Intellect has the capacity to idolize itself.

The human intellect is a powerful but paradoxical tool. Because it possesses the capacity for complex self-awareness, it can easily fall into the trap of venerating its own logic. When intellect idolizes itself, the ego mistakes the map (our mental models and frameworks) for the territory (actual reality, our joys and pain), prioritizing cerebral constructs over lived human experience.

Why does this idea feel so edifying to me right now? Watching friends and family members search for direction and seeing them hunger for transcendence, yet still want to maintain intellectual control.

Why is astrology easier to accept than the idea of the Judeo-Christian God? Astrology asks less of us. It requires less commitment, is less intrusive on what we do, and we get final say when we pick and choose what feels true or not.

It’s a one-way relationship that doesn’t require much. Many people today are comfortable with believing that the universe has energy, that everything is connected, that the cosmos influence us. It’s a religion. Yet, it receives a lower standard of scrutiny than religion.

People will easily accept statements like “Mercury is in retrograde”, even jokingly, even though it has no empirical support.

Because we crave for patterns. We know the universe has clues.

And so we constantly in search of our identity. If we’re not children of God, then who are we? Astrology provides an immediate answer. I’m an Aries. I’m ENFP. I’m Enneagram 5. We love categories like these because we get to feel seen.

Charm says “you can choose what you want to trust or follow and what you don’t want to trust and follow. Which is basically back to the idea of man thinking their minds are the most reliable and most real.”

Intellect. Idolizing itself.

Do people realize that as Christians we also don’t want God to be so complicated?

If I had a say in what God was like, I would not want a triune God. A God who is one being in three persons is not the kind of theology anyone sits down and chooses to create or defend. It’s too complex. But it was revealed as such and what am I supposed to do? Ignore it because it’s inconvenient?

If God were just the Father, that would be great. But if he’s a father, and does not have a son, who is he the father to? The title means nothing until he creates something. Which means he would need creation to be who he is. A God dependent on his own creation. That is not much of a God.

And if God is love, love at his very nature, who was he loving before anything existed? If he’s never incomplete and love was never incomplete, love was eternally expressed since the beginning between the Father, Son and Spirit before a single star was made.

And if I had a say in what God’s story was like, I would not want to create a God that would be shamed and humiliated and killed in a manner that was only meant for the lowest criminals. Who would back this? It’s too easy to ridicule. I wouldn’t choose this.

So raise your objections but consider this: If God were simple and easy to comprehend, that would say more about your idea of God than about him. Why should the author of the universe be easily comprehensible? We haven’t figured out consciousness, we don’t understand time or quantum mechanics or why there is something rather than nothing. Why should God be simpler than all of that?

You’d think if everyone spoke the same language that they would get to self actualization and truth a lot faster. But in Babel what they actually decided to do was to build a tower to make a name for themselves. People weren’t actually seeking truth or transcendence. “Let us make a name for ourselves”, just pride and ego and legacy.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes down and now many people of different languages can hear and understand the gospel in their own languages.

I’m in awe. Instead of God wanting us to all learn Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek to learn about the gospels he actually wants us to learn about it in our own different languages?
He’s inclusive and the good news is for everyone, not just those who know Hebrew or Greek?
He meets people where they actually are?

The Parthians, Medes, Elamites in Acts 2 each hear in their own native language.
If it required Hebrew or Greek, only those with the education, geography, or social access to acquire those languages would be able to grasp it fully. Pentecost demolishes that gatekeeping at the very moment the church is born.

Israel was “chosen” not to be the only ones with access to God, but to be the vehicle through which God would reach all peoples.

A core Islamic doctrine is that the Quran is only truly the Quran in Arabic. To pray correctly, to recite properly, Arabic is required. This means millions of Muslims worldwide memorize and recite words in a language they don’t actually understand.

This is a meaningful difference to me. Does God want us to come as we are, in our own tongues to worship? Or is his full revelation tethered to one human language that he deems perfect and irreplaceable?

In trying to share about why I believe the God I believe in, the one who created the heavens and the earth.. I feel like it is not the right approach to tell people about the Bible. There are too many things to unpack it’s like asking someone to learn physics through The Feynman Lectures on Physics. 

Asking someone to believe in God through stories from the Bible feels like asking them to believe in physics by reading The Feynman Lectures on Physics, before they even accept that physics exists.

That’s not how belief works.

So I want to approach the questions about God’s existence in a different way. In a human way. Because we were made to reason, to think and to question. It makes sense for us to distrust things. Especially when the thing in question is invisible, transcendent, and claims authority over reality itself.

As a child I could imagine angels singing in church with the congregation but as a teenager I could imagine a group of friends coming together, writing stories and passing them down until they became sacred. Perhaps Jesus had a twin and the resurrection was a trick a la The Prestige.

These are so normal and so common for us to think about.

So the real question about God’s existence is that, if he truly existed, what would he do to show us that it was really him?

