Run the Gamut.

[benjywong]

A Repeat of a Generation

When I was younger, I never understood why my dad would sleep on the floor in the house. Just lying there.

Granted. It was my mum's house and not my dad's house.

I'm doing the same today, and I laugh to myself at how silly I thought the notion was in the past, and how I do it now.

That it seems like it was destined and written in what's to come that this was going to be the case; something I couldn't escape from.

The idea of being in a house with your family, having predefined spaces where you can sit and be at, vs owning that and being in a place where you have the freedom and ownership of setting things for success.

One is where you inhabit and try not to take too much space, or let your presence be a hindrance. While the other is expansive, warm, and allows you to share your presence.

And as I lay there waiting for my daughter to sleep. Perhaps my daughter would think of the same thoughts I had. I was genuinely tired. And I think my father as well.

As my mentors tell me - honor God. Let go of the outcome. God is sovereign. Not the easiest, but as Psalm 100 preached in church today says - it's to know that In His presence, to enter in to His gates with thanksgiving. Everytime I show gratitude, I enter His presence.

[benjywong]

I've always thought that it was cruel that God asked Saul to wipe out all the Amalekites, including elderly, women and children.

Yet, these people were given 400 years to repent and change and not hold to the vestiges of the past. What their parents did they can choose not to continue.

It is also where Saul was commanded by God, and partial obedience led to preserving Agag's line towards Haman 500 years later, where almost the entire Jewish people were wiped out in Persia.

Enter Esther, who was a direct descendant of Saul, who reversed what her forefather did and finally crushed the Amalekites, by obeying God and risking her life.

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Deny yourself, take up His cross, and follow me

Salvation doesn’t cost us anything

But following Him will cost us everything

The cost is still absolute. It is our lives.

[benjywong]

Scripture Alive

I have a feeling that most Christians never live the Bible because they tend to position themselves from a position of strength, similar to a Pharisee.

And you can see the difference in how Jesus reaches out to the sinner compared to many Christians today.

He doesn't reach out in anger. He doesn't quote scripture and declares dread. He reaches out mainly in tenderness.

For the Christian who has gone through trials and tribulations will read the Bible very differently.

In the past, you can recite it from memory and think that you are spiritually superior.

But when you go through the tough times in your life, you feel what the person who wrote that felt. The grief, the heaviness, the regret, the feeling of letting God down, and not being able to help yourself up, except through His strength.

And that is something that you cannot fully grasp in the verse until you have been put in the fire.

And usually in the fire, we fail the verse. That is where you build the humility to know that it is not you, and it is God.

For the Christian who has gone through the fire, has a heart that is tender towards others. This is where Psalm 51:17 comes true - "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."

Psalm 51 was written by David after Bathsheba. No greater sin than to blemish the marriage supper of the lamb. Yet, a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.

[benjywong]

The Valley of the Shadow of Death

When King David was writing verse 3 of Psalm 23.

This is something that comes to every person - young or old.

It doesn't only come when you are at death's door.

But if I were to put it - as someone who has suffered from what the world calls mental illness - from anxiety disorder and depression.

It is anxiety and depression. When you feel that there is no other way out.

That is the valley of the shadow of death.

And in that point, for David to write that he will fear no evil and know that God is with him, and God's rod and staff comfort him to know that He is directing the way.

That is truly a very difficult thing to say, speaking from the perspective of someone who has been in this position before.

[benjywong]

When I am weak, then am I strong

After being in my own startup for a while, going through thick and thin, and pushing through survival, and now beyond survival and growth.

The tough part is to acknowledge God's hand in the process, when during the difficulties I felt like I was relying more on my own strength.

And when things go bad, let me remember that God who can do all things. He is the one who I can rely on.

[benjywong]

To be fully known, is to be fully loved

God, who has sent His son to save us and not condemn us, is on a quest to know us fully and love us fully.

For our secrets will not be cast aside in judgement but to be sanctified in love.

For God is not like us. He does not turn away in disgust. He is near to the brokenhearted.

[benjywong]

Loving People in Hard Times

Three key lessons for 2025, that I've tried but also failed so many timse

Surrendering fully to God in all things

Loving others that are unlovable

Getting intimate with God

A key thing is that I think I am found lacking when Christ returns. It's a constant reminder that I'm a work in progress, but I need to keep moving forward and growing.

The difficult and broken people in our lives are so difficult to love and so frustrating to be with. Yet God died for them.

[benjywong]

Fearing that our Expectations Won't Be Realised

I think the top of everyone's list, although most don't admit that this is the crux, is the fear of the future.

Or rather, the fear that God will not come through the way we hope.

And that is because we desire a sense of control. We oftentimes think that our ways of thinking and doing are better. And it is normal to think that as Paul says - that the things we are not to do, we do, and the things we ought to do, we don't do.

