peace . love . joy

How many of you have "role model(s)" in life? I myself have quite a few people that I look up to. I catch myself thinking "oh, I want to mature into someone as fun and creative and as close to God as this person" or "oh, I want to be as critical and intellectual as this person" or even sometimes "oh, I want to be as beautiful as this person"... You get the idea. These people, or person if you only have one, are basically possessors of certain characteristics that you wish to come into possession someday. They inspire you and encourage you and act as some sort of goal that you want to achieve. You spend time with these people, following in their footsteps, naturally, to hopefully get to where you think these people are. You imitate these people. You try to do as they do. All because you think it's worth it, you think it's going to get you where you want, to take on certain desirable characteristics.

It goes on smooth... But sometimes, you stop dead in your tracks of modelling yourself after that person whom you looked up to in the past. Suddenly, you realise, through further observations of that person, that that person's human after all with quite a few faults and shortcomings that you've probably never noticed before, but now that you realised it, it's quite a big thing. I reacted with an intense feeling of close-to-overwhelmingly-choking disappointment.

To suddenly lose a lot of respect for that person whom you've previously esteemed and venerated is... Hard. It's as though a huge chunk of you has suddenly come undone, like a jigsaw puzzle piece that had fitted nicely suddenly twists itself out of the completed portion and falls off the table. I term it "disappointment".

There are other circumstances where disappointment jumps up at the unsuspecting you like the big bad wolf in little red riding hood. Most of the time, it involves people and\or being let down.

I've recently had a bout with disappointment and I was talking it through with God. Whether or not I had the right to feel disappointed... And what should I do next.

While the feeling of disappointment has a tendency to dwell and enlarge itself in the disappointed, God calls us not to let that happen. Disappointment leads to discouragement, which in turn leads ultimately to dismay and absolute pessimism. These words do not remain as intangible emotion words. Instead, these translate into conscious actions and unconscious behaviors that most definitely will affect other people around.

Characters in the Bible too experienced disappointment. Psalm 31, 102 and 109 teach that while disappointment may grip the heart, the matter must not remain hidden in the heart, but poured out to the One who actually can do something about it - God. The world's best listener of all time, and did I mention, miracle-worker? He can cause the situation to change, but He can also cause your heart to change. He talks and walks us through it, our rod and our staff in the valley of death and darkness and fear.

Sometimes we react by asking "why, God?" Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with that question. But sometimes I think we get too caught up in seeking an answer, or blocking ourselves from the ugly truth of the matter, that we forget to ask another question that God could actually be answering instead: "what now, God?" It's hard to shift and adopt this perspective when we've been disappointed with circumstances, with people... But we pray and ask for His intervening Hand. We seek His wise council. We thank and praise Him for who He is.

Don't you see?

Disappointment leads to hope.

Hope for a better tomorrow, a better reaction in the next wrestle with disappointment, a "role model" to improve on character and tendencies, people to change for the better, an answered prayer.

And this increases faith in God.

Faith in His character, that He answers prayers, that He is God sovereign.

So when you deal with disappointment, don't keep it to yourself. Pour it out to the Father who cares, to the God who is powerful. Let it go. Ask good questions and always be open to listen to what the Lord has to say.

Disappointment leads to hope.
Disappointment leads to faith.

The songs we sang once, some time ago, five years to be exact, started playing on my Windows Media Player. And what was supposed to be background music, meant to keep me consciously in the present so I can revise for the exams without too much drifting, kind of like the ambience music just before the movie begins and you, the movie-goer, are reading a magazine, became the emotion-tugging soundtrack music. The movie had begun unexpectedly, without those anti-climax ads they screen just before the movie, Poot Mai Koi Geng, Roo Mai and Yorm becoming the vital musical accompaniment to the silent montage of short clips and stills from our trip to Udon Thani, Thailand, in the theatre of my mind.

