peace . love . joy

Today God told me something that I won't forget for a very very long time. In fact, I don't think I'll ever forget it.

I've been a teacher of the Christian faith for some time already, and one of the things we teach is forgiveness as specified in the Bible. That we are to forgive just as we have been forgiven. Let me tell you something; I have never wanted to teach this lesson at all. I mean I believe in it, I believe that we should forgive simply because we are called to forgive, I believe it is important, but I personally never want to lead a lesson in forgiveness because I have never experienced it before. And because I have never experienced it before, by that I mean I have never consciously told myself to forgive someone, I never felt as though I had to forgive because somehow I always manage to turn the blame onto myself and blame myself for whatever predicament I find myself in, though I have asked people for forgiveness, I believe that I can never teach forgiveness as best I can. I can never teach forgiveness in its totality as best seen by man.

Well, I can now.

Events of yesterday, exchanges over dinner made me fantastically mad at two people - my father and one of my brothers. I felt that what they said was totally out of line and uncalled for and just plain mean. I did not feel I did anything wrong. And even after numerous playbacks of what happened, I sincerely could not find any fault committed on my part (and you know that I am one who can somehow blame myself for everything that's gone wrong). And last night, during the drive home, God asked me twice to forgive them. I told Him to wait. He said okay, but to let Him know how it all finishes up before I sleep.

I didn't get back to God last night.

So today, God found me in school.
I was walking alone from the South spine to the North in school today and as I walked, I was kind of negotiating with God.

"Forgive them, Megan."
I can't. I'd like to, but I can't. How can I when I feel so wronged? When they haven't even asked me for forgiveness? When they pretend that all is all right when all is not all right?

"You've got it all wrong, man. Forgiveness has got nothing to do with the people whom you are to forgive. They are not in the equation at all."
What?

"The only two entities in the equation are you and me. How much do you love me?"
So much, God, so much...

"So much...that you will do what I ask of you even if it's hard?"
...yes...?

"Then forgive because you love me."
ahhhh...I...forgive.

And I can't explain this but I felt as though I could breathe again, as though I was Atlas and the whole globe has been lifted off my aching shoulders.

Wow.

God, bring the work that You have begun to completion within me.

The first day into my twenty-first year is a Sunday.

Today, I woke up early, about two hours before I was due in church, and turned my Bible to Ecclesiastes 1: 1-11.

The words of the Teacher, son of David, king of Jerusalem:

Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher.
Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.

What does man gain from all his labour at which he toils under the sun?
Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains for ever.
The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

All things are wearisome, more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say, Look! This is something new?
It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.

There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.

Though the translation here of the Hebrew "הבל" (hebel) is the English "meaningless", the original intended meaning probably is closer to being vapour; breath-like; being in a constant state of transition; lacking permanence (and perhaps even, significance).

Solomon, the most likely author of this book, penned his one claim, one idea in the first lines, asking rhetoric after rhetoric that begs negative answers.

All human endeavor is futile. They all amount to nothing.

I wonder if we've ever thought of life that way.

I would say one who is close to the Lord God would be able to counter that proposition, as Solomon had in the following chapters. But I wonder still, if we have ever reached a point whereby we sit down, legs stretched out from under us, hands limp by our sides, back slumped, uttering a sad sigh and realise finally, that everything we do has no permanence?

Why do you go to school?
Why do you study phenomena?
Why do you seek answers?
Why do you work and eat and drink and breath to live to see another day?

What for?

Perhaps it takes us to be driven to such a point in life, that narrow jagged jaw of a high cliff with a narrow plank of wood that reaches from the cliff towards the horizon, above the stubborn and sharp rocks being bashed by the unrelenting angry waves, or maybe even points in life, to realise one thing:
we can either take a step backwards and turn around to return to the safe, enchanted, but meaningless life we know,
or, we can either take a deep breath and walk forwards onto the lone plank towards the horizon.

