Lack of faith

"When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. ⁵⁴ Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. ⁵⁵ “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? ⁵⁶ Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” ⁵⁷ And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”

⁵⁸ And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. - Matthew 13:53-58

Praying for a kingdom-first business

I am praying for a kingdom-first business set-up.

I have to.

After being in this business for 5 years, the Lord has been growing this business for us steadily especially in terms of its offering of products and services which is pretty niche. Though we are still a pretty small retail outlet, we have much potential to grow to serve a larger clientele. Looking ahead, there are still much sales channels of exploration. We are hoping to establish a model where the business will run by itself with or without us running it, but of course that's still far fetching now. But one thing that I learn is that we need to constantly produce new products and services for our customers so as to draw them back again and again.

In this whole business process, I personally find toughest is to interact with the my business partners , in this case, my brothers. Why do I say so? Because I find that we all have different ideas and though there are times we agree, there also many other times where we disagree. Personally, sometimes I struggle to communicate my own needs and desires and also thoughts with them, being the youngest doesn't help.

As I reflect upon this business, I realised we are almost just like any other business with one single solid motive ~ that's to earn profit and make a living.

On the surface, its seems reasonable. We all need to earn $$ and live . But after 5 years of pursuing this goal, I realise that I am living out Genesis 3:17-19 in full measure:

¹⁷ To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

Work is a toil. I am feeling it. I have experience strife, unhappiness and emotional upheavals in the work. I think you as a reader, knows what I am talking about when I say: " how I wish i can be a millionaire now and I don't have to work a single day anymore" : P

As i am reflecting on this issue, i realise i may facing all this because i have the wrong purpose in this business. This business is God-given, no doubt about that. I still remember 5 years ago, I pray that my family will have more opportunity to spend time with each other, and this business idea come within a week of the prayer. We took it up and God has bless me with many divine moments that has to be from Him and Him alone.

But I confessed and I repent of the fact that there are also many other decisions that are made without consulting Him. Big or small ones, I realised sometimes I myself even overlook them in prayers and committment to the Lord. How can I ever say that I am a follower of Christ and yet I do not know to fully commit to Him?

No wonder when things turn for the worst, I became frustrated, angry or just simply upset. And that's when u find me asking God the whys, the hows and pleading for His divine intervention. And crap, sometimes , I didn't even ask Him to help, I just depend on our minute human strength.

This cannot be.

So i need to start praying and I pray that in the name Jesus for God to forgive me and I pray for a kingdom-first business from now on that everything comes from the purposes of God. Amen!

about certificate and dreams.

Many years ago, when i was 16...

When i just finish my O level and I was enjoying my first December Holiday in a long while without having to worry about any school work as I await my results. I remembered at that time I was reading the book Alchemist written by Paulo Coelho. It was given to me by my form teacher as a farewell gift. The book (which is a international best best best seller) spoke to me a lot about following my heart and my dreams in life and not just doing flowing along in the main streams of life. What it did was that it set me to thinking what I like to do, where my interests and passions are, and what my dreams are and whether I could give it a try.

Everyone had dreams of their own, and mine at that time was clear and ambitious: to be a multi-millionaire so that I can set up a charity foundation to help solve social ills like feeding the poor, etc. It a big dream, and I knew then that if the passion is real, its do-able and its workable as a life path.

During my sec 4 years, I remembered i was on a bus ride home with one of my Parry Primary school ex classmate. She was a former prefect in school and she always one who goes for good results and be excellent in academic. As we were just catching up on life, somehow the conversation leads to the importance of a person having a certificate.

Certificate, one of the 5Cs of that era , the other 4 being, car, condo, career, cash.(if i can remember correctly, is deemed as one of the most impt criteria of being a successful person. This is because, with a good certificate or education qualifications, one can land a decent job with a decent prospects that pays you a decent salary that potentially can gives you a decent, car, condo, and a decent looking bank statement. So certificate is i guess the mother of all success seemingly.

seemingly.

until i start arguing with my friend, who i never seen since that fateful day. That day i argue with the fullest of conviction that having a certificate is not important in life. not at all. whether you have certificate or not, one could still make it in life, successful or not, its really one's view point. nothing to compare.

my dear friend was distraughted and was put to disbelief by my argument, how can it be that someone on island Singapore can ever thinks that certificate is not important at all?

I did not exactly write a graduate level thesis to argue with her. but there and then, at the age of 16, i was convicted enough to know that life is not about pursuing of certificate and good results. there's certainly more.

I will always remembered this incident in my life because its just how God makes me to be, as i realized many years down the road, that having a certificate is never going to be my way of creating a security in life. yes, i guess, ppl needs a 5C in life because it makes them feel secure.

Many years later, i told my gf-turn-wife-now that i chose not to go Uni because i don't need a degree to help a needy person. yes that's right, i don't need a certificate in order to help someone. This statement alones, helps me score highly on her impression board of me. =)

And as i think back, i thought that is amusing how i become who i am today, and just thank God that i had that interestin argument with my primary school friend who i have not seen since then. I pray that she will meet God one day and spend eternity with Him.

