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| Family members can be annoying sometimes. Especially people like my mother and my brother.. but the latter is not so much a problem anymore now that he's in camp 5 days a week. Example: my mom and I are in a movie theatre watching Mission: Impossible 3. Right as the protagonist is about to pull off an awesome stunt, my brother calls (he was prompted by my mom - who naturally made me send the sms right before that) and my mom hands the phone over for me to answer. Of course, the cinema is so noisy that my brother can't hear anyway, and by the time I realise that I am making no progress trying to make myself heard, the stunt scene ends. Does anyone else have problems like this? Do I see a hand raised over there?
When it comes to family or even friends, Screwtape has some interesting points to share on the topic of discord. Strange as it seems, we can be brought to believe that some people use certain looks or tones of voice irritating or annoying to us - on purpose - even if they are only used because that person characteristically uses them. If, for example, your brother says something that struck a nerve - did he use that tone with the intention of irritating you, or does he always use that tone? Even more strange, and most unfortunately, we can also be brought to believe that (in self-righteousness) we do not have similar characteristics annoying to other people. This actually may be the more dangerous trap to fall into, because do not have 24-hour videotapes of ourselves - and thus we are incapable of observing our actions.
This limited grasp of ourselves and of each other comes into play during disagreements. Have you ever noticed how domestic arguments always seem to be sparked off by the most minute things? How do such simple misunderstandings become such heated quarrels? It is a double standard to expect others to take what we say at face value and then read too much into the things they are saying. We often go away from arguments convinced that we are innocent, that the other party is in the wrong, because we do not expect others to also read what we say too sensitively. However, the following scenario is quite possibly worst-case: going into a disagreement with the express intent of offending someone with what we say, yet becoming grieved when the other party is offended.
When we pray for family and friends, we should also never pray for things that we only imagine are there - or reduce prayer to self-serving purposes. For example, when you pray about the brother that uses that particular tone of voice, the one that irritates you so much, do you pray for self-control in tense situations, or do you pray that he'll stop using that tone to irritate you? There is a slight difference between the two: in the first case, you pray because you know that your brother doesn't use that tone intentionally; in the second, you assume that he uses it to annoy you on purpose, thus creating the impression that your brother intentionally hurts you. In the process of imagining things about another person, you may even overlook the very tangible problems that actually are affecting that person. Don't pray for others to stop affecting you; pray that you'll learn to accept the way people act towards you. | | |
| Thomas Edison once famously said 'creativity is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." The prolific inventor and holder of 1,093 U.S. patents (there are more in other countries) knew what inventing was about - tons and tons of hard work. In the same way, hard work applies to all the other aspects of our lives.
The transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing - in the spiritual context, that is the first hurdle every new convert experiences. The high hopes and lofty ambitions in place from baptism quickly dissipate when a new believer realises church 'just ain't the peaches and cream' its made out to be. Ecstacy soon gives way to disappointment in the huge anticlimax that arises in the first few weeks after conversion. The thing is, God wants us to experience this disappointment. James 1:2 says: 'Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.' God, in many ways, is like our human fathers here on earth. When we learn to walk, we stumble and fall over and over again, often ending up a screaming, teary mess. But our fathers did not carry us - rather, they let us carry on until we succeeded! Would we have learned how to walk if our fathers simply picked us up and carried us wherever we wanted to go? In the same way, we mature spiritually by picking ourselves up from our falls. James continues in 1:4: 'Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.' I also like something Bono says about his walk; roughly put, you have to beat up your faith over and over again so when you're done, you have something that has withstood all the pounding it can take - and that is when you know your faith has been strengthened.
There is something good that comes from all this 'picking ourselves up' business. After we fail or are disappointed, we become much less dependant on raw emotion. The joy of accepting Christ, the anxiety to meet new people who share in your faith - all this multiplies the disappointment that comes when you realise church isn't all that its made out to be. We gradually come to accept that being a Christian is REALLY hard work; and our bonus? We become much more solidly planted in our faith, and we also are not tempted as easily. Sounds like a good deal to me. | | |
| Allow me to pick on the church for a little bit. (That's a controversial opening sentence - I hope I have caught your attention!) In chapter 2 of Screwtape, C.S. Lewis's protagonist converts to Christianity - and faces the challenge of attending church for the very first time.
Evangelism is conducted in a rather peculiar way in the modern church. I attended a service in City Harvest once (my second and last time ever...) and happened to watch a presentation on a mission trip to that big country with the red flag and the star - you know the one i'm talking about - where hundreds of people must have participated. They claimed to have saved thousands upon thousands all over China; they never went on to describe what they left behind to keep them going. They went, they saved, and they returned... was there anything else? My point here is that in the Christian pursuit of evangelism we often leave little behind in terms of support for our new-found brothers and sisters in Christ. Screwtape mentions that although the person himself has professed belief in Christ, his habits, 'both mental and bodily', are still of the old way. Leaving such a person to his own devices would be a major flaw in the evangelistic process. How would he know how to start studying the bible? How would he engage in fellowship with other Christians? Who would be the spiritual 'guide', if you will?
Do you remember the first few sundays after you were converted to Christianity? Can you remember the sense of awkwardness and surprise that came with entering a church building? Our perceptions of a church are largely pictorial and unfounded in anything other than perhaps a stadium full of worshippers at a revival. How disappointing then to realise what a normal sunday service is like! Humans are by nature visually-oriented. We hold the picture of the 'model Christian' in our heads: the one who wears the shirt and tie on sunday, stands in the middle of the sanctuary, and sings from a hymnal. Here is where I challenge you: just what is a model Christian supposed to look like? Is he even supposed to look like anything in particular? Break down your presumptions and visual barriers - Satan only uses them to defeat you.
