Pressure On Every Side

I just finished the whole "working life" thing which lasted for 6 weeks, I am supposed to have a heavy burden lifted off my shoulders - no?

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.

Death

These few days, I have been thinking about death quite a bit. I think of little phrases I pick up from people -

"I'm half dead now"
"You have no life"
"I'm dead meat"

What do the phrases above tell us about the situation they are in?
Tired. Discomfort. Bored. Deep trouble. And other unpleasant states.

Yet I cannot help but think of the dead people I have met in my life. I have been to a couple of funerals in my life.

When I was a kid, my grandfather was cremated. Then my uncle. My family friend. Sophie. There are probably some others I do not remember.

I also seen people before their death - and almost the moment they die. Two church sisters. The same Sophie. My school teacher and a number of people that I have seen in the hospital which I will never remember. But those that I would remember more significant are 3. Sophie, my school teacher.

My school teacher taught me when I was 14. She had cancer when I was 16 and died when I was 17. I saw her when she was alive and well, encouraging me to study chinese when I literally hated the subject. And I saw how different she looked in the hospital. The scene of her quietly struggling under the burden of sickness was ugly. She never looked so ugly. Her friends, relatives and church people came to visit her every other day. Christians came and prayed for her recovery - and we continued praying until the day she died. One night about 12 a.m. when I was sleeping, I heard a beep on my phone. The SMS simply said that my teacher had gone home to The Lord.

The other little girl is called Sophie. I saw her still laughing and undergoing some blood transplant (whatever it is called) and everything was going great. She was smiling, she was telling jokes, she was looking so happy. During Christmas, my friend and I bought her a gift. She looked sickly and I didn't quite like that. Life was just escaping her body slowly and slowly. The doctor decided to perform a surgery on her, which was a major success! she was recovering well, and she could go home after the surgery - living a slightly more normal life compared to her hospital life which lasted for... many months? A few days after the surgery, it was discovered that during the surgery, some equipment was infected, and as her body was too weak to protect itself, the infection killed her within less than 2 days of notice.

Her mother was there. Her father was there. I was there. It was a TOTALLY stupid mistake, TOTALLY stupid kind of shock.

The reason that I remembered them were not so much because I saw them for long periods before their death. But I saw their dying faces, and the dead face. It is pretty wierd to see a dead person. They just look like they are sleeping. They are there... but they are not there anymore.

Their hands are cold, and there is little sign of sickness. They look peaceful.

They literally have no more life in them. Yet, the description differs so far from the few phrases that I mentioned above. When we mention that we are half dead, we are lifeless... it is one of weakness, one of struggling, one of persevering.

These few days, I have been passing pretty sad moments at times. It seems at first that I am fighting a war against my own thoughts. Then I was fighting a losing battle. I was then crying. I was then arguing and struggling and trying to make sense out of things. I feel pain, and I wrestle.

If I was ever alive, these are the moments that I am alive. The days of comfort and pleasure somehow seem so far away. But the pain is present. Comfort and pleasure demands so little energy of me, it keeps my mind at ease - I don't need to do anything... and just "let things happen to me".

If I was ever dead, those must have been the times. My years of struggles are my years of growth. On this side of heaven, my years of pain are my years of living. My years of change are my years of learning. There is just something so wierd about living and dying.

It seems that comfort and pleasure is the way to live - yet idleness is really a sign of death. What kind of comfort and pleasure constantly demands your strength, your energy, your everything? In death, what kind of loss have you experienced - when you are dead... you cease to be "you".

I'm probably a little too geeky for you to find these kind of things interesting.

Little Stones

A fine cool day,
walking down the lonely path,
Little stones along the way,
dashing against my foot.

Such are these days. Everything I need is here, the good things in life to cheer me up; the little assurances I love to have - a home to stay, money to spend, academics which are doing pretty okay. God is in the picture, Christian and non-Christian friends surround me - there is fellowship, there is ministry.

Yet, the journey is not an easy one. Academics keep me on my toes. Hope strengthens me when I grow tired and weary. Not too strong, but strong enough to give me assurance that I will be able to endure.

Yet, it is not only marked with busy-ness as a routine, but also pricks. A piece of my heart is somewhere, somewhere it does not belong. My eyes grant me memories that brings pain to my heart. Everyday, I am reminded of the pain - and these thoughts keep my mind troubled all the time. The seemingly trivial things that are not trivial at all... they hurt my feet, I grow weary of walking - yet they cannot kill me.

Living between life and death - a full life belongs to me. Struggles have never been so consistent, such energy has never been required of me. Yet for the glory of this struggle, such is this life. Between here and a land far away, between life and death.

