Journal of Thoughts

A Happy Life

2011-12-26T01:26:00.003+11:00

Most of us have heard of this, “the most important thing in life is to be happy.” What is a happy life?

The billions poor in the world are happy to have food and clothing. The oppressed are happy if granted basic human rights to live. Having attained basic life needs, the checklist in a modern society is long one – good income, material possessions, physical beauty, pleasures, education, achievements, fame, prestige, family, friendships, marriage, kids and legacy.

Every individual generally has a picture of what a happy life is. The closer that picture is to reality, the happier the person is.

Society plays a great part in shaping this picture. Eastern culture is more definitive of the milestones one should achieve by a certain age and emphasises society’s perception of an individual. Western culture is less prescriptive, celebrates individual uniqueness and encourages personal development.

Cultural influence, convoluted with individual personality and beliefs, will form an individual’s picture of what a happy life looks like.

Whilst varying expectations suggest that happiness is subjective to an individual, every subjective happiness is linked to objective elements, i.e. it is a combination of material, intellectual, relational/moral and spiritual elements. The significance or insignificance of each of these elements, depends one’s value system and understanding of reality.

Happiness derived from changing elements, especially the material, are unstable as they do not last in reality. Money and possessions never seem to be enough to bring happiness. Men’s praises are fleeting. Fame does not last. Physical beauty wrinkles and strength fades. Trusted friends dissapoint. Loved ones die. People forget and life goes on as though one never exists.

An individual’s picture of a happy life is also not a static one. As one grows in understanding, the picture changes. Greater understanding accompanies greater sorrow due to heightened sense of the dark reality of life. One can try to numb one’s senses to remain happy and ignorant, or willingly accept reality and change one’s expectation of a happy life.

Some philosophies and faith systems encourage the pursuit of happiness away from the material and towards the spiritual for this very reason. They see the frailty of life and the vanity of human strifes after material things, thus they hope to find happiness that lasts in the spiritual.

The Bible teaches that true happiness comes in entering Christ’s rest, where all strifes end as sinners finally finds peace with God. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28)

On Christmas day, the Lord of Sabbath has come to give us rest. May you find true happiness through the true meaning of Christmas.

Blessed Sabbath and Merry Christmas.

Farewell Reflection

2009-02-28T22:58:00.003+11:00

Uncertain times have its unique way to direct thoughts back to what is certain. Joy is discovering what is unchanging in a changing world. I just recall a poem I composed for my colleagues some time back (10 Aug 2007) before I left Singapore. I thought it pretty much describes what life on earth is like, and despite the complexities, paradoxes and perplexities, the metanarrative behind it is unmoveable, rock solid.

Farewell Reflection

Every beginning on earth has an end
Permanence sought is never granted to men
With a secure life comes the dread of the mundane
Yet fear and uncertainty pervade the thought of change

The heart of Man is never satisfied with longing
Nor the eyes ever satisfied with seeing
Where then is Man most at home, in settling or in moving?
For abyss deep is the emptiness of the living

The strong and rich are not spared from life's pain
While the weak and poor have their own share of joy
Imperfection crowns the earth, yet wisdom knows where true values hide
One frail life will soon be past so do all things with all your heart

Will powers strive and fight for worldly gain
Events and outcomes seem like a random game
But the Sovereign redeems mankind through One Crucified Man
Hope remains because He loves, lives and reigns.

Christmas Reflection 2008

2008-12-23T13:40:00.003+11:00

Another year has passed, inviting busy souls to take stock of where all the time has gone. Pondering on this fragile and soon-fading life drowned in postmodern torrents which set souls to embark on a thousand quests, it is a great comfort to know that through the Founder of Christianity, the voice of heaven still speaks powerfully today.

Here is the Man in whom there is no gap between ideal and reality, in whom there is perfect harmony between words and actions. In His brief life the perfection of all virtues is fully preached and lived, still bearing fruits today which will testify of His works to all eternity.

He is the Mustard Seed, the smallest of all seeds which has grown to be the largest tree where birds of the air perch on its branches (Matt. 13:31-32). There had been no humbler beginning with such far-reaching and everlasting influence on human civilization. Born without the most basic human rights and possessions, suffered all his life from the manger to the cross, He has become the Fountain of blessings for all mankind. He is the Ray of hope for despairing souls, the Source of joy in the darkest trials, whose love has conquered the hardest hearts.

He is the Yeast mixed in flour which has worked through all the dough (Matt. 13:33). His life and teaching which began softer than a whisper in remote villages has now penetrated and significantly transformed judiciary, politics, economics, music, art, architecture, science, and all aspects of human culture. Indeed, no territory has been left untouched by the Founder of Christianity.

He is the Hidden Treasure in the field and the Pearl of Great Price which one found and in joy sold everything to buy (Matt. 13:44-45). All mighty kings combined have not won the love and allegiance of souls like this Man. After 2000 years, many of His followers continue to joyfully offer their lives to proclaim of His great love to all cities, jungles and the uttermost part of the earth. Napoleon was rightly astonished that million of souls are willing to die, not for him, Alexander or Caesar, but for the crucified Nazarene who founded His Empire on love. Not a believer himself, he acknowledged that Christ stood single and alone, and no other being could be compared to Him.

He is the Prophet without Honor rejected in His hometown, as He declared that Himself (Matt. 13:57). He is most worshipped, most loved, most sung, most proclaimed, yet to this day, remain without honor in His own earthly homeland. Christmas presents the most paradoxical Man in all history.

Let us rejoice as we remember Christ, the Son of God who has so humbly visited the world He made, the Son of Man deeply admired by both friends and foes.

Merry Christmas!

Father’s Day Reflection: Heavenly Father Killed His Son

2008-09-09T22:36:00.004+10:00

I am writing about the Sunday sermon I heard last Sunday, 7th September 2008 at MRII Melbourne, by Rev. Budy Setiawan. I have not heard such a good sermon for a very long time. This is not a transcript, but rather a mixture of the sermon content and my own thoughts.

It started with a question, “Who killed Jesus Christ?” The usual answers would be the Jews, the Roman soldiers, sinners like us, etc. While all these are relevant, the ultimate answer is, “His Father killed Him.” Nobody could kill the Son of God. Only God the Father could do that.

In fact, it was the Father’s will to bruise His Son, to cause Him to suffer (Isa.53:10). Translated from Hebrew, it meant God the Father did it with PLEASURE.

This sets the stage for in-depth reflection on Father’s Day. What kind of Father is that? We have an image of the ideal father in mind. But a father who kills his son will never be in our human list of a good father. The Heavenly Father, the Perfect Father, killed His One and Only Begotten Son!

Why would He do that?

Romans 11:33-36 says that God’s wisdom is incomprehensible and His ways are beyond tracing out. The doxology concluded with the exclamation that “from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.” (Rom.11:36)

God does all things for His glory.

The Westminster’s Shorter Catechism Question 1: “What is the chief end of man?” is followed by the answer, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”

Man is not to live a man-centered life, but a God-centered life because man is not God, but is created by God and for God. God too, is God-centered in all He does. He cannot be centered on anything else as there is no one and nothing higher than He is.

So we know that whatever God does from start to end is for His own glory. That includes the death of Christ.

How does the death of the Son of God glorify Him?

We know that the death of Christ demonstrates the glory of God’s redeeming love (Rom.5:8). But this is not the full picture. Romans 3:23-26 mentions that God did this to demonstrate His justice because by His forbearance He had overlooked sins for a time. Christ’s death shows that God does not leave sin unpunished although the wicked might think so. He would eventually demonstrate His perfect judgment upon the wicked who do not repent.

How great is the glory of God that even the Son of God must die for it! How dare we trample on His glory and exchange it for something else – how dare we center our lives on ourselves and expect God to be centered on us as well. Yet it is wretched sinners like us who trampled on His glory whom He justified through Christ’s death, so that we could glorify Him. This mystery is beyond our understanding.

The death of Christ reveals the infinite value of the glory of God. God did not spare His own Son to reveal His glory. Why would God spare anyone else? Whether He saves, whether He permits, whether He punishes, whether He preserves, whether He forgives, whether He judges, it is all for His glory.

All God’s works demonstrate His glory – His creation, salvation, redemption, providence and righteous judgment. God would accomplish His purposes over and above all the raging wills of men in this passing world.

May this remind us in the midst of our busyness and personal concerns in our little worlds, that the real world is a God-centered world where all things would work towards the glory of the Almighty God.

The Greatest Gift in Christmas

2007-12-22T23:34:00.000+11:00

Christmas is the most celebrated holiday worldwide and warmly welcomed for a variety of reasons. It is a season to reunite with family and friends, to exchange gifts, to rest from a year of heavy labor, to take holiday, and no doubt, for many industries, to grab hold of wonderful commercial opportunities.

Amidst all the mixture of commotions, of celebrations, laughters and restfulness, the true meaning of Christmas goes deeper still.

The Son of God once left heaven to live with us, to give us hope and eternal life. More excellent than the highest imagination of men, here is the most unforgettable divine visitation that mankind has ever known. Because He came, the ray of hope shines so radiantly in the darkest hours where evil seems to reign and through the thousands of years of cries of injustices, human despair and confusion.

Born in a manger and not in the palace of kings, the King of the Universe humbly began His life on earth. Growing quietly in a poor carpenter’s family, he attended no school, wrote no books and had no teachers, but taught as the greatest Teacher through His life example and teaching that lifted up human civilization to new heights of virtues.

