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| Although having lived 25 years in this body, and experiencing every little detail which I have endured, and running through the range of emotions which makes me feel happy and sad, to this date I still cannot figure myself out. To me, as I look outside-in, I see this inconsistent picture of a boy still trying to find himself. In being a boy, he tries to be a man, to grow up, to become something he is not sure what he wants to be. To me, I am just an inconsistent self. Sometimes I wonder why when certain situations arises, my feelings are sometimes mello and sometimes it's with extreme exciting. How come sometimes I would act with immense love, and sometimes I would act with immense annoyance and hate. What motivates me to do things I will not know? Is it money I seek or love I desire? Or is it something else, something more cynical than both. And as I ended that last question, I noticed one thing - "I am of this world" My doubts and fears are still driven my human-ly desires trying to live a Godly life. As these two lives do not mesh together, in fact they are radically different, hence I am stuck in the middle trying to break out of my old self and into my new self. But this new self is still not a dominant part of my life. Right now it's all just theories and know hows, it is NOT my life, it is an ideal FOR my life. Knowing that this new life is the best life, i struggle to CONFORM to it, and not be TRANSFORMED by it. This is where I err. But the real question is... "Why has this Gospel message been so capitivating that I cannot controlled to be transformed?" Or better yet, "WHy is the Gospel not real to me?" I struggle with this. I fear the answer which is that maybe I am not a Christian. I claim to be one, but really am not one. How can a follower claim to be something, when they do not actually follow it? Am I not just a pharaisee? Am I not just obeying the laws which God has spoken and then following it and in some way hope to attain good and earn my way to Heaven and of the riches which God can provide to me. Am I not having God OWE me for my good deeds? I still do not know the answer to why I am not TRANSFORMED by the Gospel... i still do not. I struggle with life everyday, trying to find meaning, trying to find purpose. And hence inconsistencies arises. Optimisically I believe these inconsistencies are due to my new self pushing through my old self... as I act my old self, the thoughts of the new self is breaking through the surface. Pessimistically, I believe that I am not really changed, just conforming to something which is not me... THis scares me. So how do I live? Where do I go? All we are but dust of the earth
In God's hands, we were given birth
But yet we did not see the Creators hand
We try so hard to use our own hands
In false expectation we come to believe
That one day we will earn our relief
And before God we stand and say to Him
Look at the castles we built for Him
And He will look at us in disgust
And say to us, "you were just dust" | | |
| I figured I changed the topics of my sad and emotionally disturbed life and redirect it to an observation which I have observed. While i type this, my hands are actually recovering from the cold outside... so it's in that middle, not so hot not so cold state, but not the nice warm state, just an odd tingly sensation state. Nonethelss, I shall type. I call this post - the modern pandemic - cyber lonliness. In this world of MSN's, Facebook, and all kind of blog sites - we all are looking for one thing - love. We go on blog sites, share our thoughts, in hope people will read it, respond to it, and show some kind of interest in who you are as a person. We go on facebook, update our status, so people can hear us, and in hopes people will stop and leave a few comments. Lastly, we go on MSN, put ourselves as "online", leave something funny on our MSN tagline, and hope people will message us. In doing so, we hope that people will show they care for us and want to talk to us. Sadly, this is not true, in fact the absense of responses from such means makes us feel more lonely. In many ways its cyber lonliness. I mean, back in my parents day, people went out, met up with friends. And though they did not talk to everyone at the table, but the fact that they sat at the same table, there was some kind of connection. People didn't talk at the table maybe due to circumstances (such as sitting on opposite ends, too busy eating etc). Basically, people back then can determine the cause of the 'lack-of-conversation.' In this cyber world we live, there is no reason, no cause for why people do not talk to you, do not leave comments on your facebook, or read your blogs. In this cyber world, we are all in fact even more lonely than we were. We go online, and we see nothing but people 'online' not talking to you. You can put up a funny msn tag name, and no one will respond, you put an thought involking msn name, and no one responds to you. Doesn't that just make you feel more lonely. Hence, in this cyber world, our lonliness are magnified ten folds. Some people will say, "no Mitchell, people chat with me on MSN all the time, leave comments on my facebook and reads my blog." To this person I say "F you" You who has the charm and personality where people just want to gravitate to you. Not everyone is gifted, so stop rubbing it in my face. But to highlight this comment, do we not all want to admit that somewhere along the way we are all selffish and we are bias to our closer friends and not the marginalized friends? Selffish in the sense, we all want people to talk to us, but we don't want to talk to others. We want to be fed like kings and queens but not to serve one another. Bias in the sense we only want to talk to people close to us, nad not people who are marginalized. This just makes the marginalized person even more marginalized, and make them more socially disfunctional because whne you see them in real life they act more dumb, more stupid to get a little bit of attention. At the end of the day, everyone just wants to be loved. They want to know someone cares for them, and when they go online, and they see nothing but dead silence, what do you think they feel? Rejected. So next time, try something new, try chatting with people you don't chat with, get to know people. The world is not made up of buildings and statues, roads and highways, hills and valleys, the world is made up of people. And the more people you know and talk to, the more you see the world. You can go to every destination spot in the world, and have all the pictures to show for it, but if you do not talk to anyone, not loved anyone - you are nothing. "Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, It keeps no records of wrongs."
