Tan Soo Inn on Counting the Years

Those who passed the the 50 years mark will begin to be aware that their bodies are not so strong and agile as they once was, their memories so sharp and there will be a general deterioration of health. When he reaches 55 my friend Soo Inn reflects on the counting of the years. Heel the wisdom of a wise man.


Commentary: Counting the Years

"It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple." (Isaiah 6:1 NLT)
By Soo-Inn Tan
February 26, 2010 Edition.
(Grace@Work Mail is a ministry of Graceworks: www.graceworks.com.sg). Reposted with permission.

On the first Sunday of the year, my friend Mark preached on Psalm 90. When he reached verse 10, he asked us to do a little arithmetic. If the verse were to be taken literally, how many years do we have left? I will be 55 this year, so 80 - 55 = 25. Still some time left, but not all the time in the world. The exercise was a good reminder of our mortality. Maybe there is something to be said for how Isaiah marks the years, by identifying a year with the death of a prominent person.

1963, the year that John F Kennedy died. 1997, the year that Mother Theresa died. 2009 was a difficult year for many of us. For many it was the year that Michael Jackson died. But for many of my friends, it was the year that Yasmin Ahmad died, the year that Anthony Yeo died. Some of us are still recovering from the many friends that we lost last year. When will it be our year? How do we confront the fact of our mortality? Isaiah gives us two suggestions.

First, root your life in God. Isaiah 6 finds Isaiah in the temple, worshipping the Lord. We are mortal. God is immortal. And God has made us this offer:

[Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this . . .?" (John 11:25-26 NLT)]

I believe. I have believed for some time now. The passing of the years reminds me that the central reality of my life is my relationship with the Almighty, "Immortal, Invisible, God only wise. (Walter C. Smith)" Indeed I know this God as Abba. My life is in His safe hands. I need not fret about my departure from this life. Dad knows best. And nothing in this life or the life to come can separate me from His love (Romans 8: 35-39). In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah is in the temple. May 2010 find us similarly rooted in our Lord.

To be rooted in the Lord brings us to the other thing that Isaiah teaches us about how we can face the passing of the years --- be faithful to your vocation. Isaiah 6: 1-8 is the record of Isaiah's call to his prophetic ministry. It reminds us of the vocational nature of life. If my time on earth is limited, I do not want to waste my days. I want to invest my life in what God has called me to do. Frederick Buechner puts it nicely:

[ . . in the year that King Uzziah died, or in the year that John F. Kennedy died, or in the year that somebody you loved died, you go into the temple if that is your taste, or you hide your face in the little padded temple of your hands, and a voice says, "Whom shall I send into the pain of a world where people die?" and if you are not careful, you may find yourself answering, "Send me."

. . . a man's vocation is a man's calling. It is the work that he is called to in this world, the thing that he is summoned to spend his life doing. (The Hungering Dark, San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1969, 27.)]

What is my vocation? For some time now I have believed that my calling is to teach God's Word with "relevance, accuracy, and passion" so that lives are transformed for Christ. In more recent times, there has been a further fine-tuning of that mission. I seem to be tasked to teach about the importance of relational transformation, how God's primary way of changing lives is through relationships. This year, I will be teaching on Spiritual Mentoring in two seminaries in Singapore, and leading workshops on the same subject in Malaysia and Canada. And we are receiving many invitations to teach on the subject from churches and Christian organizations. My 2010 planner is filling up fast.

There are many things I can do and many things I would like to do, but with the passing of the years, I must be focused on what I must do --- what God has called me to do. What has God called you to do?

Will I have 25 more years to live? More? Less? God knows. But in the year that _____ died, may I be found rooted in the Lord, faithful to my vocation.

How Heavy is a Glass of Water?

This is from a good friend of mine who has given me permission to post this:

"How heavy is a glass of water?"

Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.

"The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm.

If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

"And that's the way it is with stress. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on."

"As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden."

"Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can."

Don't pick it up again until after you've rested a while.

• Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.
• Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
• Always read/see/surf stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
• Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled.
• If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
• It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply be kind to others.
• Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
• You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.
• We could learn a lot from crayons... some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

picture source

Illness and the Human Psyche

my article on Illness and the Human Psyche

Yet deep in our psyche (soul, mind, spirit), we know the truth. We live in a fallen world where death and decay reign supreme. In spite of all our medical and technological advances, we barely extend our death rate over the biblical three score and ten. Those who do so often live with severe limitations and poor quality of life. Dylan Thomas underscores our fight against our mortality by writing:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

read more

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How To Look Death in the Face

Dr Raudy Pausch a Computer Science Professor at Carnegie Mellon University has incurable pancreatic cancer. This is his 'farewell lecture' to 400 of his students at Mc Conomy Auditorium.

What do you say when you know that you are dying? What you say when you are dying reflects on what you believe and act upon when you are living.


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The Ultimate Question for Assessment

We like to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of our ministry or work. How do we usually do that? We do surveys and ask questions. I believe the ultimate question we can ask someone about our ministry or work is

Will you recommend this service (ministry or work) to a friend or a colleague?

The answer will reveal how effective or fruitful we have been.


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A Need for Personal Integrity

Recently I have been very bothered by the loss of personal integrity of people in power as the newspaper and online aggregators daily bring news of corruption and bribery in high places. Personal integrity is character. What we do flow out of who we are.

Fred Smith was a well respected Christian leader, businessman, mentor and writer. He died in August this year. This article which he wrote for the Leadership Journal tells us about what he had learnt about character building from another great Christian, Francois Fenelon who lived more than three hundred years before.

He wrote:

(1) Self love is subtle
(2) Suffering is useful
(3) One test of relationship with God is peace.
(4) Growth and changes are the work of the cross
(5) Give grace to yourself and others.

read complete article here






Os Guinness from Trinity Forum (a Christian think tank) edited a book (1999), Character Counts, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books in which scholars examined the character and leadership qualities of Washington, Wilberforce, Lincoln and Solzhenitsyn.

Each of these persons were examined from their biography to determine what molded their character and made them who they are.


