“Pray for the best, prepare for the best”: a lesson from King David

Half way there… Everything works for the best

altrerosje's journey

This morning, someone said to me when we were discussing our plan.
“well, all we can do is try our best, pray for the best… but prepare for the worst”
really? Prepare for the worst? The worst according to… who?

I thought about this lately over and over again, if you read all my post before, you’ll know that this had been the topic of my pondering lately.
“When we pray, do we pray for our will to be done, or for His will to be done?”. It should be for His will be done, right? So, what is “the best” and what is “the worst”?

If our errand went successfully but it did not go accordingly with God’s will, is it “the best”? Say, if you believe in God, and truly with your heart you believe that you have to kill someone, and pray to “God” that he will…

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Toddlers and their world

January in Belfast, it’s cold but it’s not snowing, in fact, it feels like we will go straight to spring. The sun would shine more than 3 days in a week, and at this time of the year, it’s amusing to see people enjoying the park as if it is already spring time. Belfast is anything but predictable, just like the kid that I saw when I was walking back to the library after a meeting with my supervisor this afternoon. 

The walk made me smile today, not only because the sun was shining brightly on my shoulder, warming my face, but there was this young mother walking with her children in that park. Seeing them is very amusing to me, because this young mother was cheerfully pushing the empty baby stroller and her -maybe 4 years old – daughter was walking beside her with little jumps, and her other son was walking behind her. With his toddler steps, he tried to catch up his mom and his sisters, until he found an interesting view, a cluster of rose garden. The roses, of course, were not blooming, but the fact that there is an open space with an arranged bush might distract the boy.

As he walked towards that cluster, his mother said, “Garry, bye bye”, with a hope that he will follow her, and his sister said bye to him too. The boy stopped watching his mom and his sister walked on, he mumbled something out loud, as if saying “wait! you got to see this!”, but his mom continued to walk. He stood there keep shouting back to his mom that kept walking further saying “bye bye” to him. And I can’t help laughing when finally he said, “ooh, bye bye”, and instead of following his mom, he walk into the small garden. That’s when his mom surprised, stopped and run back to him, saying, “gosh! it didn’t work!”

I laughed, and she laughed seeing me laugh, we had a small chat about how funny her son react to that “bye bye” act. What’s going on in our children mind is amazing. He was probably trust his mom so much that he thought his mom said bye bye and let him play in that small cluster and will pick him up again, or maybe he had something else in his wee mind. 

Sunny day in Belfast winter, a walk in a park after a meeting with your supervisor about the progress of your research. Such a random afternoon, such a happy day.

after Godot

didn’t you say he was here?
he should be here
well, he’s not here
maybe he went somewhere
why?
maybe he forgot something
how do you know that he forgot something?
I said, “maybe”
why not something else rather than he forgot something?
yes, it might be something else, too
what?
he might have already gone
what made you say that?
because you asked
well then, why didn’t you say that he might be late?
do you want me to say that?
no, I just asked you why didn’t you say that he might be late instead of he might already gone?
ah!
what?
these pebbles
what pebbles?
these pebbles in my shoes
in both of them?
no, in my left one
hmm… maybe it’s a sign
what sign?
of him
of him gone or of him being late?
I don’t know, just a sign
a sign need to have a meaning
it does, it’s just that I don’t know the meaning yet
so, how do you know that it is a sign?
because we are not waiting any more
how do you know that we are not waiting any more?
because we are here, already
but he is not here
that’s the problem
what is the problem?
the pebble in your left shoe
ah yes, that’s my problem
no, that’s the problem
the pebble in my left shoe?
yes
I already throw it away
did you?
yes, I did
now that’s another problem
(silence)

A journey is not easy

A Journey is not easy, it takes a traveller to do that, not a wanderer. A traveller always travel with a destination and purpose. They follow their own agenda, their own chosen destination, their own goal. They have a freedom to plan their own journey. Freedom is not an easy task, because you have to really know what you want, and how you are going to achieve it.

Sometimes, in a journey, even the most dedicated traveller got distracted. They could get distracted by the beauty of the morning, the lazyness of the sunset, or by a warm welcome of the people. All of the sudden, when the journey started, they could found a lot of things in the way that seemed to be as interesting as the destination, and they seemed to be more interesting than the actual destination that it could got them overwhelmed, mesmerized. A good traveller could got lost in the joy of his own journey.

