oh happy days... :)

October Conference. Full time ministry - why not?

so... it began with understanding "Who Jesus is?, "What Jesus came for?"...
and then understanding, "What is required of us?" a.k.a. the demands gospel...

there was a series of questions i asked myself.

Do you love Jesus?
i often tell God... "I wish I could say that I have loved you, but I haven't. If I were to stand before you, and say I loved you - it would only mean that on most occasions, I have loved you with my feelings, and on few occasions, I have loved you with my actions. And by and large, I can't say you already are the love of my life, and so I find it hard to tell you honestly that "I have loved you with my life". Still, thank you for having loved me, and so help me to love you..."

How will you love Jesus?
"I guess I've got plans for ministry, and plans to lay my life down for the sake of the gospel. I want to be a good doctor, and use that as a platform for the ministry of the gospel. Asides my workplace, I'll also give and support the gospel work of fellow christians in church. "

What about full time ministry?
"Well, in one sense, all christians are meant to do full time ministry in all areas of our life - in my work as a doctor, in university amongst my friends, in church amongst fellow christians. Its the same for every christian, whether you get paid as a Formal full-time worker in church, or whether you see your workplace and everything surrounding you as your Mission Field. For me, I think doing it alongside with my medicine degree is pretty much the way to go, and i'll work at workplace ministry + doing ministry in church. People from both places need to hear the gospel - church and the secular world."

sounds good eh?
Now, these were my valid arguments, and these were what made me think I was moving along the right track as a gospel-centered christian. Everything about these statements told me that I was ready to lay OR at least working towards laying down my life for the gospel.


The Hypothethical Situation.

You reach a fork in the road.

1. On the left was my plan of continuing as a "ministering" doctor doing "part-time ministry".
2. On the right was the path to full-time paid ministry.
   

Where would you go?

I would choose the left. There was nothing wrong with my original plan, which was actually very gospel-centered. In fact, both routes are just as gospel-centered, so I was contented to stay with my decision... (not knowing that in fact, my life has been held captive, not to the gospel/Jesus, but to something else.)

Now, if somewhere along your christian path, a pastor came by one day and tells you to consider full-time minsitry. What would you say?

Now, this is what I would say...
"Well, that's certainly a consideration. While I don't see myself going into full-time paid ministry yet, if the opportunities open up in future, and God calls me into full-time paid ministry, then perhaps I'll head into full-time ministry. As for now, I don't think I'm suited or ready yet. I want to work on my godliness and my character first. Personally, I'm not really a gifted speaker, but in saying that, i know this is something that can be improved with practise and training. Sometimes, the thing that stops me from wanting to take up a leadership/full-time ministry position is that, I'm afraid of the type of responsibilities for others that is required of me. I'm afraid that i might not be up to it, and that would affect the "sheep" placed under my charge. So, for now? I don't think I'm ready yet."

so far so good... i didn't see anything wrong with my life... yet.

Now, a certain miraculous change that happens instantaneously to you... its sudden, certainly strange... you don't know how it happens. You are now competant, gifted with the necessary skills to be a full-time pastor, you know you have the "character" for it because you are above reproach... and you'd be most effective as a gospel worker in this ministry rather than as a doctor.

... Now a pastor of a church in desperate need for employing gospel-centered workers to help with the gospel ministry saw you from a distance. He calls out to you saying... "Hey there! We're willing to pay you so you don't have to work. We think you'd be a great minister of the gospel, so come on along and join the bandwagon of full-time paid ministry. Come now! we'll start today..."

What would you do? What would I do?

"No, I can't... I'm not ready..." would be my answer... ... But why not?

in my heart, i felt a certain reluctance, a certain fear... Will I drop my medicine studies now without completing it and do just that? Isn't this too big a change for me...? There's too much i need to give up... I felt insecure...

You know, when I questioned myself from the beginning and up to this point, I thought I was okay as a christian, going along well with gospel-centeredness... and but now, something moved in my heart. (the kind of *gulp*-worthy discomfort at the back of my throat... it felt like someone gripped my heart)

my thoughts wrestled with my heart... i reasoned well, knowing without a doubt what the "right answer" was... that is, if my life was gospel-centered... if I was going to be "more effective" as a full-time paid minister... if the spreading of the gospel was the most important mission in life.... then why not join that band-wagon, give up being a doctor and head down the path of Full-time paid ministry... and most honestly...? hidden deep inside of me, I now know that I loved medicine for the securities it provides to me as a student now, and the same securities it would provide me as a worker in future. More importantly, the effort and investment i placed in it had made it my possession. It formed the love of my heart, and I was held captive by it.