I have chosen to walk the plank above deep and dark waters. To use the lyrics of a song, I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow; a wave tossed in the ocean; a vapour in the wind. I know I am, and my deeds are impermanent. But I have chosen to let the will of God be done in me and through me. And that, my friends, serves an eternal, significant, permanent goal.

Which have you chosen?

Which will you choose?

Yesterday marked the last of my twenty years outside my mother's womb.

It ended with a $111.00 bill for a home-made hawaiian pizza, a plate of lamb shanks with pasta, a plate of oven-baked chicken with potatos, a plate of spaghetti bolognese, four plates of beef lasagna, two small bottles of peach concentrate, and three of apricot concentrate at some expensive but tasty pizza place below my block. After which, we, baby, Yap, Tim Lam, Sam Yew, Carty, Galen, Ellie-belly and I adjourned to the nearby pasar malam (night market) for some Ramlee burgers, muah chee, cheesy hotdogs and packets of biscuits we remembered from our childhood days.

I'm rather glad Hansel did not accept my excuse of being lazy to not go back again (!) to Faith Acts so he could personally pass me my birthday present before my birthday. And I'm very glad God didn't test me, providing me with a willing driver, a sleek and smooth car, and some more company for the short trip.

It seemed like such a big deal to Hansel that I come yesterday to get it from him just so I can listen to it either last night, or this morning (which I did) as I enter into my twenty-first, which more accurately would be at 8 pm tonight. I remembered telling him that I don't understand what the big deal is about turning twenty-one. It's just a number to me. But he replied that maybe it's a big thing to God, which would automatically make it a big thing for me.

I promised God few days ago that He have an hour of my day on my birthday. And last night, I promised Him the best hour, that is the first hour from the moment I am awake. So I set the alarm at 5.30 am just so I could prep myself and be ready to speak with Him from 6 through to 7, and we could watch the sunrise together =]

I was a little worried that I'd not be able to wake up with my not being used to it after such a long time of sleeping in until 7, so I made God promise He's wake me up.

Well, He did.

I rose at 5.33 am, brushed my teeth, pooped and was ready at 5.50 am.

Days ago, I had it all planned out. I'd sing this and that song, I'd say this and that words..
But last night, whilst in the shower, I felt God telling me to listen to Hansel's CD, the one he made me make a second trip back to Faith Acts for, first thing.

So this morning, I popped the CD into my lappy and clicked the "play" button.

I tell you I had such a shock when I heard Hansel's voice through the earphones! I did not expect that at all.

The first track was Hansel's recorded birthday wishes for me.
The second track..now that was really interesting..

It was a prophesy by someone who doesn't know me, and whom I don't know either, as in the never met kind of don't know. It was a prophesy into my life.

The moment I heard his voice at the beginning of the track, I started crying. I started crying because this was something God had in a way prepared me for, with A.Mag sharing about prophesying with me during our last meeting, but more so because I knew God was speaking to me, making sure I'd stay attentive and not drift by using someone who spoke super fast and super loudly, for exactly five minutes and nine seconds.

I remembered A.Mag's advise and wrote down everything he said, even though I knew I had a soft copy already. I filled three and a fifth pages of my journal. The prophesy touched on quite a number of things, but mostly, it was about change. Change for the better, to produce for the Kingdom of God. Something I must prepare and get ready for. Something the speaker said God was saying I had been longing for so long.

He was so right.

The things that he said, some of them were exciting, some of them were terrifying and some of them were interesting.

After I heard and jotted it down, I opened my devotional to today's reading. It was so in sync with the prophesy, I tell you, it's actually freaky.

' Jesus said to them," Follow me and I will make you fish for people."
And immediately they left their nets and followed him.'

~ Mark 1:17-18

The passage was about the disciples being called away, away from the only life they knew, the only place(s) they knew, the only people they knew, and being plunged into a life full of daily challenges, discomforts and surprises. And then, Michael Card specified this "newfound obedience" of Peter's that enabled him to push out into the raging sea of souls and fish for the glory of God.

