Reality

One time I was teaching about the reality of the spiritual realm, and living each day with the constant awareness of what exactly is happening around and within us. With gusto and convictions, I was challenging my audience: if we are able to come to that point, our prayer life would be transformed, our relationships would be different, our life outlook would never be the same. All these were true, except that they were incomplete, and probably severely skewed. The core of the message was focused on having faith, being strong, trusting, optimism etc. what I was really saying is this: you will never be torn away from God as long as you believe!

Seems legit, in fact even biblical. It fits well with today's notion about being strong. Contrary to the wimp who always gets defeated and goes into hiding, being ABLE to believe gives us some sense of control that as long as I believe, I would be strong. We become the initiator, and God by default took the passive stance.  

I'm reluctant to say this, but how many professed "strong believers" stay strong after decades of impact from world's tsunami waves?  

Then I realize, it's not how strong I am, but how much I lean on Him. It takes deep humility to come to a point of realization that lest I allow myself to be held in God's love and acknowledge that heavy reliance, no matter how big my faith is does not really matter. The verse about the mustard seed-size faith being able to shift mountain has two ways to look at it. Firstly, faith is so crucial that even a tiny weeny bit of it can do so much. Secondly, faith keeps you there but faith can only do so much so you don't really need a lot of it. Faith helps you to stay there (which essentially is the most important to stay there and stay connected) and tap into the true source. It's like us pulling a truckload of supply, faith being the rope or hinge or whatever we use to connect. For a long time, we assume that that rope/hinge is what gets us the supply, but truly, the truck is what got them here. Faith is important, but the key is something else. For truly, apart from Him we can do nothing. 

2 days back, an international call from Malaysia reached my mom in the death of the night. My second Aunty had passed on. We used to be frequent visitors and enjoyed close relationships when we were much younger, but at that point, I was pretty emotionless. My mom was broken within, though she didn't quite say it. The next day she left for Malaysia by herself early in the morning, and I wasn't even aware until my sister told me about it at night. That was how nonchalant I was, and it took 2 days for me to realize that nonchalance.  

This day, while on the train, I thought about it again. If I was talking about the reality of the spiritual realm, she's still not a believer... I began to hope, somewhere between life and death, a miraculous encounter might have drawn her back. Don't get me wrong, I'm not yet sad, but I'm definitely bothered- bothered by that same nonchalance.  

Then I got reminded of the shortest verse in the bible- Jesus wept. The Man of sorrow cried over a friend who's also likely a believer at that point in time. Believers like to say that death is the passage to a better place, but how about those who have gone on to a worse place. Shouldn't we have been sadder. 
If I truly say that I'm living in the constant awareness of the reality of the spiritual realm, should not I be broken to even flip through the pages of the daily obituary? 

My conclusion: I love God, but I don't love Him enough, and I probably never will. Yet that is the right place to be, for only then would we love Him more and more each day. Reality of the spiritual realm is not an incentive to fascinate believers with the cool stuff, but it is a wake up call to help us realize the depth of God's love for us.