Misdirected love

In light of the recent happenings back home in Malaysia, I thought I spent some time writing down my thoughts in a structured way to share with you what I think about it and also for me to be more at ease. (I have all these thoughts running to and fro between my mind and it drives me nuts – I’ve been waking up ridiculously early for the past few days and you can guess what are the first few thoughts)

For the uninformed, I will just attempt to summarize what happened. Due to what I believe is immature leadership, an issue that was considered as a ‘hot topic’ back home was not handled well. As a result, some churches have been victims of Molotov cocktails and of course, with that, a certain kind of unrest. By all means, visit any Malaysian news website, be it the mainstream ones or the radical ones and they would be able to do more justice in sharing with you the latest. Try Google J

I was disgusted when I first heard of it. Disgusted because well, it is just not right and that feeling developed into one of (pauses to think of a word).. I can’t put it into a word but it was along the lines of ‘man, what I am still doing here in Australia?’

As you can imagine then, the subsequent next few hours developed into a struggle with Him and myself.

I am a bit more at peace right now. I was reminded of course of a brief article I was reading a few days ago which expounded on Peter’s response to Jesus in John 13:37 ‘Lord, why can I not follow You now?’ The author went on to talk about worship, waiting and work and suggested that they should go as one and it is a discipline that must be developed.

I would imagine people would have various responses to what has been happening back home. Some may be further convinced that they should try even harder to migrate to another country, some would see it as another point of accusation towards the current government and capitalize on it, some might see it as license to do something radical and so forth.

What is our response as a follower of Jesus?

If there was one thing that I first thought of was, wow, what a fantastic opportunity for the Malaysian Church to unite as one. In my understanding and knowledge so far, unity amongst Malaysian churches have been sporadic or minimal. In John 17, Jesus prayed that ‘all may be one’ (verse 21) and we often forget that these were the last few moments before He was crucified and when read in the context of that, it just makes you sit up straight in your seat and wonder, maybe Jesus knew that Church disunity was a huge thing that would be lacking in the Universal Church today. I was further encouraged even more as the Bible teaches us that Jesus intercedes on our behalf to the Father today and one could suggest that unity is one thing that He is still praying for.

When one part suffers, all suffers. Persecution has always been there. It is just translated and expressed differently in various circumstances. And what happened can be seen as one form of persecution in its infancy. The Bible teaches us too that we must expect persecution if we are really following Him.

Some people’s FB status goes along the lines of ‘the only thing left to do is pray’ and well, I can’t help but wonder, it sounds a bit defeated.

‘You can do more than pray after you have prayed; but you can never do more until you have prayed’ -AJ Gordon

2 Timothy 3:1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: v2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy unloving…..

I am reminded too of the passage above that we are living in the last days and people will still have love, but a love that is misdirected. And I think at the core of it all, the cause of the recent events is a result of misdirected love.

I have friends who are out there in the mission field, back home in the middle of all the action and I sometimes wonder also, why can’t I go and join them yet. It’s like we’re in a football game and we are not losing (we won’t loseJ) but the team needs help and I’m on the substitutes bench and I know what I can do (or at least I think..) and I’m so eager to just run in and help but the Coach just looks at me and says, it’s not your turn yet.

Maybe I really am not ready yet.

To continue the analogy, I was taught too that if you can’t play, at least cheer them on so that is what I will do for now. I have been praying too that God would let me feel what they feel so that I can pray better and I will not get too comfortable with life here.

I learnt something while attending a Residential Bible School back when I was in my ‘teen-years’ (I can’t believe I just used that phrase) and I learnt that God did not give me a Malaysian passport to change it and so I will continue on with that belief.

New beginnings..

And so, 2009 came just like that and left and it's 2010 already, just some pictures for your viewing pleasure from December

OCF Australia 51st National AGM at Port Klang Gospel Hall, that was a momentous one, will never forget that :)

Ah Kong's Birthday

Made breakfast on Christmas morning - Back in Adelaide

Tried a roast pork belly dish from Jamie Oliver's book. Turned out well. Only dish to be finished for Christmas dinner.

Flowers which were supposed to bloom on Christmas morning, man..feel so cheated by the florish shop now..its only blooming now. Oh well..haha..

Guess what came back with me to Adelaide :)

Got more cookbooks for Christmas presents. Thank you, Mr Chai :) ...was saying the other day too..us males are getting a tad bit domesticated already..haha..just a tad..

On a separate note, was just doing some reflecting this morning and setting down some goals and a thought came to me. One of the things that interest me is that how each generation (X, Y, Baby boomers) have traits which are specific to them and even more if I zoomed in on models, like for example, the Malaysian Youth from the 80's, we have similar wants. And so, I was thinking, from my conversations and observations with my peers, I realised that a lot us want change (some with noble reasons, some well..a bit selfish la), and we crave for significance, to be valued. I believe these 2 traits are linked.

The environment around us also helps further fuel that desire. Most of us are living in our 'parents world'. What we have today is what the generations before set in place. They set up the policies that we have today, the governments that lead us today, the tax rates we pay and so on...basically the way of life. And specifically with us coming from rather comfortable backgrounds, we like to have things our way. That could start in us a desire to want change..possibly. There are also groups of people who after having experienced much have come to the point to say that life is too short to do anything else, let us choose a life of significance and denied all form of selfish desires.

And I don't think there is good or bad in that, it's just how the way things are.

What the world needs today are visionary Christians who would make a stand for God and well influence how the world around us is developing. I'm not asking for us to control His hand to do what we want. That is not even possible. What I believe is that we need to start availing ourselves to let Him use us. Desires for change could sometimes be placed there in your heart by Him. Think about it this way, He could have allowed you to be a baby boomer for example, but He chose for you to be part of this generation and He allowed what happen to shape you for a reason..for such a time as this.