Passion Seoul

Now, I'm writing you from the free Internet room at a fantastic little hostel here in Seoul. The keyboard setting is goofy, so this will be short. Today, I went to Passion Seoul.

Maybe you've heard of the Passion World Tour. (I hadn't. But I'm a million miles from the loop.) It's put together by Louie Giglio, who I actually had heard of, thanks to the Sunday evening Bible study led by the worship leader at my church in Colorado Springs.

Anyway, the experience was beautiful for three main reasons.

1. Seoul. It's my first trip to the big city, and the town is amazing. The conference itself was held at the Olympic Park, which is a memorable sight. I was standing there on the plaza eating lunch with all the other conference-goers, and looking around I could see all the venues that were built for the 1988 Olympics. It occurred to me that this was my first trip to an Olympic city. And it was so cool just to imagine what it was like to be there 20 years ago, among all those people from all over the world, celebrating peaceful competition.

2. Music. The conference featured Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman and the David Crowder*Band. All talented musicians whose songs I've sung before in church. There were a ton of foreigners at the conference, but the majority of the people there were Koreans, a good chunk of them university students. And to be among such a diverse group singing praise songs to God is a powerful thing. There were two points that the leaders actually sang the songs in Korean, so I got to hear thousands of people singing "How Great Thou Art" and "How Great Is Our God" in Korean. I love that feeling -- hearing the melody of a familiar praise song with words from another language, sung so heartfelt and beautifully by people for whom these words are native.

3. God. (Saving the best for last.) I went into the weekend praying, and asking others to pray, that God would give me some guidance and direction about the next step in my life. I love it here in Korea, and I love teaching, and I really have no idea what I'm going to do when my time here is up. I've got dreams, and I'm just not sure which one to follow, and I really prayed that God would show me which was from Him.

Guess what? He didn't. But He gave me something better instead. In the morning session, pastor Francis Chan spoke about grace and how difficult and important it is to see it for what it is -- a free gift from God that I can do nothing to earn. At the close of his message, he challenged all of us to "do nothing" -- to experience and accept the free gift of grace without acting on it, without trying to weave a proper prayer or make promises to God, but just to be silent and accept it. He talked about the prodigal son and how he had intended to become a slave to his father just to gain his acceptance, but the father welcomed him home as a son. God gave me this sense of Him walking up behind me and just wrapping his arms around me. It broke through my defenses and I was blown away. And the more overwhelmed I was by this image of grace, the tighter I felt Him holding on.

Then, in the evening session, the final part of the day, Louie Giglio talked about asking God to "use my life to make the name of Jesus famous on this earth." The image of that father, blanketing the son with unearned and limitless love, came back to me. I want others to come to experience that, and I want God to use me to bring that about. And I don't really worry now about exactly how, where or when He does that. He'll get me to where I'm supposed to be to make that happen. For now, I need to keep that thought in mind -- God, use me to make the name of Jesus famous in this generation.