'We then, as workers together with Him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.'
2 Corinthians 6:1
'...for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, 'I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people'
2 Corinthians 6:16
Last week, my son Andre went on an outing to a science symphosium. As always he brought back an interesting haul, in this case, a bag full of guppies and baby catfishes. And as is the norm, the care of the fishes became my responsibility, for that is what fathers are for.
The guppies are acting as what normal fishes should be doing, ie swimming horizontally but not the catfishes. For some plausible reason, the catfishes love to adopt an unfish-like posture, 'standing' vertical with their mouth just below the surface of the waters, as if engaging in intense chattering.
In line with popular notion, they might be, but for some strange reasons, the guppies were pretty suicidal and quite a few managed to leap a height equivalent to twice their length, out of their water home into a dry and deadly non-existence.
The word, 'Garrulous' comes from the Latin word 'garrulus.' To garrire is to chatter, usually in a rambling or pointless manner to the point of annoyingly talkative.
I am probably guilty of it often enough, but lets digress back to the fishes.
It is widely believed that animals have better natural instincts and could sense impending disasters better than us emotionally cluttered worldly human beings.
A sinking ship will see the rats first off the boat, a canary is a miner's best friend in the deep subterranean reaches of the earth and a normally placid goldfish could turn violently agitated in its bowl, when a natural disaster is pending.
Truly, while the avaricious man count his cents, the animals keep its' senses.
Were my son's guppies telling us ahead about the recent financial market upheavals and the Sumatran earthquake-birthed tremors in Singapore??
Now that my imagination has gone a little awry, guess it is no harm going a little furthur off tangent and take on the mantle of the quack postulator.
'It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Thy name, O most High'
Psalm 92:1
Ever since the Lord our God brought me across, life has always been a blessing, for peace of heart is what He gives us, be it in the peaceful times or the troubling times.
Yet, for some strange reason, a certain troubling tension seemed to permeate my very soul these past two weeks. Yesterday, I finally went for a blood test and blood pressure guage to check my general health, which has always been good. If as I surmise, it is not a health issue, and indeed my blood pressure stood at the still healthy 120 and my cholesterol though not the best, wasn't too near the worse, than what ails my soul??
As Christians, we do get accused of overdramatising or over interpreting and there are often reasonable grounds for us to be accused of that.
Some spend too much time worrrying about the end of times without preparing for it. Some spent too much time preparing for it their way and not God's way.
Many just react in all brevity whenever an end times look-alike event occur, only to resume their nonchalance when the danger subsides.
"Shakened but not stirred" an apt headline from the newspaper that described the reaction of Singaporeans to the recent tremor from the Sumatra earthquake in Padang.
It also sums up the general attitude of many of us, believers or not. Our hearts tend to remain cold to the loving overtures of the Lord our God and it is often in a series of shakings in our lives, culminating in maybe a real big one that some would finally come to a realization of the folly of their ways, and the love of our waiting God.
Much as I would like to claim the ability to foretell or have what the secular world would termed, a sixth sense, reality is that I have none of this nor has anyone, for only God knows and is in control of the past, present and the future. The only thing that I did right in this unexplainable and a little unsettling period was to spend time with the Lord. This verse that the Lord showed me is not new to many of us.
Yet, it is also not new that we often regurgitate to our old sinful ways.
'Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord'
Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the Heavens.
We have trangressed..............'
Lamentations 3:40-42
God never leaves us alone, for to do so would mean that we will with all certainty end up in the wrong side of town, at Hell's end.
Troubling times or a troubled heart are often louder manifestations of the gentler but long ignored tugging that the Holy Spirit has been pulling at our wayward hearts, to remind us to come back into focus, into the presence of the Lord.
'To show that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him'
Psalms 92:15
God will always make us right. But we have the right not to be so. Like me, do you feel that little tug somewhere in your soul. If so, do take time to be with the Lord, let Him show you His way.
For to continue in your own way, would mean that the next swaying of the ground, might not be just tumultous, but truly the end.
God Blesses
Eng Hieang
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