Even when you are in sleep,...

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17. “Even when you are in sleep,...(miracles are happening)”
17."당신이 잠든 밤에도..(기적은 일어나고 있다)"

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- September 2001
- 2001년 9월
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Mark 4:26~29
26. He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground.
27. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.
28. All by itself the soil produces grain--first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.
29. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”
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Changes of seasons are well beyond curiosity even up to wonder. In between merely a month, we are in the middle of fall. Compared with last August where the sun glared as if burning all on the earth, the weather has turned too different. Already, we get to looking for a hot tea and a warm floor early in the morning.
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One of the biggest characteristics in my life is living in through accordance with time while I look like living without restraint of time. Walking in my living is an essential priority. But on the condition of my body hard to adapt to sun or hot weather, I hardly can do the walking at any instant point of time, so my life has to be under rule and time.
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I get to morning walking for about 50 minutes from 5:30~6:00 AM in summer, for 60 minutes from 6:00 or 7:00 AM in spring and autumn, for 60~90 minutes from 8:00~8:30 and at 9 o’clock of sunbeams starting to shine in very cold weather around 10 degrees below zero. Evening walking is also similar. For more than 300 days in 365, I am controlling my body with this load of constitutional walking. (This had been a way of living until September 2005 before my leg hurting.)
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The reason of changes of walking hours and walking loads season by season is as follows:
First, it is because of difficulty in control of temperature caused up by being exposed to sunlight and bodily heat turning up during walk according to bodily particularities of mine. The higher the temperature within goes by the movement during walk and the higher the temperature without goes, the more hardly the heart endures, so that I easily get tired at a small bit of sunlight. .
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Second, it is because of sunbeams and lights, especially the lights of cars in the night that cause my eyes hard to open. Due to time difference of sun rising season by season and eye condition necessary of keeping off from strong lights and body condition hard to be exposed to sunlight, I get to my walking before sunrise and end it by the time when the sun rays are spreading, regardless of season (with an exception of winter). Since walking even after sunset is necessary for me due to a relatively increased amount of walking from October to March next year, the seasons that are somewhat easy to walk in lower temperature outside, wearing my sunglasses is essential for a walk.
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Insulin-dependent diabetes (Type-1 diabetes) that started at the year 77 has brought me multiple complications with the passage of time. From 90, my eyes began to be very sensitive to lights. With the lapse of 20, 30 or longer years after diabetes, one of the hardest for most diabetics is visual impairment.
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For visual protection, I have enjoyed using sunglasses since the year 90. Sunglasses at night, Sunglasses at 6 in the morning..., by a mere reason of wearing sunglasses on a daily routine basis, I sometimes was verbally abused by a stranger without cause, treated as an odd fish, and often even questioned abruptly by a policeman.... For me to survive, wearing sunglasses is a necessity, and yet Korean society doesn’t tolerate it.

I should like to recommend applying a mask on the mouth rather than ‘Insadol - a drug which advertises a strong gum’ to someone who has sore teeth, and rather applying ultra-violet-screened sunglasses to someone who suffers from diabetic visual trouble. For those who suffer from arthritis, bathing in warm water and a ‘supporting band’ worn around joints of knees, heels and elbows are efficaciously a priority over an oral drug of arthritis. Such kinds of advice, mess media promote, I have a wish. (Of course, excluded are serious cases that need professional treatment.)
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As a minister as I am, this action is now hard to practice, either. Not unlike before, I start evening walking at 6:30~7:00, and it is dark by the time 7:30~8:00 about time to end walking. The darker it is, the harder the lights nearby feel and the more serious my eyes’ soreness stimulated by lights gets. On account of this, the time I go to bed is not across 9~10 o’clock.
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While I used to walk uprightly in the morning out of hating the lights of the village 1km ahead of mine, I now walk heads down or eyes nearly closed from start by the ending point of evening walk. This is the best preventive measure I can take, together with walking, against eye impairment. Till just a while ago, a diabetic within my acquaintance who had said no problem with his normal life since his visual recovery he insisted on after surgery of visually impaired eyes virtually lost his eyesight in a mere few months.
