The Prologue - The Church of Tiberias

I've been coming to the church of Tiberias here in Jakarta. Why?

The Prologue

When my mom was on her sickbed, several people from Tiberias, who had never known her come to visit to pray and encourage and heal her. At first, I was a little bit uneasy because I've been to Tiberias several times, and I know their teaching and doctrine. Admittedly, there are several points that I disagree with them wholeheartedly; plain unbiblical. However, upon hearing their testimonies about miraculous healing which were delivered with great confident and deep conviction, I can't help but to wonder, "Is this story true?".

I believe in miracle, but being brought up as a rational being, the concept of miracle often being buried under. God can do miracle, yes and amen to that, but miracle never come as an ultimate comfort / remedy in my struggle and walk with God. I didn't expect miracle to happen, and I didn't think of miracle instantaneously

So when all these testimonies were being told, I was like being torn into two opposite poles. It reminded me of my little faith in miracle and that God can still work supernaturally / miraculously in this area too. But on the other hand, should I buy into their stories, how could a church with so many misleading doctrines could be blessed by God with so many miraculous wonders?

Of course I wanted to believe what they said, I wanted my mom to recover and be healed completely just like what they claimed but I know there's something fishy there, it didn't fit to the whole picture, but even if it so, they have lots of stories to tell about healing. If the stories are fabricated, why would they be so convicted in it, why would they go through all the hassle to visit and pray for the sick? And it is undeniable that their church has been used tremendously by God to bring people to him. So, what's going on here?

I was like a 5 years old trying to gulp a stream of water, I was trying to understand why and how God operates, to dissect God's mind and see what's behind it. Pondering inconclusively, I decided to come to Tiberias to check them out, with an assumption that maybe we humans are too dogmatic about doctrines.

Maybe in God's eyes, he cares less about healing or speaking in tongue or baptism, and only patiently hope that we all would realize our own flaws and come to our senses eventually. Maybe God does not label his children by denominations, and as long as we believe in him, that's what matters the most and he will bless his church regardless. Maybe this is Satan's attempt to create division among the body of Christ - war of doctrines. Maybe, I can only assume.

And that's the reason why I've been coming to Tiberias. I need to know not just the nutshell, but also all the gory details. I've been an outsider hearing all these things about Tiberias, and now I need to be an insider to see with my own eyes and to observe objectively.

It is my goal to have a well rounded information before I come to any conclusion, and hopefully I can understand God better by doing it. So here I go, embarking on this new project of my own, and let's hope that it will be a blast.

A Modest Proposal

Hey hair,

I'm still 23 and the law of nature postulates that you are supposed to still strongly rooted in my hair scalp. You are supposed to grow vigorously, as thick as you like, as long as you wish, and I think I've created a good environment for you to do that, have I ever colored you with red or yellow? Didn't I wash and nourish you everyday?  To act and behave like this given all that I've invested in you and at a time where I still highly dependent on you to attract my female counterparts is an epic act of betrayal!!

I've collected a picture of you from my 19th birthday in 2006 to the most recent 2010, and your lack of commitment and dedication to me are evident. To say you're getting thinner at an alarming rate is an understatement, the rate is astronomical, and I urge you, no, I command you to pull yourself together and grow!! Let's do it. Together, we are unlimited...

April 2006 - Look at all the fun we had, thick and dark, everyone looked at us with envy

April 2007 - Have you concocted your diabolical series of betrayal yet at this time? Would never imagine that 2007 is my last birthday with still a perfectly fine hair volume.

April 2008 - First sign was seen. I was getting worried, shower time was terrifying, but I was still faithful that you were going to come back to your senses

April 2009 - Did you still expect me to smile at this stage? The signs were conspicuous, people started to notice, I started to count "how many, how many?"

April 2010 - And finally. Oh, concerning, deeply concerning. 

So, my dear hair, please tell me when you're going to put an end to all these. I hope you will behave just like all your other peers, at least until the next 20 years. Could you? If not, please let me know, I'm gonna have to find a place to do hair implant soon. Thanks.

Paint It with More Color

Few last entries have been pretty gloomy, and I apologize for that. This blog is like a conduit for my feelings, a place where my pool of emotions can slowly ooze out. So, especially at times like this, I might depend more on this blog to materialize my fear or grief. And I'm pretty sure more are coming up.

