Archive for the 'God and the Bible' Category

2/12 Of A Year

Published
by
Josh Kim
on March 2, 2007
in Asides, Foreign Languages, God and the Bible, Investing & Finances, Project Ideas, Site News and Web Development
. 2 Comments

More like… 1/6, no?

Already, 1/6 of 2007 has gone by, guys. It’s insane how fast the time goes by when you’re having fun. Actually, the funny thing is it wasn’t all just fun… it seems like time is just out of control at all times, regardless of if you’re ready or not.

While I’m writing this, I have my January’s Month in Review open, so I’ll be able to see where I’ve met my goals or fell short on them.

I want to keep this post as short and to the point as possible. Let’s do this.

On the Blog

I’ve begun to use images quite liberally, thanks to the Markdown plugin and the TextMate Blogging Bundle. Gallery hasn’t even been touched, and I don’t think it will be for a while: Pictures aren’t what I’m going for with this .com, anyway. Same goes with videos and such.

I’ve been giving splitting up the blog into two some thought… and while I’ve been back and forth on this issue, I think it’s best to keep it going in this manner. We’ll see in a month…

Goal to double traffic wasn’t met, but I get to blame the hosting company for that (they were down twice, and once for more than five hours on a saturday night/morning)… kinda. For next month, I just want to beat my last month’s traffic. That’s all.

Traffic for February

In terms of a design change, it was supposed to come this past month, but we’ll see how things go this month. That… and I still have to post my old entries up. I also need to restructure the categories… retag… ugh. So much work to do, just for the blog…

On Finances

Looks like the normal for groceries for me is around $150/month. I guess I should still shoot for $100/month, but I really do believe… food isn’t something you should skimp on. Eating out, however… that’s something I can still cut down on.

Discretionary spending should have been $100/month, but this past month, I went out to eat quite a few times. seems to also hover around $150/month. This month, though, I started to “live it up”… like buying furniture (exercise ball/chair) and electronic goodies (earbuds)… this is probably why I exceeded my budget. Darn.

In terms of total spending, it comes out to about $300. Anything left over has been sent into savings… By the end of this month, I hope to start up my Roth IRA… I’ll post when that happens. I still have to finish my federal and state taxes. This, too, will be done by the end of this month.

Investments… will start… soon… dang it. Lots more to learn in this field before I start.

On Spiritual

Initially, for Lent, I had given up things like YouTube, TV shows, and movies. Then I started to play Quake… ONE. Oh man, how much fun. I think I must have sunk a good chunk of time into it. Well… I’m going to say this here: All forms of electronic entertainment is forbidden until Easter.

This includes: ANYTHING Flash, ANY passive media… It’s quite hard, seeing how almost EVERYWHERE I go, there’s a TV on or a browser open to YouTube. Time to strategize how to avoid those situations…

Bible reading is going well. Kinda getting behind (I think… I’m not sure…), because I’m really trying to learn Philippians before Easter… but that’s only an excuse. By the end of this month, I want to be fully caught up. I need to do some math in terms of how many chapters I, then, have to read to catch up. We’ll see, at the end of the month.

On Code

Ruby is definitely coming along. But lots to accomplish before I launch a service with it being the main language of choice.

Work is great. The work that I do for the College of Education is so perfect for me. It’s got a lot of flexibility in terms of hours and when I can work, as well as how applicable some of the things I’m doing for them are. For example, I’m administering Subversion for Network Applications Group. I’m going to be using that skill to start subversion-ing my entire /jk/Sites directory, or even possibly my entire home directory. It’s like getting paid to learn and learn and learn (just like you, consultants).

While I lack the “benefits”, like health and 401(k), I like to think my benefits for leading this kind of freelancer/personal consultant lifestyle are flexibility and freedom.

On Business

So hopefully, by the end of the month… I’ll have a company started. Not sure how to even go about doing this 100%, but I guess something like this… is just meant to be learned as one goes about doing it.

On Foreign Languages

I’m almost done with Pimsleur’s Conversational Japanese I started… last… summer. I only really got into trying to go through the system at the beginning of this year. I should be done by the end of the month, easily.

