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And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.

Leviticus 25:8-10

Yes. Today is a big day. Today, I’ll be writing something different. Today is a jubilee year. A celebration of life, to my best friend and my most loyal confidant. Today is the big day for the person I met 25 years ago, in her uncle’s property development company where we were both working during our formative years, while I spent my evenings moonlighting night classes in law school. Today is my wife’s 50th birthday.

“Ke mana hari ni, Tuan? (Where to today, Sir?)” Shah asked. “Pejabat pos, pastu kita nak singgah kat Robataya untuk makan tengahari (To the post office, and later we’d like to drop by at Robataya’s for lunch.)”

For two years, Shah has been a very faithful family chauffeur. He took care of our needs to travel, always on time, and never once late on the job. Travelling besides this fine young gentleman, has never been with any dull moments. He always had something to tell us, whether concerning his family, his wife or his two kids. Quite a bubbly character this man has, and he reminds me of friendly taxi drivers I crossed path in yesteryear, speaking non-stop during the entire journey and keeping passengers in good company throughout, prior to dropping them off.

On the night before, I had all my preparations brought out on my desk for a final inspection. My 30-year-old mechanical Seiko 5, a silver crucifix with matching necklace, a pair of silver rings, a tungsten bracelet with studded cubic zirconias, a Palm 102 and a 2nd generation Nokia 5110 mobile phone. These things are as old as my relationship with my wife. The night before, I had everything neatly arranged, for this big day today. And today, I took my wife down memory lane, in retro-style. Except for my wife’s Android phone, which i used to take pictures, we had everything closely resembled the settings as how it was 25 years ago, as how it was on the day of our first lunch date.

I also took out a pair of 20-year-old sneakers, fully restored and refurbished to showroom condition, for this big day. It was made from genuine leather, characteristically not the same as most modern, breathable sneakers made from mesh and fabric. And the real hide made a lot of difference to have lasted the pair of shoes for more than 2 decades, despite having gone through several years of harsh-condition wearing and tearing. Nowadays, they don’t make sneakers like they do in the past anymore. The glue, the stitching and even the plastic-rubber material used on its base, were all different. On the night before, I said to myself, I’m going to wear this pair of classic tomorrow.

When we arrived at Robataya Izakaya at One-U, our favorite Japanese cuisine and fine dining restaurant, we were quite taken by surprise, that a sizable crowd had already queued outside its door, with each group of people waiting to be seated. This was a far cry from what it was, several months back. Then, the restaurant was usually empty, void of many customers even during peak dining hours. But, today we saw that the situation became more lively and vibrant than before. And it was good.

Along the way, we had our face masks on. Not that we are bothered much about COVID-19, but because the law in our country still require us to obey this silly regulation to keep our masks on, when present in crowded places. As far as my wife, my kids and I are concern, our God-given instincts taught us not to fall for this degeneration-scam, and we knew all along, the pandemic was nothing more than mere different strains of the common cold and flu, that naturally mutates from time to time.

People are not killed by any deadly virus, especially imaginary ones that were never scientifically proven to have been isolated or proven to exist, but people are dying from what they were told to inject inside their bodies. Similar to the dreaded word cancer, most people are quite okay before they were given treatment. But their conditions would strangely descend downhill after that. The only logical question I can pose here is this; do people even bother to find out what’s contained inside the meds given to them or they simply trust the system blindly without questioning the facts? Perhaps, logical reasoning is considered old school thinking and no longer deserves any attention, according to the vast majority.

Our freedom of movement have been temporarily restricted for two years, and today, although we’re not surprised at all, but we’re glad that societal norms had been relieved from much of its difficult moments. Except restrictions for the unvaccinated to travel abroad, which is still being enforced between certain countries especially to Perth in Australia, we are doing quite alright and had nothing much to complain about.

Today is a big day, because today is my wife’s jubilee year and birthday, falling on a calendar date, time and season where we are allowed to move freely and non-restrictively.

More Than A Wife But A Mother To Two Obedient Kids

Yes again. She is greater than just being my wife and best friend for twenty-five years. She is also the mother to my two kids. As a family of four, we did almost everything in our lives together. There is unlikely any moment, where one or more of us is separated from the others. True, that was how it had been exactly for more than 20 years, we were never separated physically from each other most of the time. We stayed together, we live together, we work and play together as one team, and we remained loyal to one another like trusted buddies. Together, we are like a mini church inside a family, submitted to the ordinances of God’s coming church.

The most powerful contribution my wife made to the family, is none other than her submission to the head of the family, as commanded in the Bible (Ephesians 5:22). She never questioned the decisions I make and always trust my judgment in what I do. Likewise, I treated seriously the subject of obedience to God, and paid much time and effort to change my ways to His ways, that our lives should demonstrate a reduction in sin and increase in righteousness, consistently pursuing Christ-likeness in us (Romans 12:2). And God taught us that this hierarchical submission to His truth, is the Biblical basis of one-self’s sanctification, that leads to a life of joy and peace in the Lord (John 15:9-11). And the both of us rigorously raised our kids using the same guidelines, teaching them to fear God and that obedience to God and obedience to parents whom in turn obeys God, are paramount traits that produce abundance and cannot be avoided.

They were home-schooled from young. Yes again. Except for primary school, both of them never had any secondary education, and they never graduated with any certificates like other kids, and never been to any colleges or universities. We knew that education today is no longer about training people. But it has evolved more into an elaborate system to skin the typical family of their resources. Thirty years ago, a college degree was indeed valuable, and jobs were waiting for the individual even before they flung their square tops on graduation day. But today, it is very different. The system is so unlike the learning process promised in the past, and graduates are not only left with little or no job opportunities, but they are also saddled with massive amounts of student loan debts before they could finish with what they thought is going to assist them in their careers and future.

