Confession: I was Impatient with God...

Numbers chapters 1 - 13 (6 days in my http://www.bibleinayear.org/ reading plan).

I have a confession to make and it is related to Numbers 11. Chapter 11 describes how the Israelites "yielded to intense craving" (Numbers 11:4) in the desert and complained to Moses & God about not having meat to eat, despite being provided with sweet tasting Manna daily. The Lord responded by giving them meat "not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but for a whole month, until it comes out of [their] nostrils and becomes loathsome to [them]." (Numbers 11:19-20). However, God was not impressed with their whinning and impatience, and "while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was aroused against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very great plague." (Numbers 11:33)

This has such a strong parallel to what happened to me yesterday that I cannot call it anything else but a strong wake up call from Him above. For 4 years now, I have been unhappy with my financial situation - in short, I have not been contented with the many blessings the Lord has poured upon me and my family. By all accounts I am blessed with a comfortable life, yet I have been struggling with the worry that I am under-paid, and I have at times "yielded to intense craving" just like the Israelites in the desert. I wanted something (let's call it an "extravagent luxury") that my present finances does not allow. I have been impatient with God, and have been frustrated trying to find the balance between waiting upon Him and taking things into my own hands and finding alternatives. There is of course no such thing as a balance when it comes to waiting on Him. When I am waiting on Him, I am supposed to WAIT. Period. Not make up excuses to "speed things along" nor help God out by running ahead of Him. Yet somehow that is so much easier said than done.

Yesterday morning, I came into some money that was totally unplanned. Not exactly a windfall, but just about enough for me to commit to getting a loan towards the the 1st installment of this "extravagent luxury" I have been wanting. Yet strangely, I just wasn't ready to commit to getting it. I was very happy and thankful for this nice surprise, but there was just no conviction to go shopping. That same afternoon, I heard from Mrs Nitrox that R2 has high fever and threw up. Whatever elation I felt just about disappeared. The rest of the day was a blur, but last night as I was lying in bed, a few thoughts occurred to me:

1. I am guilty of the sin of being impatient with God. Because of that, I came so close to missing out on this nice surprise that He had in store for me. It is only His awesome love and generosity that has brought about this totally undeserved blessing. Like the Israelites in the desert, who were too busy whinning to see His blessings, I am an undeserving recipient of His manna and quail. I am overwhelmed by His love.

2. God also made it pretty clear that despite my sustained whinning, the "extravagent luxury" I wanted wasn't really all that important to me. The reality is that lots of other things more much more important - my family and their well-being being one such example. For some strange reason it is so easy to forget that. I am half convinced that the next time I see a young guy driving a sports car or sitting in business class, I will again forget and start to whine again. Lord, please help me to guard my heart!

3. Maybe I enjoy whinning and complaining about not getting what I want more than the "extravagent luxury" itself. Now that it is within reach, I am basically not ready to take the plunge and get it anyway. What is it about me that thrives when I am curled up in self-pity? How can God Himself see something beautiful enough in something so twisted and wrong that He came to die for me?

My friends, we have an AWESOME, AWESOME God, and we are so priviledged to be loved by Him.

R1's Show and Tell

Race Report: NUS Biathlon

Pre-Race (Sat 16 Feb '08)

I am having a nervous week leading to the race tomorrow. Even though I had timed it such that I would have the race at the end of a rest week, I just do not feel like I am recovering well from the previous 3 weeks of training. I did short run and swim intervals this week, but felt slow and lethagic. This will be my first ever biathlon, and my first 1.5km open water swim in race conditions. I am still half serious about sleeping in tomorrow and forgetting about the race. :-)

I decided to use my "Chinese New Year" red New Balance 835 (bought at a warehouse sale for SGD$35/USD$20) as my race shoes because they are lighter than my regular MR846 training shoes so I switched the Lock Laces over. Somehow, switching over the laces had a calming effect as it made tomorrow's race finally REAL somehow.

Let's hope I feel MUCH better tomorrow morning when I wake up.

