Father Time is Undefeated

Ecclesiastes 3

1 To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:

2 A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
3 A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
4 A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to gain,
And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
And a time to throw away;
7 A time to tear,
And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
And a time to speak;
8 A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.

When I am going through a tough time, I tend to look forward to getting out of that season as soon as possible. No one enjoys the tough periods nor want them to stick around, right? On the other hand, if I find myself enjoying a particular season, I desperately want that time to slow down, to come to a pause even, so that I can savor the fleeting moment for one second longer.

Such was the past 18 months. I never realized I could derive so much purpose, meaning and happiness from my child’s life. It isn’t to say that I didn’t have a purpose, meaning or happiness before; the two are just incomparable. It is an entirely different sense of accomplishment when examined side by side.

For the past 18 months, I’ve lived life in Sports Mode. Because of me and my wife’s work arrangement, I’ve had the morning shift to babysit my son while she works from home. Afternoon till late I work at my job while she babysits him. After coming home from work, I work on my YouTube stuff till twilight. It sounds and is tiring, but the sense of fulfilment from a productive day literally everyday kept me going. Seeing my YouTube channel, and the startup that I partly founded, grow were good and all, but those surprisingly aren’t what made it worthwhile. Me of the past would have my chest puffed up and happy to let others know what a good job I’ve done the past year. But the most joy I get each day is literally watching my son go about his day and me getting to spend hours with him.

Mornings were one of two things. One, I would be too tired to lift myself up in the morning because I had worked extra hard the night before. We would then stay home and play with his toys, with me every now and then dozing off in the middle. He would then either scream for me to wake up or sit on my chest and bounce, quite literally, to get me awake. Two, are morning walks with my boy on days that I felt energetic. We would spend an hour, an hour and a half, at the playground. We would look at strange, painted circles on the ground, jump on them as a rite of passage. We would point to worms and say “uhhhmmm” because they left holes on the leaves in the bushes and trees. We would look up at the sky and shield our eyes because the sun was too bright to stare at. We would look at people walking their dogs and point at them, yet not go near them because he would be scared and I would be too, not knowing a beast’s reaction to a hyper enthusiastic boy. We would sit and observe kindergarten kids have their classes and walks too. We would wave (and he would point) at random people who pass us by. We would say “Hi” to the few kids unenthusiastically and greet their parents at the playground. He would want to be carried, at times, to touch the leaves in the trees high above him. He would want to be let down at other times, to walk his own way.

And at the turn of 2024, my boy will be heading to school for the first time. (Well.. Not school school, more like playgroup for pre-kindergarten kids.) The little boy has gotten a lil’ bigger than what I remember. He can reach the electrical sockets above him on the walls now. He can climb up and down the stair and couch, which were insurmountable before. He can finally call out “Mama” and “Papa” confidently, utter baby gibberish sometimes and intelligent words most times. He would cheekily, and sometimes defiantly, throw toys and other things around for the sake of it. He would at other times look at us apologetically and stop his behavior. This lil’ boy is going to school. And I am sad.

Some parents would be happy at their newfound freedom after sending their kids to school. Maybe I would be too. Most parents would be worried because they have no idea how their baby will be received at school by their teachers and peers. It is after all a new environment and a kid will need some time getting used to. Will they be spoilt? Will they be bullied? Will they be fed well? Will they sleep well? Will they get along with other kids? But not me, at least not for now. I’m not worried about these things and they aren’t why I’m sad. I thought long and hard to pinpoint what I was sad at or about. Was I sad upon thinking that I will miss my boy’s presence? Was I thinking that he will be sad at my absence? Those aren’t it. And then it hit me.

I’m sad, heartbroken even, that I won’t get to be beside him, watching him take those huge leaps daily.

It’s not that I won’t spend time with him at home whenever I can. It’s not that I will focus on my work more from now instead of him. It’s not that I won’t be beside him. It’s that neither I nor my wife will be there when he first learns something new. It’s an indescribable feeling when you see someone take a huge step forward. We were there for his first cry. We were there when we learnt how to breastfeed as a family. We were there when he did tummy time. We were there when he started to crawl in circles. We were there when he spoke his first words. We were there not just for him, we were with him. And for the first time in my and his life, he needs and eventually will take steps without us. My lil boy is growing up without us. And I felt sad about that. And it make me wonder if this was how my parents felt too.

