Sometimes God is good...

This statement leaks out of our mortal mouths occasionally. Visibly it may be true, but theologically it is wrong. Of course it is wrong!

Let me put it straight, God is good all the time, and all the time God is good. A cliche statement?

We look to God for things when we want them, and blame Him when we don't get it in time. On whose time? Our time? We know that all things, good and bad, happen because God allows it to. And it happens on His timeline. But yet most of the time, we want things to happen now, and when it doesn't, we wonder if God is listening to us.

When things go well, we thank God. When things don't, we withold the thanks. Why? We should recognise that He is soverign, and He _IS_ in control. He knows what is going on in our lives, and He knows what is good and bad for us.

God works on His own time, and He allows things to happen so we can learn from them. Is this too hard for us to learn? Obviously. We need to learn this fact, and get it into our thick heads. Too hard? That's why we're still on this earth.

Want to know more about His timing? Spend some time having conversation with Him. Conversation. Its a 2-way thing. We talk and talk to God, and wonder why He isn't responding. If we don't hear from Him, we think that He's forgotten us. But its us who have forgotten to wait on Him and listen.

How does God speak to us? Sometimes He speaks to us in a soft small voice, sometimes He speaks to us through others, and sometimes we are reading His word, and a few verses suddenly take on a completely different meaning, and strike us. Well, this is how creative our God is, in His ways of communication with us.

Some of us have finished reading the Bible from front to back, and think that we're done with the book. Just like a novel. Once we've finished reading the book, we put it aside for a few weeks, months, or years. I believe that we should continue to read it again and again from front to back, as God will show us different meanings to the verses within, as and when things happen in our lives.

Some of us have tried reading the Bible from front to back, and failed. Failed? Not enough time? Not enough time for His Word? What if God tells us that He has not enough time for us? Would we be happy? I pray that we would continue to spend time reading His Word, at our own expense.

Mountain Movers Pte. Ltd.

When we talk about faith, a verse from Matthew 17:20 always comes up -- "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move."

Ever seen a mustard seed? I went to Cold Storage and found a bottle of mustard seeds. Its about the size of a sesame seed, but its rounded and not pointy at one end.

Ever seen a mountain? A natural mountain would probably be as tall (or taller than) the highest building in Singapore (think Westin Stanford or UOB Plaza), except that the bottom would be a lot wider than the top.

What do the two have in common? They're 2 extremes, 1 represents the word tiny, and the other represents the word HUGE! Other than that, they don't have much in common.

When we have a mountain blocking our way, we will have 2 options. Walk around it, which might take days if the moutain base is big; or climb to the peak, and climb back down on the other side, which might also take days if the mountain is tall.

But God tells us there is another way! As long as we have the tiniest itty-bitty size-of-a-mustard-seed (in asian context size-of-a-sesame-seed) sized amount of faith, we would be able to tell the "mountain" to move, and it will be moved.

What "mountains" can we move? Not just any "mountain" that's in our way, but mountains which are put there by satan to prevent our advancement, especially in God's Kingdom.