Double Life

We are called to be spiritual beings and yet we have to live in the world for the time being. To me the two are constantly opposed to each other. A friend of mine told me about a priest who cemented himself into a turret and then fasted and prayed until he died. The saints (or madmen) of old, standing on towers, day and night, for years, hermit monks, all of those people who decide that relationship with God is more important than living in the world, are they onto something ?

At times in my life I have truly believed that maybe there is something to all of this. If God is the most important thing in anyone’s life, why not cut out all the other relationships and activities that you have and focus only on Him ?

But then, if He wanted me to do that, I would be doing it. The truth is that for most of us, we are called to ‘infect’ other people with the salvation we have.

Mathew 5:16Let your light so shine before men that they may see your moral excellence and your praiseworthy, noble, and good deeds and recognize and honor and praise and glorify your Father Who is in heaven.

We are called to be God’s representative on earth, we are his salesmen, we are his showroom. As Abraham Lincoln said ‘ For it is from our lives, not our words that our religion must be known’

I often get sick of what I deem to be the ‘little stuff’. The misunderstandings and disagreements between people, the ‘going round in circles’, the feelings of desperation and inadequacy,feeling like we are not making progress as the body of Christ. At times I think that if Christians just banded together and worked as one, we could save the whole world but then I see that we are all struggling with our own internal battle.

I, myself can feel like a righteous crusader for God one minute and a hypocritical pathetic example of a Christian the next. The thoughts of secluding myself and focusing my whole life on God come from the desire to always be working towards bringing His kingdom to earth. I am torn between thoughts of ‘did I do something wrong and make God’s work harder’ or ‘Is that what God needed me to say/do so that His will could come about’

The key to all of this is never give up !! Wake up satisfied with the knowledge that every morning you get one drop of grace and that drop of grace is enough for you to charge through the day. Throughout the day, pray and beg God for His anointing and wisdom. At the end of the day, return all you have done to Him. Then get up the next day and do it again !! Just keep marching into battle, when you fall, get up again, never give up, don’t let your losses and defeats define you, use them to determine to do better next time and don’t fear, He is in control and the war has been won. Our job is to win the battles we have inside of us to complete the victory.

God Bless You

The Truth Behind A Verse- Part Two

Story Two
I am a pretty good assessor of student’s ability and have a natural talent for finding a way to motivate them. I am not perfect and I often make mistakes but I generally help my students to make progress in their language, confidence and thinking, as well as other areas.

For a whole year I had been teaching a boy and he was extremely passive and lacked confidence. He was an extremely nice boy and was accepted by his friends. ( in a western country, he would have been ridiculed fro being so introverted)

For the whole year I had been gently pushing and guiding him and he had made minor progress. To be honest, I had made the decision that a little bit of progress was good progress and lowered my expectations for him.

Three quarters of the way through the year, we had a parent/teacher meeting and the boys mother meets with me to discuss the boys English ability. Within minutes she is crying and asking me to please, please try to be a friend for her son. She explains that since his father abandon her, the boy and his younger brother, her eldest son had just sank into himself. She explained that she had tried so hard to get him to talk about how he felt but he had just withdrawn from the world.

What God has shown me recently is that NOBOBY knows what is going on in the life of another person. You can assume, you can think you know 20%, 40% or even 90% of the story. You can gather gossip, you may have lived with the person for 40 years. But the fact is that God is dealing with every person in the exact way He needs to deal with them. Their perspective of whatever is happening is different to yours.

No matter how much anyone ‘knows’ you, their interpretation of what you say and how you feel and how you act will be structured by how they think, how they listen and a whole other range of factors. No one will ever understand you completely and you will never understand anyone else completely.

I often find that the things I dislike about others are often what God is using to show me that the same trait is prevalent in me. None of us are qualified to judge another, that is God’s role.

Be sure to reconstruct your preconceptions as frequently as possible. Pray for it each and every day because if you don’t change, you will stagnate. Others might not see the new you but God wants to work on your character and thought process EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Lord, may I constantly decrease so that you may increase in me. Amen

God Bless You

The Truth Behind A Verse- Part One

Luke 6:41
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice or consider the beam [of timber] that is in your own eye?

