God’s Purpose is our Priority and our Plan

God’s purpose is our priority and our plan

Khen Lim





Image source: Crosswalk

Many Malaysians go through life believing they understand what their priorities are. In many cases, parents make sure their priorities for their children’s future are the same as their own children. “Study hard” is one. “Get a good job” is another. “Get rich” is definitely on the cards. “Look after us when we’re old” is the inevitable one.

It doesn’t matter what you end up studying, just study hard and get as many grade A’s as there are to score. It doesn’t matter what job you end up doing so long as it's worth our effort sending you to college. Make sure you can get rich and buy a big house, go on international holidays and drive a European car. As long as you do all of these, don’t forget that you need to ‘pay back’ your parents for all that they have done to bring you up.

These appear to be like priorities. I’m not sure they are the best priorities we can think of. How about this classified ad that appeared in the June 1978 edition of the Quay County Sun newspaper. It says:

“Farmer with 160 irrigated acres wants marriage-minded woman with tractor. When replying, please show picture of tractor.”

Nice one. He sure knew his priorities.

So what are our priorities in life? What should our priorities be like if we knew what our purpose in life is? Would knowing our priorities help shape the right plan for us? Would that plan guarantee that we fulfil our purpose? That’s a lot of P’s to think about without coming to terms with the Probability and Possibility that one might not lead to the other.

You see, many people don’t really do enough sitting down and thinking about what they should spend enough time on. We’re so caught up in everything else we do in the secular world that we don’t spare enough effort to properly understand what it is we’re doing that might actually end up being a complete waste of time. 

Many do superficial things not realising they’re actually superficial. Or they do banal things because they can’t think of anything better to do in their lives. However you look at it, it’s a huge waste but more importantly, it’s awfully unfulfilling. That’s probably what feeling empty is all about.

Purpose is hugely important because it fleshes out the things we need to do in order to fulfil it. But purpose itself can be anything you want it to be. What if we prioritise our life’s purpose on making as much money as we can sink our claws into? How would that shape our lives? How would that alter the way we live day to day? What changes will we have to make in order to make that purpose come true?

Would having such a purpose in life drive us to place so much importance on money that we could end up doing things we shouldn’t be doing? Just so we have more money? Would we evade taxes? Would we resort to creative accounting and short-change the IRS? Would we do illegal things? Would we think up some shady ideas or deceive people? 

Would we bribe government officials to look the other way so that they don’t interfere with our purposes in mind? Would we specifically rub shoulders with scions and politicians principally because we hope to do deals with them and get rich ourselves?

Looking around us, there are so many examples of why getting our purpose right is important. In a world so stepped in senseless mind-numbing materialism frenzy, it’s all too easy to commit ruinous missteps in our lives. In Malaysia alone, the stark examples teach us powerful lessons on how purposes without principles can be ethically impervious and morally destructive. Here are a few local examples:

Despite passing the driving tests, people drive as if they’ve never sat for any driving lessons in their lives. That’s because their chief reason to pass the test isn’t to learn how to drive properly and be responsible motorists. Their purpose is simply that they have the legal right to use the roads the way they feel entitled to. 

These ways, as we know, aren’t necessarily friendly to others. In the worst possible scenario, irresponsible motorists drive ruthlessly and intimidatingly and they have no scruples parking their vehicles wherever they feel like it. They don’t have any conscience that prods their guilt.

Although a commonly shared motive in business is to be profitable, many take this to extremes in which case, the likelihood that this falls foul of the law is very high. The principle of being profitable is an honourable one but the method might not always be. 

Countless people in business do illegal things, have illicit affairs, partake in briberies and corrupt practices and in some cases, even murders are committed, all because money has taken such a dangerous precedence. Whether all of this happens at government or private business level is immaterial. The point is when the purpose is motivated by evil intentions, the end result will never be pleasing to God.

I remember a case some years ago when I rushed back to Ipoh from Kuala Lumpur by cab because I had a wedding to attend. Since there were different entry points to Ipoh from the main interstate highway, I specifically told the driver which one I’d prefer him to take because I was in a hurry. Well he didn’t comply with my wishes. Instead he chose one that was quite a bit farther away for my liking.

I didn’t want to start an argument but I just had to ask why he took a different route. His answer completely startled me. I don’t want to repeat it ad verbatim here not only because he spoke to me in Cantonese but it’s also too graphically vulgar. In choosing a different exit point off the highway, he actually cheated the toll system. 

Surprisingly, he fished out a collection of toll tickets from his pocket and from his selection, he chose one that ‘worked’ for him. In the end, he paid a pittance for the right to use the highway when in fact, the toll charge was around ten times higher.

In his sheer anger and arrogance, he told me being a Chinese, he was smarter than the government and with his smarts, he intends to cheat his way to his advantage. That meant finding loopholes and gaps in the toll charging system so that he would invariably always end up paying far less than he should. 

To do this obviously meant he would work with others of like mind who were also cab drivers. Frankly I have no idea how they could do that though I suspect for something like this to work, there has to be a mole in the system whose inside job was instrumental to people like him.

The cab driver called the people in the government ‘pigs.’ To him, because of race, they deserved to be cheated. To him, cab drivers who earn ‘an honest living’ had the right to do that. To him too, nothing the government does can ever be right. 

While I can’t say that I love what this government has been doing (think 1MDB and all the umpteen decades-long scandals), cheating the government is basically cheating the people; something this cab driver never quite thought about. At any rate, today, many interstate cab drivers do pretty much what this guy did back then. The toll charge system is now infamously breachable by commercial users and no one seems to be complaining. 

So how do we get our purpose, priorities and plans correct? How can we have the right purpose and then make sure our priorities and plans reflect it? One reputable Californian businessman once said that there were two things that most people find very difficult to do – to think and then to do things in the order of their importance. 

How tragic would it be if we go through our whole lives only to reflect back in the end and realise that we’d spend all our time, money and resources pursuing the pointless and the worthless. In all our vain pursuits, it would be devastatingly depressing to have to come to terms with how wasteful we’ve been.

What’s so purposeful in our lives if we didn’t take God into account? Now, that’s the point Christians must view their lives’ goals. Here’s where we need to take stock of how we need to position our lives and then work out a plan from that point onwards. This is where we need to anchor down our faith and commitment to Christ and then let that purpose flesh out our plans.

So in short, we are to let God’s purpose take priority over our plans. Or put in another way, our purpose in life will be to make God our priority and then to have our plans reflect that. Now that we have established this point, let us look at the issue a little more closely.

The three four precious words

Image source: ISM-Houston

Priorities. Plans. Purpose. For Christians who have given their hearts and minds to the Lord, they have often said, “Lord, here I am. Use me as a vessel to do Your will.” That’s a powerful priority.

We all need a focus on priorities in our lives. When we get them right, we can then put them together in a form of a plan or a strategy so that they can be put to good and effective work. The word ‘priority’ simply means, “matters that are treated as ‘more important’ than others,” which implies that we must concentrate on the things that we need to do that will enable our purpose to bear fruit. 

To do priority things is to make decisions as to those that take precedent over those that don’t. At the same time, there will also be things that we must accept that we cannot do any longer. Getting our priorities right therefore will impinge on our lifestyle to some extent because it will reshape the way we view and conduct our lives. 

But then, here’s the extra word that I’ve added to the title of my sermon – Principles. Principles are “the fundamental truths that establishes a foundation for a belief or behaviour.” Principles that revolve around our faith in God will suggest a conduct in which we can distinguish right from wrong. This is in reference to a moral attitude in which case, it is similar to being ethically upright. 

These are therefore principles in which we retain and maintain a set of values that put us right before God. And through these principles, we can build our lives, secure in the knowledge that Christ will find acceptable. With this in mind then, we can build our vision upon in order to sustain our purpose.

So what’s a good Priority? The apostle Matthew possibly puts it best with Jesus saying the following:

“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need.” (Mt 6:33, NLT)

The Son of God challenges us to know our priorities and He lays it down squarely on our shoulders. To Him, other than living righteously, there cannot be anything more important than to “seek the Kingdom of God above all else.” 

We may have many irons in the fire but the one that must stand out as being the greatest is to focus on God. We can’t have it any more straightforward than how Jesus puts it, which confirms our earlier instatement that God’s purpose must take priority over all our plans.

