my heart is shocked and grieved...many kinds of responsive thoughts flashed through my mind...why Lord? but His word said "cease striving and know that I am God"...
Is God preparing me for this? Is He preparing my heart for this? Do i mind? Can i accept it? Am i prepared to?
There is much to think about...is He is laying a choice for me to make?...it seems so...i need to pray...it's hard when i know i cannot share this with anyone...not anyone yet...is this the journey to be courageous?...
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Last Sunday service of 2009
One of the hymns that i loved back then some 9 years ago...it was sang today at the last Sunday service of 2009...the familiar tune strangely surprised me and moved my heart again...
A reflective service today...one that gets us to quiet down, give thanks, be rested and renew our faith...i appreciate the thought and effort to do that in service...else some may never get to...indeed let my heart resonates this verse again "cease striving and know that I am God". God proves Himself again. :) ...i find myself sitting at a place most coincidental...
A reflective service today...one that gets us to quiet down, give thanks, be rested and renew our faith...i appreciate the thought and effort to do that in service...else some may never get to...indeed let my heart resonates this verse again "cease striving and know that I am God". God proves Himself again. :) ...i find myself sitting at a place most coincidental...
Friday, December 25, 2009
Merry Christmas!...
As i reflected on this year during this season of Christmas...there's indeed alot going on this year, lots of ups and downs...the worst side of health breakdown vs. the step i see nearer in God's calling...but through it all, God is faithful.
Today, Pastor Ed shared from Psalm 46 "Be still( meaning cease striving) and know that I am God". Indeed it was a verse that spoke to me...to cease the fears, anxiety, strivings, be it hidden or known, within me...to let go and let God, and know that He is in control, even if things seems to go topsy-turvy.
"Have a more humble posture in life, have a higher purpose for life" - what Pastor Ed wants to put through to us in a 2-liner statement. Be faithful to God's calling.
I somehow knew it was this area that God wants to address...i know i have not been able to let go...though i know it's hardly right...and i raised my hands this day to surrender to Him again. If God would let it happen, it will happen...and today's incident proved so true. I can try so hard to look out all this while and not see a single trace, but if God wants, He can place dhim waving just right in front of me (from the most unexpected place-a car!), just as He did today. I tell myself how ironical...but at the same time, He proved to me that God can if He willed.
I don't know how God has willed for me in this and I want to continue to walk in His perfect will...and be faithful to His calling...what this coming year 2010 may hold, i don't know...but like what Fiona says, "Alot can happen in a year..." Indeed, it does. 2009 has proved it right. I'd never know what God has in plan for next year. But i will learn to have a more humbler posture in life and press on in a higher purpose for life. And to cease striving, because my God is alive, and He is God. And i can trust Him for that. :)
Today, Pastor Ed shared from Psalm 46 "Be still( meaning cease striving) and know that I am God". Indeed it was a verse that spoke to me...to cease the fears, anxiety, strivings, be it hidden or known, within me...to let go and let God, and know that He is in control, even if things seems to go topsy-turvy.
"Have a more humble posture in life, have a higher purpose for life" - what Pastor Ed wants to put through to us in a 2-liner statement. Be faithful to God's calling.
I somehow knew it was this area that God wants to address...i know i have not been able to let go...though i know it's hardly right...and i raised my hands this day to surrender to Him again. If God would let it happen, it will happen...and today's incident proved so true. I can try so hard to look out all this while and not see a single trace, but if God wants, He can place dhim waving just right in front of me (from the most unexpected place-a car!), just as He did today. I tell myself how ironical...but at the same time, He proved to me that God can if He willed.
I don't know how God has willed for me in this and I want to continue to walk in His perfect will...and be faithful to His calling...what this coming year 2010 may hold, i don't know...but like what Fiona says, "Alot can happen in a year..." Indeed, it does. 2009 has proved it right. I'd never know what God has in plan for next year. But i will learn to have a more humbler posture in life and press on in a higher purpose for life. And to cease striving, because my God is alive, and He is God. And i can trust Him for that. :)
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
What does it mean to be a missionary?
