‎"Ephphatha": Coal vs Salvia (Is 5-8)

Isaiah told God, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips!"

God didn't stop here, for He sent one of the seraphim to Isaiah with a burning coal in his hand. The seraphim touched Isaiah mouth with coal secured in tongs that came from the altar. Then seraphim said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." God took care of Isaiah's messy mouth!

Let us pause here for a moment! Which kind of Ephphatha would you like: a coal that came from the altar or a salvia that came from Jesus' mouth?
Premise 1: If the coal came from altar in the Holy Place, then it must be holy!
Premise 2: If the salvia came from the Son of God, then it must be holy!
Premise 3: Ephphatha coal existed before the Christ.
Premise 4: Ephphatha salvia existed after the Christ.
Premise 5: Fiery coal and watery salvia do not mix.
Premise 6: We, the modern people, exist after the Christ.
Conclusion: Therefore, we need Jesus' salvia!

Or should I set it as this (in a non-argumentative style of writing): Ephphatha coals for the hearing and Ephphatha salvia for the deaf?

Now Isaiah told the Lord, "Here am I! Send me." And he received the commission from the Lord to tell the others about what the Lord is saying, "Go, and say to this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.'" Isaiah wondered how long will they be blind and deaf, he asked and the Lord replied, "Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land." The Lord shall make His cities waste! His land shall be barren of the people and things.

Helen Keller quoted, "Blindness separates us from things, but deafness separates us from the people".

God warned the people of Israel through Isaiah that they will not understand nor perceive. To understand is to know His voice and to grasp meaning of something. To perceive is to know His presence and observe/identify what comes from God.

Say to us all, "Ephphatha" so that we may understand and perceive!

"Ephphatha": the Diamond Edition (Isaiah 1-4)

"And I will restore your judges as the first, and your counselors as the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city."

This verse repeats the past as if God told His children that He will rewind the DVD. Then we see the repeated stories of Israel departing the Egypt in deliverance, reclaiming the land of Canaan, and continuing in prosperity when God appointed the judges after Joshua to keep them in order. No, our God, who is full of surprises, just installed a Platnium Edition Isaiah 1:26 DVD into our DVD player. Who would ever force their kids to watch the same dull movies? Disney created the Platnium Editions to give us a thorough restoration and remastering, moreover Disney expects to release all its Diamond Editions by 2016! God wouldn't want us to watch the same old 500 B.C. Isaiah 1:26 DVD edition again, so He expects Diamond Edition Isaiah 1:26 to be released sometime soon!

God will restore us to our judges when the Messiah came. In Matthew 19:28, Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Jesus will be our Judge and we will be the judges and counselors beside him through the Holy Spirit as a co-heir with Jesus. It's awesome!

"It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.' For out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples... neither shall they learn war anymore."




In blue and gold, the Gallaudet seal fingerspells "E-P-H-P-H-A-T-H-A" around the book, which says Mark 7:34 in the Hebrew writing.

I love the Diamond Edition of Isaiah 1:26! I can see how the tangible stories just turned into the intangible stories. I wonder what the Diamond Edition of Mark 7:33-37, which is also known as Ephphatha would look like. When Jesus healed a deaf man he was "looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, 'Ephphatha,' that is ,'be opened.' And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly." Is that it? No there's more! Jesus "charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure." When Jesus is telling them to be quiet it triggers them to say more! Why did it trigger them to say more? I believe that Jesus didn't just physically heal the man, but he also released the dunamis inside them. Once the dunamis was released, they couldn't stop! They reached to their fullness of heavenly-self that they couldn't not praise their true God like the children of God!

In the Diamond Edition, Mark 7:33-37 will turn into thousands of spiritual Ephphatha! Jesus told us that we will accomplish even greater works than he. Can you imagine the latter days when the Lord shall release the dunamis in all of us!

Lord, may You turn this Gallaudet seal into LIVE among us and may great things that haven't come out of Gallaudet yet shall come.

Out of Prison- Unmasked (Ps 142-145)

"Bring me out of prison, that I may give thanks to your name!"

God's faithful to His promise because He brought me out of prison on January 1, 2009! I giggled this morning when I reviewed my old blogs about my days of imprisonment and saw how God carried me through my days of spiritually and physically imprisonment.

