{Running} with horses

The Chinese calendar uses a twelve year cycle, each marked by an animal. Those born in the year are then described as having certain traits similar to the animal. When a new year rolls around, apt proverbs and jokes are tossed about. 2014 is the year of the horse and I learnt a new favourite proverb:马到成功 (success is imminent once the horse arrives). You see, I was born in the year of the horse - and ain't it grand that my arrival at any scene would herald impending success!

But i got to thinking about all the horse-related experiences in my life, and to a passage of Scripture that really helped me.

horse experience 1
My first flight and my first mission trip. We flew into Thailand headed for the mountain tribes. Most of us had not trained for those mountains. There were supposed to be horses at the foot to help us carry stuff. But we were late, too late. So we had to trudge nearly five hours up the mountains with our puppets, guitar, bags and tired bodies as a gentle rain fell all about us. We slipped in the mud, we gave up many times even as the guide egged us on with her limited Chinese, saying repeatedly, "another few minutes". We city dwellers had no idea. But how I longed for those horses! We never saw them. We came back down bumping all the way on the back of a truck which at one point got stuck in a muddy ridge and we all had to get off and shove.


horse experience 2
The university had offered me a place to do Honours in Political Science & English Language. I was on board an international book ship when that information came out so I returned to school a month late. It was unnerving and I found my source of strength in this passage which I would type into my thesis introduction:

"If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out,
then how can you compete with horses?
If you fall down in a land of peace,
how will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? ~ jeremiah 12v5

I am not sure if my thesis supervisor picked up that I have referred to him as a footman; but my youthful zeal knew little bounds back then - upwards and onwards I was going to go!

horse experience 3
This time, i finally rode one; and nearly died! With two friends in New Zealand, we found our way to a hill where there was horse riding. The young Kiwi gal who ran the place sized us up and led us off to our horses. After a few brief introductory remarks, we found ourselves atop a horse each. Mine was a black stallion with a large bulgy stomach. Its name was Inky. We set off slowly and winded around the trail. Inky however had other ideas. It could undoubtedly pick up that I was a wimp (horse language for she doesn't know how to ride) and repeatedly veered off the trail to satisfy its love for far-out grasses growing at the edges. I was talking, coaxing, reining in...to little avail. After a nerve-wrecking hour, I dismounted and fell to the ground, my legs all gone soft and my groin in pain from straddling that fat tummy.

horse experience 4
My love for this majestic creature wouldn't wane it seems. How many silly Inkys can there be anyway? This time, I am on a trip with my brand new husband. We decide to go ride horses. No more mountains though, this was a coastal beach situation. Yes, firmly on the ground hooves. The sand, the wind, and even the gentle gallop was great - until - the horse got in the mood for some horse-trot. My feet came off the sitrrups and I let go and fell onto the soft sand. A few moments later, the other horses came around since mine overtook them sans rider. I felt just fine.
Later, i developed a nausea and we went to the doctor where we found I was pregnant. I suppose my baby and I fell off a horse.

horse experience 5
This time, I confront the horse I referred to years earlier. The nameless horse in Jeremiah that represents the trepidation and trials of a life of faith. With Pastor Eugene Peterson's help, I dig even deeper for a full, abundant life of faith-full responding to God.

"If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out,
then how can you compete with horses?
If you fall down in a land of peace,
how will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? ~ Jeremiah 12v5

These words came as a rebuke to a prophet who felt all ready to give up. I wasn't at that point when I read Run with the Horses, but it came soon enough -- and God had prepared my soul for the onslaught by drawing me to long for what is deeper and more solid.

Latest horse experience {12 years later}
I had to go say it, "it's the year of the horse, let's do something with horses!". The now older hubs thought it a brilliant stroke and so we all went to The Riders Loft and pulled on some boots and helmets. My horse was a good fourteen hands tall. I cannot look over it at all. When I mounted Galvin, I wanted to get off even quicker. But my daughter and son were next in line to mount theirs so I breathed deep and psyched myself that my fear of heights cannot possibly apply to this. "Mind over matter - what you don't mind, won't matter"; I silenced my fears.We rode around the sand pit a few times each and the trainer applauded us all when we were done.

Associated by birth
Missed by timing
Challenged by its powers
Threatened by its will
Strengthened by its metaphor
Safeguarded from its whim

Nay, my horse encounters are not over yet.

My One Word for the year

Yes. In one word.
What do you think your 2014 will be about?

I want to invite you to try this. It is fascinating experience. It is a dare, a dream, a desire and a desperate grasp for life. For we are trying to live well, be brave, be enough for the task, and rise above the swelling tides. One word for our life of such ebb and flow, turbulence, trials, and trails!

"What is your one word"? the fellow sister wrote in her blog. I was drawn in immediately. One word for what? I can never say anything with one word {although 'persnickety' works very well with the children}.
The writing me immediately began to lose touch with daily reality and I began to experience all the fits and spasms that come with such an activity!

How can one word describe my year? 
Will it be a prescriptive, prophetic, hopeful word?
Should it be a colour, an outcome, an object or a verb?
If a word came to my mind, dare I accept it?
What if I picked the wrong word and lived my year all wrong?

Normal panic you would say, that comes with any choices with some weighty consequence.

Of course, the word is meant to surface out of a conversation with God. 

So a few words came forward to present themselves - all really shades of me wanting to be top dog. The up side of me wanted Glorious, the darker side hissed Needing, and the Thesaurus that sits next to me begged to have its guts examined.
I told God all the words that came when I walked, wrote, dreamt...and then - a word came and I just knew it did not originate from me. It made sense, of course, it does, but I wouldn't have quite seen it.

So my word this year is RENEW. Nothing fancy. Sort of disappointed in the way of words, one may say. It's so simple. Just two syllables, almost flat where the energy department is concerned. Like, renew one's passport, an administrative process...

But, I think the One Word is
an invitation,
an anticipation - and therefore it helps me look out for God's handiwork in my little life.