It spoke of change. Change to something that I so long to consciously see. Change to work and live and breathe for God.

I was reminded again of my calling in life.

And for the first time ever, I had no words at all to say to God.
I was speechless.

So I thought a while and finally came up with
"God, I want you to finish what you've started in me."

And you know what?
He told me to say it again, louder this time, if I really meant it.
I did.
So I repeated myself. In a louder volume.
Then He told me to get it down in writing.

And then He said
"Don't forget, I want you to finish what you yourself have started."
And He told me to get that down in writing!

Haha.

Last Sunday's sermon made me sit up. But that was not because I haven't heard this topic being preached before, or that the manner in which the subject was approached was new and interesting; rather it was because of what the teacher said at the beginning of it all.

He opened with a recounting of a personal experience. You see, he had a friend, a female friend, whom he looked up to. In his younger days, she was someone he wanted to become in terms of her relationship with God. Her closeness and passion for God was something he so terribly desired for himself with God too. She was his encouragement. But then, somehow, when they were in the university, she lost it. The past passion, the past intimacy she had was gone. She did attend talks on the Bible and such, but they simply left her intellectually satisfied but did nothing for her relationship with God.

Know why that made me sit up?
Because that sounded just like me.
I don't know about the encouraging part, but I know the rest sounds exactly like what I am going through right now. The fact that he spent a lot of his time staring in my direction, I can't tell for sure if he was looking straight at me, but it sure felt so, served only to emphasize one thing - God was talking to me through this sermon.

The preacher taught about a character in the Bible I don't quite like and I don't quite follow (ie. I don't do extensively study him or find out more about him):
King Saul.

The title for the lesson last Sunday was "The Call of Saul: The Lack of a Better Heart".

Saul was reportedly a very impressive young man. He may have been a shy guy at the beginning, but his physical stature certainly was capable of commanding everyone's attention at once, being super duper tall!

Saul was doing all right until somewhere along the line, he lost it. He lost his call.
I don't quite understand that, the "losing of a call(ing)". It could mean he lost sight of his calling from God, it could mean his calling was stripped from him, or it could mean both. In this case, I think it might have meant both.

I liked how the preacher, Philip Huan, structured his message. Okay, fine, I just like things in threes. Somehow, I can remember them very well when they come in threes. Strange, that..

He outlined three ways in which we can avoid the pitfalls and traps that lead to a lost call:
one. Do not confuse God's goals with your own goals
two. Deal with the deep fears in your heart
three. be tender to God's voice

The first, I think, we know. We know to always check whether what we're being driven by, thoughts amongst others, is in sync with the teachings of the Bible. We know to be wary of things that bring about great and attractive personal benefit.

The second seems somewhat out of place here. How does dealing with the deep fears in our hearts keep us from losing our call(s)? Simple. If we don't deal with them, dealing with them here may not mean you whip them fears and they vapourise in a poof, more often than not, dealing with them entails a life-long battle raged against being enslaved in your fear(s)' clutches, they might hinder us from obeying God. And personally, this has a high tendency of driving me away from God.

The third one alludes to that which is of utmost importance for us, that which ties up all the three points, and perhaps even more, that beseech us not to fall away from our call(s).

A close relationship with God.
The cultivation of a beautiful heart.

To be tender to God's voice, to be receptive to His soft whispers and loud commands tells of a closeness with God, fortells a growing intimacy between you and God.

To know God is to know Scripture, in particular daily experiencing and understanding what it means when it is written that "perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18) and that "greater he that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4). To know this is to realise that with God, all our fears are nullified. The fear of insecurity, the fear of losing, the fear of man.. All are annulled.

