Today's passage is Acts 20:1-12.
Paul joins his friends in Macedonia and preaches his way to Greece where he stays a few months until a Jewish plot against him forces him to leave. Once again, his friends go ahead of him to Troas. When he joins them, he intends to spend only a day, so he stays up all night talking to the believers who have met in a house. A young man, Eutychus, falls asleep while sitting in a window, falls out of the window and kills himself. Paul throws himself on the man, restoring him to life.
Paul returns to the house and talks till dawn when everyone goes their way.
When I first attended Wooridle Church eight years ago, I lived in Ansan.
Our couples(부부) mokjang often went until 2 and 3 a.m. People fell asleep.
I wanted to. I thought, "This is crazy! How can exhausting people do them any spiritual good? It's like going to a sermon and then sleeping through it!"
Week after week, month after month, year after year, it was the same.
I endured. I watched people. I listened with Holy Spirit ears.
I had to listen that way because I don't understand Korean.
Sometimes my wife would translate someone's story for me.
Mokjang for me was a form of patience training.
Now my couples mokjang ends around 1a.m. People still fall asleep.
I still don't understand Korean, so I still watch and listen with Holy Spirit ears.
When it's my turn to share, my wife translates.
Mokjang is still patience training but after eight years, it's also a time to rest in God's spirit and reflect more deeply on my life and interpret it through God's word and Pastor Kim's sermon.
When it's our turn to host mokjang, that is a great opportunity to clean our apartment! Because Pastor Kim has talked about cleanness a lot lately, I can see that mokjang interpretation and sharing is a time of soul cleaning.
I am Eutychus. I fell out the window every mokjang meeting eight years ago.
I kept dying.
But God restored me for another week and then I fell out the window again.
I kept dying and God kept reviving me.
I'm much better at mokjang now. Every once and a while, I become Eutychus again and fall out the window and kill myself.
But God is gracious. I repent and he restores me.
Lord, keep me awake to your word and my repentance. Keep oil in my lamp, I pray. Let me wait faithfully for your coming in my life each day. Let me always be ready for you.