However, I can already sense and feel the dreariness and clouds of melancholy hovering over the atmosphere of this blog. Too much black color, and it violates the title of this blog. I need more nuance and I need it quick. so let's jazz things up!! The next post won't be so dramatic, I promise. 

10 Days After ......

It is not a beautiful memory, not something that you wish to harbor in your mind. I wish I could pay a price to get it erased, to have it deleted permanently. But no matter how determine or how faithful you press the delete button, it will come back with even stronger force. Ruthless. Brute. In-exterminable.

It is not death that breaks your heart into pieces, it is not so much the separation, but all the pains and sufferings leading to it. When the fallen world exerts its forces upon finite beings, when health deteriorates, when breathing becomes a pain, when sleeping becomes a toil and when all your organs work against you, that’s what unbearable and sickeningly suffocating.

I don’t think any of us is designed to handle that, not even the strongest and most iron-hearted of us. I don’t think the heart of flesh possesses any capacity to see, observe and feel the pain, especially if it is your beloved. Watching is excruciating, and without you being able to do anything about it, is even more excruciating. It is beyond excruciating. Don’t you now wish that you are given a heart of stone instead?

I try and try to imagine how God faces this kind of stuff. It’s too painful for me to handle, and this is just a one single event of my life. How could God face the reality of pain every second? If we humans could be so troubled and disturbed by the pain of our beloved, what’s more of God who sees his children suffer every second? What does he feel when he sees his children desperately crying out for help? I assume the pain he feels is unspeakable, and probably the temptation to extend his hands is unmatched by ours, but probably he understands more that love is not equal to kindness, that sometimes love involves pain, even the most seemingly despicable pain.

I wish it could be that easy, I wish.

In Loving Memoriam

Thank you God that although we would never be able to make sense what you're trying to do, you always make it a perfect sense eventually.

Thank you God that the Bible is full with stories of your great deeds, and human remain only as the characters, not the author of the story.

Thank you God that the Bible always shows how humans are too small to even know what we are doing, but you always know what you are doing.

Thank you God that you rise beyond humans' ability to plan their life. Thank you God that at the end of Joseph's story, you have the last word. "You meant it for evil, but I meant it for good"

Thank you God that in the Bible, death is only a stage, not an end in humans life, that neither death, nor disease, nor suffering nor angel nor even evil can separate us from the love of Christ.

Thank you God that in you, death is not a tragedy, it is a celebration. For as Paul said, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Thank you God that you give us promise to be hopeful and even to be joyful at the face of death.O death, where is your sting? Where is your victory?

So help me Lord to be joyful, to fully understand that you have prepared a better place for her, that one day, we will be united again in perfect harmony, a place with no more grief, tears, and pain.

Thank you God that you let me know how to respond at times like this. Help me to conclude just like Job concluded, God gives and God takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Thank you God for giving me such a great mom, thank you God for the splendid 23 years together. 23 years is too short, but I thank you for the time, the last vacation together, the opportunity to serve her during her last days. Thank you God that although it was not a perfect relationship, you will make it perfect in the end, thank you.

And thank you God that you think mami's life has reached its perfection. Thank you God that it is with your loving hand that you take her away, that she is now at your bosom, at your loving embrace. 

Thank you God that it is you who gave mami to me, and it is you who took her away. And with all that I am God, with my limited understanding, and with my utter humility, I submit totally to your will.

God gives, God takes away, Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Amen.

What does God die for?

People should learn to read the bible, that's my thesis. It is stated intentionally this early and this conspicuous because situation demands no other less. Yes, there are some parts of the Bible that admittedly need more dedication to interpret, but major doctrines like atonement or what I'm about to expound shortly is crystal clear, and any possible misinterpretation, I conclude, has nothing to do with its author, but everything to do with its interpreter.

God died for our sin, and it is our sin that he redeemed on the cross because it is sin that brings alienation between God and human. In case you miss the repetition, I'll repeat, it is sin sin and sin (read for yourself Romans 5:8, 1 Cor 15:3). But, what I hear so often from the mouth of the unwise is a very audacious extrapolation. He died for our disease, that he has win us over from the power of sickness and we can claim that promise from God. Hey, the cross has freed us from cancer, or heart disease, or HIV.

I have a problem with that statement simply because it distorts the main teaching of the bible. The trademark of a Christian is not the immunity from the evil in this world, but from the wages of sin, which is eternal death. Stemming from this false belief, people are given false hope. I wonder how many people buy into this promise, just to be disappointed later on with God once they discover that death is real and inevitable, yes, even for Christians. 

