The Lord provides

Genesis 22:14

So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”

The JLTA has ended and as the joy simmers on with the campers and commanders alike, I'm grateful for how God's hand of grace is extended throughout the JTT camp I was in-charge of.

It's truly a miracle to behold as God opened the door for us to use the toilets of the NPCC campsite. In addition, for him to provide each of us with a 1.5L bottle of mineral water. I really cannot imagine being stuck in the campsite with no water to shower and to wash our cooking equipment.

Everynight, we had cooling sea breeze as we stood by the beach in worship and services. As we hiked, there was clouds to shade us from the scorching sun that I experienced in the last JTT.

Not that God provided everything to the point of perfection, that will happen someday in Heaven. but when you view the entire trail with simple eyes, just as how we should with our life's journey, it's really amazing how God always provides more than enough comfort to ease us through the uncomfortable moments. He does not need to go that extra mile, but we're blessed that He shows his love by doing small acts that matters significantly.

M.

You fighting or not?

2 Timothy 4:7

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

This is the season of funerals, it seems. The past weeks, there have been many who have passed away. Incidentally, I've been reading the obituary section as of last year because of age. Often I glimpse upon an acquaintances whose loved one passed away.

In many Christian obituaries, I see the quote above and just today as I chanced upon the quote in a young entrepreneur woman's obituary, I asked myself what was the good fight or race that she had?

Someday our life will expire, and while we don't know the exact date and time, I really wonder if many of us will be found faithful to know what we are called for and to endure in the fight of faith. How easy it is to be tired, exhausted or simply exasperated by what life throws at us. Meanwhile, a good reminder to be fighting and not slacking, so that this sentence will be true of our lives should the day it needs to be printed on our own obituary.

M.

complain...complain ...complain

Lamentations 3:38-40

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come? Why should the living complain when punished for their sins? Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD.

Oh, I really can't stand whining people or people who just live to complain. That is perhaps the key reason why I can detect a Singaporean a mile away when I'm overseas. Ok, so I'm exaggerating, but boy do we whine and complain a lot. 

Nothing seems to satisfy us, and in today's young generation the whining is ever so present and in greater measure than I would be able to tolerate. Over the past few days, I've had a couple of encounters with stressed young adults who openly share their thoughts without recognising that its laced with complains and it really hits me like a blast of unexpected cold wind.

The fact that today's social media is propagating everyone to whine and lament online is not helping. Quite honestly, I don't need to know or am I interested to have the complains posted. Even if I attempt to skip past the posts, it's still a pain to have it out there because so much of the whining are pitiful attempts to be attention seeking or just deluded that they are victimised by what comes through in their life.

We all have choices to make in life. Often, what you encounter now is simply a result of something we have elected to do or a process that God wants us to go about. Even if things aren't a consequence of sin and life seems to hurl lemons at us, I only wish more will learn to take it and also to shut it up. 

If you have an issue with life and you're whining about it, don't go about whining and complaining to the rest of the world. Who amongst us are living in a perfect world without issues? Learn to recognise that those who overcome it on their own often bring much glory to their maker.

Meanwhile, I'm seriously ignoring the self-pity-party whiners who are annoying me to death. Life doesn't suck, you just chose to look at it that way.

M. 

Words of my mouth

Psalms 19:13-14

Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

I abhor vulgarity. Even worst is in situations where Christians compromise their stand and spew what they feel is just a moment to express what everyone around is saying or a release of pent up emotions, it irks me to utter disgust.

This is why I hated the moments in Army and over the past few weekend as I caught up with new enlistees YongEn and Timothy, I couldn't help but emphasise to them the need to stay pure in speech. Almost everyone in the army would be found cursing and swearing, whether they consider themselves Christian or not. 

It doesn't help that today we are exposed to vulgarities more than ever. From a regular movie to free expressions in school,  its everywhere and takes a huge amount of effort to not be influenced.  Sadly, it's not just the guys who will enter army that I'm worried about, the girls too are now spared. Absolute morality is in a decline, the four-letter word and all vular words are not permissible expression of our frustration or regular language which we as Christians are entitled to say. 

Amongst the 8 codes of the Royal Rangers, "clean" is the one I feel most passionate about.

"A royal ranger is clean in body, mind and speech. " This is an aspect of being absolute in our faith, regardless of what the world or people around us say, think or practice.

