consciously picking Christianese phrases like “bring God the glory” and “rain down mercy” and “holy fire fill us.”  I don’t know what these mean, to tell you the truth.

Can we just admit it then? 

That prayer is really, really hard?  And that we’re not motivated to pray by beating ourselves up into a prayer-debt?  And that guilt-tripping actually makes me want to pray less?

Maybe prayer is more than firing off theologically correct descriptions.  Maybe it’s a conversation with a person: an awesome person. 

Maybe it’s a long-distance phone call to the one who loves our very soul, regardless of how far we’ve gone. 

It’s a reminder of our engagement to God before we meet Him face to face, a moment of vulnerability to discuss our daily struggle with the one who made us, a time of healing from all the hurt we see and suffer everyday. 

Talking with Him, walking with Him.

When I think of prayer this way, I begin to miss Him.  And when I pray to Him, even when I just messed up, those moments become the favorite moments of my life.  Hanging out with God, basking in His goodness, soaking in His glory, two friends taking a walk on the beach and just talking. 

He is holy, but He became one of us too, you know.

I still remember the first time I really prayed without all the coercion.  I had a six month season of migraines so bad that I would go nearly blind; I needed friends to help me walk because it felt like my eyeball was stabbing itself.  Medicine didn’t help.  I went in for a CT scan to see if I had brain cancer.  I did not.

So I was on the ground one night with this migraine pressing against my optic nerves like a pick-axe grinding away, and I prayed.  I couldn’t see.  I was trying not to cry but the tears came anyway.  My head weighed a thousand pounds and I was sweating through my clenched teeth and it felt like needles in my eyelids.

Pain has a way of making you embarrassingly honest.  I was confessing sins I’ve never sinned.  I was begging God for relief.  I was making weird promises.  I went on and on until I had nothing to say.

There was no grand eloquent speech.  I didn’t use formal language, like we so often hear the pastor doing.  I was babbling, really.

It was right then, it felt like I was being steadied with calmness.  I don’t mean to sound too mystical and this isn’t something I’ve tried to duplicate.  I just knew He was there.  He didn’t acknowledge all my sputtering.  It was simply His arms around me, holding me while I was on my knees, rocking back and forth, a Father who came down to the ground and embraced me in that moment of pain.  He seemed to whisper, I am here.  I am here.  My son, I am here. 

The pain didn’t go away, but God and I — we had a great time. 

I love Him for that.  It took that sort of pain to really understand.  But after the migraines ended, I kept talking to Him.  I realized He was always there, rain or sun or in-between.  Not “waiting” for me to talk, like the guilt-trip goes, but just there.  And He loves even our stumbling attempts at prayer, because He loves the mess inside.  He can’t help Himself.

Isn’t this what we long for?  A constant presence to fully know our craziness and still love us.  To be fully known and yet still fully loved. Because we have that in Him.  We have a God who became a man, who profoundly knows our struggle, and wants not only to hear from us, but talk with us.  To walk hand in hand and embrace us in every condition.

Maybe it’s blasphemous, I don’t know.  I just know that I’ve found the desire to pray to Him when I quit worrying about technique and method and routine, and simply just want to know Him for who He is.  He gives us the freedom to talk with Him in our messy, sloppy, flailing weirdness — and He probably prefers it. 

We can be completely ourselves with Him, however imperfectly.  

So I run to Him through distractions.  I quit the guilt trips.  I know that He works through prayer, even if I don’t know how. 

I can speak with words big or small, or none.  At times He speaks; sometimes He doesn’t; and both are okay.  I love Him in good times, bad, through pain, through dryness — and He loves me through it too. He’s singing that song over us right now.  And indeed, I pray that us tiny earthly people can bring Him glory, and that He would rain down mercy and that His holy fire would fill us. 

I pray because I love Him.

— J.S.

Question: Women Pursuing Men?

Anonymous asked:

I have set a standard of not pursuing men whom I am interested in. However, this makes it so difficult as a woman because it’s hard to show interest without being the pursuer. In addition, having a crush is difficult for me since I desire a committed relationship that will lead to marriage someday, not just petty relationships that fill loneliness. How do I go about relationships with men whom I’m interested in without pursuing them?

I’m saying this because I love you, dear sister: but I totally chuckled at your message.

Especially this sentence: “How do I go about relationships with men whom I’m interested in without pursuing them?”

I’m not trying to be mean here.  I also completely understand that a woman can look “desperate” or “man-crazy” if she pursues a guy.  And there’s a very slim chance that a guy might notice you if you make a duck face at him long enough (which already breaks your rules).

So can we step back a bit?  Please allow me the grace to say: Ladies, it’s okay for you to throw a direct signal at another guy if you’re interested. 

I’ll go one further and say that a nice Christian dude usually needs a direct signal because they would never know otherwise.  Most of my guy-friends, as educated and professional as they are, can be as dumb as rocks when it comes to women.  I include myself in there too.

But I think a lot of this has to do with the strange subculture of Christian dating.

We really need to relax a lot about dating and romance.  The Christian subculture gets pretty dang oppressive.  Like when an older lady tells you, “Stop thinking about the way that boy brushed you arm!” — well, sorry lady, but Elisabeth Eliot spent a page talking about the way Jim brushed her arm in Passion and Purity, and Elisabeth Eliot is the ultimate mascot for pure Christian ladies.  I’ve read her book twice and she went sort of crazy going after Jim.  It was also totally sweet.

