THEY ARE STEALING OUR DREAM... NO! RATHER, OUR FREEDOM TO HOPE!!

THEY ARE STEALING OUR DREAM... NO! RATHER, OUR FREEDOM TO HOPE!!

Notting Hill is the film? (I thought I heard Nottingham! Dumb me!). I am not into films and fantasy. But this caught my attention. The BBC reporter (on 28^th  June  2012) was in the real place featured in the film, and said it well: the real place, Notting Hill, has an opulence of shops and plush residential houses, and yet this has not always been so. Notting Hill used to be a lowly area, but has greatly changed over time to affluence.

Then one thing struck me like a lightning bolt: THE PLOT OF THE FILM IS FICTIONAL, BUT THE PLACE IS REAL!

It seems makers of films and soap opera series force us to dream and imagine and fantasise the impossible!! I am sure not the only kid who (back then) mimicked Superman, Batman, Casper the friendly ghost. Heroes and ghosts? Oh, oh! Today, kids are glued to Harry Potter’s magic and the supernatural feats he does. Unfortunately, the older we get, the more daring they play on our minds: driving us to mimic more and more of the paranormal, immoral, or the vulgar!

Probably we don't really believe in all that we watch, but, to an extent, it influences our perspective and even reactions to real-life situations somehow! Millions of us are captivated watching series after series of improbable fiction which mostly never even happened at all. The silver screen invokes imaginations for the moment, and perhaps entertains … although at times, haplessly to say the least, with quite a dose of poisonous erosion of moral and logical values.

But one thing is inevitably noticeable in all this endless craze of peeking at the screen: Why is it that we have this longing to dream and be carried away by fantasy? Could it be that it was placed there as a fertile ground for FAITH to germinate in us? An intriguing definition of faith is “…the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1).

Faith invites us to believe in so many things that popular opinion has begun to throw into the trash can. Let’s look at a few examples.

CREATION: that God created the earth. Now, no one alive was there to give evidence that the creation marvel we call Mother Nature came from an enigmatic Divine Source. Although others are happy to suggest that the source of the wonders of creation is "nothing" or a Big Bang, this suggestion still falls aeons short of explaining how “no thing” could "exist" in the first place, or be stirred up to make millions of “some things”…. Actually, if forces existed back then, they should have come from some somewhere or Someone should have made them and stirred them up! In the end, we inevitably end up with Someone who needs no further explanation! The Christian inevitably calls that Someone “GOD”! Whilst science fumbles for a plausible cause of the Big Bang, the Christian lays back without scratching the head! Faith at work!

JESUS: Since we were not there in the beginning, faith claims that Someone who was came to live among us! Although it needs faith and divine imagination to embrace this, it is a credible claim, backed by history, that a Man called Jesus Christ lived among us and did the most amazing impossibilities that shook the culture of HIS day: HIS deeds were beyond the ordinary and the mortal - opening blind eyes, curing leprosy, raising the dead, and multiplying food before people’s very eyes! When the spiritual leaders back then proved these were no reversible magician’s pranks, they were fearful that this Carpenter-made-itinerant Preacher would snatch the red carpet from off their feet, and plotted HIS death! They didn’t want to lose their authority as He was very popular among the people! Then HE surprised them: HE openly made it known that HE would die and resurrect after Three Days! I mean, having already done the impossible, they were disturbed, and planned to make sure that HE would not elude their death trap! Thank God the Jews back then were under occupied rule of the Romans Empire, and secular history collaborates these Biblical episodes. When they successfully convinced the Roman ruler of the day in nailing HIM to a cross where HE died, instead of throwing a party, they couldn’t sleep and even broke their Sabbath to place Roman guards and a seal at HIS tomb, all to be sure HIS prophecy that HE would come back to life does not happen by sleight of hand! Talk of a bothered conscious!

THE RESURRECTION: But Jesus indeed resurrected! The impossible happened! The spiritual leaders couldn’t adequately disclaimed it! A bunch of 12 men, close followers of this man Jesus, ring-led a massive mission to proclaim this Man was alive, and that HIS death was the divine solution to the sin problem that crept up on us way back  in the beginning of creation! And they were willing to even die for it! Many have believed since, and are convinced that the same God who created us was willing to save us from ourselves!