At one point or another, I knew I had to let go. I needed to let go, for his good, to get him on his own two feet and fend for himself. At some point he needs to pick things up independently. He needs to pick himself up independently. He needs to learn how to choose the right company to grow up with, to live life with. He needs to be let go, for him to find his own way and calling in life, in God most importantly. He needs to be let go so that he can surpass everything that I can ever hope to do and accomplish in life. And I need to let go, so that I may flourish in the things that God has spoken to me to do. I need to let go, so that I too can grow.

I just wish that time can slow, so that I can enjoy more time with my boy. I wish that this moment in time can be frozen so that I can relive it over and over.

I saw this line from Modern Family on social media reels/shorts one day.

You know, it's... the thing about babies, you... you fall in love with a baby with the cutest little fat folds, and then... bam... they're gone. But it's okay, because in its place is this... toddler with the greatest laugh on Earth. And then one day, the toddler's gone, and in its place, a little kid that asks the most interesting questions you've ever heard. And this keeps going on like that, but you never get the chance to miss any of them, 'cause there's always a new kid to take the place of the old. Until they grow up. And then... in a moment, all those kids you fell in love with walk out the door at the same time.

"You never know the last time you pick up your kid."

And I heard a anecdote and analogy talked about over the podcast “Diary of a CEO”, where they talked about cherishing time. Imagine there was an hourglass for a minute, an hour, a day, or whatever. It signifies your time in life, your time in your career, or something significant and important that you view in life. Sand is trickling through it every second and we know to seize the time that passes. Carpe Diem never rang truer. But what if the top of the hourglass is taped over, to not let you see how much time you have left? People, and sometimes I too, live life as if we live forever. And that cannot be further away from the truth.

And these are reminders that tell me to cherish the moment while I still can. But more than that, it is to slow down and breathe. In fact, for the past 18 months, I have been very consciously slowing down and taking in every moment. And I believe that contributed to even more sadness because I understood the preciousness of each fleeting moment. And that is a good thing.

What I do not let die, do not find new life.

If I don’t choose to let go of these good moments, I will turn into a grumpy old man someday thinking back about the good glorious days. I won’t be able to exchange them for even greater moments if I keep holding onto these good times.

My boy is growing up and I need to too.

Fatherhood is…

tiring

I’ve always heard others say “being a dad is so tiring” or “he looks so tired”. Not that I underestimated the difficulty or hardship of being a dad, but I thought to myself, “how bad can it really be?”

I have never been more wrong. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

The first three months were the worst. The baby needs to wake every two to three hours to have milk and though I’m not the one feeding him, it disturbs sleep nonetheless. And it is worse than getting woken up for patrol duty in the army. Trust me.

Even today, he cries in his sleep every once in awhile because he got woken up abruptly or something spooked him. So me or my wife got to drag our tired bodies and souls up to pacify him.

It’s not just sleep that’s affected either. The physical requirements are surprisingly tough. One handing carrying a baby tires the arm so quickly, it’s no wonder dads get Dads’ strength. I’m building mine so darn well right now. It’s a natural progressive overload.

expensive

Having a baby in Singapore is expensive. There are pregnancy packages for clinics island wide but over the course of 10 months and the additional medication needed, the amount really adds up. Plus, my wife had to get an emergency Cesarean during her delivery and that is more expensive than natural birth. Did I mention weekend hospital fees? Sheesh.

Raising a baby, needless to say, is also costly. The routine checkups, vaccinations, diapers, food, clothing… It’s exactly like having a mini me to keep alive.

sacrificial

I’ve never really thought about the need to sacrifice. I knew the responsibilities but the idea of sacrifice never crossed my mind. Gone are the days where free time (and me time) is plenty. Free time, if the baby is not asleep, is all taken up for additional household chores and accompanying my son. And that means side hustles, hobbies and social time all have to be cast aside, if not reduced to a meager amount.

For me, the concept of sacrifice hit me suddenly but just as suddenly, I was prepared to. It’s not a brag that I’m ever ready, it’s just that I realized that sacrifice, to me, is a joy. Sacrificing for my son no less. Family first never rang truer.

fun

Of course, how can parenting not be fun? The silly things that my son does, the personality he exhibits, observing him eat well, playing rough with him… the list goes on and on. There’s almost never a dull moment with him. Seeing a fresh, new human being come into this world and learn to interact with everything and everyone around him gives me so much joy.

fulfilling

I have never felt that my life had more purpose and meaning. Not to say that my life’s purpose now revolves around my son and family, but to witness such a small life be so reliant on you 100%, trusts you 100%, forgives you 100%, leans on you 100%, I instantly realized that I need to live for him. I have to be the best version of myself for him. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t have a purpose before, I just found an incredibly meaningful one. Never in my life, will one of my words or actions impact another life so deeply and profoundly.

about forgiveness

Will my son make a mistake in future? Yes. Will he make me and my wife want to pull our hair out every now and then? Sure. Will he fall short of our expectations of him in time to come? Maybe, but I hope not.

