A Prayer

Lord, so much has been said about Kong Hee and the use/misuse of church funds. So much outrage, condemnations and comments on the internet of the most vitriolic kind have been seen and heard in all quarters. Non-Christians have gleefully attacked your church. Your own people are once again divided amongst themselves, many choosing to cast stones whilst others cast them back. Whether its in Singapore or out of Singapore, the sense of indignation is extreme.

Lord, what exactly breaks your heart in this whole incident?

Are you pleased when you see your people choosing not to condone wrong-doing by speaking out so publicly against him? Are you glad that we are mindful of right and wrong, and carry a righteous indignation when we see your church being smeared because of the sins of a few individuals?

Are you truly pleased when you see this?

Or does it break your heart when you see us trampling under our feet the kind of grace and forgiveness that you modeled for us when the adulteress was brought before you? Does it pain you when you see your church killing its wounded instead of healing and restoring? Does it hurt more than the pain of seeing someone you raised up let you down so spectacularly?

Lord, what breaks your heart when you look down on us?

Forgive us Lord, for still not understanding your love. Forgive us because we still don’t understand that we are fellow sinners in need of the grace that you so freely gave. Forgive us for our pride, in thinking that we are in a position to nail someone else to the cross just like how we nailed you there. Forgive us for presuming that the offence was against us instead of you, and forgetting that the money he might have misused was never ours in the first place.

O Lord, we are indeed so undeserving of your loving kindness. How quickly we forget, how quickly do we turn our eyes away from you, and quickly embrace once more the ways of the world. You want us to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with you, yet we so often do the opposite. We excuse our own sins as “faults”, then accuse others of “sins”, carrying around us the pride that thinks we are in a position to judge.  

Lord, help us to see through your eyes. Break us of our pride that we might be transformed into a different person, into that certain kind which you so desire for us to become. Perhaps, when we can achieve that breakthrough, the world will recognize you when they look at us.

Faith and Prayer

Faith is such an abused word. We throw that word around with seeming conviction, yet it more often than not only leads to confusion. More often than not, we confuse “faith” with a “positive attitude”. Instead of praying that God’s will be done, we muster up all the mental prowess at our disposal, and try to will our prayer requests into effect instead.

So what exactly is prayer? When we are taught to pray in faith, what does that mean? How does it actually work?

I believe that at the core of all this confusion is a fundamentally flawed assumption that to have faith means to believe God will answer according to our requests. If that were true, you’d find me fasting 40 days and 40 nights, asking God for Fiona Xie and a hundred million bucks! Of course we all know that to be a ridiculous request that God won’t answer. (sob sob…)

But the principle behind why God won’t answer such a prayer isn’t because its ridiculous. Its because its not in line with His Kingdom plan. If my marrying Fiona Xie was part of His plan to bring millions to Christ, you can bet my bottom (100 million) dollars that He would have answered my prayers before I even asked! And I firmly believe that this is the fundamental principle behind prayer. That’s why we were taught to pray “according to God’s will”, and Jesus’ prayers said “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and “Not my will but yours be done”.

I could go on. The Bible is littered with examples of the sort of prayers we should be making, all in the same line of thought. This might sound harsh, but as with all things we slowly realize in our spiritual journey, life is really all about being God-centric instead of being self-centric. In other words, the things we should pray about if we want to pray according to God’s will, should all be about God’s Kingdom.

What about my bad day at work, my injured elbow or my poor aging grandmother in the hospital with pneumonia? Does this mean God doesn’t give a crap, and I shouldn’t bother? Of course not! The bible also says “cast all your cares upon Him because He cares for you.” We should be free to come to God with EVERYTHING that’s in our heart. (Yes, even the lustful thoughts I’m having about Fiona Xie as I type out this blog entry on prayer.)

We should and we must, go to God and be open. After all, it's a dangerous thing to think that we can hide anything from Him. If its legitimate, tell Him. If its not legitimate, confess to Him. But one of the most important exercises in our personal prayer life is to be able to go to God and expose ourselves without any reserve. Doing so doesn’t change a thing as far as God is concerned since He already knows everything, but it sure helps hone our awareness that any pretenses we have all fall away in His presence.

I should stop rambling.
Yes, we need to go to God for everything. There’s nothing wrong there. But we need to do so with the acute awareness of what requests are kingdom-centric, and what requests are self-centric. So what about faith? Does this mean therefore that we can be confident of prayers for kingdom-centric matters to be answered, even if self-centric requests might not? So we can be sure that our prayers for the mission trip ensures everything goes smoothly even if I might not get that promotion I was hoping for?

Wrong again.

