Diary of a Housegroup in Punggol

Friday's Recap (081010)

2010-10-09T18:52:00.002+08:00

Dear cell, I think I have discovered the secret of living a victorious Christian life. Well, it is not exactly a secret since what I am going to write about can be found in the Bible. In fact, the scriptures cited here will be very familiar to most of you. The overarching rule of a victorious Christian living is to listen to God’s spirit and obey. This sounds easy enough. From a secular point of view, all of us are told countless of times to obey our parents because daddy and mommy know best. True to this saying, we parents only want the best for our children and obedience is expected of our children if they want to stay out of trouble, come up tops in class, and marry the right partner. Well, maybe the last goal is out of our league as parents. But the point is that reality is usually and frustratingly much harder to do than oral admonishments.

Many of us have been Christians for many years and we can sit each other down beside a campfire to recount all those times that we had failed God in our thoughts, words and actions. In this world of much distractions and temptations, we sometimes feel like those seeds that have been cast into the shallow soil where our spirit has failed to take roots and our spiritual walk with God falters off after an initial jumpstart. After a while, it suddenly dawn on us that we have yet to surrender everything to God. We still have lots of skeletons in our mental closet, locked up airtight by us, refusing to let go and let God deal with our hurts, bitterness and pain accumulated over the years through betrayal, disappointments and unforgiveness.

Galatians 3:3 may sound very familiar to some of us, “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” Let’s be warned that religion by our own strength is not the gospel, it is in fact humanistic and counterproductive. Again, let’s not lose our focus. The gospel is crystal clear about our Christian obligation. It is to listen to God’s spirit and obey. The apostle Paul warned us, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4:30) He went on to say in 1 Thessalonians 5:19, “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.” How many of us have through deliberate choice put out the Spirit’s fire?

It takes little to put out the Spirit’s fire and a good start to avoid it is to digest Ephesians 4:30, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God…Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God…” Words like these are quickly forgotten because in actuality it demands too much from us. Sure, we can change or be transformed to be kind, compassionate and forgiving. We can even get rid of bitterness, rage and anger, keeping brawling and slander at bay, and controlling our tongue from all forms of malice and hurtful words. But the question is: For how long? For how long can we keep up appearances?

As I have said earlier, what is our motivation truly spirit-led or by sheer effort of human strive? Let me get this off my chest: Authenticity as a Christian does not come cheap. The above scripture talks about “being imitators of God, or Christ, as dearly loved children and live a life of love.” How many of us find this a tall order? An uphill climb? A spiritual shoe too big for our tiny, faithless feet to fill? Sadly and very unfortunately, many of us feel more like counterfeits than true imitators of Christ. And often, the calling for being Christ-like is subconsciously being understood as being Christ-less or Christ-lite (a new derisive term to describe Christians who avoid all the hardcore stuff that Jesus commanded us to do, like dying to self, worshipping God in spirit and in truth, and serving only one master and not two). Billy Graham once said that the devil seems to get 75% of God’s best servants through sexual temptation alone. This statistics is truly scary.

Recently I bought a book titled The Case of the Pope – Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse by Geoffrey Robertson QC and I was greatly spiritually agitated. The author was on a crusade for justice for the many tens of thousands, perhaps hundred thousand children, some as young as four years old, mainly boys, who have been continually sexually abused by the clergy and most of them have suffered permanent physical and psychological damage, not to mention the fact that many have left the faith in utter disgust, disillusionment and confusion.

I remembered Jesus once said, “But if anyone causes one of these little one who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.” You’d would think that the Catholic Church, with its many years of historical relevance, with its many righteous teachings and godly literatures, and being founded on the direct lineage of the very first exemplary disciple of Christ namely apostle Paul, would have done the right and proper thing to defrock these offending priests immediately and to extend all cooperation with the authorities to bring and subject them to the penal laws of the land. In other words, giving justice to those who were abused over the years by the priests.

But sadly, the Catholic Church did just the opposite. The Holy See did nothing to defrock the offending priests. They transferred them to another state, another parish. Some of them were even assigned to run young boys orphanages or schools. Imagine the idiocy of such a move! These priest were protected by the Holy See, the records of their crimes were kept secret and locked up to prevent further probing or investigation. Most of them received only minor admonishments, did short term penance, recited prayers in confessionals, and wholly forgiven without facing their accusers in the Court of Justice. Talk about divine immunity with papal impunity!

In one of the concluding passages, the author of the book struck the nail on the “man-driven, counterfeit religion” head with these words, “The priest who molest children are frequently those who are the most punctilious in religious observance and in good works. The suspicion must be that for many, the combination of spiritual powers, genuine affection and sexual craving led to acts which were committed because – and only because – there was no deterrent in the form of any likely prospect of arrest and punishment…These men believed, with good reason, that they would get away with it, because priests usually did.”

Beloved, the Christian walk is not an easy walk but it is not impossible. Hebrews 3:7-11 has this to say, “So, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” Have we hardened our hearts to the soft whispers of the Holy Spirit? When Jesus said, “My sheep hears my voice.” Are we His sheep? Do we hear His voice? Or are we wandering goats, stubborn and rebellious, too righteous and too smart for God’s molding? Didn’t the Bible say in Ecclesiastes 7:16, “Do not be over-righteous, neither be over-wise, why destroy yourself?” Indeed Proverbs 14-12 echoed the same sentiment, “There is a way that seems right to man, but in the end it leads to death (or self-destruction).”

So, with this, we return to the overarching rule of a victorious Christian living, that is, to listen to God’s spirit and obey. For in the eyes of God, “to obey is better than sacrifice”. (1 Samuel 15:22) Of course, this Christian journey cannot be trekked alone. Like every successful endeavor, it starts with a divine partnership and our partner is the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5:18 reminds us to be “filled with the Spirit.” Needless to say, filling anything takes time, it takes patience, it takes consistency. The filling can never be complete if we become distracted along the journey and detour off the beaten path set by Jesus to run our own devises and plans. Remember, man proposes, God disposes. Reversing the order only makes religion serve our own agenda and not the Holy Spirit’s.

RT Kendall once recounted an amusing tale in his book The Sensitivity of the Spirit and this was how he wrote about it, “This situation reminded me of a pastor in Kentucky who was struggling with his church. Suddenly, out of the blue, he got a call to become a minister of a Church in Hawaii. He said to his wife, “You pack up while I pray about it.” RT Kendall wisely concluded, “It is hard to seek the mind of the Lord when our own minds are already made up.” Have we made up our mind to follow Jesus or have we made up our mind to serve our own worldly masters?

In the book Disciplines of the Holy Spirit by Dr Siang Yang Tan and Dr Douglas H. Gregg, the authors simplified the work of the Holy Spirit in three broad directions: “The Holy Spirit works to (1) draw us near to God in deep love and intimacy (2) help us surrender to his will and purpose, and to (3) reach out in compassionate ministry to others through us.” In Philippians 2:12-13 we are called to work out our salvation as it requires obedience and sacrifice: “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

So, listening to God’s spirit and obeying are a process and it becomes easier when we surrender to the gentle persuasion of the Holy Spirit since the latter is not only our helper but the gatekeeper of our conscience, convicting us of sins and, the Spirit of Truth, guiding us in this world like a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

Before I end, I would like to bring to your attention the encounter between a Samaritan woman and Jesus (John 4). We all know the story. The woman came to draw water from the well and met up with her Messiah. Jesus then asked for a drink and the woman was shaken by the request since Jesus, being a Jew, shouldn’t have any dealing with her, a Samaritan.

To her, Jesus had broken an important protocol. But we all know that Jesus was a deliberate protocol breaker. In addition to this, Jesus also knew that this woman has had a very complicated romantic entanglement. She had five husbands before she met Jesus and the one whom she is currently sleeping with is not her husband. To put it mildly, she was a loose woman; maybe a very confused soul and Jesus, being the Messiah, shouldn’t have chatted with her. Surely, it was a social taboo to do so and tongues would definitely wag crazily if others get to know about it. So, in one hot afternoon, Jesus broke two protocols. But protocol breaking was not the message our Messiah wanted to impart to us. His message, which is relevant for us as growing Christians, is this: “…whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of waters springing up into everlasting life.”

This powerful spiritual metaphor of the “fountain of waters springing up into everlasting life” brings to mind an analogy of spiritual growth that I would like to share with you. Teresa of Avila, Spain, who was a 16th century theologian, and whose life was filled with mystical experiences, once likened our spirit to a garden of soul, which is beautified by four Water analogy. This water that flows into the garden of our soul symbolizes the Holy Spirit that Jesus was talking about to the Samaritan woman.

In a concise overview, the four Water analogy is as follows: “The garden of the soul, she says, can be watered in several manners. The first, drawing the water up from a well by use of a bucket, entails a great deal of human effort. The second way, cranking a water wheel and having the water run through an aqueduct, involves less exertion and yields more water. The third entails far less effort, for in it the water enters the garden as by an effluence from river or streams The fourth and final way is the best of all: as by a gentle but abundant rainfall the Lord himself waters the garden and the soul does not work at all.”

Beloved, doesn’t this water analogy aptly describes our spiritual journey and growth? First, we cannot do without the “watering” of the Holy Spirit. He is our partner and guide. Second, spiritual maturity takes time. It starts with a convicted and repentant heart. Then, we initiate a process to work out our salvation through engaging in spiritual disciplines like meditating, praying, worshipping, servicing and witnessing. Of course, all these take effort on our part. At first, it is difficult for the simple reason that it is called “spiritual disciplines” and not “spiritual playtime” or “spiritual manicure”. The word “disciplines” entails deliberate or intentional personal effort, a high and consistent level of purposeful engagement, and a dogged determination to complete the task at hand.

Third, as we get into the groove of these spiritual disciplines, we also enter into a self-sustaining spiritual momentum like cycling a bike and we realize that advancing forward starts to take less and less self-effort and more and more of letting go. This is the third stage of the four Water analogy above whereby “water enters the garden of our soul by an effluence from river or streams.”

Ultimately, when we surrender ourselves fully to God and submit to the whispers of the Holy Spirit, we quite unknowingly and graciously enter into the last stage of our spiritual maturity whereby we experience “a gentle but abundant rainfall the Lord himself waters the garden and the soul does not work at all.” I guess this is the stage when we can echo the sentiments of the Psalmist who said, “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.” And when that day comes, we can confidently declare that we have indeed sought the Lord, because we have sought Him with all our heart.

Have a victorious weekend!

Friday's Recap (270810)

2010-08-28T11:32:00.003+08:00

Last Friday’s cell was about success. What is success? This depends on your age when you are asked to define success. For my eight year old son, his main concern should be academic success, that is, to do well in his studies. Well, I would not say that he is too enthusiastic about it. For a working adult, his goal is to race up the career ladder, to be recognized as one of the best in his field, to be promoted and get well paid. To an octogenarian, success is to pass over a great legacy to his children and grandchildren. He would want to be remembered for all his positive contributions to the family and to make amends if he still can. So, success defies pigeon-holed definition.

Even between different professions, success varies widely. Ask a priest and a stockbroker and you will have wholly different views of success. Success for one is measured by catechism, charity and austerity. The other is measured by making a killing in the stock market, rewarding clients with rich returns, and maybe investing in a yacht or two as a testament to one’s stock picking acumen. Success also changes over time. In this materialistic culture, the young would want to be rich and famous. The middle-ager with a family would strive to work hard to support the family and make sure life holds together till the children grows up to working age. The retirees see it all differently from the rest. As they are closer to their grave, their life’s philosophy is usually less hurried, more generous, and deeply practical. After going through life’s experiences, the tears and the shame, the regrets and the pain, the joy and the misgivings, they are generally more enlightened and forgiving. Success to them is usually relationship-oriented with a touch of religious depth to it. Apart from that, nothing truly satisfies.

Recently, I read a book written by two highly successful individuals in their own rights. Donald Trump, the real estate billionaire, and Robert T. Kiyosaki, the investor extraordinaire, came together, with generous support from a dedicated team of editors and writers, to write a book entitled WHY WE WANT YOU TO BE RICH. The book title is very telling. These two towering capitalists of our time want their readers to be rich by way of astute investment over one’s lifetime. In a nutshell, their message is the same message that their rich dads gave them, “We are born rich. We all have been given the most powerful lever on earth, our mind…so use your mind for leverage to make you rich rather than to make excuses.” Some of the excuses that unsuccessful people give are listed by them and we should be quite familiar with some of them. Here are the excuses in one helping: Laziness…Bad habits…Lack of education…Lack of experience…Lack of guidance…Bad attitude…Bad influence…Bad environment…Lack of focus…Lack of determination…Lack of courage.

There is no doubt that the book gave some very practical advice about investment and how to get rich. Here are some of the high points of the book. The authors identified three kinds of investors: (1) People who do not invest at all (well, by right, these group are not investors at all); (2) People who invest not to lose; (3) People who invest to win. According to them, those who make it rich are those who invest to win. And those who invest to win are those who leverage wisely. The key to growing rich is to leverage big so that one can reap big. Leverage is defined as the ability to do more with less. The “less” that they are referring to is essentially raising debt (loan) to invest in worthy stocks or property. Thereafter, one is to focus exclusively on the investment like a farmer conscientiously tending to his harvest field. Quite cleverly, the acronym for FOCUS is Follow One Course Until Successful.

The book has other fun wordplay like the three Ds of Desire, Drive and Discipline. Most of us desire to be rich but do not have the drive or the discipline. As such, we fall short. Then, there is the Triple As: Ambition, Ability and Attitude. This is self-explanatory, I guess. Here’s more wordplay. How about the Triple Es: Education, Experience and Execution. Lastly, the Four Hs of Honor, Humility, Humor and Happiness. Not much explanation was given in the book on defining these general terms. But any mature reader roughly gets the general intent of the ideas imparted.

The all important advice given by these hyper-rich men is to debunk the common advice issued by most financial advisers. The philosophy of these common financial advisers is to work hard, save more, get out of debt, invest for the long term and diversify. The book rallied strongly against this dated advice. To them, we should not be working slavishly for money. But, money should work diligently for us via wise and focused investments. They also advised against over-saving because more funds saved means less funds invested. Then, debt is not a taboo for them. Like the financial mavericks that they are, the authors encouraged taking measured risk. In their own words, “There is good debt and bad debt. The purpose of getting financially smart is to know when to use debt and when not to.” And lastly, the book discouraged diversification like what mutual funds managers do. The authors also encouraged people to know everything about their investment and persist in it until it bears fruit. In the end, the authors left the reader with this choice: Work for the rest of your life as someone’s employee or as a small business owner, or prosper by being the boss of big businesses or a multimillionaire investor. The choice is yours, and the destiny is your own making. In one of the book’s captions, it reads, “Give yourself a little freedom to develop into something or someone you’d actually like to be.”

While the book gives good and practical advice for all, young and old, one has to bear in mind that the authors offer only one aspect of success as defined by this world. Material wealth is no doubt important. But money can buy only so much, its satisfaction goes only so deep, and its value reaches only so far. At the end of the day, any millionaire or billionaire would have to “kowtow” this simple truth, “To be successful and unhappy is the greatest failure of all.”

I am not one who would eschew wealth-generating activities. I believe in wise investments of stocks, shares and property. I believe in taking calculated risks, making a good profit in business and related commercial transactions. There is nothing wrong with owning big mansions, fancy cars and a personal yacht. The Bible desires that we prosper in our own way and in our own time. But the risk still lurks in the corner, waiting to pounce on us when we are at the top of our material success. This risk is not the risk of losing it all, that is, our money, property and shares. It is not the risk of making a wrong calculation that might transform our status quo overnight from an instant millionaire to a distant street pauper. It is not the risk of financial bankruptcy. This risk is more insidious than that. It is in fact the risk of having everything until everything has us. It is the risk of never having enough and always wanting more. It is the disease of covetousness, which rots our soul with envy and greed. Here the remarks of a famous naturalist John Muir are instructive. He once compared himself to the railroad magnate E.H. Harriman by saying, “I am richer than the railroad magnate because I have all the money I want, and he hasn’t.”

As Christians, we have to keep all perspectives in the right balance. Our wants may mutate along the way. In our youth, enough is mostly enough. We are carefree and sometimes careless. We have moderated expectations of material possessions. Should our basic needs be satisfied, we are more or less satisfied. Most youth I met are more concerned with their immediate, more tangible needs like making the grades, getting into a good school, having trusted friends, and enjoying the coming holidays. But as we age, and enter the formidable rat-race, our desires take a twisted turn down the rabbit hole. Our wants now become less satiable. We want more things, more fame, more recognition. Our vortex of wants become deeper, wider and spins faster. Soon, if left to its own natural course, our wants mutate to become our needs. When our basic needs for food and security are all sated, we clamor for more material possessions. It is at this time that we no longer just “want” a bigger house, a speedier car, a fatter bank account, or the other subtler forms of greed like more self-recognition and self-adulation.

As our unchecked desires for the things of his world go into hyper-drive, we turn our wants into needs and degenerate into a helpless addict for material things, hankering for one material high after another. Soon, we turn this addiction into an entitlement and we cannot live without it; neither do we want to. Although a smaller car would still serve the function of transporting us from point A to point B, our warped sense of entitlement would make us crave for a bigger, more expensive transport; not so much to transport us from one point to another but for purposes of showing off to those we deem as “the less fortunate.” But this act of showing off becomes a self-serving game of one-upmanship. In other words, it becomes an ugly competition to out-do, out-wit and out-smart anyone whom we are envious of. You can see how out of control the endgame will be.

In the end, I think it is much safer to embrace the wisdom in 1 Timothy 6:6, “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it.” Note that the pair is logical and inseparable. Godliness with contentment is juxtapositioned together. No other juxtapositions will do. There is no such pairing as “wealth with contentment” or “marriage with contentment” or “career with contentment”.

Having said this, let me clarify. I have indeed seen many wealthy men and women who are contented. And contentment is a state of mind. Although the opposite of contentment is covetousness, it is not the same with “resting on your laurels”, “idling away your life” or “retiring early and becoming a beach bum.” So, you can pursue your dreams while maintaining a balanced attitude of contentment.

You can easily identify a contented wealthy person by his lifestyle. Such a person is always giving unconditionally. He has a peace of mind, always willing to learn, humble and even self-deprecating at times. He savors life’s challenges and makes the most of it. And most of all, he is genuinely happy for the success of others and he does not wallow in self-pity or seethes with anger and bitterness when others succeed.

But these wealthy folks are contented not because of their great accumulation of material possessions or the recognition and adulation that come with it. I believe the root cause of their contentment is godliness. In Luke 12:21, Jesus admonished us to be “rich to God.” Needless to say, to be rich in God is different from being wealthy in this world. The richness of God is not measured by the abundance of our possession. If it were so, Jesus would not have given this injunction to all in Luke 12:33-34, “Sell your possession and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroy. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

To be rich in God is to come to the realization and acceptance that we are merely stewards of God’s material possession. We are His faithful trustees and we manage His possessions, and not insist that we own every bit of it. The ultimate ownership is with our Creator. And the hallmark of a godly and contented wealthy person is a spirit of selfless giving and not selfish hoarding.

So, let’s return full circle on our definition of success. It is said that success is not in the things we see, it is intangible, untouchable. It is like the air we breathe. We know it and we feel safe and secure in it, but we cannot see it. Success is not a material force, it is a spirited substance. The Bible urges us to seek the kingdom of God and all His righteousness for only in this earnest search can our joy in this life be complete.

Let me end with these revelatory words from the Christian missionary martyr, Jim Elliot. Please do not gloss over these powerful words but always keep them in your heart so that you do not lose sight of what is truly important in this life and the life to come, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” A buffet-spread for thought?

Friday's Recap (200810)

2010-08-21T11:30:00.002+08:00

We are all called to live life with passion, or with conviction. Living with passion means a life dedicated to living with meaning and purpose. Essentially we humans are restless creatures, born of a spirit to excel, to succeed, and to connect. Like the slant of plants towards sun and water, there is always an irresistible urge within us for growth. As Thomas Merton phrased it, “By the taste of clean water, follow the brook to its source.” Our urges are therefore as natural and essential to us as air and water. These urges to grow and bloom inspire us to move forward in life regardless of the adversity we face. These urges keep us on our toes until we attain a state of ultimate fulfillment, that is, when our spiritual quest have found the source of meaning in life.

In the book, passion for life, authors Muriel James and John James illuminated this life of meaning and purpose by calling it a path with heart. Have you followed a path with heart recently? The authors defined a path with heart as “a course of action that calls us to respond with passion – to act on the basis of a positive emotional and intellectual commitment to someone or something. It calls us to devote positive energy and enthusiasm to an activity or a cause that has personal meaning.”

Although a path with heart demands personal sacrifices from us, it is ultimately rewarding and fulfilling in itself. Moses followed a path with heart when he finally heeded God’s call to free the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt. Gandhi did the same by following a path with heart by turning his heart away from material comfort and using his legal skills and sharp mind to set the wheels of India’s independence running.

Many youth nowadays are asked, what do they want in life? Without much reflection, the answers are almost carbon copies of one another. They want to be happy. General happiness is what the youth nowadays are chasing after. But little do they know, the search for happiness will never be found because happiness is not a goal or an end in itself. It is a byproduct of an activity. It is derived from working on a goal. It is a journey to be savored. It is joyful working towards a life-affirming goal.

More importantly, ultimate fulfillment comes when we seek to bless others with our talents. It is when we see a smile from the faces of those we have helped that we in return experience an irrepressible joy within and a buoyancy of hope to move us forward in our own lives. This is the water brook that King David is talking about, the river of living waters that Jesus sermonizes about, and the water and air of living that we cannot live without.

Let’s return to our God-given urges, which none of us can ignore. Ultimately, the challenge to grow is threefold; to get in touch with the urges that come from our inner core, to set goals that are compatible with the growth of the human spirit, and to develop the personal qualities that are needed to reach those goals.

In the book Passion for life, there are essentially seven basic urges that will determine the pathway that we will tread upon in life and they are as follows:-

The urge to live is the most basic urge that all healthy persons experience. A Chinese proverb reads, “When the winter is severe, the pine trees in this ancient land stay green throughout the year. Is it because the earth is warm and friendly? No, it is because the pine trees have within itself a life-restoring power.” The urge to live is expressed in striving to survive, in looking for ways to be comfortable, and in searching for meaning or purpose.

Even when survival and comfort are uncertain or not possible, people may seek for deeper meaning to life as the admirable struggle of Charlie Wedemeyer shows. Wedermeyer suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS. In this disease, all nerves and muscles below the face eventually deteriorate. Although his life expectancy when ALS was diagnosed was only three years, he has kept on coaching for more than twelve years.

Now a quadriplegic who cannot move and speak, his spirit is still robust. He speaks to community groups through his wife, Lucy, who reads his lips and interprets what he wants to say to the audience. With her help, he continues to coach a team that did so well that it made it to the state championships in 1985. When people ask how he is able to maintain his positive spirit and zest for life, Charlie responds, “There is one answer. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for God.” Lucy, who was his high school sweetheart, echoed this. “We both feel as if it’s okay if it’s over at any time, because we’ve had such a joyful life.”

Now, you see how joy and true happiness are derived? It is derived from finding meaning and purpose in the seemingly mundane activities that we engage in on a daily basis.

Of course, I don’t expect us to be dancing all the way to work or singing merrily in the rain. The reality is that life is tough. For the majority of us with bills to pay, bosses to please, and family to uphold, life will not be granting us frequent “kit-kat” breaks. But the challenges can no doubt be met if we see the whole picture of it all. And the whole picture is captured beautifully in the words of the holocaust survivor, Dr Victor Frankl, “Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.”

How many of us are living a life of no regrets? Those who can answer this affirmatively are few and far in between. Many of us secretly, if not openly, wished that we could have done things differently, or say it differently. In our words and actions, we have hurt many we love and disappointed many who had placed their hope on us.

If given an opportunity, we would have done and said it differently. We would have strived to make amends. But it is not too late. We have a whole future ahead of us to do it differently. We can still live as if we were living a second time and as though we had acted wrongly the first time. Seen in this light, building and restoring relationships ultimately become the reason for our living and the cause for our joy.

The urge to be free – physically, emotionally, and intellectually – is another basic force within the human spirit. This urge for physical freedom starts with the first grasp for breath at birth and continues throughout life.
Freedom necessitates two vital elements: self-determination and courage. The former is having the freedom to choose our own fate and course of action without being compelled to do so by others. The latter refers to the willingness to act positively in spite of fear.

When the goal of self-determination becomes a passion, people are willing to go to great lengths to achieve it. Sathaya Tor, a Cambodian, was, at age seven, taken from his family by Khmer Rouge soldiers and put into a child labor camp in the notorious killing fields of Cambodia. There he had to work twelve hours a day on only two scoops of rice. His urges to live and be free were so strong that he survived the hard reality: “I knew that when I was really starving, no one would take care of me. I had to take care of myself.” To do this at age seven was an incredible task.
Lastly, courage is taking a step forward with the hope that all will turn out all right. To repeat the words of Martin Luther King, “We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fears.”

The urge to understand is another universal aspect of the spiritual self. To understand is to comprehend the nature and significance of something. The search for knowledge lives in everyone and nobody can deny its existence. As Eleanor Roosevelt observed, “Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive, one must never, for whatever reason, turn his or her back on life.” To learn is to be alive. This sense of wonder and curiosity are innate and it is most evident in young children. Their endless questions about everything, sometimes even bordering on being most annoying, show how alive they are, how fascinated they are about living, and how learning comes so naturally to them. Albert Einstein once remarked, “Most people stop looking when they find the proverbial needle in the haystack. I would continue to see if there were other needles.”

To me, the dullest people in this world are those who think they have arrived on earth, who claim that nothing surprises them, and who have ossified into their own fixed-mindset - not open to any good persuasion and not excitable by any new corrective knowledge. Such are what fundamentalist, fatalistic and nihilistic fanatics are made of.

In the book entitled Curious? by psychologist Todd Kashdan, the author explained in one illuminating paragraph how a pervading sense of curiosity can power our growth and dynamism. Here is the paragraph for your reflective digestion, “Curiosity is about recognizing and reaping the rewards of embracing the uncertain, the unknown, and the new. There is a simple story line for how curiosity is the engine of growth.

“By being curious, we explore.
By exploring, we discover.
When this is satisfying, we are more likely to repeat it.
By repeating it, we develop competence and mastery.
By developing competence and mastery, our knowledge and skills grow.”

The urge to create activates our unique ways of thinking, being, and doing with goals that show we are capable of originality and innovation. Albert Einstein had a visual mind. His theory of relativity was based on a sudden flash of insight he had when he visualized himself riding on a ray of light at the speed of light. This was the symbolic image that pointed him in the direction of his work on the theory of relativity.

In short, the urge to create refers to a limitless potential within us to imagine the impossible and to transform it into our present-day realities. Einstein once wrote, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

The urge to enjoy is a natural urge of young children, as natural as the urge to live. Actor Bill Crosby is one example of a man who knows how to laugh and to make others laugh with him wherever he goes. Those who know him say he is this way all of the time, often telling funny stories and playing practical jokes. Crosby’s naturally playful spirit was encouraged in childhood by is grandfather, who served as a role model by clowning around and telling funny stories that had a moral point.

As a child, Crosby was a comedian who loved mimicry and would rather clown around than study. Now Crosby designed his own material, never stooping to include off-colored or ethnic jokes, and focused instead on normal family events that can be seen as hilarious expressions of the human spirit.

It is sad that as we age, we become more conscious of ourselves and less free to laugh at ourselves. We take things so seriously that we have lost our funny bone. We also fail to see the lighter side of things. Nothing is seen as playful fun anymore. Our work becomes as dry as bone and as mundane as wall curtails. Our relationships become routine, predictable and even boring. We somehow take life so seriously that we have lost the innocence, wonders and excitable fun of our childhood.

I urge you to see the fun side of all things, all activities. Sometimes, we have to act silly, play ourselves like a fool, and laugh at our own goofiness. In one author’s words, we have to open ourselves to the bloom of irrational bliss. There is much to be enjoyed in this life. We do not need to go far to experience this magical joy of irrational bliss. We can find it in the silly dialogues with our children. We can unearth it in the mutual cuddling with our loved ones. And we can discover it in the simple pleasures of life, like reading a book, eating a delicious dessert, and silly dancing in our living room. Martin Luther once quipped, “If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I do no want to go there.”

The urge to connect with people propels us to search for love in authentic relationships that are open and honest rather than manipulative or superficial. Love is the ultimate connection between people. Let’s work on our closest relationships. Start with our spouse, children, next of kin, and friends. Yesterday, at the cell group, we talked about love being an equation as Love equal One over Power. This means that love is inversely proportional to power. The more love means the less power. And the reverse is this: more power means less love.

In short, the more you love, the more vulnerable you are. And the more vulnerable you are, the more exposed you are to being hurt, getting disappointed, and even feeling betrayed. Love can be the greatest force of all as well as the greatest disappointment of all. So, the price of love can be costly but, at the same time, most rewarding. This paradox is the most incomprehensible and enigmatic of all human endeavors. “The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable; through the embracing of one of its beings,” so says Martin Buber.

Jesus understood this principle well. He was in fact the self-embodiment of it. He was the greatest as well as the least of us all. He was the servant king, an oxymoronic term.

Husbands would do well to remember this simple yet powerful principle. It is always easy for the husbands to throw the scripture in the faces of their wives that says husbands are the head of the household or family just as Christ is the head of the Church. And thereafter act as if they are the self-appointed lordship over the other sex. But this is so one-sided and unilateral. They often ignore the more important latter-part of the scripture which strongly reminds husbands to love their wives in the same way that Christ loved the Church. We all know the price Christ paid for his love for the Church. He paid with His life.

So the catch is simply this: Husbands who are deserving of being the head of the household have to demonstrate first their love for their wives in the same way that Christ demonstrated His love for the Church. The equation is simple enough and it is this: Wives can safely rely with sweet abandonment the stellar leadership of their husbands and defer to their wishes if they are equally assured that their soul mates are prepared at a skip of a beat to lay their lives for them.

Finally, the urge to transcend is defined as the ability to pass beyond a human limit, to reach up as well as out, to let go as well as hold on, to be open to the unknown as well as the known. To transcend is to rise above or pass beyond a human limit, to move beyond the everyday dimensions of life and its usual limitations.

The urge to transcend is also expressed as a yearning to transform our routine, habitual responses to ones that come more from the depths of our spirit. This happens when we appreciate the good that surrounds us, whether it is listening to the voices of children on a playground, watching the patterns of the rain rush down a window, or enjoying the brief encounters we have with different people throughout the day.

Generally, faith is the key to unlock our spiritual energies to reach for the unknown and to face adversity without nudging. Faith is the six-sense that transcends us to greater heights by believing in something, even when it cannot be proven.

The problem with most of us is that our faith fell short of that little leverage to lift us up. This accounts for the many times we are hit by the insidious darts of adversity. But this is because we got our priorities mixed up. We rely on ourselves instead of God to carry us through.

In short, don’t have faith in your own faith in God. But have faith in God’s faith in you. The former is stuff of what self-improvement is made of. The other is scriptural-based. The former is relying on your own strength. The other is relying on God’s promises.

Let me leave you with this quote from Dr Victor Frankl, “Just a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it – likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes, whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.”

Friday's Recap (130810)

2010-08-14T07:56:00.003+08:00

As this year draws to a close, there is only one message I would like to share with you: Be a rescuer for God. This message was born out of the fiery furnace of September 11 tragedy. A man was asked by the media what should parents tell their children about the terrorist attacks and his answer was simple, “Keep your eyes on the rescuers.” I think this is the best answer any right-thinking person can give and a hopeful message for the coming year.

The mentality of a rescuer is unique and extraordinarily resilient. They are never distracted by the worries of life. They may be surrounded by the carnage that evil men leave behind but there is only one persistent thought in their mind, “how to make a difference.” They are always the positive force in a situation immersed in the worst of negative scenarios. The rescuer’s mentality knows no self-interest or self-preservation. They are self-denying and self-sacrificing. However, they do not see their act as acts of heroism. They see it as ordinary and natural as feeding a child or giving spare change to a street beggar.

