Happy to see Romans 8:28 @ Work Again

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It has been a long long time since I last felt this way but it is just amazing seeing Romans 8:28 in action.

Romans 8:28 (NIV): "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Indeed, I had been so preoccupied in the last few months with all the issues and "depression" I had, I had failed to see how God is at work. I had several times amazed at how God is in control and when I took a step back, everything just made sense including how somethings seem to happen in my life and click together nicely, how what I will encounter every week helps me to minister through cell that very week etc... it just comes to a stage it becomes more than coincidences. The fact is, we can see how God is really at work in our lives and in others' lives if only we open our eyes to be aware of it and see it. So, I do believe that God is in control, even the "bad stuff" that happens to us which makes us look to Him and lift up our fists to Him, asking why He allowed such horrible things to happen to us, and how He uses these to minister to others, just as He had once used me to minister to a sister-in-christ who faced issues with placing our esteem and self-worth on work. Yes, God is in control and it is just amazing seeing it happen.

I have just returned from my church's leaders' dinner and initially, I had struggled whether to go for the dinner because I wasn't sure if I wanted to go and face having to sign the leadership covenant for the new year. But then, it becomes clear that God wants me to stay in leadership and gave promises with regard to cell, so since I made the decision to continue, I might as well go and hear our pastor share our church's vision for this year and sign the covenant. So the conclusion is that, I have signed the covenant and I pray to God that He will guide me with wisdom and discernment and also to help me remember that the focus of my ministry is none other than Him. I am of course also praying for joy in serving and also courage in doing the things He call me to.

Anyway, I am keen to do a little "experiment" here since I mentioned Romans 8:28 and that God is in control. Today, I was seated at the chinese congregation table, away from the other leaders from my zone and this did make me a little puzzle. Anyway, I was rather quiet at the table but then on occasions, I did talk to the people on that table, including one Chinese elder and another full-time ministry worker. I am quite curious why I was placed on that table and let's just see if I have been on that table for a purpose... I don't know.

Halfway through the dinner, I received an SMS from the girl who I was interested in. She knows that I am going for leaders' dinner today and SMSed to encourage me. As I sat there, I gave thanks to God for still blessing me and the cell and for sending members like her to stay on and bless me. Yes, with regards to cell ministry, I am still getting "spiritual attacks" from time to time, including this week:

• Feedback from my AO - I got a little affected when I received an email from my AO giving me feedback about how I can do better in cell e.g. giving people time to think and respond to my questions, calling them by name to share and encourage them to respond to questions in a "life application" manner rather than give "politically correct" answers. The email was meant to give positive feedback but then I cannot deny I was a little discouraged by the email because I recognised I do not take to failures that well. Something I need to address. I had to deal with feeling like a failure.
  
• Concerns on Others' Spiritual Growth - As if the email wasn't enough to discourage, I had to also deal with, on one hand feeling troubled and concerned for some people's spiritual growth because they are starting to miss departmental devotions and yet on the other hand, feeling disappointed with myself that I lack the courage to talk to them about it. I had to deal with feeling concerned and disappointed with myself.
  
