only confidence

Decades may pass, but God never gives up even on individuals, even if they are Manassehs, the 'cruelest' people to Him in history. When it comes to love, Bieber is right. God "never says never".

There is no hope to speak of here, only confidence.

Lord Almighty, God of our ancestors, God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their righteous children, you made heaven and earth with all their beauty. You set limits for the sea by speaking your command. You closed the bottomless pit, and sealed it by your powerful and glorious name. All things fear you and tremble in your presence, because no one can endure the brightness of your glory. No one can resist the fury of your threat against sinners. 

But your promised mercies are beyond measure and imagination, because you are the highest, Lord, kind, patient, and merciful, and you feel sorry over human troubles. 

You, Lord, according to your gentle grace promised forgiveness to those who are sorry for their sins. In your great mercy, you allow sinners to turn from their sins and find salvation. Therefore, Lord, God of those who do what is right, you didn't offer Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, those who didn't sin against you, a chance to change their hearts and lives. But you offer me, the sinner, the chance to change my heart and life, because my sins outnumbered the grains of sand by the sea. My sins are many, Lord; they are many. I am not worthy to look up, to gaze into heaven because of my many sins. 

Now, Lord, I suffer justly. I deserve the troubles I encounter. Already I'm caught in a trap. I'm held down by iron chains so that I can't lift up my head because of my sins. There’s no relief for me, because I made you angry, doing wrong in front of your face, setting up false gods and committing offenses.

Now I bow down before you from deep within my heart, begging for your kindness. I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned, and I know the laws I've broken. I'm praying you, begging you: Forgive me, Lord, forgive me. 

Don't destroy me along with my sins. Don't keep my bad deeds in your memory forever. Don't sentence me to the earth's depths, for you, Lord, are the God of those who turn from their sins. In me you'll show how kind you are. 

Although I'm not worthy, you'll save me according to your great mercy. 

I will praise you continuously all the days of my life, because all of heaven's forces praise you, and the glory is yours, forever and always. Amen.

Prayer of Manasseh in prose 

12  I

A declaration of war

Oh callused heart,
rejects help
rotting
But love permeates
pulverizes all walls.
Not to heal
but to give a new heart - 
not of stone, but of flesh

Callused heart, 
Be prepared
for your death








You can't say no.

a theology of enough

People go to extremes with money and possessions. Some preach a gospel of prosperity, based on the idea that the good life is about using money and possessions for our own happiness, which God will provide when we do the right things (for example, give to a certain ministry or say a special prayer for thirty days). On the other hand, some preach a gospel of poverty, teaching that the way to be truly spiritual is to be poor. Both extremes are dangerous. The prosperity gospel is simply greed covered in the veneer of religion. The poverty gospel is also dangerous. There is nothing spiritual about poverty, and no one is actually better for having become poor. Dallas Willard notes:

The idealization of poverty is one of the most dangerous illusions of Christians in the contemporary world. Stewardship - which requires possessions and includes giving - is the true spiritual discipline in relation to wealth... 

[I]n general, being poor is one of the poorest ways to help the poor.

Prosperity and poverty are not the only choices we have. Author and practitioner Shane Claiborne offers a third option: "We need a third way, neither the prosperity gospel nor the poverty gospel, but the Gospel of abundance rooted in a theology of enough."

A gospel of abundance is found only in the kingdom of God, where somehow we have what we need when we need it. The kingdom of God is not like an ATM where we can get an endless supply of resources to spend however we like. It is a dispenser of resources offered to those who understand the ways of the kingdom. When there is a need and a person who can meet that need, the supply will never run out.

One of the greatest dangers in America, however, is complacency. We live in an affluent society whose values are skewed. A great question is, Where is the Spirit leading me as an individual and us as a community? This requires individual and corporate discernment. Most Western Christians are not pursuing either the gospel of poverty or the gospel of prosperity. The majority of Western Christians must wrestle with what a "theology of enough" means in a culture of excess. How will we discern what is enough? Who will make that decision? 