...that adversity, apart from its power to overwhelm, has the potential to reveal the moral character and create life-changing leaders.

The Resurrected Life

The resurrection life is a practice…we engage in a life that is permeable by the presence and companionship of the resurrected Jesus in the company of friends.

Eugene Peterson postulated that we are now living resurrected life. This resurrected life involves:

(1)Practice
(2)Resurrection wonder
(3)Sabbath keeping
(4)Eucharist
(5)Friends

We need to practice living a life as if we are already aready death and are already living a resurrected life.

The resurrected life awakes in us the forgotten sense of wonder in knowing God.

Sabbath keeping as a constant reminder and discipline.

Eucharist as the communion with God.

Resurrection lives are to be lived with friend.


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Interesting Questions

While thinking about and preparing a lecture for a varsity student conference, I find myself wrestling with few interesting personal integrity questions.


•“Everyone is doing it, so why shouldn’t I?”

•“It’s not illegal”

•“They did it to me, so I’m going to do it to them.”

•“If I don’t do it, someone else will.”

•“Why follow standard operating protocols? Others don’t”

•“I am not supposed to but here’s something I must tell you”

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The White Feather of Cowardice

The Four Feathers is a remake of a timeless romance based on a novel. This movie was made in 2002. The previous movies were made in 1939 and 1977. Like all great stories, it is about love, honor, loyalties and discovering who we really are. This movie is set in the 19th Century when the British Empire ruled the world.

In Sudan there was an uprising led by an Islamic fundamentalist called Mahdi. This was the time of General Gordon of Khartoum. The British garrisons in Sudan were annihilated by the local rebels and fresh British troops were being sent in.

Harry Feversham was son of General Feversham, a famous British general. He had always drifted through life, doing what his authoritative father wanted him to do. After college, he joined the army. His intention was to hold a military commission for two years (as expected by his father) and then resign and get on with his life. He is in love with a beautiful girl who loved him and they were about to be married. Harry's life shattered when his regiment were sent to Sudan. Harry suddenly discovered that he really do not know who he is. In his gesalt of self discovery, he discovered that he did not want to go to war. Harry resigned his commission. In the 19th century, it was regarded as a noble task to fight for the Queen and country. To refuse to fight is regarded as an act of cowardice. This is symbolised by three white feathers sent by his three best friends in the regiment. The fourth was from his fiance!

The story is about a man who set out on a journey of inner self discovery. His refusal to go to war and resignation from the army branded him a coward. So he set out to Sudan to face his inner demons. One by one he redeemed his white feathers by saving his friends in heroic situations. He found that being brave is not the courage to face death but to face life.

This is a period movie with costumes and cliches. Yet, it is timeless because it deals with a basic question. Who are we? When the houses of card on which we built our identities collapsed and we are flat on the ground, then we will really know who we really are. How may of us have the courage to rebuild with solid bricks and a strong foundation? I suspect many of us will prefer to rebuild our houses of card again.

The key scene in the movie was when Harry told his fiance that he was refusing to go to war. They were in a nave of a church. The next time they met at the end of the movie in the same place, Harry was a changed person. It is symbolic as it reminds me of one of Elliot poem that in searching for ourselves, we will end up from where we began. The search is within, not without.

There is a lot of fighting and bloody scenes, comparable to Zulu but not like 300. Bloody good show, what?

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On Retirement and Semi Retirement

Received this from my friend and fellow spiritual traveller, Punna. This is in line with Blogpastor's post on Can I Retire?


Optimum Strategies for Creativity and Longevity
By Sing Lin, Ph.D.
Member of National Council of Chinese Institute of Engineers – USA/Greater New York Chapter, and Member of Board of Director of National Taiwan University Alumni Association – Greater New York (March 2002)

1. Most Creative Years in the Life

The Nobel Laureate, Dr. Leo Esaki, delivered the distinguished lecture entitled "Innovation and Evolution: Reflections on a Life in Research" in the University of Texas at Dallas in the afternoon of Feb. 23, 2002 during the 2002 US National Engineering Week. In this lecture, Dr. Esaki indicated that most of the great discoveries and innovations by the Nobel Laureates occurred at the average age of 32 even though the Nobel prizes were awarded 10 or 20 years afterwards. Furthermore, Dr. Esaki indicated that the peak creativity of most scientists occurred around the age range of 20 to 30 years. As one gets older, the experience increases but the creativity decreases steadily with the age.

It is, therefore, very important to stimulate, encourage and cultivate many young people to get interested in science and engineering at their young age and to provide the optimal R&D environment for these very powerful young scientists and engineers to unleash their very strong creativities during their most precious and creative years around the age of 32.

2. Longevity Vs. Retirement Age

The pension funds in many large corporations (e.g., Boeing, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, etc.) have been "Over Funded" because many "late retirees" who keep-on working into their old age and retire late after the age of 65 tend to die within two years after their retirements. In other words, many of these late retirees do not live long enough to collect all their fair shares of pension money such that they leave a lot of extra-unused money in the pension funds resulting in the over-funded pension funds.

Dr. Ephrem (Siao Chung) Cheng provided the important results in the following Table 1 from an actuarial study of life span vs. age at retirement. The study was based on the number of pension checks sent to retirees of Boeing Aerospace.

Table 1 – Actuarial Study of life span vs. age at retirement
Age at Retirement (Average Age At Death)
49.9(86.0)
51.2(85.3)
52.5(84.6)
53.8(83.9)
55.1(83.2)
56.4(82.5)
57.2(81.4)
58.3(80.0)
59.2(78.5)
60.1(76.8)
61.0(74.5)
62.1(71.8)
63.1(69.3)
64.1(67.9)
65.2(66.8)

Table 1 indicates that for people retired at the age of 50, their average life span is 86; whereas for people retired at the age of 65, their average life span is only 66.8. An important conclusion from this study is that for every year one works beyond age 55, one loses 2 years of life span on average.

