Spring & Summer Terms

I have not blogged for the longest time. Did not even use the computer much since my final exams were over. Since I was not stuck at my desk studying, I have not been keeping up with my blog. I know it's weird but when you see a lot of blog entries, that's a sign that the exams are approaching! My means of release and 'distraction'. Much has happened since my last entry. I thank God for His faithfulness in seeing me through a very hectic term last term. Too 3 courses of total 9 credits and average of 12-hour week is quite a full plate. On top of that, managed to keep up my involvement in Alpha on Friday nights, church and swimming routine. Managed to stick in 3 musicals since a lot of good performances are put up nearing the Easter season. Managed to keep up my grades so far, with a little sacrifice of sleep. All in all, it was a fruitful term by the grace of God.

Visited the Canadian Rockies, at Banff with a few friends. I love the sight of the mountains. They are majestic, awe inspiring and simply breath-takingly beautiful. It was a 900km drive and I went with some friends from College. The drive was not easy on the little ones but generally we all made it alright, despite the distance. It was beautiful and scenic drive, and we broke the journey for a night on the way there. I love the quaint little towns that we visited and stayed in. It was good just to take time off from reading, studying and internet connections. Hikes, walks, visit to the Columbian Icefields, the historical Banff HotSpring hotel, taking lots of pictures and not forgetting, eating. Some parts of the beautiful lakes and waterfalls were still frozen cause it was still Spring. Then again each season has its own beauty. We managed to keep within our budget even though we took a number of meals outside that was not factored into the budget. I enjoyed the opportunity to drive a 7-seater Dodge-Caravan for some of the journey. No joke considering I can't see all the way to the front, my side or the back and vehicles here are not installed with reverse signals! It was great fun familiarising with driving on the wrong side of the road and trying to remember not to use my Malaysian driving skills thereby giving my co-pilot and passengers a scare.

This week's been pretty busy as I had the opportunity of serving those who attended the Pastors' Conference. The sessions were superb and felt really blessed by the messages. The Lord really moved among the participants and my heart was thrilled to see these ministers being refreshed and ministered to during worship, the messages and also the Communion and commissioning service at the end. Truly the Lord is so good. Most of the speakers had pastoral experience and even practised as a psychologist, but more importantly they all had gone through many painful experiences. They range from wayward son who turned to drugs, infertility that led to an adoption of 4 children from different races, and another who after choosing to adopt a daughter only to find that she would be permanently disable from birth. We were blessed by their honest sharing from their own journey. It gave us a glimpse of how the Lord brought them through their painful experiences and continues to sustain them in them. It was a soul-searching time for all and I'm glad the conference timetable was quite relaxed, giving the participants enough time to rest and reflect on what's being shared. Darrell Johnson was the Conference Pastor and took one evening session to help these pastors attend to their prayer life. It's basic and vital lifeline to keep our walk with God and ministry fresh and alive.

One important highlight is I got a scholarship for another year of studies. It is not a full scholarship but will cover major portion of my tuition. This is such a tremendous blessing. I've been praying, thinking but trying not to be anxious about it. God came through and I can only whisper my humble and grateful thanks. I am taking 3 courses this Spring and Summer term although the scholarship does not cover for this. But with the annual rising tuition, I hope to do as much as I can, as fast as I can. I am grateful to the Lord for the part-time job He has provided me which I will continue to work. I love the job and as Spring School starts next week, I'll be able to see all the preparation work my department has been doing slowly being executed. It's pretty exciting. I also have 2 short-term part-time jobs this Summer, which is to assist Dr Karen Jobes who will be lecturing 2 weeks on Esther, and the other is to coordinate the one day Prayer Retreat led by Dr Christopher Hall. Since there is only one Prayer Retreat this year, I expect the turn out will be quite good. Then in mid-August, I will have another job to help to organise the Orientation for incoming international students. That should be fun but that means I must be really disciplined and try to cover all my base with all that I am seeking to do and still want to play and do sight seeing! I am hoping to catch the Jazz Fest, Folk Festival, Dragon Boat competition, visit Bruchard Gardens in Victoria Island, etc.

