San’s family journal

Before we can go into the question, I believe we must ask why the question exists in the first place. Don’t you think so? The question implies that there must be something called “pray for others” that we need to look into. If we really don’t need to pray for others, I guess nobody will ask that question anyway. So, deep down in Christian’s mind, there must be some thoughts that have been embedded into it either through sermons, bible reading, testimonies or others that causes him to think that he somehow needs to pray and pray for others as well.

Actually, one of my previous disciple students asked me this question and wanted it to be answered not in a conventional way such as when two or three pray, Jesus will be with them and so on. Thus, spontaneously I replied with James 5:13 to 5:20. Since it is a rather interesting topic to look into biblically or just plain thoughts, so that is why I am writing on it. 

I wrote some thoughts about prayer lately and this might just be something complementing those previous writings. Okay, let’s start with the reasons we pray. I can think of five reasons. First is out of obligation like when the pastor invites you to pray before, during or after the sermon and the content of the prayer varies. Second is routine prayer that you don’t really bother about what is in the content of the prayer or you might not even notice it was actually a prayer such as those in the Holy Communion. Thirdly is the habitual prayer that we used to say before we have our meals. Fourthly, it is the relationship type of prayer where personal matters involved. Lastly is the prayer that concerns other people that we care about. 

The first to third reasons are rather self-explained. Regarding the relationship one, the content and to what extent of the prayer is totally depended on how we perceive God and the level of understanding about God. If God is a total stranger to us, I guess our prayer would be pretty much talking to a stranger. If God is like a very supportive close friend to us, I guess we would be talking and praying to God whenever we feel like it. Regarding the understanding of God, if we do not understand God is transcendent, we will probably angry with God if He doesn’t answer our prayer according to our specifications. Likewise, if we do not understand the will and the way of God, we will not know how to pray and will not pray for others as well. To a greater extent, we might no pray at all if we think that God has nothing to do with our daily life and might as well forget about the last reason. 

As a matter of fact, a prayer (you really set aside a time to pray) normally consists of 3 basic aspects, which are confessing, praying and interceding. Of course most of the time, we don’t really bothered by whether our prayer is lacking anyone of the aspects. Technically, prayer should be as natural as it can be though. However, before prayer becomes natural to us, we have to learn it just like driving a car. That is beside the point. 

Basically, confession helps us find our stand in God’s view. If you do not know about your position, it will be difficult for you ask someone to come over to your side and lend you a hand. The basis of prayer is confession as one has to acknowledge his own shortcomings then only he can approach the Lord. It is like when you are offering to the altar and you must have a clear conscience. Confession is the only way to get rid of all our bondages in order to get to the Lord. When we confess out transgression and beseech God for forgiveness, the cases that we want to try to present to God will be nullified most of the time as we think of how Christ died for us. Confession helps us to put ourselves back to where we are supposed be and start from there – a forgiven sinner that has been entrusted with a mission. 

Praying is rather straightforward. We just talk to God. Since we are redeemed and given a task to be Christians, it is easier to understand praying in a military term. Christ is the supreme commander, Christians are his army and praying is the way of communication. If you are stranded in the middle of crossfire and you don’t relay your situation to and ask for supports from your commander, it is going to be a very tough time for you. When a person is called to be Christian, he is required to wield a sword and a set of armor as stated in Eph 6:11 to Eph 6:17. On top of that, he is given the communication device which is the prayer with Holy Spirit as the communication medium as implied in Eph 6:18a.

Here comes the center of the question. It did take a long time for my thoughts to come to this point and it is very clear to me how limited I am as it is so hard for me to organize my thoughts. Hopefully I am on the right tract. Before I am going into interceding, I need to talk about The Communion of Saints as mentioned in Apostle Creed. Again, imagine you were a soldier in a platoon and you were at war. Your fellow comrade made a mistake and got critaically injured. Who was going to suffer? The whole platoon was going to suffer. It is a good idea for the soldier to be extra careful himself and provide supports to his comrades while the platoon is engaging the enemy. In that sense, we are providing covers for others when we pray for them. Likewise, if others are fine and still at the battle field, you can also expect some covers from them. James 5:16 and Eph 6:18b make perfect sense in a military scenario. As a matter of fact, Christians like you and me are virtually doing battles 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 1 Peter 5:8 and Eph 6:12 tell us that it is unlikely that our enemies will be too tired to attack us. 

If you understand the will of God and the way He does thing, the obvious conclusion is that you make a point to pray for others.

