Htam::Diary.Theme(faith)

This Wednesday night, we had CCF Summer Study in the Avery Piano Room.  John Liu played the piano.  Then we opened up the floor for open discussion.  Dan Thai brought up the question about predestination and free will, so our discussion was focused on that.  In general, I think our discussion went relatively well.  Most people are interested and giving inputs, quoting the Bible where applicable.  I am somewhat amazed at how much Abraham Buditama knows about the scripture and also different viewpoints of certain theological views, including technical terms.  Brandon Hensley seems to know quite a bit, too.

My general thought is that I believe that we were chosen before the foundation of the world and predestined, as according to Ephesians 1 (and other passages).  However, I believe that the fact that God transcends time allowed Him to give us free will, yet guaranteeing that things will go according to His will.  It might be clearer to say "in line with His will" instead of "according to His will."  I think of His will as a set-valued function, where there are many allowable states.  He lets us choose and live our lives according to our free will, but he controls circumstances and to some degree, our thoughts and actions, so that it will be one of these allowable states.  That is, if He does not want something to happen, it will not happen.  However, that does not mean He caused me to like red over blue.

This Thursday, some people from CCF decided to spent the afternoon studying the Bible together.  We were supposed to meet at 11:31 at the Fleming Cannon, but since I spotted Dahvyd Wing making copies for the Dig-In (that's what we call the inductive Bible study by), I decided to keep him company.  After a few mix-ups, the rest of the people have headed for Souplantation, while Dahvyd and I try to look for each other (since he went back to his room to grab stuff).  The two of us walked to Souplantation, the others were not that far ahead.  We started eating at a long table under the transparent roof.  It was rather hot, I could not eat much.  Afterwards we started studying, it was still hot.  I found another long table that was vacated and so we moved over there.  This time, we are in the shade, much better.  I started studying too.  We are looking at the first few chapters of Mark.  Every half an hour or so, I got more food and ate stuff.  Overall, I ate a lot.  We stayed there for about 5.5 hours (I am surprised Souplantation let us stay there that long).  We studied by looking at scripture that is printed straight without formatting: no paragraph breaks, verse numbers, and so on.  The first task is to assign paragraph breaks, and also to think of titles for each section.  We did this ourselves.  We also found key words, topic sentences, important and repeating ideas, phrases, and marked them with all sorts of colours as we so desire.  Then we get into small groups of 3 to 4 people and discussed what we learned.  This was quite intense, and by the end, most of us are pretty tired.  We decided to take the night off, and resume tomorrow.  People who are there include Jon Gardner, Scott Hsieh, Kevin Chen, Jennifer Hawley, Mary Dorman, Jon Winn, Dahvyd Wing, Abraham Buditama, and the two Jay Parkers.

This Wednesday, Scott Hsieh invited me to come to RSG early and discuss things we want to discuss in RSG.  So I came to Ruddock about half an hour earlier, and we went outside to a table.  The last time I sat down around that table was with Bing Huo, when we had a very long and deep discussion about decisions we make in life, or something like that.  I miss Bing!  Anyways, I had good discussion with Scott.  I think I am going to remember that table as the "deep discussion table" now.  At RSG, we discussed what it means that all that we do will be judged one day, and how that might affect our how we live our lives today.  It was quite good in the sense that many of us are actively participating.  However, it turned in to a quite philosophical discussion of meta-things.  Overall, probably too cerebral.

This Monday is the first day that really felt like Winter break.  last week after I was done with finals on Wednesday, my roommates were still here, and we still had activities.  Ironically, "having fun" events on Thursday and Friday made it not feel like break.  Then comes the weekends, just like ordinary weekends.  Today however, my roommates are gone, I have no responsibilities I have to finish, hence it is break-like.  Tonight I went to play table tennis, however, we had to leave because the gym is reserved for something else, so we only played for about half an hour.  Afterwards, Benjamin Yang came to my room and we played Wing Ning Yung's Tetris Attack on her Nintendo console.  Later Caleb Ng dropped by and they played each other while I read more Bible.  I read 18 chapters of the Bible today and finished the Gospel According to Luke (I read 6 chapters before today).  It is nice to be able to spend more time reading the Bible.

