Who Leads You?

After blogging about dogs and the Top Dog Mentality, I am reminded of God and God's leadership. It is not true that when a dog loves you, he will automatically make you his leader. Neither do you become his leader just by loving him. Leadership within a pack (dog or otherwise) has to be established.

So also with God. Loving God is the first and chief commandment in the law - "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thine soul, and with all thine might." (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27). God first loved, and in loving, He led. He became His people's leader, their provider, their protector. But, it was not enough for the people. They desired a king! They wanted someone who would win their wars for them - someone they could look up to and admire and love and respect. So God finally sent them a King - Jesus. He loved and taught and healed and led. But still the people would not follow Him. He was not the warrior king they had in mind. They could not love or respect Him ... so, they crucified Him. And in dying, He saved them ... and us.

God made us, loved us and respected us enough to give us something so precious even though He knew, it would turn us against our Maker. He gave Man a free will - He gave him a choice. For if Man would love Him with all their hearts and souls and might, they would obey Him and He would lead them to having peace and joy in their lives. " ... the fruit of the Spirit is: love, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control; against such things there is no law." (Galatians 5:22)

God in His exactness, gave Moses the 10 Commandments and many other laws for the Israelites of old to follow so that they could be "sinless" and live in peace with much joy in the Promised Land. But they were not able to follow many of the given laws, so God sent Christ who taught us just two "laws" - to love God with all our heart, soul and might and our neighbours as ourselves. A man who lived his love right to death on the cross in obedience to His Father's plans - " ... that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". (Romans 5:8)

We are like our pets (individuals). We live in a pack (family/community/society). We need leadership to have balance and harmony in our lives. So, let us ponder - WHO is our leader? In following do we love our leader with ALL our hearts, soul and might? And, in loving do we follow in obedience?

I have often wondered how it came to be that in the English language, God and dog are the same spelt backwards ... perhaps, like our pet dogs who love and respect us and who will follow our leadership obediently, we are meant be like so ... with God.

Who is my leader? God. Amen!

Top Dog Mentality

Week after week I watch with much amazement (at the dogs) and some amusement (mainly at the humans), as Caesar Milan "rehabilitates dogs and trains people" in his programme The Dog Whisperer. There are no bad dogs, he professes. Just bad owners!

His methods are developed from his full understanding of how dogs think, act and react. He totally understands dog psychology. That is amazing because I don't even understand human psychology! Maybe animal psychology is much less complex.

Wolves (origin of dogs before domestication) in the wild move in packs and each pack has a pack leader. The establishment of a pack leader brings balance to the pack. The leader leads and the others follow. No questions asked, no answers given. When a member of the pack misbehaves, he is quickly put in place by the leader.

So, we bring home a dog and the family becomes his pack. As the puppy grows up, he quickly learns that he very easily is able to establish himself as the pack leader. His actions are seen as "cute" and soon, he reigns supreme! The human members are held hostage to his wants and needs and he very often gets his way with them. The best part of this is that WE humans THINK we are the boss.

Dog comes with doleful eyes and puts head on your lap and gets patted - score 1. He rolls over and gets a tummy rub - score 2. He scratches the door and gets let out - score 3. He hovers around during meal times and gets a treat - score 4. He barks joyfully and jumps up and down licking you and gets a hug and a pat - score 5. He pulls you and dictates where he wants to go on his walk - score 6. He stares at the car and gets a ride - score 7. He barks, snarls and snaps at your friends and soon, nobody comes by - score 8. Final score? Dog - 8, Human - 0.

[I have used "he" for the dog, but believe me, "she" can be as bad if not worse!]

Leadership in a pack is critical to the pack's survival in the wild. Without a clear leader, fights break out and chaos rules. How strange that we can say the same of any organization and home! But, there are leaders and there are leaders - reluctant leaders, pseudo leaders, leaders-in-name leaders, ill equipped leaders, blur leaders, tyrannical leaders, etc.

Leaders become leaders when they are respected. Even in the dog-human world: A dog must respect his human leader. Jumping all over you is NOT a show of respect. Demanding attention and love is NOT respect. Being obedient and following your lead IS respect.

Well, good to think about it. Who is the leader in your "pack"? If YOU are the leader, do you behave like a leader? Are you respected as the leader? If you are not the leader, then are you a good and obedient follower? Do you show respect for your leader?

And now, turn and look at your dog with new eyes ...

The Dog Whisperer is on Discovery Channel 411 on Wednesdays at 6pm (season 2) and 10pm (season 3).

5 Days In Shanghai

I just flew back from Shanghai two weeks ago. I was glad to be home again in Singapore. How beautiful our roads and buildings look. Everything seem so neat and orderly and green. It was hot but nowhere near as hot as it was in Shanghai when the temperature climbed to 38 degrees at noon.

When we landed at Shanghai airport a week ago, I suddenly could not believe that I had actually willingly flew to China. Not one of my favourite countries nor people. While abroad, the Chinese have always irritated me with their loud voices and in-your-face habits. I am ashamed that I feel this way. After all, we are from the same stock!