A man of sufferings all his life, He relieved the sufferings of many. Deprived of the most basic human rights, He became the Champion of human rights -- all the basic human rights we often take for granted and enjoy today. He died at the prime age of man and through His death became the Savior of the world. His resurrection became the sure Promise that justice will prevail and all things will be perfected some day.

No great life ever passed so briefly, so quietly, so humbly, so far removed from the noise and commotion of the world; and no great life after its close excited such universal and lasting interest. In His three brief years of ministry is condensed the deepest meaning of religion and life. While philosophers and religious teachers can only present perfection in abstraction and ideas, the Founder of Christianity demonstrated through His life the perfect harmony of all virtues and graces, acknowledged by both friends and foes.

He is the inspiration of the greatest poets, musicians, philosophers and leaders of every aspect of human life. Today His influence is continually seen from hundreds of thousands of church pulpits, in judiciaries and established systems in society, in universities and schools, in prisons, in charity houses and in happy homes, in learned works and simple tracts in endless succession.

Christmas reminds us that the God of Heaven once entered into history and walked as one of us. Jesus the Nazarene is the most blessed fact of history. Let us celebrate CHRIST, God’s greatest gift to mankind!

Merry Christmas!

_____________________________________________________________________
Note: Some of the content of are adapted and summarized from History of the Christian Church, Volume 1, Chapter 2, by Phillip Schaff.

In Memory of Rev.Amin Tjung

2007-07-23T01:59:00.000+10:00

Rev.Amin Tjung passed away this morning, after battling with cancer since December 2005. He is a dedicated and beloved pastor of GRII Singapore (Indonesian Reformed Evangelical Church in Singapore).

My first encounter with him was during my first meeting at GRII young adult fellowship in January 2006. That day, he grabbed a young adult to the front and shot him with critical questions regarding the Scripture’s authority, which I found to be quite a unique way of teaching. It was more like a Q&A sessions, but the essence of the teaching greatly helped in consolidating my understanding of the Scripture, and I decided to make a summary of that session. Only after that meeting, I was told that he might not have more than 3 months to live. I had no idea that he was already battling with terminal cancer at that time because he talked and joked like a normal healthy man.

In this blog entry, I would like to put into remembrance different things I have learnt from him. What I write will fall short of describing what he is like because I have very limited correspondence with him and I know too little of the sufferings he went through daily and how he overcame them. Neverthelesss, within this short 1.5 year, through his teaching, his life example and our brief conversations he has condensed important principles that would make lasting impact in my life.

If I can summarize the concerns he always had, that is the preaching of the gospel and discipleship for the young generation. Over and over again, he always told us how he yearned to see us consolidating our faith foundation and learning to carry life burdens and struggling honestly before God since our youth.

He is a very interesting character. He took God very seriously but took himself, and obviously, his illness and personal struggles, very lightly. He could speak with a lot of humor while integrating important doctrines and principles inside. I still remember his words early last year, “When people hear that I am sick, I have so many people calling me from different parts of the world. News of sickness seems to spread faster than the gospel.” He did not focus much on his personal struggle. Coming bald one day due chemotheraphy, he cracked a joke at the pulpit, “Today a monk is preaching to you.”

He never once complained about his illness, instead he kept apologizing for his weaknesses and loss of voice that affect his ability to serve. That deep longing and urgency to keep serving while he still had the chance, was something everyone around him could testify. One consistent message of his life example is that that ministry is a privilege, that we are all unworthy and should be thankful if we are ever given the opportunities to serve God.

I asked him once whether he was ready if God were to take him away that day. He said, “Just try to finish what you have to do for today. If we keep this attitude consistently, all our days will be accounted for. At least I can say, I have finished my work for today.”

I have the privilege to hear his preaching in church, his teaching in young adult fellowship and his lectures in Reformed Institute. Before starting his sharing on any topic, he had the habit of recommending relevant books for us to read. He would give us ideas about the books, about the position and values of those books. He introduced not only reformed books, but also those that are different, whether slightly or a lot, from the stand adopted by GRIIS. He strongly encouraged us to do our own comparison study.

He always focused on giving the overall framework and then threw us with questions to ponder, references and books to read further, rather than feeding us with detailed content. After every lecture, I always felt the realm of the unknown growing wider and wider and I had a lot, a lot, to catch up.

His fight with cancer did not deter him from advancing as he always said that the work of God would not be hindered because of men. All the time I see his undying fire and sense of urgency to provide avenue to build solid foundation in the lives of young people to lead the future generations.

During GRIIS retreat in May last year, Rev.Stephen Tong said, “Rev.Amin Tjung asked me a question today that felt like a lightning to me. Reformed Intitute had just been inaugurated in Jakarta. He asked when we would build one in Singapore.”

Rev.Tong took his question very seriously because there are many Indonesian students in Singapore who are bonded to work for a few years after their study, so they could not leave and he believed they should be given opportunities to take their theology course. In less than a year, already the Reformed Institute Extension in Singapore was founded in February this year because of Rev.Amin Tjung’s initiation.

I have the privilege to be a student of Reformed Institute for its first term, and we learnt under the environment where the resources were squeezed to the maximum. Reformed Institute in Singapore started with a very humble beginning. We only have two lecturers for our first term. One is Rev.Amin Tjung himself who was battling with cancer but relentlessly kept teaching us, and the other lecturer was Ev.Hendra Widjaja, who has to travel to and fro between Indonesia and Singapore fortnightly because of the lack of fulltime ministers in GRII. The road ahead is still very rough and rocky, but what is started with the right spirit and foundation will prevail.

On shepherding, he has a very partoral heart. He prayed regularly for every single person he was pastoring. He made effort to remember all their names. Since our first encounter, he remembered me immediately, and I could subtly sense he kept track of my progress, both in my theological development and in ministry. I know that many other youths and young adults have also received his encouragement, correction and inspiration.

From what I can see, he has long prepared his wife and his kids for his departure. The whole family has submitted this matter to God all along. We are all sad because he has left us, but it is a day of thanksgiving as we see that it is a day of glory for him. He has taught his family and his congregation well. He is a very good reformed pastor.

We thank God that in this dark and lost generation, He has been so gracious to give us such a good pastor to be a light and example to us. In his frailty, we see the sufficiency of God and the power of Christ made perfect in weakness.

Rev.Tong was asked before why he was so cruel to let Rev.Amin Tjung who was already so sick to be pastoring GRIIS on his own, and why he did not send more pastors to Singapore. He replied this way, “Do you think I am a pastor factory? That I can produce a pastor whenever I like? If you have a burden, study hard and train yourself hard, so that you can surrender yourself to the Lord and be a fulltime minister to meet the needs of the church.”

May his spirit of service lives on in our hearts that we too, might imitate his example to serve our Lord Jesus Christ with wholeheartedness, gratitude and humility.

And finally, for his death, he requested for this verse to be engraved on his tombstone, “We are unworthy servants, we have only done our duty.” (Luke 17:10b)

Terang Dunia Di Lapangan Kerja

2007-05-22T14:11:00.000+10:00

Saya tidak begitu dapat menulis dalam bahasa Indonesia, tapi karena permintaan pembaca untuk memasukkan artikel dalam bahasa Indonesia, saya memasukkan artikel ini. Artikel ini saya tulis dan diterbitkan di buletin Pillar GRII bulan Januari 2007. Tapi yang ini bukan versi terakhir, maka yang terbit di Pillar sudah ada perbaikan dan tambahan yang berbeda dengan artikel ini. Semoga memberi berkat pada para pembaca.

Gerakan Reformed Injili: Mandat Budaya

“Terang Dunia Di Lapangan Kerja”

Semua teologi harus memiliki applikasi. Iman reformed adalah iman yang praktikal dan total maka ia menyentuh setiap bagian dari kehidupan kita. Umat Kristen dipanggil untuk mencerminkan kedaulatan Allah di setiap aspek kehidupan manusia. Kedaulatan Yesus Kristus harus terlihat di seluruh muka bumi ini.

Walaupun fondasi teologi reformed terletak di surga dan berpusat pada Allah, target utama applikasinya berada di dunia ini. Karena itu kita tidak seharusnya menjalankan dua hidup di mana iman kita begitu abstrak dan terpisah dari hidup sehari-hari kita di dunia ini.

Di satu ujung, kedua-dua fondasi dan applikasi dari secularism terletak di dunia ini. Di ujung lain, asceticism menganggap kedua-dua fondasi dan applikasi berada di surga maka mencoba sebisa mungkin untuk tidak terlibat dengan seluk-beluk dunia fana ini. Iman Kristen tidak sama dengan kedua pandangan ini. Dengan fikiran kita yang terpaku di surga, kita tidak mengambang di awan-awan tetapi justru kaki kita harus benar-benar menginjak dan berjalan di daratan bumi ini.

Prinsip ini sangat penting. Ini berarti sebagai umat Kristen kita harus memiliki pengakuan iman di hadapan Allah. Pengakuan iman ini bukan sesuatu yang dilakukan secara rahasia atau pribadi, akan tetapi merupakan pengakuan yang publik. Selain itu, ini bukan hanya pengakuan secara verbal di hadapan gereja, keluarga dan teman-teman di sekeliling kita, tetapi adalah pengakuan iman yang melibatkan pendirian kita terhadap isu-isu penting dalam kehidupan yang harus meliputi masyarakat, pekerjaan kita, dan setiap aspek kehidupan kita. Kita harus membuka mata kita untuk melihat semua isu-isu penting dalam kehidupan dan membangun sistem penilaian yang berdasarkan teologi reformed. Pandangan kita tentang jagat raya, dunia, manusia, tujuan hidup ini dan sistem penilaian kita harus berbeda dengan orang-orang yang tidak beriman secara fundamental.

