God Hears Our Cries

Birthday Breakfast

                 Happy Breakfast Birthday!               

It was one of my sons' birthday and Marie had planned a zoo trip because it was also a school holiday. Not knowing about the school holiday until too late, I didn't manage to take leave from work. I was feeling somewhat guilty about it and managed to shift things around my calendar so that we could have a birthday breakfast celebration together.

The breakfast was going fine until the end when we looked up and noticed that the sky had turned dark. Even before I finished saying, "Don't know if it will ...", it started to thunder and rain. For this particular son of mine, birthdays were the paramount social event of the year. His expectation for this to be the perfect day had soared to a crescendo when it was brought crashing down into a bottomless pit; and he began to cry.

Crying Children

The rain that derailed the Zoo plans

Now I hope you will not judge Marie and I harshly. As parents of four boys, we have very little patience for children who fuss or cry. What is worse than having one child cry is having two children cry at the same time (not to mention three) - and they don't always cry about the same things. While dealing with the crying ones, the others who are not crying still need to be tended to. We very quickly move into the "zip it" or face the consequences mode. I think for me at least, my patience with their crying got less as they grew up. So in this instance, statements like "You're a teenager now ...", "You need to learn that there will be disappointments in life ..." and so forth came out from our mouths very quickly. Unfortunately the clouds were also not helping that day - they just got darker and darker, like the mood at the table.

How God Would Respond to Crying?

After the incident I reflected upon my response to my son's crying. Did it mirror how I thought God would respond to me whenever I came to Him with life's disappointments and regrets? Would He tell me to "zip it" or that "Life is tough and what doesn't kill you will make you stronger?". 

In response, God brought me back to the story of Hannah in the Bible (in 1 Samuel Chapter 1 - 2). Here was a woman who, at the start of the story, was unremarkable. She was one of two wives of a man. She was stuck in an unenviable situation of having no children while her counterpart had a brood. Therefore she had to endure constant taunts at home. Even though her husband loved her tenderly, it could not fill the deep emptiness her barrenness had left in her heart. 

Every year, the family when to Jerusalem for the annual rituals. In one of those years when her torment had been particularly difficult, as the Bible recorded, " In her deep anguish, Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly." The priest in the temple thought she was drunk as he watched her pray (why are we always so judgemental of people who express their grief in public?). As Hannah explained to him: “Not so, my lord, I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.” (1 Samuel 1: 15 - 16)

Sometimes Blue Skies are just round the corner

To cut to the chase, God heard Hannah's desperate cry to Him. Shortly after, she conceived and bore a son who would have a significant role in Israel's history; and thereafter she bore more children. No wonder in 1 Samuel 2: 1-2, Hannah sang a song of praise to God:

“The Lord has filled my heart with joy;

    how happy I am because of what he has done!

I laugh at my enemies;

    how joyful I am because God has helped me!

“No one is holy like the Lord;

    there is none like him,

    no protector like our God."

Never too small for God

For all intents and purposes, Hannah was not considered to have been of any significance in her society during the culture of her time; and her prayers to have a child to shed her shame was not exactly world changing. It would have been fair to wonder why God should even listen to her much less answer her prayer? But He did. I think the point is this - whether it is the deep desires of a woman for a child or the wish of a birthday teen to have a zoo outing, God hears us. Sometimes we are wrongly led to believe that either we are of no significance or our prayers are overly parochial and self-centred for God to hear us. 

I do not want to make God out to be just a Santa Claus up there in the sky who is there to make our every wish come true. I believe neither are we spoilt kids who throw tantrums when we don't get exactly what we want. Growing up my parents would say whenever I was in the toy shop "You can see but you cannot ask to buy." Not every desire is wrong and we often bury these deep because we've been taught from young it's wrong to want. What we really long for is that someone, no less the God of the universe, to hear us and acknowledge our deepest cries, our keenest needs as valid and worthy. Knowing that we have been heard is what we really want. We can also trust that after hearing He will take the best course of action on our behalf. As the Christian author Josh McDowell said "He who knows you best, loves you most".

Happily ...

As a happy ending, while the skies didn't clear quick enough for my son to have his birthday zoo trip, they spent a terrific few hours at a shopping mall and capped off the day with a ride in a cable car when the sun and blue skies returned several hours later. He didn't get exactly what he wanted but he agreed that in the end it was a terrific day after all.

As I learnt, God always hears us when we cry and has compassion on us. I pray that He will also give me that compassion the next time my children cry in front of me.

Happy Ending to a wonderful Birthday Outing!

All Bible Verses NIV unless otherwise stated and viewed from BibleGateway.com

Birthday Thoughts - Blessings or Rewards?

Birthday once again

September is birthday month for me – the time of the year to look back at my journey so far and to look forward to what's ahead.

My  personal baker - Marie!

Blessings

I'm still happily married to my wife, Marie, of 14 years. We have 4 healthy, handsome boys. I still have friends from my school days and have gained new friends along the way. I have a pretty respectable job which I enjoy (most days) and work hard at. I have a roof over my family's head and we have enough for a comfortable life. I'm currently enrolled in a Masters program which I enjoy. By anyone’s standards I suppose I've done well in life so far. Generally I do have a positive outlook. Yet, I find lurking in the recesses of my mind feelings of discontent that are not of God.

Discontentment

These feelings surface in very ordinary, daily scenarios. When I drive into my workplace car park in my cute little Kia Picanto and come face-to-face with the Lexuses, Mercedes, BMWs and even the occasional Ferrari, the ill winds of discontent blow through my mind. I try to be ‘holier-than-thou’ by telling myself that I chose the right thing – to have kids instead of luxury cars. At the end of my life, my kids will appreciate me more than any car ever will. Then the next question arises ‘Why do I not earn enough to afford both – kids and luxury cars?’ Some of my contemporaries have clearly done well enough to do so. Why did God not bless me so? Was I doing something wrong?

