Peter: Big Mess... Big Heart

I've developed an interest in learning about the different people from the Bible.

One character I find fascinating and interesting is Peter, (Simon, son of John).  Now, I am not a scholar or theologian, so pardon me if I gets some things wrong.  But in this blog, I hope to be able to portray my own thoughts about Peter.

Peter, in a nutshell: from my personal readings of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), he is a very explosive character.  He's got a good heart but he often put his foot in his mouth.  He often says what's on his mind, whether it comes out right or not.  (But then, I think Jesus valued all answers and made them learned from their actions and responses.)  He was a fishermen by trade and most fishermen were vulgar in nature.  You can also imagine him being a very strong guy, because a sea-faring life is often rough.  Think of him as this big bulky guy, sailor dude.  Okay, maybe even to add some insult, Jesus changes his name from Simon to Peter.  The origins of the name Peter actually comes from the female form petra (greek?), meaning "rock".  Jesus really puts him in his place (so you think you are a man, let me give you this girly name.)  So, just think, Simon the fisherman (a manly mans job), leaves his trade, gets a name like Peter, which is male form of petra, follows Jesus and gets himself in all kind of situations.  Read on...

Since it's quite a challenge to find every single story of Peter, I am going to just highlight some of the stories.

We first meet Peter when Jesus was walking around, recruiting for his entourage of disciples.  Luke 5:1-11 and John 1:35-42 both have more details accounts of Jesus meeting Peter (where Matthew and Mark only mentioned Jesus saw him and his brother Andrew first).  (And please note, Luke 5 and John 1 are different accounts of Jesus meeting Andrew and Peter.)  After Jesus said to the brothers, "be fishers of men; follow me", both Andrew and Peter left everything behind (boats, nets, hooks, maybe their lunch in the boat) and started following Jesus.

We next see Peter in Matthew 14.  To recap the story, Jesus and the disciples wanted to cross the sea, so Jesus told the disciples to go ahead and jumped in the boat while Jesus dismisses the crowd.  To catch up, Jesus walked across the waters as a storm was brewing and everybody was like, what the heck!?  Peter cried out, "If that's you, let me walk across the water towards you."  Jesus told him to come but when Peter first stepped onto the water, he panicked.  (Okay, visualize, big guy, been in very rough situations in the sea...)  Kind of an interesting image, right?  This guy who has survived a few storms is afraid to walk on water towards Jesus.  Okay, so walking on water is not always a typical thing to do, but none-the-less, it was pretty cool.  Jesus told Peter "You of little faith.  Why do you doubt?"  Jesus told Peter to man-up.

There was a story where Jesus asked, "Who do you think I am?"  Peter promptly answered, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God."  Jesus then tells Peter one of the most famous things most Christians should know by now, "You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church..."  (There's a debate whether Peter is the first church leader based on this scripture verse.  There is a comma after "Peter" for a reason...) Yet immediately following this story, Jesus predicts his death and Peter went into denial, "Never, Lord!  This shall never happen to you!"  Jesus rebuked him, saying that Peter has the mind of a man.  (Matthew 16)

Then, Peter denied Jesus 3 times.  I think most people know this story: Peter says to Jesus that he will never leave him, that he would die along side Jesus.  But after the disciples scattered after Jesus's arrest, Peter denied him three times before the rooster crowed.  (Matthew 26)

There were many parables told in between these stories, which Peter pretty much says something in each of these.  Some were responses that Jesus was looking for.  Others were responses that reveals a lot of Peter's human character, which is not bad.  Just shows he's human with a good heart.

The final story I want to share is in John 21:
"¹⁷ The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸ I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹ Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
²⁰ Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) ²¹ When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”
²² Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” ²³ Because of this, the rumor spread among the brothers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?”

This lesson actually has been on my mind a lot lately.  Prior to verse 17, Jesus has asked Peter 2 other times, "Simon, do you love me?"  In all three questions, Jesus addressed Peter as Simon.  Simon the Fishermen.  Not "Peter".  (Remember where you came from.  Don't forget.  By the way, you get your name back...)  And if we ever knew Greek, it would read more like "Do you phileo me?  Do you really phileo me?  But for real, do you agape me?"  Jesus asked Peter if he deeply loves Jesus.  Now, before, Peter had denied Jesus three times.  Yet, Jesus knew Peter's heart.  Peter is human but genuine.  Jesus would not have asked the question of love three times if Peter were anything else.