All of a sudden, I am reminded of the people, the smells, the sounds, the weather, the animals...And I miss it all very terribly.
I miss the confusing muddle we found ourselves in, trying to remember all the mono-syllabic names of the children and youths and adults.
I miss the little girl who strangely took to me so quickly, even though I did nuts.
I miss struggling with the language.
I miss painting beams and laughing as we contributed to the manual construction of a new church.
I miss balancing bowls of steaming noodles on a red plastic tray as I walk up the sandy slippery slope to help serve lunch.
I miss all the faces as the tongue is surprised by the puny but ridiculously hot green chilli padi that had escaped the eyes' notice.
I miss the smell of morning wafting through the wired mosquito net on the window.
I miss the black fighting chickens.
I miss the orange sandy road.

But you know what really unsettled me?
I missed telling them why I came.
I missed telling them about Jesus.

'Jesus said, "Leave her alone.
Why are you troubling her? She did an excellent thing for me.
You will always have the poor with you, and you can help them anytime you want. But you will not always have me.
This woman did the only thing she could do for me; she poured perfume on my body to prepare me for burial.
I tell you the truth, wherever the Good News is preached in all the world, what this woman has done will be told and people will remember her."'

~ Mark 14: 6-9

People will remember her, He said. Notice she will not be remembered for who she is, we don't know really, where she came from, what she does for a living, the sins she was convicted of, her family, we don't know. Instead, she will be remembered for what she has done.

She is remembered for what she did.
We remember her for what she did.

I guess in our society, with this big emphasis on being "free" which entails some notion of always being able to have "fun", everyone wants to be that someone who loves to have fun, that someone whom everyone loves to be around because there's never a dull moment with him\her.
I think there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think Jesus Himself loves to have fun. He loved to go to parties. He loved to go for dinners.

But here is the possible difference between us and Him (possible in that we are lacking in this, not that this reason might not be true):
He went realising each moment that He was on a mission.
He never lost sight of His purpose.
He prioritised, always having at the forefront of His mind and always did first His goal of Salvation.
He was, is and will continue to be remembered for what He has done. For fulfilling His purpose and mission.

So when you walk on the streets, go to school, go to work, serve in church, go for social gatherings...
When you are at home, watching TV, listening to the radio, latched onto the internet...
When you wake up, realising that each day, no matter where you are or what you're doing or whose company you're in, is a mission day...

And you meet the different people...
Maybe you'll never meet them again in your lifetime...
Maybe they'll be there for quite some time yet...

What do you want them to remember you for?

ก็ใครคนหนึ่งรักเธอ หมดทั้งหัวใจ

I like how Don Carson put it:

(paraphrasing)

Imagine two people holding hands, walking together along the beach. The sun is setting, the waves are soft, the sea breeze makes it so comfortable and right... The guy turns and beholds the girl. "I love you", he says.

Now when he uttered those three words, what do you think he meant?
Think he means "You're so beautiful. I love being with you, I love the way you look, I love how our conversations are always perfect for each situation they take place in. And therefore I love you." ?
Or perhaps he means "You are so ugly. You have the personality of Genghis Khan, the nobbly knees of an old cow. The oil in your hair is enough to grease thirty hamburgers. Conversations with you are so empty. But I love you." ?

Which do you think is what the guy meant when he tells the girl he loves her?

Which do you think God means when He tells you He loves you?

Honestly, I agree with Don Carson. I agree that it's the second proposed meaning.

To Him, we probably have the personality of Genghis Khan, the nobbly knees of an old cow, the intelligence of T-Rex, but He loves us because He loves us.

He can't help but be who He is.
He can't help but love us.

Now think about that.

There's probably zilch that can make God love us, but He loves us anyways. What does that mean to you? In fact, does that mean anything to you at all?

Last week found me trapped once again in sin and guilt. I love God. At least I tell everyone and I also tell myself and God that I love God. In my mind, I was hurting from hurting God. I didn't want to hurt him anymore. So my puny human mind decided to draw away from God because it reasoned that that way, I couldn't hurt the one I love anymore. I stopped talking to Him, I stopped reading the Bible... Probably doesn't make sense to you, but it did to me then.

Even then, it was hard. For me at least, and with regards to God, what they say about "once you know something, you cannot un-know it" holds true. I cannot forget the good times, the unexplainable joy...

And then on Thursday, it all collapsed. I found myself numb emotionally-wise. Things were collapsing around me, I thought I'd feel depression, I thought I'd feel sad, but no, I didn't know how to feel about circumstances around me anymore. I felt semi-detached from reality and the goings-on around me.

