My God is very entertaining in a lot of different ways. Not only does he build me up through trials and love me through the needs that are necessary, sometimes he even takes me to Hong Kong and puts me in front of famous people. Hang in there with me!
So it all started out with my buddy Daniel and I splitting ways from the rest of the squad yesterday morning and going on our own adventure. Daniel is known for his entertaining adventures and I have really enjoyed getting to know him this past month, so I knew that we were going to have an exciting day.
Being the "tourists" that we are, we decided to take a little stroll on the water front of Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor. A lot of stuff was happening all around us, but one thing in particular caught our eyes. We stumbled upon an area full of nice cars, a lot of people, and a lot of cameras. It did not take long for us to realize that whatever big was going on, we needed to be apart of! Being the adventurous people that we are, we decided to get closer and start taking pictures. We walked down the stairs to where all of the commotion was happening before the rest of the general public got an idea of what was happening. As we walked down we saw a small man sitting in front of the crowd looking pretty fly in his pink suit with his posse standing behind him, bobbling their heads back and forth with headphones on. Sure enough that little man was Siei Nhan, or as most people know him, “Psy”, or, "Gangnam style"! He was shooting a commercial/music video for said headphones produced by Ludacris called "Soul". Biblical you ask? I guess we will see!
Laughing at the "clicheness" that was happening in front of us, we started taking pictures of our surroundings. Siei disappeared for a while inside of his tent as the crew switched scenes for the next shot. I just knew I needed to capture a good picture of this episode to add to the chronicles of my random life. It's not everyday that you get to see a famous YouTube star in Hong Kong (ha). As we sat and waited for him to come back out we kept seeing this trend of important people going in and out of this certain opening in the gate. “Interesting”, I thought, so Daniel and I went down and propped ourselves next to this magical gate just to see if we could talk someone into letting us in…
Sure enough, not 10 minutes passed by when some of the set photographers walked past us, and what looked to be an important person asked me, "Are you with the photographers?” So, maybe I understood what he said, but he could have said, "Are you a photographer?” If we are honest, this whole language barrier is what I am going to blame it on. Being Jonathan Garner, The World Race guy would likes to take pictures, I said, "Why yes I am!! And this is my second shooter Daniel!"
And like that we were on the set and taking pictures with $800,000 cars and snapping a few side shots of famous Asian people. Being the only American and Mexican on set, Daniel and I kinda stuck out like sore thumbs.
I am in the midst of reading "Love Does" by Bob Goff this month (don't worry, I'm bringing this all full circle!) and the book is filled with stories of how the Lord loves people through the simple acts of kindness. As I sat on the outside of the gates, though I was not looking for a way to start preaching the gospel over the loud speaker, I still knew that I need to get in. Bob talks in a specific chapter about the time that he snuck onto the set of national treasure 2, and he writes,
"There are lots of things in life you and I don’t get invited to, though. I’ve never been invited to the Oscars or to Paul McCartney’s birthday party of to a space shuttle launch. I’m waiting for my invitation to National Treasure 3. If I got an invitation to any of those things, or for that matter, to the real White House Easter egg hunt, I’d definitely go. There’s nothing like feeling included.
There is only one invitation it would kill me to refuse, yet I’m tempted to turn it down all the time. I get the invitation every morning when I wake up to actually live a life of complete engagement, a life of whimsy, a life where love does. It doesn’t come in an envelope. It’s ushered in by a sunrise, the sound of a bird, or the smell of coffee drifting lazily from the kitchen. It’s the invitation to actually live, to fully participate in this amazing life for one more day. Nobody turns down an invitation to the White House (or on the set of a famous YouTube star), but I’ve seen plenty of people turn down an invitation to fully live.
Turning down this invitation comes in lots of flavors. It looks like numbing yourself or distracting yourself or seeing something really beautiful as just normal. It can also look like refusing to forgive or not being grateful or getting wrapped around the axle with fear of envy. I think every day God sends us an invitation to live ands sometimes we forget to show up or get head-fakes into thinking we haven’t really been invited. But you see, we have been invited-every day all over again. There’s no doubt Jesus invited us to have some very cool experiences."
When I was younger, I thought that being a follower of Christ was like sneaking on the set of a commercial with famous people. I felt as though I always had to know everything to get let past the gates. I felt as though I could only take pictures from the outside looking in because I was not good enough. The truth is though, that Jesus loves us, because He loves us, because He loves us, because He loves us… because that is His nature. That is what He does and we as humans can do nothing to change that. If we succeed at life and beautifully champion all of our causes, that will not change His view of us; and if we miserably fail at life (like most oftentimes we do) that will not change His love for us. He is inviting us as sinners to walk past those gates and take pictures of his lovely grace and to interview His power day after day through our communication with Him. He is waiting to spend time with us and all we have to do is stop, breathe, and give Him our attention.
