You are for me

***

“I recall on one occasion speaking to a man who had come from a country where much blood had been spilled in internal strife, a land where someone’s heart was broken every day by some stray bullet or a hate-filled ideological conflict. He told me that even though for years he had found comfort in the knowledge that Christ had borne his sins, it was a new realization years later when he took note that Christ had borne our sorrows too. That intimacy with God is a knowledge that has bridged what one knows with what one feels. Such knowledge takes what we know and what we feel seriously. It is not a fatalistic posture that says “so be it” and is resigned to accept what flies in the face of reason. When we learn God’s profound answers to every sentiment we feel, we find contentment and courage and live a life of hope and confidence. We then make every day count with significance while treasuring His thoughts and harnessing our feelings.

For too long we have forced a dichotomy between fact and feeling and have unwittingly bought into systems of thought that held on to the one while doing disservice to the other. Voltaire once remarked that all of man’s miseries are a reflection to his grandeur. In other words, our senses and sensations can and ought to be joint indicators of the eternal and the true. That which God has joined together, let no man put asunder. We well remember the words of the song that ask, “How can it be wrong when it feels so right?” and we might legitimately take issue with that plundering of the objective realm of right and wrong at the mercy of momentary passion.

But there is another side to it: How can things be right when they feel so wrong? That is a much more difficult issue. Does God expect one who is plagued by a lonely existence to dismiss that feeling as unreal? Does the search for a personal God in an impersonal world not raise legitimate questions? Do the questions of a person in agony not count? Must we not have wisdom amidst the myriad pleasures that surround us? That is where this book hopes to lead us. We will not be content to deal with the problems as they surface merely by an intellectual stroke of the pen. We will not stop at the point where the answers are merely stated as glib responses. Our hope will be to bring the whole of our being to engage with the questions and the cries of our heart. Cries are born out of real feelings. So also must joy betoken a real confidence and repose.

[...]

In the Psalms David described himself as one wounded and crying in his bed at night. This same David spoke of the happiness that came when he took the cry to the Lord. With that same confidence, let us begin our journey to respond to the cries of the heart. We might be surprised to know how much bottled-up sentiment will be uncovered. When God speaks we will not respond by saying, “Don’t say a thing.” Rather, we will be soothed by His touch and will rest in His comfort, knowing that He has bothered to hear our cries and to come near in our need. We too will long to say to Him, “Thank you.” “

- Ravi Zacharias, “Cries of the Heart”

“Hope never disappoints” – Romans 5:5

I just had one of the most difficult weekends of the year.

Sigh I don’t even know where to begin.

But I know I ended the weekend with the devil tugging at my heart with a lie that he desperately wants me to invest in. I know I ended the weekend with the devil making me question God again and again regarding people. I know I ended the weekend feeling like this life is just not worth it, and that this life can make one feel so INTENSELY ALONE, that when you give of yourself to others, they either become overdependent on you or just…

Funnily enough, I put this in draft just a few days ago. Little did I know just how SIGNIFICANT it would become now. Or how God would use it to speak to me:

Nic and I just had THE MOST AWESOME conversation!

[And I pretended I didn't have an essay to write :p]

God, can NEVER thank You enough for bringing us together! And for speaking to us about the same things so we can be each other’s support system and encourage and affirm each other!

I’m just curious to know: Was that Your intention, God?

Nic says:
haha bex and i are taking turns to preach to each other online, man i LOVE this girl
m.c.m.l says:
you two should just be pastors like NOW.
m.c.m.l says:
stop going to school
Nic says:
haha we’d be premature..
Nic says:
it’s okay, we’re each other’s exclusive audience and are fine with that for now

If only we could! But I know we’re not ready yet.

And wow, today we did the ethics of friendship in class, and let me just repost what Nic posted:

School today was different. Interesting different..

We talked about the Ethics of Friendship. Hoca got us into groups of four and asked us to think about what our views on friendship were. Someone actually said, “Friendship is political. You only become friends with someone when you want something from them, and vice versa.”

I think my mouth actually dropped to the floor.

I said something like, “Friendship is when you don’t expect anything from the other person, and you would go all out to help them regardless.”

I think her mouth dropped to the floor.

But then again, I figured I’d be spoilt my whole life – especially in the friends business. If there was one “part” of my life that has been preserved, this is probably it.