A rescuer’s life is unique because he celebrates life by giving and not taking, he finds joy in serving and not being served, and he overcomes personal setbacks by focusing on others instead of himself. This is the best year end message I can share with you and it is in line with what Jesus commanded before he was crucified, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…And the second, Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt 22:37-39)

In the book, why good things happen to good people, by Stephen Post and Jill Neimark, the authors recounted a rescuer’s life in a doctor named Richard Fratianne. He was a director of a Burn Care Center at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland. In the good doctor’s own words, he recounted, “I was successful in treating patients with life-threatening, serious burns. But they’d leave the hospital badly scarred and go on to live their life in the shadows, with big floppy hats and long sleeves. I couldn’t send my patients back into the world without returning a sense of dignity and wholeness to their lives.” Empowered by this conviction, Dr Fratianne overhauled his burn unit into a living, breathing love center. He decided to love his patients back to life. He assembled a team of caring doctors, psychologists, and social workers, all of whose aim was to help the patients heal both body and soul. The results were life-changing for both the patients and the medical team.

“No other work could have brought me so much fulfillment,” exclaimed the doctor. He then went on to describe a four years old girl named Lucy who was nearly burned to death in a fire. Lucy then needed twelve surgeries, prosthetic legs and months of therapy at the Center. However this little-four year old was a towering spirit.

“Lucy always celebrates life,” recalled the doctor. “She comes to our burn camp every year and participates in everything, rides horses, plays tug-of-war, swims like a fish, and if you look at her with pity she gives you a big smile as if to say, “I’m happy, I’m good, I’m okay, and glad to be alive.” Dr Fratianne then concluded, “Tomorrow is promised to no one. Every day is precious. This is what my work with burn patients has taught me.”

How many of us could confidently look up to a stranger with a big smile if we had suffered the same awful, unspeakable fate as Lucy? How many four- year olds could participate so freely in the world when her face has been so irreparably scarred – especially for a girl so young and so innocent? Alas, I know of a lot of teenagers who would force themselves to stay at home and sulk when a pimple rears its ugly head on their cheeks. Imagine their reaction if they had their faces burned beyond recognition, had to struggle with false legs, and had to live with horrid scars for life.

Lucy was able to face the world with beauty and confidence beyond the superficial because she had a group of dedicated caregivers who chose to make a difference in her little life by becoming her personal rescuers. They gave her reasons to cheer up, hope to face the world without shame, and meaning to live life with courage. A rescuer is therefore a keeper of meaning. Every thought and every act impart hope and meaning to those lives whom the rescuer has touched. A rescuer’s contribution imbues courage and cause for the sufferers or victims to overcome their own life’s obstacles.

We can similarly make a difference in the lives of our loved ones by becoming their rescuers. The only requirement is for us to always put them first before ourselves. Ultimately, this is what it means to be human, to be a child of God.

Victor Frankl, a survivor of the holocaust, once wrote, “Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself – be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself…self-actualization is possible only as a side effect of self transcendence.”

Being a rescuer for God starts with our neighbor and our neighbor are the ones closest to us. Always bear in mind that everybody, no matter how well off they may seem to be, needs to be “rescued” from something. And it is within your power, however small, to extend a helping hand. A wife sometimes needs a hug. A husband occasionally needs some space and understanding. A child needs to be encouraged. A friend needs to be assured. And the bereaved needs a listening ear. These are simple needs that can easily be fulfilled by us as rescuers.

We can rescue our spouse from the stress of work by being more patient with their irrational outbursts. We can rescue our children from taunting and bullies at school by taking the time to assure them of their worth in the eyes of God. We can rescue our friends from loneliness by spending time with them. We can make a difference in the lives of others just by a simple act of sparing both thought and time for them. Always remember that it is the simple and small acts that accumulate to make the appreciable difference. You can make a little difference in their lives by being a little more sensitive to their needs, a little more patient, a little more understanding, and a little more helpful to them. Mother Theresa once said, “we can do no great things; only small things with great love.” This is the guiding motto for a true blooded rescuer.

A lot of my divorce clients, especially the wives, whose husbands have walked out of the family for another younger woman, cried out to be rescued not from their husband’s torment or betrayal but from themselves. They were unable to forgive themselves because they wrongly blamed themselves for their husband’s unfaithfulness. They mentally hit their heads against the wall for not doing enough to keep their husbands. They were ravaged by misplaced guilt from personal accusations most undeserved. I realized that I could make a difference in their lives by dropping hints here and there about their self-worth. I could awaken them to realize that they were not the ones at fault by resolving their guilt through self affirmations. The point is that it doesn’t take much to bring some form of timely relief to the lives of people who are suffering, and this is why no one is ever disqualified from being a rescuer for God.

As a rescuer, we are not called to be the savior of the world or the deliverer of world peace. We don’t have to do great things to be counted. We are not expected to do what the billionaire Bill Gates had done and that is to quit his job so that he could run his charitable organization called Gates Foundation, full time. Neither are we expected to give US$40 billion dollars away to charity like what investment guru Warren Buffet did in 2006.

A rescuer is a rescuer at heart first before deeds. It is the heart that makes the difference. Let our life be the message - a living, breathing testament to our spouse, children and friends. Remember that a candle loses nothing of its light by lighting another candle. In passing that little flicker to our loved ones, we are unknowingly brightening our lives as well as the lives of others.

This world no doubt needs to be changed but it takes every small, daily and consistent effort by rescuers like us to change it. And the first change has to start with us. An Anglican bishop who lived in Westminster Abbey 900 years ago once wrote, “When I was young and free my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country. But it, too, seemed immovable. As I grew in my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it. And now as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realized: If I had only changed my self first, then by example I would have changed my family. From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country and, who knows, I may have even changed my world.”

Don’t wait until you are drawing your last breath to realize that the change you wish to see in others is in fact the change that is first required of you.

It therefore bears repeating: Be a rescuer for God. This is the only way we can find self-fulfillment. This is the only way we can overcome our own problems and afflictions. This is the only way others can see the glory of God in our lives. It therefore comes as no surprise to me that a Time magazine poll of over one thousand Americans found that the first four major sources of happiness were all about securing the happiness of others:-

a) For 77 percent, their children were the major source of happiness.

b) Friendships were a source of happiness for 76 percent.

c) Contributing to the lives of others made 75 percent happy.

d) Their relationship with their partner was a major source for 73 percent.

After all is said and done, the secret of happiness is to put others first. We can therefore stop spending money on clothes to make us feel good. We can stop frequenting bars and clubs to look for love or to feel loved. We can stop working with no end in sight in order to make our family happy (for in the end, it is not the bacon on the table, but the man who brings home the bacon that they missed most). We are therefore happiest when we make others happy. We do so by giving ourselves to them.

Even in our own affliction, we can still draw strength and hope in lending a helping hand to those in need, regardless of how bad our own situation is. This is best illustrated by Rabbi Harold S Kushner in his remarkable bestseller, when bad things happen to good people. In the book, he recounted an old Chinese tale about a woman whose only son died.

This is the tale as it is written, “In her grief, she went to the holy man and said, “What prayers, what magical incantations do you have to bring my son back to life?” Instead of sending her away or reasoning with her, he said to her, “Fetch me a mustard seed from a home that has never known sorrow. We will use it to drive the sorrow out of your life.” The woman set off at once in search of that magical mustard seed. She came first to a splendid mansion, knocked at the door, and said, “I am looking for a home that has never known sorrow. Is this such a place? It is very important to me” They told her, “You’ve certainly come to the wrong place,” and began to describe all the tragic things that had recently befallen them. The woman said to herself, “Who is better able to help these poor unfortunate people than I, who have had misfortune of my own?” She stayed to comfort them, then went on in her search for a home that had never known sorrow. But whenever she turned, in hovels and in palaces, she found one tale after another of sadness and misfortune. Ultimately, she became so involved in ministering to other people’s grief that she forgot about her quest for the magical mustard seed, never realizing that it had in fact driven the sorrow out of her life.”

It is only when we discover that the “magical mustard seed” that we have been looking for all our lives is in the act of giving of ourselves to others, relieving of their pain, and contributing to their recovery, that we are then able to heal our own pain and sorrow. The “magic” is therefore not in the mustard seed to resolve all sorrows; but it is in us being rescuers to those in need of being rescued.

In a magical sort of way, helping others keep us from dwelling on our problem. The distraction is a blessing because helping others increases our sense of self control. When we relieve another of his or her problem, however small the progress, we experience a pervading sense of personal satisfaction and achievement. The more people we help, the more we feel accomplished. This build up is self empowering and we unknowingly add to our inner reserve of hope, strength and resilience to overcome our own problem. The empowerment is therefore self-reinforcing. The more we help, the more empowerment we feel, and the more empowerment we feel, the more we are able to resolve our own problem.

I have read of an amazing testimony of a man who was born without arms or legs. He lived in the outskirts of a village in a little bamboo hut of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. When people brought him small gifts like food, blanket and radio, he would look at them and laugh, “What could I possibly need?” What abundance mentality!

Despite his condition, this man became the village advisor. When the village had problems, they would go to him. He brought comfort to everyone who came to him for counseling. The man without arms and legs found happiness in helping others. His inspiration for life is to be an inspiration to others.

Indeed, every life has its moments of quiet heroism, no matter how ordinary the heroic act is. The man has found his purpose for life and it is a purpose beyond himself, beyond his handicap, beyond his disability. A wise man once said, “When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world.” This is the strength you garner to lift your own load of troubles after you have lifted another’s.

So, beloved, your year-end resolution should be: Be a rescuer for God. Nothing is more rewarding and more fulfilling than to be another’s benefactor, to be a keeper of meaning, to be a mentor to the young, and to leave a lasting legacy of charity to your children.

Let me end with these simple, heartfelt words penned by a philosopher Jeremy Bentham, shortly before his death. In a letter written as a birthday advice to a friend’s young daughter, he wrote, “Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul”.

Postscript:

The measure of a life well-lived is how much we give and how much we forgive. The equation I see is one of additions and subtractions. Every time we give something of ourselves, our time, our knowledge, our love and devotion, our resources, we add to life’s scorecard. Every time we take from others, their time, their resources, their attention, we subtract from it.

We move forward by giving and forgiving; we regress by taking and begrudging. Nothing consumes our spirit more than to bear a grudge and to consciously nurture that grudge to full blown hatred. Unforgiveness retards our personal growth. Unforgiveness closes all doors once opened. Unforgiveness kills hope, saps strength and strangles love.

Make every day counts by giving and forgiving. Be kinder, humbler and gentler. Shed off your male ego. Get rid of your female needy-ness. Imagine a world where lives’ scorecards are always positive; where giving and forgiving are the norm; where old scores are wiped clean and new lasting relationships are formed.

A world like that has no room for racism, bigotry, arrogance, and misogyny (hatred of women). This world is conceivable, achievable and self-sustainable. It demands only that we make small, daily and consistent efforts to add to our scorecard more than we subtract from it.

For in the end, the more we loose ourselves, the more we gain in God. This noble and powerful truth is best expressed by Mother Theresa, “The prize with which God rewards our self-abandonment is Himself.”

Friday's Recap (230710)

2010-07-24T10:39:00.004+08:00

Last Friday’s cell was all about parenting. Recently I read a book called The Council of Dads by Bruce Feiler. You may know him as the author of Walking the Bible where he took about ten years to retrace the Bible through the war zones of the Middle East. Bruce was a father of a pair of young twin daughters, Eden and Tybee. In 2008, he learned that he had “a seven-inch cancerous tumor” in his left femur. At that moment, Bruce felt completely lost and he was extremely fearful of his future as a husband and a father. As the fragility of his own mortality stared unflinchingly in his face, he came up with a novel idea called the Council of Dads for his twin daughters. He basically wanted a father-figure to be around his daughters, to give them timely advice, to sit in his place to counsel them, to help them in times of need, and to show them all the good things in this world that he is unable to do so himself.
In a touching letter to six of his friends, whom he had elected to form the council, Bruce wrote these words, “A few days later, I woke up suddenly before dawn and thought of a way I might help recreate my voice for them. I started making a list of six men – from all parts of my life, beginning with when I was a child and stretching through today. These are men who know me best. The men who share my values. The men who helped shape and guide me. The men who traveled with me, studied with me, have been through the pain and happiness with me. Men who know my voice.”
The letters were sent to these six men with this heart-felt invitation, “Will you help be their dad? Will you listen in on them? Will you answer their questions? Will you take them out to lunch every now and then? Will you go to a soccer game if you’re in town? Will you watch their ballet moves for the umpteenth time? When they get older, will you indulge them in a new pair of shoes? Or buy them a new cell phone, or some other gadget I can’t even imagine right now? Will you give them advice? Will you be tough as I would be? Will you help them out in a crisis? And as time passes, will you invite them to a family gathering on occasion? Will you introduce them to somebody who might help one of their dreams come true? Will you tell them what I would be thinking? Will you tell them how proud I would be?...Will you be my voice?”
The first dad was Jeff Shumlin. He was to be his daughters’ life coach and to teach them how to travel. Jeff believed in growth through a sense of community. He was to be his voice of risk taking, to travel to unknown places, to be wholly immersed in a foreign culture, and to go off the beaten track. In other words, uncle Jeff was to be the girls’ tour guide, a world navigator, and a fun organizer, all rolled into one.
The second dad was Max Stier. When Max was asked to be in the council of dads, his gladly agreed and replied, “I would start by saying how much you loved them. How I watched you blossom by having children. How good a dad you were. The most important thing a parent can do, I believe, is water a child profusely with love. I would water your children with love.” Whoa, what a powerful analogy! This is indeed the epitome of a parent’s love: to water their children with love, unconditional love.
The third dad was David Black. David was Bruce’s literary agent and he was instrumental in helping Bruce publish his books. So, you can say that David was a “broker of dreams”, someone who spurred Bruce on when he was discouraged and invigorated him with hope and purpose when he found none. Bruce wanted the same inspirational coach for his twins - someone who would instill a sense of vision and hope in his daughters and prod them on to take up one dream after another and own them. When Bruce asked David, “What he learned from all these years as a curator of dreams. What’s the most important gift you can give to a dreamer?” He answered, “The belief in their ability to succeed…Because when you believe in them, you give them the strength to believe in themselves.”
The fourth dad was Ben Edwards, a bone radiologist. In his own words, Bruce spelt out the reason he chose Ben, “And these are the qualities I wanted Ben to impart to my girls. He would convey the importance of being from a place. How you carry that place with you wherever you go. How you keep coming back to it time and again no matter how long you live…” Bruce imagined that Ben would softly whisper to his girls these words, “This is where your daddy came from…This is where you come from, too.” In other words, Ben would teach his twins how to remember their roots, their historical birthmark.
The fifth dad was another Ben, by the name of Ben Sherwood. Bruce wanted someone like Ben to teach his daughter how to question everything and not to take things on its face-value. In this regards, Ben fulfilled this role perfectly. Ben’s fierce inquisitorial style was a cut off the old block, that is, he takes after his own father. In the book, Ben describes his own father in these words, “He was focused on family…Dad’s parenting style was to be present as much as possible, given the demands of his life. That meant he was here for breakfast and dinner, during which time it was expected that we would have a serious conversation about the world. My dad had a voracious curiosity. He ran a famous clipping service in which he dispatched yellow envelopes from his law firm with articles on some obscure topic from some esoteric publication, pertinent to someone’s work or family. We all got them. In college I had stacks of unopened envelopes because I just couldn’t keep up!”
Bruce believed that under the wise guidance of Ben, his daughters would learn to see the deeper side of things. They would be less gullible and impressionable in this world of the proverbial foxes and wolves. They would see the hidden motives and agendas, the superficial and the insubstantial. In his own words, Bruce wrote, “Though Ben was one of the first dads on my list, he was about to become one of the last to know. The reason: Ben is the friend who questions. He challenges assumptions and picks apart flaws…Ben is the inquisitor. He’s the drill sergeant making sure every decision is thought through and every emotion pure. Push it! Push it! Just one more round. No pain, no gain!”
The last dad on Bruce’s list was Joshua Ramo. I guess this last choice was the easiest because Joshua was with him throughout his illness, his fight against the cancer, the pain and the sufferings, and the dreaded after-effects of the chemotherapy. In one passage of the book, Bruce wrote, “Then I got sick, and overnight Joshua became a fixture in our lives, a monthly comet and comforting compatriot. It was during those months that I discovered a new side of him – a side that reminded me of, well, me.”
Further in the book, there is an interesting exchange between Bruce and Joshua based on future contingencies of his daughters and this exchange is best extracted wholesale for your digest.
“If the girls came to you and asked what it was like during this year, what would you tell them?” Bruce asked Joshua.
His reply came swiftly, “I would tell them I saw a man who had lived his life in such a way that when he was confronted with the worst possible thing that can face a man, he was able to face it with no regrets. Think of how few people can say that. I’ve been with other people who are struggling through potentially terminal disease. I know what that looks like. You didn’t look like that. And the reason, I think, is that you know who you are. You have a clear sense of internal navigation.”
And the exchange continued, “So, how do you teach someone that? If my girls asked you for help in discovering themselves, what would you do?”
“Ah, that’s easy, I believe the best teacher is beauty. I’ll teach them to memorize Auden poems and Shakespeare sonnets so that wherever they are at any given moment in the world, they can just sit under a tree and have Auden or Shakespeare or whomever as their companion for an afternoon. I’ll give them the sound of Mahler symphonies that they can hear again and again and that will always trigger similar emotions. I’ll show them how to appreciate Chinese calligraphy, which is an expression of your internal energy. If you have any doubt in your heart, it shows up in the brushstroke.”
In one of the poignant passages, Joshua concluded, “What I want Eden and Tybee to know is how easy it is to see beauty. How the wonder they felt on that plane never has to leave them. Miracles are all around them. They just have to learn to see through the clouds, and go out and harvest those miracles themselves. And, of course, I’d want them to know that this way of seeing never left you (Bruce), even when you were sick. And it’s how all of us who love them want them to see the world, too.”
Dear cell, I brought this story up about Bruce’s struggle over cancer and his very whimsical but beautiful future plan for his daughters when he is gone to show an important lesson that all of us, as parents, can learn in our living years. And the lesson is this: What legacy do we want to leave for our children? Or what life’s lessons do we want our children to learn from us?
At yesterday’s cell, we started off with Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The operative word here is “train up”. The Bible did not tell us to teach them, implying a teacher-and-student relationship. Neither did the Bible tell us to lecture or command our children, implying an authority-based, hierarchical relationship. It deliberately uses the word “train up”. Training is a long drawn out process involving disciplining and apprenticeship. It also implies an intimate relationship between the trainer and his or her trainees. It calls for leading by example, mentoring by applying the right principles, and giving the trainees enough room to develop their own strengths and talents.
Parenting I guess is no different from this process of training. Like a shepherd leading his flock of sheep, gently prodding them along the narrow pathway and away from the falling cliffs and perilous edges, we parents perform a sacred and indispensable role of guiding our children on the right track, setting an example for them to emulate, and always being there for them when they need a shoulder to cry on. Although our job can at times be arduous and exhausting, it is the most rewarding job in this world.
But are we up to the challenge? Can we make a difference in the lives of our children, impacting them in a positive way so that they can do the same for their own children? What can our children learn from us as their parents that will remain with them for the rest of their lives?
Of course, we want the best for our children. Expecting them to embody virtues like respecting others, honesty, a sense of fairness, a good measure of responsibility, compassion and passion for just causes, having faith and hope at all times, and becoming successful in their own way without losing sight of what’s truly matters. To achieve all of that within a short parental duration of 16 years before our children matures to become independent young adults is a job that is equal to, if not more challenging than, the task of running a whole nation.
The Bible in Deuteronomy 6:7 tells us to teach our children well. But I believe that to do just that we have to be well trained ourselves. Have we embodied those qualities that we want our children to embody? It is said that kids are more inclined to believe God’s truth and embrace it when they have seen it embodied in a changed life. So, we as parents have to lead in our home by example. A Chasidic saying expresses the same sentiment, “I did not go to the Master to learn sacred scripture, but to watch him tie his shoes.” Are we “tying our shoe laces right”?
In their lives, our children will be exposed to all kinds of influences. They will be swayed by their peers, pressured by their teachers, and even manipulated by the media. The question here is this: Whose influence would be the strongest and longest lasting, yours or the rest? I once overheard a conversation between a father and his college son. His father asked him who he wanted to be after he graduates. The answer came as a pleasant surprise to the father. The son replied, “I want to be like you.” Honestly, if my son had given me the same reply, I’d know that I must have done something right over the years as his devoted father.
I guess we as parents are still maturing in our own ways, learning from our past mistakes and sometimes making the same mistakes ourselves. It is inevitable that we will fall and fail and disappoint our spouse and our children. The road to parenthood will never end until we heave our last breath. It is a “from-their-cradle-to-our-grave” kind of job.
So, I think the legacy that we want to leave for our children is to train them to turn their eyes upon Jesus, to follow His example and teachings, and to seek His counsel when trials come their way. This is the best legacy a Christian parent can give to his child. And, as best as possible, it is our hope as parents that in this long, rewarding journey of parenthood, we will, on most occasions, reflect the likeness of Christ in our speech, conduct and thoughts. In other words, let us ensure that our shoe laces are properly tied before we go about teaching our children to tie theirs.
Have a meaningful weekend.

Friday's Recap (160710)

2010-07-17T11:43:00.002+08:00

Last Friday’s cell discussion was about temptation. We all face it. The lust for sex and power, the desperate cravings for intimacy, the allure of becoming rich and successful, and the addiction to perfectionism. No man and woman on earth are exempted from the magnetic field of temptation. Most succumb to temptation and fall into sin. Others are continually tempted but resisted it bravely. The question is this, why is Jesus so successful in dealing with temptation and we fail at it so miserably sometimes? I think the answer to that can be unearthed from this quote from theologian D.A. Carson, “The sad fact is that many people dwell on dirt without grasping that it is dirt. The wise Christian will see plenty of dirt in the world, but will recognize it as dirt, precisely because everything that is clean has captured his or her mind.”
Beloved, what has captured our mind? For Jesus, it was Calvary. How about us? Is it lust? Money? Success? Perfectionism?
At yesterday’s cell, we define temptation as pure desires becoming un-pure or warped appetites of man. All of us have desires. I dare say that they are God-given. Name any of the desires that we have and I can tell you that you need them to a certain extent. We are created to satisfy these desires. God is pleased when we set aside time to satisfy these desires. Imagine for a moment that we are asexual or non-sexual. This world wouldn’t get populated as God had commanded. How about the desire for pleasure? Imagine a life without pleasure; where nothing brings you joy, satisfaction and delight. Life would really be flat, dull and uninspiring. King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 8:15, “I commend the enjoyment of life.” So, go out there and spread your wings. Enjoy your life, take up a hobby, go for a holiday, and relax a little. You deserve it. God recommends it. You are better for it.
Then, there is the desire for food. This is definitely a must-have desire at its purest form. Without food, the obvious alternative is starvation and death. But too much of it, we end up with obesity and death. The key word here is to take your food with self-control and in moderation.
How about work? We all have the desire to work. Some of us have more of it and others have less of it. At one extreme, there are the vagabonds or mendicant (beggars), who have no such desires for an honest day’s work. At the other extreme, there are the workaholics or perfectionists, who are so obsessed with work that they neglect everything that matters in their life.
Lastly, there is the desire for knowledge and wisdom. The two can be distinguished as such: Knowledge is to know how to do it and wisdom is to know whether one even ought to do it. So, wisdom is the superior desire of the two. But what if we have too much of it. What if we think too much of ourselves? What if we are full of it?
Well, we become arrogant, and sometimes obnoxiously arrogant, of course. It is said that the cravings for power caused the angels to fall and the lust for knowledge caused man to fall. Ecclesiastes 7:16 lays it down well, “Do not be over-righteous, neither be over wise.” Honestly, I have a weak spot for the desire for knowledge. I read quite a fair bit and I am slavishly driven by curiosity. A trip to the library or book shop never fails to give me a pedantic high. But I realized that without putting what I have learned into practice is not the acquisition of wisdom. In fact, it is the retardation of it. It is like filling a leaking cup with water. In the end, no matter how much you pour into it, the cup remains empty. Well, I can replace the cup with a bigger cup, but it makes no difference if it is still leaking with holes at the bottom. It will never get filled to the brim.
So, let’s return to our subject on temptation. I believe that these desires make us human. A philosopher and humanitarian Jean Vanier once said, “We cannot grow spiritually if we ignore our humanness, just as we cannot become fully human if we ignore spirituality.” Like water and air, our desires make us humans, keep us alive and inspire us to succeed in life. But when our desires become un-pure, when we pervert it or go to the extreme with it, we enter dangerous or perilous terrains. Take marriage for example. God ordains it. Institutions honor it. And husbands are supposed to protect it. But sexual perversion can destroy it. When husbands (or wives) stop investing in their marriage, cease giving it any attention, and start looking for prettier alternatives, the marriage will inevitably fail. I have read about a pastor who was living in an adulterous relationship with his church secretary on the lamest reason that his aged wife has lost interest in sex.
How about pleasures? Pleasures can be perverted as well. We derive pleasure from sex within a marriage. But when it is done outside of marriage, it is sin. We may enjoy working. But when we are obsessed with it, it becomes a bondage.
At yesterday’s cell, I shared about the real life account of a 42-year-old computer expert named Armin Meiwes. In 2003, he went online looking for someone to kill and eat. He interviewed many who actually answered to the online ad. Altogether, there were about two hundred men who responded to this perverted desire! Out of the many men who craved to be killed and eaten, one by the name of Bernd Brandes was interviewed and shortlisted. That fateful meeting between two very perverted souls ended up with Brandes’ penis being cut up to be served for dinner, fried in olive oil. The two men then tried unsuccessfully to eat it. Later, as Armin was taking a break reading a Star Trek novel, Brandes was soaking in the bathtub bleeding to death. A few hours later, Armin went to the bathtub, kissed his lover goodbye, and stabbed him to death. After that, he chopped Brandes to pieces, packed it up and neatly arranged the body parts in the freezer, next to some pizza. In the next few weeks that followed, Armin was to slowly and pleasurably devour 44 pounds of his lover in olive oil and fried garlic. Every meal was carefully designed for the maximum twisted pleasure. He took the trouble to use the best cutlery and set the ambience for the meal by lighting some candles and then swallowed the medium raw meat with a sip of South African red wine. How perverted is that!
I think it is very appropriate here to purge this disgusting account from our mind with this purifying scripture: “To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.” (Titus 1:15).
Beloved, do not underestimate the power of temptation. You can ask an alcoholic and he can tell you the power of a drink, which at first may seen outwardly harmless. The temptation here is a systematic addiction and it goes something like this: At first, the man takes a drink. Then, the drink takes the drink. Finally, the drink takes the man.
We cannot live an authentic Christian life without overcoming temptation. As Christians, we are empowered by God’s spirit to subject our mind in captivity to His word, transform it towards holiness, and exercise self-control and be alert at all times lest temptation enters through our mental backdoor. The Bible admonishes us to submit to God and resist the devil and he will flee from us (James 4:7). These are powerful words that are utterly meaningless to a believer if he is a leaking vessel, punctuated by many worldly holes.
If an interview were to be conducted to identify authentic Christians from fake ones, the most appropriate question to be asked is this (assuming it could be answered with all honesty): How serious are you about following Christ? If the same question is asked of you, what will be your answer?
It is said that all the powers in this world could not stop a man whose mind is made up. Have you made up your mind about following Christ? Are you serious about overcoming that secret sin? If you have, and are prepared to renew your mind everyday for God, you are definitely a force to be reckoned with. Even though you may be tempted by the many seductions of this world, you will be able to overcome it because “to the pure, all things are pure” and “everything that is clean has captured his or her mind.”
Before I end this letter, let me take a brief moment to warn you of the following mindsets that can control and corrupt you (adapted from the book Steering Clear by Earl Wilson).
MINIMIZATION / RELABELLING. This is a mindset that masquerades or trivializes sin. Because we do not want to face the consequences of our sins, we make it flippant, we dismiss it, and we re-label it. We do not call sin sin. We call it by another name, a less wicked name or a more acceptable name - a euphemism of convenience. Maybe, sexual thoughts are re-labeled as momentary derailment. The lust for money is called noble ambition. And flirting is called flashing your manhood. However, you re-label it, a sin is still a sin. It works like a cord that slowly and systematically strangles your spiritual life and faith in the end. Remember, you are either a victim of or victor over temptation; you can’t be both in the same way that you cannot serve two masters.
RATIONALIZATION. Forget about rationalizing with the devil. He is no gentleman and you will do much better to just ignore him wholesale, completely. You cannot bargain with the devil and come up tops. Stop telling yourself that maybe God doesn’t mind that you take a break from your marriage to flirt with your female colleague or invite her for a harmless lunch or dinner. Hebrews 13:4 has already made it clear about the sanctity of your marriage with this warning, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”
DENIAL. This is a very broad-brushed mindset where we close our eyes completely to sin and jump into it as if it matters little to God and our loved ones. Denying the consequences of sin does not make it go away. Only through true repentance can we be set free from the clutches of sin to live a life pleasing to God. Here are some common denying pick-up lines as your early warning signs: It didn’t happen; if it happen, people shouldn’t be hurt; I didn’t do it; I didn’t mean to do it; it only happened once; it’s not really my fault; I didn’t hurt anyone but myself; I don’t know why everyone has to make such a big deal about this; I’ve stopped doing it, so it’s no big deal. Do not deceive yourself any longer. It is said that the one lie that cannot be detected is the lies you feed yourself over time. So, let the truth set you free because only in truth can your lies unravel and loosen its stranglehold on you. Indeed, it is said that many marriages are strong enough to handle truth (however ugly they may be); but few are strong enough to handle continued lies.
JUSTIFICATION. Stop trying to justify sin. Stop telling yourself that God would understand why you had to sin. Stop telling yourself that you could not help it because it just happened or she happened to be more caring than your wife. Stop repeating to yourself that your wife does not understand you or your needs. Remember that you are responsible for your own actions and thoughts. You control the cerebral arena of your mind and you are its gatekeeper. Lust and corruption cannot enter your mind without your permission and you are therefore accountable to God for your actions.
ENTITLEMENT. Many people indulge in sin because they feel that they are entitled to some personal timeouts for being a good provider of a husband, a hardworking employee or a long-service award Christian. Remember goodness is its own reward. Unless you are seeking self-pleasure or self-significance, seeking holiness and being good are virtues that lead to happiness and success. They are basically self-rewarding. A good husband will receive the respect and love of his wife and children. A good worker will be rewarded by his boss. A self-sacrificing Christian will receive peace and joy from God. So, don’t look for false entitlements which will manipulate you to sin. Beware of these mental traps of entitlement: No one appreciates me; I’ve been so good; I’m not as bad as most husband are; I’ve done so much for God; My wife doesn’t really like sex much; I lead such a sheltered life; I’ve been pure all these years; I need something to lift my spirits; God intended that I enjoy life. By entertaining these thoughts of self-entitlement, you are slowly and insidiously giving yourself permission to go down the slippery slope of moral failure.
SECRET FANTASY. I think one of the most courageous men I know are those who dare to stare reality in the eyeball and confront all the challenges that it throw at them. These are men who will make their marriage work despite all its imperfections. They are basically promise-keepers who will stick by their wife literally through thick and thin. They are trustworthy employees who are disciplined and focused and get the job done. They are truly redeemed Christians who talk the talk and walk the walk. So, please extract your head out of fantasy land and face the realities that you have built through the life-choices you have made.
Your mental fantasy can come in many LED flat-screened plasma forms. It could be thoughts about how nice if you had married your secretary instead of your current wife. It could be dreams of becoming so rich that your enemies would rot in envy of you. It could be in the form of avoiding all consequences of your actions by escaping to temptation island characterized by over-indulgence, depravity and debauchery. Nowadays, with the internet and the web, your fantasy can be in the form of an avatar running wild in a godless virtual world of heightened stimulation and escapism. Indeed, your route to escape to a self-styled fantasy world where you are almost god-like is boundary-less.
I know of no better way to debunk our fantasy than to starve it for good. And to starve it requires us to carry out what I call a mental spring cleaning with a trusted and powerful detergent found in Philippians 4:8-9, “Brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice. And the God of peace with be with you.”
Let me end here. Earlier I raised this question: why is Jesus so successful in dealing with temptation and we fail at it so miserably sometimes? Well, now I can give a fuller answer to it. Jesus’ secret to overcoming temptation is awfully simple. It is encapsulated in John 5:30, “I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”
If there is a bridge that lies between our God-given desires and its perversion, it is the desire to please ourselves. Narcissism or self-love always leads us astray. But pleasing God brings us to the opposite direction. For it is written in Psalms 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will grant you the desires of your heart”. Another scripture that expresses the same unmistakable sentiment is in Ecclesiastes 2:24-26, “A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man, who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God.” Now, that’s poetic justice designed specially for you!
Have a victorious week ahead.

