Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Daniel Im

animals and spirituality

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As you can see in this picture, my wife and I have a puppy – his name is Teddy and he’s almost 6 months old.

Teddy - Our Dog
Teddy - Our Dog

For the past couple of days, we have been babysitting Christina’s parent’s two dogs and it’s been fascinating to see the interaction between the three of them.

The most significant thing that my wife and I keep on noticing is the interplay between love and jealousy.

  • When we come home, the dogs love us. But when we begin to pet one of them, the other two become jealous.
  • If we are going to give them all treats, they love us.  But when we give the first one out, the other two are jealous.
  • If we hold one of the dogs, that dog loves us.  But the other two walk towards us and either whine or look at us with eyes of jealousy.

How often, as human beings, are we also like that?

  • When we receive a gift from a loved one, we love that person.  But when our loved one gives a gift to someone else and forgets us, we become jealous.
  • When we complete a project or a task and people positively acknowledge our work, we love them.  But when the only work being acknowledged is someone else’s, we become jealous.

What exactly is the relationship between love and jealousy?

I believe it’s a battle between our human/sinful nature and a life that is fully devoted to God.

“The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: …jealousy…But the fruit of the Spirit is love…Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:19-25)

Which side is winning in your life?

how to memorize scripture…

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While listening to a sermon by John Piper, I was encouraged by the way he explained how he meditated on scripture.  For in Psalm 19:14 it says, “May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my redeemer.”  And it also says in Psalm 119:11, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

As a result, when he would spend his daily time with God – reading scripture and praying – he would always strive to pick a verse that he could meditate on throughout the day.  He would do that through memorizing the verse, repeating it, and praying through it in the course of the day.

I started doing it yesterday and it has been a great encouragement.

Yesterday I memorized Galatians 1:10 – “Am I now trying to win human approval or God’s approval?  Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

And today I memorized Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Lord, grant me the perseverance to continue this discipline so that I may meditate on your word always and hide your word in my heart.

an image of faith

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Faith is such a lofty word and it’s hard to imagine what a life of faith would look like.

The following is a description of my mental image of faith…

Imagine a cliff – high up, isolated, dusty, and majestic.
The wind is blowing and the clouds are within arms reach.
You walk to the edge and you hear the frightening yet soothing sound of wind.
You then take a few steps back and you begin running full speed towards the edge.
As you draw closer to the edge of cliff, you are trusting that God will catch you because…
“Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

You are sure that God will catch you even though you might not see him over the cliff.
That’s faith.  And faith is freedom.

Let me end by quoting my beautiful and insightful wife:

“What’s so wrong with being afraid when you know you are in the embrace of the one who created the universe?”

a random blessing?

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A Note of Blessing
A Note of Blessing

Last Friday, I was sitting at a popular bagel restaurant for breakfast with one of the students in my youth group – it was the beginning of a one week internship that he wanted to do with me. Midway through our meal our waitress brings us this note telling us that some person wanted to give it to us.  It seemed pretty random because we didn’t even know who it was.  We thought it might have been someone who saw us pray before we ate.  Anyway, we were grateful for the note and continued our meal and conversation.  When we were getting ready to leave, I was wondering why our bill hadn’t come yet.  I thought they might have forgotten about us (since we stayed for such a long time) so we got up and I was going to pay at the cash register.  When I asked for the bill, the cashier told me that it was my lucky day because someone had already paid for us.

The person who left us the note must have paid for us!

Wow. That’s amazing.

But why? What motivated that person to bless us so anonymously?

Why can’t we all be more generous and loving like that anonymous person?  If we were, I wonder what this world would look like?

our calling in life…

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“Every assignment that God gives His people is His primary means of sanctifying His leader.”

These are the words of Crawford Loritts that have encouraged me today.  In a sermon entitled The Call to Courage from the 2008 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference, Loritts digs out an amazing insight from Joshua 1:1-9 regarding the calling that God has given us and how God uses it to sanctify us.

Here it is:

“Every assignment that God gives His people is His primary means of sanctifying His leader…some of us are getting burnt out because we are separating the sanctification process from our ministry. I understand boundaries, rest, variety in life, etc…

…but the very thing that God is using to draw you to Himself is the calling that He has given you.”

Wow.

The primary calling that God has given me is to love God and love others.  More specifically, he is calling me to do that through pastoral ministry.  Getting even more specific, God has given me a desire to minister to those who are intercultural (those people who are attempting to balance their different cultural backgrounds and upbringings).  And to really hone in on exactly what God is calling me to do – he has given me a calling to minister to 2nd generation Asians (those born and raised in a country that their parents immigrated to) and to those who minister to 2nd gen Asians.

Perhaps that is why I am so energized and have such a renewed sense of calling upon coming back from ministering to 2nd gens in Korea?