Yet there are painful and sad news in the midst of all these praise reports. This is a season of goodbyes for me as many of my closest buddies will be returning home. God has provided them at a crucial time of my stay here and almost as if just to see me through this season, because they will be returning home although had initally planned to stay longer when they came. Another piece of sad news, came from a friend who had returned to Singapore with her family (she is married) for a visit, only to be told that her father was to be admitted for a major operation upon her arrival. What a shock but the family had chose to keep it from her until she reached home. Then this week, a fellow volunteer a death at the Skytrain (equaivalent to the MRT in Malaysia) station. He was on the way home in the evening and suddenly a man loomed in front of an oncoming train. He witnessed the entire ordeal although he could not tell what the man looked like or whether he was pushed, fell or jumped into the track. This is such a traumatic incident to witness even though it was a complete stranger. Thus the landscapes of our lives are full of highs and lows weaved together at any one time.

Mark this date

Did you know that ... next month on Thursday 4th May, 2006, at two minutes and three seconds after 1-o'clock the time and date will be exactly: 01:02:03 04/05/06.

This will never happen again.

P/s: This took place on April 5th in North America because they write the date as mm/dd/yy.

Kissing Nonsense Goodbye

I've been giving thought to the issue of dating as I have the joy of watching new friendships develop among my friends. Here in North America, dating is very much part of the culture and it's quite a different concept. I'm trying to learn more about it ... before I open my mouth to speak to my young Canadian friends or offer counsel on this matter. This article has given me much food for thought. Since I am a faithful advocate of Joshua Harris' book 'Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship', it is interesting for me to read this critic and this author's take on the coursthip-dating debate.

Kissing Nonsense Goodbye
Is God's way "courtship" or "dating"? A slew of recent books try to provide the answer, but they're asking the wrong question.

Well, I kissed dating goodbye. But it sure wasn't by choice. For the last four years, I have lived in a very conservative Midwestern town of 35,000. Jefferson City, Missouri, is a place where it's harder for a college-educated, twentysomething, professional, Christian man to find a date than it is to find a good coffeehouse or bookstore. And Starbucks and Barnes & Noble are nowhere near this town, if that tells you anything.

Joshua Harris hasn't made my life any easier. In fact, thanks to him, my future wife—wherever she is— may very well have given up the idea of ever dating. Harris's surprise 1997 bestseller, I Kissed Dating Goodbye (penned when he was only 21), has caught the attention of hordes of young women of my generation—particularly those who are evangelical Christians.

In his book, Harris encourages young Christians to look beyond our Western culture's dominant paradigm for developing serial intimate relationships (namely, the process of "dating") and instead commit to "purposeful singleness." Romantic relationships, he suggests, should exist only as a means to preparing for marriage—what's commonly called "courting." Harris avoids that quaint-sounding term in I Kissed Dating Goodbye, but the idea is implicit in his promotion of relationships that emphasize long-term commitment and the supervision of the community of believers over and against traditional dating, which he feels emphasizes self-centered emotional and physical satisfaction.

Harris's book struck a chord with an entire generation of young believers. The book far exceeded the sales expectations of Multnomah, its publisher, and has spawned an entire genre of works on how to do relationships in a "Christian way." Recent titles include Dating and Waiting (Kregel, 2000) by William Risk, Boundaries in Dating (Zondervan, 2000) by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, and I Gave Dating a Chance (WaterBrook, 2000), Jeramy Clark's almost-as-popular response to Harris.

Though the semantics often differ (Harris's "principled romance" isn't all that different from Clark's acceptable kind of "dating"—they're both basically dating with specific boundaries), the message of the books is generally the same. To wit: in a culture that seems increasingly disinclined toward the self-sacrificing attitudes that encourage healthy relationships, those who seek to follow Jesus through their relationships need to establish unique rules for ensuring that those relationships do indeed honor God.

This is obviously a need. Even some academics at secular institutions realize this. University of Chicago professors Amy and Leon Kass recently edited a large volume titled Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying (University of Notre Dame Press, 2000); the title is taken from the closing line of a poem Robert Frost composed for his daughter on her wedding day. The readings, which range in origin from Genesis to Darwin, bring into focus a time when courting—of a rather different sort than Harris describes—was the norm for most in the Western world.

There's a reason why these books are generating such a response. In its popular iterations in our culture, dating can often become manipulative, confusing, and even abusive—not to mention downright frustrating.