Race Day (Sun 18 Feb '08)

Didn't sleep too well the night before - too much nervous energy - oh well. I don't believe in omens, but perhaps I should have guessed that the swim won't go too well when I saw the swimming caps being handed out. Yes, that is what you think it is - a swimming sperm!?!? I tried to encourage my buddies by reminding them that we were all made by the fastest swimming sperm at some point, so DEEP down inside us there must be a fast swimmer. :-))

Well, the swimmer DEEP inside me didn't quite surface - the swim was downright awful for me. There was a deceptively strong current going from right to left, and the swim lap was an inverted U - we swim 250m out, turn right for 250m and then swim 250m back (2 loops to make 1.5km). On the swim out, I got kicked a few times and decided to head for clear water. Problem was, the current brought me about 50m out to the left. Then I turned right at the buoy and pretty much came to a standstill because I was now swimming against the current. Sounds funny now, but it was pretty demoralizing to swim 8 strokes or so, sight, and find myself at pretty much the same position as before. When I finally get to turn back to shore, the current was literally pushing me against the ropes and I couldn't really swim proper strokes, but at least I was finally moving again. It took me 26 mins to swim 750m, that's 10 mins more than in my last Sprint Tri. When I had to run back and do the 2nd swim loop, there was STRONG temptation to just give up on the swim. There wasn't even a timing mat to record the number of swim laps completed! Somehow, I found the fortitude to continue and jump back in, despite noticing that I was literally one of the last swimmers still heading back in for swim loop 2.

The 2nd lap was pretty much a repeat of the 1st lap and I finished the swim in an embarassing 50:56, but at least I finished, and it looks like I even did a negative split (since the swim times included the swim-run transition). Out I go for the run then, which was pretty uneventful, except that again I got stitches on the run, which made breathing difficult and speeding up just about impossible. I don't know why I get stitches in races but never in training - can anyone help? One of my buddies say it is probably because I am too tensed up in races, gotta learn to relax a bit more. After the disastrous swim, I somehow managed a sub-60min 10km (59:23) - ok, not by much, but sub-60min it is, and a PR it is. Someone I met started telling me that the run course was probably short, but I just DID NOT want to hear that. :-)

So total time was a disastrous 1:50:19 for a 1.5km swim and 10km run, and race results confirm that I am in the last 10% of the Men's Open. (So my fears about coming in last in a race organised by the local university - where most of the participants & organisers are half my age - came true.) I sure hope this sets the baseline for improvement towards the international triathlon I am planning to do in June/July.

Loving Instructions

Leviticus 19-27 (4 days in my http://www.bibleinayear.org/ reading plan). I am still more than 2 weeks behind. :-(

As I read through the chapters of Leviticus, what speaks to me most is love of a God who wants to dwell with us, and to teach us about the gravity of sin.

Last evening, R2 wanted to go to the playground (R1 was still having his dinner), so I went with him. The kids played catching and I chatted with a neighbour. Before I knew it, R2 has bounded after another boy and ran across the street. Thankfully it wasn't a busy street, but I was not amused. I had to take him home and discipline him - despite his protests that he was just following the other boys, we did not tell him not to run across THAT PARTICULAR street, and then claiming that he forgot, etc... (Just look at the innocent look on his face.) I didn't like doing it, but I had to do it, because I had to make sure that he fully understood the gravity of his misdeed. I had to be very strict with him despite his excuses because I wanted him to be consistent in how he acts going forword - i.e. never run across ANY street again.

In a way, this little incident sums up the book of Leviticus rather well. God loves us, wants to be with us, and wants the best for us (just like I love R2, want to bring him to the playground, and I want him to play safe and play nicely with the other kids). God knows that the land of Canaan is a dangerous place for the Israelites if they fall into the same detestable practices of the land - which included child sacrifice and prostitution. Hence He wants them to be set apart from the rest of the people and obey His instructions (just like me wanting R2 to obey my instructions not to run across the street, whether or not the other kids do so).

I now see the meticulous (and sometimes repetitive) instructions in the book of Leviticus as the painstaking effort that God made to explain and drill home the gravity of sin and how to avoid it, and when that fails, how to atone for it. I cannot love R2 and allow him to run across the street at this age, whatever others do, and God cannot love us without telling us, in His infinite wisdom, what is not good for us.

Praise God!

Sin is SERIOUS STUFF!

Leviticus chapters 1 - 18 (6 days in my http://www.bibleinayear.org/ reading plan).

I used to find these chapters really dry - a whole lot of stuff about ceremonies and rules that do not seem too relevant to life today. Praise God that the more times I read these chapters, the more of His nature speaks to me. I am gradually understanding how the Old Testament form of atonement & worship is actually very relevant to the entire message of the Bible.

Perhaps above all else, is the very clear message that (1) sin is serious stuff that God abhores and (2) despite how much God hates sin, He still wants to dwell with us and have a relationship with us, hence the very elaborate atonement and worship processes laid out in Leviticus.