Samuel, Nehemia and Paul, were three example of dedicated travellers. They were spiritual travellers, with spiritual vision of their own, given by God. Nobody forced them to follow that vision, not even God. God only called them, it was really up to them if they wanted to follow it or not. Samuel was called to be the channel of God’s word to Israel, Nehemia was called to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, and Paul was called to evangelize beyond the people of Israel. Those were not easy destinations, they didn’t have to follow, but they did, and they did it with so much dedication. They saw the destination, they set the plan, and they follow the plan presistantly.

Their journey was not easy. Samuel had to face a nation who want their own way instead of God’s. He had to face a king that always intepret God’s will with his own way, an envious king who didn’t like anyone praised higher than him. Nehemia had to lead the people of Jerusalem to rebuild the wall of the city with so much intimidation from Sanballat, Tobiah and all the other kings around Jerusalem who didn’t like his attempt to rebuild the wall. Paul contiunally had to explain his cause, his vision and mission to his fellow missionaries because he was doing something that was not a mainstream at his time. Well, none of these three spiritual travellers was doing a mainstream task. They went where nobody ever boldly gone before.

Their journey was not an easy one, yet nothing distracted them. Samuel didn’t got distracted by the high position he had in the kingdom of Israel as someone who carry God’s word and respected by the king. Nehemia didn’t got distracted by how King Artaxerxes like him and granted everything that he asked for. Paul didn’t got distracted by his own intelectual capability and his social position that could brought him anywhere whitout any obstacle.

It wasn’t an easy journey for them because they had to face so much doubt from the people around them, not to mention that they had a lot of reason to doubt their own capability, liablility and reliability. Samuel was called in a very young age, he was only the high priest’s servant. Nehemia was only a cupbearer of the King Artaxerxes. Paul was an outsider among the appostle, he was the head hunter who seek the death of Christ’s followers. Their past might put them in question. People might question their capability, their liability, their hidden agenda about their mission.

It wasn’t an easy journey for them, but they had never gave up. They had never avoid the challenge. They stood up, face the challenge, stay on the course and never let themselves got distracted by anything on their way. They treat triumph and disasters as impostors. They treat doubt and praise as nothing. The most important thing for them was their destination, the vision that God had given to them, and the task that they had to do.

A freedom to choose where you want to go is not an easy one. Once you set the destination, you have to follow the plan and always stay on the course, no matter what.

“i wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain”
Appostle Paul in Galatians 2:2

Life is a full mind and body contact fight

Something always comes up unexpectedly when we interact with people, even if we think we know them. If you make notes on how many unexpected reactions you had from everybody you meet in a day, you would be surprised by how many stories you can write in a day. Some will make you laugh, some will make you sad, some will make you angry, some will make you amazed.

When it is a sunny and cheerful day for you, it might be a stormy and gloomy day for someone else. Don’t be surprise when one day you cheerfully greet someone and they would snap at you as if you are the last thing they wanted to see. Sometimes the strangest thing happen when you think that you brought someone a supposed to be a bad news, but then their reply was something of gladness 

Everybody has their own battle in life, each of us has our own journey. Sometimes we cross path with other people, walk a little with them, and then we part ways. Sometimes we walk a little longer with them, or spend our life together with them, nevertheless, even siblings has their own private struggle that might not be shared with one another. We cannot be with our family 24/7, we might be sleeping in the same room, on the same bed, but when we sleep our minds travel alone, separately. When they have nightmare, we could not go into their dream and save them, all you can do is wake them up and comfort them, and maybe talk about their nightmare.

We learn from each other’s journey.  

The Blind and The Beautiful Morning

What would a blind person think, when they hear someone say how beautiful a morning is?
He would have no idea how the sunrise looks like. You could make any visual analogue about it, he wouldn’t understand it…
His idea of how beautiful a morning is not a visual one. He could feel that it is warmer when the sun came up. He could hear the cheerful voices of the birds and the children. He could smell the fresh air and the breeze.
He could feel the difference of night and day, even if he doesn’t have any clue about the visual differences of the two.

