Yesterday in cell, in discussing why God allows bad things to happen to people, Job came up and I thought it provided a nice contrast to the past post on Joseph. While Joseph was lifted up in one day, Job lost everything he had in one day.
When thinking about why bad things happen to good people, the story of Job provides a good example of how to respond to bad events in our lives. It is inevitable that we will go through rough times and be shaken at some point in our lives. For him, he was tested to see if he will still love God if God took every good thing from his life and for the most part he remained faithful to God. He believed that God is still good despite what he eyes, his wife, his friends were telling him. He trusted God and God was pleased with him and blessed him indeed.
Another test case is Abraham. After being promised to be blessed beyond measure, and told his offspring will be as numerous as the sands, God commanded Abraham to kill that son that was key to his promise. Consider what that can do to a man's heart. He had a choice to be despondent and moan and think things through but he chose to obey this unusual of commands. And God stopped him before he could murder his son and was pleased by his faith in God. God blessed him indeed.
I could talk of Daniel but you see a theme here. Someone said "who God uses mightily, he tests greatly" or something like that. The challenge for most of us, for me too, is staying faithful in the heat of these hard times. How do you keep your faith from wavering in the midst of the storm? How did they do it? I think trust comes through understanding. I believe these men understood who God was and they trusted him even when it was completely hopeless. So it's important to understand God or at least how he operates.
I believe God is good and cannot do any evil. I believe God is love and everything he does it out of love. I believe God is just and does not show favouritism to anyone. When you have the right idea of God, it helps change the way you think about things. From God's perspective, I believe that more than anything he wants our hearts. Usually when our hearts are far away he will use his means to get our attention and draw us nearer to him for fellowship. There is nothing more valuable than the soul of a man to God so it makes sense that he will do whatever it takes to preserve it. What we see as bad situations or events may just be God's way to get our attention. This is not always the case though.
So God tests us, just like Abraham or Job, but the devil sends temptations. Tests are made to uplift, they expose the true nature of our hearts. Temptations though are designed to make us fall. When Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, he was not tested, he was tempted. I think it's important to make a distinction between the two.
The things with hard times is that they help us develop 'spiritual muscles' and prepare us to be used in a greater way. The reward for passing the test is far greater than these men could imagine and whatever the lost in the process was restored more than they expected. And don't worry if you fail a test, sometimes you get to retake it.
-ONWARD!
Friday, June 07, 2013
Friday, May 10, 2013
obscurity to prominence
The story of Joseph is a fascinating one. You can read it so many times and still be impressed by this remarkable man. There's no account of him losing his cool or wavering in his faith. He had confidence that God will come through for him no matter what present situation. That's a faith and conviction worth admiring, and aspiring to.
Reading Genesis 41 again, I realised something new. Where did he learn to interpret dreams? His parents didn't teach him. It doesn't matter really. But the thing that stood out for me was when Pharaoh had his dream and all the expert dream interpreters could not help him. God created a problem in Egypt only Joesph could solve. And in one day he rose from obscurity to prominence.
I find this story to be very encouraging. In lifegroup a few people shared how looking back at their lives, they can see God orchestrating and directing them through what seemed to be disappointments at the time to something better. God is good.
So take heart
Let his word lead us through the night
Hold on to hope
And take courage again.
-ONWARD!
Reading Genesis 41 again, I realised something new. Where did he learn to interpret dreams? His parents didn't teach him. It doesn't matter really. But the thing that stood out for me was when Pharaoh had his dream and all the expert dream interpreters could not help him. God created a problem in Egypt only Joesph could solve. And in one day he rose from obscurity to prominence.
I find this story to be very encouraging. In lifegroup a few people shared how looking back at their lives, they can see God orchestrating and directing them through what seemed to be disappointments at the time to something better. God is good.
So take heart
Let his word lead us through the night
Hold on to hope
And take courage again.
-ONWARD!
Friday, April 26, 2013
choosing to celebrate
By this time tomorrow it would be official. The ceremony every University graduate looks forward, the crowning event that marks the end of one significant stage in your life. By this time tomorrow I'll be a graduate in Computer Science from an Australian University in Malaysia.
I feel a mix of emotions; both excitement and worry. I'm excited that finally, after all the hard work and effort, that finally I can be called a graduate. I'm excited to be able to celebrate with my friends, people I've known and worked with for all these years. I'm also worried for what the future holds, whether the plans I have for my life will pan out the way I want or not. While this is a legitimate worry, it can often overwhelm and take over, making you forget that this is also a day to celebrate.
