the lion king || faith

source; edited by me

Back in February my pastor in Korea spoke on the movie The Lion King. I just watched it Sunday night and wanted to revisit what I had written 2 months ago and share it with some of you guys. There's such great symbolism in this movie. 


In the sermon Pastor Christian goes through the story and relates it to the gospel, to the truth about redemption and the work of the cross, to our true identities as kings, and to the nasty pathetic attempt of Satan trying to be king. All Scar did was kill, steal and destroy by using manipulation and lies. Simba KNEW that he was supposed to be king, but once that was taken away from him he couldn't believe that he was the king.

He lived in shame and fear with his fellow fearful and outcasted friends. Timon and Pumba live their life without any cares and responsibilities. It's easier to live without any responsibilities than to deal with the past and the things that caused a lot of pain to us. Simon was born to be a king but was deceived into believing he wasn't supposed to be one because of the lies had believed for so long. He believed he was guilty of killing his father, he thought he was unworthy and he had forgotten who he was. Mufasa says, "You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the circle of your life. Remember who you are" His father reminds Simba of who Simba REALLY is and Simba holds onto the truth of who he is and goes back to Pride Rock. 
The crazy Rafiki comes along and reminds Simba of who he really is. He says, "Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the from way I see it, you can either run from it, or... learn from it." The more we run away from our past the more we're stuck. We remain immature, childish and irresponsible. It's fun for a bit but it's not how we're meant to live. We're set free from our past when we face it and deal with it. Without knowing our identity we're always being controlled by lies. Lies that we're weak, we're guilty and we're useless. 
It's a battle to face the past. It's painful and, at times, really uncomfortable. It's easier to just say, "hakuna matata" and drown in the momentary fix-ups. This is unfortunate because we rob ourselves of walking out into our true destiny as royalty; as people with influence and power. As I've decided to face random bits from my past I've discovered that there's liberation in all of this. True and glorious freedom. In freedom you discover your passions, your gifts and your calling. 


This is such a great sermon! Listen to it here or watch it here.
I could watch this movie over and over again. After listening to the sermon and watching this movie I'm always reminded of my true identities as a royal daughter of Christ. The soundtrack is amazing, the colours in this movie are so vibrant and there's so many great messages in it. I say it's, hands down, the best Disney movie. 

Revelation 11:15

The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said:

   “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.”

too much noise || faith

As an avid Android user I was pretty excited when Instagram finally came out with an application for Android phones. Although I still have my reservations about it I was excited to be part of the instagram community. I don't like to be left out of things so it felt pretty awesome to finally join something the iPhone users were all a part of. 

BUT something didn't feel right. 

For the past two weeks I've been feeling really overwhelmed with the amount of social media networks I've become a part of. Facebook, twitter, blogger, pinterest, instagram, linkedin, tumblr and I'm sure there are other ones that I have unknowingly joined. Last week I was debating what to do with Facebook -- whether I should give it up for good or stay on. I understand the good things about it like how it lets you stay in touch with friends around the world and it's an easy way to share what's going on in your life. But the downsides of it outweigh the positive aspects of it. After having a few conversations with different friends I was leaning more towards entirely leaving facebook in order to re-discover some things I felt I had lost. 

It cheapens the way we communicate and relate to others. We all know that it can't ever replace real-life relationships but it's almost there. We no longer ask people what's new in their lives or take the time to retell our day to day lives because we've already shared it on instagram and on twitter. We have short attention spans since everything we read and look at can be done so quickly. Tweets are limited to 140 words, I can skim through all my friend's pictures from the day before in less than a minute and blogs are so easy to browse through because there's less words and more pictures (thank you to those who actually read all of this!) None of these are necessarily bad, but I felt my mind turning into mush. 

We're no longer investing in people around us, but rather hoarding in all kinds of information from everyone we're connected to without really knowing them. Real relationships take time and doing inconvenient things like driving to someone, calling long distance or skyping even when its 'not your thing'. The dissonance I was going through was bugging me so much that I knew I needed to do something soon. 