Mari kita melihat lapangan kerja sebagai satu contoh. Untuk seorang pekerja biasa di sebuah perusahaan yang besar, bagaimanakah seharusnya prinsip pengakuan iman kita dijalankan? Apakah artinya menjalankan kegiatan-kegiatan duniawi dengan fikiran surgawi? Apakah artinya menjadi terang dan garam dunia?

(1) Setia melakukan tugas dan tanggung jawab pekerjaan kita yang sudah ditetapkan oleh perusahaan kita
(2) Hidup jujur dan memperlakukan orang lain dengan baik, memiliki hati yang suka membantu, dan tidak menyakiti orang lain
(3) Membagi kabar injil dan mengundang rekan-rekan ke gereja kalau ada kesempatan
(4) Semua yang di atas

Apakah semua itu cukup? Sudahkah seorang Kristen memenuhi kesaksiannya secara fundamental kalau dia melakukan semua itu dengan baik?

Apakah itu adalah framework utama dari kesaksian seorang Kristen di lapangan kerja? Atau adakah hal-hal yang lebih dasar yang perlu dipertanggung-jawabkan oleh seorang Kristen di lapangan kerja,sejalan dengan perannya sebagai terang dan garam dunia? Adakah gambaran besar yang kita lalaikan? Apakah kita sengaja menutup mata kita terhadap isu-isu yang lebih besar karena mereka merupakan hal-hal yang terlalu sensitif dan bahaya untuk disentuh?

Teologi reformed menegaskan pentingnya membangun pengertian yang secara menyeluruh agar kita tidak asal menembak sasaran atau menjadi terlalu sibuk dengan hal-hal yang lebih kecil dan melalaikan hal-hal yang lebih penting di mata Allah.

Teologi reformed memulai segala sesuatu dari Allah dan kedaulatanNya. Maka pengakuan iman kita harus menyentuh seluruh aspek kehidupan sebab Allah adalah Allah yang berdaulat di atas segala sesuatu. Di dalam pengakuan iman yang praktikal dan total ini juga ada prinsip urutan akan apa yang lebih penting.

Kristus menegur orang-orang Farisi karena di satu sisi mereka mengikuti peraturan-peraturan dengan benar dan di sisi lain mereka melalaikan hal-hal tentang hukum Allah yang lebih mendasar seperti keadilan, belas kasihan dan kesetiaan. Maka walaupun Yesus menyetujui bahwa mereka telah melakukan beberapa hal yang benar, semua tindakan benar mereka tidak ada artinya di mata Allah karena mereka tidak memperdulikan apa yang lebih penting.

Tuhan Yesus mengatakan bahwa adalah sia-sia jika kita memperoleh seluruh dunia tetapi kehilangan jiwa kita. Pernyataan ini berimplikasi bahwa prinsip urutan adalah sesuatu yang fundamental. Tuhan Yesus tidak bermaksud mengecam pendapatan ekonomi, akan tetapi Dia memperingatkan kita bahwa seluruh hidup kita merupakan tragedi yang menyedihkan dan semua pengorbanan kita yang mahal akan menjadi sia-sia kalau kita tidak memiliki prinsip urutan yang benar.

Prinsip yang sama juga harus dipakai dalam applikasi hidup kita. Kita memerlukan framework yang menyeluruh dan prinsip urutan yang benar untuk menangani isu yang kita hadapi sehari-hari sesuai kepentingan isu tersebut. Misalnya, pada saat kita membangun rumah, hal yang pertama dan yang paling penting yang harus dipikirkan adalah bagaimana cara melandasi fondasi yang kuat, bukan bagaimana cara menghias perabotan rumah.

Lalu bagaimana prinsip ini dapat dijalankan di lapangan kerja? Bagaimanakah kita seharusnya memakai prinsip yang sama di dalam masyarakat? Karena kita memerlukan framework yang menyeluruh dan pengertian urutan yang benar di setiap applikasi agar dapat hidup sesuai dengan kehendak Allah yang kekal, maka tentu saja tidak cukup bagi kita untuk hanya melakukan tanggung jawab kita yang telah ditentukan oleh perusahaan kita sebagai seorang pekerja. Akan tetapi kita juga perlu mengamati bagaimana keseluruhan sistem perusahaan itu bekerja dan mengerti pandangan seperti apa yang harus dipegang teguh oleh seorang Kristen.

Di lapangan kerja, sistem manajemen adalah fondasi dari seluruh proses dan pekerjaan di suatu perusahaan. Kalau sistem manajemen mempunyai banyak lubang-lubang di mana ketidak-adilan merajarela, akan banyak kerja keras pekerja yang menjadi sia-sia.

Kalau sebuah perusahaan diatur oleh sebuah tim manajemen yang kuat yang selalu menyalahgunakan kuasa mereka, maka jelas-jelas kepentingan perusahaan sudah bukan merupakan prioritas lagi. Misalnya, mereka bisa memberikan promosi berdasarkan hubungan (connection) dan tidak berdasarkan prestasi pekerjaan, dan menghukum orang-orang yang berani mengemukakan pendapat yang berbeda, bukannya dengan jujur mempertimbangkan nilai dari pendapat mereka. Kenyataannya tim manajemen bukanlah pemilik perusahaan tetapi mereka hanyalah orang-orang yang dipercayakan oleh pemilik-pemilik saham yang sudah investasi pada mereka untuk mengatur segala sesuatu demi kebaikan sebuah perusahaan. Oleh sebab itu tim manajemen harus menjalankan tugas mereka dengan menempatkan kepentingan perusahaan sebagai prioritas mereka.

Adalah untuk kebaikan perusahaan jika para pekerja dipromosi berdasarkan prestasi pekerjaan dan bukan berdasarkan hubungan. Adalah untuk kebaikan perusahaan jika para pekerja didengar berdasarkan nilai dari pendapat mereka dan bukan berdasarkan apakah pendapat bertentangan dengan kepentingan pribadi orang-orang yang berada di dalam tim manajemen. Adalah untuk kebaikan perusahaan jika ada lebih banyak pertanggungjawaban yang lebih transparan di manajemen, terutama manajemen di tingkat yang paling tinggi. Di situasi yang seperti ini, akan ada kompetisi yang lebih adil untuk setiap pekerja dan perusahaan itu akan memiliki masa depan yang lebih cerah.

Pandangan dan pendirian kita terhadap semua ini menyangkut hal-hal yang lebih jauh dan dalam daripada hanya menunaikan tugas-tugas kita sebagai seorang pekerja di perusahaan. Sebagai umat Kristen, haruskah kita memiliki pandangan dan pendirian yang teguh mengenai isu-isu ini? Atau apakah kita semestinya terus menyokong manajemen di perusahaan kita karena kita melihat harapan untuk dipromosi suatu hari? Haruskah kita berdiam diri di setiap peristiwa karena kita takut kehilangan pekerjaan? Kalau kita tidak memiliki pendirian dan tidak mau menunjukkan pendirian kita di depan orang lain, bukankan tindakan diam ini sendiri sudah merupakan sebuah pendirian yang kita pilih? Tidak ada tempat berdiri yang netral.

Tetapi bagaimana kalau kita bahkan tidak sadar akan keberadaan isu-isu penting ini dan kita juga tidak ingin tahu? Dalam keadaan seperti ini, secara buta kita akan terus-menerus memberikan dukungan kepada sistem yang menentang keadilan Allah. Tidakkah kita tetap bersalah jika kita tidak tahu? Kalau tidak, lalu apakah artinya menjadi terang dunia? Tidakkah kata ‘terang dunia’ ini sendiri sudah berimplikasi bahwa ada hal-hal penting yang sudah semestinya kita tahu dan terus mencari tahu?

Sayangnya kita cenderung memakai Alkitab untuk membenarkan diri kita. Misalnya, untuk menutupi masalah ini kita melakukannya dengan berkhotbah bahwa kita harus patuh kepada tuan kita di dunia ini, yang baik maupun yang jahat.

Akan tetapi, kita harus ingat bahwa teologi reformed adalah framework yang total dan ada urutan yang benar untuk segala sesuatu, termasuk ketaatan kita. Kita tahu ada otoritas di atas otoritas, maka ada juga ketaatan di atas ketaatan. Ketaatan kita terhadap tuan kita di dunia tidak boleh melanggar prinsip kebenaran, keadilan dan belas kasihan, karena semua ini adalah atribut-atribut Allah. Tidak disangkal kita harus setia dalam pekerjaan dan taat sebagaimana hal ini seturut dengan kebenaran, akan tetapi kita tidak seharusnya melakukan semua ini tanpa pengertian dan hati yang terbeban berdasarkan framework yang menyeluruh.

