What are your happy moments?

Happiness is:

- Looking out every morning to see how concrete slabs are being transformed into green oases surrounding the Esplanade, from the aircon comfort of a guaranteed seat in a private bus. 

- Seeing the Marina Bay Sands hotel every morning and remembering that it was Stephen Wiltshire's favourite landmark in his Singapore cityscape drawing.

- Waving to the neighbour of the lady C who takes the same private transport service as me as he crosses the road to take bus 972 every morning. Lady C told me that he is a marathoner and travels to run overseas. I would never have guessed it from the way he looks. Respect.

- A ministry-focused prayer session that ended half an hour earlier than the usual supervision session. I think I smiled too broadly at the end of the closing prayer. Then words floated over, "you pontan Monday meeting hor?" Guilty as charged.  

- A Restaurant Week lunch at Napoleon where service was impeccable and the food sumptuous.
- Having my ministry mates pray for my needs even as we prayed for others and the ministry. Such assurance of protection and covering over me. Prayed for two people on the prayer bulletin. Privileged and humbled. 

- Seeing a yellow butterfly land on a potted plant outside the Fullerton Bay Hotel this morning.

Birthday thanks

As every birthday passes, I am increasingly convicted of the adage that “no man is an island”. I would not be who I am today without the people who surround me in my life. Gratitude, humility and service out of a heart of love and compassion that I see in people around me motivate and inspire me to be a better person who is striving to safe-keep these attributes.

The pressure to just go with the flow and follow the crowd instead of upholding key biblical principles and values can be overwhelming. Doing the right thing is tough. Holding one’s tongue, giving others the benefit of the doubt, walking in another person’s shoes, lending a listening ear, resisting the feeling of schadenfreude, extending a helping hand, serving and guiding others, and finally, faithfully following God in a world that appears increasingly to have forsaken Him.

Oftentimes, I fail, and many times I fail badly. But you know what? Jesus already knew the sinner I am even before He gave his life for me. The wonderful comfort of His grace. How immensely liberating in a world that is status-obsessed, achievement-oriented, works-based, money-conscious and love-deprived.

I have nothing to prove because God has already accepted me by extending His grace to me. I have everything I need to serve because God has given me His Holy Spirt, my comforter and my guide. That is not all. God has also blessed me with many strong trees of shelter in this one life of mine. Whenever I need comfort, rest and recharging, I disappear under their shade where I feel protected, safe and refreshed.

A heart that seeks after Thee

How wonderful it is to be a keen collector of stories because God always presents me with such interesting episodes to share. 

Got into a cab today and to my surprise, I heard Hebrew worship songs being played by the cab driver. After a while, I told the cab driver that I was surprised to hear Hebrew songs. He told me that he had converted to Judaism in his 40s. He said that he kept having strange dreams over many years in which he was asking people around him "who am I" in his dreams. And for some reason he felt that it was God who gave him the recurring dreams. He had been of another faith and he was given a bible. He read it and he said that even today, he still doesn't understand a lot of it. But he started believing in God the Father and he was very drawn to the Old Testament. As a result, he started meeting people who had converted to Judaism or believed in the God of the Old Testament. I asked him whether he was attending a church or synagogue and he said no, but that he would meet frequently with a small group who all believed and followed Jewish practices. He asked me "are you a believer or a follower?" My question to him was "what enables us to get to heaven?" I listened to him because he was putting forth his reasons as to why he believed in Judaism. He shared his perspectives and his understanding of the Bible. I respected that even though I may not agree with some of his views or beliefs, but I felt that it was neither the time nor place to engage him on such things. So I listen intently without rebuttal. At the end of the journey, I told him that if he continues to believe in God the Father, God will be faithful to him. 

Reflection: I was brought to Matthew 7:7 by my conversation with this cab driver. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." I was deeply humbled by his seeking heart because he is actively finding God in his own personal way.

To a nation that was not called by my name

I felt very touched after reading an article and watching a YouTube video which features Hazem Farraj. He mentioned Isaiah 65:1 in talking about God's pro-active love and how it is oftentimes revealed through dreams and visions.

Isaiah 65:1 (ESV)
I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me;
I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me....
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
to a nation that was not called by my name.

Make them look

Writers should look for what others don't see

Excerpt: In a larger sense, there are other blankets we don’t want to lift and see what lies underneath. There is a kind of truth—that’s a big word—that we hate to look at. It could be a face in the street, someone who looks in pain, someone who’s suffering. We turn away—we can’t look at everything. But I like poems that occasionally do that to the reader: make them look.

The Summer Day - Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I happened to be standing - Mary Oliver

I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the possum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance.  A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep.  Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why.  And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t.  That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.