But after all of that, he is and will always be my son. I never understood how someone can keep turning the other cheek for another until I experienced and adopted the love of being a father. No matter what your children do - sure, they make mistakes and make you so fiery, but they are your kids. They are here because of you. My son is here because we decided to have him. He is precious and no matter what he does, will ever change his identity. Should we condone his mistakes? Nope. Will he receive just deserts for any wrongdoings? Of course. But his identity will never change. And my forgiveness should not change either. It’s all about appropriating forgiveness.

about the Father

Everything I experienced so far is me being a fully involved father. And that, in my dictionary, means I aspire and I strive to be like my Heavenly Father.

My journey thus far into fatherhood has revealed so much about the Father to me. Much more than what I can ever read and glean from the Bible. If I gave grace, He gave even more. If I forgave, He forgave more. If I sacrificed, He sacrificed so, so much more. And if ever I grew tired of loving my son for even a minute or a second, fortunately, Jesus never got tired of loving me.

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“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!”

1 John 3:1 (NKJV)

Your Ceiling is Another’s Floor

5 Again there was war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.

6 Yet again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, with twenty-four fingers and toes, six on each hand and six on each foot; and he also was born to the giant.

7 So when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, killed him.

8 These were born to the giant in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.

1 Chronicles 20:5-8

David was known as the boy who killed Goliath. No one even dared to try and go up against the giants of Philistines then. The children of Israel were scared to death by the taunting of the Philistines, so much so that they decided to let a young lad armed with 5 stones in his hands go to war. Yup, grown men let a young kid war in their place. Nonetheless, David accomplished the task and brought down Goliath by God’s grace.

You would think such heroic acts must have ended with David. No one else would dare to face another giant in battle, right? If your brother could kill one, doesn’t mean you can, right? Apparently not. As we see it recorded in 1 Chronicles 20, David’s men and his brothers all got emboldened to face the foe who was considered invincible. They also obtained victory like David. Fascinating.

These days, we let another’s victory and success get to us. We think that oh, I could never be like Elon Musk and get to his level of success. Surely it takes a genius to get there, and I am no genius. I could never be like (insert name), it takes skill or opportunity or money etc, to get there. I could never be like my dad, my brother, my sister…

Despite what you may think, those who came before us, empower us. They aren’t your challengers, competitors nor rivals. Their success tells you that you can do it too. Their stories should inspire you to do the same, if not better than them. David’s Goliath became an example of what God can do through a mere boy and his success is not for his brothers and men to envy or be jealous of. It is telling them that “I did it and so can you.”

As a father, I can tell you that my hopes for my kids is to surpass what I do in life. My journey, life experiences and ceiling are to be their floor. I do not hope for them to get dismayed at what I’ve accomplished. I do not hope for them to waste their life thinking I can never be as good as dad. I hope for them to think that “my dad did it but I can do better.”

As a leader at my job, I can also tell you that I wish that those working for and with me, get to enjoy the same level of success that I had. Not nearly enough is being done to ensure that the leader gets the appropriate recognition and reward because in the corporate environment, it has been a dog-eat-dog world. If a peer or someone under you becomes better than you, they get promoted while you get nothing. Worse, they might take your job. So we try our best to keep the best to ourselves. We try our best to suppress another’s capability so that we can save the rewards for ourselves.

But that has to change. The metrics of rewarding someone should be altered. If a leader leads well, he or she ought to be rewarded. If someone performs exceedingly well, he or she ought to be rewarded too. If leaders stopped leading and only cared about their own “KPI”, the team and the company go nowhere. If everyone started caring about each other’s performance at their job, then there will be more than one person doing yours.

Is your ceiling someone else’s floor? Or is your ceiling capping someone else’s ceiling?

You cannot keep what you did not earn

1 Kings 11-12

David went from a shepherd herding sheep as a young lad to a military commander in battle and finally fulfilled his calling as king over Israel in his later years. There was a journey he went through to get to where God wanted him to be. He knew God through the battles in the field, in the battleground, in the political arena. He knew the failures he had to overcome in order to please God and not men. He learned it all. David journeyed with God.

Not so for his sons.