It is easy as a teacher to form preconceptions. In fact, that is what we are required to do. We are asked to write reports about students and tell their parents about the student’s abilities. No matter how good the intention or how well you do assessment, once we judge the student, we have formed a preconception in our own minds, in the parents mind and in the student’s mind.

The class, and student body as a whole, notice the way we treat every student and gather information about test scores, discipline and gossip on an almost sinister level. They are then cross evaluating each other and using the information to reposition themselves, and others, as smart, stupid, naughty, athletic, teacher’s pet etc. Preconceptions are dangerous ! Let me see if I can illustrate why and tie my point into the verse above.

I have been teaching in the same grade, at the same school for 6 years now. I know the students and how they behave. I would like to share a couple of stories that God has pulled together to teach me an extremely valuable lesson.

Story One
I had a student for the whole year, a girl. She nearly always forgets her books and rarely does her homework. I would see her around the school and often noticed that her father and mother delivered her to school, carried her bag to the front door for her and often hung around, paying too much interest to her welfare.

Being an astute guy who notices most things, I tied all this together. I had tried a whole range of ways to get the girl to be more responsible but I had narrowed it down to the fact that the parents doted on her too much. They were smothering her and she couldn’t develop a sense of responsibility and independence.

Just 2 weeks ago I was starting my class by asking everyone what they did for their weekend. I get students to raise their hand if their weekend was excellent and then ask them to share why. Next if their weekend was good and finally if their weekend was bad. The girl raised her hand for ‘bad’ and I asked her what she did that made it bad, here is the conversation that followed:

She replied “We went to my bother’s grave”
“Oh, I’m sorry, when did he die” I asked, trying to stop myself from saying something like ‘you poor thing are you ok ?’
“ Two years ago” My brain is going at a million miles an hour and I am a big believer that talking about things helps to make you feel better so I continued.
“And how old was he?”
“ Two years old” she replied in a very monotone voice
“ Do you miss him ?”
“ Yes”

And that was the end of the conversation.

…..see part two

A Day In The Life Of Me

I have a pretty busy life, not complaining, just wanted give you a picture of it….

I wake up at around 4-5am each morning and sit at my computer reading, praying, writing and eating my breakfast. At 5:30 I go for a walk for about 20 minutes and then I come home, change into bathers, jump on my mountain bike and ride to a swimming pool which is only 5 minutes ride away. I swim for about 15 minutes, ride home, jump in the shower, get out, get dressed, read my bible (one verse), grab my helmet and jacket, kiss my kids and wife and in my mind say ‘God bless you’, jump on my motorbike and ride 45 minutes through the morning traffic in Surabaya to work.

I get to work and start my work day at 7:25am exactly with morning devotions with all of the other teachers. At 7:45am the devotion ends and I go about my work responsibilities until 3:25pm. Then I ride my motorbike 45 minutes back through the traffic and arrive at home. When I get home, I will greet my wife and youngest daughter but my eldest daughter will take up my attention for an hour or until she feels she has had enough. Next I will chat to my wife and spend some time with my youngest. I will then usually cook dinner and try to help my wife a bit. Frequently I will find myself squeezing in a shower an hour or two after I get home and the first time I sit down and do something for myself may be as late as 7 or 8pm.

I often crash out at 8 or so but try to stay awake until after my eldest daughter goes to sleep so I can have some quality time with my wife. If I do fall asleep first, my wife often wakes me up at 11 or 12 and we chat and spend time together.

Now I am NOT SUPERMAN and my life is NOT a religion. I swap and change and often am too lazy to go for a swim. My wife’s day is completely different and ,honestly, much harder than my day. But there things I do that get me through every day and help me to CHARGE through life.

1) I don’t miss my time reading the bible. No matter what. And I often spend a lot of other times reading verses and discussing them with people. My bible is as important as the air I breathe. I might not die if I don’t read it but it is a priority in my life.

