Giving Your 100%

    I once knew a man who had come to this country after World War II as a displaced person. He had been a skilled cabinetmaker in his home country but after the war had to settle for a job as sexton in a church. Not long after I became a pastor in that same church I also became a father. Toys began to accumulate around the house. Knowing of his dexterity with tools and lumber, I asked Gus if he would throw together a toy box for me when he had a few minutes. I wanted a storage bin for the toys; I knew Gus could do it in an hour or so. Weeks later he presented our family with a carefully designed and skilfully crafted toy box. My casual request had not been treated casually. All I had wanted was a box; what I got was a piece of furniture. I was pleased, but also embarrassed. I was embarrassed because what I thought would be done in an off hour had taken many hours of work. I expressed my embarrassment  I laced my gratitude with apologies. His wife reproached me: 'But you must understand that Gus is a cabinetmaker. He could never, as you say, "throw" a box together. His pride would not permit it.' That toy box has been in our family for over twenty years now and rebukes me whenever I am tempted to do hasty or shoddy work of any kind. 

  -p. 349, from Life At Its Best by Eugene Peterson

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases...

Lamentations has got to be the most bleak, depressing book in the whole of the bible. Yet, right in the middle of the book, God is described as below.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
-- Lam 3:22-23

This is unbelievable! If you think this statement about God is not amazing, read the rest of the book, and ponder on it.
May God grant you an unshakable ground to stand on, and give you an indestructible hope in Him.

Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards: #32

32. Resolved, to be strictly and firmly faithful to my trust, that that in Prov. 20:6, "A faithful man who can find?" may not be partly fulfilled in me.

Would others think of me as trust-worthy? Would God think of me as a faithful servant whom He has confidence to entrust with His treasures?

(Source: A Puritan's Mind)

The Covenanters

I've always been fascinated by the brave Scots since the day I watched the movie "Braveheart", but as I learned a little bit more about the church history, and as I attend a Presbyterian church, my interest in Scottish church history grew even more.
So when I read about the Covenanters of the 17th century Scotland, I was impressed with their bold faithfulness to Christ.
I am faced with so many moments when I can fit in with everyone else by inaction and simply keeping my mouth shut. But, I want to be more brave when the time calls for it. When so many others keep on sending me a message with such questions like the one in the article, "Why didn't they just go to church?", when not many people see the danger I am trying to warn others about, when people tell me to just fit in and keep quiet by saying "why are you so argumentative?", I want to be faithful and be bold in my actions and words so I may be found faithful to the One who has been faithful all along.

(HT: Gordon Cheng)

Life At Its Best - 4 on Perseverance

A quote from chapter 11, Perseverance:

The cornerstone sentence of Psalm 129 is, 'The Lord is righteous.' When the Bible says that God is righteous it is not saying that he is always right (although it, of course, assumes that) but that he is always in right relation to us. The word does not mean that he corresponds to some abstract ideal of the right, it speaks of a personal right relationship between Creator and his creation. '...Righteous is out and out a term denoting relationship, and that it does this in the sense of referring to a real relationship between two parties...and not to the relationship of an object under consideration to an idea.'
That the 'Lord is righteous' is the reason that Christians can look back over a long life, crisscrossed with cruelties, unannounced tragedies, unexpected setbacks, sufferings, disappointments, depressions - look back across all that and see it as a road of blessing and make a song out of what we see. 'Solely have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me.'
-- p. 115-116, Life At Its Best by Eugene Peterson

The second paragraph is amazingly beautiful, and I could say that I agree with it. However, I was a little bit taken back by the first paragraph where Peterson emphasised the relational sense of the word, 'righteous' over the sense of justice and goodness. I don't think Peterson is completely wrong about the word, 'righteous', but I felt that the relational 'part' of that word was slightly over-emphasised to a point where the main meaning of it is brushed off to a side almost.
Ok, well, maybe I'm the one who's missing the point here. What Peterson says next made a good sense to me and was very encouraging and helpful.

God sticks to his relationship. He establishes his relationship with us and stays with it. The central reality of Christians is the personal, unalterable, persevering commitment that God makes to us. Perseverance is not the result of our determination, it is the result of God's faithfulness. We survive in the way of faith not because we have extraordinary stamina but because God is righteous. Christian discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God's righteousness and less and less attention to our own; finding the meaning of our lives not by probing our moods and motives and morals but by believing in God's will and purposes; making a map of faithfulness of God, not charting the rise and fall of our enthusiasms. It is out of such a reality that we acquire perseverance.
-- p. 116, Life At Its Best by Eugene Peterson

Thank God for His faithfulness...

Pray for me

"Pray for me."

That's what I said to a friend on our way home from a harbour cruise.
It was almost 10 years ago.
It was also the very first time I was totally intoxicated with alcohol. I wasn't even able to sit properly (I was on the bus next to my friend).

While I was so drunk that I couldn't handle my own body, and my mental ability degraded to only a little above that of a mere infant, I said "pray for me."

It is still strange to me that I said such a thing when I was drunk and to a friend whom I barely started to know.
Yet, as I look back on that moment, it appeals more and more as an example of God's faithfulness.
I remember myself being exhausted from daily routines (how ever mundane they were is not important) and pressure I and people around have put me to. Drinking, while I did not know how deep the hole was, was definitely an attractive escape route.

But, while I took the matters to my own hand rejecting to trust and obey Him, God still protected and led my life proving His faithfulness to His Word and His people. Those words I spoke to my friend asking to pray for me were not the proof that I was trusting God so much that I knew prayer was what was needed. Rather, I believe it was God who knew my short-comings and He knew my needs. "Pray for me" wasn't a much a plea to my friend, but to God who remained sovereign in all things including my life. As I was feeling so weak and helpless because of intoxication, it was only a natural response that could come out of a God's elect child as His Spirit worked in even at such a moment.

After all these years, I am being reminded of that moment more and more especially in recent days.
I don't get drunk like that anymore. I could say I've learned my lessons now. But my disbelief in God's sovereign grace, that God has got everything under His gracious control, still leads me to look for some other escape routes, namely, books, TV, internet, games, whatever.

Perhaps it is time that I start asking again. "Pray for me."
May the Lord be merciful to me.