If, and Only If

While it is a tad bit negative to think about a personal eulogy, MH370, and then the South Korean Cruise incident did indeed evoke much sentiments about life in general- particularly, the frailty of life. 

If one day, seconds before breathing our last, what would go through our mind. Many say it would be the unfinished business or a life regret, some say it would be flashes of the memories of the our loved ones, others say it's probably the wonders of the many what-could-have-been. For me, I haven't really found or built a relationship that would take up my most important seconds in my life, neither have I forged any great plans or visions that I am in the midst of doing or working toward. 

One thing I wish, is that I have made a positive impact on those whom I've touched lives. I'm not the nicest friend you would find, but I'm the most transparent me I can be; I'm not the most agreeable, but I wear my heart on my sleeves; I'm not the most practical, but I would go the distance to make things happen. Making a difference begins with impacting the lives beside you- small efforts, but all it takes is for us to do something.

Keep believing, and God will bring to past His promises for all our lives. The Gospel is not complicated, but it is not easy either. Learn "love" and we are almost there. 

Counterculture, stand up for what we want, know the heart, take the effort to know the person, right the wrong, get our priority right, make a difference, live life, love joy, be the impact~

The Final Year

"Further research is needed to verify this."

Those were my exact last words of my academic pursuit, and at the insertion of that full stop comes the conclusion for this phase of my life. I have been looking forward because at some point, it had felt unbearable. Other times, I was just going through the motion; yet there were times where fun and laughters tranquilized any surge of anxiety. Those, were my uni years- full albeit short; fun albeit frustrating; meaningful albeit... sometimes this helpless sense of purposeless take over and I questioned about the applicability of what I was learning. Come on, I'm sure even the good students had those moments as well? Who would use algebra in the real world except perhaps mathematic teachers? 

Over the past 2 weeks when the reality of graduation slowly began to set in, the reality of departure also entailed. 3 years weren't that long, and precisely so, that's why many of the memories were still fresh in my mind. In fact, my memories of NUS stretch back to matriculation day. 

Loneliness marked my first year, with all my friends yet to enter university. I felt like a pioneer, and to some degree an obliging senior to share and teach the ropes. I thought one year, and the subsequent one would be better. Fellow easties would become my travel mate, but never quite. Ever felt the sense of abandonment- like at one point in time, you become irrelevant in a friendship and the paths just split, and the deepest things are not to be shared? Yea, that's when the distance began. 

But thanks be to God that He meant it when He said it is not good for man to be alone, and new friends came along. Some of these friends would become friends for a lifetime (not because of similarity, but because of the heart). 

How does word capture the full richness of emotions? It can't! Right now, I'm just glad I've come through moulding, pulled through battering, impacted on breaking, befriended with inspiring, and acquainted with divinity. Some friends are breezes who share in the joy and glory, but brothers and sisters come alongside to share in all circumstances, especially the low and the broken. 

Thank you Zoeleen who is always one of the first few to come alongside to simply just walk along. You are a very precious friend who always send a delightful smile no matter how low I've sunk. Love you much!

Thank you Bryam who is so humble and so welcoming. You are one of the few who allow me to be myself, and continue to love me for who I am. I really appreciate you a lot for being you. You are awesome!

Thank you Bernadine. I thank you that we met, that even though our friendship is not deep, but your heart of gold has just found so much favor in me. I want to appreciate you for being an inspiration. Above all, your constant desire to seek God first is a big reminder for myself to always do the same!

Thank you Rebecca for being a sister. I don't know why, but there are some people whom you are just really comfortable with, and despite the lack of depth in our friendship, I really like spending time with you. Thanks for being available, and thanks for... (I don't know what)... but just thank you!

Thank you Jason. There are many ways and many areas that our friendship could have become a lot a lot deeper. In some ways, I find many connection points with you, but in our interactions, I just can't seem to find that breakthrough with you. But nevertheless, thanks for being so fervent in your walk with God. You modeled so well someone who is faithful in his service toward God and His people, and that I'm always looking up to you.

Thank you Chloe. You are my little sister who found a special place in my heart, no reasons why. 

Thank you Ge Wei for being a friend. In my bible, there's a verse that says " A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." I think you are such a friend. I don't joke with you all, but somehow in you I find the assurance that you'd be available when I need help. Thank you!

