The one that refused to
be written
I had hoped to publish
this particular blog much earlier. However, after writing and several
re-writes, it just refused to come out right. In the end I had no choice but to
put it aside when other more pressing matters demanded my time and attention.
What I know now is that the blog wouldn't come out right because I had tried to write it with my own cleverness rather than what God had wanted to say. At church service recently, God prompted me that time had come to publish the blog with His revisions. When Pastor preached, I was struck by the similarity his sermon had with what God wanted me to write. It seemed that He really wanted us to know this.
If you love me ...
The point is this - we
can say with our mouths we love God, we can feel emotional singing songs about
loving Him but it is ultimately our actions in obedience to God that makes real
our love. In John 14:23 in the Bible, Jesus said, “Anyone who loves me will obey my
teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them
and make our home with them." (via BibleGateway.com)
As I am learning, much
is revealed of the true intentions of our hearts by our willingness to obey
Him.
... Organise a Barbeque
Last December, God asked
our prayer group to do a simple thing. He wanted us to organise a barbecue
(BBQ) to celebrate His goodness; and He wanted us to invite our neighbours to
join in the celebration.
When Marie first shared
with the group that God had prompted her that He wanted us to do this, we all
responded with great enthusiasm. Each one of us volunteered to contribute
in different ways. I said I would put together a gift pack for the
neighbourhood kids. I wanted to get these bookmarks with different colours to
explain the Gospel message from the Christian bookshop. The bookshop staff
tried very hard to help me but just could not find them. I ended up buying some
small Christian cards and rulers with the Books of the Bible on them - not
quite what I had wanted.
A small hiccup...
When I couldn't find
those bookmarks, I felt discouraged. Before that, everything was fine, I
was enthusiastic about the BBQ. But after, I was asking myself, "Why
are we organising this BBQ? Don't we have enough things to do?" I felt
tired just thinking about the BBQ. Why did we agree to this?
With such a small bump in the road, I decided that I no longer wanted to do this simple thing for God. He did not ask me to face hungry lions, He did not ask me to declare my faith before a firing squad, He did not ask me to sell everything I had to follow Him. He asked me to organise a simple BBQ and I wanted to give up when a minor hiccup occurred.
What did this really say about my love for Him? Yes, certainly Marie and I have a very packed schedule with 4 children to take care of. Many people would understand if we said we found it tough to get through the day, let alone organise a BBQ and invite neighbours to join in.
Love is going that extra mile
As I struggled with the
idea of the BBQ, God asked me, "Chi Hong, why are you so distressed by
this BBQ? The only thing I want you to do is to celebrate and give thanks for
the blessings I gave to you this past year. Is it really that difficult just to
be happy and have fun?"
God's Words struck home. If I couldn't be happy for God, what else could I do for Him? In the midst of my busy daily life, if I were not willing to go out of the way for God, what did that say of my love for Him?
As I read the Bible, God continued to encourage me with the account of the boy with five loaves of bread and two fish. His small, seemingly insignificant offering was used by Jesus to feed five thousand people. God didn't mind that I didn't get it just right. God doesn't always ask us for great sacrifices. He calls us to offer our limited, finite acts of love in exchange for His infinite, boundless love.
So I said to God, "These rulers and cards in the gift packs, these are my loaves and fish, use it to do Your work." In God's hands, who knows what wonders would be accomplished?
Blessed Success ...
As it turned out, the BBQ was a great success! The weather was perfect, the BBQ fire lit, the food turned out great and the kids had great fun! In the days running up to it, Marie invited three boys in the neighbourhood. On the day itself, the boys called one of their playmates to come along, whose mother then came along to see what was happening. Two families living in the nearby blocks whom we didn't know so well attended. The uncle who managed the BBQ pits dropped by with his grandchildren. My parents came and were prayed for by Sarah and Gen from our prayer group. For myself, I had decided before the meeting that I would not just say general festive words but specifically declare God's work in our lives - how He had lead us to live in this part of the island and directed us specifically to this particular flat. I thank God it came out naturally in my conversation. We didn't share the 5 steps to salvation but we hope spiritual seeds were sown in the hearts of the people who came. Overall there was just a great sense of fellowship and joy. Of course, the gift packs were given out ...and no one complained about them (phew!). My prayer group learnt a small lesson about loving God. We felt a spiritual high.
Even Greater Lessons
However, I realised it would be simplistic to think that God's lessons would always be at this beginner level. He would call us to deeper and deeper love lesson. He would call us to obey when it did not seem logical nor emotionally possible to do so.
In our country recently, two boys - the only two children of a family - were crushed to death under the wheels of a cement mixer on the road.
Their parents were heart broken and the tragedy gained the sympathy of many people. What could have been another run-of-the-mill sad story caught the attention of many more people because of what the parents did. They consistently declared the message of forgiveness in-spite of their grief - forgiveness for the driver of the truck, forgiveness for the netizens who posted photos of their sons' mangled bodies online and made unkind remarks.
It was plain from media photos that they were Christians and it was clear why they did what they did - simple obedience to God. There is no need to belabour how difficult it must have been for them to repeatedly appear in the media sincerely declaring forgiveness when inwardly their hearts had broken into a million pieces (as the father said in an interview).
A totally illogical response - to forgive and to show grace when the world would not blame them to hate and to show anger. What this resulted in was an unbelievable outpouring of support, encouragement and empathy from different people, race and religion in the community. One reporter in the Chinese paper even wrote in his article how he was moved by this couples' sincerity and wished them that their faith would carry them through. In my opinion, this one incident had helped many more people see God's love and grace after the bundle of negative headlines that involved Christians in the past year.
Some people would say, "What of the parents? Was God fair to them? Why did God allow this to happen?" I tell you this - when God sends out His angels to minister to the hurting today, who do you think He will think of first? These two parents will learn first hand of the love of God and what Jesus meant when He said, "Blessed are you who hunger now,for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh." Luke 6:21.It seems unfair because we think life ends on this finite earth; that everything wrong should be made right before we leave this earth. But what if our lives on earth is transient and heaven is forever? What if it is not just wishful thinking but a fact that their boys are in heaven now - happier than they would ever be here on earth? Would it seem less unfair then in the whole scheme of things?
In this day and age of increasing cynicism about God's message of salvation for us, perhaps what Christians need to do is not talk more about it but to do more of it - to obey-love God more. It is our obedience that will make real our love for God; and more importantly, for God's love to be made real to us; and not just to us but to those around us. As in the BBQ experience showed me, I still have much to learn about loving God. It is a lesson that I will strive to learn every single day.
I end with quotes from this article from a friend, Rev. Chiang Ming Shun, a Methodist pastor, who wrote in Impact Magazine:
"...We need to mobilise the laity to be Christians in the world, in their workplaces, in the schools, in business...I mean that everybody should start behaving and thinking more like Christians should in the world. We should be bringing values like love, forgiveness, grace into the workplace.
... it is not the case that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; rather it is that Christianity has been found difficult and therefore not tried."
"Too Many Running the Church - Too Few being the Church", Impact magazine, Vol 36 No. 6 (Dec + Jan 2013), Rev Chiang Ming Shun
As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.” Luke 7: 12-13
Video of the sad accident (sorry if it don't work, try the link instead)
Link: www.razor.tv search for 'Boys in fatal Tampines accident will be missed'