Speaking of plans, Rick Warren wrote in his book ‘The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?’ the following: “Time is your most precious gift because you only have a set amount of it. You can make more money but you can’t make more time.” 

Time is a finite quality defined by what we do in and with our life. And once we use it, we have no way of going back and undoing what we feel was wrong. We cannot correct what time has taken away from us, leaving us with the only option remaining, which is to learn from our mistakes.

In other words, time and plan are interrelated. Whether we plan out our lives well, only time will tell. In time, we will realise if we’ve made a mess out of our lives but by then, it’s also too late to do anything about it. But if we plan things with a good purpose in mind, we will have used our time purposefully too. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians:

“So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly but understand what the Lord wants you to do.” (Eph 5:15-17, NLT)

To borrow from Benjamin Franklin his famous advice, if we fail to plan, we’re basically planning to fail. Without a well-conceived plan, even our best priorities have no vehicle to drive them. Furthermore if our plans are not girded by godly principles, they will also be doomed to fail. Solomon reinforces this in the Book of Proverbs saying:

“Godliness makes a nation great, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” (Prov 14:34, NLT)

Righteousness defines greatness. When a nation lives by godly principles, it will stand out for its greatness but if it turns its back on God, there will be nothing but shame and misery. We don’t have to look very far to find out how true this is. Many great nations have fallen off the edge because they have rebelled against God. While once great, many today – look at Europe – are gradually collapsing under the weight of sin.

Righteousness on a personal level defines how we subscribe to our moral fibre. It is also a reflection of how well we manage sin, our own and others. Righteousness is also central to the way in which our plan must take shape. The principle of righteousness is indispensable in the working of any successful plan. 

To bear fruit therefore means to live by such principles without which, the wheels to any plan will just fall off before we can reach our purpose in life. Solomon’s words essentially remind us that if we live by observing God’s principles, we can ensure individual greatness.

Perhaps one of the most oft-quoted Bible passages on plans and purpose comes from the prophet Jeremiah:

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (Jer 29:11, NIV)

That, in a nutshell, is God’s purpose for us. He has these great plans to bring us into prosperity and offer us hope and a future that is brighter than we can imagine. By adding the part ‘and not to harm you,’ the Lord makes it very clear that His purpose is not to bring destruction into our lives. But in the end, though this may be God’s purpose, it is up to us whether or not we believe Him. To believe means to trust and have faith in His plans.

Image source: Bush White House Archives

In 2006 when America’s 43rd president George W Bush was visiting the Kansas State University, a student raised a question with him. He asked, “Mr President, how can you sustain yourself in the midst of all the vitriolic assaults that come your way every day as the President of the United States?” 

It was a fair question. Bush was getting increasingly besieged by all sorts of problems from all ends of the world; yet his answer was profoundly simple and straightforward.

“Three words, Faith, Family and Friends,” he said.

Maybe because it was so astonishingly simple that the media seized the opportunity to mock his response – and his faith – but come to think of it, what Bush said is true. It is our faith as well as the people who love us and whom we love that sustain us all through our most trying days. 

We can have our parade rained on. We can appear stuck in an upside down world. And we can feel like a ship stranded in the middle of a tidal wave. But with armed with our faith and loved by family and friends, we somehow feel secure.

In precisely the same way, if we keep our eyes trained on God first, then our family followed by our ministry, nothing can derail our priorities in life. It is in this sequence or order of importance that we must prioritise our lives.

In our relationship with God, we are to seek Him first and everything else will fall into place (Mt 6:33). Anything out of place will have no sense of belonging in our lives. We will be ensconced in God’s love and we will relish His protection to safeguard us from any spiritual attacks. Next, our family takes priority with the man of the house as head and his wife second in importance after God. 

Nothing in that says gender inequality. All it means is that “the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor 11:3, NLT). With that comes the rest of our family members, notably, our children. After that comes our ministry. In my case, it is varied but in church it is pastoral but I also have an outreach to quench the spiritual thirst of my readers worldwide. We are reminded of the following:

“Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Mt 28:19-20, NLT)

This order of priorities is characteristically Christian of course. Therefore, we cannot expect the secular man to understand. For us, God must be our Number One priority today, tomorrow and for the rest of our lives. For the world outside, it could be drugs, sex, material wealth or money but remember what Jesus said:

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.” (Mt 6:24, Lk 16:13, NLT)

Placing God first in our lives isn’t just central to our lifestyle as Christians but it is also the only foolproof insurance we have to survive all the seemingly impossible spiritual battles now and in the future. Since we have neither the power nor the authority to stop any of these spiritual warfare, we must look to the Lord as our bulwark and our impervious barrier (Ps 91). Only He can shield us as we go through the countless storms in our lives.

These storms will define our struggles be it our personal or working lives. We will be fighting for relevance. We will sometimes hit rock bottom and come face to face with hurt unlike ever before. Just as there is one evil constant in our lives that threaten to destroy us, there is one God who can deliver us from the devil. 

These torments can affect our marriages and important relationships. Our children may leave us and never come back. Evil can certainly also derail our careers and bring down our businesses. They can wipe out all our fortune and savings, leaving us begging for our lives and living off public charity. And of course, life can get impossibly difficult to cope when death visits our loved ones.

As creatures of crisis, our way out of trouble is to engage God. The only way to do that is to make Him our prime purpose in life. With crises coming all the time, the battle between good and evil is an ongoing struggle to win over our inner minds and hearts. The devil will spare no effort to hijack our lives, which is why we cannot afford not to focus on God’s purpose when it comes to what our priorities ought to be.

Trouble is our middle name

Image source: pl.123rf.com

By placing God at the top tier, we acknowledge that in a guise as creatures of crisis, we have the opportunity to instead become creatures of dependence on God. Many of us just aren’t aware that we can turn a crisis around simply by surrendering our lives to God. We do that by giving up our problems lock, stock and barrel to Him.

Recall what Jesus said as recorded in the Gospel According to Matthew:

“Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Mt 11:28-30, NIV)

Jesus’ message here is an affirmation that we will be burdened. We will be troubled. We will face calamities in our lives. In other words, we cannot avoid them. Christ’s exhortation to go to Him with our burdens is also clear evidence that the prosperity theology is not only misplaced and deceptive but completely wrong. 

Preachers of prosperity tell people that God promises health and wealth but that is not true at all. They want to convince people that by placing their faith in the Lord, they will receive riches galore. They link their faith in Christ to material wealth with promises that if they are generous with their offerings, God will repay even more generously.

The Lord promised no such thing. What He did promise is His sufficiency. He said He will be there for us as we endure our lives through pain, sorrow and death. Being a Christian doesn’t remove us from suffering. It doesn’t alienate us from the struggles that affect everyone else. It doesn’t suggest that we would suddenly be out there enjoying the fruits of life while unbelievers don’t. Here is what Job said:

“Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble.” (Job 14:1, NIV)

The New Living Translation Bible puts it as such:

“How frail is humanity! How short is life, how full of trouble!” (NLT)

Job’s words are just some of the different biblical passages that push back against the eternal prosperity message espoused by those who promote it. His passage above confirms that we do face a lifetime of tough issues. It’s not just before we became Christians but for the rest of our lives. And because these tough times don’t sound anything like prosperity, we ought to be better prepared since all of us are in the same boat.

We can also interpret Job’s words to suggest that when it comes to tough times, most of us are likely to be in one of three categories. We’re either right in the thick of some trouble at this time of writing or we’ve just come out of one by the skin of our teeth or we’re about to step right into one any moment soon. Trouble is never too far away from our lives. We’ve either gone through one or it’s just around the corner if we’re not already in one now.

Job’s impression of our troubled humanity makes it clear that since we’re not going to be able to run away from it, let’s instead learn to come to terms and live life fulsomely despite it. Rather than wasting good effort on an impossible task, we might as well channel our resources more fruitfully towards something more positive like finding a better blueprint to live in which we can overcome without side-tracking them.

Being positive means avoiding or suppressing negativities. Disastrous thoughts are recipes for certain failures. They derail us before we can even consider what our options are. Therefore we need to view our problems and troubles differently. Otherwise we will only send ourselves spiralling out of control. 

