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

"Who Are You Looking For?"

Power of Love Church Facebook Page

This was a sermon that I preached when a good friend invited me to do so at the 

Power of Love Church in Hua Hin, Thailand. Do visit if you're ever in that area!

               

               

Bible Reading:

Thank you for your invitation to visit your church and to offer me this opportunity to preach.

Our reading today from the Bible is from John Chapter 20. I am reading from the New International Version (NIV).

Verse 1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 

Verse 11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb...

Verse 14 to 16 … she turned around and saw Jesus standing there,but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

Introduction

The scene is familiar to us – Jesus had died on the cross and three days later he had arisen from the dead. But for the first century Christians who still did not understand what had happened, the empty tomb had caused fear, anxiety and confusion. Not only was their beloved leader and teacher dead, his body had apparently been stolen.

Jesus frequently asks us sharp questions that reveal the truth in our hearts:

“Mary”, He asked, “why are you crying? ^“Who is it you are looking for?”. 
“Why are you crying?” meaning why are you sad, worried or anxious?. 
“Who is it you are looking for?” meaning “Who do you look for when you are sad, worried or anxious?”

This is the same question Jesus asks us in our own times of sadness, worry and anxiety:

Why are you sad, worried or anxious? Is it Jesus whom you turn to or someone or something else for help?

We can learn from the Temptation of Christ

When we are in a stressful situation, Satan tempts us to turn away from God to other substitutes. We can learn lessons from how he tempted Jesus in the desert.

In the first temptation, Satan asked Jesus to turn stone into bread because Jesus was hungry. This temptation is for us to turn to physical comfort in times of need.

Food is a common example. There is nothing wrong with food and I look forward to having much good Thai food while I am here! But there are people who eat not because they are hungry but to soothe their worries. Food has become their idol, their ‘god’ in times of stress and anxiety.

In the second temptation, Satan offers to Jesus power over many cities of the world. This is not hard to understand In times of trouble, we look to people with human power or authority to protect us. This can happen at the work place, at home or even in the church.

In the third temptation, Satan tempts Jesus to believe that by his actions, He could control God. In Singapore where I come from, many believe that if we study hard, if we obey all the rules, especially government rules, we will be blessed by God because we are good. Even Christian students and their parent believe that if they study hard, God must bless them with good marks, then good jobs and a good, trouble free life.

I remember when I was 16 years old and taking an important exam in school, I prayed “God, I have worked hard so you must give me all ‘A’s in my exam subjects”. God answered me with another question – “Why do you need ‘A’s when you have Me?”. He would not let me control Him.

He also didn't always give me good marks. In fact from then on, there would always be one or two subjects in my exams that did not get good marks. God wanted me to learn that it is not the good marks but Him that I needed in life.

The Power of Love

Let us return to Jesus’ questions to Mary:

“Why are your crying?”

“Who are you looking for?”

Based on what reasons is Jesus able to promise us that He is the answer to all the problems in our lives?

Based on the fact that He loved us, He suffered for us and died for our sins.

Based on the fact that His death has removed all barriers between us and God.

He speaks gently but the fact is He has returned victorious over death and sin; and God has placed everything under Him (see 1 Corinthians 15: 21 - 28).

Church, when I asked God what message He has for you -

He asked me to remind you of the name of your church: The Power of Love Church

Because - There is Power in Love!

It is not people with guns or money or earthly authority that have power.

It is God’s love that has the true Power to change this world.

As it is written in Romans 8: 37- 39:

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God^(CF) that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

But Jesus not only showed us the amazing, infinite power of the love of God

He also showed us an example of how to live a powerful life of love through humility and service to others. At the last supper with His disciples, Jesus washed their feet. This was a task that we would expect a servant to do. Jesus willingly washed his disciples feet and said “ I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John13:15)

As it is also written in 1 John 3: 16 – 18

¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. 

Church, God says “You have chosen well the name of your church”. There is power in His Love to change this world. And so I encourage you, go and live your life for Christ in this world. 

His Love through your lives will be the powerful force that will change this world.

Amen

Photo with family & church leaders after sermon

After the storm ... What's Next?

Winter Comes Upon Us

The winter of 2013 - 14 will be remembered for being particularly bad - frigid temperatures and unexpected snow storms that brought many cities to their knees. It was apparently caused by something called the Arctic Vortex. This was the first time I have ever heard of such a thing.