On July 3, 2004 I wrote about how hard it is to read or do things while I'm living in different motels on Xanga. Today, I laughed when I reread everything I typed when I was seventeen years old! I realized how much information I once withhold from all my friends. When my family first moved out of an apartment to store up all of our furnitures in a storage and stay at our first Motel 6 as homeless at La Sierra Ave, Riverside, CA by SR 91/Riverside Freeway with 28 maximum number of days to stay. When the number of days maxed out, we will have to move into another Motel 6 or into a campground. All campgrounds and motels have their maximum numbers of stay, but there are a few homeless people who will negotiate with the campsite owner/manager to stay longer. In Xanga, I wrote "I finished reading about 75 pages [of Undercover by John Bevere] since June 15 [it's been 18 days]. I am going so slow!!! Everytime I opened the book to read, I was distracted by something else." I smiled at my seventeen-self! I refused to say or confess that I was down. Actually I wasn't able to read because those negative thoughts surrounded me at that time, I was imprisoned with hopelessness and confusion. My friend, Breanna, asked me if she could take me out for my birthday. I didn't reply because I don't know how I could explain to her about family's situation, which is private. We all don't know how we could tell them without burden them or confuse them. We agreed that it's better for us to keep it in silent. I had to let my friends go since I knew that it will be hard for them to understand. I tried so hard to leave my family and friends into God's hands as I tried to read page-to-page.

On November 22, 2004 I finally expressed how I felt about leaving some of my friends, "I would like to hang out with some of my old friends that I haven't seen for a long time, but I don't know if I can. I am kinda of confused with some stuff like why I am not hanging out with some of them anymore. Oh well.. I missed some of my friends at the youth group at the Rock. I guess I have to move on or something.. but I still don't see why I should. The world may be too weird sometimes and unfair. Soon I will be off on my own.. Hopefully I will find some friends like I have there."

My seventeen-self was the same as my confused and angry twenty-two-self. One day, I decided that God's not keeping His promise to bring me out of the prison at all. In my 4th year at Gallaudet University, it was as if I told God, "I'm going to fix this myself! You stay in your waiting room and I will be the doctor!" I decided to put God aside for a full 6 months because I was fed-up with God for not giving me a new Spiritual-knitted family that I once had at the Rock.

But God rocked my world on December 30, 2008! I exploded with anger on the way to airport when my dad suddenly turned around! I was set to go NYC for the New Year Eve with my friends from DC. I pulled the sliding door back and unbuckled myself to show my dad that I was capable of doing something crazy, threatening him to stop the caravan. When he slowed down because he feared for my life, I jumped off and grabbed my bags to climb over the fence in an effort to find a ride or so to the airport. After a long stubborn night, I failed. I had to wag my tail down and wait expectantly for my dad to come back and he did. I went home thinking, "My dad owes me $50!" I went to bed in anger, "my life is pointless! All of it is pointless!" After a long night, I submitted my life,"Okay..." then I went to sleep.

I made sure that my mom drove the caravan on the next day. So I got on the next flight and got to DC. When I got to DC, I realized that it would be unwise to go to NYC with all of my stuff into the crowd without signing myself into a hotel with my friends before going to New Year Eve ball dropping at the Times Square. I had to give up. I had two choices: to keep fighting for self-fulfillment or to submit myself to God and let Him fill me up. I decided to look through my book shelf to see if there is something short that I could read for NYE as my "rededication date" with Him. I found "Steps to Revival" by Pat Robertson which is only 32 pages long! Sure, I need a recovery program from God to reignite me! After that night, God opened the scroll of blueprint for my life and guided me through my recovery program and igntie me big time!

The first step of the God-given recovery program began on January 4, 2009, I finally saw that God began to knit a new Spiritual family for me at National Community Church (NCC) when Pastor Heather Zempel preached Prison series "Perspective". "What do you do when life imprisons you? Paul knew who his life was about and what his life was about, and that perspective enable him to find freedom and joy in midst of difficult circumstances." Wow, I just submitted my life to Him to get myself out of 6 months imprisionment! Then I wore my new NOTW prison hoodie to the next service at NCC

I allowed God to take care of His promise and stay into the present as I unclenched my hands to wait upon Him and rest in Him. David had to allow God to bring him into the kingship as he faithfully thank God. I had to allow God to keep His promise as I thank Him continually like a trusting child who is sitting quietly at the dining table for her parents to bring her the meal rather than a child who is jumping at her parents' side impatiently for the meal, causing the waiting time to lengthen.

