How to keep on keeping on (part 1: be a bother)

I had thought it was an Asian thing. Then I lived for nearly a year in the US of A, and  I realized it's not just us Asians who hate to bother people. We may avoid it because of 'face'; but scratch beneath that and I suppose it reeks of weakness to ask for help; and who wants to be weak?

so many days, a slow trudge and so vulnerable...

Two years ago, I wrote this important piece about not being overwhelmed ; and as I re-read it, the power behind the simplicity of its message is easily missed:  

"This is the power I have: to gather up all that's a-tossed within my bosom and hand them over to the Prince of Peace."

But God has more for us.

The journey from here to heaven isn't just a God-and-I thing.

I am thinking a lot about community these days. Maybe it's because the children are growing and I have more freedom to get out. Maybe it's because this is my personal Jubilee year; that is nearly fifty years of taking up space on planet earth and more than forty for following Christ (in different shades and degrees over the years of course). 

I am thinking: how do we keep on keeping on without becoming numb, jaded, cynical, and maybe even lost + why does community matter?

So here is the first part of the answer I gathered.

Are you ready?

Part 1: be a bother.

You read that right. I did not say, be a brother (or sister), with the orientation to give out. But be a 'bother' with a need to take in, be helped, raised up.

I will tell you this, it's much harder for a pastor. But other than the title and the graces and gifts; I am another desperate human, full of failings and weaknesses just like every other Christ follower and human. I need help.

Practical help

Prayer help

Soul help

I want to be able to ask: can you please take the children for a day? And I am thankful to have one or two I can say that to once in a long while. When we were at Riverlife church, we were part of a cell group made up of young families. We knew how hard it was to bring home the bacon and raise children. I seriously thought of moving closer as most of them lived in Pasir Ris -- so that we can give some solid practical help to each other.

When my missionary friend travels, I ask if it's alright to call and chat with her mother, perhaps check in to see if she is doing alright.

There really is no reason for any Christian brother or sister to feel all alone. {I still do sometimes; so let's all work at this!}.

If you don’t yet know the power of prayer, try this: send out a WhatsApp as soon as you have a need. This is what I do for prayer help. I need prayer when we are in the thick of ministry and I am so grateful for my small WhatsApp group that prays promptly and solidly each time. I also WhatsApp a group of lady friends when PMS strikes or I am in the emotional doldrums. This kind of rapid, prayer shout-outs are so effective.

The moment the responses start coming in, my heart is bolstered and my faith strengthened.

Soul help is found in those who have journeyed further along. I get that from books and individuals. We need regular soul help from friends who 'get us' [to a greater degree than acquaintances], who share our passion, are willing to bear with us talking about our confusion or pain.  It is also essential to get soul help from a Spiritual Director or someone similar*. This is because the person doesn't really know you and it gives you the freedom to just talk about stuff. Good directors don't even need to know all the story - the Spirit helps the talking and the listening; and important bits that lead to truth and freedom will bubble to the surface.

I have found that when you are setting out to obey God, he sends this kind of help -- because if he doesn't, it's hard to find them! For example, as I look back at my life; writing has always been a big part of who I am. Yet I almost never took the route. It was a girlfriend who bothered to write to me one day and ask, "why don't you write more?".

After that, doors opened. Then a total stranger, an editor in the US asked me for an article and even paid me for it. These kinds of things are very important - they embolden you to take the next step! When I returned to Singapore, a publisher was keen to see if I have any work; helped me get to a writing workshop where I met three beautiful women who raved about my writing and have since become dear friends.

Go get yourself some help. Bother someone. You may bring out a gift or strength in them! Of course, people can say 'no' -- but more likely, you will be surprised to find how good God is to you really.

"...admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone." 

~ 1 Thessalonians 5v14

"Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble...so that the limb which is lame not be out out of joint but rather be healed" 

~ Hebrews 12v12

 *I offer Soul Help through Soul Conversations. Drop me an email at jennihuan@churchlife-resources.org to make an appointment. 

Related posts:
Doubts: the good, bad, and ugly
Seeking Faith
Faith & December
the gifts of faith, hope and love

Orlando shooting: time to take care of our hearts

Maybe it's because our eyes are right there in front of our heads, oriented outwards. We tend to look away from ourselves and seek answers from out there:

If only my parents did/didn't...
What to do? I came from this school...
Somehow my friends...
Where's the perfect one...