I believe that many things, many Truths in the Bible, may be known to us, but may not be comprehended by every one of us because I believe these Truths must be experienced, claimed, witnessed personally in order for its power to come into a complete-er circle. We learn things in church and we say we know them. Do we really? Can we preach what we've learnt with conviction and urgency when all we have is head knowledge? I am not denying the importance of head knowledge here, but I am saying head knowledge is useless without heart knowledge, without the feeling, or the conviction, or the thorough understanding. We need both head knowledge and that of the heart.

And we learn heart knowledge through being close with God.

Yesterday I went to church attic for KidZ JAM meeting. For I think the first time ever, I was the earliest to arrive. As the merciless sun was heating up every square inch of space, and the emotional air deciding to choke in as many tears as it can before it bursts (hopefully) into rain, the survivor in me desperately searched for shade and air-conditioning.

The cool gem of a sanctuary was found in the level four lift lobby, just outside the worship hall, complete with food! After eating my fill and waiting for the others to arrive, we adjourned back to the children's chapel in the attic that had just been vacated by the group before us for our KJ meeting.

After a serious message and call to serious reflection by A.Mag, we began our meeting proper to discuss the flow of events for the 31st October KidZ JAM + JAM Zone "Campfire" Night. About two hours thereabouts into the meeting, A.Mag left us to continue the planning on our own.

Then Daena said she had to go off first to meet an aunt for tea at her place.

Gabriel told me that I was to follow him later as we'd be having our cell group meeting at his new house (something like a house-warming party). So I said okay, especially since I knew not the way.

Cindy then said she had to first go home to collect the car before she went to Gabriel's.

Gabriel dragged a few of us, Sam Leong, Sam Yew, Chio Bu, Tim Lam to NTUC and the Big Bookshop at Clementi before meeting up with Yap and taking the bus to his new condominium. They actually thought Sam Leong and I didn't know where to get off and wanted to leave us behind on the bus! HAHA! Fooled you! I said I didn't know how to get there; I didn't say I didn't know the name of the condo which was so obviously proclaimed by an obvious sign!

Then Gabriel took us with our heavy stuffs for a scenic tour around his block before heading up to his appartment. Haha! I'm rather good at directions and I do know when we're walking one big round, okay! You can't fool me!

When we finally entered his house, the rest of the group plus Gabriel's family plus a few others were already there..Plus the food! We had sushi, seaweed chicken, nuggets, bee hoon, rice, otak, fried wanton, old chang kee..Man! I'm already salivating at the thought! Yum! I was wondering why I wasn't told to bring any food or drinks, mebe I missed something in some email, but hey! When there's good food, cool drinks plus great company, who cares?

Once dinner was over and we'd all had our fill, Weichen stood up and said it was time we move on to the next segment of the programme. Then she asked Sijia and I to hunt for our presents.

!!!!

I was like "what?!" I so did not expect that! That we were celebrating Sijia and my birthdays that day was surprising. That we had to search for twenty presents altogether in a house that we were entirely unfamiliar with was jaw-dropping. That we got to play a game of treasure hunting was brilliant!

So Sijia and I began our arduous search, and believe me, it was not easy. I mean, can you imagine having to pull out all the umbrellas and feather dusters from the umbrella stand just to find a small pot of Body Shop's Strawberry-scented Lip Balm? And Gabriel stuffing a present into his shorts? By the way, that was wayy gross, man! The presents were super duper well hidden.

Even after finding all our presents, our "ordeal" wasn't over yet. We still had to figure out which gift belonged to whom! Here's my loot:


And our last present was in the fridge in the kitchen! Our really tasty whipped-cream tiramisu cake from Breadtalk. Yum!

I still can't believe F.I.S.H. managed to pull this off! From what I remember, our past attempts to surprise people did not actually work. But this was awesome! I totally did not suspect anything! My goodness! Haha!

