Today marks my 2nd last time at IPC’s small group in a long long time.  No one talked to me after small group as usual. What’s new. This is UK. And the group is much much older than I am. Everyone else is married but me.

It’s ok. I’ve tried my best.

I remember this is the code JT used for hospitalization. Little did I think it would happen to me at the age of 25. It has been exactly a month since I have been discharged,  and sadly I don’t think that hospitalization did much good to me. On the contrary, as I laid on the hospital bed, my mind was blank. I was in a pain-management mode and all I could think of was that I had no form of identification with me, no oyster card, no handphone, not even a book. Naked do I come and naked do I go, they say. I wondered if people in my school managed to contact MJ, my flatmate. I wondered too about my android phone. Although it didn’t cost me much, it is very valuable to me. It had served as my alternative laptop, a quick way for me to check emails. It contains a lot of sms conversations, of encouragements and Q&As with others. I was also supposed to view a flat that day, but apparently everything was saved on the phone, and not the SIM card.

Tomorrow will be exactly one month since my phone has been in dry storage. It will be significant as it tells me if like my phone, I will eventually recover. It was a birthday gift I bought for myself, and I certainly did not expect God to take it away…

In a hedonistic world, it’s hard to imagine that  anyone would struggle with this issue. I may be self-centered or even selfish at times, but to be kind to myself? That concept doesn’t really seem to exist. From young, I have always been taught that it’s only right to put nation before community and society above self. I have always lived by that. I can remember being helpful since primary school, and I would go to the extend of helping people even if it means inconveniencing myself. I suppose that is where my sense of altruism came from. I also liked stories of Chinese heroes who laid down their lives for their countries. There is something noble and right in serving and giving of all for the greater community good.

Now as a follower of the way, I can’t help but notice that there many verses in the Bible that implies and assumes that believers first love themselves, but now we are to move beyond ourselves and care for others. The fact that Jesus did not reject the concept of healthy self-love explicitly suggests to me that it may be right to love oneself. Afterall, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we are to live our lives in a way that glorifies God. Futhermore, we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. If we are not good stewards in taking care of our bodies, then how can we be good stewards in taking care of His household, the church?  ‘For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and carefully protects and cherishes it.’

We are commanded to love our neighbour as ourselves. If one can’t love oneself, how much of love can he or she show his/her neighbour? A person who eats only reduced to clear and discounted food will find it hard to bring himself to buy good things to bless another person. Likewise, a self-critical person is unlikely to be lenient or forgiving with others.

From another point of view, the concept of love is closely tied to the 10th commandment, ‘Do not covet’. The constant desire to be like someone else, or to have certain traits, with the exception of character traits, bellies a belief that one would be a better creator than God himself. That is idolatry, or it is perceiving God not how He is truly like; and harboring faulty views of the nature of God. Clearly, it would lead to problems later on with regards to God’s goodness, faithfulness and love.

Yet, this isn’t an invitation to love others only after one has learned to love oneself. They are to go hand and in hand. But I have lived much of my life learning to give to others, and perhaps not doing anything special for myself. I suppose I have led a pretty ascetic lifestyle thus far. I looked back at how I tried to brace through winter with little, and non-effective clothes, because I refused to spend above a certain budget to buy clothes to keep warm. I get hungry easily but I did not increase my uptake. The consequence is that I became miserable and ultimately slipped into depression.

But do I deserve to love myself? I am a gnostic and I find it hard to answer yes to that question.

As one lays on the hospital bed
People’s words are put to the test
If they mean that they will care
Or life goes on for them for their best

A loud bang was heard so they say
Yet one can’t recall what was heard
Something fell from the roof they thought
Only to find a person on the floor

I watched my handphone fall from my hand
Into the toilet bowl for a swim
My birthday treat after saving for months
Its life sniffed out in just a while.

The physical pain overwhelmed me
The emotional turmoil that my only valuable is lost
Where is God in all all this midst
Afflicting me unceasingly.

Not remembering that such things can be found in the Bible, I have actually prayed this yesterday.

“O that I might have my request,
and that God would grant my desire;
that it would please God to crush me,
that he would let loose his hand and cut me off!
This would be my consolation;
I would even exult in pain unsparing;
for I have not denied the words of the Holy One.
What is my strength, that I should wait?
And what is my end, that I should be patient?
Is my strength the strength of stones,
or is my flesh bronze?
In truth I have no help in me,
and any resource is driven from me.” (Job 6:8-13 RSV)

Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Am I the sea, or a sea monster,
that thou settest a guard over me?
When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me,
my couch will ease my complaint,’
then thou dost scare me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,
so that I would choose strangling
and death rather than my bones.
I loathe my life; I would not live for ever.
Let me alone, for my days are a breath.
What is man, that thou dost make so much of him,
and that thou dost set thy mind upon him,
dost visit him every morning,
and test him every moment?
How long wilt thou not look away from me,
nor let me alone till I swallow my spittle?
If I sin, what do I do to thee, thou watcher of men?
Why hast thou made me thy mark?
Why have I become a burden to thee?
Why dost thou not pardon my transgression
and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
thou wilt seek me, but I shall not be.” (Job 7:11-21 RSV)

And Job 3, 16 and 30…

Never thought I’ll come to write this post, as I contemplate on death. But I’ll put a big disclaimer here. It has nothing to do with anyone. The frustration has been there, first let out on the Caledonian sleeper up to Aberdeen, where I had a big cry. Who knows I cried? Friends? Family? God? No one.

