Archive for the ‘my faith’ Category
I guess a lot of things have been affecting me these days, mainly to do with my faith.
At times i just feel very disillusioned. I mean, i look around me and i really really really really don’t like what i see. I’d like to think that it’s just me, but even if it’s just me it doesn’t make me feel any better.
You want to know what i see?
I see people who call and announce themselves as Christians in one way or another, behave not as such, and deny that their behaviour exists. I would have thought that instead of outright denial at least one would consider one’s actions and think about what one has been doing. Even if it’s not true, it’s definitely more beneficial to consider oneself inwardly first, rather than outright refuting that one knows that oneis right, especially when it’s something to do with one’s behaviour, because oftentimes people notice you more than you do. If you just argued or thought “that’s not true, i know i pay more attention to self more than other people pay attention to me”, then you already have a personal example of what i mean. I wish they’d stop arguing about who they profess to be, and just be what they say they are instead of having so many words about it.
I see people who are essentially hypocritical. I’d like to put it a better way, and i’m probably one of them, but i’m just telling you what i see and this is what i see. I’m not exempted from judgement from anyone who wants to judge, and neither is anyone else. But if you really don’t behave the way you say you do and should (see above) then i think it should at least bug your conscience a little bit. Of course, this can be manifested in many ways, from the very obvious actions vs words, or the not so obvious ones where actions lead to imply something that you outrightly don’t agree with.
I see people getting disheartened because of other people and it’s really not right. How can it be that by professing to live the life, we push people away from God? It’s supposed to be the other way around. Yes i know that the world is supposed to hate us because it hated Jesus, but that’s in a different context. Our lives are supposed to change all people, not just the ones we want to change for our own weird whims. I’d put up something about people who don’t think and just either follow the crowd or simply do what hits them, but that’s for a separate post altogether – i’ll do it later as i have something already written up on that.
And it bothers me. At times i really don’t feel like staying as a Christian, and i begin to understand why a certain wise man once said “I don’t hate your Christ, i hate your Christians”. Yes i’m not perfect either, but i don’t profess to be, directly or indirectly. No one listens to my words and that’s fine – i’d rather be in my place.
I realize, that after typing all that, that this blog is essentially just that – i’ve been saying a lot of things. Have i been following them? Maybe, maybe not. I know what i said, but i can’t keep track of all individual remarks or points made. Perhaps people read this – i know a few who do. I may have contradicted myself many times before, but it’s ok – i can be wrong.
I’m just not very happy working with people who like to argue back at every possible juncture, debate on every analogy put forward, and try to correct me at every point. Analogies are used to illustrate a particular point, and none of them are perfect, anyone can argue against one, because an analogy is often an ideal construct that we use to do the illustration in a manner that would be effective. But if you get the point, then there’s really no need to defend oneself – it’s so much easier to just swallow one’s pride and be quiet and possibly learn even more from the experience than to strike back, be stubborn, learn less than one could, and create a totally unnecessary negative impression of yourself in another. I’m not perfect, and i’m no less a sinner than the next guy.
Sometimes i look at myself and it looks like i’m living a double life. Makes me wonder if whether i believe that what i believe is worth holding on to in the first place. But i guess i’ll take it one step at a time.
You people can be that way, and i hope you change, but if you don’t it’s ok, i know where i am.
The grouch i mean.
These days i find myself increasing intolerant of many things. Despite all the rants one might have read on my blog, there was a great deal of pondering and introspection before i actually put them up. Some of them i took down, and some of them i think i might have not even put up had i be in a clearer frame of mind.
Perhaps introspection isn’t perfect, and perhaps it will never be. Hardly anything is anyway.
I keep thinking maybe i’m being too judgemental. Maybe it’s just that i’m facing a lot of unknowns that pressure me and thus i feel the grump ease up inside me. Maybe it’s the stress induced feelings that cause me to feel that way. How can it be that i find things to be annoyances while seemingly everyone else laughs at them and finds them so very amusing and entertaining? In the crowd i do all i can to smile and take it light-heartedly, hoping no one will see the strain behind the smile and that whoever it is stops it soon before i crack. But after a whole lot of things cleared off from my back, i find myself still not being able to stomach the same things that happen.
People who make unnecessary noise, or make some sound of sorts blatantly loud. People who start going all ecstatic and then lose control of themselves and stop using their brains. People who just simply don’t think. People who ask for instructions and then don’t follow them. People who behave manja, whether deliberate or not. People who are so full of themselves or who think they’re so damn bloody good. I’ve blogged about so many things that i’ve clean forgotten some of them. Some of these things i even found amusing at one point of time; i’m sorry to say that i don’t now. Some of these i never found funny in any aspect, and i hope i never do.
