Rants « The Upper Room Diaries

December 6, 2010

Back in KL

It is weird how I would usually find myself getting increasingly pensive, the further away I am from home. So here I am back in KL after a good long one-and-a-half-year absence from this current apartment of my lodging. Most times when I am free to come up to KL, Shawn would kindly host me. These times are usually times for me to think, get some work done while within close range of super good food and super cheap movies.

There are a couple of notable differences from this trip compared to the last. First is the night bus up. OH MANS, we were given such a surprise! We did not get what we paid for. We paid for a cheap bus ride up north but we were upgraded, for no apparent reason, to a super-class bus and the whole journey up took only like three hours! I was like waking shawn up trying to trick him by saying: “Eh Shawn, wake up, we reach Yong Peng already.” Wells, of course he was sharp enough to note my nonsense. Even now after a quick breakfast of timeless beef noodles, we are still raving at the fact that this is our fastest trip up ever. It really felt like we have travelled back in time.

Second, it looks like Shawn’s dad revamped the small studio apartment. Everything is so neatly arranged and clean that it really felt like we stepped into a hotel room, or service apartment. There is this new elevated ledge that allows for a good 180-degree peep into the busy streets of KL. So I took a mattress nearby, some pillows and set up a comfort corner (Jap style) for me to chill, sleep and think. So now I am lying down on a thick mattress chilling with my laptiop, while glazing out into a panoramic view of the streets in air condition comfort. What a chill spot!

Third, besides coming up here to eat, movie, meet up with friends and walk around; this time around I actually came up with some work to do. Actually to be accurate, I just merely changed location. Instead of working at home, I am working from KL. A couple of things to do. Guess I would devote my mornings and afternoons to work at Starbucks due to wifi, then night time would be spent meeting friends and bumming around. Anyways work is a real bummer. . .

So thats all for now. Gonna be back in Singapore on Thursday evening and gonna teach in cell on Friday. Happening week for me! Okay, now for something random; think I would design and print my own Christmas cards to give out this year.

Tata!

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On a side (site) note. My blog stats shows that many views are coming in from Google search by the word “Hendiady”. They would usually land on this post of mine. You may want to try googling the word.

November 3, 2010

My Ultimate Achilles Heel

It is said that for a minister, there are three potential pitfalls: Glory, Gold and Girls (and Guys). I would beg to differ. I would say that there are four: Glory, Gold, Girls and Games.

Surprisingly, the weakest area in my life is games, specifically that of the MMORPG category. The allure of this type of game is that it has a well designed gameplay and established social network that makes me keep coming back for more. While being represented by an avatar, the aim is to joust my way through the ranks and be recognized as the best. The drawback is that in order to win, I would need to pay real money for in-game items and clothes. The rest is skill.

For the past month, I unconsciously got myself hooked on one of these. To make it even worse, this game is on my iPhone, so this makes the game really mobile. I began to play it everywhere I do, whenever I am free, I will play it. Slowly this became worse for me. If I do not have free-time, I will create the free-time. I suppose that it is all the surrounding emotional stress that made me want to retreat into the game thus making its gameplay and social network even more enticing. Talking about “drowning your sorrows”, yes this is a good way to do that. I ended up spending close to a hundred dollars on this iPhone game. Scary, I know. The more scary thing is that it starts to affect other areas of my life. My family, friends, ministry, and also my relationship with Serene was strained. She complained about my lack of affection despite the amount of attention I give her and this hurt her deeply.

It was this way until two nights ago when God hit me in the face with one word, “Idolatry”. I have put the game before God. After I repented, God brought me to see the effects this game had on my poor Serene who is clueless what was going on. So the next day when I met Serene, I told her about the game and my spending, deleted the game, and resolved never to put Game before Girlfriend. Hours later I experienced unexplained freedom. So it is only then that I realized that the game was such a bait for the devil to bring me down. Such bondage! I suppose that this type of game is certainly not evil, but I had a certain weakness for it. So I better stay away from them lest I fall again into a hole I would not be able to climb out from.

Thank you Serene, for being forgiving.
Thank you, everyone of you, for being patient with me.
Thank you God, for knocking me conscious.

November 1, 2010

Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant!

The past week had been disconcerting. There are times when I get to speak to different groups of people, and some of them would have their week served to them real bad while some of them have theirs being real good. Many times I find it tough as a leader to react neutrally in these contrasting situations. Should I celebrate or cry with them? Who should my heart be inclined toward? I am convinced to think that this is reality. In a group setting, usually seasons come and goes all at the same time. Recently God has been speaking to me about the topic of faithfulness. I believe that God has given me a passage to share, and this seemed to be timely for us all, no matter which season we are in.

The Bible is big on this topic of faithfulness and one of the most literal would be Matthew 25:13-30, when Jesus spoke on the Parable of the Talents. This passage is placed strategically in the context of the end times, after chapter 24 where Jesus talks about what would happen before The End, and thus in chapter 25 we see Jesus giving three parables about how Christians should live in the light of eternality. The Parable of the Talents is the second of the three.

In the Parable of the Talents, we see the master giving this three servants differing among of talents (i.e. money) according to their ability. Two of the servants put their master’s money to work and came back with profit, however the other servant, the one with the least money, went to hide it because he was afraid to lose it. The master was not pleased with this servant and threw the servant out saying that he was wicked and lazy.

It is common to hear people attribute this passage to point to the stewardship of individual gifting, but in actual fact, it meant so much more. It meant “inheritance” and what we do with it. The fact is that we never chose our skin color, our talents, our parents and the wealth and condition of the family we grew up in; neither did the servants chose the amount to which the master would give them. Whether in much or in little, the challenge for the servants is all the same. God demands faithfulness.

Some of you may be going through difficult times while some of you may be going through smooth times. However the challenge to be faithful is still the same for all. When you have everything going for you, it is easy to forget God. When you have everything going against you, there is a tendency to blame God and forsake Him.

Hence these two questions become fitting for personal reflection:

1. Are you being faithful towards God with the things that God has given you?
2. Are you being faithful towards God in the situation that God has placed you in?

Here we see faith and faithfulness are not mystical things that Christians are expected to muster up within themselves, they are in actual fact, really practical. Just as how the master demanded faithfulness from his servants, God demands faithfulness from you.

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Postscript: I like what one of my lecturers said to me on this topic: “Faith will be tested and must be tested. It is not primarily for God to see how much we love Him; it is more for ourselves to find out how much we really love God.” – Rev. Melvin Ho

The Upper Room Diaries

Category: Rants