Must he ask for a miracle so that he can see like everybody else? If he believe in God who created the whole sensuous world, must he make a demand to God for him to have all the perfect senses to know them all? Or else…?

Well, he just has to live with it, because there is a lot more in life than having perfect eyes… Even if that means he must live a non visual world, the world is just as beautiful as it is for him than for everybody else.

Deafening darkness should not take your sanity away, the beauty of life does not depend on anything but yourself

A Free Fall on A Nettle Bush

“A Nettle Bush, you better watch their leaves, they can give you rash. It’s funny tough, that when you grab it fast enough, it won’t sting”. That’s what Raing and Mervyn said along our walk trough the landscape of Castle Ward. It was a perfect day for a walk on such a stunning landscape of Castle Ward. A wonderful site with a vast lawn and some 18th century buildings spread out as unique follies marking some interesting spots around the property. Such a perfect day that you won’t want to ruin by touching any nasty leaves. Yeah… but God has another idea of showing me what a perfect day is.

It was one of those gorgeous day where the sun was shinning bright and the first wind of autumn singing trough the lovely trees, a very picturesque day that grew under your skin. We were there for one of the Geochaching “mission” that Mervyn and Raing chose to do, and I was fortunate enough because they let me tag along. It’s a great way to spend a wonderful sunday after the church. The task to search the caches around various interesting spots on the lawns made the long walk worthwhile, but that’s not the end, we have to go to another site just outside that castle to look for another cache, a site of an ancient northern ireland stonehedge. It supposed to be a “tricky” search because the one who put the cache has a clever way to hide the cache. It was.

So there we were, walking trough farms to look for this last cache, and we ended up in front of a fence made from a line of trees, and the clue said that we have to go to the other side of the “fence”. Raing went first over the woodpile to the other side, and I am the second to go, but, as I put my feet as carefully as I can on the woodpile as my hand grabbed a tree branch that seems strong enough to hold my weight, the branch gave up and snapped off the tree, and I got me off balance. There I was, anticipating my fall as I saw myself falling sideway to the woodpile, straight to the gap of the two big log. I was thinking of how my back will hurt and my head will knock the wood. It was a free fall, and it seems like it was going in a slow motion. As I fell between the gap, something hold me from a hard landing, it must be another log of wood, but then it cracked and I fell deeper into the gap, and I was thinking, “okay, when will it stop? I hope I won’t fell too deep into a hole”. It stopped, and it was like I was landing on a soft sponge bed, on my back! Lucky me.

Lucky? I thought I was, until I saw Raing and Mervyn faces, they looked at me in awe, like they saw something horrible, and they said, “OH NO ROSS! You fell on a nettle bush!!”, “You know the bush we talked about, the one you’d better not fell into? now that’s what happen to you”, a very nice scientific explanation came from Raing’s funny husband, Mervyn (not that funny looking anymore as I saw his expression was of a panic one… actually now when I remember it, it is funny) I was trying to find a firm ground to stand, as I look for a firm support for my hands, Raing said, “NO, NO! don’t touch that log, it covered with nettle leaves”. Yes, I saw the leaves, It was everywhere, and I was thinking, “I am landing on the bush anyway”. So I put my hands on the log, placing it on a place less covered with the leaves, to help myself up, and of course, with another help from the panic Mervyn who had to put his feet into the bush to do that.

Lucky? I am lucky. I thought, I could fell harder, hurt my back, and knocked my head, but I didn’t. Yes, I fell into a nettle bush, but I had my sweater and my jacket on, and I had my linen trousers, none of those leaves touched my skin. I fell inside the gap of two big logs only to land on a weathered wood, and together with the bush, it was as if I landed on a cradle filled with feathers. It must’ve looked awefull if i remember the expression of dear Mr. and Mrs. McCullagh, but honestly, it was the nicest fell I ever had, as if there were hands supporting me from a hard bump and laid me down on a soft bed.

It was a perfect day indeed, when God taught me something that day, a lot of things, actually. Beside the value of friendship, of giving your hand to your friend when they need it, it also taught me a lesson of what God means by a perfect situation, sometimes are far from what we think how it can be. Sometimes people might see that we fell into a bad situation, yet, that’s not exactly what it is. A free fall on a nettle bush might be just what we need. It was a perfect day indeed, when God show the abundance of His love trough every circumstances of our life.

