Tadpoles or Caterpillars

We are living in a world of change. What we can be most certain of is change.  And change is occurring faster and faster each day.  Our lives are being transformed with the changes in our world even though we may not be aware of it.  The most important question is what are we changing into – are we becoming more dehumanised and changed into human doings or are we becoming human beings who are new creations reflecting the love of God?

In God's creation, we see pictures of the wonder of transformation in the tadpole and the caterpillar. From living in the water, the tadpole is transformed into a frog that lives on land. The caterpillar, on the other hand, undergoes the remarkable transformation from a caterpillar crawling on the ground to a butterfly flitting from flower to flower in the air.

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ came into the world so that we can become new creations – we are to live in this physical world as spiritual beings.  The tadpole and caterpillar can help us understand the kinds of transformation that we are going through.

The tadpole changes into a frog by gradually growing limbs and losing its tail. At the same time it develops lungs to enable it to breathe on land and loses the gills that it uses to breathe in the water.  The caterpillar, on the other hand, begins its metamorphosis into a butterfly by losing its legs. It goes through the process of becoming a cocoon that looks like death for the caterpillar. But the cocoon is the beginning of the new life for the butterfly.

The metamorphosis of the tadpole into a frog depicts our pursuit of knowledge to accumulate more and more so that we become human doings. As we do so, we lose our passion for the beauty of God’s creation in our physical world. We seek to dominate nature instead of being stewards of the beautiful and wonderful world that God has created.

The transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly, on the other hand, gives us a beautiful picture of the miraculous change of being born again through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a process of dying to our old ways so that God can transform us by reforming and purifying our past so that we can live as spiritual human beings in a physical world. When we change and understand that death is not the end but the beginning of a new life, we will begin to see our sufferings and problems from a new perspective.

Suffering and problems become God’s refining fire to purify the gold of love that is in our hearts. When our eyes are filled with tears, we can only see the fire but not our Master’s hand and so our hearts are filled with fears.  But our Master is carefully watching for the purified gold in our hearts to reflect the faithful and everlasting love that His beloved Son died on the cross to show us.

Francis Collins, a brilliant scientist who headed the Human Genome Project, a study of DNA which is the code of life, addressed the paradox of why our life is more a vale of tears than a garden of delight.  He concurred with C.S. Lewis that part of the problem is our desire to see God as a grandfather in heaven – “a senile benevolence who like to see young people enjoying themselves.” But Jesus came to show us that God is our loving Abba Father who loves us too much to leave us as we are. The challenges, frustrations and suffering in our lives is “God’s megaphone  to rouse a dead world.” They are to keep us from being “shallow, self-centred creatures who would ultimately lose all sense of nobility or striving for the betterment of others.”

Sharing from his personal experience of his daughter who was raped while she was a medical student, he realised that we will never fully understand the reasons for our painful experiences. However, he began to dimly see that his daughter’s rape was a challenge to him to try and learn the real meaning of forgiveness in such terribly heart wrenching circumstances.  His daughter also saw her experience as one that gave her the opportunity and motivation to counsel and comfort others who have been sexually assaulted.

There will therefore be times when we may feel that God is not answering our prayers. Nothing seems to be happening in our lives and we feel spiritually dead like we are in a cocoon. At such times we need to pray for patience as we wait for the right time to break out of cocoon so that our spiritual wings will be properly formed and strong.

We can bring our tears and fears to the Cross of Christ so that so that He can turn them into the strong and beautiful wings for us to fly above our vale of suffering. The ways of the world will turn us into frogs but God’s ways will change us into butterflies to pollinate the world so that it will be a garden of God’s love.  Let us become butterflies and not frogs.

Sowing Seeds Of Hope

All of us want to have God's blessings for comfort and pleasure in this world.  Our modern materialistic world equates “ultimate happiness” with getting what we want, having the love of family and friends or achieving our personal ambitions. But true happiness is not found in living whatever way feels best to us but in living the life that we are created to live.  God’s calling is not to worldly success but to faithfulness. And the greatest test of our faith is the suffering we face in this world. C. H. Spurgeon tells us how our faith can be tried:

“Faith must be tried, and seeming desertion is the furnace, heated seven times, into which it might be thrust. Blest is the man who can endure the ordeal!”

