My Christmas Gift 2008

About two weeks ago, what I dreaded the most finally happened.

"Daddy, I prayed to God! And God didn't give me what I want! It doesn't work!"

This was from my elder son. He was old enough to express himself, young enough to not be concerned about being politically correct or worry about offending his daddy. And his frustration and disappointment was obvious. What was I to do next?

My first temptation was to just blast at him. "And what's the problem, kid? There are things I've been praying for, and I've been waiting for them for more than 10 years. What's the matter with you? Why are you acting like a six-year old?"

"Err, JJ, because he IS a six-year old?"

My next temptation was to try to lower his expectations. "You know son, the important thing is that God will give us what we need, not necessarily what we want. Some things are just selfish desires. You should just want what's important for the kingdom of God."

Problem is, if I ever told him that, he'd start wondering about all the blank cheque verses I've been speaking to him. You know what I am talking about, those verses that delight people from the Word-of-Faith movement and stumble everyone else. Verses like "everything he does shall prosper" from Psalm 1, "… he shall give you the desires of your heart" from Psalm 37, and all that.

It was this type of rationalization, combined with the unspoken idea that you had to be poor to be spiritual, that caused James Ray (author of the book Harmonic Wealth) to forsake his evangelical Protestant upbringing to become a prominent New-Ager in the self-improvement industry (albeit one with very useful ideas)

God knows, I don't ever want that to happen to my kid.

The third temptation was for me to just dig out my wallet and just BUY the darned toy for him myself. And tell him Jesus gave me the money (which isn't a lie, OK?). But somehow that didn’t feel right. I guess I didn't want him to have the habit of assuming that Daddy's always going to be the channel through whom God will provide.

So what was I supposed to do? In the end I explained to him what Hebrews 6 said about imitating those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. And told him that the Bible says that those who don't do that are called lazy.

"So son, do you want to be called a lazy boy?"

"No, daddy!"

"You've already prayed, so wait, OK?"

"OK, daddy!"

Crisis averted for now. *Whew!*

On Christmas day, my mum called to tell me that one of my cousins bought Christmas gifts for my two boys and told me to go collect the gifts from her. And when my boys unwrapped their gifts, there waiting for my elder boy was what my son was praying and asking God for.

He looked at the gift, obviously delighted. Then he paused to think, then said, "Daddy, this is actually better than the one I prayed to Jesus for! Thank you, Jesus!"

One of the most scary things as a parent is not just that through my behavior I am shaping his mental perception of God the Father (in other words, my kid may grow up with a totally warped view of God and therefore live a totally messed-up life, no pressure, right?), it's also that every time I teach him about trusting God, I am risking God not coming through for him.

If he doesn't get the toy he wants, it's not a big matter in the light of eternity. But what if God doesn't come through for him when he's praying for big things?

"in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame… " (Psalm 25:2, NIV)

My fears look really bad now that I've put them into words, don't they? But it doesn't make them any less real. And living in denial doesn't work.

For years I've had my own faith crashes, praying to God for some things, believing that he wants me to have them, and fallen flat on my face. It's easy at that time to just slap a plaster over a gunshot wound, force a causal grin unto my face and say "I'm sure God has something better for me…" and use that to cover up my disappointment, hurt and anger.

And I realized one thing: all those harsh emotions, ugly as they may be by themselves, are yet just another cover-up. They are a cover-up for fear, the fear that God will let me down. Again. I mean, if I totally trusted God to take care of me, it would be easy to expect that he'll take care of my sons too, right? My fear of God letting my sons down is a manifestation of my fear that I'll trust God for something and have a faith crash again.

All this was like a hidden tangle of knots within my heart. And it all became untangled and unraveled in a moment when God gave my son the toys he wanted for Christmas.

Why am I sharing this with you?

Couple of reasons. First, when people share with me about deep things God does in their lives, they make me more aware about God's working in my life too. I believe that as I share this with you, it may make you aware of similar areas you need God's healing touch in your own life. And then you can start seeking God for it.

Second, because, as I said in one of my really early blogposts, I don't share teaching only. I share my life too, just as Paul did.

“… we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives…” (1 Thessalonians 2:8, NKJV)

I am on loads of email lists and I do get tired of people who email me only when there's something to sell me. One guy in particular comes to mind, I read his emails just to see how many ways he can try to pitch me his one product. That's all he's got, and that's all he ever emails about. So I totally have no idea what this guy is like as a person. Sad, right?

Yup, so this is what God gave me for Christmas 2008. At the end of the year he exposed this darkness in my life, this area that was unknowingly affecting my spiritual walk, and brought his light and healing.

Just wanted to share this with you. Be blessed!

Book Reviews and Recommendations

The following reviews are up on the Recommended Resources page

a) People in the Presence of God - Barry Liesch

b) Laugh Again - Charles Swindoll

c) Dynamic Duo - Rick Renner

d) The Heart of the Artist - Rory Noland

Go check them out! More reviews and recommendations coming soon...

Do Your Christmas Shopping Here!

Hi, everyone!

I've just set up a page on my site where you can check out the books I firmly believe will be a blessing to you in your personal walk with Christ and in your worship ministry. Go check it out here:

http://www.invisibleworshipmusician.com/resourcemain.htm

All purchases made there are handled by Amazon, the most experienced and reputable e-commerce site around, so you can be sure that your transactions will be secure.

And order quickly, so that you can have everything delivered to you in time for Christmas!

The URL is: http://www.invisibleworshipmusician.com/resourcemain.htm

Be blessed!

Because Of? Or In Spite Of?

Revelations from a Past-Life Regression

Anyone who knows me from long ago would have told you they could see it coming from miles away.

I stumbled across this book in the library on the 'simple' science of getting what you want. It dealt extensively on logical fallacies, which are arguments and reasoning that seem sound but are actually wrong. Very wrong.

I was like an addict on rehab suddenly offered the drugs he craved.

I couldn't help myself.

I devoured the book in one sitting and, before I knew it, I was brought back to my past-life as a Philosophy major in NUS. Those were the days when I was first taught about logical fallacies, learned to dissect (and demolish) arguments just for the fun of it… and couldn't carry on a normal conversation with anyone outside of the Philo department for longer than five minutes!

("Err… JJ, there's not much difference between then and now…")

Anyway, one of the fallacies is called Post hoc ergo propter hoc, which is the idea that because event A happened before event B, therefore event A is the cause of event B. And this fallacy has caused the greatest amount of confusion in the Worship Training scene.

For example, an unprepared person gets thrown into the deep end of the pool and has to play an instrument for worship. This person plays badly (out of time and many wrong chords) and the presence of God is felt in an intense way.