Sometime in the evening that day, God came to me. I couldn't see His face, but I could see that He was crying. I couldn't audibly hear His voice, but it was quivering from the crying.

Why won't you let Me love you?

I had no answer. Then I started crying.

On Saturday, as I was spending time alone at home with God in the evening, I realised something. I realised that I thought wrong. I thought I was doing God a favour by drawing away from Him because then I couldn't hurt Him anymore. I was wrong. By drawing away, I was in fact hurting Him more because I wouldn't let Him scold me, discipline me, teach me, love me.

He is a God who simply wants to love me.
And when I deny Him His desire, I sadden Him so bad He cries.

Now I'm back. I'm slowly learning again, learning to love Him, learning to let Him love me. I'm talking to Him now. A lot more in fact than I ever did sometimes in a day. It's not enough, but it's a start, a new beginning, to loving God by letting Him love me.

How are you loving God?

Are you letting Him love you?

You know, He wants to... simply because He is who He is...

For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many.

If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body.

And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

~ 1 Corinthians 12:12-26

I'm only beginning to see how God is using this mentor-mentee relationship to grow me, to show me how much He loves me, to encourage me for His glory. I still don't know exactly what a mentor-mentee relationship should produce, some say the process of mentoring results in the mentor effectively and metaphorically reproducing himself \ herself, but this I know for sure: this relationship made me purposefully set aside time to listen and learn and share with someone whom I probably would never have done so with. Through her, God invited me to pray for that someone special. Through her, God prepared me to receive Hansel's birthday gift. It seems each time we met for those few three to four hours, God made it count.

Yesterday, she shared with me something really interesting. It's a very simple projection that rests on very simple bases.

You know how God made us all special? With our different eyes we see different things, with our different ears we hear different things, you get the picture. We have different purposes, different goals, different talents and gifts, different burdens we each take special note of and carry. We may change them as we progress through life, we may share another's cares, but none of us are absolutely identical.

Well, one very well-known and most certainly well-taught passages to support our differences is 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. We are different parts of one body, different functions to serve one purpose.

This most certainly applies to us as intercessors, as a people of prayer, as a people whose only means of communicating with our Lord God is through prayer.

We adopt different styles of praying. We may all see one event, but different aspects jump out at us like the blinking lights on a navy radar screen to be prayed for.

There are a very many different "types" of intercessors, none greater than the other. From the "List Intercessor" who happily prays for everything organised on a list, to the "Special-Assignment Intercessor" who prays for individuals or even events; whatever, whenever God nudges them to pray for. From the "Administrative Intercessor" who loves organising prayer sessions, lists, etc., to the "Prophetic Intercessor" through whom God gives information to others. And then there's the "Mercy Intercessor", the "Worship Intercessor", the "Crisis Intercessor", the "Issue Intercessor", the "Nation Intercessor", the "Evangelism Intercessor", the "Warfare Intercessor", the "Flexible Intercessor"...

So many! Some of us may be just one type of intercessor, some of us may be a whole combination. Some of us may remain what we were when we were kids, some of us may shift and "move on" to other styles.

Why does God allow this?
Why can't we each be all at once?

I see two reasons:
In our finite human capabilities and burdens to manage, it is impossible for us to be all at once.
And also, if we were each everything, then there would be no need for all of us; one would suffice.

There might be more reasons, perhaps there are, but that's not what I found interesting.

What I found interesting is this:
By being together, by praying together, we are a complete representation of God's heart.
We pray for all that God's heart is aching for.

Now, isn't that something?

As lovers of God, we aim to please God.
When we pray the Lord's prayer, we say "Your will be done".
In church, we have many ministries to serve many needs that come to our notice.
When we read of King David being known as a man after God's own heart, inside we yearn to be known as he was and is.

All that, maybe even more that has escaped my notice at the moment, is fulfilled, God is pleased and happy when we pray together, for His heart and will is captured in times like these.

It unites us in our differences into one people belonging to God.

All the intercessors of the world, unite! Let us not displease our God. I have seen and heard and felt the heartache of God when He came to me with sadness and it literally broke me. Let us learn to love our God who wants to love us.

Come!