This is confession right here. It's my problem too.

Of course, there are things to grow, improve, even fix - out there. But whether it does or does not; whether it goes in the direction that will truly lead to more grace, joy, freedom and peace; it depends on what is going on right within our hearts.

There's been another shooting. Everyone is looking outwards: did he have links to terrorist groups? Was he radicalized? Some say he was really disturbed when he witnessed two gays kissing. Mateen the shooter, himself, looked outwards: this is a horrid club and the people (perhaps representing a whole swathe of their ilk) needs to die. Things will be different if I acted on the circumstances out there.

We will act out what's really in our hearts. We will communicate what we truly think - maybe not in the words; but in the tone, perhaps in the words withheld or in our body language.

For -

The mess of the world is the mess in our hearts.

The mess in our homes is the mess in our hearts.

The mess in our minds is the mess in our hearts.

How easy it is to denounce structural injustice, institutionalized violence, social sin! And it is true, this sin is everywhere, but where are the roots of this social sin? In the heart of every human being. Present-day society is a sort of anonymous world in which no one is willing to admit guilt, and everyone is responsible. We are all sinners, and we have all contributed to this massive crime and violence in our country. Salvation begins with the human person, with human dignity, with saving every person from sin. ~ Oscar Romero

Our hearts: that space and place where our longings, dreams, fears, dreads, memories and motivations, rationale and reasoning dwell..... the nub of who we are; that is forming, deforming.. and which dictates our performing.

Scientists cannot locate this 'heart'. Is it the same as the mind? Is it somewhere in the spaces between the folds in our brain? Is it but the electrical impulses that fire between the nerves and the chemical washes that are triggered by tiny glands? Science can observe the operations, but not nail the origins. Even identical twin studies must concede that there is some organisation that needs to account for the differences they find when two persons who share nearly exactly similar genetic material simply do not respond in the same ways to the same stimuli.

Recently I read that the Dalai Lama, recognizing the complexity of human emotions has commissioned a project to create a guide that helps people be more in touch with their true emotional state: The Atlas of Emotions.


So often, we can be strangers to ourselves; to our hearts.


The heart is a difficult place to get to. But if all your traveling in the world doesn't lead you there, you haven't traversed the most important space there is: your own heart.

And what havoc we wreak on ourselves and each other.


Just recently I was talking with a divorcee. As her discomfort abated, the words began tumbling out. So many aspects are involved in a decision like this. I considered how she must have grappled with her initial choice to marry the person, all the many pressures she experienced as things started to fall apart, the sense of guilt and anger, the road ahead with a child....yet most of these she talked about rather in passing. I was quite taken aback that she found comfort in finding an affordable lawyer; and that lawyer had waved her arm across the shelves behind her to reveal the number of cases she had handled; as if it normalised everything. Her heart is hushed into silence - for the thing to do is to press on and get the papers signed.


All the debris of unsettled hearts.



We see the muscle. We feel it continually beating out this rhythm; and we just expect it to. But stress can cause an arrhythmia; that skip of a beat. Otherwise, we just keep going, fueled by some Red Bull -ish potion we have found; the high that makes us forget, laugh, forge on.

If you are I are serious about peace within ourselves and in our world, then we must pay attention to this invitation by Jesus ~

"Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” ~ Matthew 11v28, The Message, bold mine.

To live -

freely
lightly
rested
unforced
rhythmic
Grace-full

begins with getting up, away, and going to Him:

come, 

get away, 

listen, 

watch, 

walk, 

learn, 

keep company.

As with all explorations and discovery, we need both a base camp and trajectory to start out on. The base camp is our present life with all of its circumstances. Jesus does not call us to jettison it all. He never did live with ideal circumstances.

The exploration is to create a way to go to Him, find a way to get away in order to listen, to find a new focus for our eyes and our hearts. It is it listen to his take on things. It is to imagine his approach, his words, his choices. We unlearn to learn. We find it too hard and impossible. We are too ashamed of our complicity with darkness, our readiness to satisfy our egos.

We keep company with Jesus because all our sins and griefs cannot drain His forgiveness and goodness. 
We keep company with Jesus because our best hopes and loftiest ideals will be affirmed.
We keep company with Jesus because we become like the company we keep.

You come away from some encounters deeply nourished - and that's always a slow meal - not a buffet spread where you are tempted to grasp and pile it up. 