This life demands my vision to see heaven and earth, yet not a place somewhere in between. A call to have such violence that is gentle! A cry and a shout in the form of a plea. The identity of a man, yet being the bride. A position that desires to give - so much... yet is constantly receiving. A promise of acceptance and belonging, yet Home is somewhere in the distant future.

In this world you have tribulation - but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.

What is it that You have overcome? Your overcoming has granted vision of the strength of hope - If hope is already this strong, how much greater shall the realization be?

Little stones strike my feet along the way,
Until the largest boulder take me Home.

This Man

There is this man - who is too scared of failing. So scared that he did not fail in the thing that he was afraid to fail in - he never did want to try it anymore. He was used to fail in it, now he decided that he wanted to fail no more.

The reason he no longer wants to fail - is that he understands that every single event that happens in life will trigger a series of other events which will lead to more events, he also understands that nobody ever represents only themselves - everybody always represent to some extent their family, their beliefs, and their upbringing.

Yet this man also thinks that since one thing leads on to the other - who knows his failure might turn out for good. This man is not stupid, he learns that the chances are slim and the stakes are high. This man lives in his private world with his private philosophies in life - his thinks his thoughts are private and that nobody shares it, but he knows deep in his heart everybody shares the same philosophy about themselves - insecurity.

Yet this man reasons that "insecurity" is too shallow a word to describe the painful experiences, and the potential loss, and the risk that has crossed his mind - and he believes - many others. And so, there is very little room left for this man. He can run away for now - but not forever. He can fake it. He thought perhaps "facing it" might be the right thing to do... but he does not know how.

For the good of himself, and for the good of society - he runs. He runs and hope that he can live out other areas of life fully - perhaps the goodness of other parts will somehow compensate for this area of failure. Yet this man knows himself too well that this is a lie. If a man's stomach is empty, he can eat. If a man's heart is sad, can tasty food satisfy him?

This man has little reasonings left to comfort him. He finds little pleasure in the things of this world. He is timid, he is shocked - he is bewildered at his own weakness, and wickedness while people around him think highly of him. Perhaps, even this thought is a product of his imagination and insecurity. Everywhere he turns, he is tempted to do evil - everything he does, it reveals his insecurity.

He dreads the day - he knows one day of living is one day of sinning. He would so rather die today - but he know he is not meant to do so. It is not because this man knows killing is wrong, but he knows that this life does not belong to him - but God the Creator.

Therefore, this man's hope is in his Creator - his hope of security, his hope of purity, his hope of joy, his hope of love. This man has disappointed himself once too many, not to mention that his dillusions has made him expect unreasonable things from others - this man has no more regard for his philosophy. He has given up - He has given in to God.

Wisdom means something new to this man. He thinks of God's Word as wisdom. Figuring out the world and himself on his own is a pile of confusion. Therefore, this man clings to God's Wisdom. Belonging also means something new to this man. He no longer belongs to this world. When he is deprived and despaired of meaningful relationship in this world, he rejoices in the fact that heaven is his home... and the present pains are a reminder to his temporal stay on earth.

This man is an escapist. But not the common escapist. He delays his escape. He escapes when he dies - but while on this earth, he will stand firm. God will enable him to stand. One day, when the pain in this body becomes too great that it gives way, the spirit of this man will rejoice and find himself at home with God. Yet, even this very moment, the spirit of this man suffers and endures much pain that the body faces.

Living day by day with his body, this spirit learns of God - as the spirit learns to endure pain in this world - this spirit learns that God must have endured much more pain. As the spirit learns to expect the man to be sinning tomorrow in one way or the other, this spirit also learns of God's grace that forgives the sin that this man will commit in the future. When the spirit of this man starves for the comfort that this man failed to provide, rather than feeling God's love immediately, the spirit of this man learns that he is not alone, and that even God has experienced such things.

This man recalls that Jesus became a man to identify Himself with man. And through this spirit in the man - he realize that he is made alive to be identified with Jesus. This spirit will learn the footsteps of Jesus through obedience, love and suffering - and this spirit will get a new friend, the Holy Spirit of God, who will empower and encourage this spirit to follow Jesus.

This man's body is dying. But his spirit grows day by day. One day, when his heart fails and fail to give him life in this body - he will then obtain a new heart, a new life - one that is free from stain.

This man will be a man who is joyful, and will live in peace forever. This man looks to heaven with hope.

This man is me.

Death Wish and a Note

Content is mildly mad, mildly offensive - to myself.

Early in the morning at about 7 am, I just woke up, my eyes remain closed - and the first thing that came to my mind was "Joel, even if you don't roll out of your bed now, start utilizing time and not waste it - lets start by thinking about important things in life"

And so, I started thinking of the upcoming Welcome Dinner by FOCUS (Fellowship of Overseas Christian University Students), inviting people to go to be introduced to it - and prayerfully coming with a desire to know the God of the Bible, would come to know God for eternity.