James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Community (2010)

Every cry for help

is a leap into darkness, in hope that there would be safe landing because maybe, just maybe, rescue would be here.

Every cry for help is a belief in hope, even if it was out of utter desperation that this courage was borne - courage to make frailty and neediness so publicly and chillingly known.

Every cry for help is a belief in hope.

not always

God is not always silent, and man is not always blind. In every man's life there are moments when there is a lifting of the veil at the horizon of the known, opening a sight of the eternal. Each of us has at least once in his life experienced the momentous reality of God. Each of us has once caught a glimpse of the beauty, peace and power that flow through the souls of those who are devoted to Him. But such experiences are rare events. To some people they are like shooting stars, passing and unremembered. In others they kindle a light that is never quenched. The remembrance of that experience and the loyalty to the response of that moment are the forces that sustain our faith. In this sense, faith is faithfulness, loyalty to an event, loyalty to our response.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Hello students if you see this!

"Only chain a man can stand
Is that chain of hand in hand"

I'm relieved it's that way.

the struggle for justice

"The poorest people in our world suffer from a lot of familiar problems. They suffer from hunger, homelessness, illiteracy and sickness. And in response, all over the world, people of goodwill bring to bear familiar forms of assistance: we bring food and shelter and education and medicine.

But at the root of much of this suffering is actually a different problem - a less familiar problem - namely, violence. Many times the widow's children are hungry because bullies have stolen her land and she can no longer grow her own food. The street child is homeless because sexual abuse in the home has forced her onto the streets. The young boy is illiterate because he is held as a slave in a brick factory and can't go to school. The teenage girl has AIDS because she has been forcibly infected with the disease while held captive in a brothel.

In such cases we can't meet the root cause of suffering with the familiar remedies of food, shelter, schools or medicine. It simply doesn't meet the need. In fact, we can give all manner of goods and services to the poor, but if we do not restrain the hands of the bullies from taking it away, we will be disappointed in the long-term outcome of our efforts. As the rock-star activist Bono has learned from his work with the poor in Africa, caring for the poor is "not a matter of charity; it's a matter of justice."

This then is one of the things that makes IJM's calling to the church so different. We are calling Christians to address the distinctive problem of violence that lies beneath so much of the suffering of the poor - the suffering that tenaciously keeps so many of the poor in poverty.

To be clear, among the global poor, hunger, homelessness, education and medical care are massive needs worthy of our urgent attention. But the traditional remedies for these problems simply don't address the underlying problems of aggressive violence.

Violence is different. Violence is intentional. Violence is scary. And violence causes deep scars. Accordingly, to deal with violence, Christians must be different."

---

"This then is the ultimate paradox of our despair over injustice. It masquerades in the robes of hard thinking, realistic analysis and modesty, and dismisses hope as illusory, naive and even arrogant. But truth be told, it is despair that has the facts wrong. In the long run, it is always the tyrants and the bullies who end up on the ash heap of history. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe is long indeed. Sometimes unbearably long. But on both small and epic scales, it does bend toward justice. And miraculously, God has given into human hands the power to bend it more quickly to its ultimate destination. This is what the facts of history tell us. Indeed, God intends that our hope in the work of justice be built not simply on bare theological assertions about the character of God but also on the hard factual evidence about the track record of God.

Hope is not simply wishful thinking; it is a fruit of the Spirit born of the spiritual discipline of remembering."

Just Courage: God's Great Expedition for the Restless Christian (2008)

Gary A. Haugen

grief and Hope

You brace yourself and come face to face with reality, and you grief. Then your eyes open to the Hope that has always been there. And so now you continue to grieve, but you become the hands and feet of Hope. Reality continues to be so dark it's demonic, but the light and love from the Hope in you brings so much violence on this dark abyss that the walls crack. Defenses break, stiff necks broken, pride dashed to the ground, shattering like insect eggs that seep beneath the floor through some invisible sift. 