For instance, I have one roommate who is legendary among the other three of us in the house for being a "Christian Casanova." Somehow, he manages to scrounge up dates almost weekly in a town that I thought was bereft of possibilities. He sees these dates almost as job interviews. If the first date works out and the woman maintains his interest, then great; he'll ask her out again. If he sees no romantic possibilities, then that's great as well; he'll remain her friend.

But more than a few of these women are confused by his ongoing friendship, and some of them have misinterpreted it, only to be sorely disappointed later when he has to give them the dreaded "I only want to be friends" talk. Although both parties involved are committed Christians, and although my roommate means no harm, some of these women end up feeling hurt and used after their hopes for a long-term relationship are dashed. After all, they thought they were dating.

Perhaps the ambiguity and angst that the prevailing model of dating can create point to the true problem with mere dating. One of the most striking things in the Kasses' book is that, under the old models of courtship, there was little ambiguity about the nature of the relationship. People who courted were doing so because they wanted to be married. Under courtship systems, there was never any agonizing about when to have that other most dreaded of dating talks—the "define the relationship" (or DTR) conversation—because that's how you began the courtship in the first place. If the relationship wasn't defined as "likely leading to marriage," then you wouldn't court. All those misunderstandings and hurt feelings were minimized by having them at the beginning.

However, the strictures placed on courting couples under these systems gave them little privacy to be open with each other. For this reason (and other more banal reasons, like changing sociological and economic models in the u.s. after the turn of the 20th century), this kind of courtship gave way to dating.

Harris and the other authors in this genre aren't doing away with dating—they just want Christians to date with more discretion and accountability than is common in the wider culture.

"It's Not Good for Man to Be Alone"
In 1998, however, Don Raunikar took Harris's idea to the next level. In Choosing God's Best (Multnomah), the Houston psychoanalyst seized upon the concept of courting and did to it what we evangelicals seem to long for these days: he made it formulaic.

In fact, Raunikar's philosophy in Choosing God's Best could be summed up as "courtship good, dating bad." And that's not an oversimplification. Consider these statements from the book: "Dating has a self-centered focus" and "Dating quickly leads to emotional and physical involvement without development of a deep, lasting friendship." Both of these statements may certainly be true, but too much hyperbole can be a dangerous thing. My parents dated before they got married, and they're still together. Don't their 30-plus years of marriage indicate that they managed to develop a "deep, lasting friendship"? Good thing that my mom didn't get a copy of Choosing God's Best from one of her sorority sisters in 1967 before she started dating my dad. Otherwise, my dad's prospects might have been as bad as mine are now.

Raunikar also tends to use God as the justification for his views, as if it is God who hates dating and blesses courting. Consider this observation from Choosing God's Best: "Although the Bible never mentions the words 'dating' or 'courtship,' it does give principles and guidelines for one-to-one, male/female relationships. The Bible says that after God created goodness all around, He looked at man and said, 'It is not good for man to be alone' (Genesis 2:18)."

No offense intended, but if Genesis 2:18 is the only biblical proof you can muster to explain why dating is evil and courtship is God-ordained, then your argument is fragile. After all, the courtship-versus-dating debate is simply a disagreement about how to get to the goal of linking two people in a covenant relationship with each other and God. There is nothing inherent in either convention that is either biblical or antibiblical. In fact, if I were relying strictly on the models of relationship-building I see in Scripture, I wouldn't be courting either. I would either be waiting for God to create a wife for me out of my rib or expecting my parents to select for me a comely bride from among the other families in our subdivision. The realities of modern life no longer permit us to choose our spouses this way.

I don't mean to dismiss the work of those who think that their ideas of courtship are an improvement on the culturally prevalent dating models. In fact, there are some people who have been so hurt in dating relationships that they may need Raunikar's rules to begin healing—not to mention the hundreds who say they've been helped by Harris's books or other works in the genre.

Harris, in his new book Boy Meets Girl (the story of the author's courtship and marriage in the wake of I Kissed Dating Goodbye), acknowledges that there are no hard and fast scriptural rules regarding dating—only general principles. And, happily, he gives a Christocentric reason (as opposed to appealing to decontextualized Pauline pronouncements or shadowy Old Testament references) for his philosophy: "Though our Lord never specifically addressed the topic of dating and courtship in his earthly ministry, He answered our questions about the right way to do relationships by answering the broader question of the right way to live life."

