Imperfection

It seems like yesterday when sophomore year here at UMASS had come to a close. Somehow what feels like "yesterday" is actually a whole 365 days gone by, and boom, I find myself back in this spot once again. This time however, a giant leap closer to graduation. As every year concludes I usually find myself physically in front of my computer and a blank xanga post. Emotionally it's become common to be in a state as if I'm swimming in a giant pool of mixed emotions. Kind of like swimming in a public pool... it's definitely not just water you're swimming in. ;)

What is it about our human nature that imperfection stands out so much? In an entire academic years worth of blessings, fun, smiles, friendship, relationships, community, and love, sadly I can't help but look back at junior year and see all my flaws covering each semester...month...day. It's like what my old youth pastor used to joke about....

Imagine a pool of crystal clear, pure, cold, refreshing water. I like to picture a waterfall and gushing springs and just jumping into the water and drinking it all up. Move over Gatorade! You don't know what refreshment is compared to this water! It's like I bought Dasani and filtered it 100 times through Brita, chilled it and THEN drank it. PURE. Get the point? Well now imagine if I took a TINY speck of my ddong and dropped it in. Did all that description of the PURITY and BEAUTY and CLEANLINESS of the pool of water just disappear? Yeah. Me too.

I find that my analyzation of this junior year is much like the life we as Christians live today. Every single day in our lives is worthy of celebration is it not? EVERY SINGLE DAY. If you call yourself a believer and follower of Christ, then that means you must have understood and accepted the message of the gospel. What can bring more comfort, peace, joy, satisfaction, etc. then the gospel? Nothing that I know of does. Thus I find that in every day there are a countless number of things to be thankful for, to worship for, to pray for, to celebrate for. Good thing is that a lot of the times we DO do that. Bad thing is that as soon as the storm comes all of it disappears faster than your opinion about my ddong water. Life brings to us some sort of struggle or hardship, whatever it may be for you personally, and as soon as it hits, we forget to worship, we don't want to pray, the party is over and there is no celebration. Everyone go home, parties over. Get out. We were so ready to jump into the crystal clear pool and so ready to drink the water, but as soon as the tiny miniscule ddong hit the water, we don't want to drink it anymore. The thing to notice is that we're surrounded by thousands of gallons of crystal clear water versus one .001 gram of human feces. Many times in our lives we're swimming in a thousand gallons of God's blessings, but once the .001 gram of hardship comes our way, its time to get out of the water.

Take the persepective of the creator. God looking down upon his creation. He sends us blessings and love and has SPOILED us with everything we could ever ask for. But are we not the most disgusting and fickle creatures ever? In simplistic terms, to God, are we not the whining baby crying when we don't get the newest toy at Wal-mart that our mom refuses to buy for us?

One thing I love about Christianity, is that bad news always becomes good news and nothing else in the world can say the same. Pretty much everything I wrote above on the surface seems so discouraging. We're babies, we're spoiled, we're fickle, when we're surrounded with blessings we complain. Dang...I'm a very cynical writer no? Haha. I think everything I wrote above has nothing but good news sprayed all over it.

Just for ONE moment think if you were God, what would you think of "insert your name here." If I was God, I would be so fed up with "Daniel Jee-Sup Yoon." For he would have failed me a thousand times and a thousand times more. Luckily grace makes it so that is not the case.
God loves me. God loves you. God IS love.

This is what I mean when I say that Christianity takes bad news and turns it good. Even though we're messed up and we complain when we are called to celebrate, God is gracious and loving. Yes, many times He is tough and teaches us lessons, but its always driven by love.

Want to know the best example of bad news turning good?

Jesus Christ was brutally tortured and crucified. = Bad News
Outcome?...

I rest my case.

I find that life is always about perspective. When given a situation (hardships,fun,friends,problems,tests,etc) which way will you look at it? When given lemons, will you make lemonade type thing? If you are trudging through the storm right now, is your perspective that life sucks and that you can't catch a break, or are you thinking that God is building you and growing you stronger?

So I guess I should take a spoonful of my own advice. So, was junior year about imperfection?

No.

Junior year was about blessings and a whole lotta grace.
A whole lot of it.
Ok. Now after 365 days my blank xanga entry is now full. What's next?


Give me a cup of that crystal clear ddong water.