I remember taking part in a fun life-sized rectangular maze game as a child. Like all mazes, the aim of this game is to reach the other end of the maze. Depending on where you end, you will end up with different prizes. It took just a few turns before I exited by the side. Although I was perplexed by the short duration I spent in the maze, it was fun to run in the maze.

Adult life can often seem like a maze, with doors to open and traps what we may fall into. There are different destinations, and different routes. Borrowing an analogy from The Pilgrim’s Progress, we may find ourselves at a junction, with 7 doors in front of us. How are we to choose which door to open? While we once navigated through the maze in darkness, we now have a helper to assist us. Yet, the sheer possibilities and sometimes desire to be right with God can drown out the very voice that seeks to guide us.  Thus we make a wrong turn, and end up taking a route that turns out to be the opposite of what we expected. Yet, the voice never gives us; it prompts and it tugs till we listen again.

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn’t go to college. He never visited a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the great things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying…his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave through the piety of a friend.

An old meditation, cited in pg 158 of Long Journey Home by Os Guinness.

The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wants me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.

Soren Kierkegaard’s Journal

And the biblical faiths say, “Follow the call of your Creator” – there’s no greater purpose and fulfillment for anyone than in discovering and living out the design for which God created us and sent us into the world. (pg 209)

How then do we travel the journey purposefully and finish well? The way to make the most of the journey of life and faith is to answer the call of our Creator, and in so doing discover the purpose for which we were created and to which we’re called. The great Creator alone creates completely out of nothing – fruitfully and prolifically. He alone knows our reason for being, by which he calls us into a life of purpose. (pg 212)

What is meant by “calling”? Simply that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service. (pg 213)

Dallas Willard writes, that all of us have “a unique eternal calling to count for good in God’s great universe.”

This truth – the call to be followers of the way, with the entrepreneurial vision and energy it provides – has been a driving force in many of the greatest “leaps forward” in history; the constitution of the Jewish nation at Mount Sinai, the birth of the Christian movement in Galilee, the sixteenth-century Reformation and its incalculable impetus to the rise of the modern world, and the abolition of slavery and slave trade in the West, to name a few. (pg 214)

…calling is the most comprehensive reorientation and the most profound motivation on the human journey. Answering the call is the way to find and fulfill the central, entrepreneurial purpose of your life as you journey home. (pg 215)

Maturity often has the effect of moderating one’s views and emotions. Or at least that was what I was told. At times, I would ask YM why she reacts to things in a certain way, and she’ll reply, ‘It comes with age.’ It often leave me amazed as I thought about the life lessons she must have experienced. Or JT, who said that his approach towards many things in life changes as he matures. I can’t help but remark at how time, struggles and experiences still mould people even when they are adults!

Thus it has been a lesson for me, and JT hit the nail on the head today to drive home the message that I still have a lot to learn. That we should sing as a constant reminder of our joy in the Lord is a message so simple that it’s easy to overlook. Yet, it contained gems of truth – why should we let the odds of life rob us of our smile in Christ? Behind the beauty of the sentence is an entire theology of the finished work of Christ.

It is not surprising that I would struggle in this ordeal. Our motives are never pure, and I’m not even sure how much self-interest/self-protection/selfishness rear their heads as I attempt to swim in the torrent of mad ethical confusion. I have little confidence that my actions and reactions when I deal with the situation are pleasing to the Lord, not even to mention glorify Him. I can only pray that the Lord will be merciful and gracious to me. But even as I plummet to the abyss of confusion, God did send various people to encourage me, to remind me of timeless truths, and to advise me. For that, I am thankful, even when the situation remains unresolved; I still need to fight every step of the way.

IF there’s every one thing I remember from all my discourses with Joel, it’s on the theology of work. I was impressed upon how work is both a blessing and a curse, how God meant work to bring satisfaction but our own rebellion meant that we are frustrated in our own work. It seemed only like yesterday when I made the decision to take an alternative route. I am surprised at how I landed at the very job that I wasn’t keen on applying 6 months earlier. The Lord has been gracious and allowed me to find satisfaction in my work. He has also sent His Providence to guide me through many affairs. However, I have my fair share of tears and frustrations. There are temptations, unfair comments about me, and practices that I do not agree with. Perhaps G is right that the only way out is to stay close to the Lord. Perhaps JT is right in pointing out Ps 73 to me, and saying that I do have to be a good witness when I can. Perhaps YM is right that it’s more important to ensure that my sup is happy with my work.  It has turned out more complicated than I thought, but I am thankful for godly counsel and providence. I still need a lot of wisdom, EQ, and wits to navigate through this maze. May He let me find favour in both God and men.

It’s almost amazing how much lesson one can learn from Nature. I developed an interest in weeding because they were sprouting, in my rosemary pot, at a faster rate than I could remove them. I figured that getting to the root of the problem was the only solution – to remove the mature plants that must be propagating seeds. And so as I set about weeding, it dawned upon me that we need to weed out unwanted influences in our lives as well. If we are not careful, weeds will crowd out the very object that we are trying to cultivate. As much as some plants/characters are inherently resilient to the presence of weeds, how can we be sure that the distractions won’t have negative influences on our growth? When the attention that was meant originally for the prized possession becomes dispersed, how well can it grow?

My Professor talked about how young people should be energetic, filled with passion and visionary. She often discussed about the curiosity to explore, to learn, to grow. She has often encouraged me, counseled and advised me to pursue my dreams, yet I am now the very anti-thesis of what she has hoped for me.

Although life has never been easy, I have often embraced each challenge with a sort of optimism and a kind of hope, a type of assurance. Yet, things seemed to have taken a sharp U-turn. I wonder what has caused a gray cloud of skepticism to drape itself over me. It is dark, depressive, and menacing. It threatens to devour me, even as I attempt to fight it. It causes me to sin, to doubt, to question – all in dis-empowering ways.   When my faith that the Mighty One would provide is already at its rock bottom, this incident attempts to rub away the very last threads that define the fabric of my life in God. This sadness, helplessness, and hopelessness strain the fabric, and inches it day by day towards material failure. If it doesn’t break my faith in Him, it will break me. Cracks always happen first at the weakest link.

Although it may not be one of the 7 deadly sins, but there should not be any distinction between intensities of sin. All sin causes God to look on us with scorn as it disrupts our relationship with God. We also fail to bring glory to God when we sin. It is certainly not a case of self-expectation, but in accordance with the thought propagated by Paul – to put to death whatever sin that God unearths. For ‘sin is crouching at your door; and its desire is to master you, but you must master it.’ (Genesis 4:7).

When all feelings point in opposite directions to what one knows, that is when we must exercise self-control before sin crushes us. As I write all these, I am well aware that I may be fighting a losing a battle, for ‘nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.’ Dealing with sin is never a pleasant affair, but one should try to get all the help one can get. It means making one more vulnerable for future hurts, but it is always better than the undesirable consequence of letting sin crush us. As for that incident, no one can solve the problem I face or offer the solace I need.

The senior minister delivered a highly thought-provoking message yesterday on Romans 3. Reading ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’, I can’t help but would like to add on to his content.

If these men cannot stand before the sentence of men, what will they do with the sentence of God? And if they are mute when dealt with by vessels of clay, what will they do when they shall be rebuked by the flames of a devouring fire?  – John Bunyan

John Bunyan must have drawn inspiration from Romans. I’m glad for the discovery of this quote.

And usual, we are all guilty, guilty, guilty. Read the whole story.