Till we recognize the grief we have brought onto the world and ourselves. And we rejoice, because in our grief, Hope is real and Hope is nearing. Hope is also here...in us - and we can finally not just do good, but be good, through and through.

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
    in quietness and trust is your strength,
    but you would have none of it.
 You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’
    Therefore you will flee!
You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’
    Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
 A thousand will flee
    at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
    you will all flee away,
till you are left
    like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
    like a banner on a hill.”

 Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
    therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
    Blessed are all who wait for him!

People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teacherswill be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” 

The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

Isaiah 30:15-22, 26

woe on us

Instead of hating exploitation, we "hate waiting for buses". We "hate the hot weather" more than we hate oppression. 

Woe on our pitiful selves. We have become more concerned about arranging every little thing in our lives into neat rows and columns, than to act and live in compassion, demanding love, mercy and justice from ourselves and society.

Change is overdue. 

May our generation become less yuppie, indie, or faddish. May we face reality. And grief. And rejoice. And find hope, and value Love more than self-preservation and comfort, so we can live lives larger than our carefully curated bubbles.

prophecy for women

In thirty years Christians will have baptized their picture of Christ. He won't be a nice, banal, meek, and bearded man with softly permed hair. Instead, he will fill our imaginations more solidly, more invasively, more unexpectedly. Christ will become That Man who changes people, someone who jumps off of bumper stickers and mediocre praise songs and into lives, a presence much more like Gandalf the Grey than Mr. Rogers. 

... 

When this change comes and we see Christ differently, others will notice.

... 

Christian women will no longer be known as the quiet, meek, and somewhat pathetic group who doesn't experience twenty-first-century freedom. Instead, we will be of something of an admired anomaly, sought after as the most informed believers in the value of femininity. We will define womanhood beyond gentle and quiet submission, curves, baby production, and high heels. We will understand and cogently explain how women are both body and soul and valuable for more than sex appeal. We will be known as "those women" who are not afraid of old age and its mark on our bodies. Our self-possession will make us a challenging group for marketers to target. We will be less concerned with proving our equality with men and more intent on building our souls for the Kingdom of God. 

... 

In thirty years our souls will be bigger.  

Jonalyn Fincher 

In David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, unChristian (2007)

International Justice Mission: celebrating justice

‎

...punishment of perpetrators, however lawful, is never meant to be our final action in their lives. We show godly love toward a perpetrator by restraining him or her from harming others, but also by praying for their reconciliation with their Maker. Perpetrators of even the most violent, dark crimes still bear the image of God and are so loved by him that God sent his Son to die for them as well.  

Gary Haugen

I've never seen a video on social justice that shows the legal conviction of people who exact harm and injustice on people's lives - and celebrates that! Perhaps my idea of social justice has been romantic. 

Sure, I grieve for people who suffer unjustly and I'm angry at people who exact such harm on others (and themselves). I dream of the oppressed being free, but I have not really thought about the need to also free the oppressors...from the destruction they are bringing.

mothers' day

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! 

The Great YHWH (in Isaiah 49: 15)

Even if mothers lose their memory in trauma or dementia, and even when mothers cease to love us unfailingly and unconditionally, the Lord of the heavens and earth will not forget us.

I know that this will be important when I join many adults as orphans after their parents leave in disease and old age.

Aslan

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring
                                                         again.

 Mr. Beaver reciting an old rhyme
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Yes, Lion of Judah! When this decaying order of our world is replaced, when you wipe the tears from every eye, when there will be no more crying, mourning, or pain again (Revelations 21:4).

real hope - faint not.

When Jesus was hungry en route to Jerusalem, he could not find any fruit on a fig tree he passed by that he could eat to fill his stomach, "because it was not the season for figs". Then he cursed the tree and it shriveled. 


But why did he curse the tree for not having fruit when it was not supposed to do so at that time?


This is what real hope, Christ's idealism looks like to me. 