The Boeing experience is that employees retiring at age of 65 receive pension checks for only 18 months, on average, prior to death. Similarly, the Lockheed experience is that employees retiring at age of 65 receive pension checks for only 17 months, on average, prior to death. Dr. David T. Chai indicated that the Bell Labs experience is similar to those of Boeing and Lockheed based on the casual observation from the Newsletters of Bell Lab retirees. A retiree from Ford Motor told Dr. Paul Tien-Lin Ho that the experience from Ford Motor is also similar to those in Boeing and Lockheed.

The hard-working late retirees probably put too much stress on their aging body-and-mind such that they are so stressed out to develop various serious health problems that forced them to quit and retire. With such long-term stress-induced serious health problems, they die within two years after they quit and retire.

On the other hand, people who take early retirements at the age of 55 tend to live long and well into their 80s and beyond. These earlier retirees probably are either wealthier or more able to plan and manage their various aspects of their life, health and career well such that they can afford to retire early and comfortably.

These early retirees are not really idling after their early retirements to get old. They still continue doing some work. But they do the work on the part-time basis at a more leisure pace so that they do not get too stressed out. Furthermore, they have the luxury to pick and chose the types of part-time work of real interest to them so that they can enjoy and love doing that "fun" work at a more leisure pace.

The late retirees are small in number, tend to die quickly after retirement and disappear from the population of old people beyond the age of 70. Late retirees, therefore, have very little weight on the statistical average life expectancy of the population of "old people" dominated by the early retirees.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The most precious, creative and innovative period in your life is the 10-year period around the age of 32. Plan your career path to use this precious 10-year period wisely and effectively to produce your greatest achievements in your life.

The pace of innovations and technology advances is getting faster and faster and is forcing everybody to compete fiercely at the Internet speed on the information super-highways. The highly productive and highly efficient workplace in USA is a pressure-cooker and a high-speed battleground for highly creative and dynamic young people to compete and to flourish.

However, when you get older, you should plan your career path and financial matter so that you can retire comfortably at the age of 55 or earlier to enjoy your long, happy and leisure retirement life into your golden age of 80s and beyond. In retirement, you can still enjoy some fun work of great interest to you and of great values to the society and the community, but at a part-time leisure pace on your own term.

On the other hand, if you are not able to get out of the pressure-cooker or the high-speed battleground at the age of 55 and "have" to keep on working very hard until the age of 65 or older before your retirement, then you probably will die within 18 months of retirement. By working very hard in the pressure cooker for 10 more years beyond the age of 55, you give up at least 20 years of your life span on average.

Personally I feel that there is a watershed is all our life. I do not think there should be a fixed age about it. Before this age, say 55 years, we are working hard first to establish our careers, to start and develop our families (for those married), to serve our churches, and to improve ourselves. The watershed comes after our children have graduated from university (and begin their own lives), and we have reached the peak in our chosen careers. We then move into a stage of producing significance. In this stage we do not have to worry about paying for our children's education, our mortgages should be paid up and as Fowler said, we should be thinking about our legacy. What do we want to leave behind? I believe our legacy should not be physical but spiritual.

Retirement? I do not think it is biblical and we should serve Him until He calls us home.

soli deo gloria

Die Hard 4.0

Review of Die Hard 4.0
Gore, Mayhem and Destruction

Die Hard 4.0 is the most fun of the four Die Hard movies. Bruce Willis acting as John Mclane of NYPD is more relaxed and more into his role as a “someone has to do it” hero. His failed marriage and estranged daughter are some attempt at character development from the last three movies. However the appeal of the Die Hard movies is not the violence or the shooting but of a man, who is a well trained police officer, are able to endure incredible amount of punishment and injuries, has unbelievable luck, and plain too stubborn to give up. The visual effects are great and John managed to demolish buildings, cars, SUVs, a semi trailer truck, road flyovers, and even a fighter aircraft! This is in addition to shooting lots and lots of bullets.

The plot was a master criminal who was out to create maximum chaos by crippling the US computer systems by what hackers call a fire-sale. Destroy or disrupt the computer systems of traffic, utilities, financial, and military and you would have created a fire-sale. Total chaos and you can take what you want.

I know it is difficult to justify but I find watching the mayhem of Die Hard movies very therapeutic for me. After a hard day at the hospital, dealing with stressed out parents and sick children, and ministry related work at church, I find watching total destruction very relaxing. I guess some people de-stress by exercising, gardening, or listening to music. Me, give me gore, mayhem, and total destruction.

Does that sound strange coming from a doctor and follower of Christ?

What others are saying
Christianity Today Moves.com
Past the Popcorn
Rotten Tomatoes
Ben Witherington

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Where is God when it hurts?

Where Is God When It Hurts?
A sermon given on the Virginia Tech campus two weeks after the shootings.
Philip Yancey posted 6/06/2007 05:31PM

We gather here still trying to make sense of what happened in Blacksburg, still trying to process the unprocessable. We come together in this place, as a Christian community, partly because we know of no better place to bring our questions and our grief and partly because we don't know where else to turn. As the apostle Peter once said to Jesus, at a moment of confusion and doubt, "Lord, to whom else can we go?"

In considering how to begin today, I found myself following two different threads. The first thread is what I would like to say, the words I wish I could say. The second thread is the truth.

I wish I could say that the pain you feel will disappear, vanish, never to return. I'm sure you've heard comments like these from parents and others: "Things will get better." "You'll get past this." "This too shall pass." Those who offer such comfort mean well, and it's true that what you feel now you will not always feel. Yet it's also true that what happened on April 16, 2007, will stay with you forever. You are a different person because of that day, because of one troubled young man's actions.

I remember one year when three of my friends died. In my thirties then, I had little experience with death. In the midst of my grief, I came across these lines from George Herbert that gave me solace: "Grief melts away / Like snow in May / As if there were no such cold thing." I clung to that hope even as grief smothered me like an avalanche. Indeed, the grief did melt away, but like snow it also came back, in fierce and unexpected ways, triggered by a sound, a smell, some fragment of memory of my friends.