Friday's Recap (090710)

2010-07-10T13:45:00.005+08:00

Yesterday we started off the cell group discussion with an exercise called church assessment. We listed many qualities of a church that we think are important to its long term growth and expansion. Some of the qualities are good leadership, sound theology, friendly congregation, effective discipleship program, strong evangelism, and many others. You can expect some or most of these qualities in most churches, if not all. As a member, it is easy to expect one’s church to embody those qualities as much as we expect our pastor to be exemplary in thoughts, conduct and speech. One has to bear in mind the excellent qualities expected of a church leader.

In 1 Timothy 3:2-7, the Bible demands that a pastor in general be a cut above the rest. Here is the passage for your mental digestion: “An overseer (pastor), then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine, or pugnacious, but gentle, uncontentious, free from the love of money. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity (but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?); and not a new convert, lest he become conceited and fall under the condemnation incurred by the devil. And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he may not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.” Surely, one of the main criteria of a pastor is that of a good, loving and firm husband/father - one who is able to take care of his own household. Indeed, our faith is not just a public declaration; it is also a very private one.

Now tell me honestly, how many honest people, browsing through the classified ads, would have skipped pass a recruitment advertisement for a church leader if the qualities listed above were its prerequisites. It is indeed a high calling and it is not to be taken lightly.

While it is easy and convenient to make demands from our church leadership and expect almost perfect attributes from them, we as members must also turn the searchlight on ourselves to see whether we measure up as members. Remember that the church is an assembly of believers and its growth and expansion depend very much on its members as well as its leaders. It is a mutually reinforcing and beneficial relationship. Never underestimate the power of influence that the followers can have over their own leaders. I believe that good followers can be the byproduct of good leaders in the same way that good leaders can be a byproduct of good followers. Leaders and followers grow together and they also crash together. No leader can prosper under rebellious “followers” and vice versa. So, the focus here is on us, the members.

I believe that the union between each member and his/her church is a union no different from a marriage. The principles are equally applicable. It is a covenantal relationship. It is based on ministerial servitude and not contractual obligations where parties are made to sign on the bottom line. Members don’t expect any payment in return for their weekly services because, unlike a contract, the reward is not material or immediate. Neither do pastors get extra remuneration for visiting a member after office hours to counsel and pray over him or her. The sacrifices that members and their leaders make are premised upon a higher principle of selfless devotion in the replica of our heavenly model, Jesus. As such, we do not talk about lawsuits when its members fail in their service in church. In a contract, such failings would be deemed as a performance breach and the party in breach would be liable for its consequent damages to the innocent party. In the context of a church, a performance lapse or moral failure on the part of a member is usually forgiven or sometimes overlooked.

This union is special, and transcendent, because it is God-ordained. We are all one body of Christ, leaders and members alike. In Romans 12:5, it is written, “So, we who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” Although our actions are individualized, our purpose is unity-focused and driven by divine fiat in lockstep with the instructions of the Bible and the teachings of Christ. As such, Christianity is centered on people-relations and its work is people-transformation. We cannot practise Christianity in the privacy of our own home - carrying out a Sunday service of one. We cannot reject the Church and, at the same time, embrace Christ because the latter is the head of the very institution that we have rejected (Ephesians 5:23). Our church may have its flaws, and some of them are far from perfect, but, as its members, we should expectedly be the last ones to cast the first stone (assuming that the practice of stone-throwing is justified).

Like a good husband who shields his wife and children from a straying bullet, we as members are expected to stand in the gap of our church not to cover up its leader’s sins but to work together to be peacemakers and to restore faith and hope in the midst of a leadership crisis. Note that we are called to stand in the gap and not to widen the gap; to build bridges and not to burn them; to extend a loving hand to the fallen and not to push them over the cliff. Ruth Bell Graham once said, “A happy marriage is the union of two forgivers.” In like manner, I would say that a happy church is the union of forgivers en mass. A marriage cannot survive unforgiveness just as a church cannot advance with bitterness and grudges among its members.

So, when we are tempted to quit church, or backstab it, I suggest we suspend that urge and reassess it on the following basis taken from the book, Why we love the Church, by authors Kevin Deyoung and Ted Kluck, with a little modification of my own.

Are we rejecting the Church or the faith? This is a legitimate question to ask ourselves. Men are prone to make excuses for everything to cover up for what is really their truest and deepest intention. We blame the church for the lack of leadership when it is really our lack of discipline that has caused our spiritual decline. One man once complained to a pastor that he hated his church because his wife was in love with another man in that church. When the pastor asked him to reveal the identity of the man so that he could counsel him, he barked, “My wife is in love with Jesus!” This is a typical case of skirting responsibility for the failure of one’s own marriage.

I think in life, what really matters is to do what is right and not be obsessed with being right. There is a huge difference of attitude in the two. Doing what is right is essentially others-centered. It is also an attitude of humility and personal responsibility. When we do what is right, we are putting the interests of others first. We are ensuring that our approach is one of self-examination and not being judgmental. In the end, what counts in doing what is right is that relationships are strengthened and trust restored. But the other attitude is one of self-centeredness. A person who is obsessed with being right is a “fault-pecker.” He is intolerant of others’ flaws but is blind to his very own. Since he must always be right, he cannot accept that he can ever be wrong. As such, the endgame for a fault-pecker is mistrust, bitterness and broken relationships. The motto of a person who does what is right is this, “Never let your stinking self get in the way of a good relationship.”

So, in the context of a church, doing what is right is to always examine our own intention. I believe that to have the ability to self-examine is to have the gift of perspective. And to have the gift of perspective is to be rewarded the prize of wisdom. I also believe that self-examination is the genuine mark of humility and maturity. When we dare to unravel the inner recess of our heart, peer long and hard into its hidden desires and motivation, we would be less incline to cast the first stone at our church. As one Indian proverb goes, “The more the mango tree flourishes, the more it droops.”

Are we expecting too much from our church and its leadership? We all want a church of true worshippers. We all want a church that excels in expository preaching of the word. We all want exciting programs, familiar faces, and always-smiling ushers with a firm tight handshake. We expect always-beaming pastors who will readily make house-calls when needed, cheerily conduct funerals when asked for, and promptly dispense with godly advice at the right time when counseling is sought. Most importantly, we expect our pastors to have much better temperament than our spouse. He is expected to be quick to listen, slow to anger and slow to speak, at all times. But is this realistic?

On this side of heaven, before His return when we are clothed in perfection and the incorruptible, our pastors will always wear their pants one leg at a time and still need to button their shirt with their own hands. What I mean is that they are as human as we are, if not more. Sure, they may be able to offer the other cheek to you and smile in the face of insults and persecution, but they do crack under pressure just like anyone of us. Remember that they are our leaders and not our incubators or our spiritual babysitters. In the end, we are all responsible for our own spiritual growth and accountable for our actions. So, when our leaders fail us, we should not be asking, “How come like that?” but, “How can I help?”

Lastly, are we trying to have our cake and eat it? This is a corollary of the above point. In the same way that we do not quit our marriage just because our spouse has more flaws that we would like to admit, we do not walk away from our church because it is not up to par. Attending a church is not like going shopping; you can always shelve back a can of sardine when you notice that there is a dent at one corner. You cannot do the same to your church without feeling like a wishy-washy Christian.

A church is not there to please everyone. It is not a massage parlor where an individual’s needs are satisfied to a tee. In fact, a church is there because of the Great Commission pronounced by Jesus to his disciples. Our pastors should bear in mind that running the church is not like running a political campaign. They are not out to win electoral votes by being people-pleasers. They should find favor with God and not men. As its members, we should take the same approach.

Let’s face it. The expectations of its members are too diverse and varied for the church to satisfy fully. Complaints about a church are endless. What is one member’s bliss is another’s hiss. In a large church, two groups may be exposed to the same worship leader on a given Sunday service with one group liking it because the songs are catchy and modern while the other group may hate it because the same songs are unfamiliar and worldly. One group may compliment the church for its systematic approach and another group may think it is too impersonal. One group may praise the church for its friendliness and another may accuse it of being hypocritical. One group may admire the church for its structured sermons and another may belittle it for not being dynamic and charismatic enough. You see how the twain will never mix just like oil and water.

So, let’s be practical, realistic and open-minded. We cannot have our cake and eat it. All churches come with the good and the bad. We accept our church not because of what we can get out of it but what we can give to it. We make up our church and its quality depends on the quality of each individual member. In the end, as expressed by author and senior pastor Peter Scazzero in his book The Emotionally Healthy Church, the goal is not to change the church but to change us – or rather, to allow God to change us.

Have a celebrative weekend…regardless of which team wins the Cup!

Friday's Recap (250610)

2010-06-26T12:18:00.004+08:00

Yesterday’s cell was all about churches. We talked about churches that grow exponentially and churches that grow on a tortoise-pace. We talked about churches that entertain like a contemporary pop concert and churches that lead with a solo guitarist. We talked about churches with charismatic, bring-down-the-house preachers and churches with protocol-abiding, somber pastors. As many as there are denominations in this world with their different doctrinal beliefs and practices, there are churches of mixed varieties catering to different groups of people, of all walks of life and ages. In all these, it is obvious that church-building and activities are a complicated affair. As the congregation grows, as tithe-money and offering flood the coffers, and as the budget becomes more ambitious, the leaders of the church also become busier, more distracted and even more territorial. There is always the unfortunate risk that pastors of mega-churches will sink into a Darwinian-like struggle for popularity and dogged competitiveness in order to stay a step ahead of other churches.

I always believe that successful churches, like big, international conglomerates, will have to contend with the problem of size one day because size matters. Managed unwisely and size may become their weakest link. There is a saying that when you find a perfect plan don’t bring people in, they only mess it all up. There is some ironic truth in this when it comes to leading and managing an organization, whether secular or charitable. As the church grows in numerical strength, the resources of the pastoral team will be helplessly stretched. With limited time and energy reserved for the week, the pastors would face a floodgate of demands that they cannot optimally fulfilled. They would be hard-pressed to cater to different interest groups with one being more influential than the others. By the simple and unstoppable force of numerical evolution, growth always comes with greater inequality. Some members, especially the richer sector, will want to be “served” or at the least “given more attention to” by the pastoral team, and this will usually be at the expense of the poorer, less vocal majority. Soon enough, the problem of inequality grows unwieldy and intractable with the pastors becoming more politician-like than Christ-like, pandering to one “electoral interest” while sidelining the others’.

To add to the confounding mix is the issue of pastoral strife. Since pastors are humans too, there is always a palpable risk of an internal administrative struggle for popularity among the congregants just like in any Miss Congeniality contest. It is unavoidable that one or two pastors would be more dynamic, charismatic and “spiritually” appealing to the congregation than the others. This subtle inequality, if not properly dealt with, will give rise to an ugly mudslinging-like egoistical fight between pastors and their respective secretaries behind closed doors. Unseen walls or barriers could be set up between “warring” pastors which not only retard the spiritual growth of the leadership structure but also the members under their charge.

At least, in a secular organization, driven almost solely by profit, the head honcho could fire recalcitrant employees at will. Alternatively, when the numbers get too large, they can always retrench or terminate staff to save costs and cut down on redundancy. As such, as these corporations grow, they can still effectively control their growth without getting out of control.

But how can a pastor of a mega-church do the same? How could a pastor bring himself to excommunicate members in order to manage the numbers without turning the church into an exclusive club for like-minded people? Mind you, Jesus’ invitation is still the same for all today, irrespective of race, language or religion, or during his days, Jews or gentiles, circumcised or uncircumcised. So, when a church suddenly finds herself on a stratospheric path to exponential growth, she needs more than just extra pastors and lay staffs to perform the following: keep the numbers under control, stay focus on the twin goals of evangelism and disciples-making, and shepherd the diverse interests and their spiritual needs.

In my view, runaway growth brings about runaway problems. Sometimes, these problems run in all directions that even the pastoral team cannot effectively contain.

Then, there is the question of building funds. When the church is small and village-like, money comes in drips and drabs, similar to an IV bag feeding glucose into a patient’s veins. There is hardly enough to support the lone pastor’s family, not to mention his church of rented crummy halls, foldable chairs and a second-rate guitarist.

Then, when the moment everyone is praying for arrives with unexplained growth exploding into the scene, the church suddenly have more money than she had asked for, or more appropriately, more money than she could say “no” to. With offered manna pouring into the church like the monsoon rainfall, the church now has to deal with money issues. Money is like an intemperate mistress in this church-growing business. She demands your full attention and you don’t need to love it to find yourself in the eye of an ever-growing financial storm. I know the all-too-familiar saying that the love of money is the root of all evil. The operative word here is of course “love”.

But in the context of a mega-church with Godly principles to uphold, it is my view that too much money, especially idle money, is the root of lame suspicion and worldly distractions. Human nature being human nature, we cannot remain “un-affected” by the presence of a bank account full of tithe-money waiting to be managed in a way that maintains a healthy balance between the pastoral goals and the contributors’ pious expectations.

Members entrust their hard-earned money to the church to keep the church going as a going-concern. The expectation is simple enough: to ensure its members grow firstly in quality (spiritually) and then in quantity (numerically). The order cannot be in reverse, that is, quality has to come first before quantity. Seen in this light, it is my view that the church has to strike a balance between discipleship and evangelism. While discipleship is inward growth within a church, evangelism is an outward growth more like an outreach to the world. Some churches have strong evangelism but weak follow up and discipleship programs. Others are just the reverse.

What are the pastoral goals then? Well, it is of course indistinguishable from that of its members, that is, discipleship and evangelism. But there is more to it than that. And any pastor who tells you otherwise is definitely one who is pastoring a small church of less than a hundredth strength. Because numbers complicate matters, it becomes even more complicated when they bring with them money, and lots of it, expecting the pastoral team to sow it for a bountiful harvest. But the member’ expectation sometimes differs with that of the pastorate’s.

As a pastor, you cannot please everyone. Especially if you are a pastor of a mega-church, you will have to decide how you are going to deal with the excess money that comes in faster than the members’ growth itself. You cannot go “crazy” by spending all on evangelism as it requires mammoth planning and available staff. The logistics itself is sometimes mind-boggling. You cannot also go to the extreme with discipleship programs because your pool of teachers and materials are all limited. The planning can be physically daunting too. In the meantime, you are still left with a bank vault of cash, standing idly by, waiting to be used. Given the limited options, you can only invest the money in some safe interest-bearing accounts or blue-chip stocks. But this is easier said than done.

Money like honey attracts more than just attention; it attracts modern day financial soothsayers. Couple with this saturated culture of materialism, there is always this risk that these financial soothsayers will tempt the pastoral team to cast their net further with their idle money. This always involves taking more risk for higher gains like investing in riskier upstart companies. This also involves spending the excess money on more questionable ends that blur the line of pastoral accountability like buying a bigger car for personal use, upgrading into a newer, more posh apartment or investing in a membership club exclusively for the pastoral staff. It may also involve investing in secular companies where the pastor effectively takes on the role of a weekday director, managing corporate affairs and making personal profit, whilst shepherding his beloved flock during the weekends, managing God’s affairs. Talk about serving two masters!

This is my personal conviction about today’s modern mega-churches: Examine yourself. Turn the searchlight on your own beliefs and practices. I believe that churches should not be trendsetters, whether by conscious design or cultural inadvertence. We are called to be set apart from this world and not to settle in with it. We are called to be Christ-centered. We are the Light of the world and not the world’s “Crystal Ball”; busy reflecting our own glory while pretending to serve God. We are the salt of this world and not the world’s steroid going “ga-ga” over numerical growth at the expense of spiritual depth. At the very least, our self-examination should bring us to a point of assessing whether we are a 3-mile-wide, 2-inch deep secularized culture, whereby we foolhardily mistake quantity for quality, busyness for spirituality, and wealth for member’s spiritual health. In other words, a church should be a place of true worship where we draw strength from God to spur one another on towards love and good works and not a circus of one sensational performance after another with the pastoral team taking on the role of a ring master, and the members becoming its well-trained livestock, at the beck and call of its master’s handy whip.

Many times, I ask myself, would Jesus have done it any differently? Jesus’ ministry was fortunately short-lived, just three years. But He planned it well, very systematic and yet simple and effective. He rounded up twelfth social rift rafts and put them on “real estate commission” to change the world with one mission, one simple motto: Jesus can, you can too!

I would classify Jesus as a church-planter, like a farmer who patiently sows his seeds on good soil. His seeds are his transformed disciples who are themselves effective church-builders. They all died for their cause, sacrificing their lives for the vision of their messiah. Whether Jesus or his disciples were rich or not is not really the issue. Jesus had made himself abundantly clear in his ultimatum to the rich young ruler. But this one thing is abundantly clear though, what they may lack in material wealth, they more than made it up with spiritual wealth by leading as an example and by being an inspiration to all to live up to and emulate.

But what if Jesus had lived in our modern age and to a ripe-full age of seven scores and ten, would he have done it any differently? Bordering on hypothetical blasphemy and chronological incredulity (since without his death, there would be no Christianity as we know it today), I would dare say, and this is only my own view, that He would still be the same “yesterday, today and tomorrow”. He would still be an itinerant church planter; not a trendsetter but an old fashion farmer. Sure, he would make use of today’s technology for his world outreach. Like Obama, Jesus would use the media and the internet to spread God’s word. But He would stay true to his preaching, living a life set apart from this world, standing up for the poor and the oppressed, being a peacemaker and a discriminate healer, comforting those who mourn and are broken in spirit, and always eternity-focused, faithful, hopeful and purpose-driven. Along with his unimpeachable qualities, Jesus may win many awards and accolades (even a few Nobel prizes), be invited to speak for nations and in world conferences, be showered with international praises and even material gifts and real estate beyond all that one could imagine. But with all the attention, glamour and wealth, would Jesus be swayed, influenced and tempted, or even derailed?

It is easy to say that because Jesus is Jesus, God incarnate, he would not be. But my answer is not predicated on that convenient reason. In Matthew 4, Jesus was handed, on a silver platter, the same temptation or opportunity, if not more seductive, by this world ruler at His most vulnerable. But His answer, which I believe would be the same today, was a cool intonation, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, you shall worship the Lord, your God, and Him only you shall serve.” You can’t get any more focused than that!

But let’s be objective. The obvious caveat here is that we are not Jesus. We are his disciples. We are imperfect, emulating the perfect. We are living under the shadow of what is to be the “glorious unraveling”. Needlessly to say, the church is imperfect because it is made up of imperfect worshippers, with their pet peeves and pet gripe; juvenile at best and malicious at its worst.

The church is not a museum for well-framed collections, spotless and finely polished. The church is a hospital for the sick and diseased; or else, there would be no cause for a savior.

So, after all is said and done, one has still to empathize with the plight of pastors of mega-churches. It is definitely not an easy job. The demands are both biblical and secular. On one side are discipleship and evangelism, and on the other side is, money managing. There is therefore no hard and fast rule for managing mega-churches. It takes Godly wisdom, a humble and surrendered heart, and a shepherd’s passion to manage it well. But, as a member of a reasonably large church for twenty plus years, I would like to offer this brief prayer to my church leadership as my peace offering and love token.

A short prayer for my shepherd

It is my prayer that my church will leave no members behind for numerical growth. That it will see the richness in the lives of her members and not in her structure, programs and budget. I pray also that my church will stand in the gap to pray for and uplift her members and, when overwhelmed, she will not hesitate to stand on the rock that is higher than all, so that she could see further and reach deeper into the hearts of her wandering flock. Most of all, I pray that my church will unquestionably serve one master who is the Christ and be a servant to all, in humility and unreserved devotion. In closing, I pray that my church will embrace brokenness and vulnerability and accept my limits as a member. In return, I pray that I will always remain faithful and devoted to my church, who is the bride of Christ, my fortress, my refuge, and my sanctuary. So help me God. Amen.

Friday's Recap (180610)

2010-06-19T11:20:00.002+08:00

Yesterday’s cell was a discussion about convictions. We discussed how important a conviction, when acted upon, can change our life for good. We listed and commented on a few of them on these criteria - reflect (meaning) and relate (personalizing). Here are some of them that we had discussed.

TO KNOW WHEN YOU HAVE ENOUGH IS TO BE RICH (Lao-Tzu). I think richness is not defined by what we possess or what we have accomplished. It is no doubt important but it is not richness. Richness is the ability to enjoy what we have – even if what we have is the bare necessities of life. Proverbs 17:1 says this, “Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife”. I think the unhappiest person in this world is he or she who is bitterly envious of others. A person like that will never have peace because nothing is enough for him or her. Jesus said these words in Luke 12:5, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possession.” Greed robs us of the joy of living because it distracts us from enjoying what is truly important in our life. So, we need to redefine richness or wealth. If we see it as material possessions, then the striving will be endless because the world of branded goods and glittering fame is a bottomless pit. But if we see it in the relationships to be nurtured, then the investment would be worthwhile because the rewards for consistent efforts are a bountiful harvest in the end.

THE WORDS OF THE TONGUE SHOULD HAVE THREE GATEKEEPERS: IS IT TRUE? IS IT KIND? IS IT NECESSARY? (Arabian proverb) Standing sentry to keep our tongue from tripping over our clumsy foot are these three tower guards. James 1:19 tells us to be “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry”. But many of us operate in the oral realm in reverse: we are usually slow to listen, quick to speak and fast to become angry. This is the irony of human communication. We always want our conversation to be delectable. But our tongue always gets in the way and we become despicable. So let’s allow these three gatekeepers do their job in all our conversation, whether heated or otherwise.

I guess the job of these gatekeepers is made difficult by these three loathsome gatecrashers: Is it controversial? Is it juicy? Is it self-serving? If they are, then the temptation is almost irresistible for us to blab it out like the South African vuvuzela! But we all know the dreaded outcome: relationships would turn sour, hatred would boil over, and regrets would dry the heart. So, in the long run, if you want to be a peacemaker for God, try replacing all the bunched up words in your mouth at that heated moment with these three friends of the gatekeepers: a smile, a nod and a reassuring wink.

WHEN YOU SEE A GOOD MAN, THINK OF EMULATING HIM; WHEN YOU SEE A BAD MAN, EXAMINE YOUR HEART (Chinese proverb). The Bible says that our heart is above all deceitful. There is therefore no one who is righteous before God. Whilst it is easy to throw stone at a sinner, it is hard to turn it around and throw it back at ourselves. Because we do not see clearly our errors, prejudices and arrogance, we are always moralizing about virtues and judging others who fall short of it – without realizing that we too come out short. Oftentimes, we mistake moralizing about virtues with living it out. That is why there is no such thing as a conscious hypocrite. You will inevitably notice that those who are right are always the quietest and those who are wrong are the noisiest because they have to drown out the protest of their own guilt. You will also notice that the “blaming” finger is always pointed at others and hardly at oneself.

Whilst it is easy and almost natural to emulate good men and women, how natural is it for us to examine our own hearts when we see a bad man falls from grace? Often, it is much more natural to gloat, judge and criticize. Rags to riches stories are inspiring, no doubt. But the sad human tendency is this: it is “more rewarding” to eagerly anticipate the inevitable fall of arrogant, rich and famous men and women. And when they do, we, like vultures, will swop in and chew off on the fleshly gossips until we become what the Bible calls “idle talkers” or “hypocrites”.

Here’s one caveat. I am not saying that we should not judge. If we have removed the log out of our eyes, then we may judge the act and not the person. For it is said, “…first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:5)

But I think we, as Christians, will do well to practise self-reflecting judgment. Because we are born of fallen seeds, we must always be on guard for ourselves. We must remember that we are just as fallible as the next fallen guy. So, when we read about the plight of bad men, we should give pause and look into St James’ mirror and remind ourselves of our own fallibility. This is a true high watermark of maturity and humility. And to be humble is to be wise.

WE ALL CLING TO THE PAST OR LONG FOR THE FUTURE, MAKING US UNAVAILABLE TO THE PRESENT (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh). Our lives are made up of past mistakes and hurts. Our lives are also made up of hopes, fear and anxiety for our future. But often, we forget that our lives are made up of choices and they are the little bricks that build us up, one stone at a time. If you notice, the only thing that is within our control is our choices and they exist for us in the present and not in the past or in the future. Choices in the past are clearly beyond us because they have already been made and we are living with its consequences. And choices in the future have yet to be made for the obvious reason that our future has not arrived.

The tragedy of life is to forcibly compress our past and future into our present; thereby effectively neutralizing our present into non-existence. We then become zombies in our own life, surrendering to the hurts of the past and wallowing over missed opportunities to build up our future. For this reason, Matthew 6 is our alarm siren. It tells us not to worry about life in general. It tells us that tomorrow will worry about itself. It reminds us that each day has enough trouble of its own. So, let’s wake up and smell the challenges of the present and leave the past to bury itself and the future to take care of itself.

In the end, our present is what really counts in this life. And it is important because choices made “in the here and now” will determine how we live our lives, how our past mistakes will affect us, and how we create our future. Let us all be present-oriented. Let us live our lives to make our present counts for the future. Let us be mindful of our present. Let us live consciously and not sleepwalk over our loved ones, neglecting them by dwelling in our past and worrying about our future.

So, in the wise words of Einstein, “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” I guess a proper extension of this would be, “I never think of the past. It is gone for good.”

THOSE WHO TRY TO DO SOMETHING AND FAIL ARE INFINITELY BETTER THAN THOSE WHO TRY TO DO NOTHING AND SUCCEED (Richard Bird). Nike is right. We should all just do it. It is far worst to live a life of regrets for things not done than to live a life blemished by mistakes for things done wrong. At least, for the latter life, we can proudly say that we had made the effort, we had lived by conviction, and we had been honest to our plans. You see, the beauty of this aphorism is that those who do nothing in their lives will always, without fail, succeed in it. But their success is ironic. It is a success of nothingness. There is nothing to brag about. Nothing to show. No legacy to inherit. But the opposite is hardly true of a life of consistent trying. It is said that every great journey starts with a small step – in the right direction of course.

For the consistent try-er, there is always the tangible hope of success waiting for him or her at the next try. Newton, Edison and Einstein are all household names because they are simply successful doers; they never gave up or gave in. They pursued their goals with tenacious focus and their success can be summed up as “undying trying”. This is the golden quality of true success. No powers, forces or circumstances in this world can stop the marauding steps of a persevering heart. James 1:12 endorses this championing spirit with these words, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

Have a full throttle week ahead. Fail with panache; Succeed with class!

Friday's Recap (110610)

2010-06-12T23:02:00.002+08:00

Yesterday’s cell discussion was about simplicity. How do we simplify our life so that we get more from less without the mental stress, emotional headaches and spiritual exhaustion? In other words, how do we achieve all-round success without burning out in the rat-race we call living? All of us want a peace of mind. We want to stay in control of things. We want to be above the hustle and bustle, the mindless strivings. We want to live consciously and not be a pawn in someone’s asset-accumulation gambit. But how do we stay mindful when the relentless demands of work, family and ministry seem to conspire together to keep us anesthetized, numbed and blindly compliant?

Let’s get this off my chest before I write further: our culture is a culture of fast food, fast work and fast results and we are compelled to either flow with it or get out of the way. As long as someone up there wants to get richer than he or she really is, workers like us will, for the long run, continue to work like oxen in an open estate. This is the grim reality of a capitalist market-driven economy. Mind you, communism is not much better. So, how do we keep our sanity in such a “me-first” culture? I think the antidote is to slow down in the fast lane. Gandhi once said, “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” And one of the effective ways to slow down is to simplify. I believe the process of simplification starts with our spirit and the benefits will eventually flow down to our actions and speech. I also believe that it is not the speed of our physical activity that stresses us out. It is the speed of our thoughts that throw us off-balance, or hurl us into a mental tailspin. We can control our thoughts by simplifying it. And, if we can do that, we would have eliminated one of the main causes of mental and emotional breakdown. Pope John XXIII declared, “The older I grow the more clearly I perceive the dignity and winning beauty of simplicity in thoughts, conduct, and speech: a desire to simplify all that is complicated and to treat everything with the greatest naturalness and clarity.”

I have thought long and hard about the secret of simplicity and we have also discussed about it at length yesterday. I guess nothing can be simpler living than to have a clear conscience. And we can start to live with a clear conscience by living with integrity (promise-keeper), refusing to keep scores (or grudge-bearing), and seeking forgiveness from those we have wronged. I know all these are easier said than done but the toughness is not in its execution, it is in its conviction. Every great accomplishment starts with a mind that has made up its mind. A person whose mind is duplicitous is a person who has yet to anchor his life on the foundational truth of God’s word. Jesus once made a seemingly silly statement, “Let what you say be simply Yes or No: anything more than this comes from evil.” (Matt 5:37). Whoa, was Jesus overreacting? Was it that serious that he had to evoke the word “evil”? I mean, most of us mean what we say and say what we mean. Our “yes-es” and our “no-es” are just that and nothing more. What’s the big deal?

A little clarity can be thrown into the mix by remembering what Jesus said about the path to true salvation. He once admonished that a person cannot serve two masters. We cannot pledge allegiance to God on a Sunday and then conduct our life as if our loyalty belongs only to the world or the devil for the rest of the week. This sort of hypocrisy does nothing but to deeply and profoundly mess up our spiritual life. Nothing can therefore be more complex than a life dedicated to two masters. Just like night and day cannot mix, our Christian walk cannot be effective if we follow God and collude with the devil at the same time. So, our yes and no should remain just that. But Jesus is not talking about oral affirmations. He is referring specifically to our spiritual conviction. He is talking about being consistently disciplined in our thoughts, actions and speech. He is telling us to make up one mind and stick with it regardless of trials and tribulation, temptations and deceptive schemes.

A simple life is one which serves one master and stays faithful to him. This is the overriding principle of simplicity. The rest of the principles are mainly footnotes or commentary and they can be briefly listed as follows:-

Put relationship first, always. A simple life starts with building and treasuring relationships above material possessions and ambitions. I know that I am taking a risk here by prioritizing relationships above material wealth. I have personally witnessed many train-wrecked relationships that went sour, even deadly, in the ugly manifestations of divorces, sibling rivalries and workplace backstabbing. But I believe that their causes are not because relationship is not important. It is precisely because relationship is relegated while personal egoistic striving is enthroned that many relationships suffered disastrously. Imagine a world, and this is not hard to imagine, where relationships are priced above all things. Imagine how one would refuse to backstab because it will drive a wedge between him and his colleague. Imagine a spouse giving up the offer of higher pay for the sole reason that he would have less time to spend with his wife and family; thereby jeopardizing their long term relationship. Imagine nations putting down their swords to reconcile and make amends for past killings and pillaging. I believe that if people make a conscientious effort to put relationships first in all their dealings, this world would be a happier, more peaceful place for all. Wishful thinking? Well, all big dreams are wishful thinking until someone is prepared to stand up to the plate and start that spark that spread into a wild forest fire of universal change.

Forgive unconditionally. This is tough. Simplicity has its price. Some people are incorrigible. And because they are incorrigible, they are difficult to forgive. You guys know what I am talking about. That person who seems so difficult to pardon can be your colleague. Your boss. Your estranged relative. Your ex-spouse. Even your current spouse, sometimes. But forgiveness is no respecter of persons. It starts with you and ends with you. Don’t expect it to go any further than you. That’s why it has to be unconditional. Don’t expect immediate reconciliation or restoration. Sometimes, that person may spit at you or call you names. But it is really out of your hands, you have done what you are created for, that is, to forgive unconditionally. When you forgive, expect nothing in return. A demand-less forgiveness releases you from the pain and hurt of that transgression and enables you to move forward with your life, step by step. From there onwards, this freedom from resentment and grudge would greatly lighten your load and simplify your life.

Love unconditionally. This is a relevant principle of simplicity because true love comes with little, if no, conditions. This is where we accept our loved ones for who they are, what they are. No couple is perfect. Two imperfect lives can generate a lot of friction, misunderstandings and conflicts. Sometimes, the arguments can get so intense that an immediate split up seems almost irresistible. But hold that thought. It is not a point of no return. Couples must learn to accept their partners’ flaws as well as their strengths. Loving unconditionally requires an open heart that sees how one’s flaws can be transformed and how one’s strength can be sharpened. It takes a lot of patience sometimes but the reward, especially in the context of a marriage, is immeasurable. I always believe that it is simpler to join synergistically a couple’s strength together to overshadow their collective flaws rather than to just give up the relationship and find new love. Proverbs 27:17 puts it this way, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

Make everyday count. A simple life has little regrets. And regrets come to those who live their days recklessly. I urge you guys not to go through the motion of each day as if you are following someone’s agenda. This is of course difficult since we are all so busy, so flooded with work. Maybe in our busyness, we can resist the flow and extract ourselves from the torrent of deadlines, and idly sit by the wayside to consider what we want to achieve for ourselves, our family and our spiritual life. There is always sometime that is missing in our life and it only takes a little time-off to ponder so that we can identify what is truly important, what really matters. It doesn’t need to be big goals or grandiose dreams. It can be as down-to-earth as “how to love my wife better”, “how to be a good father” or “how to make a difference in my workplace, to demonstrate Christ-like traits to my colleagues.” It is because we are so busy making a living that we forget to live life fully, to fill the lost hours with meaningful activities with our children, and to smile more instead of losing our temper and frowning at the slightest agitation. Remember this, above basic subsistence level, the income-earner is always more important than the income itself.