I’ve also finally finished downloading this 10GB torrent of a Japanese Language Learning Pack. I ended up throwing away about half of it, but man… there are some good stuff here. They even have TV lessons! Whoo hoo!

Hanja, I’ve kinda given up on. I guess that 5 characters a day rule went out the window. Let’s hope I can get some kind of system in that lets me continue in this area.

On School

For the MBA, I’ve decided to not go for this upcoming year. Period. Maybe the year after, but not this year.

On Health

It’s becoming very hard to run for my usual 30 minutes, even though I only run every other day. I think my exercise routines are becoming more and more “weight”-heavy now… but I need to start cardio again.

My back is killing me. I think it might be because my back is so weak… more deadlifts for me!

In the past month, I think I missed WIMPE a couple of days: A few due to the snowstorm and a few due to laziness. I hope to go six times a week, minus one rest day somewhere in between.

In terms of diet… Mike Cho told me something about the Boxer’s Diet: Chicken and Broccoli. Period. This scares me a little bit, but I get the point: Very little carb intake, with a humogenous protein intake. Of course, I’m not going to do it like he did for 3 straight days… but I’ll be trying this out, replacing maybe one meal a day for this craziness.

I’m going to give up carbonated drinks again… for like the 30th time. I’m not sure when this started back up again, but it’s been creeping back into my life. It’s time to go cold turkey like before, and stick to water, orange juice, and milk. It doesn’t matter if I have to do an all-nighter… I think I’m going to go caffeine-less, too, like before.

Ugh. I feel so vain talking about physical goals… it’s strange though, I don’t feel so vain talking about intellectual goals…

My my, how judgmental I am, of even my own self.

Closing

This post was supposed to be done on the 28th of last month. Ugh. I feel like writing on my blog is quickly becoming a chore. Also, I feel like I don’t even know who I’m writing to. That issue of splitting up the blog into two plagues my mind every time I start to write an entry…

“Who do I write this to?” This is what’s stopping me from writing endless entries about either myself or about other things. I mean, I want to write about how I pulled two all-nighters at Wardall lounge with the freshmen, but that doesn’t appeal to everyone. I want to write about how things are going in my life, but who wants to read that garbage. I want to write about how RSS feeds aren’t being adopted by the mass public and how to mass-adoption a reality, but no one wants to read that either.

AHHH!

Well, here’s to another month of living! So exciting, so filled with unknowns!

Lent Commitments and Goals

Published
by
Josh Kim
on February 22, 2007
in God and the Bible
. 2 Comments

I really should have posted this yesterday. But I was struggling with something.

I always thought that Lent was something that the Catholics partook (partaked…? I think partook is right… hmm…) in, and I learned of its existence through learning about history. For me, since it was yet another deed that one had to do, I thought it wasn’t a good thing at all. Oh, how foolish and extreme I am.

But I realized later in life that deeds and faith go hand in hand.

14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

18But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

19You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

20You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless[d]? 21Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[e] and he was called God’s friend. 24You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

– James 2:14-24

And I see how awesome Lent can be, if used effectively. Now, being the all-or-nothing type of person I am, if I decide to give up something or replace it with something, I want it to be that way for LIFE. And if that’s not the case, I don’t even want to start.

This mindset needs to change. I need to know that even the slightest motion forward is still motion forward. Even the intention of moving forward is better than sitting and wallowing.

As long as I follow through, like a good golf swing, no matter how poor my first, second… billionth shot may be, it’s going towards the hole.

And with that, I’ve used up my horrible metaphor quota for the day.

No More Video Sharing Sites, Movies, TV…

Yes. I don’t know if I can make exceptions to videos that will improve my understanding of subjects I need to understand (entrepreneurship, web 2.0 applications, screencast demos of mac applications…), but I know exactly the types of crap I need to stop poking around for.

This includes Xman. Oh sad… I’ll be missing 6 weeks worth of quality Korean variety show entertainment. It also includes Battlestar Galactica, ATHF, The Office, and any other random shows I started to watch due to the innovation and time sink online video sites are. And to think I was going to start off Heroes…

Wrong Motive: Waste of time, anyway. Might as well kill two birds with one stone by saying it’s for lent.

