Jan 15, 2013 | Faith
Isn’t is a wonder that it doesn’t take 20/20 vision, glasses, or contact lenses to notice the tiny faults in other people? Out of all the faults ever existed in the universe, the hardest ones to see are my own.
There’s this really wise saying that asks a cute question, Why do you worry at the speck in your friend’s eye, while there’s a log in your own eye? It’s a good question, wouldn’t you say? Consider the irony of the person who has the log in his eye offering help to remove the speck in the other person’s eye. (Sounds familiar, anyone?) Naturally, the counsel goes something like this, Why don’t you first remove the log in your eye, then you can see clearer to deal with the speck. (Duh!)
A story was told of a king, a generally good one, who did something terrible. (Yes, normal, good people can do terrible things.) He got hooked on a lady, and he took her to his chamber. Problem was, she was married. To one of his captains no less.
To make matters worse, she got pregnant. So to hide his deeds, the king called the captain home from the battlefield and told him to rest and go home to his wife. But the good man refused, because he felt wrong being home while his compatriots fought in war. So the king arranged that the captain returned to the forefront of the battle, to essentially ensure his death. Terrible, I know.
In came a trusted advisor of the king, the Rebuker. He told the king a tale of a rich man and a poor man. The rich man owned many sheep and cattle, but the poor one, only a little lamb, which he took care tenderly over the years. One day the rich man decided to party, and instead of taking one of his flocks, he went to the poor man, took his lamb, and killed it for his feast.
The king was outraged by this injustice. He said, “That rich man deserved to die!”
The Rebuker’s next words must be really piercing. He said to the king, “You are that man.”
At the end of the story, the king was in horror when he realized what he did, who he was. But the interesting thing was his end was better than the ending he would have given to the rich man in the story; he was ready to kill the rich man.
Isn’t it a wonder that we can be harsher to others’ faults when we are blinded by our own? It really is a good idea to remove the log in our eyes first, before we deal with others’ specks. Perhaps a few of us really need to be good surgeons to help remove those specks. But what likely would happen is, when we remove the log in our eyes, the specks disappear too.
Jan 11, 2013 | Reading Life
Year in Review, part 3.
Because I read a lot last year, I could write a lot. I had a personal target on the number of blog hits, and thanks to the endorsement of some popular friends, I surpassed that target by a few hundreds.
I write to clarify my own thought process. This blog, for example, is a repository of random reflections, and serves as a personal record of life events, sort of speak. I’m always thrilled when people can resonate with what I write—an added bonus, in my estimation.
I did two series in 2012 that I thought were definitive in terms of my worldview and perspective. One was on humanity, on being human, and being a global citizen, titled “A Child of All Nations,” and the other was a series of personal testimonies and how I perceived my life thus far, “This is My Story”. I was proud of these series, not because they were groundbreaking or anything, but because they represented the culmination of thought processes that had been simmering for a while. The posts associated with the two series are listed here.
A Child of All Nations
A Child of All Nations
Human Strudel
I’m Complicated, and So Are You
Which Mirror Tells the Truth?
Bird’s-eye View, Personal Secrets
If I Lived Then
This is My Story
The Richest Girl in the World
Lady Vera
The Person Inside
Unlikely Friends
My Father’s Legacy
The Highest Education
Teach Me to Dream
Blood is Thicker Than Wine
The One That Tops the List
And finally, the one I was most excited about was…
The Education of Jesus Christ
What I’ve observed in this writing experience is that the more personal I make the piece, the more popular it tends to be. Which is a bit strange for me, since I’d rather people be interested in my thoughts than in my life.
So I was particularly happy that The Education of Jesus Christ was the most popular post last year, again thanks to friends’ endorsement, because it encapsulated some of the most mind-blowing things I had reflected upon. The post was not about me; it was about Jesus.
2012 was a good blogging year.
Jan 4, 2013 | Faith
I’ve been an attendee. I’ve been a volunteer. Now I reflect on another role: a seminar presenter.
But before that, some other highlights from GYC:
Star struck… by Dr. Hasel | Adam Ramdin’s Sabbath sermon – simply awesome | David Shin’s last evening devotion – de-romanticizing revolution | Sam Bonello’s plenary session – Sam and Katie have got to live one of the most interesting lives in present-day Adventism | Team Revolution’s 5k | Networking with Adventist engineers.
1. Size Matters
I had never in my life felt so short as when I stood in front of a long and full room for my first seminar. Some 230+ people came, most likely because of Adam Ramdin’s—with whom I co-presented the seminar—fantastic sermon earlier that day (but they saw me instead, ha!). Perhaps also, the topic of the seminar—Knowing and Living God’s Will for My Life—simply scratched where it itched, especially for this teenagers-to-young-adults age group.
I felt a little overwhelmed during the first session, since I imagined there would only be a few rows of people. I prepared materials for that audience size, which was what I was used to with ANEW or other ministry events. It ended up being more serious than I thought it would be, and upon reflection that day, I had to change certain things for the 2nd and 3rd seminars to make them more conversational.
I couldn’t really articulate why, but basically with the size of the audience and the layout of the room, I, as a speaker, needed to adjust the content of my presentation, delivery, posture, and voice, to engage the audience effectively (measured somewhat by gut feeling). I don’t think I could’ve realized that had I not been in this situation. Lesson learned.
2. A Piece of Me
I was debating whether or not to include a personal life experience for the last seminar to illustrate a point. I did, and I think it helped make the point. I learned that as a speaker, it wasn’t enough to present materials; I had to give something of myself to the presentation.
The personal touch, the personal signature, is something that makes a presentation different because it is person A who gives it instead of person B. It’s not a matter of originality or of the vanity of being different, but it’s a matter of God’s individualized calling: there’s a reason why God calls A for a specific task.
The giving of oneself is a hard thing to do. It takes vulnerability, a little courage, and lots of prayer. But ministry is about being vulnerable, and I love this quote:
Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it… Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 190.
3. Give What You Can Give
I’m not a seasoned speaker. I didn’t have much material that I could pull out from to talk about following God’s will. In fact I had never spoken on the subject before. Preparing a 3-part seminar was already a stretch, and I recycled some materials too.
It’s hard to answer the question, How did the seminars go? I honestly don’t know. I hope they helped some. I hope that the seminars provided a venue where the Holy Spirit could speak to people. It was not so much what I said, but how the Holy Spirit made application to the hearts.
Coming out of the last seminar, I had this thought: I gave what I could give. It’s up to God what He would do with it, but I offered these presentations as my offering to Him.