Not what we would want him to do or what he would do that would impress us the most, but what would be impossible for humans to fake.

If I were God and I wanted to reveal myself to creatures who are intelligent, skeptical, and capable of self-deception, I would do things that humans cannot do.

Humans are limited –

• We are bound by linear time.
  We cannot go backward, cannot coordinate events across centuries, cannot live long enough to execute multi-generational plans with precision.
• We cannot violate the laws of nature at will.
  We can manipulate nature, but we cannot suspend it. We can’t walk on water, command storms, or override death on our own terms.
• We cannot create life from nothing.
  We rearrange what already exists. We don’t breathe being into existence.
• We cannot control history as a whole.
  Individuals act freely. Empires rise and fall unpredictably. Human plans decay, drift, fracture.

If I were God, then these would be areas that are possible for me to leave a mark in.

Appearing once, loudly, to one generation could be dismissed as legend. But God can embed a signature across time.

He is able to plant easter eggs, ideas, promises and patterns so far back in history that no single human could possibly orchestrate their fulfillment.

Then allow centuries to pass.
As empires rise and collapse and languages and culture develop and change.

And then much later, bring those old prophecies to completion in ways no human planner could survive long enough to execute and coordinate.

A coherent narrative arc across time itself much like the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

If that happened.. if events were set in motion long ago and were then fulfilled centuries later, the author of this creation is showing us his power. He’s operating in a category entirely different from humans.

If such a thing exists, it deserves far more awe than we give it.

And because it exists, I find it appalling that people accept weak arguments or don’t use enough reason to think about God.

I’m learning how to listen to God. And that sounds a little cliche and neat to me.
So I also want to learn how to not sound too cliche to the people around me.
It’s easy to fall into that trap as a Christian I think.
Because people usually have questions that don’t have neat answers, but because we are eager to share our beliefs, when we try, we tend to use language that oversimplifies.

I used to wonder how people could believe so easily.

Now I realise that it might not have been that they’re simple-minded or ignorant.

It’s just that you can’t really answer questions about God in a simple way for it to be satisfying to a non-theist.

So in 2026, I want to learn how to listen to God, and to learn how to explain God.

Been awhile since I updated. Re-read what I last wrote and I wanted to update that things have changed on that front since then.

This year I gave more freely. I bought a $10 pen from an aunty who asked. I didn’t have cash but I paynow-ed her. I decided that I could easily sleep whether or not I had that $10.

Just a week after that I was even approached by a guy who looked like he was a bit slow, he had asked for food. The only thing nearby was a cafe so I bought a ~$20 pasta.

I have done what I felt is right. And I’m grateful for the opportunity. Were they the ones in need or was I?

I’ve started volunteering with a fitness group who trains people with special needs. It’s a struggle at times, and I’m still fighting myself about this.

I’ve also started teaching a group of people affiliated with the National Arthritis Foundation. It’s at an inconvenient time slot for me that burns my Saturday but it’s been mostly rewarding and even though it’s not about the money I’m not doing it for free.

And yet again, are they the ones in need or is it really me trying to fill my own cup?

Even as I type this, should I really just keep these things to myself?

The serpent plants the first doubt: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

I had a moment of enlightenment when I realised that this wasn’t just about disobedience. The story was really about suspicion and distrust.

Maybe God is holding out on me.
Maybe He’s not as good as He says.

And this moment is all of us as we grow up out of childhood.

We start off as babies trusting completely. We rely on caregivers for survival. But when we become 2 or 3, we begin to lie. Not because we’re taught, but we discover it somehow..?

As we grow up then, we begin to sense what we can or cannot do. We find out the boundaries.

Will I be punished if I do this? Can I bend the rules and get away with it? If I tell the truth will I get hurt?

Our Eden moment of “Did God say…?” becomes “Do I really have to tell the truth?”

We doubt God’s word and promises. We crave autonomy and want to be God.
And when we get caught, we shift blame like Adam:

It wasn’t me. It was her. It was You. You gave her to me.

Unapologetic and protecting ourselves. We think it’s for survival.

When asked how Fulton Sheen knew people weren’t taking advantage of him, Sheen replied, “I can’t take the chance” that they might be in genuine need.

A few days ago my husband gave $10 in cash to someone who knocked on our door asking for money. Said it was for charity.

I was shook. You WHAT? How did you know it was legit? What website was it?

I would never have handed over that cash so easily. I just don’t trust people who ask for money. My default assumption is that people could be lying and shouldn’t be trusted.

That person in the street walking up to me is probably going to sell me something I don’t need.

What kind of person am I if I doubt everyone who asks for help?

So maybe that’s what the Fall really was.

It’s not about eating the forbidden fruit. It’s the exact moment we stopped trusting? We stopped becoming innocent and naive.

Maybe the braver, riskier thing is just to believe, like what C did.
Like Fulton Sheen, knowing there’s risk but choosing to hope anyway.
To give, and let God decide if the recipient did good with your gift.

