Touched by his spirit once again

Dear Readers,

As I sat tossing and turning in my new home (which can be rather noisy), I reflected on my day and time in this new place and some how his spirit touched me in that way it did those years ago.

*(Take note that psychology has shown that there are many types of people so this might not apply to everyone)

I thought about intelligence (real or conceived) and how it can be like the rich man who finds it hard to follow Jesus.

Let's take the example of a young Christian Singapore man living in this age of technology and change, he adapts to life by being intelligent and fast on the uptake.

He goes through the army, he turns into a young man, he starts to become independent of mind and will.

He is intelligent but he uses his mind to see the wrongs, evil, misguided intentions, problems in others. He justifies himself by his knowledge via books, the Bible, experience.

Psychologists call this person a Perfectionist Melanchonic.

Can you see how it will be difficult for a man like this to be a sheep, a son of God, a follower, a brother, to love?

"Focus on what is good..."

But then again can you see how powerful a man like this can be?

In our churches today we have many grounds to say that we are hypocrites, that we are lukewarm, that we do not put enough efforts into theology, that we are not as "good" a Christian as we possibly can be.

Just thinking with this mindset will destroy us.

A man who can have great knowledge has the responsibility to learn. To be patient with others. To be humble. To be kind. To be gentle. To love. To shine for God.

How can you help your brother when you have that splinter in your own eye (to paraphrase)?

A matter of philosophical logic,

A man of great potential has the responsibility to master himself, to have a relationship with God, to read his living word, to commit his days to Him, learn his purpose in the greater picture of things, learn humility and servitude, not rush or be hasty to judge, slow to anger like the Lord.

This is not a comprehensive list but basically:

He must learn how to become more like Jesus in everything he does.

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On a more personal note, some of us have become defensive from a life of protecting ourselves. Our fight or flight response helps us keep safe but leads to high stress levels, a somewhat intimidating presence, a mind that searches for dangers (even dangers in other peoples' personality!). This becomes an obstacle for a person who wants to live a christian life.

Solitude/Depression is a circle of disaster and is one of the most effective ways to lose your desire to live. Let us examine this.

An important part of being a Christian is community, a person may spend a few years in the wilderness learning to grow, but a floater will never truely be happy (this is a generalisation).

Thus leading to the error of permenant "church hopping".

I am taking this out of context of a person who has lived somewhat like me, who has had to adapt to change a few times in life and has displaced his comfort quite a bit in this regard. Church hopping is a good idea in the first few weeks, but eventually a person should settle down and discipline himself to stay in a church which caters to his needs and where he can find a sanctuary to learn, rejuvenate, grow, etc.

The question is why do we find it so hard to stay in one church? One has to examine what his top reason is for going to church, are we in the church that God wants us to be? Or the church where we want to be?

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I think Dale Carniege made it very clear in his book (don't be put off by the title) 'How to win friends and influence people', that a person is much better off if he develops a care for his fellow man, a desire to see others happy, to make the world a better place by doing small things for other people whether it be remembering to say the person's name often, to smile and to greet, to speak in terms of the person's interests, not to complain and gripe, to have genuine interest.

One can think that this book's purpose is to teach you how to manipulate people to like you and do what you want.

Dale would spit quite bluntly that that was never the intention of the book.

His desire was to teach people how important it is to life to have a genuine interest in other people, and its ripple effect on yourself and others.
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One important part of the Bible to me was Solomon's lament about the futility of a life lived in the wrong way.

I think that a person needs to find a drive to persue his life and to find his passion.

How I do it is I look at the end, when I am lying in my death bed, what do I want to feel? Personally I do not really care what people think of me, because of the life I have had so far. So the next question I ask is did I complete what God intended me to do in this life? Is God happy with his sheep?

This gives me the drive and energy to live my life.

And now I am tired again, time to rest.