29:1. Maka Ayub melanjutkan uraiannya:
29:2 "Ah, kiranya aku seperti dalam bulan-bulan yang silam, seperti pada hari-hari, ketika Allah melindungi aku,
29:3 ketika pelita-Nya bersinar di atas kepalaku, dan di bawah terang-Nya aku berjalan dalam gelap;
29:4 seperti ketika aku mengalami masa remajaku, ketika Allah bergaul karib dengan aku di dalam kemahku;
29:5 ketika Yang Mahakuasa masih beserta aku, dan anak-anakku ada di sekelilingku;
29:6 ketika langkah-langkahku bermandikan dadih, dan gunung batu mengalirkan sungai minyak di dekatku.
29:7. Apabila aku keluar ke pintu gerbang kota, dan menyediakan tempat dudukku di tengah-tengah lapangan,
29:8 maka ketika aku kelihatan, mundurlah orang-orang muda dan bangkitlah orang-orang yang sudah lanjut umurnya, lalu tinggal berdiri;
29:9 para pembesar berhenti bicara, dan menutup mulut mereka dengan tangan;
29:10 suara para pemuka membisu, dan lidah mereka melekat pada langit-langitnya;
29:11 apabila telinga mendengar tentang aku, maka aku disebut berbahagia; dan apabila mata melihat, maka aku dipuji.
29:12 Karena aku menyelamatkan orang sengsara yang berteriak minta tolong, juga anak piatu yang tidak ada penolongnya;
29:13 aku mendapat ucapan berkat dari orang yang nyaris binasa, dan hati seorang janda kubuat bersukaria;
29:14 aku berpakaian kebenaran dan keadilan menutupi aku seperti jubah dan serban;
29:15 aku menjadi mata bagi orang buta, dan kaki bagi orang lumpuh;
29:16 aku menjadi bapa bagi orang miskin, dan perkara orang yang tidak kukenal, kuselidiki.
29:17 Geraham orang curang kuremuk, dan merebut mangsanya dari giginya.
29:18. Pikirku: Bersama-sama dengan sarangku aku akan binasa, dan memperbanyak hari-hariku seperti burung feniks.
29:19 Akarku mencapai air, dan embun bermalam di atas ranting-rantingku.
29:20 Kemuliaanku selalu baru padaku, dan busurku kuat kembali di tanganku.
29:21 Kepadakulah orang mendengar sambil menanti, dengan diam mereka mendengarkan nasihatku.
29:22 Sehabis bicaraku tiada seorangpun angkat bicara lagi, dan perkataanku menetes ke atas mereka.
29:23 Orang menantikan aku seperti menantikan hujan, dan menadahkan mulutnya seperti menadah hujan pada akhir musim.
29:24 Aku tersenyum kepada mereka, ketika mereka putus asa, dan seri mukaku tidak dapat disuramkan mereka.
29:25 Aku menentukan jalan mereka dan duduk sebagai pemimpin; aku bersemayam seperti raja di tengah-tengah rakyat, seperti seorang yang menghibur mereka yang berkabung."
(Ayub 29:1-25)
Sebuah ayat yang diberikan pada saat Lepas Sidi di HKBP
Sebuah ayat yang diberikan pada saat Lepas Sidi di HKBP
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People may have different opinion with me. They may even disagree with what I am about to write. But let me share my thoughts.
I think it is quite save to say that everybody wants to be successful. We all want to be classified as a successful person. It is really a pity that people most of the time, are judged of being successful or not based on what they have or they don't have. Based on their possessions. If you drive on a mercedes or BMW or Audi Quatro or Lexus, you must be successful. If you live in a penthouse on the highest floor of a tall building, a skyscraper, then you must be successful.
I think, a success is not all of that. A success is when you are managed to do what you are set up to do. A success is when you have finished the race that you are set to go. I believe that people are born with a purpose. Each one of us has to find out what is the purpose of our life, individually. Then we also have to grow. If we finish the 100 m race, extend our self and race in the 400 m race. And so on. So, before we can strive for the success we are destined to achieve, we have to know the purpose of our life.
I think, one of the purpose of life (at least my life) is to inspire people in my surroundings. To inspire them to reach out for their dreams. To inspire people to not to be afraid to fight for their future, to become the best of them selves. One of the purpose of my life is to inspire people to believe that tomorrow is a brighter day.