Before I came to Singapore, my sis told me that I would find true friends here. She still doesn’t know HOW right she is.

I mean, it’s not just that we have the exact same idea of what friendship is and how it only works when you are assured of your own worth and do not depend on reciprocity to affirm it, or do not see friendship as an affirmation of that God-given worth, or how much we hate the whole “MUST DO SOMETHING SPECIAL TO SHOW HOW MUCH I MEAN TO YOU WHEN I LEAVE/GO INTO ARMY/GO ON HOLIDAY” thing. It even goes BEYOND the way we work: how we sometimes speak in sounds or just communicate by showing each other faces.

I don’t know what it is God, but there is DEFINITELY something about this friendship that only You could’ve put together. Something that goes beyond knowledge, intentionality, UNDERSTANDING.”

And I guess, conversely speaking, there is also something about difficult relationships that goes beyond MY human understanding and knowledge. And all I can do sometimes is be patient and put my trust, my HOPE in God, knowing that my obedience to Him is all that matters, that He is doing a work in people’s hearts in ways that I cannot understand/see, but which I know will one day glorify Him.

And you know, this weekend helped me see that EMOTIONALLY, I am not ready for ministry at all. Even if I have all the knowledge in the world, all the compassion in the world, emotionally I have not let God build me up enough.

Broke down today after my session with this girl. Just so so tired, so so jaded. Feeling like I had nothing more to give and thinking that I can only stand being with people for 3 hours maximum. Right after that, they start to push all my buttons and I start becoming incredibly snipy and irritated. Guess the week that I had didn’t help much – Nic said, “Think we’re more stressed than we thought we were” and I find it SO FUNNY God that we were in THE SAME anti-social-snipy-everyone-in-the-world-irritates-me-mood at the same time even though we were so far apart from each other and going through such different situations – and sometimes gosh, I wish people would just understand that there is a time to be chatty and there is a time for silence and being able to respect other people’s boundaries and just *breathe* I’m tempted to say “Guess I’m not made for people” but I know it is not true.

One thing that really irritated me – and I know the devil knows it coz he played on it – is that sometimes … why is it so hard to find people who GET you, God? Sometimes people’s “words of comfort” always make me feel far worse, and I think that was what led to the break down. I KNOW, however, that they went into it with very good intentions but sometimes people don’t want to hear you rationalise about things when they’re feeling incredibly crappy. They don’t want you to speak. They just want to be left alone.

And so some people were like, “I know you don’t even want to do this and you’re wondering, “Why must I be doing this?” but…” and honestly, THEY ARE MISSING THE WHOLE POINT! I don’t know whether it’s just me and the way I work but there was nothing about that that was about me at all! If there was, I wouldn’t bother crying. I’d just walk away and say, “Honestly, stop wasting my time!”

I don’t even know if I was crying for her – but I was definitely crying for a generation of people who don’t know how to love themselves and I’m just like, “GOD WHAT DO I DO ABOUT THEM?” And I know that as I was crying God was telling me this is the burden He has placed in my heart and I have to fulfill it. I have to DO SOMETHING about it even if it means giving EVERYTHING for it.

I think it annoyed me even more, the kind of approach people have to this. Again, I don’t know whether it was just me – I have definitely been annoyed A LOT the entire weekend and it has made me an incredibly horrible person but HONESTLY! – but I was appalled, even though I know really, that people just see it as “If you can’t handle this let me take over”, when someone eventually suggested that she take over what I’m doing right now. And I don’t know, is this the reason why there is no spiritual growth in churches these days? When things are hard, we give up and let someone else who is more “capable” take over.

WE ARE SO FOCUSED ON OURSELVES AND OUR ABILITIES THAT IT IS SO RIDICULOUS GOD! WHAT A MOCKERY WE HAVE MADE OUT OF YOU AND YOUR GRACE!

And I said, “No, when I made this commitment I knew it was going to be hard. I’m not going to give up on her.” And all that time, strangely enough, two verses kept coming back to me, “Be faithful in the small things” [funny huh, this is only SMALL to God and it breaks my entire heart] and about stewardship basically – all the things Nic and I were talking about during the week. I knew that God was saying He had entrusted her in my hands, and He only asks that I do what I can and guard what He has given me well.

And I realised how right you were, Nic, about the difference between hope and expectation. One of the things that God also reminded me of, was when I said, “Nic and I are so idealistic that we’re going to be so disappointed.”

