Then had a good - no, a most excellent supper - with Weizhu. It's such a joy to get to know him more and more, even though we've been friends for many years. Hee. I guess these are the friendships that really strengthen and renew your heart... little brooks of God's tangible expressions of love that you come across day by day.
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And, Priority Living. Wow. Thank God. I think God is really speaking to me, debriefing me even, for the new phase of ministry that is to lie ahead. Ever since I came back from the missions trip in August, I just sense God's calling is becoming even clearer and clearer... more and more tangible... every step I take... He is my light and my salvation indeed.
And I just feel so... grateful. Kindness of a Saviour. I mean... *gosh* ...
Sorry, just feel rather overwhelmed at this moment.
I mean, Ps Jeff's altar call after sermon... was for those who want to be touched by God... to be USED by God...
And the sermon itself. Priority Living. It's a series that I've been really looking forward to. Because so many things have happened that made me think even more about my life and my death.
Maybe it was the accident on the last day of the missions trip. That made me think deeper about how suddenly life can go just like that. And that life is a sheer gift from God. "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
Had also been reading Ecclesiastes. It made me think deeply about the result of a life lived for oneself... it's so true... you can be a believer in God, but if you don't live for Him... but choose to live like the rest of the world... you'll eventually find that everything you do is meaningless.
1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
3 What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?
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And the book of Ecclesiastes... one lesson that I took away was that no matter what work you do on earth... if it's for yourself... you are indeed a very miserable and pitiful man indeed.
Reading the books of Job and Ecc made me think deeply... one bro described Job as a book "full of complaining". In a way it's true... but it's one of the most powerful books I've read... Job's complaints are so real, so realistic, so full of emotion... and they ask one of the deepest and hardest to answer questions... "Why do good people suffer so badly?" and "If God is so good, why is there so much evil?" And why does God allow good people to suffer and bad people to go scot-free?
And I really really enjoyed reading the book. Wanted to read it over and over again. :) Hee. Oh man. I think this probably says quite a bit about what kind of person I am. :P
But yah. Reading Ecclesiastes, where Solomon had tried everything the world had to offer and groaned in the end, "Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!"
And contrast to Job... who lost all that he had, his children, and even his own health... and he didn't even have the comfort of knowing whether there was a life after death... but in the end he saw God... and in a way, I think God did hint to Job that one day, he would see his children in the life to come.
It's strange. Two men, both super-rich... one died rich, but said everything was meaningless... and found out the hard way that to fear God is to really live... but I sense a note of sadness in his final words... a note of failure and despair. And his son didn't do too well as the next king...
But Job died old and full of years after the terrible suffering he went through... at peace with God and with his family... and he grew in richness of character... of humility, generosity and forgiveness and so on... and most of all he now had experienced God first-hand...
*ponder*
Two men with very similar circumstances but very different outcomes... one chose faith in the world... and another chose faith in God.
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And reading the newspapers recently... about old people with dementia. To be honest, dementia's one of the diseases that I think I will really really really not want to get. Because you lose your mind... and worse still, it has a very disheartening effect on your loved ones.
And being an absent-minded and quite a slow-thinking fellow at times... I think I can understand a bit how the older people feel... that sense of frustration when they can't remember certain things.
But even if one day I do get it... I pray for mercy... I still want to love God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind and all my strength. If I forget everything else, even memories of my most loved ones... then I pray that I will never forget three things: God's great love for me on the Cross, the Word of God and the hope of the new life to come.
In short, faith (the Word), hope (eternity) and love (the Cross). :)
It's possible to remember the Word of God, even when all your mind is gone. It is possible. Because there was this grandfather who had a stroke that robbed him of all linguistic capability. He totally lost the ability to understand language, both spoken and written. But... he never forgot the Psalms, because over his life, he had memorised and meditated on the Psalms so long that even when his mind totally failed him, he could still recite them. And I think they were the only words that could speak to him when human words could no longer reach him. Wow....
AND I REALLY WANT THAT KIND OF MEMORY. To let more and more of His Word be so deeply inscribed into my heart that even if my mind was totally gone, eaten away by Alzhemier's or amnesia... I'd still remember His Word always, and forever! I may forget my own name... but let me never, ever forget the beautiful name of Jesus - the Name that is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth...
:)
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Hee. Morbid yah? No lah. We're all going to die one day, so the question is, how will you live today?
So I want to spend my life on what really counts. What really matters. What will carry over into the life to come. I don't want to be a safe ship in harbour. Because that's not what a ship's meant for. To live is Christ, to die is gain. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. :)
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
Because eternal life doesn't start after death. It started from the day Christ came and gave me a brand-new life. And I don't want my dear Saviour to be ashamed of me on the day He returns. Yeah... :P
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Oh other things being put together...
The book "When the Game is Over", the sermons, the Bible... various circumstances...
Hmm... all these seem to be pointing to one thing: Priority Living. To live fully for God.
I need to examine myself... to discard what hinders me from following God fully, and to consider carefully how I use my time and money for Him. To practise being more and more generous towards God and others.
Yup... yup... keep me in prayer yah? Tks! :)
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