Keep company with Jesus, and those who draw you to him. Take care of your heart, and your heart will take care of all that truly matters to you.

"This is the cause why we be not all in ease of heart and soul: 

that we seek here rest in those things that are so little, wherein is no rest, 

and know not our God that is All-mighty, All-wise, All-good. 

For He is the Very Rest."

~ Julian of Norwich

Why doesn't God rescue us?

She sounded urgent. When she finally arrived in my dorm room, her face told me she was troubled. Then she told me that she was nearly date raped. He was a Christian guy she had met on campus. She was a very young believer herself and thought it was only right to go out with a fellow Christian. Through teary eyes, she asked me, "Why didn't God stop it? Why didn't He rescue me?".

I had no answer for her. She was the star student, extremely beautiful and of a gentle, quiet disposition. She would never have baited him. I hardly knew the guy and my thoughts turned towards vitriol for him.

Why would a good God let a nice girl like her end up with a trauma like this? She certainly didn't deserve it. I had no answer.

This was nearly thirty years ago.

But daily as we are bombarded by tough stuff, witness outrageous evil, see senseless violence, hear and read of the sacrifice of children to neglect, greed, injustice and oppression; we are all hoping, and wondering why God doesn't act to stop any of it.

Chernobyl, taken off Telegraph.co.uk

Just last month, I came to know of this prominent Christian businessman and leader's teen daughter who was gang raped when their home was burglared. Even as an adult, married with children, she tears up as she shares about it.

There are some things we will never forget.


To be sure, it could become her story - the girl who was raped. But her story was larger than that. It could become the headline that would hog and overshadow everything else about her; she could go through life forever broken, limping, and aching over it - fearful of men, dreading her future, hiding from God, herself and others. But it didn't.

Thankfully, it didn't for my girlfriend too. She too married and has a beautiful daughter.

Perhaps, God did rescue them.


I remember once when I was in anguish over some losses in my life. I heard God say to me that I had to walk through it. Then I saw this picture of a helicopter lowering a ladder to rescue someone from the top of a roof as a fierce deluge raged on all around. God contrasted it for me: I felt I was drowning and I desperately wanted to be airlifted out of my situation. But God said to go through it. I cried some more....until I realised that God was saying also that it will not last forever. I just needed to be brave, to soldier on; not avoid or wish it away. And then these familiar words:

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For You are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me." ~ Psalm 23

Strength and courage comes when we stop fleeing and turn to face what's before us.

There is such a thing called The . Necessary . Journey. It is the months or years we must endure in order to grow up:

1. we become aware of how naive we are

Just to assume that a person has the label "christian", "leader", "popular" means they are desirable, suitable or safe is plain naive. Persons are complex. We have to take time to know them.
Equally we can be naive about ourselves. Some of us will refuse to admit to our weaknesses and demons properly. We say it lightly and glibly and allow it to lurk around. They will take us down; we must be brave to face it. We must admit to how much we fear peer pressure, desire attention, compromise our ethics or values. Without a true admission and a devotion to go the other way, we may set ourselves up for a weak faith and life.

Truth and authenticity happens when we accept who we are and admit that we need to grow.

2. we see the world with clearer eyes

When I first read Hobbes' take that life is "brutish and short" I recoiled at it. But time has proven that philosopher quite right. Our brightest and best moments are fleeting. Some opportunities won't knock twice. We are incapable of making perfect decisions. Others have their own reasons, hurts and distortions though which they view life.
Equally, life shimmers with a strange light as each new day dawns. Often, our worst nightmares don't materialize. Strangers show us kindness. Hobbes got it half right then. There is Grace, there are miracles, there will be surprises.

Hope and Persistence grows within us when we realize that we can stand on Grace.

3. we make the defining choice of what to base our lives on
Everything can turn in so many ways. Change is always possible. A new trajectory or the old one with a wholly different outlook. We can choose trust, faith, rising up again. Or we can run, hide, cower, blame. We can be honest, brave, real or fake it.
We can turn to God and depend on Him or continue to try to make it on our own. The direction, colour, texture, and message of our lives emerges out of this most critical of all decisions.

Meaning and Purpose, Security and Generosity develops and impacts others as we continually renew our trust in God.


I still ask God sometimes, "just do something!".
And sometimes He asks me back, "what would you like to do about it?".

God still asks the best questions.