Justin Lee

God's Timing - so good!

Last Saturday, Preston and I had a sick day leaving the city and exploring/photographing on a large frozen lake. Everything during that day just went really well, and I think we both concluded that it was simply God's timing that made it an awesome day. Here's some reasons why...

Preston's last-minute rare open availability - Preston messaged early in the morning at 1am checking to see if I'm free for some picture-taking because his day opened up due to the cancellation of track practice. I was originally going to attend a free apologetics conference, but thought picture taking would be a little more fun =S

Free Parking - We met up at eau claire to leave my van in the parking lot and to take one car out to the lake. As I was about to pay, a lady gave me her ticket and told me it was good until the next morning. SO, I got free parking! Another good start to a good day

No clouds to clouds - I hopped into Preston's car and we noticed at the time, there were absolutely no clouds and just blue skies. This isn't typically ideal conditions for photos, so it was a slight concern for us. But by the time the sun was setting, clouds started floating by for a really nice contrast with the sky and sun, causing crazy colours!

Super warm day - As we were driving up, we were also a little concerned that due to the warm weather the past few days, that the lake wouldn't be frozen. But by the time we got to the lake, we saw the huge lake completely frozen with cars and trucks driving around on it, so we concluded it'd be safe for us to walk on it despite the plus 11 degree weather! It couldn't have been better weather to just camp out on a frozen lake for several hours.

No snow on the roads - As we were driving, we hit massive steep hills, and were we ever grateful there was no snow because we were both confident that Preston's car would not have made it up or down those hills if snow or ice was present!

Coffee/Washroom break - after a couple hours of shooting, the sun was still fairly far from setting, so we had just enough time to drive to the nearest town for a nice coffee (and for me a nice long washroom break =) ) By the time we finished getting coffee, we drove back in time for the sunset and to witness such a rapid change in colour in the sky in such a short amount of time. Really cool.

So in short, it was a sick day with warm weather, a giant frozen lake, smooth roads, coffee/washroom breaks, no clouds to clouds, free parking, crazy landscape views, and last-minute open availabilities that contributed to a sweet day of chilling with Preston, taking photos, and enjoying God's creation.

A chilly, snowy, and wet day of "hiking".

I Shall Not Want - Audrey Assad

Lyrics are simple but yet so powerful

Quick rant...

Was driving home earlier tonight and radio host shares a story of how a guy working at a bank fell asleep and managed to complete a multi-million dollar transaction accidentally while asleep. His boss apparently wasn't paying attention too and approved that as well. Then the radio host says something on the lines of...

"aren't you glad you're not in his shoes? Life's not so bad anymore! You could have it worse. Life is good!"

Not the exact words, but she did say word-for-word "LIfe is good!" and that was the gist of what she said...

 1. Not sure why the Christian radio host is essentially delighting and using others' pain to make herself and others feel better about themselves.

 2. Everyone has different values.  Is she assuming that the loss of a job/work shame is much worse than say losing a loved one? She's speaking publicly on the radio to a wide audience that may not have the same values of job/image as top priority. Making a mistake and getting fired/ridiculed for the mistake at one's job could possibly mean much less to that person than the radio host thinks.

People like Job lost everything, but life was still good. Paul was in prison and persecuted for his beliefs, but life was still good, as he kept doing what he was doing. The disciples of Jesus dropped their jobs and were martyrs, but life was still good. These individuals lost lots on this Earth, but life was still good because of Christ, not their jobs.

3. As Christians, "Life is good" not because we delight in the mistakes & hardships of others, but because we ourselves are sinners and we make mistakes, even when we repent of sin, and that God's holiness, grace, and forgiveness washes our sin so we can be in relationship with God. Sin, grace, repentance, forgiveness, justice etc... is why life is good in a nutshell! 

I have cholinergic urticarial and I've had it since gr. 4. If you see my face puffed up with hives, don't mind me, as I was probably just running in hot or cold weather. It'll go away in about an hour.

Thanks!

