Image: Stephen Noh
Hello, reader!
It’s been a little bit, hasn’t it? Life has both picked up and slowed down a lot. I’ve been taking a lot more time to spend and grow alongside the community the Lord has blessed me with back home here in Dallas. I’ve also been spending a lot of time (and worry, haha) in what exactly I want to do with the next steps of my life. I’ve been so so blessed lately though as the Lord continues to reveal His goodness to me in the midst of all my weakness.
To live a life with God is the aim of everything. It is all we need and should be doing on this earth, isn’t it? To pursue and desire worldly things will only bring about anxiety and worry. Yet, I find myself constantly wrestling with this and in a season of what I would call my desert. As a pastor put it for me, he sees me in my plowing season. I found myself many times desiring and seeking to plant or harvest, only for it to be revealed to me that it is time to break the ground. Plowing is important. You remove the weeds, remove the rocks, and break the ground. You ready it for the planting season to come. No one says that plowing is fun or brings joy though. It is difficult work. As you stand in the piercing sun and its heat, you ready your tool and heave it into the dirt. It’s hard. It’s grueling. It’s tiresome. But it’s necessary. It’s preparation. It’s growth. That is the desert.
The desert is where God grows us the most. It is where Abraham was taught to trust in the Lord. Where the Isrealites wandered and were taught that all they need is the Lord. It is where David fled from Saul and had ultimate reliance on God. God places us in the wilderness, in the desert, to strip us away of all distractions and re-posture our lives as He repurposes and prepares us for our convergence point (If you’re curious what this means, feel free to ask :)). Anyways, I feel like life lately has felt kind of like this. Where I feel like I am being prepared, where I am called to pick up my plow and break ground. To do the hard work, even if I really really don’t want to do it. My planting and harvest has yet to come, but if the plowing has been this joyful, how much more when the harvest comes…
So, here’s a little glimpse of my life lately. A story of my iniquity and the sin that God has been revealing to me. It is a reminder as He brings me to my knees and as I cry out to Him in full remembrance that I am so desperately in need of Him. This is a life with God. A realization, a need, a hunger, for the presence of the Lord in all that I do. Nobody's perfect, of course. To reach this realization and need 24/7 is something only Jesus did, but the Father calls us with open arms, constantly waiting as we cyclically come back to this epiphany. His yoke is easy after all (Matthew 11:25-30). With that said, welcome reader, to the third volume of ‘An Anthology of Joy and Thought’.
With love and blessings,
Stephen