i really want logos

not random worship

nice!

Iambic Pentameter

I want to write more music. I haven’t been in the “music scene” in a while and it really shows when I play. Or at least when I hear myself play. And I do want to get better, except my priorities are elsewhere. So I have to admit I feel some remorse because my priority in music is dying. But I have hope. And to pursue that hope. I will dedicate myself to a difficult task. I want to write a hymn.

Why a hymn Alex. Why? (I’m sure a lot of you guys will ask me that. Just like that)

Well reason number one is that. It is difficult. Hymns are usually written in Iambic pentameter which is a form of poetic and dramatic writing, that is described by a particular rhythm in each line. The rhythm can be seen in this way

be • fore | the • throne | of • God | a • bove

eek… this is actually a bad example of a pentameter because there are only 4 sections in the line. Hence the appropriate nomenclature of the form above is called an iambic tetrameter.

An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. We could write the rhythm like this:

da

DUM!

(courtesy of wikipedia)

Anyways I’m not used to writing with much structure and I think it will help me to grow as a songwriter.

Reason two is that I want to improve my quality of writing, in that the hymn will also be accessible to my church. My church likes hymns I realized. Or at least the form of hymns. The Shakespearean type of language in the lyrics and music. Personally it’s cool and all, but I think it’s more on the irrelevant side as a whole of the universal church and also to the musical culture of our youth. But one thing for sure is that most hymns I have listened to had a certain quality of lyrics that are filled with much content. And I guess I want to join that club and discipline myself to write about the proverbial truth of the good news in salvation and about the attributes of God by displaying them through the art of prose. To do this I’m going to need to discipline myself to write in helpful metaphors and cunning allusions.

But yeah those are just two reasons I thought of and hopefully I’ll go through my pursuit of writing this hymn.

Please encourage me along the way!

-Alex Yi

God chose what is weak and foolish.

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Time to take my study break!

I was actually going to publish this post a while back, but I never really got around to it. This passage has been saved in my drafts for quite some time now, but I feel it pertinent to blog about it now.

The passage above is one that always humbles me and keeps me grounded to always wanting to learn and gain wisdom against a self-serving indicative. The passage above reminds me that my greatest wisdom will suffice, still, to nothing compared even to the foolishness of God. (Of course that was a rhetorical device… God has no foolishness in Him)

The truth is,  I’ve been thinking about a lot of stuff recently and this passage hits home in that I’ve relied a lot on my knowledge, “wisdom”, and self to convince other people and myself of the state of Christianity I was in. To me, this was the best tactic, to win another person to Christ or help myself and the people around to mature. But I soon realized I was terribly wrong.

I was always and still am convinced that I, as one who has faith in Christ, should “discipline myself for the purpose of Godliness” (1 Tim 4:7) and that I have been given the responsibility by God to pursue godliness and holiness in response to an emotional and spiritual “passion” and “desire” for God and his word. However I’ve been so caught up with my responsibility I forgot about God’s voluntary work on me, where He himself, as the source of why I want to be disciplined, is also the one that disciplines. I forgot that he allows the change, he allows the wisdom and discernment, I forgot that any blessing I have is from him, through him , and to him.  But foremost I forgot that all things are from him.  This answers to me then, that salvation is all and fully from him, that my speech is virtually nothing in winning someone’s soul and maturing myself and my brothers and sisters around me. God is the catalyst and result of any condition of my body and those around me. That when I am doing something remotely righteous, it’s not me in control. It’s not me at all. It is Christ who lives in me (Gal 2:20). At my very best and utmost confidence, God can anytime shame me, by His wisdom instilled upon whom I may consider foolish and young in the standards of the world. Therefore I should by no means, judge the ways of one who is constantly in the process of being sanctified by Christ.

In that end, I pray that I can be more foolish. If that in someway to reveal to me more the wisdom of God. As the psalmist wrote in Psalm 119:125, “I am your servant; give me understanding, that I may know your testimonies!” My goal is rather, in foolishness or understanding, to know His testimonies. To this day I continue to see God’s work in many people and sometimes I don’t because I choose to point out the small things that bother me.  I pray that I may get out of my state of myopia and see the God’s work of sanctification in His people.

God truly is a glorious God worthy to honored, praised and glorified and Him I want to boast. Because there’s nothing in this world I can really boast in because everything else is really imperfect and ephemeral. Only God, who is eternal and holy, yet merciful and compassionate, is reputable and regarded to receiving any boast by the expiated.