Initial examination found than Yen’s cervical cells are still normal within the range. Don’t ask me, I don’t understand what did that mean. Basically the doctor was saying that Yen still has 67% changes in entering the danger zone. The doctor took some sample tissue from the cervix for further testing and result should be out on early next year.  

Yen’s mother is doing quite well for the last 2 days that we have spent with her. I guess she is probably going well in the recovering process as she said that she can move her leg with less effort nowadays. Hopefully after the wound recovers, she will be able to move more freely by her own.

I would say that she is doing quite well on the physical side, but the spiritual side is rather disappointing. Yen had spent quite an amount of time on relieving her mother from grudges that she bears over her husband, her disability and other incidents. She is still blaming God on things that are not according to her will. I guess that is something that requires divine intervention and basically Yen is powerless in handling it.

Come to think about it, mother-in-law now is already 73 and still possessive about the belongings that she could not carried with her from the old house that was sold last 2 months. She was planning to extent the other house to keep her stuff from the sold house. Somehow the plan was rejected by her sons as they think that will be a waste of money and she might as well enjoy her life with whatever money left from selling of the old house.

It is not like she would be able to carry any stuff with her when breathes out her last breath and yet she is still thinking of preserving her belongings. Is this normal? Will I be on the same boat as hers when I grow old?

Mother-in-law has returned to her son’s house on yesterday afternoon. The operation was a success in term of removing the steel bracket on the hip.

She was fine after the operation but starting to feel dizzy and vomit since Wednesday, a day after the operation. The cause is believed to be the irregularity of blood sugar and it might take some time for the blood sugar to stabilize as she is a diabetic. At any rate, we would not be able to tell whether removing the steel bracket would help to improve the quality of her life until the wound actually heals up.

It will be a disappointment if nothing changes.

Yen found out from her visit to Hospital Putrajaya that abnormal cells have been discovered at the cervix. That answers why she has been developing unusual stain over the months before the menstrual cycle.

There will be another examination on next Monday to confirm the finding. For the time being, we can only hope for the best and pray.

Before my parents engaged with the traditional kopitiam business, my mother used to attend church and serve in the church as an interceder to pray for others especially on behalf of their illnesses.

I went back to Klang last weekend and we attended the service together with my mother and after the service, my mum told me that we have to wait for her, as she would be serving others after the service. Well… I am glad that mother would be able to go back to the spiritual lifestyle that she used to have.

I don’t really sure how all this change that come about and caused mother ceased to attend church before my father passed away. Anyhow, over the years, mother still keep her faith that under all odds she still trust the lord and not she is back in business again. That is something really wonderful and it makes me think how graceful is our Lord.

It inevitably makes me thing that what will be like for me for years to come.

After I have spent 3 years and 4 months with my 1981 Madza 323, I sold it off for RM2000. You might think that is a good deal, but the net amount I am getting is about RM1500 because the price is inclusive of the transfer of the ownership.

I sold it to a Sudanese student and he has been driving that car around for more than 2 weeks and so far no complaint yet from him. I guess I have been taking quite a good care of that car. As a matter of fact, I bought the car at RM3300 and since then I have spent about RM4000 to change the engine, the ignition system, the gearbox, the clutch, the alternator, all the hoses, all the belts, the CV joint, the steering racks, the tyres and flushed the radiator once. 

Yen said that I should have sold the car for a higher price as there had been an extra huge cost incurred while possessing the car. Well… that is something typical of woman. Whatever cost have incurred is regarded as sunk cost and that cannot be recovered. As long as the car has become a liability to maintain and have no use for it, then it is still a wise decision to sell it at RM2000. By the way, I bought the car for the purpose of fetching Grace to her nanny because at that time Yen’s working place is not on the same direction with the nanny’s.

Well… I am happy with the price that I get out of the car and in fact, I should be happy as someone actually bought the car. Thank God.

Freedom is something that we would not notice until we lost it. We might not even give a thought about freedom thought it is actually the basic underlying principle of our daily activities. This may sound far-fetching but that is what is actually happening right now if you chose to think about it. I am trying to organize some thoughts about freedom and hopefully I am going somewhere. 

If you are reading this, it means that you have used your freedom to choose to read on. Am I right? Now, the obvious opposite of freedom is constraint and the other side of the mirror is choice. Constraint and choice are the two key elements that make up the essence of freedom in the way we can perceive. Thus the only logical thing to do now is to ponder about the relation between freedom, constraint and choice. When a person is not constraint, he can basically do whatever he wants. But doing whatever that he wants is not freedom because the element of choice is not in the picture. In that sense, freedom is best described as when a person is not constrained and also able to choose to do something he wants.