I have a problem with that statement because it doesn't hold water. It doesn't matter how many times a person is healed because of this belief,  they know at one point, healing will betray them and they will have to succumb to the reality of death. And if an absolute statement of "God will heal you because he has died for our disease" is proven wrong once, it is wrong no matter how many times it is proven true. It fails to be absolute, and exist to be a mere wishful thinking.

Clearly I have a problem with that statement because it it is my mom that we're talking about here. It is my mom who would be disappointed, it is my mom's mind that is being corrupted. And what makes the problem even more painstakingly ironic is that this can be evaded simply by paying more attention to the Bible. If only people learn to read the Bible, and let the Bible talk to them, we wouldn't have to face this problem.

Again, I'm not saying anything against healing or miracle, and I hope you can interpret from my writing that I'm not against it. If not, maybe you need to simply learn just to read, not only to read the Bible. And for those of you who still hold on to your own concoction of the Bible, I just wish that God also died not only for your sin or disease, but also for your folly and ignorance. May God listen to my plea. Amen.

Peace in Worship

It's an encouragement from the Lord this morning as I listened to a sermon from Tim Keller - couldn't be more timely and the context / topic couldn't be more right on.

How do we answer the question, how do we face distress and adversity with peace? The Bible is full of petitions to God asking for deliverance, healing, comfort etc and that is exactly what we did, and of course we should do it and in fact we did it. The Bible talks about it.

But, Psalm 57 talks about a different way to face this tough time with peace, which I through experience, should acknowledge to be true. It is through worship - utter amazement of God and God alone, the alpha and omega, the end in itself.

The psalmist, in the midst of all his valley and trouble, does not ask for God to change his situation. He asks for neither deliverance nor success nor victory - there's no petition at all. Instead, after he accounted and listed all his inventory of troubles, he exclaimed "Be exalted oh God, above the heaven; Let your glory be over all the earth". It is through worship that he calms himself, not through determination or loud petition. If the psalmist can find peace through this, so do we.

What are these compared to God's glory and majesty? What are these compared to grace? Everything pale in comparison to the salvation and hope that awaits us ahead. Thus, for me, I will bring this salvation that I have, present it daily to my very heart to get it appraised, to be reminded over and over again of its value, to let its glory shine before me so strong that all other problems, anxieties, and sufferings become a blip on my sight. So minuscule that they are easily overlooked. Yes, ignorable, brushable and neglectable.

"They say of some temporal sufferings, "No future bliss can make up for it", not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory" C. S. Lewis

Positive Note on Traveling

Traveling has always been one of my favorite things to do, be it a leisure travel or work travel. Why? Simply because you can get out from your routine and experience something new - place, food, people, culture, politics, and  local movements. Of course the last three are a complete bull, but I do like to venture into new things and it is always been a comfort to walk around and to let all my five senses absorb all the sensation they can take.

With such long winded introduction, I'm actually only getting at this point, that these past couple of weeks I have been travelling quite often for work. Our company is having all these trade shows around the country to promote our products to local garden centers. A brief tangent: the show is enjoyable, here is the picture of our booth.

The display is great and I think we are one of the best, if not the best booth in all the shows, but great things come with a great price. It takes us six hours to set that up, and please pardon me for complaining, but keep in mind that those black furniture need to be transported from the van to the booth which is first, not a short walk, and second, let just say that they are not light, they are wrought iron-ly heavy. And yes, they don't look very pretty inside the van. Clutter clutter clutter.

So, what do I really like from all these traveling? First, you stay in a hotel which equals to no making up bed, no guilt feeling when you use five different sets of towels for different purposes (then toss them on the floor), no cleaning dishes and complete freedom to roll to any direction on the king size bed (and the liberty to pick your favorite pillows out of the six available).

Secondly, you received an eye-opening revelation, that even if human race is on its way to extinction, Chinese would probably be the last one standing. Go to the most remote, unseen county, just down at the corner of that corn farm and east of that valley and river and you would see some Lim or Chin or Lee family own a Dragon-something Chinese restaurants. Of course, all have a special and unique General Tso's chicken just like they proudly proclaim. They rule and reign and populate the US.

But of course, there is always one of them who go off on a tangent and open a law firm. Heaven and Dragon forbid, and look at the destiny of those who violate the law of nature.

They "Suk"