So I am going to have to trust that what feels old, tired may get a fresh zest.
So I am going to beware the areas where I tend to lose hope.
So I am going to expect and pray and work new-ness.
So I am going to return to some old solid stuff I have neglected for it's going to be revived.

My word for 2014 is RENEW. What is yours?

Here are some examples ~

Try it!

What will be NEW for you this year?

As the first day of January washed up the shores of my soul, I wrote on the board in my home, "What will be NEW for you?". Those words are still there. They remind me not to go back to the same, the old, the habitual, the knee-jerk -- not when Vision, Imagination and Longing are drawing me towards growth, difference, fresh, and possibility.

 I talked to my family - I remind us about Christmas just past; that it was Good News because Jesus had come to make all things new. We knew in our hearts the ways that hurt, that drained joy, that robbed peace from our home. We must reject old ways that have hurt us and look forward in faith, and act in accordance to the newness Jesus wants to give us.

We don't want to talk, think, or act the same. I dream of peaceable words, tender attention, patient bearing with each other...that in our daily life of believing in the New, we are being changed to bring the New to our world.

What about you?

I know it can be scary to dream. I know what disappointment tastes like. I know what defeat feels like and how it loves to linger around and turn everything stale and colourless. But, your heart and mine - are hearts held by God and fashioned by Him, are hearts meant to beat with hope, are hearts that can be be set aflame. Indeed, we need to have confidence that as God loves us and gives us His Spirit, many of what we desire are good things and ought to be in our lives, even if they are not yet! {see Psalm 37v4}

Often, God uses one of his many promises to trigger a sense of possibility. Such as ~

And he will be the stability of your times,
a wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge;
the fear of the LORD is his treasure. {Isaiah 33v6}

I long for stability! This verse draws me. It turns within my belly and I see the truth of it: i need to treasure, value, prioritise, honour God in my moments & movements.

Which of the many promises of God is tugging at your heart these days? {please do share with us in the comments!}


God's Word is always an invitation to an adventure of trust. 

I am learning again to take His Word - first, seriously, totally -

I have found that --
when you give the Word the place its rightful place, it anchors down and I can distinguish better; and swat away the lesser words, and, the lies.

the Word is milk and meat and when I am fed, I am less susceptible to feed myself cheap substitutes.

the Word is God-breathed; and each time I read, savour, meditate, fresh life-giving breath enters my being.

I am sure God will pepper 2014 with many specific promises and remind me of many I need to recall. But in His goodness, he began me with a familiar Psalm {yes, i have read it as part of my Psalm trek }, but it was so sweet to read it slow, write it and ask for eyes to notice what I must !

Go seek your promise(s)! There will be NEW this year!

I want to dream on...

I have always been a dreamer.
When I was in Primary four, and the teacher had called my name several times and failed to get my attention, she said to the whole class, "Yim Tee is a dreamer". Then she promptly shifted me to the back of the class to be left to my dreaming!

I grew up harboring many dreams in my heart. Some of it was plain necessary as we were poor and i was one of a large brood. I dreamt of running away from home to a different life where there will be toys, a pony and good food... to a place like Sesame Street where people smiled kindly and large puppets, funny and grouchy were your neighbours.

I dreamt of becoming somebody important, like a doctor who saves lives. A singer who is clothed in glamour. At times, i trimmed my dreams to fit my circumstances. Perhaps i could be satisfied with selling roast meat rice, being an air-stewardess, or just getting married ...to someone richer.

But when I was eight, I said a prayer to ask Jesus to be my best friend. Since then, another heart seemed to beat within my bosom. By the time, I had listened to my Sunday school teacher teach us about God's great big world and the perishing millions; a new dream begin to unfold within me. I was going to serve God.

Perhaps due to my humble circumstances, I never really harboured grandiose ideas though I had asked for millions to rid the world of some of its poverty. {did not get it}.

Now nearly forty years on - God's dream for me remains still a few steps beyond me. It's a reaching-for-it that seems to matter to God. There were times when doubts crashed over me and threatened to keep me submerged in the mighty waters of fear, regret and anxiety.

I have had many long months of crying over losses, wondering over what-ifs, angry, frustrated, and just plain frightened. Yet, God holds me still. I have seen my smaller dreams come true as He continues to deftly cut off, fold and shape my heart and my circumstances. I have been sustained and even felt celebrated as God's gifts and goodness continues to enter my life.

I have become a pastor out of obedience and found such deep joy it was like coming home. I am a stay-home-mom out of my convictions and have discovered possibly my favourite job in the world. I have faced my many pains as a woman and suprised myself that God's healing grace in me reaches out to other women. I have followed my husband and moved churches and gained such precious friends along the way. I have written books and now have a longing to fill my bog with biblical insights to teach and reach.

I am still reaching-for. My dream is nothing less than to know God, live His Kingdom out loud and build a movement that will shake up the world! It's way too crazy-big and beyond me and I have come to realize that it isn't up to me to see it comes to pass even though each day i need to work hard at what comes and prayerfully try to anticipate what's around the bend.

Most days, I find huge gaping holes in my motive, action and mood! But Grace has constantly held me together and I have learnt there is a bubbling little brook of Joy that refreshes me though the days can get dreary, discouraging and even downright dark.

In a way, God-sized dreams are precisely that: God-sized!  I'm a really tiny person but the Spirit of God lives in me so I guess there's a way it shall all come together.

DOUBT - the good, the bad, the ugly

This is meant for all of us who struggle with doubts. About God. About where our life is headed, who is really in-charge, whether we are really making a difference...

Doubts are here to stay because we have a mind that loves connections. Our brain is made of millions of tiny neurons (hence neurotic) and they love to reach across and go zap!
Doubts are here to stay because we love closure and hence a sense of completion or control - but so much of life goes on and on. Our faith is jumpy at times, our work issues keep coming, our children never 'finally grow up', our finances are never enough (hmmmm..why)...
Doubts are here to stay because we cannot see, touch and struggle to hear God (is it really Him?).

