Harmony of Grace

Image Source:  Kevin Ku Life is full of new beginnings. Even when one chapter ends, another begins. Often, new beginnings are so exciting that we tend to rush into them without taking time to reflect on the journey before. Effective preparation involves two aspects: reflection and planning. “Improving your future requires study of the past; we learn traveling through life and especially from mistakes that provide lessons we should not repeat.” - Gandolfo (1983) At the end of every season, the best sports teams spend much time reflecting on the previous year. What went wrong? What did we do well? Where did we make mistakes? What could we have done better? After these questions have been asked, they can then plan ahead to improve on their performances the following season. Similarly, successful businesses consolidate their previous year's financial statements before drawing up a budget for the following year. If they rushed ahead and planned their future budget before ...

Image Source:  Daniil Kuzelev There is a scene in Herman Melville's famous Moby Dick where the whaling crew are pursuing the great white whale, Moby Dick, in the midst of a terrifying storm. The deck men are running around manically performing tasks, sweat mixing with sea water. Captain Ahab is screaming orders, swearing and adding to the confusion. The helmsman is battling the rough winds in order to keep the ship going true.  You can imagine the chaos. But in the midst of this chaos, there is one person on board who does nothing. No shouting. No labour. No panic. This person is the harpooner. In the middle or raging seas and terrifying winds, the harpooner remains calm amid the crashing and the cursing. He is quiet and poised, waiting. Then the author leaves us with this sentence: "To ensure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooners of this world must start to their feet out of idleness, and not out of toil." Wow. How of...

Image Source:  Aaron Burden I have taken a hiatus from updating my blog for the past 5 weeks. We have just had a mid-year break at the Seminary and upon some reflection, I decided that I would use this opportunity to have as much of a break as possible, not only from academic work and preaching, but also from writing my personal blog and basically doing anything productive at all. Usually during my academic holidays, I would use the extra free time to work on fun projects that I would not usually have time for during the term, such as writing or recording new music, helping out at my home church, catching up on reading, writing new material, etc. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I was forced into a situation where I was unable to do any of the above "holiday work" that I had intended to. A couple of days after arriving in East London, our family received the tragic news of my gran's passing.  I was devastated.  I had no motivation to do anything.  ...