I had an opportunity to experience this for myself when I landed in New York right smack in the middle of a sudden snow storm that shut down the airport. My connecting flight to Boston was canceled. As I traveled into New York City to spend the night in a hotel, the entire city was gridlocked. A trip from the airport to the hotel that should have taken just half an hour, took two and a half hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic. When I finally got out of the airport van, the cold air that smacked me in my face was shocking to my tropical sensibilities. Frankly, my admiration for people who live in winter climates grew by leaps and bounds. It took mental and physical resilience to live here. Those of us living in balmy climates who wished for picture perfect snow white scenes on Christmas Cards do not know half of what we're asking for. By the way, snow gets blackish and dirty quite quickly. It's not pretty at all.

Marie and I will remember this period of our lives as being particularly challenging for other reasons as well. Other than the craziness of running a family of 4 kids (the last few months without domestic help again), guiding another son through the major PSLE exam (see: School Results (PSLE no. 2) - what I'm learning about school grades), busy work schedules, finishing my course assignments, early morning online discussions and lectures, we also engaged a designer to renovate a new home last June. We capped it off with a monumental move into our new abode in January 2014, two weeks before I traveled to the U.S. for the very last module of my course (which was when I landed into this unexpected snowstorm).

Challenging Times

Dartmouth College, a great place of learning

We had known in advance of these events, had planned for them and had survived with a whole gamut of emotions from elation to frustration. It is hard to do justice to our experiences in the past year with a few succinct words. Marie said it was more more like desperation than frustration - she had to endure more of it when I was away in the States; leaving her alone with the kids and the new house. It felt like juggling a thousand balls in the air all the time, none of which could drop. It felt like a constant stream of questions, decisions and incidents to handle. We couldn't let our guard down for even a moment. We hadn't intended for it all to converge into a crescendo at this one point in time. So perhaps it was no surprise that on 30th January 2014, 4:30 pm, U.S. Eastern Standard Time (EST), when the last lecture of my 18 months course was delivered, I felt both a sense of relief and let down that I had a completed a most challenging period of my life; and yet without any fanfare. Shouldn't there have been fireworks, champagne popping and inspiring Disney music? We only had our rather reticent professor thank us for the last one and a half years (of course later on I had the pomp and pageantry of a college commencement; but that was later on).

After the Storm 

Family happy in the new home ... finally

Now almost two months later I thought I was supposed to have more time after these major events. The time that I had set aside for my course work was like a hole that you dug in the sand. The tide came in and you didn't know where the hole went. My instincts told me, wait, slow down, take stock before deciding on the next steps but life seemed to hunt me down with more 'important' things that needed attention urgently.

Finally, I had a rare Saturday morning when I didn't have to rush a kid to a school activity and could sit down to breakfast and the papers. I'm sure it was God who arranged the time and the two articles in the papers that give me a one, two punch when I read them (I attach the links to the electronic versions here).



The first: "The Folly of Thinking We Know" (The New York Times)
The second: "Why being too busy makes us feel so good" (The Washington Post)

The first article talks about the fallacy of thinking it is possible to know everything that we want to know. The second article describes the absurd badge of honour that many of us display these days of busyness to the point of being overworked and exhausted because it drives our sense of self-worth. We think we are important and of value to society just because we have no time for anything but work.

Mr. Know-it-all

The reason why these two articles read together really hit home was because my business at the workplace is much about finding information and making information known; and of course a large part of my daily life is spent at work. I started work at this current work place fours years ago on 18th March 2010. Maybe if my boss knew how little I knew about the work then, he would not have offered me the job. But from day one I gave myself this personal motto: "I will only not know something once." The first 90 days was filled with asking, questioning and diligently studying any piece of information I could lay my hands on about the organisation.

With time, when people in the organisation noticed that if they posed me a question I would find them the answer, a line began to form. It struck me that this need in the organisation was something that I could build the core purpose of my team upon. I trained my team to "Either provide the right answer; or link the seeker to the person with the right answer". I made sure my team never gave the answer "I don't know" or "My department is not in charge of this" - "No Wrong Door" Policy as they say. One of the staff on my team said recently "Wow, are we supposed to be the Google of this organisation or what?"

Life in a snow storm

While it felt good to be the source of information for many in the organisation, it was true that I couldn't know everything, especially information that specialists spent years training for. It was also an enormously heavy burden to bear. I learnt that more important than providing information was teaching others how to find information for themselves - not fishing for them but teaching them how to fish.

