This carelessness in a matter which concerns themselves, their eternity, their all, moves me more to anger than pity; it astonishes and shocks me; it is to me monstrous.
- Blaise Pascal, Pensées

See Pascal’s Wager.

• being the only person obviously window shopping in a store
• speaking at an audible level and intelligible pace to cashiers and servers
• standing close enough to signal eventual intent to order but far enough to let others cut in front while I think
• asking for “just water” at a restaurant that charges more than $1 for a soft-drink
• checking the change handed to me after purchasing something

Everyone’s gone home for Chinese New Year (happy year of the legendary demon serpents to you, by the way) except me. I had too much work to take care of to be able to properly enjoy any leisure time back home to justify the travel time, so I decided to just stick around in Waterloo. I figured I would make good use of the silence and solitude to solve IMPORTANT AND PRESSING CONCERNS (ie: assignments for school).

As a result, this weekend I’ve managed to

1. finish my Calculus assignment (with one or two… fuzzy proofs/leaps of faith here and there)
2. start on my Group Theory assignment (due in a week from tomorrow)
3. not even look at the Complex Analysis assignment (due this Friday… !!!)
4. learn myself some basic LaTeX (for doing my Math assignments on, going forward)
5. convert my copy of Muse @ Glastonbury 2010 from a 9+ GB, laggy .ts file to a 2 GB, awesome .m4v file (a feat that took a whooping 5 hours of background processing)
6. start on Final Fantasy XIII (lent to me courtesy of Sharon)

…so far.

I’m actually not entirely sure how this term is supposed to work out, because I’m already finding the workload to be a bit killer. The last time I took this many Math courses at once I was in first year, and back then I had two distinct advantages, the first being that I knew most of the material from IB Math, and the second being that none of those courses were Pure Math courses. However, this is a perfectly good opportunity (is there any bad one?) to walk by faith and not by sight.

On that note, today I had a sudden epiphany regarding what I think ought to be the proper Christian attitude towards… well, just about everything in life I think. The thought was brought about by a singular line in a song that was part of a worship set at church. It went simply enough:

I am redeemed.
I am redeemed.
I am redeemed.

On the face of it, yes that is probably factually correct, and yet I couldn’t help but feel like something was missing, something important. I think this is a problem with a subset of modern worship music, stemming from a broader problem with our culture in general. It’s got to do with how we view the world around, or more specifically, how we do not, because our gaze is so completely blotted out by our selves. If ever we couldn’t see the forest through the trees, it would be now (or something like that; I’m not too good with idioms).

If we saw the world not as we do, but as we ought, those lines might go something more like this:

God redeemed me from Himself.
God redeemed me to Himself.
God redeemed me for Himself.

This does the actual situation, our circumstance, quite a bit more justice than the original lines. The new version specifies exactly Who is acting on divine initiative to rescue me from Whose just wrath, to enter into Whose holy fellowship, and for Whose ultimate pleasure. And that’s what it’s all about, always.

5 things that I left retreat with:

• the realization that I need to pray more sincerely, frequently, and purposefully (I’ve been trying to pray whenever I am walking around, between classes or errands)
• the greater realization that I need a more systematic approach to reading the Word (I’ve started an ESV one-year schedule to ensure I cover the whole Bible within a year, on top of other side-readings)
• the unshakeable conviction that extra-Biblical exercises (such as lectio divina) really should not be practiced, however deceptively “Christian” they may seem
• the makings of a coffee binge that left me with a killer headache this Monday
• the start of something interesting, engaging, and mutually beneficial between myself and some co-labourers in Christ

I thought the retreat as a whole was a mixed bag of goods. While the speaker as a person was friendly and likeable, I wish the messages had more (Biblical) substance, and less anecdotes and pop culture references. The people of God should seek to hear from Him through the Creator of the Universe, not through the Creatures of the Universe.

The free time was ample and I got to play some games of Colander, proving that Moyee + Herman + myself make an excellent Dynamic Duo + 1 for this kind of game.