However, my great, great grand father sailed off as a junk captain from China and made his new home in Malaya and then eventually the family moved down to Singapore. My great grandfather worked for the British, running the rubber plantations in Malaya, learning English from the Oxford dictionary. Then, grandmother became a Christians so I guess there was much influence brought about by the interactions with the "ang mohs" from great grandfather's time. We unconsciously picked up more genteel western habits and attitudes. So, it's no no to spitting and loud talking in public. Whatever, I am Chinese! ... but a Singaporean Chinese.

Shanghai is an interesting city, home to 23 million people! 23 million! That is minus the many tourists who visit Shanghai. I am glad I was not there during the Shanghai Expo 2010 when the number of visitors was around 30,000 a day with a Mr. Zheng who became the 5.3 millionth visitor at the end of the Expo! So, what do you see when walking the streets of Shanghai? People of course!

A friend suggested we visit Shanghai while she was there to do a presentation. Woon Yi and I decided to go, for different reasons. She went to get some work clothes tailored. The tailors there are known to be good, fast and cheap! They visit you at your hotel, take you measurements, show you cloth samples and have your clothes delivered back to you in a day or two depending on your orders.

Me? I went out of curiosity and a determination to try to like my "root" country. So, there I was clinging to the handle of the taxi we were in en route to our serviced apartment in Huai Hai Road. The taxi over took, swerved, changed lanes and cut in and out of traffic much like the cars in an arcade game. There were seat belts but no buckle to buckle into! I was glad when we finally arrived in one piece.

It soon became apparent that we were not going to do much walking as the weather forecast was for sunny days with temperatures climbing to a high of 38 degrees! So, we stayed in the air-con comfort of the apartment and kept our walking to the malls. We ventured out in the cool of the evenings to eat. That was the main activity of our 5 days in Shanghai.

We unanimously voted the best meal was at the vegetarian restaurant Jujube Tree at Songshan Road. VERY good vegetarian food. Not so much the mock stuff but the real stuff. I liked their little notice that invited all smokers to smoke under the Jujube tree ... outside the restaurant! So cool!

For a more up market dinning experience, head to the touristy area of Xintiandi. We ate at Xin Ji Shi ... which I though meant Thursday! (Ha ha ha this is from someone who use to score 0 "chi tan" for Chinese!) Good food, but a little more pricey.

For a good view of the city at night, head to the Hyatt at the Bund for dinner. Producing your dinner receipt gains you free entry to their roof top bar for the excellent bird's eye view of the city lights.

Well, we did venture half an hour out of the city to a water village - Zhu Jiajiao - The Venice of Shanghai. That day, the temperature was 38 degrees so after buying a straw hat and walking around the quaint village (which was rather smelly from the many stalls selling fermented bean and grilled fish and small river prawns), we took shelter in a cafe that promised good coffee, sweet cakes, iced drinks and cool air! We did not even think of taking the water junks to see the village from the canals. Gazing around, I did not think it was anything like Venice.

We bought just one main item from there - silk duvets! The man asked where we were from and laughed when we told him Singapore. So there we were, sweating in the hot sun lugging a silk duvet each. Each duvet cost 390RMB. We saw the same duvets being sold at the airport for 1400RMB. Hmmm wonder if it is illegal to hawk things at the airport ...

So, thinking of visiting a city? Try Shanghai. If for nothing - go there to enjoy the Shanghainese cuisine and tailor some clothes.

Sorry no photos for now. Will slot them in later.

How Full Is YOUR Bottle?

I was walking with a friend this morning and we were talking about God. "Well done my good and faithful servant ..." is what we hope to hear when we finally stand at the feet of our Lord. We both agreed that the minute we accept the Lord as our Saviour, we are saved. We must then walk close to God so that we can be filled with the Holy Spirit and be led to do "good works" on earth as Christ did when He was here.

We both also agreed that the only way to walk close to God is to read, study and understand His word - the Bible. We then continued to walk in contemplative silence.

I suddenly had this image of each one of us walking around clutching huge bottles to our chest. We are each given a bottle when we accept Christ and become a Christian. Each bottle has a few seeds in it. We then go through life holding on to this bottle and each time we follow Christ's examples of loving our enemies or speaking a kind word or doing a kind deed, a few more seeds get dropped into our bottle. So also when we are obedient to God and follow the direction of the Spirit.

More seeds are dropped in when we trust and obey the Lord; when we attend Sunday services with an open mind, a receptive heart and a sincere spirit; when we are slow to anger; when we use gentle words to calm an angry person; when we reach out to those difficult to love ... when we make an effort to follow the teachings in the Bible and try again and again to be Christ-like ... we gather more seeds into our bottles.

When we finally meet our Lord, we will kneel before Him with our bottles in hand. Question is - how full will your bottle be? Half filled? Full? Or only with those few seeds that were deposited when you accepted the Lord?

The comforting thought is that those first few seeds will never get taken away no matter what. Neither the bottle! Once we declare that Christ is our Saviour, our Messiah, nobody can take that bottle away from us. Neither can we throw that bottle away. It stays with us till we finally meet God.

What will God say after He says, "Well done, my good and faithful servant ..."? And how full will our bottles be? I hope to present Him with a full bottle. Amen.