Korean American Christian Blog

I hate people who say things like "I just came back from meeting God,"

especially when I never meet God myself.

But this time, it was me!

So I will proudly boast in this ever rare moment of something, I felt, was so supernatural. 

There is this Wednesday Prayer meeting I go to every week that is organized by a group called YNYA. They are a ministry of mostly Korean speaking young adults in LA.

I'm not sure if you have ever had the privilege of going to a Korean Service mid-week, but it is pretty intense.

Do not let them fool you.

It is NOT a service, it is a prayer meeting no matter how much they insist otherwise. Prayer is interrupted by praise time.  Prayer is partnered with a sermon. Prayer is aided by more praise time. It is not the other way around like in the English Ministries. 

 At this particular meeting, I was trying desperately not to fall asleep.

I had just eaten 15 minuts ago, a delicious burrito with a side of spicy carrots and jalapenos. (my mouth is watering at the moment)

My lips were burning under the chap stick I had smeared on from the jalapenos, and my eyes were droopy and drowsy.

And I just sat in the corner pew like I always do, alone.

My mind was clear. My thoughts were on the PAPA prayer (Larry Crab's method) of trying to reach God before asking anything from God.

"Lord I'm here. I came to know you. I came to reach you.

I came to exalt you as in the opening of the Lord's prayer,

'Our Father, hallowed be your name.'

I want to just sit still and listen in case that you might talk." 

My lips were still burning. That Jalapeno was still kicking my butt 30 minutes later, but I kept my eyes shut and focused.

Praise music in Korean words describing God continued in the periphery.

The young head pastor, Pastor Young, took the mic and said,

"Let us no longer think of us in God.

Let us begin to think of God in us." 

He preached of having the heart of David,

of how David boldly spoke to Goliath about what his "Almighty God" will do to him.

David didn't think of himself. David thought of God. 

And David was able to see that GOD would kick Goliath's butt, that Goliath was going to have to step up to GOD not David.

I have had the honor of reading Blackaby's amazing amazing devotional "Experiencing God" for the last few months, but IT didn't hit me like this.

Every day the devotional would essentially tell him to focus on God and not myself, but finally it hit me with a ton of bricks,

"I should no longer think of how I am in God,

but start to think about the God in me.

Or even simply, forget me, and just think about God."

God is GOD. He's God!

If I can sing the psalms of David that

"I long to know him, and my body aches to know him,"

I will begin to see how big God really is.

And when I do finally see God for who he is,

then he start to BE HIMSELF in my little tiny body called Me.

Pastor Young then said,

"David praised God for his entire life,

so you shall too.

Worship will lead you to become a Warrior."

Makes sense, because worship is God-centered.

To be a warrior means to be fearless, because others

will fear you, or more specifically, the God in you. 

After that revelation, God continued to speak. He spoke into my mind.

They were not audible words, but they started in my thoughts.

Thoughts of how I need to give up things.

"Lord I give up my new place of living. Lord I give up my unwillingness to move to a city of the homeless. Lord I give you my worries of wife and marriage and frailty. Lord I give you my inadequacies of career and success. Lord I give you my shame and my past and my shamefulness toward my past toward my broken family. Lord I give you my manhood or the lack thereof. Lord I give you my love for sex, love for lust, love for immorality. I give you my deep dark desire to hang onto sex, lust, and other immoral cravings. I give you my deep down knowledge that I cannot overcome sex, lust, immorality. I give you my trust that you are God, and you will overcome them. You will who began a good work in me carry it on until the day of Jesus Christ. You not I."

"Jae, surrender every area of your life. And when the doubt pops up that you will go back to your normal life of worldly flesh, give that up too! Lord I pretend to surrender my life and if I continue to pretend, you will begin to change me. You see my heart even though I have not yet surrendered all those things I said I do in my prayers."

and the Lord said,

"Jae,

Do not care any longer about what other people think,

Now care about what I think."

"Do not CARE any longer about what OTHER people think,

Now care about what I (God your Father) think."

 For some reason, I repeated this in my mind.

And the more I repeated it. The more it meant to me.

I realized how MUCH I care about what others think.

and how MUCH I don't care about what God thinks.

I realized each statement on its own can affect my life tremendously.

And realized how both statements together can change my life entirely.

Through all of these thoughts, or "voices" in my mind,

I was streaming tears.

I did not really move my lips. I did not manufacture words that I did not have.

I tried to speak in tongues (as I had thought I had reacquired last week),

but was not sure if they were really Tongues, as I whispered gibberish.

It may be gibberish, but it was okay because I wasn't trying to show off to others or to God that I had some special gift.

I was only trying to reach God, and nothing more. 

But mostly, I just sat with my eyes closed.

And there was heat like there usually is (during intense prayer) directly on my face.

And I feel like I'm not breathing well. Something is so stuck on my face,

and my throat. In prayer, oddly these sorts of things do not bring discomfort. It just comes with the territory.

 There's a warm radiance of God ON and around my face.

And in my mind there are doubts that creep up of course.

"Jae, this is only a temporary prayer you will forget the moment you walk out of here."

Possibly, but it does not discount Him, and my encounter with Him. 

 Just as if you met a celebrity, and never met him again in your life.

This is different, of course.

My doubts (or the demons) say that there should be immediate change in behavior, immediate surrender, immediate righteousness that follows after such prayers.

No, tonight I am reminded. It is GOD's work.

It is HIS activity. HE will take care of me, or whatever he wants to do with me.

- Jeremiah 29 

More important, it is not ME persay. It is what God wants.

God will do what He will. I am just here as a vessel.

I just let him be him. 

Think God. God. God. God. God. God. God.

And slowly, I will begin to forget about me.

And the hope is that when all is said and done in my stay on earth,

His work was done and completed in my life.