Constraint is important because without it is chaos. I don’t think you will be able to play any decent civilized games without any set of rules, right? Freedom and chaos are two different things. Freedom has to be of some predictable patterns be it mathematical rules, empirical observations or mere inklings so that you can predict and make a choice out of it. Chaos is a total randomicity that renders choice meaningless. 

Why the choice is important then? Well, if you are having problem in making a choice, then you are constrained and do not have the total freedom. To go about this, let’s ponder freedom in the sense that you are able to stay in control like when we talk about financial freedom. Imagine while you are ordering your meal at a restaurant, if you do a lot of figure calculating, then you are not in the state of financial freedom. But you still able to choose within the freedom of your ability to get some things that do not hurt your wallet too much.  

So, your ability determines how much freedom you actually have. If you are fit and healthy, you will have more options in places that you can go. If you are knowledgeable, you will have more options in how to counter measures. If you are resourceful, you will be able to accomplish bigger achievements. If you are mentally strong, you will be able to choose not to do something bad. All of these translate into the range of choice a person has. No matters how, as long as a person is able to choose, then he is basically free. 

If a person refuses to make any choices, then he is applying his freedom to not make any choice. From the other point of view, you have to choose to not choose in the first place thus making choice the mirror side of freedom. 

So, does this mean that when you are able to make choices is a state of freedom? It appears to be like that, but it turns out to be rather disappointing as you are not able to make all the available choices at the same time and that is a constraint. In simple term, by making a choice, you render other choices obsolete and the horrific consequence of choice is you are not able to press ctrl-z on the choice that you made. 

Let’s look at the thing from a more biblical approach. When God created Adam and Eve, freedom was given to them, as there was this tree which fruit was prohibited by God for eating. In another word, they have to use their freedom to choose to obey God and stay clear of the fruit. They were enjoying the freedom in a way that pretty much likes what we are having now. They can probably go anywhere they like in Eden but they could not choose to go east and west at the same time. Nonetheless, they exercised their freedom in a pretty good manner and God had no problem with them. Then one day, they believed that they had more options to not to eat the fruit and they chose to eat the fruit. That was the time when they exercised their freedom in a wrongful manner that caused mankind dearly and they themselves could not do anything to remedy the situation. 

It is human inferiority that one is not able to control the outcome of this choice 100%. Let’s say you are able to control 90% of the consequences of the decision you made. The 10% will be the constraint that you have to deal with. Thus constraints are the opposite side of the freedom just like the back of the freedom coin.   

It is rather hard to have a conclusion on the freedom as it depends on how we look at freedom and on the degree of awareness of freedom. It really blurs me while thinking in those manners. Personally, I think whenever we don’t need to make any decision, we are experiencing the true freedom. That is to say that freedom emerges whenever we do thing spontaneously without need to make any choices.

Freedom occurs in the state of mind rather than the action that we take. As long as we need to choose, then you are not at the totality of freedom. When the Bible tells us that where Holy Spirit is, there will be freedom. In my opinion, whenever you don’t need to struggle to follow God’s will or taking any action, you have achieved total freedom.

My pc monitor malfunctioned two and a half month ago and I asked the help of the head of department to replace the monitor. He requested me to get the verification from the IT department so that I can process with the purchase request. And at the same time, he would like me to get the recommendation letter from the IT department for he himself and another lecturer to change the monitor as well.

So I proceeded and contacted the IT department. The IT department is filled by a bunch of ultra inefficient employees and I got my letter of recommendation yesterday. This is okay as it is already an accepted fact that the IT department is like that. The thing that really pissed me off is when I handed in the letter to get the purchase request; I found out that the head of department already requested two new monitors from himself and the other lecturer months two months ago. Luckily there was an old monitor lying around in the laboratory that I could use for the time being, or else I am with a headless PC until now.

The other thing with this @#$% head, is he is rather irresponsible as before the semester started, I already asked him for advice to split my class into two as the number of student was expected to exceed 50 students. He suggested waiting until the semester start then only I could found out the exact number of student. Then I asked his permission kick out the student once the 50 official limit is reached because it is impossible to split the class once the semester starts as the timetabling will be a hell of mess and he agreed. Now there are still students coming to register for the class and I ask them to get permission from the head and this head asks them to get permission from me instead. He is pushing back the responsibility to me now. If I allow a student to come in, then it will not be fair to those who I have kicked out. If the head give special permission, then I can answer to those kick-out students that some students are allow to take the class because they got special permission from the head.

This lousy head is really getting to my nerves.