@hhChoooo… who sneezed?!?!

Awoke this morning to find myself feeling all funny inside.

A feeling of vulnerability, and felt emotionally raw. Almost like anything could make you weep and cry.. Sounds funny, but it was through this that I felt much closer to God’s heart.

On Friday’s CG, as well as at the CG retreat and with other brothers, I shared that my prayer request was that I could feel again. (basically to be revived) To draw close to God and to feel and touch His heart again.

Its been a long time since I’ve felt “alive” inside.. almost as if my heart had hardened to such a state that nothing moved me. Sunday’s praise and worship no longer ushered me into His presence, sermon messages come across dry. Morning QT was mainly focused on self, and the Word of God.. stale and boring.

But last night after coming back from YC’s farewell party, I just started praying and praising God in song. God’s presence descended and as I came before Him, tears rolled down and I felt such wretchedness before our God. I believe God has heard these brothers’ prayers (Thanks so much!!) and answered them. I called to God for forgiveness. And really felt lifted and cleansed. (one really does not know how much burdens we carry until its lifted off)

Lost in His presence…

Today, during Vision Sunday, as Pastor Kai shared about two major upcoming events.. our Church’s prayer walk and the Global Day of Prayer. What really spoke to me during his sharing was that unless we come to a point where we truly come before God in repentance(or in Ps Ann’s message today.. Remorse without repentance).. in true repentance.. revival will tarry… it will not happen. God IS calling individuals to Himself. And my prayer is that all brothers and sisters will arise to this call to prayer and repentance.. I’m truly looking forward to this saturday. My prayer is we will catch a glimpse of revival..

I’ve always wondered about consumerism and its effects on us.

I’ve always wondered if there is any answer to it.

Think I may have found the answer.

Looks like this is gonna be keeping me busy for awhile!

Pain.

Something we’re all familiar with. Yet pain is also a reminder that where we are, here on earth, is an imperfect world. As the bible says, this IS a fallen world. And pain, suffering is but an outcome of it. And pain is God’s way of telling us that we are in a fallen, imperfect world. Just as bodily pain from stepping on a nail tells us something is wrong, the pain and suffering we feel, also tells us that there’s something wrong with this world.

Dealing with Pain.

The physical body deals with pain by telling us the source of the pain. Pain tells us where the cut, the bruise, the knock is localised. Immediately we treat the wound. If the wound is not treated it festers. Most of us know how to treat physical wounds. What about emotional pain? Emotional pain can be inflicted by caustic words, loss of loved ones, conflicts, unresolved situations, quarrels etc.

There’s no easy way to deal with emotional pain, here I’m offering some practical ways. Note that time DOES help in the healing.

Talk about it.
Talking helps one to deal with pain. As an outlet it allows one to process the experience/trauma. Gradually as one talks about it, one learns to accept the situation. Talking about it with others may also bring new insights and shared experiences.

Cry.
God’s in built mechanism for emotional release. Therapeutic and good for the soul.

Pray.
God knows our hurts and pain. Rest assured that He is there. Pray and ask for comfort, peace and healing. Don’t bother asking for God to take away the pain, or remove you from the situation. We need to go through the process of growing up.

Acknowledge the truth and the pain.
Acknowledging the facts helps. Don’t go into denial of the truth. It only makes the pain last longer. By accepting the truth about the situation will bring one closer to healing.

Engage in activities
Keeping the busy with other activities helps. This is not escapism. Time can heal, and filling your schedule with healthy activities such as exercise and sports helps. Meet up with friends for meals and catching movies will also help. Basically, don’t give yourself time where you become bored and start pondering over hurts. Keeping yourself busy especially at the initial phase of hurting helps.

Choose your attitude.
This has got to be the most powerful thing I’ve learnt about dealing with pain. I believe in choice.
How are you today? Still moping around the house and wallowing in self pity? Feeling sad all day? When going through tough times, I allow myself a max limit of 1-2 days to mope and wallow, moan and groan. Its perfectly ok to feel down. After the day(s) has passed, I ask myself how I want the next day to go. And I would remind myself that I can choose how the day goes. Choose to think positive things. Choose to give thanks to God. Praise Him. What an exercise of the will!