Anyways,
thank you, baby, for opening up your home to us and letting us use it for this surprise thingy,
thank you, John & Weichen, for hatching this brilliant plan and actually pulling it off rather well,
thank you, all, for the yummy food, the surprising surprise that I honestly did not expect nor suspect at all, and the awesome company!
thank you, Daena, for the sushi and the pot of strawberry-scented lip balm!
thank you, Timmy, for the shiny pretty golden bangles!
thank you, Nuraini, for making the Christmas-sy red'n'gold (my fav colours =] ) bookmark!
thank you, Hannah & Yipeng, for the awesome bronze diary!
thank you, Weichen, for that really cool golden floral snap mirror!
(I don't know from whom the other gifts came from)

thank you all for this unforgettable pre-birthday birthday surprise =D

God taught me two lessons that night:
Gratefulness & Friendship.

He taught me to be grateful, no matter what. So what if I didn't get that golden watch that I've been eyeing for some time? I've received things that have so much more meaning and are so much more special than that cold cuff-watch. I had sushi that was made personally by a friend whom I love so much. I had a cool diary which I can fill with priceless thoughts and sketches. I had so many golden gifts that really were treasures because they were chosen and made especially for me =]

I am not grateful because God said to be grateful.
I am grateful because I finally am able to see and experience what it means to be grateful:
to really understand and thoroughly appreciate the meanings and motives behind the actions.
(I am so darn taken by Weber!)

What I've received, I can honestly say is far, far better than what I had hoped to get.

I realised that these people really love me.
Stupid, huh, to take so long to realise that? But no, sometimes it'll take forever for a person to understand that he is loved, and even if a person accepts that, time and time again, he might feel otherwise, might even feel unwanted.

God explicitly told me last night that these are the people who are my immediate family in Him. And families stick together through thick and thin. I don't know how many of us really understand that phrase "through thick and thin", but it's something that I've been thinking about recently. These F.I.S.H.y people are the ones who will love me and whom I can run to and find an offered shoulder, a pair of opened arms, a warm smile, a listening ear, a loving word, a pair of feet that will walk with me.

Yes, it took me so long to finally realise that this is my family, but I pray that I will not forget that and everytime I feel unwanted, I will remember this.

Thank you.


p\s: we took this really cool pix in the narrow dining area with the wall-to-wall-to-wall-to-wall mirror =p

These weeks find us digging into the book of Acts once again with our group of 16 year olds we're teaching in church. And yesterday, my sub-group of 16 year olds were looking at the conversion of cornelius starting from 9:32 all the way through 11:18.

Many of you who've been through the passage would probably come to the conclusion that God does not show favouritism at least in terms of who receives the gift of Salvation through Jesus the Christ, much less who gets to hear the Good News. That, at the very least, is evident in this passage through the account of Peter's experience from living with Simon the tanner, the vision from God, inviting the three Gentile guests in, going to the Roman centurion, Cornelius' home to preach and baptise, and finally explaining himself to the rest of the Jewish Christians.

But one verse in particular raises something rather interesting.

"If then God gave unto them the like gift as he did also unto us, when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that, I could withstand God?" (11:17)

When people decide to evangelise, especially street evangelism, what do they normally say?
Most, if not all, would ask non-believers, after they have heard the Gospel, if they will repent of their sins and profess and receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Two things: repent and receive.

But what did Peter say to the Christians?
He mentioned only the word "believe". Luke records the Greek verb "πιστευσασιν".
That means to have faith; and by implication, to entrust.

If then they, the new Gentile Christians have received the gift of the Holy Spirit just as the Jewish Christians had on the day of Pentacost on the single condition of belief, does that mean repentence is unnecessary? Does that mean choosing to leave a life of indulgence in sin behind is redundant?

The answer naturally would be a firm "no".

But then, why?
If we could receive the gifts of salvation and the Holy Spirit on the singular basis of belief, why is repentence brought into the picture?

To answer that question, one must first answer this:
What is the basis of your faith?
What is that one thing, element or entity, that if absent, your faith will come crumbling down?