In conclusion, I realize that the friends whom I cherish a lot a lot are friends whom I don't really talk to often. It's the heart- something within resonates and we become true friends. Even without the depth, they become so dear♥

Follow up

It's not pulling from front; it's walking alongside.

Follow up is a commitment; it is put in place to ensure continuity; it is to prevent settling on the superficial; it is to dive deep. All these fix the end goal to be an ultimate transformation into His likeness: follow me as I follow Jesus.

So has anyone realized that the term "follow-up" was non-existent throughout the 66 books in the bible? Much like the term "apostle" was missing in the Old Testament, "follow-up" has only been put into the frame of Christian ways of doing church quite recently. 

In the Old Testament, prophets took up important roles in advising the kings, and in the New Testament, the kings became figurehead. The last addressed prophet in the likes of John the Baptist was more persecuted than heeded. So came the apostles. In 1 Corinthians, apostles were ranked first, followed by the prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists. Of course I don't have much basis for this hypothesis, except my very brief understanding of the contexts.

Likewise, follow-up is put in place with the end goal of achieving discipleship. That, is a familiar term, and today they have become somewhat of an unhealthy synonyms.

Follow-up is a secular term in the mold of a task: When I say I want to follow up on you, it's akin to saying that now we have gotten over the first phase, let's get on to the next phase. Where else do we hear this term most commonly? Right, insurance agent- now that you have filled up the survey for me, I will follow up on you. 

On the other hand, discipleship comes in the form of a relationship. It's genuine investment into the lives of the disciple such that both grow in their relationship with Christ in an intimate way. It goes beyond bible studies but it focuses on doing lives together. It means becoming vulnerable with each other, with the disciple submitting and trusting the discipler, and the discipler honoring and guiding the disciple. 

It's ok to actually mean discipleship when we say follow up, but that must be done in the assurance that the heart of discipleship is caught. 

錯過

心裡感言：

特别有feel. 早先讀了一段有關死黨的article, 心里很不是滋味. 看到别人这里十年共識， 那里九載共處；再看看自己，除了狼狽，就只剩下許多的無可奈何. 得失心放寬一些，或許会好過點儿. 

失望，背叛，失信，重傷. 很難可以再與往相同. 珍重再見.
友誼不在于日子的長短，只在于心靈的互解.

所謂：“酒逢知己千杯少，話不投機半”。 

我原諒你，不代表我繼續包容; 我對过往既往不咎，不代表我继续讓自己受傷害. 我曾經將主導權遞給你，看你如何表現. 可是你的漠不關心讓我心寒. 不要再喚我为知己，因為在我心里我们无非只是認識很久的朋友.

About Prayers

2 days back I got impressed upon my heart about the topics to continue my exploit to write; this morning I was reading some devotions, and yes the same topic came. Prayers: how exactly do they look like?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating a standardized correct form of prayer! But can I also suggest that if certain truths ring true in our hearts, then there is something fundamentally very wrong about most prayers (not all).

When I first came to Christ, prayer is something that I struggled with a lot. More precisely, I was still in my seeking phase, so yes I wasn't even sure if He existed, so I was desperate, I needed and wanted to hear from Him so badly. To this day, that remains one of my most sincere prayer- a genuine cry for help. See, it's the heart... Like many of my previous posts tended to suggest, it's always the heart!

So how then do we gauge a person's heart? I think we can't quite and frankly we don't have to, especially in the area of something as personal as our prayer walk.

The widely accepted notion of prayer being a conversation between God and us gives us a good understanding of how it should look like, so I'll use that for my dissection to reveal the fundamental flaws.

1. Many people pray and don't believe. In Mark 11, many people like to quote how faith can move mountain, but not many pay attention to the adjacent verses. Whatever you ask in prayer and believe that you have received, it will be given to you. Prayer is an integral expression of faith, it is about us asking our Daddy for something which we have not yet seen and then trusting Him for them. Have we ever prayed exorbitant requests and then the next immediate moment, we convince ourselves (and perhaps those around us) that those were too much to ask for, or worse still "I don't think it works this way." It's not for us to think, but Him to grant, for He also mentioned "I can do immeasurably more than you ever imagine". A prayer can only be powerful when you believe. I'm not saying that our unbelief restrains God. Far from it! There are people who come about and in their ever supposed good intentions, they try to explain situation- you know people don't get healed because they ask and they don't believe, or that the people didn't have faith to receive. THIS IS COMPLETELY WARPED! I can't give you the reasons why, and I believe God has specific message to allow some bad things (read my previous post). We can't draw conclusions for God because it is potentially very repelling. Let Him do His work, and my concern here is that when we pray, believe or at least try to believe. Otherwise it becomes a hypocritical act to impress. When we take faith out of prayer, there is practically no reason to do it at all. Pray this: I want to believe, help me overcome my unbelief.