Conclusion? The poor playing caused the presence of God to be made manifest in a powerful way.

So we should play poorly too. Shouldn't we?

Another example: a pastor comes back from an overseas conference at a church experiencing powerful revival. He had a very personal encounter with God as the host church sang one of their home grown songs 20 times in a row.

Conclusion: if we sing the same worship song 20 times in a row we'll have the same revival too.

The examples are extreme for the sake of showing you the fallacy in action. If we decided to be a lot more discerning, however, we'll find that there are other questions we can and should ask.

Taking the second example: was the revival because of the song? Or the repetition? Or the people singing the song? Or the worship leader leading the song? Or the sermon the pastor preached before the song (earlier in the service, the night before or last week)?

Or from having as many of those factors as possible coming together?

The exact song may have played a crucial role. Or it may not, and all the impact may have been caused by something else. The musicians may have messed up the music that time. So do we say that the revival happened because the musicians messed up? Or in spite of it?

As you can easily see, it's very difficult to shift through all these possibilities and identify the immediately relevant ones. And one reason for that is because people do not have a comprehensive and sound worship ministry paradigm to help them think through the issues and factors.

That is why my book The Invisible Worship Musician is so powerful. It gives a comprehensive and sound worship ministry paradigm that helps you to:

1) understand and explain what works for worship ministry and why; AND

2) forecast, with reasonable accuracy, if (and how) any new factors may or may not influence the worship experience of the congregation.

Without it, we are simply groping in the dark. We end up tossed back and forth by the waves, blown here and there by every wind of 'teaching' and chasing every new craze and the latest worship fads that come along.

Now I am not saying that the Invisible Worship Musician paradigm is the ONLY viable worship ministry paradigm available. However, I do sincerely believe it gives you the best results, and puts you in a better position to understand and evaluate other worship ministry paradigms too.

That's about it for now. Stay tuned, I'll be sharing with you soon about how you can discover other worship ministry paradigms that can greatly benefit your ministry.

Be blessed!

Worship Ministry Skills and Pride...

How being used by God keeps you humble

People look at the worship training I do (both in person and via my Invisible Worship Musician training materials) and wonder: Will someone end up in pride if they discover the secrets and methods of worship ministry, so much that they are consistently effective in this area of ministry?

Personally, I don't believe that is possible during the time of ministry. In my own personal experience, when I am more powerfully used by God than usual, I experience a very heightened state of intense awareness. I suspect this is what Paul refers to when he wrote about fear and trembling in the following passage:

...continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (Phil 2:12-13, NIV)

I've had quite a bit of experience in performing, so I can confidently tell you that it's not the usual performance-high that I had in my younger days. That felt both exciting and good at the same time (which is why people can get addicted to it).

The 'fear and trembling' is different. Your heart beats faster, all your senses feel more awake than usual; you see things in sharper focus, you hear details you never noticed before, you're aware of sensations you usually miss, like the feel of your clothes, the aircon and the sweat on your face.

Moreover, in this intensified presence of God, you feel as if you are balancing on a razor's edge, about to fall from a precarious position. And yet you are aware that God's presence is there, ready to catch you if you fall, ready to help you if you stumble, and gently nudging you in your singing and choice of notes on the instrument.

The Invisible Worship Musician Paradigm clears away the distractions and debris that obstruct us from serving freely as worship ministers before God. Because the methods and techniques in there are simple, I believe it is the worship ministry equivalent of what Paul described in his preaching experience:

I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power. (1 Corinthians 2:3-5, NIV)

Paul's preaching of an unsophisticated message required him to lay down his trust in his powerful intellect and reasoning abilities. And when he saw fruit in his ministry, the lives of the Corinthians being transformed by the gospel, he knew totally that it was God's transforming power at work, not his own wisdom and understanding.

Likewise I see the Invisible Worship Musician as teaching us to lay down our trust in our music skills and our hearts, and trust instead that when we do things God's way, we will get God's kind of results. That way our faith will not rest on our skills or our personal devotion to God, but on God's presence.

I hope this sharing helps answer any concerns you may have in your heart about the Invisible Worship Musician. If you have not gotten your copy of the Invisible Worship Musician yet, then I urge you to take advantage of the Milestones Sale currently going on.

This promotion allows you to purchase the Invisible Worship Musician training materials at US$37 ($20 off the usual price) But hurry! This promotion will end on the 8th of November. You have less than 2 days left!

Be blessed!

Milestones and Looking Back...

It's a great feeling!

As I shared in my previous post, my laptop crashed and I spent lots of time offline. They were fun, refreshing and enlightening. I got to read books that gave me ideas to pursue for my website and as I charted out those ideas, I realized how far out of my comfort zone they would take me.

I also suddenly realized that my site has become what I originally wanted it to be.

For those of you who have been around long enough and saw the original layout of my site (what I had in May 2008), well, that was the best I could come up with at that time. My understanding of HTML and all that was really limited (actually, non-existent). Sad, right?

But things just magically clicked together (no pun intended) after I grit my teeth and got that site out. New info came my way, and I found that I could just add in more and more of what I wanted my site to have. Then I accidentally crashed my own site sometime in August and had to rebuild everything exactly the way I wanted it.

And that feels REALLY good. Get what I mean?

As I said before, I wanted my site to:

1) explain my Invisible Worship Musician e-book - Well, that was obvious, right? I created training materials I felt I could be proud of, information that has been battle-tested in the worship ministry and blessed many people. Now it's time to up the ante and share it with the rest of the world.

2) offer Worship Ministry e-course to give people a taste of what i teach - Why do that? Because I know that there are people around who actually GET worship ministry, people who subconsciously understand what really works. I DON'T want those people buying my e-book, so I provide the e-course for them to check out my materials and see that they don't need it.

Bad business move? Not really. From May up till now I have not had to give a single refund. Which suggests that I have effectively screened the prospective buyers effectively, so that those who don't need what I offer don't buy it.

3) show Worship Ministry articles as a quick and easy reference guide for anyone involved with the worship ministry - they are short pieces of teaching that can be easily read and used. They don't replace what I teach in my book, but they are helpful and I want everyone to benefit from them.

What's next? Stuff that makes me really uncomfortable, things that have me praying that God will bring me resources, link me up with the right people, and give me LOTS of courage.

And stuff that will further increase the teaching value of my site, to make it an effective and useful resource for worship leaders and musicians for all over the world.

