Embarking on a Journey

“You think too much”

Raising my eyebrows and I thought to myself “Did I?”

It was just another one of those comments my friend made to me when I start talking about life philosophies by so called famous people and how I thought it didn’t make sense back in secondary school.

Here are a few :

“You reap what you sow.”

Do I? I found myself reaping nothing from what I sow. I wasn’t the brightest student back then and I studied really hard, I would even say harder than some of the top class students. What did I reap? A mere pass. What did they reap? Flying colours.

“The destiny of your life is in your hands”

Is it? Then why can’t I tell what’s going to happen tomorrow or the day after? If it’s in my hands, that means I’m in full control from the point of my birth to my death and that would mean I do know exactly what’s going to happen tomorrow, next month and even next year. Only then I can plan with full optimum capacity with all my capabilities and then executing them 100% perfection. That would be in my hands.

“Be positive in everything and anything”

If the person you love most dies, do you honestly think you can be positive about it? Or if you can only think of whether you will survive the next meal because the starvation is so bad in your home ground, can you be positive about it? Maybe you would say be thankful you’re alive still, I think for these people, they rather just die.

And the quotes and life “philosophies” go on but none of them answer life in totality. They only answer to certain individual’s life that matches their unique obstacles and goals in life. Some might ask, “What’s wrong with that?” Well, there’s nothing really “wrong” about it technically. But if you can settle with the fact that your conscience is horribly struck when you’re called selfish then I guess that’s your choice of your life with the principles and philosophies you want to live with.

Because all these philosophies only gives hope and motivation to unique circumstances or events but it ignore the real dire issues in life. And how these people answer to those issues and questions?

“It’s life, face it.”
“Their just unlucky.”
“Not my problem”!
“I never really gave a good thought about it”

What was I holding onto then? Nothing, just like most, I just chose to live life selfishly and my only goal is just to be with a girl I love most. In fact at that point of time, I was also challenging my friends who were Christians but none of them gave me answers that satisfy my curiosity. What was my curiosity that can never be quenched towards Christianity back then?
They mostly revolve around salvation, free will and soon after predestination.

But God so loving, despite of all the insulting, demanding and selfish remarks made towards Him helped me realize this that I only said and asked whatever I asked because I was too proud, selfish and unloved.

My journey embarked when He showed me love this year.

That the John 3:16 that I heard for a million times from so many Christians came to life, in my life.

How?

That I’ve chose to disobey, spat on Him, trampled over the cross and told Him off that I know how to live my life better. I don’t need Him to be telling me what to do with my life and whoever this God is that I don’t feel related to at all no matter how much I “prayed”, read His word and asked.

But that led me to tripped so hard over a sharp rock, fell flat on my face to the solid ground and then I asked myself, did I really know how to live life? I became a burden to everyone, I hurt the person I loved most, I don’t even know where exactly I’m heading with whatever I’m doing. If I really knew how to live my life, then why do I feel this tremendous pain in this huge hole in my heart seeking so hard for redemption? That cries out for repentance so badly? But everytime I try, I just fell even harder?

Then sin made complete sense and so did redemption. That the ultimate manifestation of love which is grace, which is the cross , was made reality in my life. While I was so unworthy of His love, He died for all my sins and then ask me this :

“Would you now finally follow me? Take My hands and I’ll show you eternal life.”

I was so ashamed, so humbled and so loved.

Questions that were meant only for Him to be understood and to be done by His will just didn’t matter to me anymore.

Who am I to question the Almighty God that He doesn’t know what is He doing? If He choose to reveal His mysterious will, He will reveal in due time. If He doesn’t answer them, then so be it. Why should a Father bow down to His child’s demand just because the child demands to know? Even if He did explain, would a child understand?

Up till today, God has truly showed me what life is all about and where do I stand in it and still is showing me step by step each and every day.

(Back to the earlier quotes at the top) I do reap what I sow not necessarily with human expectation but definitely with spiritual nourishment.

The destiny of my life is definitely not in my hands but in an Almightly Loving Hands of God!

There is no positivity and negativity in life, it is what it is. The bigger question is, what are you going to do about it? Or are you going to continue “being” positive and realize you’re in deep denial?

To my friends then who told me back then that I think too much, well can I just say “I think you guys think too little”? ;P
Because life is all it’s worth to all the thinking needed, to figure out whom you are and where do you stand in it. Remember, life, not YOUR life. It makes a huge difference ;)

I wrote this because recently I “re-watched” one of the episodes of samurai-X where Kenshin (main character) vs Soujiro (the younger man). For those who already watched this show, you can ignore this paragraph. Samurai-X is basically based during the samurai era in Japan where killing is very normal. This young man “Soujiro” was taught with the philosophy of “the weak shall perish and the strong shall live” but his philosophy was proven wrong when his conscience struck him real deep inside as he meets Kenshin (because he has taken away a lot of lives himself in order to “survive”). Kenshin was formerly a cruel man slayer but has repented and ever since then, taking the sword to protect and no longer to kill. To Soujiro, that philosophy not only baffled him but helped him realize that there is more meaning to life than just surviving and killing others just to strive as the strongest.



At the end, Soujiro was defeated and as expected, Kenshin refuse to take his life away as how any samurai would have done. Soujiro wanted to follow Kenshin’s way of life but he refuted him that a person’s direction of life is not decided over a battle rather, it is a personal meaning that can only be found as one journeys throughout life.

I’ve already embarked my journey, have you? ;)

Proverbs 8:17

“I love those who love me,
and those who seek me find me.”

Take care and God bless!

- Gary Heng

Images taken from : -

http://www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Journey.html
http://theappleobserver.com/mostrecentposts/must-have-apps-for-iphone-to-help-fight-poverty/
http://www.freeandgreenliving.com/Contact.htm
http://www.counterfeitchic.com/
http://www.calefactory.org/lit-stationsofthecross.htm
www.sodahead.com