In fact, today, i got this download about doubts and i so here it is. Doubts come from 3 places and thus they can be good, bad, or ugly.

Distant Doubts
are the bad doubts that arise because we have some unfinished business within our hearts. These are the doubts that trip us, stall us and slow us. We wonder if we are on the right track. We get nervous, agitated, often we may blame others.

John the Baptist when he was in prison had a moment of such doubts. He knew he was going to die. But he also knew his life was about preparing the people to meet the Saviour. He would only have succeeded if the Saviour had come. Jesus was his cousin. Could he really be the One?
So from prison, he sends word to Jesus, "are you the one?".
John was wise to voice his doubt. Jesus gave him the answer: the evidence is everywhere John, you don't have to doubt!

Martha had doubts too about Jesus. Is he balanced and does he really care? Her agenda for hospitality was so very important to her; but from her words, i feels like she has not yet embraced it as a gift. It was more the 'right thing to do'. No wonder, she got fed up with her sister who sat around not helping her out!
Martha voiced her doubt with no small tinge of frustration. Her famous line was actually an accusation, "Don't you care Jesus that Mary has left all the work to me?"  Most of us have said this before! We ask God why he seems not to notice our challenges. At heart we have not accepted that they are a part of God's plan for our lives. We want them 'zapped' and fixed -our way -and soon please.

Both John and Martha could have lost faith, given up, wallowed in the mire of doubt. Thankfully, they lifted their doubts to God and received their answers and were set right.

Denomic Doubts
are direct lies and ideas planted into our hearts and minds by our enemy.  They typically lead to a unhealthy self-focus with a sense of dread, condemnation and fear. It can be an accusation that makes us run away from God because we doubt we will be accepted. It can be rabbit trails of distraction from simple faith that come masked as questions.

These doubts tend to make us grow cold, insensitive to truth and entrenched in a posture of faithlessness. Often it comes with the need to have human approval.

The Pharisees were unaware that they had been letting these doubts of God enter their hearts for years. In their bid to provide spiritual leadership, they had become cold, calculative and even heartless.

As i think about it, i empathize somewhat with them. God's silence over the years cannot be an easy thing. It is not easy to keep faith and provide leadership when your people - God's chosen - are the world's frozen; trampled by the Romans.

They needed to know a deeper dependence upon God but because their heart's inclination was to grasp power and influence and prosper on the backs of the people; they ended up coming under the rule of the enemy. Jesus revealed their true state when he says they serve their father the devil.

But - there are surprises. Nicodemus was one of these leaders. But he stands apart from them for he did not let his doubts sink such deep roots because he had a desire for truth. We may tease him for his clandestine night-time visit to Jesus, but at least he took his questions to God; and of course, he received his answers {not without some serious soul search on his part!}

Divinely grace-d doubts
happen when we take our questions to God. Eventually, we realise like Job that it is not God who accounts to us; but the other way around. God holds us and begins to ask us deeper questions. He helps us sort through the labyrinth of worry, anxiety, fear, contradictions. He pegs our thoughts down with His Word and we see a tent spread unfold and take shape that becomes a shelter for us and others in the storm.
God wants to strengthen our faith and convictions. God brings us to a place of worship and surrender. God renews our faith.

Don't be afraid of those doubts and questions. They will come. But take them to God. Check them carefully to see where they have come from. Reject the lies. (Did God really say..?) by getting familiar with the truth (God's promises and principles). Spend much time journaling and talking with God. And - listen, learn to listen. The muddied water will settle in time and you will see what you need to. Then get up and follow in faith!

A strong cord of Joy to string your days

You know those famous words of old man Nehemiah -
"the joy of the LORD is your strength"

Most of the times I have heard it referred to, i get a vague sense that joy is related to strength and i feel strong for precisely two minutes because I have a way of leaking joy and losing strength.

So i decide to check. Are we mis-using Scripture? Are we missing some gem? If there's a way to be strong in my days, i sure want it.

i thought-prayed. i read. i asked.

A 3-part scrutiny:  Joy / Joy of the LORD / Strength



Joy is a God attribute. It does not originate from earth. The word is distinct from 'pleasure' which is the proper word for when we see, feel, taste or experience something temporal that brings a smile and a sense of satisfaction. Pleasure however is a glimpse of joy. Psalm 16 famously tells us that joy in its fullness is found in one place, or rather one Person: God Himself.

God is Joy, not kill-joy! {what an awful distortion and lie}

Christians, who are God's children, will over time mature in joy. It is the Father's character and being flowering in his children's lives.

God is Joy. God is also joyful - over certain things. Jesus mentioned the wild vive joie  of the father who hikes up his coat and runs to welcome his prodigal's return. The entire mood of the coming of the Saviour is one of great joy - God is excited about His Son coming to earth to save us. God is joyous about what he is up to and He invites us to share His joy!

We find joy and grow joyful as we relate to our Father God. Day by day, he infuses more of Himself into our being.

We find joy as we take upon our hearts what is upon His. If we take up His cause and join in His plan. Old man Nehemiah's words in fact come from this take. The people were listening to the Law and beginning to look at their failures and feel sorry and sad. But to God, his people's hard labour of rebuilding the wall, their coming together to hear the Law, the turning of their hearts God-ward is all joy! So they are to take their eyes off themselves and share in God's joy over them!

Each time you en-joy life's gifts, remember it is a doorway to the God who is joy and who invites you to join in His joy over life.

EN(ter) into JOY.

This is how Joy becomes a strong cord and holds you together, keeps you strong through the storms in the coming days.

Why Home-sickness is a good place to begin your 2014

Happy New Year!

