(Fiction) "Forgive Up To Seventy Times Seven!" by Regan Kim

Leo looked in the broken hand mirror that was dumped on the ground. His looks had become terrible in just half a day. It broke his heart.

Not far away was a cafe. A couple sat at a table, chatting. Each held a mug in their hand. The lovers looked happy, but Leo felt so miserable. This morning, he had been absurdly mistaken for a thief.

The incident happened while he was idling around town and came across an unidentified bag next to a rubbish bin. Curiosity aroused, so Leo immediately got into searching through the bag.

The bag owner, who was talking to someone a few steps away, soon realized what was going on. He jumped and kicked Leo mercilessly. Leo screeched and ran away frantically.

After wandering around aimlessly, Leo found himself on the beach. The roaring waves seemed to blame him. His curiosity had long been a source of trouble. He was losing his will to live. Leo took a step closer to the sea. The water he felt on his feet was cold. The time to make a final decision was just around the corner.

At that moment, Leo heard a church bell ring. The sound awakened his fading spirit. His steps unwittingly led him to the church on the hill. The main door of the church was closed. Leo opened a side door with a slight push.

It was dark inside, with only a small glimmer of light coming from the office upstairs. When Leo went up to investigate, the person sitting at the desk was about to switch off the light. Their eyes met as Leo approached, and the man shouted, "Oh, Leo!"

Leo couldn't stand it anymore. He barked like crazy, wagging his tail vigorously. Yes! Leo was a puppy, a one-year-old Schnauzer with a bushy beard. The person in the office was Leo's owner, a minister of the church.

The pastor hugged Leo's neck. "It's all right," he said. He already knew what had happened to Leo. When he went to town looking for Leo, he heard the bag owner's whole story and apologised.

He fed Leo first, then put Leo on his lap and began to pray. Leo heard the pastor's prayer. "Lord Jesus! Leo got into trouble again. But, let me forgive him up to seventy times seven, not seven times." Leo thought to himself, 'Hmm, it's weird. My pastor forgives me in the name of Jesus.' The name of Jesus gave Leo profound relief.

Leo fell asleep. In his dream, he faced the same bag again. Unable to resist, he began to sniff the bag. At that moment, the bag owner popped up.

Leo quickly escaped and exclaimed, "Jesus! Please forgive me once more! I still have seventy times seven minus one left!"

(Essay) If we were a missionary, shouldn't we accept hardship?

It's New Year, but our lives are still not secure. Even if it is peaceful at a specific moment, we know it is not eternal. Our lives are so fragile that they break easily.

God gives us his peace, but it will not last forever within us. God's peace is eternal, but our faith holding the peace is shaky.

Don't attribute the reason to that our faith is small. We are at war, and how can peace be maintained on the battlefield even if the belief is rock solid?

One of the reasons why we are at war comes from our mission. Act 1:8 commands us to spread the Gospel to Jerusalem, all Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Remember that preaching the Gospel starts from Jerusalem, where our home is located.

We don't necessarily have to go somewhere to become a missionary. All Christians must live as a missionary, so our attitude about how to live matters, no matter where we are.

The life of a missionary accompanies hardship. The act of spreading the Gospel is not the only reason for the suffering that missionaries experience. When reading the testimonies of missionaries, we learn many of their difficulties from daily life issues.

If they are a jungle missionary, such little things as toilet or bedroom troubles are a challenging part of sufferings. A money problem is also a big issue as a missionary is a mere human.

Don't neglect the issues as worldly things.  A question should come first before devaluing.

What is my life aiming for?

If the centre of my life is evangelical, our daily life issues can be called missional ones.

Think of daily troubles, such as the coronavirus threat, high living cost, children's future path, housing problem, neighborhood noise, parking conflict.

As Romans 11:36 says, "from him, through him, for him are all things," all the living issues we go through come from Jesus, through Jesus, and for Jesus.

When such things keep happening, don't judge that my lack of faith causes them. All of this happens because I am in the mission field, which is at war.

Therefore we always face one crucial task. Make a victory over sufferings with the Gospel wherever we are because we are all missionaries who fight in the Gospel front.

 

 

(Fiction) "Something New Was Beginning!" by Regan Kim

Christmas this year was harsh. I lost my job in August due to the second Covid-19 lockdown. 

On Christmas Day, I had nowhere to go, so I was wandering the city centre alone. Late at night, I took a bus to go back home.