I believe, that one of my purpose of life is to help people get up when they fall. To nurse the broken hearted and show that tomorrow is a new beginning. I believe that my purpose of life is to feed a lot of families, to put food on their table, by providing them with jobs. But not only that, I want them to be able to see that the future for their children should be better than their own. That's why they have to work hard, for the future.
I think, I am entitled to be called successful if I have accomplished that (Ayub 29:1-25). But to be honest, i am not a successful man yet, cause I am so far from it.
Actually, I have no rights to give a theme to this note. This note should actually speaks for it self. But I will be brave and blunt out the theme of this note, which is Five Ingredients to have a Meaningful Life. Indeed, I was tempted to write Five Ingredients to Success, but I know better now that Success is never a goal. The five ingredients is abbreviated as TEMPO (read it in Indonesian of course).
The first letter is T, stands for talent. We need talent to be able to do something good in life. Talent is a God given ability that has been equipped in us when we were born. Some are born with a charm to speak in public, some are blessed with endurance to stay focus for a long time. Although these are God given thing, in the course of time some people managed to excel in their talent, and some people managed to turn their talent completely off.
Talent is important and one of the keys in life. Recognizing your talent is like a general in war who knows exactly the strengths and weaknesses of the troops he is entrusted with. Having that information, he would know which field of battle he should chose to reach victory, what kind of strategy to play and even timing to do the attack. Talent is not completely hidden, most of the time we can make a good guess of what we are capable to and lacking of capability to. But it is nice to talk to people who know you well to get confirmation.
Doing something which is on the line with our talent is most of the time the best strategy in life. We will end up doing something we like best, and something that we are good at. It is then quite difficult for someone to do better than us since we have the talent for that. Just like Harvey Malaihollo has a beautiful voice. With a proper training in the singing technique, it is then very very difficult for him to be beaten in this area. Please underline proper training. I know people also who is extremely good in mathematics but abandoning proper training end up being a mediocre mathematician.
The conclusion is, we need talent to do best in our life. We need to recognize it, and then following it up with proper training to excel what we have. To make it excellent. Doing your job which is in line with our talent will lessening the burden of working and adding the joy of working. If we have reached this level, it would be straight forward for us to achieve greatness in what we are doing.
The second letter is E, for Environment. Talent is important, but talent without good environment is almost nothing. A talented jazz guitar player being in the surroundings of mediocre musician will end up doing nothing. A talented badminton athlete can do only so so in in the absence of good counter players.
Thus, watch carefully with whom you are hanging out with. Watch carefully the crowd that you are in. If your friends are mainly playful people, you will end up doing nothing but playing and fooling around. Of course, sometime it is good to have a clown among you when you are going out for fun. But don't make it regular. You need friends also that can challenge you to be better that what you are already are. What the use of playing badminton with someone three times a week, and four hours each, when you know already that you will always win?
Moreover, you need also to hang out with the RIGHT crowd. If you want to be a computer programer, then you should be part of such community to have the latest information. If you want to be a good trader you should hang out also with people who have the same interest.
The third letter M, for mentor. Like it or not, the world we are living especially nowadays is not the friendliest world, let alone the holiest. Thus, we really need someone, that can guide us through our paths. Not only in the field of business, career, but also in faith and believes. There will be so many distractions, temptation etc. In order to stay straight, WE NEED MENTORS. Someone we can trust, and we can learn from. This person we called a mentor could also help us by his/her experience.
Having the talent is like a bomb having the potential to explode. Having the good environment is like having the right vehicle to carry it. But having a mentor is like having a well trained air force pilot that can target the bomb in precise manner.
The fourth letter is P, for PASSION. If you look carefully to the abovementioned description, they are all external factors. Talent is God giving thing. Nothing you can do about it. Environment is also can only be chosen. Mentor, clearly is an outside influence. But of course there should be internal factor. There should be something we need to do internally. That is Passion.
We need to be passionate about what we are doing. The question is how to be passionate. This is of course a whole new lecture. Maybe I'll write another note about it. But here are some tips. You can be passionate if you learn how to enjoy your work. You can be passionate by constantly thinking about it night and day. You can be passionate about it when you always try to do the same thing differently.
The last letter is O: Opportunities. This, my friend will pop up in the middle of nowhere, when we have all the previous four quality. Opportunities will present them self right before your eyes, because you have the ability to incorporate it. You have enough talent to see that opportunity. Even a small windows of one fifth of a second, is enough for a world class badminton player to launch a smash to his opponent. One tenth of a second is enough for a F1 driver to overtake his opponent in a duel. But even a whole minute is useless in the hand of incompetent.
