Cry Out America!

This evening, after I left Ignite service, I went to Korean Emmanuel Presbyterian Church for Cry Out America! It was a prayer gathering for everyone in the Santa Clara County to intercede for our country, to repent of our sins, and pray for revival. The majority of the people there were older than me, and I debated whether I should leave in the first five minutes after understanding how the service was going to be run. It felt weird, being among about a thousand people, most of them my parents age, of many different nationalities. But at the same time, it was so amazing. Praying with Iranian Christians, praying with people that had different prayer traditions than I did. It was especially funny when the Korean pastor said, "This is how the Koreans cry out to God, we say zhu-a three times." Then the next reverend that went up was like, "You guys know that zhu-a means the same thing in Chinese and Korean right?"

But anyways, it was good. I was debating on going when I saw the invite on Facebook for the Pneuma fellowship. I actually thought it was going to be composed with a lot more college/young adults. But anyways, I decided to go even though I had a packed Sunday. My usual church service at 1:30, and then a dance workshop held by GRX that started at 5:00 (usually started at 6:00 every week, but this week was special) I usually help out with to just have fun and support Eight Count. And I knew I was going to be fed and that I was going to need energy later in the day. But I finally decided that I was going to go in the River of Life parking lot.

So yeah, the prayer gathering was great. However, the one thing that stood out to me my whole 1 hour and 45 minutes there was the several minutes I paired up with someone closer to my age. Pretty much there were six mini-messages, and after each message, the congregation would spend around three minutes in prayer in response to each specific message. And for the third session, we were asked to break off into pairs with someone next to you. And there was a family together on my right, so naturally I paired up with a guy across the aisle, as there was no one next to him. We shook hands, and before we said anything, he said, "My English isn't very good, so lets pray in our own language." And I'm like, "Yeah that's cool, wait which language are you comfortable with?" He replied, "I'm Chinese." And when I'm like, oh, me too! His reaction shocked me. He was like in awe. He continued saying thank you Lord! in Chinese over and over again, just because I was Chinese. He was so thankful, just because I could understand what he was praying. The more I think about it, the more I admire his thankful heart. I mean, does it really matter if I understand what he is praying to our God? It really doesn't, but the sincerity of his gratitude to God really stood out to me. His English was actually really good, he understood everything I said, and he would shout Amen! throughout the times when I was praying.

It's the same with an adult I met through the only Roots meeting I've been a part of a couple of months ago. We ended up meeting up several times after conversing on Facebook, once over lunch, and once just to worship and jam together. But through out it all, the one thing that impressed me the most is his relationship with God. There's a very tangible sense of closeness, of intimacy. Whenever he prays, he refers to God as Papa. And regardless of how normal or how strange that is to you, it shook me. Think about an adult (at least maybe 10 years older than the rest of us), in the midst of around eight college students or recent graduates, and calling God, Papa. It really reveals how he views God. I've met some other friends, particularly one older than me by several years refer to God as Dad. And all I can think is that these guys have it right. They understand. Growing up, I've always thought of God as someone so much greater, so much higher, so awesome that when I approach him, I should approach him in fear. That's not bad, but I think before I always imagined God to be much more of a fearful than loving God. And I'm learning to recognize that God isn't only a God that is just, and someone whom I should worship because he's so much more magnificent than I am. But that he's a God of love, and he pursue's me, and he wants an intimate relationship with me. And for me, that really changes everything. It changed the way I pray, it changed the way I worshiped. And I think most importantly, it changed my attitude.

Man, looking back through this summer's fleeing days, I realized that God has really revealed himself to me in many ways. However, I think the most important lessons came from very simple, seemingly subtle, trivial things. Usually it's noticing someone's actions that point to their relationship with Jesus, which makes me think - shaping the way I view Jesus, breaking my misconceptions. And that really just testifies of how Awesome our God is.