Maybe it’s the inconsiderate aspect of it. Maybe it’s the thoughtlessness of the act. Maybe it’s the way it affects other people and the do-er doesn’t realize it. Maybe it’s just plain stupidity and idiocy, or a lack of respect. Maybe because i see it more these days than i used to (which is really weird because i haven’t been around at all). Maybe it’s selfishness on the person’s part, or on mine. I really don’t know why it irks me so, and part of me really doesn’t care – i just want to be rid of it somehow, even if it comes at some sort of cost (not necessary monetary).
But whatever it is, i think happiness is not an excuse for thoughtlessness, nor is ability an excuse for arrogance, nor is frustration an excuse for callousness of words, any more than the fact that i have a mouth justifies usage of insulting phrases to another party under all conditions.
It took just one person (and a family of turtles) to wake me up from that state and i hereby vow to be not so grouchy anymore. If people want to be jerks i will let them be jerks until they really encroach upon my personal dignity and privacy, and then woe betide them for there be pwnage in the near future! Rawr!
Read on for more (not necessarily of the same thing)!
I took a swim today, and as i enjoyed the slow pace as i sailed through the water, though mildly annoyed at how much water skills and stamina i had lost as it really was a very slow pace.
At one point of time i stopped and realized that there was no one in the pool but me. I enjoyed the serenity for a while…and then i suddenly felt like all my dreams seemed so small.
I want to become a teacher. I want to share what i believe in, what i know to the next generation, touching each life one by one, and watching them eventually grow up. But suddenly that seems so small.
I want to be physically fit, that i will never have to depend on another to carry me, but be able to carry others along. Not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well, so that i can be a lighthouse to people around me, and make it matter to one more life at a time. But that too seemed so small.
I want to be financially secure, and make my wife and family happy, that they will never have to worry about where the next meal is coming from, or whether we will still have the house a year from now, or whether we have to forgo things that we would greatly enjoy. I want to give back to the family that raised me and make my parents and my little bro happy (and he will always be little to me, despite his protests) with what i can. But that seemed even smaller.
And as i kicked off from the wall again, i realized i was like my many dreams – just one of many floating in the middle of the big blue swimming pool of life, pushed around by the waves from the wind or splashes from the entrance of other swimmers. Sometimes totally disrupted by unruly people, sometimes allowed to carry on their way and finally reach the end as i eventually did. But before they do, they still float about and they are small things in the swimming pool, just a drop of water or a lone swimmer.
But as a lone swimmer in the swimming pool is, they are unable to reach both the beginning and the end, and must travel over time and space to reach the end, where they will be realized. You can possibly form a human chain (or a dream chain, as we are in the figurative here) and touch end to end of the swimming pool, but it takes considerable effort for each one and a significant number of people. I only have a handful who are close and share my dreams; and i dare say we can only reach a third or less of the “pool”.
So my dreams continue to float….and they seem so small.
But one day they will reach. I believe they will. And even if they don’t i would have covered a little bit more distance in reaching it. Maybe someone would continue from there, maybe not. But i refuse to let something like that dash my dreams. My dreams are for me to “swim” toward, for me to reach the end, and no one can blame me for trying.
One day perhaps i’ll touch the “end” and feel the “sun” upon my face, then end my “swim” and get out of the “pool”…but that someday is not today.
Today i “swim”.
And so i swam.
I posted previously on how i believe Christians would have a hard time in this world…some people seem to have a different idea about it and all, but perhaps i wasn’t clear enough because other people have misquoted my intentions.
Yes, i believe we will have a hard time. But just because you’re being criticized and things are not going smooth doesn’t mean that you are on the right path! It’s a cause and effect thing, where the effect is the hard times; if hard times exist it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing the right thing.
So please, when people give you feedback, or when people have something to say, don’t fight back defensively. Drop the ego and listen to what they have to say, listen to your friend’s hearts and stop the damn preaching, because what you preach doesn’t follow what you do. I don’t suppose you ever thought that people are having a hard time BECAUSE of you, and none of us have any right to give someone else a hard time.
Walk your damn talk and stop thinking you’re perfect. Seriously. My confidence in my faith is dropping drastically because of you. Don’t keep assuming that people are against you because you’re taking God’s path – it’s something significant when the main bulk of the people against you are mature believers and those for you are usually not.
I know i’m not the only one who feels this, but i openly say it, wearing my heart on my sleeve. If i’m wrong i’ll freely admit it coz i don’t want to be two-faced.
Those who are hungry for power never wield it well. Because in the world of man, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
If He opens it, no one can close it.
I had, and still have, a problem with being unappreciated for things that i do for others’ benefit.
