Wrong design?

In my previous article titled "Are you a winner or a loser?” I stated that God designs people like you and me, with a potential to be a winner. It is proven by the process of how a human is formed, 300 million sperms and only one will survive, fertilize the egg, become an embryo and born as a baby.

After I shared the article, I received questions such as “Does God always design His creations correctly? How about children who are sick, disabled, or mentally ill at the moment they are born?", "Haven’t some people got a better starting position for example born in a rich family? Isn’t the likelihood for success depending on the circumstances in which you were born?" These questions have thrilled me to write another piece of reflection.

The Book Genesis Chapter 1:24-31 (NIV):
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 
25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Before we discuss further about God’s designs, let’s read the following passage from Genesis 1:24-31. In the biblical account of creation we read how God made everything, He looked at everything he made and found it very good (Genesis 1:31). In the case of humanity, we read that God created mankind in His image (Genesis 1:27). In other words, God always makes everything in a good condition, no matter what, He does not know how to make bad designs.

The next question is, what the proof that God’s creations are good. Years ago I attended a seminar about whether creation based on Bible is true or just a fairytale. During the seminar one of the discussions was that our solar system demonstrates remarkable evidence of intelligent design. If taken separately, each object and its characteristic are highly improbable by random chance. When taken together, the probability is so small as to be impossible—by random chance. For example: the Earth where we live, until now is the only planet that has living creatures. The composition of Earth’s atmosphere and the distance between the Earth and the Sun need to be precise, if it is not, then it is impossible that Earth can host billions of living creatures. We must admit that we are a product of a miracle—either a miracle of chance or a miracle of design; and all of these amazing designs are created by a Divine Creator, God.

Continuing to the subject of those who are born sick, disabled, or mentally ill - it seems that it contradicts with my statement that God designed humans with a potential to be a winner, because they seems does not as competent as a normal healthy person. I disagree that it contradicts with my statement. I believe we have seen a lot of people who are disable that had achieved a lot in their life. You can see people winning in the Paralympic Games, or Got Talent Shows. Or if to name an inspiring person, Nick Vujicic. He is an Australian Christian evangelist and motivational speaker, who was born with tetra-amelia syndrome, causing him has no arms and legs. Although it may not be easy for him to live as a disabled person, you can say that he has achieved a lot in his life, maybe more than an average normal person.

Answering the previously asked question if people born in a more fortunate condition have a better starting position. Isn’t the likelihood for success depending on the circumstances in which you were born? I would like to start my answer with the following illustration: When someone is asked, "Why do you have a curly hair?" He would answer "My parents and grandparents had curly hair, so I have it too". However, if he was asked why he is poor, people would laugh if he said “My parents and grandparents are poor, and genetically we are poor”, because everyone knows no matter how poor our parents and grandparents were, we are given opportunities to improve our condition to a better one.  

If opportunity arises once, it could be luck, if twice, coincidence. If third time, then it is a pattern. Luck is great, but I believe that most of life is hard work. Let's look at most of the success and well known people, such as, Thomas A Edison, President Jokowi and Jack Ma etc. These people were not born in a wealthy family and yet they achieved a lot. On the other hand, I had seen examples where people who were born rich but unable to continue their parents’ business, because they did not work hard and incompetent. You can predict how they ended up being.

Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV) – "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well”.

To sum up, I believe God never make mistakes in His designs. The human body is the most complex and unique organism in the world, and that its complexity and uniqueness reveals the mind of its Creator. Every aspect of the body, down to the tiniest microscopic cells, reveals that it is fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13-14). Although, in some situations they may not seem perfect on the surface. We have a finite mind, which cause us impossible to understand everything about the infinite God (Isaiah 55:8-9). Nevertheless, in our worst situation, God is always in control and promise to be by our side to the end, so never lose hope to fight and achieve what we are intended to. Keep going… Just like what Dory said, “Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming”. ^_^

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV) - “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”.

Edited by: One of my smartest students: Joceline Geulista (Grade 10th, Beacon Light Community School)

Are you a winner or a loser?

I searched in Google, what does a winner and a loser mean? Here is the result, Winner is a noun, which means a person or thing that wins something. The synonym of winner is champion, conqueror, and victor. While loser is also a noun, which means a person or thing that loses or has lost something, and the synonym of loser is defeated person.

Romans 8:37 - "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us".