"The Holy Spirit is showing me that there are those of you that feel alone and isolated especially during these holiday seasons. You have been through so much adversity in your life and it seems never ending. Many of you have built a wall of protection around yourselves because you have suspicion and mistrust of people and you won't even allow Jesus through.
The Lord says I want to restore the years back to you that have been consumed by the enemy as well as your own mistakes that you have made. It is My desire to restore those things that have been stolen. Trust Me to show you how to get out of the place that you are in and bring you into a life of joy and abundance." -Elaine Tavolacci, 11/27/2010

Partnership with God (Psalm 127-129)

"Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for He gives to his beloved sheep."

God is telling us that we cannot do it all by ourselves just like how Jethro once told Moses that he cannot do everything by himself. After Moses took Jethro's advice, he found some capable men to delegate his leadership for 1,000, 100, 50, or 10 men so that his load may be lightened. Those capable men will judge the people of Israel's cases, but when the certain issue is tough they shall bring it up to Moses so that Moses shall not worn himself out. "Even youths shall faint or grow weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles." -Isaiah 40:31

If Moses needed to share some of his burdens with his people to lighten his load, then how much would we need to share our burdens with God and His people. Actually our burdens shall be in vain if they come from us only. In Exodus 18, God removed the burdens from Moses so that he may come unto Him at the top of the mountain. God also instructed Moses in Exodus 19 to remind the people of Israel to come unto Him.

"Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: You yourselves have seen what I did to Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wing and brought you to Myself."

God saw that Israel didn't have time to go to God when Egyptians forced them into hard labors, so God brought Moses to deliver them out of hard labors in vain so that they may receive the partnership with God in their labors. "For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building." -1 Cor 3:9

The people of Israel also consecrate themselves to meet the Lord at the foot of the mountain. Although they didn't come closer to the Lord like Moses had, but they went closer because Moses told them what the Lord had said to them through him! The partnership with God didn't only allow Moses delegate his responsibilies among the capable leaders, but enabled him to bring them closer to God! Moses was willingly to step aside a bit to allow His children to come unto Him!

It's just like how Jesus rebuked the disciples for not allowing the little children to come unto him. God nudged Moses to allow the people of Israel to come into the partnership with God.

Surreal is the Reality (Psalm 124-126)

After I read, "When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, 'The Lord has done GREAT THINGS for them.' The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad."

My heart leaps when I read GREAT THINGS, so I searched for a certain lyric, "God of this City" and recited:

"No one is like our God
No one is like our God

We believe
Greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this city
We believe
Greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this city."

Amen.

Do you realize that God surrounds us all the time! He surrounds us like the gigantic mountains! "As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people from this time forth and forevermore." We are in His presence daily that we don't need to ask Him for it because He is everywhere, but it is up to us to allow ourselves to feel, see, taste, smell or hear Him. When we began to open our five senses up to Him, we will finally discern His presence. We laugh, froze-our-smiled, or weep in His presence as if all the reality was merely a dream because the reality of this world is surreal, when the surreality of the spiritual realm is real for it last from this time forth and forevermore.

The Secret Ingredient: No Yelling! (Ps 76-78)

"I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens.

I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord;

my life was an open wound that wouldn't heal.

When friends said, "Everything will turn out all right,"

I didn't believe a word they said.

I remember God - and shake my head.

I bow my head - then wring my hands.

I'm awake all night - not a wink of sleep;

I can't even say what's bothering me.

I go over the days one by one,

I ponder the years gone by.

I strum the lute all through the night,

wondering how to get my life together." (MSG)

A football coach may yell at the top of his lungs at the players. Although the fans told the coach that everything will be allright, the coach still couldn't sleep. The coach couldn't stop thinking about what went wrong and how he can get the players back together to play like a true team!

The sports psychology tells us that the secret ingredient to the improvement are:

1. Yelling and screaming does not work, the study shows, with 94% youth football players. Yelling and screaming can also make it harder for them to improve!