It’s a very familiar scene that i face, for some friend to message me online and start complaining about things that are totally unrelated to me, but it’s part of their life so they’re entitled to. What they’re not entitled to, and often what they tend to do, is expect me to solve the problem for them, even though they rarely take my advice. Often i get rebuked for “slamming them in their face” or “pretending to know something i don’t”, which i can’t really avoid since they bring the problem up, can i?
It is amidst the slaving over projects in the past, listening to the whinings and so on that i learn that being unappreciated often goes along with being a friend – there are few (but they exist!) that would reciprocate to that level. I don’t expect all to, but from the few “thank yous” that i’ve gotten i can assure you that it feels much better having heard it. It’s easy to delude self (and that goes for me and the people on the receiving end who refuse to listen to any form of advice) and say that everything’s going to be ok, but you know deep inside there’s a simple problem that you just have to face head-on.
So it wasn’t surprising when i read a devotional that told me to expect to be not appreciated. What did strike me was this:
The world doesn’t notice servants; it notices celebrities
Ok you and i both know that statement’s an over-generalization, but the point is there – the people who are most noticed often aren’t really the people who serve. Granted there are exceptions, but it’s true. Makes me think of all the people whose names really echo around and what they really stand for. Some are worthy of mention, some not. Some merely popular because of the acting they have to portray themselves in a certain way, or the gossip they spread to make others seem less likeable.
Kinda interesting isn’t it? We don’t notice the servants.
Or at least, the world doesn’t.
I have a problem with Christians who tell others that once you become a Christian, life becomes filled with joy and love and you will never have to deal with pain, heartache and sorrow evermore.
(For the record, i’ve been a Christian for 9 years, and in those 9 years i have learnt sorrow to the core, heartache that would kill and crippling pain – both emotional and physical.)
Get. Your. Facts. Right.
Is it any wonder people convert and then fall away from the faith, simply because they don’t know the truth of the matter? Jesus never said you won’t face such things, that you will never feel sorrow or see injustice. In fact, Christians will be persecuted, judged and condemned. You won’t just see injustice, more likely than not you will be the object of injustice, and so on and so forth.
Stop preaching these things that are in contradiction to the Bible! Go read it properly!
What God does promise is that you will have the strength to see through all this, and that a greater treasure (i’m speaking metaphorically here, as i make no claims on the actual imagery) will be in store for us for eternity. I could go on and on about how this overshadows the pain we feel here, but i’m not really in the mood for that. Yes your life will be filled with joy, but not at the absence of sorrow. You will be loved, but not at the absence of being hated, and you will live but not at the absence of pain. Maybe by comparison to the eternal these things will seem insignificant, but let me assure you that Paul also went through each one of these things many times over – how do you lend credit to your claim that you never will?
It’s even more frustrating that these people go around proudly proclaiming that you’re Christian and then spread gossip or fallacies and things like that. It makes my blood boil that they will quote from the Bible to put you on a guilt trip to induce you to do favours for them. It infuriates me that my non-Christian friends are labelling Christians as naive people who do not care about those outside their faith and it’s all i can to show them it’s not true, while people who are announcing their faith unnecessarily and excessively are destroying what impressions i make. It makes me mad that people profess to know so much and go around trumpeting such things, even more when their life shows the direct opposite. All i really needed to do when faced with such situations like that is to ask “where did you get that idea from?” Didn’t it ever occur to them that if you really are a Christian, you don’t have to tell anyone you are? I never did, yet my friends all know which God i believe in.
It just makes me so mad, but i have blogged about it, i hope people will read this and if you want, link it to your blog if you agree with me (or not, it’s up to you really) and want to spread the word on such matters (or you do your own part in your own way, i really don’t need the fame or popularity), and i will leave it on my blog until it is appropriate for me to bring it up in person to whoever it is necessary to.
Rest assured i will not take this out on any undeserving people, but i believe that even though i’m nowhere near holiness and purity, i believe God can get angry at such things too.
I’ll say it one last time – Get. Your. Facts. Right.
With all the disappointments that have come in the past two or three weeks, in the various sectors of my life, it has been one after another, with little or no time to recover from the previous one. From handball to FYP to my breaking down phone, almost every area that i concern myself with has pushed me down at one point of time or another in the past month, usually right behind each other.
But from this experience i learned a few things. Firstly, that man (and his creations and gadgets) are fallible. Thus, they will disappoint if you put your ultimate trust in them. (I don’t mean that i’ve betrayed anyone’s trust though…because i haven’t!)
And secondly, it’s really nice to know someone cares enough to help save the situation with/for you. Only one person tried. Thank you.
