THE SHEPHERD’S CORNER

I sit for a while, and I can’t write anything. There is so much to say and there is so much to feel. It is still difficult for me to believe that our brother YapLim Tek Bien is no longer with us. On Thursday, on Thanksgiving Day, God called him home. On the way to the church retreat, in the car with his beloved wife, Tante Daisy, his son Yudi and daughter in-law Enge, Oom Tek Bien slipped into eternity to be with Christ, His Loving Savior, Whom he believed in and lived for.

We don’t understand why Oom Tek Bien had to go so soon and so suddenly. Perhaps we were expecting something more “natural” which would at least prepare us for the inevitable. But, spiritual order is clear: KNOWING comes after—not before—EXPERIENCING.
In his book, Abiding in Christ, Andrew Murray, writes, “What holds true of all spiritual truth is . . . we must live and experience truth in order to know it . . . . Receive what you do not comprehend. Submit to what you cannot understand, and accept and expect what appears to a reason as mystery . . . . and walk in a way you do not know—such are the first lessons in the school of God.”

Last Wednesday was perhaps the last time we saw Oom Tek Bien. Since it was a Thanksgiving Fellowship, many shared testimonies of how God had meant to them and how thankful they were to Him. Oom Tek Bien was the last one to share. After thanking God for all His goodness shown to him, he, then, asked us to sing a couple of songs—one about how good God is and another, how we should always thank Him for the love He has shown us.

Perhaps those were his last words to us, the church family, and perhaps those were the last songs he sang with us. But make no mistake: that’s not the last song he sings to Jesus, His Loving Savior.

Pastor Paul