This Wednesday, we had our first real RSG Bible study this year.  The frosh were Abraham, Simpson, Bettina, and Japeth; Jaime and Wendy were the sophomores; Hyungmin, Scott, Tim, and I were the juniors; Wing and Romero were the seniors.  Our discussion was pretty good; even though Scott was leading, he emailed us and asked us to read before hand and think about it (I suggested this).  So many of us came prepared with stuff to say, and we were able to answer each other's questions and discuss different aspects of Revelation 1.

This Sunday I still woke up for morning devotion.  We had breaking of bread in the morning, where I prayed.  Then we Stephen Kaung gave the last message.  Charley and I walked really fast to lunch, it was worth it.  When we got our food, we looked outside and the line is longer than we have ever seen: beyond the bend of the building!  Later I hastily went back to pack and came to the rendeavouz point slightly late.  No one has come yet, and I waited a long time before Hou-En Han showed up.  I said farewell to a lot of people, and then drove back with Hou-En.  We had dinner at Marie Callendar's joint with Noah, Sam, Steve, Rebecca, Katie, and Wei.

Today, while waiting for Hou-En to show up, Carrie Sun solved a cube!  I am so proud, I taught her two years ago, and she can still do it now, amazing!  I had to help her slightly in swapping the corners of the last layer, but I am still very amazed.  Besides this, I have inspired Karen and Kevin Chen to each buy a cube.  I demonstrated the cube to many people from various churches, and most of them were quite intrigued.  I also got a picture with a kid named Jeddy.

This Saturday is the last full day of WCCC.  Morning devotion early in the morning is now the norm.  Stephen Kaung's message in the morning, Dana Congdon's workship in the afternoon, and Christian Chen's message at night.  The singspirations in the afternoon has been led by brother Hosea Wu many years.  After not singing My Tribute first day, Charley went and suggested it to the brother.  After not singing it the second day, I suggested it to the brother.  Today, he led this song, saying that a couple of young brothers suggested it to him.

Stephen (San Francisco Church Assembly), Samuel (Canada), Charley (SCA), and I (ACF) also went to the administration and asked permission to have a young people's singspiration at night.  They gave us a provisional go if we find someone older than thirty to be in charge.  We got Chris Tom's dad Lawrence Tom.  Charley and I also went to brother Eric Wu to have this announced after the evening message.  We had singspiration from 21:45 to 22:30:  Samuel led, Stephan (and Samuel) played guitar, we had a projector and a database of songs, and Charley and I ushered.  We had about a hundred young people come from various churches.  (This has been going on every WCCC, as far as I can remember.)  Because we were in charge, however, I was only able to get back at around 22:45, after spending fifteen minutes cleaning up.  I slept around 23:00, morning devotion tomorrow is going to be tough.

This Friday is already the mid-point of the conference.  I again slept at ten the previous night and woke up for morning devotions.  This morning, I taught the children's class with Karen Wang.  I used to teach the 8 and 9 year olds with SCA  people, they still teach that age range; but this time I taught with ACF, so we have younger kids ranging between 6 and 7 years old.  I had them memorize Galatians 2:20, but they complained that it was too long.  It was interesting teaching kids, but I got really tired.  In the afternoon, I went to the message replay during free time, so I got to listen to brother Stephen Kaung's message on The Cross and the Flesh played from DVD on a TV.  It was pretty basic, and we already knew most of that foundation.  I then attended the same afternoon workshop, and at night with Lance Lambert on the same topic again.  Afterwards, Charley, Paul Chou and I went to my room and sang songs for a while, then I went to sleep at 22:00 again.