We should never ever place our faith in the requests we make, nor place our faith in the belief that God will answer. I might be wrong to be so definitively exclusive here, but I firmly believe that the ONLY faith you should have when you pray, is that GOD IS A GOOD GOD. Here’s how it will look like:

I go to God everyday, praying with all sorts of prayer and petitions, reminding myself that being God-centric is a spiritual discipline. I pray for things that as a self-centric person I normally wouldn’t, and also bring before Him the things on my mind and the desires of my heart. I unload and unleash all of my cares and burdens on Him, sharing with Him like I would with a best friend. Then when its all said and done, I walk away feeling lighter. Do I still have cares and concerns? Of course! Does the tightness on my shoulders remain? Definitely! Has all my problems I prayed about been magically solved? Of course… not!! So what has changed?

I have.

I have spent time with the Almighty God, and counted it a privilege that He allows me to approach Him like this. I count it a blessing that He would care about things with practically zero cosmic consequences, but it matters to Him simply because it matters to me. And even though everything seems to have remained the same from ten minutes ago when I started praying, I have changed. I am reminded that God is a Good God. He is good regardless of whether or not He answers any of the requests I had just put before Him. He is good not because of what He will be doing for me. He is good even if NOTHING I pray for from now on gets answered.

He is good because of what He did for me in the past – He went on the cross to show how much He loves me. I need no further proof of that. And so even if He doesn’t answer my prayers, my faith isn’t shaken. I don’t need my prayers to be answered to decide if He is still a good God. I already know He is. And knowing how good He is, spurs me on towards being even more God-centric, both in my life and in my prayers.

And THAT, I believe, is what faith really should be.

Why train Disruptions Are A Big Deal

Singaporeans
Two stereotypes attributed to Singaporeans, are that of being too pampered/sheltered, and that of being overly fond of complaining. And even though that is tragically true way too often for my liking, I do feel that the uproar over the train disruptions are actually well justified, and not another just another instance of “Singaporeans being Singaporeans once more”. And this is why I think so:

Comparisons
One of the most commonly heard arguments against the uproar is that it is actually very common in other countries. If Tokyo and New York suffer constant train disruptions and don’t make a big deal, why are we complaining? Well, the fact is, I’m not just comparing with countries with a poorer track record. I’m not even comparing it with countries out there that might have a better track record than us (Germany and Switzerland come to mind). The fact is, every country’s transport system has its strengths. Some come on time and run like clockwork, some have a very efficient system, and others run for years without ever breaking down. And I understand that in return for such strengths, there are tradeoffs in other areas. No system is so spectacular that is trumps everyone else. So let’s not compare with others. I’m only asking that we compare with ourselves, and our past history. A downward spiral over the years surely points to poor management and ineptitude. Copious complaints of an overloaded system that have been ignored for years resulted in a massive breakdown that wasn’t a one-off incident, but actually repeated incidents over numerous days and on numerous service tracks. I believe the resulting public backlash has been pretty much a product of the proverbial ticking time bomb.

It’s a Long Story
I also believe that the public outcry is symptomatic of a population that has been driven to the brink of frustration by the leaders of the country. In other words, we need to look at the outcry from a bigger angle.

There is an unspoken recognition that Singapore is an extremely small hub, where almost all of its private and public leaders originate from a pro-PAP camp. You would hardly ever find anyone with an opposing political ideology occupying any position of significant influence, be it in the public sector or even in the pseudo-private enterprises. So after our senses become numbed to the reeling shocks of our recent failures, from Mas Selamat’s escape to the repeated floodings around our island, outrage has been brewing in the hearts of Singaporeans, flabbergasted at how we can be paying our leaders so much only to hear excuses in return for their repeated flops.

When the Government went against their mandate and built the casinos despite significant public opposition, they not only surrendered their credibility further, they effectively carved up a rift that alienated themselves from the people they promised to serve. When no one in the Government stood up to take responsibility for failings whenever they cropped up, choosing instead to all hide behind the same sorry excuse that “these things happen”, the public soon understood that these people weren’t leaders, they were career politicians.

Perhaps its unfortunate that the SMRT CEO has become the scapegoat for such pent up frustrations. I personally think she came across as being absolutely clueless in her handling of the crisis, and my grouse would more likely be with the committee that hired her. But the fact remains that a disruption of such a scale proved to the straw that broke the camel’s back, and culminated in such a severe uproar that it even prompted the PM to cancel his leave to personally take charge of limiting the damage (further highlighting the incompetence of the CEO at defusing the situation).

In Short
I believe it is too naïve and simplistic to simply chalk this up to a population “pampered by an efficient society who have grown intolerant”. It is the culmination of the growing worry and anger that the country is on a steady decline due to the lack of leadership in the country.

If I were to borrow from Hamlet, I would say many strongly feel that “something is rotten in the state of Singapore”.