Confession

I've been reading this book Talia gave me for Christmas- Passion And Purity by Elizabeth Elliot. The first time I'd ever heard of Ms. Elliot is in the movie End of The Spear. She was the late missionary, Jim Elliot's wife. Even in that movie, I marvelled at how courageous she was in continuing her husband's mission work even though he was killed by the very people he came to share the gospel with. 

In her book, Ms. Elliot writes about her experience as a young college girl. The Christian love life is definitely not a boring one. It is a life filled with commitment, waiting, trust- and lots of ups and downs. 

I guess in the past few months, I've been gradually losing faith in some parts of my life. I won't elaborate on what those parts are- and they're not necessarily about finding love or a job. 

And I'm gonna be completely honest here: many nights these days, I don't even read my Bible anymore. I used to read it every night, along with a devotion. I really really miss those nights where it was like God's Word just poured out like sweet water, watering my spirit. I don't know what combination of factors led to this dried up feeling, but I find my heart wandering again. 

Ms. Elliot mentioned one thing in her book which stood out to me though. She said people like to either live in the past or the future, then they end up missing the present. 

Ever since I moved back to Singapore, I've been lamenting the loss of edifying Christian fellowship in my life. I've been missing ICN and nights at CLIMB because compared to "over there", Christian fellowship "over here" is so draining and not really encouraging at all. I feel disjointed and cut off. I could ramble on and on about how imperfect things are now, but I hear a gentle voice telling me not to keep dwelling in the past. So what if things were better back then? So what if there was a Christian radio station back in the States but none here? 

What matters is that God is here. He's been here the whole time. He never changed His position relative to me. He's always been my Saviour, friend, father, counsellor... In my darkest of days to my most joyous occasions, He's really always been the only one who truly cared and who truly knew what was going on i my deepest thoughts. 

He knows my heart. 

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by my emotions and my wandering tendencies. 

It's like I'm driving a high-speed motor vehicle on an icy expressway and when the corners come up, I start careening and swerving like mad. I try to straighten the wheel but the car sways and I wonder what I'm doing wrong?

It's so easy to say that we should let Jesus take the wheel, but what does that really mean anyway? 

...

Tonight

Just came back from a really interesting evening of fellowship. We actually gathered to watch a movie together, but by the end of the night, almost everyone had split off into their own little group or corners to do their own thing.

It made me wonder, why? Why can't we all just sit together to watch a movie? Why must we always go off to do something else than we came to do?

Anyway, after the movie ended, we had some pretty intense conversations about relationships, spiritual warfare and stuff like that. Half the time, I didn't even know what I was going to say until I was saying it... But it all kind of made sense. I don't know why but I just felt like I HAD to say something! Turns out they may have been things that certain people needed to hear tonight...

And tonight definitely felt like one of those "Wow, God, why would you ever use me?" moments.

What is the meaning of all this?

I don't know... All I can do is to pray and wait upon the Lord. Wait until He lets me know what my next move should be. And when His instructions come, I can only ask that I will have the courage to step up and out in faith. I don't ever want to act in fear of the unknown.

It's strange but I feel tired from all that talking I did.

I wonder what will come next week?

Weekend In Pictures

July 15th full moon.

Gorgeous skies the next day.

Weekend of hiking.

Fishing.

Polski kielbasi.

Campfires.

Church.

And fellowship.

Barbecue & Becoming Unrecognisable

Just got home from a barbecue at Becky's.

After a prayer meeting at church this evening, we decided to go to her place to cook hamburgers on the grill. Bacon hamburgers, that is!

It wasn't long before they were all gone. The cook was awesome, the company was great and the pickles made everything go down really easily.

After dinner, we spent the rest of the night playing cards sitting on the road outside the garage.

It all sounds very simple, but I actually had a lot of fun. Mostly because I wasn't constantly feeling on edge as the people around me weren't spitting curse words left and right. I also felt comfortable because I knew that I could speak freely about Christ if I wished to. Hanging out with Christian friends is really different from hanging out with non-Christians.

It seems as if the very air around us changes when Jesus' name isn't thrown around meaninglessly.

How I wish sometimes that all the people I hung out with were only Christian friends... But that's just impossible. Not to mention, cutting myself out from the world like that would be going against God's command to be a light in this dark world (Matthew 5:14-15) and to spread the gospel wherever we can (Mark 16:15).

Yesterday, my mom said something really interesting.

She said that after spending some time with my dad this past week, she realised that he has become a completely different person that she could not recognise anymore. She said that he was just so different from the man she met almost twenty odd years ago.

Thankfully, the change she indicates is a positive one, all thanks to the workings of God in his life.

When I thought more about it, I saw how fortunate my dad was even through his trials over the years. Even at my age, he had already amassed quite a small fortune and he believes that he would have become a multi-millionaire by now if not for the stock markets crashing in the 90s.

If my dad had not lost his money and prestige back then, would he have drawn this near to God over the years? It's quite unlikely. I think he would have continued living in a wayward fashion, caring only for himself and little for the needs of others.

Harsh, I know. But I say this because my dad and I have more or less the same sort of personality in this matter. If God had not brought me down at certain points in my life, you can be sure that my head would be the size of Jupiter right now.

This is precisely why "sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart." (Ecclesiastes 7:3).

You don't see successful people happily running to church after they hit the jackpot, win homecoming queen, or become the president of the United States. The people that you truly see repenting and turning their lives to God are usually the people who have been so broken down and battered by life that they finally understood how undeserving they are.

Obviously some people will twist this by saying that when people come to a dead end in life, religion is just one of the things that they will turn to, alcohol being another one of the "escapes".

Perhaps.

But the broken are so much more better off than those who live their entire lives with smiles on their faces and empty souls on the inside- only to die one day and realise that they have wasted their time on earth when Jesus was calling their name every single day.

Anyway, what my mom said about my dad really made an impact on me and I had to ask myself this question: will people still recognise me in twenty years?

My preferred answer would be- no.

I don't want to be recognisable.

I want people to look at the person I am (if I'm still alive, God-willing) and not be able to see any traces of the old me at all. If I am loud and boisterous now, I want to become a godly woman of a "quiet and gentle spirit" (1 Peter 3:4). If I am a lazy bum now, I want to become an industrious, hardworking woman who gets up before dawn to tend to matters (Proverbs 31:10-31).

I know what some of you are thinking...

Fat chance! No way! Impossible!

Trust me, I have doubts too.

But one thing I do not doubt, that my God is able and He is willing to take this heart and change it into something so different, so amazing, that you would not be able to deny that it was God who did it when it is done!