Rely

I’ve always wondered why we humans, a race that is blessed with intellect supreme over all other organisms, a race that has come so far into technology and manipulating our surroundings such that it has both now, almost a mind of its own, does things out of ignorance or plain indulgence.

Just moments ago I had the sudden cravings just to chew on some nerds. The time now is 12:28am in the morning and knowing perfectly that the only thing I can possibly get out of such sinful indulgence is an expanded waistline and restlessness that will refuse me rest later on, I still gave in. On top of that, I had 1 piece of exquisite nougat (that doesn’t taste as awesome as described on the box. Meh.) and half a box of cut pineapples (this box of pineapples definitely burst my intake of calories for the day) after that. Why do I eat so much of such things when I know very well that it would do me no good?

Now in between that and me posting this post, I went on Facebook to post a note on one of my group’s walls. Now this is fine because that post was necessary. But what was unnecessary was that I then spent the next 15mins wasted on a Facebook game about killing zombies. I find the game quite lousy but at the same time secretly addictive. It does from time to time dawn on me that is does me no good whatsoever. It doesn’t even work my mind like how DOTA would. (DOTA defended.) But still I gave in to it.

Now this got me thinking of all the other times that I’ve wasted lazing around and not doing anything or just watching useless television programs. I’m sure there is a scientific explanation for this like how our brain switches off to rest or some other needed enzyme or blah blah is release when we do blah blah blah. But frankly it won’t suffice for me. Simply because our God is a God of purpose and He created us all with the same characteristic. Why do we waste our time on things of no purpose then?

I believe it is because there is not a full reliance on God. If there is total reliance, the words we say, the things we do, the things we think about should be led by God through His Holy Spirit in us. This means that even the choice of food can be dictated. It sounds extreme but if we are spirit-controlled, I believe that we will all prosper in health, studies and in everything that we do. This total reliance does not result in us losing freedom but to gain freedom – to live free from sin in God’s presence and to have the fullest of joy.

Why would we want to be in control when we have a God who knows EVERYTHING? It doesn’t make sense! Its like a toddler trying to fly a jet plane and refusing help from a real trained pilot sitting right behind him. We’re bound to crash when we do not rely completely. If Jesus required the Holy Spirit to do the work of the Lord, then what more us?

When there is total commitment, there is total reliance. When there is total reliance, there is total protection.

I want to rely on you, God, in everything that I do. Is that possible Lord? I believe so, only because what You say is true and that You said that in Phil4:13 – “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.”.

Expect Management for Managed Expectations

Recently, I’m beginning to be increasingly easily irritable and restless about many things that I could have tolerated before with ease. Take these examples:

I used to be able to teach even with a couple of bad eggs in the class that continually make unnecessary noise in my class. But now I cant stand even the tiniest whispers. Maybe ruling with an iron fist seems easier now than before.

Or

When we (Befrienders and I) head down to interact with the Pri 5 and 6s for a special Fathers’ Day project. I could hardly stand it when one of the kid just kept on babbling about animes and about how much the other kids could touch Domo (A soft toy that AP brought down to entertain the kids) and how he did not care at all about the lack of effort or thought into designing the key chain for his father.

Or

How I used to be super excited about planning and doing things but now I just switch off even though I know that I do have quite a bit to think about and plan for.I used to feel guilty about being such a sloth but now I barely feel a thing.

On hindsight I seem to be Choleric when I do not like to be or Phlegmatic when I do not like to be. Or perhaps I am just being Melancholic right now, which I incidentally do not like. I just hope my Sanguineness does not make me begin to sound incoherent. I guess I’ve always had a problem of managing my own expectations. I expect myself to be constantly better than how I already am. Even worse than that, I expect others to be perfect so that I do not feel irritated. Sure sounds pretty selfish aye?

The other thing is that I do not like to expect management over my life. I’m perfectly fine with management when it comes to things that I know I’m not the best at. But when it comes to other things that I find trivial or that I expect myself to be good at then I do not expect management at all. I sound reasonable here but I shall spare you the examples otherwise you might not want to approach me anymore. Now I sound pretty stuck up yeh?

I asked the Lord for discontented contentment recently. What I received is not what I expected or asked for. Or at least I thought. My lack of search for management and having faith in the Lord to expect management over my entire being (that is my thought, actions and words) have probably caused me to neglect relying on the Lord to manage my own expectations. Though what I might be going through now may not seem to be linked to a holy discontentment, I believe that this season I am going through is a walk I have to take with the Lord.

