The 10 Commandments of Dating (Part 2)

Dating Commandment IV:

Thou shalt not isolate!
Often times we saw ourselves or our friends disappear after they got into a relationship. Vanished and never to be found. This is actually is pretty unhealthy, for a relationship to be healthy we need feedback from people that we trust and care about our best interest.


Dating Commandment V:
Thou shalt stand firm in thy faith!
NO MISSIONARY DATING!
What is that? It is a long term relationship with a non-believer hoping that someday we can change them to be a Christ follower. Only they and God can change them.
Please don't fall in love with someone who is not in love with your First Love, Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul warned the believers in Corinth about this.
"Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?" (2 Cor 6: 14-15)
When 2 cattle are yoked together, they will lift each other's load to go forward. The stronger cattle will actually carry the weaker cattle in the same yoke. Now imagine if the two cattle have unequal yoke, one will go to the left and one will go to the right, one will drag the other, imagine the frustration.

Even a relationship between two believers, we need to know where each other is in their spiritual journey. Ask deep questions about their faith journey in first 1-3 dates to find out about how they accepted Christ, how is their serving life, their prayer life, etc.

Couple with same faith that serve together and pray together will have a better chance of success in their marriage.

If you caved in to compromise about your faith in your relationship, there might be some underlining issues that you need to ponder and address. Issues such as acceptance, neediness, etc.


Dating Commandment VI:
Thou shalt learn to fight fair!
FIGHT IS INEVITABLE!
It is not a question of if, it is a question of when.

Asses yourselves on how you handle conflict:
Is it:
1. Withdrawal?
Avoid conflict at all cost, passive, no talking about it. This is Unhealthy way.
2. Give-In Style?
The people pleaser. This requires no courage but high on consideration for other. This is also Unhealthy way.
3. Stand Your Ground?
My way or the highway. This requires big courage but low consideration for other. You could win the battle but could lose the relationship. This is also Unhealthy way.
4. Compromise?
Let's meet each other halfway. This requires lots of courage and has high consideration for other. Be honest to each other. This is a healthy way.
5. Collaborative?
Our way. This requires lots of courage and has the highest consideration for other. This is the BEST way.

If you made mistakes, this is a very BAD way to apologize:
"I'm sorry you feel that way..."
"I apologized, now your turn."
This is pretty insincere apologies.

We are not a mind reader, therefore the great need to communicate. We don't know the motive when our loved one made the offence.

"...bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do." (Colossians 3: 13)

When you like to mend your relationship with your love one, you should say these 3 things sincerely:
1. I'm sorry. (Not, I'm sorry, but...)
2. Please forgive me, when you ready.
3. I forgive you (if the other is asking for forgiveness).

...to be continued.

The Dark Side Of Halloween

The church that I went to when I was in college had a strong believe against Halloween. One of their main income was from a thrift store, yet during Haloween season, they wouldn't sell any related Halloween accessories and chose to loose thousands of dollars of their sales by doing what they believe is right. It trully got me thinking about Halloween and made me do a deeper research about it.

History of Halloween
Back to the ancient religion of the Celtics (Ireland), there was a celebration called Samhain, the time when the division between the natural and supernatural became very thin, the order of the universe is suspended, and the spirits of the dead move freely among men. The priests who led the rituals generally offer sacrifices (crops, animals, & sometimes humans), in order to placate (meredam kemarahan) the gods and frightening away evil spirits. In the 7th century, as the influence of Christianity spread into Celtic lands, Pope Boniface IV introduced All Saints' Day, to replace the festival of the dead, thus became All Hallows' Eve ('hallow' means 'saint').

The origins of trick-or-treat was the supreme night of demonic jubilation. Spirits of the dead would rise out of their graves, and frightened villagers tried to appease (menenangkan) them by offering gifts. They're feared that the spirits would harm them or destroy their property. They wear masks and blackening the face with soot were originally ways of hiding themselves from the spirits of the dead. The Jack-o-lantern (pumpkin festival) is the ancient symbol of a damned soul. Pumpkins were cut with faces representing demons and was originally intended to frighten away evil spirits. They would have been left outside the home to burn through the night.

Witches are dominant themes of the holiday and are really just one side of a modern revival of paganism. Halloween represents the beginning of the witches year. At this time the power of the underworld is unleashed, and is considered the best time to contact spirits. The apostle Paul said Witchcraft is one of the acts of the sinful nature and those who practice it will not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:16-21; Revelation 22:15).


