Beautiful But Deadly
If you think loving your neighbour is easy, I would say loving your enemy is easier. Just love to hate the person who causes you strife, plot to avenge the deed, desire to slap them, punch them, sock ‘em, deck ‘em & knock the daylights out of them till you are satisfied that they are almost dead, wouldn’t that be easier? Sadly, I didn’t think that’s what God had in mind when He asked me to ‘love my enemies.’ Hatred gives birth to a multitude of misdeeds which breed like cancer in our system causing us to constantly think about how to return the pain inflicted upon us. What’s worse is when the enemy was one of your closest friends.
I remember when I was a fat pudgy kid, other kids used to make fun of me. Somehow, I grew up not so pudgy & they stopped. Taunting can’t be considered as bad. Not as bad as harassment caused by motive-driven individuals. An enemy is a person who hates somebody & acts or speaks against somebody. The unseen enemies are those who speak badly of you even when they do not know you. I know of a few. Their ultimate intention is to make you look bad so that they would look & feel better. Many a time, their contentions are baseless & far from the truth. In this sense, malice or no malice intended, still inflict some kind of damage to the individual target concerned. Sometimes, they appear to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing with the intention of getting close to you to mill information out of you, the life you lead & the people you hang around with only to use it against you when the opportunity rises. Jealousy can spark some pretty nasty doing in people who are insecure about themselves. Some would even go to the extent of calling your circle of friends to start spreading wild fire about how you got your achievements. I remember a time when the rumour circulated about me in the business world that I was sleeping my way to the top. Many who knew me laughed their heads off because I mainly worked with women bosses & eventually, my partners in the interior decorating business were females. The extent people would go just to tear you down is so callous & imagine had I been working with males instead. I’d be guilty until proven innocent!
But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return. And your reward shall be great, and you shall be the sons of the Highest. For He is kind to the unthankful and to the evil. (Luke 6:35)
Mind you, the language in which they use to refer to me is far from civil. I’ve been called names that you would not say in front of a kid & truly, I CAN BE ALL OF THAT IF I’D WANTED TO. And these are caused by the enemies who are unseen, what about the enemies who are known to you & you have to live with them? The kind of situation which I really despised was when I was told what to do by my ex’s mother. That I had to cook, clean, wash & reproduce if I were to marry her son. If that wasn’t bad enough, she said that I had to convert to become a Buddhist if I want to marry him! My response to her then was, ‘Aunty, I’m not going to deny Christ just because your son wants me to marry him. If you think I’m not good enough then it’s better that you marry your son yourself!’ They launched an offensive on me ever since & my ex had a tough time trying to make both parties see eye to eye. I wasn’t going to make him choose between flesh & blood & me so I graciously bowed out. My ex & I remain friends to this day.
My other ex, was working with his father & when he found out that my ex became a Christian, he went out of his way to get me out of his son’s life. He withheld his sales commission in the company for fear that he might buy a house elsewhere & live apart from the family. He bought him an RM1.2million dollar house instead. He started telling people what an unworthy profession I am in as a dive instructor, not honourable enough to be with his son & made me feel so inadequate & small. He went all out to hurt me for his son had loved me more than he loved his tyrant father. The final straw came when he conspired with my ex’s junior secretary to seduce my ex. The same way he had an affair of 21 years with his secretary. Again, I forgave both of them & moved on.
Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. (Luke 6:37)
Give, and it shall be given to you, good measure pressed down and shaken together and running over, they shall give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you measure, it shall be measured to you again. (Luke 6:38)
What if the enemy in question is a fellow Christian? What if this person has a problem with you & causes strife between you & others? What if this person takes on upon oneself to be a moral police in the name of Jesus, insinuating things that could hurt so many parties just because this person had been left out due to numerous occasions as demonstrated in the past? What if the detrimental things that proceeded from this person’s mouth cannot be retracted despite whatever apologies that may come after? What if this person does not want to be helped despite having people around them who would put up with so much till they can do no more? The biblical principles of Matthew 18:15 – 18 would have to apply in this instance....