2. Prayers are supposed to be powerful. Is this not linked? Let me digress a little- do we have the right perception of who our God is? Recently I was doing a module called understanding the universe, and was always so marveled by how big our God is! Imagine the sun, the Milky Way, and then beyond that, the hyper giant stars etc. our Creator God made all these! Then, we zoom in many many times and we find this protein strain called lemenin. God cares about the biggest and the smallest of our issues, and as long as we submit and commit, He cares enough to take over control of that particular issue. Ok, now back to the topic on prayer, you see the link? Don't ever think that God is too busy or too far to care!
Now the second part to this point: prayer has to be powerful! I think many of us grow up with a preconceived impression of how prayers look like, and then conform to that mold. (I'm not saying that our predecessors prayed weak prayers! Look at all the great things that have happened down history- I'm sure they were all fruits of powerful prayers!). What I am saying though is this: many caught the form, but few caught the heart. I ever seen self-battering prayers that focused on how we are suffering so badly and it's only gonna be worse. Remember Jesus's prayer: take this cup away from me, but if it's your will for me to drink it, let your will be done and not mine. Or even Paul's lamentation to his fellow colleagues in ministry. The heart is a genuine dreading of how difficult this is and then despite that, coming to a point of ultimate submission. We need not seek suffering! We seek glory, seek blessing and seek Jesus, suffering will follow and we endure it, not seek it! The crux of it is to be genuine, don't try to appear more righteous than we really are.

3. Prayers are being used to impress rather than express. See, I'm not particularly concerned about how fluent our prayers are- that's the form. So there's no need to have many words, big words, or a particular intonation. But can I also suggest that if prayer is such a big part of your life, it will transform and bear fruits as we mature and grow? It's like the more you do something, the better you become at it? So if we commune with God often, we get to know Him more, and the way we relate with Him changes? I will not name names, but I do have friends (and I'm sure it's not just them, but many others too) who repeatedly say "Lord, Lord". It comes to the extent where it began to feel a little annoying for me- either that or it has already been normalized in the church because basically everyone does that. Twice I've seen people take the stage and did prayer and they mumbled something like "Lord, you may take your seat now, Lord...". And I was like... This is the speech fillers of Christianese- you know like the erm and eh in our usual speech? Except that Lord is such a widely used Christian term that we get by with it rather easily. It becomes rather scary when we don't mean "Lord" when we say "lord". The example above- he was actually trying to get the congregation to sit down. Look at the credible speakers, listen to their prayers. You may say that those Americans are native speakers, so they are naturally more fluent. Then look at those who are near you. Look at your pastor, your leaders or even some of the Godly adults! Don't misunderstood me, I'm not saying that all who are fluent in their prayers are Godly, but I am definitely implying that prayers are an outward expression of our walk with God. If for five years, the prayers remain at "Father, thank you for the food, amen." Then there's a cause to be wary of where the relationship has grown. Besides, a good gauge is to look at how we normally talk to our friends, authorities etc.

4. Much more attention is being directed onto the form rather than the heart (yes, we are at it again). I grow up in a culture whereby the general society is uncomfortable with silence. It's like what Morrie said in Tuesdays with Morrie- what's wrong with silence. Allow me to elaborate. If prayer is conversation with God, isn't it right that it should be two ways also, then why can't God speak also? So what's wrong with us pausing? So why try to fill up every gap with one word or the other? But as of now, I am very uncomfortable with how prayers become like checking off a bucket list. Now you have 5 minutes and in the 5 minutes, your prayer should cover these points and sub points. So where is God really? I'm slowly beginning to wonder how come the Gospel and the bible in general pay so little attention to prayers when it's supposed to be the foundation of a good relationship with God. Don't get me wrong, there are specific teaching and specific mentioning about all these, but the ratio just didn't quite seem to match up to when the bible mentioned about praying unceasingly and praying day and night. I've been baffled for a while how praying unceasingly (without stopping) look like, and I've come to some sort of a personal conviction about it. I'll probably write about it another time.
But if 5 minutes is so short and insufficient that there's no space for God to interject, then how come so many spent at least half the time describing the situation (God, you know currently...). Did we really think that God hadn't already known?