2) Prayer. I pray for my kids and wife when I kiss them and I spend the 45 minute trip to work praying. I pray and talk to God all day long

3) I live by my priorities. They are : 1= God 2= Family 3= Work 4= Ministry.

I may not be perfect but I am all I can be because I keep my priorities in the right order. If you want to know more about this, read my post ‘Prioritizing Your Life Part one and two, March 17’

God Bless You, have a great day !!

An Update - Part One

I am going to change the ’style’ of this blog a bit. There will be a number of factual updates about what I am doing at the moment. I will still write devotions and share them but due to the amount of things that are going on in my life I might keep it fairly straight forward for a while (then again I might not, only God knows, amen ) This post is feedback to the ‘Busy Month’ post

1) I made a wonderful Shepard’s pie ( if I do say so myself ) and took it to my cell group. Unfortunately, as it was being removed from the car, it got dropped, didn’t look as good but still tasted ok. God put something on my heart during one of our Friday night sessions…….

There were 10-15 people gathered in the room, waiting for things to start. Someone was playing guitar and people were chatting. Then someone said “ Ok, let’s make a start” Someone else nominated a song, the person on guitar started playing and the person who chose the song led. Everyone joined in, in their own way, some tapping their feet, some clapping their hands. My 3 year old daughter even walked to the other side of the room and grabbed a shaker, she came back beside me and started to shake a beat (better than I ever could as I am musically retarded )
After a few songs, someone prayed and then the person who had been nominated gave us a meditation on the meaning of the cross. Next, people were nominated to pray for certain others, we sang and prayed for the evening meal and then ate and chatted.

The thing that God showed me was that that is how the body of Christ should function. Each person just does what God puts on their heart. He puts it all together. All we need to d is be empty vessels so we can clearly understand what it is He wants us to do and then do whatever it is He wants us to do diligently and faithfully.

2) We went to both of the orphanages and it was a very productive day. We shared and prayed with Pak Dodo and Bu Ester from Rumah Sejati. From what we have discussed, we are planning to have the family day with the families of some of the ex-street kids from their orphanage. We also handed over the school fee money.

Andrew had to go home after Rumah Sejati so my wife, 2 kids and I met a friend and went to Karunia together. It was a long, hard, uncomfortable drive to get their and it was a real relief when we finally did. We gave bags of ‘krupuk’ and the money for the school fees. Bu Tin and Bu Silvie are really strong women of faith. They live and support 30 children, who are victims of the East Timor conflict, and when you ask them how they do it they simply say “ Jesus is never late in helping us” I photographed most of the kids there and we were just about to leave when I dropt Andrew’s camera  I just found out it is going to cost me a fortune to fix but that little low light doesn’t show up the wonderful things that were done on that day. Bu Silvie and Bu Tin also told us that they have 1 year to raise Rp300JT (US $ 32,000 ) to buy the house they are living in or the owner will have to sell it to someone else.

3) The visit to Rumah Kehidupan is next Sunday (13th) My wife and I went through all our eldest daughter’s toys and have a great big box of toys to hand over. I hope we can share some love and put some smiles on some dials. I will put up a report as I am not sure what to expect.

4) Andrew, Jos and I had our meeting and are getting steam up for Y4G.

I have to go and get some exercise before work now. I have lots more to share and will hopefully get time tomorrow.

God Bless You

A Busy Month

This is going to be a busy month for me and to top it all off, the Yearn4god website is being rearranged. This will mean that we will have sites that are easier to update and access. Is will also mean that Andrew, Jos and myself can all easily alter the site and post, as at the moment Andrew is the only one with the know how. You can look forward to much more frequent information if you are following the progress of Y4G.

