Pastor Edric Sng once lived the empty life painted in Ecclesiastes and “tried everything to make life make sense”.

But in coming to God, he found the reality of His Maker so compelling that, at His call, Ps Edric left his pole position at the digital newsrooms of Today and Channel News Asia to establish thir.st and Salt&Light. He would subsequently also start the evangelistic websites Stories of Hope and hhm.sg 还好吗.

Now 43, the Editor of Thirst Collective and Deputy Senior Pastor at Bethesda (Bedok-Tampines) Church, summed up his one takeaway from those early years in the exhortation: “Know God now, serve God now, love God now, because one day you won’t be able to do it fully.”

He was speaking at Conversations with Marketplace Leaders: Impacting the City, a panel discussion with three other marketplace leaders, namely:

Andrew Khoo, 65, founder and CEO of New Hope Community Services (NHCS)
Khoo left his vocation as pastor of a family church and started NHCS 20 years ago to provide shelters to help homeless Singaporeans. “I am convinced our faith in God has to be expressed in the community by meeting practical needs,” he said.

“What gets me excited is becoming God’s masterpiece and a display of His grace in the community – to do good works with no strings attached, to represent God in the marketplace.” 

Ho Peng Kee, 69, former Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs
Ho worked 20 years in the public service and 14 years as a university don. What counted most to him was the opportunity to touch the lives of those he interacted with. The Christian’s purpose, he said, was to fulfill “the cultural mandate to make the world a better place for our fellow human beings”.

Endowus Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, Samuel Rhee, 50
Rhee worked for 30 years in the financial industry, where he found meaning in understanding the role sovereign funds and pension funds served in facilitating people’s retirement or their children’s college education.

He started Endowus to educate and empower people, and to give them access to quality investment products at low cost. To him, “it is critically important to solve the problem of retirement adequacy, and to help individuals take control of their finances to prepare adequately for the future”.

An excerpt of the August event, organised by Zion Gospel Mission, follows.

What are some examples of tough decisions you have had to make that have challenged you and even your faith?

Ho Peng Kee: Very early in my working life, I had to decide whether to stay on in a law firm or return to the law faculty to teach. I prayed, looked at God’s word, but what tipped the scales for me was my desire to touch lives.

Ho Peng Kee: “What tipped the scales for me was my desire to touch lives.”

What does it mean to touch lives? It is to glorify God, for God to work in us through our different giftings and opportunities to touch lives.

So, I decided that though legal practice in that big law firm would be exciting, going back to the law school to interact with young people, teaching and touching young lives, was what I wanted.

Samuel Rhee: In the world of finance, there’s a fierce battle of the soul, of the mind, where Mammon and God are. It’s probably the frontlines of the workplace ministry. And it’s very tough spiritually.

I struggled a lot when I was younger but there was a seminal moment when God intervened that really shaped me. It was the decision to give up a much-coveted promotion to a co-worker.

It was the most painful decision in my life to give that up.

But through that, my co-worker realised I had my God and he did not. 

It was a shock to me growing up Christian all my life that, though I’ve been saying ‘I live for God’s glory’, I had lived all of my life and career up to that point for my own glory.

And the first time I was obedient to God and died to self, God was glorified.

That really shaped me for all the things that have happened since, in the choices that I’ve made, because now I know that’s why I was placed in the company and the career that I’ve been placed in.

How would you define success? Have there been instances where that is in conflict with the things you had to do?

Edric Sng: Success to me is two parts: You have to know what God’s will for you is, and you have to do it and do it well. That is success.

Everything else is forgery, a delusion.

God’s will for us in our life is sometimes a moving target. It might be one thing in this season, but it might evolve and change.

Nonetheless, wherever we are, we need to constantly check in with God to say: “God, is what I am doing what You want me to do?”

And when you do know what God wants you to do, do it and do it well.  

There are lots of people who don’t do what God wants them to do. Or they do it half-heartedly – to placate God, to humour Him.

Edric Sng: “Whatever God wants you to do, do it 100%.”

That might apply not just to work but also to your family, your ministry or even your recreation.

Whatever God wants you to do, do it 100%.