I relate to Peter.  Actually, I think we all do.  Peter might be the biggest mess-up Jesus could ever picked as a disciple.  He has said the "wrong" things, have made the wrong decisions, had done a lot of stupid things.  And like Peter, many times in my own heart, following Christ is too hard and complicated.  I say the wrong things, I do the wrong things.  And there are many distractions in the world.  Like with this story, Peter is comparing a friend to himself.  Jesus says, "What is that to you?  Why do you have to compete and compare and try to be like them?  And how is he like you?"  But what Jesus continually told Peter is to "Follow me" from the time of the recruit, until this last lesson.  Jesus taught Peter faith to walk on water, hope that Peter got a second chance, and an agape love that is unconditional.  Jesus knew Peter had a big heart; Jesus never stopped teaching him because he knew Peter will do great things once he understood what it took to follow Christ.

 

My old blog stuff

I just found out that I still have an old blog account through blogger, with a different email account, which I can't seem to find the password... *sigh*  I've enjoyed reading what I was thinking 6 years ago.  :)

My Testimony

I never knew why I waited this long to tell my story.  (And my greatest inspirations come at night.)

I think since I was a little girl, I was always wondering if there was something out there that created us.  I remember one time when I was 7 or 8 that I found a Bible on a shelf next to my parents bed.  I asked my dad, “What is this?”  And he said, “It’s the Bible, it has a lot of stories.”  I asked, “Dad, can you tell me one of these stories?”  And my dad, in his best translation and story telling, told me the story of Noah’s Ark.  I later found the book again and tried to read it myself but it didn’t have pictures and the words were too complicated to read.  So, I put it down and never thought about it again.

I remember one night as I was falling asleep in bed, the glow of the moon shown through the window.  I lift up my hands, looking at it, and wonder, “Who or what made me?  And why am I here on earth?”  It might have been the same night or many nights after that I had a dream that I was viewing a volcano erupting with lava, gas and rock spewing from the mouth.  Many people at the base of the volcano were scared and running away from the melted flowing lava.  I remember being frighten by this dream but didn’t know what it meant. (Maybe more on the volcano dream later - It had reoccurred 2 other times in my life.)

Fast forward to high school.  By now, I had learned some basic knowledge of different religions in middle school and was very interested in learning religion and philosophy.  At the time, through working with my parents at their restaurant, we have become friends with a Spanish schoolteacher who regularly came to the restaurant.  She invited my brother and me to church, a United Methodist church.  We both became more familiar with Christianity and the routines of the United Methodist services. 

Although I learned a great deal and knowledge about God and Christ, I didn’t have a true relationship with God.  Towards the end of my senior year in high school, I hit a time of depression and anxiety.  Although I was young and had everything going for me (going to North Carolina State University that fall), I was left with the thought of, "What will my future hold next?" A friend at the time, who is a Christian, shared with me various verses on God's love, and the more I dwell of these key verses (namely, John 3:16-17 and 1 Corinthians 13:4-13), the more I realize God is bigger than anything I can imagine. God is love.  That summer, I started to read the Bible on my own.  I’m not quite sure how much I read or what I read but I remember I read a lot.

That fall, I went to NC State University.  And like most freshmen, I want to connect to people and make friends.  I met an older friend who went to my high school and he invited me to his church, which met in Chapel Hill.  I started to connect with these “friends” and became a part of most of their church activities.  One girl took an interest in me and asked me if I wanted to become part of a “Discipleship” Bible study.  Most of the time during this discipleship study, it was one-on-one, just me and her.  I began to learn much of their “theology” and practices of the church.  But something was telling me that there is something wrong with this church.  Although, I felt these people were genuine with their teachings and I thought the truth was taught, there were also times during this Bible study that I left with heavy guilt in my heart, like I have done something terribly wrong.  I started to doubt if my own family was good, if my friends outside of this church was safe to hang out with, the thought of being truly accepted by any groups of friends if I did anything wrong.  I was getting brainwashed and I never felt at the time the true grace of God.  However, the girl did challenge me to read John and that was when my eye and hearts started to open towards Christ.  After the very last study, my friend asked me if I was ready to accept Christ and I told her “yes”.  The next night, we were meeting at the church for mid-week and already the baptismal pool was ready for my immersion.  (One of the practices they held was that you are not truly saved unless you are baptized into their church.)  After the “prayer” and the “dunk”, I came out of the water and I felt a sudden presence of the Holy Spirit coming down on me.  And the Holy Spirit clearly told me right then and there, “Get out of this church NOW!”  I felt the presence of the Spirit around me as I walked out of the pool and I heard people singing and clapping around me.  But all of the noise was darkness to me.  It was the strangest thing to me but I felt the peace of Christ in my heart.