So for now, I am holding a special promotion for my Invisible Worship Musician materials. It's called the Milestones Sale and it allows you to purchase my materials at US$37 ($20 off the usual price). Do grab this special offer, it's only available from now until 8th November. And it will probably be the very last special promotion for this in 2008.

Stay tuned for further developments! And do contact me with your ideas and feedback for what else I can add to my website, I'd love to hear from you!

Be blessed!

A Very Strange Weekend

Three whole days offline...

I only have a laptop and it crashed on me. It was something with the motherboard, so I had an entire 3 days:

1) without Internet - no emails, no checking out the worship ministry forums I'm involved with...

2) no e-books; AND

3) no typing - I was scribbling email and blog ideas on post-it notes. Talk about pathetic!

So what did I do over the weekend? It was spent:

1) playing the piano - for me, not for ministry, but just for me. I've forgetten what that was like...

2) reading REAL books, not PDFs and e-books - got loads of ideas, as usual!

3) playing with my two boys!

As you might have guessed, I got many emergent curriculum opportunities with my kids. Those opportunities were always there, but it's too easy to miss them (many adults do).

When you see how alive and in the moment young children are, you can understand why there are parents who willingly forgo additional income to stay home and home-school their kids. If you impose a decent curriculum on them they're happy. And if you can flow with them on what catches their attention at the moment, they're happy too.

Yeah, my sons have been teaching me by example how to be happy even without a computer. :) We had a great time creating and singing silly songs around the piano. The teacher-JJ side of me was satisfied at how the song rhythm was helping them get a better sense of syllable placement, crucial to their language growth. The Daddy side of me was thinking "why didn't I do this ages ago?!??!?"

But anyway, it's time to get back to work. For all of you who tried to email me about ministry and business matters over the past few days, I'll be giving you proper replies soon, give me a while to catch up.

How about the whackers, JJ? Any updates?

Err... no. I've decided to pursue the secular philosophy of "living well is the best revenge". I just had a fantastic weekend feeding on the faithfulness and love of God, shown in the joy and fun I had with my two sons. If the whackers had seen how little their threats bothered me, how easily they get forgotten and how happy I am with my two sons, they would have gnashed their teeth in frustration.

I can live with that.

I don't know if things are different in other countries, but my whackers grew up in the 50s and 60s. Those were years of huge political turmoil and upheavel around the world. Many nations were fighting for their political independence from their colonial masters. Communism was still seen as a viable political system, and many did consider it as a tool for gaining national independence.

I've noticed that many people growing up in that era have a fascination with making bold political statements and having over-the-top, larger-than-life displays. The CAUSE (whatever they were fighting for) was the ends that justified all means, and those people felt the need to announce their cause to all and sundry.

When it comes to hostilities, it translates to large threat displays. They want you to be intimidated, or to go over-the-top in fighting back. (Think Taiwanese politics). Ignoring such people, or (God forbid) joking about them was the worst possible thing you could ever do to them.

For me, I see threat displays as being VERY foolish. The Japanese have a saying "A cornered mouse can bite a cat", in other words, if you drive people to desperation, they may escalate the conflict far more than you are mentally and emotionally prepared for. Your CAUSE, whatever it may be, won't help you very much then. Bringing about your downfall has become THEIR cause.

"As far as it is up to you, leave in peace with everyone" (Romans 12:18, paraphrased)

Of course, I don't believe that means being a doormat and putting up with abuse. I have many people tell me to just endure the nonsense and try to give a gentle reply, after all a gentle answer turns away wrath (Pro 15:1). I point out to them that Proverbs also tells us what kind of people to avoid, and those admonitions are as valid as giving a gentle reply.

Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended. (Proverbs 22:10, NIV)

Anyway, this post is just a quick update, not a full teaching or sharing thing. Those will come soon. In the meantime, I'm trying to find my feet and catch up with all the online backlog. So be patient, I'll be in contact with you soon with some new things to share!

Be blessed!

teaching and prayer request

I got whacked last night.

It was ugly, involving shouting at 2am in the morning, being threatened with legal action and me eventually calling the police to intervene. Even right now I am still feeling the shame, what will the neighbors think? The police being called to salvage a situation at the house from which the neighbors continually hear the praises of God?

The reason my wife allowed one of the whackers in my home at that unearthly hour in the first place is because the whackers are a couple who have helped my wife and I before a lot in the past. Over time I have been actively discouraging my wife from accepting help from them, because they are people whose help comes with strings attached.

In other words, if you accept their help, you OWE them.

Big time.

The Bible has described such people before in Proverbs 23:6-8 (NKJV)

Do not eat the bread of a miser, nor desire his delicacies;
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
"Eat and drink!" he says to you,
But his heart is not with you.
The morsel you have eaten, you will vomit up,
And waste your pleasant words.

The last line is especially appropriate, about vomiting the morsel you have eaten. It seems that this couple has kept the receipts of the 'help' they've given us, and because I refused to sit down and accept being blasted by them for no good reason, they intend to sue for the return of all those sums.

Meet such people regularly? I hope you don't.

Though you do occasionally meet people who have so effectively deadened their consciences so that they can do such things easily and with impunity (they are criminals, the only question is whether they have been caught yet), many people still feel some internal restraint against attacking others to such an extent.

So what do you do if you want to victimize someone but don't have the guts to do it yet? You look for reasons to pull the trigger, to plunge in the knife, to justify your own crime. And the most common way to do that is to find excuses to call that other guy a bigger criminal than you are, that you are the Robin Hood, the noble vigilante who gets your hands dirty only for the sake of protecting the innocent.

And as one of the whackers stood in my own living room, shouting away at me, threatening to whack me both in the court of law and by her friends in high places (?) I discovered why this whacker has so totally de-humanized me and taken me as the ultimate epitome of evil and irresponsibility, fit for nothing else other than disgrace and destruction.

My wife's been complaining to her about me for the past four years.

In techie terms the whacker was kept on an RSS feed of my mistakes, blunders and bad points (yeah, I DO have them). And that emboldened her to whack me at my own home with vulgarities too crass to mention, as well as threats and what not.

Now before anyone places all the blame on my wife, you've got to remember that people will hear what they want to hear, and this whacker was already primed to look for my inadequacies and failures.

So when you put together the continual feed of my mistakes and all that, already slanted to present me in a bad light, with a receptive audience who WANTS to see me in a bad light, it was only a matter of time before the blow up happened.

And when I was struck with the unfairness of the whole thing, I started becoming like my whackers. How does someone become like one of those people mentioned in Proverbs 23?