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As important as other parts of the body are, one must continue to take their own self-managing responsibility for and be anxious about their own eyes to an awful(?) extreme. For, unlike gradually-dwindling visual acuity of commoners by natural ageing, those who have long suffered from diabetes could catch a ‘sudden’ and ‘ruinous’ visual impairment. Although we commit numerous desires and sins because we can see, but we can cherish all the things good, wonderful and curious in this so-called beautiful world because we have eyes.
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Walking itself alone too burdensome, 2~3 months in summer obliges me to set foot forward with an exertion. In summer, I end my walking in exhaustion in no leisurely state of looking around or appreciating and feeling the nature around.
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Around the end of August, however, a cool breeze touches very obvious on the skin early in the morning and everything within my eye span begins to feel refreshing. From then on, escaping from a ‘bleak means’ essential for surviving or keeping the right condition of body, going out for a walk has ‘living itself’ thrilling.
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Although it is merely one twentieth ~ one 24th of a day if an habitually walking time in the morning is calculated by the time, I am grateful myself for being alive in the time and feel an infinite happiness for still being visually able. Walking virtually works as a tonic of the mind, not only as a health of the body. Drops of dew on the grass, yellow primroses seen early in the morning, sawgrass feathers breezing in the wind, autumn plains emptied one by one....
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Regardless of human will at all, the change of seasons shows us miracles as well as gifts of Nature.
Especially what has me moving each time among the gifts of Nature is 30-minutes-long eastern sky at sunrise and 30-minutes-long western sky at sunset. The sky about the 30 minutes long between early morning and morning and between afternoon and evening is what I untiringly appreciate, saying repeatedly to myself, what photographer or what painter were to express this solemnness?!...something intense, subtle, brilliant, elegant, natural...
Nature itself is great art and a perfect piece of work. In the moment of walking across the creative world of art, one feels themselves full at last so that they often find themselves experiencing praise being to God the Creator.
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You listeners too, please walk across the fields early in the morning now once in your just imagination.
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If you walk alone across the early morning fields especially the day it’s cloudy, you will taste a mystical feeling(!) of coming across(?) ‘a morning of creation’ as if being a principal character of Genesis 1st chapter. (Is this an emotion exclusively of my own? or a hyper-emotion?)
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The world of creation, namely, the ecosystem is of a certain order.

This certain order is unseen in the eyes of man. Even if seen on occasion, it has often been disregarded. And yet, if man disregards the order of nature and adds to man’s own artificial power, the damage returns to the humans themselves.
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For example, to make agricultural use or municipal road use of the patches gotten as remnants through artificially embanking and narrowing such spaces as ‘vacant’ shores on the stream, marshlands down the river, watercourses on the curve that appear useless in ordinary times, it might look like gaining a great benefit at first and yet they could suffer a grave misery from a big flood in just a few decades since. The heavy flood damage of Anyang City area in 1977 as well was because they artificially narrowed the streambed surroundings through embankment of the Stream Anyang according to ‘city development scheme.’
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As to public fears of ‘Mad Cow Disease’ that drove the whole Europe into anxiety, the following ‘hypothesis of mad cow disease’ is most widely recognized, that the cause of disease is because they fed cows and sheep ‘animal feed’ that was manufactured from byproduct of the remaining meat after man’s usage for food. To raise livestock animals with animal feed, it has cows grow quicker. (It is the case with man, like, cow-milk-fed babies who grow quicker than not during infanthood.) In proportion as they grow quicker, they are more contributing to the economic profits for cow-keeping farm owners.
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But the result is as if they’ve lost 10 dollars if gaining 1.
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These calamities unexpected are taking places by man ignoring the root of Nature, which shouldn’t dare be infringed upon.
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In the 1800s, Europe had the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution brought about the revolution of man’s brains as well as goods’ production. The human society after the Industrial Revolution began to rapidly change. Societies of Agriculture and handicraft changed into a society of mechanization. A great change also took place in means of traffic and telecommunication.
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As such age of development, and age of revolution came to an arrival, humans by their own selves began to be too much carried away by the belief of ‘man’s power,’ ‘man’s possibility’ and ‘man’s potential.’ Escaping from ‘God’ power’ and ‘God’s miracle’ which had been transmitted even after the Reformation, they put emphasis on such human towers as ‘man’s power,’ ‘man’s achievements’ and ‘man’s dream of the future.’
