Strange how shopping sprees come in phases, itemised.

For a period, it was movie rental. I'd consume about 2 movies per night, after having come home from work. The couple who owns the video rental store near my place already knows me by face and customer card number and the movies I've rented.

But for now, it's novels. Christian fiction to be precise. And yet, it's not entirely fiction, what is written in the books. I've discovered Ted Dekker, and his books have been like parables - illustrating Christian truths in ways only stories can. I'm beginning to understand the might of the pen, sometimes even more powerful than moving pictures which tell only of one man's interpretation to a written tale. I've been consuming his books ravenously; on average 1.5 books per day (cos the other 0.5 gets carried over to the next day). So far I've read 8 of his books, leaving me with only one more of his written works to polish off. Looking forward to dropping by MPH tomorrow to pick it up. I think my room's becoming somewhat like a library now.

But one thing I like about the books Ted has written is that he puts God's love in such amazing light, illustrating the way God would pursue every living soul on this earth to the ends, even when each soul would probably have turned his or her selfish back on Him at very least once. Ted uses the love between humans to showcase just a glimpse of that love, and I'm beginning to realise it now. He also somehow is able to weave the reality of God and His word into the stories, bringing them to literal reality.

Besides the recurring theme of God's love, there's also the one on the reality of Jesus' miracles - how too often they are dismissed as stories, but we fail to really sit down and consider how real they must have been. Imagine if my pet dog were to suddenly speak to me in English; or if I saw the sea off East Coast Beach part halfway through... We may laugh at Bruce Almighty, but what if, what if, these miracles actually did happen today? How would the world react? With skeptism? With a wholehearted embrace of the Truth? Or simply with various factions arguing even further what WAS the Truth? To whom would they attribute the miracles to?

And yet, then again Ted reminds ever-so-gently through his prose, that no matter how amazing a miracle, "who was to say that a straightened hand was more miraculous than a healed heart"? And in a lot of ways, he's right. Perhaps the healing of a broken heart, the opening of a blinded heart's eyes was a more difficult matter than a physical healing. Esp because Satan deals best with deception, and the Bible knows this well when it tells us to "above all, guard our heart, for it is the wellspring of life". Satan knows that if he gets to the heart, it'll seep into the rest of our being.

But God continues to pursue us with love. We so often react like spoiled brats, taking for granted this Lover who chases us with His love and forgives us no matter how many times we have spurned Him with our selfishness. It's so strange - His love is a wonderful thing to remain in, yet we are so easily tempted by the trinklets of the world. We find it easier to accept the evil, but harder to accept the Truth. Easier to allow ourselves to think we deserve to live under punishment, when an abundant life is already ours for the taking. Why is it so difficult for us to accept this good and perfect gift that comes from above? Because our will is continually being tugged in two separate directions; and yet God, knowing very well we in all likelihood would reject Him, continues to give us the free will to choose.

And yet that is love, isn't it? The ability to choose. If we could not choose, we would not love.