On Leaning Onto God

Some belief model involving God.

Forbes made an interesting post about casting away negative attitude to think that someone will bail you out. It made sense when it told you that you should go and prepare yourself. Nobody can be guaranteed to be a permanent helper.

I have watched how a person sunk to bottom and his family (his own brothers) left him when he asked for financial support. He was the one that supported them when they were younger. But, because he made a failed financial decision, he was left alone.

He was a senior manager in a certain multi-national corporate when he left his job. He sought an entrepreneur path and tried to pave his way. Unfortunately, his initial attempts was a failure. He was frowned upon and left without a job.

And when he asked his brother to lend him money, he did not have it. Instead, he was getting lectured about bad decisions. He was insulted and labelled as a disgrace for his family. After all that, he was banned from his brother presence.

I have witnessed also a person who was prominent in his time. After his pension, one by one people left him until he was alone. No power he had left but stories of the past fascinating to hear.

You might be lucky to have people to be leaned on. Cherish them, because they will not be there forever. Time makes people change. There will be time when they will no longer support you.

But, the last part of the article was wrong.

Relying on God alone is the perfect answer. It was the wrong definition of "relying on God" that made it wrong.

Sometimes, I wonder why Christians attend ESQ with millions of Rupiah registration fee. I had one and the content similar to what the Bible already clearly stated. The difference is that they tried to make it universal by getting rid all the biblical symbol. Sometimes, because of the S (Spiritual), they made a part with Islamic quotation because most of Indonesian registered as Moslems.

You are a Pythagorean if you read the books of Pythagoras and took his words as a base for your philosophy. You are a Socialist if you have read any Karl Marx or any Socialist book and started act like one. You are a Hipster if you dress like one and deny all the mainstream.

But, you don't read the Bible, you don't act like what's written and you don't have compassion. How can you call yourself a Christian? (Christ disciple)

I know this phenomenon is not unique to Christianity but to any major religion. But, this is what Jesus told about that: [ESV]

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Relying on God means that you are listening to his advice and do all things accordingly.

Have you ever been a consultant?

As an IT staff on a big organization, I have. We made some rules to put the organization in one rhythm. We streamlined every decision based on Key Performance Indicators.

When a department wanted to have IT their infrastructure, we guided them. We let them know every interface that available to them based on their needs. We setup some rules to make them integrated nicely with existing system and made them play along nicely with every other existing.

Now, once in a while, there will be an arse that felt outsmart you and thought you as an incompetent for things that you have done in years.

This genius made his own solution and forced other to accept it. As expected, the system he developed screw up. To cover his position, he blame the IT Department.

Have you ever been in this position? Have you been blamed for things that out of your control? Have you ever been a person that was in charge yet not being able to execute things according to your strategy?

You know, you were told to held responsible of a certain part of your organization. You bet your integrity, your life and your pride onto that  something. You made routines and sharpening them so that each business process optimized.

Unfortunately, an arse in higher ups shortsighted. She circumvented the procedures and doing things according her own volition. Without the procedure, she done all to met her goal. The data became inconsistent and some part were broken. You were never been involved, yet you were forced to fix that mess because she used resources that was supposed to be in your responsibility.

Nobody wants to be responsible for mess that was not his/her doing.

Don't be an arse! If you never practice what God have teach you to do, don't blame him for bad things happens to you.

Well, at least that's what I have told to myself to accept my hardships. Sometimes, I screwed around. If I think again, those hard times was because of my own decision.

An interesting part of Bible told us this: [ESV, emphasized by me]

Thus says the Lord:
"Cursed is the man who trusts in man
    and makes flesh his strength,
    whose heart turns away from the Lord.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
    and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
    in an uninhabited salt land.
"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit."
The heart is deceitful above all things,
    and desperately sick;
    who can understand it?

Nobody understands about heart, even if it's self. I know that when we made a decision, sometimes our heart clouded our mind. We often rejected the result of many assessment. As "scumbag brain" meme told us, the brain done opposite things from what we ought to do.

When we took the initiative based on our own belief and not consulting to what is written in God's Guidance for Having Greater Life for Dummies (a.k.a Bible), we made a decision to be ourselves. We decide we play our own set of rules.

This is what curse means, God let you go as you are. It's like letting you programmed in C, you make your own memory allocation. So, when eventually you made a segmentation fault (accessing a memory that was not allocated) your life crash so bad.

But, here's what should be done when you rely on God: [ESV]

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
    fools despise wisdom and instruction.

You made God as a platform. You based your thoughts on the Words. Your assessment of what you should doing based on what is written. You train your heart and mind to be what ideal human described by it. You crave for it.

If you just think God will bail you out when you are screw up. Your thinking is like having an Insurance protection program but you don't pay for its membership. Cheap bastard! :-)