Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary

Life Regrets
I accompanied my Dad to a doctor's visit recently. Anyone who knows Dad will tell you that he is a most kind and generous man. Yet, over the course of the consultation, my Dad spoke of his life regrets - of better choices he could have made, of friends' betrayals, of the life of a business man (he had always wanted to be a teacher).

Looking at Dad's life and what he has achieved, I don't think he has anything to be ashamed of. Still, for him, as for any one of us on this side of heaven, living life here in an imperfect world comes with its share of regrets.

In our forties (the age that I'm at), I sense our concern is of missed opportunities. We are often told that if we do not try harder or take greater risks, we will regret not grabbing the chances that came our way. In the year before Samuel arrived, Marie and I felt that our time taking care of small children at home had come to an end. The youngest had started school and we could begin to explore what God had planned for us outside of the home. Of course, the arrival of Samuel, while he was much welcomed, kicked all those exploratory plans back to square one again.

The "Life-ordinary"
As Marie and I discussed, it seemed God had called us to continue living the "life-ordinary". It felt especially so for Marie as a stay home mom, if you can even call raising four boys ordinary these days. But the daily grind of tending to the boys' daily needs, driving them around, providing their meals, nagging them to study - you cannot help the feeling of the mundane creeping up on you. The newspapers love to write stories of people who have a big brood of children and still achieve exceptional success in their careers. We are not such people - my full time job and running a household of fours boys was about as much as we both could handle.

"Was this small plot the only task that God found me worthy to tend?", Marie asked God but it is not only stay home moms who struggle with such feelings. While I think that my job contributes to the building of something significant in our society, even then the daily grind of meetings, reports, staff issues etc. get to me some days. I suspect that is why I love the "Lord of the Ring" Trilogy. These stories tell of  men (and hobbits, dwarves, elves and other mythical beings) who donned gear and fought wars of seemingly impossible odds against evil because they knew it was doom for them and their families if they did not. In our hearts we all yearn to know that we are significant in such an obvious way.

Power
The thing though is that we hope to find in ourselves that special power, that special gift (which explains why the superhero / Twilight / Harry Potter movies are also so popular) that distinguish us from the rest of the crowd. Unfortunately or fortunately, that is not what the Bible tells us. Apart from God, there is nothing in us that can create anything of significance, especially of eternal significance. It is God's power and ability, working through us that changes the world around us; and is prayer that connects the eternal and temporal, that creates the extraordinary in the ordinary. The consistent theme in the "Lord of the Ring" story echos that. Those who grasped for power (the power of the ring), even for good intentions, were quickly seduced into evil by the power itself. It was the humble, unassuming and faithful Hobbits that won the day in the end.

Conduit
We recently learnt in church about miraculous healing through prayer. As one preacher taught us, when we pray, we become a conduit connecting God's healing power with those who are ill and hurting in our community. Marie was very keen to learn more of this, to have a greater part in this Ministry. "But how would I even come into contact with anyone sick?" she wondered. "Why don't you ask God to show you?" I suggested. After all, if this is God's work, surely He would also set things up.

The Extraordinary Experience
Around this time, God gave Marie an image as she cooked in our kitchen that it would not be just cooking smells that wafted out of our flat. It would also be the aroma of Christ "For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing." 2 Corinthians 2:15. Quite soon after that, Marie bumped into two ladies staying in our block of flats and found out that they were suffering from serious illnesses. Around this time too we decided to meet with a group of friends from church to pray regularly in our home. We had opportunities to pray, encourage and even give practical help to these two ladies and others. After one of our prayer meetings, we bumped into one of the ladies at the lift lobby. There and then we had a spontaneous time of prayer together with her. She told us that through this difficult times, it seemed at every turn God was there to meet her needs. Even though this was not the best of times, she felt more spiritually alive than she had been in a long time. How amazing is that? When we desire to have a part to play in God's work, He always gives us a chance to join in.

Eyes on heaven, Feet on ground
Two other things happen during this period. Not so pleasant thing. One was the sad news that an eight year old boy who had been in coma for a year plus passed away. It was shocking and tragic. Many people in church were questioning why because there were people who said they had seen visions that this boy would wake up. To me there was no contradiction. Prayer helps us to see that there is a greater reality behind the veil of this physical world. Life does not end because it is ended on earth. The boy did wake up, just not on this side of heaven.  The second incident was when one of our son's bike got stolen right in front of the gate of our flat. Sometime later Marie saw one of the neighbourhood boys with the bike (painted over of course). When Marie questioned him, he had answers to explain away the co-incidence that the two bikes looked so similar. Learning lesson? Lock your bikes up good. While we live in a spiritual reality, our feet are also planted squarely on this physical reality where people will take things that do not belong to them. The extraordinary and the ordinary interlaced and inter-phased - we need to learn to live as dual citizens in both worlds.