Apabila seorang jendral tidak mengindahkan nyawa manusia dan gila kuasa, dia akan seenaknya mengorbankan hidup tentara-tentaranya. Lalu apakah nilai dari ketaatan? Apakah alkitabiah bagi tentara Kristen untuk terus setia dan taat kepada pemimpinnya dalam keadaan yang seperti ini? Manusia diciptakan sesuai dengan peta teladan Allah, maka tidakkah tentara-tentara yang beriman perlu merenungkan nilai dari pengorbanan mereka dan menghargai nyawa tentara-tentara lainnya dengan menunjukkan pandangan dan pendirian mereka dalam hal ini?

Atau apakah kita lebih baik menyembunyikan terang kita di bawah mangkok? Apakah kita menciptakan sendiri konsep kesaksian Kristen yang sempit di mana kita bisa melarikan diri dari pengakuan iman kita dan memakai cara kita sendiri untuk menilai kesaksian hidup kita yang tidak banyak berhubungan dengan pengaruh kita yang sebenarnya di dalam masyarakat? Tapi iman Kristen adalah iman yang relevan dan kedaulatan Allah meliputi setiap aspek kehidupan.

Secara teori, pemilik saham mempunyai hak untuk meminta pertanggung-jawaban dari tim manajemen, sama seperti rakyat di suatu negara berhak meminta pertanggung-jawaban dari pemerintah dalam pengaturan public resources. Akan tetapi ada kemungkinan mereka ditipu dari keadaan yang sebenarnya. Natur manusia yang jatuh selalu mencari kepentingannya sendiri dan melakukannya sejauh kuasa dan kebebasan yang diberikan kepadanya. Tetapi sistem yang benar akan mengurangi penyalahgunaan and memungkinkan lebih banyak pertanggung-jawaban. Maka salah satu aspek mandat budaya yang sangat penting adalah mempengaruhi sistem-sistem di dunia dengan hikmat, kasih dan kuasa Allah. Nyatalah doa yang diajarkan oleh Tuhan kita Yesus Kristus, “Datanglah kerajaanMu dan jadilah kehendakMu di bumi seperti di surga.” Tindakan kita seharusnya konsisten dengan doa kita.

Untuk berperan sebagai terang dan garam dunia, sangat penting bagi kita untuk membangun pandangan yang benar untuk melihat kunci masalah di setiap applikasi dan mengerti bagaimana faktor-faktor yang ada berhubungan satu sama lain. Framework dan urutan pemikiran yang benar adalah hal yang sejalan dengan prinsip total dari wahyu Allah dan konsisten dengan panggilan Kristen untuk menyatakan kerajaaan dan kebenaran Allah di dunia ini. Dengan demikian kita juga mengakui Kristus dengan berani di hadapan manusia dengan cara yang praktikal dan total. Tanpa pengertian semua kerja keras kita bisa jadi seperti air yang tumpah di atas tanah. Kita perlu melihat dengan jelas dan juga memiliki hati yang berani menyerahkan diri untuk hidup dan mati demi kebenaran.

Dengan visi yang jelas dan hati yang bersih untuk merespon dengan benar terhadap apa yang telah kita lihat, kita dapat mulai mempengaruhi tempat kerja kita ke arah yang benar. Dengan arah yang benar, apakah pengaruh kita besar ataupun kecil, pengaruh kira adalah pengaruh yang bermakna. Sebaliknya, kalau framework dan prinsip urutan kita salah, arah kita juga menjadi salah, maka apapun pengaruh kita, besar atau kecil, kita sudah melalaikan panggilan kita dan sudah gagal mengakui Kristus di hadapan manusia.

Movie Recommendation: Stranger than Fiction

2007-04-16T15:18:00.000+10:00

Movie Recommendation: Stranger than Fiction

I watched this movie 2 nights ago while I was in RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministry) conference. Yep, watching movies is part of the conference program. =)

Harold Crick lived quite a robotic life for 12 years. One day there was a voice narrating his life which could only be heard by him alone. The voice narrated his daily routine, interests, love life, and his death. The climax came when he finally met his narrator, Karen Eifel, a skillful writer of tragedy stories who had no idea that whatever she had written was for real. Harold was not ready to die and as a human being, Karen was shocked and certainly not prepared to be God to determine one's life and death.

It is a simple comedy show, but a very clever and meaningful one.

We all thoroughly enjoyed the show and are pleasantly surprised that such a simple comedy contain lots of stuffs to chew. Precisely because it is so simple.

Actually, a lot of significant moments and meaning are hidden and neatly packaged in simple and even mundane things of life.

Just to give you further motivation to watch it, but not to spoil it too much… look out for the following when you watch, which are the elements we experience daily in our own life story too:

- Responses of freewill towards a determined destiny
- Moral struggles with personal ambition

- Finding the values of little things in life

They are parts and parcels of rediscovering our humanity, embracing it, and enjoying it in all its privileges and limitations.

Enjoy the movie. =)

The Divine Exchange

2007-04-09T01:38:00.000+10:00

I am deeply drawn again on Good Friday, not to a charming, handsome figure nor to a rich man envied by the world, but to that poor Nazarene with no comely appearance, despised and rejected, a man of sorrow and sufferings who walked on the dusty road of Jerusalem 2000 years ago. (Isa.53:2-3)

Many people suffer much in life. But I have never known a man who is so willing, so wholehearted and so purposeful in all his sufferings like Jesus Christ. His sufferings are the most meaningful sufferings in all eternity. The paradoxical unity and the true meaning of God’s love and justice are fully revealed and taught to mankind, not in classroom and textbooks, but in the historical record of the Suffering Servant.

On the night He was betrayed by His own disciple, His accusers had a hard time pinning one single wrong in Him although there were so many false witnesses and He did not even speak for His own defence. He had all the reason and ability to defend Himself, and He used none. The world had never witnessed a Man so pure yet so meek under the most unjust trial.

He was silent when it came to protecting His own life, but when asked to confess the truth, He did not delay but immediately confessed His calling, knowing full well that it would cost Him His life. He firmly confessed before the religious leaders, “I am the Son of God.” (Luke 22:70) and before the political leader, “I am the King of the Jews.” (Matt.27:11).

With fresh blood dripping, wounds and scars, torn flesh all over His body, thorns on His head, in hunger and thirst and tiredness after a whole night of torture and trials, in loneliness, He had to carry the heavy cross through long journey under the heat of the sun and the taunting of the mockers. In His physical exhaustion, He fell on the ground. But He got up again. He fell again. And He got up again. In His extreme pain, there was one thing in His mind and one strong passion in His heart. He was fully determined to make it to the Calvary. He must summon all His energy to reach Golgotha to be crucified there as the Sacrifice for sin. He wanted to taste all the sufferings written about Him in the Scriptures. He wanted to drink the full cup of wrath so that salvation for mankind could be accomplished. Because He loved wretched and undeserving sinners such as me.

On that day, the only perfect and righteous Man who ever walked on earth was punished as the worst criminal under the conspiracy of political, religious and judicial powers. And He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) Little did we know, beyond the darkest cloud of injustice where evil laughed in triumph, the Savior victoriously accomplished His eternal plan of redemption.

I should be cut off from God. But nailed to the cross, with a loud cry He took my place and suffered the separation from God which I deserved.

“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45) The divine exchange had taken place. At that, He completed His mission, “It is finished.” And He gave up His spirit.

Two thousand years after His passion, I was born and I lived my own self-centered life with no regard to such historical event which is of the most significance relevance to my life. I was ignorant of my true condition and knew nothing of that Man who had loved me long before I was created and had died for me long before I was born. But He sought after me by convicting me of my need and sent His messengers to share with me about Him. I was told this story by those who had received His love and in turn, I have received Him. Gratefully, I joined the cloud of witnesses in the unbroken chain of history to tell of the same story that would be sung in all eternity.

The Lord is merciful and just, hence as certain as there are days of His mercy, there are days of judgement if we have not sought refuge in His mercy. Seek the Lord while He may be found, call on Him when He is near. (Isa.55:6)

Let us, on this Good Friday and Easter Sunday, meditate and thank the Lord for His priceless sacrifice. Let us be reminded again that we have a true hope for the future in this dark and fallen world only because He died for us and rose again.

Facts, Integrity and Truth

2007-03-10T13:51:00.000+11:00

Quite an interesting read regarding integrity from the Jewish website here:

http://www.torah.org/learning/integrity/dualmeanings.html

However, I think not many people are that smart and quick to come up with impromptu answers that are still factually correct and at the same time escape the trap of offending people or getting into trouble.

In my opinion, facts are important but they are not the totality and should not even be the most important concern of integrity. However people tend to understand the keeping of integrity in a narrow way, hence the mentality is like, "In overall, in all the words I say, I have not directly said any wrong facts, so I kept my integrity!!"

Rather, the essence of integrity surpasses the mere external act of not directly presenting wrong facts. Even the dictionary says integrity is the adherence to moral and ethical principles, hence it is obviously far more than giving facts. It must include standing in harmony with higher elements of truth like justice, righteousness and mercy. So how we fare in integrity should be measured as a combination of how we fight to keep all these together.

We need to go beyond dealing with the surface of a question, but probe into the moral motivation, direction and foundation behind a question. Similarly, in responding, we need to go beyond merely the surface of an answer, but probe into the moral motivation, direction and foundation behind our response. Such inward motions of the heart of the person asking and the person asked should be considered first, before concerning oneself with the questions and answers dealing with external facts. (Of course I am not suggesting the draconian measure of probing the motivation of every single question asked of us every day, but I am referring more to the context where such consideration becomes very necessary, like when lives are in danger -- in such cases, in fact, motivation is normally very obvious.)