Live with boundaries. We cannot please everyone. This is a fact. People without boundaries will tirelessly help everybody but himself or herself. He is busy tending to the needs of others at the expense of his own life. Sometimes, even his family members are neglected. A balance has to be struck because the time allotted to us and the energy that God gave us are all limited.

Galatians 6:2 talks about “carrying each other burdens” but a later verse (verse 5) reminds us that “each one should carry his own load.” So, there is a different between “burdens” and “load”. The Greek word for burden is “excess burdens.” The burdens of life have to be shared because it is too heavy for one to bear alone. I interpret this as trials of life, which encompasses a death in the family, a terminal illness or a financial crisis. As Christians, we help each other in such terrible loss or crisis and do our utmost to relief one’s burden of it. We strive to give in support and lend a listening ear to those whose lives are burdened and ravaged by circumstances beyond their control. However, the Greek word for load is “daily toil.” This is our daily responsibility and we are more than able to bear them on our own. Our family is our responsibility and we work to take care of them. They are our daily load and we have broad enough shoulders to carry them. The problem comes when we neglect our “daily load” because of ill-defined boundaries and go out of our way to carry the burdens of others. So, to live simply, is to take responsibility for ourselves and our family first. We make sure they are well provided, physically, emotionally and spiritually, before we extend a helping hand to others.

Live with hope. When hope dies, our life is like a chicken that has lost its head. We spatter and sputter; we go ditzy and wobble in circle. It doesn’t take long for one to lose his will to live when hope fizzles off. Hope in times of trouble and discouragement is the oasis to keep us moving forward towards our goal. And hope in the Lord, the author and finisher of our faith, is the reason for us to run the race to the end to attain the reward that awaits us. A simple life is a life buoyed by hope, a life that is confident in the face of peril, and a life that is always focused on his ultimate deliverer, who is his Creator and Savior. Psalms 33:16-19 echoes this sentiment well, “No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.”

Finally, there is TRUST. Yesterday, we discussed about trust at length. I believe that if we were to peel off the “skin” of a simple life, layer by layer, we will find at its core this powerful principle called TRUST. Trust makes everything go smoothly. It is the “grease” that spins the cogwheel of human relationships. It is said that speed happens when people truly trust each other. Isn’t this so true?

Indeed, when couples trust each other, they have peace of mind in everything that they do, even when each of them are physically miles apart. When a boss trusts his employees, for the sole reason that they are trustworthy, he can concentrate on other sector of his business and get more things done at lesser time. The opposite of trust is distrust and a life filled with suspicion can be terribly complicated because the mind is always at a state of unrest, wariness and anxiety. So, if you really desire to live a simple life, to reap the profit of simplicity, to enjoy its fruits, learn to be trustworthy and to trust your loved ones in return.

Let me end with this quote from an educator and religious leader, Neal A. Maxwell, “It is better to trust and sometimes be disappointed than to be forever mistrusting and be right occasionally.”

Whistle series (210510)

2010-05-22T12:51:00.003+08:00

Yesterday’s cell group discussion was about our failures and disappointment living as a Christian. So far, our spiritual records have been more abysmal than encouraging. Many of us experienced unanswered prayers. At times, these prayers were not only left unanswered, it became worse. It was like God heard our prayers for relief and decided, in one divine whim and fancy, to add one more load to our breaking back.

Then, there’s the promise of victory over life’s circumstances. Sitting on the church pews, it appeared a great sell. The preacher was wildly hurling at his congregants one great promise after another. Promises of perpetual health, unceasing wealth, irrepressible joy and anxiety-free living flooded the church tabernacle like the latter day rain. Everybody was empowered, energized and revived. But Sunday victory turned into Monday stalemate with the rest of the week becoming less promising than the day before. Then, one trial comes our way and we become befuddled, confused. Our faith got a fair beating and we become disillusioned. We become discouraged, at times defeated. The struggle goes on day after day and we do not seem to be closer to our spiritual goal of becoming more Christ-like. Some days, we even entertain the thought of giving up, throwing in the towel. Other days, we tell ourselves that we should just drift along with the Sunday Christian crowd, going through the motion, blindly obeying the rituals, and hoping that Christ does not return any time soon.

Our cell group was frank about our yo-yo existence as a Christian. Sometimes we were way up there and got a whiff of God’s presence and saw a wink of approval from Him. At other times, we were way below, licking our own wounded faith, doubting God and resigning to a life of mediocrity. Indeed, being a Christian is real hard work. Grace is definitely not cheap. The Cross is not light. The trials of life are surely raw and real. And hope can be as mischievous as an imp playing hide and seek with us when we need it most. So, what are we to do with our faith? How can we overcome this yo-yo existence? What must we do to get out of this spiritual rut, wandering in our own spiritual wilderness?

It is tempting here to give formulaic, step-by-step, one-size-fit-all answers to how to grow your faith. It is easy to tell you in this letter that you should surrender all to God, trust in Him regardless of your circumstances, and put your hope on the rock of your salvation. It is even easier to turn the finger at your own failings and blame all your spiritual backtracking and doubts on your lack of faith and trust in God. But, I find such exercise futile and at times insulting. I believe that there are countless numbers of Christians out there trying their level best to make faith ends meet. Many are troubled by a premature death in the family. Many are facing stark life choices that are equivalent to a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. Many are praying for relief or answers but are receiving a deafening silence in return. Does God care? Is God there? Will God be fair?

Earlier I said that grace is not cheap and the Cross is not light. Well, of course, grace is free and salvation is a gift. But living the Christian life is anything but cheap, free and a given. I guess that is why many are called but few will endure to the end. It is at this time that we must ask ourselves this: How do we view God? Who is God to us? I believe that how we see God will determine how far we will go with Him. Is our God a nice God, always smiling, readily generous, and eternally forgiving? Or is our God a God of justice, a God who is wholly sovereign, in control of everything, and whose thoughts are above ours, whose actions are often incomprehensible, and whose promises are surefooted but at times, escape our human expectations? I am sure you can see how such differences in our conception of God will determine how we live our Christian life, how our faith is conditioned, and how we will endure in our Christian walk?

If we believe in a soft, nice, and pushover God, then it won’t take long for us to be disappointed in our Christian walk. It also shows our lack of knowledge about Him. It also turns our so called God into a genie in an Aladdin’s bottle, whose existence is essentially to serve our spiritual needs and material wants. This reminds me of a tale in Hollywood. It tells of a sultry lady performer strutting onto one of the grand stages and dressed in a sexually provocative gown, with little or nothing on. She then told the rowdy, mostly men crowd that she prayed before coming up on stage for God to help her career and she thanked God for answering her prayer. Beloved, this is how lopsided our faith can become when we take God’s goodness for granted and live our Christian life expecting God to be at our beck and call.

Let’s face this truth now: God is not going to grant everything you ask of Him. Let’s not forget that He is our Creator, not our butler or porter. Job learned this the hard and unfortunate way. He lost everything and then gained everything back, all in one short lifetime, with not even an explanatory note tagged to it. In our limited perspective, it seems like God was playing a cruel joke with his life. CS Lewis had his beloved wife taken from him without forewarning and he cried foul play. Many great men and women of God endured untold sufferings, dying young, dying in pain, and dying alone. All Jesus’ disciples shared the same tragic fate and became the seeds of martyrs where the church was founded.

Indeed, God is not nice. He is not a people-pleaser. He is not a livewire of the party, going from table to table, clinking champagne glasses and cheering everyone on. The Bible is clear about God profiling. He is good but not nice. He is cool but not popular. He is a master-planner and not a partisan spin-doctor. He makes thing happen but sometimes not in a way that we’d like it; at times, even contrary to our most benign expectations. He answers to no one. He cannot be measured by any man-made standards. He cannot be reduced into a mathematical formula or captured in a Polaroid photo-shot. Most of all, He is sovereign and in control. And in all these, God knows what He is doing and knows what’s best for us in the long run. Romans 8:28 puts it in its categorical best when it writes, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

It is now up to us to move out of our comfort zone. We should worship God for who He really is and not what we think or hope He should be. God should not be amended to our expectations. Instead we should be amended to His. Let us sharpen ourselves in readiness to do God’s work and not be caught off guarded when God comes calling. Let’s not have any preconceived ideas about God. It is so easy to impose our own man-made logic onto our faith and expect God to conform to it. For example, if God is all loving and all powerful, we would expect Him to eradicate all sufferings. The human logic is to expect no pain, no tears and no more shame. But is this how it works? Is this God’s manner of operation? When we pray for deliverance, we expect God to deliver according to the scripture. But should it be that way? What if this was not how God manages this universe? What if there is more to it than meets the eye?

Of course, I am not saying that God does not answer prayer. We know he does. I am not saying that He does not heal. We know He does. But there’s the other side of the mystery coin. Sometimes, he doesn’t. He seems silent. He even seems distant. And our prayers go unanswered. Our cry, unheeded. Our pain, unresolved.

This is where we are called to draw strength and hope from Romans 8:28. I know this is not a perfect answer. It is not even a good answer when we are so desperate for one to cling on to. But maybe, God doesn’t want to give us a good answer. Maybe a good answer is not what’s best for us. Maybe, a good answer will leave little room for faith, hope and trust and God deems it best that we should continue to trust in Him by withholding a good answer from us. Maybe a good answer comes in a form of an internal assurance to persevere for an eternal reward. If you read how Apostle Paul struggled with the thorn in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-10), how he prayed thrice for relief and got nothing close to it, you can empathize with the anguish he must have felt over unanswered prayers. But this is just one side of the coin. The other side was God’s assurance in these revelatory words to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

With this assurance, however encrypted and undecipherable to the human mind, Paul accepted his affliction with gladness and went on to do the one thing that defied all human logic, he boasted about his infirmities! In celebratory mood, he shouted these words from the rooftops, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Imagine, at our regular Saturday’s miracle services, we bounce onto stage and praise God for unhealed ailments, unanswered intercessions and unresolved relationships and expect the audience to applaud together with us! Talk about having logic smashed straight into our face!

I have learned that in the same way that there is joy in answered prayers, there is also joy in unanswered prayers. But the latter joy is more profound, more sublime, more fulfilling because it shows where our faith and heart really is. The ministry of Jesus is partly the ministry of partaking in his sufferings. There is a lot to say about a persistent faith that is bruised by trial fire than one which is inflated by empty adulation and pampered by succeeding wealth.

Indeed, there is a time for everything, a time to born and a time to die, to plant and to pluck; a time to weep and a time to laugh, to mourn and to dance. Sooner or later, our faith will be tested and the time will come for us to brave through it with our faith intact. Will we be ready? Will we overcome? Will we know the time? Let me close with this exemplary words from a martyr of God, Ignatius, “The time make demands on you in the same way a sailor requires wind and as one tossed by the sea requires a safe harbor. Be vigilant as God’s athlete. Stand firm like an anvil under the blow of the hammer. It is the part of the great athlete to receive blows and to conquer. Be yet more diligent than you are. Learn to know the times.”

Have a victorious week ahead. Take good care.

Whistle series (140510)

2010-05-15T12:41:00.002+08:00

How do you start a new cult? How do you enrich yourself and your posse (gang) through a new belief? How do you recruit members into your new dark religion? Let’s face it. As long as we are human beings, we will believe in something or someone. That thing or person can be an impersonal force or an animated object. And this object of our belief has to be existentially beneficial to us. It must profit us somehow, whether in the short or long term. And because we are all incurably religious, unchangingly dependable (on others, especially an authority figure), and understandably ignorant on most subjects, the stage is already set for many cults or strange religious beliefs to flourish or thrive.

There are essentially 6 straightforward ingredients to start a cult and if you persist in it, with the tenacity of a militia commander, you can very well succeed in growing your own cult into a worldwide phenomenon.

Needless to say, the first ingredient is a leader. This is obvious. Even more blindingly obvious, is to have a leader who is dynamic and charismatic. It is even better if your leader is a little wonker on the side, or mentally imbalance. This will of course rule out the insane or mentally unsound for obvious reason. But, like they say, all geniuses have a little insanity in them. So, your leader has to be a mental soloist, a frontier explorer or an emotional outlier; someone who lives on the edge of reality. Or, someone who is willing to push reality to the edge to serve his own twisted purpose.

You can find such a person in an ultra-religious meeting, a you-can-do-anything-if-you-believe seminar or a trailer park for social outcasts. The one trait to look out for is a narcissistic personality. This person must love himself more than he loves anything in this world or this entire universe. Also helpful is a bigoted outlook. This person must hate some people in some part of the world for no seemingly logical reasons. It can be the color, the sex or the race of the people that irks him to his grave. Or, it may just be a person’s demeanor, dressing or talking style. Whatever it is, this future cult leader of yours must be a people hater, period.

So, let me repeat the two traits to look out for in a cult leader. He must be a self-lover and an others-hater. Once you have found such a person (which is not too difficult to find in this materialistic, self-absorbed, power-driven world), half of your job is done. The other five ingredients will naturally fall into place in your quest to set up a successful new cult.

The second ingredient is a supernatural experience. This relates to the leader himself, and is personally exclusive to him. He must be able to come up with an extraterrestrial, divine-inspired encounter in the likes of ET and Star Trek. Your leader can take lessons from Joseph Smith who claimed that he met with an angel called Moroni who gave him two gold tablets for translation into the Book of Mormonism. Or Mary Baker Eddy who, in a lucky fall, came up with the foundational doctrine of her Christian Science Movement. She also claimed that she was miraculously healed of illnesses and was a divine messenger of God.

The third ingredient is a belief for deluded members to surf on. This relates to the prospective congregation as whole. A cult leader cannot stop with a supernatural experience without leading his members to the purpose such supernatural experience aim to bring. In other words, the exclusive encounter of the cult leader has to be interpreted and applied in the form of belief. So, the more outrageous the belief, the better. Just as grandiose is your leader, your belief must be equally, if not more, grandiose. This second task is not too hard. Just engage a credible Hollywood scriptwriter or read some out-of-this-world science friction to cook up some pseudo-theological mumbo-jumbo and you would have gleefully arrived at the sweet spot of make-believe.

The fourth ingredient is to be a copy cat. They say plagiarism is the highest form of compliment to the original works or author. So, your cult will need the extra rocket fuel to boost it into fantasy orbit by borrowing ideas from orthodox religions, in particular, Christianity or Judaism. This step is basically to add meat to your bony belief. The best and easiest way is to promote your leader as the messiah and all that he says as veritable gospel truth. It would be better if your leader could plan a divine coup and take over the Mercy Seat of God. I call this fourth step, “Dethroning the Orthodoxy”. Many false prophets have already claimed that they are the second adam, the Christ, the Savior of this world. And the second coming has arrived.

This self-propagation will give the leader the license to do anything and get away with it. Warren Jeff, the ex-leader of the Church of Jesus of the Fundamentalist Latter-days Saints, had done just that. He got away with many things because his members worshipped him as the Christ. He got away with the celestial marriages of 180 wives, a coffer of more than a hundred million dollars under a Trust that he practically controlled, and men who are prepared to take a bullet for him and women, even young girls, who are all too ready to throw their virginity at him.

Now comes the fifth ingredient. This is the ingenious part and it is embedded in this caption, “Salvation by works only.” Unlike Christianity, where we are saved by faith through grace, a free love gift from God, your cult cannot “cheapen” itself to that profession. It has to be by works or rituals and by works or rituals only. Mormonism, for example, is up to its blistered neck with rituals. They have the Mormon temple ceremony, the secret handshakes and the reception of special undergarments. The last ritual sounds like what Tom Jones would get thrown at during his mega-concerts. You see, the last thing that you want in a cult is to cut off the middle man. You need to make the leader the sole custodian and dispenser of salvation. He would have to stand in between his illusory god and his disillusioned members. Telling them that they are already saved by faith through a free gift without any say from the cult leader would give your member full autonomy (or freedom) to come to their god directly. This would make the leader redundant. This is a big NO-NO for cults to survive and thrive.

Another point to note is that it is incumbent on your leader to make the goal of salvation as unreachable as possible. The members must always fall short of the leader’s peacock-like glory. It is therefore a never-ending measuring up of the unrealizable self-professed perfect attributes of the leader. But keep all things in tactical balance. The members must not be too discouraged as to give up altogether. Your leader must be able to give timely pet-talks to further deepen the delusion, add apocalyptic end-time predictions now and then, and arouse the members with false prophesies, placebo physical healings, and self-glorying testimonies to keep the false hope afloat.

In short, it is important to monopolize salvation and to keep it close to your leader’s chest as if his life depended on it. Remember, the moment you liberalize salvation, your leader and cult will become obsolete, and your members will be free to seek the truth for themselves. More likely than not, they will find it and your membership, your secret personal property accumulation, your bank account embezzlement, and your wives acquisition will all suffer irreparable damage.

Finally, the sixth ingredient to establishing a successful cult is to always keep your organizational structure tightly controlled. The best structure for a cult is morbid authoritarianism. There must be a clear line of authority from your untouchable, unfathomable leader to his deluded Hench men and to his starved-for-truth members. Very much like a Mafioso family structure, your cult will benefit from a culture of fear, intimidation and threat of life and limbs. Always let your members know who’s the boss in the organization and never hesitate to punish, with immediate effect and stringency, any transgressors, rules-infringers and rebels to set an example for all members to follow.

In a rather twisted way, your cult leader will have to keep another insidious balance in mind, that is, the strategic balance of vain hope and villainous fear. Keep the pulse of your members close to your leader’s heart and always read the right signals coming from the congregants. When hope is down, pump it up with more delusionary sermons. When freedom is loosening out, rein it in with fear of earthly and afterlife punishments. Threats that one may lose his or her salvation for disobedience are a good measure to keep one’s member in his or her place.

So, after all is said and done, let me leave you with this quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn for your pleasure-gnawing, “You can have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power.”

Remember that your cult is only as powerful as your next obedient member. When you lose control over your members, when they see through your gimmick and hypocrisy, you will bleed membership. So, don’t take away hope, an invaluable spiritual bait, from your members. Hope is the glue that keeps your cult “alive and kicking” and you will do well to not be miserly about dispensing it once in a while. Essentially, you can take everything from your members, their property, their integrity and their intellect, but leave a slender tortuous trail of hope behind for their feeble picking. Once this is done, no matter what happens, your members will be more than prepared to risk their lives for you.

Dear cell, please bear with me on this very peculiar letter to you. I am just trying to make use of "reverse psychology" to belabor a sore point. I know this is unconventional, even highly provocative at times. But I believe in the diversity of teaching and this is just one of them, I guess. It is hope that those who read it will get the not-so-cryptic message. My main motivation for writing it in this twisted way is to vent my pent-up frustration after having read so many accounts of how seemingly intelligent people can believe in such outwardly dumb things!

Whistle series (140510)

2010-05-15T12:38:00.002+08:00

Why would any sane individual follow a mad man? Why would one give his life, wealth and wife to a cult leader? What makes a cult leader so attractive, seductive and irresistible to his followers? When we talk about cults, one recent leader comes to mind. His name is Warren Jeffs. He is the prophet and leader of the Church of Jesus of the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints (“FLDS”). By his own standard, he is a self-proclaimed, one and only, true prophet representing God and all other churches and faith are apostasy. His words and sermons were treated with great authority by his many followers, even to the extent of having precedence over the Bible. In fact, Warren Jeffs was the one who uttered these words, which I guess should be adopted as a shining mantra for all cults, “Perfect obedience produces perfect faith, which results in perfect people.” This is the underlining theme of all cults and the reason why so many of them grow and flourish in such a short time.

Human beings are incurably religious, so they say. But more relevantly, we are incurably gullible, incurably lost and incurably impressionable. In our search for meaning in this world, we are ready to subscribe to anything and sacrifice everything to fill up the void, the emptiness in our hearts. That is why cults and occults cannot help but grow exponentially. When Jesus told Peter and Andrew that they would become “fishers of men”, my thoughts are immediately turned to these deranged cultic leaders using and twisting Jesus’ metaphor for their own selfish, and sometimes murderous, ends. Often it is the bait that hides the hook and the more attractive the bait, the more irresistible it is to the gullible fishes. Like fishes, cults have an ala carte of attractive ideas for its members. Often these ideas appeal to the lost because they have grown bore and restless with their own orthodox religion and practices.

The attractiveness, or I should say, the seduction, of cults is in their claims and their leaders. Their claims are not only simply exaggerated but fabulously sensational. Take Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, for example. His story is typical of the origination of most cults. According to Smith, an angel called Moroni appeared to him and instructed him to translate two golden plates. Smith did just that and the Book of Mormon was duly in circulation. He also claimed that John the Baptist appeared to him and ordained him to accomplish the divine work of restoring the one true Church. Next comes the unification church led by rev. Sun Myung Moon. Moon claims that in 1935 Jesus appeared to him on a mountain in Korea and told him to finish the work of establishing God’s kingdom on earth. The blasphemy did not end there. Moon further proclaimed that he is the messiah of the second coming and his wife is the Holy Spirit. But Moon was not alone in his megalomaniacal delusion. Another fanatic was David Koresh. He was convinced that he was the “Lamb of God” who would break the seven seals to herald in the Apocalypse and the second coming of Christ.

It is not difficult to see how these self-glorifying proclamations can be irresistibly attractive to those who are looking for the next religious wave to surf their deluded faith on. For this reason, many ex-cultists took many years to be rehabilitated into the society. Many said that they had difficulty adjusting to orthodox Protestant and Methodist churches or mainstream religious faiths because their pastors or church leaders were not charismatic or dynamic enough. Many missed their former cultist leader’s claim of having many visitations from the spiritual realm. They also missed the extra-biblical revelations from their former leaders. For example, Warren Jeffs was fond of scaring his members by telling them to sell all that they have to join him as the last days are drawing nigh. Traditional seven-day adventist churches were also obsessed with the end time crystal-ball gazing. Many so called end time predictions were made and dates set for the Christ’s second coming but none came true. But there was always a reason for the failed prophecies. One of the most used and abused reasons was that their god had decided to postpone the date of Christ’s second coming so as to give the misguided members more time to repent. Ridiculously, many members bought the lame excuse hook, line and sinker, and stayed on with the cult, waiting eagerly for the next end-time forecast.

But the apostle Paul had already warned us about these false prophets. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 issues this warning, “For such false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostle of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness.”

The late scientist Carl Sagan once said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Logically, extraordinary claims made by these deviant cultist leaders naturally require extraordinary evidence. But somehow, the logic got lost with its members. Or maybe, it has nothing to do with logic. I always believe that the members cannot give up their cults because their cults define them, even to the extent that they have to pay an ugly price for continuing with the cults. Many members are lost without their cult, their rituals and their perverted beliefs. They draw their identity, their sense of self-worth, their communal spirit, and their reason for existence from their cults. As such, they are not so much concerned with the complete lack of evidence to support their leader’s ridiculous claims to divine falsehood and exclusive entitlements. The evidence doesn’t matter, not the slightest bit. It is the culture, community and lifestyle surrounding the cult that they cannot do without.

Essentially, we are looking for salvation. We are looking for another way to live our life – a way to escape the drudgery of daily grind, daily work and daily familiarity. Familiarity indeed breeds contempt. It is an empty heart that easily nurtures and harbors such contempt. Because we try to understand the gospel with our head instead of our heart, we become restless souls seeking for the next spiritual sensation to titillate our senses. But the Bible is clear about our endless quest for the next spiritual pick-me-up, it will inevitably end up more empty and meaningless than we first started.

If you compare materialism with the cults, you will note that they both share a common denominator: that is, discontentment. There is never a point of satisfaction for those who strive for one material goal after another. Possessing more only makes him want more; and wanting more pushes him to possess more. It is clearly an endless spiral down into the abyss of discontentment. Many forget that the self will never settle for what is enough. That is why materialism like the cults is wholly superficial and phony. This shockingly amusing quote from two American professors, Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell, which describes how phony the American materialistic culture, should shed a good light on the cults and their culture, “We have phony rich people (with interest-only mortgages and piles of debt), phony beauty (with plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures), phony athlete (with performance-enhancing drugs), phony celebrities (via reality TV and You Tube), phony genius students (with grade inflation), phony national economy (with $11 trillion of government debt), phony feelings of being special among children (with parenting and education focused on self-esteem above all else) and phony friends (with the social networking explosion).” I guess this is how a cult member feels about their deluded leader when all his lies and false promises are revealed.

Generally, members join cults because they are looking for an alternative to the Christian gospel. Boredom with the truth because church activities and preaching are becoming too predictable and too familiar is the one common factor for members to leave the church and join the cults. But Jesus has already made it clear about the way to salvation. It is inevitably the narrow gate. Matthew 7:13-14 puts it this way, “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” I guess GK Chesterton puts it best when he wrote that the problem with Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting but it has been found difficult and left untried.

The truth is this, there is no comfortable solution to our problems. We cannot conveniently go from one spiritual excitement to another to look for ways to fill our soul and spirit with meaning. Jesus had laid the foundation for a successful Christian life and it has nothing to with us, our interests or our goals. Jesus is asking for us to make a radical commitment to take the road often less traveled and invariably this narrow way demands our practical obedience, not just our verbal consent or intellectual understanding. It is radical because it has a price tag to it and requires our daily submission and sacrifice. It is therefore a relationship with Jesus that opens the narrow gate to our hearts. This relationship is not advanced by serving more, giving more and attending more. We have mistaken doing with just being; where doing more is to make us look good before others and just being with Jesus at His feet is to make Jesus look good in us. One is self-glorification and the other is God-magnification.

Of course, no one of us can achieve perfection or holiness in this short lifetime. But surrendering our heart is a voluntary act of the personal will and it can be cultivated. Its cultivation requires effort, discipline and perseverance. It takes time but it is not beyond reach. That is why Jesus commands us to make the radical commitment to be transformed like Him. This is the narrow gate that Jesus is talking about and only a surrendered heart can find it.

Dr Ravi Zacharias, in his book Can Man Live Without God, wrote about this story that gives an intimate sense of how a heart can experience true transformation.

“Dr E Stanley Jones, a famed and noted missionary to India who was respected and admitted even by Mahatma Gandhi, used to tell the story of a man, a devout Hindu government official, to whom he was trying to explain the concept of the cross. The man kept reiterating to Dr Jones that he could not possibly make sense of the cross and of the love of God. Their conversations on this subject were circular and seemingly unsolvable to his satisfaction.

One day, through a series of circumstances, the man involved himself in an extramarital affair that tormented his conscience. He could live with himself no longer, and finally, looking into the eyes of his devoted wife, he told her the heartrending story of his betrayal. The hours and days of anguish and pain became weeks of heaviness in her heart. Yet, as she weathered the early shock, she confessed to him not only her deep sense of hurt but also the promise of her undying commitment and love.

Suddenly, almost like a flash of lightning illuminating the night sky and the landscape below, he found himself muttering, “Now I know what it means to see love crucified by sin.” He bent his knees in worship of his Savior and embraced his wife anew with the solemnity of life’s binding commitment.”

Indeed, we will never experience our Savior’s love until we have experienced our very own. In the same way, we will never experience true transformation until our hearts are first surrendered to God.

Free your heart to soar on eagle’s wings this weekend.

Whistle series (300410)

2010-05-01T21:14:00.004+08:00

Can man really live without God? Can man still be moral without religion? Can we find meaning in this world without believing in a transcendental being? Well your answer will be different depending on which side of the fence you are on. The bias is as thick and sticky as cement glue. Dr Richard Dawkins, the atheist extraordinaire, has scored many persuasive polemical hits on the side of atheism to say that religion is largely redundant in this modern age of technology and advanced science. It used to be that religion plays an important role in explaining our world (or our universe). The world was deemed to have been created by God. Natural phenomena like rainfalls, storms and the solar eclipses were easily explained away by the proverbial acts of God. Religion also laid the foundation for morality and ethics. The Ten Commandments (Decalogue) was the moral code to live by for centuries after Moses descended from Mount Sinai. Religion was a consolation balm for many. The scriptures have many things to say to console the broken hearts, the downtrodden and the deeply depressed. Lastly, religion was undeniably a source of inspiration to countless believers. Ask Michelangelo, Leonardo, Newton and Einstein and they can all testify to the mystical powers of religion to lift the spirit and power one’s curiosity.

So, religion had been a potent force in the society, changing lives for the better, building civilization one brick at a time, and holding communities together.

But, in recent times, people in the mold of Richard Dawkins beg to differ. They think that the role of religion is largely exaggerated and over-rated. One cannot depend on Genesis to explain the beginning of the universe and life itself. Evolution is a much better, more reliable theory to explain the first spark of life and the beginning of all. How about morality? Well, the atheists have ganged up together to preach a new moral code for humanity. Morality to them is now decided by reason alone and not by any reference to the Bible. They are of the view that any non-believer with some basic common sense can instinctively come up with the Ten Commandments because men are inclined not to steal, kill and dishonor their parents.

Moreover, the recent sexual abuses of the Catholic priests have thrown much doubt and suspicion on the effectiveness of religion to maintain the moral fibre of the society. As for its consolation effects, religion is no better than any humanistic counseling to restore confidence, lift the mood and speed recovery for the depressed and near suicidal. Finally, religion also falls short on the inspiration side. Many great scientists who won the Nobel prizes do not subscribe to any religion in any form or substance. They are mostly atheists or agnostics, relying on their own intellect to pursue and unravel the mysteries of this world, one experiment at a time.

So, it appears that man can really live without God and still succeed and prosper in this modern scientific age. But, is religion really redundant? Is it time for God to retire and consign himself to a cosmic old folk celestial home? Has humanity reached a point in history to become deciders of their own destiny, fashioners of their own fate, and achievers of their own ambitions? Have we succeeded in building our own tower of Babel to dethrone God and enthrone ourselves for eternity?

Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There is one place that we have yet to conquer, dominate or subdue. This is a place we are most intimately acquainted with. This is place where all good and evil are birthed and take flight. This place is our heart; the human heart. Scientists of all ages can boast that they have unveiled the vast cosmos, solved most mysteries of life and nature, and advanced our understanding to a point where we are infinitely smarter than our primate cousins. But, the human heart is, to this very day, still very much untamed, vacant at most times, and broken and desolate, largely bereft of hope and deprived of meaning. Victor Hugo once said, “The world was made for the body, the body for the soul, and the soul made for God.” I believe we all live life of quiet desperation, mistaking titles, fame and money as the ultimate fulfillments of life.

One of the greatest mistakes of mankind is sadly one of metrics. We have measured ourselves against the wrong standards. We align ours values and ambitions against the world standards and realize that all our secular achievements are but only superficially satisfying. As we have failed to measure ourselves before God, we have failed to live life to the fullest, with meaning and exuberant hope. A philosopher once said, “All of man’s miseries are a reflection of his grandeur.”

Essentially, we have failed, or refused to admit, that we exist in partnership (or collaboration) with God, our maker. It was meant to be a purposeful relationship between the Creator and His creation. The world was created by God for us. But, we have rebelled against that order. We took creation into our own hands and wring it around to serve our own selfish ends. We live without God and allow our personal ambition full reign. This order against nature has tainted and perverted all our earthly senses and bloated our ego. And the pride of man is ultimately a destructive force of nature. When man live without God, he lives for himself, he reasons for himself, and he strives for himself. Everything around him, all his relationships, all his material wealth and resources, are essentially means to his own ends.

But let’s be clear. A man who lives without God can still be moral. He can still be good, making an honest living and loving his family as much as he loves himself. But he also lives with a moral dilemma. His morality and ethics are an extension of his power of reasoning. And his reasoning process is largely subjective, and is always tainted by personal interests. Take the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell for example. One day, while he was riding a bicycle, he suddenly decided that he did not love his wife anymore. He then walked out on her and started numerous liaisons in his lifetime, most of which, I guessed, were personally unsatisfying.

Most atheists would subscribe to this life motto, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” But to what extent should one enjoy his or her life? What does this personal enjoyment entails? Is it a no-hold-bars life, where the sky is literally the limit? Is it a license to do anything as long as no one is hurt physically?