And i just thought that God must have find it amusing and caused me to meet Him along the journey of pursuing my dreams when I land my first full time job in a social svc job.

Personally, I am not sure whether i will really be a multi millionaire and be able to start a charity foundation that can give a lot of money to bless the poor and needy to the society in any point of the future.

But what i do know that is that along the way, because of a dream and a conviction that certificate is not all there is to life, I have the opportunity to see a life that's more than chasing certificates. And in all this I praise and give glory to God for its He who makes me who I am and caused me to have a dream and to be passionate and courageous to chase after it against the mainstream of life.

What I am sharing is that for you who are young and still studying and under pressure to get that all important qualification. Well, go ahead to do your best, but don't do it because your parents, your friends expects you to. but do it because you have a dream and a passion in life, and that whatever you are learning now will help you to get to where you want to be. Do the same thing with a change of view point.

Be selfish for a moment in your life and start making decisions for your own future, from your own passion. and you find that its not a selfish decision after all.

stop chasing that certificate, chase your dreams.

And who knows, you might meet God just along the way.

Volunteering in Singapore

I thought I should start a blog series on volunteering in Singapore, given my exposure to it this last decade. I thought it will help you readers to have a better understanding. If you are volunteer wannabe wanting to find out more on volunteering or a burn-out volunteer taking timeout and wanting to gain perpective, well watch this series and hope my sharing can be a blessing to you : )

Rachel's Tears : Committment to Christ

A few days ago, I chanced upon a book in the bookshelf of my newly moved in house with a cover of a young looking western girl titled Rachel's Tears. It was part of my wife's collection of books since young.

Intrigued by the book cover and title and position in the rows of Christian living books. I picked it up and started reading. The book was about the spiritual journey of Rachel Joy Scott, an young American teenager who studied in Columbine High School and was killed as part of the Columbine tragedy in 1999, where 2 student gunmen shot and killed 13 students and teacher in the school, the 2 gunmen committed suicide after that. Many others suffered gun shot wounds too.

This book is an moving account of both the incident and the aftermath. And more important, the author, who is the parent(divorced) of the main character Rachel, wrote the content of the book mainly from the diarys/jorunals of Rachel's acounts of her own faith/committment to Christ, her personal struggles.

Through the book, the reader is presented with great insights to the life of young Rachel who was a talented drama actress in school and also was seen as a firm follower of Christ who dares to say no to the worldly things despite immense peer pressure and also a particularly kind person who seeks out the loners/outcast in her school to befriend them. She's also a follower who dares to share with the lost. She walked the talk.

I was particularly moved by the poetry and songs written in Rachel's journal that were written to God, very much like the Davidic Psalms in the Bible where the author shared her struggles with God in beautiful words...... this speaks of intimacy which i believe not many Christians have, especially those who behave religiously. And I am actually very encouraged and inspired by this, as although she is a teenager, she could reach that intimacy with God through a real and trueful heart towards God . This entails a acknowledgement of man's weakness and sins and coming to the cross of Jesus.

I am encouraged because i believe if God could lead Rachel to be such faithful and committed follower, then God could lead a lot of us to that level too. This is, of course if we allow Jesus to be who He is in us.

This is the best line that i see in the whole book:

Let Jesus be Himself in us.

There are many moving accounts of Rachel's life and I kinda teared through the book because one wonders why did this school shooting tragedy ever happened. Rachel was about the same age as I if she is still alive today. When this tragedy happened, i was in my sec 4 O level year and oblivious to the things of this fallen world. 12 years later as i read this book and googled about news on this tragedy. I am truly amazed what God has done since then through the ministry work of Rachel's parent and siblings. They basically went around sharing Christ's message of hope to the young and old alike around the country and on TV.

What human thought to be evil , God has turned it around for a greater good.

The book suggested from actual witness account that Rachel were killed for her faith because before the killer shot her in the head, they asked her if she still believe in God. Rachel said yes and there went her last breathe on earth. Many other victims are Christ followers along with minorities in the school.

I thank God for the book and i think its moving me back to a life that wants to continue to journals my thoughts, struggles and victories before God and singing praise and worship.

One final thought on this post which i leave to the Lord tell us from John 12:24:

²⁴ Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Somebody say Amen to that : )

Praise the Lord!

Visions from the Lord

¹⁷ “‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams" Acts 2:17

I firmly believe we are living in this last days that Apostle Peter talks about on Pentecost day 2000 years back. And the reason is that I have the privilege to see visions from the Lord myself. Over the past few years, I believe the Lord has blessed me with many visions. And many of them are pertaining to people around me, some are future happenings, some are situations that are occuring and mostly are on things that I do not have any idea about. Sometimes I have interpretations, sometimes I don't.

But for all the visions that were given, one thing were resulted that I ended up praying for these people shown in the visions. They are normally friends/family that I know. In some situations, I was impressed enough to write an email, or send an sms of prayer to them to perform some form of edification, to build them up in faith.