Here’s what I have on my plate this month (apart from my full time job and family life)

1) Tomorrow night (Friday) is a postponed Easter celebration with my church cell group. I’m making shepherd’s pie (never one to miss the opportunity for some irony or a pun or whatever you would call that)

2) On Saturday my family and Andrew will be going to 2 orphanages, Rumah Sejati and Karunia. We aim to begin photographing the kids for the website profile and also to hand over the money Andrew’s church raised from selling Christmas cards. We have worked with the heads of the orphanage and it turns out that the money from the sale of the Christmas cards will send 6 kids to school for a year. I am also looing forward to seeing Bu Silvie and Bu Tin at Karunia as their orphanage is very difficult to get to and I haven’t been there in about a year.

3) Sunday we go to visit an orphanage that is specifically for babies born after failed abortions. In Indonesia, there are common practices of trying to abort using ‘strong massages’, drinking toxic herbal potions etc. These methods often fail but leave the child deformed. Rumah Kehidupan is a place for these children. We will be donating second hand toys and trying to spread a little love there.

4) Next Wednesday, Andrew, Jos and I should finally have our weekly meeting. It has been canceled several times due to people being busy and sick. It is very important as we need to get onto our next CHARGED fellowship and really start putting together the family day.

5) The 12th will be annual work meeting followed by a family gathering. Its my wife’s family tradition to have the whole family gather every month or 2 and eat together and have fun, all 40-50 people !!

6) The 19th is a special little boys birthday party, already got his present.

7) 26th is the joy of job training.

It is going to be a busy month and I sometimes wonder how I end up with such a busy schedule. I will put up photos and reports about the orphanage visits when the Y4G website has been rearranged.
God Bless You

Corrupt World

I haven’t posted for over a week now. I have been spending time introspecting and seeking God. I believe that it is essential that you build your relationship with God and take time out every now and then to really focus on God and let Him grow you.

My 2 daughters and myself have also been sick over the past few days and that leads me into what I want to talk about today. For those who have never experienced a country like Indonesia, the things I talk about might be hard to grasp.

To illustrate my point : At 4:30am this morning, my wife and I took our 4 month old daughter to the doctor. The doctor we go to is very good and we often wait 3-4 hours to see him as his practice is very busy. We usually go at about 11pm when it is quiet and will see him after 1-2 hours. Today, we went in the morning as I am still off work sick and our baby was having trouble breathing because of a blocked nose.

Before we left, we dropped our eldest at my mother-in-law’s. When she heard where we were going, she made a quick call and got the number of the doctors receptionist. Turns out, if you slip the receptionist Rp 10,000 (US $1.20) you can go straight to the front of the queue.

We thought nothing of it and turned up at the doctor. The receptionist told us there were 12 people in front of us and asked us what number we wanted. I replied “number one”, he gave us a look, crossed out the number one name and put our daughters name there. I gave him the money and within 10 minutes, we had seen the doctor and were on our way home.

My wife and I soon talked about how what we did didn’t feel right. We determined never to do it again and I earnestly prayed for forgiveness. This little story illustrates a much bigger problem which got me contemplating.

In Indonesia it is so difficult to do some things without paying bribes that you are virtually forced to go along with the corrupt system. Getting a license or wedding certificate can take a longtime and be very expensive if you try to do it the legitimate way but if you pay the right guy the right amount, you can have either, or almost anything else you want, almost instantly.

So my contemplation was “ What does God want us to do in situations like this ? “ Become martyrs to the system by refusing to play along ? Blend in and try to influence from the inside ? Lose the battle but save our victory for the day when we can win the war ? Is it all a test to see if we will ‘live in the world’ ?

I discussed all this with my wife and she tried to say ‘ you’ve just been in Indonesia too long, you forget what Australia is like, everywhere is like this. “

I tried to illustrate the difference I see like this; If there was an Australian in a car at a red light and they could see 500 meters down all the approaching roads, there was no way a policeman could catch them and they knew there were no cameras etc, they would still wait for the light to turn green because that’s the rule. In Indonesia it would probably be the policeman running the red light.on his motorbike, with no helmet on.