It is revealed for us in the NIV translation of this passage:

Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies; for he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost. (Proverbs 23:6, NIV)

I started thinking about the things I did right for my family and wife, and started thinking about how much they cost me in terms of time, effort and money. All the stuff that got conveniently left out of her RSS feed about life with JJ. I started thinking about how ungrateful my wife was (wouldn't my whackers be thinking exactly the same thing about me?) and began entertaining thoughts of ending all my extra efforts and seeing how the family would cope without me.

I think it's obvious that if God didn't suddenly stop me and reveal to me what was happening, I would have become exactly like those who whacked me. *Shudder*

And THAT's what I'd like to share with you in this post.

You see, when it comes to serving God's people (whether they are in our immediate family or otherwise) Jesus doesn't want us to be thinking about the cost. It cost us nothing.

And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. (Matthew 10:7-8, NKJV)

And when you can truly see that you have received all things freely from God, you free yourself from the need to guard and protect yourself from being taken advantage of as you give of your abilities and giftings to the Body of Christ.

As for me, I've just recently decided to up the ante for my work. I've added on Weekly Worship Ministry Devotional emails, you can sign up for them here. These are of a different writing style compared to my private lessons, my usual blogposts and other teaching articles. And I am excited at adding this new free feature to my teaching materials and making them available to you.

But in the midst of all that I am painfully aware of my personal weakness and need for prayer support from the rest of the Body of Christ. So this is both teaching (sharing on the Book of Proverbs) and an appeal to you to pray for me. Pray especially that I:

1) Walk in forgiveness, as our Lord would have us do;

2) Walk in wisdom, that I may know what to do

3) Walk in protection, that I may leave no room for the ungodly to take advantage of me.

Thanks! Be blessed!

Teach and Admonish Part 03

(here's part 01 and part 02)

You've probably heard of a 'bucket' list, people writing down all the stuff they want to do in this world before they kick the bucket (pass on, in other words). I was just sorting through my stuff the other day and I came across another list I did years ago. It's what I call a lottery list, a list of things to do if I ever got a huge sum of money (like winning the lottery). And at the top of that list was this: writing a book on worship ministry.

It's really weird to see that on the list now, because even though I haven't got that huge financial windfall (well, not yet...) I've already written the book. More than that, I've recently updated the book and added a new chapter, so the book went from 164 pages to 171 pages. And I am certain that this will not be the last update for my book, there will be more updates and upgrades, as time goes by.

Why the updates and adding of new material to the book? Because I have a vision of what this book is meant to accomplish, and as I keep growing in understanding of the worship ministry, what has to be in that book to do all for which I have written it for has to grow also. And how did I get the increased understanding of the contents of my book? Through the process of teaching and sharing with other people, whether online or offline.

In a sense, you can say that my book follows an emergent curriculum, to some degree. An emergent curriculum is an idea from early childhood education. When kids are really young we want them to learn certain things, like language, math, science and all that. An emergent curriculum uses whatever topics the kids are interested in at the moment (dinosaurs, plants, people in the community) to provide a meaningful context for teaching them language, math, science and so forth.

And so it is with my book, The Invisible Worship Musician. I have certain core principles and ideas to convey, and the questions, ideas and comments from people who have read my book or attended my training sessions give me a wider context to explain those core principles and ideas.

I personally believe that the concept of an emergent curriculum is what God had in mind when he gave the following instructions:

"These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." (Deuteronomy 6:6-9, NIV)

If you are going to walk along the road with younger children, expect that they are going to be asking questions about anything and everything in the environment. At that time, you have to choose between telling them:

"Daddy's busy right now, don't bug me!"

OR

"Yeah, that's a bird. Yup, that's a nest. And what do birds do inside nests? Yes, they lay eggs! Very good!"

OR

"Yeah, that's a bird. Yup, that's a nest. Hey, did I ever tell you before what God said in his word about birds and nests? He said..."

So you use whatever is in your immediate environment to give the children the context for whatever truth from the Bible you can see illustrated there. That's the concept of an emergent curriculum.

One thing that I've learnt from actually spending time interacting with children in general, and my two sons in particular, is that they are more interested in what they learn and how they learn it than in the polished presentation of the end result. A few nights ago I was just working with my elder boy to prepare a wizard's costume for a party at this childcare centre (in case you are wondering, no, I am not a Potter critic). The next morning when I brought him down to the centre I saw all the store-bought props and costumes the other kids had. Boy, my heart sank! I felt embarrassed and slightly ashamed at the hand-made, home-produced, amateurish things we created.

But my son had no such problems. He happily told the other kids that costume, hat and wand were the result of working with his Daddy. You could see that he was really proud of what we created, in fact, he was very keen to show it all off. He wasn't at all intimidated by the good stuff the other kids had. Why? Because it was made together with his Daddy, and he also learned interesting things along the way. So he's happy.

And likewise with the people who have learned from my teaching. I can present things logically, but not necessarily in an aesthetically pleasing way. But that doesn't keep people from benefiting from my teaching. I am moving on, working on creating more teaching materials, and letting other people help me refine the presentation as we go along. I am not waiting until I have loads of money to create cool teaching materials with very professional and slick presentations, because

Ecclesiastics 11:4 - Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap. (NIV)

In other words, if I keep waiting for my environment to become more ideal, things will NEVER happen. So I grit my teeth, told my perfectionist streak to shut up, and got on with getting my teaching out to those who need it.

And people have come alongside to help. If you check out my articles page on my website, and look at this other site at called2music, you will see my articles there. And the site owner, Batsirai Chada, has taken the effort to make my articles look really good. But all this wouldn't have happened if I didn’t just get started in the first place.

So what's on YOUR lottery list? If there are items on it that you are afraid to begin working on now, because you don't think you have the resources, financial or otherwise, to bring it to completion, remember what Ecclesiastics 11:4 teaches us. The environment will NEVER be perfect.

I wanted to work on my first book from a position of financial abundance, so that I could focus on it like a full time writer. I also wanted to have a few thousand people on my mailing list so that I can have good sales without having to work so hard on publicity. But in the end I still completed the book without all that.

And I've grown, God knows how much I've grown through the process. All that growth took place because I decided not to wait for things to become ideal, and just get started anyway.

So this is what I'd like to share with you. For me, my purpose and my joy in life is to teach. For you, it may be something else. Whatever it is, don't put in on your bucket list, or lottery list. Put it on your to-do list. And get on with it.

Well, what are you waiting for?

Great Worship Ministry Article!

Very seldom do I come across a worship ministry article that impresses me to the very core of my being. To be frank, a lot of what's on the Internet is a rehash of the same old tired material from Praise and Worship Inc. and isn't very useful. But just yesterday I stumbled across an article by Colin Owen and moved quickly to get permission to reproduce it on my website.