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This time is often called the age of ‘rationalism’ or the ‘age of enlightenment.’
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A characteristic of rationalism is that, by substituting ‘Man’s power’ in place of ‘God’s power’ hitherto believed, they put man’s potential beyond all sorts of philosophy in order to deal with things.
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In this mindset, they viewed and interpreted the Bible as well.
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In ‘rationalism’’ view, the core interpretation of today’s text Mark 4:26~29 turns its eyes toward the verse 26 ‘seed scattered on the ground’ and the verse 28 ‘seed growing’ of bud-stalk-grain process. It is that a farmer collects multiple times of grain if he scatters seed on the ground and grows them in earnest efforts.
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‘Rationalism’ is known to have emphasized and promoted man’s power, endeavor and will. Under conditions of applying this spirit of the times straightforward even to the Bible interpretation, ‘growth,’ ‘harvest,’ ‘expansion’ and the like emerged as key words.
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Spirit or ism is a product of the times. It never took place by accident. It is said Jesus’ coming down on the earth had heaven originate. That is, ‘emphasizing only the contemporaneity of heaven’ is a product of ‘rationalism.’
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The words of heaven Jesus sowed shot out buds among people. With the efforts of his disciples and Christians else, the heaven resulted in the Kingdom 60 times 100 times expanded (See 4:8). Like seed growing into grain by man’s efforts and will, the expansion of the Kingdom as well comes out in good result. This is the interpretation which ‘rationalism’ recognized.
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However, there are many times when the wisdom of man brings about a destructive result. (Please make a study of what chapters 3, 4 and 11 of the Book of Genesis mean.) With the passing of the Crimean War(1845~1856, giving a start to International Red Cross Movement), ‘the 1st World War’ 1914~1918 and the 2nd World War 1939~1945 in Europe, they began to lay reflections on the opinions of ‘rationalism’ that emphasized human power.
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Seeing man’s power and man’s pursued wisdom coming out in not good but ‘destructive results,’ people began to give reconsideration to the idea that Jesus-sown words on the earth became seed to be increasingly on and on enlarging and expanding (4:30~32).
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Scars left by war have taken away human wisdom and judgment and confidence in the western civilization so far built up and their vitality. This phenomenon is not confined to the philosophy circles. The repercussions were also very heavy in the religious circles. A theological thought on the rise after experiencing a destructive human nature was the very famous Karl Barth’s ‘neo traditionalism.’
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Neo Traditionalism is a theology emphasizing ‘the transcendence of God’ that although God the Omnipotent is present, yet this God is there just standing aloof from human history happening on the earth, that is, just looking over human lives without intervening.
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After having undergone the 1st and 2nd World Wars among the most tragic in human history, what are justice, providence and manifestation of God? Where can His intervention and interference in history be found? High-principled persons’ death and evil-minded persons’ prevalence! On-and-on problems in real society; Repeated contradictory social systems and irrationality; Theological dogmas that cannot approach human life; Subsidence of the spiritual world that has been built up so far in the belief of it to be reason and wisdom; and so forth. For a theological solution to approach such a succession of issues unsolved on the earth, ‘neo traditionalism’ was born as a field of theology after so many questions and agonies.
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To interpret Mark 4:26~29 in neo traditionalism’s view, it emphasizes the verse 28 ‘Of itself the soil…’ and verse 27 ‘…he does not know how.’ Like the farmer in the text who is without distinct role in daily routine of sleeping and rising night and day, God is regardless of the history on the earth, while human history itself proceeds in human interaction between one another. The neo traditionalists set up God who is ‘merely looking over in the distance,’ standing aloof somewhere at a distant sky like a farmer who ‘sleeps and rises...and does not know how.’ In their view, God the Omniscient and Omnipotent, God the Omnipresent and God the Self-Revealer intervening in history, which had so far been emphasized in dogmas of Christianity, was not found in the tragic human scenes.
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Under innumerable issues and events unsolved that humans turned out, the theology born undergoing historical circumstances where the word why? was so important was ‘neo traditionalism.’
