DAILYwalk
This year, Covid-19 has hit the whole world hard. With effect from March 18 this year, Malaysia began to implement Movement Control Order (MCO) to help curb the spread of the virus. Like many of you, most of my daily activities were confined to my own house. The front, inside and attic of my house became my entire world. Nevertheless, I experienced an unprecedented life during this time.
The Fourth Day (Daily life after Emmaus’ Walk) during MCO has helped me to be more appreciative of God’s wondrous creation, to taste of His abundant grace and to build a more intimate relationship with the Lord.
Wondrous Creation: (In front of House) Every morning, I routinely walk to the river bank in front of my house to meditate, pray and watch the sunrise: the Lord is my light. His wonderful creation never fails to awe me each morning. Hallelujah. Each day I listen to many perching birds singing among the trees. I have my daily morning prayer between 6:00 – 6:30am and I also participate in a chain prayer network of 145 persons. I admire the running water of the Red River. Sometimes this turbulent river flows eastward and other times, westward. My heart reaches out to my righteous God! I become more passionate to protect the environment, determined to sorting garbage for recycling, taking care of the garbage on our own. My family and I are more willing to reduce the landfill waste at the dump site of the city municipal council. The water front retaining walls at the front of my house are now constructed from recycled plastic waste. Abundant Grace: (In the House)
During my daily devotional time, I follow the devotional series “Daily Living Water”, and I also share my reflections with my church WeChat group to encourage others to do likewise. I even reorganized my study room and bookshelves! After staying in this house for 23 years, I finally get to reorganize my study room by sorting all the books and files. During this period of time, I also organized and edited my career resume power point slides.
A month ago, I applied for the professional interview to “The Institute of Engineers Malaysia” as a civil engineer. And I passed! I witnessed the growth of 15 coconut tree seedlings in my garden and I gave them away to an indigenous Iban couple. My children came back home during the pandemic and such reunion made me so thankful for God’s gracious blessings.
Presence of the Lord: (Attic Floor) My home is relatively small, and my daily activities occupied the whole space in my house. I even managed to climb up to the attic and gave it a good clean up. I found a few bats hiding there. During this pandemic, we are especially cautious and I dare not touch these creatures. I decided to install a fluorescent light to keep them away. Thank God, they never returned again. I discovered the fabric marked with the Chinese character “Emmanuel” hanging from the top beam in the attic was half torn. The cloth has been hanging there to celebrate the topping out of this house 23 years ago. Those words called to mind the presence of God. I am truly grateful for God’s presence with my family all these years.
The Covid-19 pandemic hit the world hard, but it has awakened me to live my Fourth Day. Daily morning prayers, spiritual devotion have become my most joyous time with the Lord. The reading materials of “Daily Living Water” has also become my favourite study materials. The effort to create the retaining wall with recycled materials and sorting the garbage for recycling have become my ways to protect the environment. To my surprise, God has used the new norms of Covid-19 pandemic to renew my Fourth Day.