Finally

Finally! After a prolific song writing year in 2007, I entered into a drought. I could not, would not, should not write anything. I tried a few times and every thing was dreary and monotonous and I begged myself to please stop boring myself and gave it up.

In the past month, I have had 2 people share with me that they feel God was saying, 'now is the time to begin writing again'. This had followed a growing conviction to the same end inside myself...

The question was, 'how?'

I am so out of touch and majorly hesitant and I am not who I was and I didn't know what to do.

Last night, I remembered the title of a song that I had wanted to write in 2007 and never got around to it.

I sat down and just wrote the lyrics.

Like that!

And I cried.

Later I typed them out and was doing other work and then I just picked up my phone, started voice record and then just sang the song.

Like that!

I praise God. This is not me. I had nothing to do with this. I did not strive, stress or force anything.

I look forward to seeing what God gives me from now...

Heart Attitude

It is less than a week until I leave for a mission trip to Northern Thailand. This will be my first trip there. I am:

Excited

Tired

Curious

Resistant

Busy

Slightly Unwell

Stretched

Resigned

Expectant

It is interesting, my journey to this place.

This was the outreach that I was not supposed to go on

In fact, I signed up to staff this DTS with the agreement that I would not do outreach at all. Not doing outreach at all led to, staffing local outreach, which led to leading local outreach, which ended up as staffing international outreach AND then returning to lead a local outreach.

It has not been easy.

Long story short, my school leaders changed their minds. And left me with no choice.

And I was angry

Then I was resigned

Then I just stopped thinking about it

Now I am back to angry

I am not really angry at the leader now, more at the CIRCUMSTANCES

I was talking to the man I consider to be my spiritual dad and mentor. He encouraged me that I am really doing well, in choosing to both submit and obey, and that God saw.

That does help.

I guess that AUTHORITY has been a huge lesson over this past year, coming from both YWAM and the church I go to.

I have not FINISHED learning this, I am in the process.

So if anyone is reading this, please may you stop for a moment and pray for me? Pray that I do what is pleasing to my Daddy God first, that I have the heart attitudes that he would love for me to have.

Because, in the end, that is all that matters really…

What Love Is and Is Not...

If I can speak Mandarin, French, Spanish, Thai, Lao, Tamil, Gaelic, Greek, Latin, Turkish and Russian, but I don't have love... 
I AM NOTHING
If I have 3 university degrees, 2 doctorates; if I can see into the future, speak to the dead, can read the stars and the seasons; if I can command the Himalayas to move to Jamaica, but I don't have love...
I AM NOTHING
If I donate all my clothes, shoes, books, jewellery, CDs, DVDs, toiletries and everything I own to charity and then even give up my body for medical research, but I don't have love...
I GAIN NOTHING

LOVE:

is patient
is kind
is not envious
doesn't boast
is not arrogant
is not rude
doesn't insist on it's own way
is not irritable 
is not resentful
doesn't rejoice in wrong
does rejoice with truth

LOVE:

bears all things
believes all things
hopes all things
endures all thing

LOVE NEVER ENDS

All those things:
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
_________________________________________will pass away...
Now we can only half see. Later we will fully see
Faith, Hope and Love live together
But the greatest is LOVE
Love must have a price. Love is not self-convenience. The price of love may cause you to suffer.
If I am the best preacher, evangelist, prophet, healer, worshipper or missionary, but I don't have love... I may as well just stay home!

God, I come to you as a student of love. I don't know how to love selflessly. Teach me your ways of love... 

Inspired by: 1 Corinthians 13

The Year is Closing the Door

Today is December 1, and the final month of 2009 has begun.

I am tired... really tired. It has been a huge year for me, and an incredibly difficult one to say the least.

So, as I start this beginning of the end, I choose to remember these words:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. [Phil 4:8] ESV

He isn't safe. But he's good...

“Who is Aslan?” asked Susan.

“Aslan?” said Mr. Beaver. “Why, don’t you know? He’s the King. He’s the Lord of the whole wood, but not often here you understand. Never in my time or my father’s time. But the word has reached us that he has come back. He is in Narnia at this moment. He’ll settle the White Queen all right. It is he, not you, that will save Mr. Tumnus.”

“She won’t turn him into stone too?” said Edmund.

“Lord love you, Son of Adam, what a simple thing to say!” answered Mr. Beaver with a great laugh. “Turn him into stone? If she can stand on her two feet and look him in the face it’ll be the most she can do and more than I expect of her. No, no. He’ll put all to rights as it says in an old rhyme in these parts:

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,

At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,

When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,

And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.

You’ll understand when you see him.”

“But shall we see him?” asked Susan.

“Why, Daughter of Eve, that’s what I brought you here for. I’m to lead you where you shall meet him,” said Mr. Beaver.

“Is—is he a man?” asked Lucy.

“Aslan a man!” said Mr. Beaver sternly. “Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don’t you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion—the Lion, the great Lion.”

