Monday, May 23, 2005
stopping the rain



So something that happened last Friday at the Shakina rally has been mulling around my mind lately. At the rally, a couple of silent protesters with these large signs came to the rally, holding up their signs as they walked around the crowd, intentionally cutting in front of people. Maybe the two men were atheists, but I dunno since I busy operating a video camera and I didn't have time to talk to them.

The younger of the two men held up a white sign that said "REASON" in handwritten letters, with the obvious implication being that Christians are unreasonable (some are, I suppose). The other (older) man had something else written on his sign... because of the strong rain that was falling at the beginning of the rally, he had written on his sign, "DOES GOD CONTROL THE WEATHER?".

I'm sure the guy was congratulating himself on the cleverness of it.

My first thought when I saw the second man's sign was that he had to have had some sort of bad experience with people claiming to be Christians or a big chip on his shoulder to show up at a Christian rally of 2000+ people with only one young guy as his back-up. My second thought when I saw his sign was to think to myself, "Bah, it's lame that the weather is rainy right now and that it's giving that him a reason to be smug. I wonder if God will change the weather."

About a half-hour into the rally, the rain stopped and the sun came out. The guy with his "DOES GOD CONTROL THE WEATHER?" sign stopped showing it. I guess that's what happens when some people choose to call God out...


.:.


In relation to that story, I've been recently thinking about when, why, and how God chooses to intervene in circumstances. To me, it was pretty obvious that God intervened to change the weather. The cycle of rain and sunshine the past few days has been wacky and I can't think that the change was just random.

But when things are stormy in my life, I've started to develop a (bad) habit of not expecting God to do much in helping out. My expectations have been tailored by my life up to now; my expectation of being left to sort things out on my own has been refined by the past 3 years. Or to put it more frankly: I've become accustomed to being left assed-out.

While I don't doubt the existence or benevolence of God, the cynical side of me seems to have taken the view that God freely doles out the goodness to just about anybody except for me. There's this feeling that I'm always last to get picked or I'm consigned the scraps of divine providence. I've never asked for a million dollars, a new car, or a harem of supermodels, but I do pray for my daily bread. My serving doesn't come all the time. Still, I want to be able to trust and be hopeful. But I hate not being able to make ends meet.

And I hate being helpless about it.

I'm hoping things change soon. Finding ways to pay for my ambitions are looking less and less likely as how depressing they are grows in direct correlation. I'm expecting I'll look like Anakin Skywalker after he fought Obi-wan Kenobi when it's all done with.

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Comments:
I don't know much about the Shakina thing except for what I read on people's blogs and the news clip from KOMO but man, I get chills everytime. That's so awesome, what's going on up there!!

I'm not gonna say anything about the other stuff, cuz something tells me that you've heard it all before... but yeah... i hope we'll get to chat sometime soon. in the meantime, hang in there. :)

-G
 
yung, g - thx.
 
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in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33

the facts.
name. Gar AKA "that Chinese guy" "Sleepy.McSleeping"
ethnicity/nationality. Chinese/American, 4th gen.
location. Sea-Town, WA, USA Kawanishi, JAPAN
occupation. less-cynical poor grad student
age. younger than you think, older than you know

 



 

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(myname) @ gmail.com

 

 

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