My friends and even some among my own immediate relatives, thought that we are crazy. It is unthinkable to even imagine not sending your own kids to complete elementary school. But that was where life took us. We trusted in God’s plan for us and never relied on the ways of the world. We recognized the Commandment not to covet what others have and in all of our needs and wants, we train ourselves to be fully dependent on God and to ask from God. Furthermore, we knew and are confident, between a Father and His true son, what the son asks, the Father gives (Matthew 7:7-10).

Obedience To God Is Key To Life

With my wife’s help for more than 20 years, both my kids are self-employed today, each running their own small business and being coached to earn their keeps according to the dictates of the Scripture. We prohibit them from using or deceiving others, and cautioned them of the serious ramifications of such sin, if they break this simple rule. They were taught from young that the Lord commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18), and to love in action and in truth, by not doing deplorable things that rob others of what belongs to them. And they were regularly reminded; that God did not burden us with a thousand rules. He only gave us ten. So none of us could reasonably have any excuse, to say God is giving us a difficult time in making us obey Him.

And while doing his job well done for his clients, my elder son spends his free time, going through masterclass business administration training in marketing and trading, from free online lectures made available by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. No, he is not studying for the purpose of gunning for paper qualifications but to seek skillful training to learn how to use math, science and logic to fortify his own business pursuits, to serve his clients better and to become more productive. He understands that education is originally meant to be the process of learning and gaining knowledge, and not suppose to be false promises to a brighter future dished out by commercially driven, academic centers.

While my daughter is a professional visual artist, having her own collection of non-fungible-token artwork, she earns her keep in cryptocurrency, Ethereum and Polygon Matic tokens. She’s the futuristic curator, and her group of friends are the next generation artistic creators, no longer building their niche in the old world but on Web 3 platforms.

Yeah, my kids don’t hold any general certificate of education (or SPM as we know it here), but they are debt-free, and they are not slaves to any systematic human labor organization, governed by wolves in sheep’s clothing. But I did challenged my kids, if they ever decide to sit for their SPM or STPM exams, I’ll be more than eager to do it together with them, and see if I could add a few more credits to my horrible, past results. Thanks to my wife’s understanding and tireless dedication throughout the decades we spent together, we could only have made this possible purely with God’s guidance, and to have accomplished it completely without any iota of reliance on the ways of the world.

To be honest, my wife is, in fact, quite a simple-minded person. On her own, she’s quite incapable of reading or understanding the Bible by herself. And for more than two decades, I had to stand in to explain and to teach her, what I know based on what I read from the Scripture. That is how God designed the hierarchy in our family unit; that as head of the house, my job is to be the mediator between God and my wife and kids. During our early years as a Christ-believing couple, I even had to purchase and use Sunday school comic books, to picture and to graphically explain facts to my wife. But the many years of patience, paid off. Today, she could tell the difference between the first four of God’s Commandments, from the rest of the remaining six; that the former are the rules on how to love God and the latter on how to love our neighbors. For God promised us as stated in Acts 16:31, that when one believes in God and is saved, his entire household too shall be saved.

The Future Is Eternity

A life where a prism diffracts more than seven rainbow colors. A surrounding where the human ear can hear beyond all audible levels known to mankind. A ground and soil once deserted like Israel, is now flowing with milk and honey (Joshua 5:6) and populated with everlasting foundation holes that produce the correct balance of water that our body needs to remain standing eternally (Revelation 21:6). And fruit trees grow effortlessly and abundantly on its pastures, without much intervention from human hands. A time when people can buy without money, and they are rich because of the blessings and provisions by God (Isaiah 55:1).

In to the future, a time and season when the seas are dried up (Revelation 21:1), giving birth to more land mass and unlocking the treasures in it, giving up the precious metals it holds hidden from men until the return of the King. The day when gold is so widely available in abundance, that streets are paved with it, gates made from pearl (Revelation 21:21), and walls constructed from jasper and other precious stones (Revelation 21:10-11). A time when what is precious is no longer priced according to the ways of the old financial system, but instead being deployed to serve the living Shepherd and His true sheep, as building blocks and materials that last for eternity, for the generation of eternal beings. The eternal man shall no longer use cement and sand to build houses that last only for 50 years, but they’ll be given access to long-lasting materials to build structures that stands forever.

A land where there shall be no sorrow and no crying (Revelation 21:4). An era where death has no sting over the living (1 Corinthians 15:55), where no longer any wage is owed to sin and the gift of eternal life from God remains a permanent feature (Romans 6:23) that hold cities together. And the Scripture said it clearly, this is not a scene found in outer space, or an imaginary heaven that preachers claim if you die, you get to go there. But this is a new place that shall soon be established here on the earth. The Scripture said Christ is coming back to earth and the signs are more imminent today than ever before. Heaven is a place that follows the Savior, and when He returns to earth, He brings heaven together with Him (Revelation 21:2). So as a family, my wife, kids and I are prepared to stay alive and not do stupid things that could deny us of this wonderful opportunity to be around on that coming Day.

Today is a big day. Today is the day where both my wife and I have crossed our jubilee years. Where we reach a time in life, a time for us to rest in our Sabbath year and no longer to toil anymore in the fields. It is time for us to move and to initiate ourselves for what shall soon be coming. For birth pangs and the beginning of sorrows (Matthew 24:8) are now seen roaming the streets. And Rachel shall soon be heard crying once again, that her children are no more (Jeremiah 31:15). Very soon, the time is coming to usher the return of the One true King of kings and Lord of lords. A time when He shall rule with an iron scepter to put an end to wickedness and evil (Revelation 2:27), and to surrender a holy nation back to God according to His original intents, as how He desired, when He created both man and woman in Eden.

Today is a big day, precursor to the coming of yet another much bigger Day.