How will you be travelling this year? There are four modes of moving along:

a/ well-planned to the hilt
you already have your goals and plans, a list of things to do by the end of January. Some more seasoned travelers by this mode would even have included safety precautions and back-up plans.

b/ tumbling or drifting
you basically dislike to plan. after all, things don't necessarily go your way (before or ever); so going with the flow is just easier: no fuss, no fight, no fire (to put out).

c/ pushed onward
there are strong forces within you that propel you or there are expectations you know you need to live up to.

d/ hanging on to a string of reactions
you may have goals and aspirations; but in reality, your travel style is to wait-and-see how things turn. You can get red-hot mad or walk away, depending on how you feel you are being treated.

Most of us will be using some combination of these four. But there is a fifth way. It is the way of God's Grace. This way sits at the bottom of all other ways, it also holds and weaves through the other modes of travel. For most of us, most of the time though, we are only vaguely aware of this ever-present Grace.
Why not live aware and upon this Grace so that each time we sing 'Amazing Grace', it is a distinct sense of awe with specific recollections and not vague ideas about how Amazing Grace truly is!

The way of God's Grace is to live tethered to God and His homeward call to us. It is living with a sense of homesickness.

I am rather a person on the move, relishing new experiences and challenges. But whether I am out for the day or away for weeks, a special feeling surges up in my soul as i turn homeward. It feels like a homesickness. I have missed home and hearth. I have missed the safe, familiar, comfortable, 'my place' sense.

It is the well-rooted tree that can spread its branches wide out and continue to bear fruit without over-stretching or toppling over.

Where is home for you? A small spot of ground or a huge house isn't what matters. It is where your heart rests that is home.

God is our home - for those of us who are His children because we believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins and want to live for Him. We go home to God often and dare not run wild and distracted that we cannot find our way home to rest and be restored.

Kingdom is our home - for those of us who are God's new people, called to build a different way of living; we find home when we are among those who share this same dream of a peaceable Kingdom in our broken-up world.

I get homesick a lot like when -
I've been waddling in shallows making waves when I can say 'see ya later' to everything and everyone and go out to the deep and float free.

I am fussing over the stuff that doesn't really count or last and then a ray of Kingdom light and eternity shines across my shoulder and I need to turn my eyes to see.

I am busy counting my small pile of gold coins of 'have', 'need', 'want more of', and forget that's just pavement where I am headed - it's the wrong currency to trade in

I see a picture of grim need, an old wrinkled face, a broken-hearted parent whose child was here a moment before that shrapnel came whizzing past

I need to feel this homesickness. You do too. For in the end, we are pilgrims, travelers, aliens, a-passing-through. And it is this homesickness - our desperate need for God, our deep convictions of a different world, that will help us travel by the mode of Grace.

As we beat our own path to God-home and soak in Grace, our hearts and minds expanding with Him.
As we work out our salvation by living as saved ones, building a different world, and know it will never happen apart from Grace-miracles where our pockets, priorities and perspectives shifting from sand to rock.

So yes, Home-sickness is a good place to begin your 2014.


Happy NEW year friends!

How did God see your 2013?

What is the first emotion that comes as you think of 2013?

If you could draw a picture to represent the year, what would you draw?

Some of us hitch onto some happy moment, grin and tumble into the new year. Some of us wince at certain memories and maybe even fight to fend off the sense that we blew it again. Doubtless for most of us in mostly sunny Singapore, our days were a busy mix of getting around, chasing deals and forging goals. It can be hard to tease our jam-packed days apart to see what they were truly about.

- The unexamined life is not worth living - Socrates

But how do we examine our lives? What do we use to map our days against? What grid, or guide do we have? Our ever-present tendency is to compare ourselves with... some ideal, and often feel like we have been given the short end of the stick again.

Recently, i thought that even being on Facebook can do enormous harm: we may be sick, jobless, lost...and it seems the whole world is having a great time without us - all the pictures of balmy scenes, happy faces, wise words, great times... people are going places and doing stuff. Life is happening without us.

Facebook tries to help with a review of your year by stitching together all your posts and updates that received the highest 'likes'. Ah, all is not lost, i was heard; someone laughed at my joke, someone noticed my melancholy, someone liked my pictures.

As I was preparing to lead my church tomorrow for a time of reflection; I think of Jesus' words that sets up that contrast between life and death. He offers us life abundant - and warns us of the living reality that we have an enemy who wants to steal, kill and destroy.

Perhaps if we recognise that this dynamic presents itself to us each day - that within each day, we are posed a question: would you have life or not? I think of how our feelings, thoughts and circumstances may well be God's invitation and offer to live more fully and free.

I imagine looking at my life from the outside - and seeing it through God's eyes. What then of my 2013? How does God feel about my year nearly gone? What picture would he draw?

Selah.

Psalm 139 & more {enjoy}

Why not have some face-time with God and just remember - He is the God who made you, loves you and constantly, and faithfully invites you to go deeper. To live.

CHRISTmas manifesto

manifesto (n) :  a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer

Yesterday in the enlivening cover of the cool morning air, it dawned on me that Christmas, orchestrated before time, wild beyond our imaginations, had come with some 'instructions'. God has not left it all shadowy and open to speculation. There isn't meant to be twenty versions of how, who, what about Christmas. 

God first unveiled the CHRISTmas manifesto some seven hundred years to an statesman-prophet Isaiah:

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light;

on the inhabitants of a country in shadow dark as death

light has blazed forth

For a son has been born for us,

a son has been given to us..

No more stumbling in the dark. No more trying this way and that.

A blazing light is now available. turn your sights and be dazzled and find it's illuminating rays all about you - a warm, strong cloak that says you are known and you are safe.

All of us share this little child, this boy. Ours. Come close and stroke his soft cheeks. This gift of life -yours and mine together! You did not father him, i did not carry him; yet now, he is ours!