Trusting God
This, of course is the most important. Whatever you are going through, never lose sight of this. Else all things in life would seem meaningless in the midst of the pain and hurt. Trust that God is in full control of the situation and that whatever you are going through is purposed for your good, for your character development and moulding. A wise sister told me, “Sometimes it is just God saying no because its not the best for you.” and I realise that this is true when I don’t get what I desire, be it job, relationship, promotion etc. And ultimately God wants surrender from me.

Many folks tend to allow themselves to feel sad too long and wind up in a depressive state. It can be harmful if allowed to go unchecked for too long. Depression can set in resulting in terrible consequences. So if you’re in this state I’ve just described. Snap out.

My prayer is this will help the hurting.

(Dedicated to those I know who are going thru quite a lot now)

Race week is here.

The Standard Chartered Marathon. (Half for me tho’)

I feel really ill prepared. My longest run thus far is barely an hour and a half. The whole run would probably be 2 hrs and 20 min. It means I’ll be relying on pure mental strength after about once I pass the 1-1/2 hr point in the run. Oh well, I signed up for it. So grit my teeth, pray for good weather and just run.

Funny when I recall all my past races, there will come a stage during the race, when I will ask myself why I’m doing all this and the thought of giving up is just so real. The limbs go numb, the lungs pant, the lips parched and the heat overwhelms. During those times, I remember always asking God for strength, just to finish the race. Just to reach the End point.

Well, this race, like any other will be no different. We need power from on high!! haha!!

I was busily trying to debug an assignment and was literally ripping my hair out over the computer program I had to write and I’ve already spent days on it.

Then God brought things into perspective.

I dropped everything I was doing. Just like that.

See, I got news of a missionary facing imminent death in East Timor. Being in the information age and all, chain smses and emails must be sieved out for the truth. Urban legends, hoaxes come plenty in the email, and smses. And I have grown weary and somewhat skeptical whenever I recieve some of these messages soliciting prayers for so and so. How true are they really? Come on, don’t waste my time!

Got one again, and this one included a name, yeah, great! Just to make it sound real, yah? These hoaxers are getting good you know?

Skeptically I “googled” the name and guess what? A name showed up.

The information was indeed verified. There is such a person and the persecution real. A family serving God, facing a life threatening situation. That was in September.

Since then, I believed they continued sharing and preaching the gospel in their adopted homeland. They believed that even at the cost of their lives, it was well worth staying on even amidst adversity. Until now.

I was humbled and felt ashamed.

And there I dropped all I did. And prayed. For them, for myself. All the things I did in the past days, just did not feel the slightest bit worthy of comparison to the eternal sowings of these brothers and sisters.

What have I been sowing lately? What have I been weeping over lately?
I’m embarrassed to give you the answers.

My walk has frequently been marked with seasons.

Seasons which God impressed upon my heart. Following my past journals, I could see that in the last season, God spoke and dealt with obedience.

This season, I’ve been hearing again and again this one simple, single word…

Thirst.

I knew in my heart where God was pointing to. You’re not thirsting for me. You’re dehydrated and yet you are not drinking from Me.

Thirst.

I know in my competitive days, when we raced. One can feel totally hydrated after the race. But inside, the body is dehydrated… and the fluid I drink immediately after is not sufficient to hydrate the body. I need to keep drinking through the day, even when I don’t feel thirsty. Because my body needs it. I may go to the toilet a lot, but that does not mean my body has already got the fluid it needs.

Thirst.

I feel fine. I go to Church every week, I attend Cell group. I read my bible every morning. I serve actively in ministry. I do everything prescribed that a good Christian ought to do. But I’m not “hydrated” enough.

Thirst.

Bible says when we drink of Him, we will never be thirsty again. Drinking from Jesus, fills us with His Spirit, and there will be an overflow, a flood if you may, of the Holy Spirit from our lives.

Thirst?

Then Drink.

Some weeks ago, I shared with the JesusLivingStones Combine CG retreat on Finishing well, and I pulled out lots of analogies from running a race. In Paul’s Letters, its peppered with fighting the good fight and finishing the race.

As I pondered on running a race and how I previously competed and trained for Triathlons and Biathlons. There are much similarities in the physical as much as the spiritual race that we’re running.