People may think I don't use the works of others because I am young, brash and opinionated and think that I know best. And I won't deny the possibility. But if that's the case, what kind of article will wow me to the max, such that I HAVE to share it with you? Won't it be a really good one? Read it and judge for yourself. You can check it out here at http://www.invisibleworshipmusician.com/article11.htm


Be blessed!

Lessons from the Olympics

Singapore won an Olympic medal, FINALLY!

For those of you who are not from Singapore and don't understand why this is a really big deal, you need to know first and foremost is that Singapore is basically a social experiment on a national scale. Everything good that we have (business success, living environment and all that) was the result of careful planning, strategizing and government intervention (either direct or indirect).

(That's why, by the way, telling a Singaporean to let something just naturally happen is so difficult. It's directly opposite the inclination ingrained into our Singaporean DNA...)

And that is what happened in the Beijing Olympics. The Singapore Table Tennis Team was anchored by three athletes who were born in China, not Singapore. They were carefully wooed over to Singapore and offered Singaporean citizenship to compete for Singapore. And when our first Olympic medal in 48 years as the result of this deliberate effort, it vindicated the efforts (and money) spent on pursuing this policy.

But when it was announced that our table tennis team was in the finals (and thus assured of a medal) the nation pretty much forgot where these athletes were born. All we cared about was that we knew we were finally going to get a medal of some sort, and suddenly even those apathetic towards sports in general began following the Olympic Games to see how our team would do.

"And what does that have to do with us, JJ?"

Did you know that we, as believers, also have people following us in our lives and cheering us on to win glory for God?

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." (Hebrews 12:1, NIV)

Think about it. In Church history, we have heroes who have accomplished great things for God. We have the early believers who withstood the persecution of insane Roman emperors, reformers who struggled to bring the truths of God's word back to the people of God, to missionaries who gave up their creature comforts, families and their own lives to further the spread of the Gospel of Christ.

And they have passed the baton to us, for us to continue the race marked out for us. It is now time for US to run the race, to perform the best we can with our earthly lives, and, if Christ should tarry, pass the baton to the next generation. And cheer them on, just as the believers who have gone before us are cheering us on right now.

What the Singapore government did for the China-born athletes, wooing them over from a different country to win sporting glory for our own, is what God has done for us in Christ.

"All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath." (Ephesians 2:3, NIV)

We were by nature no different from the sinners of this world, the unsaved. And yet God chose to seek us out, to woo us over to another kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. Then he sent us forth with the charge to win glory for the name of Jesus.

One interesting thing I learned from the table tennis saga is how much winning a medal can cause people to overlook mistakes and bloopers. One of the athletes from the men's team played without a coach by his side and performed dismally. The head of the Singapore Table Tennis Association announced that serious action would be taken against those responsible. Rumors that the head coach and the team manager would be fired ran rife.

And the nation went into an uproar. No one condoned leaving an athlete coach-less during the Olympics, but the head coach and team manager also shared in the credit for our medal. And so the furor grew against the supposed unfair and harsh treatment awaiting the coach and team manager when they returned to Singapore. The women's table tennis team, instead of coming back like victors, returned to Singapore with their heads bowed low because of the uncertainty over what would happen to their coach and manager.

And I believe the heavenly witnesses are feeling the same about us when we slip up. They don't like us sinning, causing shame to the name of Christ. But they stand on our side, urging us on and defending us against those who seek to discredit us and our contributions to the body of Christ. And that is how we believers here on earth ought to look at our fellow team-mates who stumble in their race for Christ.

But what if we have not been living our lives to win glory for the name of Christ in this race of life?

"... One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13-14, NIV)

Really, there is no better time to start than now. If you are struggling with some sin or hindrance in your Christian walk, get help from a pastor whom you trust. If you know what you are supposed to do and have been neglecting it (happens to me too, trust me) get up, dust yourself off and get on with it. The heroes of our faith are watching you now in heaven and they are cheering you on!

May we be able to say one day, together with the Apostle Paul,

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing." (2 Timothy 4:7-8, NIV)

Sin And Restoration

Words cannot express the shock, dismay and grief I felt when I came across this story:

HE preached to thousands about his terminal illness and tugged at hearts with a hit song.

The problem is the pastor wasn't dying at all

Michael Guglielmucci, who inspired hundreds of thousands of young Christians with his terminal cancer "battle", has been exposed as a fraud.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24216087-5006787,00.html

"Why does this dismay you, JJ?"

First of all, it's a brother-in-Christ who fell morally, who sinned. Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:29, said:

"Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?" (NIV)

That's what I am feeling right now, an inward burning. Whether I like the guy's music, his church or his doctrine is immaterial right now. A brother in Christ has fallen publicly.

Also, I am expecting the vultures to begin swooping in to discredit everything good God has done through that man. Seriously speaking, he's got the churches, denomination and now even the police looking into his life. His own conscience would have been troubling him all this while, and now he has to deal with the fact that he has deeply hurt his own family and betrayed AND discredited his fellow ministers.

He needs our prayers now, even more than before. And on our part we need to be ready and not caught off guard, for there will be even more cases like this in the future. That's what the Bible has already predicted.

"Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end." (Daniel 11:35, NIV)

So be prepared! When a prominent minister of Christ falls, we need to remember what the Bible teaches us to do:

"Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted." (Galatians 6:1, NIV)

Restore him gently. We are commanded to bring healing, not condemnation. Yes, I know that the faith of many has been damaged and people have turned away from the Lord because of scandals like this. But God's Word still tells us to seek to bring about restoration.

This verse is both sobering and encouraging at the same time. Paul tells us that the spiritual seeking to restore the fallen sibling-in-Christ have to be cautious of being tempted. No matter how strong we are in the Lord, remember that Paul addressed his warning to the spiritual amongst them, not the carnal. This tells me that the spiritual can still fall, if they are not careful. "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man..." Sobering, isn't it?

But the encouraging part is this: if even the spiritual can be tempted, then being tempted does not mean that we are not spiritual. Many believers assume that as they grow more spiritual they Lord and see his hand in their lives they will be less prone to being tempted. And when they are tempted and tested (the word used in the Greek carries the idea of being tested, examined and disciplined) they begin to doubt their spiritual growth and the Lord's work in their lives.

Don't doubt yourself or the Lord. The testing and temptations you face mean only one thing: that you are still human. You may be a spiritual human (I certainly hope so!) but you are still human none the less.

"Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2, NIV)

We can see in the context that this verse not only refers to helping one another in day-to-day living, but also specifically when a sibling-in-Christ has fallen. They fall under burdens that they cannot carry by themselves, and we, the rest of the body of Christ, are to help them AND to permit others to help US. We need to live in genuine fellowship with each other in order to fulfill this command to carry each others' burdens.

It's my firm personal conviction that if this pastor was totally open with at least ONE brother-in-Christ he respected before he started living a life of deception, this ONE brother-in-Christ would have been able to keep him on track before the lies and deception ballooned to monstrous proportions. Just ONE, that's all it would have taken to prevent this entire scandal and fiasco.

And we are talking about a pastor already used powerfully by God. If HE, with all his theological training, understanding and experience in the Lord, needed the help and support of the Body of Christ, how much more the rest of us!

"If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself." (Galatians 6:3, NIV)

This verse is not referring to having a lousy opinion of oneself. It refers to acknowledging that we all need help. We all need the fellowship of the believers, people who will help us carry our burdens as we help carry theirs.

Why would someone NOT want to let others help carry his or her own burdens? Fear. When we need other people to help us, we become vulnerable. Such people can hurt us by simply refusing to help, even worse they are also in a better position to betray us because they know our weaknesses and struggles.

So that is why I am deeply honoured whenever anyone chooses to share with me their own personal burdens and struggles. I suspect it's the favour of God upon my life, that I've got friends who share with me deep, intimate secrets about their personal lives. I'd like to think that it's because I have the wisdom of God to help them; but most of the time I only know enough to pray for them.

But don't underestimate the power of knowing that a sibling-in-Christ accepts you for who you are and is consistently praying for you. This is often enough to break the power of shame in our lives.

The best definition of shame I ever read is this: shame is the nagging feeling that, deep down inside, there is something inherently wrong with me. And together with shame comes the fear, that if people know me, really know the REAL me, they would turn away from me and reject me.

What makes shame so insidious is that anyone, even those who look as if they have their lives in shape, can have it. In fact, it can be worse for them because there doesn't seem to be any way out. A jobless man who has shame can believe that his shame will go away once he finds a job. Usually it doesn't, it hides for a while and appears in another area of his life. Someone with family problems can believe that if the problems are fixed the shame will go away. But those who have their lives together and still have shame are stuck.

"Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load." (Galatians 6:4-5, NIV)

Here is where I speculate on the reason for this deception.

And no, I don't believe it is for money. Why? Well, this pastor is the youth pastor of a powerful church in Australia. And they don't pay shabby. Let's not forget also he has royalties coming on from 60 songs already, so I don't believe money is the issue.

I believe it is because he was dissatisfied with the load he had to carry in this life and felt it had to be something else in order to really bring glory to God. Hence the need to 'help' God make his own personal message more 'glorious'.

It would be fantastic if you write a great worship song about God's healing while you are suffering from terminal disease, that song becomes a hit and you see God's healing of your body later on. What a great testimony to Christ!

But does it become any less glorious if all you did was write a great worship song about healing and you have no personal testimony about it? It's all about being true to the load you have to carry in this life.

Yes, other people may have great testimonies, and those testimonies make their message powerful. But do not despise the message you already have and the testimony you already are by being faithful to the load you have to carry in this life.

Yup, it's tempting sometimes to embellish our testimonies a bit, especially if we didn't come from shady backgrounds and thus don't have much 'street cred', as they'll call it in the hip-hop scene. Or if we weren't delivered from crippling addictions, or a few million in debt, or whatever. But in such moments all we can depend on is God empowering the songs we sing and the words we speak. And when we see God touching the lives of others through us we know it is entirely because of God, not of us.

And, for me at least, I think that is more than good enough!

Announcement

Hi, everyone!

You may have noticed that my website was down for the past few days. Putting it simply, I made a huge mistake and had to rebuild my website from ground up. Thank God I still kept copies of my text!

Well, I used the opportunity to redo my site (what else could I do?) and make some changes that have been on my mind. I've decided that I'll post the non-worship ministry stuff here on my blog and put up some how to articles on my site as a reference for you. You can check out these articles here, a lot of them were written over the past three weeks.

And if you have any ideas and suggestions for articles that you'd like me to write, do send me an email or leave me a comment here.

Be blessed!

Detox Your Mind

I'm kinda on a detox programme.

That means I am eating even more fruits than usual to substitute for processed foods. I usually gulp down lots of water daily, and I'm careful to monitor my exposure to toxic chemicals in my environment. But I recently decided to turn things up a notch with even more fruits.

Someone from church noticed me gulping down fruits last Sunday, and, much to his amusement, heard my two sons clamouring for the fruits too. When he commented on that I suddenly remembered what I learned years ago: We can be satisfied and sated with taste of natural food, but with processed foods (loaded with additives and artificial flavourings) we can't, so we'll keep eating them over and over.

Kinda like the way the thinking of this world, being unnatural to who we are as born-again believers, can actually be quite addictive to our thought patterns. And I suddenly saw the parallel between using fruits to detoxify the body and using the Word of God to detoxify the mind.

"… offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:1-2, NIV)

Notice that immediately after we are admonished to offer our bodies as living sacrifices (a form of worship), we are told to renew our minds? One aspect of renewing the mind I personally struggle a lot with is the removing of wrong and erroneous ideas so that they can be replaced with the truths of God's Word.

For example, if you struggle with fear, you will have to meditate on God's love, because perfect love (obviously comes only from God) casts out fear. If you struggle with ill-health, you will have to meditate on God's forgiveness, because often people who struggle with ill-health don't really believe, in their very heart of hearts, that they are forgiven of all their sins in Christ.

So to correct all my wrong beliefs and to grow even further in my salvation, I will labour and strive to feed my mind with the truths of God's Word. I am deadly serious about this matter, I consider it a life-or-death issue in the area of spiritual growth.

Why do I put in so much effort in this area? Because I want the results: transformation. I want to live life the way Jesus would, and that comes from thinking the way HE thinks and not the world's way. For that I had to force myself to actively engage in God's Word everyday, until my soul acquired a taste for the things of God. Once I got to that point, I had to press on until my soul acquired a hunger for the things of God. And I found, to my pleasant surprise, that I actually enjoyed spending time in God's Word.

However, I soon found that I was beating myself up emotionally when I slipped. It's even worse to slip if you're spending a lot of time in God's Word and seeking him in worship and prayer. Because you think you should know (and do) better than that. Therefore it's way too easy to come down hard on ourselves when we slip up.

Ever been there?

