Sunday, March 18, 2007

one more

"two people. this is gold. two more people. he would've given me two for it. at least one. he would've given me one. one more. one more person. a person, stern. for this. one more. i could've gotten one more person i didn't."
- liam neeson as oskar schindler, schindler's list (1993)


last year, when i visited my old church in singapore, pastor larry played a movie clip showing a distraught oskar schindler lamenting the people he could have saved if only he sold his car and his swastika lapel pin, as the 1200 jewish factory workers he saved from certain death watched on.

one more, he cried. i could have saved one more.

---

a couple of days ago, a friend of mine told me that she didn't want to go to church because she doesn't feel comfortable there anymore.

my first reaction was to run through my head what i, or we, have done wrong. did i not call her often enough? should i have smsed her bible verses more regularly? perhaps i should have asked her out for lunch more than just occasionally. is it my fault that she's decided this is the end of the road of her walk with Christ?

on the other hand, i was greatly annoyed with her. i personally have no patience with people who require me to hold their hand all the way. i am perfectly fine with people who need help and are brave enough to ask for help. that's why, although it's incredibly emotionally draining, i find it so much easier to love them and spend time with them than people who expect constant prodding and borderline babying.

still, i'm reminded that God doesn't choose who He loves. it's human to only love people that i want to, follow up with the ones i like and hope that others will do the job with the ones that i'm not so willing to love.

but why wear bracelets with "WWJD" with them on it if you're not going to really give a thought to what Jesus would do? He certainly wouldn't have stopped caring about someone just because she has human flaws that annoy the heck out of Him. He didn't stop caring about us eventhough we are covered with the filth of sin.

i was thinking of asking another friend where he gets the energy to follow up with everyone, ask how they are, even when the answer is usually an unrewarding, "i'm ok" and a glare that says "stop pestering me, you nagging fool!", but i guess i already know what the answer is.

i'm sorry for letting you down by making you think that i don't care anymore. i'm sorry if any of us have given off hostile vibes. i hope you'll come back to church. but i also hope you don't think that it's about pleasing the leaders or getting a feel-good refill every saturday. i pray you'll see it's more than that.

you're important. you're one more that Jesus has paid the price for. there are no regrets over you, so don't paint yourself as if there are.

lishun at 5:19 PM

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