Couple of months ago, I had an most interesting vision of a brother whom I consider dear to me. It was an pretty troubling vision. After some waiting and prayer, i send him an email to warn him about certain sins that might be happening in his life as the visions seems like he is facing a consequence to his sins. He replied in the email that he will like to know what is the exact vision details as he accepts the prayer I have for him.

So i went typing off on my Iphone 4. As i was typing it to near finish, LO and BEHOLD, an invisible finger backspaced the whole paragraph text, word by word, letter by letter! I tried, in desperation to stop the deletion but it was futile, i managed to stop it for a second or two, and it start back spacing again until everything was wipe out.

I was on a bus, when this happen. And my heart almost stop. Shock of my life. Sensing that it might be the Lord's doing, I typed an email to my dear brother and said that God probably does not want me to share with him the vision at the point of time.

Nonetheless, over the course of the next 2 month, the backspacing incident and the seriousness of the content of the vision lingered around my thought and prayer life. I seek God for a further and deeper interpretation and wait upon Him for the peace to release the details of vision to this brother.

Sometime later, I went to prayer mountain in Seoul, South Korea during my honeymoon in May. Once again, I find myself praying for this incident and vision. Then, on my train ride across the country to Busan, I find God giving me the sense of urgency and peace to release the details to my brother, including a different interpretation that seems more relevant to this brother.

So after i came home to Singapore this week, I send an email detailing all that i saw in the vision along with the new interpretation. My heart was settled at peace and I pray that he has the wisdom to test and to see whether its really a message for him and his family. As its sensitive and inappropriate, i shan't share this detail online. But suffice to say, its of great ministry and family direction imporatance for this brother. And that explained the pro-longed waiting upon the Lord to release this message.

And I just like to share that i received an email from this brother saying that I can never believe how timely and how relevant the message was as he was embarking on this new task given to him by the Lord. And its just so incredible! Praise the Lord! To Him be the Glory that he shall share the secret things with man.

I still await more fascinating stories to be told by this brother. But i am just so fascinated by the Lord alone on this interesting, supernatural visions that He has been blessing me with all this while. And I thought as you read this, you might have, as a Christ follower, had had a similar encounter as me and you are wondering what you should do with it, so i put together some key points below for you to know and thus decide on the best course of what you should do in handling the visions from God.

1) Visions are from God. He is the source. (read point 8 also)

2) If it impressed on your heart greatly, it means the Holy Spirit wants you to know the situation that's happening.

3) The top priority is to pray for wisdom , including interpretation to the vision.

4) If there's an interpretation, then you need to ask God whether you can release it to the person concerned. If you could , then next question is when should you do it. This takes great sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. And peace of heart is usually a great way to gauge the suitability and timing of release .

5) Its better to release it via a prayer coupled with scriptural support., i.e it must be biblical. I think God don't release a vision that's contradictory to His word.

6) Understand the heart of God, why does He wants to release the vision to you. What's His purpose.

7) Not every visions needs to be released, sometimes, the Lord just want you to have keep the person/situation concerned in prayer. One never have to release it unless and until the Lord asked him to.

8) Be careful that not all visions are from the Lord, as its spiritual, remember that the devil could be behind it and use them to deceive us. The key here is discernment and also to test the biblical portion of it. So it really helps that you know the bible well.

9) I believe its stewardship as well, visions are secret things from God, and we need to be responsible in handling them well. Do not anyhow disclose it to others. In the old testaments there were many prophets who were God's messengers and all of them were held responsible by God to deliver the message and also how they deliver them. So do be careful.

I am sure more can be added to this list, but suffice to say, visions from the Lord should not be taken lightly. When it doubt, check with leaders around you without divulging too much details.

God bless you : )

Praise the Lord!

What's next?

What's next?

This is a question that I have been asking myself, and something that I have been praying about for months.

As i am taking time to settle in to my newly wed life, enjoying the responsibility of a husband with the obvious household duties. More or less as the settle-in period is up this month or 2, i think its time for me to really step into a higher gear to seek God for His plans and destiny for me and Joelle as a couple and even as individuals.

Today, I find myself asking God again to use me, if he pleases, to be an instrument to participate in 'solving' any social ills in the society that i live in. And when the answer comes, i certainly supposed my wife will be wrap into being part of an parcel of this journey. She has been an great helper and I am sure the Lord will combined the talents we have and put it into good use.

Meanwhile, i guess i will be faithful in discipling the younger ones and wait upon the Lord. Although I couldn't say for sure, in the lead up to my wedding and after, I do have a few glimpse of my future prospects of being involved in certain social entrepreneurship endeavors, with surface level chats with managers in this arena . It excites the core of me, my dreams and aspirations. But it also challenges my self-perception of whether i am up for the job, in a voluntarily form, of course.

I guess the prelude to the next book of my life has got to be a prayerful one.

Amen!