This entire post came like a rant, and is perhaps confounded with some personal frustration, but if you have managed to read until here, I ask that you read it with an opened heart, and better still, do some self-reflection on our own prayer life.

By the way, I'm a native Chinese speaker, but I pray in English, and I've only come to Christ for less than 6 years.

God bless you! :)

Expect Big Things: 6 Points Why We Should Break Away from Living Small Lives

The saying rings loud in the ears of many today: "the higher the expectations, the greater the disappointments." This comes from a defeatist mentality: I've tried and failed so many times, and the feeling sucks. So maybe... If I don't expect as much, it'd hurt less. And if I expect little and I exceed my expectations, it'll be... Wonderful! Maybe I can even label myself as the overachiever!

This sounded so familiar to myself and I just got reminded of my first ever good quote when I was 17. Anything could be used as excuses for us to give up, but they certainly don't form good enough reasons for us to not try hard. It's pretty self-explanatory...

Where then do we place over-expectations I came through a tough phase where I was constantly angry for a period of maybe 3 years. How many of us recognize that over-expectation is one of the main contributors of failed relationships. Recall: why can't you just? Or, if only... Sounds familiar? Over expectations are synonymous to discontentment.

So so so... Where do we strike the balance?! Like seriously where?

Thus far, it seems like having low expectations triumphs over the latter. We can feel wonderful, less disappointed etc. But can I also suggest, low expectations is like slow poison, gradually but surely, it seeps away your life, both literally and analogically.

1. Low expectations drive us to abandon our dreams. We convinced ourselves that those dreams are too lofty, and they are out of reach.

2. Low expectations give us a false sense of satisfaction, but truly it's only self-deception. Imagine going for a marathon, and we only expect to finish 2km, and we got all ecstatic as we crossed that mark... Everyone else around would have recognized that it's barely the beginning, and it only leaves the onlookers to wonder what could have been. It's one thing to live independent of others' opinions; it's the other to live in our own bubble world.

3. Low expectations drive us to seek quick fixes to any problem. Often, low expectations prevent us from seeing the root of the problem. We see a situation and we try our best to address the symptoms of the problems. After a while, the symptoms disappear, and then we pretend as if nothing happened. Have we ever had experiences where we thought something is settled, but one year, 2 years, or even 5 years later, we find déjà vu in the kind of situation we are handling? I empathize deeply with this: my case was one whereby I actively sought out relationships after relationships to "make up" for a void within? The figure is ridiculous- I had at least 10 flings and even that is a very conservative figure. When we don't recognize values in the issue and only view upon them as problems to be solved, we are under-expecting already. There is something that can be derived out of any situation, and if we catch that, the outcome would be tremendously different. Oh by the way, the way we deal with it will be drastically different as well.

4. Low expectations prevent us from reaching our potential. This is linked to point 2. Usually low expectations are birthed out from fear, most often than not in the guise of practicality. What I have next is going to hurt: how many of us want to travel the world, but stop short at working first, save enough money then chase that dream? The good news is we are indeed gonna save some good money. The bad one: that day when we have enough would never come, ie. that dream will never be achieved. This is very very sad!!!! I saw many successful businessmen who are not happy, but I haven't quite met any poor dream chaser who is sad. This false sense of need for security acts like thick chains of restraint, so much so that while we say we live in freedom, we constantly struggle to beat the clasp of the system. Because we dare not expect that the experience from the adventure will outweigh that need for security, that the time would work against our route of advancement, that uncertainty is bad and not worth the risk.