Well, I guess the table can be turned against us Christians and the history of much religious abuses attest to the unfortunate fact that we believers are no better than non-believers in living a good, honorable life. Child abuses, homosexual liaisons, financial embezzlements and murders can be found on both sides of the fence. Are we then really no different from the non-believers?

I think this mutual mudslinging misses the point. For atheists, all moral deliberation comes from themselves. It is based on their own subjective interpretations. Different cultures honor different values. Take infidelity for example. Jesus has set the bar so high that even mental lusting can at times be equated with adultery. But the world sees it differently. In certain parts of the world, it is consider rude not to offer one’s spouse sexually to one’s host. The Russians do not count beach resort flings as infidelity. South African considers drunkenness a defensible excuse for adultery. And Japanese businessmen believe that paying for sex is not cheating. So, the atheists would be “culturally coerced” to do what is right in the eyes of the community he resides in. In other words, his moral standard is adaptable, malleable and flexible. There is hardly any moral core or center. And the social casualty of his actions is usually the people around him.

To the believer, his moral standards are based on the principles of a moral maker. It is therefore immutable, unchanging. In other words, his conscience is submitted to God and his steps are ordered by Him. He is of course not perfect. Sometimes he is even far from perfect. But, at the very least, he is not the sole arbiter of what is right or wrong. Neither is he subjected to the swaying influence of cultural compromises. He is subjected to God’s principles and his daily guide and inspiration are based on the quintessential life and teachings of his savior, Jesus.

Most importantly, living without God, from the perspective of a Christian, is living without our true identity. We forfeit our divine image, our ancient roots, and our Godly heritage. GK Chesterton once remarked that to disbelieve God would be like waking in the morning, looking into the mirror, and seeing nothing. John 4:23 stresses this important point this way, “True worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.” Indeed, we are spirit and we come to God acknowledging that we are created in His image. This is the first step of being a true worshipper. The second step is to worship Him in truth. When we sacrifice truth before the altar of this world, truth mutates into personal convenience and selfishness. We do as we please, and instead of “thy will be done”, it is our will that first and foremost needs to be done. As we lose our moral center, we also lose our spiritual identity.

So, let me end with the duplicitous life of Jacob (Genesis 27 and 32). Jacob experienced two turning points in his life. The first was tumultuous, and the second, life-transforming. If you recall, Jacob started his spiritual journey by asking for his father’s blessing. But it was by deception, and with the help of his mother, that he stole his twin brother’s blessings. In his elaborate deception, he even used God’s name in vain. When Isaac questioned him, Jacob persisted, “Because the Lord your God brought it to me.” (Gen 27:20) Does this remind you of some Christians?

Then, the second turning point came one day before the showdown with his brother Esau. Jacob, having gone through many trials in his life, wrestled with God till dawn for a blessing. Despite suffering a hip dislocation, Jacob held on and God asked for his name. At this point, Jacob must have thought of the last time some one dear to him asked for his name. Long ago, Isaac, his father, asked for his name and Jacob lied. But this time, before God, he told the truth. He replied, “Jacob.” (Gen 32:27) In return for the truth, God blessed Jacob and changed his name to “Israel”, the contender for God and humanity. Thereafter, Jacob was not only fully restored, he was also fully reconciled both with God and his brother.

Beloved, what is your true identity? Have you forgotten your divine benefactor, the lover of your soul, your wellspring of blessings? What do you see when you look into the mirror? Do you see your true self, broken and lost, and in need of a savior? Or do you see yourself as your own savior; yet still struggling in the prison of your own mind and blind ambition, living from one high to another, but never finding personal fulfillment and rest?

We are made for God and in Him, we move and have our being. Apart from God, we are lost forever, always striving but never sated, fulfilled or contented. My parting shot is from a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, who once wrote these revelatory words, “Man is not at peace with his fellow man because he is not at peace with himself. He is not at peace with himself because he is not at peace with God.”

Have a restful weekend.

Whistle series (160410)

2010-04-17T13:55:00.002+08:00

Is evolution true? Did life arise out of blind, gradual, purposeless and apparently randomized evolutionary force? Can we confidently tell our children that God created us in an evolutionary fashion? Do Adam and Eve have belly buttons (this would imply that they were not the first humans to exist)? Was Genesis 2 just a spiritual creation or both a spiritual and a physical creation? Except for the first question, I think we will never empirically know the answers to the rest of the questions. In other words, there are no scientifically verifiable tests or studies that are able to provide an intellectually satisfactory answer to the rest of the questions. Theists will have to accept by faith that God is the sole creative force in the universe and atheists will have to accept otherwise. Never the twain shall ever meet, I guess. But maybe a quote from the grandfather and founder of the evolution theory may shed some light on the enduring and heated debate between the two camps. This conclusion from Charles Darwin is very instructive, “I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.”

Okay, I hope we are making some tiny progress in the swirling controversy between the theists and the atheists. Darwin’s conclusion makes it clear that natural selection is an important molding force of life as we see it today. But it is not the only force. There are of course other forces at work as implied in that quote. At this point, no one knows for sure what the other forces are. Many theists will want to fill in the gap by crediting God for these forces. Some may even go as far as to attribute God as the main enabler of creation with evolution being just one of the strings in His creative bow. Atheists would of course cry foul and demand that we stick to verifiable scientific proof and leave wishful thinking to folklore and fable peddlers. But however we fill the gap with our own biased views, there will inevitably be loop holes or gaps in our theories/beliefs.

If we say that God created the universe and everything in it, we will be hard pressed to furnish material evidence of this since God is beyond scientific proof. Theists or fervent Christians cannot summon God or any of His ministering angels to materialize before an unbelieving and skeptic audience to remove all lingering doubts. At best, we can only provide indirect evidence, which are largely subjected to numerous interpretations that can swing either ways. We can say that the awe-inspiring beauty of this world suggests a creator. But atheists can rebuff that by crediting evolution as the sole cause. We can say that the immutable laws of physics and chemistry hints to an intelligent designer. But the atheists will scoff at our ignorance because our interpretation is naïve and self-serving. To the unbelievers, the natural laws came into existence by random chance, more like a lucky break. There is therefore no intelligent design involved. Neither was there ever an intelligent designer.

In the end, the two camps will only remain farther apart in their already entrenched positions. So, what can we do about this ever-increasing gap between them, which in recent years have become even more intense and intractable? Well, we can bridge the gap (and not close it completely) by suggesting that both camps are right to some extent. In this modern scientific age, the theists should accept that evolution plays a crucial part in the development of life. At this cross-junction of science, believers can safely accept that evolution is true to a large extent. The evidence is incontrovertible. Evolution is happening everywhere, at every moment. From cell dividing in my body as I type these words to the recent emergence of various mutated viruses like SARS and H1N1, evolution is as prevalent as the air we breathe. Life’s diversity attests to the tireless exuberance of evolution at work. So, should school teach evolution to account for the ebulliently lush variety of nature and its bio-diversity? I say amen to that. I see no harm in teaching our young minds that which cannot be denied as universal truth.

Let’s not get too paranoid about the subject of evolution. Stripped of all its controversy and “demonized” features, evolution is all about changes on a cell-by-cell level - without which, no organic life would emerge or thrive. If theists want to see evolution at work right before their very eyes, they just have to leave a pot of cooked rice exposed in the kitchen sink. After just one day or two, the rice would be covered in an algae-like sheen. Scoop off this layer and examine it under a microscope and we can see a blizzard of new organisms, multiplying manifold, dynamically striving to survive in a hostile environment. That’s evolution in a pot! I therefore do not see any reason to deny something that cannot be denied, however strident our dogmatic upbringing and theological prejudices may cry out. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God.”

At this point in my faith, I subscribe to these chosen words uttered by a physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne. “God created something more beautiful than a ready made world…a world with an inborn capacity to become and create itself.” Just like physical pain is our neuro-sensory system telling us to take our finger off a heated iron, evolution is God’s way of creating nature and life as it has always been and is today. Surely God does not play dice with creation and His multifaceted and complex laws are set from the very beginning to ensure, with sniper-like precision, that we are the end product of this creative process. At least, this is what I believe by extension of the many dead-ends that science has reached in explaining the wonders and mysteries of life and the universe as a whole.

In this debate, the atheists should take Darwin’s lead when he wrote affirmatively that natural selection is not the exclusive means of modification. This means that evolution is a team player or leader. It is no doubt a crucial force. But it is also, in my view, a directed one. It is therefore not a blind and random process (I use “random” to account for the early development of life or the first cell to counter what Richard Dawkins once wrote that evolution is a “non-random survival of a random process” Well, I’ll leave this difficult discussion for another day).

I guess this is where I depart from the atheist’s position. The atheists will say that evolution is a blind force, undirected and unsupervised. There is no intelligent agent involved. But then, one must pause to consider Darwin’s admonishment that natural selection does not work alone. In other words, by extension, evolution does not account for everything. There are other forces at play. This is where the atheist should stop and reflect. If we study the complexity of a cell, the constituents of DNA and RNA, how a cell multiplies, and how proteins within a cell are produced and assembled, we have to admit that science falls short in explaining it all. Of course, the theists are equally mystified.

Next mystery is our brain. What accounts for all our subjective thoughts? How do we explain why we are driven not only by simple biological necessities like the urge to eat, sleep and shit, but also by our need to aspire, to perform altruistic acts, to give ourselves for others, to create and shape into reality what floats nebulously in our mind as the vigor of our imagination, and to become aware of what we are becoming aware about. We are the only creature on world who is able to focus and redirect our attention and efforts for purposive ends. Our modern civilization is built on realizing our dreams, fulfilling our goals, and actualizing our aspirations. We are unique not because nature has mandated it so by blind, random and purposeless evolutionary process. We are unique because we are created for a purpose. I cannot accept that a blind and purposeless process happens to stumble by chance upon a way to create a sentient and purpose-driven humanity. There is curiously something more than evolution that accounts for us as its end-result.

Now I am not calling the atheists to take the “fill-in-the-blank” approach by electing a deity of their choice to account for everything. This would put all of us, theists and atheists alike, back to where we first started, back to square one where the heated contention first originated. You can say that I am not evangelizing to them but merely trying to engage them in a mutually respectful and amiable discussion.

Considering that there is so much that we do not know, and so much that I think we will never get to know, we should be mindful of the maxim which says, “He who is living in a glass house should not be the one to throw a brick.” The “glass house” of a theist is that of the mystery of faith as a subjective assurance only he who professes can subscribe to. We cannot show God in human flesh to our unbelieving friends as and when they want proof of His existence. We only can live our lives as best as we can to demonstrate the authenticity of our belief and faith. In like manner, the “glass house” of an atheist is the shortfall of science to explain the first cause of the cosmology, the complexity of a living cell, and the inscrutableness of our human consciousness.

Instead of throwing bricks, we should all get along despite our differences. This would be easier said than done but it is not impossible. Considering that we all have our own prejudices and rose-tinted glasses when we come together for a debate, we should therefore first suspend our judgments and take off our glasses as a precondition for any meaningful discussion on the subject of God and evolution.

In the end, we may not be able to convince each other of our beliefs; but at least we will be able to understand why the other party believes what he/she believes and this understanding, I believe, is the first step to establishing what I call a University for All Humanity, that is, a harmonious Unity in the face of Diversity. And the unifying motto for this world school is in these words of Albert Einstein, “Science without religion is lame. And religion without science is blind.”

Whistle series (190310)

2010-03-20T15:23:00.006+08:00

Have we been less than discerning in our life? Have we lost our confidence to overcome life’s struggles? Have we forgotten to count our days and to make use of them wisely? Psalm 90:10...12 puts it simply and elegantly this way, “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away…So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” A few things are clear in this illuminating passage. First, life is not long. Second, living is not smooth. And finally, we need to make everyday count by counting them, day by day. There is surely something important about counting our days. It seems to be the stepping stones to a wise heart, or a discerning and mature one. But I believe it is more than just counting that the Psalmist is advising us to do. I think is all about attention, or more precisely, paying attention to everyday that comes knocking our way.

Many people think that a day starts with the morning and ends with the night. But I think differently. Quite counter-intuitively, I think a day doesn’t start for us until we are ready for it. So, until we are ready to make each day counts, a day is as irrelevant to us as the moons that are orbiting Jupiter. Many of us let each day passes without knowing it. The hours are meaningless to us because we have nothing meaningful to fill them with. For those who live such a life, a day is as long as a lifetime. And a lifetime is usually wasted away on nothing more than work, duty and obligations.

Surely, there must be a higher calling for Christians like us. Are we purpose-driven? Or are we worldly-driven? Are we walking by faith? Or are we walking by sight? Are we living an examined life? Or are we drifting along, sleepwalking through the hours, the days and the lost years? On this, the above Psalmist’s advice is a wake up call. Going back to basics, we are encouraged to pay attention to every day and to seize the moment by making each moment counts. We can do this by investing more in our spiritual life through taking these 8 important steps.

1) We need to take the first step by asking: What defines us? In other words, we need to ask, what kind of Christian do we want to be? Or what spiritual legacy do we want our children to inherit from our life? This requires some soul searching. Some of us who are serious with our faith may want to take a day or two to sort this out. Unless we take the time to answer this question in our own personal and unique way, we will always be living below the level of our God-given potential.

2) Co-partnering with God. We need to come to a place to acknowledge that growing “spiritually” without God is no different from growing individually. Without God, our spiritual walk is a pharisaical one. It is legalistic. It is self-glorifying. It is inauthentic. For some of us, we have to re-invite God into our lives. To do this, we need to surrender our independence and our freedom. We need to let God take charge and submit to His leading. This is of course difficult for some who have been so busy climbing up the career or social ladder. That is why we need to count the days to slow it down. We need to pace ourselves and slowly but surely let God’s ministering spirit guide our lives. Sometimes, we have to take that spiritual risk to give up what we now think is important and invest wholeheartedly on what the Bible says is important. For we know that if we take this spiritual risk to invest in this journey of faith with God, all of life’s care and worries will be well taken care of.

3) Dealing with our duplicity. Jesus had made it clear that one cannot serve two masters. It is either this fallen world or the promised world to come. It is either the pleasures of this world or the imminent joy of eternity. We have to make the choice and stick with it at all costs. Nothing is more damaging to our spiritual growth than to profess our allegiance to God and then go out and live our lives to betray that allegiance. Let us live a life that is pleasing to God by making sure that our word matches with our actions. For there is only one “duplicity” that is allowed in Christendom, and it is in these words of Martin Luther, “A Christian is a perfectly free Lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”

4) Stop making excuses. I think that the finger ultimately points back at us. We need to take personal responsibility for our decisions and our actions. If we are resolute on making that all-important change, we need to turn the searchlights on ourselves. Blaming our circumstances, our genes, and our lot in life are not going to lead us anywhere close to authentic personal transformation. Let’s do a thorough spiritual spring cleaning on ourselves before we become witnesses or ambassadors of Christ

5) Become ruthless with sins. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is also where we become serious with our Christian walk. I believe that one of the greatest obstacles to living a life of victory is to be burdened by a sin-stricken conscience. Sin compromises our effectiveness as a Christian. It drowns out the guiding voice of the Holy Spirit. It also makes light the sufferings of Jesus at the Cross. So, let’s be radical and ruthless with sins lest we become enslaved by it, held under its sway and subjected to its appetites. Isaiah 57:20 warns us, “The wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot rest, and its waters toss up mire and dirt.”

6) Feed our Spirit. To state the obvious, natural food nourishes us just as spiritual food strengthens us. Spiritual food or discipline comes in many helpings. Reading the Bible with understanding, praying with faith and evangelizing with love are but some examples. We need to cultivate a divine appetite for spiritual food. The key to do this is to renounce the appetites of the flesh through meditation, fasting and prayer. By starving the flesh of lusts, pride and greed, denouncing such cravings, we develop a thirst for all things spiritual. To sustain this divine thirst, we need to experience God. We need to open our hearts to a life of relationship and intimacy with Him. In the end, the reward of spiritual disciplines is worth our daily consistent efforts because as Richard Foster puts it, the celebration of discipline leads us to the path of spiritual growth and true personal liberation from the temptations of this world.

7) Lastly, never grow alone. There is a simple reason for this: even the gift of redemption is a joint effort. The fullness of the Trinity is clearly at work here. God the Father gave up his only son. Jesus completed the work at the cross. And the Holy Spirit empowers us to live a holy life. If the gift of redemption is a joint effort, what’s more our spiritual growth. We should always encourage one another to grow spiritually. We should find a good and sound church so that we can praise and worship in one concerted voice. We should join hands together in the various church ministries to bring the gospel to the lost. We should never despise the gatherings of God’s people because there is power in corporate prayer, strength in numbers (if one can put one thousand to flight, two can put ten thousands to flight), and hope in the victorious testimonies of the saints.

Personally, our cell group is going to turn 8 this June. I believe the collective prayers, joint experiences and mutual encouragement have through the years deepened our spiritual life. It has also enriched our relationship with one another and sustained our hope in times of trials. This bond will remain strong as long as we all remain as one. For Ephesians 4:3 says, “(We) are joined together with peace through the Spirit, so make every effort to continue together in this way.”

Whistle series (120310)

2010-03-13T14:34:00.002+08:00

Are we all born to lie? Are we liars at heart? Is lying the default position in our life? An experiment was carried out to answer these questions and the results were less than surprising. A five year old boy called Jonah was asked to play a simple game. The tester was a friendly looking woman who would play toys behind Jonah’s back. These toys made distinct noises and Jonah was supposed to identify and match the toys to the noises they make. The first toy was the sound of a fire engine and it was a piece of cake for Jonah to identify. The second toy made this recorded statement, “To infinity and beyond” and Jonah shouted, “Buzz Lightyear!” Then, came the last toy with a melody that left Jonah clueless. It was at this time that the woman left the room to answer a telephone call. Before she left, she specifically instructed Jonah not to peek at the toy.

But it didn’t take long for Jonah to turn around and saw a Barney doll lying on the floor. After a while, the female tester returned and she asked him to identify the toy. Jonah barked, “Barney!” Looking surprised, the tester asked Jonah whether he had peeked at the toy. This is the whole purpose of the experiment: Will Jonah tell the truth or lie about it? This experiment was done on one hundred 3 to 7 years olds and 82% of them peeked. Out of this 82%, about 95% of them lied to the tester! Imagine that. A vast majority of these young, tender, adorable and innocent children lied to the adults without even being trained or taught to do so. In other words, you don’t need to school your children in the art of lying; it just comes naturally like the cravings for sweets.

In fact, to stretch things a little, there are a few schools in this world that will be wholly redundant or completely unnecessary. They are the school of lies, theater of theft and, maybe, academy of greed and adultery.

We are only humans and the Bible has already foretold of how sins are an integral part of us like a belly button or a birthmark. No matter how hard we hope to deny it, we are very imperfect people. For some of us, lying is only the tip of the iceberg of our character flaws. In fact, all of us have our hidden closets of bone-dried skeletons, deep-seated secrets, and shameful past that we dread the day they are exposed to our loved ones, our children or the public at large. This is therefore the cry of our heart: What must we do to be saved?

However you look at it, we are all crying out for redemption. And this is not even as a result of feeling guilty for some wrongdoings in our life. Even for those who think they are “morally upright” or “spiritually cleansed” by the overflowing dispensation of grace, something deep inside of them, I sincerely believe, still feels life is incomplete, something is broken, or something is missing.

When Jesus said that the truth shall set us free, He was referring to the freedom that comes from living a holy life. And this is achievable not to the extent that our life will no longer be plagued by sin or the temptation to sin. As long as we are still on this side of fallen heaven, and limited by this body, we will without exception face our own carnal cravings of the flesh. We will still lie. We will still fall into temptation. We will still be challenged by greed, lust and pride. But the difference here is in the final words of Jesus when he was confronted by Pontus Pilates in John 18:33. Finding no charge against Jesus, Pilates asked him whether he was the King of the Jews. Jesus then said that His kingdom belongs not to this world. Pouncing on this admission, Pilates exclaimed, “You are a king then?” My point here is in the reply of Jesus, “You say it! For I am a King. This is why I was born, and for this I have come into this world, to bear witness to the Truth. Everyone who is of the Truth hears and listens to My voice.”

This is what I call the ears of redemption. That is why the Bible says that faith comes by hearing and by hearing the word of God. Are we being convicted by what we hear and listen to? In this age of technology, we are assaulted by thousands of information. These are sensory stimuli that overwhelm and paralyze us into inactivity. Instead of becoming believers, we become non-believers. We have become skeptical, critical and even acerbic. The prosperity teachings, the grace dispensation, the Calvinistic pre-destination, the healing without exception messages, and the charismatic gifts manifestations have all conspired to lull us into a state of spiritual obesity. We are clearly overfed but, at the same time, spiritually empty, barren and disillusioned. This reminds me of the story told by a monk who founded the Dominican order named Dominic.

In the thirteen century, he was invited by the Pope to tour around the Vatican. In the tour, Dominic witnessed the majestic architecture, the wonderful treasures, and the exceeding riches of the interior. With reference to Acts 3:6, the Pope turned to Dominic and said proudly, “Peter (signifying the Pope himself) can no longer say, “Silver and gold have I none.” Dominic quickly added, “Neither can he says, “Rise up and walk.” Indeed, the lesson here is a sad one. Instead of listening to our Shepherd’s voice, we have turned our attention to the voices of the world. Jesus’ admonishments, his teachings and his rebuke have all been drown out by the rosy promises of exceeding wealth, perfect health and success for the easy plucking.

As Christians, we must be careful in our definition of what it means to live a life that is pleasing to God. On this point, Titus 1:15 puts it well, “To the pure (in heart and conscience), all things are pure, but to the defiled and corrupt and unbelieving, nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are defiled and polluted.” So, the same old record keeps playing the same old tune: it’s the heart, silly. A life that is pleasing to God is one where the heart is right before Him. With a pure heart, we have the Midas’ touch. Everything we come in contact with turns solid gold. Our focus becomes realigned. Our directions become clearer. Our pleasures become redefined. When the heart is pure, whatever we do pleases God. Success takes on a new dimension. Wealth no longer controls us. Relationships with others take precedence. Physical intimacy with our spouse becomes pleasurable and meaningful and no substitute will suffice.

Beloved, let me leave you with this thought: Imagine just one day lived with a pure heart. You wake up in the morning with the assurance that God is pleased with you for being you and not because you are rich and famous or poor and less well-known. You go to work and relate to your colleagues differently. Because you are loved, you are able to demonstrate the same kind of powerful affection to your colleagues. Your inclusive behavior becomes contagious and everyone who crosses your path cannot help but feel a positive aura about you. You then return home and spread your joy and love to your children. After enjoying precious moments with them and putting them to sleep, you spent quality time with your wife. Both of you make love and enjoy the ecstasy that comes with consummation. Then, you seal the night with a prayer of thanksgiving and ask for strength and faith to face the next day.

Although not everyday will turn out so smoothly, you will nevertheless experience such profound pleasure and satisfaction that dwarfs all carnal pleasures this world can offer. Soon, the world would lose its luster. Temptation would lose its enticement. And greed and pride will lose its hold over you. Dr James Houston says it well, “For Christians who live closely with God, life is like a festival.”

Whistle series (180210)

2010-02-20T15:36:00.002+08:00

Do you love your partner enough to stay faithful to her (him) for life? As a family lawyer for ten years, I have done my bit to end many marriages. Personally, some marriages, in the small minority, have been on “life-support” for so many years that its end is sadly long overdue. It’s like putting an old dog to sleep. These marriages usually endured the insufferable years because of the children. But most marriages do not deserve the same treatment. Their breakup is preventable. If given the effort and nurture, these marriages can take that all important step forward towards greater growth and intimacy. Alas, due to constant neglect, the marriage ages, ails and dies a most undeserving death.

I have learned that most marriages never broke up because of adultery, violence and long separation. The reason usually goes deeper. It is usually a long process which involves emotional distancing, contemptuous contemplation and physical disgust. And like a black hole sucking up everything, once a couple develops these three characteristics, everything gets construed in a negative way and becomes hardwired to fail. This is a vicious cycle that reinforces itself until one spouse finally pronounces the death sentence, “I can’t stand the sight of him.” or “I don’t feel anything for her, not at all.” or “He is just plain disgusting to me.” When this happens, adultery is just a convenient slide away.

Andrew Marshall, the author of the book Can I ever trust him again?, offers this simple equation that captures the reason why a spouse commits the gravest sin of marriage: Marital Problems + Poor Communication + Temptation = Adultery. Every marriage has its hard times. This has already been encapsulated in the marriage vows. All couples have been adequately forewarned that a marriage has its price tag and it is a price you pay by “installment” over the years, so to speak. Marital hard times come in many forms. There is the usual give-and-take of marriage. There are the transient lover’s quarrels. And there are the heated arguments. But contrary to popular beliefs, these unpleasant exchanges need not threaten the foundation of a marriage. The issues can be dealt with maturely and positively if the marriage is essentially strong. A strong marriage turns such confrontation into a learning experience and the apologies that follow usually strengthen the marital union rather than undermine it. After the verbal conflict, the couple starts to adjust their expectations of each other and change their individual attitude towards the partner. As they do this, their love grows deeper, stronger and more resilient.

But how do you build up a strong marriage? The best advice on this comes from a couple for 43 years and authors of the book, Building a love that lasts: the Seven Surprising Secrets of Successful Marriage. They are Dr Charles D. Schmitz and Dr Elizabeth A. Schmitz. These seven secrets are deemed surprising because they are extremely simple yet effective. They are largely a secret because little attention are paid to them due to their simplicity. But however you look at it, these seven secrets are tried and tested and many couples in successful marriages of more than 30 years (some even 60 years), whether consciously or subconsciously, practiced them, yes, every one of them on a daily basis. They are doing them even as I penned these words. I guess anyone could have come up with these seven so called secrets, but the sad part of it all is that they have done little to apply them in their daily marital realities. Let me briefly list them down here.

1^st Secret: It takes two to tango. This is all about sharing interests, feeling, ideas and memories, compromising to form mutually agreeable decisions and mutual helpfulness and support. This is the backbone of a marriage. Like oxygen, a couple cannot stop the sharing process. In addition, any major decision in a marriage has to be made by giving up certain personal interests. This is called compromising. One spouse has to let go of his interest in order to advance the other spouse’s interest. It may not always be a win-win decision for the spouse giving up his or her interest but it is definitely a win-win for the marriage as a whole. Lastly, a good marriage is about lending a helping hand, being there for him or her, and giving the other spouse a listening ear without saying a word in return. This is what it is called “unspoken understanding.”

2^nd Secret: No Sacred Cows. In other words, there are no secrets between the couples. These couples of more than 30 years share everything with each other. Some of them have even been married for 60 years and they have not stopped communicating like newly weds. They just cannot imagine keeping any secrets from each other. I think the point here is to always keep the channels of communication open and free, and always two-ways.

3^rd Secret: the Golden Rule. This is about mutual respect. Do not do to your spouse what you do not want done to you. Some examples are keeping your wife waiting for you, keeping the toilet seat down while peeing, and insisting that you are right and making sure your partner acknowledges it, even grudgingly. One thing worth noting is that your spouse sometimes needs his or her own privacy and we have to respect that. Privacy is defined as “the opportunity to belong only to yourself.” In every successful marital union, there are a few closet moments for quiet self-reflection and rejuvenation and these are intensely private and personal moments that we must give deference to.

4^th Secret: Your Body is your Castle. Needless to say, no good marriage should be short-lived. The couples would want to share every moments together including growing old together and enjoying the fruits of their passion. And keeping fit, eating healthy and exercising regularly are the keys to a long and healthy life - not to mention, a vibrant and happy marriage.

5^th Secret: Filing a Joint Return. I think a quote from the authors of the book is illuminating. “Since when is the money earned in two-wage-earner families your money, my money, your bills, my bills, your house, my house? In our research, the money earned by married couples is “our money”. It is most unfortunate when couples take a two-chequebook attitude, since it is probably indicative of other divisive issues in their marriage as well. Such a notion communicates a lack of trust.” Personally, I only have a working account for payment of all household expenses with a little on the side for my unquenchable appetite for books. The remainder of my monthly salary is transferred to my wife and I trust her to be my able money mistress tending to all other financial needs.

6^th Secret: The Loving Touch. The author calls touching a Morse Code, a substitute for language and the expression of feeling. Indeed, a touch, a hug, a kiss and a squeeze are all expressions of physical intimacy and the responses are always mutual. No partner can resist a soft touch, a warm hug or a tender kiss. Touching your spouse in those ways can be a magical experience for all. Most of all, it is an expression of love and the reward is closeness and assuring comfort. Next comes the S word – Sex. It is important to engage in physical intimacy regularly. Remember that the pleasure of sex is not only in the orgasm or ejaculation. It is also in the pre-orgasmic stage of mutual teasing, naughty role-playing, tickling and tingling massages, passionate kissing and creative foreplay. But note that the authors had found that although all couples believe that sex is important, it is not central to the success of their long marriages. At the end of the day, it is about their relationship on a deeper, more meaningful level. It is the intimate sharing, years of overcoming life’s issues and growing together despite the marital pressures that are prized above all sensory pleasures.

7^th Secret: Beyond Boring. This is the last open secret. No successful marriages are predictable, boring and routine. Couples of long marriages always strive to plant surprises along the way. Birthdays and anniversaries are never dull. You can say that the couples live for the next marital high. The adventure always takes them to unexpected places, thrilling rides and humorous twists. They laugh often. Treasure each other’s company. And enjoy doing the routine like cleaning the car or doing housework because they make it fun. So, making your marriage exciting takes some effort, some planning and some sacrificing, but the reward is always more than worth the labor of love.

Let me leave you with this quote from Dr Leo Buscaglia that I think says it well about the magical awe of a marital union that lasts a lifetime. “When I take you into my life, I have four legs, four arms, four hands, two wonderful bodies, and two heads. I also double my chances for joy, love and wonderment.”

Whistle series (120210)

2010-02-13T12:33:00.003+08:00

How much should we change to please our partner? I guess this is the leading burning question for the week. I ask this question because of a recent incident involving a teenager. She was prepared to undergo a $12,000 surgery to reconstruct her face so that she could look as aesthetically close to Jessica Alba as surgically possible. She confessed that she is doing it so that she could win her ex-boyfriend back. You see, her ex-boyfriend had apparently dumped her on the most superficial ground: her looks, her physical appearance. We can all debate about the foolishness of such a decision until kingdom come but we cannot escape answering the question I asked earlier: How much should we change to please our partner? Of course, some would be put off by this question. It seems so one-sided, unfair and unidirectional. Why should I bother to change just to please him or her? Shouldn’t it be the other way round? The more discerning amongst us would phrase the question differently. Shouldn’t it be a two-way street? Both must change for the better for each other? Doesn’t a successful marriage take two?

Well, a marriage indeed takes two to make it work. The union is nevertheless about two lives merging into one flourishing whole. But sometimes, in some marriages, over the long enduring years, the hearts have grown tired, faint and discouraged. I believe that there is no relationship as oxymoronic as marriage. It is the hardest struggle to keep a marriage but it is also the most rewarding. I think this catchphrase captures the sentiment well: “Nothing that is worth achieving in this life is going to be easy.” And making marriage work is the most rewarding of all endeavors and yet it is also the most demanding, physically and emotionally. A marriage can be as wild as an impetuous, rebellious child where one spouse’s needs must always be first at the expense of the other spouse. Or a marriage can be as rock solid as a cornerstone where the couple are always looking out for each other to ensure that the other spouse’s needs are met before his or hers. In between these two extremes are most marriages. A famous feminist writer once wrote, “Today the problem that has no name is how to juggle work, love, home and children.”

Well, if I may put a name to this age-old problem, it would be “loveless relationships”. A lot of us are trapped in a loveless marriage or relationship. I think the worse kind of relationship is to be “dis-engagingly involved”. Another oxymoronic term? This happens when we are in a relationship out of obligation. We are imprisoned by the marriage covenant. Imagine the plight of Jacob when he spent seven years to work for his dream girl, Rachel, only to find out that his future father-in-law had duped him into marrying her less pleasant looking older sister, Leah! Well, Jacob may have been cheated by his father-in-law to marry Leah but, in doing so, he had unknowingly punished Leah by keeping up with the appearance of a marriage without truly loving her in return. In other words, Jacob was trapped in a loveless marital relationship with Leah and the latter was made the victim of this unfortunate union. Well, I guess nothing is more heartbreaking than to be sleeping with your husband while he dreams of another woman.

