Having received a few feedback regarding certain entries in our competition, we feel we need to clarify a few things:
- This competition is based on each writer’s individual experience and provided they can testify to them being genuine, we consider all testimonies valid and eligible for running. We hold to the guideline that each writer is entitled to their own opinions about their experiences, and in their expression of said opinions.
- Currently, this is still part of an ongoing competition. As such, the articles listed on this page are still under the prerogative of each writer and Asian Beacon will not meddle in any way with any content by any writer. If we ever publish any articles under the name of Asian Beacon, we will clearly state our stand on our statement of beliefs.
- This competition is judged purely on the writer’s testimonies and not on the finer points of theology. While the competition is still ongoing, in all cases, and in line with our respect for each writer’s individual testimonies, we adopt a ‘spirit rather than the letter of the law’ approach to each writer’s testimony.
- The Asian Beacon team will endeavour to its utmost to be fair to all participants, without any discrimination, prejudice, or favoritism to any single participant.
- In all cases, the Asian Beacon team will hold true to the conditions we have outlined in our Terms and Conditions for the competition. You may find these terms on https://asianbeacon.org/writing-competition/
Asian Beacon would like to reiterate here that we are all members of Bible-believing churches and we hold to the evangelical creed. We thank those of you who have raised your concerns and hope this will help answer your questions.
What More Do You Want?
by Lai Sai Koon
I was hurting bad. I couldn’t understand why what I had dreaded so much had happened. Isn’t God a good God? Then why does He let bad things happen? What can be so good about depriving me of a husband and my children of a father? We had been married only 17 years, my youngest son was just 8 years old, my eldest daughter in her teens. Aren’t You the God with whom all things are possible, the Lord who heals all diseases and raises the dead ? What’s the point of believing, when my husband’s ashes are already cast into the sea, and all I have left are memories and tears ? Wouldn’t it have been so much better if You had healed him so that he could stand up in front of the whole church and testified how he was converted on the day he almost died and lived to experience Your miraculous power? What’s the use of him being dead? So I went on and on complaining, accusing, trying to come to terms with my loss.
I was just a “baby Christian” at that time, barely 3 years after my conversion from the traditional religion of my Chinese ancestors. Not that I was religious really, just going through the motions of “worshipping” gods I never knew or cared much about. I had thought Jesus was different; after all it was His name I heard as I stood in front of the Chinese altar that day, trying to pray, which led me to receiving Him into my life. That’s what all the pastors and cell-people kept telling me . I was supposed to pray and believe everything will be well. So to paraphrase the Jews in the days of Jesus, I asked the same question, “Could not You who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept my husband from dying?” What went wrong? It looked like cancer and death had the last say on my husband after all.
I remember I cried until I had no more tears left to cry, and there was just this dull ache in my heart, as if there was a heavy stone pressing me down. And then the voice came, “Child, what more do you want? I have given your husband the best.” No, it wasn’t a human voice in my ear, more like an impression that stirred my heart. I didn’t hear thunder roar, see lightning flash or a man in white or angels floating around. But I knew it was Jesus talking to me. So I talked back, “I want my husband. If you really are God, tell me where he is now. Give me a dream.”
Oh, the audacity of my answer. Looking back, I can only thank God for His love, grace and mercy in not zapping me with fire from heaven or giving me a big, tight slap then. He didn’t answer at all. But the next morning, my second daughter, all of 12 years old, tells me “Mummy, I had a dream”. The hair on my arms stood up. “What about?” “About daddy” “Where is daddy?” “I don’t know, but it looks like a happy place”. “What’s he doing?” “I don’t know.”
That was 18 years ago. My daughter doesn’t remember any of this. But I will never forget. Because for the first time in 40 odd years of life (then), I had a personal encounter with a very personal God who called me His “child”. What a beautiful term He used – I am His child ie He is my Father. I had never really ‘grasped’ the idea of God being our Father in heaven until then. To me, God is well, God… you know, the big guy who sits somewhere up there, and blesses you if you do all the “right” things. That was lesson no 1 – I can be doing all the right things in life and still get it wrong about God.
So it’s really true, what they say, Christianity is not a religion. It’s much much more than a set of rules and regulations, morals and ethics. God is not about going to church, singing nice songs , doing good deeds. That’s all externals. He is about meeting humans at our deepest point of need, when we are humble or desperate enough to acknowledge that need. Some of us – like me- need to be ‘whacked’ somewhat to come to the point of realisation when we finally “get it” that even if/when bad things happen, God is still good.
Which brought me to lesson no 2 – that my idea of “good” may not be exactly His idea of good. I couldn’t see past the pain of losing what to me then was the greatest love of my life. But on hind-sight, I now know the truth of what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His (ie not my) purpose. It’s not an easy lesson to learn for me, as I have always been used to having my own way, doing my own thing, living my own life as I consider fit. In fact I am still learning how to let go and let God in all circumstances, trusting that He really does know best. He has proved faithful without fail all these years.
Back then though, it was all about me, my broken heart, my desires. There were many times when the tears would flow again, especially when I looked at my children, so young then. I remember once thinking to myself, I could never be a father to them; I don’t know how. Immediately the voice came into my heart, “I am Father to the fatherless, and a defender of widows”. Only later did I discover this is Psalm 68:5. I have held, and continue to hold on, to this promise given to me, some 20 years down the line, even when my children are all grown-up now.
It took me awhile to figure out what He meant by my husband having obtained “the best ”, to understand physical death is not the end, and that there really is something more after that, whether or not we believe it, even if we can’t see or prove any of it in the natural realm of things on earth.
That “happy place” my daughter saw in her dream is where my husband is, where all who call on the name of the Lord will be. When things get rough and tough in this world, as they are wont to be, especially in these uncertain and unprecedented times we live in, I recall Jesus comforting His disciples in John 14:1-3 Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
When the end – when my end- comes, as all things must, what better place can there be, but in my Father’s house? I call it home, sweet home.
