Month: May 2012

“Correct Identification” Journal of Reflection 5/27/2012

Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.

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Last week I was gardening with brothers and sisters in the church. In the middle of it, I found a black spot on my left arm and I thought it was just a kernel of sand. So, I wiped it out but saw blood coming out a little bit. My initial reaction was it is a bug bite, no biggie. Later in the morning, I found additional two around the neighbor area on my arm. By the evening, the swell on my arm became apparent. Concerning the swell, I thought it is necessary to seek consultation, in case it is tick bites. The next day, I consulted one of my brethren who is a doctor, I was told that I need to take medication and a blood test, so I went to my primary doctor’s office the next day. After a check up, I was prescribed to have antibiotics. The doctor also perform a blood test of tick bites on me, even she didn’t think so. I find that both my brother and my primary doctor are all very careful in looking into my condition – they want to be sure that a right diagnosis is performed. I do appreciate their thoughtfulness and carefulness.

This experience lets me think of two incidents occurred a while back in my hometown. They are very eye grabbing. One is receiving wrong medication (吃錯藥) – a pharmacy filled a wrong medication to a prescription and caused a severe consequence. The other is a wrong funeral service (家屬辦錯喪事) – a hospital sent a wrong body to the family of deceased for funeral service. Of course, the result is disturbing. These incidents are likely due to human negligence and a problem of recognition. It might be understandable if the root causes of these incidents are because of human negligence. However, it becomes a serious matter if the personnel who are in charge couldn’t correctly identify the medication or the identity of the deceased, because of the likeness of the medication, or the likeness of physical appearance of the body, respectively. This generates a perspective that I would like to share with you.

Oftentimes, we make decisions based on our own understanding and perception for a matter. As a result, we may be confused easily or even making mistakes under various conditions and environments. You could call it poor judgment. However, there is another side of it called “deceit” – when our understanding and perception of that matter were distorted, then, a correct identification is often impossible.

Chinese has an old saying, 『路遙知馬力,事久見人心 (It takes a long distance to realize the strength of a horse, and it takes long time to learn one’s heart) 』. It tells us that it is difficult to learn one’s true character without spending time with him / her for a long period. This is true to our journey of faith too. Jesus used the analogy of tree fruits to teach His disciples about the identification of false prophets. He said, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 好樹不能結壞果子;壞樹不能結好果子 (Matthew 7:18)”. Jesus wanted His disciples to be carefully watching out the false prophets because they come to them in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. (Matthew 7:15). And, the method to recognize them correctly is by their fruit – their deeds.

The life lessons are always good for us to learn. We understand our limitation in making good judgments or decisions, every time. However, we could improve our odds if we spend time with our Lord daily and consistently. This way we shall have His wisdom and guidance in making good decisions because “The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him凡等候耶和華,心裡尋求他的, 耶和華必施恩給他。(Lamentations 3:25)”

“MOM” Journal of Reflection 5/20/2012

Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.

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Last Sunday, early in the morning, I was waked by noises in the kitchen. I decided to get up and find it out. It was my son who was busying in cleaning and arranging the dishes. Then, he went down to the laundry room to dry the clothes. I suddenly realize that he was trying to use actions to express his love to his mom, because it was mother’s day. I was glad to see his “moment of maturity (Mom)”.

I think most of you would agree with me that the role of a “mother” is very important to a family – she takes care of almost every aspect of living and therefore it would feel like an empty shell if a family without a mother. To a husband, there is a good model of wife of noble character in the book of Proverbs that is fond of by most of us, “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.才德的婦人,誰能得著呢,他的價值遠勝過珍珠‧他丈夫心裡倚靠他,必不缺少利益‧他一生使丈夫有益無損‧(Proverbs 31:10-12)”

The commitment of a mother is generally well recognized and remembered. Just look around and think a little bit, you will find, “mother nature”, “mother tongue”, “mother country”, or even, “我的媽呀!”…..? Ha..ha..ha… Seriously though, if a mother has only 5 minutes of commitment (五分鐘的熱度) or “Moment of maturity (Mom)” then you can imagine there will be all kinds of troubles in the family.

You may be agreeing with me that it is easy to please someone or attract someone’s attention in a short period. And, it would be difficult to maintain that kind of high excitement from someone in the long term. For a young couple, this could be obvious to them – there will be challenges lie ahead if they maintain the mentality of MOM. In fact, that is one of the reasons that God established the marriage life for us in order to train us. 🙂

In the family of Christ, is our Christian faith has the symptom of “MOM” too? This is a question worthy of pondering. We can be very enthusiastic in serving God initially, but fall behind as soon as we run into difficulties, frustrations, or other various reasons. That is an example of moment of maturity symptom. I think, there are always peaks and valleys in our journey of faith, but maturity should be, undoubtedly, our end goal. Honestly, what kind of maturity is our end goal? To be mature in knowing the Son of God attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ is our goal as Christians (Ephesians 4:13). Our maturity shall be progressing if we are persistent like apostle Paul’s attitude, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 向著標竿直跑、要得 神在基督耶穌裡從上面召我來得的獎賞 (Philippians 3:14)”

My dear brothers and sisters, the mentality of MOM could become a problem in the families, in the churches, and in this society, if we didn’t realize it. To overcome the mentality of MOM and pursue the full maturity in Christ is a challenge that we need to take daily. May our Lord bless you in the effort of becoming mature in Him.