Today a friend I supposedly have known for over 10 years treated me harshly too. But what’s new? He has always been like this. He wrote, ‘To somebody in London: The core of success is long nights on a cold hard floor…sorry I had to be cruel.’ I don’t long for success. I don’t care for success. It doesn’t give me fulfilment, not joy nor anything. It’s still a meaningless world out there for me.

Is there a purpose for living? I don’t seem to find any. For God? I’m not at all sure of His character. Why does He choose to provide for something I think is more of a want, and possibly frivolous to some people, instead of a very basic human need? The Bible says that He knows our needs even before we go to Him and that we are not to pray like the pagans do. Does He know my need? Why hasn’t it been met after so long? I have waited longer than my previous wait, and I have been patient…but I will be patient no more. To tell me that there’s a possibility of waiting another month shows a stern face who simply doesn’t care. And so I will fail my 1st year if I have to spend one more month finding a place…so what’s the point of continuing? Either I and many people have been totally deluded by the confirmation or all of us are mistaken that there is a vernacular figure that really cares.

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9pm

Strangely enough, it seems as if God spoke to me through a simple, ‘European-style’ dinner. It was delicious, an eclectic mix of reduced to clear food, left overs and the cheapest house brand. I have not eaten something like this for a long time, and it brings me back to the time when I was in Lille for my birthday celebration. Such creativity amazes me, because I had intended to cook instant noodles for dinner as I was feeling both down, and I didn’t have any mood to cook.

Suddenly, things turned around and I had an idea of something simple to make for dinner. The meat went in, and so did the carrots, on top of leftover kebab sauce. In the last 10 mins, I put in the bread and mushroom. I had an inkling that it will be good and when the smell of bread appeared, I was looking forward to it. By the time I sat down to ate, I was actually aware and thankful that this is certainly not the work of me, but a divine being working in me?

How did I know: such a dish is simply not what I would have thought of. I did not even think of this in the last 9 months in UK, and I have not encountered something like this for quite a while…

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.

Firstly, Paul says that justification comes to use as a gift and not a wage. The very nature of gifts is that they are not earned – they come to us freely, out of the generosity of the giver. We don’t work for them. Instead, says Paul, the one who is justified (or ‘counted as righteous’) is the one who does not work, but simply trusts in “him who justifies the ungodly”.

This is the astonishing news of the gospel: that God justifies not the good or the moral or the hard-working or the deserving but “the ungodly”. Paul is very explicit about it. He says that justification comes to “one who does not work”. We Australians have a word for those who choose not to work: we call them ‘bludgers’. The apostle is saying in effect that justification is only for those who are prepared to ‘bludge’ on the mercy of God. In other words, it is for those who realize that their good works will never justify them before God, no matter how hard they try, and so who trust God and take him at his word rather than trust their good works.

To further demonstrate the point, Paul retraces Abraham’s story and asks whether God declared Abraham to be justified before or after he was circumcised (circumcision being one of the classic ‘works of the law’). Did the good work of circumcision play a part in his justification or not? The answer is No! God declared Abraham to be righteous simply because he trusted God’s word. pg 67

Faith is a personal attitude of trust and dependency. In fact, the word ‘trust’ is a good everyday replacement for ‘faith’ in most places where you meet the word in the Bible. Faith is by no means just an intellectual assent that something is true. It is a personal trust that something is true. But trust in what?

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses,” says the psalmist, “but we trust in the name of the Lord our God” (Ps 20:7).

‘Faith’ in the Bible is trust in God, and especially in the promises of God – such as those promises that come to us in the gospel. Faith is an open hand ready to receive what God promises to give us through Christ. By its nature, faith offers nothing and contributes nothing. It simply trusts in Another, and receives salvation from him as a free gift. Faith points away from itself and says, “I can’t take away my own sins, or atone for them. Christ alone can do that for me.”

Abraham modelled that faith by taking God at his word. In Romans 4, Abraham’s faith is defined in terms of being “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Rom 4:21). Faith is about taking God at his word. And this, says Paul, is the only way a person can be justified – not through doing sufficient good works to earn God’s approval, but by putting our trust in what Jesus has done on the cross to wipe out all our sins. pg 69

There is an old line about the difference between religion and Christianity that I have always loved: religion is spelt ‘do’;  Christianity is spelt ‘done. He done it! It may be bad English, but it’s great theology.