The more we dwell on our troubles, the deeper and darker they will become. Before we know it, we’ve lost control over everything. Heman’s Psalm 88 is an ominous reminder of how consuming depression can be. We certainly don’t want to go there if we can help it.

Being positive is another way of saying we need to be optimistic. When trials and tribulations come our way, we tackle them head on. In fact, the bigger the problem, the more courageous we must be. Boldness in faith means confronting trouble with a view to wanting to overcome them but it’s also more than that. 

It also means we are confident that we can resolve things. But then here’s something that might surprise you (though it shouldn’t) – God isn’t nearly as interested in bailing us out of trouble as He is in blanketing us with His assurance.

God’s love is the enduring signature that actually works in our troubled times though with our heads stooped, we usually are too ignorant to realise. Blinded by our problems, we don’t actually see that His love sustains us. His hand blesses us. And His words heal us of our pain and hurt. God is our sole provider who can see to our needs even in the midst of our struggles to make sense of the world we live in.

So let’s just be clear on one thing – rather than bail us out of every problem, the Lord prefers that we work on our productivity. Even in the worst of times, that is. He wants us to grab the bull by its horns and wring it for all it’s worth. There are opportunities even in our darkest hours. God says, use them and maximise whatever you can. Shine, He says, and light up the gloominess with His love. 

God’s idea is that no matter how the odds are against us, we can bear great fruit. And He is ready to make it happen if only we believe we can actually do it. But if we wallow in self-pity and waste precious time being negative, we’re just throwing away great opportunities to become God’s champions.

Image source: Made Man

A good friend of ours who lives stateside recently went through an ugly divorce from her philandering husband. She caught him in their marriage bed with a young Thai girl and even before they could nut out separation arrangements, he was already posting pictures of the both of them online for everyone to see. Humiliated and frustrated, our friend moved back to her parents’ home and has since been struggling to make things work as a single mother.

Although she is gainfully employed, working to support her young son of three years plus hasn’t been easy. In these economic climes, the best anyone can do is to try and hold down the job as best as possible without losing it. And that’s not a guarantee. 

Her office job isn’t plain sailing either and often, she has to work late, which means not being able to grow as close to her child as she’d like. Thankfully she could rely on her parents to look after him while she works through the day and night.

No doubt our good friend is having a very troubling life now but God has hopes that she might raise her hand and seek Him out. His wish is that we find and hang on to Him. He wants us to draw close to Him so that we can feel His reassurance. In fact, He wants us to always know that He is within touching distance to reach us. 

Our good friend really doesn’t have to feel like she has all to do on her own. She certainly doesn’t need to bear all the burden and swallow the bitterness of a failed marriage. She doesn’t have to drown in frustration and shame because Jesus already bore all that and pinned them on the cross for us. We just pray that she will somehow come to know Him.

Amidst the many biblical heroes that went through incredibly dark times, the apostle Paul offers up a good example of how he endured near-death trials and weathered through his travels under appalling conditions. Yet he was always courageous in his letters to the churches in Asia Minor. 

Paul actually wrote some of his greatest works from the harsh discomfort of a cold prison cell but he is not alone. Over the many centuries, many others have preached and then were burned at the stake, stoned to death or died without a penny to their name. These are people who have little of this world’s material pleasures but instead, they lived to do God’s will.

They are His choicest servants.

Trouble accentuates greatness

The history of the world is resplendent with many thousands of those who died while serving Christ and many of them died horrible deaths. They faced their troubled times staring at death. And they met their end by placing their life in Christ’s hands. In their martyrdom, their lives are remembered till today. No matter how many of them who died, each and every one of them played a significant part in advancing God’s Kingdom.

Yet there were (and still are) many others who lived to continue their work for Christ even in the midst of their troubles. Of the many then and now, here are two sterling examples:

Fanny Crosby (Image source: The Reception History of the Parables)

The first is a woman who lived in the nineteenth century. Her name was Frances Jane van Alstyne. Her unmarried name was Crosby and with her nickname, the world knows her as Fanny Crosby. Crosby’s reputation wasn’t just that she was a hugely prolific writer of hymns – more than 9,000 to her name – but essentially she did all of this in her blindness. 

That would have been prolific enough for an all-seeing person to be this talented and write so many hymns in his lifetime. But Crosby was blind, which makes her achievement remarkably towering, a feat no one has yet to match today.

Born in the state of New York, Crosby was less than two months old when she caught a cold that caused inflammation in her eyes. However, without the family doctor around, someone else pretending to be one, treated her, using hot mustard poultices on her eyes. While her illness eventually went away, she became permanently blind as a result.

Mustard poultice is a form of mustard plaster (or mustard pack) that has been used for centuries as a natural folk remedy for treating anything from gout to sciatica. Today it’s used for chest and lung congestions where it stimulates blood circulation by dilating the blood capillaries. 

But of course the heat emanating from the hot mustard poultice can be quite irritating to the skin let alone eyes and depending on how much was administered, one could feel the intense ‘burning’ sensation.

In Crosby’s case, the mustard poultices that were applied to her eyes by the imposter damaged her optic nerves thus blinding her. By the time his ruse was up, he’d long disappeared from the scene and was nowhere to be found. But there was more tragedy to come for the Crosby household. 

Her father died a few months after her blindness, leaving the family penniless so much so that her mother resorted to find work as a maid in order to sustain her children. Crosby herself was then largely raised by her grandmother from whom she learned and developed her Christian values.

Crosby seated far right with mother at far left and siblings (Image source: YouTube)

Despite the great hardships, nothing stopped her. At the early age of eight, she wrote her first poetic verse, echoing her steadfast refusal to feel sorry for herself. In these verses, we witness the inner strength of a truly remarkable Christian whom we have much to learn from:

Oh, what a happy soul I am,

although I cannot see!

I am resolved that in this world

Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy

that other people don’t,

To weep and sigh because I’m blind

I cannot and I won’t!

Crosby went on to establish herself in the most profound fashion. Of the 9,000 odd hymns that she wrote, as many as 200 if not more were obscured because she used pseudonyms to not prevent the hymnals from being filled with her name above others. Among the thousands, her best-known hymns would have to include ‘Safe in the Arms of Jesus,’ ‘Rescue the Perishing,’ ‘Blessed Assurance,’ ‘The Bright Forever,’ ‘Saviour, More than Life to Me’ and ‘Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour.’

But Crosby wasn’t just a stunning hymnist. She was also a distinguished poet in her own right. Her final volume ‘Bells at Evening and Other Verses’ was especially well known. She also had two volumes of autobiography to her name, namely, ‘Fanny Crosby’s Life Story’ written in 1903 and three years later, ‘Memories of Eighty Years.’

One day in Crosby’s presence, an awestruck preacher mused, “I think it is a great pity that the Master did not give you sight when He showered so many other gifts upon you.” 

Without hesitation, she replied, “Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I was born blind.” 

“Because when I get to heaven,” she added, “the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Saviour.” 

Needless to say, the preacher was silenced.

Nick Vujicic (Image source: Desi Payne)

The second is a person born in Melbourne, Australia in 1982 to Serbian-Australian parents. Today, he is only one of seven known surviving persons in the world with a medical condition called Tetra-Amelia Syndrome or Phocomelia that is brought on as a side effect of the drug Thalidomide often taken by women at that time to rid themselves of morning sickness. This resulted in him being born with a rare congenital deformity where instead of proper legs, he had two small feet, one of which had two toes. As for arms, he has none. 

His name is Nick Vujicic.

According to his own autobiography, Vujicic’s mother was initially so devastated that she resisted seeing or holding him even as the nurse brought him to her room and held him in front of her. Eventually, she and her husband accepted Vujicic’s condition and understood it as “God’s plan for their son.” 

But with what little he had, Vujicic was remarkable beyond imagination. Unthinkable for most of us, he could actually use one of his feet – the one he called his ‘chicken drumstick’ because of its shape – to operate many things including an electric wheelchair, a computer and even a smartphone.

Despite the incessant but predictable bullying he weathered through his early years, Vujicic actually thrived in his teens and young adult time. One day, his life changed forever when his mother showed him a newspaper article about a man with a severe disability at the age of seventeen. 

Reading about him inspired Vujicic to lead his prayer group but that was just the start. Meanwhile at the age of 21, he graduated with a double major Commerce degree in accounting and financial planning at the Griffith University.

