Monday, September 04, 2006
thot i'd share a little of what struck me during qt. haha i think blogging, like talking it out with someone, has this amazing way of helping me integrate and internalize things i'm learning. heh it's also a great platform for pple reading it to post comments that question/agree/disagree/challenge what i've posted coz i like being sharpened that way :) so toille, who thinks a lot i know, ericsoraus, who i think reads this from time to time, and whose insights and perceptiveness i admire and respect...and whoever out there lah i guess coz i dont really know who reads but no matter. :) heh shan't push it coz some pple just dont like leaving comments which is fine! haha and most importantly i guess, it serves as a form of accountability coz pple who read what i've wrote can ask me how i've been doing in this area and that which i've shared. haha what's even more challenging is how i don't know who reads and therefore who's seeing if i'm walking my talk (or blogging) right? so it means i've gotta endeavor to live it out daily, and in all aspects of my life. haha
anyway, tt's not really the point of this post. what is, is from what i read from "Ordering Your Private World". Read the chapter on The Better Man Lost and it struck me hard. the gist of it is the need to discipline our minds to think harder and wider, to question more critically, to be more perceptive and analytical, and to go beyond what we already know and what influential people say. "Thinking is the amazing capacity God has given the human being to discover and observe the stuff of creation, to compare and contrast each of its parts, and, when possible, to use them properly so as to reflect the glory of the Creator." In this light, Provers 25:2 never made more sense: "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search a matter out."
And i think reading about giving my best and using my mind for His glory couldn't have come at a better time. It's kinda served as a gentle rebuke and motivation simultaneously. As i look back, I am humbled again to see how generous and amazing God has been all this while. I honestly, truly know I'm not smart or analytical. Trust me, i'm not just saying this coz i'm chinese and asian and tt kinda crap. i know i'm not coz i've been around some of the nation's brightest and smartest and i know i'm nothing like them at all. seriously. i know God has blessed me exceedingly beyond what i deserve and i've achieved way more than i am capable of, not coz i'm smart or capably, but solely because of His grace. and as conscious i am of that, i've often taken that for granted. I pride myself in giving off my best but i've been made to realize that sometimes, my best ain't really the best. which is an interestisng insight i've gained today. haha for example, I've always said i hate reading so i used to avoid books like a plague. so i miss out a lot on learning new things coz i'm lazy that way. i tend to gloss over things i don't know about and not put myself in situations where i know i don't know much about instead of asking people who do know or reading to find out for myself.
MacDonald writes excellently about the dangers of ignorance, or rather, the insular Christian:
"The unthinking Christian does not realize it, but he is dangerously absorbed into the culture about him. Because his mind is untrained and unfilled, it lacks the ability to produce the hard questions with which the world needs to be challenged. The challenge for the modern Christian in a secular society may be to ask prophetic questions before there is going to be an opportunity to provide Christ-oriented answers."
And that hit me, coz if i really want my ISM and thesis to be relevant to the field and add to the value of social work, then i better be thinking harder, asking better questions, seeking out the gaps in services and policies, reading more widely, hungry to learn more, and pushing myself harder to produce a work that will not only add the the body of research, but one that will surface hard questions and Christ-centered answers to some of our nation's social issues. and it's not good enough to be competent and well-versed in issues that are directly related to my area of research, but to go beyond that to read more, learn more, know more.
Harry Blamires, who wrote "The Christian Mind", asks where are the Christians with minds sharp enough to confront a culture that steadily drifts away from God, and calls for people who think "Christianly" about great moral issues..and I wanna grow to become such a Christian. If i'm truly interested in social and family policy, then it's time to grow a lot more intellectually. and the best kind of thinking, according to MacDonald, which i cannot agree more with, is accomplished when it is done in the context of reverence for God's kingly reign over all creation. for only then, will one face less danger of being puffed up by accumulated knowledge and be able to build others up in love.
ok so now i'm ready and inspired to plow thru more books and articles for my ism and thesis today. :) eeks. what a loooong post.