• Joy of Serving - Then, I kept asking myself why I am not having joy of serving the Lord when I felt that I should be. It did not really help when later I received an email from my friend about we should be serving God with songs and not groans... well the email did help me reflect a little bit in this area but then initially it did make me rather upset why I am serving with so much complaints? Deep within me, I kept praying to God that I would just like to experience serving Him with joy once again and not groans like now. I had to deal with feeling of shame.
• Failing to Keep a Promise - Then, on the day of cell itself, I promised to come early to office to help one of the officer to carry packet of rice donations but then, I forgot all about it and came late. Not only did I not keep my promise which made me feel bad, the officer also saw me coming in late (and I heard this officer was rather strict in the past). But the funny thing was that when I passed him and kept apologising for failing to help with the rice, he smiled at me and said that it was OK. I had to deal with feeling guilty for not keeping my promise and for being late (and being discovered).
• Confused at Work Ministry - Then, I started to have some doubts about what I am doing in my work ministry. I had to deal with feeling confused.
• "Can We Come?" - Then, a youth messaged me the night before cell, asking if she can come and visit cell with her 2 friends. For a sudden again, I felt lost; not knowing what to say and whether I should agree to them visiting considering the current state of cell? But what if indeed God is blessing this cell with new members and I choose to just turn them away? So I did what I felt was best at that time; invited them back instead the following week and told her that we are not having a regular meeting but rather a special cell meeting to discuss cell direction, so we would welcome them next week again when cell resumes regular meeting. She seems friendly enough and agreed. I had to deal with feeling lost, ashamed that cell was in this state and also rotten that I am turning them away (temporarily).
• Discouraging Responses/No Responses - Then, I messaged everyone in cell about the special meeting and other than the "girl who I am interested in" and 1 other new cell member, 2 replied saying they are not coming while majority did not even respond. It made me feel so rejected.
• You? Called to Minister to Needy? - Then, as I was making my way to cell meeting and wanted to talk about how God seems to place in my heart how He had plans for this cell to reach out to the backslided, misled and heart-brokened, I had to deal with even more doubts. I boarded the bus and went straight to the back to sit. Once I am settled down, I saw this guy who was dressed rather decently but he looked rather weak, thin and had shifty eyes. He came and sat beside me. Then he spoke and asked if I am a Christian. I said I am and he wanted to shake my hand, saying that he is a Christian too. Then, he tried to explain that he is a Christian and worships at Faith Christian Church in Malaysia and how he was "selling" his passport and how he had forgotten the citibank card his father gave him. At the end, he was requested if I can help him with a couple of dollars. Immediately, I was thinking to myself (why me? why do I always encounter people like that, just like the time I was asked for $2.80 and the time I encountered a lady who fainted? Why me?) I was totally lost for words and did not know how to respond. On one hand, I wanted to help but what if the person is a fake or even if he is real, would I be feeding his lifestyle of relying on others for livelihood? I tried to stall for a little time and talked to him but in the end, relented and dished out 70 cents from my pocket and gave it to him. He thanked me and asked if he can go ahead to ask others for help. I gave him my blessings and went back to reading my book. Even though it seem I am OK but then, in my heart, I hear this part of me saying "Call yourself a Christian and yet you did not help! And you even want to tell your cell that you feel God calling the cell to reach out to the heart-brokened, misled and backslided when you yourself did not even love your neighbour and help him. What if he is genuine, would it hurt to help?" I had to deal with feeling of guilt, shame and also doubt about the calling.

I do not know if these are spiritual attacks but it sure did make me feel all so rotten by the time I arrive for cell. It did not help that by the time I arrived, I only see the girl I was interested in (let's call her KM) and the other cell member messaged to say he will only be there at about 9 when cell was to start at 8. But while I was dealing with all these negative thoughts, a song was playing on my online radio and the song just caught my attention. So I thank God for ONE: the song:

He Will Come and Save You
Say to those who are fearful hearted, "Do not be afraid;
The Lord your God is strong with His mighty arm,
When you call out His name." He will come and save.

Chorus:
He will come and save you. He will come and save you.
Say to the weary one, "Your God will surely come."
He will come and save you.
He will come and save you. He will come and save you.
Lift up your eyes to Him, you will arise again.
He will come and save you.

Vs.2
Say to those who are broken hearted, "Do not lose your faith;
The Lord your God is strong with His loving arms,
When you call out his name." He will come and save.

I also thank God for TWO: a colleague friend who gave me some airtime to talk about my negative feelings. I also thank God for THREE: reminding me about worship and being His sheep and He my shepherd as I went to a fundraising sale in the next department and ended up getting a book on "extravagant worship" and also a little soft-toy sheep.

Finally, I also thank you for blessing cell. I had a good time talking to KM on Friday because it was only going to be her, me and another new cell member (who was only going to arrive at 9pm). But anyway, I thank God that not only did I not feel so discouraged that it made me unable to lead cell, but to the contrary, I had a good chat with her and giving thanks for all that God had blessed us with this week. For once, I felt comfortable talking to her (because I was just trying to talk to her as a friend and nothing else) and she also seem happier. As she gave thanks for a few things which was starting to go right in her life, I was also glad to see her that way. I also thank God that cell also went well because in the end, we did get to talk about cell direction and I got the chance to share about how God seems to place into my heart how He is calling this cell to reach out to the backslided, misled and heart-brokened; that our cell is likened to a petrol kiosk and to bless some people spiritually even if eventually some of them do not stay, but we might have helped them to make a U-turn. I shared with them that it seems that God had placed this in my heart (even though I was reluctant to share it at first because I wanted to be sure it is from God and asked Him to affirm this through my members). but then it became clear that this might be the calling for cell because:

• I seem to have a feeling during the last prayer meeting in church last year that God is telling me that my ministry is not going to be easy
• It seems that God is affirming this calling again and again through my QT this week and last week when he brought Jer 51 (about preparing for battle), Nehemiah 1 (about rebuilding), Jer 1 this week (about not fearing as God will help us in our calling), several other QT reading about Jesus healing the demon-possessed man, about Jesus speaking about the "Good Samaritan" and loving our neighbours and finally about God giving Abraham a promise that He will make him into a great nation. I had been praying for God to affirm this calling and the theme seems to be (i) prepare for spiritual battle to win these lives from the devil, (ii) I want you to reach out to people who are struggling, (iii) do not fear because I will be with you, (iv) I am giving you a promise regarding this calling, (v) so, go forth and rebuild now and prepare.
• It becomes evident that God continues to bring people to this cell despite the cell not proactively going out to invite people; people for the cell to minister to?

