I had a good talk with Dan tonight. We will be all right. God will take care of us.
And I had a great talk with Rebekah Choi at University Bible Fellowship.
Rebekah told a remarkable story about "wanting to die." She was looking inward during a sufferable time of her life —recuperating from kidney stone surgery —and with the persuasion of a chance antagonist's scold ("Stop worrying!") she got religion, so to speak. She still felt painfully mortal, but she decided that as long as she was going to die she may as well die for Jesus. But after a while it became apparent to her that it wasn’t all smooth sailing, this dying for Jesus. For one thing, at the end of each day she still worried, and sometimes so much that she couldn’t sleep. During the day, she kept herself busy dying for Jesus by attending bible studies, going to church, reading; but during the night, with nothing else to do, she was reminded again of her pain and it kept her awake. Well, one day, she “went fishing” on the college campus, and she suddenly found herself with five new students to study the bible with. She put everything she had into building a fellowship with these new students, and before she knew it she found herself feeling exhausted at night. And it was wonderful.
There’s no way I can tell Rebekah’s story as well as she did; it was beautifully told by her because it was a personal testimony. But I hope the sense of what she said stays with me.
I also had a visit with Josh today. The hospital room was crowded, so it wasn’t too personal, but maybe that was for the best. I look forward to a brotherly talk with him tomorrow, though, so I can tell him about my conversations with Dan and Rebekah.
[Footnote: The presence of University Bible Fellowship (UBF) at the University of Illinois at Chicago prompted a 1990 student newspaper editorial to call the organization an objectionable cult, but in the year I spent with UBF I did not find cause for concern. Its leaders promoted a protestant Christian theology, related to Korean Presbyterianism, with a focus on in-depth interactive bible study, encouraging students to devote as much time to studying the bible as they would to a college course with writing assignments, weekly meetings and homework. Weekly “sogams” were written, hymns were sung. I never cared for their three hour Sunday church services, preferring my Lutheran hour, but they still kept the weekday bible study door open for me.]
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