Solomon was given the kingdom, literally. Solomon came into an inheritance that was reserved for him. Even when his brother tried to take the kingdom away, God preserved it for Solomon, because that was His promise to David. Solomon didn’t know God like David did. Solomon didn’t have to fight through an army of Philistines, didn’t need to behave like a madman to save his life, didn’t have to test his faith by eating the showbread from the temple. He didn’t need to fight through these trials to get to be a king. Solomon had every material thing he needed in life from his birth. He pleased his wives instead of God. He pleased the people instead of God. Ultimately, he regretted his decision at the end of his life and we can only hope that we see Solomon in the inside of heaven. Such was the case for his son, Rehoboam.

In modern times, it’s as if a rich man has reserved his wealth to his sons. And all the sons will know to do is to waste it away. Unless they are made to go through some adversity, unless they learn how to earn things, unless they have a reason in life, unless they found out the hard journey needed to get to a place of fortune, they will not know how to keep them.

The same goes for Kingdom inheritance. No one can reserve a portion of spiritual anointing or gift for you. You got to earn it through your journey with God. If you don’t learn to walk with God, you don’t get to know Him and earn the inheritance. Don’t mistake earthly wealth with God’s inheritance. The two may be the same for some people, where God intended someone to have prosperity in their life for His purposes. But at no point in time is that the standard. Perhaps your lot in life was to devote yourself to missions or planting churches and orphanages so your wealth is never your own. Who’s to say?

The point is:

You do not get to keep what you did not earn.

The Bible is written wrong

In the 21st century, what do you need to do to build a following? For starters, you need to give people the best first impression about yourself. Then, you will probably share with them your best qualities so you can inspire them to be just like you. Should you share with them how short tempered you are? Nope. Should you share with them that you cheated on that college exam? Nope. Should you tell people that you morally side with a murderer or adulterer? Definitely not.

But those are the people that are written into the Bible.

Abraham - ready to sell his wife to save his life, Jacob - cheated his brother of his inheritance, Moses - disobeyed God’s audible instructions, David - stole a righteous man’s wife and killed him after; the list goes on and on. Why? Why would any sensible author write such imperfection into a book that is meant to make people follow you, worship you no less? It’s as if God had failed at enlightening them.

If I were to start a religion, I would make every being, every idol in my sect a perfect one. I would not be writing characteristics that humanize them. I would not be describing any flaws because flaws turn people away. Everyone likes to look up to those who are more “complete” than them. But yet, imperfect beings are labeled as heroes of faith in Christianity.

But that is exactly it. The Bible is meant for imperfect people like you and I. It was never about aspiring to be someone in that Book. The goal was always to make God our goal. Not the many deities, not a prophet and definitely not animals (duh).

The Bible is meant for imperfect people like you and I.

You don’t aspire to be like the people you read about in the Bible. You identify with them. You realize that redemption is within reach and no mistakes you make are going to bar you from worshipping God. You don’t carry a negative label with you and try to make amends all your life just to get a shot at entering Heaven. You enter God’s presence repentant of your sins and you can leave knowing that you have been cleansed. No blood sacrifices, no need to cut or torture yourself, not even repetitive chanting or writing in repentance.

All you need is a repentant heart - that simple.

Honoring the Sabbath

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Exodus 20:8

As a Singaporean, productivity is engrained into our culture. While we are not as hardworking as our Chinese or Japanese counterparts, we are nonetheless tireless workers. I, too, am brought up that way. To be productive with my time and to pack my schedule as much as possible to accomplish as much as possible. Our time is short anyway.

Even after I was found by God, that part of me never really changed. I never stood around waiting for things to come to me. I always sought out and seize opportunities whenever available. But time and again, the best opportunities open to me were the ones that fell into my lap. I asked God at every turn, “Should I take this path? Do this now? Take this job?” But often times, it’s “No” or silence. And then when I least expect it, He presents a door. It’s as if He’s saying, “Wait, I have something better for you.” And so, bit by bit, I learnt to rest and move at His pace and His timing.

And it all began, I believe, with learning to honor the Sabbath.

One day a week. No doing conscious work. Rest and relax.

It doesn’t mean I don’t do the chores. It doesn’t mean I don’t take care of the kids. It doesn’t mean I let the world revolve around me that day. It means I don’t do the things that stress me out from Monday to Saturday. It means I don’t continue working on that journal paper. It means I don’t script or film a YouTube video. It means I spend quality time with my family. It means I spend quality time worshipping God and fellowshipping with others in church. It means I let my mind, body and soul rest on the Seventh day that God, too, rested after creation is finished.

If I don’t learn to consecrate 24 hours of my week towards resting, I’m pretty sure I won’t be willing to consecrate other parts of my life when God requires.

Start with rest, start with honoring the Sabbath.