5. Low expectation is one of the biggest source of regret. It's always the what could have been that bites back at us in our old age. If I had been more bold and went after that girl, if I had taken up that offer to go overseas, if I had bothered to talk things out with him/her, if only... See whenever we have an uncertain situation, the default mode we've set ourselves into is to expect the worst. It's gonna waste time, waste money, hurt people, spoil friendships, etc. how about, it'll be fun, it'll be fine, it'll be awesome, our friendship will become stronger. Availability bias: don't think of a pink elephant and what are you thinking about now? I'm not advocating blind optimism, but hey I ever heard an awesome teaching which goes like that: if you live in marriage as if you are forever preventing a divorce, then you will never find that fullness in the marriage. By the way, Kris Vallotton said this, and I find it applicable across many things: we don't live life as if we are attempting to prevent failure. Or think with me, we are in a game of soccer, and say our opponent is the great and mighty Barcelona. If we plan our strategies forever working around preventing Barcelona from scoring, we will be playing like Everton, or stoke city or crystal palace. We throw all over 11 men behind the line, and football pundits and managers alike began criticizing us saying that we don't play the game as it should be played and it's "ugly". Above all, we don't really win much, and if we do, it's usually by a 1/1000000 chance. Now let us turn to the Bayern Munich of 2012/13 season, they had a strategy that is not built around Barcelona, but instead around the strength of the German teams- physical fitness and collective work rate- and the result: two of the world's biggest Spanish teams in Barcelona and Real Madrid got a thumping at home 0-4 and 0-5 for the first time in their glorious domination years.

6. Low expectations shortchange us. It's a little bit like investments in the stock market. The bigger returns usually involve a greater risk- so does that mean reckless risk taking? No? I don't want us to bankrupt in life. But take informed good risk. More often than not, low expectations are so justified in the society that they become good enough reasons to mask our lack of effort to even try. In other words, low expectation is only a nice excuse for our laziness. Recall: don't worry about my results, I don't really care. Not being bothered by bad results doesn't mean don't even try working hard at it. Remember the spirit of excellence! They look alike, but they are not the same. The first tries hard and leaves the rest to God; the latter indulge themselves in pleasure and then score badly and they say "o come what may, whatever God gives me I will accept." The latter has the form of a God-fearing man, but truly God is being made a scapegoat in our irresponsible and poor stewardship of God-given time.

Marks of (My Ideal) God's Missionaries (more applicable to 3rd world and 2nd world)

4-5 years back, after giving my life to Christ, my criteria for a future spouse shifted slightly, one of those being the addition of the condition that she must be a Christian. But it was only until maybe 2-3 years back that I really got convicted. Prior to that I struggled to deal with nice non-believing Christian friends. Then I realize that being a Christian alone is not enough, the mormons and jehovah witness call themselves that too. She must know God, but even that is insufficient. She must love God, love Him with self-abandonment.

That expectation grew with my personal growth, and gradually I realize that a normal Christian girl would not be able to live with (withstanding being a totally different thing, but if a married couple sustains the relationship by withstanding each other, it's a little sad) my kind of lifestyle/conviction about God's calling in my life. So at one point, quite recently, I became certain that my wife would be missions-minded, probably called to Indonesia, Thailand, Africa etc. Many many places~ 

So what does a mission-minded person look like, in accordance to my definition? The term "missionary" has a significant personal relevance for me because of my salvation story, so I do have some expectations for the so-called missions-minded people. In fact, I have met many who made that lofty self-proclamation, but I personally find extreme difficulties to even try to agree. I couldn't. 

(This post would cover my personal ideal for how a missionary and his ministry would look like. It may not be God's standard for His choice of workers, but it's my preference in selecting my favored co-laborers. I'm using my personal free will to express my personal preference and this is a fun post, so don't be offended if you find any of the points below personally relevant. Have fun reading =))

1. God's missionaries are characterized by a broken heart for the lost.

God's purpose for His missionaries is for us to become channels specific for pouring out His love unto His children, so the top quality must be love. This is an unsurprising inclusion, but the understanding of how love look like may differ, so I will elaborate and give my version of love-driven ministries. Some people even question if love alone is enough because of the abuse of love- you know like those self-gratification kind of love, the indulging kind of love, the warped kind of love- but despite that, I'm inclined to believe that love alone is indeed enough. 

My love-driven ministries place the focus on relationship-building. I understand that there are people who say that doing missions without preaching the gospel is not missions at all (it's at best community service), but Francesco also famously said this, "Preach the Gospel, and if necessary use words." I'm all for preaching the good news, but if preaching the good news become an end to itself, I'm usually very disappointed. I have this whole thing about differentiating clearly between means and purposes: (applied) we preach the Gospel because we are inspired by God's love and thus we love; we don't love in order to preach the Gospel. Loving is the purpose and the motivation, preaching the Gospel is an expression of that. Both will look alike physically, and it's really the heart that makes all the difference. On a few occasions, I was asked one of the bizarre question about mission team not preaching the Gospel- they only go there to help the people and leave. Can I suggest that the Gospel has already been preached in the genuineness of that love, of the good things that have been done, and of the relationships that have been built. 

