Dear…
In all his imperfections, he lived a life seeking to be like Christ, yet not be Christ.
An Epitaph
I had a vivid dream of myself getting lost on the public transport, trying to figure the proper route to my planned destination. On the bus I took, coming into my line of sight was a nice luscious green row of pine trees, like the ones that lined the lovely road up the St Teresa Church in Kampong Bahru Road, adjoining my former primary school, and as I disembarked on the crest of the slope, I found myself at a workshop, where an old gentleman was chiselling stones for epitaphs. I looked at him and without hesitation requested that he frame the above for me.
And it was at that moment that I was awakened and thankfully so, for I had nearly overslept my scheduled menś fellowship zoom meeting.
To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in HIs steps.(1 Peter 2:21)
What does the dream hold for me and maybe for you? Is our good Lord telling me that my time is up or is He reminding me to use the finite time that all of us have well, so that when He calls us home, we have lived a life that have pleased Him and inscribed upon our hearts and our countenance is His affirmation that we have lived life well His way, to be like His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
I was with a friend over dinner, whom I first met when he was in his early 80s, and now he is in his 90s.
Still sprightly and very lucid for his age, he appreciated the long days of his life, yet he lamented upon the fact that he gets by with only 3 hours of sleep, not because he chose to, but his biological clock does not allow him to partake in further sleep.
Is it because intuitively his body is limiting the time wasted in sleeping given his limited years remaining or simply the burden of living a long life without knowing God, is weighing upon his subconscious, as one becomes keenly aware of oneś mortality?
Fight the good faith. My friend has fought a good life and has in the main been successful materially and in all ways that the world values.
But if God has been in his life and focus, would a successful life be defined very differently?
Not riches of wealth but richness of life experiencing the intimate love and grace of God in our wonderful journey in His presence.
But He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christś power may rest on me.
Corinthians 12:9
For one without God, success is when one overcomes and gets to savor the temporal achievement of oneś efforts, notwithstanding that it usually brings with it permanent long term costs to health, to family and to oneś inner peace.
And even if everything seems dandy, there is that vacuum that pushes us into a new phase of discontentment that entails the need to continue the seemingly endless and fruitless pursuit.
For we are glad, when we are weak, and You are strong: and this also we wish, even Your perfection.
2 Corinthians 13:9
For us who know God, success is in learning to let go and let Him even as we partake in the fruits borned through His grace in the deserts of our life. Inner peace and indescribable joy is showered upon us even as we learn to obey and not worry about conclusions our way.
Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:12-13
In my days of weakness, when I read about stories of prominent successful men and women, I asked myself after almost 6 decades of living, could I have done better?
Would it not be nice to be making loads of cash, be splashed in the news often enough, and be admired by millions world over?
Should I be like the Isrealites who expressed dissatisfaction with God for not providing them in a literal sense, freedom in warmer climes like Florida then the harsh desert. And an ox or a nice succulent lamb instead of just plain pheasant meat?
Taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.
Psalm 34:8
Thanks be to God such foolishness that seeks to descend upon me quickly dissipated as I am reminded that knowing God and being able to walk with Him and experience His love and grace is a wonderful journey of delightful discovery that nothing the world offers can come close to.
But He said to His disciples. Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?
Mark 4:40
Faith comes from God, not from us. But we must be willing to come unto His presence to receive the imbuement of faith from Him.
Is this right? The understanding of many about faith is that it has to be exercised. It is dependent upon an exertion of supreme effort on our finite self, come what may. No wonder many fall short and go into despair, when all God expects from us is the desire and determination to seek Him with our all and be willing to yield to the inworking of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
For many are called, but few are chosen.
Matthew 22:14
A verse not too unfamiliar for most of us. Yet, it had a more profound impact on me this morning and not the usual cursory glance like before.
A reminder that just because we believe and think that we are doing enough for God does not qualify us as having lived well His way, at His judgement seat.
Life as a believer of Christ does not end at the believing stage. God commands us to follow and to follow with our all. To run the race with great determination as His Spirit leads and empowers us to move boldly forth. Anything short of that leaves us in a chasm that we will have to answer for at the judgement seat.
Will it be a tragedy for us to discover this truth only when it is no longer possible to atone for it?
God Blesses
Eng Hieang
2 April 2021
An afterthought : Answered prayers
What have I learned these past 20 years of seeking after the Lord our God?
That indeed God will always answer prayers asked in His will, not ours.
God wants to give us eternity, we often seek the present world.
And when God answers our aligned prayers to His will, the timing and the process are often disconcerting, for it can and often will be very different from what our finite understanding desires.
If prayers were answered our way, then God is at best a genie in the lamp.
When prayers are answered His way, we will always wonder in awe at how He made the impossible possible.
Our prayers must not hinder our view of Godś perspective and purpose in our lives, but it must be an act of grateful surrender and submission to His omnipresence, omnipotence and Sovereignty.
When we stop looking for the conclusions that our imperfect self desire, and instead start to focus on trusting and obeying the will of God, that is when we will experience the love and grace of God upon our lives and on that of others through us.
Then no longer will be our epitaph be on a inanimate piece of rock, but etched not only upon our hearts but also in the memories of those whom God has placed in our paths, that
You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
2 Corinthians 3:3
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