Another letter to friends and family,
If you are easily offended by someone bringing up matters regarding faith in God and Christ, then you may want to only read the paragraphs below that have an asterisk next to them; these should be “safer” for you than some of the other paragraphs :-).
It’s been just over a week since my last letter, and I promise that it isn’t my intention to write this often for those of you that already have enough to read. I already know that I am verbose. However, I have an important announcement to make, but first a word from our sponsor - <> reference John 12:29.
God: “What would you like to ask me?”
Tim: “God; first of all I can’t help but have gratitude. I know so much more about what you have given me and I would have never imagined that I would understand the things that I know now. However, even with that gratitude I have something else on my mind also.
So many of the people that I know (but thankfully not all) think that I am simply being ‘religious’ when all I am trying to do is simply share the things that are on my heart and mind – things that are on my heart and mind whether ‘they’ are there or not. So, when they are around, it is only natural that I would talk to them about the things that were already on my mind before they were with me. I believe these things are on my heart and mind because ‘you’ have put those thoughts, affections and sentiments there. You are changing me – and I do not think the way I used to just a few years ago.
I know it’s important to give You recognition throughout the entire day. To not do so is taking you for granted. Like you are simply going to take care of us (though you do) and never desire us to actively show an understanding of appreciation to you both directly and unblushingly to those around us as well.”
God: “Tim, you are quite wordy, but yes I understand”.
Tim: “I am also concerned that when I tell them what my reasons are for doing things that they will think that they know me better than I know myself and come up with their own perceived reasons for why I do things.”
God: “Yes, I know this as well. But it is not for you to concern yourself with what they are thinking. I already know why you do what you do and how you have given your life to me because you have been given a measure of understanding of the love that I demonstrated through the Christ, my son whom I sent. It is only for you to continue to speak (or be silent) as I lead you and for them to turn to me when they are ready to give up their own desires, even their seemingly innocent desires, and follow me.
Ok in reference to the above “make-believe” dialogue that I wrote let’s keep a few things in mind. First, God would never have to ask anyone what they want unless he simply wanted them to vocalize what they wanted from Him for their own sake. Secondly, I have never heard a loud booming voice from heaven though I don’t doubt it could happen. Thirdly, I would not presume to know what God was thinking unless He told me. But I hope that the above will still help you to understand where I am coming from. If you really want to know of an example regarding what I think of how God speaks to me personally you can go to http://tinyurl.com/gm-curtain which is a link to my blog.
As I stated in my previous letter, a few of you already know where I am coming from because you are “coming from” there yourselves. A few more of you know where I am coming from and support me even though you don’t agree, don’t get it, and either think I am nuts but harmless, or I am simply misguided. There is however a last group – a group that doesn’t understand and thinks that they know me so well. Well enough in fact, to tell me that the reasons I give them and the reasons that I am actually doing things are two different things entirely. They say things like “Tim is just going after what he wants and is using some idea of God as a crutch or a reason to really just go after what he wants.”.
To this last group, I could possibly respond a few different ways. And depending on the situation and what I am thinking/feeling at the time, I do inwardly or outwardly respond in different ways. I wish that I could always respond the way that I think God would want me to. I wish I would always respond unswervingly in my feelings or words. Simply holding tight to how I have come to understand He really wants me to respond and how he wants me to live. I regrettably haven’t done that on every occasion. I am however grateful for that something called grace. This grace isn’t cheap however. I pour everything that I am into the purpose I pursue due to gratitude for Christ’s sacrifice. And when I fall short, then for that short-falling I have something called grace. I phrase it that way “something called grace” because I know how it is something that I seem to think that I understand every year. However with each passing year I learn more about it and realize how little that I knew about it previously.
However in continuation of my previous thought, one way that I could respond is with the words of an old “Who” album. “There’s nothing in the way I walk that could tell you where I’m going, There’s nothing in the words I speak that can betray anything I’m knowing, Don’t think about the way I dress, you can’t fit me on a labeled shelf, Don’t pretend that you know me ’cause I don’t even know myself”. It’s an old song from a seventies band for those that are unfamiliar with them. A second way that I might respond is with sympathy. I know that as long as someone focuses on things about me that have nothing to do with the influence that God is having in my life, then they cannot reap the benefit of looking at what God is doing every moment in all of our lives. The more moment by moment consideration we given to God the better off we are; in consideration of Rom 14:23 and Job 7:17
*But there you go, I’ve said my peace. Now, for the announcement: I am engaged! Yes, that’s right, I am engaged to a beautiful woman that was handpicked for me. Hopefully, you’ll realize what I mean about “handpicked” by the time you reach the end of this letter. It happened shortly after I arrived in the Philippines. And you can trust that not even I was expecting it at the very moment that it happened. Here again, for those of you that thought the reason why I was coming here was for a wife, then you are very far from the truth. Even my fiancé knows that I would have come back to the Philippines to do what I believed God wants me to do whether she was here or not. There are so many things I could say which would contradict the incorrect line of thinking that some of my friends share. But I will have to address those wrongly conceived ideas later (please refer to the “Who” reference in the eighth paragraph above :-)
However in relation to the “coming here for a wife” I would like to make known one important truth. I don’t believe in “the pursuit of happiness” that so many (even so-called christians) seem to believe in. There seems to be a teaching, which Jesus never taught by the way, that God wants us to spend our lives pursuing our own happiness. And He is just there as some sort of galactic accomplice who is so greatly obliged to assist us in this pursuit.
