@hhChoooo… who sneezed?!?!

This story is told of a blind student named John. One day, Bill, his lecturer asked John how he had become blind. The sightless student described an accident that had happened in his teenage years. The tragedy took not just the boy’s sight but also his hope. He told Bill, “I was bitter and angry with God for letting it happen, and I took my anger out on everyone around me. I felt that since I had no future, I wouldn’t lift a finger on my own behalf. Let others wait on me. I shut my bedroom door and refused to come out except for meals.”

His admission surprised Bill. The student he taught displayed no bitterness or anger. He asked John to explain the change. John credited his father. Weary of the pity party and ready for his son to get on with life, he reminded the boy of the impending winter and told him to mount the storm windows. “Do the work before I get home or else…!” the dad insisted, slamming the door on the way out.

John reacted with anger. Muttering and cursing and groping all the way to the garage, he found the windows, step ladder and tools and went to work. “They’ll be sorry when I fall off my ladder and break my neck.” But he didn’t fall. Little by little he inched around the house and finished the chore.

The assignment achieved the dad’s goal. John reluctantly realised he could still work and began to reconstruct his life. Years later he learned something else about that day. When he shared this detail with Bill, his blind eyes misted. “I later discovered that at no time during the day had my father ever been more than four or five feet from my side.”

The father had no intention of letting the boy fall.

You Father has no intention of letting you fall either. You can’t see Him, but He is there.

(excerpt from Come Thirsty by Max Lucado)

Managed to catch YC in the week over a drink, and we spoke about lots of things in the CG, in our lives, what we observed, our Personal time with God. It’s really great to have a brother who’s a kindred spirit to share, encourage and spur each other in this pilgrimage. The conversation meandered into the area of obedience. And it brought to mind something that PCK (Pastor Chung Kai, haha, not the yellow boots one) shared with me few years back.

He shared a little hypothesis, which I feel to some extent is rather true.

I’m sure most of us are familiar with IQ - Inteligeance quotient (can see I don’t have much, can’t spell). And recently Emotional Quotient - EQ for short. PCK introduced something he termed the OQ, which is the obedience quotient.

Many of us can quite clearly recall our walk with the Lord when we first became Christians. As new believers in the faith, we sense the intense presence of God in our lives and the leading of the Holy Spirit is so clear and intimate. But as time goes on, we start to feel the distance in our walk with God. Sometimes God feels so far away. So why is that so? Some folks say its natural and it happens. Some say that in the beginning of our journey with Him, we lack faith, so He guides us closely through experience. Some say…

Well, this is PCK’s hypothesis… We all have OQ. You can see OQ like a glass flask, like that of a measuring cylinder (the ones we used in sec sch science labs). As New believers, our knowledge of God’s word (which is the top/brim of the flask) is at a certain level (say 20cm). And because our knowledge is low, its easy to obey, and so we score quite high in our OQ. So the OQ level in the flask is say 19cm. And so because our obedience quotient is rather high, we have not grieved God’s spirit, and thus feel the intimacy. (Here, I’m risking a debates over the christian experience, whether its impt or should we focus on it blah blah, but lets just leave it for another day)

Now… fast forward few years, we grow in knowledge of God’s word. But our obedience level hardly keeps up. So now, the flask looks like this. A super tall measuring cylinder of height 150cm. But sadly, the OQ level measures only at 55cm. And so, we have a lot of knowledge, but we are just not obeying what God has spoken in His word, and so we feel distant from God’s Spirit.

What I’m not saying here is that we should keep our OQ high by having low knowledge of God’s word. THAT’S missing the point. The point in this is let’s start to OBEY. Let’s DO what God is saying to us today in His Word.

Well, this is what scripture has to say about OQ…

He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” Luke 11:28

Lord, help me to start obeying. Amen.

I was browsing Galvin’s blog and came across his latest entry on suffering. As you may know, Galvin’s mom is warded in the hospital and we are keeping her in prayer. The entry was a response to pain and suffering in this world. And how is it that there is a good God if there is so much suffering.

I almost hijacked his blog to respond to the question on suffering, but instead decided to post something on pain and suffering here.

In my search for truth, inevitably the question of suffering will arise. However I have found for myself, that no Religion/Faith/Philosophy could answer the question of suffering, except Christianity. Here’s my understanding of pain and suffering.

The question of suffering can be reduced to just a few basic qns.

QN1: I don’t believe there is a God because there is evil and suffering in this world.
When such a question is asked, we have presupposed that there is such a thing as good and evil.
And so when we say that there is good and evil, there must be a moral law to determine what’s good and what’s evil.
Also when we say that there is a moral Law, there must be a moral law giver.
So if there is a moral law giver, who are we talking about? God. So in philosophy, such a question about evil and God sort of answers itself. Thus where evil and suffering exists, God exists too.

QN2: So now that there is a God, then why does God allow pain and suffering? Why can’t he create a perfect world where there is no pain and suffering?
To answer this question, we would have to look at the choices available to God in creation.
Creation of world A: World A is a world that God creates Robots. Where everything has no free will to choose. Solves the problem of sin, pain and suffering.
Creation of world B: World B is much like our present world, but when someone desires to hurt another, say, shoot a gun, the bullet merely turns into a flower and bounces off our body. A world where God constantly intervenes. This would be a world much like a fantasy world.
Creation of world C: No creation at all.
Creation of world D: Our world. Where there is freedom of will to choose, to love, to respond to God. The downside is that man can choose to turn from God.

So amongst these choices God chose D. Our World. The other worlds are not feasible for they are not in the character of God. God is a God of love. And love requires free will. God cannot force you and I to love him. Forced love is an oxymoron. Thus with the present world, with its fallen imperfection, gives God the best chance of a creation that can have a relationship with Him.
Some people might say that God would be better off not creating a world. To answer that, we use the analogy of a car, the car has great potential to bring great convenience to man, but the car in itself can also bring hurt and destruction, yet we do not, because of its potential to damage, kill lives, totally not use or build a car. In the same way this world. It has great potential to respond to God, and also a great potential to rebel against God. So God created World D

Qn3: Why is there pain?
All of us are way too familiar with pain. We prick our fingers on something sharp, and immediately we feel the sharp pain, we pull our fingers away. We eat something bad, it gives us a stomachache and we immediately know something is wrong. We step on a sharp object, and the pain tells us we hurt ourselves.
What is the point I am driving at?
Pain, or rather the senses we feel as pain is triggered off by our nerves sending message to the brain telling us that we have hurt ourselves. Its a protection mechanism. Do you know that for Leprosy sufferers, the nerve ends die and they do not feel pain. They may cut themselves and not know it, they may step on a nail and it lodges itself to the foot and they do not know it. Rats can gnaw at their fingers and toes and they can sleep through it! So pain has its purpose in our physical body. IT TELLS US SOMETHING IS WRONG. Similarly in this world, pain and suffering is telling us clearly that something in this world is wrong. You and I know it. And its telling us we are living in a fallen world. So again, we are pointed to God.

This is really a summary on the topic of pain. To read more on pain, you can pick up books like
“Where is God when it hurts?” by Philip Yancey
“Mere Christianity” by CS Lewis
or any books by Ravi Zacharias.

Hope this entry helps us to see that pain and suffering only tells us, there is God.