Instead of focusing on what the Christian looks like, we should focus instead on what he is like spiritually. If we pay attention to the tangible people standing around us during worship, like the woman behind you who sings off-key or the little boy in the back who can't stay still, our perception of the Church would be rather weak. What if we think of the church not as a physical place, or merely a group of people? What if we include all those that have gone before us, all in this world and all the angels in heaven, every single one glowing with the power and glory of the Lord God Almighty... is that not a much more powerful image? Screwtape uses these words: '...the Church as we (demons) see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That...is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy.'
For those of you who read this and realise a little spark is going off in your head, I pray that you work over the things I have said. Change the way you see things - challenge what you believe and the result will be a stronger faith than you had before, because now you know you've tested it. | | |
| I apologize for the recent lack in postings - The past two weeks I have been away in Thailand and have not had access to any form of media, and now I have somehow managed to bury myself in learning music theory.
In light of recent events among the youth, I'd like to share a little about Competence, and how we've come to view it. First of all, the word itself is usually associated with 'Performance', and we all know how to use the word 'Incompetent', usually in a derogatory statement.
Now I'd like to share a little from the book of Galatians. I'm sure a lot of us have heard of the fruit of the spirit, and some of us no doubt have memorized them. Galatians 5:22-23 says "but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." If you've read Chris Tomlin's book 'The Way I Was Made', you'll find near the back an eye-opening story. It basically goes like this: Chris' friend Nick calls him up one day and asks if Competence is a fruit of the Spirit. Chris loosely quotes from Galatians, and confidently tells Nick that no, it is not. Nick responds by saying that the church today teaches Competence like it IS.
We've probably all fallen into that trap at one point in our lives. And I can't blame you - it is hard not to! We've watched American Idol - we know what its like to criticize a performer. But somewhere along the way, we've allowed ourselves to turn worship into another big performance. I'm guilty of it too - and I admit that musicians are a lot harder on themselves than their audiences are on them. I can't tell you how badly I want to play like the Edge or Joe Satriani, or sing like Bono or even Tom Anderson. I can't tell you the number of times I've beaten myself up over missing a note or not knowing the music, or not playing a song well enough to do it justice.
What I can tell you though, is that God does not want all these things. He doesn't want you to hit all the notes, or play all the right chords, or come up with an amazing guitar solo. If he did, He would have created everyone with perfect pitch and fast fingers. What He does want, though, is a loving response to the love He has shown you. We don't sing for Him, we sing to him. He is our audience - an audience of One.
I'm not saying that musicians are now allowed to not try their best to create a suitable atmosphere for worship to happen. Certainly, worship only occurs when the Holy Spirit has filled the people in the room, but another product of the anointing of the Spirit is the preparation involved on the musicians' parts. Timothy says that we must lead with excellence, and surely that includes the lead worshipers in the youth worship team. Any musician filled with the Spirit is going to want to make sure he does his best for God, and that eventually translates (coupled with other factors - I shall not indulge you, for it is complicated) into a flowing worship service.
In conclusion, I shall say this: we, the musicians, are going to be trying a lot harder, and we hope that you, our brothers and sisters in the youth, will try with us. Please keep us in your prayers, because you are in ours. | | |
| Some definitions:
Jargon - confused unintelligible language.
Materialism - 1: a theory that physical matter is the fundamental reality and that all being, processes, and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter. 2: a preoccupation with or stress on material rather than intellectual or spiritual things.
Screwtape, in the opening lines of the novel, describes the effect of using 'jargon' over 'argument'. What he means by jargon is the effect of confusing the conscience by blurring the lines between 'Right' and 'Wrong'. If you watch a news report, do you find yourself labelling the issue something like 'outworn', 'pacifying', or 'ruthless'? The problem with words like these is that they register as shades of grey in your conscience, instead of very distinct black and white; and ultimately they do not tell you if an issue is right or wrong, or true or false.
The contest between using jargon and argument is this: by using jargon, the devil is able to discreetly confuse us without awakening the reasoning powers of the conscience; an argument forces us to think and make a decision on the validity of an issue. Instead of coming to a conclusion, we are led to drop the case in the middle of an investigation.
Argument causes us to focus on universal issues. Is abortion right or wrong? Is any kind of war valid? Is a white lie really a lie, since it doesn't really cause any harm? The devil has created a world on earth where we are overwhelmed with sensual experiences, and he tries to draw us away from debatable issues and focus our attention on the superficial sense experiences. In other words, he tries to turn us into Materialists, and distracts us from the very much more important spirituality of things.
I can assume that all of us on occasion get that feeling where we feel that we are on the verge of uncovering a universal truth; and right before we receive the revelation we are 'pulled back to reality' - we see the bus driving up the road or hear the passer-by talking on his handphone. Is that the true reality? I think our attention is constantly fixed on what we feel, rather than on what we think, and we are led to believe that life is an experience to be felt or enjoyed - nothing further! REAL life is an issue, not a sensation!
We find it hard sometimes to believe in things intangible and unfamiliar to us because we are often confronted by the tangibility of things quite simply ordinary to us, just like the bus and the yuppie I mentioned a while ago. The mere fact that they are so ordinary is enough to drive home the impression that whatever we cannot see, we cannot believe.
On a final note, I think that we should perhaps remember that the devil does his best work by simply confusing people. He does not need to teach us that he is in the right, because quite frankly he is not. Rather, he only needs to keep us away from the truth, and that is by far more dangerous for us. | | |
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