There is certainly a very clear message that atonement (for sin) can only be made by spilling blood - I guess this re-enforces the truth that sin brings death, and since blood is the "life of the flesh", blood must be spilled to atone for sin - Leviticus 17:11.

Worship in the Old Testament days was a serious affair, the person who presents the sacrifice has to put his hand on the head of the animal (vivid reminder that the animal is dying in his place), and even kill and skin the animal himself (Leviticus 3 seems to suggest that even though only the priest can minister before God by offering/burning the sacrifice, the requirement is that the animal is killed and skinned by the person who brings it). Even in those days without nicely packed meat in supermarkets, that must have been quite a graphic reminder of the seriousness of sin and the heavy price needed to atone for it so Man can approach God.

This culminated in God coming in the form of Jesus and spilling His own blood as atonement for all our sins - past, present and future - the ultimate and final sacrifice in accordance to His own requirements. It is the perfect way for God to extend His love and grace to us, and yet not compromise His perfect and holy nature.

Chinese New Year Goodies

One of my favourate things about Chinese New Year is the high energy breakfast that we wake up to.

At the top pf the picture (the square and rectangle pieces) are what we call the "Nian Gau" - literally the "Sticky Cake". It's main ingredients are sugar and glutinous rice flour so it is probably the original high carbo energy bar. :-) We usually eat it steamed or deep fried with a light coating of flour (as above - my favourite). The Nian Gau is popular not just because of it's taste and texture. "Nian" (Sticky) in Chinese sounds like the word for "Year", and "Gau" sounds similar to the word for "High" or "Rise". So eating Nian Gau also carries with it the connotation to rise ("Gau") in one's position (social/work) yearly ("Nian").

The bowl at the centre is a sweet soup made with all sorts of goodies like brown sugar, dates, dried longans, lotus nuts, white fungus, etc... Perhaps the original high carbo drink then. :-)

At the bottom of the picture (in the plate), is what we call the Fa Gau (or "Huat Kway" in Hokkien - my dialect group). This is made primarily with brown sugar and flour (coconut milk is optional), and I love it smothered with peanut butter for a high energy recovery breakfast.

Chinese New Year is also a time when we see a lot of traditional chinese decorations like these dragons that R1 and R2 made in Art Class. Perhaps the dragon dance was invented out of all that energy food that's consumed around this season. :-)

Blessed Chinese New Year

R1 and R2 decided to made their own dragon and bring in the Chinese New Year with a traditional dragon dance. :-)



Have a Blessed Chinese New Year!

Set Apart

Exodus chapters 25 - 40 (6 days in my http://www.bibleinayear.org/ reading plan). Yikes, has it really been a week since I last posted?!?! Work has been crazy - some unforseen complications has had me stressing out and working late. AND... The NUS Biathlon is in only 2 weeks! This is when I usually go through the "maybe I shouldn't do this" kinda thoughts, but it'll pass. :-)

So these 16 chapters are primarily about the Tabernacle - God's very detailed instructions about how to build and sanctify it, and the people's detailed obedience to build and sanctify it. I have always found it hard to visualise the Tabernacle and this time I decided to jump on the 'Net and goggle it. :-) Praise God for websites like http://www.the-tabernacle-place.com/ - I would encourage you to check it out if you have also had difficulty visualising the very detailed instructions on the Tabernacle and it's many furnishings.

As I read these chapters, the one thing that kept speaking to me was how the entire Tabernable and furnishings were set apart for God and God alone. Each and every instrument/furnishing served a special purpose and they were only to be used for worshipping God. Even the incense and annointing oil were specially prepared, and are only to be used for worship. We are now God's Tabernacle on earth - His dwelling place on earth (1 Corinthians 6:19), and in a similar way, we are to be set apart for God. It doesn't mean that we are to be so "holy" as to live apart from society (God does not call us to be hermits - not all of us anyway), but it means that even as we live and function in this world, we need to be conscious that we live, breathe, think and act for Him. A preacher once said that it is impossible to be so holy that we are of no earthly use. Reason being that if we are indeed holy (i.e. set apart for God), we would set apart our hearts for Him, and God's heart is with his people. We cannot be set apart for God if we do not share His love for His creations.

My prayer is that God will protect us and minister to us even as we are set apart for Him in this fallen world. Because we are different from the world, and we can only find peace and joy in our purpose - which is to be set apart for worshipping Him. Amen!