Thursday, December 08, 2005

Getting to the root of problems?

While confiding my problems to a SIC who hails from a chinese presbyterian church (and who incidentally also has a very rich charismatic background), she gave me some simple words that gives me food for thought:

“在哪里跌倒就在哪里爬起来” (Pick oneself up from the same place one falls)

What do you think her words mean? Is there biblical support (and the supporting biblical passages if applicable)? If so, what are possible biblical applications?

Pray for my eyes to be open with wisdom and a heart that is still in trust of Him.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

maybe that's true for her. but from my own experience, i don't agree. if i fell in a place, there were reasons that made me fell; for those reasons, i didn't think i could get myself up again. i had tried though.

God's everywhere, we could pick ourselves up from the place we fell, but we probably could also do that in other places. It really depends on yourself. Don't need to confine to one particular place.

Anonymous said...

Can't think of biblical support, but is indeed food for thought - if we stick to that maxim, are we trying our best to get up at once? Or relying on God to pick us out of the mess at the right time?

Or using God to pick ourselves up at that point?

Personally I don't agree this is in any way Biblical - circa David and Job. Or Saul for that matter.

Ms Carpe Diem said...

Yelri and Hamster

Thanks for letting me know what you think. :)

In essence, we don't have to pick ourselves up from the same place, but how do we know the wisest decision to make?

Hamster, perhaps you can explain a little more about David, Job and Saul?

Anonymous said...

CD, we don't always have to know the "wisest decision." we only need to follow God's lead step by step, that would be the wisest decision. Sometimes this can be difficult because our human nature wants to know about many steps ahead...

Anonymous said...

David and Job didn't rely on their own strength to get up, praying to God and moving on based on strength from God. Saul didn't recover after being blinded "getting up where he fell" but had to rely on God to remove the scales from his eyes and then he was completely converted.

Maybe these aren't the best examples but in my opinion and based on my understanding of the phrase used by your friend - and I may be a little pedantic here - it does sound a bit like it's human wisdom. That is, that we just grit our teeth and get up and walk on wherever we fall. That's not what the Bible teaches. We look forward to Christ, upward to Christ, backward to Christ. And we walk on.

Hope that clarifies a little more