It says a lot when a person is able to make the fig tree shriveled. He could be a destroyer who brings death upon people, though there is an astounding lack of such evidence in the Bible.  Early Jewish texts, however, apparently taught that Jesus was a sorcerer or someone who practiced magic and went astray. Some people even accused him of working for Satan (Luke 11: 14-23)! 


He could be a madman or someone with spiritual powers, whether for good or bad. But the spiritual nature of his work and Person cannot be ignored or obliterated at all. 


To call Jesus merely a moral teacher is like calling your parents merely your financial supporters - it is one aspect, but does not warrant as much attention as we may have given at the expense of larger undercurrents. 


The Bible on the other hand only has repeated firsthand accounts of him healing those with temporary sicknesses such as fevers as well as those who were terminally ill, such as those with skin diseases - some of which were contagious - and strange bleeding diseases. Or people with permanent conditions such as being born blind and being paralyzed. He cast out demons from people who were greatly compromised and controlled by these fallen angels (Mark 1: 21-27, Matthew 8: 28-24 and others). Where what happened to the person after was described, it was whopping amazing. He even brought some dead people back to life (Lazarus, the widow's son at Nain, Jairus' daughter are the three named in the Bible). 


He was someone who could curse a fig tree to die, and was someone who gave life, both literally and figuratively.


It's not a pretty sight at all I'm sure...looking at people tormented physically or internally, and how people shun them or grieve for them. It is all messy, exasperating, heart-cutting. Jesus "had compassion on the crowds", and those marginalized and shunned by society (Matthew 29: 34). 


But the fact that he has control over death and even the power to give life in bodily ways and spiritual ways...isn't that why the more saddening people and things are, the greater our hope is in Jesus? Because he has control over these things and if he is redeeming all aspects of the lives of those who follow him, surely he can also do the same for people whom we grieve for!


Jesus is sovereign not just over illnesses that can lead to death, but death itself and even the fearsome, destructive power of nature that humans can only avoid, alleviate, evacuate from and mitigate afterwards. And that gives me real hope. He can do what we as humans cannot do, although we like to think much bigger of ourselves than we actually are. 


We have real, rugged strength to work and bring real life, trusting that Jesus persuades and convicts people in their hearts to say yes to the redeeming he wants to do in them. As Jenny & Tyler sings, "not with "simple thoughts like 'come together be good-willed" ". Not with nice little stickers and motivational decals and posters, or a deliberate oblivion to evil in a bid to 'think happy thoughts' and 'think positive'.


No. Real Hope works amidst messed-up people, i.e. all of us. On a daily basis, we miss the standard of perfection God requires for true goodness, instead incurring grief, exasperation and anger from people around us and God due to our innate propensity to do evil (doubt, criticize, gossip, insult...) in the name of self-preservation (see Matthew 5:1-7:14; Romans 7:14-8: 11). All this goes beyond a mere moral teaching of what is good and bad. Morals inform us in detail and in the head what we should do. But we cannot do what we know is good because it is not in our nature to do so.


The Real Hope is Jesus, the one who has changed the nature of all those who let him to be able to be good for the first time in our lives. If he has power over death, surely he has power over the decay that I see happening in the hearts and lives of loved ones. And he is working right now...


My brain is not working, but I needed to write this to stand firm when situations seem bleak.

Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.

Psalm 126

FAINT NOT.
     

Urbit et Orbi

Paul Paul had world vision. All nations must hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He preferred to go to places as yet unreached. He visited strategic centers out of which the whole world could be reached in the quickest and best way. He worked from that well known principle Urbi et Orbi, the town and the world. It is surprising what such a man was able to achieve in such a short time and with so little material. For that he paid a price. He sacrificed everything, even friendship. Turkey, Greece, Italy and Spain can be reached by us in just a few days, but for Paul in his circumstances, it was an almost impossible task. But he did it. He was able to say at a given moment, "But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions..." (Romans 15:23). Today the Lord gives us all the materials, all the technical know-how and all the possibilities to reach the whole world with the Gospel. The harvest remains plentiful, especially in lands which for many decades were closed to missionary work. The workers are few, people of vision and faith; people who are prepared to pay the price; those who dare to give up security for an unsure future; those who have a vision for the world; who dare to say "the world is my church" instead of "the church is my world." Pray, therefore, that the Lord of the harvest will send forth workers and be prepared to be the answer to your own prayers. ©1995 Open Doors International. Used by permission. View an interactive Map of the worst 50 countries of persecution. Follow us on Twitter for instant prayer updates. 12/2/09