Then I talked about how in Australia, similar to Singapore, everyone obeys the rules, everything is orderly and functions well. It was what I said next that I think is the most valuable thing for me to take away from all this…

But even if the country is like a garbage dump, God is probably happier because the people will turn to Him easier. In Australia, most people are so ‘comfortable’ with the rules and regulations that they feel quite happy to live life using their own strength and intelligence. God doesn’t require the world to succeed, He just requires his lost sheep to return to His flock.

God Bless You

The Tarkine

I was watching a show on the Tarkine Forrest in Tasmania last night. Amazing place, one of the most untouched ecosystems on the world. I instantly yearned to take my wife and children to Tasmania and walk among the giant trees and pass waterfalls and eat fresh crayfish straight out of crystal clear water.

This morning God put something on my heart. ALL of that can disappear. It can all be destroyed and God will not bat an eyelid. The most beautiful scenery, the most majestic animal, it can all be destroyed totally and He won’t care.

BUT one winging, whining complaining, ignorant, selfish human being doesn’t turn back to Him and he would be devastated. If my daughter killed someone, I would forgive her without question, no matter what her motives. She is my daughter, I love her, it is just the way it is…there is nothing she could do to make me love her less. If she was sick, I would die for her, its just the way it is.

I would not die for the most majestic animal or the most beautiful piece of scenery and no, I probably wouldn’t die for a winging, whining complaining, ignorant, selfish human that I didn’t love. But I give conditional love, God does not. He doesn’t care about pollution and destruction of the forests EXCEPT that it illustrates that we have not yet all turned back to HIM. If we had, we wouldn’t live the consumerist way we do BUT saving the forests without being saved yourself is pointless. If you want to do something for God, plant a seed. In someone’s heart.

God Bless You

“ God doesn’t require that we succeed, only that we try “ Mother Teresa

Doing Good Deeds

One thing I am conscious of is that theologians often believe strongly that you shouldn’t use bible verses out of context. I tend to do that a bit and I apologize if I make mistakes, please send me an e-mail if you have advice or suggestions or corrections for me.

I want to talk about doing good deeds. The verse God has given me for this is Genesis 12:2. At least that is the verse I thought I wanted. Unfortunately He gave it to me in Indonesian, in the form of Ang Pao and it wasn’t even the full verse. It was a sticker that just said Kejadian 12:2 “Aku akan memberkati engkau dan kamu akan menjadi berkat” or “I will bless you and you will be a blessing”

I stuck the sticker on my car and I have received a lot of revelation and insight by meditating on what it says. It was only when I sat down to write this that I checked the full verse. I re-read the full verse in English and in Indonesian and I now realize that God was talking to Abram and telling him what would happen if he followed the Lord.

Genesis 12:1 – 3
Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land I will show you. 2 I will bless you and make your descendents into a great nation. You will become famous and be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless anyone who blesses you, but I will put a curse on anyone who puts a curse on you. Everyone on earth will be blessed because of you.

I have heard people argue that to preach the word of God you need to study theology so that you understand the context of the message. I agree completely that we as Christians need to study the bible and theology. But the same people that tell me about understanding the context of the bible do not speak fluent Hebrew. Now, from reading the bible in Indonesian and English, or even different English versions such as NIV, CEV or KJV it is obvious that huge amounts of context, connotation and meaning are added and lost through the language used. It is my belief that the Word of God is alive, through the Holy Spirit.

My point is, it is an admirable thing to study theology and memorize the bible but the Holy Spirit determines what you understand. The most knowledgeable theologian in the world can preach the most amazing sermon and the person in seat A will get revelation and insight into God while the person in seat B will go to sleep only to leave the church service and receive their revelation in the church canteen while chatting to a friend from their office.

Build your relationship with God. Read and study the Bible. Learn all you can about theology. Go to mission school, do whatever you can to arm yourself with weapons to win souls for Jesus. It is good to build your knowledge and faith. But NOW is the time to start doing good deeds. As the sons and daughters of Christ we were each ‘given talents and gifts to be used in the service of others ’, we were called to ‘make our light shine so that others would see the good that we do and praise our Father in Heaven’ ( Mathew 5:16 ) And one of my favorite verses :

James 2:14 – 26
14My friends, what good is it to say you have faith, when you don’t do anything to show that you really do have faith? Can that kind of faith save you? 15If you know someone who doesn’t have any clothes or food, 16you shouldn’t just say, “I hope all goes well for you. I hope you will be warm and have plenty to eat.” What good is it to say this, unless you do something to help? 17Faith that doesn’t lead us to do good deeds is all alone and dead!

