I'm a small guy with a big dream. A dream where all of us may become one,
A dream where we can see the greatness of the Lord together. A dream where harmony is part of the essence. A dream too big? Maybe.. But it's a dream worth dreaming indeed!
this is taken (with slight modification on a word) from C S Lewis "Mere Chrsitianity"
...many people are deterred from seriously attempting Christian [morality] because they think (before trying) that it is impossible. But when a thing has to be attempted, one must never think about possibility of impossibility. Faced with an optional question in an examination paper, one considers whether one can do it or not; faced with a compulsory question, one must do the best one can. You may get some marks for a very imperfect answer; you will certainly get none for leaving alone. Not only in examinations but in war, in mountain climbing, in learning to skate, or swim, or ride a bicycle, even in fastening a stiff collar with cold fingers, people quite often do what seemed impossible before they did it. It is wonderful what you can do when you have to...
I guess we are like that.. at least, i do, every once in a while.
May we always be reminded, that it was not ourselves who are working in imitating Christ, but it is always His Holy Spirit working inside us.
It was a busy week as usual, trying to catch up with project deadlines and doing overtime. It actually got even more intense this week since the project manager are coming down to the Singapore office; meaning that we need to push for a demo to him. So, while I always said that I wanted to have some rest, I haven’t got any chance to have some. Haha…
So there I was, going home in Wednesday night, taking taxi since there wasn’t any bus going through my office after 8.15 pm (figure out yourself what time I went home, luckily it is covered). Now I was resting on the taxi and the driver played a very nice Chinese song. I enjoyed it so much I felt relaxed after a while. When the taxi passed near SPH, I started to realize that the tunes of the songs were… familiar.
Now, I am a twisted Chinese who don’t know any Mandarin, so it took me a while to realize it. I kind of heard the song somewhere, and I also found the “color” of the song to be very close to my ear. And then I heard the singer said ‘Yesu’. At that time I started to think that the songs I have been listening on were Christian songs. It picked my curiosity so I tried to listen to the song more carefully – and the more I hear the more I am convinced that it is Christian songs.
I mustered up courage to ask the driver about it, and it turns out that they were really Christian songs. I was really impressed with the driver when I find out; he was playing the songs to his passengers. And then he told me, something that made me even more impressed, he was a new convert. As his English was not good enough and he prefer to hear sermon and songs in mandarin, he found that Chinese songs are more suited to him. We actually shared some things on my way home. It was a blessed Wednesday, there are a lot of things to be thankful of that night and it made me smile.
The next day we had our demo, things went well, and it seems that the effort paid out. It’s not perfect, but at least I was relieved. So, that night I didn’t have any overtime work, and the team involved in the project went to East Coast to do barbeque with the product manager. They booked bbq pit #57, but when we alight at East Coast’s McDonald by a taxi driver ‘wise’ suggestion, we found out that we were off by… 34 pits and 3 sectors? Great – 40 minutes walk in the east coast prepares my stomach for what is coming. Haha.
Outside of that ‘incident’ it was quite an enjoyable bbq. There were 12 of us, and there were variety of nationality inside, Indonesians, French, Philippines, Indians, Chinese and Singaporeans. And throughout the discussion we actually tell the story behind our cultures, and why some uniqueness exists within each culture. It was great things to learn, and it was really insightful. Now I know why the PRC’s tend to speak in a unique style of English.
It was a mixed experience this whole week. Tired I may be, but I thank God that everything turns out well. It was his providence that really enables me. Thank you Lord!
A little boy of thirteen was on his way to school He heard a crowd of people laughing and he went to take a look Thousands were listening to the stories of one man He spoke with such wisdom, even the kids could understand
The hours passed so quickly, the day turned to night Everyone was hungry but there was no food in sight The boy looked in his lunchbox at the little that he had He wasn't sure what good it'd do, there were thousands to be fed
I think you know what this is about. Even with the contextualization made inside the story. This was taken from Corinne May's song, "Five loaves and two fishes". I've been listening to her CDs lately (especially her Christmas album, 'The Gift'. Turn on music and air-con, it's early Christmas. Haha) and this is one song that catched my attention. Well, we know how things turns out but let's just go on with the song anyway =)
But he saw the twinkling eyes of Jesus
The kindness in His smile
And the boy cried out
With the trust of a child
He said: "Take my five loaves and two fishes
Do with it as you will
I surrender
Take my fears and my inhibitions
All my burdens, my ambitions
You can use it all to feed them all"
Well maybe that's not exactly what happened there in the feeding of the five thousands, but she made an interesting remarks in her lyrics though. It was the willingness of the boy to give what he had, no matter how inadequate it was, fully to the hand of Christ. I have to admit it that the song was touching. But more than just that, it told the story in a different point of view. I posted the story in Andrew's and Philip's point of view when I made the entry for "The twelve" before, and this is another point of view that I found pretty interesting.
I often think about that boy when I'm feeling small
And I worry that the work I do means nothing at all But every single tear I cry is a diamond in His hands
And every door that slams in my face, I will offer up in prayer So I'll give you every breath that I have
Oh Lord, you can work miracles
All that you need is my "Amen"
Now, I know that some of you might found the idea of creating a study based on a contemporary Christian song to be a little strange or hard to accept, but you can made the same interpretation when you study John 6 as well. And to some of you who knew how to do IBS (Inductive Bible Study), you should have crossed about this if you ever had done IBS on the passage =)
Anyway, there she was, sharing her thoughts when she read about the story, and how she relate the story to her life. And I think, it was the same to our lives as well. True, we may not be someone big or someone powerful or famous enough to do God's work in earth, to disciple all nations under the Lordship of Christ. But He calls us to do so anyway. He wants us to work with Him even though He always knew who we are. In fact, He usually calls common people, and to tell you the truth, no one is good enough to do His work. He just want us to do His will and surrender our life into His everlasting arms.
I read about a lot of people in the 2000 years history of Christianity lately, and I can only say no matter how small we are, no matter how weak we are, God can use us, and it is precious in His eyes. Even when you are only a student, a office worker, or in my case, a software engineer. =)