This Thursday is the first full day of WCCC 2006.  I woke up extremely early--at 06:15.  I took a shower and went to morning devotions with Stephen Bor.  In the morning, brother Christian Chen spoke on The Cross and the Law.  I really like Christian Chen's messages.  It is often intellectually fulfilling, makes logical sense, and easy to follow the main points.  After singspiration, most young people had afternoon workshop with Dana Congdon, on Learning the Lessons of the Cross in Youth:  Intermediate Cruciology.  At night, Lance Lambert spoke again.  This time, it was easier to follow his points because he enumerated them.  After the night message, I walked around with Charley, trying to find a ping pong table.  (Note: I brought my paddle, but was not able to use it at all this conference.)

This Wednesday, we awoke in the morning and drove up to San Francisco.  I was with Wei Jia, Steve and Tammy Lu.  Sam Ho drove Noah Dekkers, Rebecca and Katie Russey.  We arived shortly before 17:00 at the San Francisco State University.  While registering, I saw Charley Zhang, Paul Chou, and Nicoli Auyong.  Later, I saw a lot of different people from Seattle, I cannot remember exactly when and where I see them.  I am rooming with Sam Ho this time, the room is really nice, and we have our own bathroom.  The theme of this conference is The Way to the Eternal Purpose of God - the Cross II.  This evening, brother Lance Lambert shared on The Cross and the World.  After the message, Charley, Bo Wang, and I came back to my room and we talked for a while, mainly about CPU.  I went to sleep at 22:00.

This Tuesday, I packed and got ready for the West Coast Christian Conference.  I am going to stay over at Sam's and head to San Francisco early tomorrow morning.  Then we will have five days of conference, and I should be back on Sunday.  Hopefully, this year I can learn a lot.

This Thursday, we had our first ABSK Bible study.  Last year we did it on Thursdays, but this year we are moving it to Fridays.  This week, however, the different ABSK groups on multiple campuses are having a special meeting on Friday, so our Bible study was reverted to Thursday for this week.  We reviewed Genesis.  We will probably spend one more week or so reviewing, then we will continue our study of Genesis.

Afterwards, I went to table tennis class.  Today I learned a lot.  We did backhand looping.  Surprisingly, it is not very difficult, but only somewhat hard.  I did pretty well and improved quite a bit.  This was so fun.

This Wednesday, we had our first Ruddock Small Group (RSG) meeting this year.  We did not have Bible study.  Rather, after singspiration, we played some games, and decided on the book we are to study this quarter and the time to meet.  In the future, this is probably how I would be spending my Wednesday nights.

There was also the free-stuff fair (Career fair), but I had class throughout and was not able to go.

This Friday, we have Bible study at church in the evening. So during the day, I prepared by reading the passages (2 Kings 9-17). I also did some jigsaw puzzles and played some Sims. Furthermore, I finished watching Left Behind 2: Tribulation Force. At night, we went to church. The study was quite good. I miss these people a lot.

This Sunday, after church, I played table tennis at church. Some of the people I used to play with every week was there. Also, Tyler Phong (sp?) whom I met at SCC during senior year in high school came to our church for the first time. I used to play table tennis with him too, so I played with him and his bunch of friends from Hong Kong. It was fun.

Later at night Chip and Charley's cousin came over for dinner. We had some fellowship regarding following the Lord, listening, and the end times.

I just got back from Ruddock Small Group (yes this late). Today is the last meeting with the seniors. After studying Malachi 4, the last book of the Bible (a good way to the end the school year, eh?), we had a long worship time with lots of hymns (and some songs and, gasp, Christmas songs). Later we prayed for Michael Priolo and Theodore Yu (Teddy). It was a very good meeting. We also decided that we will let Ruddock Small Group live on, despite the (possible) changes in small group structure next year to be more along house lines, as we already satisfy the requirement and we are a pretty close knit group.

This Wednesday, I started reading Isaiah with John Elijah Chou. We are reading three (3) chapters per day, starting yesterday. Yes, I failed to start the first day we are starting. Anyhow, I am reading Isaiah now. Join us if you want to.

I finished Ma5 set in the morning and finished up Ph1 set during Ma3, as usual. It has fallen into this habit now. I have to say it is not the best way to schedule things. My Ec11 professor does not possess punctuality at all. Today he was late three minutes (as usual, sometimes even more) and ended the class eight (8) minutes over time, causing me to be late to my next class. I am a bit angry. I have thought of writing `Thou art late again.' on the blackboard before he comes. But that might be a bit mean.