So I cannot say what I want to say, that this too shall pass. Instead, I point to the pain you feel, and will continue to feel, as a sign of life and love. I'm wearing a neck brace because I broke my neck in an auto accident. For the first few hours as I lay strapped to a body board, medical workers refused to give me pain medication because they needed my response. The doctor kept probing, moving my limbs, asking, "Does this hurt? Do you feel that?" The correct answer, the answer both he and I desperately wanted, was, "Yes. It hurts. I can feel it." Each sensation gave proof that my spinal cord had not been severed. Pain offered proof of life, of connection—a sign that my body remained whole.

In grief, love and pain converge. Cho felt no grief as he gunned down your classmates because he felt no love for them. You feel grief because you did have a connection. Some of you had closer ties to the victims, but all of you belong to a body to which they too belonged. When that body suffers, you suffer. Remember that as you cope with the pain. Don't try to numb it. Instead, acknowledge it as a perception of life and of love.

Medical students will tell you that in a deep wound, two kinds of tissue must heal: the connective tissue beneath the surface and the outer, protective layer of skin. If the protective tissue heals too quickly, the connective tissue will not heal properly, leading to complications later on. The reason this church and other ministries on campus offer counseling and hold services like this one is to help the deep, connective tissue heal. Only later will the protective layer of tissue grow back in the form of a scar.

We gather here as Christians, and as such we aspire to follow a man who came from God 2,000 years ago. Read through the Gospels, and you'll find only one scene in which someone addresses Jesus directly as God: "My Lord and my God!" Do you know who said that? It was doubting Thomas, the disciple stuck in grief, the last holdout against believing the incredible news of the Resurrection.

In a tender scene, Jesus appeared to Thomas in his newly transformed body, obliterating Thomas's doubts. What prompted that outburst of belief, however—"My Lord and my God!"—was the presence of Jesus' scars. "Feel my hands," Jesus told him. "Touch my side." In a flash of revelation, Thomas saw the wonder of Almighty God, the Lord of the universe, stooping to take on our pain.

God doesn't exempt even himself from pain. God joined us and shared our human condition, including its great grief. Thomas recognized in that pattern the most foundational truth of the universe: that God is love. To love means to hurt, to grieve. Pain is a mark of life.

The Jews, schooled in the Old Testament, had a saying: "Where Messiah is, there is no misery." After Jesus, you could change that saying to: "Where misery is, there is the Messiah." "Blessed are the poor," Jesus said, "and those who hunger and thirst, and those who mourn, and those who are persecuted." Jesus voluntarily embraced every one of these hurts.

So where is God when it hurts? We know where God is because he came to earth and showed us his face. You need only follow Jesus around and note how he responded to the tragedies of his day: with compassion—which simply means "to suffer with"—and with comfort and healing.

I would also like to answer the question why? Why this campus rather than Virginia Commonwealth or William and Mary? Why these 33 people? I cannot tell you, and I encourage you to resist anyone who offers a confident answer. God himself did not answer that question for Job, nor did Jesus answer why questions. We have hints, but no one knows the full answer. What we do know, with full confidence, is how God feels. We know how God looks on the campus of Virginia Tech right now because God gave us a face, a face that was streaked with tears. Where misery is, there is the Messiah.

Not everyone will find that answer sufficient. When we hurt, sometimes we want revenge. We want a more decisive answer. Frederick Buechner said, "I am not the Almighty God, but if I were, maybe I would in mercy either heal the unutterable pain of the world or in mercy kick the world to pieces in its pain." God did neither. He sent Jesus. God joined our world in all its unutterable pain in order to set in motion a slower, less dramatic solution, one that involves us…

That reality came starkly home to me nine weeks ago today when I was driving on a winding road in Colorado. Suddenly, I missed a curve and my Ford Explorer slipped off the pavement and started tumbling side to side at 60 miles per hour. An ambulance appeared, and I spent the next seven hours strapped to a body board, with duct tape across my head to keep it from moving. A cat scan showed that a vertebra high on my neck had been shattered, and sharp bone fragments were poking out next to a major artery. The hospital had a jet to fly me to Denver for emergency surgery.

I had one arm free, with a cell phone and little battery time left. I spent those tense hours calling people close to me, knowing it might be the last time I would ever hear their voices. It was an odd sensation to lie there helpless, aware that though I was fully conscious, at any moment I could die.

Samuel Johnson said when a man is about to be hanged, "it concentrates his mind wonderfully." When you're strapped to a body board after a serious accident, it concentrates the mind. When you survive a massacre at Virginia Tech, it concentrates the mind. I realized how much of my life focused on trivial things. During those seven hours, I didn't think about how many books I had sold or what kind of car I drove (it was being towed to a junkyard anyway). All that mattered boiled down to four questions. Whom do I love? Whom will I miss? What have I done with my life? And am I ready for what's next? Ever since that day, I've tried to live with those questions at the forefront….

I ask you also to trust that the world, your world, will be redeemed. This is not the world God wants or is satisfied with. God has promised a time when evil will be defeated, when events like the shootings at Nickel Mines and Columbine and Virginia Tech will come to an end. More, God has promised that even the scars we accumulate on this fallen planet will be redeemed, as Jesus demonstrated to Thomas.

I once was part of a small group with a Christian leader whose name you would likely recognize. He went through a hard time as his adult children got into trouble, bringing him sleepless nights and expensive attorney fees. Worse, my friend was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Nothing in his life seemed to work out. "I have no problem believing in a good God," he said to us one night. "My question is, 'What is God good for?'" We listened to his complaints and tried various responses, but he batted them all away.

A few weeks later, I came across a little phrase by Dallas Willard: "For those who love God, nothing irredeemable can happen to you." I went back to my friend. "What about that?" I asked. "Is God good for that promise?"

I would like to promise you an end to pain and grief, a guarantee that you will never again hurt as you hurt now. I cannot. I can, however, stand behind the promise that the apostle Paul made in Romans 8, that all things can be redeemed, can work together for your good. In another passage, Paul spells out some of the things he encountered, which included beatings, imprisonment, and shipwreck. As he looked back, he could see that somehow God had redeemed even those crisis events in his life.