Slow Down ...

The temptation for me now has been to run out to fill my newly 'free' hours with more of the same work. These two articles are like speed bumps telling me to slow it down, to consider filling my life with the important stuff, not merely more activities. They remind me of the writings of a wise man, purportedly the wisest in the world. A man named King Solomon whose musings were captured in the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. In his own words "I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens" (Eccl. 1: 13) and he found that "this, too, is a chasing after the wind" (Eccl. 1:17).

A Wiser Guy

Even in a snow storm,
there is beauty

If we only gave this book a superficial, cursory read, we would think the author was a guy who was clinically depressed and in need of therapy. Everything was "meaningless" or "folly". This time as I applied the reading to my situation, I realised that the words of the book was a warning to those of us who pursue only what can be seen with our visible eyes - work, riches, success, pleasure. He does not deny that there are good things here on earth - "Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart ..." (Eccl. 9:7a); "Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love ..." (Eccl. 9:9a); "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might ..." (Eccl 9:10a). However, he warns us that the pursuit of these to the exclusion of an awareness and a respect for the God of the universe is folly. "Remember your Creator", he exhorts all of us. Otherwise, even with the full extent of his unrivaled wisdom, he could not make any sense of this world - bad things do happen to good people, good things do happen to bad people; and if there was no precious eternal afterlife with God, then what was the point of this short and painful, present one?

Start and Stop with God ... the best bet in any Storm

The passage of the past 18 months for me could be likened to a Tsunami. The gale force magnitude of the events drove Marie and myself to action with little time to ponder the consequences. Yet, now that the events were over, I realised that there was a greater danger - like a person paddling just to keep afloat in a storm, I did not know to stop paddling even though the storm had passed. Marie feels that God is telling her this is a winter period of our lives. Winter is the time to hibernate, to slow down ...

Someone asked me recently how I planned my career. The honest answer is that I have never planned my career. At every point of my work I have only tried my best to do what I understood to be God's calling for me. The rest has been God's doing. God seems to be calling me now to stop, to listen to what He has to say and to be sensitive to His promptings to choices ahead of me. Unless I want to end up with a life of "folly" and "meaninglessness", I think I better obey.

School Results (PSLE No. 2) - What I'm learning about school grades

Caleb and me - Post-PSLE

Good Grades or Good God? 

My friend Hwee Ting told me that she is still reading and recommending my blog to friends whose children are waiting for the PSLE exam results (School Results (PSLE) - What I'm learning about school grades). In that blog written two years ago when my first son completed his PSLE exams, I argued that it is not good grades but a good God who is the assurance for our futures.

Now two years later as I once again trooped down to school with second son Caleb (two down, two more to go) to receive his PSLE exam results, I felt that it was as much a day of reckoning for me as it was for him. Did I still believe and would I still be able to say with conviction "God gives us exactly what we need" regardless of what Caleb scored?

For the nation at large, the pressure of this exam had not abated; if anything it had escalated. This year when the government ran a series of focus groups regarding social issues, the parents' complaint of the excessive pressure of exams rang loud and clear. My wife Marie participated in one of the feedback sessions and asked for a 'kinder PSLE' (In Conversation with Stakeholders on Education). The government promised to tweak the exams gradually but took immediate actions to request that the media limit the traditional annual announcement of top students and their scores. This created an unnecessary frenzy every year that lasted several days and added on to the determination (or 'craziness'?) of parents to ensure that their children will appear smiling in the papers the following year (post note: the peace from a quieter media this year certainly cut out much unnecessary noise and tension).

Media aside, we still could not escape from the comparisons in schools, among friends' and colleagues' children. When we got to school, Marie and I sat in the auditorium listening to the names of the top boys in school being read out. The boys whose names were read leaped out of their seats with glee and punched the air. Caleb was not one of them. I wondered how he felt.

Good Genes?

At that point, what was going through my mind was my brother, Kuang. When we were kids, he also watched as I constantly brought back good results from school. I've never really thought much about what it felt like for him then. Recently, he wrote on his Facebook page that I had inherited all the smart genes of the family. What that statement implied, and what we generally believe, is that success is about the luck of draw. Good life or bad is just a random occurrence what cards you were dealt in life ...

These days my brother lives in the U.S. by the sea. He says the weather is balmy and he surfs all year round. He is married without kids but the children in the neighbourhood regularly wander into his house uninhibited. His life may sound like one of those Beach Boys or Jack Johnson songs but he is not a beach bum who has no direction in life.