  Hives Cause: Cholinergic Urticaria

Symptoms: Itching, swelling, and small hives on the skin.

Cause: This type of reaction is caused by the increase in body temperature that occurs while running, most often during hot weather.

So earlier today during a worship rehearsal, I was chatting with a fellow vocalist at CSC, and she gave some neat advice and personal opinions on worship. They are outlined below with not exact wording, but same meaning/context.

1. “Don’t worry about your vocals and how you sound vocally while worshipping. Most people won’t notice the minor details while you sing (unless you're distractingly bad). Your voice is what it is, just sing and don’t worry about how you sound.”

2. “It’s the emotions and genuine factor that the congregation notices and overrides the technicality of the vocals that the singer may be concerned over. Just imagine Jesus sitting in front of you, and you’re worshiping with Him sitting there. This is what helps me focus and be more engaged with worship.”

3. “What makes me love serving with this team is the fact that I can bring my young sons to practice and they can see you and the other guys serving on the worship team. It’s rare to have men leading in this area (half our team is women), and I want my sons to see you guys as males serving and worshipping God. Sometimes I wonder if it’s incompatible for men to be artistic and also truly be a man at the same time. But David is an excellent example of one who was both an artist/musician, but yet fought and led as a man and king."

Point number 3 reminds me of a section of a talk that Dr. WIlliam Lane Craig gave at the Pastor's Breakfast in Calgary a month ago. Most men in the church find it hard to engage themselves in worship because most modern day worship songs are very "lovey dovey" or "You're beautiful" kind of thing, where the lyrics are incredibly emotional and the opposite of what men like to be. Men would rather want to sing hymns about breaking or smashing stuff for Jesus, not singing about how lovely God is and that He's our bf or something, according to Craig haha. It's true how there's often a disconnect between men and worship as well. It's always encouraging to see the biggest gwai low or the manliest looking dude at church, fully expressing praise, worship and surrender to God. Anyways, like R said, David (Bible) was an excellent example of one who could balance and embrace his emotions well with music and just being a typical man as well, which was a really neat perspective on David I thought!  

An objection to the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Story time! 

So the other night something amazing happened. I went to McDonalds and pondered about the different opportunities my stomach could experience that night. I saw the option of 20 chicken nuggets, but there was no price shown on the menu for the 20. So I went up to the lady working at the till and asked her how much the 20 nugget meal cost. She turned around then punched a couple buttons on her computer and said "$4.49". Completely confused, I said "sure, I'll get that then..." with a great degree of hesitancy and uncertainty (as i thought she was ordering only 6 nuggets or something). So I stood waiting for my nuggets to arrive, but it took forever. As I waited, I started to become a little concerned as I thought she only ordered 6 nuggets (big first world problem for me). While waiting, I looked at the prices for the nuggets and saw that 6 chicken nuggets would have costed $4.49 without tax. After seeing this, I thought to myself "surely she made a mistake!" So I started preparing to think of what else to order after eating the 6 nuggets. But as time passed, I finally got my order and sure enough, I got 2 boxes of 10 nuggets (total of 20 for those who can't count), a medium fries, and a medium drink....

I literally got 20 nuggets + drink + fries, for cheaper than 6 nuggets by itself! I'm not sure why and how that happened, but it was definitely a good time. 

So tonight at Centre Street I thought to myself that I was going to fall asleep during the service because I was dead tired. So as I was falling asleep during the announcements, something immediately caught my attention and woke me up. Gordon Dirks, one of the head pastors, invited Henry Schorr (Senior Pastor) and his wife back onto stage, as this was his first weekend back from his 6 month sabbatical!  

It was quite a sight to see the senior pastor of Centre Street back, as the whole congregation cheered and gave him a standing ovation. It was incredible to see how much the church supported the guy and loved him for his faithful, loyal and genuine service to God. As Henry shared about his time off, it was hard to miss the fact that he actually looked like he was fully recharged of energy and passion for more service for the Lord. It was clear that God really changed him into an even more passionate and stronger pastor with his time off. Looking back 6 months ago and comparing his personality and even his appearance, one could easily tell the before/after changes and convictions that God placed in his heart during his sabbatical. 