2. It's estimated that 4 out of 5 Pop Warner players suffer from a breakdown in confidence, while the popular methods of motivation will usually backfire.

3. Varsity high school football coaches that use routines and rituals with their teams are three times as likely to have a winning record! (http://www.footballpracticeplans.com/tsi/tsi.html)

What does it tell us about how we can be a better parent, mentor, guardian, friend, or person?

First of all, it tells us that yelling at the top of our lungs at someone or at ourselves is probably 94% ineffective. Stay calm, sing throughout the sleepless night if you have to.

Second, find an effective method of self-motivation or method of motivating the others before you all may lose your motivation by patting others' back, give them high fives, compliment one another, say thank you, and more!

Third, set up a daily routines and rituals to lessen the frustration such as reading the Bible using the one-year Bible reading plan the first thing in the morning and pray through the plans for the day or so.

Renew the 83% Doubt (Ps 73-75)

"How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you."

One thing I love the most about preaching, blogging, sharing stories, and etc, is that God may prick our heart through our sharing! Actually it will stings at first, but we will be grateful for those stings when we finally awoke from our dreams to realize that we were ignorant about those truths for a while.

After reading Kim Potter's article this morning, her article about the spirit of the 10 disbelieving spies prickled my heart, "What am I like those 10 disbelieving spies? I thought I was like Joshua and Caleb for I consider myself steadfast." After some time of thinking, I learned that I overlooked the disbelieving 10 in those specific areas of my life that had caused some of His promise to "delay". I can imagine myself joining David's choirmaster, singing with my hands from the "O Lord, Do Not Delay" hymn in Psalm 70. Then I will kneel before the Lord afterward to beg Him to speed up the renewal of my mind even though I knew that I couldn't tell Him to hurry up when it's my mind that needs the speedy renewal.

Maybe we are not bold enough to confront those Giants such as applying for a job, lead a group, try out for a team or a band, start something new and creative, believe and hold on to something unseen as you wait, confront or speak up about a barrier, learn more about a language and/or a culture, meet someone new, ask someone out, go on a mission trip, move out, or any other specific areas in your lives that you are afraid of or thought you weren't good enough for due to your own measurement.

While we are waiting in the wilderness, we speak and meditate upon His words day and night until our minds renew before we may enter the Promise Land. We will need a complete version of 12/12 Joshua-and-Caleb or Jossie-and-Calebina mindset to enter the Promise Land by claiming His promise.

Secret Insults Go Unhidden (Ps 57-60)

"There they are, bellowing with their mouths with swords in their lips - for 'Who,' they think, 'will hear us?' But you, O Lord, laugh at them; you hold all nations in derision. O my Strength, I will watch for you, for you, O God, are my fortress."

Our parents, children, siblings, relatives, co-workers, classmates, roommates, or acquiantances may sting their cruelsome words into us secretly, thinking that no one shall know. They are in those four walls building. They are safe from any types of exposition, so that they may verbally abuse you whenever they want to! They would come back to gain their control over you by abusing you verbally daily. They come back with swords in their lips again and again like an evil version of a persistent widow until you give up. They wanted you to believe in their stingy words.

How did David respond to those sneaky wordy-stings? He fixed his eyes upon the Strength, his Lord, who will expose cruelsome truth. David shouted to God, "For You are my Strength, I shall remain in Your fortress and fix my eyes upon You, O God!" David didn't simply believe that the Lord shall be his fortress, he believed that the Lord shall also laugh at them. The Lord is going to take care of them. David simply had to fix his eyes upon his Strength.

David knew that he was anointed to be a king and that nothing may stop God from keeping His promise. All he had to do is to allow God take care of those bellowers. "Why should I stop what I am doing? I learned how to rely on the Lord to slay the lion and the bear, protecting my sheep. It is my first small step to become a king who will protect his people. I learned how to trust in Your name only, not in my resources nor in my own strength, as I came to Goliath who had been waiting for 40 days and nights for a challenger. I defeated him with You at my side. You shall finish what You've started, O my Strength!"

Keep our eyes on Him as He shall make the way for us into our "Promise Land" through us.

Holy Discontent (Ps 54-56)

"Attend to me, and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and I moan, because of the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked."