It has always been my ambition to preach the Gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather it is written: those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.(Romans 15:20-21)

Singapore's slavery

The backbone of Singapore's skyscrapers and houses: the BLOOD of innocent men-turned-slaves. What are you doing about it?




Both by Shelley Thio, Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2)

Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?
Proverbs 24:11-12

He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor.
Psalm 52:4

So glad all injustice will end!

Thinking

So much has happened. I'm tutoring again and I joined the Navigators on campus. The Navigators have mostly been such lovely and humble people and I thank God for them. I finally checked out the new Jurong Point and the college for Martians called N.T.U., and it was such a sweet time of fellowship and nonsense with Mingyan, Joel and Hengyi.

And I want to share my thoughts over the past few months:

Spirit of Excellence
I started this semester with a hypothesis: is school in Singapore really busy, or is it just a matter of perspective? My classes at U of A was the most relaxing ever and I actually enjoyed school for the first time. Sure I had to write lots of essays - ten essays on top of weekly two-page article reflections - and read chapters for a class that was on three times a week, but school was actually fun for the first time. It was just like any other thing you do every day so you enjoy it. For example, I don't spend eight hours a day reading on the mechanics and psychology behind exercise and end up so stressed up when I really hit the stairs.

And after my internship, it became so apparent to me that most of us slog out of fear. We know that quality supersedes quantity, but we fear we'll lose out if our friends study ten hours a day, and we only did six. So we top up the extra four hours by going more in depth. And we fear others will see us as complacent, lazy people if we don't appear to be working all the time. I find this especially so in workplaces where your time is constantly regulated by superiors who secretly check on you. It surely doesn't sound anything like what a believer should do since our worth and Boss is already determined by Jesus Christ (Colossians 3:23-24), but we do it anyway maybe because we're conforming to the world's works = worth principle.

Which is totally unbiblical and illogical, but so mind-blowing to the world. I remember a friend got so offended when another believer friend shared why he did so well in school: "He who trusts in himself is a fool" (Proverbs 28:26a).

So maybe if I didn't overwork myself and idolize school as the (false) determiner of my worth, if I just did what was required of me (workload, critique-ing ideas), I would get school right. I wouldn't be doing it out of fear.

Halfway into the semester, I don't know if what I did was right. But I sure was oblivious of some homework that was due really soon. I still don't know if that was good, but I'm glad God put Ana, Jasmine and Kenneth in my life to show me what it means to be a believer student with the spirit of excellence. They do their work ahead of time, and they're great thinkers. Except that they are so gracious when it comes to accommodating less-motivated students like me...and I think that's the difference between a motivated believer student and a motivated non-believer student. God empowers us through Christ with his Spirit to not be entangled by anything and idolize them.

My average busy-ness has gone up by a notch since fall break ended, and by one more notch since last week. But I'm so amazed that as I strive for excellence in my studies on top of other commitments, God has been so gracious to help me finish homework before deadlines - sometimes a day or two before. I like to think of a semester as some fireworks that ends with a super spectacular release of stress ;) I'm so glad God's putting people around me to help me adjust back to life as a student here.

Jesus in the mess with me
George McBride spoke at the Navigators' about a month ago. Grounding his message on Jesus' washing of the Apostles' feet in John 13, he shared how we can all be in the world, but not of it as long as we dive into the mess with Jesus.