Oh, and Timothy Keller’s wife actually pursued him by basically saying, “We’re either dating or we’re not going to be friends anymore.”  Pastor Tim admitted he had no idea she felt that way until she said so.  I don’t hear anyone dissing Tim Keller’s wife on this — and in fact, I applaud her.

If you need a biblical example: I seem to remember Ruth, the ancestor of Jesus Christ, approaching a certain Boaz by laying under his covers and proposing to him for marriage.  That’s not very subtle.

This is our human reality: that we’re hardwired to be attracted and feel chemistry and get hormonally excited, and when we’re chained down by weird cultural etiquette, you’re also diminishing your humanness. 

So please, please, please be okay with going into an environment where you can meet many nice cute Christian men.  And if you’re rejected: it might hurt, but it’s not the end of the world. 

I am NOT condoning casual dating nor philandering nor even an emphasis on the dating scene.  I’m not saying every woman needs to start pursuing the dude.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t be careful, because you should, and if you feel some red flags, then bounce. 

Yet please do not enslave yourself to a chokehold mentality that is supposed to be “helping” you when it’s only throttling your God-created femininity.  And pursue God first in all this, because the main focus is not about finding a right partner: but becoming full in Christ, so that no one else may be your savior but Him.  In between that space, you’ll find the guy you’re looking for, and he’ll be looking for you too.

— J.S.

Question: Hopeless, Heartless, and Hanging By A Thread

Anonymous asked:

Sir, I like how real you are. I’m hanging by a thread on to this Christian life. Jesus is great but I can’t imagine what He’d want to do with someone who just doesn’t love Him and, honestly, doesn’t want to obey Him. I tried to live for Him but it feels like slavery. I’m not as good and okay as everyone around me thinks I am. I’m lonely, fed up and I wish I could start my life over where I’m not hanging on to Him only because I’m scared of dying, facing God and fire. Is there any hope for me?

Dear beloved friend,

Want to know a huge secret?

Ready?

Every single Christian in all the history of the world, even the “best” of us, have sometimes felt completely apart from God.

Here’s where you’re at and why it’s okay and where we can go from here.

1) You don’t want to love Him and obey Him. BUT: The Bible actually says this is our default mode of brokenness, our human condition called sin.  So you’re simply being honest about who we all are.

2) You tried to live for Him and it feels like slavery. BUT: Maybe the Christian life isn’t about a begrudging obligation to a set of laws.  Maybe it’s a growing realization that God absolutely loves you regardless of your performance, and that it’s our response to say “I love you too” which makes us crazy in the best way possible to be able to follow Him — just as love makes us crazy for our loved ones.  Maybe it really is a relationship, and not simply receiving instructions in a church service.

3) You think you’re not as good and okay as everyone thinks you are. BUT: I don’t know anyone who thinks they’re as good as everyone thinks they are.  It’s an illogical proposition that’s a devil’s lie, which falls apart quickly.  A little honesty from you about who you are will fix it immediately.  And it’s unfair for anyone to hold you on a pedestal of moral perfection.  If they do, it’s their problem, not yours.

4) You’re lonely.  BUT: Loneliness is a thick fog that we all walk through occasionally, even when we socialize and have tons of friends.  It will hurt, but it comes and goes: so don’t let it anchor your reality.  You’re also not really alone. You’re not the only one who feels like the only one, and also: God.

5) You wish you could start over. BUT: You have today.  You have right now, this moment, this step.  It’s never too late, and that’s not some postcard platitude.  People with even less time than you, less abilities, and less physical aptitude have lived amazing stories.  It can start this very second.  We all wish we could hit a reset button sometimes, but the best reset is to move forward. 

6) You’re following God because you’re scared of the afterlife. BUT: Let’s be real on this one — it’s certainly okay to acknowledge the wrath of God at some point in your faith-journey.  So many people turn a blind eye to the reality of Hell that it grieves me how much we sugarcoat such a serious truth.  Your fear (and my fear) of Hell is not a wrong response. 

Yet the Christian life is a relationship with a Heavenly Father who has way more for us than fire insurance.  When we come to know Him, our fear always gives way to His perfect love (1 John 4:18).  He has for us an intimate joy that moves us so far beyond the fear that it pales in comparison to the rich realness we have with Him. 

Just think: we’re not friends with our friends because we’re scared of consequences.  We have friendships because of the joy of intimacy, the freedom of vulnerability, and the mutual exchange of life.  So it is with God.

Dear friend: There is hope for you yet. God is sovereign and He’s still in the business of rescuing people, polishing their hearts, loving them to a better place, and simply enjoying them for who they are. God not only loves you, but He likes you — just as much as a dad loves His kids and wants to play with them.  He completely understands your struggle more profoundly than you could know, for He became one of us.

I know this won’t solve everything in a day.  But so long as a sliver of faith — a mustard seed — is sown into His goodness, you can make it one more step.  You are, as I’ve said so many times, a work of progress in a process.  We are looking towards the work finished, Jesus.

There is nothing you could do to change God’s mind about you: and it’s then His unchanging heart that will change you.  Believe it.  Enter it. Bask in it.

I love you and I’m praying for you.

— J.S.

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

— Psalm 42:5

“You must ask for God’s help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again.”

— C.S. Lewis