Going home today...

Gonna have lunch with boyfriend and Pig today during their lunch hour (gotta enjoy times like these!) ...then I'll be boarding the bus back to KL.

A little update on my life...

My juniors are sitting for their final med & surg exams this week, so I guess I'll only meet up with them when they are truly done and over with their biggest mountain to climb. Guys, if you are reading this, all the best. You all have been working so hard - come what may, I believe God would glorify Himself! 

I had this thought up in my head last night, while I was waiting to drop off to sleep. I think we have the wrong concept of glorifying the Lord. 

Let me admit something. Back when I was a student, I used to think that I'd work very hard so that I'd do extremely well in my exams, and glorify God. But there were times I'd stop and think, 'Am I really doing this to glorify the Lord or it is also for my own benefits?' Shocked, I finally realized that it was the latter. We should not be working hard to glorify the Lord. Instead the bible tells us in Colossians 3:23-24: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters...since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." 

In other words, we should be working with all our hearts, driven by the motive of wanting to please and serve God. It should be an act of worship unto Him. Yes, excellence comes as part and parcel of it and so do good exam results (I'm serious!) but otherwise, God will glorify Himself in whatever work we do with such humble intentions - in His own way. He will make our labour bear fruit, but our hearts should be right. We should not be working diligently because we are aiming to 'glorify the Lord' with the results. It is a dangerous assumption that we are to do so. I have known friends who work terribly hard in jobs that they have no passion for, just so that they can earn all that money to educate their children overseas. Their reason? So that their kids won't miss out on such wonderful opportunities to experience foreign education, and that they would see that God provides all their needs @_@ (btw, there is nothing wrong with the education system in Malaysia - I know of local medical graduates who perform so much better in work than those of us who graduated from private colleges!) I have heard of parents sending their children to multiple tuition classes even on a Sunday, so that they will score good grades in school and 'glorify the Lord'. Poor children. They end up having to skip Youth meetings or Sunday School... or even miss out on attending the church services. Not all parents. Some. I have seen people in college work to the extent of their lives ebbing away (in the most extreme cases), skipping their meals, skipping CF, skipping church and etc - reasoning that God can be glorified through their results. 

Really now? Who are we to prove God through what we do with our own strengths? To tell you the truth, if I didn't know God - and I saw a Christian studying away like a mad freak (neglecting health, friends, hobbies, etc) working their lives away and so bent on the pursuit of excellence and winning the 'competition' - so that his/her God can be glorified, I would either think 'Boy, I don't think I want to have anything to do with God, if that is how I should glorify Him... I don't think I'd ever match up to being a good Christian..." OR if I were a little more cynical, 'I think he/she is being a hypocrite...'

Either way, it does not 'glorify God'. We should be very careful then, that we do not harbour any interest to share God's glory. Who are we to say that God can only show His glory through excellent results? Pursuit of excellence with the wrong motives, in time, evolves into perfectionism... and perfectionism is a form of idolization. We idolize perfection; it dethrones God from hearts. In the end, it kills us. No wonder, God implied in the 10 commandments, that 'bowing down to idols' is such abomination to Him.

Brothers and sisters... work diligently then, as a duty to the Lord. Work joyfully because we're working for our Master, the Lord. Study diligently because one day, you'll need the knowledge and skills to do God's work. If you're a homemaker, work diligently to bring up your children in the ways of the Lord - that they would be too, God-fearing men and women, who love Him with all their hearts, minds and strength - and minister to your husbands, so that they would be able to rise-up in their respective callings, to serve God in whatever He has prepared for them to do. But when it is time to rest, when it is time to serve the Lord at church, when it is time to fellowship with your family members and spend quality time with your spouse and children, when it is time to exercise (to keep your body in tip-top condition), when it is time to be down on your knees in prayer... then work would have to cease. 

I purposed in my heart, when I was in med school, that I'd not study during the weekends if I could help it - so that I could spend time alone with God, go out with my friends, go for Cell group, go for Christian Fellowship meetings (it wasn't like I had the choice - I was in charge of the music:P) , go to church, etc. I stayed late at the library during the week-days - but on Friday evenings, after classes were over, I'd throw aside my books and my weekend would start. Perhaps my grades could have been much better if I had studied throughout the weekends too, and skipped all the above. But, I'm glad God helped me to see that I had a much fuller life to live. And I saw His hand work even during my weekend rests. In the lives of the friends I spent time with. In the life of my boyfriend. In wherever I served. Etc. It was truly a blessing.

If time could rewind, I'd choose to do that all over again.