This was a time I knew... "I had gospel-centered plans, got involved in gospel-centered acts (church and stuff), but was a christian without a gospel-centered heart...."

now you see, I had thought better of myself as a christian that I actually am; I thought I was at least somwhat gospel-centered, only to find out that on the inside, I wasn't.

The excuse I gave decieves... "I'm not ready yet, give me time to prepare, grow in godliness and be equipped. When I'm ready and find that I'm suited for it, perhaps, full-time paid ministry might me a consideration."... If anything, this was a lie and I've been decieved. Given that time should come when I became ready and suited for full-time ministry, it made no difference because, full-time ministry wasn't a real consideration at all.

... ...so you see, the hypothethical situation fastforwards "that few years" you thought you would have been working so hard to prepare yourself so as to bring you into "that time" where you have become already capable and suited for full-time ministry... But "a time" that many christians fail to think about or even consider then, what they'd do when they reached that fork in the road... ... a hypothetical decision that becomes a mirror that reflects the "christian" state; challenging your convictions, your love, your priorities.

and so, i've been decieved to think that I bore the label of a "gospel-centered christian".

Was Jesus the love of my life?
... I loved my possessions (medicine) more than Jesus.
... i'm the rich young ruler.

I always read that parable and pointed my finger at the rich young ruler almost accusing "him" as an example that I shouldn't be. I never relised how I was in fact, exactly like "him". So the heart of the issue isn't really about whether i eventually went into full-time ministry or not... It isn't even about the gospel-centered actions, services and plans I could come up with and do as a christian now. It was about my life, my love and my convictions - a gospel-centered heart.

Like the rich young ruler who had to face the "Fork-in-the-Road" - to follow Jesus or not... and who eventually turned away from following Jesus because his life was prisoner to his posessions.... Like the rich young ruler, my love and trust are in my possessions (studies/occupation)...

The gospel demands that we lay down our lives, pick up our cross and follow Him (Jesus). But, I couldn't lay down my life for the sake of the gospel. My possessions took the centre-stage, and I made attempts to structure the gospel around it... ... For me, being able to do workplace-ministry as a doctor alongside part-time church ministry made me think I had a "gospel-centered life"...

With an understanding of the seriousness, the importance and the privellage of the ministry of the gospel, it makes sense that one should be compelled one to have everything else in life structured around to support the gospel at its core. A good question to then ask ourselves is "Where can I be most effective in serving the gospel? and if I'm suited (e.g. the competence and character/maturity), what's stopping me from going there?"

With the knowlege that you might be best suited and most effective to serve the gospel in a particular area of the gospel ministry (e.g. full-time paid ministry, part-time ministry, lay-man support), and not do it... almost indefinitely shows that something else other than the gospel takes precedence. And understanding while this reflects our failings, that God who is in control is ultimately always there to help us through. (I guess the most comforting thing about this parable, is the part where Jesus said just after the parable that "With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible...")

And ultimately, the gospel demands not as much the services you can do in Church, as much as it demands our life; that is you being able to lay down your life for Jesus. Honestly, I'm perhaps not yet ready in character, not yet competant, nor find that circumstances most favourable, and so going into full-time right now at this moment isn't not really the best thing to do. However, in this, i've learnt that there are things that I love more than Jesus, and that this needs to change eventually...

how does it affect me as a christian?
"Ignorance is Not bliss" - just knowing that i'm not the perfect christian is in fact, comforting in some sense cos' its better to know than stay ignorant (tho', staying ignorant seems like the "easier" path to go... the bible describes it as the wider road...)
"knowledge is responsibility"- knowing now what the gospel demands of a christian and how there are areas i'm still lacking, doing something about it is responsiblity; the responsiblity of the gospel ministry...

and i ask myself the question again,

Do you love Jesus?
I want to...
but I need fixing up so as to live a gospel-centered life. I want to be able to say someday - "I have loved Jesus"...

facebook glamour...sigh. lol. (*dunno whether to laugh or sigh)...
on the left, is a photo of me taken just 2 months ago, and on the right is a really unglam photo taken about the time when I first arrived in Australia. Honestly? I got my left and my right mixed up.

