Conceding defeat

I'm not the kind who likes to put down 2 blog entries at a go, but right now I REALLY need somewhere to put down these thoughts. This year began with a whole new set of spiritual perspectives, but now, the things of the world have risen to the challenge, and for the 1st time, I concede defeat.

I remember a friend told me before that psychology holds the key to all relationships. If you spend enough time with a person, you can read the person's character. Once you achieve that, you'll just have to know how to talk (kind of like sweet-talking) to the person, and you can easily make the person like you. I told him that I'm not like that, I'm used to relating to people based on how my heart tells me to. There have been things that supported either side, but as of now, I'm ready to concede defeat that psychology has won and sincerity has lost.

I admit I can't deny what my friend has said before. I've seen him using it, and it really works! I usually don't understand what's going on until he explains everything to me later. He would explain to me what he knows about the person's character, then tell me how to talk to the person. He's so experienced and familiar with it that he's usually right. Of course, psychology can't really tell you much about God, but I grant that it seems more powerful in understanding people than even the Bible. It's like studying how people think and behave, once you master it, you can influence what people think and how they behave towards you. Which most people will use to their favour, I'm sure.

Feels like this blog entry is rather short, maybe cos my thoughts are still quite raw. Where do I go from here? This definitely won't stop me from reading the Bible, but maybe learning psychology to supplement what I can learn from the Bible about people? The Bible isn't meant to be a book about people; it's a book about God, so what it says about people is much more general and vague. Will this concession be a permanent one? I wish I knew... I guess only time will tell.

Reflections from Life Conference part 3: Hope and prayer

The 3rd set of reflections that I had from Life Conference came from the workshop on the 2nd day plus some of the sermons after that.

The workshop topic was "Secret to the Christian Life", and it was actually about prayer. Sounds pretty simple huh? But in truth, many of us underestimate the importance and power that lies in prayer. Prayer is about communicating with God and seeking to do His will. It's also a way that we approach God with humility and acknowledge His ways are above ours. We sometimes tend to neglect prayer, but if Jesus Himself relied so heavily on prayer, then what about us? I've heard many prophetic words about our generation being a crucial and influential one. If our generation becomes a prayerless generation, it would be a very bad sign for the church...

Prayer and hope may seem unrelated, but I've come to realise that they do affect each other. Hope is one thing that can keep us going even in difficult times, and it is a very strong source of strength. However, once it is lost, the effects can be quite devastating. We often pray for things that we hope for, whether it's for ourselves or for our friends. Yet, once we feel that these hopes can never become reality, we give up, lose hope and often stop praying for these things. We often feel that we are incapable of so much, plus sometimes we mess things up. After that, the likelihood of things turning out well seems rather slim and things become hopeless for us. We then give up, lose hope and stop praying about it.

One of the things that I'm reminded of is that it was never up to us, but up to God, to fulfil these hopes. We tend to underestimate God's power, and feel that even God's power is no match for our messing up. Or sometimes, the possible of some things happening seems so unlikely that even God can't make it happen. But God is a miracle worker, and sometimes all we have to do is pray consistently. God works things in His time, which sometimes could mean years to us. Yet, we have to keep praying, and know that God is a powerful God who can use both our successes and our failures in His way.

During these sermons, I was led to think about things that I had given up praying for, and rekindled the desire to pray for these things again. What are the things that we have given up on? Maybe it's time to start praying for those things again.