So I choose, I choose today to leave my worries in the hands of God. My anxieties and uncertainties I lay at his feet both today, tomorrow and hopefully everyday. I choose to be happy and celebrate this good thing because God has been faithful to me all these years, generously providing and taking care of all my needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. I really cannot complain with a clear conscience.
God has been good and he is faithful. Hallelujah.
-ONWARD!
I feel a mix of emotions; both excitement and worry. I'm excited that finally, after all the hard work and effort, that finally I can be called a graduate. I'm excited to be able to celebrate with my friends, people I've known and worked with for all these years. I'm also worried for what the future holds, whether the plans I have for my life will pan out the way I want or not. While this is a legitimate worry, it can often overwhelm and take over, making you forget that this is also a day to celebrate.
So I choose, I choose today to leave my worries in the hands of God. My anxieties and uncertainties I lay at his feet both today, tomorrow and hopefully everyday. I choose to be happy and celebrate this good thing because God has been faithful to me all these years, generously providing and taking care of all my needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. I really cannot complain with a clear conscience.
God has been good and he is faithful. Hallelujah.
-ONWARD!
Sunday, April 14, 2013
more more more
I woke up from a bad dream. It's one I've had before and I hate it. It's one of those recurring dreams. A quick search revealed that they are caused by unresolved issues in life. I have loads of those so it makes sense. But I still hate them.
So I wake up at 5, do the search, go back to sleep then my first alarm goes off at 7.30 and I turn it off and went back to sleep knowing that the second one will go off at 8 and then I'll get ready for church. The second one never goes off and I overslept. I overslept and woke up to the sound of Galvin calling from outside my house. I'm late. I've not had a shower, and I'm supposed to be serving this morning. And since I'm the first to be picked up, everyone else is late.
Same thing happened yesterday, I went for Badminton, came back got into the shower and he's there. And I was late again and had to apologise. It seems like something minor but I hate being late, and I hate making people wait for me. I just hate it. And I've felt lousy the whole day because of that. And it's all that stupid phone's fault. Why didn't the alarm go off?
Well turns out the night before I was texting a lot and I set the keyboard to make sounds and for some reason it stopped because I have such a crappy phone running a sub par OS. It stopped last night and I think that's why there was no sound this morning. Normally these little annoyances don't get to me. I can tolerate them but when they all come at once then there's trouble.
So at lunch I was trying out this new app I found in the play store, the name escapes me now but it's a photography app. You take a picture and send to a random person and you get a picture from a random person in return. It sounded interesting so I tried it. Launched the app, tried to take a picture and could only view part of the picture in preview mode. It's like the viewfinder was blocked and only a tiny sliver was exposed and I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of. I've noticed this previously with instagram but didn't think too much about it but today with this app and the stupid alarm not going off I decided to fix the problem.
So got home, did some googling and either no one else has this problem or I don't know how to google for things. I couldn't find a solution so I decided to do a factory reset. A factory reset is a pain because you have to install every app all over again. And most apps require username and passwords and mine are super long and random. It's a nightmare. But would be worth it if it fixes the camera issue but it doesn't. So I decided to re-download the firmware and I've not tried it yet because all the apps are still downloading but I doubt it works. The reset deletes all my recent photos. They're gone forever. Only those I posted to instagram lives. It's times like these I really hate technology. I was happy with my N82 and it took several purchases to get to the phone I could actually use and not be frustrated by and now I have to do the same for smartphones.
More.
I feel like Lincoln in the movie 'the island'. I wished there was more than just waiting to go to the Island. I want more out of life than what I have now. There's nothing exciting to look forward to, there seems to be no progress, just a stalemate and it stinks. I don't like it. I want more. I want a challenge, I need some excitement in my life. I'm not even 30 and I'm having a mid-life crisis.
-ONWARD!
So I wake up at 5, do the search, go back to sleep then my first alarm goes off at 7.30 and I turn it off and went back to sleep knowing that the second one will go off at 8 and then I'll get ready for church. The second one never goes off and I overslept. I overslept and woke up to the sound of Galvin calling from outside my house. I'm late. I've not had a shower, and I'm supposed to be serving this morning. And since I'm the first to be picked up, everyone else is late.
