20 Years Blogging

I just realised that I had gone past 20 years in blogging. I started middle of May 2006 in my first pastorate and three months ago I concluded my fourth pastorate. It’s been quite a ride. I stopped blogging for a whole year, perhaps when I turned 70 I will say why, but since returning as Revelation is Real 2.0 it is now in the 14th year since 2012.

Between Times

I am now between the times of having completed a new book and planning to start another book project. I am amazed at the grace of God helping me write to a level that I am happy about, more over in Malay which is not my primary language, though it has been my main language of ministry for 31 years and six months. So people consider me proficient in both languages, not something unusual in Malaysia, though probably very few who are bilinguals like myself could write books and theological books for that matter.

21 Ringgit Left

Yesterday when I went out of a Mall’s carpark my debit card was rejected for insufficient funds. Today I banked in RM200.00 as I normally used the card for small disbursements like car park fees. What if I did not have any money in my other accounts? I realized in my life that for nearly 40 years now, I lived by faith. In 1991 I did not know if I could survive keeping my law firm running as business was bad. Even in those bad times, I managed to pay the salaries of my two workers, rent for office and house and car loan. I never owed any money that I could not repay in time.

Middle of Time

As there are no specific commitments for me in recent weeks, sometimes I was caught unaware of time, something rare for me as I have a habit looking at the time, keeping a diary of events far ahead and planning ahead at all times. I have been so occupied with the book that sometimes I did not care when I slept and when I got up. It could be as early 3 am (going to bed early) and by 4am I would be going about writing, checking and editing my book until late morning before going for early lunch or brunch.

To what End?

When Jesus stood before Pilate, and challenged to say whether he was a king, Jesus' response was telling: For this or to this end, I was born, which means he was born to be king and to witness to the truth (John 18). As I am in my early 60s now, perhaps it is not too late to reflect, though I once said if one was in his or her 40s and know not what to do, then it is surely time to gather oneself and make oneself useful so that one's life could be meaningful. It is never too late to reflect. Even now in the past three months, I began to reflect - to what end was I born? What are my primary gifts?

Manuscript Ready

As expected, as I said about writing a commentary on Galatians in 2022, completing, revising and editing a book for publication is like labour pains, like giving birth to a child, which pains can last for a few weeks as I took much longer this time round to make corrections for my commentary on John's Gospel. I am not sure whether my current printers will agree to printing my book this time, let's pray and commit it into the Lord's hands. Many things changed in the last two years.

Writing Books & Travel

I don't know how many percentage of the population in Malaysia are authors or writers. Perhaps 0.001%, though in United Kingdom, there are hundreds of new books published each day, close to 200,000 books a year for a population of just over 60 million people. Self-publishing has also increased many times over a decade with the ease of computing, self-upload, e-books on Amazon and Apple etc. For me, I serve a very tiny market of Malay speaking and reading audience in this small corner of the earth, in North Borneo. A few Sarawakians and West Malaysians also buy my books, but I have not gone on a book tour as yet.

Book Culture in Sabah

I am amazed how little value is given to books even among Christians who are known to be people of the Book (the Bible). With the invention of smartphones and other techs, I think bible reading has actually gone down, with nowadays people don't even bring a printed Bible to church. Well and good if they consistently read their online Bibles. So over the past 7 years since I started writing in earnest, I get all kinds of responses when people know that I am writing or selling books. Some have a pitiful look on their faces and said, "pastor, people don't read books". "Our members don't like to read".

Last Reading

This weekend will be crucial as I am doing my final reading, from the beginning to the end. I hope to decide by next Monday whether I could send the whole thing to the printers, or should I ask my proofreader to read the book a second time? I need the Lord's wisdom and I need to be decisive. Mistakes there are bound to be, but after the corrections were done in the past week, I feel the book is going to be fine, despite whatever weaknesses there are. The cover, back and front are done. Even the first page is included.

Proofreading Theology

I do not know how to repay my sole proofreader as she spent a full two weeks going through every single page of my 200 page manuscript. I thought I might take 2 or 3 days to do the corrections but now I am giving myself another 2 weeks to do so. It is not just spellings or minor mistakes but I need to brush up or strengthen my arguments at several places, especially for a Malay reading audience.

Let the Dead bury the Dead

 I did not know how this topic came about. It happened 10 years ago when I just took up my appointment as Acting Principal of our Bible College at Namaus Ranau. My friend called me at 12.30pm to convey his condolences of my father’s passing and it was the first time I knew that my dad was no longer with us. Apparently, my three brothers called me since 9.45am without getting through as the line in Namaus was not stable and they could not get through to me. At that time I had one phone number on pre-paid.