Of course, the story of Jacob is pushing marital realities to the extreme. None of us can say that we are actually “duped” by our father-in-law to marry someone other than our chosen bride at the altar. Our circumstances are obviously different from Jacob’s. We married by autonomous choice. In other words, we married with our eyes and hearts opened. We chose our bride or bridegroom for the “corniest” of all reasons: Because we love her/him. So, I can safely say that when we unveiled our bride at the altar, it was “Rachel” beaming at us and not “Leah”. You can therefore say that we have got a 7 years good head-start as compared to Jacob. But a start is just a start. What would the middle of our marriage be, or the end of it shows? Beloved, a good start does not mean a happy ending. What is missing in most marriages is unconditional love. Another corny reason?

Our love becomes unconditional when we raise no expectation from our life partner. Our love becomes unconditional when we put his or her interests above our own. Our love becomes unconditional when we choose to see the good in our life partner despite the flaws and focus on nurturing the good so that it overshadows all his or her flaws. For it has been said, “What is beautiful is not always good, but what is good is always beautiful.” We all know that God is good and therefore He is always beautiful. And because we are all created in His image, God’s beauty resides in us without exception. Can we therefore see the good in our life partner? Beloved, our spouse has a beauty inside that is waiting to be unearthed, can you spare the time and the discipline to discover it?

This reminds me of an anecdote from one of America’s most enterprising empire-builders, Andrew Carnegie. He was once asked, “How did he develop men to become so valuable?” Mr Carnegie replied, “You develop people in the same way you mine gold. When you mine gold, you must literally move tons of dirt to find a single ounce of gold. However, you do not look for the dirt – you look for the gold!” Do we see the gold in our life partner, or we just see the overwhelming dirt that hides the gold?

Let me suggest that we plant seed everyday to make our marriage work and flourish. By seed, I mean an acronym for “Selfless, Emotionally-Engaging Discipline”. However you see it, a marriage is nevertheless a form of discipline. It takes a consistent, focused effort to make it work. It cannot therefore depend on fleeting feelings because like a bad hair day, feelings fluctuate. We need to rekindle the passion by making marriage the beginning of courtship and not the end. The pursuit should and must never end with a kiss at the altar. Maybe we should see our marriage as the start of another pursuit and it is the pursuit to know more about our life partner. Make your discovery last a lifetime because it takes a lifetime to learn from each other.

In this pursuit, let’s be selfless. This is of course easy to vocalize but hard to actualize. But the seed I urge you to plant starts with a small, insignificant act that ultimately culminates to something formidably effective at the end. One thing I learned about life is this: Big changes come after small ones. I guess the first step to becoming selfless is to put your spouse’s interests first. It also involves respecting what she or he has to say. Lastly, it requires your unwavering support for and understanding of him or her. It is said that the secret to ultimate happiness is the conviction that you’re loved. All of us want to be loved. This is the reason why we survive and thrive on this earth. In fact, most marriages fail not because of an increase in conflict but a perpetual decrease in affection and emotional responsiveness. Beloved, don’t take the natural path to emotional decay by sinking deeper and deeper into a loveless marriage. Renew your passion daily. Celebrate your love for each other ostentatiously. And continually acknowledge and respect each other’s deepest and most personal hopes and dreams. Remember there is a beauty in all of us that awaits discovery. So, make the effort to discover it and see your love for each other soar to greater heights of passion!

Lastly, we come to the emotional aspect of seed. When we make every effort and discipline to set ablaze our passion for each other, we become emotionally engaged with our life partner and genuine love will gush forward like a broken dam. This is not an everyday experience of course. The rough and tough realities of life will conspire together to ensure that we do not experience endless, boundless passion. But, having said that, I’d like to add that the rough and tough realities of life should not in any way damper our passion for each other. If we resolve to make our marriage work, no price is too much for us to pay and no efforts are too hard for our undertaking. Remember what I said earlier, “It is the hardest struggle to keep a marriage but it is also the most rewarding.”

So, you are deserving of a successful marriage and it is therefore your responsibility to make it so. Let me end with this touching quote from Dr Joyce Brothers, “Love is something we all yearn for, and to live and be loved is the most blissful state imaginable. But what is love? The best definition, I feel, is caring as much for the aims and welfare of another person as you do about your own aims and well-being. During my late husband’s long illness, I realized that I would have gladly given up my own life if his would be saved, and I knew how deeply a woman could love. Too many people mistake the sweaty palms and dizzy exhilaration of a romantic encounter for love.”

Whistle series (290110)

2010-01-30T14:09:00.001+08:00

Are we open to the divine? Do we have space for God’s everyday miracles in our life? Is our heart open to omnipotence? Do we accord those things that we cannot explain or understand to the mysterious stirrings in the spiritual realm or relegate it to all things material? Let’s face it…no one in this world is immune from the spellbinding effects of the mysterious, the awe-inspiring and the appallingly hair-raisings. Recently, in our cell group, for the first time in many years, we experienced our every own “unexplainable” or the unfathomable.

In one of our cell members’ house, there appeared red markings on the floor with such frequency and randomness that completely stumped all those who were called to investigate its cause or causes. Many humanly rational theories were thrown into the air and none of them stuck. None of them makes sense. In fact, by the process of reduction, that which remained was nothing short of phenomenal, unparalleled and plainly strange. The funny thing is that the harder we tried to understand the odd red markings, the less we were intellectually satisfied with it. In the end, what seems most rational is to adopt the least rational approach to explain the strange apparitions. We had to raise our hands up to heaven and accept that there is more to life’s mysteries than the interplay of natural laws.

So, what’s the lesson for that night? Well, for a marginal or borderline believer, the lesson is this: that Jesus was not delusional when he engaged with and defeated the devil in the wilderness. Neither was He hallucinating when he went into the synagogue in Capernaum and rebuked an unclean spirit with sheer authority and achieved overwhelming success when the unclean spirit convulsed and left its host with a loud cry (Mark 1:21). Finally, the lesson is that Jesus was not exaggerating when He commanded and cast a horde of demons named “legion” into a large herd of pigs as they rushed down a steep bank into the lake and was drown (Luke 8:27). For your information, a legion normally numbered from 4200 to 6000 soldiers. Imagine the power that can be harnessed in the name of Jesus against the forces of darkness when even thousands of demons were helpless to defend and withstand. I guess that Joel 2:32 declares it well with this victory chant, “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.”

Another lesson for that night is that it is a wake up call to all believers, young and old. Beloved, it is time we make room in our lives for the divine. It is time we take the things of God seriously. It is also time we raise the bar or set a standard against the spiritual floodgates that are assigned to our lives or our loved ones’ lives to create havoc in our spirit, instill fear in our soul, and threaten all our fundamental relationships. Isaiah puts it well, “When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.” So, do we measure up to God’s standard?

You may not know this, but in my primary school, I was quite an athlete. I was a sprinter, a long jumper and best of all, I was a high jumper. The latter sport involves throwing your body in a tactical way over a horizontal bar or beam that is balanced delicately between two poles. Because the bar is so precariously balanced, any slight bodily contact with the bar will topple it. So, focus and discipline are essential to ensure a successful jump over it. Although the training can be hard and at times, frustrating, the reward of overcoming the obstacle set before you is extremely satisfying. More importantly, the reward is made ever so sweet and thrilling each time you manage to scale the bar as it inches higher and higher. And with each successful jump, you unknowingly improve your skills and confidence to meet the next vertical challenge.

Applying this analogy to our Christian lives, I just want to issue you this challenge, “Are we setting the bar for our Christian life?” Or, “where is the level of our bar now?” For some of us, our bar is set so low that little is expected or demanded of us as a Christian. These are lips-paying Christians who profess loudly with their mouths and do little with their lives to live up to Godly principles. These Christians are surely living below the level of their beliefs and convictions. Bear in mind that if you set mediocre standards, you remain a mediocre Christian.

I believe that the recent experience has woken most of us up and it is therefore time to raise the bar or standard against the forces of darkness. And we are not powerless against them. When it comes to sin, we are called to crucify our flesh just as Jesus had demonstrated at the cross. So, a way to overcome sin has therefore been made. As for demons, we are not without any help. We do not enter the realm of spiritual battle armed with a sling while the enemy is strapped to the chin with explosives. In Luke 10:19, Jesus’ assurance is enough to send shivers down the demon’s spine, “Behold, I give you the authority…over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

So, let’s put on the armor of God (Ephesians 6:13), fill our lamps with oil, purify our hearts, extend our hands of forgiveness, and come to God with a contrite heart. When the bar has been raised, and a standard set for us to live a victorious life, we can then proclaim with irrepressible confidence and resilient buoyancy the powerful words in James 4:7, “Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you!”

Whistle series (220110)

2010-01-23T12:44:00.003+08:00

Are we living below the level of our beliefs? As Christians, we subscribe to numerous beliefs. These beliefs can be easily found in the Bible. We are called to be slow to anger. We are overcomers of carnal desires; living with a pure heart. We are to resist temptations as we submit wholeheartedly to God. And last but not least, we are reminded to keep our chins up in the midst of a trial and put our faith in Jesus who is the hope of our salvation. These are empowering beliefs that we repeat to ourselves and our loved ones but do we live by them on a daily basis? The difficulty to living up to them is understandable. Many of us are guilty of failing to live up to the standards set by the Bible. There is a saying that goes like this: “When you give advice, you build with one hand. When you give advice and set a good example, you build with both hands. When you give advice and set a bad example, you build with one hand and you tear down with the other.”

It is easy to keep our beliefs verbal. Mouthing out those beliefs takes nothing from us. The true sacrifice comes when we have to live it out. It takes more than just mere discipline to do that. Being consistent with our belief is not the hard part. What is lacking in our lives when it comes to living above the level of our beliefs is passion. I believe that without passion, everything we do becomes a chore, a routine, a rut. Performing a chore will sap our energy, drain our spirit and exhaust our body as time passes. Passion is like fresh water. Without it, your life is dried and parched. Passion is like colors. Without it, your life is flat and dull. Passion is like love. Without it, your marriage is lifeless. We cannot live without passion. At the very least, we cannot live above the level of our beliefs without it.

Passion is the bridge we so urgently need in our lives to take us to where we are destined to go. In the language of psychology, passion is our inner drive, our intrinsic motivation. In science, passion is the burning curiosity that propels us to explore and discover the world around us. In music, passion is our muse, our bewildering inspiration that strikes us when we least expect it. In the lingo of God, passion is encapsulated in this powerful scripture, “…you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13) Passion is thus best expressed as “with all your heart”. It comes from inside of you. It is a quality that escapes definition. To the artists, it is almost a spiritual experience, a fire that burns inside of them. So, forget about looking for passion in self-improvement books. Forget about looking for it from the pulpit. Forget about looking for it in the movies, in a concert hall or on top of a mountain. No doubt some beautiful places and encouraging words at the right place and at the right time do inspire passion; but for long lasting, authentic effect, passion has to be self-generated, single-focused and self-sustaining.

I suggest a systematic way to develop passion by examining these simple statements: I get it; I love it; I’ll keep it up.

Do you get it? We have to ask ourselves this first question as a start to the others. A wise man once said that some of us live lives of quiet desperation. This desperation is a result of living below our level of beliefs. This desperation arises because we don’t get it. If we don’t get it, then we may as well leave it and live our lives below our level of beliefs. Getting it means more than just head knowledge. It is more than mere mental agreement to a principle. We can remain agreeable to everything but un-changed by them. A deeper understanding is needed. This requires us to do some deep soul searching. It requires us to take stock of our lives. We need to know where we are now in our lives and where we want to end up when we heave our last breath.

Then, we proceed to ask ourselves: Do I love it? Please do not do something you do not love for the rest of your life. It is painful, not to mention, wasteful. You are created to soar on wings of eagle and not peck and lick dirt. Of course, in this life, we live with a lot of constraints. Our freedom to live a life we want may not be readily accessible to us due to the many obligations we have. But if droplets of water can wear off a huge coral rock, then, may I say to you that every great journey starts with a small, insignificant step. This small step may seem inconsequential. But over time, you will complete your long arduous journey when you add them all up. So, doing what we love is achievable, if we do it one step at a time.

When we get it, and do what we love, we must not waste it all by failing half-way. This is what it means to keep it up. This is where consistency plays a part. Recently, my son, moping about how life is so un-fun, lamented to me with this phrase, “I hope everyday is my birthday.” Well, I hope it is for me too. But life is not wound up like that. It is of course easy to be happy, keeping up the moods and smiles, when everyday is your birthday. To be consistently happy is easy when everybody celebrates your birthday with gifts, well-wishing and a delicious chocolate cake everyday. But life is going to challenge you and discourage you. Circumstances will gang up to trip you and deflate you. Just as everyday is not your birthday; it is also not going to be easy. Your consistent spirit will be challenged. Your moods will fluctuate. Your temper flares up. Your spirit downed. So, it is vital to keep your consistency by keeping your focus. Be single-minded. Keep your eyes on your goals just as a footballer keeps his eyes on the ball.

When you are discouraged, feeling down and out, keep this scripture close to your heart, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the iht hand of the throne of God.”

So when our eyes are on the cross, our steps are surely ordered by the Lord.

Friday's Recap (080110)

2010-01-09T11:05:00.005+08:00

Boundaries? Do you have one? Or do you have a few? Boundaries are mental fences you set up to keep you sane. Sometimes these mental fences keep you balanced or successful or even happy. So, do you have any? Have you thought about them? This is a good year to start thinking about boundaries. I guess the gatekeeper of your mental fences is your daily choices. You make daily choices to either protect your boundaries or violate them. Here is one example of a violation of boundary. Heard of Tiger Woods? His scores of infidelity? Well, while most of them are tabloid news, the golf legend has been very cavalier with his boundaries. He made many wrong choices in his marital life recently and is still reeling from the effects.

Of course, his personal life is really none of our business and each of us are accountable for our own lives. I do not want to cast the first stone because I am still struggle with character “logs” in my own eyes. But Tiger Woods is a good example of how vulnerable and easy it is for us to violate our boundaries by making the wrong choices in life’s rather tempestuous ride.

Everyday we are bombarded by ideas and events that threaten to breach our mental fences. Temptations abound in more insidious ways than we can imagine. I have seen and heard of husbands giving in to lust and violating the sanctity of marriage. I have read about corporate managers succumbing to greed and making bad choices that landed them in prison for financial frauds. These are everyday account of human fallibility that can be avoided if we are minded on a daily basis to mend our mental fences, upkeep our boundaries, and take responsibility for our life’s choices. Choices have consequences just like over-eating can lead to obesity.

So, let’s be careful, keep a watchful eye, and walk tiptoed when entering areas of emotional minefields. When I was younger, my mother used to tell me not to play with fire. I was then quite an arsonist and nearly burnt down one side of a wall of my neighbor’s master bedroom. Believe you me, I was severely punished and I cried a river. The lesson that day was as simple as this: Not to play with fire because fire is a good servant (when used for cooking meals) but a bad master (when trapped in a burning house).

So, my advice to you guys is this: Do Not to Play with Fire. Metaphorically speaking, of course. There are fires everywhere we go and some of them can consume us, wholly. That first encounter with our female colleague at work may seem harmless enough. It may even blossom into a productive working relationship. But if we are not careful, we can get burned. For married men (or women), the marriage vows have already drawn up the marital boundaries for you. So, please rein in your emotions. Keep a level head. Stay within sound, biblical boundaries. Your life would be much more rewarding if you loyally obey your boundaries and obey it on a daily basis.

Lastly, don’t forget to keep your boundary opened for good things, sound advice and wisdom bites. Let’s not shut up our mental fences to relationships that will benefit us in the long run. Proverbs 27:17 reads, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

Beloved, there are people in this life that will enrich you in more ways than you can imagine. If you treat them nicely, and with due respect, you will surprise yourself with blessings and good tidings in years to come. Some relationships should be consciously nurtured and jealously protected and your marriage is one of them. Because you are fallible, you can learn from one another, especially your spouse, your children, or your in-laws. Even inconsequential strangers like your neighbors can drop a hint or two about how to live, how to love and how to make a difference. Embrace good teachings, open your heart to biblical guides, and follow sound, good advice. Always remember that your boundaries define how successful you are and will be. Guard it wisely and courageously against the onslaught of bad values and harmful influences. At the same time, give it space to grow by holding on to good, virtuous principles.

In the end, I prescribe to you the serenity prayer to guide you in your life as it is the key to unlocking invaluable lessons for you to keep your boundaries vibrant, strong and protected: “O Lord, give me the courage to change what I can change, the serenity (peace) to accept what I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

New Year's message

2009-12-31T16:37:00.003+08:00

This is my New Year’s message. It is entitled “6 stinking habits to get rid of”. I could have called it “6 stinking habits to watch out for”. But, this alternative title may imply that one has yet to be infected by any of the stinking habits and thus has to watch out for them. Should it be taken this way, then it is inappropriate. You see, most of us, I believe, are able to identify with some, if not all, of the stinking habits that I am going to list down for the simple reason that we are guilty of having committed them at some point in our life. So, there is nothing to watch out for as if it is coming our way like a flu virus. It should, with some urgency, be gotten rid of - like weeds or piled up garbage. So, here are the 6 stinking habits we should get rid of in the coming New Year. Or, if you like, habits to watch out for if you have yet to be infected by them.

1) Me-First habit. Let’s face it, this habit is the first sin of the created Universe. The story of the supremacy of self-interest is as old as Adam and Eve. The world’s system runs on this me-first philosophy. Politics is all about “how will this decision influence my poll rating?” Movie and music stars are all concerned about how popular they are to their fans. And even ministers of God sometimes fall into the trap of self-elevation at the expense of God-glorification. So, no one is exempted from this stinking habit Numero Uno. When we don’t get our way, or when others got their way instead of us, we sulk, sulk and sulk. Some sulk discreetly; others sulk publicly. One way or another, our attitude undergoes a vegetation transformation into a “bitter gourd”. Envy is one avenue this habit rears its ugly head. Deep inside, we can’t stand it if our neighbor is more successful than us. Somehow, some thing inside of us dies a little. Somehow, we get derailed by jealousy and rage. Apostle Paul once said that we should “rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” (Rom. 12:15) With all honesty, it is easy to mourn with our neighbor. Misfortune invites willing and easy company. But, can we sincerely rejoice with our neighbor? For some, we seethe with envy when good fortune befalls on others and not us. Envy has its roots in self-glorification and that’s why we have to guard against this insidious habit. It’s easy to say at this point that we should put others first and ourselves second or a distant third. Words are like air molecules. They come and go like a draft. And we are usually unmoved by it. So, let’s go beyond words (although words would inevitably be used here). Let us hatch a murder plan. Let us plan the death of self. Let’s be self-killers. Paul calls it “self-crucifixation”. Jesus calls it “self-denial”. I call it “self-cremation”. Whatever you call it, I think you get the point. And the point is to die to self and to live for Christ daily. The process calls for daily discipline and a watchful spiritual eye to monitor our thoughts, our speech and our actions. If we resolve this coming New Year to make this important change, one little victory at a time, on a consistent daily rate, I am sure that by the end of next year, our life would then be deserving of the praise that comes from our God for it is written in John 5:44, “How can you believe if you accept the praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?”

2) Count your curses habit. This is the opposite of counting your blessings. This is a negative outlook. While the optimist sees the glass half full, the person inflicted by this stinking habit asks, “Where’s the glass?” People with his habit are generally grim-reapers or bad news harvesters. They are unable to see the positive side of things because they do not have enough faith to believe in it. They are prone to catastrophe-ize all events that have the potential to turn sour. They are blindsided by the negatives to even bother to accentuate the positive. As such, this is one habit that you have to eradicate because it determines your ultimate response to all situations you face in your life. Let us accept that bad things will happen, without giving us an advance notice. You cannot RSVP tragedies because they issue you no invitation or warning. But, just like there is immense power captured in a single atom, there is awesome strength embedded in one choice. Do not underestimate the choices you make on a daily basis. Where you are today is the result of the choices that you have been making all this while. You can therefore do a forensic tracing of all choices made thus far and each of these choices will add up to the sum of who you are and where you are today. Thus, from an atomic point of view, you can harness the power of free-choice by responding in a way that progressively brings you out of your trial instead of sinking you deeper into it. Negative thoughts darken the chambers of your soul. It drains your spirit and saps your resolve. Beloved, take charge of your life and deals positively with adversity. Do not surrender to your trials; remaining helpless in the sea of trouble. Instead surrender to God and put your hope in Him. Let God preserve your spirit, lift you up and deliver you out into the light. Remember, as long as your lamp continues burning, the darkness will make their timely retreat. So, this is the take-away lesson in regards to this habit: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Roms. 15:13)

3) The dog ate my homework habit. Did the dog really eat your homework? Or maybe, you didn’t perform well in school and you didn’t want to show your parents your poor results? So, we needed to blame the poor dog? This habit will make us a finger-pointing marksman. We are always right and the blame lies with everybody but ourselves. For people infected with this habit, saying sorry is truly the hardest word. It is as if saying sorry will bring about a full-blown emotional tumor. Let’s humble ourselves this coming New Year. Let us own up to our flaws. Let’s take personal responsibility for our actions. Stop passing the buck or blame. Let’s direct the interrogation lamp on ourselves and let God search our heart. For the heart is above all, deceitful. When something goes wrong, and it sometimes will, we have to look within ourselves to find the cause. Even when the fault lies with others, we cannot overlook the fact that we may have contributed to the failure. We have a part to play in a wrong turn, a misadventure or an accidental letdown. Take a marriage for example. Who can remain blameless in a fight, an argument or a separation? Any takers? I realized that a marriage can survive anything, any trial, if one spouse musters the courage to shock the other by admitting to his/her faults and saying sorry for it. A sincere apology after some quiet reflection may be the hardest thing to say but it is a definite step towards reconciliation. Basically saying sorry turns the attention on our flaws and this tactical change is crucial in keeping anger and unforgiveness at bay. Something magically lights up when we see the wrong in ourselves and this mindset will keep us from focusing zealously on the wrong of our spouse. When the focus changes, we will then be able to deal with our faults, to realize how our actions have hurt our loved ones, and to express genuine remorse thereafter. The next natural step after feeling the convicting sting of regret is to say “I’m truly sorry.” A wise man once said, “Few things are more powerful than having the common sense, wisdom, and strength to admit when you’ve made a mistake and to set things right.”

4) Leave it till tomorrow habit. This habit is self-explanatory. Although tomorrow will surely come, it is not a guarantee that we will accomplish what we need to do today by tomorrow. Beloved, do not have the delusion that tomorrow will be longer than today. In fact, logically speaking, if we leave what we need to do today till tomorrow, then the time we have tomorrow will be very much constraint, or limited. More work for tomorrow will mean less time to finish them. And less time to finish them will mean that we risk putting off tomorrow’s workload to the day after tomorrow. Well, I think you get the point. The heart of this stinking habit is procrastination. And we procrastinate for many reasons. We procrastinate because we are avoiding certain outcome out of fear. We procrastinate because we lack guidance, directions or goals. We procrastinate because we are plain lazy or self-indulgent. Or maybe, we are just too weak-willed, discouraged or disillusioned with ourselves to take the next step in life. Whatever the reason, this is a bad habit that we have to deal with directly. As there are numerous reasons for why we procrastinate, there are also varied solutions. For this letter, I will only single one out and that is: Seizing the opportunity! We will only walk down this corridor of life once and most opportunities will only knock once. If we do not seize them as they come by, we may have lost them forever. But in order to seize it, we will need to know what we want in life. What is our goal now? What do we wish to accomplish? What is our passion? Do we have an unfulfilled wish? What activity gives us the most joy? Take the first few days of the New Year to reflect on this. If something is worth doing, and is within our budget and ability, then stop putting it off to the next day, the next year or the next life. Beloved, let’s not live for the past but live for the future. We cannot change our past, our mistakes and our failures. We cannot change how people look at us for what we did in the past. The opportunities in the past have all passed; so stop allowing your past to plague your present and to limit your future. The aim is to start afresh and anew. The New Year is waiting for you to fill it up with meaningful goals. If you hear God’s voice calling you to make that commitment for change, then do it. God’s calling for you in the New Year is to embrace life, to advance forward, to take the risk, and to change lives. For it is said that, “when we choose to seize our divine moments, we create an environment where others are unleashed to fulfill their God-given potential.” So, let’s start a chain-reaction, initiate a transformation, and make a difference. And when the time comes for us to leave this world for good, we would have this anchored assurance that we have lived a good life, one that God and our children can be proud of.

5) Life’s like a box of chocolates habit. When Forest Gump uttered this now famous line in the self-titled movies many years ago, no one knew exactly what he meant except that life is generally unpredictable because you never know what you’ll get. My own interpretation of this winsome line is his: life is not limited to the perceptual confines of our five senses. In my view, life is more than what our eyes can see, what our ears can hear, and what our hands can touch. Atheists who use science to call for the end of religion has this to say to sound off the death knell, “the materialist universe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” (Richard Dawkins) We must guard against such thought because it is one-sided, dogmatic and tainted. Atheists’ scientists will not admit that science cannot explain a lot of things. The beginning of the universe (or cosmos) is still a mystery, an impenetrate-able one. The erratic and at the same time synchronized behavior of a pair of subatomic particles are another mystery that still escapes rigorous scientific observation. The theory of neo-evolution has yet to close the gap between us and our next primate cousins. The link is still missing. Neuroscientists are still unable to come up with a coherent concept of our consciousness, our experiences and our varied emotions, and questions about how is it that the whole of our personalities is much greater than the sum of our parts still remain largely unresolved. Even an activity as simple as reading, involving various integral section of the left hemisphere of our brain, is immensely complex. How the words on a page get registered on our retinas and processed at the back of our left hemisphere (occipital temporal poles) and converted into perceivable meaning that can move us to tears are too complicated for anyone to fully understand. So, life is full of mysteries. What we cannot see doesn’t mean it does not exist. Some of these mysteries will never be solved and we have to accept that someone out there knows and holds the answer. Maybe, we are not created to solve them all. Maybe, we have to admit our limitations. Maybe, the universe is created to be enjoyed and not to be dissected into discrete parts for research. And without faith, and a sense of awe, we can never fully embrace life and enjoy what life has to offer. A famous theologian once said, “He who enters the sphere of faith enters the sanctuary of life.” Indeed, the parallel thought for this is: And without faith, it is impossible to please God.

6) Grudge bearers habit. Of all the bad habits listed above, this is the most vicious and condemning. I have learned that we have to travel light in this world. Carrying a grudge and nursing it will only burden us in our life’s journey. We have to let go and let God deal with our hurts, our pains and our disappointments. In this life, we are sure to get hurt. Our loved ones may betray us. Our close friends may abandon us. Our pastors may disappoint us. No one is perfect. So, we need to come before God this New Year and surrender all our hurts and pains. Beloved, forgiveness breaks the curse that binds us to a life of bitterness and retributive rage. Forgiveness is an act of love. No one is so unlovable who doesn’t deserve our forgiveness. There is always a quality in others that is redeemable and we can always focus on it to forgive them. It is said that forgiveness breaks the chain of causation because he who forgives another, out of love, takes it upon himself the consequences of what the other person has done. As such forgiveness always entails a sacrifice on the part of the person who chooses to forgive. Whatever the injustice or the pain caused to us, we can surely pray for the spirit of forgiveness to take charge of our spirit and to do a purifying work to remove the hurts and pain of the act from our memories. With the passage of time, and with a submitted heart, we can slowly but surely extend the hand of forgiveness; even to those who are least deserving. We can do this because God has forgiven the worst in us. Let me end this letter with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr, “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.”

Beloved, these are the 6 stinking habits we should eject out of our system. Pray for strength to deal with each one of them at your own pace and time. If we move forward from here and resolve to change ourselves for the better, I trust that in the years to come, we will be more authentic Christians, living the life we have always wanted.

Here’s wishing you all a blessed, victorious New Year 2010.

Friday;s Recap (111209)

2009-12-12T15:41:00.002+08:00

Dear Cell, let me caution you first: this letter is not a letter about answers. It is in fact a letter generating more questions than answers. Answers to what, you may ask. Well, answers to all the questions you have about God, His existence, His love and His power. For those of you who attended Cell last Friday, the discussion was a challenge to our faith. The challenge was this: How do people come to the conclusion that there is no God or that God is cruel and sadistic? How do you answer them? Let’s go for the jugular. Professor Richard Dawkins, an atheist extraordinaire, will take the first shot at our religion with this shockingly invective quote, “God is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloody thirsty ethnic-cleanser; a misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicial, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously, malevolent bully.” When you finally come exhausted after poring through the Oxford dictionary to find the meaning of those big, long words, you can take this rabid quote as the signature, all-compassing mantra for all non-believers with a religious axe to grind. It is like a convocational pledge, a national anthem or an initiation oath-taking for the hot headed atheists, the narrow-minded agnostics and the vindictive free-thinkers.

But, the implied question yesterday was this, does Dawkins have a point? Maybe not the whole spiteful load of it. But the undertones and sentiments behind his quote are unmistakable. Without misquoting Dawkins, I think we can say that he is of the view that there is no God. Or, at least the probability of His existence is so marginally negligible that it is as good as taking it as a generally accepted and universally sensible confirmation that there is no God. Period. And you don’t need to be a Professor to share this sentiment with Dawkins. You can be a preschooler and still be able to identify with him. A year ago, my son, who was only six years old, casually asked me this question, “Daddy, how come God can hear us, and we cannot hear God?” Of course, this is not exactly an expression of doubt by a young boy but it is the cornerstone of all theological questions about the existence of God. It always starts innocently enough and, if left on its own to fester, it can grow into something catastrophic for the devout Christian parents, possibly leading to a renunciation of one’s faith. So, we as Christian parents have a sacred duty to fulfill and that is, to protect our children from the pernicious thinking that comes with Dawkins quotes. But how do we do that? Do we have better answers to offer that will annihilate all doubts?

Honestly, when Jezer asked me that question, I took it quite seriously. I thought it was too early for him to challenge me in that way, so nonchalantly, so disarmingly and so innocently. But of course, I knew Jezer didn’t realize the full theological weight behind that question. But I knew as the years roll by, when he grows older and wiser, the question will be less innocent, less amiable and maybe more confrontational. The older Jezer will want an intellectually satisfying answer and expect me, as his father and a cell group leader, to give it to him.

At this stage, many religions have come forward to offer their answers to a variant-form of the same question posed by Jezer. When the tsunamis struck South East Asia and took the lives of fathers, mothers and young children alike, altogether 250,000 lives were taken that fateful boxing day of 2004, the religious journalist, Gary Stern, went around mosques, temples, churches and secular communities to scout for answers and he wrote a book about it entitled, Can God Intervene? His question was simple enough but the answers were far from simple. He started off with this, “Is the mystery of God’s role in the tsunami any different than the mystery of God’s role when one innocent person suffers?” The question makes two presumptions about God. First, God has a role in all the natural disasters in this world, whether man-made or otherwise. Second, God’s role was and is and will always be a mystery, largely unexplained and situationally obscure.

Well, the theologically correct answer is that there is no difference. God is equally mysterious in both situations. There is no way to know why natural disaster happen in a place and time we least expect it to strike and take away so many innocent lives and why an individual has to suffer unexplained illness without any fault on his part. If it is a mystery, it will always be a mystery and explaining it fully will only take away the mysterious elements out of it, thereby making it a known fact rather than a mystery. Of course, telling my son that it is a mystery will do little to sate his intellectual appetite. He would want to know why it is a mystery. Or, is it just another tactic Christian parents employ to avoid answering the question?

Here, the atheist’s answer would be the easiest and even most tempting. In the book, Gary interviewed David Silverman, who is the national spokesman for American Atheists, and his answers were the most rational of them all. “If you combine benevolence with omnipotence and all-powerfulness, you can’t have natural disaster…Either God sent the tsunami, which means he is not a nice guy, or he didn’t know it was going to be there, so he’s not omnipotent, or he couldn’t stop it, which means he isn’t all-powerful. You can’t get all three. If you think about it, natural disasters disprove most religion, especially Christianity.” What is even scarier is that Silverman became an atheist when he was only 6 years old (my son’s age) when he said, “I realized that God is fiction. I kept asking questions and getting non-responses.” Silverman did not stop there. His religion bashing was most frightening and vitriolic with this conclusion in the book, “(Silverman) thinks most people are atheists. They innately understand that life doesn’t make sense and that no one is in charge. But they pretend to be believers so they don’t have to face the truth. They don’t want to deal with it, so they pretend that they believe in the invisible, magic man in the sky. That’s why when you challenge them on it, they get so defensive, angry or withdrawn. Prayer is a form of self-hypnosis so that people can convince themselves they’re not going to die. A natural disaster is a shot of reality. People doubt mythology when they’re confronted with reality.”

Well, my only wish is that my son is not as “enlightened” as Silverman was when he was six years old and took a path wholly different from mine.

