Wednesday night, my wife and I were craving some ice cream, so I went to the store to buy Haagen Daz Vanilla for her because that is what she wanted. I got Ben & Jerry’s Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Core, which contains half cookies & cream and half chocolate ice cream with cheesecake flavor in the middle. We were able to enjoy our ice cream in peace as Andrew was sleeping. Poor boy, doesn’t know the joy of ice cream yet.
Thursday night, I get home after our young adults Bible study and my wife tells me that she really wants some chocolate ice cream (AKA half my ice cream)! I told her to just enjoy her vanilla Haagen Daz, and that she should have chosen chocolate instead of vanilla yesterday. After several minutes of dialogue, I reluctantly went to the freezer and took out my Ben & Jerry’s ice cream along with two spoons. We sat there eating MY ice cream together. I was holding onto it for dear life. I was literally hugging it. She had to reach over my arms for every bite. It was so painful watching her take spoonful after spoonful of MY ice cream, while hers was nicely tucked away in the freezer.
When I had first bought the ice cream, I was thinking how nice it was going to be to savor every bite and just really fully enjoy it all to myself. She had her vanilla, so surely, she wouldn’t bother to eat any of mine. I think it was the shock at how wrong my thinking was, that made it so hard for me to share my ice cream with her. To be fair, my wife is not some evil ice cream stealer. She is a very kind and sweet person. We are both just very passionate when it comes to ice cream.
About half way through, I was able to let go of my death grip and actually place the ice cream in the middle of us. We were able to finish the rest of it in peace. I realized that it was only ice cream. I could always buy more. As much as we both love ice cream, there is no need to be so serious about it.
I think love has a way of putting things in perspective. Whatever your “ice cream” might be, we realize that it’s not greater than the ones you love. You wouldn’t want your “ice cream” to come between you and the people you love. To take it one step further, you wouldn’t want your “ice cream” to come between you and God. Having been in a relationship with God for some time now, there are many things that I had to let go because it was interfering with our relationship.
Looking back at each of them, I do not view them as a loss at all. I do not regret giving them up for God. I have definitely gained more than what I gave up for my relationship with Him. Moving forward, I know that there will be more things that I will have to let go, and I will gladly do so because my relationship with God is far greater than whatever that might be.
Do we have “ice cream” that is coming between you and your loved ones? You and God? I hope that we can realize that in the end, those things are not greater than the relationships that we have. As people of God, we should be putting way more value in people and relationships rather than things. That is the example we see from Jesus. He had love for God the Father and the lost. He never had a love for things. Everything He did was for God and for people. Let’s take the time to invest in relationships rather than things.

From Pastor Eugene’s Heart

February 28, 2016

Remember the story that I shared last Sunday about my soccer tryouts? It was probably one of the most embarrassing memories I can recall during my high school years other than all the silly mistakes I made not knowing much English. As I was preparing my sermon, God brought up this shameful memory and highlighted an area that I overlooked because I was so caught up in not making the team. So even after I told the story on Sunday, I couldn’t shake off the thought of appreciation and love for my brother. Now that I think back, I should have told my brother how much I appreciated his loving and courageous act that he showed on that day. Can’t believe my brother, as a teenager himself, decided to come run with me for another mile or two after he finished the five mile run. I honestly don’t think I would have done that for my brother. Although I love him very much, I would have been very embarrassed of him and would not have had the courage to run out to finish the race together. No wonder I’m the younger brother!
Many of you may not know my brother Jacob. He is only two years older than me so we basically grew up together going to arcades, playing sports and even getting in trouble together in our early teenage years. When I was in 4th grade, I got in trouble with some older bullies in my school because I stood up against them. They threatened to beat me up after school for what I did. So that day my brother, along with some of his friends came out and protected me from those bullies. It sounds so silly now but it mattered greatly then because I was so scared that something might happen to me. Another memory that I have is when we got into big trouble because we stole something and lied to our dad. Long story short, my brother took everything on himself and kept me from getting a good “spanking” from my dad for what we did together. We lived in a house with two rooms at that time and I remember that in one of the rooms, my brother was being disciplined and in the other room, I was crying because of what my brother did for me. There are many more stories I can share but due to limited space I can’t. Just wanted to share that my brother has been there for me all along and I truly honor and love him for being such a wonderful brother to me.
Please understand that I’m not trying to brag about my family and how blessed I am. I shared about my brother because his love helped me to understand how Jesus loves and cares for me. And what I want to ask is that we need to practice such love toward one another in the context of church communities as well. We have been brought together as a family through the wonderful work of Jesus Christ.
There is a story of friends who brought a paralytic to Jesus in Luke 5. These men must have had a great desire (love) to see a paralytic get healed so they went out of their way to make sure that he is seen by Jesus. When they could not get through the crowd, the friends went on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. What a wonderful picture of how a faith community can be! These men didn’t care about what others thought of them. They were willing to do whatever it takes to bring their friend to Jesus. How many of us will go out of our way to help and minister to a brother or sister in our community? And how far will you go to bring someone to Christ? I just love how the bible describes that the paralytic was brought “right in front of Jesus.” There might be people in your life that you want to bring to Christ. What are you willing to do and how far will you go to bring that person “right in front of Jesus?” Something to think about…
BTW, my sister (Jenna) who might be reading this right now may feel left out that I didn’t write anything about her. I will do that in my next column!  

From Pastor Brian’s Heart
February 21, 2016