And so my mind raced through different aspects of evangelism, and I was thinking about myself dying one day. It seems that dying people can always play the "power cards" and have virtually everything they wish for - that in mind, may my power card be useful and may the reader discern that this 'power card' is indeed good medicine for the soul.

I wish that should I die one day suddenly - i.e. in my 20's or 30's of course hopefully till an old ripe age - but should I just die by tomorrow...

My wish is that the people who are close to me (my closer friends, my family) who are not yet Christians would come to simply read the Bible and find out who Jesus is, and perhaps trust in the God I call my Saviour.

My highschool friends - much of you I knew through Christian Fellowship, but you have departed far from the faith: Please do sit down once again and hear God speak through His Word. 5 years ago, we might be all "on fire" by concerts and motivational camps alike, but we have walked to a stage in life where we know our desire for ... WHOLENESS... is not an external source of hype. But this I assure you, in the quietness, even as the Bible is read, God's Word is heard. Please do read your Bibles again, it is God's Word, the Word that is all about Jesus, the Giver of Life, who is the Lord of the Universe - to which we owe our very existence to.

This is my wish, that as much as I love all of you from my heart (some of you have seen my days in highschool) - what I truly desire for you is not simply that I may see you in heaven, but that your souls might be filled with goodness and your lives might portray the glory of Jesus who is able to transform the most wicked soul.

To you my friends(some since primary school, some in high school, some in college and uni), every now and then I look through the photos you put in your facebook. I love you - and your photos tell me a lot about what goes on in your life - though you may not know, I appreciate that little contact that I think I have, but what saddens the heart is when I know my friends have departed from the God they once called Lover while there are some who stay in the faith have soaked themselves in a church that spends more time eating and playing music compared to reading the Bible, praying, and sharing the Gospel all combined together.

My wish, if you will care to fulfill - is something I will never see in this life. I would not know it if nobody fulfills it, but I hope in the moment of my death: not only I will look forward to seeing God face to face, but that my heart will be happy to know that somebody will read the Bible and know God as a result of my death.

Honestly, I have many plans for the future. The fact that I plan for my death is a testament - but as I grow up and as I see the harsh realities in life through the lens of the Bible, I know I am not bullet proof, neither am I germ/bacteria proof. I have plans for church, for country, and for the world - and I am all out to see it come to pass - i hope you would rejoice if you see my day coming, but if that day does not come, nobody really needs to know the details of the dream, for my dream is summed up in my death wish.

I am now reaching the prime of my life, within a year or two - I think I would have reached the maximum potential - from then on, the later parts of my life will build on what I have already built within these few years. If I lose - I have all to lose, but really I have nothing to lose. There are moments in time when I browse through my life and see the worthless things I have done - the fleeting moments of youthful ignorance, I now know this - what better use is there for my life than to spend it for the gospel's sake? I have heaven's joys to gain and all the world to lose.

Being 20 now, when virtually everything is accessible to me - the world has too little to offer. The glitters of this world has reached a point - something like eating too mcuh cheesecake, so much and too much of it. I invite you into my life - not so much mine, but this life I share with Jesus... and the truly good and fulfilling life is yours - so much good that (though I have not faced much yet), I will know - what are persecutions? what are rejections? Is not the narrow path that leads to salvation filled with such troubles?

But broad is the highway that leads to death, and many go through it. But narrow is the path that leads to salvation - few find it. Its an uphill slope, and knew what uphill slope meant along with a cross to carry.

What note do I have left? For some of you Christians, my brothers, who are feeling dry in church, find good materials to help you read the Bible. Much has been destroyed by various institutions who substitute the Word of God for fanciful teachings that seeks to convert men through parties - but the Word of God holds true and is not undermined by human inventions. Even Jesus finds some measure of strength within God's Words in times of temptation, in times of battle, in time(s) of death.

The merry world is fun but for a moment, and many indulge in it their whole lives. But when the show is over, the curtain is closed - and God the Director of the whole show walks up the stage... Everything is over. The show is over. Who then is it that I choose to please on the stage?

Up till now, I still have not spoken anything substantial about any teaching in God's Word - the reason is that I know my time is short... compared to 2000 years of church history where we read of Christians pouring their lives for the Gospel. The center of it all is the Gospel, and within the Gospel is where God's people place their mind, their hearts and lives... They! They have written much, all deriving from eternal truths within the Bible, read their words in light of God's Word and much teaching, precious teaching there is!

When I die (should I attain much achievements personally, let me never be remembered as a wonderful student, nor a brilliant teen, nor a curious person, neither wise nor good - for in the darkness, God knows what lurks within - He who sanctifies me cleanses not a clean thing, but a dirty one )... but let my grave and my tombstone be a signpost the points to God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth - to Jesus Christ, God who loves me and gives Himself up for me.