It's also encouraging to see a pastor with ambitious, but yet attainable visions that he truly believes in, pursues, and follows up. His humility and willingness to confess his own faults in front of thousands is admirable, and his passion is always evident. This is true even when he speaks 4 times in two days for almost every week. This man is such a beast for God. May God continue to use him effectively in his service! 

Put together a little recording with new audio interfase (M-Audio) with thy sibs! 

Today the Lee kids received devastating news. When I first heard the news, my jaw literally dropped out of great despair and sadness. I never thought I would hear these words spoken to us before. All sorts of questions started flooding my mind when I heard the news. What was I to do now? Where and who would I go to after an exhausting day? Why is this all happening now!?

You’ve probably guessed what happened by now. 

Bubble Station is closing down.  Well, at least for a year (yea, I know… First world problem, but bear with me here).

“This is your last week to drink my bubble tea” - Jacky 

When I heard that sentence as I picked up my yogurt slush bubble tea, my jaw literally dropped. I actually thought to myself, “Where am I going to get decent quality bubble tea anymore from a really friendly guy?!”. There’s not many places in Calgary that produces the fine consistent quality of pearls that Bubble Station makes, where they are generally bigger, more firm, and sweeter than the average pearl around Calgary. His drinks as well are consistently above par. What also makes me want to come back is his consistent great attitude and service. He’s always a cheerful guy and has this friendly way of always saying “K thankyou byebye!” (in his Jacky tone of voice) to his customers when they leave. 

So how about this newly discovered and famous Higgs Boson, also known as the God Particle?

One might find this name rather captivating. I remember flipping through the Metro the day before the big announcement and was immediately captured by the heading: "The God Particle - being possibly discovered" or something like that. I quickly breezed through the article and didn't understand anything it talked about so I just brushed it off and continued on with life. Soon enough, it kept popping up in the news later that night and especially the next day, so I looked into it. 

At first, after reading a few sketchy comments/articles about this whole "God Particle" idea, it seemed like there was a bunch of religious connotations to it. Such ideas include "Idea of a real relational/creator God is incoherent anymore" or "God has been disproved!" All these comments lead to asking the next question of what actual theological implications does the Higgs Boson have?  Through many different resources, I've collected that the title "God Particle" was originally called the "Goddamn Particle", which later changed to the "God Particle" for two reasons:

1) like God, the particle underlies every physical object that exists

2) like God, the particle is very difficult to detect

So I guess there is a bit of religious connection to the name, but not the way I thought it to be and how some thought it to be. Anyways...

While reading through another article, the author of this particular article highlights aspects of God's existence through these two reasons listed above.

I will not discuss the Craig's (author) aspect in regards to the first reason because I currently do not really understand what he's talking about because I'm a little dumb, but I would like to mention his second point which was very pleasant to read.

What I say next is a complete summary of Craig's point in relation to reason number two that was listed above. 

Sometimes God seems frustratingly absent when we need Him at most. God is also undetectable by the five senses in most cases. But what scientists and what we have learned from the Higgs Boson is that physical undetectability is no proof of non-existence and that something can be objectively real and pervasively present even when there's no direct evidence of its presence. Just like the recently proved invisible fields of the Higgs and just because we may not see God's hand at work when suffering, that does NOT imply God is not present and active in your situation. 

As I just typed out that last sentence, it reminded me of a sermon I listened to last night from Erwin Lutzer. Matthew 14:22-33. In this event, the disciples didn't see Jesus and didn't recognize his presence and who he was during the storm. But surely, Jesus was there the whole time and saw every second of this storm. He saved his disciples just in time.

Like this new Higgs Boson deal, it's an impossible find, but scientists are confident it's there even though they may not see it. Just like how God may at times seem impossible to find, He is there and will reveal himself or help us see Him just like in Matthew.

"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;"