Each of us look at a child and marvel, wonder, wish... But with this child, this CHRIST, we are given understanding about how to see him. He's not here to fulfil our wishes. His character, abilities and impact are described for us:

dominion has been laid on his shoulders

and this is the name he has been given,

Wonder-Counsellor

Ask of the CHRIST what you need to have a heart full of wonder and worship. We live too often at the level of mere function. It's a tic-toc world and we are satisfied with clockwork. God did not create us - setting us in a lush garden filled with creation that continues to baffle and dazzle us, just so we can get on with it. No, we're meant to marvel, wonder, gasp in awe and let is all come out in praise and adoration of the Creator. The very lives we have, each sometimes so filled with mundane minutiae are no less works of Grace and tender love. We need this season to see our lives with fresh eyes - to ask the wonder-counsellor for eyes to see, heart to feel and minds to think brave.

Mighty-God

Yes, it's but a helpless babe. But he has come to destroy the works of the devil and rescue the world from darkness' clutches. Might is all His. Might is defined by him. Where do you feel weak, unable and afraid, overwhelmed and intimidated this season? Go to the God of might. Sit with Him for He is a giving presence. Go often and come away stronger.

Eternal-Father

Your father and mine - busy, absent, careless, no longer around... The strength, direction, example we long for is available. Christ shows u God is our eternal father. Our failures, crazed ideas and inconsistency won't turn him away. He will always be.

Prince-of-Peace

O to come to Christ and just feel the peace. No words needed.

I'm guessing one of these means more to you now. Go ahead, write it down, draw it, dream it, memorize it, sing it, dance it! 

The gift has been delivered. Go ahead, unwrap it and enjoy it. You need Him.

{the New Jerusalem Bible NJB is used here}

Let these WOW snowflakes' message melt into you...

God certainly delights in what He does...  {click}

This Christmas season, allow Him to do his wonders in your life.

How?
Stop demanding,
questioning
looking back
whining

but -
pray for eyes to see
heart to feel
mind that will think clear

look again at the snowflakes and let its beauty melt into your being and water the dry, thirsty land within.

Discovering God

Last night as I led a few leaders in a time of sharing about the past year in our lives; a brother talked about how his recent experiences helped him see that there are moments in life when it all boils down to you-and-God. No one else can quite enter your experience, bear the pain or help with understanding. Only One remains present, attending, and able to help. 

Yet, it will take us all a while to learn this deep truth that we indeed have a Heavenly Father, a God who offers help, a God who does carry us, a God who will grant wisdom, provide rest and bring healing.

When King Saul's jealousy and possible psychosis got the better of him, he hunted for David like a crazed predator for four years. Naturally, David feared for his life - and fear can make us do many things.
David went to the high priest for help. Later he went to enemy territory to hide. Everywhere David turned, people became implicated and sometimes suffered from the fallout of the conflict between Saul and David.

It looked like the sheer fear for his life was going to layer on with more: grief for what Saul would do to others who are innocent.

In our desperate moments, we will often turn for help - and sometimes, like a drowning man, we cling so tight to anyone or anything that can help; and drown that too.

There is instruction in this.

Equally, the four years David spent running for his life did something for him as all of these things happened. He crafted the Psalms that today reveal what depths a man and his God can get to.

In God alone there is rest for my soul

nowhere else
nothing else
no one else

In God is my safety

Not here
There
in him/her
in this/that

In God is my refuge

no need to flee
panic
fret
for God, ever-Present is.

David of course, eventually becomes the King God has anointed him to be. The dream God inked on his heart will come to pass even if it has to nearly die first. The king God saw fit to stand through a nation's history as king par excellence and as a pre-figure for Christ - that king who will build God's kingdom ways in a people, must know his God to the depths a mortal may be granted to. Yes, much of it came through a cauldron of human suffering we all seek to avoid: fear, threat of death, loneliness, emptiness, defeat, humiliation... But perhaps as John the Baptist would put it a thousand years later, "He must increase, I must decrease". More of God, less of me.

Christ on the Cross with John the Baptist and King David by
Schaufelein, Hans Leonard c1480-1539

note: These experiences and insights about God are reocrded in Psalm 62 - lyrics and music for a head Levite named Jeduthun* -one of three chief Levites; whom some deduce may be David's music teacher! 

Bereft. The feeling of losing something precious permanently.

Most hearts eventually have to reckon with this overpowering sensation.
This week someone got drunk. Another drags on more cigarettes than she intended to. Another walks, life around but not within her.

It's a dark night where the sun doesn't seem to rise. Negative emotions overrun while positive ones seem to have gone into hiding. Tears make their way to the surface without the least effort. There is little fire left in desires as everything feels blah.


It could be an unexpected, bad shattering news or a slow dawning sense that things are not as they seem; until a point of clarity reveals the truth of the situation.  Either way, nothing will be the same again.

It's hard to know what to say - to self, and others.  After all, it is like being forcibly sucked into a blackhole.

Young shepherd David lived and acted based on his faith in, and fervor for God. He served the King, he defeated the enemy. Despite his noble choices and right moves and the well-known praise and accolades he was receiving; the truth of the situation began to emerge: he had aroused the jealousy of King Saul. The tension turned into threat to his life, and as with all situations, things compound. When we reach Psalm 52, David was reeling from the devastating news that eighty-give priests were killed on account of him. The Psalm is a poetic way to teach truth; in this case, David asserts that through the reversals and losses, he will refuse to play the cynic. Instead, he senses God's hand on him and wrote ~

I, like a flourishing olive tree 
in the house of God,
put my trust in God's faithful love,
for ever and ever

There is much that didn't make sense. God's king has an inverted sense of what is right. David is targetted for treason. Others are implicated and killed. Everything is a mess; God it seems, has left the building. It would be easy to feel sorry, to rile, to strike back, to curl up into a ball and cry softly to death.