Why is it that detox-ing the mind (removing the wrong ideas and thought patterns) can be difficult at times? Two reasons:

1) We don't realize how much mental junk we've accumulated over the years.

Stop and think: we are continually exposed to worldly thinking and all that pretty much from birth onwards. It can be in major things (copying the behavior of the people in Hong Kong soap operas) or even in minor things like the way we speak.

For example: do we say "I feel angry" or "I am angry"? If we use the word "feel" we give ourselves room to feel other emotions too, besides anger. But when we say "am" we are telling ourselves that anger is part of our innate identity, the way I'd say "I am Junjie, I am a father, I am a compulsive teacher, I am… "

All those things are part of my identity, I will always be those things. But when we add negative emotions to the mix, like anger, frustration, laziness, and all that, we are wiring all that into our personal identities. And we then become more prone to all these emotions.

They then become self-fulfilling prophecies. Sneaky, right?

I spent some time as a pub musician doing Chinese and Cantonese pop songs, and I'd tell you one thing: Usually the songs that sell (and get requested more often in pubs) are songs about messed up romance lives. I find it very disturbing that many of the professional pub singers also have messed up romance lives also. You'll find lesbianism, single mothers, lousy marriages or other problems amongst the singers.

Just goes to show how much damage mental junk can do in people's lives. We can accumulate so much of it unthinkingly, so we need to give ourselves much more time to let God clear it out of our system.

Seriously, seeing all these just made me realize how much power there is in a song. Because what people sing often becomes their reality, we worship leaders and musicians have been entrusted with a very heavy responsibility in the lives of God's people.

2) We don't realize God's role in this process.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory… (2 Corinthians 3:18, NIV)

I must confess that for years I subconsciously read the above passage as "… we transform ourselves into his likeness…" And Romans 12 as "… transform yourself by the renewing of your mind". I was wrong.

God is the one who transforms us. We renew our minds, God transforms us. We reflect the Lord's glory, he transforms us.

If we fall into the error of believing that we are the ones transforming ourselves, we deny God the opportunity to work his power in our lives. When we try to do what only God can do, we doom ourselves to frustration and failure. We may not see it immediately, but it's only a matter of time before it becomes obvious.

This principle is a parallel of the one that applies to God's word: we think, ponder and meditate on the Bible, God is the one who gives the understanding. (This came out in my blogpost here: http://jvworship.blogspot.com/2008/01/bible-regime.html)

No matter how I turn, I still keep coming back to the wineskin and wine analogy: we can produce the wineskin, but only God can give us the wine. Our role is to prepare a wineskin that can adequately hold and contain the wine of God. His is to give us the wine of his Spirit.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that by creating the wineskin we're automatically creating the wine too, get what I mean?

In conclusion, I'd like to urge you to always be on the lookout for ideas, assumptions and thought patterns that will contaminate your mind with the thinking of this world. And when you feed yourself with the truths of God's Word, remember that you can feed yourself, but only God can transform you to be more like Jesus. Be blessed!

Isolation vs Community

I know this sounds rather morbid, but I always had a fascination for criminal psychology, cult mentality and other fields of human stupidity. I have this burning question within: what makes intelligent people do really stupid things?

And when you take this fascination and apply it to the book of Proverbs, you get interesting insights. As most of you know, I've built a congregation-first paradigm for worship ministry, based on the forgotten commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. Because many people don't see the worship ministry this way, there are still a lot of performance-minded people in the worship ministry.

I've said it before, Performers, because what they do need not take the specific needs of the congregation into account, can end up separated from the rest of the Body of Christ. If they ever encounter any opposition or misunderstanding from the body of Christ they face the danger of ending up offended and resentful. They can see themselves as modern-day Jeremiahs, misunderstood and persecuted by some elements in the body of Christ, and they start being defensive and easily offended. Once they go that route it is only a matter of time before they become hardened and calloused in their hearts. They start to hold ideas like “As long as God is with me, I can ignore the rest of those back-slid, lukewarm, pew-warming people who are pitiful excuses for Christians. I don’t need them…”

What I recently found out (Thanks, George!) was that there already was a verse that described this situation, Proverbs 18:1.

A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; He rages against all wise judgment. (NKJV)

What are the possible factors causing a person to isolate himself from the rest of the body of Christ? One factor is unresolved offences with other believers. These can cause a believer to develop a persecution complex, believing that everyone else is out to get them, that they are the only true believers left, while everyone else is backslidden and used by the devil to whack them. Performers are especially prone to this deception.

Another factor is basic temperament. Some people are just socially inept by upbringing, or really shy by nature (or both, like me for example). More serious, however, are cases when a person hasn't been brought up to care for other people.

In child development psychology, this is called egocentrism. It doesn't mean that the person is proud, it means that this person doesn't (or can't) see things from another person's point of view. In the developmental paradigm of Jean Piaget (you can look him up on Wikipedia) children go through a stage when they are caught up in egocentrism (usually between the ages of 3 to 8 years old).

At that age, children may do selfish things, not because they are selfish but because it is difficult for them to conceptualize any better. What becomes a problem is when a child is not nurtured past this stage, or because of some traumatic life events a person regresses back to this stage. Then we get what's described in the NIV translation of this verse:

An unfriendly man pursues selfish ends; he defies all sound judgment. (NIV)

Yet another factor that can lead to a person isolating himself/herself from the rest of the Body of Christ is a lack of confidence or self-esteem. In fact, this is the story I actually wanted to share with you in this post.

There was this season when my personal confidence was very much shaken. I had things go wrong on me and received about one major blow per day that season. And I started retreating into myself and shutting myself up from other people. I was going down the path of isolating myself and losing my clarity, judgment and discernment.

Pretty much out of nowhere two of my friends got in touch with me again. They are the ones who have always been encouraging and supportive of my crazy ideas… or shall we say, my crazier ones, since there are people who think all my ideas are crazy. They didn't know what was going on, they just had some stuff to contact me over.

And just the reminder that they were there, and the memories of all the help, encouragement and advice they gave me in the past, was enough to snap me out of my persecution complex and my pity party.

The lessons I got out of this incident were:

1) God himself wants you to stay in community with other believers. He will arrange for people to contact you when you may be tempted to isolate yourself, or he will prompt you to contact other believers to bless them by your presence and encouragement.