THE PROMISE: As if that’s not enough, prior to HIS death, Jesus had promised that HE will go away and prepare a place for us and would come back to take us there (John 14:1-3)! After the resurrection, angels confirmed that HE would indeed come back someday in the same way the followers had seen HIM go (Acts 1:11). Impossible? I am persuaded to think it is very possible!

TODAY: Here we are with more than a palpable urge to believe that this Jesus is more than a piece of fiction! The moral purity that HE proposes that we live is even more intriguing! Well, maybe Hollywood has stolen a bit of our imaginative prowess: they want us to believe in the “impossible impossible” (because their impossible is indeed impossible)! I suggest that everyone ought to consider the “impossible possible” in Jesus Christ, because with HIM, what seems impossible can be possible!!

THE FUTURE: If Notting Hill was once a slum, and now it's plush and upmarket – a transformation made by mere mortal man, why can't I believe that my God has mansions in preparing for me? Isn’t this the impossibility-to-possibility maker God who already proved HIS words to be true? I will believe in HIM! I will! I will! HE is coming back for me! It’s not just a dream to me or a movie thing. It is HOPE! The plot is REAL, and so is the PLACE! And that gives me hope for tomorrow!

SO COME, LORD JESUS! MARANATHA!

CHRIST – THE LIFE AND THE LIGHT!

CHRIST – THE LIFE AND THE LIGHT!

The Christian life is meant to reflect our Creator and Saviour, Jesus Christ. If Christ came into the world to bring life and light to our darkened and dying world (John 1:4), and claimed He was the Light of the world (John 8:12) and the life (John 14:6), I believe He was communicating an important truth for those who would choose follow Him.

For starters, as God, His divine attributes are sufficient, actually more than sufficient, to light up the entire world with light and give life to all!
 

·          For Him being "life", if in Him all things created consist (Colossians 1:17) and in Him we live and have our being (Acts 17:28), then surely He can give us life to live abundantly in the here and now (John 10:10), and we can trust in His promise of eternal life! He has proven to be faithful to do the impossible. Why not trust Him on this?

·          For His being "light" of the whole world, I mean the whole world, hey, then, in the meantime, our lives are guaranteed to shine with unparalleled brilliance if He’s welcomed to live in our hearts! For all practical purposes, the heart, being smaller (much, much smaller than the world), will surely not contain that light to itself! That light will definitely burst forth! It will shine to those around! To the world! Then, in reflecting Christ, you and I shall be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14)!

I know this calls for a faith trip! But let’s take that leap of faith and follow Christ! God bless you.

END OF THE WORLD... IS IT COMMON SENSE? DO WE HAVE IT?

END OF THE WORLD... IS IT COMMON SENSE? DO WE HAVE IT?

The reporter in Madagascar stunned me as he relayed to BBC that the birds had been silent for 2 days: no singing! Why? Cyclone Giovanni was on the way!

The brute animal kingdom has an uncanny ability: sensing the approach of such catastrophes as cyclones and earthquakes, and that well in advance!

I feel I can safely say the end of the world is talked about more often now than ever before! Whether in a soft scientific big freeze/meltdown or in an unimaginable cataclysmic explosion, man has an uneasy and intrinsic sense that the end is surely to come and is even not far.

But I see a difference between man and the birds of Madagascar in that the birds were proactive by keeping inactive and sheltered. But for man, it is still business as usual for many!

If only we could hear the rumble of danger from the incesant economic, political, financial, and social upheavals!

If only man could come to terms with the fact that there is something beyond and outside our human existence that should be the solution to our dire and seemingly hopeless position! If only we could embrace the fact that someday, God will bring to fruition a rescue plan.

And again, I also find an undeniable fact of life: the intrinsic moral compass within man! When I search what this compulsion to do good and shun evil has to do with our existence, I find that religion's suggestion that it for us to prepare for a life after this one is very plausible! Could it be that the Creator has been communicating all along?

Well, friends, I feel everyone of us is duty bound to deepen our search for God! There is something we can tell from the speed of change around us that this world won't last if left to its own devices!

Like the birds, let's seek shelter and let the silence of our honest musings speak to us. The Creator has undoubtedly always reached out to us: what's left is not to ignore but to hear the only alternative there is!

May I suggest that a careless disregard may be as perilous as a stray bird in a cyclone!

God bless!