Correct Motive: Truly, these things are time sinks. Big chunks of time that could be used towards something more useful, be it reading the Word or working. Gotta redeem the newfound chunks of time…

Memorize Philippians

Tonight, I’m taking some time to do some research as to why the heck I’ve been wanting to memorize this book for YEARS. The first time the thought of memorizing a full book crossed my mind was during a retreat in LA. I’m not sure what the circumstance was, but the pastor was talking about memorizing Philippians for some reason. From that point on, I’ve been wanting to do this on and off.

My junior year in college, I had the urge again to want to actually go through with it. A small group co-leader (Karen Seo) and I was going to keep each other accountable. I still remember to this day, meeting up at the Union for like 5 minutes, testing each other if we knew it. At that point, I was able to recite chapter 1 and parts of chapter 2. Then… the dry times known as my senior year hit.

Fast forward to now.

Of all the churches, their contributions (which Paul gratefully acknowledges) are among the only he accepts.

I knew that there was a letter that Paul had written, and only one church that this statement applied to. I just didn’t know which one. I’m not sure why this would make Philippians THE book to memorize for this Lenten season (and it’s not even the shortest book…), but I want to do it.

Motive: To be able to spit out verses more and more. The few that I painfully memorized for Helper’s Training helps immensely. I even remember back to the AWANA days in middle school… wow… I’m so old. Do they still have AWANA?

Read through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John

John Kim and I are going to start reading through Mark every Friday. This is going to be awesome. But not only that, I want to see all sides of the story this Lent season.

This is in addition to my Old Testament readings I’m doing. Sweetness.

Bonus

I stopped posting my quiet times up here. I think I’m going to start doing that more and more. At least, the ones that I can keep public and those that can maybe possibly help others to grow also.

Morning Prayer. My negative legalistic views kill me on this subject. At least, tomorrow, I’ll be going. I guess more prayer is needed on this topic of… Morning Prayer.

Warnings

Please don’t look at this list and point to my pride. I really want you guys to keep me accountable on these issues.

And with that, here we go for the next 40 days.

(Yeah, I know… I messed up already with my Justin Timberlake post… but we won’t talk about that. Looking to the future!)

Just Do It. Again and Again.

Published
by
Josh Kim
on February 8, 2007
in Asides and God and the Bible
. 0 Comments

Ever since I can remember, I’ve struggled with ulterior motives. Mine, and the ones of other that I’ve assumed. Straight out judging others based on what I believed to be correct and right.

Of course, as I’ve grown, judging others has died down. I’ve been seeing people more and more for who they are, embracing the negatives and positives equally: Part of loving people is to accept, but at the same time, strengthen and sharpen one another. (Proverbs 27:17)

But I can’t shake this nagging self-judgement… the standards are high for myself to continue to do and not do certain things. I consider highly the opinions and feelings of those that I choose to love and those that choose to love me.

An older brother of mine rebuked me… and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Stop focusing on the “Dah!”s. Focus on “Blessing”s and just accept the “Dah”s. It’s not going to be gone until either I die or Christ returns… it’s just my sinful nature. Even with a billion excuses…

This viewpoint on my sin has been changing me. Retreat really helped me to see that as I see things more and more through the eyes of God, I start to think less and less of the ways I fall, the ways I sin. Rather than focusing on getting rid of the problem, I need to choose actively to seek out the solution.

It seems like it’s an easy way out: It almost seems like I’m avoiding the problem, at times. But really, the solution is clear: I’m not going to be rid of these sins. Judging others. Lying. Coveting. Lusting. Pride. Judging others. Judging others.

But it comes back to this… I’ve been set free by God. I’ve been redeemed through Christ.

Application from this lesson? I’m going to go to MP daily. No more of this “but I don’t want to because other people will think of me this way or that way”. Forget that. To grow… to be blessed… this is what I want. Yes, prayer is doable all over the place.

The problem with the way I’ve done morning prayer is that I went downstairs, avoiding all the people. No longer. I’m going to pick a spot. And not move for an hour. I want to hear the words, the grunts, the sighs, the tongues, the cries… of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and be amazed. See, that’s why I should go. Not because of just what I’ll be doing… but being a part of the community.