The problem with that statement of course, is that we’re channelling all our own expectations into it. Expectations always come from people, our own sense of self-importance. And I don’t know, maybe that is why we are all so tired and jaded. It is not idealism that God wants us to have, it is just hope in Him. It’s as simple as that.

And I will do this because I can see the hope that God has poured into people’s hearts through His love, even though it annoys me so much that this generation needs to be pushed so hard – needs entertainment to come to God, needs to be stimulated to read the Bible or worship God, needs to be pushed into a relationship with God, needs praise and attention and SO MUCH affirmation to be able to do anything – I know that this hope will never disappoint.

God never disappoints.

Especially when He personally calls you to do something for Him, and asks you to cross the line FOR Him, He will be right there in the fire with you. He will instruct and teach you in the right way to go, every step of the way. He will be personally responsible for whatever situation that He puts you in.

And He never fails.

Tonight I wanted to go to bed but God was telling me what I needed to do with this person – that I needed to give more, not of myself though, but of Him. I need to step out of my comfort zone and just LOVE this person first. I need to build a relationship with this person and hold her hand and guide her all the way until she comes to the realisation of the power that she has in God, of her worth in God. Until she starts to desire God for herself, I have to keep keep showing her WHY I DESIRE GOD.

Honestly, it is hard. Because God wants me to do something VERY SPECIFIC that I absolutely HATE doing. I have no problem teaching this person, but I will be real and say that I do not want to build a relationship with her. It sucks out all the energy in me trying to have a conversation with this person, and anyone who knows me will know that I cannot stand attention-seeking people. But I don’t want to … I want to make my life worth it. And if this means bringing one person closer to the heart of God, then I will give my all for it, I will put my hope in God and look to Him for strength and wisdom.

And I know that there is no point in teaching someone if I am not going to love him/her. Paul makes that clear in 1 Corinthians 13, I’ll just be a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal – and ugh, the thought of that just makes my ears want to fall off on their own.

God, I know this is worth it.

And God, thank you for awesome friends who help me keep my eyes on Jesus.

Rhythm

“Poetry requires equal time be given to sounds and silences. In all language silence is as important as sound. But more often than not we are merely impatient with the silence. Mobs of words run out of our mouths, nonstop, trampling the grassy and sacred silence. We stop only when breathless. Why do we talk so much? Why do we talk so fast? Hurry is a form of violence practiced on time. But time is sacred. The purpose of language is not to murder the silence but to enter it, cautiously and reverently. The poet carefully arranges words in settings of silence, letting the sounds resonate, the meanings vibrate. Silence is not what is left over when there is nothing more to say but the aspect of time that gives meaning to sound. The poem restores silence to language so that words, organic and living, once again are given time to pulse and breathe.”

- Answering God, Eugene H. Peterson.

Oh wow #2

Haha this is one of those posts where I am lost for words! Read this and just wow. Haha you don’t even have to be in ministry for God to teach you all these things, thank goodness. I’m gonna bold all the parts that are true for me. Italicised ones are reminders to myself!

This past month I celebrated 15 years in ministry. I started in February of 1994. I started thinking about what I’ve learned over the years, serving churches of various sizes and types and speaking to and meeting with countless Church leaders across the country. The following are some thoughts that I had while reflecting on the plane last week. These are in no particular order and I’m sure I’m leaving something out. I may add more later. Here goes:

