The Final Four

I can't stop thinking about having a BABY BOY!!! Yeah Baby!!!

I also can't stop thinking about what to name him. This is killing me... we only have four months left. Time is running out!

So I finally got Monica to consider four names... and of course, we don't just want any name. We want something with real significance and meaning. Here are my top four:

1. Jedidiah- means "Loved By God"; nicknames: Jet, Jed, JD; Monica hates this idea, but I thought I'd include it here since it's quite amazing.

2. Evan- means "God's Grace; God's gracious gift"; I wanted to name him "Evangelist" (Messenger of Good News), with Evan as his nickname, but Monica WILL NOT HAVE IT. She likes Evan, only if it's Evan. This is fitting, since we agreed on Karis for a girl's name, which also means "Grace".

3. Bryce- ready for this? Means "Of Britain", or "Freckled". That's deep. It's a dope name, but the meaning kills it.

4. Kyle- means "Straight, narrow", as in a straight, narrow passage way. More narrow than it is deep, I guess. Nickname: Ky-Ky, Ky. Monica likes this too, but once again, not much meaning.

That ONE PERFECT person: Part II

I'll share my thoughts regarding the previous blog (Thanks for your responses!)

Me and Monica agreed to pray for a month (November of 2003) to see if God would speak to us regarding whether or not we were "meant for each other". We spent that time apart from each other until the Lord spoke to us.

It was the last day of November, and I still had not heard from the Lord at all. I remember laying in bed in San Francisco, praying to God, "Ok God, this is it. The last day, and I still haven't heard you speak regarding whether or not Monica is the one for me". I kept imagining God would be all dramatic and speak to me at the very last second.

I fell asleep.

I'm quite a deep sleeper... my roommates in college would wake up when my alarm went off, then they'd get up, and physically wake me up since I sleep like a bear. But oddly, that night I was woken up by a leak in the ceiling due to rain... IN ANOTHER ROOM! It was weird, I was wide awake and couldn't go back to sleep because the drip was so constant and so annoying. I remember being utterly frustrated as I laid their trying to fall back asleep.

Then God spoke to me. I had JUST read Proverbs 27:15:
"A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day".

The Lord spoketh! Not that Monica IS NOT THE ONE because she's like a constant dripping... she's anything but quarrelsome! But the Lord spoke to me by helping me realize from this Scripture that the Lord ISN'T going to speak to me regarding whether someone is the one for me or not. I have a freedom to choose.

Prov. 27:15 is a guideline regarding our spouse- it's better not to marry someone who is quarrelsome. It is not a command. The Bible is filled with guidelines for wisely choosing a spouse. For men, wives should be submissive, God-fearing, not quarrelsome, not ill-tempered, etc. For women, it's good if their husband is considerate, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, etc.

The only clear Biblical commands for knowing whether one is the one for us is:
1. He/She is a equally yoked
2. He/She is of the opposite gender.
Other than these two criteria, the Bible only provides guidelines, and allows us the freedom to choose whoever we would want to marry, as long as these two criteria are met. Once we marry, the responsibility is ours to be faithful to our spouse for the rest of our earthly life.

Biblically speaking, there is just no evidence of God having that perfect one for you. The argument is from silence. Of David's many wives, which one was the "right one"? Not that God condoned multiple wives, but even when David married on different occasions, God never condemned David, nor anyone else in the Bible, for marrying the wrong wife.

Logically, it just doesn't work. Considering the past, once someone married the wrong person (which the divorce statistics tell me that's likely the case, and probably happens all the time), EVERYONE ELSE marries the wrong person. For example, if I married the wrong person, I took someone's perfect person, and that someone will end up marrying another wrong person, who was supposed to be someone else's perfect person... and so on and so on. Everyone gets jacked.

There are things we can find in God's Word as things that God values in his people. If we value those same things and look for them in our spouse, then I think we'll be pleased. And during the times when we aren't very pleased, we need the mercy and grace of God to be faithful and committed to love the one we chose for life.

That one PERFECT person

My friend Matt asks a question that, surprisingly, different Christians disagree on:

"Does God have that one person for you?"

Monica and I actually spent a month apart from each other before dating to seek God and listen to His voice. We decided to pray and ask him whether or not we were meant for each other. He spoke to me loud and clear on the 30th day.

What do you think? Does everyone who's meant to be married have one perfect person out there for them? Interestingly, Monica and I disagreed over this before we got married. It actually grieved me that we felt so differently. I think we might even still disagree about this!

I have my thoughts.What are yours?

The Baby Results are in....

So we found out the baby's gender today. CRAZY. It's nice to finally know how to refer to our baby. I no longer have to call the baby "Baby" in order not to have to call "Baby", "It". :)

I have no idea what we're looking at in this ultrasound picture. See if you can guess. Can you see the peepee... or lack thereof? 5 bucks if you can guess Baby's gender before watching the video.



Watch this to see if you got skills.



So there you have it!

Some people have mentioned to me how they were encouraged by my "Reflections on 30" to start praying for their future partner. DO IT! Just a brief background, I started praying for my spouse in college, years before I started dating. I didn't know who she'd be, but I started praying that God would prepare me for her, and prepare her for me.

In 2001, I was convicted to start praying specifically for the possibility of a future with Monica. CRAZY THING IS, I didn't even like her then! After a conversation with one of my best friends, Mike, I told him that I was going to start praying about her. A year later, God worked in a way where we both began to find interest in each other. Now, we're having a baby. :)

But it's never too early to start praying for God to prepare us for the road ahead. I started praying for this baby even before we were pregnant! As soon as we got married, though we planned to wait 2-3 years to have a child, I began praying for the possibility of a future child- that God would give us children who loved Him and devoted their life to him. I prayed that God would prepare us as parents, to know how to raise the child in the Lord, and that God would prepare the child for us.

I pray for our baby everyday. I hope you would pray for him too.

I hope that you will pray for your future partner, whoever that may be. That God would mold you and make you ready for that person, and that person for you. I hope that you too would start praying even now for your future kids, if God decides to give you them.

Easter Sermon: "To Fall In Love with Jesus"

Thank you guys for praying for the Easter Sermon! He is Risen Indeed! I've received some encouraging emails about how God was speaking to people through the Hope of the Resurrection. Some of you have asked for a copy of the sermon. You can listen to it HERE.

The Gift of Pain

If you were going through pain, would you ask God to take it away?

We were talking about leprosy in my “Life of Christ” class that I’m taking at Talbot. We were talking about what it looks like, and how many lepers these days have fingers, hands, arms, and feet looking like they’re being eaten away at. I’ve heard before that leprosy was believed to be an infectous disease where the body deteriorates and eats away at itself, causing lepers to look the way they do.



I also heard an explanation that the body really isn’t eating away itself at all… modern leprosy involves damage to the nerves and the lost sense of touch. And the reason why the body looks as if it’s being eaten away at is simply because there’s no pain acting as warning signals to harm and danger. Naturally, the parts of the body are being burned, rubbed away at, cut off, and damaged because nothing is telling the body that it’s in harms way. Nothing is telling the body to turn away or flee.

I always thought this was a cute urban legend, but was pleasantly surprised when my professor was able to have this validated by a veteran pain specialist at UCLA Medical Center. This doctor confirmed that it is very positively the case among modern day lepers!

If you were experiencing pain in your life, would you ask God to take it away?
To pray for a leper and ask for his healing is to ask God to give the leper the gift of pain. To pray for a leper is to ask God to restore unto him a sensitivity to harm and danger.

If you were going through pain, would you ask God to take it away?

Would you pray for leprosy?

Hebrews 12:11
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10
"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."