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us," Paul concluded. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:37-39). God's love is the foundational truth of the universe.

Read complete sermon here

Letters from Iwo Jima

Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers about the American invasion of the island atoll of Iwo Jima was shot concurrently with Letters from Iwo Jima. This is an ambitious projects as the director wants to show this famous battle in the Pacific from two perspectives- the invading American forces and the defending Japanese forces.

Letters from Iwo Jima is to show the Japanese version of the invasion with the dialogue in Japanese and Japanese actors. At certain points in the narrative, the two movies intersect and the audience can see what happened in an incident and why it happened the way it did. One example is what happened to Private Iggy.

The heroic and strategic defence of Iwo Jima was due to General Tadamichi Kuribatashi (Ken Watanabbe) and his men. They managed to hold out against the Americans for 40 days; without air and sea support, and reinforcement from the motherland. Their orders were to defend until the last man. They ran out of food, water, ammunition, and yet fought the good fight. From the beginning, it was obvious it that was a lost battle. There were no way they can defend the island from the Americans. My review of The Flags of Our Fathers is here.

Director Clint Eastwood tries to show how different the Japanese culture is from the American. When the Americans go to war, they expect to go home to parades, sweethearts, and families. The Japanese, we are told, was to think of themselves as already dead and are not expected to return home at all. They are expected to give their life for the Emperor and their country. Eastwood tries to bring this out in many ways during the movie.

Another feature is the Japanese sense of duty and hierarchy. While the Americans show some friendship between the officers and the enlisted men in Flags, in Letters, there is a hierarchical indifference. The movie Letters started with a Japanese captain beating a soldier with a stick for muttering "complaints against the homeland."

Also prominent is the sense of protocol. It was amusing to note that during an evening dinner with General Kuribatashi, the aides were to serve three courses. As there was not enough food, the third course was an empty plate. However this was served with ceremony. One has to understand the Japanese mind to understand the significance of this action.

One of the lessons that came across was their sense of honor and duty. And also their willingness to commit suicide for failure. When the Mountain section was lost, the commanders decide to commit suicide by blowing themselves up with grenades rather that to retreat, and regroup. I suddenly realise how hard it is to lead an army if they are so keen to commit suicide!

The similarities of the solders of both countries are clearly shown- their comradeship, their fears, their homesickness, and their difficulties. Glimpses were given of Japanese society during the war in flashbacks of soldiers.

I think it is is wonderful project if it has succeeded. We would have learnt so much more of Japanese and American culture. Unfortunately, Eastwood's advisers are Japanese Americans and what came across is an American's perceived idea of what the Japanese were thinking during the war. Though still a great movie and worth the watching, I am not convinced that I am actually watching the Japanese mind, culture, and thinking.

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An Email to Medical Students

This is an email a good friend and an excellent clinician and teacher sent to his medical students at Monash University of Malaysia. Reproduced with his permission.

I truly hope that you all will grow up to be good doctors. It is on this hope that teachers like us are willing to sacrifice time and effort to teach you all.

But you must first and foremost realise that what you are studying is not just any university course BUT studies that will bring you into the fold of a noble profession, helping the sick and the infirmed.

The hardest conviction to get into the mind of a beginner is that the education upon which you are engaged is not a college course, not a medical course, but a life course, for which the work of a few years under teachers is but a preparation .

What you are studying now is only the basics and the start of a long journey. I truly hope that you have the love for humanity to pursue this course NOT with the devotion of a student on an intellectual quest but of a LOVER pursuing the Love of his or her life. Medicine is NOT a course, not a means of earning a living BUT a LIFE.

You can all become good students, a few may become great students, and now and again one of you will be found who does easily and well what others cannot do at all, or very badly ; a genius.

We do not hope to train geniuses, we do NOT need to for they will arise above the crowd irrespective of what we do or not do. But we hope to train good decent people who wants to help the strickened. As I repeatedly said, I can only teach you how to THINK like a doctor, the facts of medicine you can easily teach yourself.

You all have to study hard, to spend time in the wards talking to patients and examining them. What is lacking is not the Map, you all are blessed with good teachers ever willing to guide you all, what is lacking is that you are sitting comfortably on the shore and trying to learn how to swim!

Concentration, practise and routine is the price the modern student pays for success. Thoroughness is the most difficult habit to acquire, but it is the pearl of great price, worth all the worry and trouble of the search. The run of the mill student lives an easy, butterfly life, knowing nothing of the toil and labor with which the treasures of knowledge are dug out or wrung by patient research.

The excellent student is a citizen of the world, a lover of humanity, a decent human for whom medicine is NOT for profits but for the alleviation of the pain of the sick.
This is the student that I hope you all are.

Divide your attention equally between books and patients. The strength of the student of books is to sit still—two or three hours at a stretch—eating the heart out of a subject with pencil and notebook in hand, determined to master the details and intricacies, focussing all your energies on its difficulties. Get accustomed to see the facts that you learn in the bodies of your patients, for that is the only way you can remember them, for the wards are the libraries of disease and the patient your true tutor.

I scold you all because I care, the day I stop scolding is the day when you realise that I had given up on you.

When The Rubber Hits the Road

How to be a Christian in a Wicked World
Text: Psalm 37: 1-9

Summary
It is possible to live a Christian life by the power of the Holy Spirit in trusting, delighting, committing, and be patient in the Lord in a wicked and evil world.

Text: Psalm 37: 1-9

PS 37:1 Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;

PS 37:2 for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.

PS 37:3 Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

PS 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

PS 37:5 Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:

PS 37:6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

PS 37:7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.

PS 37:8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret--it leads only to evil.

PS 37:9 For evil men will be cut off,
but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.

Introduction
All fans of Formula One racing will know that winning a race is the combination of the driver, the maintenance team and the design of the car. Even though the driver seems to get all the glory, it all goes back to the design of the car. Nowadays car designs are very dependent on computer modeling- the aerodynamics, the cooling system, the capacity of the engine, the air-fuel mix, and the weight of the car. However, no matter how el designed is the car, it will prove itself only when you get it on the road and drive. Hence when the rubber/tire hits the road. This is the same with our Christian life. No matter how much we memorized and study the Bible, how much we pray, and how much fellowship we have with our church, the test of our Christian living is in the world.