* God uses weak people.
* God uses broken people. God will break you eventually. It seems that “brokeness” is an on-going thing.
* God uses us despite ourself.
* Everyone goes through pain in their life.
* Hurting people hurt people.
* Depression is real.
* We all have highs and lows, mountains and valleys.
* Death stings and families grieve – no matter how old the deceased is.
* God pursues me.
* Servants/volunteers are precious.
* As the Word says, “Be ready in season and out.”
* Often people will come to you for help or counsel and you realize you’re more messed up then they are. Hah!
* We all stumble and fall – some harder than others.
* You can’t have success, wins, breakthroughs and innovations without risks and failure. [Haha I always tell people it's my B+'s that I treasure more than my A's because they're always a reminder that a miracle is right around the corner! And that hello, God is speaking to me and I better shut up and listen and surrender!]
* Smaller churches are usually the most creative and innovative. I watch them for inspiration.
* Weddings, funerals and new births happen non-stop.
* I’ve said it before: Sunday comes every week.
* Baptisms are extremely important and special – never take them for granted.
* Some pastors/ministers are just plan mean. I started to say “jerks”, but that wouldn’t be nice.
* Sometimes God asks you to stay somewhere when you’re begging to leave.
* Sometimes God asks you to leave when you want to stay and fight.
* Never let a denominational affiliation keep you from pursuing friends in ministry. Some of my closest friends/brothers and sisters in ministry are from different denominations.
* God can and often does speak through lost people to you. [I can't say a louder yes to this one]
* Most pastors don’t know any lost people. I said: “Most pastors don’t know any lost people.” You have to be INTENTIONAL to get out beyond the four walls and form relationships with those that are not like you, don’t believe like you and may NEVER enter the doors of your church.
* God’s creation/nature is His gift to you and should not be taken for granted. Let it refresh, refocus, encourage and inspire you.
* God changes lives. We simply get to partner with His Spirit.
* Some people will refuse Christ. I have watched people with blinded eyes reject the Gospel and no academic or theological argument or debate could convince them of the truth. God has to draw them to Himself and open their eyes. You can’t debate someone into the Kingdom.
* When you feel your weakest, God uses you mightily.
* The Word truly is a lamp unto my feet.
* Prayer warriers are God-sends.
* I’m thankful for my mom, my wife and a few precious people that consistantly intercede and pray on my behalf.
* Your spouse is along for your wild ride and weathers each storm with you. Sometimes things people say about you hurt them worse than you.
* Leaders take bullets. Better have your shield up.
* YOU CAN NOT MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY. Someone will not like you. Get over it.
* Your devotional life is key. Go too long without it and eventually you’ll get spiritually dry and crash and burn – or burnout. [It's amazing, sometimes I wake up with so little sleep and I get all cranky and I just read my Bible and sing a few songs and I feel like all's well with the world again!]
* Real ministry happens in small groups. Corporate worship is wonderful, but I really see God move in home groups and recovery ministries like Celebrate Recovery and Divorce Care, etc.
* When all is said and done, the people, the memories, those you’re closest to, those that are so special and you’re special to them, are because of unplanned, out-of-the-ordinary events, crises, emergencies, tradegies, etc. It’s hardly ever your “job” or what you “get paid to do” or is on your job description that God uses to allow you to grow closer to an individual or group of people.
* Life is messy. Don’t oversimplify.
* Stop sending people and money overseas if you’re ignoring your own backyard/city. Some of the poorest and most lost people in the world are in your community. The US is the 4th largest unreached people group in the world. Christians in Africa send missionaries to us. Read that again.
* I’m still young in ministry and there are many, many far much wiser than I.
* Don’t boast in your strengths – you can do those in the natural. The supernatural kicks in in your weakness – that’s where God’s strength is made perfect/evident.

“How can I stand here and not be moved by You?”

NIV:

“10 Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me;
O LORD, be my help.”

11 You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

12 that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.”

NKJV:

“10 Hear, O LORD, and have mercy on me;
LORD, be my helper!”

11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,
12 To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.”

The Message:

” 11-12 You did it: you changed wild lament
into whirling dance;
You ripped off my black mourning band
and decked me with wildflowers.
I’m about to burst with song;
I can’t keep quiet about you.
God, my God,
I can’t thank you enough.”

(Psalm 30:11-12)

Oh wow, I actually like the NKJV version the most but the one from The Message is just BURSTING with emotional energy and perhaps best expresses what’s in my heart tonight.

Oh Lord, HOW can my soul stay silent and NOT praise you tonight?

Can’t even BEAR to think about my essay tonight.

How apt this lovely hymn is too!

“I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold;
I’d rather be His than have riches untold;
I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands,
I’d rather be led by His nail pierced hand.

Than to be a king of a vast domain
Or be held in sin’s dread sway,
I’d rather have Jesus than anything
This world affords today.

I’d rather have Jesus than men’s applause;
I’d rather be faithful to His dear cause;
I’d rather have Jesus than world-wide fame,
I’d rather be true to His holy name.

He’s fairer than lilies of rarest bloom;
He’s sweeter than honey from out of the comb;
He’s all that my hungering spirit needs,
I’d rather have Jesus and let Him lead.”