The Unspoken Problem
Nevertheless, for all of their merits, these works fail to address a much more basic issue related to the problem of dating and singleness: Why is it a problem?

As my friend Al Hsu notes in his excellent 1997 book, Singles at the Crossroads (IVP):

The average Christian bookstore has more than a hundred titles on marriage and another hundred about parenting, children, and family issues. In contrast, these stores stock only about a dozen books about singleness. Half of these are geared for "single-again" divorcees or widows. Of the remainder, most are about "how to find the right one." … Instead of dealing with problems that singles might face, these books seem to think singleness is the problem. They instruct the reader on how to bide one's time until the right person comes along. In other words, they imply that the solution to the problem of singleness is to get married.

Hsu goes on to argue convincingly that American evangelicals have all but made an idol out of the human concepts of marriage and family, thus marginalizing single Christians, who are just as complete in Christ as any married person.

The courtship books, it seems, don't begin with this premise. For instance, by stating in Choosing God's Best that "God's solution for man's aloneness is marriage, not dating," Raunikar implicitly labels singleness as something in need of a solution—in other words, a problem.

But these days it seems marriage may well be more of a problem than singleness. I have lost count of the number of friends and acquaintances near my age who either have already gone through a divorce or are in the midst of one. And the vast majority of them are committed believers who come from solidly evangelical congregations where divorce is not taken lightly.

This widespread reality doesn't jibe with the promarriage rhetoric I heard growing up in the youth group of a Southern Baptist megachurch. We were told constantly that "God has that special someone out there for you" and that "you should be preparing yourself for that person even now." My youth minister never said anything about how difficult marriage might be after we found that special someone. I can't blame him; he was too busy making sure that we would defer sex until marriage to tell us much about what came afterward.

Critics in non-Christian contexts have noted this aspect of the problem. Reflecting on the Kasses' book in The Atlantic Monthly, Peter Berkowitz articulates one of the things that has always troubled me about most Christian advice on marriage and dating: "If our anti-romantic tendencies persuade us to expect too little from marriage, our romantic tendencies seduce us into expecting too much."

In some ways, overemphasizing (and thus over-romanticizing) marriage may have created more problems among evangelicals than it has solved. Marriage is not always the solution, and singleness is not always a problem. In fact, singleness actually may be preferable to marriage in some cases. Just ask the apostle Paul.

Whatever the case, single believers should not fall prey to the world's trap of entering into dating relationships lightly or without accountability. By the same token, nobody and no book should elevate culturally bound ideas about courtship, marriage, or family over the family of God.

Rob Marus is the director of Mainstream Missouri Baptists in Jefferson City, where he serves as a coteacher of the Twentysomething Singles at First Baptist Church.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
June 11, 2001, Vol. 45, No. 8, Page 46

For more articles, visit Christianity Today.

First Saturday night

What was the first Saturday night like?

Hopeless. Overwhelmed with grief. Emptiness. The pain of knowing that they will never see Him again, the one they have loved and followed the past 3 years. Guilty, for abandoning him when he really needed me. Ashamed. Maybe if I spoke up, he would not have died. Crushed dreams. Abandoned. Betrayed. Lost. Despair. Tears. Memories of the good times... his smile, his kindness to those who were usually ignored and outcast, his words and his look. His eyes would bore through me and felt like he saw right through me. He knew my every thought and deepest motives, yet there was no condemnation. They really hurt him. I could see his body writhe with pain. He didn't deserve to die, and definitely not like that. It's not fair!

Questions and more questions. Is this it? Was the past 3 years in vain and just a dream? Did he know this would happen? Why didn't he stop them? Why did he have to die and leave us all? Didn't he say he was the Messiah? Was that all a hoax, a lie, or perhaps a failed mission? But what about all the miracles? Where is Judas? What do we do now? Should I go back to my father's house and admit that I've been a fool? Peter goes fishing.

Silence.





Dead silence.





Sounds familiar?

A Future Not Our Own

“A Future Not Our Own” by Archbishop Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

In 1980, in the midst of a U.S. funded war the UN Truth Commission called genocidal, the soon-to-be-assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero promised history that life, not death, would have the last word. "I do not believe in death without resurrection," he said. "If they kill me, I will be resurrected in the Salvadoran people."

