Tonight I saw a dying man take to the stage and sang praise to the Lord, meaning every single word that came out of his mouth.

Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth

Would care to know my name

Would care to feel my hurt?

Who am I, that the bright and morning star

Would choose to light the way

For my ever wandering heart?

Not because of who I am

But because of what you've done

Not because of what I've done

But because of who you are

I am a flower quickly fading

Here today and gone tomorrow

A wave tossed in the ocean

A vapor in the wind

Still you hear me when I'm calling

Lord, you catch me when I'm falling

And you told me who I am

I am Yours, I am Yours

Who am I, that the eyes that see my sin

Would look on me with love

And watch me rise again?

Who am I, that the voice that calmed the sea

Would call out through the rain

And calm the storm in me?

Not because of who I am

But because of what you've done

Not because of what I've done

But because of who you are

I am a flower quickly fading

Here today and gone tomorrow

A wave tossed in the ocean

A vapor in the wind

Still you hear me when I'm calling

Lord, you catch me when I'm falling

And you told me who I am

I am Yours

Not because of who I am

But because of what you've done

Not because of what I've done

But because of who you are

I am a flower quickly fading

Here today and gone tomorrow

A wave tossed in the ocean

A vapor in the wind

Still you hear me when I'm calling

Lord, you catch me when I'm falling

And you told me who I am

I am Yours

I am Yours, I am Yours

Whom shall I fear?

Whom shall I fear?

'Cause I am Yours

I am Yours

Song title: Who am I

Artiste: Casting Crowns

I don't think I have ever witnessed a more beautiful thing.

If I give up nothing for Jesus in this life and I have to give up everything when He returns, would I want Him to return?

If I give up everything for Jesus in this life and I have nothing to give up when He returns, would I want Him to return?

The question is not whether I want Him to return, but rather, since He is returning, which state would I prefer to be in when He returns?

I'm coming home.

The Summon

I was driving home after fetching my brother to school for his exam today. As I passed a traffic light, a car overtook me in the middle lane and I saw a decal on the boot of the car which was in the form of Captain America's shield. At about the same time, I was checking the rear view mirror to assess the traffic behind me and I saw a blue Transformers decal on the bonnet of the car right behind me. The decals were not small; each covers more than half the boot or bonnet.

I should have thought, "Cool!" and moved on. I should have. Up till now, I don't understand why I didn't. Instead, what I did think was this -- My generation has now taken over the world. The recent resurgence of popular 80's cartoon and comic figures was no coincidence. The children that had loved transformers, avengers, spiderman, batman etc. have all grown up and wield considerable financial power now; enough to finance these decals and big-budget movies.

Then I asked myself, "What would the cars 30 years from now look like?" One day, the transformer and captain america decals are going to fade with the passing of me and my generation. The children today will take over the world after us. And their decals, will depend on what we give them today. Their beliefs, their hopes, their aspirations, their character and their values depend on us today. Then it struck me. We always had the power to change the world. Every single one of us. We always had the power to shape the children that will one day become the world. The world is not going to change with some iPad, iPhone, XBox, Samsung or HTC invention. Not even with better medical technologies, nanotechnology, safer equipment or better communications and transport systems. The world changes when people are convinced they need iPad, iPhone, XBox Kinect, Galaxy Tab, Wii etc. The world changes every time a new value is picked up by people. Which begs the question," What are the teachings we are going to leave to our kids?"

Will we continue to let commercial companies brainwash them into thinking electronic entertainment is everything? Will we continue to let some greedy Wall Street stock broker convince them that the only way to fuel the stock market and make everyone rich and happy is to consume the Earth's resources carelessly and endlessly and rape it dry? Will we leave our children with TV advertisements of empty promises?

No. I want to leave our kids with something that will always protect them. Something that will be there for them even when I'm not. A hope, a promise, a presence. A knowledge of love. So that they can grow up, not believing in fictional heroes that will never come, but knowing a Saviour that will. And what is the point of that? Nothing. That is a point unto itself, and end unto itself. The goal is to pass on the knowledge, the teachings of Jesus so that the children will grow up to be Christ-loving parents who would want to teach their children the same thing. And as they pass on in life, they will return to God and the teachings they left with their children will go on, bringing more back to God. Time-dependent evangelism; Evangelism in the fourth dimension.

God has summoned.

I must answer.

I wondered if I ever shared how I got to know Jesus. Today someone asked, for the first few times in my life I think. I shared:

Basically, you know my background. My entire extended family follows Taoist tradition and since young, I was taught all the rituals and prayed at temples, to idols. I prayed and asked for many things and sometimes I get, most times I didn't, as it is with these things. My mum is a Catholic but she goes to church only on Christmas and Good Friday and even then, only maybe. And I was taught to touch the feet of the statues of the saints and pray also. Which i did. So I was praying to all kinds of things when I was young. Whichever works right?

