The Lord is my shade

The weather is so hot these days, it is no fun if you have to get out into the sun and feel the wrath of the sun’s rays assault your senses. When you are out there, there is no greater appreciation than for a big shady tree. Bliss! Relief! Sanity! (even if it is a little tree).

I contemplate how critical a shade is to survive such blazing heat. The reason we are spared the blistering heat is because the tree is taking the heat for us. The full wrath of the sun falls on the tree instead of us.

Psalm 121 declares the Lord is our shade. And how appropriate . .

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—

where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the LORD,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip—

he who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—

the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—

he will watch over your life;

8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore.

In the days when God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt (and Pharoah) and into the desert, God would appear to them as a Cloud by day and a Fire by night * . Perfect sense. A cloud to shield the heat of day and a fire to give light in the night. In fact, God even provided ‘manna’(food) and water (from a rock) in their sojourn into the dessert.

In short, God would provide everything they needed.

But alas, the Israelites were rebellious and preferred a set of Rules instead of God and thus the Ten commandments (Law) were introduced. The problem was (still is), nobody would benefit because it was not possible to keep the Law in its entirety. (The Law was put there to lead us to Christ, to be justified by faith - Gal 3:24) So continually, the priests would offer animal sacrifices to atone for the sins of the nation. A few times, when they messed up badly, the wrath of God would fall immediately and an entire people would be decimated.

The Law was perfect and holy but the people (us) were not.

But it would lead to His perfect plan to save us...

Fast Forward 1400yrs. (*the year 0 AD) When Jesus came as the Lamb of God He became the perfect sacrifice that was offered, once and for all. He took the sins of the world on himself, and the wrath of God meant for us was exhausted on him as He hung on the cross. He took the complete wrath of God for us.

The Lord is our shade.

And even as I am so relieved by the coolness of the shade of the tree, I am delighted of the shade my Lord brings ... and it is a big shade indeed.

.. join the shade .. plenty room here. Cool and refreshing. Rest.

17 Feb 2010

Jesus is the GRACE of God

Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor - Gal 3:24,25

".... we are no longer under a tutor"....

 
No longer do we need the Law and its imperatives to hang over us. (do this, that, don't do this etc..)

 
Now to live in Him, we need faith. . in Jesus, the manifest grace of God.

But how does one get (increase in)  faith? 

Lizard on my windshield

If you have been driving as long as I have (30+ yrs) you are bound to have encountered some unintended ‘passengers’ in your car, be it ... spiders, mosquitoes, roaches and yes lizards. Well, i would not have paid particular attention to it except that this was a young one, this lizard, barely one inch long. It was too late to stop the car as i was about to enter onto the main road when i noticed it climbed up onto the middle of my view. There it was frozen and terrified, holding on to dear life as the car raced up to speed with the other vehicles. 

Father

I’ve always envied those among us who have had such great relationships with their parents in their growing up years. I wish I could say I was one of those, because frankly my relationship with my parents (when growing up) was distant. That would be the honest assessment. I think the problem was not so much their part as it was my own. ..

The Ogawa girl

My back was aching and she smiled brightly pointing me to their latest model of the massage armchair. Eh, .. why not? My body needs some pampering. She was chatty and wanted to make sure i was enjoying the full range of the different variety of massages the chair has to offer. 
She started to converse in halting Cantonese when i told her ‘wor pu chiang wah yi’ (i no speak mandarin). Most young people in Puchong ( i have noticed) tend to be more conversant in mandarin. Her Cantonese was probably as good as mine (half baked?), 

but she was trying.

black and white?

Being a couple of mixed race marriage, we tend to attract some attention wherever we go and people tend to remember us simply because.. well... we are *different.  We have gotten quite used to it and it has presented some memorable (funny) moments with the people we encounter.

I remember the time when we had just come back (early 90s) after living in the America for almost 10 years (exile), a place where people are usually more sensitive to such ‘color’ issues and are quite careful what they say…. at least in front of you.