Read more about Oscar Romero here.

Share in His Suffering

I always imagined that I need to be perfect in order for me to minister effectively. I look at my own hang-ups, issues that still need to be worked on, doubts that I battle and wonder if I'm any good for anything. Often chide myself that I should work on my own issues before I try to be hero and seek to help others with theirs. If I can't myself, the logic goes, who do I think I am to 'help' others? Yet as I come to the foot of the cross, I hear the mockery hurled at him, 'He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One"; "If you are the kinf og the Jews, save yourself"; "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!""So, You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!"; and"He saved others, but he can't save himself! Let this Christ, this King of Israel come down from the cross that we may see and believe." I realised that the way Christ came to save us is through brokenness, pain, shame, weakness, helplessness, and vulnerability. He did not assume power, the Prince of Peace did not take up the authority that is due to Him but chose to lay it down, so that I can be healed, redeemed and be a channel for His healing to flow in and through me to others who are broken like me.

I am learning not to shun my own weakness, despise my brokenness, or assume I need to be complete and whole before I can be used of him. But like Paul, say "We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.... we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." (paraphrase 2 Cor 4:5,7, 10) Since I am His body, I should not be surprised that my life bears the marks of the cross - marks of a body broken and death. My prayer and hope is that I may know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, to become like him in his death, and so, somehow, attain to the resurrection from the dead (Phil 3:10-11). Through this, may His zoe life and healing flow to the nations and He alone be glorified eternally.

Hurts to Love

Having a heart is a precarious thing. Why does it hurt to love? If you have experienced a heartbreak you know what I mean. Yes, there are joys of love but is the pain worth it? Sometimes the hurt can be so painful that you are paralysed. Incapacitated. It's at this time when you realise how fragile the heart is. Have you ever experience the pain so great that it feels like a physical pain, so sharp that it takes the breath out of you? You can't seem to stop the tears from falling, almost involuntarily. How can any person have so much impact on us? The pain is intense and you wonder if it will ever go away? You pretend you're numb to it and try to move on with your life, but it just won't go away and haunts you every single free minute you have to pause. You're afraid to go home, knowing the pain will only come flooding and practically overwhelm you. You don't want to be with people either because it is too exhausting to keep up with the social obligations and takes too much to maintain a happy countenance. You assure concerned friends that you're ok, getting over it and will be fine in no time, punctuating with a big smile. You go on living, not knowing how long you have the strength to go on this 'existing' mode. You think of the shattered bits of your heart and wonder 'why didn't I protect myself'? Is Love worth all these pain?

One of our lecturers shared at the last chapel for the semester on this Holy Week. He told us of his experience watching his wife deliver his first child. When he raced her to the hospital, he was not prepared for the experience of watching the person he loved most on this earth suffer. She had a very long and hard labour which lasted almost 24 hours. The pain was intense and he felt helpless to remove or alleviate the pain. It nearly killed him to watch her tortured by pain as different waves of labour hit her. His heart was crushed and at one point, remember telling himself that no matter what came out of her... nothing can be worth putting her through all that pain!! But when their first daughter arrived, both their hearts were filled with a tremendous sense of unconditional love that poured out to this tiny little piece of life they were holding. They could not understand it since all she's done so far was cause her mother a lot of pain. Both of them knew that instant all his wife had gone through was worth every bit. I cannot identify with the intensity of those feelings but I could sense his love from his tone, body language and voice, as he shared with us. The next day after the delivery, he felt the Lord speak to him, so clearly that it stopped him in his tracks literally. The Lord told him, 'You know the pain you felt watching the one you love suffer is just a fraction of what I had to go through watching the One I loved suffer to bring life to you and the world. I want you to know that I think you're worth it!'

That touched me to the core. Words fail to express what my heart felt when I heard those words, words I know the Father is saying to me. Words I find hard to believe or accept ... that I can be worth all that Christ went through and His ultimately shameful and painful death. And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviour's blood; died He for me who caused His pain. I started by talking about the risk of pain that love carries. Although I don't fully understand but pondering on the Cross I realise Love and Pain often go hand in hand. I am glad that He, knowing full well the extend of the pain, did not seek to escape Pain but freely chose to go through it and loved me enough to endure the suffering so that I may live.

Love so amazing, so divine; Demands my soul, my life, my all.