He renovates dilapidated houses to bring renewal and jobs to communities. I wrote to him recently that I had seen on TV one of those house renovating reality shows where the contractor had completely refurbished a house for a mother-daughter pair who had met with several tragedies in their lives. The tears of joy when they saw their renovated house was priceless. This was meaningful and fulfilling work that he was doing.

So genes are like grades - regardless what genes we get, I believe God gives us exactly what we need. With my so called 'smart' genes I had found a happy place with a 9-to-5 job, one wife, four kids, picket fence life. My brother's more gung-ho, 'just give it a try' genes had led him down a more unorthodox path to a life that one would hardly call shabby. I hope Kuang doesn't begrudge me my life because I certainly don't begrudge him his. We have each made the best use of whatever genes, talents or 'smarts' God has given to us. I don't think it is what we're given but what we make of it that matters.

Markers for Greatness?

So as with the last time after the announcement of the boys with top scores, the parents waited outside the classrooms as the rest of the boys got their results. We all strained forward at the classroom window hoping to get a hint of our sons' results. One mother went as far as to stand holding the classroom door open to hear and see everything until the teacher asked her to close the door. It seems our behaviour still betray us. We jokingly say that it is not just the child but the parents who also take the exams. We spend loads of money sending our children for extra lessons and personally tutor them ourselves. The marks of their exams are so important to us because we think that these are markers for future success.

What we are invariably thinking about when we think future success is career success. Isn't this too narrow a definition of success? What about relationship success? Or moral / ethical success? Do we not hear enough nowadays about high flyers whose marriages failed? Have we not read in the newspapers about high ranking officials charged with illegal business practices?

More importantly as Christian parents, do we look out for and develop markers in our children that measure the likelihood that they will grow up to be men and women of God who choose to please Him rather than themselves? Do we pay as much attention to their church lives as we do their school lives?

God Sees and Chooses Differently

God sees and chooses the men and women of significance in the Bible differently. Many of these people probably wouldn't figure much in our education systems. As a shepherd boy, King David wasn't even offered up by his father as a potential candidate for the king position. Surly his taller and more handsome brother would be the more ideal candidate. God said 'No!', “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7

Moses had little confidence in himself when God asked him to speak to the Pharaoh of Egypt to demand for the release of the Israelite slaves. He described himself as "slow of speech and tongue" and pleaded repeatedly for God to send someone else. But God must have seen something in this man. Did it matter to God that he didn't have gift of the gab? Not at all because God gives us exactly what we need to do His work - “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” Exodus 4:11 - 12

My favourite Old Testament example for the modern career man is Daniel. Daniel was taken as an exile into the foreign Kingdom of Babylon. Talk about a hostile business environment - different culture, foreign language, unfamiliar practises and big power differential. Yet it was in this environment that God wanted His people to declare His greatness. To do this "...God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds." Daniel 1: 17. 

God gave Daniel talent, every success and high ranking positions in the Babylonian Kingdom because He saw that first and foremost Daniel was committed to using those gifts and successes to serve God, not his own career aspirations. God made Daniel indispensable to his boss - when he (due to a legal technicality) was thrown into the lions' den (now what is a modern day equivalent of that?), his boss (the King) rushed out to the den the next day shouting in an anguished voice :“Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?” (Daniel 6:19). If your boss behaved in the same way when you were in danger, what would that say of you? This is true success both in the eyes of God and man.

Joshua's experience

I think about my first son Joshua whose PSLE results I wrote about in my first blog. His results had been good enough to get him into his school of choice but not the IB program that he wanted. Of course he was initially disappointed but in the end Marie and I felt it worked out even better for Joshua. Not being in the program he wanted allowed him the room to explore secondary school life rather than have it defined by a structured program. In the two years since, he has made new friends in school and church. He has found his place in Boys Brigade and is growing to be a young leader there and in church. This year, he decided that he still wanted to be in the IB program and took it upon himself to apply for it. I am happy to announce that he has been accepted into the IB program for the coming year. We are praying that His academic success will grow in tandem with His love for God.

What about Caleb?