In either case, don't dismiss the work God wants to do for you and through you. If you are beginning to isolate yourself, swallow your pride and share with that sibling-in-Christ your struggles and burdens. If you feel led to call up a sibling-in-Christ out of nowhere, make the call, send the email or mobile phone text message NOW. Don't make the mistake of thinking "I'll do it later." I'm so glad my two friends didn't delay…

2) You too can proactively seek out other believers to encourage them. The reason these two can minister to me just by contacting me is because we have lots of shared experiences. And these didn't just happen, we put in effort to nurture our relationships before. The three of us had our fair share of misunderstandings, bloopers and tough conversations when we messed things up. And my friends were able to minister to me (probably without knowing it) because WE (not just I or they, but WE) worked through things and kept the fellowship intact no matter what.

Of course, if you know that a sibling-in-Christ has suffered a disappointment or setback recently, you might want to get in touch with them to make sure they're ok. These setbacks can be crushing if they come one after another. Your sibling-in-Christ might be having the courage and strength crushed out of them by their circumstances, by one setback after another, without you knowing it. It's better to just take the chance and get in touch with them, just to be sure.

… encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. (Hebrews 3:13, NIV)

That's about it for now. I'll be posting some other stuff soon (fingers crossed). In the meantime, be blessed, everyone!

Engaging with the Proverbs

Worship, then wisdom. David, then Solomon. In the bible, after the Psalms we have the book of Proverbs. This tells me that as we live lives of worship, we find ourselves better able to access the wisdom of God, especially the wisdom of the book of Proverbs.

The problem with the Book of Proverbs is this: the treasures don’t yield themselves to a superficial glace. Let’s face it, a large number of Proverbs seem to be stating the obvious. Like Proverbs 14:5, for example.

“A truthful witness does not deceive, but a false witness pours out lies.” (NIV) Reading that makes me want to say “Duh! Tell me something I can’t figure out already using some common sense!”

But if you want more of the Book of Proverbs to come alive to you, you’ve got to deeply engage with it, to ask yourself questions about what it says and how it all links together. Let me show you an example.

Proverbs 14:1 (NIV) - The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

Let’s stop to think about this verse. Does the ‘house’ in this passage refer to an actual brick-cement-and-mortar building? Unlikely, since women don’t usually build or tear down those (we have construction workers and demolition teams for that). So, this passage will refer to the family. A wise woman builds her family, a foolish one tears hers down.

Now here’s the crux: what could possibly make a woman do things that tear down her family? And what kind of actions would tear down a family, sunder the relationships and leave it in tatters? Once you draw up even a small list of actions that destroy a family, start to imagine what emotional state a foolish woman would be in to engage in such behavior.

Any deep insights yet? If not, let’s move on to another one.

Proverbs 15:1 (NIV) - A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

I know this sounds very obvious. But here’s my next question: why would someone give a harsh word that stirs up anger?

To backtrack a bit, this verse is really applicable in an argument. Let’s say the conversation may start normally, but someone says something that offends you. And at that point you have to make a decision: gentle or harsh?

In real life it’s not as simple as that, of course. Why? Because the other person may have subconsciously decided to lose their temper, and want YOU to lose yours too. (They don’t want to be miserable alone, so they want you to join them in their misery) So they’ll give you a harsh word to your gentle answer. What are you going to do then? Gentle or harsh?

Ok, let’s take a quick perspective jump over to the other side. How does the person using the harsh word justify speaking harshly? Recognize that oftentimes they feel they are speaking the truth and you are refusing to listen to it, so they think its ok for them to speak harshly to get the point across (or that you give them no choice, they HAVE to be nasty with you, for your own good).

And when you can give a gentle answer, they can see that you’re in control of yourself. That can lead to two results; either they’ll be sobered by that and try to bring themselves under control also, or they will be ashamed by that and want to drag you down to their level. So they turn up the hostility even more in the hope of provoking you further.

Proverbs 27:3 (NIV) - Stone is heavy and sand a burden, but provocation by a fool is heavier than both.

So what are you going to do then? Are you going to stay or leave the situation?

Proverbs 27:12 (NIV) - The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.

At this point you are in danger of losing your own temper and saying and doing foolish things. If someone is determined to make you lose your temper it is very difficult to keep it, especially while the provocation continues. I highly recommend leaving the scene.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against anger. I believe anger is a precious gift from God, to give us energy to take action when our boundaries are being violated. The problem comes when the anger is becomes a reflex action, we snap into anger (and not thinking) when things go wrong or when people continually provoke us. This is why the Bible says:

Proverbs 22:24-25 (NIV) - Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.

And you’ll see from this whether it is wise to continue associating with such a person. But when would you have no choice, you’re stuck with such a person?

Proverbs 21:9 (NIV) - Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

Let’s start putting the pieces together. A quarrelsome wife often infects her husband with the same quarrelsome spirit. This is very hard to avoid, since the husband is face-to-face with her everyday, and his attempts at giving gentle replies to turn aside anger are repulsed. It’s very easy to just think it’s no point, and he just swings to the other extreme and gets as quarrelsome as she is. In fact, out of frustration he may even decide to go one-up on her. (And then of course the wife starts seeing herself as the innocent victim).

This, my dear siblings-in-Christ, is the beginning of a toxic environment, one that may easily end up with both the spouses going physically violent on each other, since they have already started being verbally violent. Now, think about the kids. In such an environment, what are they learning about resolving conflict, relating with people of the opposite sex and how to behave when they are angry?

Could this be one of the ways a foolish woman tears down her house? If you really want to know, you’ll have to read through the book of Proverbs and pay attention to how often folly and being bad-tempered and quarrelsome are spoken of together.

Then if you examine the whole process again you learn to recognize the symptoms of a person (male or female) who can go quarrelsome on you when things go wrong. And do so even before they actually quarrel with you in the first place. How much peace and freedom from strife will knowing that bring to your life? Is it worth the effort to mine the book of Proverbs for its treasures?

Do you start to see the reason why the Proverbs are oftentimes stating the obvious? Because when we are in the really negative situations in life, we often find it hard to see the obvious…

And all this is just simply on the topic of quarrelsome people in general (and wives in particular). If you want more to ponder, try this: what kind of person would regularly flop at Proverbs 18:13? How does such a person think? What are his or her assumptions? How would they behave? What are the ways they could have ended up that way? How can they get themselves out of that behavior pattern?

“Wow, JJ, that’s a lot of work. Are you sure we have to go through all this?”

What I shared above is ONE example of how I engage with the book of Proverbs. There are of course other ways of doing it that I am sure will give results too. What I do know for certain is that you MUST be prepared to mine the depths of this book to get the full benefits of the wisdom God has hidden inside.

Proverbs 25:2 (NIV) - It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

Well, my follow King-in-Christ, I suggest you take out your spiritual shovel, open up to the Book of Proverbs and start digging. And if you come up with anything interesting, send me an email!

Be blessed!