The most important thing to a chef is ingredient. It is a chef's joy to create best dish through the best and the most fresh ingredients. In a way, I consider myself as a chef. Each sermon that I deliver is a spiritual nourishment, and I cook it every week to serve this spiritual nourishment. I use the Bible as the main ingredient and good writings as seasonings for cooking. There is a couple of major ingredients that I must include in this spiritual dish: the blood of Jesus and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. It is as if I'm putting in red pepper paste and sesame oil on a bowl of BiBimBap. No mater how great the sermon would be, if it is not covered by the blood of Jesus and if it is not anointed with the oil of the Spirit, then it cannot revive the souls of the listeners. This is a metaphor for a great sermon. 

I am a writing chef, and writing chef needs to find good ingredients for a writing. A writing doesn't just come along; it requires right ingredients to become a good writing. Finding ingredients for his writing is what a writer does.

A chef doesn't cook for himself. Of course, there are times that he does, but he mostly cooks for the customers. It is same for a writer. There are times when he writes for himself, but he mostly writes for the readers. So I think a lot about the readers when I'm writing, and I try to write things that will help the readers.

I always strive to find the ingredients that fits my writing. And I obtain them through various means. I sometimes obtain the ingredients through meeting someone and sometimes through conversing with the silence. But most of all, I obtain the materials through reading. When I find a good material for my writing, it feels as if I have found a great treasure. As I was reading this week, I came to read a poem by Poet Jung ChaeBong. It is called 'Education of Bean's Family.' I thought that it would be a good ingredient for this week's pastorate letter.

A child
Sent to the wilderness
Became a beanstalk

A child
Sent to the greenhouse
Became a bean sprout

It's a short poem but it contains the secret of education. It tells us to send our children to the wilderness so that they can grow to be beanstalk not bean sprouts. It teaches us a lesson how a person can become strong through difficulties and trials. The poem, 'Education of Bean's Family,' teaches a lesson that a child sheltered in the greenhouse will only be soft and weak. Because God loves us, he sends us out to wilderness more often then to keep us in the greenhouse. You may be going through the wilderness now. Do not lose your heart. There is a reason why God has allowed you to go through the wilderness, and it comes from God's profound and deep love for you. So stand firm and endure.

God wants us to be a 'beanstalk' rather than a 'bean sprout.' Pastor Kiwon Suh translates my weekly pastorate letter into English. I am curious about how he would translate a poem by Poet Jung ChaeBong. The weather is very hot. Let us withstand through the hardship, because the grains grow ripe under the hot summer sun. May the grace of God be with those who are passing through the wilderness. I love you.