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Even if one asks the questions of how come...to us...whereunto and so forth in front of brutal reality behind war big or small that man creates, that person is neither ‘unbeliever’ not ‘atheist.’ (You may please refer to the Books of Job, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Habakkuk and Psalms 22 and the guests in the show Love’s Request.)
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I suggest you too should think over the Bible verses that have the appearance of...Why? How come....
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In another sense, to look at the passage in apocalyptic view, one may interpret the passage with emphasis upon the verse 29 latter part ‘the harvest has come.’
An extreme interpretation of this is the ‘time-limited apocalypticism’ that appeared in the early 90s.
The parable of apocalyptical phenomena as in the chapter 24 of Matthew is just something that can be found at any point in human history. As for that, extreme apocalypticists argued, ‘the time of world’s end has come.’
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2000 years ago was the time when mass communication was not developed very much like this present. What happened at other regions distant from Palestine was unable to be informed of. Even if it might not happen at Palestine a tiny small section of the earth, the circumstances of Matthew chapter 24 has - in the context of the whole earth - always been taking place somewhere someplace. It is, for instance, wars, earthquakes, famines, false prophets, total eclipses and such others.
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By literally accepting the expression of man’s end and magnificatively interpreting the happenings at their own corner of the earth, some in both the medieval times around the end of the year 1000 and modern times in the early 90s around the end of 2000 argues that the time of world’s end has come. However, there we get to see some preposterous(?) irony sticking to a certain ‘literal’ interpretation, without paying attention to another Biblical part Matthew 24:36 “No one knows about the time of the end (that day or hour).”
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Why do ‘self-claimed believers of good faith’ exclude only the verse Matthew 24:36 separately from literal interpretation...? Personally, this one is remaining as a question unsolved about apocalypticists.
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To sum up Mark 4:26~29
26th verse, a farmer scattered seed.
27th verse, the famer repeats sleeping at night and rising in the morning.
But he does not know how the seed grows.
28th verse, by itself, the soil produces grain.
29th verse, when harvest has come, the crop is gathered.
- That is, it refers to a farmer’s daily rhythm of life.
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A detailed explanation about nature order and strenuous efforts for my body management’s sake as a prologue to the sermon of the day was, indeed, because it had a lot to do with how to interpret the text. The up-keep of nature order preconditions tolerance(?) that should know enough to accept nature in its very nature, rather than human wisdom, human power, human ability and man-driven development so as to enliven nature like nature.
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By virtue of ‘rationalism(enlightenment thought)’ after 1800, the scope of humans’ rational thought has been expanded and human society has developed. On the contrary, machine civilization and inventions humans invented for their own convenience and thought trend(ism)s resulted in finally destructing and reducing humans to misery. The human self-conceit claiming to be at the summit point of ecosystem did harm to nature to the extent unrestorable.
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They were so conceited, by interpretation with this arrogance, human efforts and will might be able to make a domain of heaven and its expansion with an avalanche of a force.
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Everybody, let us think.
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You may please have the following questions: Where is the space God stands in? Where has God’s omnipotent gone? And what is the role of the personage(?) who exists on His own without any interference or influence from anybody, and who makes everything exist(Exodus 3:14)?
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In the text, there comes the saying that a farmer scatters seed on the ground, and in the process of the seed sprouting and growing, the soil by itself finally produces grain (28th verse). The persons who themselves did farming and grew flowers will know that there is no such method of farming.
Why, then, did they omit farmer’s pains taken until harvest?
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To think about it in connection with the verse 28, sprinkling water, digging up weeds and thinning out the seedling until seed, if sown, grows and produces grain is, indeed, farmer’s endeavors to have some good crop, regardless of ‘the nature of seed itself budding and growing spontaneously.’
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After all, the verse 28, in the mystery of life and reverence for animation, puts emphasis on animation of seed itself, rather than man’s will and efforts.
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Bring up an image to yourself of the lives within your bellies. A sperm and an ovum being connected together is the work which parents can do. And yet, the origin of life and the crystallization of mystery the sperm and ovum is not what man can create. Modern science is only at the level of managing to know the mystery little by little. With this very view in mind, I suggest you should understand the parable of God’s kingdom in Mark 4:26~29. With Jesus coming, the earth has the seed of kingdom sown (verse 26). Regardless of human will, the seed, in another word, the word comes down and intervenes in the history of man, so that it may be accomplished.