Goliath's sword that priest Ahimelech gave to David {1 Sam 21}  

Meanwhile, history tells us that some four hundred ragamuffins - "in distress, in debt, had a grievance" looked to David as their leader. {1 Samuel 22} Most leaders today will run a mile wide from such candidates for discipleship or leadership. But by chapter 23, the number had swollen to six hundred. A leader on the run for his life; battling darkness of guilt for causing the death of others, the pain of false accusation, the demands of broken people. He says he is a flourishing tree!

There is a core to our being that can be unshaken - for it is held, defined and kept by One who alone gives, sustains and protects life:

God did not deliver him into Saul's power {1 Sam 23v14}





Things will happen to us.
But God decides what to deliver us to. With the Cross, there is only one option for God: God will safeguard us for himself. He will deliver us up to Grace, restoration, healing, peace, truth, and power.

We may feel like we are in a blackhole, spinning helplessly. We don't know what to say or how to respond. But like David, we can resist the blackhole's power to snuff us out because Life is in us and nothing can extinguish that.
Indeed, we can afford to lose anything and everything because we will never lose what is essential: our loved selves. We are all olive trees that flourish because in the worst of days and nights, there is still God's faithful love and His goodness toward us. 

God is with us, storm-tossed world - Psalm 46

10,000 is a big number. But it's far more than a number when every single digit represents a life, a dream, a promise - each linked to other hearts and hopes. We are simply not capable of wrapping our minds around what it means. Our own little life can already get too much. This week though, we must all take our eyes and look further - the images and numbers must stop us in our tracks; hopefully long enough to make a difference.*

from Mash

from The Guardian

God's people have never lived in isolation. They lived in relation to others - seeking to bless them. This they do well only if they began in the right place. Today's Psalm provides this right place, a starting point. 

It is a worship song written for the instrument that sets the tone for all the other instruments in our modern symphonies. It is the song, the theology that sets the bar for everything else to align to. 
It is about how God is ~

refuge and strength for his people
a ready help when we are in trouble

so that - like this week, as we witnessed the massive destruction and loss from typhoon Haiyan; when the water roar and seethe and even mountains totter and tumble -

we are not afraid.

this is the emotion the truth of God addresses. Fear.

we ought to feel many things: sadness, grief, empathy, compassion, anger at authorities and corruption, angst over human sloth and on.. but we are not to fear for YHWH Sabaoth, the LORD who has armies at his disposal is with us.

I have a live-in Filipino helper who was back in her homeland as this typhoon blasted across. She comes from the region Iloilo. There was much devastation and many lost homes they took years to build from money they remit home from working far away from home and loved ones. Eva, my helper too had saved and helped her family built a small brick house on their farm. When I shared my concern with my daughter, she immediately said, "if it's destroyed we must give her the money to build a new one! Look at those filmsy houses; she must build one with a good foundation!"

A good foundation is critical. Good sturdy material can make all the difference.


Most of all though, a stout heart is what stands the inevitable storms of life. A heart that has learnt to be still, still enough to know in a deep way that God is God, supreme over the world; that God is God, and with us who are his people; simply because we choose to turn our eyes to him and believe.

Be still and acknowledge that I am God,
supreme over nations, supreme over the world. {v10}

What have I seen in my stillness?
I have seen a God so great I cannot define and describe.
I have seen humanity so wretched I know we need a Saviour.
I have seen my own heart filled with many emotions; including a frustrating tension at what to say to my children who asked, "will it come to Singapore?... Phew!"
I have seen that the losses will truly be in vain if we will not allow them to tutor our hearts toward contentment and compassion.

Why don't you shut off the news and turn inward and be still before God. Being still will lead to a knowing you need for the living you long for.

We come, to let His love rest on us

A vivid sensing came today: it is us in our busy days with our needs churning within us looking hither, thither for answers. We are busy reading off the Net, taking notes, making plans, trying to squeeze any juice of hope from these mostly dry places just to keep going. How nice to be able to just stop, have a totally lazy day and chill! But the wheels crank on and our hearts long for a rest that is deep, satisfying, and renewing.
How nice.

Recently i saw that magnum opus of a movie Gravity. Many minutes into the show, I felt a sensation of weightlesness and a slight sense of anxiety coming over me as i witnessed Sandra Bullock float-leap-crawl from space to space. It felt better whenever she was inside some capsule, but O, the endless expanse of space... and that dread moment when her colleague Clooney cut off the tether... Solid ground, give me solid ground - and soon! It was a palpable relief when she finally landed on earth.

Psalm 33v22 ~
YHWH, let your faithful love rest on us,
as our hope has rested in you.

We look up to people, watch for signs that the circumstances have shifted, yearn to hear a 'well done', 'thank you', 'I love you'.... and we are restless. God is near but so so far. Holiness is a benchmark we strive for rather than the amazing Grace presence that has opened up to us and now touches every little spot of our lives.

But - after the roving and roaming, if we will, our need for hope, our sense of hope can connect with Hope itself, tethered safe.

When we can stop clambering, worried and scared to death that we won't make it; and gather all of what we need and long for into a bundle and sit with God. 
Let our hope -- rest . in . You! 

Then, we shall see that God is waiting for us to be still enough to feel his Love resting upon us.

Yes, things will happen, people will hurt and disappoint, we will make dastardly mistakes...but we are never cut off to float into nothingness. What's more, we can regularly, deliberately, gather our life-bundle and sit with God, learning to be still enough to experience the Holy One loving us. Wow.

{here's one way: A Quiet Morning }

When It's All Too Much & You Nearly Give Up

Psalm 32 begins with a powerful definition: the one who is Blessed is the one who has been made right with God. 

When we are mired in our sins and other's sins, when we are overwhelmed, tired, near-depression... we need to recollect that our most important need has been met. As the Westminster catechism* puts it, our only hope in life and death is that we already have hope because we believe in Jesus Christ and have received his gift of forgiveness and reconciliation. Everything else is add-on; and nothing can take this away if we refuse to let it go.

Out of this place of a living relationship with God restored we negotiate & navigate life - and never ever all by ourselves even if it feels so.