The family when a reporter came to interview Marie

But I digress. We should be talking about Caleb's PSLE results. So what happened? When Caleb got his results in the classroom, he smiled and waved to us. In my simplistic father's thinking, I thought "Great! He's happy, I'm happy, no negative emotions.". Fortunately mother's are more in tune with their children's emotions. Marie didn't look so sure. She was proven right when Caleb came out of the classroom and burst into tears. I was stunned - wasn't he just smiling a minute ago?

If you asked me why he was weeping, honestly, I'm still somewhat bewildered. I suppose the whole gamut of unmet expectations, not being able to go to the same school as his friends or his elder brother, fear of our disapproval, anxiety for the future. Of course Marie jumped right into action to comfort him with words and hugs. I tried my best to tell him that he did well, that we were not unhappy with his results; and eventually he did come round to be happy with what he got.

'Please, let us not agonise, God!'

While we were waiting for Caleb's results, we prayed that God would give him results that left no ambiguity as to which secondary school he should choose. We didn't want to agonise about which school to send him to or to have to agonise if we should appeal to the school if he just missed the mark. At this point in our lives, we were having many other things to deal with - house renovation and move, work, other children, church, studies - and we didn't have the resources to deal with another issue. In the end, three 'A's and one 'C' would not appear on any school's top list but would clearly get Caleb into one of the schools that we wanted for him - a school that is committed to building up boys to be men of God.

I confess though that it was difficult not to feel envious when I went back to work and church after the results were out to hear the perfect scores of my colleagues' and friends' children. I couldn't help wondering if Caleb could have scored better. I started to doubt if the results he got was really what he should have gotten. But the funny thing was this - I also heard of parents who agonised over which top schools to send their children to. There was unhappiness that even though the child had very good scores, they still did not qualify for the school of their choice. We had asked and God had given - complete freedom from having to agonise over school choices for Caleb.

Caleb's Better Markers

I don't deny it - which parent wouldn't want their child to get four 'A*'s? Which parent wouldn't want their child's face to be on the front page of the newspapers? I am not immune to that. As I reflected on these feelings I fear this would eventually lead to full blown greed in me if I were not careful. Why did I want top scores for Caleb when he didn't need them if not because of greed and pride? More importantly, these feelings unchecked would blind me to the wonderful young man that Caleb is and is growing up to be - his most tender heart for people, his willingness to help others, his fondness for small children... I hope I will learn to cherish these markers in his life more than the marks he scored; and learn to cultivate them.

In Conclusion

So I am happy that I can still say with conviction that "God always gives us exactly what we need". The story is still continuing. Ahead of my family and myself is an exciting adventure - one that I am confident will prove that God is always faithful.

I look forward to the time two years later when I return to the school for my third son's PSLE results. What will I learn about my son, myself and God then I wonder? I will give you an update then.

Graduation Day Speech: "Choice and Commitment"

The Invitation

I hadn't been a particularly active alumni so I was surprised when I received an invitation to be a Guest of Honour at one of the school's Graduation Day Ceremony recently.

I had to deliver a ten minute speech during the ceremony. What do you say to a bunch of high achieving students and their parents? As I stood on the stage and looked at the sea of expectant faces looking back at me, I knew my inner promptings were right - you give them hope. Hope that their efforts have created excellent options; and even if not, that there is a whole lot more to life and in this World than academic success.

Now on to the speech ...

Honoured Guests, Principal, Teachers, Students; and most of all, 2013 Graduands,

Thank you for this invitation to join you in your Graduation Day. It is a great honour.

One of the junior staff who recently joined my team is a Hwa Chong graduand. A few months after she started working , her supervisor came to me saying enthusiastically that she was a good worker  – she was intelligent, made good decisions, she was proactive and creative… I listened for a while and then I said “Hwa Chong, you know, of course will be good.”

What was even more interesting was that my colleague smiled but she didn’t object. So first and foremost I want to compliment all of you students and teachers, that through the years you have kept up that excellent performance to keep the flames of Hwa Chong burning brightly. Whether in universities, scholarship boards or the workplace, the name “Hwa Chong” remains highly valued. For the graduands, now as alumni of Hwa Chong Institution, you can hold your heads up high in the world out there. I can see that our motto: 自强不息 are not just words we say but also acted out in our daily lives.