Lord help me EXPECT MANAGEMENT for MANAGED EXPECTATIONS.

Revival

“I want more Lord. I want to have a faith that can never be shaken. I’m sorry Lord for all that I’ve done. I want to see you, hear you, feel you, desire you like never before. I want more of you, Lord.”

This resounded in my heart continually after having heard P.Ron’s sermon on ‘Returning to God – To be a people of true faith’ (that was not the exact title but I interpreted it to be as such). It was a heart-wrenching sermon to listen to. It was convicting, I’m sure, for everyone that heard it. But it was much needed.

It wasn’t a wake up call about the judgement of God. No it was even worse than that. It was a wake up call to the love of God. The same love that gave us life through a sacrifice that came from the very heart of the almighty one – a love that most of us take for granted.

‘God delights in blessing more than in judgement.’

I’ve been spending the bulk of my time focusing on cultivating a reverent fear of the Lord. It became apparently clear after I read the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the bible) that my current life is one that is well enough to have gotten me struck down, dead, if i have lived in that era. This made me overlook the fact that God is a loving God still. It did not allow me to love as i should love, it only made me even more judgemental. I’m not saying that it is wrong to cultivate a holy fear of God. But without a balance of understanding the love and judgement of God, we cannot live our lives as we ought to be.

So what does this have to do with the title of ‘revival’ then? Personally, on an individual level, this is what revival means to me:

‘Personal Revival is the reignited commitment that returns one’s heart to God in love and reverence’

Now this simple quote is impossible to accomplish by our mere human means since ‘All our righteous acts are like filthy rags’ Isaiah 64:6. This then calls for a continual renewal in the Lord daily because it is only through God that we can love Him wholeheartedly, revere Him sincerely and have revival.

I do not want the hype. I do not want to just sing and enjoy great music. I do not want to offer painless sacrifices. I do not want to pray and not believe. I do not want to live on past victories. I do not want to be contented with where I am.

I want the joy of the Lord. I want to worship in spirit and in truth. I want to die to myself daily. I want to pray and see things happen. I want to see visions like Isaiah, Ezekiel, Apostle Paul and the many great prophets and apostles. Above all, I want to have a greater desire for You Lord!

I want a revival Lord!

REAL mission trip (part1)

Hey! (this will be a long post again!)

FINALLY… I’m blogging about the mission trip. haha! The greatest challenge in this mission trip was definitely that of a language barrier because, truth be told, we actually had a pretty good stay there! We had amazingly wonderful lodging, food, ample time to rest and uh *cough* shopping! It was almost like a holiday but even so i believe that all of us were pushed out of our comfort zone. We saw how we lived such privilige lives as compared to them and how they had a great desire, even the children, to want to engage with God on a deeper level.

On the first night, only David, Gladys, Andrea(mother),Mel and i were present so we split into 2 groups to visit 2 cells. Andrea, Gladys and i went to an adult cell where we met many families that includes their children ranging from ages, 2year old to about 12. The worship was FANTASTIC. They all sang from their hearts, both the children and the adults. Personally, i found it pretty hard to engage with the worship because i couldn understand a single word of bahasa! I was greatly encouraged by a little girl, no more than 10years old, who worshiped like its her last day on earth. Hands thrown up in the air, knees bended and tears flowing. Her posture will be perfect for the cover of the next Hillsong album. haha. I then shared my testimony and as i saw how they focused on me with intensity, (maybe its my hair thats puzzling them) i felt that they saw us as ministers. It made me want to reach out to them more.

That night, i got stung close to 20 times by frenzied mosquitoes. I think i attracted them all because the rest were barely touched. I start scratching everytime i think about the mosquitoes!

The next morning we split into another 2 groups to visit 3 slums. Mel and i visited one will the other 3 visited 2. We visited a slum named ‘living by the river’ as they were LITERALY living by a huge sewage river. There we saw the impoverish lives that they live in. The lack of basic necessities, education and the amount of children they had! They counted children as blessings so the more the merrier. But this only pushes them deeper into poverty as food becomes a big problem for them. We met a closely knitted community of about 7 or 8 families and visited the individual homes and prayed for them. Apparently these families found refuge in Batam after their hometown in the Nais(nice) island was struck by the tsunami. Since then, they accepted Christ when Anugerah(Grace), the bible school that we stayed in, reached out to them. So a big prayer request was to pray for their families that were still living on the Nais island and for the practice of black magic to cease. The children were adorable! When i stretched my hand to one of the toddler, he grabbed my hand and started chewing on my fingers! It was so ticklish because he was still teething. It was really cute and…disgusting at the same time. haha! We also met a young boy named Jolly who approached us and said 1 word that touched us alot. He said, with his arms stretched out, ‘friend’. Ahhhhhhh… I miss the kids there! haha.