Image source: Concise News

Vujicic is today married to Kanae Miyahara who first went to hear him as a motivational speaker in Texas in 2008. They have four children – the last two being twins – and he continues to excel as a painter, swimmer and skydiver and of course, as a motivational speaker with worldwide appeal. Being a powerful motivator also means Vujicic is a remarkable evangelist for Christ.

Even without arms and legs, Vujicic commands attention with a passion to serve Christ in ways that many of us with arms and legs cannot compare with. Like Crosby without sight, the legless and armless Vujicic could do things and achieve amazing milestones as if he never needed them in the first place. On the other hand, we have a full complement of appendages and could hardly match even a fraction of what this man could muster.

Apart from Crosby and Vujicic, there are of course thousands of others over the ages. And they are powerful testimonies to how they are unhindered by the troubles that beset their lives. Neither are they unhinged by the kind of misfortune that could have distraught us. These are people who may have severe untold misfortunes, ill health, crippling conditions or they may have a bad family history punctuated by dysfunctionality. 

Or maybe they’re so impoverished that food on a daily basis is a serious scarcity. Regardless of the severity of the problem, it should not come as a cultural shock when, as Christians, we feel tremendous hurt. But instead of letting it be a deterrent, God wants us to learn to make things work. He wants us to be resilient.

To reinforce that for you, turn to Paul’s letter to the Philippians and read the following:

“Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” (Php 4:11-13, NLT)

Take a closer look at that passage. Paul says, “I can do EVERYTHING (my emphasis) through Christ.” How, you ask? “Through Christ, who gives me strength” is Paul’s answer. In other words, the reason that we can do everything is because Christ makes it possible. It is His strength that covers our weaknesses and that in our moment of darkness, we can truly still shine brightest for God if only we purpose ourselves to put Him first in our lives.

Without a doubt, Christians learn unlike others. The unique thing is that we learn the hard way, which is often the reason why society cannot understand us. When the world tells us we’re nuts about going through life in the hardest possible way, we’re reminded by people like Paul that there are no shortcuts. Instead, life has an abundance of knocks and bruises and we’d better get used to them.

The important take-home message here is that as Christians, we learn to lose and yet be victorious; again, something that sounds as oxymoronic as it is ridiculous to worldly unbelievers. But that’s the beauty of God – He works in the most improbable ways. We are told to learn humility in the most beguiling way. 

We may fall into a puddle in total humiliation but God expects us to get up and keep walking even while others laugh and jeer us. God wants us to know that while He has our backs, in return, we must never surrender and drop tools. Instead, we somehow got to take the hard knocks in life and preserve ourselves long enough for Christ to take us to victory.

That pesky thorn is here to stay

Image source: ucg.org

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul has something very interesting – and important – to say about all the troubles that hound our lives:

“…even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time, He said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now, I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses and in the insults, hardships, persecutions and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor 12:7-10, NLT)

Intriguingly, though God showed Paul “wonderful revelations,” which is popularly interpreted as having visited Paradise to see what it’s like, He also allowed “a messenger from Satan” to keep him honest. Lutheran pastor and scholar R.C.H. Lenski wrote, saying that this messenger was meant to “fisticuff him again and again.”

As Paul refers to this satanic messenger as a “thorn,” there are different viewpoints as to what it really is. We know it is some persistent irritation that keeps him in check, preventing pride from consuming him. Much has been written about this “thorn” of course.

Tertullian imagined them to be migraines or earaches. Chrysostom referenced the Book of Acts, believing that Paul meant persecutions. Luther believed Paul was undergoing some serious spiritual battles in his head. So many ideas but really, we know very little in reality but that’s okay. Had he been specific, we’d have excuses and justifications that our own “thorns” are different.

Paul also raised the issue that he had beseeched the Lord thrice to rid him of the thorn. Yet His answer was simply, “My grace is all you need.” That must have been incredibly frustrating for Paul. He pleaded but his pleas apparently fell on deaf ears. What God meant was the pesky thorn stays. Nothing prosperous about that; it’s just harsh reality. 

The thorn stays to keep all of us honest and not prideful. But in so doing, we can then witness God’s strength made perfect in our mortal weakness. With the thorn in place, we cede glory to the Lord. It is His work – and not ours – that reinforces our resolve and all this while, that thorn in Paul’s life would act like a cross to help him stay humble.

And then, there is that part where Paul says, “I take pleasure in my weaknesses and in the insults, hardships, persecutions and troubles that I suffer for Christ.” 

To a casual reader, that would sound like Paul was nothing more than a self-inflicting masochist. How does one take pleasure in weakness? Who can ever feel okay with being weak? Is it then alright for others to insubordinate us because we’re weak? How can we take pleasure from facing hardships and persecutions? Surely not me.

But then reading further from that verse begins to make better sense. Paul says, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” What the apostle is saying is that he takes pride in the Holy Spirit doing wonderful things in him. It is not him at all, it is the Lord working to transform him from the inside. He takes pleasure in his weakness because he is witness to God’s strength. When his weakness betrays him and accentuates his troubles, the Lord overshadows all of that with His power and triumphant glory.

So there it is in the nutshell – Priorities. Plans. Principles. And then Purpose. And in all of these, no one in this world can keep us from the hardships we face. Nobody can prevent us from being hurt. Nobody can remove the rejections we face. Nobody can fill up our sense of loneliness. And surely no one can take away the emotional pain or the seemingly endless health problems that we sometimes have to come to terms with.

Not our parents. Not our siblings. Not our best friends. And certainly not our pastors. Though God can, He chooses to sustain us so that we can endure them. In His infinite sufficiency, we certainly can. Without it, we have no hope.

Believing in God’s brinkmanship

Image source: atzmut.com

The Bible records the history of God’s people who experienced how at the brink of catastrophe, He hauled them back. Just as they thought they were about to meet their end, God did the impossible. That’s His specialty and it’s called Divine Brinkmanship and He has honed it into a stunningly fine art.

With Divine Brinkmanship, we often find ourselves at the wrong end of the stick. Like walking on a tightrope, it’s a 50-50 chance of survival where one wrong move is all it takes to fall. Or worse, it could more likely be walking the plank. 

Each gingerly step forward takes us closer to our doom as we quietly cry out for someone to come and save us. It’s as harrowing as anyone of us can imagine because we face that stark possibility that we could lose everything. It’s a dangerous risk that can go awry.

The most famous story of Divine Brinkmanship is in the Book of Exodus where the Israelites found themselves caught at the edge of the Red Sea with nowhere to go (Ex 13:17-14:29). Knowing that the Pharaoh changed his mind and decided to go after them with his huge army, God’s people were in distraught. They all thought death was imminent but they never realised that God would work through Moses in the last minute to split the sea.

Just as the Lord used Moses to lead His people out of slavery in Egypt, He then used Joshua to bring them into the Promised Land (Dt 31:23) and before that, he miraculously crossed the mighty Jordan River along with the Ark of the Covenant (Josh 3:1-4:24). In all of these episodes of brinkmanship, the people obeyed God and accepted His authority. The Lord promised that He “will supply all your needs from His glorious riches” (Php 4:19, NLT) even if that meant He would do it at the very brink.

David sets out to meet King Achish, son of Maoch of Gath (Image source: Pinterest)

In another startling story of Divine Brinkmanship, 1 Samuel 28 records Achish having enlisted David and his army to join forces and fight the Israelites in the Jezreel valley. This was the war that Saul would meet his end but here was the problem – if David fought alongside the Philistines, he would be siding with the most vicious of Israel’s enemies and worse, if he were to entangle himself in Saul’s death, blood would be on his hands and he wouldn’t be able to fulfil his anointed kingship.

David’s dialogue with Achish in the Bible appeared vague, adding merit to the fact that he had neither stomach to fight his own people nor Saul himself. And yet there was no doubt that in the following chapter, David and his men joined forces with Achish and rendezvoused at Aphek with the Philistine princes. By this point, war with Israel was drawing uncomfortably close. Any moment next, David would have to cross swords against his own people.

There, the Philistines asked Achish what David and his cohorts were doing on their side (1 Sam 29:3). It was obvious that the commanders saw no difference between them and the Israelites they were about to do battle against. And no matter how vociferously Achish defended him, they wanted nothing to do with him on their side.