Discipline: Without it, there’s no such thing as running the race

You can run, walk or crawl but never go backwards.

So really, there’s much similarities in running a race and running the christian race. May it be so that when the race gets hard and tough, He will continually strengthen and guide. That as I approach the finish line, I may see the smile upon the face of my Savior.

Hebrews 12:1-2
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

I seem to get very disturbed of late, when I learn of fellow brothers and sisters taking the word of God lightly (by that, I mean when we do not obey and just do as we please or we rationalise away truth so that it would fit our circumstance, for eg. one of the most common is unequally yoked relationships, scripture is so clear on this, yet so many christians, good christians, wind up morally bankrupt because of that one compromise). I certainly hope I am not being self righteous or legalistic in any way. But I get affected by it and just feel great disappointment.

Perhaps its just God’s way of putting these burdens into my heart, that I would pray. But one thing I struggle all these while as a leader is, when do I speak up and correct. When is it a prompting to act upon and to correct/rebuke/admonish. And I struggle with confronting on such matters, maybe I lack the courage to confront, or it could be that I don’t act on it because I fear the rejection of the correction.

I personally believe that as a leader one has to step up to correct sheeps under their charge, and that once that correction is spoken, the ball is in their(believers) court to act upon it. In some sense, if there is inaction and continuation of sin, “blood is in their hands”. But if leaders fail to correct, then “blood is upon our hands”. Its also crucial that as leaders, we speak up, lest other believers get stumbled, or worse, follow suit. So why do I still fear correcting believers? Past experience maybe? Believers who leave because they don’t accept the truth.

Its terribly painful to see the sheeps leave the pen, headed towards the wolf’s den. And you know that they are heading that way of destruction. Yet its their personal decision and you cannot but helplessly watch them go down the wrong path!! Perhaps this is exactly how it feels like, the Father who sees his prodigal(wasteful) son walking away with his half of the inheritance. And the same Father who looks out daily from the fields hoping that the son would return.

Oh, that they would heed the call of scripture in the first place!

I only hope they would obey God and do the right things.

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.

Lau Lang! (old person in hokkien.. Not old wolf!)

That’s one term I’ve gotten used to. Why? Most of the youth call me that…Been around the youth ministry long enough to have gone through 3-4 name changes in the ministry. First was TNS (Tertiary-NS ministry… so much for creativity in choice of name), then came YPM (Young Pple’s Ministry… This was eventually adopted as the generic name for the whole youth ministry) and then came CLAYS (Christ Living Among Yielded Saints… The longest surviving name) and finally now RAYs.

I’m starting to feel disconnected with the ministry. And the Lau Lang term no longer seems just a term of seniority in the ministry… Having led a group of “little boys and girls” in a CG (HEY! I remember the first name we had for that CG…. BPJ/CCK CG… Yes they meet in bukit panjang and Chua Chu Kang! HAHA! its gotta be me lah, I just can’t seem to give good names to CGs) and being the oldest in the group, of course its natural they call me that.

But now that I’ve entered the third decade of life, I’m starting to rethink the “lau lang” term.
These days…
I keep getting overtaken in races.
I cannot keep up in my regular exercise regimes.
Muscles aches take longer to recover.
I sleep early.
I fail IPPT.
Ok… that’s just unfit lah!

But I’ve never thought to hit this big 30 so soon! And recently, being called “Lau Lang” made me cringe a little. I’m getting old! (But hey, I think if I hit 40, I would be thinking likewise about wanting to be 30 again!) Like I always tell the folks in YPM, being the dinosaur there, I’m paving the way for them! haha!

But I think the scary part of this is…denial. You don’t want to grow old… You want to stay young, energetic… You don’t want to hear people remind you of your age!(Seriously, dun need to remind me lor. I can count! I can remember! I’m not THAT old!) You want people to tell you that you don’t look your age (look younger lah!). But I think the most difficult part of it all (or at least where I struggle in) is in being single. Peers my age are already married or with Kids (married or not.. haha)! I still cannot figure out where the root of the struggle is.. But as I think through… I think the sisters probably have a harder time dealing with age and singleness, yes? (somehow for guys, its the “age gracefully thingy” that sorta helps), any sister can fill me in on this?

