Dare You Question The Almighty God?

Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You;
Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?

Jeremiah 12:1

Did the prophet Jeremiah actually say “let me talk with You about Your judgments”? He’s basically saying ‘God I need to talk to you about how You’re running things around here”. We all know that Christians “aren’t supposed” to “blame” God for any evil that happens. I don’t think Jeremiah was blaming God at all. He’s questioning God, sure. But not blaming.

Here’s something I truly believe though. If you have a burning question in your heart. If something is bothering you and it makes you angry or super sad or fired up. Don’t be afraid to take it out on God. He is like the Father who wants to listen to our rants, our rambles, our outbursts. Even if our language sounds like it’s directed at Him, no problem, He can handle it. He doesn’t have insecurity or self-esteem issues that would make Him vulnerable by what we said. He won’t get offended and lash out on us for saying the wrong things. He knows what we’re gonna say before we say it anyway, which means He knows if we’re gonna use the right words to express ourselves. He knows what we truly meant by it. How can we surprise Him? He knows our heart!

He wants to hear us out because it is part of communication, which is vital to build relationship. He wants to hear our complaints. He wants to know we’re confused. He wants to know when we feel something is unfair. He wants to know how our misunderstanding or lack of understanding about Him or the world or ourselves. But He wants to know it from us firsthand. We are His children, He has already reached out to us and created that family relationship bond. We just have to respond and trust in this relationship. It’s like when a couple adopts a foster child. Every legal document settled, every payment taken care of, all the new parents want is to show love and prove to the child that he or she can trust them.

Relationship is the key word here. We can communicate. Just like Jeremiah did. Don’t be afraid of expressing yourself to God. It’s much better than asking Google, asking friends, or ranting on Facebook. God knows what we mean. God knows what we need.

My Prayer This Morning

Psalms 33:20-22 (NKJV)
20 Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.
21 For our heart shall rejoice in Him, Because we have trusted in His holy name.
22 Let Your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, Just as we hope in You.

Mazmur 33:20-22 (AVB)
20 Jiwa kita berharap akan TUHAN; Dialah penolong dan perisai kita.
21 Hati kita akan bergembira kerana Dia, sebab kita percaya akan nama-Nya yang suci.
22 Limpahi kami dengan kasih setia-Mu, ya TUHAN, sebagaimana kami berharap kepada-Mu.

Of Manna

¹⁴ When the dew evaporated, a flaky substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground. ¹⁵ The Israelites were puzzled when they saw it. “What is it?” they asked each other. They had no idea what it was. And Moses told them, “It is the food the Lord has given you to eat. ¹⁶ These are the Lord’s instructions: Each household should gather as much as it needs. Pick up two quarts for each person in your tent.” ¹⁷ So the people of Israel did as they were told. Some gathered a lot, some only a little. ¹⁸ But when they measured it out, everyone had just enough. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough. Each family had just what it needed.

Exodus 16:14-18

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I have a problem with this passage.

Not that there’s anything inaccurate or anything wrong that happened. It’s very logical and is probably a sound record of what happened.

My problem is with how I would respond if I was one of those Israelites. Let’s take a small step back and look at the context.

The Israelites, very recently left Egypt. God saved them from slavery and showed His mighty signs and wonders and power to show off to the world. Now, as they wander the desert, they realise they are hungry and will die soon. Then the Israelites did what they did best. Complain. God heard them of course. And gave them food. But God took the opportunity to build their faith. He likes to do that to His chosen peoples. He gave them food for the day that would rot next morning. God wanted to build their trust in Him. To know that He will provide for next day.

Moses gave a difficult instruction. Go outside and take how much food is needed for your family for the day. I would have taken more than enough. I mean, for survival. My family is hungry. I already feel bad for not being able to provide for my family. Nomads don’t farm. Also, there was ALOT food on the ground. It’s an amazing miracle. Enough to feed more than 1 million for the whole day. I’d say taking more is not selfish. And it’s more of a precaution. Based on past record, this has never happened in my life, what are the chances it will happen again tomorrow just because Moses said so?

But God wanted the Israelites to trust Him DAILY. But… But… How? How do you TOTALLY FULLY trust someone? How do you TOTALLY and FULLY trust God?

To be honest, I can’t say I have perfect trust in God. I still have a lot of things in life that I like to do my own way. I still like to be in control. I still want to plan ahead. And I still like to complain.

(Disclaimer: I’m not saying that being in control of your life or planning ahead is bad. But I am saying that complete trust in God does require us to let go of some of our fundamental trust in ourselves, people, rules, and even logic. That’s why I find it so hard.)

But I have been practicing. Here are two simple practical ways to try and work on your trust in God. It’s how I do it anyway.

Advice

Firstly, try being trustworthy to others. Try not promising too much, and try to remember and fulfill what you have promised. The more I do this, the more I find that I can’t trust myself. Yet I also find that I do like being trustworthy, honest, and respected. I realise that I need to have love for others to want to be trustworthy. And I also realise that people love you for being trustworthy. I’d say, trying to be trustworthy shows me a glimpse of what God wants to do for us and what He wants from us. That might make you trust God and appreciate His promises more.