- 1 Cor 13:4-5. Let's try to love and overcome this cyber loneliness. Because you can buy a man (or a woman) all the gifts in the world, all the riches that one can buy, but if you do not love this person, you are not giving them the most prized gift they wish to have - to be loved. | | |
| Sometimes as I stroll through life and watch all the lights and sounds pass me by one by one, I find out how many distractions we encountered. We go through life enjoying one thing after the other, and to numb ourselves of the inevitable defeat we all must face. And I'm not sure if it's just me, or how is it that I have recognized this and it feels like so many people have not? I look at my life now and the rest of my life ahead, I can only see that it will be one repeating thing after the other. We would just run around chasing extremes, never to find ultimate happiness. As a Christian, I know what is better, and I know that it is not in me to complain, because people will say... "Did Jesus not die to give you life?" And I have no response to that... but honestly I don't feel the magnitude of such statement. Why is that? I want to know why, am I just a Christian-in-appearnace? I look at this life, the uncontrollable things in life, and how futile this exercise is. You are going to die of cancer they say, but there is nothing you can do about it. You want to find the love of your life, but you can't force your will on that. So where is the control. Once man loses control over his destiny, despair and depression follows. Hope is lost and vacuum away. But we as Christian will always say the same thing "Did Jesus not die to give you life?" Do you not think I know that? Geez. By the simple fact you are telling me that stupid rhetorical question shows YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND how I feel, because when you say that you are trying to fix me, and trying to control what I should be feeling. This reflects you as a person trying to control things... and you are controlling your own life. You are lucky, you have what you want, everything you want in fact... but you do not know how I feel. This lonliness, and this purposelessness growing inside me is killing me. Sometimes I rather just die... This is my death wish. | | |
| A scary and daunting thought came into my mind today as I was enjoying a pleasent dinner with some friends. As we talked about God, I realized one thing I've learned from this breakup. In this suffering, in this trial, I have learned so much more about God, and I have started to "live out theology". By living out theology is not that I somehow embodied all the doctrines in my body and somehow it has manifested itself in actions, it just simply means I have come to learn to surrender a lot more of myself to God. So this then brings me to my next point - as Christians are we called to suffer? I sometimes wonder this, because as Christians, to be called followers of Christ, do we not too often "orbit" God, like the Earth orbiting the Sun? And similar to the Earth, we are in the "perfect" place, not too hot and not too cold. In many ways, we are lukewarm. Are we as Christians like that? And so we ask ourselves, how do we move from lukewarm-est to 'being on fire' for God? Well you can read John Bevere's "Heart Ablaze" and many other books. But what it really is, at least what I beleive, is what a good buddy of mine (who is doing his intern pastoralship) is that 'we must meet God half way.' THat is, we have to be willing to get closer to the Son. We have to be willing to jump from the planet Earth to the planet Mars, so we can feel more of the heat. That is, we have to make the move to 'meet God halfway'. When we make that bold step of faith, God will meet us there. ANd just as it gets hotter, so it will get HARDER. But this heat will burn our old self and all our hidden sins away. And through this purify us like gold. But back to my point, are we CHristians called to suffer? I think when we consciouscly make the jump from Earth to Mars, and we ask God that we may become more "Christ-like", then it is only through trials and devastation does actual change come about? We live in our worlds full of idols and these idols are so strong, that only the power of God can ensure the grips of such idols be released from us. However, as we have been so clingy to these idols, it has become our food and our lives are sustained by it. ANd once it's ripped out, it only leaves devastation and trauma. But in this suffering, God then can bring on true change to the individual. Now the individual will replace the idol with God, and learn to become more depended on God, and hence will be more 'on fire' for God. So if I look at my point above - then is Christian living a consistent suffering? CHrist CAME to suffer. Are we not to do the same? I can imagine that when we get to Venus or the first planet (I don't know what it was), we will be even more on fire for God and the suffering will be even greater. I mean if you are so close to the Sun, you do not feel anything but the heat. Similarily, if we can become so close to God, we will not feel anything but God's heat... and this heat is the continual suffering over the lost and the broken and the injsutice in this world. ANd if we live in this heat, all we see is not happiness and good times, we only see the suffering which God sees. ANd so we suffer too - we share in the fellowship of suffering. So i ask again, and my theology may be wrong, are we called to suffer? | | |
| The world is full of broken people,
living in their ways
They conquer it with many methods
But it's all just a display Some will say that they are not broken
Because they have found sucess
And some will say that life is broken
But inside they are not depressed Some will say that they are not broken
In love they will trust their mate
But some will be completely broken
As their love was not their fate Some will say that life is meangingless
Just mindless chasing after the sun
So they kill themselves slowly
Into depression they will run But I say we as Christian is to find the broken
To give them hope and peace
Because at the end of the day we are all broken
But we have the Prince of peace. A poem by Mitchell Cheung Thank you thank you - I think only 1 or 2 people will read this. LoL | | |
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