I believe that’s when God will look at you one day and say: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Ho Peng Kee: My prayer to the Lord is that I would live out His purpose for my life wholly. For each of us here, God has purpose for your life – why has He put you where you are?

Whatever you do, do it as if working for the Lord, not for men (Colossians 3:23). This has been my verse for working life.

If your motivation for working hard and your goals are laudable, if your thoughts are pure, man’s recognition will come. So, work to glorify God.

Add value to the setting and people around you by touching lives. Whether you’re an administrative clerk, or road sweeper, whether you’re working or a stay-home parent, be the best that you can be.

How do you deal with issues of integrity and other issues in the world while living as salt and light? 

Andrew Khoo: I was from the Navy, which is very regimented. It’s “I say, you do”.

When I came into full-time ministry, it was difficult for me to take a “no”.

I knew that was something I needed to work on; I learned to develop a growth mindset.

We must be working on ourselves to become a better version of ourselves. This is leading from inside out – being, rather than doing.

Andrew Khoo: “Every day, I wake up with an awareness that I want to be His masterpiece, a display of God’s grace.”

Edric Sng: Work-life balance – family balance, specifically – is probably the single-most important thing that I will have to guard jealously. I don’t want to be the pastor whose kids will never want to have anything to do with the church because of how they saw the father and how they lost the father to the church.

One of the things we have to build into the whole equation is to jealously guard our time with people that matter in our lives, whether our spouse, our children, or the family.

Don’t worry about other people more than you worry about your family.

When you have your family, give them all your time and attention.

There will be some trade-offs but I would rather my kids gain from my interaction with them and one day look back and say, if they are serving God, it’s because they saw me modelling it.

Samuel Rhee: There’s the vertical perspective of God’s perspective of the world and money.

But there’s also the horizontal perspective – why it’s so challenging to exhibit radical generosity, to be in this world but not of this world.

Christianity is the ultimate exercise in delayed gratification because we have eternity ahead of us. If you really space our time – from creation to the end of time – we are not even a dot.

Yet, we are greater in value to God than all of the universe.

Samuel Rhee: “The eternal perspective is what enables us to give radically like Jesus did.”

That perspective of eternity and God’s reward is what allows us to have faith in Him, His character of love and justice. The eternal perspective is what enables us to give radically like Jesus did.

What is the one piece of advice you would give to young people or anyone who’s struggling with wanting to make it in life, but seeking to serve God sacrificially?

Edric Sng: I was out of church from 15 to 25 years old – that was 10 years more I could have gotten to know and serve God. We have biblical encouragement: “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth.” (Ecclesiastes 12:1)

Our life is like a vapour. So, know God now, serve God now, love God now, because one day you won’t be able to do it fully.

I start with the parents: Live your life in such a manner that when your kids look at you, they want to imitate your life, a life lived for Jesus.

The second piece of advice, for the youth, is that: If your parents aren’t like that, show them grace. Forgive them and forge the life that God wants you to live.

Don’t worry about what your parents or the world is telling you about how to live your life. You check in with God. And if God says work, serve, live, love in this manner, then you do what He says.

One day you will look back and realise that was the good life.

Andrew Khoo: One, be intentional about living out your life, not to be swayed by what people are saying, or reacting to changes.

Be very intentional in what you want to become.

Two, anchor your life on a key verse or passage.

For many years, I used the verse in Ephesians 2:10 to anchor my life. Every day, I wake up with an awareness that I want to be His masterpiece, a display of God’s grace. With that awareness, I respond in the manner that brings glory to Him.

As I continue to practise this, it gets easier and becomes my lifestyle.

Ho Peng Kee: Soren Kierkegaard has said: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

We live our lives a day at a time. Have prayer to move you close to God for the day, knowing that you are here for a purpose.

Know yourself, love yourself, be comfortable with yourself and the value that only you can add.

God has a calling for you, in the different arenas in which you’re involved. Why? Because God loves you.

The legacy you leave behind will be very different from the one left by the person next to you.

The other thing is opportunities that God brings into our lives – of evangelism, of career, of development. Be mindful of these opportunities.

Then, of course, prayer, the word of God, the Holy Spirit, mentors, peer input. Then you decide.

Finally, remember the Persian saying: “This too shall pass.” Whether you’re going through ups or downs, these too shall pass. 

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