“Send him back to the town you’ve given him! … He can’t go into the battle with us. What if he turns against us in battle and becomes our adversary? Is there any better way for him to reconcile himself with his master than by handing our heads over to him?” (1 Sam 29:4, NLT) they angrily said.

As a result, David and his men returned to guard the home front, leaving the fighting to the Philistines. Talk about Divine Brinkmanship! 

David had prepared himself to fight a battle he was all too reluctant to but he found himself drawn into it with nowhere to run. By then he and his men couldn’t withdraw and not tarnish Achish’s trust in him. He had walked the whole plank and knew that the next step would be nothing short of disaster.

But God pulled him and his people back at the final hour. Had He not, David would not have been able to become Israel’s next king and the whole covenant line all the way to Jesus would have been seriously compromised. In all of God’s brinkmanship, was David even aware of what he was doing all this while? 

Was he indulging in brinkmanship himself? The Bible doesn’t say but we know that David had in the past acted incongruously in a strategic ploy to acting like a lunatic in Abimelech’s court (1 Sam 21:13). So if he could do that, he could certainly dupe the Philistine commanders also. It would appear to me that David was supremely confident that in the brink of war, God would intervene to save him and his men.

So here’s the contrast between Saul and David and how God worked against one and not the other. In 1 Samuel 28:6-8, Saul didn’t even have the confidence in visiting a medium without putting on a disguise. He so lacked decisiveness that he had to resort to seeking advice from the dead. Saul’s lack of faith in God was very telling by that point in his life. From then onwards, it was all downhill for him. 

David, on the other hand, worked deftly on both sides to attain his goal. In short, he played them both with confidence. While the Philistines fought Saul long enough to become a spent force, David simply took the spoils of an Amalekite raiding party. In the face of mounting opposition, David did not react like a shrinking violet. Instead he was fiercely partial to God. He placed all his trust in Him to do a spectacular rescue job.

Divine Brinkmanship invariably finds us standing precariously on the edge of a sword. Many of us know what that’s like because we’ve been there. We’ve been in situations where all that we’d worked for could be lost in a heartbeat be it in business or in our personal lives. But to walk on the edge of a sword is to live by faith. And that means pouring out our trust on to God and putting it all on Him to deliver simply because we can’t. As Paul says so emphatically:

“For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” (Php 4:13, NLT)

Don’t quit on God

Image source: Talking To My Weight Loss Counselor

They say trusting God is easy. On a good day, that is. Well, no one should be surprised. When everything’s looking up, success isn’t difficult to find. When all that happens, praising God is as second nature as worshipping and glorifying Him to the utmost. 

But when things come crashing down, when everything goes all edgy and we get all hot and bothered, that might not happen. Most of us don’t like our trust tested to that extreme but that’s the only real way we’ll ever know how reliable our faith really is. That’s certainly what Franklin D. Roosevelt meant when he said, “A smooth sea never made a skilful sailor.”

Looking around us, we can see plenty of cases of doubts and uncertainties. Rather than the typical picture-perfect happiness, many people are in the throes of a much harsher sense of reality. 

Growing teens struggle in school, wondering if they’ll make it to the next step or they’re left in fear of when the next massacre will occur simply because someone demented enough will open fire at them before someone can stop him. 

Working adults worry if they can make it to the next pay grade or the next batch of promotions because of their mounting debts. Many of them may have young families to feed, clothe and care for under a roof. And now with the Weinstein Effect, many men are left fearful of how they can work alongside women and not get misunderstood and then have their careers jettisoned.

These are all survival issues and in all of them, people suffer in their struggle for meaning. When that happens, finding God might be very difficult. That feeling of trust can’t be easy to shore up anymore when the going gets this tough. 

Image source: cultofmac.com

For much of last year, I was without a permanent church to go to. Before then, in December 2016, my old church finally decided it wasn’t worthwhile anymore to stay open. We lost the battle to survive.

Closing the doors for the last time was like pulling the plug and letting a sick patient die once and for all. It was hard to watch without our hearts broken. It didn’t matter who was at fault or what we could’ve done to save the church. 

The fact remained that when the rot set in, we couldn’t do much to stave off its closure. And when it came, we knew our time was up. The pain we all felt was horrendous. And, yes, we wondered what it was that God really wanted us to do with His church.

But I’ve learned an important lesson myself – I cannot quit on God because He will never do the same to us. Look at how Azariah the prophet exhorting King Asa and the people of Judah and Benjamin to take courage and do what was right by God.

As the Spirit of God touched the prophet to eliminate the paganism that had plagued the land, Azariah assured the people that the God of Israel would be there for them:

“But as for you, be strong and courageous, for your work will be rewarded.” (2 Chr 15:7, NLT)

Similarly, in anointing him to take over from Moses to lead His people to the Promised Land, God said the very same thing to Joshua:

“This is My command – be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Josh 1:9, NLT)

The same pairing of strength and courage can also be found elsewhere in the Bible in exhortations never to surrender. And in each and every one of them, it was a call to keep trusting God. In Chronicles, Azariah said God would reward those who act in strength and courage. 

In the same way, the Lord urged Joshua, assuring him that He was always there for him. That same reassurance exists today – even in the midst of discouragement threatening to engulf us, we are called to keep going and not give up. Even as everything points to an inevitable surrender, remember this is a God who deals with the impossible.

He is the One we must find the time to be alone and seek counsel from. Find somewhere quiet to be in solitude with God. No one else. Just you and the Lord. Lay bare your anguished soul in prayer. Seek His face in total submission. Thence, comfort and reassurance will assuredly come. 

This is when you will truly sense His presence. And when you do, you’ll discover a renewed desire to want to keep going. You’ll somehow find it in you some innate reason to pick yourself up and go on. Quitting isn’t an option anymore.

Kathie Lee Gifford (Image source: Glamour)

TODAY show host Kathie Lee Gifford recently spoke about her fair share of trials in her Christian walk.

“I’ve been in a desert as many times as I’ve been on a mountaintop but I’ve learned my deepest lessons from the deserts for sure,” she said in a recent interview for ‘I Am Second.’ In her testimony, Gifford recalled some unprecedented trials in her life that would have otherwise doomed her if not for “the Rock” in her life. In each of these troubled times, Gifford found a God who would use her to greatness in unimaginable ways.

She had to come to terms with her husband’s infidelity, which couldn’t possibly be easy for any woman. Yet God equipped her to help thousands of women to learn to forgive their spouses the way she did hers. Another trial was when she was wrongly accused of running sweatshops but Gifford stood tall and even fought injustices against abused and exploited children. 

And as she inevitably had to face the reality of her husband’s death, God warmed her into joyousness instead, convicting her heart to not mourn but celebrate the very fact that he was now fully rested in His hands. Gifford faced loneliness in the course of losing not just her husband but also her parents. Yet in Christ alone, she found joy and reassurance. 

“Life does beat you down. Hardship takes its toll, illness destroys your body. But Jesus said it’s not gonna be easy. He said, ‘In this world, you will have trouble but rejoice, take heart, I have overcome the world. And because I have, I will empower you to overcome your world. My joy is non-negotiable,” Gifford said.

Gifford never gave up. And so shouldn’t we. Walk away from such a habit. Do not believe in premature failure and don’t let anyone talk you into it. Trust God to keep going. And when you do, step aside and watch, behold the amazement. Witness what He will do for you just like how Gifford did. What you think is impossible enough, He will crystallise it before our very eyes.

Just as Gifford experienced God’s brinkmanship, none of it comes without conditions. If we are to experience God on the edge, He expects that we don’t give up. God is a God of expectations. This means He demands results, not excuses, from us. It also means we must have the resolve to overcome our sense of doubt and distrust. 

All too often, our faith falls apart the moment things get too hot around the collar. When seas turn rough, we give up. Doubts creep in and we surrender our motive to continue. If we can will ourselves to trust God, then let us surrender ourselves by allowing Him to deliver the results we otherwise can’t.

Liberty University, Virginia (Image source: Liberty University)

At the highly respected Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, there are two truisms that students there embrace as a central part of the culture of the Christian faith:

Firstly, never follow the world and determine your greatness through talent or material wealth but rather by what how much it takes to discourage you into quitting. 

By that measure, you are as great as the unlikelihood that you would succumb to discouragement. In other words, you are only as great as what it takes to make you quit.