Connecting with the Extraordinary One
While I was on leave recently, I realised that it was very difficult to stop working. The work emails intruded into what should be my time to spend on myself and my family. Then it struck me that perhaps it was not the emails, it was me who could not stop working; that fundamentally I feared that I will not be significant if I do not find validation in my work. In John Chapter 4 in the Bible, Jesus stops by a well to ask a Samaritan woman for a drink. Did He really need a drink that He could not get for Himself? No. He asked for a drink so that he had a chance to connect with someone who had been spiritually thirsty for a long time. The years of trying to assuage this thirst with the ordinary things in this world had not worked. Jesus interrupted her daily routine of collecting water from the well - a very mundane, very everyday activity and in that moment the extraordinary exploded into the ordinary; and she was never the same again.

I need that; and I suspect many of us do - the only solution to ordinary is not more ordinary but to let the extraordinary explode into your life. Give it a try :)

(post script: apologies for this rather bare bone formatting and no pictures. Life is busy these days)

It's OK to want - It's what you want that matters

I need to qualify:

I don't usually post again so quickly but I felt a disquiet after my last post. The way I wrote, it was as if it is wrong to want more, to have more. Yes, it's challening to have the wealth of King Solomon but it's not necessarily wrong... after all, what we have all come from God.

I mentioned that our hearts are basically orientated to want more. It struck me this is fundamentally true. Our hearts are made to want more of God. Things go awry when what we want is not more of God but of the things in this world. (Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world., 1 John 2: 15 - 16, NIV, BibleGateway.com)

What we don't want to become:
To tell ourselves "It's wrong to want! It's wrong to want!" is not the right approach because we will become one of two types of people.

One, we become resentful of those who have more than us. My family and I were once in a situation where the new things we had, the clothes we wore, the choices we made were constantly judged to be extravagant. It was difficult, frustrating and stressful. If the intent was meant to drive us to a simpler life, it certainly didn't work.

Two, we become Christians who have a veneer of cheer all the time - you know, those who have one foot stuck in poop and look to heaven to thank God that their other foot is not in it. If we believe that we are made to want more of heaven and God, we will instead grieve that feet get stuck in poop on earth and look to heaven to thank God that there will not be poop in heaven (my theory on no poop in heaven is interesting discussion for another time... if you folks are interested in such things :).

It is when we allow ourselves to want more - more of heaven and God; and to recognise that we live in a broken, fallen world where there is injustice, tragedies and grievious events that we become real, authentic people. Men and women in the Bible grieved - King David in the Psalms, the whole book of Job, Lamentations, Jeremiah; Hannah (Prophet Samuel's mother) grieved at the injustice of her bareness; and of course, Jesus grieved. The grief and discontent with this present world should drive us to pursue God, to have a foretaste now of what it will be like in Heaven (All these people were still living by faith when they died. … admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. … they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Hebrews 11: 13, 14, 16).

Jewels - we can't outshine God

Tiffany & Co. Rings

And for those of you who think that God is not aware of our desires for beautiful and precious things, this is how the Bible describes Heaven - 

"The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass." 

( Revelation 21: 18 - 21, NIV, BibleGateway.com). 

I do not mean any disrespect when I say that heaven seems very 'bling-bling'. Those Tiffany & Co. http://www.tiffany.com/International.aspx fans out there - you ain't seen nothing yet till you've seen Heaven's jewels.

Joni Eareckson Tada

A Real Story:
There is a lady whom I feel daily embodies how one can learn to grieve about one's condition on earth but live with a vibrant, contented spirit while waiting for the promises of heaven. 

"A diving accident in 1967 left Joni Eareckson Tada a quadriplegic in a wheelchair". That means she has not been able to use her 4 limbs for the last 5 decades. She, has learnt through God to overcome her 'handicap' to achieve great things. To find our more of Joni, go to this link http://joniearecksontadastory.com/ and her website: http://www.joniandfriends.org/

Excerpts:
I give you a short excerpt from the Joni Eareckson Tada Story website:

God used this injury to develop in me patience and endurance and tolerance and self-control and steadfastness and sensitivity and love and joy. Those things didn’t matter much when I was on my feet but, boy, they began to matter after I began living life in a wheelchair.