Kasih Allah kuat melebihi apapun

Roma 8:38-39 Sebab aku yakin, bahwa baik maut, maupun hidup, baik malaikat-malaikat, maupun pemerintah-pemerintah, baik yang ada sekarang, maupun yang akan datang,
atau kuasa-kuasa, baik yang di atas, maupun yang di bawah, ataupun sesuatu makhluk lain, tidak akan dapat memisahkan kita dari kasih Allah, yang ada dalam Kristus Yesus, Tuhan kita.

Kadang kita membiarkan diri kita sendiri menjadi penghalang bagi kasih Allah yang indah itu, dengan bertahan pada ego kita sendiri, pada pengertian kita sendiri. Kita membiarkan kesibukan menimbun hari hari kita tanpa sedetikpun kita menoleh dan melihat Dia, yang ingin berbincang dengan kita.
Lupakan hal hal di luar yang seolah menghalangi kehidupan iman kita… Musuh terbesar dari iman kita, adalah ketidak pedulian kita sendiri pada hati Bapa yang mengasihi kita

“Pray for the best, prepare for the best”: a lesson from King David

This morning, someone said to me when we were discussing our plan.
“well, all we can do is try our best, pray for the best… but prepare for the worst”
really? Prepare for the worst? The worst according to… who?

I thought about this lately over and over again, if you read all my post before, you’ll know that this had been the topic of my pondering lately.
“When we pray, do we pray for our will to be done, or for His will to be done?”. It should be for His will be done, right? So, what is “the best” and what is “the worst”?

If our errand went successfully but it did not go accordingly with God’s will, is it “the best”? Say, if you believe in God, and truly with your heart you believe that you have to kill someone, and pray to “God” that he will protect you to kill that man… is it “the best”?

David, once in a night, had the opportunity to kill King Saul who always tried to kill David in every occasion because of his spiritual jealousy. But, in God’s light David cut only Saul’s cloth to prove that he had the opportunity but held himself to do so. With the renewed heart from God, David was able to forgive Saul and let him live. He believed that Saul was a king appointed by God, and if Saul had gone astray, it is Saul’s business with God. David let God has His way with Saul and himself.

David had already appointed as a king to replace Saul, but he won’t take the ship with his own will. He was willing to live like a fugitive, ran away from Saul’s prey, when he could kill him and claim his place as king. He could say to everybody, that Samuel, the prophet of God had appointed him King anyway, and he was “helping” God to make it come true… but, no, he didn’t do that.

David had a heart that is truly faithful to God, and he loved god truly. He let every “worst” and “best” thing happened to him as long as it is God’s will. Of course, he wasn’t a perfect person. He did many wrong things, too. But, when God rebuked him of his sins, he repented, he let God punished him. David said that as long as it is God who punished him, he know it is for the best.

In David’s life, there was no “pray for the best, prepare for the worst”, it is “pray for the best, prepare for the best”, because in God, everything is for the best.

a contemplation after reading the story of David in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings and 2 Kings

All about Loving HIM

In this material world, even our spiritualism sometimes serve our materialistic inclination. We might look like a very spiritual person by praying, meditating and doing all those religious activity, but infact we are doing it for our own well being, because of our love to ourself. What are those prayer we pray for? Why do we do those meditation? Why we do those religious activity?

Those meditations that we do to bring us the peaceful heart. What for? So that we may focus? Focus on what? Is it really because we want to be focus on what HE want or what WE want?

Those prayers that we pray, what are we praying for? Is it because we are seeking for HIS will or because we want HIM to do OUR will? When you pray, “God don’t put ME to shame, so that YOUR name won’t be put to shame”, Is it sincere?

That’s why the first line Jesus taught us to pray is, “Our Father, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy Will be done, in earth as it is in heaven”. It’s about surrendering all our heart to God. It’s about loving Him with our sincere heart. When we say that line, we better look inside our heart.

COME ON… It’s not his love to be doubt on, He had proven it, and it is noted in history, He came to this world to become one of us to proove his emphaty. He let himself be crucified for our transgression, to let us know how big He loves us. When we pray, the real question is, do we love him that much?

This life is all about loving Him.