My group of 16 year olds responded with many answers:
(these are a few that I remembered)
The power of salvation
God's love
Other people (in terms of encouragement to keep at the faith, etc.)
The Truth of the Gospel, the Bible
Jesus' death on the Cross
Forgiveness
Prayer

One thread runs through most of the answers they gave. Can you see it?

Love.

Love runs through it all. Whether it was the inspiration, the spurring & initiating mechanism, the encouragement & perseverance & maintenance..
Love is the common theme.

God's love. For us.
We first believed because He first loved us.
We continue to believe because we love Him.

How do you show that you love someone?
You do things for that special someone, even if some of them things require you to go out of your way. You want to please that special someone. You care for that special someone. You don't want to hurt or anger that special someone. You find out that special someone's likes & dislikes and do the things that person likes, and avoid the things that person dislikes.

So how do you show God you love Him?
One obvious and important way is through repentance, μετανοιαν.
The trigger is guilt and the result, reformation. And by implication, a reversal; repentance.

But we need to know what to repent from and what to repent to.
And that requires a close, communicating relationship with God, knowing His likes & dislikes.

In this passage of Acts 9:32 - 11:18, it speaks of the change in attitude, the repentance of the new Jewish Christians regarding the new Gentile Christians. The Jews and the Gentiles go way back into history as mutually exclusive groups. They will have nothing to do with one another because the Jews are "clean" and the Gentiles "unclean". Now, the new Christians are learning to pull away from age old traditions and labels, embracing Jesus' teaching of loving one another just as He loves them.

So the main point of Acts 9:32 - 11:18 is not the conversion of Cornelius nor is it that God does not show favouritism.
It is μετανοιαν. It is repentance.

I like what one of the 16 year olds said during class. He said belief is the first step and repentance is what that follows. The cracks between the first slab of the stone "belief" and the next of "repentance" is the cement "love.



What about you?

Even while we fail to love our parents, our siblings, our families as best we can, is there a group of people, or a person, that you flat out refuse to love? That you refuse to share precious Jesus with them?

God loves man, us.
And (hopefully) we love God.
Because we love God, we love other people too.

Do you have something to repent from?

I'm sorry. I haven't been updating this space for quite a while and I apologise. I really did want to tell you everything I've learnt from Stephen, and I still really do want to. But I feel at this point, I need to interrupt and tell you why I have not been updating.

Laziness.

It's not that I've not the time. It's that I've chosen to do other things like watching YouTube instead of this. It's a painful confession especially since I'm confessing to all who read this. I've chosen to indulge in pleasures of the world, rather than to sit and think and ponder on, about and with God and thereby spend time with God, thereby glorifying Him, thereby making Him smile. I confess I've not been diligent in my walk with God. I'm in this cycle where I can't seem to find a way out. I go for days being far from God and then come back to Him by His grace and mercy and forgiveness, and above all love, only to depart from Him and His wonderful presence yet again. It sucks.

I desperately want out of this circle. I want to reside for ever in His presence, never away from Him. I honestly, seriously, painfully do.

But somehow, I find myself stuck in the gutters. Like I'm the water in tje drain. I flow along the path of the drain underground, stale with rotting garbage, terrifying with spashes and unknown squeaks and voices, light-less. And then occassionally, I see the sky through the grates of a metal drain cover. But somehow, I'm stuck in that terrible drainage system.

This is not new to me, and I'm sure it's not new to many, if not all of you, Christians. But what strikes me as unfamiliar is the rate at which this new cycle is spinning at. It is unprecendented. It spins at a frequency far greater than I've ever experienced before. And I seriously, honestly, painfully want it to stop. I want to break free of that vicious, thick and solid ring.

Why am I in it in the first place, you ask.

Guilt.

When I disobey God, even more so when I disobey in full consciousness that what I am doing is not right in God's eyes, I come away feeling guilty. My personal response to guilt is to draw away, and so, I draw away from God. This never solves the problem. It only serves to further exacerbate it, it only serves to further torment me in my misery. But somehow, it comes so naturally to me, this drawing away because of guilt. Only recently have I begun this really tiring and strenuous activity of purposefully coming back to God even in my guilt. But it takes a lot out of me.