Peter wanted Jesus to clean his hands and head on top of his feet in a fervent desire to share in Jesus' sacred identity, since Jesus said Peter will be part of him otherwise (v8). But Jesus saw that out of the whole body that he already purified, only the feet needed cleaning again. It's our feet that gets dirty when we invest our lives in whom Pious Peter and my previous self would have called the deviants of society. I don't think my old self would have explicitly denied the Gospel to hopeless drunkards and liars who commit sin after sin, but I'd have thought so. After all, I don't want to be in such a dangerous environment that could compromise my own sanctity.

But didn't Jesus already say he would wash my feet when it gets dirty? And my sanctity is not compromised since he'll clean the only part of my person that gets dirty?

Then I was thinking about the horrible times I had when I stayed in a dorm as a freshman. I heard notorious things about that dorm and it was apparently the most notorious of all the dorms. It didn't help that I was staying in the loudest/most notorious block, right next to the stairs that led up to the loudest/most notorious level in that dorm. My bedtime was their 'peak hour' and vice versa, and I tried to fade away into non-existence as the ghost that in that room that always seemed shut. I wanted nothing to do with them because they were such ungodly dudes.

Man I feel so ashamed talking about my misguided opinion on that dorm. I mean, they are such fun and lovely people! For real. I regret not staying in that dorm anymore. And they have so much unsurpassable value in them that Jesus died for them too. It wasn't like I was the only believer in that dorm who was concerned about my relationship with Jesus anyway. If I had Christ in the mess with me, I know Jesus will be so big in all our broken hearts and relentless pursuits of everything else except this true Lover. I know God is doing work in their hearts through other believers in the dorm. He is so good.

Being such a FAIL believer.
Have you ever felt this annoying feeling? You know something is totally right and you should do it, but you don't feel like doing it at all. It's not like I'm still dead in sin and just by nature, expectedly doing all the things that God hates. I have his Spirit in me who gave me new life again and empowers me to break off from this endless cycle of filth and repulsion.

Then I remember 2 Corinthians 7:10, "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death." It isn't just enough feeling remorse 'metamelomai' but changing my mind 'metanoia' which then changes my actions.

It sure doesn't feel good when I can't do anything no matter how hard I try to tweak my sleep regime so I can spend the first of every day with my Lover. Or try to have sweet fellowship with him, or turn to him when I need help instead of dealing things my way or a friend's way. But instead, I get my head into boys (yeah, boizzz, why why), trying to get work done, try and be noticed on campus. It's like I'm just shouting MEEEEE!!!!! MEEEE!!! ugh.

All this oblivion...I'm OBVIOUSLY forgetting that God is preparing me for something great. He's preparing me for my portion in manifesting the Kingdom. He's preparing me for war against Satan and the world.

But here I am, in Denesh's words, snuggling myself into the seats at the airport terminal and making myself at home, not wanting to board my flight to go home anymore. Sure sounds stupid :(

And I'm so glad God is ever so gracious. Dearest Jon reminded me last night that "warzone is by nature unsettling". In repentance, we need to recognize we can't do anything to turn away from sin. And we're never meant to do it alone, as orphans left in the ditches by a Brother who left in clouds of glory while we suffer here in our flesh and in the world. All I need to do is to ask Jesus to please help me.

Oh dear God, I'm so glad you put SO many godly believers in my life: Jasmine, Limin, Christy, Jon to name a few. Thank you for listening to all our prayers. I don't deserve it at all and I can never pay back your grace.

YOU ARE TOO BEAUTIFULLY WONDERFUL!!!!!

Who among the gods is like you, O LORD? Who is like you— majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?
- Moses, the meekest man on Earth, greater than Gandhi, before his death.

Deut. 32:3-4

Can I be honest today?

My heart's been heavy since coming back to Singapore. I cry a lot. Three-quarters of the time I wish I didn't have to come back to face problems...alone, in Singapore, for part of it. You've probably experienced this before in your own way. An ancient old man who called himself The Preacher told me there are no new things under the sun though we may feel otherwise. The same things happen to different people across different generations.