And at the end of 2025, may I be a lot more trusting, a lot better in surrendering my ambition, my life, my all to God.

To know that God may not come through the way that I hope, but that is ok.

Because God is sovereign above all things.

Having lived in Jakarta for such a long period of time, I realised that everyone is so consumed with the idea of looking good rather than actually being good.

The idea of success is looking successful instead of being successful.

The tendency to over exaggerate numbers, achievements, all make people sound so hollow, that I discount immediately what people mention.

For it is better to live a quiet life. A life that is more sustainable. Not having to change every whim and fancy out there.

[benjywong]

Jealousy, Envy and All in Between

I thank God that amongst all the bad things in the world that I'm prone to, I don't have much of a jealous bone in me.

Being predisposed to it is a bad thing, because I've seen how it consumes others, and how they also consume the relationship that you both once had.

And it makes me wonder. Because jealousy will only make others mad at you.

It makes me want to just be small, and focus on not showing too much of myself.

To be fully known and fully loved is something that is too difficult for any human relationship it seems. Perhaps only God can do that

[benjywong]

Glorying in the Lord

Gradually through life, this is one of the hardest things to do. It is easy to sit under the shelter and not engage with the world's issues and be in your ivory tower.

But it is another to go out into the fields. To the places you are called. To the destitute. To the mighty. To those who seemingly are the princes of this world, but have no peace in their hearts because the glory they seek for is their own.

They have made an idol of themselves and worship it day and night. Whether of the golden calf of money, or of power, status and ambition.

And that slowly eats at you until you forget what it means to glory in the Lord.

Thus it is absolutely true what 1 Corinthians 1 is saying. That God has chosen the base things of this world to confound the wise. That not many wise, mighty or noble are called.

That's because their hearts cannot accept another person apart from themselves.

And in the moments where I sit back and enjoy God's presence. Let me be found to have a heart that is like David, and not like Lot.

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2 Kings 17:33 They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence.

It’s so interesting that they feared God but yet they worshipped him not in the truth, and maybe in a half spirited way.

May I never fear God enough for me to not worship Him properly

[benjywong]

No Prophet is accepted in his own country

Luke 4:24-29 is a reminder that you will face opposition within the very people who support you - your family, your closest friends.

And that is not to say that you harden your heart and then build emotional barriers around yourself, or to say that you just do things intellectually without emotion and heart.

But it is to have the knowledge that you may not be accepted, and that people might be filled with wrath when you speak the truth.

And that applies to almost everything in life, from business, to trends to anything.

Sometimes it's better to reach out to strangers and to depend on strangers, than on your kith and kin.

[benjywong]

Songs that Uplift My Soul

I Run To Christ

My Jesus Fair

Come, Lonely Heart

His Robes for Mine

His Mercy is More

In Christ Alone

O Church, Arise

Here is Love

Yet Not I, But Through Christ in Me

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My heart burns within me

To be set alight by Jesus. To burn out for Him while resting in Him.

That’s the great contradiction. Because when you are a flame that’s burning brightly you tend to forget your source of oil. And it’s also hard to balance out that passion with resting in Jesus.

So Luke 24:32 sets a good reminder. That God will burn out the flame at times to bring us back to his fold. That God will send despair and the valleys that will mute this flame.

But God will show up. He will break bread. He will be that mysterious unexpected guest that we are looking for and set alight the flame again so that “my heart burns within me”.

May I heart burn out for God. While resting in Him

[benjywong]

5 loaves and 2 fishes

There is a hunger that can never be filled until God comes into your life.

No amount of food, fine dining or even the greatest heights of pleasure in the 7 deadly sins will give a brief respite to fill that gaping hole.

And thus this parable is a reminder that physically it will be fulfilled.

And spiritually you will be filled as well. There is no sin, there is no inadequacy that is greater than grace. It is not a willful call to sin. But a marvel that there is grace that is greater and infinitely bound.

May we continue to marvel at it similarly to how we marvel at the 5 loaves and 2 fishes. Shall these people waste the increasing output of the 5 loaves and 2 fishes just because Christ can make more?

For the focus is not in the wasting or in a tit for tat to be very careful that you don’t waste grace. It is in the focus of the relationship with God that you slowly surrender your all to Him. That you understand the full meaning of spiritual fulfillment. That there will always be something new to learn. Something new in terms of fellowship and communion that has not been attained.

That is fulfillment.

[benjywong]

Stock take March 2025

- exercise and workout

- hobbies and books and activities

- ask for help from people and start reaching out

- 100% attention on super dad and on Superbad when I’m not around

- future vision with wonder and excitement

- embrace pain and grief. Don’t block how you feel. Cry your heart out and annoy others

- don’t mask pain with anything unhealthy. no going back and relying on crutches and addictions

- no resentment. Bitterness. No carrying it around till you die