Elisabeth Elliot's "THe Savage My Kinsman" sheds some light and insight into my naive ignorable knowledge and perspective about missions...
From her Introduction...
The word "missionary" may call to mind preaching, teaching, church-building (and even this often means merely a physical plant, rather than a spiritual building), medical work, baptizing, catechizing, social improvement-almost any form of philanthropy. I found myself quite unable to undertake any one of these activities. A strange position for one who was called a missionary. I began to search my Guidebook to learn whether my definition had been an accurate one. The word "missionary" does not occur in the Bible. But the word "witness" does. I found many passages indicating that I was supposed to be a witness. One in particular arrested me. It stated that to be a witness to God is, above all, to know, believe and understand Him. (Isa 43:10) All that He asks us to do is but means to this end. He will go to any lengths to teach us, and His manipulation of the movements of men-Aucas, misssionaries, whomsoever-is never accidental. Those movements may be incidental to the one thing toward which He goads us: the recognition of Christ.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD,
"and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
nor will there be one after me.
11 I, even I, am the LORD,
and apart from me there is no savior.
12 I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—
I, and not some foreign god among you.
You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "that I am God.
13 Yes, and from ancient days I am he.
No one can deliver out of my hand.
When I act, who can reverse it?"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And from her Epilogue...
'How we long to point to something-anything-and say, "This works! This is sure!" But if it is something other than God Himself we are destined for disappointment. There is only one ultimate guarantee. It is the love of Christ. The love of Christ. Nothing in heaven or earth or hell can separate us from that, and because God is God and loves us He will not allow us to rest anywhere but in that Love. We run straight to Him when other refuges fail. Our misconceptions are corrected in Him, our failures redeemed, our sins cleansed, our griefs turned to joy. But first "the life also of Jesus must be manifest in our mortal bodies." First the drama must be played out-through suffering, weakness, failure, death and resurrection...
God keep us from sitting in the seat of the scornful, concentrating solely on the mistakes, the paltriness of our efforts, the width of the gap between what we hoped for and what we got. How shall we call this "Christian" work? What are we to make of it?
We must not proceed from our own notions of God's action (it will appear He has not acted) but must look clearly and unflinchingly at what happens and seek to understand it through the revelation of God in Christ. His life on earth had a most inauspicious beginning. There was the scandal of the virgin birth, the humiliation of the stable, the announcement not to village officials but to uncouth shepherds. A baby was born-a Saviour and King-but hundreds of babies were murdered because of Him. His public ministry, surely no tour of triumph, no thunderous success story, led not to stardom but to crucifixion. Multitudes followed Him, but most of them wanted what they could get out of Him and in the end all His disciples fled. Yet out of this seeming weakness and failure, out of His very humbling to death, what exaltation and what glory. For the will of God is not a quantitative thing, static and measurable. The Sovereign God moves in mysterious relation to the freedom of man's will. We can demand no instant reversals. Things must be worked out according to a divine design and timetable. Sometimes the light rises excruciatingly slowly. The Kingdom of God is like leaven and seed, things which work silently, secretly, slowly, but there is in them an incalculable transforming power. Even in the plain soil, even in the dull dough, lies the possibility of transformation for, as the psalmist wrote, "All things serve Thee."
The missionary, with all his sin and worldiness, stands nevertheless with Christ for the salvation of the world. As I learned when I was with the "savages," they do not need Christ more than I do, for we are all of us sheep who have turned every one to his own way. If I know who the Shepherd is and how to find Him, it is surely my duty to do what I can to point other sheep to Him. The effort to do this must not be seen in "either/or" terms-either it is flawless, and therefore a success, or it is flawed, and therefore a miserable failure.
Every time my hopes are dashed I am asked to exchange my small view of "good" (when things work my way) for God's view of it, express in Romans 8: "God who searches our inmost being knows what the Spirit means, because he pleads for God's people in God's own way; and in everything, as we know, he cooperates for good with those who love God and are called according to his purpose...that they should be shaped to the likeness of his Son." That, in the last analysis, is for us the only good-that shaping, no matter what it takes.
