Awestruck

“You must really count your blessings.”

Those were the words of my friend D before we parted ways while on our way home. After musing about what have passed in the two days, I remark to myself, “Actually not only count, but just believe in them.”

I think I’d lost the ability to believe in blessings sometime earlier in my life during that fateful April 2011. After God managed to save me from that incident, I was still a faithful believer in Christ, but somehow with regard to blessings, I had become a diehard cynic. Ironically, it did not manifest itself in the direct way of dismissing blessings as falsehood and lies. It stemmed more from the fundamental knowledge that blessings are transient. Perhaps the best person to quote from the Bible with regard to my mindset would be Job with his famous

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”

Job 1:21-22 (NIV)

I was not wrong in being aware of the transience of blessings. They are indeed impermanent and come and go. However, I had become so hung up on their brevity, that I was in a perpetual state of panic that I even as I have come to learnt to take care of myself better and better, while respecting other, my fear would get in the way regularly and disturb me from fully appreciating what I have been blessed with.

I think God had enough. Being pleased with my willingness to serve him was not enough. He wanted me to reclaim the joy I had lost that May five years ago. Being the master planner He is, He did not reveal the plans immediately. Instead he laid the foundations much earlier, with the situation at times looking unstable, erratic, and even dismal at times. And meanwhile I was wondering whether I was really incorrigible, a case doomed for failure.

During this past five years of unravelling, I had not recognized the gift at first. It really took a while to see it, here, there. Now my eyes are blinded by the majesty of it. Indeed His ways are really beyond any comprehension. It is at the revelation of their totality and completeness that you are left gaping in awe and wonder.

I am still awestruck in joy, and I pray to God to help me always hold this moment in my heart. Amen!

Movie Mayhem with God Part 10: Edge of Tomorrow

Just last week, I had been joking with a friend over his hamster. With regard to these creatures, a common image we have of them are their vigourous regimes on those wheels in their cages, as they bound apparently towards nowhere.

I’ve completed a latest cycle on this treadmill of life. It was three years ago that I watched the movie Source Code and was personally touched. Now in 2014, the movie Edge of Tomorrow has brought back the same effect, as it is perhaps of no coincidence that my current state of life is highly similar to that three years ago.

Seems like really nothing has changed. Just like William Cage in Edge of Tomorrow, I’ve been living this full cycle, and not being able to break out of it, and as the cycle comes to conclusion soon, it is time to “die again”. The sole, yet critical difference: it’s less shameful, painful and excruciating. As William Cage trains up in the movie, his survival span lengthens each time round, slowly and surely, and his methods of dying get less humiliating and more honourable along the way.

During the middle of the show, Rita asks him whether he knows what’s in store next, and he replies “Well, I’ve never gotten this far.” Indeed, I’ve also never gotten this far in my current state in life, despite the impending “death” in the cycle coming up.

It was a delight to watch the movie. In fact, I felt Edge of Tomorrow surpassed Source Code, as William Cage’s character is much more believable and relatable, being that he isn’t an out and out hero as the lead in Source Code. In fact in the early parts of the show displaying William Cage’s lack of effectiveness with cockiness (plentiful examples), I was laughing till my sides split, as I had déjà vu moments of looking through a time portal of sorts, replaying all those horrendous mistakes I’ve made in my past.

Then there are the latter parts of the show which made my heart ache for his character. His dejection as he doesn’t bother with training and escapes to a café to drown in his misery but is nevertheless killed again. And then his selfless brashness in deciding to take on the duty all by himself, as he doesn’t want to get any other people involved to spare them the torture. At the risk of coming across as though I’m boasting, on certain days in life, I personally experience emotions and thoughts along these frequencies on a regular basis.

In the trailer’s monologue, William Cage states simply “For me, it’s been an eternity”. Indeed it has seems like I’m perpetually getting nowhere in life. When thinking along these lines, I can really envision God smirking at me saying “Be careful when you define the term ‘eternal life’, and pray carefully…” This year marks the 6^th year of my life as a daughter of Christ, and I guess the fact that at completion of the latest three year cycle, I’m still bothering to want to identify myself as a believer, is already cause enough for rejoicing. Think the conversation between Rita and William in the movie kind of summarises what God has up his sleeve for me, though frankly, I still don’t get it that clear. Well, if I got it that clear, I wouldn’t still be dying I guess. However, yes, this is an official announcement of sorts that the Movie Mayhem with God series is resurrected. Amen!