Is it an acceptance issue? A surrender issue? Hormonal Imbalance issue(haha!)? Loneliness issue? Paternal instincts issue? Hey I’m clueless! Never thought turning the decade could leave you so much to think about (Are these mid life crisis issues?) I don’t think I’ll know. Just like I did not understand my teenage years, till my 20s, I now understand my 20’s better at 30. Likewise, I guess the answer would come only when i’m 40 (gulps!)

So like all good Covenant disciplemaking process would entail…we ask ourselves, “What does God say?”
The answer sounds cliche.. But for now, it would suffice for me…

Jim Elliot gave his life to the Auca Indians at age 30.
Jesus started his ministry at 30 and gave Himself as a sacrifice for our sins at 33.

Think I’ll start living life with death in mind

“Every man dies, but not every man lives”

Borrowed this book from Seby some two weeks back. I was actually drawn to this book because I’ve read another of Mitch Albom’s books called Tuesday with Morrie, found it an easy read and that it was well written.

As I read the book, I couldn’t help but wonder what Albom’s concept of heaven is like. Its definitely not the heaven of the Bible. However, understanding the author’s real intent is really to show his readers that in the everyday mundane life, every action, influences another, and that we only see life’s purpose when we get to heaven.

I think the reason this book is so hugely popular is because many people ARE living mundane lives and they can probably identify with the main character. The fact that the main character finds a meaningful end in heaven motivates readers to latch to that hope that what they now will stand for something.

This is a sad truth that many in today’s world find themselves on this planet without meaningful relationships, meaningful work, meaningful anything. Thus books like these give people some glimmer of hope that they might, some day, find the meaning of their lives when they die. Well, I say, true meaning can only be found in God and IF you get to heaven (coz your decision here decides where you go.. there is a hell you know)… its not going to be just 5 people you’ll meet, heaven’s not that simple.

Conclusion: Good read, just for the fun of it. It’ll probably provoke you to want to find out what the heaven of the Bible is.

The breakthrough weekend was more than just a retreat for me.

For the last three weeks, God has been tugging at my heart and brought me to a point of desperation in my spiritual condition. I saw the filth and the wretchedness of my soul. And I wanted to change.

There at the breakthrough weekend, I surrendered it all, I made fresh commitments. An altar was erected. Offerings were placed. I believe with the most sincere heart, I truly surrendered it all to God.

This morning, I pondered over the erected altar, is the offering still there? Or have I taken it back? Have I given a false surrender?

So what is a false surrender?
Ever surrendered something to God, only to find yourself thinking, “if I surrender this to God, then he will bless me with something greater?” or “If I surrender it to Him, God will give it back” Many times I surrender something to God, I harbour other hopes or possibilities of how God will give back. Just like for Abraham when he was ready to sacrifice Isaac upon the altar…

I think we have the unfortunate problem of hindsight in this case. We know God stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac (Whom Abraham LOVED dearly-Gen 22:2). And God provided an alternative sacrifice. We then view surrender as a cause-effect situation. Whereby if I surrender, then God will…

I believe that if I begin to read between the text and put myself into the position of Abraham (sanctified imagination.. heh heh) then perhaps I can have a better understanding of what surrender truly entails…

You see, when God called to Abraham, he was told to sacrifice Isaac. What would be his thoughts and emotions? There must have been plenty of struggle. Isaac, I have to emphasize again, was LOVED DEARLY by Abraham. I believe that at the altar of sacrifice, when Abraham raised the knife. He died to all hopes of Isaac growing up, tending the flocks, growing to a strong man, marrying a wife, having grandbabies to carry. Should there be an alternate reality, Abraham would have obediently plunged the knife into Isaac. And walked back to the donkey and headed home. No more Isaac. Surrendered.

Back to my personal thoughts on false surrender.

I surrendered and placed my wishes and dreams upon the altar at breakthrough weekend, yet this morning, my thoughts harboured upon hopes that God would give it back to me in His own way. Then I realised that my surrender was incomplete. I have placed my hope on resurrecting a dream that was already at the altar. And this was what God said to me… “Son, when you surrendered your hope and dreams on the altar, stop hoping that I would give it back to you, instead place your hope on Me.