And since I am on a roll here, don't you also just hate how 'it' keeps on asking you to press more numbers after you press 1, 2 or 3? Please key in your......IC, Account, Pin, Membership, Whatever... number, and press the # or * key. I always lose it at this point, because my eye-sight ain't too good these days, and I have problems locating the unfamiliar # or * - it's even worse if I am using my old hand-phone, since to change into symbols, caps or numbers, I have to fiddle some more with the tiny key-pad. What's worse is after all that, if you do manage to talk to a human at the other end, you will be asked all over again - politely of course - can I have your IC, Account, Pin, Membership or Whatever number, ma'am? Duh.
I am all for technology and all the stuff which is supposedly 'progressing' civilization along. But sometimes I wonder what the human race has come to. I mean, what does clicking a 'like' button on a screen mean? For goodness sake, what's there to like about someone's funeral or personal tragedy, or war in some part of the world? Yes, I know it's meant to signal we care. But, really, I fail to see how 'like' can be an appropriate response in so many instances. And I can never understand why people can descend to calling other people names, swear and curse all over cyberspace, just because we don't agree on something. Sure, it's your right. But whatever happened to good old-fashioned civility and respect for others? Would we dare or even want to say such words to an actual person standing in front of and eye-balling us?
I guess it's become all too easy to 'hide behind' the anonymous veil of a screen these days. I mean, it's so handy, literally, to type out "I don't love you anymore" and press send to a number, than say it face to face to a human being. Likewise it's much more convenient to spout and vent our own (right) opinions to a Google, Fb, or Twitter account than to sit down and grapple contentious issues with living, breathing creatures who possess hearts no different than our own. At what cost technology which turns human beings into faceless beings?
Of course machines are easier to handle. They don't talk back, they don't cry, they have no feelings that must be considered, they are totally impervious to insults, criticism or condemnation. By the same token, they are also totally insensitive to love, laughter, or joy. Whereas a person is....well, a person. We can't have a relationship with a machine. Surely that's why God didn't create machines; He created humans. Feeling, talking, walking, smiling, crying , unpredictable, emotional, complex, cranky, sentimental, lovable and (sometimes) unlovable beings called persons. These days a whole family of persons can be sitting around the dinner table and not be 'there', because each is busy tapping on their so-smart fones, tablets and whatever else that's apparently so much more interesting than having to look up and 'relate' to one another.
I am sure glad my God isn't into gadgets. He's as personal as personal can be. The other day a dear fren was down in the dumps, (I surmise) feeling unloved and unlovely, and that on Valentine's Day. I couldn't help much, except pray a silent prayer for her. Apparently she took her troubles out for a walk in the park and behold, caught in the branches of a tree were 4 different colored heart-shaped balloons. She snapped a foto and emailed them to me, captioned very appropriately God's love. It got me smiling, man, how personal can that get? And how like our God who is love to do something so extravagant (not 1, but 4 hearts!) for my fren, right in her hour of need. How very blessed she is. Indeed God gets very personal with her; oft times He sends her rainbows when she prays - even when there's no rain.
Occasionally I get a bit wistful why God doesn't do such things for me. Heck, I can't even pray up a miserable dream. I remember when my husband passed on, I told God, just let me dream about him, so I know he's really in heaven with You. Zilch. Zero. Nothing. Instead He gave the dream to one of the kids, who never even asked for it. And with that I shall be content. The fact that God doesn't answer me the way I want to be answered doesn't - shouldn't - make Him any the less personal to and for me. Otherwise what's my faith worth? It doesn't say much about me, if I have to have 'proof' my way or no way. Besides who am I to insist on putting God into my own little box of a brain? That would be making my God way way too small.
The flip side is just when I least expect it, He will show His hand. Like the time I was desperately searching for a 24 hour clinic on the first day of CNY to deal with my daughter's sudden stomach cramps at 2 am in the morning. We were in a strange neighborhood, roughing out a nite in a 'cheapo' motel, on a last minute mandatory trip back to Penang for my late aunt's funeral . I only knew Jelutong vaguely as the place where my husband had once upon a long time ago taken me out for sumptuous fish porridge by the road side.
And now this emergency...I prayed, and kept on praying. I had driven, following the voice of her GPS, which so cleverly informed us there was a 24 hr clinic in the vicinity. But instead of a clinic, we ended up at a block of flats. So much for the technological expert. A machine is forever a machine. Now what? The ever-logical me figured I should drive my kid straight to the nearest hospital. So having lost the way anyway, I 'simply drove'...1 turn, 2 turns, left, right....and there it was, straight ahead a big blue signboard lighted up with the name of the clinic and the welcome words :24 hours. And surprisingly for a small little suburban clinic it was pretty hi-tech; registration was by a machine scanning the IC, like the ones banks use to verify identity, the attending doctor 'wrote' on a computer screen with a pen tingy, not on the normal paper cards GPs use for patients' records. Plus the best part of it all - it was so cheap - only $50 including medication for food-poisoning . Where can you find a doctor on call at 3 am for this kind of money?! That's personal 'service' - and I am not talking about the doctor.
How is it at the crucial moment, the GPS led us to a dead-end but I could find the clinic 'simply driving around'? Coincidence? Fluke shot? So how come immediately after the crisis was taken care of, I got lost again and couldn't find our way back to the motel? My guess is the angel God sent in answer to my prayer was only tasked to get me to the clinic and after my daughter got the help she needed, he went off-duty for coffee break. Or maybe he had to attend to something much more important in another little corner of the world. Whatever. The job was done. QED
People can 'interpret' God any way they want or don't want. Me, I only know that I know that I know my God is a very personal God. How personal? Well, Max Lucado, the Christian author put it this way, "If you were the only person on earth, the earth would look exactly the same (just as awesome and wonderfully made). ...If you were the sole pilgrim on this globe, God would not diminish its beauty one degree. Because He did it all for you...and He's waiting for you to discover His gift." How personal did Jesus get? As personal as dying on a cross, just for me. That's why Christianity isn't a 'religion'. Just like machines, you can't have a relationship with a 'religion'. With God, you can only get up close and personal, the way God Himself does it. And nope, you don't have to go through an answering machine.
"Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.." - James 4:8
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