This gives direction and application insight into the classic case of the Nazi chasing after the Jews who hide in your house. Or if a hot-tempered man with a gun asks whether your friend drinks from his cup when he was away, and he would shoot your friend if you say yes. There are evil and unstable people who are not able to handle facts with a sound mind or the right moral principles. How we handle this very fact is more relevant and important in our dealing with integrity (read: adherence to moral and ethical principles), compared to how we handle the more surface factual questions those people are asking.

Hence, a person's integrity is measured by how much he fights to stand as close to the truth as possible. Truth includes facts, but not facts alone -- but much more importantly, it is the unity of all the attributes of God -- His mercy, justice and righteousness. In our response, we try to encourage and preserve that unity, and prevent that unity from being broken, both within ourselves and others. The order of what comes first, is very important.

Granted nobody does things perfectly, but there is qualitative difference when a person maintains the right order in his approach. In my understanding, this difference is very precious in God's eyes. That is why Rahab was blessed.

One who scores full marks on facts but flunks the rest cannot be said to have kept his integrity in its true sense. It is just a silly muttering of facts that has little connection with the understanding of truth. On the other hand, a person who, with the best of his understanding, strives to keep the more important elements of truth in place but falter with facts dealing to some extent, does better than the former.

Keep first things first. When the greater things are in tact, handling facts become a matter of wisdom that will be improved naturally and gradually.

Life Is Worth Living Because He Lives

2006-12-25T03:28:00.000+11:00

Remembering God’s amazing gift of His One and Only Son to the world, I am reflecting on the chorus of a famous song:

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow
Because He lives, all fear is gone
Because I know, I know He holds the future
And life is worth living just because He lives

Some people think life is not worth living. Some people think life is worth living for many different reasons. But Jesus Christ is the reason why life is worth living at all. But why is life worth living just because He lives?

What has this Nazarene and His life got to do with our lives in this postmodern world?

He has got a lot to do with us, with all of us, indeed.

Jesus Christ is the most influential person in the history of mankind and His influence touches all important aspects of humanity until today. Our human rights that we take for granted today, like our basic right to live, equality of status before the law, right to security and freedom of speech have their true foundation in Him. The climax of morality and ethics in civilization has developed from the influence of His teaching and His perfect life example. The greatest advancements in human culture, arts, law, politics, economics, education, science and technology have come from great minds who found their inspirations in Jesus Christ.

All through history, have there been more beautiful poems written, music composed and songs sung than those that are directed in love and adoration towards Jesus Christ? Yet these are not enough to express His influence towards mankind. All lights of human culture and reason combined together, fade in comparison to the radiant light that Jesus Christ has shined on humanity.

What you and I have and enjoy today has a touch of His influence. What richness and blessings He has abundantly poured upon earthlings like us! Because of Him, there remains God’s mercy in this fallen world.

Yet that is not all. Because He lives, we have hope beyond this life. And this is His greatest gift of all, the promise of eternal life to all who trusts in Him.

Because He lives, we have courage to face all trials and difficulties in life. Because He lives, we have the assurance of victory in all battles against evil. Because He lives, all wrongs will be righted some day. Because He lives, we no longer fear sickness, old age and death. Life that strives only to end in grave is meaningless. But because He lives, we will live forevermore so life is meaningful and worth living.

He is the greatest cause for celebration and joy to the world.

He did not yell to us from Heaven to repent. But He was so willing to dwell among us. Stripped of all basic human privileges, He came down all the way to be like one of us and showed us how to live. On one hand He lived without sin, on the other hand He suffered death on the cross to take the penalty of our sin. And He resurrected on the third day, conquering sin and death. He ascended back to Heaven to prepare a place for us and would come back to take us to Himself one day.

No wonder the angels wonder forever why, why He loves us so much! How could we not wonder?

May God grant us the power to grasp the length, the height, the breadth and the depth of the love of Christ! Indeed, life is worth living just because He lives.

Merry Christmas!

Good Friday and Easter Reflection 2006

2006-04-16T11:54:00.000+10:00

Jesus was not the only one who was ever crucified and tortured. But no one ever responded to unjust sufferings like He did. This sets Him apart from all other great men, all other martyrs and all other who have suffered. This sets Christianity apart from all other faiths.

There are many people who suffer because of their own fault so their sufferings are nothing to boast about. But there are people who suffer because others mistreat them.

Mistreatment can come in various degrees from mild insult to very cruel extreme torture. A person's response towards injustice that is done to him reveals what is inside of him. The greater the injustice, the deeper it will reveal a person's inner fortitude. When we face injustices, all our superficial cool appearances and pretenses begin to wear out and what is seen is who we really are.

Most people retaliate against injustice done against them with revengeful heart. Some others endure with arrogance, looking down on their torturers who are of very poor morals. The best ones are those who could endure in silence and kept their sanity in tact so that they do not end up being barbaric like their torturers.

But Jesus Christ is a unique one of His own so He is qualified as the Teacher of all humanity.

He never did anything wrong all His life, in thought, words and deed, such that His most hateful enemy could not even point out a single spot although they had tried to be as faultfinding as possible. Not only He never did anything wrong, but actively and passionately all His life He gave and gave and gave, enriching the poor and lowly around Him. This completely faultless life coupled with active and perfect selfless giving for the abundance of others sets the Founder of Christianity apart from every other human being ever walked on earth.

In return to His love, He received the cruelest torture and most humiliating rejection and went through it all alone. Emotionally, nobody ever suffered like Him, because nobody ever loves and gives like Him and thus could never experience the emotional pain of such contrast of treatment to the degree He experienced. His physical pain is considered one of the most horrible ones in history. But still, these are not the greatest pains. His greatest pain is spiritual. It is experiencing the wrath of God where the sin of humanity was put upon Him. Could we even stand to bear the wrath of God for just a fraction of our own sin? Yet, Jesus who had never sinned bore the sin of the world upon Himself. He is rightly called the Savior of the world.

Not only He did not retaliate, not only He endured all the mistreatments in silence. At the climax of the combination of all these most excruciating pains, the cry that came out of His mouth was, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Who could ever invent this story? No, not our fallen mind. Not our ingrained selfish thought. Not our distorted imagination. We can never come up with this idea of loving our enemy because the best teachers of the world could only go as far as teaching endurance of sufferings without retaliation. But to love our enemy actively and wholeheartedly in the midst of the greatest injustice? This kind of love does not belong to human being. It comes from Heaven. When history witnessed this extraordinary event, we are awakened that Heavenly Love had once visited us personally in blood and flesh and walked among us. Jesus was the only Teacher who demonstrated every single thing He preached and did it perfectly.

My heart is crushed each time I meditate on this. It is a sense of wonder, indebtedness, gratitude mixed with a sense of responsibility, shame over my frequent failures and sense of deep inadequacy to live and walk like Christ, but with hope and faith in Him to change me.

Christ's response towards sufferings and those who mistreated Him is not foolish and mindless love but it rests solidly on eternal foundation, i.e. the foundation of Justice and Love. His response reveals the depth of His understanding of justice beyond what any other human being ever knew. He knew and see so clearly the Justice we do not know and see. He saw the eternal Righteous Judge that is why He could go through all sufferings patiently, entrusting all judgment to God who would certainly judge righteously at His perfect time. United with Justice, he who is Love has the power to turn the most hateful enemies into most devoted servants. As someone says, Christ turns even dung into jewels. It is not a stupid love, though some might imagine they could trample on this love without realizing that to their final destruction they are throwing away the only hope they have when the Judge comes. Christ's love is a transforming and conquering love to all who receives Him truly. For 2000 years our history witness unending transformation of souls from all strata of society, from all parts of the world, who have been completely won over and are willing to live and die in love for the crucified Nazarene.

With the coming Easter, His resurrection tells us that God's judgment is coming and will prevail ultimately. We have seen the darkest moment in history, the crucifixion of the most righteous Man on earth by the most corrupt powers of religion, politics and judiciary, being turned into the greatest victory of all eternity as through His death He gives eternal life to all who believe in Him. Because of His resurrection, we know this life is not the end. Because of His resurrection, we know that all injustices in the world will be sorted out some day so we can have great patience and perseverance in our sufferings and continue to do what is right in His eyes, with full confidence that the Judge will judge the world righteously.

Because of His resurrection, we know we have to live soberly in reverent fear because He is coming back soon to judge the living and the dead. Upon this foundation, we can triumph against the darkest powers and the greatest evil in the world.

Let us renew our faith in Him again as we remember His sacrifice and as we celebrate His resurrection, our only sure hope and foundation and the reason for everything we do. Let us work unceasingly and wait patiently until the Lord comes again.

Christmas Aftermath Reflection

2006-01-05T02:46:00.000+11:00

Another Christmas celebration has passed, heralding yet another new year. As of our culture today, Christmas season is a busy season for a lot of people, businesses and organizations. For many, it is time to take a break and have some reunion with family, relatives or friends. To many businesses, it is a good time to capture sales and make profit because people spend, attend shows and buy gifts during this celebrative season. And many organizations, especially churches, would be very busy with their Christmas services and performances.

