meals

My female owner always enjoyed one-to-one meals with people as it gives her an opportunity to get to the other person better and relate on a more personal level. Not surprisingly, different people elicit different responses from her.

My female owner met B for dinner last night. B is a fellow Singaporean friend who took care of her when she first came to Brisbane. They meet up for dinner once every few weeks. Although my female owner appreciates his friendship and kindness, she got bored quickly. As usual, B talked about how much he earns doing research and tutoring, statistics/ econometrics and Singapore drama serials/ artistes. Frivolous and/or out of her league. On a better day, he would talk about politics. Not really my female owner’s area of interest, but better than the other usual topics.

My female owner had a totally different experience with W whom she met for lunch today. W is a PhD psychology student. Due to their busy schedules, they meet for lunch once every few months. The lunch turned out to be more than a catch-up session. God was clearly involved in the conversation as it steered naturally from coursework and exam woes to how they need to choose to honour God even when they face pressure from others to conform to worldly standards in their training. The two of them started sharing testimonies of God’s relevance in their training and how some of the “scientific knowledge” of the field contradicts the Bible. Psychology, if not harnessed in the right spirit, can actually turn people (psychologists and clients) away from God. Christian psychologists are in a dangerous position because of the self-centred nature of the discipline and do need to be able to discern the Truth from deception.

My female owner went away, feeling more convicted of the need to meditate and apply the word of God in the different areas of her life. It is so easy to fall into the trap or routine of gathering knowledge, without testing it against what the Bible says. This conversation was spiritually stimulating for my female owner as it stirred up a fundamental issue that not many had been able to identify or engage with her.

So there, two different meal partners, with different outcomes.