That Thursday happened to be the start of Fall Break.  I had already booked a train to go home and decided to go as plan to go home.  I left Raleigh with a lot of confusion already.  So many of my so-called friends were telling me, “Be careful, don’t talk to anybody, they will pull you out of our church.”  When I arrived home, I talked to my friend, the one who invited me to the Methodist church and she said quite bluntly, “That is a cult.” 

When I went back to Raleigh, I ignored all phone calls from the cult members.  “You will not be saved, you will not go to heaven, you will be so lost out there.”  I heard it all.    But the Spirit in me told me, “You should continue to search for fellowship.  You are now a Christ follower”.  After a few months, the calls ceased.  I was quite determined to find a fellowship and started to check out the local United Methodist church before I ended up in Grace Community Church (moving forward called “Grace”), which is part of Great Commission Churches (probably best described as "evangelical baptist").  I have another older friend (who was also my brother’s friend from Boy Scouts) who happened to go to this campus church and I was curious why a church service would be held on campus.  So, by his invitation and my own curiosity, I started to go to Grace.

My first impression of the church: Oh my goodness, they sing contemporary songs and meet in homegroups (small groups that met in homes/apts).  This looks kind of like the previous (cult) church.  But as I started to meet people and connect, it wasn’t what I expected from my previous experience.  Actually, I kind of like these folks!  They were genuine, honest, and really loved the Lord but have a mind of their own (meaning they were not brainwashed).

Those 7 years (5 years while I was a student at NC State plus 2 more years in Raleigh) was an incredible year of my spiritual growth.  There are a lot of details in between but some notable experiences I had when I was with this church:

• I learned the importance of having a quiet time with the Lord.  It was a time set aside almost daily, between me and God, to pray to God and read the Word.  Mainly, to have a true relationship with God.
• I learned the importance of small group fellowship.  Acts 2:42-47 tells how the early Christians met in homes because at the time, they were persecuted by the Romans for their faith.  They could not meet in public like Americans do today in church buildings.  They met privately in homes and broke bread and sang and prayed and shared whatever they had with each other.  Service today is important to connect people but small group fellowship is where the real growth takes place.
• I learned message of love and salvation and the message of the Great Commission, Matthew 28:16-20.  These verses are the foundation of the Great Commission movement.
• During my sophomore year at NC State, God gave me a vision to be a missionary.  (My May 16, 2009 entry has some details.)
• I became a part of international ministries.
• And somehow, at one time, I worked 3 part-time jobs after I graduated from college.  But God was good and He provided.

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer in May of 2005, I decided to move and be with my parents.  I was very sad to leave Raleigh and my spiritual family.  Little did I know, from these first 7 years as a Christian, it set the fundamentals of my beliefs and how these practices led me to where I am today.  Maybe if I have some more time later, I can be more specific.  But this night owl needs to go to bed soon.  :)

All you really need is love... and a little chocolate doesn't hurt!

Sometimes you never know how God will speak to you... When I opened the wrapper of a Dove chocolate the other day, this is what I read:
"All you really need is love, and a little chocolate doesn't hurt."

The saying in this wrapper perplexed me. I know I have been wrestling with "praying for a husband"... But this little chocolate wrapper struck a chord in my heart and left me digging deeper into my mind and heart.

Over the past several weeks, even before the encounter of this wrapper, my noodley mind brought me in another direction to verses that I haven't thought of in a while.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. or now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. ~1 Corinthians 13:4-13~

These verses are a wonderful verses. (And what part of God's Word is not wonderful?) Although these verses has been quoted gazillion of times in weddings, there is a deeper meaning beyond the love that we normally associated with these verses, which brings me to the next verses...

