I’ve been reminded of this excerpt from Israel Houghton’s book recently. This is how it goes

The tragedy is that too many Christians have a nomadic spirit that says, “If you get too close, if you challenge my life, I’m going to bolt because this church down this street is going to let me tithe and serve, and they’re going to leave me alone.”

In doing so, these believers have established a detour around the important process of sanctification – being made holy through the sanding of prayer, confession, and repentance.

It’s a sober reminder that is needed regularly. Are we in church to serve or to grow in God?

Or for the more analytical among you who may feel that I am presenting a false dilemma. I’ll rephrase:

Are we serving God as part of the process of growing in Him, or growing just so that we’ll be be able to exercise our abilities on a platform?

I can’t believe I am taking so long to fully grasp this. But here goes. (for students)

Only if we study hard during our ’study’ time, will we have the availability to serve God hard in ministry.

Then there will be no need to compromise.

And God gets glorified.

How slow am I? (rhetoric by the way).

I must first start off by thanking you. Yes, you. I shall call you smelly man in this post (since I don’t know your name). The man in the red collared shirt who sat in front of me during our microeconomics paper today.

Thank you for demonstrating to me how negative externalities occur in real life. It was a great reminder during the paper. I am now better able to understand how the marginal cost to you for not bathing was far exceeded by the marginal cost to society. (This was verified by checks with my friend, Nathaniel, after the paper. I finally understand why he was waving his hand in front of his face throughout the paper).

Thank you for giving me the opportunity for the lower part of my face to be better acquainted with my shirt collar during those two hours.

Thank you for clogging up my nose during the paper. I know that you intended for me to breathe through my mouth and hence increase my air intake, which would consequently increase the amount of oxygen made available to my brain.

Thank you for unclogging my nose when you left to use the toilet. I needed to know that there was nothing wrong with my sense of smell.

In view of your great contribution to my examination performance today, I would like to credit a tithe of my dismal showing to your efforts, or lack thereof.

With Noseplugs,
HY

SERIOUSLY smelly man, its only about whether or not you bathe. I know utility prices are on the rise, and it’s always tempting to try to scale the bell curve. But not like this. Never like this again please.

I find it strangely comforting to see people scurrying for cover at Orchard Road once the rain comes. Somehow it just reminds me, that we’re still human.

I’ve been at a loss at how to pen down certain thoughts for some time. There are several drafts already stashed away, written then abandoned. For now, I’ve resorted to playing out how I feel. The occasional dissonance, periods of uncertainty, brooding melodies and yet somehow, they always end in hope.

But today, I have something that I need to write down.

I gently tip the spoon and pull it back, emptied. I position a bowl to catch the bits of gruel that fall off his chin. My eyes fix intently on his jawline, waiting for it to stop moving, my spoon already filled to the brim. But the jaw tilts upwards and some unknown force drags my vision up along the features of his face. I notice a nose, then two eyes.

I will never forget those eyes.

They pierce to the depths of my soul, speaking volumes at once from one who intently ignored my attempts at conversation. They draw me in.

My thoughts run to his past, I wonder how his family treated him, I wonder if he ever had dreams and aspirations, I wonder if he ever once led his own life, I wonder if he had sober days, I wonder how he would feel at those times if he had.

The moment lasts too long. I abruptly continue the upward motion with my eyes, catching a glimpse of the thinning patches of his cleanly shaven hair. My eyes gaze dreamily at the church in the background, too uncomfortable to hold his gaze.

Finally he looks down at his feet. The moment of concentration is gone. I feel comfortable enough to stare back at his slobbering lips, waiting for them to stop moving. My spoon full, my mouth silent.

With each spoonful, my heart wrecks. The Church is the light of the world. People matter to God.

I think that this is a great perspective on supporting.

Of course, not everything should be taken at face value, but if you have 5 minutes of time to spare, I am certain that you’ll take something away from this article.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/217090

There are problems that we would love to ignore. Some we conclude are no longer our problems, and hence not worthy of our attention. Others, we just stop caring about because it threatens to overwhelm us.

I’m landed with one that I can not care less about. I guess its time to be uncomfortable again.

Life’s getting busy and I’m feeling challenged to expand myself. Funny how work starts to pile up, burdens get dropped into my heart and God shows me how far off I really am. All in the same period.