Had It been about half an hour? I was desperate for a smoke. There seemed to be no other passengers. 

I sneaked an e-cigarette out of my pants pocket and started vaping. The vapour was floating in the air, forming a cloud.

Then a woman's scream echoed on the bus. "Oh, no! He's smoking! I'm pregnant!" The bus driver freaked out and stopped the bus at the next stop. 

The woman was sitting in the far back seat. The driver asked me, "Did you smoke?" I didn't answer. He told me to apologize to her.

'What? Apologize? Who apologized to me when I lost my job?' I yelled silently. Despite myself, I burst into tears.

I couldn't stay on the bus anymore. I hopped off and walked a while. Loneliness in the dark turned my heart back to smoking. 

I took the vape out of my pocket, but it slipped from my hand and rolled into the road.

The moment I jumped off the sidewalk to pick it up, I found a car rushing towards me. It was too late to avoid a collision with the vehicle. 

Then I saw a weird thing. The shadow of a cross in the middle of the car's headlight turned up! Simultaneously, the vehicle hit me head-on. Bang!

The big noise caused my eyes to open. Am I dead? But I found the bus driver standing before me. Seeing my confusion, the driver explained what had happened. 

I was still asleep when we arrived at the last stop. When the driver failed to wake me up by shouting, he clapped his hands loudly and, finally, I woke up.

As I got up, I noticed a cross necklace hanging from the driver's neck. I asked him, "Are you Christian?" He smiled and answered, "Yes. Merry Christmas!"

As soon as I got off the bus, I took the vaporizer out of my pocket and threw it into the rubbish bin. I was humming as I made my way home on foot. 

I was still unemployed, and things didn't change at all. Nevertheless, I felt something new was beginning.

I was born again!

(Book Review) "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck

"The Good Earth" was written by American female novelist Pearl S. Buck, who spent most of her time in China since childhood, in Nanjing, China, and was published in 1931.

Here's a brief plot.

Wang Lung was married to O-Lan, a maidservant of the wealthy Hwang family. She not only took good care of her father-in-law but also did well in housekeeping.

Oran was a strong woman, such as giving birth to her son alone and working on household or farming from the day after childbirth.

Wang Lung and O-Lan thought that owning land was the only way to escape poverty. A series of good harvests made them earn money, and they began to buy land.

Due to severe famine in the village, Wang Lung moved to the south with his whole family. Riots occurred here and there, causing rich people to hide their property in their homes and evacuate.

Because O-Lan, who used to be a maid of a wealthy family, was well aware of the rich's habits, Wang Lung and O-Lan found hidden gold coins and jewels and intercepted them.

After returning hometown, Wang Lung bought all the land from opium-addicted Hwang, desperate to purchase opium. Wang Lung became a large landowner. He brought Lotus to his house as his concubine, treating O-Lan harshly.

O-Lan died lonely, and over the years, the two sons came to Wang Lung, who had become an older man, and asked him to sell the land. Wang Lung firmly refused their suggestion, saying selling the ground means the end of everything.

The eldest son and the second son promised they would not sell the land, but they were smiling, facing each other behind Wang Lung.

<Lessons>

Wang Lung and O-Lan made their fortune with land, but their life didn't result in a happy ending. The wealth set apart the two and also ruined the relationship between Wang Lung and the sons. They were a broken family.

It was indeed a vain ending, like the words of Ecclesiastes 1:2, "Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."

Seeing this, Christians who read Pearl Buck's "The Good Earth" hope for a land of life and peace, not a land of money.

We can find the precious land in Matthew 13:44. It is the gospel of heaven. I want to hold this word as the lesson of the novel.

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

(Question) What is the land of Wang Lung to me? What is hidden in my field that I want to buy with everything I have?

(Book Review) "Peter Pan" by James Barrie

 

"All children, except one, grow up."

It is the first sentence of the fairy tale "Peter Pan." 

For Peter Pan, becoming an adult means losing his dream. What is Peter Pan's wish? It's a thrilling life full of adventures.

But we can't always live as a child. Author James Barrie doesn't seem to intend it either.

Above all, the writer describes Peter Pan as an extremely short-memory child. It is far from Peter Pan to remember a promise made with others. His heart is self-centered.

Psychologically, Peter Pan's personality is not a healthy type. There is a symptom called Peter Pan syndrome.

It refers to a person who acts like a child even after becoming an adult. They are irresponsible and tend to escape reality and hide in their world.