Secondly, believe that in every seemingly unsolvable problem lies a grand opportunity to do something great. That huge obstacle that lies in our path to victory should be seen as a stepping stone. 

Whereas the world – or Satan – would compel us to view it instead as a stumbling block, something that stultifies our spiritual growth, we must denounce it and look to God for nothing is too hard for Him. Always then remember that we can do everything that God asks us to do with the help of Christ who gives us strength and power (Php 4:13)

Of priorities, plans, principles and purpose

Image source: pottersplacechurch.org

In coming to a close, here are seven fundamental principles we need to cover ourselves under. It would be helpful to internalise them so that they uphold the very nature of how we live, work, and act and behave and in the larger picture, serve to fulfil God’s purpose.

#1 Faith that pleases God is lived dangerously and often edgily

All of us should know that life as a Christian isn’t supposed to be easy. Whoever said it would be either lied to you or hasn’t read the Bible himself. If that’s what you’ve been led to think, think again. While the Christian life is all but easy, it is also the only one worth living. 

Yes, we’re all thankful that Heaven is real and there’s a place there for each of us but we’re not there yet. And if we’re not there yet, then we shouldn’t be pining for it for now. By that, I mean we don’t go wishing for lightning to strike us so we can get to Heaven and make it our home.

If God keeps us alive, that’s because He has a reason to. And that reason underscores the things we need to do for Him. I don’t know about you but I’m asking the Lord to lead me to do what He wants me to. And while I’m at it, I’ll also ask Him to give me a long enough life to accomplish whatever it is that He has set out for me to do that brings glory to Him and fulfil my purpose on earth.

But here’s the thing – even if our time is up but there are still things yet to be completed, we need to at least know if we’ve done the best we could to serve Him. Completing is not as important as feeling the satisfaction of having done as good a job as we can for God. To run the race and finish it isn’t enough; let’s make sure that what we have done will glorify Him.

Let’s also make sure that in the things that we have done, we did not give up. Even if we’re wheelchair-bound, let us be zealous enough to do all we can to reach out to people for Christ. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Don’t be bothered with the trivialities. Instead let us roll up our sleeves and will ourselves to live on the dangerous, lonely and painful edge of being.

In that sense, Christians don’t ever retire, we merely get wiser as our faith ages on. In other words, even as we become frailer, less of a spring chicken and more of an old forgetful fool, let the Lord know that we’re still useful to Him. 

My dear friend Bob West (centre) with Rebecca (Image source: Theophilus)

To put that in another way, an old friend of mine famous for his Theophilus cartoons online, Bob West, once said to me that he had come to an old age where God told him to “stop the Doing and begin the Being.”

Bob couldn’t walk anymore by then and glaucoma was setting in fast. He wrote this to me:

“Now I believe I understand what He means. I was writing and drawing ‘Our Father’s Children’ at the time. I did two more episodes and discontinued that work. That was in 2009. I have always been a hard worker. Now God wants me to relax and spend time with people and that is what I am doing now.”

That was the last I heard from him way back in April 2015. Unfortunately I have since lost touch with him and in my recent attempt, my email to him bounced back. My real worry with Bob is his declining health and the fact that I have not been able to reach his daughter saddens me.

So long as we can still breathe and speak, we shouldn’t contemplate taking days off. We should neither be sidetracked nor blindsided by worldly distractions none of which will offer us the same satisfying feeling as sharing the Gospel with. When we can feel that way, we’d know God has empowered us in a very special way. He has thus made good use of us.

#2 We need to feel the pain more to appreciate what we’re up against

No pain, no gain, they say. And that’s true. Great athletes train until they hurt. They endure and do so with stealth and quiet. They push themselves to the limit and then they wind down only to do it again. And again. They turn themselves into a fighting-fit machine, capable of soaring to new heights in performance. 

What use then if we start crying the moment we feel a little pain here and there? What’s the point of all that attention-grabbing melodrama just because our leg muscles feel a little cramped?

From my own life’s experience, bringing up our little two-year-old twins reminds me of how my wife and I had to cope with the increasing pain factor. We witnessed both of them getting heavier by the month. 

As I write this, Heather and Bridget are now past the 11-kilogram mark each. That’s a fair weight to deal with and in the occasional event that either of us is compelled to have to carry both at the same time that weight can be painfully unbearable to the point of feeling the upper arm muscles tearing. 

It gets worse when I realise I can’t persuade her to walk because she simply refuses to. A simple threat of an emotional meltdown is enough to force my wife and I to keep carrying them even in in the middle of a busy supermarket shopping errand. The surge of pain has since become an integral part of what we all have to cope with. There’s no point complaining because no one can help. And it’s not something that creams and ointments can take care of.

Inevitably, my wife and I have come to terms with the discomfort. We carry out by blotting out any thoughts of it. We have convinced ourselves that it’s not something we cannot deal with. 

In our Christian faith, pain is part and parcel of having committed our lives to Christ. It is not something unusual or unique and therefore, it’s pointless to draw any attention to ourselves. If you think the hurt is bad, tell the Lord but don’t go telling the whole world about it.

Remember, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

#3 Walk on the edge and trust God all the way

Earlier in the piece, we discussed Divine Brinkmanship as a way in which God works. We witnessed it in the parting of the Red Sea as well as Joshua crossing the Jordan River. It was particularly evident in David’s involvement with Achish. 

Just as the Lord has taught us in the Bible, we learn to be calm and trust Him when we take that ultimate walk in faith. Whether on a daily basis or in any particular major event, we must remain composed and not be worried. On the other hand, panicking doesn’t do anything constructive.

Trusting in the Lord means being quietly confident even though we might be teetering. Our confidence affirms the depth of our belief in Him. It also asserts how much we know of His love for us. To have complete faith in the Lord is to surrender control to Him. Let Him take over the helm. Give up the driver’s seat. God will show us what this trust means to Him.

The former Bible College of Victoria now called Melbourne School of Theology (Image source: Melbourne School of Theology)

The pastor in our earlier church once told me of the time when he and his wife were in Melbourne where he did his Master of Theology at the Bible College of Victoria. 

For the two years of his course, they lived in the college dormitory but towards the end of the programme, their money began to seriously peter out. This was at a time when they had plans to return home to Malaysia but without money, they weren’t going anywhere. Worse, they might have to face the humiliation of being deported.

Day by day, their money dwindled until the very last dollar. Thankfully their meals were already prepaid but the very thought of not being able to buy their airfares home weighed heavily on their conscience. With all that, they committed themselves to prayer, lifting what was left of their confidence to trust Him completely. As they left their troubles to the Lord, they went through their days unperturbed, knowing that somehow He would deliver them to safety.

And deliver He did. One night while they were preparing to retire for the night, he caught a glimpse of an envelope slipping quietly through the gap in the front door but when he opened it to see who it was, there was none to be seen anywhere in the hallway. Despite calling out, there was no sign as to whether the person was a man or a woman. They weren’t even sure if he or she was someone they knew in College.

When he went to retrieve and then open the envelope, they saw a bunch of Australian dollar notes. He counted them and astonishingly, realised that was exactly the amount they needed to buy their one-way airfare to get home. 

Even more remarkably, neither he nor his wife ever told anyone in College of their financial predicament. They confided in no one but God. Yet, here it was. An envelope with money inside. The very exact amount. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Walking on the edge and living in faith is as astonishing as it can be harrowing but the experience is so powerful that it leaves its indelible and permanent mark on our lives.

#4 Neither be weary-hearted nor lean on excuses

If we’re honest about it , it doesn’t take much for us to realise how ‘soft’ we’ve become over the years. By that I mean we’ve become way too easy on ourselves. We’re more lackadaisical than we used to be. We’re edging so much more on laziness that we’re inclined not to go the whole way. All that excitement when we got started fizzles and we find ourselves piling on the excuses to not want to finish.

‘Burnout’ is something so many of us are finding ourselves saying but really, I’m not even sure anymore if we do understand what it is we’re trying to say. The funny thing is back when I was in university, there was no such thing as ‘burnout.’ That term never existed as far as I know. We just plod on, that’s all.

In the early Eighties when I dropped the bombshell on my father during our collect-call that I wanted to stop my Economics degree, he went ballistic. 