At this juncture, I can get a little creative with my answers. I can tell my son what Reverend Tony Campolo once said. Basically, Campolo conceded that God was not in control of everything. He said that God limited His power by personal choice. It was the same choice He made when He sent His son to be slaughtered by His own creation. By sending Jesus, God made a conscious choice to limit His power by not interfering when Jesus was scorned, whipped, bound, tortured, ridiculed, misjudged and crucified. The bloodied, wretched and dejected face of Jesus at the cross was the epitome of God’s self-imposed restraint of power. It was therefore for a greater purpose that God had tied up his own hands. It was for universal salvation that God chose to turn his face away from Jesus at Calvary. As for the tsunami and all such natural disasters, I can tell my son that God chose not to act because that was the only way we could experience the full plethora of what we humans constantly clamor for, that is, “freedom of expression, will and choice.”

Take a personal example in this case. If I want my son to grow and mature, to learn from his mistakes and be independent, I would have to let go and let him do things his way sometimes. I cannot be controlling him 24-7. I cannot be telling him what to do, how to do it and why he should do it the way I would do it. For example, I cannot tell my son who he should love, how he should run his adult life, and what career path he should take. My son just has to muster the courage to take that first step on his own and sometimes suffer the consequences arising from his own personal choices. Furthermore, it is not on every occasions that the adage “Father knows best” is fully applicable. I could be wrong about things, misjudging them, or just being careless about it. So, my son should be left on his own to grow and mature. By extension, this example, however imperfect, is the same reason why God left us alone at times to learn, grow and mature. In other words, God cannot be chaperoning us all the time. By analogy, we will have to spread our wings on our own and take flight at our own pace. So, don’t expect God to be holding on to both our wings and flapping them for us. This will only ground us further instead of lifting us up.

And by leaving us alone, this will inevitably result in some hurt and pain in our lives as we face life’s challenges head on.

Of course, this explanation suits us fine when we are talking about pains of life that bring about our growth. There are many lessons to be learnt from failures. Many people are invariably stronger, wiser and more resilient after a financial or business debacle. But how do I explain to my son about meaningless and pointless sufferings in this world. Surely, God shouldn’t restrain His power to help when an innocent wife is crying out to Him for healing from Aids which she got from her unfaithful husband. Yesterday, we talked about a little Thai girl sold into the brothel at a tender age of 12. When they raided the brothel and entered into her tiny squalid room, they found many prayers for help scrawled on her wall – most of them were left unanswered by the one person who has the power to help. She had suffered so much despite her constant, daily cry for help. It is therefore tempting to ask, Where was God when she was forcibly taken by greedy mercenaries and sold like a cheap chattel to be repeatedly violated by perverted, STD-infected men, thereby ruining her life for life?

At this point, if my son is intuitive enough, he will pester me with these questions: Why can’t God be more discerning and discriminating about his choices to limit His power? Can’t He protect the innocent, defend the weak and make a way for the sincerely earnest without compromising the integrity of our free will and choice? Can’t a perfect God strike a perfect balance between divine intervention and humanity’s freedom of will?

Maybe, I should change tack or strategy. In respect of natural disasters, I should look at my son eyeball to eyeball and tell him that there is a scientific reason why tsunami happens. It is call shifting plate tectonics. I should tell him that there are several plates in this world holding continents and countries together. There are the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate. And when these dynamic plates shift or move violently, they cause natural disasters. There is therefore nothing divine or devious about it. As such, we do not throw a few manslaughter charges at these huge geological moving plates and pronounce them guilty. How about cancer? Maybe I can tell my son that cancer works almost the same way – sometimes they strike because of man-made choices in the food they take and the lifestyle they adopt and sometimes because of blind random genetic mutation without assigning any blame, and sometimes both are contributing causes.

In fact, another way of looking at it is that cancer is the disease of the rich, well-off and long-lived. You see, during primitive times, the mortality rate is usually high and many died young. By dying young, they were spared the pain of contracting cancer because cancer is generally the disease of the relatively old. When we age, our cells become more unstable and they tend to mutate and these harmful mutation multiplies or metastasizes, causing the dreaded cancer. So, in biological terms, there is always a trade-off; that is, the good and bad in all things. It is generally a blessing to grow old. But in growing old and enjoying the fruits of old age, there are also the despicable weeds of old age and they come in the form of neurological decay like dementia or genetic haywire like cancer or vascular entropy like stroke.

In like manner, in geological terms, the earth we live in is the only planet, as far as the human telescope can capture, that can support a bio-diversity of life. We live in harmony and peace on this planet because the conditions are just right for us and all other living organisms. It is somewhat like a beautiful Garden of Eden on Earth except for some expected trade-off like earthquakes, tsunami, volcano eruptions and hurricane. In other words, in order for the majority of us to live, some unfortunate minority will inevitably perish in a way that seems unfair, cruel and mysterious.

Lastly, my son should know that no action stands alone on its own. There are ripple effects for every action sowed. One man’s policy may result in another’s tragedy. If a mother chooses to smoke, she risks a miscarriage, or worse, her child may bear the consequences of her actions. If a man seeks easy and quick profit, he may sell his young daughter to a man three times her age for a price. If the leader of a nation gives in to peer pressure and chooses to engage in war with a country for the flimsiest of ideological reason, we can expect a lot of civil casualties, resulting in future recriminations and revenge, and the cycle of violence can go on and on without stopping. So, there you have it, causes and effects are part of the reason why sufferings are so prevalent in this corrupt world.

In the end, I should know that my adult son will not be completely convinced by the above answers; because they appear to generate more questions than answers or more heat than light.

So, when that day of reckoning draws nigh, when my adult son ever come to me for answers, I would have to tell him what I told you guys all these years, “Son, I can’t give you an intellectually satisfying answer to your question, but I can give an emotionally fulfilling one.”

Let me share with you this passage from the book God on Mute authored by a church-planter Pete Greig.

“A story is told of the Nobel Prize-winning Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn when he was imprisoned by Stalin in a Siberian gulag. One day, slaving away in sub-zero temperatures, he finally reached the end of his endurance. Discarding his shovel, he slumped onto a bench and waited for a guard to beat him to death. He’d seen it happen to others and was waiting for the first blow to fall.

Before this could happen, an emaciated fellow prisoner approached Solzhenitsyn silently. Without a word of explanation, the prisoner scratched the sign of the cross in the mud and scurried away. As Solzhenitsyn stared at those two lines scratched in the dirt, the message of the cross began to converse with his sense of despair. “In that moment, he knew that there was something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that the hope of all mankind was represented in that simple cross. And through the power of the cross, anything was possible.” Picking up his shovel, Alexander Solzhenitsyn slowly went back to work.”

Beloved, Jesus is all we need and all we have to give to my children. He is the spiritual legacy to our loved ones. In their short life on earth as compared to the eternity that awaits, our children’s faith will surely be tested and it is of no practical use to tell them that God, like a tall dark charming prince in a shining armor, will come to their rescue every time they cry for help like a damsel in distress. Do your children a favor and don’t mislead them by telling them God is some kind of a celestial Arnold Schwarzenegger, forever arming himself with machine guns, readying to aid us, and perennially sprouting the catch-all phrase, “I’ll be back.” Your children will not be immune from troubles and troubles have no eyes sometimes. They do not choose who will be their next unlucky victim. They just strike when the biological, geological and made-made clock is up. But with every storm, comes the sunshine. By the same token, with every sunshine, lurks a storm. As long as we are on earth, living our lives in human flesh, limited by these mortal bodies, we are vulnerable to life’s challenges, however unfair they may be.

Ultimately, when the storms of life come, when our lives are being tormented by circumstances beyond our control, we can choose to echo these haunting words of the atheistic philosopher Bertrand Russell:-

“We stand on the shore of an ocean, crying to the night and to emptiness; sometimes a voice answers out of the darkness. But it is a voice of one drowning; and in a moment the silent returns. The world seems to me quite dreadful; the unhappiness of most people is very great.”

Or, just maybe, we can turn our eyes upon Jesus and cry out to Him with this sincere prayer.

“Abba, Father, I know all this stuff about Your love in my head, but my heart gets hard to it and I’m tired. Please do whatever You’ve got to do (and I mean whatever) to unclench my fists. Pry open my eyes so that I can see Your tears and soften my heart so that it moves me deeply. I don’t understand why You don’t just answer my prayers, but I do choose to trust that You have heard me, that You actually do care and that You’re somewhere out there on my case. Abba, Father, thank You for all the ways You have blessed me. I honestly don’t know what I’d do, where I’d be or even who I’d have become without You. Abba, Father, I am going to try to trust You today. Amen.”

Beloved, the choice we, or more relevantly, our children will make will ultimately depend on how we have been living our Christian lives in their eyes. Let’s send a clear message to them. Let’s live out our faith so that when our children face their own crisis in life, they can always think about how we overcame ours and draw strength and courage from it to overcome theirs.

Have a meaningful Christmas with your loved ones.

Friday's Recap (271109)

2009-11-28T13:23:00.004+08:00

Dear Cell, last Friday we tried to thaw our hearts from the frigidness of indifference. If the purpose of life is to live life with a purpose, then indifference or apathy is the antithesis (opposite) of living life with a purpose. The worst conviction in life is to have no conviction or to be “convicted” by nothing. When asked the question, are there things that I keep feeling inner promptings to pursue? some of us could not come up with anything. It was a literal blank slate or tabula rasa. Worse still, we have become tabula Teflon. Let me explain this description.

We all love to cook, or at least love to eat what is cooked. We are familiar with the cooking material Teflon. It is a flat plastic found at the base of a frying pan that prevents burnt food from sticking to the pan. It is of course easier to fry where nothing sticks to the pan. But in the lingo of conviction, that description is far from being a compliment. The sad thing is that for some of us, nothing really sticks in our hearts. We attend church services, belt out worship songs, listen to sermons and offer ourselves to the ministry but our hearts remain like tabula Teflon, where nothing seems to influence our thoughts and actions. We are drifters, spiritual vagabonds, going on life untouched, unfeeling. Some of us are consciously aware of this insidious form of apathy but choose to add more apathy to apathy by doing nothing about it. In the end, questions like what would I do if I knew I had only six months to live? When my life is over, what will I be glad I did? What do I really do well? come unstuck from our hearts and we pass away conviction-less.

For these people, the hardest thing to do is to make new-year resolutions. Their resolutions are never fulfilled because they only pay lip-service to these goals. If goals are dreams with a deadline, then these people are dreamers for life. They do not feel the urgency of their goals and they remain unaffected and unmoved by their dreams to take that all-important step to make a difference in their lives. This brings me to the point of this letter. The opposite of indifference is to make a difference and this is where we have to take a spiritual retreat from the busyness of our life, the hustling and bustling, the toiling and feuding, and reexamine the beliefs that we have accumulated all these years as a Christian. For some, we need to do an overhaul of our belief system, to weed out the clutters, and to look at our Christian life from another perspective.

Yesterday, we talked about the struggles of Abraham and his son, Isaac. We all know the story. To put it bluntly, it is a story about child-sacrifice. But what made it even harder for Abraham to offer Isaac as a human sacrifice was the contradictions in God’s promises to him. Imagine, being told by God that you are going to be the Father of a great nation, and your descendents will be as innumerable as the stars in the nocturnal skies, and having the faith and endurance to wait until you are over a hundred years old before the promise came to pass when your ninety years old wife gave birth to your one and only heir to the throne. Then, imagine further that when your precious boy reaches puberty, the same divine creator commanded you, in no uncertain terms, to slain your beloved son to Him as a sacrifice. Well, I guess on that fateful day, witless Abraham was speechless and poor Isaac was clueless. But was “capricious God” heartless?

Beloved, I have a confession to make: I used to think that He was. God was playing with Abraham’s life, toying with Isaac’s and getting a twisted kick out of it. I used to think that God was exploiting Abraham for his own pleasure, making a drama out of a poor soul’s life and enjoying every inch of it. God’s command to sacrifice Isaac was tantamount to telling a cancer patient that his cancer is in remission only to laugh out loud later with these words, “Gotcha? Just pulling your leg!”

Allow me to sidetrack. This week I have learned that knowledge without conviction is arrogance or ignorance. And conviction without knowledge is fanaticism. Let me deal with the first part only: Knowledge without conviction is arrogance or ignorance. Beloved, I count myself as reasonably knowledgeable. I am a voracious reader. My interest ranges from politics and world affairs to economics and even history of witchcraft and pagan religions. But all that knowledge without conviction is true ignorance. Why? Because when the heart remains untouched, the mind can only know and not truly experience. There is therefore a big difference between merely knowing and living out what you profess you know. The former is self-aggrandizing. The latter is life-transforming. The Bible reserves the worst rebuke for the former class of Christians, “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power.” (2 Tim 3:1-5)

In short, Christians who do not practise what they believe have a “form of godliness” but do not have the power that comes with it. In my view, that is true ignorance, that is, an ignorance devoid of the power to change oneself and others around him.

With this in mind, let’s go back to Abraham. Although I openly admired Abraham’s faith to follow God’s commands all the way to Mount Calvary, I secretly doubted God’s goodness and His sense of fairness. How could God make such a macabre request that ran completely and directly opposite to his promise to Abraham? I came to this view because I only knew God from what I’ve read about Him in the Bible and had therefore failed to experience Him and His love in a personal way, with conviction. This is where what I’d said earlier applies fully: Knowledge without conviction is true ignorance.

When I opened my heart to the ministering power of His spirit, I gradually understood to a certain extent the significance of God’s command to Abraham. I came to see the sacrifice of Isaac in a whole new light or perspective. In other words, I finally realized that it is not so much about the “blind faith” or the tough faith of Abraham, or the tragedy of Isaac’s sacrifice. The moral of the story goes deeper than that. It is about Jesus and God’s compelling love for us. You see, most atheists would read this account and judge God as having murder in his heart or at least, charge God with attempted murder or murder by hire (using Abraham as his personal assassin). My counter is this: If God had wanted to murder Isaac, he would have either done it himself (which is much quicker and less messy) or get Abraham to sneak up to Isaac when he was asleep and plunge a knife into his heart. But God did neither. And here is the message.

God deliberately made Abraham walk Isaac all the way up to the hills of Moriah. The journey took a back-breaking three days. As we are aware, this is the same hill that Jesus would be sacrificed at Calvary two thousand years later. The walk was painful for Abraham. But it was even more painful for God. For God knew in advance that He would restraint Abraham’s hands from taking Isaac’s life, but He will not restraint his own hands from taking his beloved son’s life at the Cross of Calvary. This is the pain that God had to go through when Abraham took the walk with Him to the hills of Moriah. It was a lesson that God didn’t want Abraham and any of us who reads this painful account to forget. And the lesson is this: whilst Isaac’s life was spared, Jesus’ life was not.

When God stopped Abraham from taking Isaac’s life, He commended him for his faith and said, “…Now I know that you fear (love) me since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Beloved, are we able to say back to God in the face of Jesus’s gruesome death on the cross these same words, “…Now I know you (love) me since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”? If love is action, not mere words, then God has indeed proved his love for us by offering Jesus as a sacrifice for our salvation and freedom.

This then is the crux of the message of Abraham’s story. God is trying to demonstrate His love for us in the most personal, comprehensible and humane way. His call for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac was to allow us to experience vicariously the compelling love God has for us. And the only way to experience it to the closest degree possible is for us to imagine the pain and agony of taking something that is precious to us, something that we cannot live without, and giving it away completely and irretrievably in the same way that God had allowed Jesus to be killed by His creation. In the end, it was men who had murder in their hearts, not God.

When God put Jesus, His only son, on the cross, He only had us in His mind. The compelling, overriding mental preoccupation for God was how to reconcile us back to Him once and for all. God made the calculation, the agonizing deliberation, when he walked with Abraham and Isaac to the hills of Moriah and deemed it worthwhile to offer his most prized “possession” in exchange for us and us alone. Beloved, doesn’t this make us reconsider our faith a little? Doesn’t this make us want to take our faith more seriously?

At this juncture, God is asking us this question: Can I walk with you, son or daughter? God wants to take this walk with us to the Hills of Calvary. He is asking us to bring along our most prized possession in this journey. He is asking us whether we are prepared to do what Abraham did. That is, whether we are prepared to offer to Him what we have mistakenly thought was indispensable in our life in exchange for a lifetime of blessing that will more than compensate what we will be giving up. In other words, are we willing to give up our material possessions, our career, our successes, or all our earthly idols, for God and trust that God will in return bless us manifold? This is of course a tough question and a difficult challenge and it is very personal to those who will, at some point in their Christian life, face with the existential compulsion to answer it.

Our earthly idol may be money or the love of it. It could be the insatiable appetite for earthly titles, fame and possessions. Like the rich young ruler, Jesus issued the same challenge to him and we all know the sad outcome in Luke 18:22. The rich young ruler lacked the one thing that was required for him to follow Jesus. This was the same one thing that was lacking in the life of Martha. For the rich young ruler, it was his wealth. If he had followed Jesus, he would not have lasted long because his heart was somewhere else.

As for Martha, it was her busyness that kept her from enjoying a rewarding relationship with Jesus. It is said that we all live in a rat race of ever-increasing desires for success and wealth, an ever-descending spiral for fame and self recognition, and an ever-expanding circle for love and companionship. And yet, after achieving all that we have aimed to achieve, possessing all that we have set our mind to possess, we are still no closer to finding a sustaining, lasting peace in our hearts. There is still something lacking, something that just doesn’t feel right. I know this not so much from personal experience but from reading the honest and sincere confessions of wealthy people who have attained all that society has to offer to them. Most of them are still incurably unsatisfied and endlessly striving for the next new thing that would give them an interim sense of peace, hope and security. Alas, all is but a mirage and nothing could truly give them an anchorage of peace, hope and security. Beloved, what is the one thing that you lack, or the one thing that you are unable to let go?

The irony about the rat race metaphor is that ultimately, when we finally have it all, that is, everything that others could only dream about, we are still nothing but a “rat” in the race. To transcend that, to rise above the “rat” metaphor, we need to take that all-important walk with God to lay our earthly idols on the sacrificial altar. It is at this altar that God will whisper these words to us, “If you put me above everything, I will put you above everything.”

Let me end with this quote that coincides with the theme of this letter from the writings of a renowned philosopher, “There once was in man a true happiness of which now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present. But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.”

Have a warm, meaningful December holiday.

Friday's Recap (131109)

2009-11-14T20:09:00.004+08:00

Dear Cell, last Friday we talked about “hot air balloon” Christians. These are Christians whose words are louder than their actions. They make many promises but do little to fulfill them. They are blank-cheque Christians whose bank balances are as empty as their claims. We should be mindful of them lest we become like them. Talk is indeed cheap. Action is golden. GK Chesterton once wrote, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and not tried.” The worst label you can hang on a Christian is the word “hypocrite.” It basically costs little to be a hypocrite. Nothing much is expected of you as a hypocrite. The only requirement to qualify as one is to never cease to not practise what you preach. It is therefore easy to be a hypocrite but difficult to be authentic. That is why the words of GK Chesterton are so haunting for us as Christians living in a world where the temptation to inaction, the seduction of indifference, and the lull of personal convenience are so strong and irresistible.

Sadly, the life of Jesus is a life of great personal challenge and none of us should take it lightly and for granted. When Jesus made the personal call to carry the cross and follow him, he is not inviting us to live a life of smooth sailing, conveniences and luxury. It is not an invitation to treat, a call to pleasure or an offer for lifetime enjoyment. The cross is heavy not so much to the body but to the spirit and the soul. The weight comes in the form of a genuine heart transformation and not a change of external circumstances. Let me explain. Jesus did issue a promise to us. This promise is that we will have abundant life and have it more abundantly when we believe in Him. But what is this abundant life? What does an abundant life entail? Does it mean a life of exceeding wealth, good health and success guaranteed?

Well, this is the shocker…it encompasses much more than that. An abundant life is more than wealth and health. It is more than material success. But here is the qualification. What I mean by “an abundant life is more than wealth and health” is that we may not necessarily be wealthy and healthy by becoming a Christian. But, and here’s the cruncher, we are more than wealthy and healthy when we truly experience a genuine heart transformation. Many Christians do not see it this way because it is so unattractive and unappealing. Where is the "bait" for evangelizing to a non-believer by telling him that a Christian will have trouble just like anyone else? What’s the catch for a non-believer if we tell him that there is just as much chance that he will die poor as he will die rich? Or he will die young? Or he will die under the randomized hand of cancer, heart attack or stroke?

Beloved, I am a Christian realist. Another name for a Christian realist is “Beatitudians”. My faith is based on the reality and profundity of Jesus’ teachings in the Sermons of the Mount (Matthew 5:3-10). If you take the time to read these few verses, you will note that Jesus had specifically reserved a list of blessings for those who demonstrate certain qualities in their Christian life. Some of these qualities are a broken spirit, a mournful soul, a humble heart and a desire for righteousness. These are the qualities that Jesus said will be the recipients of his Father’s blessings. In fact, there is even a blessing reserved for those who are persecuted for righteousness and the blessing is spelt out as the gift of God’s eternal kingdom of heaven. The ultimate reward is our eternal rest in heaven (Matthew 5:12). So, where are the blessings for getting rich, being famous, living a long life? There are none and they are secondary to those blessings listed by Jesus in the Sermon of the Mount.

Of course, I am not against wealth and good health. On the contrary, I believe that Christians are just as entitled to them as non-believers. But, what I am against as a Christian realist is the unbalanced sermonizing that wealth and good health are the inalienable entitlements of all Christians and if we do not have them in the long haul, then there is something terribly wrong with us. This message is contrary to what Jesus has taught us in the Beatitudes. We should not forget that wealth and health are not synonymous with faith. The truth is, I have heard of and seen many wealthy good Christians living to a ripe old age as well as poor ones dying young. If you read about the history of Christian martyrs in China, you will see true faith in action, some of whom had given their lives in sacrifice to God with nothing to their names – not a nickel, not a dime. They died admirable deaths, suffered nobly in the face of torture, and lived without wealth or chattels, many whose names will never be known or documented, except in the Book of Life.

I sincerely believe that the quality of our faith as a Christian is in the changing of our character for God, that is, to be more Christ-like, to seek after His righteousness, and to live with a pure heart. Ultimately, the goal of a life well-lived for God will be one where we are able to profess these words with conviction, “Whatever to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.” (Phil. 3:7-9). I guess our disappointments in Christian life come from unmet expectations and these unmet expectations are a result of pegging our hope to better circumstances rather than a better character. We must come to a point to accept that things are not going to change for the better just because we are believers. It is just plain wrong to expect problems to magically disappear, sickness to vaporize, and relationships to be restored upon our petitioning them to God. Well, I am not saying that our problems will remain unresolved when we do petition them to God. But I am saying that we are not in heaven yet and we cannot expect bad things to go away instantaneously just because we pray against them.

As a Christian realist, our hope is not in the reality that our life is going to be a bed of roses. In all probability, it will not be. We are all going through our own personal struggles to live an authentic Christian life. At the cell, we identified four inner struggles we all face. The first struggle is the overcrowding of our soul and the common refrain here is this: “I’m too busy”. Indeed, our busyness distracts and disrupts us from other worthy pursuits in our life. In our busyness, we have forgotten what is important and what is not. In our busyness, we have subconsciously surrendered all control and aspects of our life to our work. In the end, we have no time for God. Once we were firebrand for God. Now, we are drenched charcoal. When we have little time for God, we reduce our religion to the practice of what CS Lewis call, “parachute theology”. Our religion now becomes like a parachute strapped to our back. And we will never bother to use it unless and until a crisis strike. For some, they may even bring their unopened parachute to their grave.

This parachute theology also reduces our relationship to God into a commercialized one. We gradually treat our religion as a transaction for self-benefit. God then becomes a Santa Claus character. Soon, we will come to God expecting more from Him rather than offering ourselves to Him. God then becomes the God of our wants who is at our beck and call. Patrick Morley, the author of Seven Seasons of the Man in the Mirror, wrote, “There is a God we want, and there is a God who is. They are not the same. The turning point of our lives is when we stop seeking the God we want and start seeking the God who is.” Beloved, this is what we must guard against: To see God as a vending machine rather than a passionate Creator who deeply desires our communion with Him. It is time to take time in our own hands and reprioritize our life. We control our time; we determine our focus. We must make an effort to return to God and to develop a relationship with Him instead of treating Him as just a dispenser of good gifts and nothing more.

Our second struggle is that of the cynicism of the mind and the customary complaint here is, “I doubt”. We all have doubts; at one time or another. By doubting, we are actually admitting to God that we are trying to understand Him through our limited, finite human mind. Alas, no one can fully understand God, or comprehend His ways, His mind and His plan. I have my doubts too. But such doubts are even greater when I remove God out of the equation and place my trust on science to offer the better answer to our existence and our origin. Science alone does not have the better answer. Science can only answer the “how” and not the “Why”. Science alone cannot answer questions pertaining to the meaning of life and how we came about. It may be within the province of science to tally up the physical laws of this world but not the “law” of love and the “rules” of human creativity and consciousness. Surely, science cannot encapsulate all of a person’s rich personal experiences into a formula or an equation.

In the end, all my atheistic searches lead me back to the open arms of my savior and to His assurance that He will one day give me a full account of everything so as to reconcile all my doubts with full understanding.

The third struggle is the paralysis of the will and it comes with this usual utterance, “I can’t”. Beloved, we have altogether lost a sense of divine urgency in our pursuit of all things spiritual. We need to take a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday grinding and start to ask ourselves these questions: What really matters to us? What would we really like to accomplish? What legacy would we like to leave behind? Until we can answer them and answer them with conviction, we can stop making or renewing new-year resolutions because we will never fulfill them. Without an underlying motivation for our actions, all our new-year resolutions will just remain as wishful thinking and die stillborn. We have to seek out our first love for God and renew our passion before we can live an exemplary and victorious life. This is our basic Christian responsibility and to settle for anything less is to squander our opportunities for growth in our Christian walk. At this point, a relevant saying comes to mind, “In order to reach the moon, it makes a difference which way you point your rocket, up or down.” By the same token, in order to live a victorious Christian life, it matters where you direct your efforts, towards a sustaining and rewarding relationship with God or to go the opposite way. Although it is merely one choice away, it would be the greatest and toughest choice you will ever make in this life. So, press hard for it.

The last struggle is the primal wounds of the heart and the typical expression is “I’m hurt.” All of us are hurt in some ways. For some, our emotional wounds are still unhealed and bleeding. There are just too many things we do not understand about our hurts, and why they should come at such a bad time and stay with us for so long. We sometimes blame ourselves for our pain. At other times, we even blame God. There is just no one-size-fit-all answer to all our pain and sufferings. Our pain is individually felt and personally experienced and we will have to meet God on this very individual and personal level. In other words, we just have to deal with them on our own; confronting God for assurance and asking for strength and peace to carry us through.

Recently I read a story told by DL Moody that inspired me to look at our personal sufferings from a fresh perspective. It is hoped that the story below will make you see your trials differently and imbue in your spirit the strength and hope to brave through your own afflictions.

“Dr Andrew Bonar told me how, in the Highlands of Scotland, a sheep would often wander off into the rocks and get into places that they couldn’t get out of. The grass on these mountains is very sweet and the sheep like it, and they will jump down ten or twelve feet, and then they can’t jump back again and the shepherd hears them bleating in distress. They may be there for days, until they have eaten all the grass. The shepherd will wait until they are faint that they cannot stand, and then they will put a rope around him, and he will go over and pull that sheep up out of the jaws of death.

“Why don’t they go down there when the sheep first gets there?” asked Moody.

“Ah!” he said, “they are so very foolish they would dash right over the precipice and be killed if they did.”

Moody then concludes this story by saying,

“And that is the way with men; they won’t go back to God till they have no friends and have lost everything. If you are a wanderer I tell you that the Good Shepherd will bring you back the moment you have given up trying to save yourself and are willing to let Him save you His own way.”

Beloved, God is saving you in His own way. Perhaps you should let go now and let God rope you up from your abyss. Cease struggling to break free from your trial with your own strength and learn to rest in the saving arms of the Good Shepherd.

Have a restful week ahead.

Friday's Recap (301009)

2009-10-31T17:02:00.003+08:00

Dear Cell, last Friday we discussed about unscriptural convictions and then we examined its undesirable impact and influence. Predictably, we got carried away and started to go into the heart of what is currently wrong with Christianity and how we personally felt about it. Of course, we are not qualified socio-religious commentators or ecumenical (whole Christian Church) pundits. But our discussion did shed some light into the disturbing dark side of beliefs. We talked about how a famous mega-church pastor once told the media that he wished he had a Holy Ghost machine gun so that he could use it to hunt down his enemies (here means his critics). No matter what faith or religious background you come from, that statement would surely send shivers and chills down your spiritual spine. It is just a wrong statement, morally and spiritually. The televangelist should have known better but somehow bad taste and bad judgment got the better of him.

Then, we talked about false prophets, people who used the name of God for self-gain and self-popularization. Basically, God’s name was used by them for their own sake and not for His kingdom. Of course, false prophets come in varying sizes and degrees. Jim Jones and David Koresh are unmistakable examples of false prophets. Their warped doctrines and egregious deeds say it all about their egomaniacal personalities.

But the Bible has a broader definition of a false prophet and 2 Peter 2:1-3 gives us a good footing on this, “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them…Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up.” This is a sobering warning for Christians to keep watch and pray for people I label as “Jesus-less Christians”. And the only way you can tell them apart from the rest is the fruits that their life and ministry bear. Jesus said that it is by their fruits that you shall know them and indeed there is no better way. When in doubt about a person or a ministry or even a church, the best advice is to take the “wait-and-see” approach.

In the meantime, we do our part to suspend all judgments and keep our noses clean until such time when all that really matters are revealed. We must trust that our God is the God of truth and truth like a flooding light in pitched darkness cannot stay hidden, covered or suppressed for long. All you need is a crack or a leak in the character or ministry and the shaft of light will pour forth and expose the corroded structures. When that time comes, we can all taste the fruits for ourselves and see whether it is sweet or rotten.

What is sad about the emergence of all these false prophets and teachers is that they thrived richly and grandly under our consummeristic culture. It is like oxygen to them and their ministry. And when they thrived, they also bred in the hearts and minds of their congregants the message that self-satisfaction is better than self-sacrifice, convenience is better than conviction, and prosperity is better than poverty. There is in fact no easier, more convenient and more seductive evangelistic bait than a religion that does everything for you, costs you nothing, is readily available at your beck and call and comes with a lifetime warranty of an eternal bliss. This is what some churches are peddling or selling to their congregation. Beloved, our faith has been commodified. It has been packed, branded and marketed in return for profit like any secular businesses in this world. I think the label “McChurch” describes it well.

Like McDonald, some churches are growing both locally and internationally. They have global networks, branches, offices, and headquarters. They own large estates, private amusement parks, shopping malls, grand mansions, getaway resorts, private companies, a stable of luxury cars, and lots and lots of cash and investments. I think a famous quote (attributed to a former Chaplain Richard Halverson) expresses the cultural phenomena best, “In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centering on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then, it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. And, finally, it moved to America, where it became an enterprise.”

What’s wrong with all these ownerships?

Let’s be clear about one thing. God owns everything, the “here and now”, the “there and beyond”. All that our eyes can see and cannot see, God owns it all. Who is therefore the real owner of this created world? God is and He will forever be. So, we should never forget who is the real Owner. (the operative word is “never”) CS Lewis, with his characteristic wit, once wrote, “He who has God and everything has no more than he who has God alone.” Indeed, God is all we ever need; everything else is costume jewelry. Having said this, I issue you this challenge: Can you come to a stage whereby you can, with a lifted spirit, sing this hymn to our God, “…turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace,” and mean every word of it? Beloved, this is not a personal call to poverty and to sell all your earthly possessions. But it is a call to stewardship. We may own all things on paper, like title deeds, shares certificates and promissory notes, with our names on them; but we mentally attribute true ownership to God. We become His stewards, tending to His gardens, managing His investments, and preserving His properties. We dedicate all that we have to God and use them for the expansion of God’s kingdom. We practise what I call Christian Capitalism, using our wealth responsibly to bless others first and in turn be blessed by them.

Beloved, the risk of having more in this world, that is, bigger houses, bigger bank accounts, bigger cars, bigger ambition, bigger reputations, bigger accomplishments, is the risk of not having enough. I trust that all of you are and will, in one way of another, prosper in your own time and in your own way. Some of you will progress faster than others in your career, gain more in material blessings, and be recognized for your accomplishments. Money is of course important; but to the same extent that balance and contentment are equally important, if not more. There’s a saying that if you want to see a person’s true character, give him power. If you want to see the effect in double quick time, give him absolute power. This applies, with equal force, with money. Of course, we all know that money doesn’t corrupt. Money is amoral. That much is agreed. But it is not money that we should be worried about; it is the money-handler and his corruptible intentions that should be guarded against.