This Wednesday, having to do physics right before it is due, I did not have enough time to read my philosophy book. I ended up only reading half of the assigned reading. It is justifiable, however, since we the require reading is for both Thursday and next Tuesday. I am presenting next Tuesday (on the reading material), so it makes sense to NOT read it until I have time to slowly analyze the material.

This week we finally have RSG on Wednesday. Previously they have been pushed to Thursday because of scheduling conflicts. The discussion was quite good.

This Saturday, at Alhambra Christian Fellowship (``ACF''), the church I regularly attend, we had a weekend special meeting. Brother Peng from Washington came to share. It was really good. He first shared on the focus of Spiritual battle. After a five-minute break, he continued to share on the devices of the Enemy.

He ended pretty late and a bunch of young people went and got lunch together. I was starved into dizziness. After some soup and steamed rice (I could not wait for the dishes), I recovered somewhat. Later Hou-En took me to get my phone checked. We got some ice-cream and I got back to Caltech, on a very full stomach.

We decided to skip dinner (though I had supper and ate some chips and a burger) and went to the night meeting with brother Peng again. This time he speaks in English and only to the young people. He explained the correlation of the major events in the world with the Bible. It was good. Pretty clear.

In our Ruddock Small Group Bible Study, we are starting the study of Ecclesiastes. This is fairly interesting. Some are questioning, why are we here (at Caltech)? If knowledge is not the goal, what is? We need to recognize that our existence is not simply for assimilating more knowledge. This world is not our home. We do not belong here. We are merely sojourners in this world. Shall we remember our position daily.

We studied Psalm 126 today morning during the message time. (The young people have its own meeting.) It was very good. I shall write on this matter some other time.

After I took a shower and cooled down, I skipped house dinner (which is really, really stressful) and went to the CCF BBQ event. I talked with many Christians, whom I am comfortable talking to, and enjoyed my time. I talked to a few upperclassmen, including Jo So. He shared with me how the Lord has been working in his life and in the group as well. It is really nice to hear other brothers and sisters' testimonies on the faithfulness of our Lord.

Today our small group
G = { Joe, Dennis, Bo, I, Charley }
went to the driving range again. Mike was there. Ben and Joanna's respective parents were also there. I actually did much better today than I last week. Because of some error in communicational transmission, however, Charley and I arrived late. I was not able to play golf for a long time. Mike and our small group went to eat those gigantic calzones again.

Because I had a big lunch at Super China Buffet, I could not finish a whole calzone. I split with Joe, whereas Mike saved half for lunch the next day. Dennis, Bo, and Charley all finished their share. The salad is actually extremely good in my opinion. We talked about some moral issues and also on some lighter subjects.

Finally, it was time to say good bye. Sad. Bo will not be back until Winter break, but I will not be here during Winter break. I probably will not see him until next Summer. Charley is leaving for China, and will not be back before I head off to California. Sad, sad, sad. These are my closest family. Anyhow, imagine guys hugging each other awkwardly. I witnessed a total of six (6) hugs.

I truly thank the Lord for this Basic Truth small group experience, if not for this, I probably will not have known Joe, Dennis, and Bo this well. Charley on the other hand, has been a very special blessing in my life. All the quick and to-the-point phone prayers, the midnight chat about life, the discussion and mutually beneficial homework help, the tennis matches, the dinners together, and the like will be remembered. It is wonderful when brothers and sisters care for each other in truth and in love. In the past year or so, the impact of my brother on my spirtual life cannot be ignored. I wish I have also made an impact on his spiritual walk with the Lord. We can only pray for each other more often now, may the Lord, whom we surely trust, watch over and bless us abundantly in the years to come. May he lead my brothers, especiall Bo, who is out of state, on walks desirable in his heart. May he guide us all away from the tempter and from all evil. May our spirits and souls thirst for himself more in our daily growth, that we may no longer be infants, but to mature and reach unity in the spirit. Amen.