According to the verse in Romans 8:37, God designed you as His child, not to be a loser in your life. The verse affirms that God designed and created you with a potential to be a winner. Let’s have a closer look at the story about you and me: during sexual intercourse, about 300 million sperms fight the battle of conception, and only one will survive, become an embryo, and born as a baby. In other words, you and I are winners, even before we were born.

Then if God has designed human being with a potential to be a winner, but after they grow mature, some of them have not become "something" that they are intended to be, what is the root cause of it? I believe all people in this world does not like to lose, and never plan to be a loser in their life. However, somehow some people end up in this unpleasant condition.

Based on my experience winning is not an instant thing. No one in this world, directly can run right after they are born. Babies need to go through a series of processes and growth before they can walk their first step, then many steps - with unbalance walk then stable ones and eventually they can run. During this learning process, they experience many unpleasant situations, such as falling to the ground, stumbling against the wall or tripping over other hard objects, not only once but hundreds, or may be thousands of times. However, whenever they fall, they have courage to try again, again and again. Until finally they are strong enough to stand, walk and finally run.

I don't know when exactly a person develop fear to fail and give up attitudes. Being a senior high school teacher, I often heard that my students complain that they cannot do this and that, because it is difficult. Instead of trying to go through the learning process, they’ve just given up. In fact, some of them have not reached their 17th, they've already felt defeated when encounter difficulties. One thing I always remind my students, a theory that I usually call it "50% winning" theory. The theory is like this, when we give a try we’ve already gained 50% of chance to win, then we only need to earn another 50%. On the other hand, if we refuse to give an effort, it means we never have a chance to win.

What actually that made people refuse to give a try? Here are my guesses, first, maybe because they hesitate to give a try, second, maybe having difficulties to let their faith win, and the third, one maybe afraid to fail.

What's wrong with these three points? First, hesitate to give a try, see in Proverbs 10:4 (NIV) say that, "Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth", so, if we develop this character we definitely would end up with losing in our life.  There is a Chinese saying, 努力不一定成功，不努力一定失败 (Nǔlì bù yīdìng chénggōng, bù nǔlì yīdìng shībài) which means “Work hard does not necessarily can bring you success, but if don’t work hard, you will fail”. Hence, doing nothing will not help our life progress.

Second, difficulties to let their faith win, which means, we may have lack of confidence that our God is able to help us succeed? One of God’s character is Omnipotent, which means having unlimited power, able to do anything. One of the reasons maybe we have not known our God better, hence we hesitate to ask for help to our God.

The last one is afraid to fail. From the fact of how a baby learns to walk, we know that winning is a process. Throughout the process, it is highly possible that we would encounter obstacles and hardship, so it is useless to avoid it. Hence, it is better we make an anticipation action to encounter these obstacles.

In summary, a winner is not a person who never fails or a perfect person or a person who never had a problem in his/her life. A winner is a person who fails but has the courage to rise and fight until he/she succeeds. So why should we be afraid to fail, as long as we want to rise again, it will not be a matter anymore. A winner is a person full of perseverance through every test in his/her life without complaints, until he/she redeems what God has promised. Becoming a winner or a loser, I would like to open those options for you to choose. 

Choose wisely. (",")

"WINNING IS NOT A SOMETIME THING; IT’S AN ALL TIME THING. YOU DON’T WIN ONCE IN A WHILE, YOU DON’T DO THINGS RIGHT ONCE IN A WHILE, YOU DO THEM RIGHT ALL THE TIME. WINNING IS HABIT. UNFORTUNATELY, SO IS LOSING". - Vince Lombardi.

Trust His Heart (Rewrite - Updated Edition).

I wrote a similar article on Wednesday, March 18, 2015. Then I think to rewrite and make it more structure and clearer.

As humans sometimes we feel very hard to understand why bad things happen to good people. Like the following story, that I heard one day while I was driving from my home to my office years ago. I was listening to a bible conference message from RBC by Rev. Bill Crowder (Our Daily Bread Bible Teacher). He talked about suffering. He said many times we do not know why bad circumstance happen to our life. Further, he shared his experience when he was a young pastor for a church, he received a call from his family to inform that his dad has passed away. While his heart was overwhelmed with grief, a senior pastor came to him and said "one day you will be thankful for this". He thought why he should be thankful for his dad's death. That happened to be his first funeral service. Years have passed by, he conducted many more funeral services, because of his experience with his dad's funeral, and he was able to serve the grieving family more passionately and connected with them.