I’m beginning to find solace in struggling in prayer with Him. That as I lay my requests and problems before Him, instead of solving them, He often chooses to show me who I really am. I recall Jie Xun teaching that the miracle of prayer is the life change it brings to us, and I’ve really found that to be so true.

It’s like putting my heart on sand paper and scrubbing away. It must hurt, but it must be raw before Him, then before others.

We know this.

Growth is a natural process. If a person/group is healthy, it should grow.

I believe in that, I really do. I don’t doubt that many of us hold on strongly to this belief, but today I realised that my perspective on growth is still incomplete. (irony!)

Growth occurs as long as necessary conditions are met. For example, a seed germinates when exposed to required levels of water, oxygen. sunlight and temperature. Organisms grow when triggered by relevant hormones, in the presence of sufficient nutrients. So whenever the set conditions are fulfilled, growth occurs.

But here’s where my discovery comes in. I have to own my growth. I need to make choices that will cause me to grow in areas, especially those that I am weak at. I need to put myself in situations where I am forced to expand my understanding and mature my character. I need to embrace discomfort so that I can grow.

I need to know who I am growing into.

I’m not here to grow into the most philanthropic businessman, or the most diplomatic conflict resolver. I’m not here to grow into the most knowledgeable apologist or the most all-rounded rat in the rat race.

I’m here to grow into Jesus.

It makes so much sense when I consider the bonsai plant.

The truly valuable growth is when I grow into who I am created to be.

So the holidays came, and now they’re almost over. To be frank, I really do think that this has been a great break for me. No doubt the existence of projects means that I am still striving to meet deadlines, but deliberately taking the time out to think and refocus has done me much good.

Okay, back to last week’s madness! (3 x 30% midterm tests. 1 on Tuesday and 2 on Thursday)

I knew that I had to play for service that week, which meant that Wednesday night would be spent at music practice. So I would have to complete studying for both my Thursday papers beforehand. I seriously contemplated switching my playing slot, but the illogical me decided to go ahead with it and stretch myself.

So spiritual, thanks.

Monday came, and I woke up to find my ears ringing and eyes aching badly. Apparently the flu virus that cohabitated with me decided to migrate to my ear canal and basically all over my face. If there were a way to get the text into my mind other than through my eyes/ears, life would probably have been much easier.

Memorising my notes made me feel like I was engaging in a shouting match with a jet engine, but that wasn’t the last of my woes. I still had to practice for Saturday! Now, I do know that my piano playing has the potential to damage eardrums. Haha even I know that it sounds pretty bad alot of the time, but last week was exceptional! It really didn’t take alot for the music to move me, away from the piano. I think I grew a tiny bit more in empathising with people who self-mutilate now.

After Wednesday’s music practice, my bandmates offered to pray for me, and I clearly remembered that one of their prayers was that ‘I would have the discipline to rest early’. Obviously, I thought about my two impending papers and showed a deep appreciation for the sad situation I was caught in.

You know what they say about self-fulfilling prophecies? I know that they’re true to a certain extent, like if you keep telling yourself that you suck, you definitely think that you do. But, I didn’t know that it worked when you made prayers for other people! Well, God certainly answered their prayers (in view of my lack of discipline to rest), and I was jerked awake at 6.45am the next morning amidst the pile of questions I was attempting to solve the night before.

The even more surprising thing was that I wasn’t in the least flustered at all. Or perhaps I was in too zombified a state that morning to engage my full arsenal of panic-inducing emotions. I simply walked to the shower, packed my notes to read on the bus ride and left my home by 7.05am.

Okay, if you haven’t given up reading this manic post yet, I shall now share what I learnt from all this. (and attempt to justify you wasting 2 minutes of your life reading all of the above)

God took my decision to stretch myself and decided to stretch me more. There were so many times where I willed to do more, but the state of my body just would not allow it. That forced me to trust and depend on Him. I think that the peace of God (Philippians 4:6-7) is only experienced when we trust and yield our concerns to Him. There can be no peace if there is no trust.

I am also freshly convicted that God will not shortchange us, but we must not shortchange Him either. There were so many times when I was tempted to neglect my revision and my music, one for the other. But I believe strongly that I need to glorify Him in every aspect of my life because all these are what I am called to do. God definitely did not shortchange me during service, I don’t know about you but I just know that He moved in a big way that day. I’m continuing to trust in Him for my studies too. No perfect scores (I checked with peers lol) but I know that He provided enough for me to go through last week and that’s more than I can thank Him for.