In the following two weeks, he didn’t want to speak to me even after I wrote him a long letter to describe what I felt about doing a course I absolutely hated. The fact was simple – I didn’t want to continue doing something I was not happy with but what angered him was I had no idea what I wanted to do instead.

Deakin University's Waurn Ponds main campus (Image source: Melika Aljukic Architects)

It was another few weeks before I decided to leave Monash and join Deakin University where there was a Humanities programme majoring in Journalism but to secure this switch, I made a deal with my father. Since this decision was mine, I told him I would take care of all of my own expenses. I wanted the responsibility to be borne by me. 

Maybe I didn’t know how much of a burden it would be but the principle was important – my decision, my choice, my responsibility. That meant fending for myself in every possible way. Food. Accommodation. Books. Transportation. Utilities. Even my holiday expenses. Everything.

I’d soon realised that to fulfil my end of the bargain, I had to hold down three jobs at the same time. In between lectures, assignments, exams and studying, I taught at a music school during the weekdays. 

On weekends, I worked as a musician doing gigs at a restaurant, which also meant I had to put in time for rehearsals. And then I did the odd photography job just to plug the gaps. With all of this going on, I bought a second-hand car, which I had to pay off my brother a bit at a time.

Maintaining such a punishing schedule required persistent organising. I had no choice but to plan out my days and weeks. I needed to commit myself to priorities just to work towards the purpose I had, which was to successfully see out my Journalism programme. 

Looking back, I just can’t believe the energy I had to do all that. But then I had no choice – to survive meant I needed to make ends meet while at the same time, I couldn’t forsake my academic obligations.

All of that took three and a bit years on top of the two years doing Economics at Monash. In all that time, the word ‘burnout’ never once crept up. There was no time to be lazy. God forbid, quitting never crossed my mind. I was too fearful of failure to ever think of giving up. I took all of that on to my shoulders with no thought of weariness. I just did what I had to in order to see through my purpose. I willed myself to make it all happen.

#5 Don’t cut yourself too much slack

It’s quite simple – if you have a job to do, do to it well. No half-measures – either we get it done or we don’t start at all. Do it as if our lives depend on it. Do it like it’s the last ever job we’ll ever do on earth. Don’t take things lightly for what must be done, must be done from the heart. But if we keep taking breaks every now and then, we’ll never get anything done.

Rick Warren (Image source: OnePlace.com)

Distractions can be costly. Remember what Rick Warren said earlier? He said, “Time is your most precious gift” but we “only have a set amount of it.” Because time is a finite value, it forces us to evaluate our priorities but when taking time off also means losing our focus, we could end up sacrificing the only opportunities we’ll ever have. 

What we lose in time, we will never get it back. Unlike wealth where we can recover, time lost is lost forever. We’ve robbed ourselves of the things we needed to do and whether or not we’ll get that chance back is not something we can control or determine.

Sharing the Word and saving lives is often a fleeting opportunity. It can come at a certain time and just as easily, we can watch it slip away. When we don’t take these opportunities seriously enough, we’ll have some explanation to do before the Lord. So if we can save ourselves the tea breaks just so we can save just one more life, let’s not adopt a casual attitude but instead get on with it.

I recall a time not too long ago that a friend invited me to tag along to visit a fellow ex-schoolmate who was dying of colorectal cancer. I haven’t seen him since school forty years ago but I’d always regarded him as an all-round nice guy who was friendly with and accommodated everyone. From what I was told, he had a successful career in the local film industry and was well liked by everyone.

The Sungai Buloh Hospital (Image source: MyNewsHub)

After more than two hours of driving, we arrived at the public hospital. By then, there were already a fair few people there to basically say their last goodbyes. Other than his siblings and their families, there were also old school friends and his peers in the film industry. Some were already quietly sniffing and tearing away.

He looked emaciated. His brother quietly told us his cancer was now at Stage Four, meaning he didn’t have long to live. With many people milling around his bed, it was difficult to get personal with him. In my heart, I wanted to share the Gospel with him. After all, that was the motivation behind the visit but now, I found myself battling with my conscience. I wasn’t sure anymore if it was even possible.

But behind all the façade was fear. I was paranoid of rejection and right then, that possibility was real. In the middle of a growing crowd that had milled around my dying friend, I wanted to bail. Oh yes, I knew I was on a mission called to reveal Christ to him but in the end, it all amounted to a big fat nought. I had failed. 

With so many people present, I found myself paralysed with fear, afraid that either my friend would reject the offer or his family members might feel offended that I would share Christ. In the end, rejection won out. My desire to do what was right was overpowered but though that might be the case, I sold myself on the idea that I would return another day to fight the battle. I just had to choose a better time to do so. But, yes, I’d be back.

Shockingly, he passed away hardly two days later. While I was completely taken aback by the news, I was even more appalled by my very own mistake. I had cut myself way too much slack for work that I had meant to do for Christ. That chance of a lifetime to minister to an old friend had evaporated forever. 

He died not hearing the Good News. He died not being saved. Now, I was in a position realising there was no going back. What I lost was incalculable and because of my paranoia, my friend left this world without even the opportunity to accept Christ.

It’s times like this that we realise there’s no such thing as ‘I’ll do it another day.’ Losing my friend was a stark reminder that time isn’t always on our hands. It doesn’t wait for us. It comes and it goes and it’s gone, that’s forever. I regretted taking things too lightly when I was called to reveal the Word. 

It was painful for me to learn that when we’re called to do things for Him, God will make a way. He will have equipped us to deliver. He would have prepared the setting for us also. And in all of that, we should neither brook rests nor thoughts of deferment. If we’re hanging out for a nice break, wait till you get to Heaven. There, you’ll have plenty of time to do that. Right now, there’s work to be done.

#6 Life’s neither easy nor fair but God is reasonable

Life without temptations is wishful thinking. It’s not possible. In reality, life is full of them and often, they force us to make difficult decisions. Just as the Borgs said in Star Trek, “resistance is futile.” Well, maybe not quite but it isn’t easy anyway. 

Temptations in life are as many as they are varied. They take different forms from eating, drinking and womanising to pornography, kleptomania, gambling, gaming and social media networking. And just as we lick one, another can come along the way, which could be even more challenging.

Life’s unfair that way. We often view how other people have it good but we invariably don’t have it easy. We’re constantly on the back foot, struggling to hold our station in life. Inevitably, we find ourselves looking at things we yearn but knowing that we shouldn’t either for moral or for other reasons (maybe health). Being Christian just makes these temptations even larger than life.

But they needn’t have to be. Paul tells us this in his letter to the Corinthians:

“The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, He will show you a way out so that you can endure.” (1 Cor 10:13, NLT)

Paul reminds us that by trusting God, we have the means to walk away from temptations. By drawing strength from Him, we no longer have to feel depleted. We can actually walk away and no feel bad because the Lord will show us “a way out,” one that we have no problems understanding and embracing.

Temptations, like trouble, will never go away. They’re here and they’re everywhere we look. We can even turn something useful and handy into something so destructive that under the guise of temptation, it threatens us. But in Christ, no temptations are impossible to overcome. We only need to know where to look and who to call on.

#7 Never accept any excuses to quit

Image source: The Family First Coach

With modern culture so pervasively liberal these days, all it takes is how you feel about things. If you wake up and feel gender challenged, you can tell your friends that you’re no longer a man but a woman (or vice-versa). If you feel that the your country’s national anthem is racist (just because you don’t understand the context of the lyrics), you can start a war because of it. All because that’s how and what you feel at that moment.

Today’s culture tells us that if you feel like it, you can stop what you’re doing and do something else so long as you feel comfortable about it. If you decide that you’ve run out of steam or it doesn’t appeal to you anymore, just call it quits and walk away. If you don’t have the stomach to finish what you’ve set out in the first place, dump it because people tell you that you don’t owe anyone favours. It’s okay to call it a day. Who cares anyway?

God cares. He’s kept all of us alive for very good reasons. Perhaps it’s a good time to ask Him to tell you why he’s kept you alive. I know at least one person who realised the importance of knowing this and that’s because he visited death and somehow came back alive. In his gratefulness, he’s now living a life bigger than it ever was. He has set himself up ready to do big things for the Lord.

The problem with quitting once is that you’ve made it easier to quit again the next time and the next time. You’ve started a trend that gets progressively easier to walk out just because…well, because. By then, quitting becomes so habitual that it doesn’t only consume you but it’s become part of who you are. 