Yummy Birthday Cake!

By God's Grace

This month as I reflect on my life, God wanted me to learn this statement – “By God’s Grace, what I have and where I am are exactly what God wants me to have and to be”.

“By God's grace" sounds humble and pious but it is false humility unless I really believe it. Many times when I said "It's by God's grace..." what I actually meant was that I was good and made good choices. Therefore I deserved these good things that I was blessed with. So whenever I felt that others had ‘more’ or ‘better’ things than me, the feelings of discontent would come again.

Take the example of the cars again - if I had a Porsche and someone said, "Wah, super car!" I would say "by God's grace - He blessed me with this car" (meaning I worked hard and deserved this car). But if someone said "Wah, super car!" to my Kia Picanto (trust me, no one has ever said that), I would say "Yeah, it was cheap and I grabbed it" (meaning actually I deserved better).

Blessings or Rewards?
Many people say “I don’t want children because they affect my lifestyle and I cannot afford them.” If we are convinced that children are God’s blessings to us, then what we’re saying would be “I don’t want God’s blessings because they affect my lifestyle and I cannot afford 

Family Birthday Dinner

them.” We can’t receive and enjoy God’s blessings when we think of them as rewards that we deserve because of our hard work and good behaviour. Even though Marie and I have been blessed four times by God, there are many, many days when the boys make us wonder “Why God? Why did you have to give us these blessings? Wouldn’t a round-the-world trip for two have been better a better reward?” Seeing the boys as blessings is a lesson that Marie and I have to learn over and over again.

Good Choices & Control

Also, the premise that I could make good choices all on my own is utterly wrong. Left to my own devices and without God’s guidance, I would have made all the wrong choices in life. I sometimes wonder what life would be like if I hadn’t married Marie. She still chides me for making her wait for such a long time before I asked her to be my steady girlfriend. Somehow whenever she wanted to give up on me, we would meet up unexpectedly and give her hope again (OK, as promised, this is a story that I shall tell soon). Say what you will, there is only one reason for that – God was maneuvering us together in the background.

The stakes keep getting bigger and bigger as I got older as well. As I climbed higher in the career ladder, gained more social and professional credibility, had more bills and loans to pay for, had more people dependent on me, life got more and more complex; and less and less under my control. I could strain with all my might and work myself to exhaustion, yet I could not promise you what will happen tomorrow. There is only one who can promise this and that is God. It is good to know that the One who controls the universe also has my best interest in His heart.

Another celebration - Waffle and Ice Cream

Jesus - He took our pain

So “By God’s Grace, what I have and where I am are exactly what God wants me to have and to be” is not only a statement that reminds me to be humble and also gives me peace that He has everything under control.

What is more amazing is that as flawed, fallible people, God’s Grace is big enough to accommodate even our wrongs and bad choices. We do not have to earn God’s good graces to receive His blessings. His Grace even takes into account our failures and provides for that.

The other day when I turned on my mobile phone Bible app, it displayed the verses for the day: Isaiah 53: 3-5.

He was despised and rejected—
    a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
    He was despised, and we did not care.

⁴ Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
    it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
    a punishment for his own sins!
⁵ But he was pierced for our rebellion,
    crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
    He was whipped so we could be healed.

                        New Living Translation (through www.biblegateway.com)

Honestly I was in no mood that day to read about Jesus getting beaten up. Who wants to start the day with such morbid thoughts? I wanted to go the book of ‘Romans’ to receive God’s Words of Grace for the day but the phone insisted on displaying Isaiah 53 in spite of my attempts. God wanted me to know that the very Grace I wanted from Him was possible only because His punishments for me were meted out to Jesus instead. And no matter how terrible I think my life is; yes, there is someone else who life was worse than mine. God put upon Jesus the terrible things that should have happened to me so that He could bless me with the good things. No matter how wearisome and burdensome I feel, I need to remember that what could have been worse in my life did not happen to me because it was hung there on the cross with Jesus.

Peace

This is what makes it worth it!

The other day in church, I had been tending to Samuel for what felt like an eternity during service. He had been climbing up and down and had not stayed still even for a brief moment. I was sweating from carrying him and running after him. For a break, I carried him out of the sanctuary onto the third floor, hoping that he would settle down and sleep. As I looked downstairs to the ground floor, I saw a super cool looking Mercedes drive into the car park. I had this strange feeling all of a sudden. For once I didn’t feel envious of the guy with the Mercedes. I felt a sense of thankfulness for the both of us – he with his car and me with my wriggly kid. If I believed that we were both blessed with exactly what God wanted us to have then I should be happy for both of us; and I was! It was a strange feeling that I was not used to but for once the spirit of envy was stilled; and it felt good (… Samuel fell asleep soon after that too J).

Post Note:

I felt that I needed to qualify a few statements in this blog:

1. The blog is talking about contentment with my day to day living. There is such a thing as holy discontent with where we are Spiritually. I believe when we don’t get caught up with discontentment in material matters that we feel spiritual discontentment and yearn for more of God. There is great danger in spiritual stagnation masquerading as contentment.

2. The statements about children only apply if you are clear that God specifically wants to bless you with children. God blesses each one of us with different things. There is no one size fits all. The danger for those of us who have children is when we display them as medals of valour and make those who don’t have children feel guilty.

3. A friend said after listening to me compare my Picanto to a Porsche once again, “Are you sure you’re a car person? You don’t really look like one.” Guilty as charged but you understand why I chose this illustration, yes? It’s a guy thing.