We do not like to be reminded of the reality of suffering. No one can escape suffering but we can choose to let suffering turn us into miserable and bitter persons or to use suffering to transform our pain into the heavenly gold so that we become joyful and better persons.

In the gospel of Mark (chapter 10:35-45), we read of how the sons of Zebedee, James and John asked to be seated at the right and left hand of Jesus when he is in heaven. In response, Jesus asked if they are able to go through the baptism of suffering.  They replied they can.  Jesus then told them that they will indeed do so but they cannot be guaranteed the positions in heaven that they have requested.

This does not mean that we are to celebrate suffering or to invite suffering into our lives. We just need to face the reality of suffering so that we will not be filled with fear but can stand firm on the blessed assurance that the steadfast love of our Lord never ceases. Some people may question how can there be a God of love with all the suffering we see in the world. But the truth is that suffering is a by-product of love - the more we love the more suffering we are likely to face.

There is no human being who will not taste suffering sooner or later in life. But the good news is that there is hope in suffering because of the cross of Christ. To bring hope to people in need in our troubled times is the calling of all Christians. I was reminded in an Upper Room devotional that seeds of hope are sown through every kind word, through acts of mercy and through teaching and learning.

One important lesson is that we do not have to understand all of God’s ways with us. We need to practice the discipline to see more and more from God’s perspective especially when little things don’t go the way we had hoped. As we do so, we will not be burdened with the accumulation of petty cares and frustrations. We will then not waste our emotional energies on petty problems but save them for the more serious problems that come our way.

A Pollyanna and second hand faith that is focussed only on the blessings of God is a faith that is built on sand.  H.A. Williams, an Anglican theologian makes the following observation:

“That is why for most of the time resurrection means little to us. It is remote and isolated. And that is why for the majority of people it means nothing…… People do well to be sceptical of beliefs not anchored in present experience.”

We are too self-absorbed and inattentive to hear God’s whispers of love.  We are too easily distracted and side-tracked by fear or selfishness. We are obsessed with our own life stories instead of the greater story of God’s love in the world.

Brennan Manning makes the point that the dark riddle of life is illuminated in Jesus. Understanding the meaning, purpose and goal of everything that happens to us can only be learned from Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life:

“Without deliberate awareness of the risenness of Jesus, life is nonsense, all activity useless, all relationships in vain. Apart from the risen Christ we live in a world of impenetrable mystery and utter obscurity – a world without meaning, a world of shifting phenomena, a world of death, danger, and darkness.  A world of inexplicable futility.  Nothing is interconnected. Nothing is worth doing, for nothing endures. Nothing is seen beyond appearances. Nothing is heard but echoes dying on the wind. No love can outlast the emotion that produced it. It is all sound and fury with no ultimate significance.”

We need to understand that our life is hidden in Christ. As we pay attention to the nudges of the Holy Spirit we will have a first-hand experience of what the resurrection of Jesus means in our daily lives. Only then will our faith be grounded on the Rock of Christ.  We can then affirm the truth that Paul shared with the Corinthians:

“That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produced for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we cannot see will last forever.”                                   - 2^nd Corinthians 4:16-18

Live The Eternal Life Before You Die

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even though we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you are saved!” Ephesians 2:4-5

The good news of the gospel is that Christ died on the cross so that we who are the “living dead” in the marketplace of the world may find the true and abundant life that is in Christ. We are slaves to our sinful natures seeking happiness in material pursuits that can never satisfy our souls or we struggle against our sinful natures trying to please God through our futile human efforts.

Many Christians spend so much energy trying to save others from hell after death instead of making others hungry and thirsty for heaven in the here and now. We are called to live out the truth of John 3:16:

“For this is the way God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

Our calling as Christians is not to save others but to share our Saviour, Jesus Christ with others. We do so by living our lives with grace in full dependence and trust in God so that others may see the joy of the Lord in us.