But if your brother shall trespass against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. (Matthew 18:15)
But if he will not hear you, take one or two more with you, so that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. (Matthew 18:16)
And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he neglects to hear the church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax-collector. (Matthew 18:17)
Truly I say to you, Whatever you shall bind on earth shall occur, having been bound in Heaven; and whatever you shall loose on earth shall occur, having been loosed in Heaven. (Matthew 18:18)
For a good tree does not bring forth corrupt fruit, neither does a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. (Luke 6:43)
For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. (Luke 6:44)
A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth the good. And an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth the evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45)
And why do you call Me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? (Luke 6:46)
Whoever comes to Me and hears My Words, and does them, I will show you to whom he is like. (Luke 6:47)
He is like a man who built a house and dug deep and laid the foundation on a rock; and a flood occurring, the stream burst against that house and could not shake it; for it was founded on a rock. (Luke 6:48)
But he who hears and does not perform, is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, on which the stream burst, and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great. (Luke 6:49)
If by the sheer fact that the person’s spouse does not want to be responsible for the acts of one’s spouse in question, then as brothers & sisters in Christ, I have to leave it to the church to deal with the situation. It no longer becomes a problem when one does not want to take steps to recover & advance but to repeatedly torture the people around them. I accept & forgive this person & ask God to forgive me if I have transgressed in the manner in which I dealt with the situation then.
In loving the enemy, I choose to release my anger, bitterness, resentment & hatred towards anybody that would cause me to lose my relationship with God as it creates a gorge as deep as the earth to the sky. I choose to surrender the things that I cannot deal with, not by my strength but by God’s strength. It does not make me a better Christian than the transgressor but it makes me wiser to the schemes of the real ENEMY who uses everyone to steal, kill & destroy……relationships included.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world's rulers, of the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:12)
Passion Flower - one look & you love it, like little children...
Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder that affects one in every five hundred children. It is characterised by varying degrees of impairment in communication skills, social interactions, and restricted or repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviour. In the pre-school that I teach in during the first half of the days, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with children with special needs. Somehow, the integration of these special children with normal children of differing learning abilities seem to work really well to raise the awareness of such need to accept special kids into society. On my first day at the school, I spent a lot of time playing with 2 – 6 year olds, noticing the very apparent characteristics differences in the two genders. The little boys would make toy guns out of Lego blocks while the little girls would play house & masak-masak! In the centre, English is the only medium of communication. Autistic children love backrubs. They would come to me for hugs, would stroke my hair sometimes but mostly my shirt or arm. Some don’t like contact at all.
I thought it would be good to learn about their abilities & development in my term break as the monsoon season approaches. My friend said to me, ‘Aha! You’re stealing kisses from toddlers again?’ …..{{sheepish grin}}……Heheheh! Where would I get to do that otherwise? To have little kids plonk themselves on your lap & get unlimited cuddles in the process is truly great! Having to read all the nursery rhymes & fairy tales to them while they listen to your voice & diction is something that is so nice. All my life as an adult, I’ve had kids who are total strangers, follow me or grab my leg. During one community project in Redang two years ago, two kids, one boy & girl about 3 – 4 years old, stumbled upon me as I was walking back to my chalet. They were crying in pain. One look at them & I could tell that they suffered severe sunburn. They were siblings. Their faces were as red as lobsters & their parents were nowhere to be seen. I took each one by the hand & led them to my room, stripped them down & watered them with cold water. By then they were screaming. Someone had alerted their mother to go to my room. When she arrived, I asked her to bring some clothes for them while I applied aloe vera gel on them. There was an instant silence when the gel cooled their burnt skin. The little boy began to talk to me, asking questions & constantly flashing a big smile at me for the pleasant treatment he had received. From that second onward, this little boy didn’t let go of my hand. My group of divers saw my new ‘attachment’ & immediately commented that I should change jobs! This boy will undoubtedly grow up to be a big heartthrob. He looked me in the eye as he held my hand in the way that he liked to be held, flashing me that great, big smile again. So this 3 year old boy, became my boyfriend for the entire trip, warding off ‘get-freshers’ & unwanted advances from males with raging hormones….thank God for little children....I can’t wait for another day at the pre-school to play with little people & play a part in grooming them for the world.
Little Weed Flowers are beautiful except that they are often overlooked because they are insignificant to society like how autistic children are perceived....