“A Genuine Faith” Journal of Reflection 5/13/2012

Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.

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The other day in the hallway of my working place, my colleague told me an interesting encounter from his sister recently. One day, his sister found an abandoned small dog around her neighborhood. She saw the doggie was adorable and therefore she brought her into her house, washed, cleaned and fed her. Several days later, she brought the doggie to a veterinarian to have a checkup and a shot – in order to adopt the doggie as her pet officially. The veterinarian looked at my colleague’s sister a moment, with a funny face. He then told her that the doggie is actually NOT what she thought was – it is a “possum” instead!

Sometimes, we may mistake something (someone) into something else (someone else). This is very likely due to certain circumstances – it could be either we didn’t or couldn’t see it clearly or we were misled. As my age progresses, my eyesight are no longer as good as I was. Therefore, please accept my apology if I mistook you for someone else or didn’t recognize you in certain occasions. 🙂

In terms of misleading, Chinese has an idiom called, “掛羊頭賣狗肉to hang a sheep’s head while selling dog meat”. In modern language, you can translate it into “What you see is NOT what you get”.  Essentially, this is a scheme of cheating / misleading people and is common under today’s environment, as almost-like-genuine products are prevalent. The trouble is we couldn’t tell them apart by using our flesh eye easily.

In my college years, my roommate used to listen to rock/country music. One of his favorites is “Rhinestone Cowboy” from Glen Campbell. At that time, I really didn’t pay much attention to its lyrics and I always felt that it is too noisy for me because of its pop music nature. In addition, my lousy English didn’t make much out of it either. After a while, however, I seem to get used to it. As most of you probably know, “rhinestone” is an artificial jewel made of clear glass. Therefore, a “Rhinestone Cowboy” represents a fake cowboy instead of a genuine one.

Think about this for a moment, there is something worthy of pondering. To become a Christian, we believe that Jesus died for our sin. Because of His sacrificial act propitiates God’s righteousness and we are justified in front of God. When our faith in Jesus Christ is not genuine, then His blood can’t redeem us and therefore we can’t be justified.  The key here is a genuine faith. We read many examples in the Gospels that Jesus criticized Jewish Pharisees and Ascribes for their hypocrisy and lip service attitudes. 『這百姓用嘴唇尊敬我,心卻遠離我‧他們將人的吩咐,當作道理教導人,所以拜我也是枉然‧These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules. 』(Matthew 15: 8-9)

That is because God sees one’s heart. Without a genuine faith, it is impossible for us to please God.

My dear brothers and sisters, the author of the book of Hebrews called us to persevere in faith because it is the genuine faith that we can stand in front of our Lord (Hebrews 10:23-24). The apostle James also teaches us that a genuine faith needs to have actions to accompany it. He indicated that:

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 只是你們要行道,不要單單聽道,自己欺哄自己‧因為聽道而不行道的,就像人對著鏡子看自己本來的面目‧看見,走後,隨即忘了他的相貌如何‧ (James 1:22-24)

May we encourage one another to walk on the journey of faith truthfully!

“What is your focus?” Journal of Reflection 5/6/2012

Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.

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Last Friday at my working place, we had a celebration of a new product announcement. It was packed with people. Some high rank managers showed up as speakers and encouragers. After their speeches, my colleague told me that let’s meet some people around. Therefore, we went ahead and met some of our old managers and chat a little bit. The interesting thing is after I greeted one of my old managers, another manager came. Suddenly, I found myself standing in between them and they were talking excitedly without even noticing my existence. It was an awkward situation because I felt it would be rude to leave in the middle of their conversation, but in the same time, I couldn’t insert any meaningful words but keep my smiles since I have no idea about the contents of their conversation.

Naturally, I felt that I was ignored initially and then I realize that I am not fit in that kind of conversation environment anyway, so I felt at ease later.  It, however, brings out a good reminder to me. Most of us in our life probably have struggled for acceptance in some degree. No one has full popularity over everyone, I believe. Think about apostle Paul as an example. His conversion from a Pharisee into a Christian brought him rejections and skeptics in the beginning when he tried to join the disciples in Jerusalem (Acts 9:26). The other obvious example is our Lord Jesus – He was never being well accepted by Pharisees and Ascribes of the Jews. His triumphant entry to the Jerusalem didn’t give Him the acceptance either.

On the other hand, I asked myself whether I have the same tendency in neglecting others when I am excited in doing something? How about my children, or, my co-workers in the church, or, my colleagues at my working place? Moreover, how about other ones to whom I plan to introduce the Gospel? I think the answer is definitely a yes. Therefore, I need to ask our Lord to give me a sensitive heart to others’ need during various conditions.

The third point I would like to make is we are all susceptible to disappointment by others’ neglect. This could be from our family members, our brothers and sisters in the church, colleagues at work, or even strangers we met. The question is “How can we cope with this kind of disappointment?” My thought is we need to divert our focus from people to God. If we ask ourselves constantly, “Who is the one that should be pleased the most?” and, “Can we make the most of our life in Him?”. Then, the result will be rewarding.

St. Augustine once said, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”  As we are God’s children, we will have His undivided attention, anytime, anywhere. We would be disappointed or feel rejected if we are focusing on people instead of God Himself. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, let me challenge you a question, “What is your focus?”  Please use this question to ask yourself constantly during the week. Then you may find out that you are not easily being disappointed anymore.