Many people do not want to talk or think about death. But as Christians we are to proclaim with our lives that for us to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21) When we face temptations in our lives we are to remember that we have been crucified with Christ and that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives within us (Galatians 2:20). As we struggle with our problems in life, we can hold on to the truth that we can do all thrings through Christ who gives us strength (Philippians 4:13)

Margaret Bottome shares the following encouraging insight:

“Ah! I needed the ocean of His love, and the high mountains of His truth within. It was wisdom that the “depths” said they did not contain, and that could not be compared with jewels or gold or precious stones. Christ is the wisdom and our deepest need. Our restlessness within can only be met by the revelation of His eternal friendship and love for us.”

Our home is God – not only after we die but in the here and now as the following verse from a poem by an unknown author tell us:

“And now “my Home is God,” and sheltered there,

God meets the trials of my earthly life,

God compasses me round from storm and strife,

God takes the burden of my daily care.

O Wondrous Place! O Home divinely fair!

And I, God's little one, safe hidden there.

Lord, as I dwell in Thee and Thou in me,

So make me dead to everything but Thee.”

To the caterpillar, the chrysalis or pupa is dead. But to the butterfly, it is life. Let us encourage one another to be butterflies and not caterpillars so that we will be dead to the world and be alive to God. As we do so, we will live in the eternal life here and now.

voices

Focus on health, not cost of medical care

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FROM

PATRICK KEE

-

23 AUGUST

There has been much discussion about healthcare costs in Singapore. It is important to distinguish between healthcare and medical services, as much of the debate centres on reducing the cost of medical care rather than improving our citizens’ health.

If our citizens are healthy, they need not worry about the cost of medical services. Just as the Government has propagated the concept of Total Defence, we must promote the concept of Total Health, rather than focus on illnesses and treatment.

For example, diseases arising from infections such as dengue fever, tuberculosis and influenza are effectively reduced by public health measures, and not by building more hospitals.

Diseases arising from malnutrition and poverty are best addressed by improving the economic and educational status of people.

Efforts to reduce smoking, alcohol and gambling addictions will go a long way to improve physical as well as social, familial, emotional and spiritual well-being.

Helping the elderly to “age in place” and to be active is critical to prevent the lonely old person from becoming frail and sick. Investments in building up communities of seniors to support one another will reduce the need for more nursing homes.

This requires programmes and funding to help active and fit elderly help other elderly neighbours who are frail. We must stop thinking of seniors as a problem; they are an important resource of people with expertise, experience and time.

Unnecessary expenditure on futile treatment at the end of life is best reduced by re-introducing Ars moriendi, or the art of dying well. If we want to live well, we must learn how to die well. Unfortunately, modern society has a phobia about discussions on death and dying.

To reduce the cost of medical care, we must stop worshipping medicine as an idol with clay feet. Ancient Greek philosopher Sophocles astutely observed: “One word frees us all of the weight and pain of life. That word is love.”

The challenge before Singaporeans is whether we will realise the need for a compassionate, cooperative society by putting love, not money, at the centre of our lives. The world will be different the moment we do so.

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THE CROSS LENS

The primary objective of reading and meditating on the bible is for transformation rather than for information. Unfortunately there is much teaching on bible study but not on bible meditation to help us transform our lives and to gain a heart of wisdom. We are encouraged to read and memorise biblical verses but not how to think about the verses we have read and to apply them in our lives. Edward De Bono has described 6 thinking hats to put our thinking into action. He created a useful framework of To/LoPoSo/Go as a thinking skill. Christians need to learn thinking skills and it is important to recognise the very important difference between “Christian thinking” and “non-Christian” thinking.

The difference lies in what we are thinking about and why we are thinking about them. As Christians, we are called to have the mind of Christ and to be dependent on God and not on our own wisdom or the wisdom of the world. The values and beliefs of the world are rooted in materialistic and selfish desires rather than the will of God. Worldy thinking is focussed on how we can be successful in this world and how to win friends and be happy.

The apostle James has warned us that faith without action is dead. To have a living faith, we need to apply scriptural truths in our lives. Towards this end Edward De Bono’s To/LoPoSo/Go, a 5 stage thinking structure, and the 6 thinking hats can be used to provide a framework for meditation on the bible. I have called this the “CROSS” lens.

