Feeling a sense of lost | Sunday, April 30, 2006
FEELING A SENSE OF LOST
It has never been my intentions to hurt the one whom I cherished very much in my life and yet, the end result was that due to my frustrations, anger, confusions, and all the other negative emotions, I ended up hurting her. Suddenly, the connection between us (if there ever was one) and I like to think there is, was suddenly strained and that really saddens me. In fact, when I was going out with her, I was already feeling very negative with myself in my heart and spirit, I was trying very hard to control my emotions so that i did not want to affect her but in the end, she ended up being very affected by me. For that I was and still am apologetic to her for this matter.
That brought me to reflect a bit deeply about my own behaviour in that why would I hurt someone whom I don't intend or even want to hurt and yet, she ended up being hurt by me. I could only think of one answer and that is self-centeredness. For others, that might not be their reason but for me, I think that is true enough. I was negative and all I could think of was my hurts, my resentments, my frustrations and my unhappiness and my concerns. In that sense, I was fully immersed in myself and my hurts and I thought that I would be happier going out with her and that she would be happy to see me and that in itself, would help me feel better about things. However, it did not turn out to be that way, and I was feeling a bit irrational and so, things did not turn out well. I believe firmly that I did not lash out at her, meaning in my conscious mind, I did not scold her, threw a tantrum, quarreling with her and stormed off and still, she felt hurt because she felt more deeply of the underlying tensions and the sight of my silent, black or even furious face would make her feel even more scared of me.
That incident made me sadder and even I myself felt appalled at my behaviour. I tried to come up excuses for my behaviour and all of them felt lacking in a fundamental way. I felt bad, I felt sad, I was remorse and yet, it did not help things for the fact was that I have grieved her and I have been trying to make amends for it but somehow, I didn't have the courage to do so. During this time, I felt within myself questioning myself that when I grieved the Holy Spirit, or make my Heavenly Father angry myself, I don't feel that sense of loss, remorse such as I felt towards her. I felt that should not be the case at all because if I cherished the person I love so very much in my life, all the more so should I cherish the Maker of my life, who looks over me, who takes care of me, who provides all my needs and yet, most of the time, I did not put Him first in my life. Without Christ, I am nothing and I cannot live without Him and yet, I treated Him shabbily and how I felt a sense of shame prickling at my heart as I was typing.
I love her and still do but for her, it would only be my words only without action. She might be right but for me, I knew deep within my heart and soul, I do love her and that I do not want to hurt her but I also know that would be impossible because if I can hurt the One who loved Me more than I can ever love myself and willingly gave up His life for me, to the extent that I would never love Him back, I would stone Him, spit at Him and curse Him, He still died for Me. O what indescribable love He has for me and that is more than I can ever say for myself of my love for Him and even the love I have for her. I can only pray that as I love Jesus more and more each day, that my love for Him will be reflected to my love for her and I hope is sufficient for her.
May my life be another extension of His story and I sincerely hope that I will glorify Your Name more and more each day.
Created at 3:47 PM
Love the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength | Saturday, April 01, 2006
LOVE THE LORD WITH ALL OF YOUR HEART, SOUL, MIND AND STRENGTH
In the Old Testament, our Lord required only one thing from the people of Israel and that is they are to love the Lord with all of their heart and mind and soul and strength. That is before He even gave Moses the 10 commandments and it seemed to me that if anyone can fulfil this requirement from the Lord, he/she has already fulfilled the 10 commandments but the sad thing is that nobody can do that; not the Israelites in the past nor us in the present. We can't even love our brothers or others and we keep feeling irritation, annoyance and anger, hurt and other emotions even at the persons that we have loved most dearly and preciously in our hearts. It is written in 1 John that if we don't even love our brothers whom we have seen on earth, how can we love God whom we have not even seen? (paraphrase mine). God called us a liar and we lied not only to God but we lied to ourselves that we loved God very dearly to the extent that we could even give up our lives for Him.
Look at Peter on the night that Jesus was to be crucified. Jesus told Peter that every one of His disciples is going to be scattered, each to his own house and Peter declared boldly that He was going to die together with Him and that even if everyone would reject Jesus, he, Peter would not and would be with Him. However, Jesus knew better and He told Peter gently (I believe) that Peter, in this night, will deny Jesus not one time but three times before the rooster crowed and we all knew who was right in the end. I personally believed that Peter was sincere in his commitment to the Lord just like the rest of us when we declared our love for the person we loved and yet in the end, ended in tears and sorrow, possibly even divorce. However, what amazed me was that Jesus, after resurrection, asked Peter one question three times whether Peter loved Him. Peter answered Jesus the last time and that was when my heart broke. Peter told Jesus, "Lord, You know all things. You know that I loved You." Jesus turned to him and said, "Feed my sheep." When Peter made this declaration of love to Jesus, Jesus did not condemn him nor did He refer to Peter's denial but He believed that Peter loved Him and tasked him to take care of the little ones.
To me that is love indeed. We can't love God in the way He required: with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength but I believe that one day we are able to do so, not of our own ability but enabled by His. The way He restored Peter, the way He did not question Peter's love for Him are examples for us to follow. Love is not just a tingly-feeling, the way your eyes light up when you see the one you love come into the room but it's more than that. It's a commitment to the other person just as God is committed to us and that He chooses the best for us. In the Old Testament, even when the Israelites were adulterous and worshipped other gods, God still loved them and that He longed for them to return to His side. In the same way, God has not changed and He longed for us to return to Him. Just as the marriage vows that said, "For richer or poorer, for health and in sicknesses, till death do us part." That is not requirement but commitment but sad to say, the people who made these vows did not remember it nor do they honor it and no wonder, their marriages end in divorce because they are not committed to it.
I do believe that they are committed to each other before their marriage and also on their wedding day but it does not stop there. It goes on till the day you died and that is a life-long commitment. Call me naive or idiot but I sincerely believe that is possible. If you have accepted the person to be your husband or wife, work with them to make your marriage work by the grace of God. I don't believe that anyone can love his/her spouse with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength but I do believe that you can love your wife to the extent that you are willingly give up your life for hers, do the things that pleases your wife, listening to her, loving her and many others more. To me, that is love most explicitly expressed, doing the little things and then moving on to greater things. Teach me to love Lord for You are indeed the Source of Love. Amen.
Created at 9:50 AM
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Name: Joseph Chia
Age: 28
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