I accepted this invitation, not so much because I believed I was worthy of it. I almost fell out of my chair when the invitation came. I accepted this invitation because it gave me a valid reason to block off time in my calendar to come back to visit Hwa Chong. I graduated in 1986. I guess I had always planned to return but somehow once I had left, life took over and it had just not brought me back till today. I enlisted into National Service in December of that year. In one of my calls home, my mother said excitedly “The Hwa Chong Buidling collapsed! The Hwa Chong Building collapsed! Everyone had to vacate!” Well, that’s my Mom for you - cracks in the walls become buildings collapsing but I guess that’s what makes life exciting. I visited the Woodlands then the Bukit Batok sites subsequently but it was just not the same as coming back here.

I have great nostalgia for my 4 years in Chinese High and the 2 in Hwa Chong JC. We had great teachers who always keeping us on our toes.

I also made my best friends here.  It’s unbelievable that our friendships have endured 30 years of ups and downs; and these friendships are important. We just met on Tuesday for lunch. I was stressing about the my short lunch time and getting back to work on time until my friend reminded me "Public Holiday OK?".  It is your friends who keep you grounded to what is important no matter how successful you become in life. What kept us friends all these years? I believe it’s because we did’t measure each other by standards of material success but we kept each other true to who we were and what we learnt in Hwa Chong – that the right thing to do is to do what is right, to work hard and to do good for the people we meet; and for society. With this mantra, we have gone on to contribute at a national level, and others even at an international level.

I am always intrigued by the notion that we take off from the same starting line when we leave school, yet thereafter, where life leads us depends on the decisions we make. For myself, after Junior College, I chose to study Medicine – not for any special reason except that I thought I would like to work with people and, of course, because my parents really wanted me to. Yes it was hard work, it was very, very hard work. I remembered one Saturday night as a House officer on call at the hospital and received pages from my friends to come out to play. I was thinking to myself “What am I doing here?”. But I committed myself to it, giving my best, one patient at a time. Slowly but surely I gained an interest and then a passion for the work.

My wife always teased me about this - I had told her early on that I never wanted to work in the hospital if I could and I would never do admin work. I thought what I always wanted was to be in the frontline taking care of patients in the community. Well I did do that but I was wrong as that was not the destination for me but only part of the journey. Life kept moving on and here I am standing before you a hospital administrator - exactly what I said I did not want to be and finding that I love the work anyway. I have been given that rare chance of being part of a team to start Jurong Health Services, the newest health cluster in Singapore. So never say "Never!" Be open to opportunities because you never know what life is going to offer you.

Today standing here, I see myself as an explorer who has gone ahead of you into the big wide world out there; and you’re asking me “What did you see? What is out there waiting for us?”

I bring you good news – the world out there is big and wide and wonderful. There is no limit to what you can see, hear, learn and experience. To me, the greatest tragedy is that people can feel bored and become jaded. Why do people feel limited by life?  I see them limited first by the fear of not making the perfect choice. There are many good choices around them but they would rather not make any choice at all because they can't be sure which is the perfect one. The truth is that, more often than not, when you come to a fork in the road, there is no way to know which is the perfect path to choose. The world is big enough that rarely does one choice lead you down a one way path to a dead end. Adjustments are possible to every choice made. I do not mean that we need to make decisions hastily, that we roll a dice and see what life dishes out. As you shall hear later, my wife bemoans the speed I make life decisions but I do make them eventually; and I've never known in any of these if they were the perfect choice or not but I must say most of them have turned out pretty good!

A second thing to note is that … … people who make choices don’t commit enough to their choices. When it came to marriage, of course I wanted to choose my life partner well. I was careful - that took time and my wife tells me now that many times she almost gave up hope that I would even make a choice but of course I did eventually…  Now 15 years and 4 kids later, we’re still very much in love. Yet, it’s never what Hollywood makes you think - it's not all candlelight dinners and roses. Making a good choice is only the first half of it. It is our daily commitment to make our marriage work - through good times, fun times, but also fierce quarrels, stresses, sickness, and disappointments – it is this commitment to our choices that makes the good choices the right choice.

Whether it’s relationships, work, friends and life in general – choosing and committing to that is the key to a fulfilling life. I do not want to misrepresent myself - the good life does not have to be an unwavering stream of happiness and good fortune. This is too narrow a definition of success and such lives can be boring. We know and I have seen in the patients I have treated, people who have chosen to be honourable, kind, faithful, patient and committed inspite of terrible tragedies in life. It is through these choices that they continue to live their lives with dignity and not be bitter or angry with life.

And so now it just remains for me to wish everyone here, good journeys, good friends, good choices and a good life. I leave you with this quote from Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein:

““Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”