Well, yes in some ways... I don't have to sit down at office for half a day at least - I gain many hours and save petrol along with toll money.
There are things I lost too. I now don't get to continue to talk to my colleague about Jesus.
I get more time to set appointments to talk with other people about Jesus.
But as I talk to more and more people about Jesus, sometimes we come into conflict simply because Christians have been fed with unsound theology in churches. I have been in that state - and the undoing process is long, tiring, and discouraging. When someone have been believing something for years, it is hard to convince them to believe something else... EVEN if you can prove the truth. In doing that, there are many times I do not know whether God will grant me success in persuading them or not - and in desperation, fearing that I have labored in vain for long wasted hours, I reduce myself to use unfair argument tactics when I only present one side of the coin without spending time to explain why other arguments do not hold water.
When I talk, sometimes I gain people's trust. But as for the older generation, they cannot help but think that I am getting a little unstable in my mind.
"How can you, as a boy, criticize an older pastor's sermon?"
I don't quite know how to answer that. I could choose from one of the four below:
1) Shut up, and present to that person that I am a person who respects older people
2) Shut up, and tell myself that truth does not matter
3) Speak up, and say "Because he is wrong" (and wonder if they are even listening, and give the impression that I disrespect elders)
4) Speak up and say "I don't know, maybe he is right", going against my conscience - hoping that i didn't even criticized at the first place
I chose 3. How usual. Though I wished I could be well received like choosing 1. I don't know. I reasoned to myself that if somebody doesn't get where I am coming from, then saying anything will just risk myself of being misunderstood.
Everybody wants to be loved. I want too. But what do you do when your mom asks you to share the gospel to other people instead of the malay friends you have - she fears for your safety!
In my mind, the same choices go again. And I told my mom she should love God more than she loves me. I don't know if it could be gentler but also telling the truth. I am so sick of having to be nice and gentle in telling things slowly. But I have to, or else no one will listen.
Even for guys, to some extent I feel that many are such a sissy for not being able to handle arguments like a man. Not interested in truth. Not interested in fighting for truth. Not to mention that I have to be even more gentle with girls. I am almost going to die for speaking softly.
I want to shout. This whole battle of suppressing my desire to burst out in anger, this whole battle of being gentle, this whole rage within that desire to shout "WAKE UP YOU IDIOTS!" ... is making me sick. I never really thought that it was this hard to be gentle.
While I know that what I am facing is almost nothing compared to what Christ suffered, I still feel the ache. I pray, but no relief comes - I am not sure if relief should come or not. The best of my brothers and sisters can only tell me to keep pushing on, occasionally correcting me. Like perhaps, I should just shut up when my mom told me not to preach the Gospel to Malays as she fears for my safety.
If I sit down long enough and draw up some equations in my mind, perhaps I could work out what I should or should not have said. But I just feel so sick to even start doing that. I know better than to just rant and look for some self-pity. Although I think I might be involved in it at this very present moment as I type this, I somehow don't want to think that this whole blogging thing is exactly "ranting and searching for self-pity on a global scale".
Maybe I am weak, although I do not like to think of myself that way. I think - it must take quite a lot to be a man. To face it, to feel the pain, and to move on.
Besides this whole thing about facing problems sharing the Bible, ASTRO has also pressured me to secure a good internship if I want to stay in Australia for a few months after I complete my studies. I NEED to get an internship with FOXTEL. Or else I will be wasting something like 1500 dollars for air tickets. They don't know the pressure they are putting on me. I understand that - they are concerned about auditing. In a company of 2500 people, you can't be concerned about everybody can you? Probably not feasible to do so.
But here I am, I have to keep up my grades with this whole final year thesis coming up, and I have to get an internship with FOXTEL. As though one of them is not difficult enough.
In the back of my head, I am thinking... Ah, once ALL of these are over, I will have rest. But from what I learn in life, problems never decrease - as I enter adulthood, they only get more and more complex, as I have to bear more and more responsibilities. As I think of marriage and all the plus points that come with it - well, there is sex. Big thing I don't want to leave out.
But after marriage, i probably won't need to blog these stuff out. I could just tell it to some one. And as I start to think about marriage in a self centered way, I know that such self centeredness not only leads to unrealistic expectations and definite disappointment that results from it.... such self centeredness is so cruel on my wife. It is so cruel that I won't marry me. I like to play with kids, but don't tell me about raising kids. I already have a hard time raising adults.
I see so much self centeredness in such thinking, yet I feel as though if I start thinking more other centeredness, I will just die under the pressure. I have this odd feeling that if that is the choice, then I should just choose to die under the pressure - because somehow I think that God will somehow keep me alive through it.
Here is one of those kind of decisions again - be a man or not to be a man. It just has to be that hard - no? I just want to take a sleep. A deep long sleep.
Don't worry, I'm not ignorant enough to commit suicide. But yes, I need some good rest in my heart. Like, some patting on my head. Like puppies you know. There comes a point in tiredness that I don't quite mind being treated like a dog... I mean, puppy. Here is the road, narrow and steep, and I think that it could only get more difficult as it goes along. I have been ranting about tiredness since a few months ago, I'm amazed I have not collapsed yet.
Coming to think of it, a few months only and I am talking like a childish boy. I must be pretty shameless to start comparing with Jesus just now. Well, whatever. I can't wait for the day to come.
That glorious day that we keep thinking about when we have Holy Communion.
No comments:
Post a Comment