No Shortcut Please!

The past 2 months have been a wonderful time for Clarissa. First, she contracted H1N1 and experienced God’s healing within 24 hours, literally; then, she witnessed God’s protection over the entire family including mummy, the one who was most likely to be sick since they were quarantined together for 24/7.

Her faith started to grow and little by little, she was applying the power of prayer over her school life. Ms Ng, her form teacher, is unusually strict and stern. She has a tendency to apply capital punishment on the entire class even though there were only a handful of culprits responsible. On numerous occasions, Clarissa managed to escape scorch free, miraculously through prayer.

Then, without my knowledge, Clarissa was bold enough to apply the power of prayer in her spelling! In her school, it is normal to get 20 new Chinese characters for each spelling session and on average, each character has more than 8 strokes! I for one would have difficulty in reproducing these words without practice but my dear daughter thought that with prayer, there was no need to revise and the words could just come to her, naturally.

When I reviewed her spelling book, I was shocked to learn that she scored a mere 20%! This was the first time she had fared so badly. Upon interrogation, she confessed that she had only “prayed” about it! I was tempted to laugh about her silliness but almost immediately, I was reminded that I too failed in my own ways.

Having become a Christian, I took God’s grace for granted. On countless occasions, I had traded newspapers for the Bible, exchanged entertainment times for quiet times, and to top it all, I thought it was alright to occasionally sin, since I am already saved!

As Paul put it aptly: “So then my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, more so in my absence, continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence”

In order to be aligned with God and His will, we have to continually obey Him, read His words and spend time praying in His Presence. If we fail in any of these, how could we live a righteous life effectively? Afterall, a snowball begins with a single snow flake. If we are not on guard on the little things in our life that are unpleasing to God, then in time to come, these could develop into a bigger sin.

I was especially saddened when my non-Christian friend Angeling confided in me that her husband might be having an affair with a married Christian woman! I was completely speechless.

“The Lord knows those who are His. Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness”

We could laugh about our children silliness; but our own sins or failing to lead righteous lives are definitely no laughing matter to God. I would truly appreciate your prayers for Angeling and the other Christian.