Secondly, let God prove Himself. If God said so, let it be His challenge to Himself. If He longs for us to trust Him, He’ll prove Himself. I agree that a lot of things (like basic needs) may be too risky to trust an unseen being with. Well then, start small. Trust Him for the little things. Praying and trusting God for a good parking could be a good start. When you start to believe that God is trying to prove Himself to you, pick up a bible and claim a promise He made in the bible. He made a lot of promises. And none of them are small. God only makes bombastic promises. If it comes true, it should be proof enough.

Thirdly, you can ask for faith, I guess. Wait, didn’t I say I only have two advice? Yeah I did. Oh well, my third advice is to ask. I definitely have faith. But I definitely could have some more. I don’t think it’s possible for a human being (except Jesus) to have a perfect 100% faith or a perfect trust in God. Various people have various degrees of faith according to what God gives them (but even though we’ve been given different levels of faith, I still believe it is our responsibility to grow it). So God is pretty much still in control in the first place. He says that nothing is too trivial a task for Him, and no request is too big and ambitious. And if we can pray for a friend to have faith, why can’t we pray for ourselves to have faith? No harm asking.

Trust

‘Trust’ sounds like a passive action. Sounds like ‘wait’. But imagine in movies, the starring hero will tell the girl who is hanging out of a tumbling car to “trust me”. It means she has to let go of the car she has been hanging on to and trust the hero to grab her hand before she falls. Trust is a verb. You need to do something. The hardest part of holding on to the hero is letting go of the car. Do you have something you need to let go of for God to prove Himself?

Is It A Choice To Choose?

#1

Don’t let them call you a ‘bimbo’. You’re nerdy enough for me.

 

#2

God wants us to CHOOSE to love Him. He’s not gonna MAKE us.

 

 

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Do We HAVE To Die?

 

over the centuries, people have always wanted to have control.

people have always wanted to be able to choose neverdeath. err… immortality. i meant.

 

there are many natural things in life that we don’t have a choice about.

like, firstly, of course, death.

life? yes. we do have a choice between life or no life.

but death? it’s a must. it’s a certainty. it’s adhering to the laws of nature and science.

also, we don’t have a choice but to be governed by the laws of physics… like gravity. and space. and time.

thirdly, we don’t get to choose our biology. i’m not a dolphin. and my dad is not Eminem. I don’t have a choice.

and, another thing we don’t get to choose, this is a big one, is CHOICE.

 

God gave us a will to make decisions.

God gave us the free will to choose anything for ourselves.

but not only that.

EVERYTHING. Requires. A Choice.

we HAVE to make a decision.

 

To agree with something, a choice.

To disagree, a choice.

To be ignorant, a choice.

To accept a fact, a choice.

To doubt it, a choice.

To act on it, a choice.

To let it go, a choice.

To complain, a choice.

To face it, a choice.

To walk the easy path, a choice.

To walk the road less taken, a choice.

To go with the flow, a choice.

To dare to be ridiculed, a choice.

To practice, a choice.

To procrastinate, a choice.

To be all round pessimistic, a choice.

To be joyful and thankful, a choice.

To be disobedient, a choice.

To trust, a choice.

To harbor anger, a choice.

To love, a choice.

 

you know, everything comes down to what we choose.

even when situations are out of control, it’s how we respond that counts.

even if everyone disagrees, if my conscience tells me it’s right, i still have to choose.

 

this is what determines character.

 

ask yourself:

do you make your own decisions?

or do you let your mood, situations or environment dictate your choices?

 

i’m not saying it’s easy to develop character.

in fact, that’s what problems are for; to help us grow.

when we make a choice to face a problem head on, we overcome something that we can never overcome if we don’t make the difficult decision.

problems and difficulties are like mirrors, they reveal a side of you that you’ve never been able to see by yourself.

also, if we don’t deal with this problem, it’ll always seem to keep appearing.

just like looking into a new and different mirror.

no matter how many new and different problems you’re gonna face, if the previous flaw in self has not been dealt with, you’ll see the same flaws show in the new and different mirrors.

the same issue will occur.

so choose to deal with it.

 

i can’t say i’m super holy.

just like obedience and holiness is a choice,

disobedience and sin is also a choice.

i have to say (honestly), i choose to sin and be disobedient all the time.

let me give you a very innocent example from my own life.

if someone is late for a meeting that i’m chairing, i get mad!

i choose to let my emotions rule over my actions.

cuz it’s downright easy to do.

but, you wanna know what’s the Most Difficult thing to do when someone makes me angry?

choose keep a joyful face, forgive, and continue to live life the best i can without making the situation worse.

you know, that’s just too difficult to do!

that’s just crazy.

 

but God’s all about crazy isn’t He?

 

 

Will the Judgement Day look like this? prolly not… 

 

we hear people talk about the JUDGEMENT DAY all the time.

 

but I tell you the truth, brothers, Judgement day is not about fire and brimstone raining from the sky.

judgement, is when God weighs our character and compares it with Jesus’ character.

and our character is built on choices we’ve made.

 

 

let’s make the right choices.

 

 

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The Book Of Proverbs

 

is a super good book to start reading about choices.

making wise and productive and efficient choices.

in fact, the bible talks all about choices.

 

anyways,

let’s take making the right choices seriously.