The “CROSS” lens is an acronym for 5 stages in biblical meditation. The first stage, “C”, is to be connected with the Holy Spirit through a time of silent prayer or to use the breath prayer (see reflection on Spiritual Ventilation on 13th July 2013). This is wearing the “blue” hat to draw out attention to the sky and our need to come before the throne of God’s grace. It is the “To Where…are you going” stage in Edward De Bono To/LoPoSo/Go 5 stage thinking structure. It is important to spend time to wait on the Lord and seek His aims, goals and objectives for our lives.

The second stage, “R”, is the reading of the biblical text. We take note of what the text is saying to us and our thoughts about the biblical passage.  It is the “Lo and Behold” stage as we read God’s Word for information. We wear the “white” hat – a time of digesting the information that we have read.

The third stage, “O”, is to open our minds to the Holy Spirit to hear what God is saying to us. This is the “Po – possibilities” stage as we meditate on the thoughts arising from what we have read. To listen to God’s voice more clearly, we need to recognise the time of life we are in.

We may be in the “sunrise” of our lives when we are feeling good, doing good and everything in life is good. At such times, we need to put on the “red” hat – to submit our hearts to the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit. We need to burn away our pride, greed and lust. The lesson from King David is a warning of how pride, greed and lust can lead us to commit sins that we never imagine we will commit, in the good times of our lives. We can use the red hat to see God’s commandments and warnings to lead us out of temptation and deliver us from evil. In our good times, we can look for biblical verses to help us give thanks and to bear the fruit of love, joy and peace in our lives.

We may be in the “noonday” of our lives when we are feeling stressed by the “heat” of the pressures of life. We may be discouraged, angry, envious, jealous or bored. In such times we can put on the “yellow” hat to exchange our problems for Christ’s burden which is easy. We can take off the yoke of the world and put on the yoke of Christ which is light. With the yellow hat, we can look for any encouragement or new insights in scripture passage that we have read. It may be a time for us to bear the fruit of patience, kindness and goodness. We can look for biblical verses to remind us of God's Providence so that we can pray, “Give us today our daily bread.”

We may be in the dark nights of our souls, when we need to put on the “black” hat to draw close to the Light of Christ. God may feel far away and we may feel forsaken by our loved ones. At such times we need to pray for wisdom to see God’s promises in His Word which are beacons of light to lead us out of darkness. It is a time when we need to remember that God may be pruning us to bear the fruit of faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It is a time to seek God’s word to help us experience His forgiveness and to forgive others. We can meditate on the biblical passage to find the power to pray, “Forgive us our sins so that we may forgive those who sin against us.”

The fourth stage, “S” is the surrender of our heart as we seek to obey and put into practice what God has shown us in our devotional reading. This is the “So What” stage. It is changing our red, yellow or black hats into the “green” hat as our commitment to put into practice the truths that God has shown us in our meditation on His Word.

The fifth stage, the second “S,” is seeking to walk by the Spirit. We end our reflection with a prayer that God’s Word will bear fruit in our lives. This is the “Go…….Let’s go into action” stage as we commit our plans to God and thank Him for His amazing grace to help us fulfil our heart’s desire so that we will grow in love and in the joy of living in God's Kingdom in the here and now.

A Life of Glory

“Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.” Psalms 50:14-15

Ireneus described the glory of God as the human being fully alive and that the life of the human consists in beholding God. Many things in the world blind us to the glory of our loving Creator God. Senseless murders, horrific rapes, disasters and epidemics, church conflicts, personal suffering of pain draws us away from the gospel that God is always good and we are always loved. A friend in the midst of his suffering lamented how he longs for Christ to come again and deliver us from suffering and pain.

But Jesus came, lived, died and rose from the dead to show us our wonderful and amazing calling to be children of God, to be the salt and light in His beautiful world that has been darkened by evil and sin. The world is waiting for us as Christians to follow the way of our Lord – to become more fully devoted to Christ, to be willing to be nothing that Christ may be all. It has been noted that “there is no limit to what God can do with a man, providing he will not touch the glory.”

Martin Luther shares the very important insight that “God created the world out of nothing, and as long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us.” Indeed, it has been said that there is nothing in Christ but God. George Muller testified in an address to ministers and workers after his ninetieth birthday that it was four years after his conversion that he fully surrendered his life. It was then that he found that “the love of money was gone, the love of place was gone, the love of position was gone, the love of worldly pleasures and engagements was gone. “ He found happiness when God alone became his portion and he found his all in Him and wanted nothing else.