Amidst all this busyness, what always gets forgotten is the very essence of Christmas itself. I was pondering on Christmas and wondered how I should describe Christmas. I ran out of appropriate words and finally a portion of the Bible came to mind which summarizes it:

No eye has seen, no ear has heard
No mind has conceived,
What God has prepared to those who love Him
(1 Corinthians 2:9)

It's a gift so great, so amazing, but unnoticed by the distracted and lost humanity. Yet no matter how it is ignored or forgotten, it will never diminish in its worth and it remains the Pearl of great price for all who would receive it. Its worth is not dependent on how men value it, but it has intrinsic value in itself. Blessed are those who find it!

God's gift of His one and only Son Jesus Christ is the most beautiful gift and the most amazing mystery in the history of humanity, and probably, in all eternity, as even eternal angels gasped in wonder and reverence as the King of kings descended to be born as a human babe.

His birth is the intersection point between history and eternity so He is the only light to know the one true God, who lives in inapproachable light where no man has seen or can see. His life is the harmony and perfect unity of the ideal and the real. While all philosophies and religions can only talk about ideals in abstraction and always find tension of gap when it comes to practical life, this one brief life presented to humanity the perfection of all virtues in blood and flesh and bone, not in schools of thought or mind imagination.

He grew up and lived humbly, depraved of the most basic human rights, but became the Champion of human rights as He restored the dignity of men. Even until today His influence is still powerfully felt and will continually be so until history is consumed into eternity. His life is one full of sufferings to relieve the sufferings of many, one of poverty but enriching many, one who gave up His life for the abundance of others.

His death on the cross commands reverence as it is the awesome Revelation of God's justice and love. The cross manifests the greatest power through human weakness. It is the unity of love and righteousness. It is the meeting point of eternal salvation and temporal sufferings. It is the Paradox of all paradoxes that embeds in it the key to true Life. How can one look at the Calvary without bowing in worship?

In this brief life, He fulfilled all the law, revealed all men need to know about God, showed the life of faith as the perfect example for all generations to follow, sacrificed His life to take the penalty of our sin, which is the root of all the problems, complexities and perplexities all of us have today, and gave us eternal life in Him. While we would look at our present state and mourn over the imperfection of the world, ourselves and circumstances which our imperfect judgment can see, the Lord who judges the innermost thoughts of our hearts sees far greater and more serious fundamental problem with us that our eyes cannot see. What shock would the Day reveal to us as our poor eyes deceive us so much to worry so disproportionately over lesser things while far greater things are at stake and we pass by our lives in oblivion! But He has conquered the sting of sin which we have no power to even see and understand, and has set us free.

Do we know that He is the sole hope and the desire of humanity? He is the hope for all the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the young and the old, for the great and the small, yes, for all humanity throughout all ages. Faith in Him springs in the soul the eternal hope which expresses itself in a life of love. So faith => hope => love. Faith is knowing Christ. Knowing Christ is eternal life. It is this hope of eternal life that grants the courage and power to overcome all natural limitation, the eye to see this temporal world's passing joys and sorrows as they truly are, the driving force to live meaningfully, purposefully and righteously, in the eyes of God and not in the eyes of men.

May we remember Christmas with a heart of gratitude and reverence.

Wonders of all wonders, descended the King of eternity
All Heaven’s glory wrapped in human frailty
The Son of God walked from the manger to the Calvary
Beyond the reach of mind, oh most blessed History!

Why Lord would You die in our place
All ages wonder in awe of Your grace
Towards You our hearts can now raise
Forevermore, we shall sing Your praise

- Mejlina -

We need Your blessings, Lord!

2005-12-15T00:57:00.000+11:00

I was introduced to Bob's blog and feel deeply moved by the last portion of this entry which echoes the voice that I often hear in my heart:

May God bless you with DISCOMFORT

at Easy Answers, Half-Truths, and Superficial Relationships,so that you may live Deep Within Your Heart.

May God bless you with ANGER

at Injustice, Oppression, and Exploitation of People,so that you may work for Justice, Freedom, and Peace.

May God bless you with TEARS

to shed for those who suffer from Pain, Rejection, Starvation, and War,so that You may reach out Your Hand to Comfort them and to turn their Pain into Joy.

May God bless you with enough FOOLISHNESS

to Believe that You can Make a Difference in this world,so that You can DO what others claim cannot be Done.
Amen

Yes, Lord. We need such blessings from You. Take away the curse of wrong comfort, of apathy, of careless laughters, of cowardly intelligence from us. In our fear to lose our lives, we have lost everything, even life itself, and so we are dead while we live. I pray that You have mercy on us! Do not bypass our generation but may we have a part in Your eternal will. Amen.

Letter to God

2005-12-07T01:17:00.000+11:00

I saw this title "Letter to God" for writing contest a few months back at writingcash.com and decided to participate in it. My idea is to portray a fallen humanity - made in God's image but lost in sin, yet not totally without hope.

Dear God,

I am not sure how to begin this prayer. I am not even sure if I am in an acceptable position to pray to You. It is serious to offend a king due to lack of respect for his office, but it is far more serious if I speak words carelessly without knowing my position before the Maker of the universe. Pardon my boldness, God. My conscience tells me it is my duty to acknowledge and pray to my Creator but I have little knowledge how to reverence You as I should.

I am both amazed and perplexed by humanity. You have given us higher glory than all other living things and granted us the power to manage and rule the world. Above all other creation, we are the beings endowed with superior gifts of morality, reason, will and emotion. We can think, relate and express meaning through our words and make profound impact on history which surpasses our mortal lives. All throughout history, the marks of human glory are displayed in every department of life including culture, music and arts, science, philosophy, history, and many more. One can never finish contemplating the achievements of all the great minds and contributors in our history.

So glorious and beautiful we are, yet the painful paradox is we are also beings capable of unimaginable evil who have been passionately heaping up our own destruction. The history is filled with the testimonies of our guilt, confusion and darkness. We have been disillusioned and shocked by our depravity but strangely we never seem to learn our lesson so history keeps repeating itself. We exploit, cheat and murder our fellow beings. We are full of hatred, envy and pride. We destroy the earth and pile up problems for our future generations. The great gifts of reason, will and emotion ironically become dangerous tools in our hands.

We are even more hopeless in our relation with You. Instead of holiness and righteousness, religion has been the platform of our greatest abuse and hypocrisy. We created images of You using our own imagination, used them to gain power for ourselves, led multitudes into terrible bondages of religion, putting heavy yokes on them and implanting fear to manipulate them. Our history of theocracy before modernity was a dark picture of evil leaders abusing Your name to gain power for their own end.

After enough frustration with our own man-made ideas of You, humanity massively rebelled against theocracy and used the gift of reason to reason You away from our lives. We declared that we no longer need You but we could thrive and handle everything on our own. We thought we could do well with arbitrary values created by reason with no relation to You, but only to end up in despair of our moral bankruptcy as we saw the horror of genocide, holocaust and the world wars. We were lost and felt that reason is not enough to guide our lives and is not the ultimate thing.

As our reason has failed us, now we decide that we can know nothing for sure therefore we would not want to be absolute about anything. We no longer admit universal principles. We trash all the big pictures and live in mini-pictures of our own making and relative social constructs. We rationalize ourselves into irrationality and think that pragmatism is the way to go.

The prevalent pursuit today becomes materialism and our mindset is highly individualistic. Many of us admit You into our lives only as a tool to prosper ourselves or to advance our own way. Religion becomes a customized package where people remember You only to call on Your power to get what they want. Many others despise such hypocrisy but still decide to live their own way.

With relativism, we have plunged ourselves into greater perplexities. Without universal principles to guide us, we are moving into more confusion where barbarianism is taking over civilization. With the rise of terrorisms and the increased frequency of natural disasters which suddenly take everything we have unawares, many of us are still living lives in our own narrow world and are ill-prepared for the reality that might destroy all our plans and pursuits anytime. We are so trapped by ourselves and are powerless to break through the bondages we have set for ourselves.

Through these all, we have never treated You with the honor that we should. Once we misrepresented You and we suffered the bitter fruit. Then we made ourselves atheists and suffered the bitter fruit. Finally by making all things relative we simply ignore You and we are still as lost as ever. When we do well we live as though You never exist. When we achieve success we boast of all the gifts we never earn. But when bad things happen we curse You and forget that we have denied You. Then when we get into troubles of our own making, we blame You for Your gifts we have abused. How consistently inconsistent we are! We continually make historical jokes of ourselves, witnessed by all generations.

What hope do we have, God? Unless You reveal, how can we know anything right at all? God, You are beyond our understanding. Without You, we can only continue to build up wrong understanding of You and ourselves, as we have done all along. Yet I am amazed that You have kept Your peace though we have been accusing You in our foolish ignorance. I have reason to hope as I see tokens of Your mercies to us through Your sustenance of the world and Your kind preservation of humanity for so many generations. The historical lessons have been repeated again and again. God, I pray You have mercy and give us the right heart and the right understanding.

Waiting for Your light,
A Seeker

In Commemoration of the Reformation

2005-10-31T01:56:00.000+11:00

I posted this in a forum discussion and thought it would be good to put it here too since this week is the Reformation Week. What is that? Find below.

The 16th century reformation is commemorated by the Protestants as God's gracious hand in history in bringing about Christian revival which in turn brought all kinds of transformation and advancement in human life. Whatever that is spiritual is transformed into the natural realm too.

Here, let's look at 3 fundamental principles of Protestantism: Priesthood of all believers, Sola Scriptura and Justification by Faith alone.

The understanding of the priesthood of all believers enables us to understand that we need no other mediator but Christ alone, so as believers we all share the same grace and hope, and thus have the same position before God in Christ.