God's active presence in our lives is easy to overlook and can be difficult to spot because our reflex to pain and threat is self-preservation; to use our own understanding and means to protect, shield, and vindicate ourselves.

This self-reflex is named for what it is: sin.
It's been said the word sin has 'I' in the middle of it. The indications are not hard to see:

self-pity ~ I'm so poor thing

blame ~ he/she is hurting, stifling, unfair, insensitive (and it's probably true: of them, but just as true of you and me!)

comparison ~ after more than twenty-five years my pay is less than a fresh grad (this is mine)

envy ~ he's so patient with her, what co-operative children...

pride ~ you don't have any idea

When we are willing to see that wrapped in our very real pain is this persistent thread of self; we can cry out for help and be ready to receive it. this is when our hearts and eyes open to see:

God has not let the waters swept us off

There are songs, hints, intimations of deliverance

God is guiding us with his eye constantly on us!
{this one comes with a vivid picture that has 2 applications:
Firstly, don't be like an animal that must be guided by constraints. We are children of God that are guided by an intimate walk with God; making choices out of our love for our Father, wanting to please and honour Him. But at times we simply don't. When that happens, then don't be like a wild horse that runs from what is needed for guidance. When a horse subjects itself to a loving master, it will be fed, cleaned, cherished and learn to use all its prowess to demonstrate what it's truly capable of. God may have to use a bit and bridle - limits; but when we relax to trust, these limits lead us to focus, to feast, to flourish. As we grow in trust, we walk in freedom more and more as children of God, confident that our motives guide our choices aright}

freedigitalphotos.net

We are enfolded in faithful love

So lift your heart to God today my friend, like, right now.

*the Westminster catechism is a Reformed church document developed using a series of Qs to help new believers become grounded in basic and definitive faith doctrines so that they are guided in their life. Click here for one site on it

Healing for help

Psalms 30:2 ~

O LORD my God, I cried to you for help,

and you have healed me.

 This is a Psalm of a cry for help and an experience of being saved from mortal danger. Perhaps it refers to a sickness, hence the healing. But mortal danger and the threat to life can come in many forms.

 Whatever form it takes though, our one desire is to be rid of it quickly and painlessly.

 I am wrecking my brain for a story in the bible where God airlifts the person out of his troubles. The only ones i know are the ones on their way home namely, Enoch & Elijah.

In fact, this imagery came vividly to me once when I was so sick and tired of some ongoing troubles I had: I saw a huge 'X' over a common rescue scene - a helicopter with a lifeline lowered! The message to me was,"no,not this way". It was reinforced by another impression I had perhaps a year earlier when I felt God say to me, "you need to walk though this"- and immediately I recall the famous line from Psalm  23, 'the valley of the shadow of death..'.

We want help; we get healing.

God takes us through the tunnel, the dark, the death, and makes us more well, more complete, more whole. The help God gives is not a short-term relief but an eternity-set goodness ... We know honestly that we don't have the patience for ourselves; the way we keep making those same silly mistakes and horrendous self-centred ways we inflict others and ourselves with pain. God alone has the distance of patience, goodness, forgiveness, and gentle enabling we need to unlearn, and to relearn about... life and love.

Thing is when we deny or ignore the dark, it doesn't go away. God's way is to vanquish it; to strip it of its power over us. He does this by taking us by the hand and walking with us into those dark places so that His Light may illumine and take away the dread- as we discover that these 'monsters under our bed' are really   not.so.powerful.

Cry to God for help - and get ready to be healed.

No. 19 - aware of, in awe, and a prayer to YHWH

Many years ago, a young Pakistani young who visited our little fellowship sang a song out of the 18th Psalm. If i can figure out how, I may sing it for us here...that simple 3-chord song helped me fall in love with the power of the Psalms.

Several years later, I encountered the next Psalm, no.19. It was a time when i needed a strong anchor for my life - and the resounding confidence of the Psalmist drove those words clear into the marrow of my convictions~

"the Law of the LORD is perfect
reviving the soul"

It riveted my attention and pegged my will to a posture of submission.

So, today i share with us my gleanings as I visit no. 19 and I see in it a Psalm of Awakening. 

It begins with being stirred to see God's hand in creation and His massive rule over it all. 

The heavens declare the glory of God..
from the entire earth the design stands out,
the message reaches the whole world...
and nothing can escape his heat.

Just look ! {click}

The One who speaks the words that bring into being also has words for us which enlivens, guides and brings joy!

the Law of YHWH is perfect,
refreshment to the soul, ...
wisdom for the simple. 
the precepts of YHWH are honest,
joy for the heart; ...
light for the eyes.

YHWH creator God whose Presence looms large over all and who has established moral law is therefore to be acknowledged with fear and His judgement to be sought. 

How often do we pause to think how God judges a situation? I rarely hear of this in God-speak today; mostly I hear us accusing / questioning / God for failing to align with our judgment of the situation and so being blind to our very necessary needs!

This awakening leads into the prayer to be free from all our crazy self-enamoured tendencies-

who can detect his own failings?
wash away my hidden faults.
and from pride, preserve your servant,
never let it be my master...

and finally, this:

May the words of my mouth always find favour,
and the whispering of my heart, {yes, our hearts whisper / murmur / rant!}
in your presence, YHWH,
my rock, my redeemer.

psalm 12 - a current version

Idiot Psalm 12
A psalm of Isaak, amid uncommon darkness

O Being both far distant and most near,
O Lover embracing all unlovable, O Tender
Tether binding us together, and binding, yea
and tenderly, Your Person to ourselves,
Being both beyond our ken, and kindred, One
whose dire energies invest such clay as ours
with patent animation, O Secret One secreting
life anew into our every tissue moribund,
afresh unto our stale and stalling craft,
grant in this obscurity a little light.

