You Tell Me

"Why do I need religion?", she asked.

It's 1.21AM on a Saturday morning I should have been spent catching up on my much needed rest.

Live firing the previous day caused me to wake at 4.15am and I haven't slept since then. I'm thoroughly shagged.

I actually wouldn't have minded that much if I was nice and comfy in my bed and perhaps on my way into slumberland already.

But I wasn't.

My brain was fried with trying to piece together a plan to rescue my friend who was wasted at Zouk. He didn't even recognise me when I eventually went to save him.

For the moments prior however, I was weary, dirty, smelly, my intelligence levels were at danger-low levels and I didn't need reason thrown at me to shake me up and break me down further.

But that's the way it works isn't it?

It's not only when the going is easy that I'm going to comfortably be in a position to defend the hardest questions of life. It's all the time.

I didn't answer that night though, cos I was too busy trying to sort poisonous politics out.

Perhaps I needed more time to ponder and give a credible answer, one that would prove my position on the matter as absolute and correct.

I had half the mind however, to immediately reply:

"Why do you not need religion?"

Pushing the burden of answer to the critic; but it seemed so cowardly, as if I were running away.

The other half of me wanted to hit the HELLO-DID-YOU-JUST-ASK-ME-THAT-STUPID-QUESTION button as if it weren't apparent enough already.

The usual "cause God is everything you want and need and you can't live without Him and you'll need Him to be there to comfort shield and protect you and give you strength and be your closest friend to confide in and love like you've never known before" blah blah blah blah blah..............

But as those words ran through my mind, I was like, that's incredibly boring, true as it might be, and I didn't want to flood her with orthodox answers.

How that turns so many people away.

In this dot com generation what people need are short, striking answers that interest them to listen beyond their 3 second attention span.

So I searched the inner contours of my small, quite-unused brain for something different, even as I rushed all over the place to baby-sit possibly the biggest baby ever.

And as the next day began and I went about rushing my chores I kept flipping the question over in my mind.

And as Sunday reared it's head and I went to buy Mee Goreng from Gluttons Bay at 2AM to bring back to the Padang to eat cos I was staying overnight guarding the Army Half Marathon stores for OCS, I was still perplexed.

Then it hit me.

I don't know.

I can't know.

I'm not knowledgeable or powerful enough.

I can't tell you why you need religion, anymore than I can prove why God exists.

I can't tell you what works for me because we're all different and it probably won't work for you.

Sure, philosophically I can answer the question "Why do people need religion?" in a general context fully and soundly.

It would go along the lines of:

"People have a natural need to live and interact with each other, and communally there must be something that keeps them united and working together, as if for a higher purpose, thus the need to have something greater than themselves to believe in and live for, hence religion."

In a nutshell, but this is just generally. Applies best to tribes.

But specifically, I can't tell anybody why he or she needs religion.

Only you have the answer to that question.

You know exactly why you need it, but yet one easily weighs the scale leaning on the need-not side because the need side seems way too easy to believe and accept.

But it true, it is incredulously easy to accept.

That's the wonder of Christianity, but that's another topic for another day.

I can tell you why I need religion, but I can't tell you why you need it.

I need God because I have nothing else to live for.

I can only pray that God reveals to you why you need Him, and why you need Him so desperately right now.

Everybody does.

I do all the time too. I fall so often.

And my one single hope is that when He comes and offers you exactly what you need, you don't ignore Him or turn away.

He'll always come.

You will always need Him.

How?

Why?

I don't know, you tell me.

Gone Too Soon

It's five o'clock.

He sits on a concrete path overlapping a tiny drain set with granite rocks in the thousands on both sides.

All around is quiet; save the occasional chirping of a sparrow or the distant rumble of a vehicle.

The wind blows freely through the plains, the trees bend and shake in their wake, leaves being unsettled in the process.

The sun casts a long shadow over the rooftops making even the nearby buzzing housefly take on a monstrous form.

He sets his eyes on the mimosa plant at hs feet, admiring the red fruit blooming between the black-tipped thorns. The wind causes the stalks to shake, yet it does not envelope and isolate itself.

An idea occurs to him.

Slowly he lowers his pen tip to the mimosa stalk, and presses against it ever so gently with the same weight of the wind as it blows.

It doesn't close.

The wind stops.

He presses again with delicate force, this time making the same swaying motion as the wind.

It still doesn't close.

However, as the force of his pen tip is concentrated, the two tiny leaves on either side of the tip begin to react.

He finally presses the stalk hard against the ground and watches the leaves immediately consume his pen tip.

The amazing simple-complexity of a single mimosa vine; sensitive, flexible, beautiful and bright yet dangerous all at once, an intricate part of God's wonderful creation.

What have you stopped to notice this week?

where to begin?

Who is God to you?

Who is He to me?

This question was asked by the pastor of last week's sermon, and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since.

I mean, really, I don't have an answer half concrete.

Yes, He is my strength, my shield, my fortress, my deliver, my shelter, strong tower, righteousness, holiness, comfort, peace, healer, love, best friend, rock, grace, mercy, creator, saviour and so so much more.

He is my everything, but what do I really mean by that?

Is He really all of that to me?

Is He any of that to me?

Have I subconsciously or not put Him into a box and open the lid only when I want to?

I can say that He is so much but yet, it's really so little because I dont really know Him at all. Even though I've been to church for so many years.

Let's just start of by saying that He is my strength.

How so?

Does He give me the boost when I most need it?

Does He give me the strength when I'm all out?

Or perhaps, is everything I do by His strength alone already, yet I credit it to myself?

Or let's try something easier, maybe by saying Jesus is my best friend.

But if so, He must be the most unlucky best friend in the world because I don't even talk to Him on most days. Am I aware that He is even around?

It's like, how you would love to spend all the time in the world with someone close, and though He's with me all the time I barely spend anytime with Him at all.

What kind of a best friend am I then?

What a hypocrite I am!!

Have I been living my christian walk under an illusion? Trying to define God my way but totally missing out on who He really is?

If I were to start to really know Him, then I find that I know nothing at all.

Where do I begin?

Is this how I progress on to the next level?

The level where I seek God for who He really is?

It seems only logical, for were I to branch out from here I would really see the magnimity of what God is, and to know Him is an eternal process.

I can't keep stating vague terms anymore.

I can't keep saying He's my wisdom when I freely throw my knowledge regarding Him out the door.

I am going to slowly etch out what each term of what God is to me, for if I don't I will forever be living under a veil.

It's time to throw away all the hypocrasy and past illusions.

It's time to find God.

It's time to know Him.