Friday afternoon Dennis and I met at church and prepared for this Bible study on Daniel 12. (This is different from the material preparation with Charley, as that is for the future.) We went over every single verse: raised questions, discussed view points, cross-referenced, searched the web, et cetera.
Later we went to Red Robins in the Northgate Mall for dinner. We met Carter's family and DK's family. DK's mom said the restaurant is supposed to be for special occasions and not for casual dinner. So perhaps Dennis or I should be having a birthday, suggested Dennis. We were so rushed and got back to church right on time. Whoosh.
Of course I did the song projections and led the Bible study. We gained a bit more knowledge concerning the end-times. Even though there are many aspects I still understand not, I still thank the Lord for this Bible study.
I am actually VERY tired. I also have table-tennis coaching session tomorrow, so I am going to sleep before midnight for once!

Wednesday afternoon, the following set of people went for tennis:
T = { Paul, Stanley, Seaton, Jed, Charley }.
We played at Shorewood from 1600 till 1800. We played 2 on 3, hehe.

Later, the following set of people went out for dinner and Bible study preparation:
F = { Daniel, Jed, Charley }.
We ate at the Vietnamese restaurant next to church. I still have trouble pronouncing the dish I always order.
Afterwards, we went back to church and proof read our material preparation for the four-year SCA English group Bible reading plan.
We are going to go over the entire Bible in four years in Bible study on Friday nights. Therefore we need to cover many chapters per (Friday) night. So material needs to be prepared beforehand. Thus our preparation.
I was in charge of Exodus 1-4 on the oppression of the Israelites and the first two-thirds of the life of Moses. Hopefully something meaningful has been done.

So the intersection of T and F (T cup F = T - (T-F) = F - (F-T)) is { Jed, Charley }.

Yesterday night, I decided to read the Bible outside in the dark.
It was very hot in my room (it faces both the south and the west), so I wanted to go out for some cool air. Knowing me, I do not wish to be idle or ``waste time,'' so I brought my Bible out there. Sitting out there reading was a fun experience, maybe I should do it more. Too bad no one was there to read the Bible with me. Hehe. It would be nice if everyone just read more Bible and talk more about God when we gather.
Oh, and Yuh-Chi thinks I am romantic, hehe. Sitting out doors reading the Bible under the gorgeous illumination from the moon is simply romantic, is it not?

Today small group dinner with (alphabetically by last name) Joseph, Dennis, Bo, and Charley. We went to the place next to UW and got huge calzones. They are sooooo big. We all finished it save Joe, but he is sick, so we forbear. Even though Dennis prayed for our time of ``fellowship,'' we pretty much just chatted the whole time. It was good to be with brothers and sisters, nevertheless. Will we were not with any sisters, which is disappointing (just kidding). I can still feel the food I ate tonight. I might need to refrain from consuming large amount of dietary supplements for a while.

Some said that the Bible is always literally true. To me, however, I think there are certainly some areas which shall be considered strictly as a figure of speech.

The other day I was actually talking with Charley about this. Nothing is impossible with God. Is it literally true? None and all are basically the two views of the same concept. It involves infinity, which is by nature inconstructible. For instance, an omniscient being: does he know about something that he does not fully know about? If he knows everything, there is nothing he does not know fully about. So he cannot ``know about something that he does not fully know about.'' But if there is nothing there to know of, can you blame him for not knowing? Similar arguments have I heard about the impossibility of an omnipotent being: Can the said being create a rock so heavy such that he cannot move it? All these are logically intriguing question, built on one assumption: the binary classification of being able (or not). From the argument it might seem there does not exist an all-powerful being. However I fully believe our God is all-powerful. How can this be? It seems logical to assume our human understanding of the concept ``omnipotent'' is limited, and perhaps flawed. After some thought and conversation (or ``fellowship'') with the aforementioned brother, I think it is reasonable to say that the fact that ``God is able to do whatever he pleases'' justifies the human phrase ``God is omnipotent.'' It is not a matter of whether God is able to find fault concerning himself. Who are we, to give him a test? As long as God is able to perform anything needed for his eternal purpose, all is well.

