Seminary Insights

Ephesians 4:1 “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”

For most of my adult life I’ve struggled with the concept of my calling. I remember three years out of University I had three different jobs in three different industries (tech, music & finance). I got really frustrated with myself and cried out to God. I journaled a lot. I read “What Should I Do With My Life?” by Po Bronson.

Well I managed to stay in derivatives for four years, then shifted to the commodities industry for 6 years, before switching again to venture capital where I’ve been working for about 8 years. With each transition I get more upset with myself for lacking the focus and resolve that it takes to gain mastery in one subject area.

Well two weeks ago I started auditing a class at Fuller Theological Seminary taught by Tod Bolsinger, who wrote “Canoeing The Mountains” as well as our first reading assignment for the class, an article entitled “Formed, Not Found.”

“In a rapidly changing world, it is the question [of calling] now being asked repeatedly throughout life. It can be as ordinary as a morning spent searching help wanted ads or as aching as a prayer: “Lord what am I to do?” The wish that seems promised in the biblical stories is that it will be a one-time, hopefully once-for-all announcement like a proposal for marriage. But more like marriage itself, one’s calling in life is not so much found as formed. Or to say it even more clearly, our vocation is not truly found until we are fit for it.”

In the last few weeks, I’ve been gaining great insight about my calling through scripture, Amasia’s new Senior Advisor Dave Gibbons, and our reading assignments at Fuller. I don’t claim to know everything just yet, but one thing I do know for certain is that God has revealed parts of the picture to me at exactly the right time. When I was frustrated due to a lack of clarity, the root cause was really my own lack of preparedness. God is never late. He is always on time.

Lord, thank you for your reminder today. Thank you that you have placed me exactly where I need to be right now. I look forward to the goodness you have in store. In your son’s name, Amen.

Cool Mum Dianna

Genesis 2:24 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Earlier this year, my friends Donovan and Dianna came by for lunch. Our conversation wound a long winding road of many interesting topics, and at one point Dianna mentioned that she was thinking about making a video for her vlog about sex. As I started to tell her about this really funny fact I learned about sex, she flipped on her phone and hit record.

[I paraphrase]

“Elaine and I went to this marriage workshop run by Bethel Church called Love After Marriage. We learned there that women have high levels of a neurotransmitter called oxytocin, which is responsible for making us feel connected to others. Men typically have much lower levels of oxytocin than women do, which is why women in general are much more empathetic than men. But the one time that oxytocin levels spike in men is when they orgasm during sex. So while a woman may see a man’s desire for sex as arising from some selfish need, actually the motivation is as much a desire to feel connected with their spouse.”

Well Dianna posted that video and it went viral. The real focus of the video was whether a 7 day sex challenge could save your marriage, and my segment was a small portion of the overall content. So I definitely can’t take any of the credit, but let’s say I definitely did not expect to become a sex expert to 700,000 people and counting.

Those of you who’ve hung around me long enough have heard me talking about how true love is treating someone as an extension of yourself. Feeling connected leads to doing unto others as you’d have them do unto you. Feeling connected leads you to love your neighbor as yourself. That is why the marriage relationship has been used to illustrate God’s love for us as the bride of Christ.

Last night Dianna dropped another video where Elaine and I made an appearance. It’s not typical church content, but we talk pretty openly about faith in it as well. If you’re interested to check it out you can subscribe to her channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvmxF_bLDUk.

Crash Landing On You

Ephesians 4:15 “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.”

At the end of 2019, Elaine and I watched Crash Landing On You, a Korean drama about a South Korean chaebol heiress who accidentally lands in North Korea on a paragliding trip. A captain in the North Korean army discovers her, and at great peril to himself and his family, helps her get to safety and eventually back home to South Korea.

I enjoyed watching the show because I’ve been involved in North Korea work for some time, and because I had a chance to meet Son Ye-jin, the lead actress, on a trip to Singapore. (Thanks @SabrinaTan and @SkinInc!) She hasn’t admitted it to me yet, but I think my wife largely enjoyed the show because the lead actor was played by the dashing Hyun Bin 

At a lunch after church one day, Elaine told all her girlfriends about the show and insisted that they MUST watch together with their husbands. It sounded innocent enough, but after a few weeks I got a message from all of their husbands that said the same thing. It went something like…

“Dude, why did Elaine have to ruin my life? The standard of love depicted in this series is so ridiculous! Now my wife expects me to sacrifice everything for her. It’s totally unrealistic!”

I guess that’s the beautiful thing about Korean dramas. They give us an impossible standard to live up to. One can find great insecurity in that, but one can also find hope and inspiration for what lies ahead.

If there’s one account of love that surpasses even the standard of Hyun Bin, it would be the account of a God who loved you so much that he literally sacrificed everything for you. That standard of love seems so impossible, and yet scripture tells us that we will grow to become in every respect like Jesus. Hyun Bin better look out, because he’s got some steep competition ahead.

Lord, I thank you for making the impossible totally possible. Thank you for the ultimate expression of what it means to love. I’m overwhelmed with your sacrifice today. In your son’s name, Amen.