Dahhh…

The McDonald’s ice cream cone is the cornerstone of the Mike Hong Mental Wellness program. The vanilla flavored frozen yogurt cone is like Prozac, without the crazy side effects. Plus it gives you calcium and protein, and it’s only around 120 calories. In my opinion it’s just about the most happiness you can buy for a buck.

Even though it was sort of cold today, I decided to walk over to McDonald’s and get a cone during my lunch break. When I arrived at the door, there was this guy who followed me in. He told me this sob story about how he got robbed last night, and that the robbers took everything, including his tools. He said he was too ashamed to tell his girlfriend, so he needed money for bus fare to New York, because he was from New York. The story didn’t really make sense to me, and I could smell the liquor on his breath while he was saying it. I told him I didn’t have cash, (I almost never do) but I offered to buy him a meal. I asked him what he wanted. When he replied, “Get me a combo,” he sounded really pissed off.

I’m usually all for helping those in need. On Alhambra Blvd there are actually a lot of people in need. Pretty much every day I am asked for spare change. I will usually just give them a sandwich or a portion of food if I have it on me. If I have nothing on me, I will just tell them that I don’t have any cash. I have learned from many experiences in the past that it’s better to give food than cash. And most people are genuinely thankful to receive a sandwich or a McD’s hamburger.

What I hate is being taken advantage of. I felt like this guy was trying to take advantage of me, and I didn’t want to deal with that. So when my cone arrived, I gave him the receipt so he could pick up the combo meal and started to walk away. As I was walking out the door, I could hear him tell a different sob story to another person who had just walked in.

I thought of this verse, which a friend of mine used to quote often…
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. -Mt 10:16

I used to think that he was taking the verse out of context. Jesus says this as he is sending the disciples out to the towns in Israel to proclaim the message, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Nowadays I’m not so sure. I can see how it could apply in every day situations. We are in some ways sheep among wolves, so we do need to live with a fair bit of shrewdness while still being innocent…

This weekend I did some work on the house. My bro helped out for most of it, so it was a good time just bonding (well I guess only if manual labor could be considered bonding.) We drained and cleaned the pool, did some random gardening, and shoveled a bunch of dirt from my front yard which we dumped at the Yolo county landfill.

The gardening got me thinking. I am a terrible gardener. Good gardeners constantly take care of their plants, weeding, watering, fertilizing and pruning on a consistent basis. I basically do gardening work once a year (probably not even that much) so my plants are under nourished, overgrown and surrounded by weeds. Despite my neglect, they still grow and thrive and actually provide me with fruit.

The lemon tree outside my window is teeming with lemons. They used to be really dry and tasteless, but for some reason in recent years they have been really juicy and pretty tasty. Last year I actually cut back the tree a lot, since it was really overgrown and blocking the pathway in my side yard. The tree is about half the size it used to be, but it’s still giving me more lemons than I know what to do with.

When I first moved into this house about five years ago, my dad planted this mandarin tree. This is the first year that it’s actually started to grow some decent fruit. They actually look really good. I’ll probably wait and let them ripen a bit more before eating them.

There’s also a navel orange tree in my side yard. I call this the Mike Hong tree, because it’s lazy like me. This year it produced a grand total of four oranges. Here’s one of them. The tree bears really juicy and tasty fruit, I just wish it grew more than four. How do you motivate a fruit tree?

Along the edges of my yard is a planter box. It was overgrown with weeds, which I pulled this past weekend. Surprisingly the the lily plants in the planter box are still alive. At least I think they are lilies– I know very, very little about flowers. I remember they grew some nice flowers. This reminded me of this passage, which is one of my favorite passages in the bible.

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. -Matthew 6:28-34

One aspect of traveling I enjoy is visiting the churches that my friends go to and listening to the pastor’s preach. It’s amazing how a very familiar passage can be completely new to you when it’s taught by a different pastor. This weekend I was in New Jersey visiting my old college roommate.

The sermon was on a very familiar passage, Mark 12:28-31, which talks about the greatest commandment, which we all know is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Jesus also replies with the second command to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The pastor tied the two commands together, saying that the two are intwined, basically that a passionate love for God will automatically lead to loving your neighbor.

Then as application he mentioned three things that suck your passion for God that you should watch out for in your life.

• Unbalanced life- If we are too busy with work, school, etc we will not find time to renew our passion for God, we cannot train ourselves to be godly as in 1 Tim 4:7
• Unconfessed sin- If we are filled with guilt we cannot bring ourselves to God Ps 38:4-6
• Unsupported lifestyle – It’s easier to be passionate along with others who have the same passion (he gave the awesome example of mountain biking) Heb 10:25

Even though I’m guilty of doing it myself, one pet peeve of mine is when people take verses too far out of context.

Sometimes we read too much into a verse, meaning sometimes we look for meaning in bible verses that may not be there. Or sometimes we twist a verse to suit our own purposes, creating meaning that isn’t really there. One verse I’ve heard used in this way is Romans 8:37 “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” I’ve heard it used somewhere along the lines of, “Because God loves our team we will destroy you on the basketball courts today…” I’m pretty sure basketball did not exist in the Roman empire in the first century A.D., so I’m pretty sure that’s not really a great interpretation of that verse.

But then sometimes I wonder if it’s good to read a little bit out of context for some verses. One verse I’ve been thinking of lately is Galatians 1:10- “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

It’s pretty clear from the rest of the chapter what the context is. Many believers in the Galatian church are turning away from Christ because they are being taught a false gospel. This verse comes smack dab in the middle of Paul’s defense of the gospel that he has taught. It’s a gospel he taught not to win approval from people, and not to gain fame or followers for himself, but out of obedience to his calling as missionary to the Gentiles. It’s a gospel that can seem unpleasant to some, because it says that we are all sinners and that we are all in need of a savior. It’s a gospel that polarizes people as much today as it did when Paul preached it. If you were trying to please people, you would not preach the gospel.

So it’s clear that this verse was about why Paul teaches the gospel. Yet I wonder if this is one of those verses that would be helpful if taken slightly out of context. It’s interesting that all the bible translations that I read separate this verse into it’s own paragraph, standing on its own. I like to call these verses that can sort of stand on their own loaded verses.

So this is why I think this loaded verse is useful. For some reason many Christians seem to be somewhat shy about their faith. Some may be shy about praying in public, some may feel weird about having bible studies in coffee houses, others may feel weird about bringing their friends to church events. I am very guilty of these myself. Others are shy about what they say, wanting to look good in front of others. I am sometimes very guilty of this too. (Although nowadays I’m more inclined to need to remember the lessons from James 3 about taming the tongue. I’m sure I say a lot of stupid stuff that I don’t even remember saying…)

So I guess this loaded verse is important for me to remember. It’s very easy to want to be a people pleaser– to say the write things and do things that don’t draw attention to myself. But I need to remind myself that I am not trying to win the approval of people, but of God.