Contrast this with the hierarchical church system at that medieval time where superstitions had abounded and people were ignorant of the truth, and would normally pray to saints or to Mary who would pray to Jesus who would in turn pray to the Father, instead of praying to the Father directly through Jesus Christ. It was common for a household to have a patron saint who would watch over them, and intercede on their behalf.

This reminds me of a similar pattern where Buddhism (originally it's a philosophy rather than a religion as the founder Prince Siddharta, never taught about God or worship of God) was brought over to China, people also began to make him an object of worship, and gradually form hierarchy where Buddha was too high to reach, so there are lesser, more approachable gods people pray to and these gods are the helpers of Buddha. Human beings have the tendency to form hierarchy and draw distance to assert superiority over one another.

Christ's words stand true that "the rulers of the Gentiles exercise authority over them,..." speaking of human desire for prominence when the disciples were fighting over who was the greatest. On such obsession over human authority and power, Christ once taught His disciples, "There is only one Father and you are all brothers."

The monarchy system at that time is of similar nature too. But the understanding of the priesthood of all believers, of men made in the image of God, and hence possess equal fundamental rights and dignity, gradually overturned prevailing monarchy system into democracy, which has become a common system of governance today. Democracy is based on the principle that the government is for the people, not people for the government. Hence as Christ says, "The greatest among you must be the servant of all." It sets the principle of servant leadership as the motivation of authority.

The next principle is Sola Scriptura. This means that the source of authority is God alone and no human being can claim infallible authority based on their position, but all rulers and leaders are subject to the judgment of the Word and are obligated to obey the Word. People began to question the church's teaching and desired to look at the source, the Scriptures itself, to make comparison.

Contrast this with the situation in the medieval church where the mass had no access to the Scriptures and had to rely on the teaching of the church without the ability to examine them. The society was illiterate, so for many of them, paintings on the cathedrals were their 'bible'. They had been taught that whatever the church taught was final, and the mindset was that it was not appropriate to question the church authority. With the principle of Sola Scriptura, i.e. Bible is the highest authority to which all must subject to, all teaching are to be examined and questioned in light of Scriptures. So there is a shift from human authority to the authority of the Word.

Similarly, the monarchy system of the past was such that the king's decision was final. Whatever he said was the truth and nobody should question him. No matter what wrong he commits, he is always right because he is king. So authority system rests in the fact of his position, and he himself is subject to no judgment. In such systems, often times power was abused and people suffered terribly when the monarch happened to be a crazy, unwise or cruel man.

Then, with the impact of this principle of Sola Scriptura which implies that God is the source of all authority, gradually people began to understand that not even the king's authority is final. So constitution is set up which even the king is subject to. So in political system we see a shift in the principle final authority from human position to the Law and Constitution.

Next, the justification by faith alone. This didn't happen all at once, but gradually as people began to understand better the meaning and nature of this faith which justifies, it results in the theological rationale for religious liberty. It is the understanding that faith is God's gift and is not the result of men's work. So we cannot convert people by force, but that a person has to be given the freedom to care for his own salvation. Our job is to preach the Word and let the Holy Spirit convert the soul in His ways and timing. So gradually violence and forced conversion gave way to religious freedom...

Here we are, youngters born 5 centuries after all those stuffs, not knowing what it has cost our predecessors, we find ourselves living in a world where we enjoy a lot of freedom foreign to our fathers in the past. We have benefited from their labors. We see the idea of democracy reflected, and there is constitution and law to protect our fundamental rights, and it seems quite logical to us that people should have the right to choose their own religion... what a different world!

Yes there have been bloody battles and blunders done by the greatest men. But the most fundamental thing is that the Reformation rediscovered biblical principles which have blessed our world over the past 500 years.

Yes, great gifts always come with high cost if we do not use them properly. Just as the gift of morality to Adam, due to misuse of it by wrong moral choice, land us where we all are today... so no doubt all the liberties gained have also been misused by faulty beings like us.

"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." In the 16th century, the burning question at that time was "How can I be saved?" and in pursuing that, had rediscovered these heavenly principles which also pour forth with blessings to the whole earth in all aspects of life.

Buddhism & Christianity meet...

2005-10-15T17:21:00.000+10:00

My Agora friend posted a good paper on The Cross and the Lotus: A Dialogue on Sufferings.
I cut and paste my comment for him here.

Wow, well done Jack! This is a quality presentation. In my primary school, Buddhism was a compulsory subject. We were given the original teaching of Siddharta Gautama, not the evolved ones. For a period of time I was quite attracted by the teaching, and by the moral example of my Buddhist teacher who became a monk later on. But I was quite confused by all the different versions of Buddhism I saw in my family (mixed with ancestor worships) and my Buddhist friends who pass on different stuffs. From your presentation, I have a deeper appreciation of those teaching I received in the past and clearer understanding of its development. We can definitely learn more on this topic since it is a top-growing religion/system of thought now.

In my understanding, Buddhism concept of the essence of life is sufferings. The purpose is to get out of this wheel of reincarnation by mortifying all your desires. That is why ascetism is encouraged as a higher way of life to reach Nirvana faster.

Christianity has a far higher and balanced view of life, in that we acknowledge both the beauty and the darkness of the world. We are taught self-denial, not to kill our desires, but to sanctify them. We are to detach ourselves from the world, but unlike Buddhism where 'nothingness' is bliss, we are to attach unto Christ, where all our thoughts and emotions finally find their rest and Home.

I think, philosophies of the world can give some concepts of ideals but when it come to practice we are all perplexed in contraditions. Christianity on the other hand, presents to us not an abstract ideal, but a Man, in flesh and blood and bone, the unity of the ideal and the real.

How to Measure the True Quality of A Man?

2005-08-26T16:21:00.000+10:00

“So how can you see what your life is worth or where your value lies?”
“So how do you measure the worth of a man? In wealth or strength or size? In how much he gained or how much he gave?”

The lines above are quoted from the song lyrics "Through Heaven's Eyes" in the cartoon movie the Prince of Egypt and remains my favorite lyrics today. For full lyrics of the song click on the following link: Through Heaven's Eyes

The lyrics pose a lot of questions that do not ultimately answer the question of how to measure the quality of a man's life, but it triggers the serious seekers to reflect further and find the answer themselves.

The quality of a human being can be viewed from two fundamental aspects. What is man?

The first one is the intrinsic value that we have by the simple fact that we are humans. We exist with qualitative difference from animals and other living things. This fundamental dignity belongs to human beings universally without exception. This is a given basic dignity which has nothing to do with what we have, what we do and who we are. The law and constitution of human rights which govern countries and international affairs is essentially based on this foundational truth.

The second fundamental aspect of quality is the main thought of my writing this time, and is related to the measurement of the value of our particular life. We are all human beings with the same given basic dignity, but not many live quality lives. In fact, the tragedy is that majority of human race live very mean lives that are far below their potential. But before we even lament this universal tragedy, what is the reference we use to measure a man's quality? What should we use to measure our own life's quality to gauge how much peace of conscience we will have at our departure?

There are contributions from some great thinkers regarding the value of a human being.

“Man is what he eats” - Materialist

This is spoken by Ludwig Feuerbach, a Greek Philosopher in mid 20th century. On the surface it means that your physical body is shaped by what enters into your body system. So if you eat healthily, you will look better and therefore you are of a better quality physically. But is that a complete way to measure a man's quality? What about a robber and a rapist who have healthy bodies? They have quality life? This way of measuring quality is a very low level one, if interpreted that way.

Reflecting deeper, Feuerbach is a hard core materialist who believes that man is fundamentally flesh and blood and bones and nothing else. All other things like our mental, emotional and spiritual needs are just extension which ultimately rest on our material needs. Following this foundation then, how far you fulfill your material needs decide the quality of your life. So rich and handsome folks have quality life even if they are dishonest and feel a thousand accusations in their conscience every day. No? Hmmm...

The world today is heavily dosed with this value system and has been drawn into all kinds of confusion because a materialistic view of the world contradicts itself. History testifies that human has the capacity to achieve things beyond material realm and impact many generations after his death. A human being is able to enjoy far higher things than material things so materialism cannot be the foundation of value or the ultimate direction.

“Man is what he thinks” - Existentialist

There are a few versions of this quote but the earliest I know is said by Rene Descartes, a French philosopher in 17th century. Originally it is the idea that everything is in the mind (I think, therefore I am). This is the seed, and over the centuries people have used it to reproduce and develop a variety of interpretations and applications regarding life.

The Matrix movie in fact reflects this philosophy by showing the life which does not really exists but is only a figment of imagination. In this imaginary life itself, the movie shows the power of the mind to control the physical things. Unlike the materialist, here the mind is the master, not the physical stuff.

So goes the motivational speakers like Adam Khoo who uses the power of the mind to direct your life. He gives the powerful engine to run your life but leaves it to you to choose any direction you like. Believe! Believe in what? Doesn't matter, whatever you want to believe! It is called faith in faith, which is the crisis of most contemporary churches today. Create your own faith and rely on that blindly. Follow your heart. But the heart is a confused mess that contradicts itself and tells you different things all the time, where do I go?

So after all this running and achieving, we are still clueless where our values lie.

Ralph Waldo Emerson says “A man is what he thinks all day long.” This means that the quality of your life is measured by the way you discipline your thought life. Your thought will affect your emotion, action, habit, character and ultimately your destiny. Fundamentally, this is a higher level perspective of looking at human values compared to the materialist' viewpoint of life.