I hope not to be like a Judaizer who added on to Christ crucified but one who has their life clinging hard to that significant, grandiose, glorious truth.

-Alex Yi

the sadness that occured over the weekend.

ergh

So if anyone has been following my blog (for a span of two posts-ago), I expressed how I was in the middle of trying to win a giveaway. Specifically a Software Giveaway that consisted of me finding the phrase “Software Giveaway” in blue somewhere on the homepage of a website in order to win a bible software called logos which I wanted for quite sometime.

Well basically this past week I was on this website like Lebron on Kobe (you’ll see why this metaphor makes sense in a bit). I made this website as my homepage and saw it a multitude of times. Maybe if I got a dollar for each time I looked at the website I might have been able to buy the software itself. Anyhow, this “random” software giveaway phrase didn’t show up ’til the weekend. And for me it made me hopeful yet also exhausted from all my efforts into this contest. I mean by then I knew all about the fact that a trillion one dollar bills would stack past the moon. I knew all about Eugene Cho and his heart for compassion and justice which was cool and all except for the very nonfundamental, nonbiblical (I might get flack for this one), emergent type of way of understand he proclaimed. This is so not to hate on people, because I truly respect those who care for the last, the lost, and the least, but the idea that the Gospel is about the worldly way of pragmatical application of compassion and justice is not convincing to me at least in accordance to scripture. Yeah we should love our neighbors as ourselves especially in terms of bringing justice to the poor (who live in such unequal conditions as the life of the affluent), however I see so much more that scripture brought true comfort and true affluence in knowing Christ. Yeah we may not be one hundred percent sure of the pragmatics of life in knowing Christ. But if those pragmatics are overshadowing the power of grace and the imputation of perfect righteousness by Christ. Those pragmatics are no longer good works because it is not in the workmanship of Christ.

1 Corinthians 9:19-23

19For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

I guess the question then is what is the gospel?

The fact that Jesus physically came to heal people from their present sufferings, to make comfort on earth, or to be worry-free. The gospel  (at least of what scripture convinces me of) is the good news of redemption for our souls. That though we were far from perfect… I wish I could pick a better word for “far” because the distance of our standard of perfection and God’s standard is a distance impossible for us to even comprehend. An idea of distance that is much further than the humane idea of the length between one end of a universe to it’s opposite end… basically I want to say really far. (eek deviated a little bit)… but yeah. In our imperfection and the destroyed person that I am I have been made perfect instantly when God has shown grace to me through his son, Jesus Christ. This is so significant for me, because I understand that I may “suffer” in the here and now, things may bother me in the here and now, but all those worries are rendered to nothing when my God allows me to fixate my eyes upon a beautiful savior. Where, in my vision of the Lord, I can be joyful despite what occurs in the world because of the assurance already given to me in my salvation.

I think maybe that is why Paul was ok with being a slave to all. Because what truly mattered to him, was that people came to know the Gospel. Because in man’s weakness, the Gospel can make any man strong.

I think once a man has been redeemed through Christ. Justice. Compassion. Global Outreach. Would come naturally. Like Paul I would hope also to be a slave, in that, I understand a chunk of Christian Liberty yet I desire to enslave myself under the laws of those who are lawful and under the anarchy of those in anarchy yet living with a heart of Christ’s law, in order for even one man to be saved. So that many will know salvation and it’s beauty.

This is a huge digression from my original topic of my software giveaway failure. But if you’ve been with me thus far I applause you for surviving my rant. But like I mentioned earlier I tried really hard to get my free software, but I failed. Really close to succeeding. But failed nonetheless. Kind of like when Lebron James, one of the best players in the NBA, attempted to block a crucial shot made by Kobe Bryant with two minutes left, and came ridiculously close. But Failed. Berean guys would know what I’m talking about. After that they emailed me to say I got third (sorry to everyone who I said I got second… I made a mistake and at least it made the story more dramatic).

Anyways there’s no real point to this story except that I committed a lot of time to this contest and failed. But nevertheless I’ll keep trying and have hope. I’ll put all my effort once again. And maybe I will win. but all I know is with my greatest effort. Whether it be computers or converts. All of it comes down to the sovereignty of God.

-Alex Yi