How often do we live life on autopilot mode? We wake up, check up our phone, and dread work. We settle into the mundane day-to-day and complain life is a bore. How will it change if you choose to live in the here and now?
“Do you want to get well?”, a question God was asking me in my frailty. I want to get whole and holy yet my shame hindered me from seeking help. I felt stuck at old sinful patterns but my guilt hid me from the love of community.
The higher the climb, the greater the dependence, and the greater the discipline.
Leadership is scary. How freeing then, that in our fears, all God calls us is to be obedient and attentive as He lead us into the good future He has for us (Jer 29:11).
The Christian life is a journey, where we find God more than enough in every season. Let it be our remembrance: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens” (Ecc 3: 1-2).
This heart of learning He plants. This spirit of His He stored. This body of mine He prepared for His Kingdom come. I am planted not buried.
Often, we think of calling as “the voice coming down from heaven in thunders”. That might be the case for Paul on the road to Damascus. For many of us today, calling is to be discovered one day at a time.
“Am I a failure that I didn’t win the title ‘Miss Indonesia’?”, “Am I a failure that I didn’t get chosen as an Indonesian delegate to the Y20 Summit?” These were questions that lingered within as I processed the so-called “failures”. Here are 3 things that I learn from failing.
“What kind of job should I pursue?”,“How do I define success?”, “What should my motivation be?” After almost 20 years being in a system where my achievements are graded with clear expectations, I never had to worry where life was headed. When that constant is taken away, I was left with these questions.
Have you ever been in a season where it’s the exact place you don’t want to be in? You can be in your teenage years failing to attain that dream school, or in your 20s and haven’t had found your ideal spouse. These are 3 promises to remember when we are in a season of discontentment :
In this incomprehensible reality of broken people and broken systems, do you find yourself yearning for the justice of God? In a world full of suffering and pain, if it wasn’t for the cross, I wouldn’t believe in the God of the Bible.
I am imagining myself, in the place of Peter (John 21:15), on the beachside getting back from a successful fishing day and Jesus asking me, “Tamara, do you love me more than these?” What would I say, in return? Do I love God more than my plans, dream, calling, and ministry?
Life seemed to be put on hold. In one day, I had to rewrite my upcoming half-year. Heck, even the next day. Imagine me tearing apart the few pages where I had jotted down my dreams and goals for the semester and threw it to the trash can. I had to start over with a clean slate of paper. But, through this, I had learned to appreciate the beauty in the messy in-between-- the time of waiting in the unknown.
I convinced myself “I am doing it for the glory of God!”, but this was nothing but self-deceit. Behind my “cloak of righteousness” was the drive to “be significant”—to be served, not to serve. We tend to forget that our worth is not found in self-actualization, but in dependency.
Napoleon on what he thinks of Jesus
Draw us into your love, Christ Jesus: and deliver us from fear.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen
- The prayer of St. Francis
I love how God works through prayers. May my life be ever so saturated in prayers and Scripture that daily I may know, believe, and live Christ.
“According to the weakness of our knowledge is the slightness of all our acts toward God. When we do not understand his justice, we shall presume upon him. When we are ignorant of his glorious majesty, we shall be rude with him. Unless we understand his holiness, we shall leap from sin to duty; if we are ignorant of his excellency, we shall lack humility before him. If we have not a sense of his omniscience, we shall be careless, in his presence, full of roving thoughts, guilty of vain babbling as if he lacked information.”
Dear Jesus, help me to spread Your fragrance wherever I go.
Flood my soul with Your Spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly, that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.
Shine through me and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul.
Let them look up, and see no longer me, but only Jesus!
Stay with me and then I will begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.
The light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be mine.
Let me thus praise You in the way which You love best, by shining on those around me.
Let me preach without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching fore, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You.
Amen.
-Inspired by John Henry Cardinal Newman's own prayer, prayed by Mother Teresa daily.
The world today is growing increasingly relativistic, adopting the view "what's true for you is for you, not for me." Lines of right and wrong are being blurred. Less and less are willing to engage in civil discussions, afraid of being labelled "arrogant". I believe there is an objective truth; religion being one of them, therefore, worth writing and discussing about.
Inspired by the unbelieving community I found myself in, and all the divine encounters I always have with strangers on the topic of religion, I write this section to give a defense of my Christian faith, “to be ready to give an answer to the hope that I have in me.” If I do not stand up for something, I will fall for anything.
a voice of conviction and a soul of courage, guided with a spirit of civility.
I hope all that I have learnt from the books I read, speakers I’ve heard, and skills I acquire from experiences—will give you fresh insights as I lay out my arguments. Let us engage in healthy discussions in a spirit of gentleness and respect, learning together from one another's differing belief.
“People today who are civil often don’t have very strong convictions. And people who have strong convictions are not often very civil.”
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
"Is It Not Arrogant to Think that Your Religion Holds the One Truth?
Reality is, the nature of truth is that it excludes.
“Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.”
― Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed
Something is said to be true if it corresponds to reality. For instance, a sentence “it is raining” is true if it is indeed raining outside.
Christianity is not a blind faith. It is testable. Christians are to be pitied of all, in the words of apostle Paul, if we believe in resurrection but it did not really happened. To not use the only God-given faculty (rational mind) which sets human beings apart from all other creation, is to mock the Creator. Doubt should accompany faith, they are two sides of the same coin. If indeed Christianity is real, then the Bible will match all of creation which screams out God’s glory.
Religion is not an "ice-cream" kind of truth where we get to choose whatever flavor we like. It is a mind-independent truth. It is true regardless our believing in it.
With a multi-religion maze out there, We should be open to re-evaluate our beliefs, even if it will make us uncomfortable. The loving way is to engage in a gentle discussions to move closer to the truth. Affirming people who live in a false reality is unloving.
Evangelism today is synonymous with fanaticism, arrogance, and intolerance. But the goal is to foster productive dialogue—a give and take conversation of differing perspectives in a spirit of civility. Back in the 1800s, there was an uprising feminist movement who fought for rights to be able to vote. If authorities disregard the value of persuasive speech and said, "what's true for you is not true for me", there would not be gender equality in America today.
It is wrong to stereotype all religious dialogue designed to persuade as hostile and arrogant. Respectful, thoughtful, persuasive discussions about God are some of the most worthwhile conversations we can have with one another.
Truth requires confrontation. Jesus loves people by pointing them to the Truth. A loving parent will not agree to whatever their kids do, right?
There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death- Proverbs 14:12
To disagree lovingly is the better way than to compromise the truth. Let us not equate disagreements and confrontations with unloving.