What would you do, if today was your last day on earth

In the past two weeks, a close relative died at quite an elderly age. She was one of the few who bought toys for me when I was young, a King Kong and Jaws which I fondly remember. Her advice to me was not to fight and be at peace with others. It was an advice borne out of suffering a few decades of having very little, and due perhaps to stories I heard of having been denied her fair share of the family fortune. Life could have been so different. I had googled the past and found out that we had owned entire villages and shop houses, so the fortune lost was great. But amazing grace came when we seek peace and today the fortune have somewhat been regained through businesses owned in Malaysia/Singapore.

How would we live our life if we were told that today would be our last day! For me, it would be a time of saying goodbyes to family and friends, thanking them for their love, and fellowship. It would also be a time of thanking Jesus, for all the up and downs of life. Life is precious and we should treasure it each day as a gift from God. It is the communion with God, the journey that makes sense of life. Giving thanks is not easy, for in giving thanks for being gay brings us to reconciliation and fellowship with God. At the end of our lives, we should be at peace with all and with God, even having no resentment for being born gay. It is also a gift to be embraced.

1 Thess 5:15 “ see that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all”

1 Thess 5:18 “ in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Giving thanks was actually quite easy, until one is confronted with giving thanks for being gay. It meant a great lost and denial, forsaking the relationships which we know will never be happy since one is incompatible in terms of sexual orientation. How do we give thanks each day when we seem to have lost out in life in our ideal of a family, children, and house. We end with nothing much yet the call to give thanks remains. For our very lives itself are precious and wonderful to God.

In the “It gets better campaign”, we hear of young gays committing suicides because of the condemnation by society, family and religion. The rejection of their core being was too much for them until they themselves reject who God has created them, and in the very last act chose to take their own lives.  The Christian Faith, the mega churches and their pastors who spoke these anti-gay messages into the lives of so many, have a fair share of blood in their hands. The Christian Faith has a fundamental call to love and do no harm and to focus on the Gospel message of Salvation in Christ.

The churches have indeed focused on the “sin” of homosexuality as seen by the large number of postings in Christian Post, and gay rights becoming a major wedge issue in the last three US presidential campaigns. But when the context was read clearly, the ancients in the bible were having sex as a religious rite to join themselves with the powerful demonic beings. The sex was with the pagan priests and not because they love each other out of same sex orientation.

Why doesn’t the Christian church go after other faiths and accused them of being in-bed with the deities, because gays are a weak minority as the mega church pastor Rick Warren so poignantly reminded us. So gays became an example of sin, when their only sin was love.Gays are too weak to fight back.

We raised our finger of condemnation “See these gay sinners”as we proclaim the Gospel to the World in order to convince them to repent and to believe in Jesus Christ. We used the general abhorrence of gay people by the majority when we should preach the Gospel message based on the love, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The world sees us as anti-gay rather than Christ reflected which is tragic. We couldn’t easily rub away the blood stains from our hands.

Another tragedy, it is casualness which we ourselves take life – the sanctity and dignity of each precious life God has created wonderfully. That sacredness of life to be protected, and to be lived out wonderfully in communion with Jesus should always be treasured. Our lives should not be filled with what could have or would have been, but continual prayerful communion and walk with Jesus Christ giving thanks always for being a gay person. We are giving thanks to God for His creation of our innermost being, and in that place of gratitude to God for that precious gift of life, we are able to give thanks to life itself wherever this journey may take us.

How then do we live life each day, as the last day of our lives? Would people remember us as gentle and loving (rather than demanding our rights). Would they see us as people of grace and forgiveness, with gratitude to God for that precious gift of life. We are called to live, to live each day not just to exist but to treasure, to enjoy, to be a blessing to others and to live out our calling. We don’t have many more tomorrows, we leave much of life enjoyment to the very end – to enjoy and accept ourselves, to give ourselves treats, to give ourselves in fellowship to friends and family and not just a few times a year.

We give thanks, because ultimately whatever our lot in this life, and being gay is one of the hardest lot to suffer being negated to the least in the community, we look forward to an eternity with Jesus Christ in heaven. We may not have a wife/husband, a family, lots of children and grandchildren, but Jesus would wipe away our tears in heaven and in that seemingly endless embrace whispers to us “Welcome Home”.  But we already had experienced Jesus on earth, for the Holy Spirit has given us the strength to say “I am strong”, and to give thanks to Godand live out our lives each day with a grateful heart for being gay.

GIVE THANKS
WITH A GRATEFUL HEART
GIVE THANKS
TO THE HOLY ONE

GIVE THANKS
FOR HE'S GIVEN
JESUS CHRIST, HIS SON

(X2)

AND NOW LET THE WEAK SAY
I AM STRONG
LET THE POOR SAY
I AM RICH

BECAUSE OF WHAT
THE LORD HAS DONE
FOR US

(X2)

GIVE THANKS...