To Infinity and Beyond!

In life, there are times when every activity, every responsibility or every lesson a person is learning are interconnected.  The 'Ah Ha' moment comes when the light bulb comes on, that person can see the correlation between the various facets of his or her day to day doings. Such a time as this is perfect to write about on my blog because it includes everything that is going on in my life right now with a bit of an encouraging message if you make it all the way to the end of the post. Hang with me through the next few random paragraphs; the back story of the past few weeks is necessary to make the connecting conclusion. 

Algebra 2 is learning to graph polynomial functions.  Recently one of our easy lessons was identifying maximums and minimums on a graph and to determine end behavior. What's the high and low? Does the function go up or down as the inputs go to infinity? 

Korea is cold. I walk outside a lot and heat is very expensive.  I dislike the weather this season very much.  Being my optimistic self I continually tell myself the worst is over, we are through January and December.  If you were to graph the average temperature v. day of the year, I imagine we should be on the increasing part of the parabola, past the lowest (minimum) point.  Many other people have told me otherwise, that February is the worst of all. 

The cold winter landscape is of nothing to boast. Trash is everywhere; the ground is frozen and deserted; rice patties are frozen brown; buildings look especially non-welcoming, dirty and ugly. It is evident that our earth is not going to last forever. 

The third week of February, I am leading chapel with the topic of Colossians 3:5-11.  The title is Kill Sin.  I have been researching and reading a lot about the general topic of sin.  Recently, based off a friend's recommendation, I read 'If God is Good Then Why Do We Hurt?' booklet by Randy Alcorn.   In the booklet Alcorn discusses the causes for sin and its outcomes. After sin entered the world, God placed a curse on the earth. 

"4 The earth dries up and withers, 

    the world languishes and withers, 

    the heavens languish with the earth. 

5 The earth is defiled by its people; 

    they have disobeyed the laws, 

violated the statutes 

    and broken the everlasting covenant. 

6 Therefore a curse consumes the earth; 

    its people must bear their guilt." –Isaiah 24

The impact of a cold winter in combination with this verse and many people getting sick, brought me to the sad conclusion that our earth is headed to negative infinity. This is the connection I made in my head about weather, math and the nature of our world.    

However, there is hope.  Looking into it on my own, I found hope in a passage in Revelations that describes the end days.  He (Paul)  says there will be a new heaven and a new earth and  at that time there will be no suffering, crying or pain.  How encouraging I found this passage to be!  I mean think about it, can you seriously imagine living without worry or fear of betrayal or hurt or pain?  Ahh, that's beyond cool!

Pastor Eddie Byun at Onneri English Ministry took this thought one step further for me in his sermon about The Marks of a Kingdom Community.  He talked about how in heaven our capacity to love will grow each day.  We will think that we love God as much as we possibly can, but then come to find the next day we learn something new about him and love him even more.   This just blows my mind!  For something that seems to be finite to become infinite and getting better and better every day is hard to wrap my mind around.  There will be no maximum in heaven. We will be heading to positive infinity goodness in everything and the direction that our world is headed now will be drastically turned around.  It will be a glorious time! 

I know I haven't included prayer requests on my blog in a while, but I need you all to join me in prayer more than you know. Here are the things you can be praying for: 

- God softens the heart of my students to be open to having the gospel make a difference in their lives and reveals himself to them.  
-Planning for my school mission trip to the Philippines over Spring Break continues well. 
-No more injuries in basketball and deeper community among the team.  
-God's guidance for me as I plan chapel in the coming weeks.