So what is the lesson of Christians who read Peter Pan?

Like Peter Pan, I hope our Christians are not afraid of a life of adventure and challenge. But unlike him, may we be filled with love and responsibility towards our neighbors!

I hope we can draw such wonderful self-portraits every day in our lives.

(Book Review) "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

             

1.Summary

The Great Gatsby, written as a first-person point of view by a narrator Nick Carraway, was published in 1925 by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.

It's a tragic love story of Gatsby, who ought to make a fortune to gain love.

Here's the plot.
 
The background of the novel is America of the 1920s, called the "Jazz Age." After World War I's victory, Americans enjoyed abundance and luxury, like jazz's sweet melody.

Born as a poor farmer's son, Gatsby craved to get out of poverty by all means. Gatsby is the symbol of the American dream achieving something from nothing.

Being a soldier, he met Daisy at a party and fell in love. Their love contained a tragedy due to the social status gap of the two.

As Gatsby participated in the war, the two lost touch, and Daisy got married to Tom. Both Tom and Daisy came from wealthy upper-class families. 

Gatsby, who returned from the war, earned enormous amounts of money from alcohol smuggling during the U.S. Prohibition era. Gatsby tried to get Daisy back.

Gatsby bought a mansion in West Egg in the Long Island Strait near New York City. He threw a grand party every weekend, waiting for the party-loving Daisy to show up one day.

Gatsby finally met Daisy. He wanted Daisy to divorce Tom and return to him. Gatsby's love was blind. He could do anything to win the heart of Daisy.

One night, a woman named Myrtle was killed by a car, which belonged to Gatsby, but was driven by Daisy at the time of the accident; Gatsby hid this fact for Daisy's sake.
 
However, Tom told a lie to Wilson, the deceased Myrtle's husband, that Gatsby drove the car. Wilson got fury and shot Gatsby to death.

Daisy traveled with Tom without knowing the death of Gatsby.

Gatsby threw many parties for hundreds of guests, but Gatsby's funeral was too lonely.

There was only one mourner at the funeral, an owl-eyed man who'd been one of Gatsby's party guests.

2.Lessons

In this novel, all messages are focused on the scene of Gatsby's funeral. In a way, we can say that this novel was written to show the background of Gatsby's funeral.

Colossians 3:2 says, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things."

What makes Gatsby great? Some would say that his achievement in the American dream was outstanding, and others would say that his love was great. But either way, the essence is earthly.

The funeral scene shows the vain ending of their love that would be gone like fog.

Gatsby, who had devoted everything to Daisy, ironically lost Daisy and destroyed even himself.

Many of the people who enjoyed Gatsby's party also disappeared as soon as he passed away.

It reminds us of Ecclesiastes 1:2, "Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."

Let's ask ourselves: What kind of death do I want to face? Then how should I live?

The novel ends up with a monologue of Nick, who is the narrator.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
 
If, as Nick said, we can continue rowing against the current, that'll be great. However, if it is only that, we cannot avoid another meaningless death like Gatsby.

Wholly and urgently, we must change the direction. Which way? Towards the Gospel!

 

(Essay) The wisdom that we learn from Uncle Tom's Cabin

I remembered one thing, reading Uncle Tom's Cabin by American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe.

When I was a university student, I had asked what I was wondering to my Christian friend. At that time, I was an unbeliever. "Why did Jesus not fight against Rome?" 

I thought that Jesus, as a Jewish leader, should have dedicated himself to the liberation of his country.

His answer was: If the world were turned upside down by force, there would still be another ruler who suppressed the people.

He added that Jesus came to the earth to break such a vicious circle. What Jesus wanted to transform was not politics but humankind.

There is a similar debate over Uncle Tom.

From the perspective of today's human rights activists, Uncle Tom was an easy-going slave who was just obedient to his master.

But we need to realize that Tom's character, looking weak, has rather become a spark that burned the flames of the Civil War.

A greeting from Abraham Lincoln to Mrs. Stowe, the author, tells the truth. "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."

Tom forgave his evil master, Simon Legree, even as he was beaten to death. It reminds readers of the image of the deacon Stephen(Acts 7:60), who followed the forgiveness of Jesus on the Cross. 

We Christians are concerned about how to change our history. Reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, I saw that Tom's obedience, patience, and forgiveness destroyed the stronghold of slavery.

I would like to remind ourselves of the lessons learned from Uncle Tom's Cabin in a situation where human rights are still being unfairly violated.