You can start things but you never finish any of them. It’s not a good reputation to have because firstly, it tells people you are unreliable and secondly, you will end up having nothing to show in your life. If you’re this way inclined, knowing your priorities means nothing. Having the best plans laid out is pointless. Because you haven’t got the right principles to carry them out.

Image source: Pinterest

We see this abundantly in churches everywhere. That’s one reason why they’re not growing. Older folk tell me it’s no longer ‘their time.’ They say it’s up to the youth. They say they’re mentally and physically tired and need to sit back instead. They tell me that they’ve worked all their lives and now just want to put their legs up and enjoy the rest of their lives. They claim it’s important to give youth a chance to take over from them.

Then the younger ones tell me they have school commitments. They have exams just around the corner. They have endless rounds of tuition classes to attend. They have extra-curricular activities that they cannot opt out from. They tell me in church, there’s too much politicking or that the elders frown on their ideas. Some youths even tell me their parents don’t like them doing things with certain other people in church. The list goes on and on.

There is no age discrimination when it comes to doing things for God. You can’t ever be too young or too old. So long as you can still breathe and talk, there are things you can do for Him. Don’t get yourself caught believing that you have nothing more to offer because that is simply untrue. It sounds so ridiculous how we can sometimes convince ourselves of things we have no basis in believing.

Lame excuses to quit don’t even leave breadcrumbs for God. They tell us that we put Him last in any order of importance. Whereas He has kept all of us alive, we then turn our backs on Him. And when we cite age as our ‘problem,’ God reminds us that it’s all a question of willingness. If you’re old but you’re willing, you make the difference because you’ll find a positive way to serve Him.

If we ever need a powerful reminder, look no further than these sobering and withering words from Jesus Himself:

“Anyone who puts a hand to the plough and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.” (Lk 9:62, NLT)

That’s a serious warning and Jesus hides nothing from its terseness. His words tell us unequivocally that our salvation hinges on how we bear fruit for the Father. Here, Jesus is supremely clear as He refers to the repercussions of succumbing to distractions. 

If we choose to lose our concentration with our tasks ahead of us, we won’t be fruitful for the Lord and the price to pay for this lack of productivity is frighteningly revealed – Jesus says we will hence be “not fit for the Kingdom of God.”

Before I joined my current church, I was a co-pastor at an earlier one where my family had called our spiritual home. Through the many years, we’d all struggled to stay afloat and to prime the programmes. 

Doing everything in church is like a one-man band (Image source: The Hindu)

Together with the pastor, his wife and daughter, we were the only hands on deck year in and out, to do what was necessary in order to prop the church up. Between my wife and I, we were treasurer and secretary for more years than we cared to count but that wasn’t all.

I was the music ministry leader and keyboardist, coordinating with the pastor as to the songs we would do every Sunday including Christmas, Good Friday, Easter Sunday and other events. For some of the earlier years, I also conducted the small choral group we cobbled together among ourselves. 

We learned to sing a capella with enough enthusiasm to light up the whole church ourselves. We didn’t care if we were singing to a dozen people or more. We did it because we wanted to do our best for God. Again that wasn’t all.

Every week, we faithfully produced the Sunday newsletter that eventually became a little magazine of sorts. If the former took up quite a bit of time, the latter was far more consuming. 

Every week, I had to write at least two articles to flesh out the magazine and it had to be ready for another church member to get copies printed out for our small congregation to take home and read. Needless to say, special events meant the magazine took on bumper editions; again, more tedious work but all the same, there was that gratifying feeling of doing things for the Lord.

As if that wasn’t enough, I had to make sure the same articles – and often even more – were uploaded to this website so that we can share them with our readers from all over the world. If our church offered at best a dozen people to read, putting it online had an even more rewarding experiencing, knowing that we could actually reach a far larger crowd than we could ever achieve locally.

Of course, it was all very tiring work. Of course, sometimes we feel like giving up. Naturally too, there are moments when I might even question if it was all worthwhile. Seeing the apathy in our church, most of what we did were essentially thankless, to be honest. 

But we don’t live to do such things to earn pats on our backs. We do them because they are pleasing to God. We also do them because we desire to show Him how much we love Him.

God has equipped us with sufficiency. He has made sure that in each of us, we are given enough tools to accomplish what He expects in us to do. There are no excuses. None whatsoever. Remember the late American football coach, Vince Lombardi’s famous words, “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”

Stay in God’s plan

Image source: Ministry to Youth

Purpose. Priority. And Plan. And Principles. All of these are not just important and indispensable. The fact remains, however, that we can all make them out however way we want but when we are bereft of God’s wisdom, none of them will make sense. And when we don’t recognise His importance, they’ll turn out in a mess.

But if God’s purpose is our priority and our plan, everything falls into place as they should. That means acceding to and embracing God’s purpose from which then we can identify what our priorities are. From there, we can formulate the right plan undergirded by righteous principles. Seeing that His wisdom is the wellspring of our existence, it would make sense to go before the Lord and seek Him to guide us.

Let us ask Him to work diligently in all our hearts, to transform us from merely letting troubles roll us over to seizing every opportunity to rise above them. By acknowledging our dependence on Him, we pray we will be able to make hay even when the sun doesn’t shine. 

Hopefully we are teachable enough to seek Him and to hear from Him as to what it is He has in mind for us to do. We understand that in each of us, we have different capabilities, skills and experiences. God has also given every one of us talents that make us stand out from one another. Prayerfully He will reveal His purpose for all of us so that we can respond as a Body of Christ to be of service to Him.

Let us understand that with these opportunities that come our way, troubles are no longer stumbling blocks but stepping stones to things that can be greater than what we can imagine. We need to ask the Lord to elevate us to the biggest platform possible to be powerful, inspiring and influential giants who do great things for Him. 

Along the way, we will need all the help we can from the Lord to remove every possible menacing distraction that detract us from what we must do for Him but in the main, let us be as steadfast and humble in diligently fulfilling His purpose. 

Because these distractions can undermine everything that we desire to do for the Lord, we need to ask Him to give us the strength and courage to walk away from giving up, to not be afraid to walk the extra mile and to trust Him even in the brink of the biggest challenges in our lives. 

We need to realise that it is often when we walk on the edge of the sword that God will manifest His strength in our weakness. It is then that His might be attested to that brings untold magnificence to His glory.

To stay in God’s plan, we need endurance. We cannot afford to be short-sighted; neither can we be flippant. Endurance must define our commitment, determination, faith and far-sightedness. It must also embody our greatest priorities and moral principles. 

If we are to remain within God’s plan and purpose, we must always be prepared. We cannot fail Him and we cannot be half-hearted about the tasks that lay ahead of us. Instead we must stay obedient to His bidding just as much as we must have the same desire today as we will tomorrow in wanting to be on the right side of the Lord.

Let us also not forget that without God’s hand in all this, there will be no priorities, no principles, no plans and of course, no purpose because none of them will make sense without His involvement. 

Image source: No Longer I 

Nothing then will please Him. Nothing will bear fruit that makes us fit for the Kingdom of God. But to strive for excellence, to lift ourselves above all adversities and to not be thwarted by discouragements, we can then make God’s purpose our true priority and plan.

Only then can we be confident of hearing God tell us in the Kingdom of Heaven, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Mt 25:21, NIV).

Information on sources used:

Lenski, Richard C.H. (1963) The Interpretation of St Paul’s First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Press). Available at https://www.amazon.es/INTERPRETATION-PAULS-SECOND-EPISTLES-CORINTHIANS/dp/B000O2S9YI/ref=sr_1_3/261-4898975-1978563?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519660694&sr=1-3 (in Spanish but you can use Google Translate)

Straeter, Kelsey (Feb 2018) Kathie Lee Gifford Opens Up About Husband’s Affair, Rejoicing Over His Death & Battling Loneliness with the Joy of the Lord (Colorado Springs, CO: FaithIt). Accessible at https://faithit.com/kathie-lee-gifford-husbands-affair-rejoicing-death-battling-loneliness-i-am-second/

Warren, Rick (Dec 2013) The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? Special Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan). Available at https://www.amazon.com/Purpose-Driven-Life-What-Earth/dp/031033750X