Bought Some Books

I always try to take advantage of the MPH sales every August. This time I wanted to buy books by Asian authors.

My name is Red is written by Orhan Pamuk from Turkey... well, not Asian but not American or British either.

20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth is written by Xiaolu Guo.

These books will keep me entertained for 2 weeks. Let's hope they are interesting. :P

561 Pages

I am now reading this book, author of Sex and the City. I am now at page 90 and at this point, not very interesting. Another 471 pages more to go. Too many names to remember, I always have to look back to check who's who. Let's hope the ending's good. :)

The Books I'm Reading Now

I kid you not. These are the books I'm currently reading.

5 books at in a period of time. Of course depending where I am. I think I will finish the Enid Blyton's book first then followed by Archie's and then Nora Roberts'. I am looking for Casino Royale's book. Anyone has it? Can pinjam (borrow) ah?

So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore

So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore by Jake Colsen

This book is good....Beware, though.. it will turn your life upside down. I must admit, as I read this book, some of Jake's behaviour reminds me of me. Here are some of the things I read and would like to share with you.

This book basically tells us that we shouldn't be so caught up with being in a good Christian family, attending the biggest church in town, using all our energy in so many different departments, trying to outdo our fellow brothers, trying to impress our leaders, setting lots of rules and regulations so that everything will be in perfect order, forcing ourselves to go to meetings just to keep up with the attendance,... and many more. Pretenses are not what God is looking for. Looking holy once a week is not God's idea of a loving relationship with men.

You may have read the bible 100 times over, graduated with Honors in Theology or even helped built a church but it doesn't mean anything if you have lost your first love for God.

Living a Christian life is strange sometimes. When you first become a Christian, you want to do so much for God. You planned and envision how your future would be with new Christian activities that would draw people to Christ. You hoped to contribute to every one of these activities so that the whole church would know how much you love God. You will get an applause from the congregation when the Pastor reads your name out loud but what really counts is God's appreciation.

You can be in so many ministries, maybe serving God 7 times a week but all He wants is your company. So many times we are busy with God's work, that we have no time to fellowship with God. It makes the things we do for God not only meaningless but to a point of destructiveness. And I quote this from the book, page 34 "We are so quickly captured by a work-driven religious culture that thrives on guilt, conformity, and manipulation that it devours the very love it seeks to sustain."



Sometimes we are so bored with going to weekly meetings, so fed-up with praying the same prayer, fasting but hating it, talking to newcomers but wishing we were somewhere else and we don't know why we go through it. Is it because it's routine... or categorized as what Christians must do? Or if we don't do, God will not reward us? Have we just lowered God to our standards when we think this way?

Guilt is a terrible feeling. Some people question others when they don't turn up in church. Some people ask with a concerned heart and some just want to make them feel terrible. The problem is, most of us try to encourage people to come to church by making them feel guilty. We don't spend enough time with them and to get to know their worries and we make them feel worse when we question or even worse.. gossip.. when we don't see them in church.

What about failures? We seem to think that we fail because we don't pray enough or we skipped a weekly meeting some time back.. or we didn't help Bro Lee with his troubled car last weekend.. or.. the list can go on. We fail because we don't trust God, our Creator enough to see us through the project or problems. We thought we could help God help ourselves and we fail to remember that God is Sovereign and He alone knows how to deal with our situation. By trusting God, we can experience real freedom. Be frank with God. He is big enough to handle all our troubled thoughts and difficulties. He knows how to get you through the mess you are in now and when we trust Him to be Lord over our lives, He will lead us to greater heights, higher than we can even imagine.

Some of us may have prayed like this before, "God bless me, bless me.... I am Your child God, I did so much you Lord, saved a thousand people for You yesterday in the Youth Rally....". I've learned that we should give up the illusion of controlling our lives or that we would manipulate God to bless us. He knows what the best is for us and He will provide. No matter how bleak the future is, God knows our every need and He provides accordingly. God doesn't bless us on our terms. We will all be goners if God did exactly what we wanted.

So often we are in this religious system with invincible laws and one of it says we can only be friends if we are in the same activity or ministry. We create cliques and ignore others who are not serving in the same ministry. We try to win our brothers' hearts by praising them. In return we want praise and approval from them too. We are owned by "friends" who praised us. We are obligated to do things for people or to feed their egos and we convince one another that this is the best ministry to serve in. We create false expectations among our fellow brothers and focus too much on what the group needs rather than the presence of Christ.

I could go on and on with this book... but why don't you get one and read it for yourself? BTW, I'm not paid to advertise. :)

The Shack

I have never come across a book that speaks so much to me (apart from "Heaven is so real"). It's truly an amazing story that touched my heart and I would like to share it with you. (I was up till 4.15AM this morning reading this book)

The Shack by William P. Young
When I first read it, I thought it was a true story. The author started of by saying he knew Mack (the star in the story) for more than 20 years. As you read on, you feel as if you understand a tiny weeny bit of how God works (of course no human can fully comprehend God), how God could heal a broken bitter heart just by having a loving relationship with man. God intended good for His people but we chose to be independent, to be away from God's Light.

Here are some of the things I learn from this book:

1. Many people (including me) think that we know God, His goodness and His love for us, but in actual fact, God is far more than that, above and beyond all that we can ask and think. (pg 98)

2. God knows everything, even before we speak, he knows. When we tell him things, he listens out of respect for us. It's like - we don't play a game with a child to show that we are better. Instead, we choose to limit ourselves so as to facilitate and honour that relationship. We even lose in a game to accomplish love. (pg 106)

3. There's no hierarchy among God. God is in a circle of relationship not a chain of command. It's us humans who made up hierarchy and cause so much problems. We are governed by rules and regulations that end up destroying relationship rather than to promote it. (pg 122-123)

4. God respects our choice, so He work within our systems even while He seek to free us from them. (pg 123)

5. God creates everything that exists and human beings can only take what already exists and from it, fashion into something different. Poisonous plants, stinging nettles and the likes are all part of what we called science, for us to discern and discover and to explore the wonders of God's creation. Just like playing hide and seek. (pg 132)

6. What do we determine as good and what do we do we determine as bad? It is we who determines them and in our small minds, judged what is good and bad. It allowed us to play God in our independence. (pg 136) And by being independent, we have separated ourselves from God.

7. God had never taken control of our choices, even when what we were about to do is destructive or hurtful. To force His will on us is what love DOES NOT do. (pg 145)

8. With Wisdom, everything is perfectly normal. Because we are so lost and independent, we bring Wisdom many complications and we find her simplicity profound. (pg 172)

9. God's idea of His bride is not a man-made institution, rather individuals who together form a spiritual city. His Church is all about people and life is all about relationship. (Pg 177-178)

10. Those who love God comes from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims, Democrats or Republicans.. etc. All roads does not lead to God, but God will travel on any road to find us. (WOW!) (Pg 182)

11. Grace does not depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering, you will find grace in many facets and colours. (Pg 185)

12. You have to read Chapter 14 yourself... It's really very interesting..

13. Forgiving those who caused you grief. The only way true forgiveness is ever possible is for God's presence to be in us. (pg 226)

It's fiction but let this book speak to you like it did to me. :)

God still love us very much, no matter how messed up we are. If we allow God to be King and Lord or our lives, we have to learn to let go and fully trust in Him no matter what circumstances we are facing. God is full of goodness, and only good can come out from Him. Let go and let God love you.