William: But I’m not a soldier!

Rita: Of course you’re not a soldier! You’re a weapon.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 (NIV)

Movie Mayhem with God Part 3: Source Code

Finally a secular movie with God's positive wisdom! Though one tiny reason why I love this movie so, is that the lead actor Jake Gyllenhaal is a hunk... :P

Ok, back to the movie plot itself.
The lead "wakes up to find himself in the body of somebody else and finds out he is part of a mission to find the culprit of a certain train bombing". Sounds simple enough. Ah, when the time factor comes in, the poor lead, and us audience start to have a headache. Turns out that he is sort of "reliving the final 8 minutes of a certain victim in the train bombing."

Thus the initial action thriller part of the movie focuses on the lead trying to first find where the bomb on the train is, which passenger is the culprit and most importantly where this culprit has stashed his hide of another bigger amount of weapons for an even worse large scale bombing.

Then eventually the movie veers into the more philosophical, theological and emotional realm where the lead struggles with the concept of the mission. According to his superiors, the mission is solely to stop a future bombing. The 1st train bombing is considered past and irreversible. The leader however is unwilling to resign to this success alone. He hopes to prevent that "past bombing" since he is reliving that particular 8 minutes repeatedly and he has something for all the other innocent victims in that bombing (of course especially inclusive of an certain attractive spunky female lead). For the lead, the concept of events and time are not linear but could be parallel. He deduces and argues with one of the personnels in charge of the mission, that the future prevented 2nd bombing could have been a sort of "past event", thus justifying his rationale to give it a shot at remedying the 1st bombing. Ok, I'll leave the ending for you to find out when you head towards the theatres (please go soon, I don't think it will survive past next wednesday as it has run for more than 2 months).

The message from God in this movie is not so much of us being saviours like the lead to correct and remedy future and even past mistakes. Note that in the movie, the lead is a helicopter pilot in the US war on Afghan. He was selected for the special mission, as his life threatening injuries from the war matched closely that of that other victim in the 1st train bombing, thus the team "implanted his consciouness in to that 8 miniutes of parallel time of the victim before death".
We too have been chosen by God to be heroes in our own way, to serve in His mission.

As for time factor wise, I've no scientific background in the concept of time though I do have some inkling that Einstein did propose that time as we know it is actually dependant on the speed of light. Thus if the speed of light where altered, theoretically we go back/forward in time.
Looking in this light (literally and metaphorically), the 2nd coming of Christ may really be totally beyond human comprehension.

The main commander general and coordinator of The ultimate rescue mission is God, we believers are but soldiers chosen for our individual talent, skill, ability (as represented by the lead's injuries) to effect a tiny part of this grand mission. However, we must also never look down on the task we are entrusted with. This is partly mirrored by metaphorsis of the attitude of the lead in the movie.

In the initially "trial runs" of the 8 miniutes, the lead is clearly frustrated by his lack of knowledge of the mission and adopts a "get it over and done with" attitude. Later when he gets over the frustration, he is furious towards for culprit of the the 1st bombing and the 2nd plot. He also even harbours resentment towards the mission leaders who selected him, for not letting his body die naturally and thus leaving him conscious of his separation from his father. Later on nearing the climax, he develops a sense of attachment for all the victims in the 1st bombing and pleads with one of the chiefs in the project to let him try reversing the past, even though he knows that this may endanger the actual him's chances of survival.

During our walk with Chirst, a similar series of that replay occur along the way. We get frustrated with the seemingly impossible teachings of Christ we have to uphold and want to "get it over and done with". Other times we believers harbour anger both towards others (sinners, fellow believers and even God himself), thinking they are making our walk difficult, separating us from God! However each significant stage of our walk with God comes when we sacrifice some selfish desire to place of what God deems as a greater good.

In conclusion, let us perserve on in our walk with Him, for eventually "all things will be made good again through His ways".

For the perserving believer
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
2 Timothy 4:7

In praise of God's ultimate mission
For the old order of things has passed away. He who is seated on the throne said "I am making everything new"
Revelations 21:4-5

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Revelations 22:12