GLOW Mission 1 : God's Reflection

After returning home, I have been working on sharing God's miracles. It has taken me a long time to put together my scribbles from the SOAP (Study Observation Application Prayer) journal. Finally I decided to start this series call "GLOW - God Love Our World". It consist of 5 parts of mission lesson I learnt from My Amazing Race in China. 

• God's Reflection
• Trust in God
• When You Can't Handle it All 
• Giving My Very Best
• Why Focus Is So Important

God's Reflection
There is a saying that goes "You may the be only Bible someone ever reads". This means a lot of people will never actually pick up a Bible and read about God. They will judge what is in the book by how you are living it out, yes, people are getting their understanding of God just by watching you. (Linda Bailey)

This statement is indeed true, I encounter many situation both in Sanmenxia and Tibet.

A mum and her daughter (a young volunteer dancer) approached me in the middle of the Sanmenxia farewell celebration. They asked me where I came from and if I was a Christian, I thought to myself probably the pendant I was wearing around my neck was exposed (but it was winter and I was wearing a lot of layers of clothes and thick scarf so how could they tell), they asked a lot of questions and of course I was happy to answer all their doubts. They also told me about themselves, I realised why they were interested to talk, yes I look different from the locals but I also believe they probably noticed my act of kindness with the children.

"Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, 

and somehow we will never be the same person again." 

I was stuck in a long bus ride with my tour guide, heading back to Lhasa, we had ample of time on our hands, we started talking in both English and Mandarin. She told me about her family and showed me pictures of her cute son, I talked about my trip around other parts of China (she had never travel anywhere outside of Tibet) and I saw the opportunity to show her some photos of the children from the welfare centre. Other passengers on the bus started to join in the conversation and ask her what I said, she became my translator. We even started discussing about religion, she gave me quizzes on the names of Buddha statues, Dalai Lamas, history of temples, palace and monastery. At first I struggle a bit to remember it all, but as a tourist I respect her effort and started paying attention. Finally we started sharing our perspective on life and we had a lot of questions. The bus ride turn out to be a fun experience and a memorable journey.

Looking back at the conversation, I notice we were both hungry for God, we believe that there will always be hope, we hold on tightly to our own faith and we wait patiently for opportunity/ our calling. Somehow I find it amazing that I meet random strangers and connected with them in such a short period of time. Although we were raised in different countries, cultural background and religion teachings, at the end, we are not much different after all. 

Lesson: Imagine if our life's reflected the character of God so closely that every time someone saw us they instantly thought of God. That is what our life's should be like whether the words we say or the things that we do, we should act in such a way when people see us they experience the love and grace of God.