in His freedom.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
my mum said the most interesting today.but lets start from the beginning.
this afternoon, while in the car waiting for my sis to finish school, my mum was telling me about a friend of hers. this friend, lets name him A met this girl during the CNY and he kinda likes her and she him. and they were planning to get married. but the girl had a condition. that is he is not allowed to have those what do you call them. erm. those red or gold cupboards where the chinese place their gods on in their house. and he's also not allowed to pray to his dead father's ashes. (she's a Christian.) but A couldn't do that. so the marriage was cancelled.
and you know what i was saying in my head? "Good for the girl! Amen!" i'm sure the Lord will find someone more suitable for her.
then my mum continued on to saying how it doesn't really make sense that Christians aren't allowed to pay respect to their elders (the dead ones) with jossticks and burning the paper thingies for the dead. she said we are just paying our respects to our ancestors.
now i can see where she is coming from. i do. our ancestors are why we are here in the first place. if they hadn't done what they did, we wouldn't be where we are now. its not wrong to respect these people who most likely sacrificed a lot to come to Malaysia or find a job or survive.
but my thoughts were more on the reason we pray to the dead when we have a flipping Living God that we can pray too. those ancestors of mine might be burning in hell now (excuse my frankness) and we pray to them?!
my mum asked me why Christians can't do that. i very happily started with "We believe..." and then she interrupted me. i was gonna say we believe our God is alive. why do we pray to the dead for protection, wealth and what-nots when we can ask for them from someone who could actually give us that?
okay. maybe some of you might feel that i'm being a bit too harsh.
Matthew 10:34-38
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man's enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
our relationship with God should go beyond the ties of the blood we share with our family or the bond we built with our friends. i'm talking about being the adopted sons and daughters of a God that gave His own Son to die for a world so lost. His blood washed us clean. His sacrifice closed the gap.
i guess what i'm trying to say is there will come a time where we have to choose between God and family or friends. and sorry to say, that time is coming. who will you choose?
this it. God bless!