What's Christians Got To Do With It?
As believers, we are called to "Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil. [1 Thesalonians 5:21-22] Who can deny that virtually all of the symbols of Halloween are evil? Witches, monsters, ogres, ghosts, goblins and demons all portray evil. Christians are to "... have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." [Ephesians 5:11]

Is Halloween just another innocent holiday that doesn't harm anyone? Should churches compromise to the culture? "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." [Romans 12:2]"For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?" [2 Corinthians 6:14, 15]

When the world celebrates the Festival of Samhain and the powers of darkness by masquerading as evil creatures or decorating our homes, schools, businesses and churches with occult symbols, Satan is glorified. The sort of practices celebrated on Halloween are what defiled the ancient nations [Leviticus 18:24-30].

The Israelites were warned against such practices when they entered the Promised Land.Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God. The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the LORD your God has not permitted you to do so. [Deuteronomy 18:10-14]

Halloween is a serious business for Satanists!! Some may say, "But we only do this in fun, we don't practice witchcraft," those things that represent Satan and his domain cannot be considered "for fun".

Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

Wake up Christians!! Halloween is the night of evil and we, as believers, should have nothing to do with it.We are all accountable for our choices, ignorance is no excuse. The choice is up to us...

Encouragement

One of the ways people improve is by seeking others' opinion. It's usually after one person finishes a task when he/she asks for feedback. A feedback can be positive or negative, and usually it depends on how the person actually did.

Say, the person looking for the feedback is A.
If I think A does a good job, especially in comparison to others, I will say, "Congratulations!! You did such a great job!" or "Wow! That was amazing!" or "I am so proud of you!" Plus, I will say all that will full excitement.

If I think A does an ok job, I will say, "Hey, good job!", or "That was nice!", or "You certainly have trained hard for it!" And I probably smile while saying that.

If I think A does a not-so-good to awful job, I will probably say things in the line of: "Good job, but you can do (this part) better" or "Nice try, why don't you do (this part) (in a different way) next time." Sometimes, I don't say anything at all, just to avoid A getting discouraged.

Now, I would like to first limit the scope of this reflection to cover A's actions that are not morally/spiritually related, but just ordinary, daily routines or work. And I want to bring this up in the matter of Encouragement and Appreciation. I used to be pretty thrifty in giving those. I would only say "Great" if it's really great, and most of the time, things are merely "Ok".

It was about two years ago when I first experienced first-hand the power of encouragement and praise. It was the first time I did something and everybody threw rains of compliments, -even though- I know I did ok, not great. But instantly I realized how encouraging it was, and how happy I became. In this group, even when one of us made mistakes, others would focus on his/her motivation and thus give lavish and sincere appreciations. To this day, I have never got negative review, yet still continuously improving in what I do. In a way, the compliments make me try to live up to the high expectation.

I used to argue that this technique won't work all the time. In some cases, we should bring up the mistakes, being hopeful that the person will correct it next time. Sometimes though, we fall into being too focused on the problem and sound accusative, thus we fail to help the person to improve. So, what should we do?

Recently I am reading the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. It is a great book, which I definitely recommend you to read, too. As soon as I finish it, you can borrow it :).
There are multiple chapters in the book that discuss "how to be nice and criticize others at the same time." I pick only two chapters to get these two rules:

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation
2. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly

Note that it asks for "honest" appreciation, not faked praises that sound lame and the other person will surely notice it. One way to look at it is: when we make mistakes, we still like to be appreciated for what we have done, especially if we have put effort on it or are struggling in areas that outsider are not aware of; and we definitely do not mind being encouraged to do even better.

This book is full of examples, many of which are too long to quote here. So I pick these shorter ones, quoted exactly as in the book:

Many people begin their criticism with sincere praise followed by the word "but" and ending with a critical statement. For example, in trying to change a child's careless attitude toward studies, we might say, "We're really proud of you Johnnie, for raising your grades this term. But if you had worked harder on your algebra, the results would have been better."
In this case, Johnnie might feel encouraged until he heard the word "but." He might then questioned the sincerity of the original praise. To him, the praise seemed only to be a contrived lead-in to a critical inference of failure.
This could be easily overcome by changing the word "but" to "and." "We're really proud of you Johnnie, for raising your grades this term, and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term, your algebra grade can be up with all the others."

