Love People?

Ever since the release of Israel's "Love God, Love People" album, many believers are finding it exciting to carry this phrase around as a token of boldness towards what they believe in.

While this is a good thing, I find a lot of people circumventing the requirements just to be able to achieve this as quickly as possible. And when they do this, they do more damage rather than good, both to themselves and to people around them.

It is very common for people to be trapped in excitement of doing God's word. After all, Jesus did say that we should love our God and also love others (Matthew 22:37-39) -- so it is not a sin for us to want to do that. But somehow many people forget the fact that they are simply an empty vessel that needs to be filled before they can pass on blessing to others -- and without them being filled, they are simply acting like "a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal" (1 Corinthians 13:1).

Last night I've talked to someone from the church who had became so weary in doing good. And this is not because he was doing good out of his own might, but rather he does not have enough power to go on anymore.

As believers we tend to immediately diagnose his issue as a lack of relationship with God, and we would in a heartbeat tell this person to amp-up his dedication towards spending more time and building greater relationships from God, the ultimate source of strength. Since it is a straight-out-of-textbook answer and sounds perfect enough, it should be the right answer right?

I am reminded by eagles and how eaglets are nurtured and taken care by their parents while they are still young. They cannot find their own food, so the only option here is for the parents to provide them with the food they need to replenish energy and promote growth.

When leaders are getting too busy with their schedules, it is very easy for them to forget that some of their followers are not mature enough to seek food on their own. It is very often that leaders, in their quest to find extra time for themselves, are forced to trade the necessary long-period of nurturing their followers with a 10-step 45-minute crash-course on how to find their own food.

My niece is 2 years old now. As much I would like to believe that she has grown a lot for the past two years, I still need to realise that she is still very dependent towards her parents. She needs constant nurturing for many years to come before she can finally be able to do things on her own.

Don't get me wrong. I believe in making people mature, just like an eagle teaching their eaglets how to fly. But even at this stage, the eagle won't stop providing the eaglets with food. I am sure this is where we get it wrong sometimes -- we think that if we are to train someone to become mature, we have to let go of them completely.

Many congregations hear many sermons. And sometimes they are so excited to apply them in their lives. But before they are mature enough, they need all the care, attention, and guidance they need to make it happen. It is easy for leaders to fall into the the law of NATO (No Action, Talk Only) -- and without realising it we have just handed out the most powerful weapon in the entire universe (ie. the contents of the bible) to kids who don't know how to operate them. Dangerous? Well, what do you think?

May we reflect on these things today:
1. As a leader, have I recognise that out of all of my followers, there are some who are still in need of nurturing and attention?
2. Have I provided those who need my care? Or have I become someone who only speaks but never acts?
3. Do I really think that my justification towards my inavailability to take care of those in need will release me from my responsibility?
4. Have I realised that nurturing others is a slow process and that I should not try to circumvent it under any circumstances?

God bless you.

You are a City. On a Hill.

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden." - Matthew 5:14

It has become a routine for me that every night before I lie on my bed I always turn on my reading lamp on my bedside table and turn off my bedroom light.

It has just dawned on me that they both apparently use the same type of lightbulb that consumes the same amount of energy. Yet somehow my reading lamp shines less brighter because of the shades put around it.

A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

When I was in Israel late last year, the tour guide explained further on the phrase "city on a hill". Back in the days where the road between two cities are not equipped with lights, it was important for a city to be visible from a distance to help travellers reach that city. Therefore, cities were usually built on a top of a hill for greater exposure from afar with lights that radiated from within the city.

We are a city. Yet somehow sometimes in life our lights are not always "on a hill" as they are supposed to be. We dont shine as bright as we should. We are being covered by shades, and even though we shine bright, people around us are not being impacted by it.

So who put the shades?

There are many answers to this. The first answer, which is the most obvious one, is ourselves. We can sometimes create own our barriers without us realising it, may it be our own busy schedules or ineffective positioning of priorities.

The second answer would be others. Sometimes this can be deliberate attempts from people around you to prevent you from lighting others, but other times it can be a product of mistaken application of love.

What I mean by this is that sometimes people around us can become so overprotective to the things we do, they end up becoming more than just a shield around us, they become barriers and shades that prevent us from reaching our full potential.

I have heard stories from people on how they feel imprisoned in life simply because they are being dictated as to how they should become. As much as I believe in the art of obedience and its application through faith, I also believe in the possibility that mistakes can come not just from ourselves but also from other people. When this happens, our response is not to change ourselves but to support those who have "wronged" us so that they can finally understand the limitation they have posed on us and change their behaviour towards us.

When you lead someone, it is very critical that we do not become overprotective in shielding those who are under our cover, or it might end up becoming a shade that prevents them from growing.

I am suddenly reminded by the biology experiment back in our primary school days when we grow beansprouts that we place inside a black box with only a small hole on the side. The beansprout will grow on a shape that goes towards the hole where the light of the sun can come into the box.

The beansprout doesn't grow towards the box, but towards the area where box doesn't exist.

When we become a leader, we should know that people do not grow towards us. They grow towards God. And sometimes we can be so clouded by our own needs to make people succeed, we try to mould people according to our will rather than letting the Sun do the growing.

Yes, without the box the beansprout might not have survived the wind or plant-eating insects, but we should be aware that the ultimate source of growth is not the protection that the box has given, but rather something that the box indeliberately took away from the beansprout: the Sun.

Let us introspect ourselves:
1. Have I become a city on a hill? Have I reached my full potential?
2. If I haven't, then who needs to change?
3. As a leader, have I, directly or indirectly, become the very person who prevents others from reaching their full potential by becoming to harsh or simply becoming too overprotective?

May you find the true answers to the questions so that you can be set free.