It wasn't really a big part of my life and I didn't really care or think much about religions then. All I was taught was that I needed to study hard and that pretty much defined me all the way into my teenage years. I was known as the guy who could study; not top of the class material but still pretty good. Didn't matter that I was plump, didn't matter that I couldn't do sports or hold a conversation or anything outside studying. And I wasn't really looking to get top of class anyway. Was just happy being in the middle of the top class and I'll just live the rest of my life that way and be happy.

But I came to a turning point when I was 15. I was going to have a major exam. Problem was, I underestimated the syllabus and overestimated my abilities. I found myself left with 1 day to study what others took 14 days to study and because of that, I was confronted with a very real possibility of me flunking all the 7-8 core subjects. For a guy that has never flunked before and rarely got grades below 70, it was very bad news right before a major exam. It was made worse by the fact that, as I told you, the ability to get good grades defined me and was the only thing that gave me confidence in life. When the guy who can study cannot study anymore, what use is he? Who'd remember him?

So I did what anyone in my shoes would do. I panicked. I called up my close friends and asked about their progress and everyone had already revised. Except me. So I was gonna flunk all the subjects and I was going to do it alone. In the entire class. Desperately, I asked for tips to study each subject in one night but there was just no way to study 120 pages for the first time and remember everything even if I forgo sleep, at least not with my intellect (trust me, I tried). My best friend got so fed up with my incessant phone calls that he actually hung up on me.Imagine how alone and stressed I felt.  However, there was one guy who was willing to listen to me and help me get through my panic attacks. When I asked him for tips to study, He asked me to pray to Jesus. I thought he was mad and told him so. "I asked you for tips to study and you ask me to pray," I told him. I didn't bother about him or his advice but before my exam, I thought I might as well give it a shot. It took less than 3 sec anyway. I just said, "Jesus, help me." I mean, whatever works right? Strangely, I didn't think of praying to any of the idols and my last thought was to go to church and look for the statues of the saints.

Well, obviously I didn't do well on the exams but given the circumstances, I had miraculous results. I didn't flunk my subjects and in fact, got average results for almost all of them. Which means I did better than some of my peers who studied for 14 days. I knew deep in my heart that it was not my abilities that pulled me through. In fact, I didn't even remember some of the things I answered in the papers due to the lack of sleep. But I was still no Christian. I didn't read the Bible, I didn't go to church, I still didn't care much for religion and I didn't have anyone preaching to me. But from that day onwards, I always prayed to Jesus during crunch time. The exams kept coming and got more and more difficult and the panic attacks kept coming as well. But after every prayer, peace always prevails over panic attacks and Jesus never let me down. I didn't always get the results I wanted or thought I deserved but it always worked out for the greater good in the end. And it always amazed me when I look back and realize His hand in the entire big picture, something I couldn't see when I'm just looking for a good result to one single exam or for a pass in IPPT or for a particular girl to agree to go out with me. But anyway, this is was my first baby step towards having a relationship with Christ. Flunking exams seem so trivial and insignificant as I look back at it now, but I guess when you're 15 and you're in a top class in a top school, there was a lot to lose.

But as I mentioned, I was no immediate convert despite miraculous results after miraculous results. I would share more stories that are more intense than this if you're interested, but I'll give you a condensed version instead. When I was 15, I started praying to Jesus before every exam. When I entered National Service, because of my inactive life before NS (too much studying), I was stressed out by the physical demands and I prayed more. I prayed when I had to take IPPT/SOC with a sprained ankle, prayed when I was outfield, prayed when I was thrown into SISPEC, prayed when I had to do high obstacle course without safety harness, prayed everytime I felt like I was gonna die from exhaustion. It was also during Army that I realized that no one had an answer to the meaning of life and no one even knew what was the right thing to do anymore, when politics threw everything into gray areas and self-protection took precedence over care and concern for friends. I went to church looking for answers and found them.

I hid my going to church from my parents for 8 whole years. During this time, many things happened. Like the strange dream where I heard Jesus' voice, the many prayers which God answered to protect my family, the miraculous fulfillment of a 20 year-old prayer, the appearance of my soon-to-be wife etc. etc. So much so that I'm completely convinced the Bible is true, God is real and Jesus died for our sins and is resurrected from the dead. It was obviously a difficult intellectual struggle for me in the beginning but it eventually boiled down to something very simple for me in the end. I asked myself:

Do I believe in life after death? -If no, then what's the point of living by the rules or indeed, living at all? -If yes, then...
Do I believe in reincarnation or do I believe that a dead person will either go heaven or hell? -If reincarnation, then see above. - If it's heaven or hell then...
If heaven is a perfect place without pain or sorrow, what kind of people go to heaven? Should be perfect people who will never cause anyone pain or sorrow, right? -If no, imperfect people can enter heaven, then pain and sorrow will still follow from the imperfect actions of imperfect people, then heaven is not really heaven. It's just like Earth. Then see 1st question. -If yes, then
How can an imperfect man like me enter heaven? How can I take back all the pain and sorrow I have caused others so I can enter heaven?

