STAIRS OF LIFE

I thank God today because of the opportunity that He gave me to speak to the young people of church GKI in Renon, Denpasar with the topic of "1 - 2 - 3 Action! " I also have to thank some friends and visitors of this blog, including to whom gave comments on my Facebook and to some that I met out there. I was encoraged to continue writing the “fourth life".

“Gecko of Life” has attracted many comments. I won’t forget the incident. My friend Anita from Melbourne, Australia, actually reminded me of the possibility of "mistake" when the young gecko preying on a mosquitoe that existed next to the bee. She insisted that there must be challenges in achieving the objectives.

Relating to the mistakes, I was reminded of the conversation with my children. When I was asking them to convey their desires, suddenly one of them was just silent and did not want to express them because there would not be nothing. Then, I found out that it was one form of protest on my mistakes as a father who might only give the words of hope and could not fulfill their wishes. I was rejected for a moment.

In the helpless moment as a parent, there were tears rolling down my cheeks, I felt that I was been showering the words of wisdom from the sky. I even dared to tell the truth without wanting to defend myself.

I told them that I had experienced the same. Once I was annoyed by my father and it was hard for me to tackle it until my mother reminded me that when I became like them, be a parent , I would understand. I remembered the time when I protested asking a motorcycle. There was only one old motorcycle for being used by a family of five sons and one doughter and we must use it in turn. My father advised me, as the fourth son, to quit my high school and go to Ubud – art center of Bali -- for getting a job, so then I could buy a motorcycle finally. My father and my mother knew my talent of art very well. Then my father asked me, "Do you want your dad to work from morning till morning?"

My children were silent. I went on saying my words. Now, I could understand what my mother saying. Then, I told them that I only had two choices.

First, I could not choose. I could not choose, for instance : ”not to be born in a poor family”, or “born in a big family”.

Second, I could choose. I could choose, for instance : “buying some foods that I wanted if I had some money”, or “taking my wife and children for shopping when they liked and we had some money”.

So, whenever we can choose, choose the best ones ! Including the choice of the best of the worst ones. However, if there is no choice, stop blaming ourselves or blaming other people including our parents. Give thanks ! They surely had no choice,too and had coped with the hard situation for giving us the best.

Finally, I told my children, "By the grace of God, grandfathers and grandmothers with others who helped, has made for us two or three steps or even more, so we can go up. Then by the grace of God, with others, too, we could add some more steps, as where we are now. Then, it is your task to continue to add some more steps to the stairs of life that we have with your choices. This is the real life stairs. I found out the following verse is true.

Deuteronomy 5: 16
" 'Respect your father and your mother, as I, the LORD your God, command you, so that all may go well with you and so that you may live a long time in the land that I am giving you. "