Sometimes it is hard for me not to criticize people in my head, we all do! Why didn't this person do this or that? It is a sign of our Holy Discontent! All we want to do is do this or that. We want to push. We hated it when we could not do something about it! We are restless in our complaints. So what should we do?

"The best thing you can do is to move toward your area of holy discontent until you have clear direction from God as to what action you should take to resolve it. For example if the plight of the poor becomes your holy discontent, then increase your exposure to the poor... move toward the poor, not away from them." -Bill Hybels, Holy Discontent

Looking back, I understood why God wanted me at Gallaudet University even though I didn't realize it until now. I once wanted to go to any Division 1 or 2 college to play some basketball or go to a Christian college such as Rhema Bible College in Oklahoma, but I ended up going to Gallaudet as a last choice after I was weary with those desires. God must have wears me out for a reason! God wants me to move toward Gallaudet University, not away.

"God will birth new visions in you to become part of the solution. Stay near it so you can pick up fresh sights and fresh sounds that will stoke the firestorm of frustration in your soul. Why? So that God will have a topped-off energy supply in you to use in doing some seriously positive things in the world!" -Bill Hybels

God may move you toward something or allow you to go through something for a purpose. Patience is the key. Your restlessness may store up a topped-off energy supply in you until God lit your holy discontent, and then you shall explode! Dunamis!

Who is the Holy Spirit Before Jesus? (Ps 50-53)

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me."

Some believers do not realize that the Holy Spirit was active in the Old Testament. Although it was active in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit had not work in great number of people He has done since the Day of Pentecost.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

Yes Jesus left so that the Holy Spirit may come upon us on the Day of Pentcost so that we may go to the end of the earth as His witnesses. Now let us look at what David is trying to do. David asked the Lord to clean his heart so that he may remain in His presence and follow the Holy Spirit. Did David followed the same Holy Spirit that send Jesus' disciples 'to the end of the earth'?

Yes he did! If you read Psalm 67 carefully, you will see how David earn to be the light to the world. He begged the Lord to shine His face upon the Israel so that the ends of the earth shall fear God. David is obviously led by the Holy Spirit in his kingship because he understood the true meaning of witnessing His love to the nations other than Israel.

Let us ask the Lord for a clean heart first like how David asked Him for a clean heart so that he may remain in His presence, in His path.

No Fear: $100-300 Worth of Blog (Ps 46-49)

"Why should I fear in times of trouble, when the inquity of those who cheat me surrounds me, those who trust in their wealth and boast of the abundance of their riches? Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit."

I couldn't not delight in how God answer us in our time of need. After a minor accident today, I wondered what challenge I may learn from this accident after calmly exchanging our insurances and the long wait for the police to inspect our vehicles. I came back home wondering how much a small car dent would cost me. So I googled up the average cost to fix a small dent and it would cost at least $100, unless you had a plunger in hand! You may be able to get a dent out by a plunger, keep it in head.

It's probably my first 'my-fault' minor accident after other three previous accidents in my entire life that involve the police. The first one was my bicycle accident, I hit a pregnant woman when I was a teen because she ignorantly crossed the bike lane while I raced against my neighbor friend. I stopped and stood still, not knowing what to do, while my neighbor friend urged me to bike away. I'm glad I didn't escape the scene as a teenager. Our natural reaction is to escape the problem rather than confront the potential consequences of our mistakes. After my first police report, I had to wait for few months to see if any of the lady's immediate family would sue me for this minor non-fault mistake. But none came.

Back to the present. I thought this old man was decent because he didn't grump over his car dent, but I realized that he actually fell short of God's definition of decent because he didn't pardon the price of my $100-300 mistake. He is probably a well-retired guy with some retirement money stored up, while I'm simply a missionary girl.

Can you imagine how much God has stored up in the vaults of heavens? God once told Job, "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war? (Job 38:22-23)" Our God is a decent Man who has everything stored up, but He is more than merely a decent Guy for He saw us in debt to the price of death due to the minor fruit-accident fault and pardoned us. Actually He didn't simply pardon us, He gave up His own Son to ransom us. Can you imagine a decent old man paying you for the worth of the car dent you had make by your own mistake? Instead of paying $100-300 to the well-retired guy, God would pay you $100-300 for the car dent you just made and you couldn't even pay Him back!

Hey, you probably just read a $100-300 worth of blog! Pay up! Squeak!