"A man is what he thinks" is surely a higher quality of value system compares to " a man is what he eats". The former sees men not only as physical living creatures, but with the gift of morality, reason and intellect. The latter sees human fundamentally only as animals that live on instincts to survive and reproduce and all other stuffs that are not physical are just extra decorations.

But still, both only encourage you to think and to eat to determine your value, yet can't tell what to think and what to eat so that you can have high value! So in the end these great thinkers leave us to figure out ourselves and as expected, we end up in irreconcilable contradictions of what is our value. Can someone give better clue, please!

Any other better valuation? I heard of other quotes like man is what he behaves and man is what he feels. But those two which I have expounded above are the best products of human thinking that I can find from history so far. The rest have some variations but the essence is the same. So, are these incomplete thoughts all we have to determine the quality of our life?

The Scriptures teaches on the quality of life beyond what human mind can ever invent. It measures quality of life this way, "A man is how he reacts before God." That's it, we have the reference finally. That puts an end to all relativity. Before Him who is absolute Goodness and Truth, all relativity is to be measured. The statement is simple but it is the highest philosophy of life. The very fact that we can think and hear it now is only because it is revealed by God Himself, as this kind of inspiration is unattainable by human mind. This statement is not the product of human analysis but is given to us from above.

If a man does very well on a lower aspect of life but totally neglects the higher aspect, we say the person is without good judgment and is therefore a fool. For instance, a person who spends day and night trying to be the most fashionable man in town but sparing no thought to treat his cancer is indeed a fool.

If a man knows how to thank his friend for giving him a nice treat and wants to show his deep gratitude by giving him another treat, but is full of disrespect and ingratitude towards his mother who raises him up, can we say he is a good man who knows how to be thankful? (He thank his friend what!) The more his mother loves him, the more his infilial crime is aggravated.

What if we thank everyone else who has done good things to our lives, what if we try to fulfill our duty towards ourselves and others, but not God from whom we receive all good things, our life, health, friends and talents, and on whom we depend our every moment for existence? What does that tell about our inward attitude and our value? What does it tell about our heart? The more we receive from Him to achieve and enjoy our lives then, the worse it indicates the innermost state of our ungratetul heart.

Moreover, He sets eternal concept in our mortal minds and hearts. So, how do we measure up qualitatively whatever we are building?

We live a very mean life indeed, for we do not know how to fulfill the most basic things and we don't even want to do so. The quality of a man ultimately is determined by his response towards God, and that is the basic of all basics that will set the foundation right for all other pursuits in life to be of lasting quality.

In His mercy alone we have hope. Those He chooses to give mercy to, He will teach them to understand and to cry for the right thing first. No wonder the Scriptures says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. (See Matt 5 for full passage on the blessed ones).

Angry with God?

2005-08-24T00:04:00.000+10:00

I cut and paste a question posted in Elder Yong's forum which I participated in. This is an excerpt email of a child's frustration against God and my reply below. Although outwardly most people would not talk this way, yet inwardly many of us fret and vent against God just like this kid. This is not meant to answer the kid directly since he is a stranger to me and it is another stranger who asked the question on how to help this kid. My reply is more to give a perspective of things in general. I thought it would be helpful to put this up here.

Forum Question:

This child posted me a question when I shared God' love with him. Pls advise how should I reply.

"what has god done for me why should i care about him? he keeps screwing my life up, my life is a compleat shit hole because of him he does me no good he keeps sending bad things my way. and even if he isnnt giving me all the bad stuff in my life then why isnt he stopping it? god has a master plan for me eh? well then how is that giving us free will? huh? explain that to me.

god he is a bastard who doesnt care for me thats why i gave up on him a long time ago. thats why im burning this bible i will sen you some good pics of the buring peice of shit that should have never been printed ever! i mean ever! it does noting but brain wash the gulible masses. its just a way to keep us out of trouble. how can you honestly belive in this man. well? can you give me any answerrs to my questions or are you just going to keep telling me that he loves me and that im rebelling against him? could you please tell me why god cares about us? there are so many people in this world he seams to be far more interested with famous people giving them all they need why cant he just clear the unnoticed peoples lives up a bit? well when you have answers to my questions please feel free to email me back."

My Reply:

Hopefully this frustrated child will learn to ask questions about God in a more reverent way. I will not assume much on his motivation and condition because I don't know him personally so I will just try to address the issues he raised.

Basically human confusion comes because we have no wisdom to link all the phenomena we see in this world. We have a concept of love, goodness, justice, basically, perfection... but it is a world full of injustice and predicament. And being human with personality, we also feel affected by the things that affect us directly and often times see things in isolation. "Why is my life so terrible? Why didn't God stop it since He can?" "Why is the rich and greedy having all they want and I'm struggling this way?" and leading on to, "Does God care?!" so "Please give me an answer to all these perplexities and don't just avoid the difficulties and say I am rebelling against Him!"

Ultimately, phenomena (things that happen/facts we observe) in their totality are just reflection of the Eternal Truth. It's just a matter of whether we have the wisdom to see the meaning behind them or not. If we can see, we encounter and enjoy the Truth. If we cannot see, things are broken up in pieces and perplexing to us. Understanding God's Will gives us the wisdom to understand and face all the perplexities in this world with a heart of submission and trust. God's will can be expounded in the following 4 levels.

1. God's Eternal Will

Here is His sovereign will that is not bounded by time and space, is true and stands fast forever. Here is the unity of God's sovereignty and incomprehensible wisdom which brings us to worship. This is the highest level and is our ultimate resting place. It is on this level that Jesus Christ, in the lowest time of His ministry, looked up to heaven with joy, praised God and said, "Father, this is Your good pleasure." Jesus praised the Father for His predestination for His chosen ones.

2. God's Calling

In 6 billion people of the world today (more if you look at entire history) created in the image of God, there is a small number who are living in the center of God's will. These people live their lives to the fullest with because they have the right understanding of God's eternal will. They reflect God's Truth and righteousness and love in their lives. They fulfill God's calling and we call them the light of the world, the salt of the earth. Through their lives, we see God Himself. This is the best earthly life one can live.

3. God's Chastisement

At this level are those of God's elect which God allows to stray but He will chastise them and brings back to repentance in His own time. So here we will see a mixture of people who at certain times follow God, at certain times backslide so terribly. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether they are believers or not. Many of them live great part of their lives straying and wasting their lives, so end up like those who are saved but just barely escapes the fire, with nothing to show God as everything gets burnt up. Unfortunately majority of believers live in this level rather than the previous level. How few are the faithful ones! This phenomena stumbles a lot of people and makes Christianity look like a hypocrisy and therefore becomes a mockery in the eyes of the world. Many people give up seeking the Truth at this point. But true seekers of the Truth would not be stopped by such grievious things, but will press on seeking the Truth till they can find rest in their souls.

4. God's Judgement

At this last level are the people whom God gives up to their own will and desires and therefore they reap their own destruction. Many people are destroyed in their prosperity because their spiritual senses become more and more dull and they no longer ever find themselves in situation where they can repent. A lot of people wonder why injustices happen and why the wicked seem to prosper, and conclude that God doesn't care and is unjust. They don't realize that that this temporal phenomena is a scary indication that perhaps, He would never bring them to repentance but will allow their hearts to harden. This is the manifestation of God's judgment which is effectual but often hidden from our eyes. God's judgment is a great deep and should bring great fear in our hearts.

So this child can learn that whenever he sees good and bad things, which level of God's will is being revealed. The proud will be stumbled but the humble ones will learn wisdom.

Level 2,3,4 ultimately points to 1 => God's eternal will. In all the phenomena, we see the display of all His attributes. He is glorified in the manifestation of His mercy, patience and justice in Truth. The world is indeed ripening for the harvest, the light getting brighter and the darkness getting darker... the former towards the full realization of God's salvation, and the latter towards the full consummation of God's wrath.

National Day Celebration

2005-08-10T00:25:00.000+10:00

The national day celebration is just over. As of the past years, there are songs, speeches, stories, performances, national pledge, coupled with music, cheers and fireworks to heighten the patriotic feelings and the sense of belonging to the nation. For a moment, the participants forget their troubles and are lost in their togetherness and filled with pride for being the citizens of this country.

National celebration is just one example when people might feel high about something. But we all know that such feelings do not last long. Soon enough we know the world is not ideal. Yet inevitably a sense of idealism still fills us every now and then and give us strong emotions.

Those inexperienced are prone to mood swings by such emotions. Many people who have experienced and seen enough of life tend to respond with skepticism and suppress such feelings as naive and unrealistic. Perhaps this is when we say that a child has become an adult ha ha... Most people will begin to give up their childhood ideals and change their expectations about life so as to reduce the inward tension they feel. Majority will settle at pragmatism and live life at that level. Only very few will pursue to understand this paradox of life. Why do we have innate sense of idealism and why do we see such a big gap in reality?

Humans have very high ideals but always fall short of them. Our minds are capable of infinite concept yet our life is full of limitations and failures. We suffer because our relative existence between our concept of perfection and our reality of imperfection makes our life full of perplexities and contradictions.

Christian faith not only teaches the reality of suffering, but also reveals the origin. The image of God stamped upon our humanity is the reason why we have such high ideals. The gap we see gives us a glimpse of how far we are from where we were originally and is also a constant call to return.