Psalm 37 has an acrostic structure. It begins each stanza with the Hebrew alphabet. This helps the students in memorizing the psalm. This psalm is considered part of the wisdom literature, like the book of Proverbs. Its purpose is not so much to teach theology, but rather practical living. It is a psalm about how to live. And this is particularly relevant to us today as we seek to live a Christian life in a world turned upside down.

How do you live in a world where the evil seems to triumph and the good seems insignificant? Is it possible to live a Christian life in a wicked world? When the tire hits the road, can our Christian principles hold?

PS 37:1 Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;

PS 37:2 for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.

There is the natural temptation to be upset and envious at the success of evil people, especially when living a moral life creates hardship. We look around and we see people whom we know to lie, steal, and cheat driving around in luxuries continental cars and live in large mansions. And they seem to get away with it. We know of evil persons who cause untold suffering and death of millions of people like Pol Pot of Cambodia and Mao Ze Dong of China dying of old age! The normal axiom is that the “good die young.” Why should the good die young? Shouldn’t the good live longer? Where is the justice in that?

Prov. 24:19 -20
PR 24:19 Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of the wicked,
PR 24:20 for the evil man has no future hope,
and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out.

But their success is superficial and not to be envied, for having no deep roots, they shrivel up as soon as testing comes along.

So how do we then live in this unjust world? Do we throw away our principles and jump in the in the murk? And if we want to live a Christian life, is there any way we can do that without failing? I believe that the psalmist had given us the answer in this section of this great wisdom psalm. The audience of this psalm also lives in times like us. Times where evil people are in control, where cheating and stealing are common, where injustices are common, and where it is difficult to live according to Godly principles, especially in the business world.

(1) Trust in the Lord (v.3)
PS 37:3 Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Evil people tend to trust in their wealth, power, or connections. The righteous shall trust in the Lord.

Prov. 3: 5-6
PR 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
PR 3:6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.

Trusting in the Lord is very important. That is the basis of our belief. If you do not trust in the Lord, there is no point in talking about living a Christian life. One of the greatest examples of trust is the flying trapeze in a circus act. In the act, they will launch themselves into thin air and trust their friend or partner in the other trapeze will catch them in time. That’s absolute trust. This is especially so when they are doing it without net. There is no room for mistake, or a bad hair day. One mistake and they fall plunging into the hard ground below. I always look at trust in the Lord that way. Are we willing to launch ourselves into the air without a safety net below, trusting God to be there to catch our outstretched hands? That is trust.

(2) Delight in the Lord (v.4)
PS 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Evil people tends to live for themselves and fulfill their basest desire, the righteous shall delight in the presence of the Lord.

Together with trust is joy. Trusting the Lord will give us joy. Joy is different from happiness. If you give me a million dollars or a big house, I will be happy. However that happiness is transient. It disappears when the income tax man come to audit me or the land office demand payment of the quit rent. Joy, however persists in spite of circumstances. We can have joy in the most perverse of situations. This joy comes as a delight in the Lord. What is the purpose of our existence? Why are we here? We are here because God loves us. And we are here because God wants us to be his partners or co-creators for the redemption of this creation.

Prov. 8:30-31
PR 8:30 Then I was the craftsman at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
PR 8:31 rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind.

(3) Commit to the Lord (v.5,6)
PS 37:5 Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:

The act of trust and commitment acts like trigger, releasing God’s capacity to act. Commitment is a conscious decision. Like Peter Parker in Spider-man 2, life is a choice. He has received awesome powers- the strength of ten men, the ability to climb walls, shoot webs from his wrists, and swing from buildings to buildings. However, he has to choose to continue to be Spiderman, or to be a normal person by not using his powers. He wants to live a normal life and marry his sweetheart, Mary Jane. . Aunt May Parker said, "I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble. And finally gets us to die with pride. Even though sometimes we have to be steady and give up the thing we want most, even our dream." Peter decides to become that hero. He has made his choice and commitment.

Prov. 16:3
PR 16:3 Commit to the LORD whatever you do,
and your plans will succeed.
PR 16:4 The LORD works out everything for his own ends--
even the wicked for a day of disaster.

PS 37:6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

The conviction in v.6 is that the setbacks are only temporary, like clouds obscuring the sun. Eventually God will move the clouds away and true light will appear.

(4) Be Still before the Lord (v.7-9)
PS 37:7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.

PS 37:8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret--it leads only to evil.
PS 37:9 For evil men will be cut off,
but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.

This verse advocate patience, not achieved by observing the instant-success schemes of this world, but by learning to wait on God’s appropriate timing.

The type of anger highlighted here is ‘anger against God’. This anger arises from the experience of trouble in the world where the evil people are evidently trouble-free, and the consequences of human experiences seem grossly unfair. Again, patience is encouraged because this type of anger is futile, because it will only bring grief to them. And also the evil will eventually cut off (as the Canaanites before them) and the faithful shall inherit the land (as their predecessor did).

Prov.16:32
PR 16:32 Better a patient man than a warrior,
a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.

Can we learn to look at the world through the Lord’s eyes? Can we look at the world through the Lord’s timing. Even though evil flourish, it will be only for a while. In God’s own timing (which may be different from ours), justice will be done.

Conclusion: How to be Christian in a Wicked World
We can be Christians in a wicked world by
• Trusting the Lord
• Delighting in the Lord
• Commitment to the Lord
• Be patient in the Lord
This is not easy but can be done. That is because we have the Holy Spirit to help us.