Have you felt lonely, stressful and afraid? Lonely because the friends who listen or stand by, and possibly empathize are few. Stressful and afraid because the line between living Jesus' way and going astray is so fine. Satan attacks and is waiting for pride and idolatry to topple me over into his gaping mouth; God shows me answers and lovely love, and promises to satisfy me through and through when I thirst for him and seek him.

I feel some things happening to me now are such injustices. But God reminded me of a song that a weak and great man sang on the day he died, "I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he."

It's awesome that my God is just, rewarding good and punishing bad. This is the God I know who will address all grievances and injustices of the world, from Abel, the first murder victim of mankind, Uriah the Hittite, the Sawis and their enemies, the Jamaican slaves who worked to death in merchant ships or sugar cane fields, to the Holocaust Jews and the many men, women and children who are mutilated physically and emotionally through various kinds of exploitation, under the power of bloodthirsty people.

Part of my plight now is a consequence of my previous foolish and selfish ways. God is just, and it's waaayyy more than awesome that his justice is bound in his goodness. That he heals my grievous heart every day as I seek him, giving me the words to speak wisely and graciously when I am afraid. He tells me his works are "perfect" and "all" his ways are just. It's not just the end result that's full of justice, but even the process of it - the entire way, the road leading up to that destination. And if I thirst continually for righteousness, I will be vindicated while walking on this road of justice. But if I give myself over to anger, jealousy, selfishness and judgmentalism, I will be disciplined and broken again, so I'd stop slapping Dad's hand away from the wounds that would have festered and rot long enough.

What can I do? Time and again, God tells me this...to praise him. And urge other believers strongly to praise him too, so strong it's an imperative, a command. To faithfully relish in his love and be overwhelmed by his goodness, and faithfully love one another, share Jesus with many broken souls, and disciple. God, you do no wrong, upright and just are you. Isn't that mindblowingly wonderful?

Mighty to change hearts!

Samaritan's Purse | Iraq | Operation Christmas Child | Turning Brokenness into Blessing

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"Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
Matthew 9:35-38

God of compassion, your cry of love rings out across the lands!

God of the Middle Ages vs. God in the Bible

Yes, it's versus, not and. And when you take an extreme humanist reading of medieval texts, sifting the "philosophical" from the "religious", it just confuses our understanding of this magnificent being whom the Germanic tribes have first called "God".

I've been taking a class that studies medieval texts such as Boethius' Consolatio Philosophiae, Christine de Pizan's Livre de Paix, and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Willehalm. And I'm writing about this because my professor said something about Johannes von Saaz's Death and the Ploughman that sparked me off to critique his interpretation: "God cannot give eternal life because it is contradictory to [inevitable] Death". Von Saaz words it this way in the last chapter of this intense philosophical and religious duel between Death and the Ploughman - God says, "...since every man is bound to give his life to Death, his body to the earth and his soul to Me".

This tedious imagined dialogue pitches the Ploughman, a noble who had lost his wife to childbirth and hates Death for robbing life, against Death, an allegorical figure who has emotive capacities and claims its inevitability. The Ploughman fights for life on earth, while Death defends his taking away of life from earth. Yet both arguments are flawed. I personally believe this overarching biblical inaccuracy falls in line with the general character of the Dark Ages - politicizing a faith into a religion at the expense of the Bible's authority. It reveals a distorted, Augustinian Christian faith, with rulers and nobles sake to justify their morality by decontextualizing verses from the Bible, and keeping the laypeople in their lowly, disenfranchised estate because they "always want war", and are "ready and armed to do all sorts of evil" (Livre de Paix 3.11, 12).