Even if it occasionally funds someone’s KPods addiction.

Started the day teaching, then threw myself into serious biz mode in the afternoon by literally putting pants on over my tights in the office, then back to teaching again, then executing some marketing material..

My power is taking on many things, but not doing any of them at a high level.

The big meeting in the middle of the day I’d been low key dreading because big business negotiations are just not something I am familiar with. I was just hoping not to agree to anything catastrophic.

But I was already wearing the pants, and the nature of our small family business (and perhaps how green and inexperienced I am) helped me continue to be the harmless player in the game and allowed the other stakeholders to guide the discussions.

Everyone wanted to make things work.

No one tried to throw a curveball or play power games or seemed like they were hiding anything and I was able to get clarity because of how pro-business and understanding these much more experienced people were.

Even though now as I’m trying to collect our response to their proposed agreement, I’m still trying to see how we can protect ourselves better. I’m literally praying to God to open my eyes to anything I need to know going in because even though I’ve got a tiny bit more confidence now, this whole project is a lot of work once we take it on, and it’s a lot of risk.

It’s not a sexy deal for us.

It just adds a bit more income for the staff and eats up a whole bunch of our time and effort that no one will ever see. But we have to do it, because otherwise we won’t survive in this industry.

So I felt somewhat useful today. My teaching was even solid and I felt like I added value to everyone today. I was stretched thin but I showed up. It was just much easier to be satisfied with myself today.

I didn’t go into the office today.

And even though that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve done nothing with my life, that’s not helping me feel good about myself.

I fixed a broken website before lunch or coordinated a whole corporate matchmaking situation.

I submitted next month’s promotions, followed up with the bank, negotiated business terms, and somehow navigated three jobs and a volunteer task on just two slices of bread and some dried mango.

But I still feel crappy about myself.

Because I wasn’t in the office physically taking up space, breathing the same air as my mother. Who is also my boss, but is also my mother.

She hasn’t asked for anything, btw. She hasn’t looked at me like I’m slacking, or said a word about my absence in the office.

But I still feel.. down. Just guilt with a side of imposter syndrome.

Because even when no one says anything, there’s that internal pressure I put on myself. The feeling that comes when someone trusts you and doesn’t micromanage.

I’ve been given so much freedom and flexibility at work. A front-row seat in the family business.

And I know not everyone gets this.

So I feel like I have to be present for it. Be visible.

But today, none of the work I did was visible. My body heat absent from the office. Cobwebs growing at the corner of my desk. I’ve just been at home on my laptop being invisible, working on my mother’s other child (the biz).

Then because of that, I feel like a bum. Even though, logically, rationally, I know I am not.

I asked ChatGPT how to reframe this. Because writing it down, I know I did stuff today. I know I’m doing my best.

It told me to remind myself that being invisible isn’t the same as being idle. That work done in private is still work. That I did do something today, and it wasn’t big, it wasn’t noticeable, but it took time.

But because no one saw it. Because it wasn’t in the office. It feels like it didn’t happen. It described all my tasks as having disappeared into a cloud of invisible usefulness and that sounds exactly right. How there’s no trophy for “made twelve micro-decisions that prevented bigger problems later”.

Decisions to stall on the job are still decisions nonetheless. Decisions that I have to make because things from the other parties don’t make sense for us to be involved yet.

It’s ridiculous. But the feeling is real. Like I have to be visibly busy for my self worth.

So it’s just me here, still in the shirt I woke up in, wondering if I’ve done enough to not feel like a bum.

Welp. I’ve got to go teach group class now.

Many moons ago, the phrase “No guts, no glory” was what motivated me to get myself out there and do the things that terrified me. It was the kind of thing I found on tumblr, printed and pasted at my work desk.

I was just trying to put myself out there and be something.

Today, I’m sitting in the waiting room at SGH Centre for Digestive and Liver Diseases, thinking about my literal guts. And there is zero glory to be found.

I’ve never been very regular. It’s just such a chore to have to stop whatever I’m doing to visit the toilet. Even worse when it’s out in public. 

So it was a huge change when I had really painful constipation early this year and every successful poop became a cause for celebration and a mark in my poop tracker on my calendar.

Papaya worked like magic. So, we began buying papaya like some people buy Hermes bags. 

One for today, tomorrow, the day after..

C and I have created sign language in relation to this beautiful orange fruit. We even have a papaya song. He is now also an expert at cutting papaya beautifully.

But after meeting the doctor, if glory was something younger me thought the guts were in control of.. 

There’s no glory with showing a stranger your most intimate parts. Getting my anus probed by two doctors has also decidedly not been glorious. 

Welcome to the first of potentially many more hospital visits as I get older.

Very human, mildly humiliating, and ultimately helpless but grateful for the strangers doing this work.

I’ve scheduled my colonoscopy for June, and as I walked past a very handsome man in scrubs, I texted C.

No (properly functioning) guts, no glory..?