That being said, the O2 Atom Life and HTC Touch are sold out in every major Singtel shop over the island. I hope this either means they’re restocking soon, they’re bringing in new models (which hopefully are as sleek as the previous ones – i notice that the pda phones are getting chunkier), or they have something up their sleeves. Whatever the case, i can forget about getting a phone in the next few days/weeks, because they won’t be available and they would be expensive should they be available. Bah there goes the replacement for my half broken phone which turns off in the middle of calls.
In other thoughts, after yesterday’s sermon i realized how hard a time i was really having with holding my faith while in hall. It’s not just that at times i waver, it just seems that the conditions are simply against me, as are other Christians. Confused? Let me elaborate.
Oftentimes i get questions on Christianity – my friends are an open bunch, and they do ask me what my/the Christian stand on certain things are, or typically the question “what would Jesus do?”. And i can give them an answer, albeit it is my response and not anyone else’s, and it’s not a perfect one so not everyone has to agree with me, which is what we enjoy because we discuss the basis and sound philosophical and all that. But what pisses me off is that other Christians behaviour comes into question after that. There will always be a point where someone else will ask “then what about xxx? how come he/she does the opposite?” or “does something really un-Christ-like?” I know i’m no clean testimony myself, but at the rate things are being told to me (i don’t really bother to go find out what people do) in those discussions, the only answer i have is that “xxx is wrong”, which isn’t a very convincing answer in itself.
Before i start to get blasted, let me say that i don’t have all the answers and i’m not perfect. Neither is anyone else, so they are bound to make mistakes. But i guess somehow the fact that “people make mistakes” doesn’t make a very convincing argument for Christian’s behaviour. Not when it’s exceptionally hypocritical, that one does exactly the same thing he/she accuses another of, often under a shallow pretext that whether intended or not, everyone seems to see right through it. It’s hurting for the Christians around, it’s hurting for the people being done to, but most of all, can’t you see that it hurts God too?
And it always brings me back the question: if you/we love God so much, why do you/we still keep hurting Him?
Thoughts from a friend:
The only possible reason for you to be judging someone is for you to be absolutely, perfectly righteous.
But if you’re righteous…shouldn’t you be forgiving them instead?
I have more thoughts on this topic, but i’ll think them true and release them later. In the meantime, all comments are welcome as i’d like to hear your thoughts, but moderation will be turned on to avoid offensive and sensitive content. (thanks for understanding about that)
I know a lot of my posts have been very angsty and downright angry – It’s been a tough week with certain unhappy things happening and people refusing to admit they’re wrong and that’s that.
However, the week is over and i’m grateful for those who msged me to show concern, those who silently prayed for me, and those who stuck by my side through the past week even though if you were by my side you’d probably have gotten the same treatment, more or less.
Today’s sermon was a alleviation of what i had been fearing in academics, handball and other things. How i always feared not meeting up to other’s expectations, having to fit into someone else’s shoes, having to do this and do that. Despite the fact that i really do perform better if i’m relaxed, i still pressure myself with these thoughts only to have them backfire at me. But today, i was reminded that i really don’t have to do something just to meet up to human standards. I compare myself to many others, hoping i will reach their standards, and i’m not saying that having a target or looking up to someone is bad, but the fact is, whose standards really matter?
So what’s the link between recollection of the past week and today’s sermon? Now i know who my friends are, who are those whom i can depend on in times of need, who is truthful with me be it good or bad things, and so on. In short, the people who have stood by me or supported me in one way or another are really the ones i want to keep, because most (if not all) recognise me for who i am and what i’m worth. No hard feelings to those who wrote me off as a failure, but i guess when i’m in danger and i need saving it’s not likely that you guys will be the one hauling my ass out of the fire.
Ok enough with that kinda talk, it’s the second week of school and FYP presentations are due – mine’s tomorrow. It’s kinda weird and maybe it has to do with the fact that i’m taking less modules this semester than i ever have, since i’ve fulfilled most of my requirements already, but i’m still not in the mood to do any significant work, except for my FYP. I have a bad feeling that in the third week when tutorials set in i’ll be rushing work as usual, and hopefully IHG season ends soon so that i can free up more time for matters other than training, though i suppose i’ll still go for it regularly just for the physical and the fitness maintenance.
I’m still waiting for my reply from NUS about my Master’s application, and i’m not too sure about whether i still want it or not. I don’t really know what to expect anymore, and i guess things will just have to come one at a time. It’s times like this that i wish for days that have passed, when things were so much simpler, because there were less decisions to be made. Yet i appreciate the freedom that i have now, to choose what i want to do, and soon (hopefully) to earn my own keep, which is what i’ve always wanted.
But i guess, either way, that’s not too far off.
And they said…
Sammy Sullivan on Dawned jahrzy on Now Unto Him Clifford on Now Unto Him jon on Now Unto Him Finece Hames on Now Unto Him
iThink 