ההליכה

Lord You know that i want to record down everything that You’ve taught me, everything that we’ve been through but i’m short for words, too awestruck that i stand rooted on the spot. Heavenly Father, saviour, master, closest friend and lover of my life, You’re always here, always in my situations, always ever-ready. You tell me if i would just cry out to You anytime regardless of circumstance, Your grace will come and fill me, for Your love never fails. I’m overwhelmed by circumstances, though in a good way, i feel heavy-laden, my soul beneath layers of events, people, plans, dreams, tasks….and You come to my rescue, You tell me to take Your yoke, for Jesus, You will be side by side with me, pushing forward! Hallelujah! So Lord, You call me to focus on You and steer my attention towards You for when You’re in the spotlight, everything dims and will be fulfilled by Your will. Oh Lord, You know how much i want to be with You in the stillness and quietness, in Your presence, there i’m home.

“Enthusiasm without knowledge is no good; haste makes mistakes.” Proverbs 19:2

This is a wake-up call for me in the midst of adventurous ideas and extraordinary ventures. God did not say one is forbidden to be enthusiastic about things but the prerequisite is to understand them well, weigh the pros and cons, ask questions before one sets foot into it. Once again, this is where logic plays a crucial part. In the process of seeking knowledge about enthusiasm, i am actually the benefactor. It is not a process of defending my enthusiasm in front of others, but to solidify my beliefs, if after asking questions and checking my intention that it is indeed an act of following God; or to narrow down my focus and remove distractions, upon discovering that the enthusiasm sprouts from selfish desires and will only lead to meaninglessness. God honors freewill and our desires. In fact, some of the desires are God-given and are designated to individuals. Through gathering knowledge about enthusiasm i would have a clearer picture on an optimal way to take the first step.

Oh Lord, thank you once again, for speaking to my heart!

God turns my sorrow into dancing

“You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, ‘He who is coming will come and will not delay’” (Hebrews 10:36–37)

I learned a big lesson of patience, obedience and praise God despite the depressing situations when I first checked the results of my Technical Mechanics paper online.

I remembered blinking twice, no, thrice at least and several times after that when I stared at the screen in front of me, displaying my TM results: Failed. As much as my mind rebelled to take in this fact, my heart knows that I did not deserve a pass because I wasn’t able to finish 3 out of 5 questions in the paper regardless of the effort that I claimed I’ve put into the assignments and the late-night-oil-burning to solve tricky calculations. When I found out my results, I was in a classroom, all my friends couldn’t believe I failed. I could hear echoes of “grace failed TM” ricocheted through the classroom. That makes me feel manifolds more terrible than if I would have endured this alone. I failed. Failure is new for me in academic sense. But I know the longer failure delays its entrance into my academic realm, the harder the impact that it would bring along. So, while trying to suppress guilt, self-blaming, remorse, anger and sorrow, I remembered the story of Job. He has gone through much worse than me but he still praises God in the midst of lost. I understood that God has given and blessed me with good grades and He has the right to take it back. Though I can’t praise God for my lost but no matter how terrible the situation is for me, I know and I trust God that He would fill this incident with His goodness and I would emerge from this with a more courageous and mature heart. I pray and say my thanks for His blessing in my grades for so many years. I understand that there is always one reason for me to praise God: He is great and mighty and He loves us so much that He sent His Son to die on the cross for us. This fact shouldn’t be clouded, not a second, by the failure at hand.

For 2 weeks, I map out the time for more study for the coming semester. I found new motivation to start the next semester in God.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” (Colossians 3:23)

Of course I cried and fell into weakness by pointing the blaming finger to others or being angry about other distractions that I’ve gladly invited while not being on guard. Ironic, yes. I realized it was not God’s plan for me to whine. I need to look forward, putting the past as a precious lesson in life and straining forward. (Philippians 3:14)

At the same time, when I pray about the next semester, I kept hearing God says “Pray about the results.” At first I felt strange because it does not make sense since the results are already out and nothing is going to change. I need to accept the fact and move on. Nevertheless, I prayed about this, knowing that God’s plans and thoughts are higher than mine. (Isaiah 55:8)

For a week I prayed about this and on a Friday I felt the urge to log in and check my results again. This time I blinked again, twice, thrice and several times again. Then I let out a yell of joy! I passed my TM with 1,7, a grade that says “A”. God has changed my grade! I cried because God just showed me He can do wonders. He is simply faithful, wondrous; His ways surpassed all understanding. When I look back, if He would have given me this grade 2 weeks before when I first checked my results, I wouldn’t gain motivation for next sem and learn a valuable lesson of praising His name in any situations and trusting His Goodness pursues me.

It turned out that the results 2 weeks before was a default key-in of the system since my professor has not completed his evaluation. But with my 3 uncompleted questions and I can managed a 1,7. That’s really impossible. I couldn’t fathom how this works. But I know God just wants me to give thanks, continue expecting great things from Him and with that 1,7, I could practically see Him winking at me after learning a lesson from Him.