The sad answer is that I can't take anything back and I can't enter heaven. The price of my sin is death and hell. God, my creator, however, decides not to sit by and let me, his most beloved creation, die. So, as you might have heard, He sent His only Son, the only perfect human being to walk this Earth, 2012 years ago to die in our place. A perfect human who doesn't deserve death dies so that imperfect humans like us who deserve death can live. And we know we will live because He is resurrected from the dead.

My simple argument above may not stand under scrutiny and truth is, neither can the subjective "miracles" I described stand under skeptical inspection. While they definitely cannot be proven untrue, I can't prove to skeptics that God is real and the Bible is true with them. But because of both the objective reasoning and subjective experiences, and because all of these are not derived from someone else but are purely personal, I am utterly convinced that Christ has saved me. So much so that I got baptized early last year against the strong wishes of my parents whom I loved with all my heart.

So the short and sweet answer to your question of how I got involved in church is that first, I got involved with Christ. Then Christ got me involved with Church for support and more importantly, a place where I can freely express my faith and help others. I still don't care very much about religions though. Because following Christ is the furthest thing from being religious.

I must apologize. I didn't realize I went on for so long.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm pretty sure I didn't write this all by myself cos it didn't feel like I was writing something this long and it didn't feel like it took 2 hours.

Reaching for stars

I laid on the ground and saw a star
I wanted it so I reached out and clasped it
I thought I had it
But when I removed my hand
the star was still in the sky
I was only dreaming
It was way too far

As I turn my mind towards the meaning of life, I cannot help being filled with a sense of great disappointment. Not because there are no tasks in life worthy of my service but because my service is not worthy for any of His tasks to be accomplished.

One thing rockstars did get was the brevity of life.

The downfall of democracy is that the quality of leaders is dependent on the maturity of the population when immature communities require capable leaders the most.

I finally understood why Jesus only bothered Himself with the poor, destitute and defiled. You cannot fill a glass that is already full. For people who have found or are still trying adamantly to fulfill themselves with what the world has to offer, the peace and love that Jesus offers (the living water, so to speak) cannot get through. Yet we persist talking to deaf ears, if only when they awake, they know where to return.

On the issues of "If God is in control, then why is there suffering?" and "Why is God so strict?"

These questions used to be so tough for me to answer. After the way God explained it, I kinda felt dumb asking them in the first place.

WHY IS GOD SO STRICT?

Well, what is the criteria of entering Heaven? To follow in all of the ways of God, of course. In short, to be perfect. Like Jesus. But that's crazy, I said. How do you expect mere mortals like us to be perfect like Jesus? I mean, sure, Jesus lived as a mortal man but...you know...He was different. He's Jesus...and I'm just me. Well, I'm not perfect but you know, I'm a pretty good guy. I'm nice to everyone. Even when I get angry or do something bad to someone, I say sorry, you know. I try to be as generous as I can be with my time and energy and money and yeah, although I occasionally lose myself and cheat a little in terms of working hours or scold some M1 staff just to get them to discount my new phone or lie a little just to save everyone loads of trouble, I have a pretty good heart, you know. So why can't I enter heaven as I am? I mean, everyone around me likes me. I'm sure they'll like me in Heaven too, right? I mean, it's Heaven! Everyone's there is nice right?

And that is why Heaven cannot accept us as we are. Now, let us first assume that you believe in Heaven and God. Now, we know that God is perfectly good, loving towards us and will never harm us, right? Ok, now, if that is true and you have felt hurt before in this life, where then does the hurt come from? From people, of course! Just some small thoughtless words, careless actions, little lies and lack of control and that's all it takes to hurt somebody. Long term or short term, it doesn't matter. Truth is we suffer, because someone out there, wasn't perfect like Jesus. Now imagine that someone out there is allowed to enter Heaven. Now imagine a bunch of that someone out there entering Heaven based on the argument of the previous paragraph. How would Heaven be like? Yep, you got it. Heaven would be exactly the same as it is on Earth right now. And if Earth is so desirable, you wouldn't bother trying to enter Heaven.

