muses

I was with a very good friend at New York New York in City Link Mall after work last Friday (quick review: nice layout / food is average / be prepared to wait to get seats / I think the novelty will wear off), and I made a feeble attempt to bring in the Gospel during our conversation. I just tried to share with her about the contentment that I have in having a personal relationship with God. But I think the whole thing eluded her. Well, perhaps she’s not the only one who’s unacquainted with this phrase. Then again, how is a relationship with God supposed to look like anyway?

I’m re-reading this book authored by Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God, and the questions and insights detailed in the book has brought me to ask myself difficult questions and affirmed my convictions as well, and one of the questions is about relating to a personal God who is intangible in every way. I don’t deny that there are times that I doubt the reality of my relationship with God, but I have also discovered that relating to God is vastly different from the way that I relate to a human being, as much as God is Person. God calls for faith in this relationship with Him, a faith that is defined as ‘being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see’, and ‘without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek him’ (Hebrews 11:1, 6). Note the second part of verse 6: He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. I just want to find Him, that’s all.

There was a time when I wished that, if I have the opportunity to travel back in time to witness an event, I would just want to see Jesus in the flesh. Yet, Jesus Himself said to doubting Thomas, ‘Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed’ (John 20:29). He said that those who have seen yet believe in Him are blessed. And I don’t mind to be called as blessed.

Recently, that fear struck in me again. It was that fear that haunted me when I read Matthew 24 and realised that the devastation that precedes the return of Jesus Christ is real and terrible; it was the same fear that gripped me when I learned of the certainty of His second coming during the Jun 06 Church camp and the frequency of disasters occurring in recent times. And so when the tsunami hit Indonesia again and at the same time I received an email regarding a prophetic message of the war in Lebanon before the Lord’s return, the word of God about judgement weighed heavily in my heart. It did not help that during Adult Fellowship yesterday, we watch a clip about the Biblical references of hell. there are some who think that they have already experienced or seen hell, be it after the natural calamities or man-made ones that swept through their lives. Yet even after that, there is still hope, faith and love. And I’ve heard people say that they don’t mind going to hell because they know that they would be people there whom they know who would accompany them. Maybe they spoke in jest, but the reality of hell is no laughing matter. Hell would be a place of relentless torment, regardless of who else is there with you. There is no love, no friendship, no hope, and no faith, because hell is a place where God is absent, and everything that is of God - love, friendship, hope, faith, and everything else that is good - would not be there as well. It is described in the Bible as a lake of fire, where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. All this is for eternity. My small, finite brain is unable to comprehend suffering that is of an eternal timeframe. And I am already afraid.

Actually there is a part of me that wishes that I do not have to reckon with this truth, nor to tell others of the reality of hell. Yes, this truth is repulsive. The Gospel is repulsive to the fallen man because our spirits are dead in sin, and sin wants to hold control over us; anything that speaks of repentance and freedom from sin is contrary to sinful human nature. But can I not speak and let those whom I know approach a destiny without Christ?