my YouCat journey
Having very limited time to myself for the past few weeks, i do miss my blog (awww....) all for the fact that many things have happen and many thoughts were running in my head. However so, since i have signed up for the YouCat programme (YouCat is short for Youth Catechism), i have decided that i will from now blogged about my journey throughout this 13weeks programme. i would be happy to see my progress (that's my ultimate hope) and changes within me throughout this whole programme and would like to pen them down...so here goes.... Week 1
well, i signed up for this programme firstly admitting that it was out of following majority but soon it because more of a curiosity and desire to further challenge my knowledge of my own faith. i do have confidence it what i know and what i believe of my faith and certainly the notion of "i already know my faith well enough, should i still go for it?"..yup, arrogant i may be..but then i challenged myself to take of that arrogance/ignorance and signed up for this..and indeed i was proven wrong; my knowledge was very much of a shallow mind...
so Week 1 (for me, since it was actually week 2 due to my absence during the first week) was all about Creation and Fall of Man. creation...ya ya....everyone knows about the Creation Story..the 6 days with 1 rest day at the end. then with the main facilitator speaking and explaining about creation, i was on the verge of "yeah, i was thinking the same way like you. i know all about this. no need to further explain"....you see, the arrogance in me....well then...until something strikes me. that is about the 7th day which God rested. the whole symbol of the creation story was the 6 days work week with the last day as the rest day. see, God needed rest too and it was Him who has created this rest day. with the whole creation planned out so orderly and beautifully, God just needed time to rest and enjoy the beauty of it all. then, i began to look at my ownself...have i really rested all these while? why does it seemed that work has taken over me over and over again without me wanting to rest? rest is really important and yet, i choose to deny the existence of it...and looking at the whole idea of creation brought it up to me to show that even God needed rest, so should I.
then we went into the topic of Fall of Man. sin and all its consequences. something strikes me again which i have never thought before; God was a man like anyone of us. in fact he was even more human that anyone of us. He was fully human or rather fully man. thus, the phrase "im only human" does not actually give us the right to be flawed or imperfect because God himself is perfect. So when we indicate "im only human" is for us to be perfect, not flawed!....this has never encountered by me in such a way because i am so fond of using this term to interpret my imperfections. never have i thought that through my imperfections, i actually have to be perfect and not just allow myself to be flawed...i have to learn to accept my imperfections and not just succumbed to it..
if God wanted the world to be in perfect harmony and eternal, then why did he allowed evil or even death? well, death is actually the consequence of sin. when we sin, we turned away from God and death was the result of it all...evil on the other hand, to me, was actually allowed so that God's work can be seen and witness more truthfully. being naturally human beings, many needed to see or to experience with their own eyes and lives before they can actually believe in something. the same goes for evil; when something bad happens and the good is restored by the grace of God, only then will people believe in God (sounds so bad bt that is a fact)....like St.Thomas Aquinas once said "God allows evil only so as to make something better result of it"..agreed!
so here it is...my first week at YouCat. although the time was abit too short but nevertheless, it was indeed a great experience and eye-opener for me. it opens up questions in me which i have long deny or rather choose not to explore it..hope it will be a good start for me to deepen my spiritual life as i have longed for this year.. god bless us all
well, i signed up for this programme firstly admitting that it was out of following majority but soon it because more of a curiosity and desire to further challenge my knowledge of my own faith. i do have confidence it what i know and what i believe of my faith and certainly the notion of "i already know my faith well enough, should i still go for it?"..yup, arrogant i may be..but then i challenged myself to take of that arrogance/ignorance and signed up for this..and indeed i was proven wrong; my knowledge was very much of a shallow mind...
so Week 1 (for me, since it was actually week 2 due to my absence during the first week) was all about Creation and Fall of Man. creation...ya ya....everyone knows about the Creation Story..the 6 days with 1 rest day at the end. then with the main facilitator speaking and explaining about creation, i was on the verge of "yeah, i was thinking the same way like you. i know all about this. no need to further explain"....you see, the arrogance in me....well then...until something strikes me. that is about the 7th day which God rested. the whole symbol of the creation story was the 6 days work week with the last day as the rest day. see, God needed rest too and it was Him who has created this rest day. with the whole creation planned out so orderly and beautifully, God just needed time to rest and enjoy the beauty of it all. then, i began to look at my ownself...have i really rested all these while? why does it seemed that work has taken over me over and over again without me wanting to rest? rest is really important and yet, i choose to deny the existence of it...and looking at the whole idea of creation brought it up to me to show that even God needed rest, so should I.
then we went into the topic of Fall of Man. sin and all its consequences. something strikes me again which i have never thought before; God was a man like anyone of us. in fact he was even more human that anyone of us. He was fully human or rather fully man. thus, the phrase "im only human" does not actually give us the right to be flawed or imperfect because God himself is perfect. So when we indicate "im only human" is for us to be perfect, not flawed!....this has never encountered by me in such a way because i am so fond of using this term to interpret my imperfections. never have i thought that through my imperfections, i actually have to be perfect and not just allow myself to be flawed...i have to learn to accept my imperfections and not just succumbed to it..
if God wanted the world to be in perfect harmony and eternal, then why did he allowed evil or even death? well, death is actually the consequence of sin. when we sin, we turned away from God and death was the result of it all...evil on the other hand, to me, was actually allowed so that God's work can be seen and witness more truthfully. being naturally human beings, many needed to see or to experience with their own eyes and lives before they can actually believe in something. the same goes for evil; when something bad happens and the good is restored by the grace of God, only then will people believe in God (sounds so bad bt that is a fact)....like St.Thomas Aquinas once said "God allows evil only so as to make something better result of it"..agreed!
so here it is...my first week at YouCat. although the time was abit too short but nevertheless, it was indeed a great experience and eye-opener for me. it opens up questions in me which i have long deny or rather choose not to explore it..hope it will be a good start for me to deepen my spiritual life as i have longed for this year.. god bless us all
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