I found the devotional time to be excellent, but only after I completely ditched the prescribed devotional materials, and just cozying myself to a book of the Bible. Here’s a quote of a quote from the first day’s materials:

A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, ‘I can’t prove a thing, but there’s something about his eyes and his voice. There’s something about the way he carries his head, his hands, the way he carries his cross—the way he carries me.‘
- Frederick Buechner

To put it plainly, I think the above is wrong. It’s a false portrait of what a Christian is, what his witnessing responsibilities are, and what the nature of his relationship with Christ ought to be. I don’t know Jesus vaguely by a string of “something”s about Him, I know Him through God’s revelation found in His concrete, tangible, and specific Word.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [...] And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
- John 1:1 [...] 14 ESV

So basically, Jesus = the Word of God are one and the same, as far as John’s concerned. Thus, knowing Jesus would be the same as knowing the Word. The Word, in contrast with Buechner’s out-of-his-context quote, is solid, concrete, and certain. That’s why I have a problem with quotes like these. Taken at surface value, they maybe sound convincing. With further consideration, it turns out they implicitly undermine things you should actually be clinging to as foundational to your faith. And then you have to give concession to the fact that maybe the original author didn’t even mean what you got out of the quote, since it was presented out of its context. At the end of this whole exercise, I simply question why we’re even bothering with quotes like these if they only waste our time at best, and distract us from the Word in all other cases.

Anyway, so I just curled up in the corner somewhere and walked my way through my favourite book of Romans, after which I found the fruitfulness of the devotional time with God increase exponentially. I never even bothered with the second day’s devotional materials so that I could spend more time going through Romans. How I ever forgot about the joy and excitement found in reading the (translated) Words of God I will never know, but I hope it never leaves me again.

Basically, the lesson to be learned is that anything that draws you away from the Word cannot be Good News, by definition, so cling to the Word.

1. I am at best an insignificant stain, a creature of wrath in the hands of a holy God.
2. This holy God would be completely justified in erasing me the moment I decided the creature would supersede the Creator.
3. I am still here.

I am convinced that this is (at least in very crude terms) the definition of grace. God is just, and God is merciful, but God is never unjust in His mercy.

Grace is never deserved. That would violate the very definition of grace. Grace is never earned, for the same reason. Grace is never implied, should never be assumed, and can never be taken for granted if you value your life.

R. C. Sproul said it best when he remarked that he could not defend the statement “God’s grace is infinite” when he said ”I couldn’t find any Scripture passage [because] there is none. God’s grace is not infinite. God is infinite, and God is gracious. We experience the grace of an infinite God, but grace is not infinite. God sets limits to His patience and forbearance. He warns us over and over again that someday the ax will fall and His judgment will be poured out.”

And yet, I am still here. We’re all still here. Like the boat of everyday citizens and the boat of convicts in The Dark Knight, the moment of truth arrived and they were both still there. In God’s eyes, neither shipload was more entitled to life, since we all forfeited our lives when we chose sin over obedience. In real life, however, it is God that does the sparing, not us or our fellow sinners.

Thinking on this, I came to the conclusion that God willing decides to do this (ie: causing His grace to manifest as a postponement/withholding of His wrath) for the following reasons:

1. Chiefly, it is for God’s own glory and good pleasure that He chooses to have mercy on whom He has mercy. After all, all things exist for and to please God.
2. Secondly (and in every way subservient to the first reason), it is an opportunity for us to change, to strive to live in a way that is increasingly worthy of our calling (via sanctification).

Anyway, I’m not sure how I want to “end” this little entry, except to remark that today was a terrifying day of sobering realization for me, and I am all the more blessed for it. May I be more and more aware of my own sin that I may weed it out before it destroys any more, all the while praising God for His holiness and His abounding grace that sustains me from day to day.

• 3 Doors Down
• Eurythmics
• Jimmy Eat World
• Keane
• Nirvana

I find it more worthwhile to properly communicate a shadow of what I want to say using someone else’s words and phrases than improperly communicating a carbon copy of what I want to say using my own. And so, more quotables:

[Please visit the original post to listen]

Well I took a walk around the world to ease my troubled mind.
I left my body lying somewhere in the sands of time,
But I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon.
I feel there is nothing I can do, yeah.

I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon.
After all I knew it had to be something to do with You.
I really don’t mind what happens now and then,
As long as You’ll be my friend at the end.

And if I go crazy then will you still call me Superman?
If I’m alive and well, will you be there holding my hand?
I’ll keep you by my side with my superhuman might—!
Kryptonite!

You call me strong, you call me weak,
But still your secrets I will keep,
You took for granted all the times
I never let you down.

And if I go crazy then will you still call me Superman?
If I’m alive and well, will you be there holding my hand?
I’ll keep you by my side with my superhuman might—!
Kryptonite!
- Kryptonite, 3 Doors Down