Admittedly when unfavourable circumstances come to us, or good things have not happen to us, for example maybe a family is waiting for having a baby, an adult man or woman is looking for a job or a life partner or a very sick man or woman is waiting for a miracle that he/she would fully recover from his/her sickness, and yet these prayers have not yet been answered. To make it worse, sometimes when one bad event has not been recovered, another misfortune occur, it's like an old saying, "Rub salt into the wound". Some of us if it is not all, including me, sometimes would questioning God when an unfavourable situation occurs to me, "Why this happen to me? Has God forgotten me?" and in fact does God really forget about us? Or we think that God enjoy to see us suffer?

Isaiah 55:8-9 New International Version (NIV)
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Before we judge God, we need to know who we really are, and who God really is. God is an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent being. Who can fully understand Him? We are not all knowing, nor are we everywhere present. Furthermore, God never and will never enjoy to see us suffer. If he does, the cross will never happened. I wrote an article previously re. Blame-Shifting, where we as human sometimes do something wrong or inappropriate, and then dump the mistakes on other people's head to avoid taking responsibility or our own behaviour, while God does play Blame-Shifting too. In contrast compared to us, instead of dumping the mistakes on others, He voluntarily take the blame although it is not His faults. He is willing to take the consequences of the sins, which are not belong to Him, so we may be hindered from the consequences, which is dead (Romans 6:23a). Do you think why He would do that? He did that because He loves his creations including us, until he would better sacrifice himself so we will be saved.

Chorus of “Trust His Heart”
God is too wise to be mistaken, God is too good to be unkind,
So when you don't understand, When you don't see His plan,
When you can't trace His hand, Trust His Heart

There is a song title "Trust His Heart", we may comprehend the chorus of the lyrics. I think this lyrics may help us how to respond, when we are experiencing suffering. We really do not know why those bad things happen to us, and where this horrible situation will bring us, maybe God is working on something to prepare us for our future. Like the story at the introduction, the sad situation that occurred to the young pastor has prepared him to serve better in his future career. We do not need to understand everything about God and His actions. However, we have to know and understand our God has a loving heart, which is reflected by His real work on the cross. Therefore, when we really do not understand and do not know what to do, just trust His Heart.

Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future".

References:
Omniscient: knowing everything
Omnipotent: having unlimited power, able to do anything
Omnipresent: of God present everywhere at the same time

Blame-Shifting Game.

Being a teacher is not easy. My colleague found out the hard way. One of our students blamed my colleague for not motivating her enough. As a result, our student could not finish her homework… she said. Was it really my friend’s failure as a teacher, not being able to motivate this student to do what she was supposed to do anyway? Let’s discuss further.

According to the bible, blame-shifting *) is the oldest ancient game played in this world. Let’s open the bible, and we will find the classic example right in the beginning of the book of Genesis. 

THE BOOK OF GENESIS Chapter 2:15-23 (NIV):

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 

17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 

22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 The man said “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 

After God had created all animals, and Adam had given names to all of them, God realised that none of them was suitable to be the true helper for Adam (Gen 2:18). So God made Adam fall into a deep sleep, He took one of Adam’s ribs, made a woman from this rib, and He brought her to Adam.  At first, Adam was most happy when God brought this woman - called Eve - to him (Gen 2:23). But his sentiment shifted after a while.

Let’s move backward a little to see this more clearly. God had created a variety of trees, from which Adam and Eve could eat the fruits as they desired, except for one tree: The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad (Gen 2:16-17). However, Eve could not resist the fruit, and finally neither could Adam, and together they ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.  As written, the consequences of eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they will certainly die.

Chapter 3:8-12 (NIV):

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

God called Adam upon his deed. And rather than admitting his deed, Adam shifted the blame to Eve. To God, he answered: “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Adam blamed God for giving him a woman who led him to sin. He perceived that if God has given him a better woman, he would not commit to sin. Adam was so easily change his perspective on God after breaking God’s command.

We human beings easily blame others for our mistakes. We do not want to look bad because of our mistakes, and we would rather flee from them. We dump the blame on someone else to avoid that we have to take responsibility for our own faults. Are there any benefit that we may gain from the Blame-Shifting behaviour? No way. We may escape this time, but we will make other mistakes in the future. So how would we like to solve that? Blame-shifting again? How long? How often? There is a saying "No matter how good a squirrel can jump, it will fall eventually.” In plain language: no matter how good you are at blame-shifting, eventually you will suffer from the consequences of your actions. 