Being a ,,poem”

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10 NIV)

Hmm..I am speechless. This time am I allowed to sing ,,Oops…you did it agian.” Accept I would substitute the ,,oops” with ,,wow”. Well, with God you can never stop to be surprised by how timely He is with His words. Even a special tailored italian suit wouldn’t fit so snugly compared to God’s words intervening at the right time, touching the right spot in your heart.

So this time when I was boring my head into those practice exercises during revision and brooding on my existence, the purpose of studying, of getting decent grades. Suddenly God says (through Rick Warren;)) ,,hey hey, do you know that I designed you to work” and God says again (through my friend, Anne) ,,whatever you do, whatever you study, you sit for exams, you work, you do it for me”. Then i, being a lowly life-form just gaped and go ,,wow.oh.wow.ok.wow.right.ok.wow.”, practically non stop wow-ing. God, you are seeing this right. So you know I am really blessed by Your words.

God has made me, wrong, custom made me into his workmanship. I am His masterpiece. I felt so loved. So precious. I feel like I am someone that God has put lots of effort into to make me real real good. He is the conductor of the orchestra and He arranged every instrument’s part to make the entire piece sound awesome. That piece, that symphony is me, a lowly life-form. WOW..

Learning to Love

I have a friend that I really talk to about things. Things that are so emotionally in depth that I feel like only he can understand. But something happened now and I find myself leaning on the repulsion side more than the affection side because of the things he did and said. From loving and caring for each other I think we are edging into the mutual hating zone. In this case, I decided that hatred is a great tool to detach my emotional self away from him as soon as possible. But the truth is hatred is just a shameful cover up for my ego.

Because when I was doing my devotion, God says

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them” in Luke 6:32

Love is not something I can selfishly decide to give to certain individuals that I feel deserving of my affection, in my own selfish definition. Love is God, love comes from God and God is the source of this awesome thing called love. Being a Christian and by proclaiming that you’ve accepted Jesus who died because of God’s great love for you, you are dwelling hence in His love. A love that is unselfish, unconditional and is not exclusively for people that are good and nice to you or benefits you. That love that God has given to me when I am sinful and unworthy and undeserving and breaking His heart when I am out there disobeying Him, that love, He is telling me to give it to people that are doing things quick to get on my nerves, people that I just have the urge to go up to them and say ,,You know what, forget it. I can’t believe it. You are just…so….” and then stomp away and also people that would be just easier to hate them and forget about hope, reconciliation and move on, leaving loose ends.

God entrusted me with His unfailing love, hoping:

“that your love will grow more and more; that you will have knowledge and understanding with your love…” (Philippians 1:9 NCV)

So, i am learning how to multiply the limited love in me and how to be generous in giving out love, how to allow the source of God’s love to flow through me. Because honestly, one just needs to open the tap because the love comes from God, we are just the medium where it flows through. And God chose us as mediums for His great love. So, yes. Yes, I want to be the medium letting in something so wonderful into others’ lives that is ultimately going to change them.  :)  :)

Fresh Start

I’ve subscribed to this newsletter years ago and it has always been flooding my mailbox, some sort of junk mail that i’d never opened, read or even deleted. Sometimes the titles came in with a big slap directly to my face and a heart stab but mostly my empty empty hollow ringing soul was just too dry to receive anything, lest take action.

Recently things changed. I am feeling this hunger and thirst again to reconnect and to awaken my hibernating soul. That’s when i stumbled across this email again. ,,Easter offers us a fresh start”, it says. The first verse that was taken from the bible completely swept me off the ground. I wasn’t prepared for something so direct, so precise, so perfectly tailored to feed my soul’s yearning.

,,Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand new life, and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven.”  1 Peter 1:3-4

New life, new start and knowing that someone has actually died for you to make this possible, and right at the beginning of a whole new volume love manifests. Acceptance comes to work. (i like to call it a new volume much like in a series of books than a new chapter because in a new volume, another whole new adventure begins whilst in a chapter it always carry the burden of continuing the happenings in the previous chapter, like dealing with something messy, so much tangled up and desperate for development or a solution).

,,Everything that we have, right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start-comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 1:30

Now we already have the fresh start and it promised that Jesus Christ, would mediate between us and God. Unlike many new start, you are directionless and have no clue of anything that would come and unsure you would get along well in this new phase, a fresh start in Christ assure you that He will lead you throughout, along the way, faith plays a big role and at the end, it is the heaven that is waiting for you to claim.

I find this comforting, exciting and verblüffend at the same time, as a person that have let go of His hand during the stroll in a park, and ran off chasing the butterflies and plucking flowers; when i came back it’s very comforting to find that He has stopped in the tracks and has always been waiting for me and when i ran back to Him, He has already stretched his hand out to grab mine, leading me back at the end of a weary wander back to the cosy cottage with a celebration of reconciliation that awaits me.

Lots of love, lots of peace, lots of joy and lots of grace.