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.~John 3:16-17~

These verses were pivotal verses towards my acceptance of God and Jesus. Senior year of high school, I was going through a bought of depression and anxiety. Although I was young and had everything going for me (going to NC State that fall), I was left with the thought of, "What will my future hold next?" A friend at the time, who is a Christian, shared with me various verses on God's love, and the more I dwell of these key verses, the more I realize God is bigger than anything I can imagine. God is love. That summer, I started to read the Bible on my own but it was the fall of my freshmen year at NC State that I was challenged to read John and participate in many church-related activities. I became a Christian in October of 1998 (detailed testimony may come later...).

Over the many years of being a Christian, I am sometimes amazed by the depth of God's love, and both the simplicity and complexity of it. To throw in some Greek, there are three forms of love: agape (God's love), philia or phileo (brotherly love) and eros (love in sexual nature or romantic love). Agape love is probably the most mysterious of all the loves. It is the unconditional love of God towards us, a sacrificial love. Even Paul noted the mystery of the relationship between Christ and the church in the context of the love of a husband towards his wife in Ephesians 5:22. Christ loves the church... as a husband should love his wife.

There are many verses in Scripture that talks about God's love. However, not to over-analyze God's love, but simply put: God loves us so much that He gave His Son Jesus as the perfect sacrifice and to take upon himself the sins of this world. And for it is by grace we are saved, through faith...(Ephesians 2:8).

Jesus, for a time, was separated from God when he took upon himself the sins of this world... Jesus even cried out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" And I think the realization of that reality of what Jesus was felt deep in my heart... yes, it is nice to know God will provide, God will clothes us, God will feed us... But God did more than just that. He gave His Son up for us. And through the miracles of God, Jesus was lifted up to be with the Father. It is beyond me why God did this. We didn't deserve it. God did it anyway to renew the covenant, the promise, with His people, to take back what was lost, and to give us the faith in him, hope in him, and the love in him, that Jesus will come back some day.

All I really need is to dwell in the love of the Lord. What more can I ask for?

Happy New Years! - a lesson from Little Women

This year, I thought about not having a new years resolution. But I read something that I thought was very simple yet encouraging. I had the blessing in receiving a Nook for Christmas from my brother and in choosing a few free downloads/books, I ran across a book I have been meaning to read Little Women. I read 1/3 of it when I was in high school but never finish it. And the little that I did read, I don't remember what it was about. So, I decided to start over again, knowing that it was about 4 sisters growing up in the Civil War times.

To share the excerpt first:
"If I don't seem to need help, it is because I have a better friend, even than father, to comfort and sustain me. My child, the troubles and temptations of your life are beginning and may be many, but you can overcome and outlive them all if you learn to feel the strength and tenderness of your Heavenly Father as you do that of your earthly one. The more you love and trust Him, the nearer you will feel to Him, and the less you will depend on human power and wisdom. His love and care never tire or change, can never be taken from you, but may become the source of lifelong peace, happiness, and strength. Believe this heartily, and go to God with all your little cares, and hopes, and sins, and sorrows, as freely and confidingly as you come to your mother."

In this particular chapter, Jo March (also Josephine as some of her family members calls her) had a fight with her youngest sister Amy. Jo didn't want Amy to join her and the oldest sister Meg to watch a play and in return, Amy burnt one of Jo's books. Jo is a tomboy with quite the temper and also has a talent for writing. Jo pretty much exploded as she has worked quite a while on this book for their father (who is away as a chaplain at war) and not forgive her young sister Amy.

The next day, Jo went out to go skating with the neighbor boy Laurie and Amy decided to follow them. In venturing out to the icy lake, Laurie warned Jo about the thin ice in the middle of the lake but Amy didn't hear as she was still far away from them. Amy finally made it to the lake, and as Amy skates out to the middle of the lake, the ice broke underneath her and she fell into the freezing water. Laurie and Jo rescued Amy and got her safely back to the house. Jo felt very bad as the night before her mom told her to "Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry" (Ephesians 4:26) for what Amy had done to her book.

In this sorrowful state that Jo is in, Jo's mother, Mrs. March, told Jo about her relationship with not only Mr. March but also her relationship with God. In this lesson, Mrs. March taught Jo in how to handle her anger and learn to forgive those who wrong her... and that sometimes patience and humility is the strongest teaching than the strictest lecture. But even in this chapter, it's a continuing lesson to all of us that we can go to God no matter what our challenges are in life.