Secret Disciple

Should Christians be secret disciples? My current belief is yes, but only if the person's own situation warrants it.

Secret disciples may also only be such to certain selected peoples, not to deceive them, but to overcome unnecessary pre-emptive hindrances to the sharing of the Good News of the Kingdom of God with them.

According to His-story, a young and beautiful secret disciple saved her own people from annihilation. Queen Esther was born for a time just like that.

It was a secret disciple who rose to the occasion and secured the body of Jesus from the cross to the grave. Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea, who was also an honored member of the Jewish High Council, and who disagreed with the council's decisions regarding Jesus' life, gathered his courage and personally asked Pilate to release Jesus' body.

It was also possible that, when he made the request, he was accompanied by another secret disciple. This person was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, a master teacher, and member of the Sanhedrin. It was at a meeting of the Sanhedrin that Nicodemus defended Jesus, whom he personally met one night.

Countless other secret disciples kept the faith and each other going by using symbols to identify themselves to other Christians during the worldwide persecution in Roman times.

There were other secret disciples in recent history who were authors of different races and nationalities (eg. Jews, Germans). Some of these disciples may not be secretive about their faith, but they were creative and hid God's truth and principles in their writings so that the reader may be influenced to "the world on the other side", as well as encouraged faithful. Because of this, their books were preserved at a time when the Holy Scriptures were burned and the Christian faith banned.

Do we have secret disciples living in our midst today? I believe we have, and that the number is growing. I pray that it will continue to grow in order to influence those who cannot and will not be influenced by the other disciples to the ways of God's Kingdom.

Pssssssssssss

Have heard the advertisement on radio recently? The one on Aedes? I like it. It has been playing over Light & Easy (not sure if it's on the other stations).

We should take heed. For the same principle applies to every facet of our lives:

Lip service is no service.

It's a disservice and wastes valuable resources, especially time. It is written:

Let your "Yes" be yes, and "No" be no, for any other answer is not of God's Kingdom.

Syabas!

I went to the place I was instructed to be at my last visit about a month ago. I handed in my sheet of paper* and within 5 minutes, I was given two small plastic tubes - one with a blue plastic stopper-cover, and the other orange (a few were red).

At 9.05am, I lost some precious blood after being poked with a needle at the end of a 4-inch syringe.

That meant I had waited about sixty minutes to have my blood sampled for lipid and cholestrol levels. It definitely wasn't up to my expectation as it took ten times slower than a commercial counterpart**.

However, it's not the wait I'm blogging about but the hardworking staff:

My appointment was scheduled for 8.00am today (07 November 2005) (the clinic opens from 8.00am to 5.00pm). Upon my arrival at 7.55am, I was surprised to see the clinic already open, with people coming in and out. There were easily fifty patients waiting inside for their turn. Mondays are designated for sampling blood and urine.

I was number 19. Assuming the attendant manning the sampling station worked non-stop for eight hours, he would have an equal amount of patience (if not more!) to handled about one hundred and sixty patients. You definitely need patience to meet patients ;)

That works out to meeting one person every three minutes. Imagine having to do this every day, five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, for God knows how many years. (Of course, the same attendant also "renew" my quarterly dose of medicine, being on duty every Tuesday and Thursday. I'm not sure what his duties are on Fridays.)

For the salary they are getting and the type and amount of work to do, most of us would not even consider to consider (!) it a career option. (It's a shame because we're supposed to serve as Jesus did.)

Syabas!

Despite the unending train of work they have to do, and the myriad of personalities they have to deal with, they continue to served us well, to the best of their ability, with the limited resources they have.

Syabas, indeed!

We sure can (and have to) learn from them so that we can all be better people, better Malaysians. Together, in the words of Michael Jackson's song, let's:

Heal the world
Make it a better place
For you and for me
And the entire human race

Yes, there's always room for improvement. Let it start with us. Let us try (harder!) to make their work more pleasant, if not easier. On your next visit, greet them, chit-chat with them, thank them after they're done with you.

We can make a difference in OUR world (wherever we are, in our family, neighborhood) one person at a time. Let the first person be... Me. You.

*blood test form

**Gribbles - I experienced literally zero waiting time the first few visits before I asked a Christian community-based clinic doctor to refer me to a government clinic for lifelong almost free medicinal supply.

God's Own Golden Rule

To forgive is to be unfair. In fact, it has never been fair. And it never will be. That's another mystery of God's Kingdom.

God has been unfair to us. He forgave us though we did not deserve it. We have never deserved anything from God except death, diseases, and total destruction. In fact, we will never deserve God's forgiveness but God chose to forgive us all our sins anyway. And it was at a price only He could paid.

Now that God has been unfair to us, we must likewise be unfair to our fellow sinners. We must choose to forgive when we have been offended against. For a law at work in God's Kingdom requires the offended to forgive the offender. If not, then God will choose to be fair: God will not forgive him (the offended) of his offenses!

We have to choose between being fair or unfair, to forgive or not to forgive. Whatever we choose, God will practice the same on us.

Do to others as you want God to do to you!

Do You Have "The" Ears To Hear?

God spoke
Three times:
Jesus' baptism
Jesus' tranfiguration
Jesus' glory.

God spoke.
It was thunder
Some heard.
It was His voice
Others heard.

God speaks.
Do you hear
Voice or thunder?
He who has ears to hear
Let him hear.