Death says life "must all come to nothing" (10). Consider this dystopian speech Death makes (20):

..every man in the moment of birth swallows the drink which pledges his death. Beginning and end are kith and kin...No one may resist what must happen in the end. The individual may not oppose what all must endure. What a man borrows he must return. On earth all men till an alien soil. From being something they must become nothing. Men's lives flee swiftly away. Though they be yet living, in the twinkling of an eye they are dead. To conclude in a word: every man owes us a death and dying is his inheritance..Either age or death must destroy all human beauty. Rosy lips must lose their color, red cheeks must pale, bright eyes must dim...Do not lament a loss which you cannot recover."

This sense of vanity in all temporal things is reminiscent of Boethian philosophy and (especially, Zen) Buddhism. The Bible says similar things too, the Teacher says that all toil on earth is in vain, "a chasing after the wind" (Eccl. 2:11), and David writes that Man is a "mere phantom" who "bustles about, only in vain", whose days are like a "passing shadow" (Ps. 39:6, 144:4). On beauty, Lemuel records a family oral tradition: "Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain" (Prov. 31:30). Death as an inevitable end is a fearful truth we often seek to obliterate from our lives, because it reminds us that our toil on earth for comfort and pleasure is not only not going to last, but is going to decay.

But let's consider also the Ploughman's retort. He exposes Death as a "liar" for slandering Man, the "finest" and noblest of divine handiwork because he "alone possesses reason" (25). The Bible does tell me something similar, that we have been made in God's image (Gen. 1:27), and are "crowned with glory and honour" (Ps. 8:6). Reason as the celebration of worldly human existence carries a heavy humanist tone - God says that the noble quality that Man alone has is the image of God, thereby having the innate desire for the eternal, immutable, spiritual (i.e. intangible).

The Ploughman's idealistic celebration of worldly human existence and Man's God-ordained goodness is however only half-true. It fails to remember the Fall, which has since fully corrupted our moral and spiritual capacities, and carries grim and very fearful consequences for all in this life and after death. To the mind that perceives only the tangible, the end of mortal life is a "loss", as Death put it. But God says the contrary, that all men are "destined to die, and after that to face judgment" (Heb. 9:27). Like it or not, we are going to be judged according to His commandments on morality as revealed in the Bible. The Ploughman said that God could only be a "bad and culpable creator" if he were to create us in such moral filth (25). He's right too. God didn't impose sin on us. Death is the only and inescapable result of sin (Rom. 6:23), and God had commanded extremely early in the existence of the universe that whoever murders a man will be killed, for "God made man in His own image" (Gen. 9:6). And we know too, that Eve took that forbidden fruit out of idolatry, and Adam blamed God and Eve for causing him to sin - their feelings of idolatry and pride were not instigated, but points to our capacity to freely act and think how we deem best.

"On earth all men till an alien soil". As opposed to that bevy of Freud-Derrida-Jung theorists, Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Rahab, Hannah, David, Ruth, Paul, Peter, John and others in the Bible got it right. They were humble and honest enough to recognize their absolute inability to do that which is good (i.e. of eternal and spiritual value). What did they do that God honours and celebrates them in His Word? I'm reminded of the verse(s) I shared in the book I gave to Kat (Hi! Honorary mention, h_h_ > sekret joke)

They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth...Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."
Heb. 11: 14, 16

Returning to what my professor taught in class today, I say that YES, God can give eternal life and He does! We can do nothing to earn it, the Bible says many times that it is "the gift of God" (Jn. 4:10; Rom. 5:15-6, 6:23; Eph. 2:8-9; 1 Jn. 5:11 and others) It is gratuitous, yet freely available to all (Mk. 10:24; Jn. 3:16; Heb. 9:27-8 and others). The God of old - waaay older than the old antiquity - calls out to all men, His beloved creation, fashioned in His own image that He was and is giving eternal life, thus overcoming Death, inevitable as it is as a means to punish unholiness (i.e. sin).

Son of man, say to the house of Israel, 'This is what you are saying: "Our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?" ' Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.

Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?'
Ez. 33:10-1

Dear God, thank you for this unceasingly wondrous promise of hope amidst bleakness and evil. Amen and Amen!