We are to live out the good news that we are the dwelling place of God and His glory. We are created for God's glory and "we are to live in and live out the splendor God has uniquely given us. We own the glory of our lives. We live out the extraordinary-ness in the ordinary things of life.” We have the choice to live out God's best for our lives or we can bankrupt our legacy of faith when we seek to live our lives on our own terms.

Gary Barkalow drew attention to the truth that we are not just the object of God's forgiveness and tolerance but that there is a brilliance, a magnificence to our lives that we are to take responsibility for - the splendor of our lives - not what has been taken away but what has been given to us. He lamented the fact that “the church culture has gone from the mysterious but true glory of a person's life to lifeless duty and function. It has gone from owning the splendor of one's life and the world's need of it to merely finding a task that needs to be done for God and making sure it is done with excellence.”

When our focus is on our tasks rather than our relationship with God, we lose sight of the glory of God. God created us to be human beings but we have turned ourselves into human doings. Let us offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving for the mystery and wonder of life. Let us light a candle instead of cursing the darkness. Let us encourage one another to live lives of glory so that we can shine as stars in our increasingly dark world.

Spiritual Ventilation

"So you should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus."  Romans 6:11

At a course on Community Ventilation on the use of mechanical ventilators at home for patients who are unable to breathe on their own, I was reminded of the aims of artificial ventilation:

• get oxygen in
• get carbon dioxide out
• minimise adverse effects
• maximize patient comfort. and practice.

This gave me a fresh insight about prayer as spiritual ventilation. Just as we need to breathe in oxygen, we need the prayer of thanksgiving to “breathe in” God's love. Likewise just as we need to breathe out carbon dioxide so we need the prayer of confession to “breathe out” the negative emotions of our souls.

When patients with a chronic lung disease fail to breathe out carbon dioxide adequately they will suffer from drowsiness, confusion and even coma. When we do not “breathe out” our negative attitudes and feelings, we too may also suffer from spiritual confusion and a “spiritual coma” with a sense of separation from God. This is why confession is so important for the health of our souls.

We are all spiritually half dead and in need of spiritual ventilation to revive our souls. The discipline of the breath prayer is to help us cultivate the habit of surrendering control of our lives to God and to live by the Spirit. Just as God breathed life into Adam after forming him from the dust of man, we need to breathe in the Holy Spirit so that our souls will be alive to God.

Prayer is the breath of our souls and without prayer we will be spiritually dead. We need prayer to die to sin and to be alive to God. With prayer, we can reduce the effect of sin and maximize God's peace in our lives. We need to learn to "breathe in" the love of God and to "breathe out" our cares and burdens that blind us to the love and grace of God.

Breath prayer is a contemplative practice that is based on the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector where we see the tax collector praying the simple breath prayer, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 10-13). This prayer is a confession of our imperfection and an expression of our need for the grace of God to change. It is a simple and honest affirmation of God's unfailing love and our need for His amazing grace.

I have found simple phrases such as “Jesus is Lord,” “The Lord Provides,” “Peace, be still,” to be helpful at various times of my life. It is recommended that the phrase we choose be authentic to our relationship with God in that very moment that we are breathing.

Breath prayers is a form of meditative prayer that requires us to focus on our breathing. By doing we so, we elicit what has been described by Herbert Benson as the relaxation response. When we attune our breathing with a simple scriptural verse, we are in fact performing a “spiritual ventilation.” For example, as we inhale, we may pray “Jesus”, and as we exhale, we pray, “is Lord.” Or we can pray “The Lord” as we breathe in, and “provides” as we breathe out.”

Such breath prayers are especially helpful in times when we are under stress. It is an exercise by which we can focus on our Lord when we are feeling anxious or fearful. Through breath prayers, we can turn our eyes upon Jesus so that the things of this world will grow strangely dim. It is also an expression of our desire to live the perfect life in Christ:

      Breathe on me Breath of God, so shall I never die;

      But live with Thee the perfect Life of Thine eternity.