so i wonder how much people do change just over 2.5 years.

fats aside,
i find that i've grew quite different over the past year, and especially just over the past year... some good things, some not so good things... character, maturity, humour, personality, perceptions, values, christian-ness - some for better, some for worse... ....

sometimes i wish i could be a "better christian", but it doesn't seem like a choice i can make. its hard to make myself change... sometimes I feel that only God can cause that change...

and by better christian, i actually mean i wish i could sin less, make that choice to 'suffer' for the sake of the gospel, be less ashamed of the gospel in more areas of my life/friends, be more prayerful, somehow love God more, be more convicted.

just growing up makes being "christian" really hard to do... ... more and more with age, people (me) tend to accumulate sins and the opportunity to sin...

"Sin and let your sins be strong. But let God's grace be stronger." was a quote from Martin Luther I heard during one of the bible talks...

if being a better christian is about how much less sins you are able to do, then i guess i can't say that i've became any better of a Christian than I was 10 years ago (or less of a sinner from when i was still some sort of a child). if anything, with growing up, it gets worse. Secret sins, some so subtle that i never thought i had... some so blatant which I cannot seem to stop... new ones that now tempts... sometimes its just outright rebellion. Often, i just feel plain helpless.

but if being a better christian is about putting on a better brand of 'Christ' and showing it off so others see... if its about glorifying the Christ (meaning, saviour), then its really about knowing more, and more of how much of a sinner I was and still am, that God/Jesus should still love and choose to save a person like me despite what I do.

so i am thankful that God decides to forgive past, present and future sins.

then, how does one change to put on the "brand of Christ"?
i read on the news recently of a church of puts tatoos on themselves... (and collects offerings in KFC chicken wing buckets...). not for me maybe.

...looking forward to october conference, a 4 day 3 night camp just for thinking about Full-Time ministry...

a little treasure i dug out. As i was reading this diary entry, it hit me that along the way, at certain gaps... i've forgetten how it was like, to want so much for others to know who God is.

it's probably true... the more you know God, the more you want to share w/ others about Him. and the more you want to share w/ others about a God that loves (and that you love), the more you want to know for yourself who this God is.


- diary entry in 2007 -
Aint friends great?
I can't imagine what it would be like without friends.
Maybe my friends were the ones and were the reason that made me want to really know God more, and so much so that I wanted God to be part of their lives too. I wanted to share something good with them, to share some most important part of my life with them...

The bible said that we should evangelise so that we can experience every good thing there is in Him... and I really think that the best thing that can ever happen is when my friends have found for themselves who God really is too.

But sometimes its hard to invite them to church, or tell them about Jesus... Some are cynical, others too busy, some just don't need it. Or do they? I've come to realise that it actually isn't I who should make that judgement. I should leave it to God.. All that I need to do is to share with them... something like a little introduction.

today, in hospital... 9/06/2010

a palliative care week lay ahead...

all of us were assigned to our own patients.

so it was, I was assigned to my patient...

the hospital day started.

I must say, the doctors and nurses in palliative care certainly carry a different flavour with them. Amidst a drone of sadness in the background, I see amongst the healthcare team - smiles, much more than in the busier hospitals, accompanied by a certain warmth, dedication and perhaps even, compassion.

it was 9.15a.m. in the morning, and we met our princple tutor, a registrar who brought us around the hospital.

there were five of us in all. six if you included the doctor.

today, as educational as it was, it was educational to the heart of medicine.

I saw a doctor transform into a cute'sy character just to bring some smiles onto the hospital beds - a certain compassion I'm inspired by, one which I should work to gain... and also one which I should never lose.

of all days, this is a day in hospital where I felt like I really wanted to be a doctor... well, I always thought I wanted to be a doctor, today i felt it inside... and certainly, palliative care wasn't just all about pain relief, symptom control, treatments, home visits, counsellors... ... Its about the heart of being a doctor.

there was an anomaly to the norm... a stark contrast... a temporary medical resident was on her temporary rotation in palliative care...

"Can you see this patient and find out how he's doing?" our doctor asked the resident, and in a quick little hurry, he ran off to settle something else...

so it was the five of us, and her... she was strange... scary in fact...

to break the silence, in a happy cheery voice, she told us.... "I want to have as little contact with patients as possible. That's why I'm going to be a pathologist" she said smiling... and then, she starting going on about how she loved several hospitals for being near a beach and being relaxed...