Today is Pentecost Sunday (27 May 2007). About two thousand years ago, on a day like today, the Holy Spirit came like flames of fire and fill all Christians, empowering them to be witnesses and to live as Christians in wicked world.
Acts 2:1-4
AC 2:1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

It is possible to live a Christian life by the power of the Holy Spirit in trusting, delighting, committing, and be patient in the Lord in a wicked and evil world.

soli deo gloria

Change the World by Changing Me

The Sufi Bayazid says this about himself:

I was a revolutionary when I
was young and all my prayer to God was
"Lord give me the energy to change
the world."

"As I approached middle age and realized
that half my life was gone without my
changing a single soul, I changed my
prayer to "Lord, give me the grace to
change all those who come in contact
with me. Just my family and friends,
and I shall be satisfied."

"Now that I am an old man and my days
are numbered, my only prayer
is, "Lord, give me the grace to change
myself."If I had prayed for this right
from the start I would not have wasted
my life.


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The Lion in Winter is still Dangerous

Can love and ambitions coexist between a husband and wife? What if both of them are competing for the same prize? Will love turn to hate? Is love and hate both side of the same coin? These are some of the questions this James Goodman’s Broadway play which was converted to a full length movie (screenplay written by Goodman himself) seeks to answer. By itself, The Lion in Winter is a story worth watching. Add in the charisma of Patrick Stewart and the subtle sexuality of Glenn Close and you have a dynamic of a movie.

Henry II (Patrick Stewart) is getting old. He is one of the most successful king of England and his territory includes England, Wales, Scotland, Acquitaine, and part of France. Now, in his Christmas court at Chiron, he plans to announce the successor to his throne. His three sons are Richard who cannot understand leadership (later will be known as the Lion Hearted), the shallow Geoffrey, and clumsy John. The only things they have in common are their parents and treachery. His wife, Eleanor (Glenn Close) of Acquitaine is as calculating as Henry and ten years before, had started a rebellion against Henry. She was defeated and imprisoned in Salisbury Castle by Richard for the last 10 years. Both Henry and Eleanor are equally calculating, ruthless, and shrew in their ambitions - which is to become king and ruler of their vast domain.

The story is a complex masterful play of plots and counterplots as two masters of intrigue match against one another. Their three sons, Philip (King of France), and Alais (Julia Vysotskaia), Henry’s mistress became pawns in their ruthless bid for control, power and ego. This is such a dysfunctional family that it saddens me to watch the movie. Yet I cannot help but admire the masterful moves of the Henry and Eleanor. As the movie unfolds, it was revealed that Henry and Eleanor are still very much in love with one another, yet they could not surrender their ambitions, pride and ego. Hence the constant battles, while inside them wax love and hate.

Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close both gave masterful performances as their characters underwent a whole gamut of emotions and tension. One could literally feel the electricity sparkle off each of them. This 2003 movie was directed by Andrei Konchalvsky and won an Emmy in 2004.

Letter to An Innocent Bystander

Letter to an Innocent Bystander is a chapter from Thomas Merton's book, Raids on the Unspeakable. This is a collection of Merton's prose which deals with his concern for the world of the Sixties.

This book has an unusual prologue as the author wrote some advice to his book,

"Well, Raids, you've grown up now. It is time for you to get out and meet people as the other books have done. They have usually managed pretty well on their own. They were, for most part, well mannered. As for you, you may need special advice. I must say you have proved yourself to be a bit unsual. It's your poetic temperament..."

Unlike his other books, Merton draws on a large range of poetic, mytholgical and even Arabic literary devices to bring his comments about society across. Hence he is afraid he might incur the wrath of the Church who prefers to stick to 'devout' literature.

Back to the chapter, Letter to an Innocent Bystander. It has a powerful impact on me when I read the closing segment...

"To illustrate what I mean, I will remind you of an innocent and anciety story, of a king and his new clothes.

You know it, of course. It has been referred to somewhere in psychoanalytical literature. Tailors deceived a king, telling him they will weave him a wonderful suit which will be invisible to any but good men. They went through all the motions of fitting him out in the invisible suit, and the king, as well as all his courtiers claimed to "see"and admire the thing. In the end the naked king paraded out into the street where all the people were gathered to admire his suit of clothes, and all did admire it until a child dared to point out that the king was naked.

You will pehaps find that my thought has taken on a sentimental tinge. But since the times has become what they have become, I dare to blurt this out. Have you and I forgotten that our vocation, as innocent bystanders- and the very condition of our terrible innocence-is to do what the child did, and keep on saying the king is naked, at the cost of being condemned criminals? Remember the child in the tale was the only innocent one; and because of his innocence, the fault of others were kept from being criminal, and was nothing worse than foolishness. If the child had not been there, they would have been madmen, or criminals. It was the child's cry that saved them." (p.61-61)

I find that condemning in the times and occasions when I should have spoken out but did not. Often for fear of disturbing the status quo by rocking the boat, or losing my reputation, or fear of retributions, and just being apathetic. Because of that, I have lost my innocence.

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God, Why?

Rev. Dr. Gordon Wong, lecturer in Old Testament, Hebrew and Homiletics at Trinity Theological College, Singapore has written another excellent book. This book is on Habakkuk. The book is written in the same format as his last book, Faithful to the End: The Message of Daniel for Life in the Real Word. Each chapter is a general exposition, followed by discussion questions, and then additional notes on exegesis. I find these additional notes priceless because it save me from hours of research.

Often, if we are honest with ourselves, we find, like Habakkuk that God does not make sense. This is especially in the area of suffering. God promises to protect and deliver us from pain and suffering. Yes, at times when we need him most, he is not around.

Two books in the Bible deals specifically with the issue of suffering. Job which deals with problem of undeserved personal suffering. Habakkuk with suffering of the innocent, especially in a time of war.

The anguished mother of a child who died as a result of a suicide bomber, or the parents of a co-ed gunned down in Virginia Tech asks the same question: Why, God, why?

Gordon looks at the three chapters of Habakkuk and divides them as follows

Habakkuk 1: When God Does Not Seem to Help

Habakkuk 2: When We Feel Like Giving Up

Habakkuk 3: When Disaster is Poised to Strike

and divides his book chapters as follows

Chapter 1: Protest: When God Does Not Seem to Help (The Character of Prayer)

Chapter 2: Perseverance: When We Feel Like Giving Up (A Call for Patience)

Chapter 3: Praise: When Disaster is Poised to Strike (A Commitment to Praise)

It is a thin book but full of encouragement and wisdom. I recommend this books for all Christians, especially for preachers and teachers of the Word.