Same thing happened yesterday, I went for Badminton, came back got into the shower and he's there. And I was late again and had to apologise. It seems like something minor but I hate being late, and I hate making people wait for me. I just hate it. And I've felt lousy the whole day because of that. And it's all that stupid phone's fault. Why didn't the alarm go off?
Well turns out the night before I was texting a lot and I set the keyboard to make sounds and for some reason it stopped because I have such a crappy phone running a sub par OS. It stopped last night and I think that's why there was no sound this morning. Normally these little annoyances don't get to me. I can tolerate them but when they all come at once then there's trouble.
So at lunch I was trying out this new app I found in the play store, the name escapes me now but it's a photography app. You take a picture and send to a random person and you get a picture from a random person in return. It sounded interesting so I tried it. Launched the app, tried to take a picture and could only view part of the picture in preview mode. It's like the viewfinder was blocked and only a tiny sliver was exposed and I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of. I've noticed this previously with instagram but didn't think too much about it but today with this app and the stupid alarm not going off I decided to fix the problem.
So got home, did some googling and either no one else has this problem or I don't know how to google for things. I couldn't find a solution so I decided to do a factory reset. A factory reset is a pain because you have to install every app all over again. And most apps require username and passwords and mine are super long and random. It's a nightmare. But would be worth it if it fixes the camera issue but it doesn't. So I decided to re-download the firmware and I've not tried it yet because all the apps are still downloading but I doubt it works. The reset deletes all my recent photos. They're gone forever. Only those I posted to instagram lives. It's times like these I really hate technology. I was happy with my N82 and it took several purchases to get to the phone I could actually use and not be frustrated by and now I have to do the same for smartphones.
More.
I feel like Lincoln in the movie 'the island'. I wished there was more than just waiting to go to the Island. I want more out of life than what I have now. There's nothing exciting to look forward to, there seems to be no progress, just a stalemate and it stinks. I don't like it. I want more. I want a challenge, I need some excitement in my life. I'm not even 30 and I'm having a mid-life crisis.
-ONWARD!
Monday, April 08, 2013
It ends well
I was watching Lord of the Rings, the two towers for the umpteenth time and something caught my attention. Actually I'm still watching, just paused it to write this. So something caught my attention. When Gandalf was leading the fellowship, going through the mines of Moria was a reluctant decision, one he placed in the hands of Frodo who didn't know better. Their path had been orchestrated by Saruman who made sure they will all be destroyed in the mines. But something unexpected happened.
Gandalf fell into deep darkness and was forced to engage the Balrog. A foe of which he had not been tested yet. And this what made it click for me. Saruman purposed to stop the fellowship, even his long time friend Gandalf by leading him into the mines, making their lives more difficult, among other things but what happened was that they triumphed and became stronger by facing those challenges. It was meant to destroy them but something better happened. It strengthened them, it made them stronger. Gandalf the grey became Gandalf the white, or what Saruman should have been, as he says.
Automatically I remember Joseph, the annoying dreamer who though he was last wanted to be first. And his brothers sought to kill him and opted to sell him instead. They tried to destroy him and his dreams but what happened? Joseph became stronger and more powerful. More than even he ever dreamt was possible.
You can see the same theme over and over again. In the life of David, of Abraham, even of Jesus. The devil sought to end him but that just made him more powerful. He broke the power sin and death has over those who will believe in him.
You can look at this anyway you like but I see courage, I see hope. It ends well, when God is on your side.
-ONWARD!
Gandalf fell into deep darkness and was forced to engage the Balrog. A foe of which he had not been tested yet. And this what made it click for me. Saruman purposed to stop the fellowship, even his long time friend Gandalf by leading him into the mines, making their lives more difficult, among other things but what happened was that they triumphed and became stronger by facing those challenges. It was meant to destroy them but something better happened. It strengthened them, it made them stronger. Gandalf the grey became Gandalf the white, or what Saruman should have been, as he says.
Automatically I remember Joseph, the annoying dreamer who though he was last wanted to be first. And his brothers sought to kill him and opted to sell him instead. They tried to destroy him and his dreams but what happened? Joseph became stronger and more powerful. More than even he ever dreamt was possible.
You can see the same theme over and over again. In the life of David, of Abraham, even of Jesus. The devil sought to end him but that just made him more powerful. He broke the power sin and death has over those who will believe in him.
You can look at this anyway you like but I see courage, I see hope. It ends well, when God is on your side.
-ONWARD!
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