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Last week, I was relaxing at home and realized that I need to use the spare time to do something productive – I decided to fix the reverse indicator light problem from my old car. I spent two afternoons trouble-shoot it trying to find a solution for the problem. Follow some advices from the internet, I was able to find the problem area is from a “neutral safety switch” mounted on the transmission case of my car. The function of the switch acts as an indicator on which gear (P, R, N, D, 2, 1) the transmission is. In addition, it prevents the car from starting if it is not either on the “neutral” gear or on the “park” position. Due to the old age of the switch, it took me a while to dismount it from the transmission case while the car is on the park position. After the removal, I dismantled the switch and cleaned inside of it and reassemble it. In the middle of putting it back and tightening it on the transmission case, I accidentally turned the switch arm and the transmission was switched from “park” to “neutral” position. As soon as I realized that, the car is moving downhill already. I was panic because it is going to run into my neighbor’s house across the street. Fortunately, my sons and a friend’s son were there at that time to help. So, I jumped into the car and tapped onto the brake to stop the car right before it hits my neighbor’s mailbox. Then, my sons and the friend’s son helped me to push the car back to my driveway. Whew… it was a close call and a fiasco that I was not prepared for – I thought it was good enough to put on the e-brake without putting on wheel chokers.

I think every life experience could be a lesson for us to learn, no matter how trivial it is. Firstly, I could see the importance of the gear indicator – it tells us where is our gear position would be – in Drive (D) or in Reverse (R) or in Park (P), etc.  A “wrong gear position” would be disastrous if it is not what was intended. In our spiritual journey, there is a similar indicator too. Are we continued to grow (in the Drive (D))? Or, are we at the stagnant (in the Park (P)) position? The worst possible position that we can be is at the Reverse (R) position. How do we know that we are at that position? The Prophet Hosea indicated to us that a sign of “Reverse” in our spiritual journey is similar to this: “His hair is sprinkled with gray, but he does not notice. 頭髮斑白，他也不覺得‧(Hosea 7:9b)”. It implies that we lost our interest in God’s house just like our hair sprinkled with gray, but didn’t notice it. This symptom starts from we lost interests in God’s word and in prayer, then lost respect of our Lord Jesus Christ and finally we become insensitive to sins.

Secondly, well preparation is always a thing that we tend to neglect. Sometimes, I quickly jump into something which is not thoughtfully prepared. This may result in failure or possible humiliation. The other time, however, I may envy someone’s success without knowing that there is a price of numerous painful efforts or humiliating failures behind. As the saying goes, “No pains, no gains”.  I need to spend my efforts to learn in order to succeed.  Analogously, in our spiritual journey, if we do not put our efforts in cultivating our relationship with God, we may not be able to escape from the snares of temptation coming from the evil one.

My dear brothers and sisters, “Happy New Year”!  “Do you have a New Year Resolution already?” “Are you starting to execute it yet?” As the yearly theme of our church is “Lives affecting lives”, can we affect others positively without being affected negatively? Let’s be prepared to make a “new year resolution” by putting our efforts on reading God’s word daily because His word is our life!