numero fifty and God-with-us

Hooray! This is officially the 50th post on this blog!

I guess that really isn't that many considering that I've been writing for 3 years but I'm going to celebrate the occasion anyway. My original intention for this blog was to write about my travels studying abroad, which never happened. I guess in a way, I did eventually travel away from home so at least I have fulfilled that purpose somewhat.

On a completely unrelated note, I was going through the files on my laptop tonight, cleaning and organizing (yes, you can do that on a laptop), when I came across a reflection essay that I wrote for my Christian Doctrines class.

And I thought I would share it with you. It is a reflection of Matthias Grünewald's "The Crucifixion," part of his larger piece the Isenheim Alterpiece.

So, without further ado, here is my essay; enjoy!

A very human death of Yahweh: God-with-us

The Crucifixion, Matthias Grünewald

What difference does it make that Jesus died?

Instinctively, I know that it does make a difference that Jesus died…I just don’t know how to put into words what that difference is.  The painting is very graphic.

It isn’t like a lot of crucifixion paintings where Jesus looks more like a super-human who hasn’t been truly affected by his suffering.

No, Grünewald’s painting is very much in touch with Jesus’s human nature and what it means to suffer to the point of death.

Rather than portray God-with-us as a God who is all-powerful, Jesus is battered and grotesque and wasting away and beaten and weak at his end.

So, why does it matter that he died? First off, I think it matters because it shows that Jesus lived the entire human lifespan from birth to death.

He didn’t skip out on any aspect of it but instead lived it all.

I think what it is even more awe-inspiring in that knowledge is that he didn’t sin at all even when suffering and dying. I know for me, when I was on the brink of death I struggled to even be able to have the thought of mind to even think about sin.

My energy was spent on just surviving – the bare minimum necessary to make it through the day – so I didn’t have any extra energy to devote to loving God and others above myself.

And yet, Jesus did that. 


Another aspect that stands out to me is that if Jesus suffered and died, then there is no amount of suffering that I could go through that Jesus has not himself experienced. You could argue that his suffering was taken to completion in his death.

There is no more suffering after that point and he went there.

So, no matter how much suffering I go through, Jesus has taken it further than that because he took it to its completion.

When I was extremely sick, my body was shutting down: I was dying. Jesus knows what that is like because he was in that same place.


There is no aspect of the human life that he did not live fully.


He conquered death and that means that there is nothing that has not been conquered by him.

There is nothing that does not bow in submission to God – God reigns supreme over all including death and the depths of Hell.



My dear brothers and sisters, I pray that you will come to know Jesus, God-with-us, in ways that you never could have thought or imagined. I pray that you will rest in the knowledge that the God of the universe is with us in our lives - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

writers block and listening for His voice

"Writer's block is a condition, associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task in hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked" writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers. It can manifest as the affected writer viewing their work as inferior or unsuitable, when in fact it could be the opposite." (Wikipedia)

Some of you might be thinking that it's rather odd that I start this off with a definition, especially for a condition associated with writing which I would consider myself inept at. But there is a reason and I shall try to explain it, we'll see if I can actually explain it well. When I started this blog, I came up with this unplanned format that I shaped each of my blog posts to and it works. It starts off with something that is going on in my life, something that at first glimpse may seem ordinary or mundane, and then applying it somehow to my walk with God.

Lately, I haven't been posting as often as I did during the school year. Its not because I am losing interest in blogging but more because I found out that some of my friends read my blog. Every time I think about blogging now, instead of inspiration coming quickly, I start to worry about whether my current idea is good enough; whether it will live up to my friends' expectations. I realized this week that to a certain extent, I have writers block (or in my case, bloggers block?). I'm telling you this because this is what's going on in my life and because the very condition that I "have" has cured me.

How many times in your life have you felt like no matter how much you yell, shout, plead, or cry out to God that he is not answering you? I know I have definitely lost track of how often that happens for me! It's like the open phone line between you and God is out-of-order, or at the very least, on hold. Just as I have a case of writers block, we can sometimes feel like we get hearing-God block, a condition in which it appears that God is not answering our prayers. Psalm 18:6,16 says, "In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried out to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears... He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters." Sounds to me like he hears my cry, and he answers me! Maybe hearing-God block isn't actually a condition, maybe the problem is that we are yelling and shouting so loud that we fail to hear God's quiet voice whispering "I hear you. I'm coming, my daughter."

That makes me think of my 2 month old niece. Here's what sometimes happens when she is hungry. She will start fussing and then it turns to crying. And if food doesn't come fast enough, the crying will escalate and continue getting louder and louder. In her young mind, she is so sure that mommy can't hear her cries for her and thus the crying escalates because of that on top of her hunger.  Now, my sister is a very good mother. This is how it goes from her perspective. Before my niece ever starts crying for food, my sister is watching her and has noticed that she is getting hungry. So she starts getting ready to feed her. (Its usually about this time that my niece starts crying) As my sister is getting ready, she is talking to her daughter, telling her over and over again in her quiet mothering voice that somehow miraculously came with motherhood, "I'm coming, baby girl. Mommy hears you."

Maybe the problem is not that God is not answering but that we are like my niece, so sure that God can't hear us that we shout louder and louder until we are worn out. God is always with us. Psalms 37:24 says that "the Lord holds them [the godly] by the hand." Maybe realizing that God is always there will help us calm down and then we will be able to hear God's wonderful voice whispering to us,

"I'm here, my child. I hear you and I'm coming."

God, thank you for always being with me, holding my hand and never letting me fall. When I am in trouble and crying out to you, help me to remember that you will never let go of me and that you do hear my cries.


"Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress."
                                                                   ~ Psalm 107:6, 13, 19, 28

blogs and fire

My sister and I were talking about blogs this last weekend. She started her blog last fall and that was part of the reason why I started this blog. She mentioned that most blogs "die" very soon after they are created. So I did some research and found out that 60 - 80% of blogs are abandoned within a month after their creation and that 66% of all blogs are abandoned. Another interesting fact I found was that the oldest running blog, Scripting News by Dave Winer, was created in 1997.

Why do I bring this up? Because I think bloggers and their blogs is an analogy for Christians and their relationship with Christ. How many times have you talked with someone who has just become a Christian and they are on fire for God. They are so enthusiastic about everything, sharing it with others, bible studys, going to church, having quiet times with God, you name it, they are right there with as much energy as a Labrador retriever puppy when he (or she) meets new people. Then maybe school becomes super stressful and their family starts having issues, and it seems like everything in life that could go wrong is going wrong and slowly their intense passion starts to fade and maybe instead of reading the Bible every night it becomes every other night. And every other night becomes two nights a week and then its drops to once a week and soon the fire is a pile of coals just barely warm. Isn't that similar to when you first get your blog? Everything you think about, everything that you encounter, you go through it all with a filter of how you could blog about it and so you post frequently. Yet the same thing that happened with the Christian happens with blogging, school and family and friends and volunteering and everything else starts to crowd in and soon you're blogging less and less until finally one day you realize that you're no longer blogging.

I think that is where I am right now in my relationship with God. I sort of had this relationship high about a year ago when I was pledging ADX and I've been coming off of that this school year. How do you find a balance between being like a super hot roaring fire and being a pile of coals? I know it doesn't make sense to be that super hot fire all the time just like being a pile of coals is basically like not being a fire at all, but I don't know how to find the happy medium. God, teach me what that middle point looks like. Show me what it means to be a fire for you.