Why You So Gong Gong?

And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!’ And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ (Matthew 14:29-30)

After giving 6 swimming lessons to two 5-year-old boys, Daniel and Timothy, I said to them, “Come, let’s take off your big float, and put on your arm floats. See if you can swim.”

“Dowan” Daniel retorted.

“Why you dowan? You scared izzit?” I asked. Daniel nodded.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let you drown wan. You can surely float with your arm floats,” I coaxed. “I will be holding you. If you cannot float, then I’ll bring you up. I’m just over here,” I continued, giving assurance.

“But if I start to go down, will you take me up?” Daniel asked doubtfully.

“Of course la, I will take you up! You think I will let you sink meh, ayoooo…” I replied.

Then Timothy, Daniel’s younger and wilder twin brother, injected, “He dunno how to think wan! He gong gong…”

How I laughed at Timothy’s comment! We can say that Timothy is a model Christian. He lives with no fear of death. Because he has no concept of danger, drowning, or anything of the like! You have to look out for him, or he’ll be likely to jump into the watery grave while giggling at the same time.

When it was Timothy’s turn, I made him take off his big float and wear his arm floats.

“Koko Joshua…” He said.

“What?” I replied.

After a long pause, he said, “If I start to go down into the water, will you carry me up?”

"Hahahahahaha! You dunno how to think wan! You gong gong! Of course la, I will carry you up!” I chortled.

It was just a few minutes ago when he called his older brother foolish to ask a dumb question. When his turn came, he also asked the same dumb question.

How similar this situation is to our walk with God. For 6 lessons, I made sure I never took my eyes off Timothy and Daniel. For 6 lessons, I never made them do anything that they are scared of. For 6 lessons, I progressively taught them water skills, without letting them do what they are not ready to do. I thought the trust developed between us would be strong enough for them to let go of their big floats and progress to the next level. But they still asked a fundamental question of trust: “If I start to go down, will you carry me up?”

Very often, when we observe other people struggle in matters of faith, we tend to take ourselves out of the picture, look at it from an objective, external, judgmental point of view, and say “Why you dunno how to think wan? You gong gong ah?” We think it’s foolish for other people to ask such questions.

But when we ourselves are in the picture, we realize that we will also ask the same question that we thought was foolish.

“O you of little faith, why did you doubt,” Jesus said.