Instead, we may apply those famous football or basketball players' attitude, if they are interviewed after they lost in a game.  They often say words like:  "Yeah, I am sorry, I played badly today, or maybe this is a bad day for us.” “This is a learning experience for us, we need to come together again and practice harder. Hopefully we win in the next season".  They never seem to blame their team members. They admit that they made mistakes, and own the responsibility for their own behaviours or actions. Further, they also evaluate on how to correct the mistakes that they've made. 

If we never own the responsibility for the mistakes that we made, then we may not feel the need to correct it. Ultimately, we will live in this devilish circle forever. Is that what we want?  It is a matter of choices.  I would like to open those options for you to choose. (^_^)

Tribute to Rev. Bill Crowder (Bible Teacher at Our Daily Bread Ministry)  for his sermon on King Saul, which has given me inspiration to write this short article.

*) Reference - Blame Shifting Definition:

• Blame-shifting is an emotionally abusive behaviour or tactic (https://distantspark.wordpress.com/what-is-blame-shifting/)
• Blame-shifting is when a person does something wrong or inappropriate, and then dumps the blame on someone else to avoid taking responsibility for their own behavior. (https://www.psychopathfree.com/articles/5-types-of-narcissistic-blame-shifting.388/)

Renungan, Senin - 19 Feb 2018.

Bacaan: 1 Raja-raja 19:7 Tetapi malaikat TUHAN datang untuk kedua kalinya dan menyentuh dia serta berkata: "Bangunlah, makanlah! Sebab kalau tidak, perjalananmu nanti terlalu jauh bagimu."

Renungan:
Pembantaian terhadap nabi-nabi Baal oleh Elia membuat amarah Izebel naik sampai ke ubun-ubun. Izebel mengancam untuk membunuh Elia dan tiba-tiba saja Elia merasa takut pada ancaman itu. Beberapa sarjana Alkitab mengatakan bahwa Elia Elia mungkin mengalami "bipolar disorder", yaitu suatu keadaan di mana suasana hatinya mulai berubah secara drastis. Baru saja ia mengalami perasaan senang karena menang atas nabi-nabi Baal, tetapi kemudian dia langsung terjerembab ke lembah ketakutan. Ketakutan yang berkembang ke tingkat depresi itu membawa Elia berjalan hingga ke padang gurun dan membuat ia putus asa, sampai-sampai ia ingin mati. Saat Elia sudah putus asa, Allah mengirim seorang malaikat untuk menemuinya dan memberinya makan. Lalu Elia diperintahkan untuk pergi ke gunung Horeb. Menurut tradisi Yahudi, gunung Horeb merupakan lambang kehadiran Allah. Di gunung inilah Elia menemukan perlindungan dan tuntunan Allah. Ia dipulihkan dan siap melakukan tugas selanjutnya.
  Ada 3 pelajaran yang bisa kita petik dari masa depresi yang dialami Elia. Pertama, makanan yang disediakan oleh malaikat-malaikat ketika Elia ada di padang gurun meneguhkan bahwa Allah senantiasa memenuhi kebutuhan anak-anakNya. Allah peduli saat kita berbeban berat. Kedua, kehadiran Allah saat angin sepoi-sepoi basah berhembus yang dibarengi oleh pertanyaan koreksi yang lembut, mengajarkan bahwa Allah mengoreksi kita karena Dia mengasihi kita. Ketiga, di masa depresi itu Allah malah mengutus Elia untuk mengurapi Yehu dan Elisa. Pada tahap ini Dia mengajarkan kita bahwa jalan keluar dari tekanan yang berat adalah dengan terus melakukan tugas kita. Saat kita memandang keluar dari diri kita, saat itulah kita keluar dari perangkap mengasihani diri sendiri yang sebenarnya  menjadi sumber depresi. Tuhan memberkati.

Doa:
Yesus, terima kasih karena Engkau tetap setia mendampingiku dalam menjalankan hari-hariku yang terasa sangat berat, sehingga aku bisa melaluinya dengan tetap penuh pengharapan padaMu. Amin. (Taken from someone with initial - Dod).