God's missionaries look at the field and the first thing they have in mind is to integrate him/herself into the group of locals. We look at the people and see treasures and souls whom our hearts extend out to, and we are inspired by unexplained love for strangers, people whom we have not met, but we just love them. (Oh, and  by the way, I especially love foreigners!) Others look at the fields and see numbers (potential converts), opportunities (sick to be healed). I mean all these are great platforms through which God can demonstrate His prowess, but I don't like the idea of guinea-pig-ing fellow humans, not saying everyone is like that though. 

If we come out from the place being known for the guy who brings miracles, the guy who speaks good wisdom, or the guy who diligently helped out, all these are good; but I would be most glad if I come away being known as the guy who loved and bothered to make friends with us. (Matthew 7:22-23)

For me, the focus of missions is the people, the friendships, the relationships; not the task, nor the programs to meet. 

I never expect my first point to be that long, but this is something I feel very strongly about. I promise the remaining pointers to be much shorter. 

 2. God's missionaries are devoted to His works on the fields.

I remember my first mission trip- I was not having a good time because I was feeling anguish and angry how that mission trip was turning out. Many friends were sticking around in small groups, and for every 15 minutes out in the sun, 30 minutes would be spent in the office to enjoy the air-con or what not. The young and hot-headed boy that I was back then, I could not understand why these people even came for a mission trip. God's missionaries are dedicated to what they have been called to do, be it to provide help or to make friends. We readily step out of our comfort zone into the fields, while others came physically but left every other aspect back at home. Ever had experiences with missionaries complaining about bad lodging conditions? How about those who quickly shut away in the room on their phones/wifi the moment we arrive back at the hotel? And how about those who make demands as if because I am here to help, you should accede to all my requests as much as possible? I've met them all, and within my personal bubble-frame-of-mind, I don't consider these true missionaries. They are at best missionaries on paper, and the biggest takeaway is probably something like a credential to have a cool story to boast about when I'm back home. You know, the wow, you went for a mission trip? 

"Wherever you are, be all there!" Jim Elliot~

3. God's missionaries are bold and move in exorbitant faith.

If anything, the mission field is one of the most dynamic working environment around. The word is actually "unpredictable". Cross-cultural differences and barriers usually give us unexpected situations such as a surprisingly great number of turnout, or a lack of one material or the other. Trust me, even if they had promised before, with all good intentions, many of them really are just too nice to turn down any requests put up by us. They really tried to help us gather our shopping list items. 

God's missionaries have to be flexible enough to not be flustered, and readily have a few things up their sleeves to hold the fort. We are not particular about needing to sit down on chairs, or that the people should queue up etc. Instead, we are pretty much the kind who 天当被地当铺, 席地而坐 (treat the sky as our blanket and the ground our bed, find our seat on any space on the ground). 

4. God's missionaries are visionaries

This is linked to point 3. We have a goal and a vision of how that goal looks like, and we actively work toward bringing that into reality, and it begins with investing in the lives of the locals. Proverbs 29:18 "where there is no vision, people perish." It is easy to feel good about coming to a mission trip, after all psychology research has shown that people feel good when they engage in altruistic activities, but it is those who caught onto something that God has impressed upon their heart, it is those who caught onto the God-given vision of the place, these are the people who will stay on for a long time. It is okay to have fun and enjoy mission trips, but mission trips cannot only be about having fun. We participate in the joy of the locals, but we ought to share in their suffering as well. It just doesn't make sense to say that I am here to live amongst you, but then demand hot waters for showers when water is one of the most precious resources for the locals. 

5. God's missionaries actively seek to establish healthy transference.

While previously I mentioned about commitment, but we need to be clear that commitment is different from hogging. While it seems like we are there to help, the recipients of our help give us something in return- some sort of reliance, and I tell you, it feels good to be relied upon. In fact, it feels empowering. The missions model of Paul saw him actively raising leaders in the local churches such that they become self-sustaining. It's for both practical reasons and spiritual reasons. Locals understand the locals better, and once setting off a healthy cycle of leadership renewal, the long-term growth of the ministry would be secured. It also shifts away the attention from being directed to us to being directed at God. Lest we are going to migrate to our missions field for good, ministry transference is the way to go.