Don’t get me wrong mind you. I am also not of the line of thinking that God is some sort of strict father watching us intently just waiting for us to mess up so he can punish us. … No, God is perfect of course. If we could perceive somehow what it would be like to have a father who was perfect then that would be a start. A father who never did anything wrong in the raising of his “children”. A father who was so intelligent and faultless that we could not possible know the good things that he has planned for us. A father we could therefore not fully comprehend why we were occasionally being corrected (spanked if you will) for our own good. Then we might just then begin to understand some small part of what God is really like; in consideration of Heb 12:11
Nope, I believe in the God that I have read throughout the scriptures who attempts to direct us and teach us (if we are willing to listen and take heed to his corrections) to pursue Him; not happiness. This might seem like an awkward way of looking at things on the surface. Awkward until you really take his direction and give your full trust to him; letting him direct your life instead of you. Then you will get to the “good stuff” and realize that doing what you were made for (living like ‘he’ wants you to in every way) is actually what will end up bringing you the greatest joy that you’ve ever known; in consideration of Acts 17:24-27. The paradox is that you cannot obtain joy by pursuing joy. You can only have the joy that is His to give by pursuing Him. It is pretty hard, though possible, to find enough scriptures to support the idea that we were made to pursue a life just for the reason of our own happiness. However if we do find enough ideas, whether coming from our own heads or the minds of others, to support this then we do nothing more than come up with ways to fill our paths with a blinding fog that grows more and more dense as we try to support our own ideas.
*And if you’ve gotten this far in this letter without falling asleep then consider yourself doing better than my fiancé did. Yes, I know I am verbose when there is something important to me. I had Malu take a look at this letter before I sent it out. I wanted to make sure that what I was saying regarding her was accurate in every way. Not only that, she is actually better at English grammar and spelling than I am. The sad part here is English is her ‘second’ language. She did manage to correct my spelling and grammar; and did a fabulous job compared to me. However she didn’t manage to do so before falling to sleep in the middle of the third page ?. So I applaud you for getting this far. I will continue.
Of course, if seeking to understand more about Christ is not your moment by moment goal then you might find what I am saying here to be completely annoying. Or you might have some other unsupportive reaction to my bringing this point up in a letter announcing my engagement. But for me, this is simply a natural part of the change that began occurring in me when God gave me faith. If my entire life is for the purpose of living not for myself but for Him; then it is only natural that every part of my life should be about him. Especially something as important as the wife that God would choose to help me towards that purpose of seeking him and living the way that he wants me to.
I don’t think for a minute that God doesn’t ‘give’ us things to enjoy. Now the scriptures are all loaded up with examples of that. We just don’t have to pursue things that we find enjoyment in. If we are believers all we have to do is pursue ‘him’. And the woman (Malu) that God has put in my life is a prime example of that. And I almost messed that up by trying to follow the pattern of things that our modern cultures say is “the way to do it” instead of following the pattern of things that God has shown me. Just look at the over fifty percent divorce rate. The rate that has only gotten worse as modern societies get further and further away from a way of pursuing things that are God centered. If I pursue my own happiness instead of trying to pursue God’s idea of how I should live then how could I expect anything except failure? After all if there is a God, and I know there is; He is so much smarter than me.
*Perhaps some of you have in mind that I should simply relax and let everyone enjoy the announcement of engagement for whatever it is that they have in mind that it is. Well, yes, I could do that on one hand; but then I will not have felt I had said the most important things. You see, if marriage is nothing more than the joining of two people to be committed to each other for the rest of their lives, then for someone who believes in God I would think that this would be pretty short-sighted. If on the other hand marriage is for the reason of joining two lives together for a greater purpose, then that is something different. A purpose that is truly permanent, truly forever; like God for instance. If it is for that purpose then you can “hold on to your hats” and know that you have committed your lives to something worth living every moment of the rest of your lives for. This is something that will never grow stale, stagnant, or fail to have something new to it every day. This is the commitment that Malu and I have discussed and this is why I know that the joy that we will have together will only be a continuation of the joy that we have come to realize by pursuing ‘him’.
*Here are a few sentences from Malu’s own hand (she wrote in 2006) that I’ve copied and pasted so you can get a taste of the woman that I am getting ready to marry – the woman that God has placed in my life. :-):
“Not having faith in God is the worst thing that could happen to a person. Apart from God, we are nothing. Apart from God, we live a miserable life. When we turn away from that truth it is the enemy that puts the scales on our eyes which makes it difficult, but not impossible, to see.”