Now the above paragraph might sound sound. However, this introduce the potential of fuzzying the absoluteness of God's word, does it not? Consider John 14:13-4. (This is actually what prompted me in writing this message.) ``And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.'' Now shall this be taken literally? If we ask in the Son's name to return right now, will he do it? I think it is important that we see that the purpose is the glorification of the Son, not what our wishes happen to be. God is obviously not meant to be a genie granting us all that we want. If something we ask is not in alignment with God's will, or if it does not glorify the Son, God may not necessarily do it. This can probably be confirmed by reading the WHOLE Scripture (not just picking out verses to suite our wishes) or by our first-hand experiences. But if we look again at the verses, we still get the feeling that God is giving us a bigger promise. What is wrong? Is it wrong because we are picking out a small fragment of the Scripture, totally being ignorant to the rest of the Bible which gives a testimony of the characteristics of God, or is it simply that this is a literary device the Lord Jesus used to make a point? It really could be both.

I doubt that the Lord will refrain from using proper literary devices to make all his words literary true. I believe when we pick out a small fragment of his words to use, we need to be extremeley careful not to misuse outside of context. I think God's word is absolute in which that he means what he means. Yet in our limited human understanding, we cannot stubbornly render all his words literally ignoring the rest of his word.

Our Bible study tonight was on Daniel chapter 11.
It is the middle chapter of the three-chapter vision in Daniel 10 through 12. Literally, it, at that time, prophesied concerning secular wars and conflicts. Now, looking back, it simply looks like a history book written temporally displaced. However, amongst these conflicts, there exist deeper, spirtual meanings and lessons to be learned. I have not yet obtained understanding concering this layer of light.

After Bible study, I discussed with Mel a bit about the event tonight and concering the chapter itself. I seemed to confuse Mel all the time and she does not understand me. HAHA. Anyways, I do not know who actually understands me.

West Coast Christian Conference 2004 was from July 21 to 28.
Topic: ``Knowing the Holy Spirit.''
Location: Pacific Lutheran University, Seattle, WA.

The three main sub topics are
* The Person of the Holy Spirit by Lance Lambert,
* The Ministry of the Holy Spirit by Christian Chen, and
* The Manifestation of the Holy Spirit by Stephen Kaung.
The three short topics are
* The Holy Spirt and the Bible by Kwok-Hin Wong,
* The Holy Spirt and Spiritual Life by Godwin Sun, and
* The Holy Spirt and the Church by Hoseah Wu.

I taught the second/third graders during the first Christian Chen message, therefore I felt I should go to the message replay before I listen to any more of his messages. Because bro Chen goes very fast and his materials are always extremely dense. He ALWAYS goes over the time limit. He has a lot to say.

So because of the message replay and the morning teaching, I was too tired to attend the first special topic by brother Wong. I attended all the other meetings.
Some of this must be true:
* the topic this year is comparably simpler,
* this year the speakers all spoke very clearly, or
* I matured a bit in the Spirt,
I felt I understood more of the messages than the previous years.

May I be able
* to subjectify the objectiveness of his Spirit,
* to experience him first hand,
* to establish or strengthen my relationship with him, and
* to grow in the knowledge of him and become mature in the Spirit.

I shared with the Junior Youth kids today (or yesterday, Sunday).
Some said it was good.
I hope they actually learned something and will read the Bible more.
I urge all of them to find spiritual companions... I hope they remember.
Anyways, I am really tired.
The best thing about sharing with them is:
I lost my rubik's cube a few days ago, but some of them found it.
Now I have my rubik's cube back. :)

Yesterday I led Bible study (with Grace).
Therefore, I only started reading my daily Bible reading after church.
I spend so loooong that I actually broke my record of late sleep.
I think I went to bed THIS MORNING around 12:30. Whoa!
This is THE latest...
I should start reconsidering when I read Bible. :)

I have been preparing my sharing with the Junior Youth group for this Sunday.
I also will be leading Bible study tonight.
Just so busy...
I have a bunch of placement tests I need to complete in a short amount of time.