The Truth about Truth

I've finally made plans and am going to the gym tomorrow! Trying my best to run, cycle and swim over an hour and a half after cell at the club.
Been feeling ridiculously lethargic and tired throughout the week. I feel like a punctured tyre... I am also tempted to give up saving money properly since I crave comfort food more than usual now.
Failing to get up refreshed in the morning irks me the most, and I don't feel too good when I don't go back home for dinner often too.
It's not a chore to be home, it's just that work takes up most of my time and all I really want is to be around other friends with new perspectives of things.
Spending time with my friends is very therapeutic for me, and I try to reserve the bulk of the weekend for my parents.
Still, the second season of HFTH has been going on pretty well and I hope it will be recognised as a labour of love. And love demands sacrifice - I'm pretty proud of the team, since we have finished conducting research interviews with all the important experts we'd like to have on our show (in exchange for a teeny bit of sleep).
I get a little peeved about some things from time to time, especially since I don't take the condescending tone very lightly, but as long as the project goes fine - all's well in the world.

What I have been reminded all week is this: A pet peeve goes a long way, but there really is no necessary cause for dramatic action to be taken. Self-control, that's the word.
I'd advise people in this situation "tahan" but really, giving it to God in prayer is way healthier and satisfying for the soul.
I haven't been focusing on my spiritual walk very much over these two weeks and I sometimes lapse back into temptations of the flesh. I get angry and restless over nothing, and I even become too tired to cry.
I realise that this happens because I'm relying on MY own strength and not God's.
As D has told me, and this is something we as Christians all know: "Only a renewed mind can cause that change."
And I understand her completely because that change has happened before - yet all I did was to waddle about in temptation and eventually stumbled.
I can't emphasize on how simple it is to go to God in prayer and the power behind it - I could never explain this to a non-Christian fully but only ask him to take that step of faith to believe.
Even as I type all this down, I am remembering a portion of the book I have been studying:

"Christianity is often scorned as the pariah among the religions of the world and considered by its detractors to be controversial because modern learning mocks the very notion of truth as absolute. The Christian faith is often castigated because the comtemporary mind-set is infuriated by any claim to ideational elitism in a pluralistic society. How dare one idea be claimed as superior to another? After all, we are supposed to be a multicultural society: Should not truth also come in different dress?...

One surprising illusion under which the modern critic of Christainity lives is the belief that Christianity is the only system of belief that is EXCLUSIVISTIC. This assumption reveals a significant ignorance of all of the major world-views present today. In reality, EVERY system is implicitly excluvistic...

Let me therefore reiterate that truth, by definition, will always be exclusive. Indeed, Jesus claimed such exclusivity. Had He not made such an assertion, He would have been unreasonably implying that truth is all-inclusive, which it cannot be."

My friend once asked me, "Li Ling, is there something wrong with me? Why do you and R understand Christianity? But I don't."

I still remember that question up till now because it made her feel left out. It wasn't merely about the topic we were discussing, but it was because she saw the way we spoke about it. I am not exaggerating, because many times when people who love God talk about Him, they are honestly and truly engrossed, passionate and to a certain extent, mesmerizing - not in terms of their speech, but it is their spirit pouring out and speaking about these things that have changed lives and reconciled brokenness amongst people and themselves.

Everything that the author wrote is true. It is the harsh truth - that truth itself IS exclusive. And understanding it means having to take the initiative to go find out. This is something that has been on my mind for very long, and all I can really do is to take the time out to learn how I may explain Christianity to people such as my friend and to be even more sensitive to them. I couldn't give her an answer.

But if she were to ask me that now, I'd tell her that Sure, God has rules, but notice how they are good rules. He also allows us to bend them, tweak them, not abide by them and even defile them. We have Free Will. But "(11) here is a trustworthy saying:

If we died with him,
we will also live with him;
(12) if we endure,
we will also reign with him.
If we disown him,
he will also disown us;
(13) if we are faithless,
he remains faithful,
for he cannot disown himself."