From her Introduction...
The word "missionary" may call to mind preaching, teaching, church-building (and even this often means merely a physical plant, rather than a spiritual building), medical work, baptizing, catechizing, social improvement-almost any form of philanthropy. I found myself quite unable to undertake any one of these activities. A strange position for one who was called a missionary. I began to search my Guidebook to learn whether my definition had been an accurate one. The word "missionary" does not occur in the Bible. But the word "witness" does. I found many passages indicating that I was supposed to be a witness. One in particular arrested me. It stated that to be a witness to God is, above all, to know, believe and understand Him. (Isa 43:10) All that He asks us to do is but means to this end. He will go to any lengths to teach us, and His manipulation of the movements of men-Aucas, misssionaries, whomsoever-is never accidental. Those movements may be incidental to the one thing toward which He goads us: the recognition of Christ.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD,
"and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
nor will there be one after me.
11 I, even I, am the LORD,
and apart from me there is no savior.
12 I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—
I, and not some foreign god among you.
You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "that I am God.
13 Yes, and from ancient days I am he.
No one can deliver out of my hand.
When I act, who can reverse it?"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And from her Epilogue...
'How we long to point to something-anything-and say, "This works! This is sure!" But if it is something other than God Himself we are destined for disappointment. There is only one ultimate guarantee. It is the love of Christ. The love of Christ. Nothing in heaven or earth or hell can separate us from that, and because God is God and loves us He will not allow us to rest anywhere but in that Love. We run straight to Him when other refuges fail. Our misconceptions are corrected in Him, our failures redeemed, our sins cleansed, our griefs turned to joy. But first "the life also of Jesus must be manifest in our mortal bodies." First the drama must be played out-through suffering, weakness, failure, death and resurrection...
God keep us from sitting in the seat of the scornful, concentrating solely on the mistakes, the paltriness of our efforts, the width of the gap between what we hoped for and what we got. How shall we call this "Christian" work? What are we to make of it?
We must not proceed from our own notions of God's action (it will appear He has not acted) but must look clearly and unflinchingly at what happens and seek to understand it through the revelation of God in Christ. His life on earth had a most inauspicious beginning. There was the scandal of the virgin birth, the humiliation of the stable, the announcement not to village officials but to uncouth shepherds. A baby was born-a Saviour and King-but hundreds of babies were murdered because of Him. His public ministry, surely no tour of triumph, no thunderous success story, led not to stardom but to crucifixion. Multitudes followed Him, but most of them wanted what they could get out of Him and in the end all His disciples fled. Yet out of this seeming weakness and failure, out of His very humbling to death, what exaltation and what glory. For the will of God is not a quantitative thing, static and measurable. The Sovereign God moves in mysterious relation to the freedom of man's will. We can demand no instant reversals. Things must be worked out according to a divine design and timetable. Sometimes the light rises excruciatingly slowly. The Kingdom of God is like leaven and seed, things which work silently, secretly, slowly, but there is in them an incalculable transforming power. Even in the plain soil, even in the dull dough, lies the possibility of transformation for, as the psalmist wrote, "All things serve Thee."
The missionary, with all his sin and worldiness, stands nevertheless with Christ for the salvation of the world. As I learned when I was with the "savages," they do not need Christ more than I do, for we are all of us sheep who have turned every one to his own way. If I know who the Shepherd is and how to find Him, it is surely my duty to do what I can to point other sheep to Him. The effort to do this must not be seen in "either/or" terms-either it is flawless, and therefore a success, or it is flawed, and therefore a miserable failure.
Every time my hopes are dashed I am asked to exchange my small view of "good" (when things work my way) for God's view of it, express in Romans 8: "God who searches our inmost being knows what the Spirit means, because he pleads for God's people in God's own way; and in everything, as we know, he cooperates for good with those who love God and are called according to his purpose...that they should be shaped to the likeness of his Son." That, in the last analysis, is for us the only good-that shaping, no matter what it takes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)