Stumped and speechless... well, we didn't really know what to say either.
the doctor came back, "How's the patient doing?" ....

so quickly, with a finger pointed toward the doctor, she spoke...

"The patient wants to see you..."
i guess she... lied...

but it wasn't so much about the lie, but knowing that she was doing all these without a certain 'heart' for it... a certain 'fake'ness in her smile makes me... if i could use a word to bring it to an extreme, then that word would be 'shudder'.

Lunch break. 1.30-2.45pm... had aporto for my first time. it was pretty decent :)

It was time to meet our allocated patients. I always get a little nervous before meeting patients, but once it starts going, I lose the nervousness and it gradually dissipitates in the background...

so I do the normal - a standard introduction, a greeting, and asked for permission, sat down...

and the conversation starts...

you really wonder what to say to patients who are facing a certain eminent death. you cannot really say "i hope you get better" or "don't worry about this" or "its alright" or "i'm sure the doctor's got it in control" or... ...

10 minutes prior to the conversation, I had written some pointers and questions down, a list of them, appropriate ones to ask...

so it was, I began to chat with Mr. B, a 76 y.o. gentlemen who was in the midst of painting a really pretty picture of flowers. He was quite good actually, carefully adding layer to layer of paint, waiting for each layer to dry before adding the next... what he calls every subsequent piece of art, an improvement from a previous painting.

Mr. B was a person of interesting character. Clearly, with a clear, sharp and analytical mind, and a hint of obsession with logic and reason, he analysed the people around him, the things people do - the drugs he takes, the nurses, the doctors, his paintings....

"In my whole life, I have never seen! no *shakes head* never... never seen such a group of people (the nurses) so dedicated to their work. If it were me, I meant if it were me, I'd get pissed off in 20 minutes, put my head in a gas chamber and get outta here. There are people pissing in their pants, people complaining all the time, and but, there's a certain something about these people. I've worked in so many places... well, I am an electrical engineer, and 'astro-physicist'... I deal with machines, parts, engineering... ... and met so many people, but never in my life seen such a dedicated team of people. Well, let me tell you about one of the nurses..."

at this time, his eyes were drawn into space, as though in deep thought. But not being able to grasp the right word to say, he finally surrenders to a relatively normal word, if it was normal at all

"She's special..."

"There's something special about her. You see the man opposite me, well, he was crying. And you know what she did? She hugged him. She didn't have to. She wasn't obliged to. She wasn't family. You know how families are, 'Well, dad's sick. we've gotta visit him and make sure he's okay...', they are obliged to. At first, I thought she was the daughter, but turns out she wasn't. She did not need to be all 'cuddley and kissy' with a sick old man.. yes, a sick old man. She didn't have to do all that, but she did. You don't normally go around hugging people who are old, dying, and who shit in their pants. And me, she hugged me too. She's special"

and that was something new to me too...

the conversation went on, and I asked, "What concerns you the most now?"

"Staying alive and living on. You know, how we are made up of the physical and the mental... and as time passes..."

and Mr. B. paused, and in a crackled speech said "we get weaker and weaker, till both fades away... that's how my wife went last year, and what we all have to go through..."

and teary-eyed he was... it was my first encounter with a man crying

2 weeks ago, a vietnamese mother with breast cancer, teared up too because she couldn't believe it was happening to her, and she still had to a 15 year old child to look after. It was hard, sure it was with chemotherapy. There was a sense of helplessness, a loss of control, as cancer and its treatment began to take over her life...

and in this man, somewhat similar... but different too...

I looked over, and a little lost for what to do... understanding where he was coming from, I felt empathy... a little sad too, and only a little as compared to what he must have be going through... ...

"I'm sorry... I get all teared up when I mention this..." in a crackled voice he said, with a little fumbling, ...

Lost for what to exactly say, and I gave a gentle whisper "it's okay..." , gave in to a necessary silence... and so it was, i placed one of my hands over his wrist, and with the other, a rub over his shoulder.

and in just a while, and we started talking about things again... about his paintings... about life... and about 'care'... this patient to me, surely wasn't a 'patient dying from lung cancer', but a person who wants to live on...