“Ooh!” said Susan, “I’d thought he was a man. Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, there’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

- Excerpt from ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ by C.S. Lewis [p: 78 – 80]

Submission and Authority

This past week in our Discipleship Training School, we had teaching by Steve Aherne on Submission and Authority. As I was leading this week, I spent some time before the week began in prayer asking God what he wanted to say to me about this topic.
In addition to this, I have also been feeling a hunger inside me to ‘go deep’ into God, but was not sure what that practically meant.
I asked God this question: ‘What does it mean to ‘go deep’ in you, within the context of submission and authority?’
I saw a picture of an umbrella…
Then I sensed that God was saying to me, authority is like an umbrella, an area of protection. Going deep may mean going deep into the centre of the umbrella’s protection where it is safest and most intimate.
I believe that submission and obedience are two entirely different things. I was relieved to find that according to our speaker, this is biblically backed.
Steve teaches that submission is unconditional, all the time to all people and that it is about ATTITUDE. He says that obedience is conditional (to people), only applies all the time to God and is about ACTION. Our hearts must always be submissive; bless, be humble, loving and respectful.
Obedience belongs first to God in all circumstances. After God, there are five areas of authority: individual, family, church, work and government. Each area has a set boundary and each area should not cross over into another area’s territory.
I found this teaching to be very helpful.
Submission is a lesson that I have been learning for the past two years and it has not come easy to me. I have experienced a number of negative leaders who have made unwise choices and have been proven wrong. I have also been taught that submission and obedience are one and the same and so when a leader over me, right or wrong, tells me to do something, I must immediately obey and leave the consequences to God.
I do not believe this.
For myself, I am learning how to have a submissive heart towards people in authority over me. I do not have it completely worked out yet but I am definitely learning, which is the journey in the end...

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Elizabeth Elliot

My Small Group

I have a great small group in this current Discipleship Training School that I am staffing. There are 7 of us. At times, leading this group has stretched me and grown me. I have learnt a lot both technically about how to lead a group well, but also personally in my journey with God through these wonderful women.
One of my girls has had her Student Pass rejected and she has to return to her country on Sunday. I am very sad to lose her. Over these past 2 months, I have really grown to love her so much...
I guess it is hard sometimes to do the work that I do. I have people come and go in my life and it is hard to keep choosing to bond with people, knowing that in a few short months I will have to say goodbye.
However, our speaker this week (Fiona Gifford) said, 'Even if you only have 3 minutes with a person to add value to who they are, it is worth it.'
This is something worth thinking about...

I Know Best

I am struggling with the lie that says 'I know best.'

A friend of mine is going through a valley. I do not know what it is about because she would rather not tell me.

Immediately, many judgments rise to the surface inside my heart.

'If only she would...'

'Why doesn't she...'

'If I were her...'

My heart is so deceived that it believes that I actually have a clue. Because I have walked through deep pain, therefore, I know best...

Daddy, open my inner eyes to see the truth of the matter; that I am in no way better, more experienced or more spiritual than my friends. I want to love, stand with and have true compassion towards the people around me. I want to throw off this thick jacket of superiority and pride and to put on humility and empathy...

Simple Things

I had a dinner appointment with a friend tonight but she had to cancel as she is unwell, so I decided to cook for myself.
Tonight I had the kitchen on my floor to myself, which is reasonably unusual. I made a very simple meal of pasta with broccoli with a tomato and tuna sauce. But it was delicious!
I had just sat down to eat, with a pot of Green Tea brought all the way from Nepal by Uncle Jerry for me and with a marvelous book, ‘Searching for God Knows What,’ (by Donald Miller) when a friend came up ‘just to chat.’
Actually, it is amazing. This is a girl whom I found annoying when I first met her. Like… really. But community living is teaching me to find value in everyone, even people whom I would rather not spend enough time with to find the positive side.
She has a problem in that, she likes a guy, but it seems he doesn’t like her. She went away on a mission trip for 4 months and before she left, she gave him her email address, but he never contacted her.
I have no wise words for her.
But I do have ears to listen and a new found love towards her. I started loving her just before she left.
One of the things I like about her is that she is real. She doesn’t try to be someone else that people may like better; she is honest about her spirituality and her journey with God. She longs to be liked and loved, just like everyone else does, but she doesn’t conform to others’ behaviour to get it.
This is beautiful.
Plus she has changed. It is lovely to see her becoming more like who she really is, in God’s eyes.
So she stopped by for a bit to talk. After she left, I had just started eating again and I heard Uncle Jerry down the hall, playing ‘Amazing Grace’ on his new flute.
So I sat, thinking about this girl, and my delicious food, and listening to Uncle Jerry, and I was overwhelmed by joy and all I could say was, ‘life is beautiful.’
I’ve just finished re-reading ‘The Divine Romance’ which completely ruins me every time I read it. The incredible love that my God has for me is so… incomparable.
And I saw the depth of his love in this evening. What kind of God would create taste buds that can enjoy delicious flavours or would invent music?
God must be so very relational to say that it is not good for us to be alone and so he made friends and relationships.
I love him. There can be no other response.