GE 13 ... looks like the whole of M'sia is talking of nothing else. I am bemused - nowadays I open up the Star (ya i know, i know, my kid keeps telling me to cancel the subscription since its common knowledge it prints only 1 type of news, but hey, old aunty still like holding a solid newspaper in hand when drinking my coffee , and besides i only take seriously the cartoons page anyway. For 'real' news, I talk to my kids - heh heh, they sometimes more informed than me! ). Every morning I expect news of another generous hand-out of (tax payers ie includes my ) money to this, that or the other person deemed old, needy, poor by some arbitrary limit of age or income . I kicked myself the other day reading about EPF dividend being the highest declared in 10 yrs, coz i was silly enuf to have recently withdrawn a portion, due to some rather alarming news that they might use my hard-earned lifetime savings to lend to some poor folks in need of houses. I got nothing against helping others, but I'd rather I do it myself according to how God leads me to do it. I also expect another 1 M'sia this and 1 M'sia that announcement every other day. I ain't much of an economist, but the little that i do read seems to indicate M'sia is doing pretty well esp in the light of tough times elsewhere. And that's precisely where the 'disconnect' makes me a little uneasy considering the world as it is today...
Does anyone bother that European Union is on the brink of collapse? Well, why we worry, that's them, we're Asians, nothing to do with us la - totally different continent... Greece bankrupt? Where's that again? Italy, Spain, huh? Does that mean it will be cheaper for us to go holiday in those places - so Matta Fair got special offer to bankrupt or soon-to-be-bankrupt countries arr? No la, but you can still get some cheap Air Asia flights to Tokyo, people still scared of that radiation leak tingy and of coz never can tell when another tsunami might hit Japan... hey, Christchurch also good deal, except you won't get to see much, since its been practically wiped out by at least 2 major earthquakes over the past 2 years and still counting after-shocks. And that's just New Zealand. Who got time to bother about all the other countries of the world... where famine eats up people everyday, where kids become beggars, prostitutes, or child-soldiers lugging guns bigger than their frail bodies or child-brides to old men? Does anyone care that Iran and Israel are playing war-games with each other? (latest reports indicate real war could happen anytime as early as April this year) Incidentally I just learnt that scientists have developed a lethal mutant strain of the bird flu H5N1 virus (which kills about 50% of those who contract it and is more contagious than the original) - how clever of humans, to create something that can destroy humans ....it seems now they are concerned about bio-terrorism in case it ends up in the 'wrong hands'. Gee, that's a new word I learnt - i thot terrorists were those mad fellas who wear masks and shoot people at random. So now we will just suddenly roll around on the floor popping ghastly boils all over our skin and then die without even knowing what killed us ( looks like horror-movies will become real life after all).
My kids tell me i am just a dooms-day prophet, when i alert them to these (and other equally or more terrible) things happening around them. I tell them pls look beyond M'sia, pls look beyond your smug, relatively comfortable, easy-going world, look beyond Facebook, Twitter, Iphone, Ipad, I-watever, pls look beyond your concerns about studies, movies, boyfren, job, politics, economics, or social causes .... I warn them its gonna get worse not becoz I am a pessimist, but becoz that's God's word already given to us . I try to prepare them for the inevitable - that sad to say, the world is not going to get better despite our best (read human) efforts, tho certainly that shouldn't stop us from doing all we can anyway, out of the love that God placed in our hearts that's shed abroad to all.
I can understand why God isn't interested in preserving ugliness; He created all things beautiful and fantastic, but thanks to man's poor choices, it got all messed up and so here we are, let's face it, the world is already getting uglier all the time. It used to be only those who live in big bungalows need to park security guards outside their gates; now entire neighborhoods are gated and guarded, and yet, people still get robbed in their houses, not only that, they also now risk having limbs chopped off. If you are driving alone, you better open eyes big big when you park or even just stop at a traffic light momentarily. Values have lost all meaning becoz everything is relative; we all suffer from the "I, me and mine" disease . Anything goes as long as I am happy with it, I can do what I want, what I like so long as I don't 'hurt' people or don't get caught (like one adulterous politician's famous line - I am sorry, I was caught!). Let's just live and let live la, we just try to make our little corner of the world as comfy as possible. So we do whatever good we can, hoping it will sort of 'balance' out whatever bad we have done and that somehow will suffice when we ultimately face our Maker (if only we recognize the ill-logic of that argument - since when can 99 correct answers cancel out 1 wrong answer? wrong remains wrong duh), we try to find 'inner peace' thru this, that or the other self-help technique. Yet if we would stop a moment to examine ourselves.... if we don't first make peace with our Creator, how can we have peace with ourselves, much less with another human being?? Thank God He sent One called the Prince of Peace to give peace that transcends all human understanding, a peace that this world can never give...
Yet we think we are doing well, ok, wat , not so bad ...The truth is we aren't really. The tragedy is we don't realise it. I tell my kids (ya, i tell them a lot of heart-stuff that i have learnt thru 10 years of knowing a God who has revealed all that man ever needs to know - the important things about life, death and the hereafter) that they better wise up to the times we are living in, to redeem the days that God has given to each of us who are saved by His grace and mercy. No, not to get all dreary, groaning and moaning about the inevitable end of the world that must come, but to live each day as if it was our last - loving God and loving others - not just saying it with our mouths or silently believing it in our hearts but truly living love in action - in accordance to His way (not our own way), becoz our lives have been redeemed by the One Almighty God who created us and first loved us . No, not in despair or desperation that this world is passing away, but in joy and hope as we not only believe, but know there is a new heaven and a new earth coming, just as sure as I know my Jesus is coming again! How do I know? Becoz God's Word is Truth.
I know God's prepared the best for everyone who chooses to receive His truth and not any other. Truth cannot have many shades; its not a favourite color that one can pick off from a shelf of 'pretty dresses' that are termed variously as 'concepts, philosophies, religion, meditation, world views, theories, idealogies, etc, etc... no matter how good they sound or look. If in a court of law, there can only be 1 truth, the whole truth and nothing but THE Truth, all the more we can expect the same law to operate in God's Kingdom; how can there be more than 1/different versions of truth?? It's only an issue of which is THE Truth, out of the many that are open and presented to each one of us in this world. And that is the human dilemma of free choice.
Ahh, but how difficult it is to see beyond the end of our noses, for we who live in this generation, when there are soooo many things that distract and detract us from the 'big picture'. So we major on the minor things in life, getting all worked up over everything except God. I was watching a row of tiny ants crawling along my kitchen wall the other day. Did you ever notice, ants all follow the same path...so all i had to do was squirt ant-icide into the hole where all of them were heading and so they simply dropped off quite dead. It struck me sometimes humans are like ants - we simply follow the line of least resistance, maybe its a kind of 'mob mentality' thingy....we think we are headed somewhere safe, but we never stop to ask ourselves, is this really the right way?? Like ants, we march on , quite happily ignorant in the 'now' moments of our days on earth. We can't see or worse, don't want to see what's coming. Yet if only we would pause awhile to seriously consider The Truth of our life's direction , perhaps our eyes will be able to catch a glimpse of the world that Jesus has promised as a lasting inheritance and then we will believe:
"Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Revelation 21:3-4
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