After reading Jeff Bethke's article on our addiction to activity, noise, facebook and twitter and listening to Pastor Christian's sermon called "Don't Get Robbed by Facebook" (which is REALLY GOOD and hilarious) I was convicted to really limit my use of these social networking websites. 

Here are some main points from the sermon that shed some light to the dangers of facebook and other similar websites. 

1. Facebook is addictive: somehow you lose track of time because of all the browsing you're doing through some unknown person's photo albums. The first free moment we have we get on facebook. It robs us of our TIME. Time for a confession - I was/am addicted! I wake up and turn on my phone, I check at least 10 times a day and stay on it for more than I should. 

2. Facebook is enslaving: It controls us more than we control it. I know I'd wake up and check facebook, lie down before bed and go on facebook, go on facebook while I'm on vacation, while working, while walking and talking and breathing! It was my master and this is foolishness. Technology is supposed to SERVE us, not control us. 

3. Facebook will rip you off and rob you without you knowing it: it robs you off peace, relationships and growth. As I mentioned before we're so used to retaining information really quickly that we're no longer reading books or having good conversations or resting our minds. I think this is how I've developed some mild form of ADD! 

4. Facebook can be deceiving: it deceives you that time is well spent on facebook and that you are more connected than ever before. These can be true in some ways, but more often they aren't true. You spend endless hours on facebook when you're supposed to be doing something else and you end up feeling more lonely even though you have thousands of friends

Obviously Facebook isn't inherently all these things but the way we use them has made it pretty dangerous. 

The sermon ends with a challenge to CONSECRATE Facebook through limiting how often you go on these websites. Through reading the Word and praying we're able to avoid the dangers mentioned above and ultimately have some control over these mediums. 

I think it's time for me to step away from all this noise and reconnect with hearing from the Lord as there are times He speaks in a still small voice. If it means readjusting to life without facebook it's ok because hearing from the Lord is more worth than my addiction to checking up on comments and notifications every 10 minutes.  

Am I the only one that feels like this? Maybe I'm just now falling behind as technology is advancing and want to resist all these changes. This is a sign of aging! 

1 Kings 19:12

After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

Just Do It || faith

Just do it. These three simple yet powerful words have been guiding me for the past few months. I actually wrote a blog post on my tumblr about a month ago on how I don't want to be a dreamer anymore but I want to be a doer. Dreaming makes you think you're doing something, but you're not. You're not going anywhere unless you DO something.

Marcus really confirmed so many things for me tonight. I'm currently living in Seoul right now and I've been here for technically 2.5 years. I'm going home to Canada in 3 weeks. I have no idea what awaits me, but I'm really excited. Terrified and excited at the same time. I've got an open road ahead of me. As scary as it is, I know it's going to be a beautiful journey.

In his sermon, Marcus shared with us three keys that would allow us to create and recreate the truth and love of God in our everyday lives. He redefined what it means to be creative.

1. Receive your inheritance. 
We need to be in a place where we receive words of life. A place where we are being guided by those who are wise and mature. That would mean to be in submission to someone else other than me. We love independence. We think we know it all, but that's may be the biggest red flag to the terrible truth that you may not know it all. Wisdom and truth from a mentor is so necessary. It's a humbling place to be at, but a place where life flows.

2. Beware and stay away from the pitfalls such as fear
Fear limits us from trying anything. We dream something for 2 minutes and then fear destroys it. Fear keeps that dream far away. It'll never be a reality because we give too much control to our fears rather than controlling that fear.  When we have the first key, we should know that we are in a completely safe place.

3. Be Willing to JUST DO IT!
This is so obvious. We have to just do it. We need to take small simple steps. Not doing anything doesn't take us anywhere. How does a song get produced? The artist sits down, jots down a few words here and there, plays around with different melodies and BAM, you've got beautiful music. My small steps will take me higher. These small steps will let others take giant leaps into their own destiny.

Hold onto these three keys and you'll do great things in your life; things you thought you could only dream of. With these three keys we're going to change the world. No more of the same ol' same ol'. The worlds needs for us to be creative! Go and just do it!

Isaiah 43:9

See, I am doing a new thing! 

   Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? 

I am making a way in the wilderness 

   and streams in the wasteland.