One day, while I was in the showers crying, in between my stupid sobs, I asked God why. Why is this all happening to me. Why is it now of all times. Why am I in this mess after such a good history together, being close with one another.

God answered me right there as my naked, trembling body stood slouched beneath the piercing pitter-patter of jetted water from the shower-head.

It never ceases to amaze me. No, it never does. That God, my wonderful, creative, loving, forgiving, merciful, gracious, beautiful, hurting, sad Father should choose to still speak to me even after I've hurt Him, even after I've purposefully drawn away from Him. He still chooses to speak to me.

God told me that I am going through this not only to make me stronger, to make me learn perseverence, learn to love Him and remain faithful to Him, learn to take hold of my reactions to my emotions,
I am going through this to tell other people about it.

To tell them to always come back to Him.
Even when we feel that we're not up to it, even when we're too lazy, even when we feel we, far worse than poop, don't deserve to even look at the light rays emanating from His being. We are to always come back to Him. No matter how many times, we have to. No matter how hard it is, we have to.
He reminded me of the book of Judges. Israel strayed, but each time she strayed, she was restored back to her rightful place: by His side.

To tell them to remember the first time.
Remember your emotions that coursed through your veins and arteries and capillaries that stretch and originate from your heart, meeting every cell in your body. Remember what happened between you and Him. Remember the first time you said "I love you too, God."

To tell them to never stop talking to Him.
My mentor, in preparation for our meeting today over tea, was talking with God, asking Him what He wants me to know through her. She didn't know exactly what I was going through, but she knew I was having a hard time, a dry time. She knew I was walking in the desert and desperately want out. And it hit her: communication with God must never cease.
When we cry out to Him, even in our miserable states, He hears us, and will answer us, but it's only when we cry desperately out to Him that our ears are especially receptive because we so long to hear Him. And that's how we know that He is speaking to us, that's how we know His indescribably wonderful character.

I've always known that being a Christian, yes, even in such a society as Singapore, where there are no institutions nor state-level threats against my faith, is hard. In fact, it is because Singapore is so comfortable, that it is hard. So many tantalizing messages to be lazy, so many tempting vibes to not struggle and be comfortable, so many effortless distractions.

But I know that it is worthwhile.
I know this because God has made Himself so irrefutably real to me, because God has time and time again told me and showed me that He loves me and knows me by name and face and mannerisms and likes and dislikes even amongst the multitude of His creations, because God is Truth.

So here I am, in the midst of my suffering and trial, standing, though barely, alive, though surviving, encouraging you to keep on keeping on.
To always come back to Him,
To remember the first time you met Him,
To never stop talking to & with Him.

But you must first decide if it, He is worth your while, your effort, your sweat, your tears.

Father,

I pray for these my brothers and sisters in you. I pray especially for those who are struggling right now as I am. Whoever they are, wherever they are, whatever their circumstances, I lift them up to you. I pray, God, that they be encouraged and know they are not alone in this good struggle, this good race, this painful journey to take our rightful places specially reserved for us with our names scratched out on it in Heaven by Your side. Father, take our hand, each one of ours, and lead us, accompany us as we search our souls and beings, as we decide if this truly is a worthwhile cause. Lord, I pray that we always always come back to You, we never forget the first time we met You, the first time we knowingly reached out to You and You reached down lifting us like giggling infants. Lord, I pray that we never stop talking to You. I pray You send us encouragement when we need it so bad, I pray You finish the work You first began in each one of us, I pray we never stop loving You back.

I trust You. I trust all that You do.

I love You, Father.

We love You.

Even as you and I, we can't seem to see the end of the smelly, scary, dark labrynth of the underground drain system, know that all drains lead to the ocean; no grails between us and the Heavens, no more darkness except the comforting peace of the night.