With thanks to ~
Scott Cairns (PhD University of Utah)
American poet, memoirist, librettist, and essayist. 
Catherine Paine Middlebush Chair in English at the University of Missouri
taken from: here {click}

A Psalm pick-me-up

Raise your hand if you have felt --

like someone understood when you read the Psalms

like God has come close

reality is drawn out and the massive sense of being drowned ebbs away...

The Psalms are an amazing collection of pick-me-ups; affirming our frailty and calling us to faith. 

Today, I share with us how the Psalms fall into four large categories; and with this knowledge, you may know better where to turn  ---

1. hymns which begin with praise and recounts God's marvel in creation and acts of redemption and end again with a praise rejoinder.

These Psalms are great for personal, family and corporate worship! You can use he beginnings and write you own experience of God's wonder in creation or list out recent experiences of His Grace. A wonderful exercise of reflecting on God's presence and goodness for every one; i imagine the little ones can easily join in the grand fun!

{8,, 19,29,33, 46-48, 76, 84, 93, 96-100, 113, 114, 117, 122, 135, 136, 145-150}

2. Laments and cries for help directly calling out to God, often with a description of the woes and troubles, a sense of God's absence in some; and a re-assertion of faith in God. In some, the faith assertion ends the Psalm abruptly or is followed by a note of thanks; signaling a change in mood.
These Psalms model authenticity and a generous dash of audacity! But who can we open the depths of our being to - who will not cringe, counter-suggest, or try to command our feelings another way? God, i once told my seven year-old nephew is like a huge sponge and He can take anything that is spilling out of us.
Personally, these Psalms are the very things that first moved me to take up pen and begin writing my heart. I haven't stopped - for God has shown what a heart can fill up with...
Interestingly, these entreaties are not all solo. Groups can come together to mourn, wail, and cry before God. 

{Individual: 3, 5-7, 13, 17, 22, 25, 26, 28, 31, 25, 38, 42-43, 51, 54-57, 59, 63, 64, 69-71, 77, 86, 102, 120, 130, 140-143}
{Group: 12, 44, 60, 74, 80, 83, 85, 106, 123, 129, 137}

3. Thanksgiving Psalms are fantastic for any season for we are a people called to the way of grateful-ness. 

Alone or with others, giving thanks deepens our faith as we lift our eyes and hearts upward.

{18, 21, 30, 33, 34, 40, 65-58, 92, 116, 118, 124, 129, 138, 144}

4. Then there are Psalms that combine the elements such that one Psalm has hymn+cry+thanks. Psalm 119 stands like a tall tower as it develops the whole idea of God's Word with the human condition weaved in; making it sound a lot like Wisdom literature (ie. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes group). Finally, there are those Psalms that clearly have a prophetic pointing-to-Christ element. {2, 50, 75, 81, 82, 85, 95, 110}. 

What a grand idea to read these Psalms during Advent {link} as we prepare once again to welcome God's Amazing gift that begin with a young couple's outrageous obedience.

advent

ˈadv(ə)nt,-vɛnt/

noun

1. 1.

   the arrival of a notable person or thing.

   "the advent of television"

   synonyms:

   arrival, appearance, emergence, materialization, surfacing, occurrence,dawn, origin, birth, rise, development; More
2. 2.

   the first season of the Church year, leading up to Christmas and including the four preceding Sundays.

Which Psalm has held special meaning for you; touched you in a deep place... I'll be delighted for you to share it here with us. 

[notes from The New Jerusalem Bible]

Of the weak, and our equal need for final hope

Today we look at Psalm 9-10 which is really one Psalm, written as an acrostic, using the Alphabets to start off each line. It's a great way to remember things! You can hear it read in Hebrew here: Psalm 9 read in Hebrew.

i attempt a little acrostic for us ~ the Psalm itself is not a complete acrostic; and of course we won't use all of the English alphabets...

A~
Alleluia! {do this in a tune that comes to your mind! it's for singing!}

B~
Based on your judgement that acquits me, my enemies beat a retreat

C~
Complete cities and nations are wiped out

D~ 
Dethrone You? No way? Judgement is coming.

E~
Everyone who fears you receives your help

F~
For you remember, and so we sing

G~
God! hold me safe so I can sing happily of your rescue

H~
How apt- You reveal yourself as nations are caught in their own sin

{pause with muted music}

N~
Nations that disregard you ought to go to burn

O~
Oppressed ones will be remembered, their longing will materialise for You will bring to trial and show that we are but mortals

P~
Pity the weak, you seem far off...and the wicked disdains your reality..

R~
Rude, boastful, and scheming, they assume you are too 'soft' to deal with them and they pursue their gain at the expense of the weak and poor; who have become bait and prey.

S~
See! Surely you see it and measure it all-- for to the orphan you are the only recourse.

T~
Totally break the power of the wicked and evil for you are King to everlasting.

In a sense, we who live in affluence will never touch the heart of the cry in Psalms 6-7 and 9-10 - unless- we reach, touch and choose to carry the hurt, losses, and the sense of hopelessness many in the world feel. As Jesus reminds us, 'the poor are ever with us'. The crazy spirit and law of this world  ensures that as man seek gain in expense of each other.

In this regard, we can all be guilty. Have we not sought our own good, comfort, well-being above that of others; and perhaps at time, at the expense of others? The getting-so-hot earth is a like a heating cauldron where the things will boil and rush over... because we seek lifestyles that the earth was not designed to provide. The life we get so used to - churning out carbon and waste and phenomenal rates is one our brothers and sisters in other parts will not have. Their portion is to work in the sun -- and we make their work harder as the heat turns up while we hide in our air-con rooms.

Can you and I understand these Psalms? Pray them?

They are there in Scripture: we can, and we must. For even in our 'good life' we too know suffering through sickness, loss and power-play. These Psalms then unite us with those who seem so different - as we both cry to God as our Source of Hope. And hopefully, we look at what we have and share it; trusting God to finally break the power of evil forever.

p.s. - i take a break from writing over the weekend. journal and write your own reflections and share them with us! Selah.