-- 2 Timothy 2:11-13

Verse (13) means - for He cannot deny himself, meaning that God's Word has not been spoken falsely, and it is a double assurance following from "He remains faithful" because it is a Promise and is the absolute, unchanging truth.
There is nothing that can change God's character. That's how faithful He is.
And I was also thinking about how people to react to things like: "God is crazy for you."
And you would think that the person telling you that is crazy - but watch what happens when people finally observe God's relentless pursuit and how hard He fights for them when they are at desperate circumstances in their lives. And to just observe that for yourself.
And this, therefore, debunks the myth "God helps those who help themselves first."
No. I disagree.
Even a soldier who surrendered to Christ in the middle of battle disagrees. This is a short gist of a poem written by an American soldier and given to Ravi Zacharias, the author of this book I've been reading:

"He tells of a life-defining night when he was caught in the crossfire of a battle hat raged around him and a war that he could not silence within him. The one, a conflict of ideology for which the weapons of warfare now thundered forth their fury; the other, a struggle of the heart and mind as they dealt with matters of the soul. It was to that inner embattlement he directed his attention...But now, from his shellhole as he saw the starlit sky, he felt the skeptic had not called a spade a spade. In silence he peacefully surrendered to the Lord whose love he could resist no longer, and with the triumph of the soul, he said, "Now that I have met you I'm not afraid to die.""

I honestly love how God meets us in our desperate circumstances. It doesn't mean He's only going to meet us then, but it is THERE where we feel the need for God in our lives is the strongest and most impactful. That's why many who have turned to Christ have admitted that death was the sweetest experience they had ever had in their walk with the Christian God.

The Atheist has facts that prove God does not exist - but remember that man changes his theologies according to his desires, and that the Atheist is also not able to prove the absence of a Creator and a good, loving God. I truly agree with the author that it is then up to the non-Christian to ask him/herself these few questions:
1) Can Man live without God?
2) Where is Atheism when it hurts?
3) What gives life meaning?
4) Who is Jesus, and why does it matter?
And I believe the non-Christian will find that Christianity is "logically consistent", "empirically adequate", "experientially relevant" and passes both the "Undeniability test" (the test for truth) and the "Unaffirmability test" (the test for falsehood) - even when compared to other religions.
It is the tedious part of the search that people cannot bear. So get this book!
Wow, I am actually promoting this book. Anyway, it's a good book. Brutally honest -everything the modern mind needs. You should read it.
A simple blog post turned out to be ...pretty long.
tata!

This afternoon my director and I walked into the Freemason Lodge at Coleman Street; I leading the way with big struts, not knowing how intrusive I might have been. But that boldness paid off.
We were treated to cups of coffee in an underground bar furbished with polished, leathered Chesterfields, rows of trophies glinting under spotlights in glass cabinets and stylish mirrored arcs as a serious but polite atmosphere filled the room. Lana Del Rey would have started playing at any point in time.
It was only after Brian began chuckling at a little joke I cracked to ease the tension that I finally felt at ease and unsuspected.
They are, after all, Freemasons. If they were to be given another name, it'd be under the label of Secret Society or as Zen put it, an angmoh Keng Teck Whay.
We started sharing about our documentary with them and they answered a few questions we had about Freemasonry.
To Zen, it was as if he had found his true religious calling - except Freemasonry isn't a religion to begin with. He transformed into the ultimate fanboy and began questioning how, as a Freemason, you have to be loyal to your country above all else. Later he told me that the Lees have dual citizenships, and that LKY is too, rumoured to be a Freemason.
I was equally intrigued as well, though I wondered about the loopholes in secret balloting, why the rooms for private meetings were called "Temples" and the cons of keeping too 'quiet' when it comes to heading charitable acts in society.
The General Manager had eyes that saw through my soul. I tried challenging him to a stare down. He obviously didn't play along.
He said, "we do things in quiet - that's different from being secretive." I nodded.
"We have a Book of Constitution. That proves that we have never practiced cultism, and will never be [a cult]."
Brian went, "Mm."

I'd like to film a scene at the Freemason Lodge or even write a play about fraternities.
"Fraternity" stars the Christian, the Muslim, the Buddhist, the University Graduate and the Politician. And Death, just like the lady in The Map Maker's Sorrow except she's less seductive. She's sexy, but she doesn't seduce.
What link does it have to Freemasonry, I don't know.
But what works is that we don't know about Freemasonry either. (c o n t r a d i c t o r y)
The male characters are upright but generally passive-aggressive men while Death is the emotional, acidic opposite.
I am first to find out what 'Hiram' means.
I have goosebumps. I am on a thinking roll!
*chews on bagels for thought*