Here, the words of former Chaplain Richard Halverson deserve another full quote, “Jesus Christ said more about money than any other single thing because, when it comes to a man’s real nature, money is of first importance. Money is an exact index to a man’s true character. All through Scripture there is an intimate correlation between the development of a man’s character and how he handles his money.”

Jesus had warned us repeatedly about money in his short lifetime on earth because it concerns our soul and spirit. His admonishment to the rich young man was the hallmark of his many teachings (see Luke 18:18). No one should doubt the sincerity of the rich young man on his desire to follow Jesus just like no one should doubt that he was extremely wealthy. He was also a perfectionist, I guess. He listened and obeyed every commandment in the Old Testament since he was a rich young boy. So, he was both a say-er and a doer. By any standards, he was a “good Christian” way ahead of his time. Yet, we know that he was not shortlisted to join Jesus’ ministry because he had self-disqualified himself.

Although his attitude towards everything in life passed with flying colors, his attitude towards money flopped big time. In the end, he just could not envision a life following Jesus without wealth. I think CS Lewis’ adage above does not apply to him – he wants both God and everything. His attitude is such that wealth is inseparable with life. One cannot live without the other. Sadly, I think the rich young man had missed Jesus’ point altogether. I like to think that Jesus did not literally want him to sell everything and give them all to the poor – at least not immediately or in the near future. If I may be allowed to engage in some scriptural adventurism, I would like to think that Jesus wanted the rich young man to experience a change of heart first before he proceeds with a change of behavior. For it is with a change of heart that we can truly be transformed for good and forever. Borrowing the words of Confucius would be proper here, “Wherever you go, go with your heart?” I guess if the rich young man were to follow Jesus, he would have left his heart behind – a heart for all his wealth.

Beloved, what is your attitude towards money? Is it your master or your servant? Of course, at this stage, most of us do not have enough to allow it to lord over us. But it is not in the quantity that counts; it is in the quality. We can have a heart of avarice or greed without having a lot of money. We can secretly strive for personal fame and recognition on the pretense of doing good and performing charity. We can camouflage blind ambition as human aspirations and progress. You therefore don’t need money to be corrupted; you just need an un-surrendered, rebellious heart. Matthew 6:21 puts it best, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.”

So, let’s go back to McChurch. Here are some of the rotten fruits that these false prophets or teachers frequently produce to mislead their gullible flock (and the central theme in all their teachings has to do with self-enriching on a grand scale either in terms of gaining more money or more fame)

1) False Promises and False Hopes. Many of them will tell you things you want to hear and, because you want so much to hear them, you more readily and more easily believe them - hook, line and sinker. Many sincere Christians have become easy target for the outlandish, unscriptural promises coming out from the mouth of these false shepherds of God. Now, I want to be brutally honest with statistics here. There have been claims of resurrections, growing of amputated limbs, and healing of terminal cancer, among other dreaded diseases. There is even a ministry that specialized in a program called “Raise the Dead”. However, statistics do not lie. These so called “miracles of God” were, for reasons unbeknownst to most, always anecdotal, after-the-facts, and poorly documented.

When confronted for objective verification, these faith-healers were unable to reproduce the same miracle in the eyes of an impartial public and, to save face, they never failed to give lame excuses for their inability to “conjure” up a miracle; as if God only works miracles under spotless and pristine conditions. I am submitting that there are reasons to doubt the claims made by them not so much because of a lack of proof but of a lack of character and integrity. You shall know them by their fruits. The lives of these false prophets say it all. Most of the time, their ministries are about money; the more the merrier. Fame and recognition comes at a close second. One international televangelist even threatened the public that if they held back their seed money from him, his god would charge them 20 percent (interests) and take it away from them through tragedy!

Another went to the extent of blackmailing his congregation by telling them that if his ministry does not raise 1.5 million dollars by a certain deadline, his god will take his life! Imagine being forced to give by the threat of death. Still another told his congregation that he once visited heaven and saw Jesus personally and yet, at another point in his life, he testified that he had allowed demons to possess and take control of his body, thrashing it from one wall to another! You just can’t help but squirm in confusion about such unbiblical baloney.

2) False visions. Seeing vision and dreaming dreams are one of the main operandi modus of these self-styled faith healers. One pastor claimed to have been to heaven and he saw Jesus. He described Jesus as having the loveliest brown eyes he had ever seen; very much like those of Bambi’s. Jesus was also radiating with many colors and one of them that shone the brightest was pink. He also saw the apostle Paul and he described him as short, bald and monk-like.

Another pastor claimed to have numerous out-of-body experiences and one of them took him to a place where he was having a discussion with Jesus. In the middle of it, a demon monkey leapt out from nowhere and created a racket. After a while of monkeying around, the pastor took control of the situation and commanded the demon monkey to shut up in the name of Jesus. Then, what’s most disturbing were these alleged words of Jesus to the pastor, “If you hadn’t done something about that (demon monkey), I couldn’t have.” Imagine Jesus, the one who overcame life and death, was completely helpless until the pastor took charge! Beloved, I am not denigrating dreams and visions. I believe there are authentic visions like that of Jesus’ transfiguration. What I am against are dreams and visions for its own sake, in particular, for self-glory. To see through these fake imaginings or illusions, we have to constantly pray for discernment and spiritual maturity.

3) False Guilt and Fear. I believe that true guilt and fear lead to a heart of conviction and true repentance. The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This is the fear that draws us closer to God. But the guilt trip and fear that the false prophet plant in the hearts of his congregations are of a different nature altogether. A pastor once told his church that any pastor who does not accept what God had told him would “fall dead in the pulpit”! In another incident, the pastor’s wife doubted what she saw in a service when a woman levitated from an altar and stood in mid-air dancing. Immediately, the pastor’s wife was “slain” by the Spirit of God and was glued to the floor. She writhed in pain for a while, struggling to stand up. However, all her efforts were in vain until she acknowledged that she was wrong.

Sadly, there are many out there who are held spellbound by these false prophets and their cultic sway. Most of them elected to stay compliant in their respective ministries because they were afraid of spiritual reprisals when they leave. Some of them were even stunted in their faith through guilt. Thanks to the twisted teachings of the so-called shepherds of God, they repeatedly blame their circumstances and their sickness on their lack of faith and trust in God. These helpless souls are literally at the mercy of their spiritual leaders and the latter continues to subjugate them by injecting guilt into their spiritual veins with one hand and dangling false hope with the other. In the light of this, one can identify with these words from the mouth of a non-believer, “Religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.”

4) Lastly, False Teachings. One pastor admitted that he regularly visited grave sites of dead evangelists in order to assimilate the “anointing’ from their bones. He also said that the Holy Spirit once told him that women were originally designed to give birth out of their side! Although these pulpit ramblings seem silly and ridiculous, there are some teachings that are serious enough to warrant some attention and addressing. A pastor once preached this, “Do you think that the punishment for our sin was to die on a cross? If that were the case, the two thieves could have paid your price. No, the punishment was (for Jesus) to go to hell itself and to serve time in hell separated from God.” Well, I didn’t know the two thieves were “God’s begotten children” and part of the Trinity! Anyway, Jesus said it was finished at the cross and not in hell. His victory and our salvation were secured when he died on the cross. The idea that Jesus had to serve in hell like a common prisoner before we can be saved is a dangerous idea and, if we do not take care of what we listen, such ideas can grow wings, distort the truth, and derail our spiritual walk.

Another false teaching is the prosperity teachings so popular among the charismatic circles. One pastor claimed that Jesus wore designer’s robe, lived in a big house, had a rich ministry, and rode on a brand new donkey. Another pastor barked, “…the reason why I drive a Rolls Royce is because I’m following in the step of Jesus.” Well, with such cheap sloganeering and racy advertisements, who wouldn’t want to be a Christian?

As an aside, I can understand why this is so from a limited perspective. In life, all of us, with no exceptions, want to prosper both physically and professionally. We want the best for ourselves and our families. Who doesn’t want promotion, increased salary, recognition, power, and health? If we are honest enough, we will admit that we want it all; if possible, as soon as possible. And there is nothing wrong with wanting it all per se. Well, I will not deal with the issue of money and our heart since I have already dealt with it at length previously. At this point, I just want to balance things up. I want to give you a realistic credit and debit of life’s accounting. In essence, Jesus never promised us a rose garden. But He did promise us a garden Gethsemanes when He said, “In this world you will have troubles. But, behold, I have overcome the world.”

Somehow, there is something insidious and patently wrong with the hundred-fold prosperity message. Those prosperity preachers who exalt the goodness of God and promise that for every seed money sent to them, God would bless the giver a hundred fold back, are terrible economists. Picture this: if everyone were to give to these money-leeching ministries, holding nothing back, and what was promised to them (that is, a hundredfold return) was fulfilled without exception, then, imagine the chaos in the world economy! There will be runaway, hyper-inflation with prices of goods and services skyrocketing to the economic stratospheres! Too much money chasing after too little goods would mean that a loaf of bread may very well cost a million Singapore dollars and we will have to wheel-cart bundles of cash all the way to the mall just to buy a bottle of milk. I guess such promises are just too far removed from reality to be believed and yet many were nevertheless hook-winked by the “hundredfold” bait just like many were fleeced by the Madoff scheme. I can also guess that the only one enjoying the hundredfold return is the one who made the empty promise in the first place. It is therefore the spiritual con-artists who are laughing their way to the banks.

In the last cell, I shared about one scripture that convicted me deeply when I was a new Christian and it still holds great important to me today. The relevance of this scripture to my message will become clear soon enough. John 12:24 puts it eloquently, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Beloved, this is the heart of the message. This is Jesus’ message and His legacy for all true believers. The credit and debit of life’s accounting is based on this scripture. The credits to being believers are this: our life is transformed from darkness into his marvelous light. We are saved and our eternity is secured. As long as we trust in God, we will always have this hope and this hope is powerful enough to carry us through life, even through the toughest of times. This is the good news. Empowered by this news, we then live our life with faith, hope and love. We live our life as if on borrowed time and do our best in all our endeavors. Prosperity may come our way when we live for Christ. We may become successful. We may have lots of money and real estate. We may have good health and a strong, united family.

Or we may not. We may suffer illnesses, some even life-threatening beyond our control. However hard we try, our family may break up because of a prodigal spirit. Our career may careen off track and temporary poverty becomes our lot. We may experience early death in a family or sorrow too painful to speak of. So, don’t let the prosperity preachers take reality away from you. Don’t let them wind you up with false hopes and empty promises. Our hundredfold blessing has already been given to us at two points in history: one was when Jesus died in our place and another when He went before us to prepare our mansion. Beloved, don’t give your blessings away to the spiritual con-artists and sell away your birthrights.

In life’s interim, Jesus’ message is this: Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. Beloved, we cannot be a blessing to others if we do not let go of the blessing we hold in our hands. We are “seeds to be planted” and are of no use to God’s Kingdom if they remain above ground. But to plant them in God’s soil, metaphorically speaking, is to give of ourselves to Him completely. Our surrender is what is required of us in exchange for an abundant life; not necessarily in wealth and health. But in a definite victory that Jesus experienced two thousand years ago, that is, a victory over life unceasing strivings, over life’s pain and sorrow, over the sting of death, and of the enduring assurance that God is good and He will make all things good again in the end, be it in our lifetime or in the life to come.

On this note, I will let 1 Peter 2:21-23 (The Message) bring us home,

“This is the kind of life you’ve been invited into,

the kind of life Christ lived.

He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done,

and also know how to do it, step by step,

“He never did one thing wrong,

Not once said anything amiss.”

They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back.

He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right.”

Have a hundredfold week ahead!

Friday's Recap

2009-10-25T18:35:00.002+08:00

Dear cell, here is Zenn's take on last Friday's charged-up discussion.

Contentment

Last night in cell we spoke casually about Louis Vuitton (LV) bag. This is in wake of what we have been discussing – one should be contented. Mm, does it mean that having an LV bag label one as discontented and materialistic?

I have to say I kept on seeing LV last night. In my dreams, that is. It did not click. What does having LV got to do with the spiritual walk. Many take it that it is normal to go on holidays every year, and the bills for holidays keep escalating. But wait a minute. No one seemed to say that this person is not contented. Mm. After all, does it not mean that one is discontented in one’s current state if one needs to get out of the country? Holiday is supposed to stand for holy-day. Wow, I did not know that being in God’s sanctuary involve getting as far away from home as possible!

Ok. Some will start to wonder, ‘Zenn must be an LV fan’. No, I am not the kind who must own everything branded, and neither do I own an LV bag. But I must say that we must be careful sometimes in our judgement, lest it can become quite Pharisee-like. That said, I better confess first that I do own something LV- my wallet. I have never looked for an LV wallet, but after we got the car, I needed a practical sized wallet that can last and hold my more than ten cards, notes, coins, house and car keys (those with car keys know it is bulky!), as well as pocket tissue paper. Yes, my LV wallet did it, and from then on it became one of my treasured possessions. Not because of the branding, but because it is practical, really last and is of good quality (I must confess I am very much into quality and so do go for seemingly designer brands for its sheer quality sometimes).

On the other extreme, I have heard of people who have taken it all wrong and assume that being contented means spending as little as possible on each item. They actually call this being simple. But a look at their spending pattern reveals otherwise. Some of these people actually have become addicted to the pleasure of purchase (yes, I personally have known quite a few of such people). They have to buy and buy. In fact, they shop and buy new items every week! Try giving them more money and see what happens… you get the drill.

Therefore, what I am trying to imply is that we cannot look at a person’s external appearance and derive our own conclusions. Neither did the bible link contentment only to one’s material possessions. In fact, like always, God says He looks at the heart. It is actually much more encompassing and when lived correctly, enables God’s children to truly live joyfully in this world. And that is why diving deeper into this study is essential.

First of all, being contented has to do with being comfortable with who you are and the status you are born into in this world. There are many who complain why they are born in a certain country, to certain parents, and have certain siblings. It seem like we are forced to be born to this world and have no choice with regards one’s standing. God has a purpose for putting us exactly where we are. After all, he engineered our birth. So, we must accept and appreciate our birth.

We have to be contented with the talents we are born with – first, how clever we were in studies, followed by where we land up in for work and where we are now in our career. Also, how much money we make. Basically, in the Parable of the Talents, it clearly states we are all born with different talents and therefore the result in life is also different. It also means accepting that there will always be people who are already born in a more advantageous position than us. But it did not say we stop there. We are not to be contented to the point of being stagnant or lazy! Remember the case of the person who simply bury his talent? God took it away from him! Imagine if we have the wrong conviction and think that being contented means just being happy with what we have and not progressing. Then God may pass the talent (in the form of promotion or more money) to the person who can handle it better. That will be really sad, when initially God planned to give it to us.

Everyone of us has our own place in life where we are tested and will have to answer to God on the day we meet Him. Contentment includes not looking in another’s life- how much better or worse off they are than us. A good example of this is when Peter asked Jesus, ‘then what about him (John)?’ What if God told Peter then that John’s life ending will be much more pleasant? And, wait a minute, is not Peter the rock? Why does he have a worse ending? There again, if we look from a human point of view, nothing makes sense. Even faith does not make sense. Obedience to God many times does not make sense, eg. What has circling round the walls of Jericho got to do with pulling it down?

In fact, we have to be careful throughout life, because we never will always be in the same situation as we are in right now, and the test of contentment can take a different form. Let me give you a real life example- someone I know who used to appear very simple (=contented?) suddenly got a bank job. She changed her style of dressing, put on very pleasant make up, and looks much prettier now. One can say God blessed her with that job, and in fact she prayed for it. But what happened? She became discontented- that is, with her husband. She complains he is too boring because he dresses too plainly, he does not speak like the other banker guys, he earns less than them by doing almost the same job… ah ha… danger zone. When God answers our prayers, many times our test in life takes a different form. When we pass that test, we move on to the next higher level in life (in God’s terms).

Does this mean we cannot progress? No, of course not. If this is so, then the bible will not talk about God granting the desires of our heart. The key word is ‘desire’. Desire is not a need; it is a want. Therefore, being contented means we are to be appreciative of where we are now, no matter the circumstances, but it does not mean we have to resign to the fact that we will always be only where we are now. It means we try our best, and let God do the rest. It means when we talk about contentment, we live in the present. Today is a present (gift) so long as we enjoy today. But as for our tomorrows, we are taught not to worry, and cast all our cares on Him. It means we live rightly right now and everyday the best we know how in our present circumstances and tell God our wishes. Then we let Him decide if He will answer our prayers. We trust that God knows best if giving us more is better or worse off for us, and just for that faith, we persevere and hold on and appreciate (be contented) with our present.

Ah ha, what if our desire is for an LV bag? God never said we cannot like branded goods, did he? Mm… what about guys who are IT-crazy, or car crazy… mm… what about mums who send their kids for piano lessons? Can that not be considered materialism (although it is not self-indulgence but it is still a luxury good to be sending a kid to piano class, is it not)? My end point is this- do not judge. Only God can look at the heart and tell you why a person wants to take a particular course of action. If one buys a perceived upmarket item (can range from LV bag to a BMW or even a private property) purely for one’s own pleasure and within one’s budget and carry it with the right attitude (not as a one up against another), I believe with all my heart that the person has God’s approval.

For me, being contented the way God teaches is actually ultimate freedom, because we can look at something and truly appreciate it for what it is, whatever the item or price tag. For example, do I like designer goods? Yes and no. Some of their items are really nice, and I have no problem stepping into the shops and just appreciate them. Do I feel a stab if I see others buying something I like? No, definitely not. Will I buy an item I like if it is within my means? Well, if I extremely like it, the price is affordable and I have the money for it, and I foresee myself using it for a long time, why not?! But what if I already have something similar? Ah ha, that is where when one matures in Christ, one knows. You will stop and not buy that item. Ok. This is a small item. Let us talk about bigger items. Like, cars and houses. To many in society, it is a measure of success. So, do we buy the best car and house we can afford or do we exercise discipline and patience and get something less stressful on our wallets and health? Contentment will teach you to get something very much within your salary range and live comfortable with it.

When we are contented, we start to realize that we are worth more than many sparrows not because of what we have or how much money we make, but by who we are in Christ. Theoretically we know the concept but it is entirely different in practical application. When one is truly contented, one realizes suddenly that a lot of doors are open. We are not confined to having to take up whatever job that earns us the most money, in conformity to this world. We are not bothered how the world looks at us and judge for themselves how successful we are, because we know we are simply successful based on the fact we are chosen by God to be His child and that beats any amount of money this world can offer (if talk about money, then Jesus must be really tempted to be offered the whole world but He even answered the whole world is not even worth the price of our soul! How worthless in comparison to eternity money is). We can finally live life with a passion, even for work. We are able not to be slaves to money, just to pay off our ever-rising demands, but instead we know how to spend wisely and have the additional option of getting a job we like more, though it pays less (new discovery for myself). This enables us to truly live to work and work to live!

Recently I have also been taught that contentment also means jamming the brake. I always have a desire- to provide my daughter with everything I do not have as a child. I even went to the point of calculating how successful in money making I must be in order to afford her university fees, buy her a car to drive to school, then how to buy a freehold property so if she cannot afford to own a place (given how the crazy property market is faring now and the lack of land space in Singapore), she will have a house to live in when I die… I think it sounds very noble to be planning so much for one’s loved one. But, alas, it is also a form of discontentment. I only realized it when my thoughts got out of hand late one night and I heard the still small voice which basically said that owning a house is my daughter’s life race and not mine!

When we are more and more mature in our area of contentment in our lives, we start to realize that this world wants to conform us into their image and when we do, we become discontented and have unhealthy desires. But there is normal desire that is harmless and those areas, God will bless us, His children, when we are ready. The difference in whether it is a worldly or godly-approved desire lies in our motives and attitude. When we are able to manage our expectations realistically, God, our heavenly Father, will long to satisfy us! Like the scriptures put it, if even our earthly fathers know how to give good gifts to us, how much more will our heavenly Father do so!

So yes, cell, go for it. If your desire is LV bag and you have the right attitude, go. (within budget, that is)

Zenn Tan

24^th October 2009.

P/S. Augustine aptly writes that we should love:

a) the right thing

b) to the right degree

c) in the right way

d) with the right kind of love.

Friday's Recap(101009)

2009-10-11T08:02:00.003+08:00

Dear Cell, last Friday, we were all asked this question, “Does it bother you that God is intentionally hiding? Why and why not?” Some of you were of the view God does not intentionally hide from us. In fact, one of the members said that it is more like we are hiding from Him; just like Adam and Eve did when they were aware of their nakedness and were afraid of it. For those who are hiding from God because of sins, guilt, fear and shame, James 4:8 issues this invitation, “…Come near to God and He will come near to you.”

But the question plumbs deeper than this. The question expects us to delve deeper into our hearts and our circumstances to reveal our human frailty and agony. All of us have moments of anguish and angst. All of us have cried to God and cried to our loved ones. Some of us have even cried to ourselves until complete physical exhaustion. In this life, there are indeed sorrows too deep for easy reach, pain too intense for quick relieve, and sadness too unrelenting for words or consolation. And we are not alone in our pain and sorrow. Psalms 88 is one of the most discouraging chapters in the Bible. In that scripture, the Psalmist poured out his heart to God. “But I, O Lord, cry to you in the morning my prayer comes before you. O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me?”

There are others waiting in line to share their grief in this life. CS Lewis is just one of the millions. CS Lewis was only ten when he watched his beloved mother die of cancer. Then, he was sent to a boarding school only to find himself tormented in the hands of a sadistic headmaster. Two years later, his headmaster was declared insane. Thereafter, CS Lewis’ life ascended to great heights of literary fame and worldwide adoration, which culminated to his marriage to his soul mate, Joy Gresham.

Just when everything was going right for him, Joy was diagnosed with cancer, the same dreaded disease that killed his mother. Their marriage did not last long, only five years, when Joy succumbed to cancer and died at age 45. Was God a cosmic sadist or a spiteful imbecile? - asked CS Lewis. These were tough times for him and he asked tough questions. The man who led many intellectuals to an intellectually-defensible conviction of the existence of God in a world of seemingly unspeakable cruelty was so distraught that he penned these haunting words in his book A Grief Observed, “What chokes every prayer and every hope is the memory of all the prayers (Joy) and I offered and all the false hopes we had. Not hopes raised merely by our own wishful thinking, but hopes encouraged, even forced upon us, by false diagnoses, by X-ray photographs, by strange remissions, by one temporary recovery that might have ranked as a miracle. Step by step we were led up the garden path. Time after time, when He seemed most gracious He was really preparing the next torture.” Was God playing with him? Was God toying with his faith? Was God hiding from him when he needed Him most? Although CS Lewis died a stronger Christian than before, he was not exempted from the pain and suffering that this world had inflicted on him. He braved through each and every one of them even during times of great despair and disappointment. Indeed, only in our sorrows do we truly experience the searing paradoxes of humanity; the joy and the pain, the laughter and the sadness, the hope and the betrayal, and the life and the death.

In the book Life in the Balance, I read about a renowned physician by the name of Thomas B. Graboys, MD. He had everything going for him in his life. He was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, a president emeritus of the Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts, and a senior physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. In 1985, he was part of the team of doctors who won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He had a beautiful and smart wife, Caroline, and two lovely daughters. But I guess you’d have expected what comes next. Dr Graboys was singled out for special mention in this letter not because of his achievements, which were extraordinary by any standard, but because of the tragedies that befell on him.

At the peak of his career, Dr Graboys’ experienced his first loss, his wife, Caroline. She endured, suffered and died of colon cancer in 1998. Although Dr Grayboys remarried in 2002, and his life seemed to be back on the fast track, the next loss was even more insidious than the first. Dr Graboys was diagnosed with Parkinson disease. In his own words, he describes this merciless and faceless robber of the human soul as such, “While Parkinson’s, which is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, is usually understood to be a disease characterized by loss of control over body movements, most people afflicted with the disease also experience difficulties with attention, concentration, problem-solving, concept formation, sequencing, vision, depression, and memory. But a significant portion of Parkinson’s patients – and I am one of these – have an associated degenerative disease, known as Lewy Body disease or Lewy Body dementia, which seriously impairs cognition and has other powerful side effects, such as hallucinations and violent REM sleep, that can result in injury to oneself or one’s sleeping partner. By night, I can suddenly lurch out of control; by day, I feel as though I have an on-off switch that controls my brain and I am not in control of it.”

Imagine, gradually losing yourself, your mind, and your personality, and leaving the empty shell of your body totally immobilized, utterly useless and progressively wasting away as the days and weeks roll by. As a result of the disease, he was forced into early retirement in 2006. He now struggles with everything, from physical movements to cognitive abilities, that we all take for granted most of the time. He takes ten times longer to write a short note. He is trapped in a body that no longer fully responds to his will. He has double vision and minor hallucinations. He has to depend on others to bath, wear his clothes, eat and tie his shoelaces. He suffered from slurred speech and temporary paralysis. Even the simple tasks of carrying a cup of coffee and paying for it have become a daunting challenge. Dr Graboys expressed his frustration in his own words, “I am angry over my losses, angry about the terrible pain and anxiety my illness has introduced into the lives of my wife and daughters, angry at the loss of much of my sexuality, angry that my young grandchildren will never know Pops without dementia, angry that it takes me twenty minutes to change a light bulb, angry that the disease has ripped apart the fabric of my life, and angry at being dependent.” Many times, Dr Graboys thought about ending his life and sparing his loved ones the agony of caring for someone who will one day treat them as perfect strangers. In fact, he is not afraid of dying, but he is “afraid of living with a mind that has been erased.”

In the closing of his book, he has this advice to those who are enduring their own life-threatening illness, “Use your faith in God, if you believe in God. There were times when Caroline was ill when, for no apparent reason, I would sit in the non-denominational chapel at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, even though I am not a religious person. Yet sometimes I would find comfort in prayer.”

But, at this juncture, you may ask, “Where is God in all these sufferings?” Where was God when Paul was going through his trials so poetically recorded in 2 Corinthians 11:24-28, “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers; danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea. Danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.” Where was God when Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Was God hiding? Was He restraint? Was He silent? Where was God when King David wrote Psalms 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.”

At last Friday cell, most of us are travailing in our own Garden of Gethsemane. We are hard pressed by circumstances beyond our control, struggling to make ends meet. Meeting deadlines that require more than what we can physically and mentally offer. Holding on to hope that seems so tenuous, so fragile. Some are even questioning God for not giving enough grace for the arduous journey ahead. Well, I would have you know that the word Gethsemane actually means “the oil press”. In order to make olive oil, you will have to press the olive drupes. By pressing, you separate the oil from the other fruit contents like vegetative extract liquid and solid material. So it is with your trials and your travailing. Whatever your circumstances, there is a distinct final product to be gained from your endurance and perseverance. That which seems most puzzling and indefinite to you when you are bombarded by one trial after another will one day come to light with the empowerment of God’s grace, comfort and assurance. Of course, the final product once you have overcome your trial is your absolute reliance on God and your maturity of faith and character in Him.

Having said this, we all know it is never pleasant or easy when you are in thick of it all. It is therefore natural for the tormented or the oppressed in Christ to do what CS Lewis had done – point the finger at God and cry “Foul Play”. Dr Graboys did the same by asking the all too familiar refrain, “Why? Why me? Why now?”

I know ultimately that it is your trial and, in an unfortunate way, it has your signature on it. This means that it is your lot in life and it is for you to overcome and rise above it. But you should never for one second succumb to the devil’s insinuation that you are all alone in your personal struggles. This is the time to rally loved ones and friends together. Of course, our loved ones cannot possibly be with you 24-7 but at the very least, their collective prayers would embolden you and strengthen your faith. God Himself did the same when faced with the evil of Calvary. God in the form of man, that is.

In Matthew 26:38, Jesus rallied Peter, James and John together to pray for and comfort him. To them, he confessed, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” Surely, it is tempting to say that Jesus must be kidding. He was the Son of God, not by adoption like us, but by divine identity. He had the power to turn the tide over in his favor. Yet, when faced with the wrath and insanity of humanity at the cross, he was no different from mere mortal man; tormented, emaciated and fearful. What was Jesus thinking? Well, the truth is, Jesus was not thinking. He was merely obeying. For it is from his lips these words were spoken, “Not my will but thine be done.” Jesus was not looking for immediate deliverance of his trial. He was not looking for a hand out from heaven. He was not asking for power from on high to subjugate his enemies. He was merely asking for strength, strength of the heart, to do what was asked of him. Here, Psalms 10:17 is instructive, “O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted, you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear.”Of course, we know that Jesus’ obedience bore fruits of universal redemption. We know that the end justified the pain and sorrow.
The question here is, “what is your end?” How will your trial turn out? What has God planned for you in your afflictions?

Well, beloved, the first battle would have to be time, chronological season. Your trial will last for a season. As surely as one season goes and another comes, your trial will pour first before it drizzles off. During such time, your hope is twofold: hope of the expiry of your trial and hope in an assurance of eternal glory. I have to say that nothing last forever. Even in death, we know where our eternal address ultimately resides. Some trials are just not made to last. Divorcees, cancer-survivors, discharged bankrupts, reformed convicted and the bereaved will attest to this. They have been through the worst of time in their life and they have the scars of experience to show. But, when the dust settles and the hours turn to days and the weeks to months, the pain of their trials will progressively loses its sting. There will come a time when the trial will become a distant memory and its haunting fades into the pale.

In the interim, your hope is in God to sustain and deliver you. In his affliction, Paul allowed these words to lift his spirit, “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” God’s assurance abound in the Bible and you can surely draw strength and hope in Isaiah 43:2, “When through the deep waters I call you to go, the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow; for I will be with you, your troubles to bless, and sanctify to you your deepest distress.” Indeed, God will lift you above the rivers of sorrow and preserve you in your deepest distress. In fact, the same verses go on to assure, “When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie, my grace, all-sufficient, shall be your supply; the flame shall not hurt you; I only design your dross to consume and your gold to refine.”

Beloved, I think we should meet suffering on God’s term. This was how Joni Eareckson Tada overcame her ordeal. Due to an accident early in her life, she became a quadriplegic. Now, in her sixties, she managed to live life with passion and an all-consuming purpose to help others overcome their own handicap. She is a fighter and her unyielding and indefatigable spirit overcame all that life throws at her. Personally, meeting suffering on God’s terms means to rely on God for your daily sustenance. Instead of seeing troubles with our own eyes and expecting it to end in our time, we put our trust in Him and walk apace with his divine will and plan. Joni put her hope in God and was able to proclaim these words, “Our hope is for the Desire of the nations. Our hope is the Healer of broken hearts, the Friend of sinners, the God of all encouragement, the Father of all comfort, the Lord of all hope. And it is my prayer that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened so that you might know this hope to which he has called you.”

Lastly, beloved, please do not try to understand your pain with your mind. You cannot rationalize why this and that happened to you and get an answer that would satisfy you intellectually. Job’s friends offer many seemingly logical explanations for his plight and it got Job no way near to full comprehension of his lost and pain. In fact, for most of our trials, there are no apparent answers and that’s the way it is going to be, whether we like it or not. It is ultimately your heart that God wants to minister - not with answers that your mind so seek – but with the conviction that He is bigger than your trial. Your hope should therefore be in the ability of God to deliver you and not on the intensity or ferocity of your trial. When your heart is open to God’s full plethora of creative powers, you will then be at peace, resting on the knowledge that God is indeed in purposive control. Even in the eye of a storm, you can rest assured that you are in good hands. At this point, a graffiti found on the wall of a basement in Kuln, Germany, comes to mind, “I believe in the sun even when it isn’t shining. I believe in love even when I am alone. I believe in God even when He is silent.”

Let me end with a worthy quote describing the uniqueness of our God only Pastor John Piper can so deftly capture.

“God is holy in His absolute uniqueness. Everything else belongs to a class. We are human; Rover is a dog; the oak is a tree; Earth is a planet; the Milky Way is one of a billion galaxies; Gabriel is an angel; Satan is a demon. But only God is God. And therefore He is holy, utterly different, distinct, unique. All else is creation. He alone creates. All else begins. He alone always was. All else depends. He alone is self-sufficient. And therefore the holiness of God is synonymous with His infinite value. His glory is the shining forth of His holiness. His holiness is His intrinsic worth – an utterly unique excellence.”

(This quote and many others can be found in the Book, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, whose general editors are John Piper and Justin Taylor)