God and the Apple of His Eye

"His eyes are like doves by the water streams...."

Such was how Solomon depicted the eyes of the Bridegroom in the book Song of Songs, which clearly portrayed the eyes of our Heavenly Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we behold those eyes from afar, they might seem as no more important than a pair of marbles, small and insignificant. But the closer we approach God's eyes, we behold how those pair of divine eyes shine like two mirrors in which we gaze into our own reflection. The closer we come to the Lord, the more we see our personal wrong-doings and shortcomings.
And, we are unwise if, after reflecting upon those mirrors, we turn away because we do not wish to behold or confess our weaknesses for Him to restore and change.
When we gaze upon those eyes deeper..... we shall see how gentle they are, full of love, compassion, grace and power!
He is full of compassion and grace; our Lord is the God of love who never stops loving sinful man, no matter how great our sins are. And He is full of grace, to lift us up out of the deepest pit.
He is all-powerful to change our wretched condition into the same likeness we see in Him, and He has all the power to transform all our vileness and blemish into a perfect being through Him.
We have learned that we, His church, His body, is the apple of God's eye, who always receive His attention and marvelous care -- for we are precious in His sight.
Whenever we, the apple of His eye, are ill, or have done some improper conducts against His will, or sadden/hurt His heart, or fall into mistakes due to our yet imperfect condition, God always washes us with His tears, with the water of His Living Word. Every time we do wrong, the washing by the Word of God comes to cleanse us of guilt.
Let us always become God's precious apple of His eyes, pleasing His heart at all times! Amen.

--Mrs. J.W. Totaijs, KRISTUS GEMBALA Magazine, August 1976--

Betsy

Julie had eleven dolls in her room. Some of them were very expensive. One could even cry and shed tears. However, among all her dolls, Julie's favorite was an old, rag doll that she named Betsy.
Whenever Julie's friends came to play at her house, they always chose the expensive dolls to play with. Julie was the only one who played with Betsy. She loved playing with Betsy, even at the times she was playing alone.
One day, Julie's mother asked her why she was always playing with such an old and ugly rag doll. Julie looked up and replied, "Mommy, if I'm not playing with Betsy, who would've wanted her?"

Sometimes, we, too, are like the above story...
Perhaps all our friends are invited to a party while others take no notice of us. When even our closed ones reject us, it seems that no one cares about us. Sometimes we feel as if nobody were concerned about us.
Nevertheless, when there is no one who does, God is there as the only Person who cares for us.
As a matter of fact, we are not worthy to be loved, due to our sins and badness. But God loves us more than Julie loves her rag doll, Betsy. The Lord is willing to die in our stead, no matter how bad and sinful our condition really is.
Apostle Paul once said that in the past we were adversaries of God, but He had made us His friends through the death of His Son.
As we ask ourselves as Julie did, "If God doesn't love us, who will?", perhaps we'll find no one. But Jesus loves us above all matters -- and He will never stop loving us!

[ Translated from KRISTUS GEMBALA Magazine, November-December 1974. ]

Woman Labor

It was high noon in Kendari, Sulawesi. A bunch of people are waiting for customers to hire their motorcycles, there by a shady corner in the heat of the day. Some others are working hard in building a shopping centre: carrying bricks, sacks of cement & buckets full of gravel.
The amazing thing was: the motorbikers were men, while the builders were women!
Talking about emancipation!
It is true that nowadays women are striving to gain the same right in earning a living as much as the men. But if THIS is the sort of occupation some women are undergoing in order to be considered equal to men, won't you say emancipation has stepped way out of the line?
Who's taking care of the kids?
Who's running the household?
I am not personally against feminism, but we all need to put all things in their proper places, in proper manners, and in the proper perspective. Even emancipation!

The Sparrow

My patronus is a SPARROW...??
Geez, when I took the quiz, I was hoping to receive a completely different result: a bear, for example. An eagle, a snow-leopard, a wolf, or perhaps a hound at the very least.
But, no. My patronus is a sparrow, a small, plump, brownish-grey bird with a short tail and stubby beak.
As I meditated the result, my mind suddenly flew to a verse I've read so many times in the Bible.
Jesus said, "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God! Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows!" (Luke 12:6-7).

There's an old hymn that goes:

Why should I feel discouraged,
Why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely
And long for Heav'n and home,
When Jesus is my portion?
My constant Friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.

I sing because I'm happy,
I sing because I'm free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.

"Let not your heart be troubled,"
His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness,
I lose my doubts and fears;
Though by the path He leadeth
But one step I may see:
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.

Whenever I am tempted,
Whenever clouds arise,
When songs give place to sighing,
When hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to Him,
From care He sets me free:
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He cares for me;
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He cares for me.

As I desired greatness and pride (something to boast about), God revealed to me that basically I'm just an ordinary human being: frail, small and weak compared to life's obstacles and challenges, unable to stand a chance against the forces of nature.
But to such a frail creature, God shows His unsurmountable mercy and provision. It's only because of His grace that we, human, live and have our being. We are kept safe only by His abundant love, protected from all harm that might befall us.

My patronus is a sparrow. And I'm glad it's no other.

Opposition = Friend or Foe...?

A long time ago, a student in University of Oxford made a paper entitled "The Necessity of Atheism."
I guess we all can predict what happened to him next.
Yes, he was banished, not only from the university, but also from England.
Yet today he is widely known as one of the greatest poet in English history.
Percy Bysshe Shelley did not actually publish a writing on atheism because he was a radical atheist who believed in no God. The emphasis was basically more on the "necessity" rather than "atheism."
In a world where the dominating religion was too overpowering and the ruling class was turning into tyranny (even in behalf of religion's sake), faith in itself receded to the background into the gloom of shifting shadows.
People didn't know what faith was. They were like scattered sheep without a shepherd, without a clear understanding of what they believed in.
They called themselves Christians (for that was the label put on the entire nation) without knowing who Christ was. They were a people at complete loss of the true idea of God and His divine work.
Shelley, on the other hand, was not a devout either. But he knew that in such condition, it was necessary to put up an opposition.
It was not to defy and ruin the dominating power of the ruling religion at the time, but to redefine it.
Without opposition, power always tends to fall into the dark side. It was necessary to open people's mind to the plausibilities of other point-of-views. This was a tool to check things into balance -- and Shelley did not regret his being exiled for delivering an opposing thought in the face of tyranny.
It really isn't about winning or losing.
It's all about keeping everything in balance in our unstable world.