18Suppose someone disagrees and says, “It is possible to have faith without doing kind deeds.”

I would answer, “Prove that you have faith without doing kind deeds, and I will prove that I have faith by doing them.” 19You surely believe there is only one God. That’s fine. Even demons believe this, and it makes them shake with fear.

20Does some stupid person want proof that faith without deeds is useless? 21Well, our ancestor Abraham pleased God by putting his son Isaac on the altar to sacrifice him. 22Now you see how Abraham’s faith and deeds worked together. He proved that his faith was real by what he did. 23This is what the Scriptures mean by saying, “Abraham had faith in God, and God was pleased with him.” That’s how Abraham became God’s friend.

24You can now see that we please God by what we do and not only by what we believe. 25For example, Rahab had been a prostitute. But she pleased God when she welcomed the spies and sent them home by another way.

26Anyone who doesn’t breathe is dead, and faith that doesn’t do anything is just as dead! Faith that doesn’t lead us to do good deeds is all alone and dead

Or to use a quote from Thomas Jefferson,

“ For it is our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be judged. ”

God does not have a showroom on earth. He doesn’t hold exhibitions and put on demonstrations for crowds. Our lives need to advertise His love.

If I may, I will share what I get from Genesis 12:1 – 3

Go back to my sticker version, “Aku akan memberkati engkau dan kamu akan menjadi berkat” or “I will bless you and you will be a blessing” I believe that most people like to do good deeds. They find happiness in doing something good for someone else and being appreciated for it. But I believe that if we follow the Lord and we commit to Him, His very nature will change us and the closer we come to Him, the more our lives will be used to bless others.

Notice it doesn’t say “If I bless you, you should bless others “When God works in your life, He transforms you. His blessings come in the forms of revelation, wisdom, health, spiritual gifts, talents, destiny and love. When God blesses you with these things as He WILL if you ‘seek first the kingdom of God’ then you WILL be a blessing to others. It’s not a thing you have to choose.

All you do is love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all you strength, with all you mind and with all your soul and commit to living a righteous life. He will transform you into a loving and faithful husband, He will give you wisdom in your relationships with your children and friends, He will heal you and give you strength when times are tough, you will discover or enhance talents you have and be given opportunities to use them in ways that are pleasing to Him.

The promises of the Kingdom of Heaven are truly amazing. When you repent and give your life to Jesus, you are given the Holy Spirit and the seed of God comes to live in you. But just because you have the seed of greatness in you, it does not mean you will produce great fruit. There is a process we must all undertake. It’s a process of learning, of building, of transforming. We will never reach perfection in this lifetime but as Mother Teresa said “God does not require us to succeed, He only requires that we try”

You always pass failure on the way to success. It is in our nature to be sinful but don’t let your failures take you further away from God. That is what the devil wants. The devil wants us to feel ashamed and inadequate to approach God so that he can influence us. Take you failures and sins to God repent with all your heart and ask Him for His forgiveness so that you can continue on your journey.

‘I cannot do all great things but I can do all things with great love’

God Bless You, Gef

An Earnest Question

I have question and I would greatly appreciate some feedback. Why is it that when I do a post about sex I get 4-5 times more hits at my blog than when I do posts on other topics ?

Is it :

1) People are searching for porn and so the key words get more hits
2) People honestly seek information and help about sex related issues
3) Other

If it is merely because people are searching for porn, maybe I’ll just include the raunchy words in my tags when I write on other topics LOL. If people really want information, ideas, counseling or are just interested in the topic of sex, I will create a page for it.

Again I would greatly appreciate some feedback. Thanks and God Bless You, Gef