And those few sentences are only scratching the surface. There is no way that I could have picked a woman like this one. I didn’t have to “get to know her first” in order to find out that she was the one God had chosen for me. All I did was wait for God to make the decision for me regarding my being single for the rest of my life or not. A life committed to living as best as I could for him in that capacity, or if I was going to have a wife to help me in that endeavor. Obviously God thought I could use some help :-) That article she wrote by the way is at http://tinyurl.com/gm-taken.
*It was so hard not to pursue the “girlfriend/boyfriend” method of a relationship with her first. I say it was so hard because modern cultures, in pursuit of a “try them on first” approach, have pushed this idea of relationship out so strongly. So strongly in fact, that it is really hard to try any other method of doing it without feeling like a man without a map. I so often would find myself leaning toward this second rate way of doing things even though I knew I didn’t believe in it. I not only didn’t believe in it but also couldn’t find any evidence for that type of relationship pursuit in the scriptures that I have come to find so useful for learning what God wants from me.
*It’s amazing to me how something so second rate as girlfriend/ boyfriend relationships might have been adopted in modern societies in such a short time; it’s only about a hundred years old after all (check it out!). And as I mentioned in my last letter, for those of you that actually know that the scriptures are useful for teaching you the kind of life that God wants you to live, there are only four types of relationships that we are taught insomuch as they pertain to women and men.
*Instead of looking at a boyfriend/girlfriend example of how my relationship with Malu got started, it would be more accurate to take another view. To instead say that I know that God is my father and I have given over any second rate decision I could have made and let God make it instead. I put it to God in prayer to make the decision whether I should be single or be married. My soon to one day be marriage to Malu is the result of my listening for God’s will and not my own. I just focused every day, as best of an effort as I could pray to have, on living the life that God wanted me to live. And in the pursuit of that life God actually directed me and her together. If you are yet curious what that “voice” sounds like for me and haven’t read that article in the fifth paragraph above, you might want to give it some of your time.
*I wish I had the time to explain how she came into my life in more detail. But even if I did, would you read it? :-). The short version of the story is God picked her. I think the whole concept of boyfriends and girlfriends only gets singles in trouble in regard to conduct that was intended for marriage. You have to understand that is one of the things that God directs us in regarding our relationships with women. And in the midst of me telling Malu about some of the things that God had been telling me, Malu actually said “Wow, that reminds me of a book that I am reading called Choosing God’s Best”.
*And as I read this book, I found that it reflected a lot of the things that I believe the Lord had already shown me. Now I don’t follow the book “hook, line, and sinker”; that is to say that I don’t agree with every single word in that book. However, there are many things that I do agree with in it. Especially the chapter that talks about becoming the one that God wants us to be. And I know that the purpose for our lives is to live it for God, not for another person. And in my case I am grateful to say that I know that the Lord has chosen someone for me that is none better for the purpose of living a life dedicated to him. And I look forward to living a life in the future with her, a life that with Him as the reason that we both live. Well, that is if Christ doesn’t come back before then. If a follower of Christ doesn’t have that in mind all of the time then they are really missing out. And if Christ comes back before the wedding that Malu and I are looking forward to, I know that neither of us will mind one bit :-) ; in fact we’re looking forward to it.
*If the only thing that draws a man to a woman (or vice versa) is that woman’s beauty, intelligence, humor, or other qualities, then I believe that relationship/marriage would be built on something substandard. The only thing worth building a relationship and especially a future marriage on is the same reason that anything should be built on. That reason should be the foundation of Christ’s life that he gave on the cross so that there would be no separation between us and God.
I will also add that any man/woman that would allow God to make that “single vs married” decision for them would naturally find everything they need in the person that God had chosen for them; or they would find everything they need in their being single. Yes, Malu is intelligent and beautiful; but more importantly I believe she is the one that God has chosen for me. As such, I believe she will help me to do God’s will in ways that I don’t yet understand and only God knows. My prayer is that I will always be Malu’s second love. I would not want anything, including me, to ever come in between her commitment of putting God first in her life, even as my wife.
*I’ll close on a lighter note. For those of you that were concerned about my getting water (tubig in Tagalog) from my last letter; no need to fear :-) … It was great to be able to accomplish yet one more adjustment to life as I just happened to be up at 5:15am when I heard the water truck guy yelling “TubiiGgGGgg, TuBIiiGggg”. I ran outside to try out a mixture of english and the very few words in Tagalog that I know as the water truck driver used the few english words that he knew. And a few minutes later I was having a large hose drug through the front room, the living room, and into the second kitchen where the two fiftyish gallon water containers were. Ok, so onto the next of several hundred exciting adjustments to life in the Philippines that are up and coming :-)
Much love to all my friends and family,
Timothy