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I'm reading this book www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/29075905-prayer#
and it mentioned an interesting story:
A young man asked his priest to interpret his strong feeling in his heart: "it happens every night, like the burning the disciples felt when meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Please help me. What does it mean?"
The priest replied:" You've got heartburn, son." And he gave him an antacid pill.
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I find this story especially inspiring given my current stomach problem. I used to also do the same thing. I used to interpret every bit of my life as either reward or punishment from God. I used to not accept the concept of depression. I used to fight against my every little fallen thought as though I could get rid of the sinful nature from me. I used to also despise the pursuit of money and career and believed that only voluntary work has the divine meaning that's worth pursuing.
But as the book said, we are holistic human beings. Yes, as a God-believer, I think we do need to connect to a divine source, yet our practical life on the earth cannot be separated from us or considered "non-spiritual". Sometimes, we need antacid, we need more sleep, we need financial help, we need counseling, we need communication, we need deep engagement with people. Sometimes, our rigid religious thoughts make us view every problem as "a problem between me and God", and thus block us from seeing what we truly need to see, doing what we truly need to do.
Every person's journey is unique. In some of my darkest moments, trusting in God sustained me. In other difficult times, on the contrary, taking a break from the church was needed, and true friendship nourished me, counseling saved me, going to the gym built me up.
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Therefore, (I'm saying this to myself as well since I'm such an introvert

This book was recommended in my counsoling section. I find it very helpful especially in the following aspects:
1. Accept my emotions. There's nothing like "good" or "bad" emotions. Emotions exist for a reason. There's no need to battle or compress my "negative emotions". By accepting it, it actually help the emotion to go away fast.
2. Activate my "observing self". After I read this book, when I feel sad, depressed, frustrated, lonely, I will remember to use this little trick and tell myself "I'm feeling xxx and xxx now, thank you mind." By doing this it reminds me that what I feel and think may be just a temporary feeling and thoughts, which may disappear in a while if I choose not to focus on it too much.
3. Connect with my values. The value compas in this book is really helpful. I'm currently writing my diary with this format. It helps me to easily identify what part of my life is not connected to my value, and what smalll actions I have been taken or I need to take in the future.

At the current phase of my faith journey, I really feel I need to change my paradigm of reading the bible and following my God, seeing the examples in the churches I encountered in the past. Taking the Bible verses out of context or, literally, word for word as some magical chant is not working for me anymore. It leads to a rigid way of believing that block people from seeing people first but hold onto religious teachings.

This book,   came into my view quite timely. It clearly demonstrated the two paradigms that traditional and liberal Christianity take.

Traditional Paradigm

- Bible is literal, divine product, every word is out of God.

- Everything recorded in the Bible actually happened.

- "Faith" is believing in the facts recorded in the Bible, especially those that are hard to believe.

- God is the creator far away "out there".

- God is a God of "requirement and reward", "lawgiver and judge". Being a Christian means meeting those requirements.

- Jesus is the literal "son" of God. The purpose of him coming into the world is to die on the cross for our sins.

- "Sin" is breaking the laws of God. The solution is to "repent".

- "Salvation" is going to heaven after death, if believing in God, or else going to hell.

- Religion is the only path to salvation, absolute truth.

Emerging Paradigm

- Bible is historical, written by people who experienced God, and to the community in the past. Thus, we need to consider the historical context while reading the bible.

- Some language of the Bible is metaphorical. We need to ask "what does this story tell" instead of only focus on "does that really happen?"


- "Faith" is trusting God in a relaxing way, not worry, love God, and love the people God loves.

- God is here and everywhere.

- God is a God of love and justice. Being a Christian means seeing that we are already loved unconditionally, and we are invited to go on a path of transformation.

- Jesus represents who God is. His purpose coming into the world is to heal, to show love, mercy, and justice, to initiate the social movements among the Jewish people. He died because of what he did.

- "Sin" is a status of being separated from God.

- "Salvation" is to have a way back to God in this life, a life of transformation.

- Religion is human creation in response to the experiences of the sacred.

Also, this book helped me established some understanding of certain Biblical truths that I learned the wrong way in the past and confirmed other good ones.

- "Denying yourself" and "take up the cross" is not about oppressing legitimate desires. It's about to abandon the old identity and get transformed into a new one.


- "Crucified with Christ" and "resurrect with Christ" is not about the newly formed lifestyle in the church. It's about the realization that we can live with God and free from the bondage of "being aware of how the world views us" (constantly worrying if I'm good enough, too little recognition or too much recognition from the world, etc)\

- The goal of spiritual practices such as worshiping, singing, and a sermon is to open our hearts to God, and thus get nourished by God, God's words, and God's people.


- Church. We join a church to immerse in an environment and get collective transformation, to practice compassion and care together, and it will help us to build Christian characteristics.

- Prayer. Prayer is about spending time with God. It can be reading God's words, telling God our days, and telling God our wishes and hopes, and praying for others is about loving others. We are not"asking God to give us things".

- Charity. We practice charity as a way to cultivate compassion towards to poor so that we understand better how the system affected the life of the poor.

I started reading this book under the recommendation of a Christian friend after I quitted the first and the only church I attended a few months ago, with tears and a broken heart. It was such a dark time; I doubted everything in my life: the meaning of being a Christian, the teachings from that church, and the purpose of being where I was. I opened this book in seek of answers to all of these questions.

To me, there's no doubt that I am a Christian: I was attracted to the joy and freedom that the people in the church and the experiences afterward are real; the change in my personality and life attitude is real. But I never actually hear the reasons for being a Christian from other people's perspectives.

I echoed this book with the very first chapter, which talks about how Jesus is relentlessly pursuing him. It is, for sure, not a choice after logical thinking to become a Christian. It is because I was put at a particular time and space in a particular condition, and I met this particular group of people. I somehow willingly followed an intuition to take a step into something unknown, which is not reasonable at all when I look back. Even when I thought I was about to give up believing, I was, again, put into another community that gave a message, which is exactly what's written in this book, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me (Revelation 3:20)". So I was persuaded that it is true that there's a power beyond us, watching us, persuing us, who will not give us up.

This book also solved some questions that have been bothering me for a while:
In the church I went to, people always practice "deny yourself", by denying the negative feelings and thoughts. I cannot agree because I was confused by the conflicts between "self-care" and "deny myself". I couldn't get it why I need to deny myself. The point mentioned in this book enlightened me that to "deny myself" is to care and love others. If we constantly live in our desires and struggles, we will have no room in our hearts to care and love others.

Also, I was a little resistant towards the verse "Take my yoke upon you (Matthew 11:29)" because the previous church was full of outward activities and works, which eventually made everyone worn out. I immediately relate "take my yoke" to "work for the church," but in this book, it says the way we "put on his yoke" is to "learn from him," to accept his teaching authority, which perfectly fit our humanity.

This book is the first Christian book I read in English other than the church materials from my first church. I will continue this journey of reading, and hopefully, these books will give me some answers in the upcoming years.