The point is precisely that Heaven is perfect. A place without tears or pain or hurt or sadness or death . No babies would be born with deformities and no one would be born to die. A perfect place cannot tolerate any flaws for otherwise it cannot provide perfection in comfort to its tenants. For Heaven to be perfect, in complete opposite to Earth, the tenants that it must reject are precisely people like you and me--Good people but not good enough. How would Heaven be like? I've heard many versions of imaginations and I'm sure no one can ever dream of it in its full entirety but I shall, like many others, attempt to at least present a possible facade of it. Well, if Heaven is perfect, it cannot be made up of flawed people like you and me. What would it be made of? Of course, it would be made of perfect people like Jesus. A bunch of Jesus-es living together. Now, that would be Heaven isn't it? Everyone is perfect and all the promises of Heaven can be fulfilled --No pain, no tears, no sadness, eternal life etc. etc. Isn't that why all Christians, or rather, disciples of Christ, are called to? To attain Christ-likeness as the ultimate goal. To love God and people as Christ did, to forgive as Christ did, to sacrifice as Christ did.

But we are not Jesus. We are flawed creatures. Since the time of Adam and Eve, no one other than Jesus had ever been perfect (except perhaps for Enoch?). Does that mean that we are barred from Heaven? Now, obviously the answer is no. What then, does God seek? We can't enter Heaven by being perfect, so how? By God's merciful grace, since Jesus came, we don't have to be perfect. God isn't looking for 100 marks in our conduct. What He is looking for, is how much we love Him and the indicator for that is how much we try to be like Christ, both in our inner and outer lives (so not speaking about hypocrites). The more you love Him, the more effort you would naturally put in (the strength to put in this effort comes from God Himself and the love you have for Him) and the more Christ-like you become. Because you have so loved Jesus, He will repay your love (manifold) and let you, an imperfect being, enter Heaven. Now, I'm not sure how the math goes from there but I do know one thing--The love of Christ can change and conquer anything so it's possible that a flawed thing like us can enter Heaven with His love. It had actually been promised. With Christ, God can rest from looking for perfection from us and focus on looking for the best of us. We don't have to be perfect. We just have to try our best by holding on to the love of Christ and our love for Christ.

IF GOD IS IN CONTROL, WHY IS THERE SUFFERING?

There are actually several ways of satisfactorily answering this question. For me, it is the following.

In retrospect, I realise now that God is in control and that is exactly why there is suffering. Now this statement appears to suggest that God is our tormentor which I assure you is not what I am trying to say.

Let us first return to something that was mentioned in the previous discussion above. If God is good, does suffering come directly from God? No. He doesn't awake from the wrong side of His bed one day and decide to cause sadness and suffering by placing tumors in people's bodies and making a customer rant at a cashier for being too slow or cause an accident by implanting road rage in drivers. Who did it? We did. People. We sin, or rather, we give in to sin. Sin, which is wrongdoing, causes suffering. We give in to our tempers, we give in to our pride, to our gluttony, to our lust, to our avarice, to our sloth, to our greed. We want the wrong things and we do the wrong things. And wrong actions arising from sin causes suffering.

Ok, fine. So our mistakes causes others to hurt. Now, if God loves us so much, why doesn't He just cushion the consequences of sin? Yeah, so we made mistakes, but why can't He just be nice and you know, not let us feel hurt or sad or angry or disappointed? This is exactly where His grace and love lies. Despite us wanting the wrong things and doing the wrong things, He allows us to feel the right emotions. He allows us to feel the pain and hurt so that we realise that we are doing something wrong. By realising that we are doing something wrong, that is how we can come to know what is right again. For instance, the worst fear of a researcher is not getting the wrong fabrication process but getting microscopy pictures that he cannot trust. The worse thing that a parent can do to a child when he did something wrong is to hide the ugly consequences of his actions. When the feedback on your actions is untrustworthy, how can one expect to be able to right his wrongdoings, or stay on the right path if he was doing right? The preservation of the right feelings is God's kind gesture to us.

Even though we make mistakes and sin, God actually has enough grace to help us turn the consequences of our actions around, provided that we have been made aware of the consequences of our sins. There have been so many stories of good fortunes arising out of seemingly misfortunes both in the Bible and from people's personal anecdotes. The reason God does this is because He is gracious and it is the inner life of a person He is concerned about. The reason He does not alleviate your suffering is to make you understand that you did something wrong. When you realise that and seek forgiveness and set your heart right again, God does not prolong the suffering for another single minute though He can certainly allow that to haunt us. Because that suffering is meant to polish and refine your character turn your heart back to God. The right feedback to the wrong action gives us the opportunity to seek the right path. Once that happens, God stops the consequences of the past wrongdoings from chasing after us and hampering our journey on the right roads.

For these reasons, I say therefore, that precisely because God is in control, that is why there is suffering.