"I don't know much about the nursing home. I don't want to live there. Of course I prefer to be back home, but thinking now, it might not be the best of options. My daughter she lives a fair bit from me, and to get the care the doctors say I need, its too expensive to have them at home."

"If in the nursing home, I don't want to be with a bunch of old ladies playing lotto all day. I'm scared I won't be able to do the things I want to do... I want to be able to get my tools, power sockets, shouldering iron... ... nothing really much, just some of my workshop stuff over to keep me doing thing, to keep me occupied. In this hospital, painting is the bare minimum that keeps me going. Without this, in two days, I'd put my head in a gas chamber and I'm outta here...."

and so as I said before, and say it again, it came to me that - far from being a dying 'patient', this is a person who is pressed on living...

and with this, my view on of palliative care certainly has changed. it ain't so much about dying as much as it is about living... even if it meant living your last lap of life.

and with that... I placed my arm over his shoulder, gave him a kind of a 'sideway hug' and thanked him...

today i learnt more than my fair share... it surely ain't much 'medical' as I thought it would've been... much more than medicine for the body...

compassion.

it's a type of medicine for the soul.

test

ipodfactory.com

www.ipodfactory.com

random rattlings

kudos to beautiful teeth...

having 2 broken front teeth ain't cheap to maintain, especially when these "not-so-cheap" fillings keep coming out... and in Australia, breaking these fillings meant that I'd gotta pay almost 100 bucks per tooth (on top of the consultation costs) to repair it (as compared to 50 dollars here).... it ain't gonna be worth it in the long run...

so today, i decided to consult the dentist to find out the options for a more permanent solution. and that's crowning.

"Why are your front two teeth so short?" the dentist asked me... "I had another dentist shave my front two teeth a little cos it cracked at the edges, so it became shorter..."

"well, its gotta be way longer than these you have..."

talk talk...

"How long does it take to do a crown?"
"1 week."

I clasped my hands together, and was excited to hear that it could be done in such a short time.... "So when can we start?"

"Well, how about we start today..." the dentist said...
and so, i decided to start the crowning process immediately...

so within that hour, I had my front 2 semi-fractured teeth drilled and hammered into 2 "sticks" and it wasn't a pleasant thing.
the most painful part was the anesthetic injection into my gums.
the drill grinded parts of my semi-fractured tooth into smitherines/powder.
so, I could literally see powder flying out of my mouth, and it smells like concrete.

now i'll have to wait a week.

kudos to beautiful teeth.

and having beautiful teeth ain't just about the aesthetics of a nice smile.

now I finally can eat an apple, crunch into a cracker, tear meat of a chicken wing (as compared to using a fork and knife to shred the meat off before putting it into my mouth)... you know, how troublesome it becomes having to eat food like that... :X perhaps, that's why I've not really liked meat with bones, a strange phobia after having bitten onto a pork with hidden bone at Honey-Wok and having broken the "cheap" filling off my teeth.

but phobia no more...

with a crown,
finally, eating's gonna be convenient again!!!!! :D
*and of course, eating with a beautiful smile is extremely important.
Have you seen the smiles of Japanese people on local television when they enjoy sushi? what wide and beautiful smiles they have right... so what's good food without a beautiful smile?

anddd, I've got a new Dog, Welsh Corgi, named after the wizzy... Merlin (a short wizard just like a short-legged dog) :D really cool. and really happy that my home is gonna be more lively again with this dog around.

i mean, when our Tuffy (siberian husky) died last year, the home became quite a lot more quiet...
... my dad didn't have to nag at us to bring the dog out anymore.
... tuffy would normally walk around the house, and "beg" for food with the cutest lying down position with sad eyes.
... we didn't have to worry about someone getting bitten anymore.
... there wasn't something to cuddle in the afternoon when everyone's out at work/school
... there was one less responsibility to occupy our time...

so I always wanted to have a dog in the house.

its good exercise for my parents to walk the dog. and its fun to have a dog running around the place and greeting people who come back at the gate. at least, I like to be greeted when I come back home. its the feeling of being welcomed that i missed. its fun to tell others about how handsome my previous dog was, well, it really was the most handsome dog in the neighbourhood (or so i've seen.. nothing beats blue-eyed, apricot-white coloured siberian husky... HUNK). now too, i think i've got the cutest, most intelligent and the friendliest dog in the neighborhood that I can go on bragging about.

haha.

random rattlings.

i'm happy to have a dog in the house.