Kuala Lumpur November 2015 “Breathe Life"
01/11/15 03:32
What am I doing here? A little over a year ago I was busy in a nine to five job (well, ten to six plus to be more accurate) and teaching my team of nine how to manage the accuracy of data. Now I am married, sharing my time between Malaysia and the UK and basically doing nothing. Is this what retirement looks like? My time in the UK is spent tidying up my flat (ie removing the clutter collected over my lifetime as a single person) or visiting one of the preserved railway lines and taking photographs. The one thing life isn't here is boring. However in Malaysia I spend much of the time indoors as my body isn't designed for the heat and the mosquitoes here appear to have a hot line that alerts them to my presence as soon as I step outside. On the plus side there are many new things to experience and I've much to learn about the culture and the people here. Days here seem to drift by.
So here we are, late in 2015, sitting and wondering what on earth I am doing on the other side of the world, far from my friends and lifetime hobbies! Yani and I spend the mornings singing worship songs, praying and I finish the session by reading aloud two chapters from the New Testament. That is followed by a bit of lunch and an afternoon snooze before it cools down enough to go out for an evening walk and exercise. Not anything like what I had been doing for the past forty years. No wonder then that in those afternoons I would sit and think about how my life's journey had suddenly taken a very unexpected change of direction.
It was on one of those afternoons I found myself sitting alone and wondering what God had planned for me. After all that I had seen and experienced during the past year surely there must be some reason behind me being brought here but I wasn't expecting to get an answer to that. “Breathe life”. That thought came into my mind and I smiled. I think it was only a week ago we had been reading that chapter in the Gospel of John where Jesus raised someone from the dead. Then there was the story in Acts where Peter wakes a “sleeping” child or maybe I was thinking of the dry bones that Ezekiel had seen in the valley. I flicked the thought out of my mind but it came back again, “Breathe life”. What? “Breathe life into people”. I ran that back through my mind, what on earth am I thinking here and where did that thought come from. I kept pushing it away and it kept coming back like one of those irritating mosquitoes only at least I can squash them. I carefully considered its implications. Clearly I had no medical skills or expectation that I would be starting a healing ministry anytime soon so what was I thinking about.
So here we are, late in 2015, sitting and wondering what on earth I am doing on the other side of the world, far from my friends and lifetime hobbies! Yani and I spend the mornings singing worship songs, praying and I finish the session by reading aloud two chapters from the New Testament. That is followed by a bit of lunch and an afternoon snooze before it cools down enough to go out for an evening walk and exercise. Not anything like what I had been doing for the past forty years. No wonder then that in those afternoons I would sit and think about how my life's journey had suddenly taken a very unexpected change of direction.
It was on one of those afternoons I found myself sitting alone and wondering what God had planned for me. After all that I had seen and experienced during the past year surely there must be some reason behind me being brought here but I wasn't expecting to get an answer to that. “Breathe life”. That thought came into my mind and I smiled. I think it was only a week ago we had been reading that chapter in the Gospel of John where Jesus raised someone from the dead. Then there was the story in Acts where Peter wakes a “sleeping” child or maybe I was thinking of the dry bones that Ezekiel had seen in the valley. I flicked the thought out of my mind but it came back again, “Breathe life”. What? “Breathe life into people”. I ran that back through my mind, what on earth am I thinking here and where did that thought come from. I kept pushing it away and it kept coming back like one of those irritating mosquitoes only at least I can squash them. I carefully considered its implications. Clearly I had no medical skills or expectation that I would be starting a healing ministry anytime soon so what was I thinking about.