May the words of this generation of youths and young adults be set-apart and pure.

M.

Walk effortlessly

Job 13:26

"You fasten my feet in shackles; you keep close watch on all my paths by putting marks on the soles of my feet."

I am rather naive when it comes to my corporate career. Much as I have aspirations, dreams and goals, I also do not do enough to advance myself to be like the others in the rat race. How then can I advance like others who put in so much more effort right?

It does not help when the bomb of a massive restructuring was dropped in the midst of the business trip. A-Bomb size, it involved my business category merging with another. With all the talk of restructuring, the reaction for all would be to start the look-out for other opportunities as well as doing what is needed to start grabbing possible life-lines. 

While everyone is trying to figure out what are the details to happen and some are scrambling to secure something. This is when I show my absolute naivety to all at work because I often elect to sit and do nothing. Not because I'm an expert given the fact that it is my fourth restructuring or retrenchment exercise in the last 5-7 years, but the fact that I know that my steps are predestined. 

So, while everyone is waiting in anticipation for greater details, myself included, I'm sitting at work, going about life as per normal and very grateful that all the steps of my path are always set by God.

M.

Put your house in order

Isaiah 38:1

In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”  

Death is never a pleasant thing. Simply because we all don't know when our time to die and there's the feeling of not wanting to leave what our physical being has experienced on earth. For some if the doctor tells us we only have a limited time to live, it's such a crushing blow.

I've a rather cukoo perspective of living because I don't desire to live to a ripe old age. I rather pass on young and at some prime age of my life, preferably before it goes all downhills. Past the 40's and guys get bald, fat, sag, unfit, aches....you get my drift.

Yet, seemingly open as I am to dying, it makes me shiver in jitters when I fly and during turbulence, imagine that this could be it! something could just happen to the plane. Yes, it's a silly thought but boy is it chicken-hearted when we figure if our life is coming to an end. I can imagine how Hezekiah felt when it was told to him that he was to die.

Since I started traveling as a young adult, I often attempted to leave a full set of instructions or wrap up anything that I felt should be important to be dealt in my absence, just in case something happens. Paranoid as I am, I'm also quite a planner simply because I do believe the important things of life always need to be put in order and any odd and ends wrapped up during key moments, in my case before I fly an airplane. I believes this allows us to be more diligent in living our lives and with a greater sense of urgency, not taking for granted the breath.

The Psalmist says "Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom". May you live life always remembering to put the important things of your life in order, so when that final day of your life arrives, you know you've lived life without regrets and with purpose.

M.

Never alone

Romans 14:7-8

For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 

I have always been in awe of the crazy individuals whom I come across in my backpacking days and wonder how they could just go all about to see the world alone.

The past CNY holiday, I started experiencing what they do and how they live their life. The solo flight to Barcelona was fine, because it was just another business trip where I travel solo. But when I came out of the arrival hall and had to navigate to the departure hall to catch my next flight, that was when it started feeling different. Basically the airline counter wasn’t open and won’t be till 2 hours before take-off. That meant , I had to linger around the departure hall (not transit area!) from 9am till 1:40pm and without internet, companions to chit chat or shops to while time away, I literally was stumped!

So I spent the next many hours sitting on different seats and reading the 2 books I brought alone, all the while staying awake because I needed to look after my belongings. Thank God for the 2 books that I brought, one was a gift (5 people you meet in heaven) and the other a guidebook of Warsaw from the library. Boring as the guidebook was, I had something to flip through. Didn’t help that the other book was also rather dull. Suddenly the reality of having to explore a new place alone hit me and I really wondered if it was a crazy thought to plan such a long overseas holiday in the cold sub zero temperatures of Poland.

I must say the jitters of going to an unknown country on a moment of impulse became more unnerving than the earlier excitement of being able to escape a boring CNY. Everyday that I spent traveling alone in Poland started with uneasiness. But it eased away as I started finding myself at ease with being alone and having experience a safe environment. Even eating lunch and wondering about to pass time before my ride home came became tolerable.

It has been an extremely enjoyable holiday, more so as I found myself never alone.  Don't get me wrong, traveling alone is really not for the faint-hearted, but when I rest my head every night and reflect at how God protected and was there for me, it really brought a new dimension to the journey of life. We are never alone.

M.