6. God's missionaries are survivors.

We are one of the most independent people around, emotionally, physically, health etc. It doesn't mean we are stronger than other people, but we just know how to take care of ourselves. We know that if we want to help other people, we can't afford to become a burden to other people by falling sick. So when it rains, we don't need other people to tell us to use an umbrella; when we are in a dangerous place, we don't need people to remind us to take care; when we feel hungry, we will find our own food; if we want to make friends, we take the initiatives; if we have an issue, we talk it out. All of which take into considerations language barriers and what not- somehow, we will just find our ways around, sign languages or what. Often, we find ourselves making friends with the driver, drink stall owner, the receptionist and whoever you come into contact with the most often. 

It starts at home: identify areas in your life where you can begin training. One easy gauge is this: attempt to live in such a way whereby if the person whom we rely on the most disappears, we'd still be able to get by without much problems, so that includes doing housework, waking up in the morning, washing clothes, paying fees, topping up EZ-link cards, preparing meals. The list goes on. 

7. God's missionaries are clear of their roles on the fields.

This doesn't mean we are smarter, or that we are more competent. It only means that we spend a much greater deal of time thinking about how we can contribute, and if we can't think of any, we bother to ask and find out and volunteer. God's missionaries should come into a place of maturity over time to negate the need to be taken care of. 

8. God's missionaries are serious about missions.

We make a great deal of preparations for the things we do, simply because we care and they are important enough for us to spend our time on. Those hours people spend on their school works, I spend them thinking about missions stuff such as my personal walk with God, how I can bless people and what not. Weeks before the trip, we began loading our heads with unfamiliar words that we recognize are going to be helpful (These are some of the Thai words I learnt before a mission trip 4 years back: hong nam yuu thii nai, may kao caay, Prajao raak khun). Basically, we prioritize everything about missions and guard those time well enough: such as learning magic tricks, learning guitar etc. 

9. God's missionaries have a good sense of authority and submission

For first time mission goers, we might have the urge/desire to want to experience as much of the missions' field as possible, and we might have a certain preference as to where we should be utilized, but if there's a leader in our midst, submit. This is not blind submission or spiritual submission which are invisible to the eyes, but this submission has practical values, especially in coordinated efforts. Failure to do so spoils the team dynamics, and could potentially make the whole effort not reach its full potential. If God had promised something before hand and it seems to go in contradiction to the assignment, do you think God would not be able to bring it to pass despite that? Even if I really do think that way, the more appropriate and mature method is definitely to inform the leader! I recently heard a sermon (I think it's by Kris Vallotton) which says something about if we open a door ourselves, we are responsible for keeping it open, but if God opens a door for you He will be responsible for keeping it open. Why make things difficult for ourselves, and for everyone else?

10. God's missionaries are humble. 

I love Heidi Baker and her ministry! Whatever other people say, she's one of the most humble person I've met. Her main message is something like getting lower. Humility is not there to prevent us from stealing God's glory from Him, humility is to protect us. In a place like the mission fields where we are kinda elevated to a position of respect and every locals kind of look up to you, it's important to remain humble in order to stay connected to God. It is important to recognize and constantly remind ourselves how privileged it is to be able to participate in His glorious works, and even if miracles happen through us, deep down would be an overwhelming sense of awe, almost as intense as the onlookers around, to say that it is my God!

11. God's missionaries have a huge desire to make a difference.

I am someone who would say something like "what can I do now". I believe God's missionaries are driven also by a passion to want to make a difference. We do not look at something impossible and say it's not now. Our preparation period is not wait, but our waiting process is active. We actively identify opportunities to do something, big or small, and we recognize the potential and the implications of what we've been doing so far. We are storing up treasures in the heaven!!

Finally, here's one of my favorite quotes from Mother Teresa, "Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you." What is a daunting task? Making a difference starts with impacting a person.

Once again, the above is my personal convictions about missionaries, and I must confess that there are a lot of self-reference because I really do think that I am a missionary through-and-through. I don't think I fit all of them, but I do think point number 1 is a must! The heart inspires the remaining 10 factors, so the heart MUST be right!