Also, I began to get a buoyant, lively hope of heavenly glories above. In other words this wheelchair help me see that the good things in this life aren’t the best things. There are better things yet to come. The good things in this life are only omens and foreshadowing of more glorious, grand, great things to burst on the scene when we walk into the other side of eternity. For one thing, the Bible assures us that we’re going to have new bodies. First Corinthians, chapter 15, read it sometime for some encouragement. We learn there that one day we will have new hands, new legs that will walk, new hearts, new minds.

I can’t wait for the day when I’m given my brand new glorified body. I’m going to stand up, stretch, dance, kick, do a aerobics, comb my own hair, blow my own nose, and what is so poignant is that I’ll finally be able to wipe my own tears, but I won’t need to, because the Bible tells us in the book of Revelation that God will personally wipe away every tear. There will be no more need to cry. How ironic that finally on the day when I have my hands so I can blow my own nose and wipe own tears I won’t have to. 

As they said in the show 'Babe' - " 'nuff said".

For Isaac Yap - enjoy!

Whimsical, Cute and Heavenly Things (yes, the real Heaven)

From Wikipedia:

1. Cheung Chau (Chinese: 長洲, lit. "Long Island") is a small island 10 km southwest of Hong Kong Island, is nicknamed as the 'dumbbell island' for its shape. It has been inhabited for longer than most other places in the territory of Hong Kong, with a population of about 23,000 up to 2006. Administratively, it is part of the Islands District. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheung_Chau

2. McDull (traditional Chinese: 麥兜) is a cartoon pig character that was created in Hong Kong by Alice Mak and Brian Tse. Although McDull made his first appearances as a supporting character in the McMug comics, McDull has since become a central character in his own right, attracting a huge following in Hong Kong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mcdull



First Visit to Cheung Chau:

I was pleased when Marie told me that she had planned for us to visit Cheung Chau. Finally what was just a piece of imagination in my mind would become a reality. 

Beach Front Shop selling rubber floaties

My impression of Cheung Chau when I finally got there was that it looked like of our own Changi Beach in the  '70s. After the hustle, bustle and modernity of the main Hong Kong island, it was nice to come to a place left in the eddies of time. It felt like time slowed, burdens were lifted and tensions relieved.

The beach was quiet, the sun shining and the sea gently lapping. There was no fancy hotel resort by the beachfront, only run-down stores displaying sand toys and colorful rubber floaties. As you wander through the narrow streets, you'll find all manner of mom and pop shops selling everything under the sun. To top it off, we had great seafood by the beach just as it used to be in Punggol.

Treasures (Sand Glass) on the beach

Even the houses are quaint - the sign on the door says "Private Residence, Please do not enter, Fierce Dog inside"

 We had a great day in Cheung Chau!

Cute, Whimsical Things

Marie insisted I take a photo of my treasure trove

For those of you who know me well enough, you know that I like cute and whimsical things. Hong Kong has many, many shops selling these cute articles and it was with lots of personal discipline that I did not come back with a full suitcase of them. Nevertheless, Marie insisted that I had to take a photo of the stash of cute things that I had collected.

“Why this fascination with cute things?” , you may ask, “aren’t men supposed to like football instead (see my earlier blog for further discussions on this topic). Why indeed?


Answer:
For me, cute and whimsical things represent, in a very simplistic way, the heaven that the God of the Bible has promised to those of us who believe. The simple lines, the wide eyes, the smiley faces reflect a simplicity in life that we all desire. Deep in our hearts, do we not all desire that life should be about being sincere and kind to one another and nothing else? Was this not what our parents taught us when we were children? But when we grew up, it seems like there are just so many reasons why these simple rules can no longer hold true.


Heaven:
God promises for those of us who believe in Him that there will come a day when we will experience the reality of heaven. How different will heaven be? Imagine this - every interaction with each other carried out with no other intention but love, generosity and kindness. No more hurting one another whether intentionally or unintentionally. No longer any need of suspicion for someone behaving in a particular way to you. 


As it is written in the book of Revelations Chapter 2, verses 3 - 4

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”


I don't want to oversimplify because faith and commitment to God is simple but not easy; and for this faith, people have died; and even more than that, in His grace, our Lord Jesus Christ died that all of us who believe in Him may enter God's heaven at no cost to ourselves. As written in Revelations Chapter 5 verses 9 " ... because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation."


This assurance is heaven is already mine - and while I am here on earth, I will try to live out daily the reality of heaven while I yearn with my heart the day it will be made real.


Till then I supposed, the cute things will still remind me of the true reality waiting for me...


And so with this blog, I end my musings on my trip to HK. Time to move on to something else...

Have a blessed day!