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This is the plan and providence of God.
By hastily acting by means of a certain figure or a certain method, heaven doesn’t necessarily expands over the earth in a day or two, which Jesus teaches his disciples (verse 28).
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Here, that which shouldn’t be overlooked is the role of the farmer who has no idea of the process how seed grows as in verse 29. It doesn’t mean that the farmer just sit on his hands in the waiting for harvest. Rather, it emphasized just famer’s daily life by saying sleeping at night and rising during the day, but not the waiting for a persimmon falling with his mouth open in laziness. .
It is the case with an unborn baby within the belly. Although people might have fertilized ‘an origin of life and a crystallization of mystery,’ yet they cannot partake of a proper nature of the life inherent in the sperm and ovum’s own. And does the unborn baby have a heart, organs, limbs and hair created by the will of mother?
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No, it is not so. Already, the unborn baby is getting bigger and bigger by the animation of its own. The animation of a baby’s own is by ‘its own spontaneous animation,’ which is not concerned with the mother’s will. The anti-abortion movement in Christianity is from this concept.
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Then, what is the role of mother? Even though the life’s mysterious origin cannot be helped any more, the life within the belly may lead to abortion or premature birth, if the role of mother falls short of the way. Please understand things with this point in mind, while reading today’s text. Approach, from this angle, this person’s path of life especially the lifestyle as good as struggle and what my view is on nature order that shouldn’t be transgressed by man.
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Mark 4:26~29 the text of the day is a parable that underlined the saying ‘even during our sleep, the expansion of heaven makes its way onward.’
To make application of this parable, rather than self-conceited because I am being available, I should know that it that God have entrusted even me sinner with ‘such precious word,’ ‘such precious expansion of God’s kingdom’ is Saint Paul’s confession and also the privilege of every Christian. The Judaic are to receive the condemnation correspondent to punishment because they deserted this privilege. So the privilege turned over to the gentile to become Christianity of modern times, which is the gist of St. Paul’s letters message, the history of the Bible and the history of Christianity.
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This history of God has God as its hero and man as its supporting actor. At this point lies the spotlight of interpretation of Mark 4:26~29.
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However, don’t be lazy as a supporting actor and actress. The reason why this man wrote my own story at wordy length is because only when I endure as a supporting actor even to the point of wetting the pants, giving a burning smell, tumbling over and throwing up even though I have to have insulin injected 25 years, boast of my heart(?) beating usually 100~120 times a minute and all the other complications, have to avoid light, sunrays and hot condition in the state of hardly capable control of body temperature, and dip my body over 10 times a day in the bathtub water gasping on and on for breath for some months of summer, I can make my own history of Psalms Canto 118 Verses 17~18:
“...I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the LORD has done (for me)....”
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There is no such history that doesn’t line up in the order of past-present-future. The struggle of my personal life too is, indeed, the endeavor to meet the future.
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Now, here comes the conclusion.
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The Bible teaches us that the whole history’s hero is God Himself.
The expansion of God’s kingdom is made also according to God’s will. Even so, please don’t disregard your human role as a supporting actor and actress.
God’s providence and His work is come true in the world human.
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In fact, an inspiring drama as well will be lacking in something with only the 1~2 major performers’ splendid talent. It is come true only when the supporting performers assimilate their own proper roles thoroughly. It was Jesus on the cross who was faithful enough to meet his own proper role up to the extent of shedding his painful strained scream “Why have thou forsaken me?”
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And eventually Jesus got God’s will fulfilled.
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The miracle of the Gospel being preached was possible by Jesus taking his best role faithful. You as well, be please faithful to your own proper role up to the extent of agonizing outcry with every ounce of your energies.
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The crop of seed sown today cannot be gathered in just a day from now (see the verse 28).
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Concerning salvation, its meaning cannot be recognized until we understand ‘the word patience’ in a painful life. I pray you everybody may please be the doers of your own most proper role as a dignified supporting actor and actress in the amazing miracle of ‘God’s kingdom’s expansion.’

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