For the first few days of the work, when Mrs. Jacob returned from her job, she noticed that her yard was strewn with the cut ends of lumber. She didn't want to antagonize the builders, because they did excellent work. So after the workers had gone home, she and her children picked up and neatly piled all the lumber debris in a corner. The following morning she called the foremen to one side and said, "I'm really pleased with the way the front lawn was left last night: it is nice and clean and does not offend the neighbors." From that day forward the workers picked up and piled all the debris to one side, and the foremen came in each day seeking approval of the condition the lawn was left in after a day's work.

I started thinking about this not while reading from the bible, but I'm sure the bible talks about encouragement and praises. Here are some verses that I think are relevant:

1 Thessalonians 5:11
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

Proverbs 15:2
The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of the fool gushes folly.

Ephesians 4:29
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

I myself am still learning to apply this in my interaction with other people. So far it has helped me to be more careful with my choice of words, try to look at other people from their positive sides, and just be supportive to them.

The Ten Commandments of Dating (Part 1)

Some of us is dating now, thinking about dating or just done with the whole dating thing... I want to share what I learned last wednesday at church. As a singles group, I hope that this will be beneficial for all of us to learn how we are as a Christian should date. No doubt that the Christian view of dating is different that the world view of dating. Don't let the world teach you theology.

Relationship and dating, they all start with YOU. No one else can make you happy, whole or complete. You must be solid and complete all by yourself.
Do you know who you are?
Do you feel good about yourself?
Do you have a solid sense of worth and value?
REMEMBER – It all starts with you!

Dating Commandment I:
Thou shalt get a life!
Pursue your life now, don’t put it off to the future.
Pursue your dream and goal in life now. Some people put their life on hold until they found the one. If I met someone then…If I got married, then…If I owned a house, then…If I found the perfect job, then…You could be missing the best years of your life. You could be missing the blessing that God has in store for you.


Dating Commandment II:
Thou shalt have the same values!
Find out and write down what would be your values.
Figure out what are your non-negotiables and what are your negotiables in a relationship.
Don’t let your non-negotiables be your negotiables!

Examples of values:
- Relationally intimate with God and other people
- Family oriented
- Spiritually mature
- Sexually pure
- Servanthood
- Financially mature
- Committed to growing
- Playtime (Fun !)
- Active in church

Find out also if the person that you like has good characters mentioned in Galatians 5: 22:
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-control.

Test these characters in that person, observe how they relate and treat other people, observe if you can see these characters manifested in their life.

Don’t try to change a person later in the relationship! (either they have these characters or they don’t).


Dating Commandment III:
Thou shalt go deep to build a foundation!
(Relational Intimacy, not physical intimacy)

Communication! Communication! Communication!

Build a strong foundation in a relationship through communication.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What qualities draw you to this person?
- What is the level of sharing in this relationship?
- Do you feel safe? Can you be honest? Open? Able to be silly or serious? Able to be comfortable?
There are more to come and I will try to be a better learner and to take better notes to share with everybody.

(To be continued….)

Dog Theology

What is it about a wiener dog that we love so much? Is it the long snout, the long droopy ears, the big paws and short legs? Or is it the bossy domineering attitude despite the petite profile? One thing for sure though that puppy dog loves to see its master comes home, excitingly wagging its tail and all. It’s been waiting patiently all day for the master to return and together taking a stroll in the neighborhood. The dog loves spending time at its master’s feet, being around, spending time with its master and riding in a car, shotgun, leaving a trail of snout marks on the window. What a loyal creature…(Although an intermittent whining made me thought that the proper name for it should be a whiner dog).

A dog will think: “Wow, you feed me, you take care of me, you love me, wow, you must be god.” Unlike cat that thinks: “Wow, you feed me, you take care of me, you love me, wow, I must be god.” (Cat lovers, please don’t send me emails, and yes, you should be ashamed of yourselves…haha).

Why am I telling you a dog story? Maybe because I just saw a picture of a wiener dog on my calendar, or maybe because I want to draw a parallel to that story. I thought, wow, if only I have that passionate desire to spend times with my Master, the LORD of the universe every chance I got, to have the passion to go home and right away reading and feasting on God’s word. One day I’m passionate about God, other day not so much…I feel that I need to learn from the dog theology that I need to love much more, worship much more and serve much more the God that has lavished me with unending blessing and love.