If you’re going to judge me, trust me on this: I’ve judged myself to oblivion. You can’t do any further damage than what I’ve done to myself.

This is it. Yet another day. Yet another month. Yet another year. It’s time to fight. Fight myself.

Learning to Breathe - Switchfoot

Published
by
Josh Kim
on February 6, 2007
in Asides and God and the Bible
. 0 Comments

Hello, good morning, how ya do? What makes your rising sun so new? I could use a fresh beginning too All of my regrets are nothing new

So this is the way that I say that I need You This is the way This is the way

That I’m learning to breathe I’m learning to crawl I’m finding that You and You alone can break my fall I’m living again, awake and alive I’m dying to breathe in these abundant skies

Hello, good morning, how ya been? Yesterday left my head kicked in I never thought I could fall like that Never knew that I could hurt this bad

I’m learning to breathe I’m learning to crawl I’m finding that You and You alone can break my fall I’m living again, awake and alive I’m dying to breathe in these abundant skies

So this is the way that I say that I need You This is the way That I say I love You This is the way That I say I’m Yours This is the way This is the way

I tried bolding passages that applied. But then I realized… wow, the entirety of this song speaks volumes. All the way from the “good morning” to “I never thought I could fall like that/Never knew that I could hurt so bad” to “You alone can break my fall” to… okay, what am I doing.

The most important part: “I’m living again, awake and alive/I’m dying to breathe in these abundant skies”.

Somehow… God instilled within me a sense of greater peace than I’ve ever felt. All the bitterness, the sorrow, the anger… it just disappeared. I feel alive.

I saw how wrong I was. I saw how selfish my desires were in all of my relationships. Now the only problem is… I can’t tell those people.

Love through silence. This has got to be the hardest kind of love I’ve experienced. That and to love through all things.

Thank you, LORD.

Tomorrow starts yet another day, another month, another year… whatever frame of time you want to call it. A fresh beginning is coming. My regrets are nothing new, but through it… I get to say that I need You.

This song is going to be on repeat for a LONG time.

Time and Love

Published
by
Josh Kim
on February 6, 2007
in Asides and God and the Bible
. 1 Comment

God spoke to me, this morning… and I was able to gain a bit more understanding in my relational situations.

Time. Can it really heal all wounds? It’s been many days… many weeks… many months, it feels like…

Time has definitely been one of the factors in seeking some type of resolution to these issues. But I disagree with time being anywhere near the most important thing there is to heal my wounds.

I think the most important factor in all of this is… love.

Through time, love can grow. Mere acquaintances grow into friends, friends grow into even closer friends.

Time, though, can also cause relationships to die. An example: two friends have a fight. Whatever the reason might be, and also depending on how close these friends were and how large the fight was, without the proper release of tension, time can only further exacerbate the relationship.

Love through silence. I don’t know if this is even possible. It’s almost like faith without deeds. Sure, deeds don’t mean one has faith, but without those deeds, it’s as if faith doesn’t exist. Love without time and words…

But the really hard situation is when those two friends can’t talk. Either one doesn’t want to talk to the other, or both have mutually decided against communicating. While time might be healing the wounds of both parties, time actually, and most likely, is make things worse.

One could still be in pain, and be unable to talk. One could be completely fine, unaware of the pain the other carries. One could just be saying to themselves that they’re fine, while they still carry the sorrow.

The main point is that both parties don’t know what the other is feeling.

Yes, it depends on how close these two people were, but man… without the proper release of tension… hmm…

Solution is simple: Love. Don’t stop loving. Love until you can’t love, and then love some more.

Stop thinking about how you’ve hurt others or how others have hurt you.

I was the one that hurt. I was the one that got hurt. If I think this way, I can do something about it, since the subject of these sentences are “I”.

Being able to love someone without thinking about how they’ve hurt… being able to love someone without thinking about how they’re continuing to hurt…

What’s the application from this? Well, for me… I can’t do a single thing. Frustrating, yes, but I’m finally finding peace through God every single day. Sometimes, I do kid myself: I’m still in quite a bit of shock and anger and pain. However, the more time passes by… the more understanding God instills within me… peace follows.

Now, to fight. To work. To take over the world.