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Boys' Brigade Enrolment Service 2007

Boys’ Brigade Enrolment Day Service 2007
Topic: You are Special
Text: Psalm 139: 13-16

Sunday Sermon
29 April 2007
Holy Light Church

Summary

One of the four pillars in BB of the building of Christian character is self-respect. We have self-respect because we are special. We are special because God has specially created us in the past, God knows who we are now, and God knows whom we will be. And God has a good plan for our lives.

Text
PS 139:13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

PS 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

PS 139:15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

PS 139:16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Introduction
William Alexander Smith was born in Thurso, Scotland in 1854. He moved to Glasgow in his teens and became involved in church activities. William was also a lieutenant in the 1st Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers in 1883 while he was teaching in the North Woodside Mission Sunday School. While working with the children in church, he discovered the need for wholesome activities for children outside school hours. William Smith shared his ideas with his two friends, which later invited boys from North Woodside Mission Sabbath School and formed the first company of The Boys' Brigade, 1st Glasgow Company on 4th of October 1883. It is the world's first uniform organization, even before the Scouts.

William was the first Brigade Secretary in 1887 where he worked towards spreading the Brigade across the world. In 1909, King Edward VII knighted William Smith for his contribution towards youth development. Five years later, Sir William Alexander Smith passed away. Throughout his lifetime, Sir William A. Smith poured out everything he has into BB and he is best remembered as the man who spells Boy with a capital 'B'.

The original object of the Boys' Brigade is the advancement of Christ's Kingdom among Boys and the promotion of habits of obedience, reverence, discipline, self-respect and all that tend towards a true Christian manliness. Christian “manliness” was developed by the use of a semi-military discipline and order, gymnastics, summer camps and religious classes.

Motto
SURE & STEDFAST (taken from Hebrews 6:19). The original Old English (King James Version) spelling of "Stedfast" has been retained.

Emblem
The emblem is original an anchor. Like the motto it stems from the verse "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure" (Hebrews 6:19)

Object
The Advancement of Christ's Kingdom among members and the promotion of habits of Obedience, Reverence, Discipline, Self-Respect and all that tends towards a true Christian Character.

Imagine a table. A table has four legs. Each of these legs needs to be of equal length or the table may not be stable. So it is like for a Christian character. It has four pillars: obedience, reverence, discipline and self-respect. The BB will teach you how to build these pillars.

Today we shall teach you about developing one good habits of the Boys’ Brigade- Self-respect.

We have self-respect because we are special. We are special because

(1) God specially created us in our past
Psalm 139:13, 15
PS 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
PS 139:15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

Do you know how special you are? God knows all about you before you are born. In fact, God created you. God made you specially. God made only one of you. We are not custom made like a car, a Proton Gen2 (a made in Malaysian car) in a factory. The case is assembled from identical parts. Each car that leaves the factory is the same. We are not like that. God make each of us different. Some are tall, some short. Some of black, some yellow, some brown and others, white. We have blue eye, brown eyes, green eyes, or black eyes. Some are very smart, good with their brains while others are good with their hands. Each of us is special. Each of us is unique. There is not another one like us in the whole world. There is not another one like you in the whole world and there will never be another.

(2) God is interested is who we are at present.
Psalm 130:14-15
PS 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Who are you? You are you. There no other you. God says you are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” What does this mean? Fearfully does not mean that you are very scary but that those who see you are astonished. “What, that’s special.” Wonderful is because it is so great. You are special because God has made you special. You may not feel very special now. You may not like the pimples on your face. You are not happy that you are so short, so skinny, or too far. Well, at this moment that’s who you are at this moment. You are a work in progress. You are like a caterpillar. You know that hairy, yukky thing. I am sure the caterpillar feels the same. I am a hairy, yukky thing. One day however, it will form a cocoon around itself. And then a beautiful butterfly will emerge.

(3) God knows who we will be in the future.
Palm 139:16
PS 139:16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

God who forms you in the past, see you now, also sees you in the future. To God, the past, present and future are like an open book. God can see you in the future and he knows what you will be in the future. That is because you are special. Everything God make is good.

Lessons for us
We are special. We have self-respect because we are special. Just because we
*do not come from a rich family,
*do not have a loving family,
*family where our parents are always quarreling,
*a father who is in debt to the loan sharks,
*a father who left the family,
*we are always at the bottom of the class,
*our teachers do not like us,
*we have to work after school to help the family,
*we are always being bullied,
do not mean that we are not special. It does not matter what other people thinks of us. It matters what God thinks of us. God thinks you are special. The officers of the BB think you are special. That is why they care about you. That is why they sacrifice their time t look after you. And that is all that matters.

Because you are special you need to build up your self-respect. Your self respect we who you think you are. Here are some of the things you need to do,
*take part in all BB activities,
*respect and learn from your officers,
*build your character (remember what the four pillars of character building: obedience, reverence, discipline, self-esteem),
*get to know who God is,
*say no to drugs,
*say no to smoking,
*say no to gambling,
*say no premarital sex,
*say no to mixing with gangs,
*study hard,
*take care of your body,
because God and all of us are interested in whom you will become.

Conclusion
The Boys’ Brigade is a special organization because everyone in it is special. Everyone in it is a BB boy or a BB girl. The church is also a special organization. Everyone in it is a saint. To become a saint, you must get to know Jesus Christ. That is your mission. You are special because God has made you special. Jesus Christ is special because he is God. It is your mission as a BB to get to know Jesus Christ. He is your commander in chief. You know your have your officers, your Captain, your General. Well, Jesus Christ is your commander in chief or your chief commander. All you officers, captains, and generals report to him. You are so special that your command in chief died for you. That’s how special you are. It is your mission as BB to get to know him.

Soli deo gloria