Lazy me

Hey!

For those who REALLY know me, they would agree that i was born with a lazy bone. To me ‘nuah ‘ should be a word in the english dictionary. Well simply because its in mine! haha. Interestingly enough, a couple of weeks ago, while i was devoting some of my time to listening to God, God revealed to me a verse that made me realise that i have been far to lazy. Its Proverbs 6:6 and it says :

“Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!”

This verse totally woke me up (at that point of time i was really falling asleep). It reminded me that God knows everything about us and that there are still habits that we possess that are so subtle, we fail to notice that it is actually hindering our spiritual walk with God. For example, my laziness has caused me to procrastinate and push the time that i set aside to listen to God to another day, just so i can watch a little bit more of television and ‘nuah’ on my couch.

Amazingly, this word that i received from God a couple of weeks ago was confirmed by Pastor Cuixian just a couple of days ago. The red cushioned chairs in G2 are AWESOMELY comfortable. So i took the opportunity to ‘nuah’ for a while on it even though we were suppose to plan for our evangelistic event. Pastor then walked in and recited the very verse that God gave to me. I immediately woke up. haha! I agree that some habits are just hard to kick.

I am SO lazy to blog about the mission trip and what has been happening in REAL for the past few weeks. But i definitely will soon. Watch out for it in the next couple of days! Gotta get rid of this lazy bone and make blogging a habit! =D

R.E.A.L. (week 1)

Hi all who are reading my blog! (=

For all who know me well, you should understand that im not one who would start a blog and then maintain it. But since the REAL program expects that we all have blogs, i’ve no choice! So to my very best effort, i will attempt to continually update this blog and try not to bore everyone. (= I have so many things in my mind now you wouldn believe that i took 20mins to get this far.JIALAT!

Before i talk about how my week has been, let me tell you what REAL stands for. It stands for Redeemed, Elect, Ambassador, Leader. It kinda sounds fierce but its been actually real (haha..pun..) fun and enriching! I can hear you say HUH? How can a rigorous discipleship program that spans for two months, 8hours a day, 5days a week be fun at all? Well i have great friends that couldn be more happening, i see the Lord’s blessing on all of us every single day and i get to do what i really enjoy – JAM! TABLE TENNIS! and TALK TALK TALK CRAP! But most importantly, i found out more about myself and how God has been working in my life. I found the reason why i wake up everyday.

NO its not food. Shut up Toh.. I wake up to see how God can use me even in the smallest way to bless another soul. To all my non-christian friends, this may be a difficult to understand fact and so if you have any other questions, we can talk about it over a meal! (= God’s blessing fell even without us knowing! Like how when we went out to get to know the students from Dunearn Sec Sch and Swiss Cottage Sec Sch better, it really seemed like it would rain but it did not. Or when we had to go out in the sun, the heat seemed like it would be unbearable but it was surprisingly cool! Im most thankful for how the REAL team seem to work so well together even though we are all very much different. Indeed God is (as a fellow china brother would say) AWSOM! (=

So far a main struggle that i face has to be with discipline. As much as i seem like one of great *cough* discipline, i humbly proclaim that i am not. It is a miracle that i actually got a blog started! Ive been whining to my brother about having to create a blog and maintaining it the whole week! Im so far still in the holiday mood so its been a major struggle waking up every morning. And the challenge to devote a portion of my night to discipline myself to be sensitive to God’s voice is extremely tough! I wont dwell more into listening to God’s voice because ive yet to fully experience it. I’ll definitely blog about it another time. (= So as i’ve committed this paragraph to complaining, please pray for all the REAL people ya? much love my brothers and sisters!

So far this week has been life changing. Im beginning to understand the importance of being God-centered. The importance of looking back and counting my blessings and then realising that God never leaves nor forsakes anyone of us. The importance of drawing strength from the Lord at the end of the day. Its been an exciting week serving the Lord. Cant wait for the mission trip next week! =D