In the end, I even made clear to them that I hope to see everyone grow and that I care for everyone (despite me being all introverted and not asking) and how they can approach me for help. We agreed that we need to strengthen the core of our cell (maybe for the first half of the year), so we can in turn minister to others and are ourselves strong spiritual parents. Meanwhile, we will continue to minister to whoever God brings to us. We agreed to start with reading Our Daily Bread for Monday for the week, that we have spiritual accountability partner, that we all come together for worship every week and everyone chooses one song if they are led to do so and finally, my new member even offered to help with word facilitation. I just thank God that things seem to go well yesterday. I did feel encouraged when the two members say that they will support me. The funny thing is that, after we dropped off KM, the new member told me that he seem to get the impression I am interested in KM (oh no! what did I do? Was I too obvious? Anyway, I am just taking a step now, if anything develops so be it lo, if not, then so be it too. I just do not want to jeopardise our current friendship).

OK. here's the final part which also made me marvel at how God is in control. I had earlier mentioned that God seem to call me to reach out to the heart-brokened, backslided and misled. Today, I happen to bump into a fellow friend while making my way to the leaders' dinner. It seems that him and another friend is also in the vicinity attending a special service by Cornerstone church. So after the dinner, I struggled whether to call this friend to see if they would like to meet up for supper or anything because it was real late by the time the leaders' dinner ended and a part of me just wanted to go home to sleep. But then, in the end, I called and we agreed to meet. There are a few things which made me marvel at how God works:

1. The fellowship happened to be a discussion about how he is so disappointed about our church being so nice and pampering our members so much so some might become too comfortable and not want to grow spiritually. However, I thank God for later showing me that there is more to it than that and that this brother actually had past hurts which are unresolved and so causing him to have some expectations about church which are not easy to be fully met. But yet, he does not want to do anything about it. I thank God for using me to "confront" him about it because for a long time, no one could sense what was his issue and maybe God used me to confront him about some spiritual decisions he had chosen e.g. to allow himself to just slack spiritually while making demands on the church
2. I thank God for helping me see his hurt
3. I thank God for speaking through me because I had been able to quickly catch what he was trying to say and quickly point out where the issue was
4. I can see how God had put circumstances together in such a way for the conversation to take place e.g. how he was there in the vicinity where I was also to have my leaders' dinner, how another friend (who was to join me for the leaders' dinner) couldn't make it in the end, and thus giving the opportunity for this very conversation to take place. Had my friend came along for the dinner, the dynamics and conversation would have been different.

Frankly, the conversation was done in a debate style with me hearing him put his point and then countering and pointing out where the real issue really is. It is just amazing how I was able to respond quickly and accurately (in my opinion) because I had come from a long day at work and working with workflow review and was braindead and I am also not the kind who would debate with people. Throughout the whole conversation, I tried to keep my cool but I do not know how he is taking it. What is most important is that I hope this conversation would have helped him to have a better awareness about what could be better in his spiritual growth (even if it means he has to leave church). If this is indeed the case, I thank God for making this happen.

This or That?

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Work Ministry
Work has been going real fine so far. In fact, it is going far too well... (Picture" Feedback Form:Excellent" by kikashi)

One: it is just amazing how much of my outstanding tasks I managed to clear over the past few days; over a span of 3 days, I had managed to...

• ... design a thank you letter template,
• ... mail merge more than 150 thank you letters for last year's major fundraising project,
• ... finish an 8-page progress report for Nov and Dec 2007,
• ... complete the fourth quarter report,
• ... researching on possible criteria which will be used for an upcoming NCSS audit check,
• ... finish preparing for an upcoming NCSS audit check by going through every one of the code of governance issued by the Charity Council and preparing a summary review report and compiling relevant forms, workflows, reports for the audit and also
• ... completed a debrief for last year's fundraising project with a colleague.

Wow, an eventful 3 days at work.

Two: as I compile my Nov-Dec progress report, it is amazing how much was achieved in that 2 months despite it being a very difficult period I was going through, with health problems, father's medical problem and ministry struggles, so much so the report was 8 pages long. I have come to realise how much God had blessed my work ministry.

Three: I had been asked by NVPC to be a guest speaker on volunteer management in one of the upcoming sharing sessions and this is yet again another affirmation of my achievements at work, thanks to God.

Four: My boss spoke to me briefly on Tuesday and asked me about my career aspirations, asking me how I felt about my designation "Volunteer Coordinator"? Well, frankly, I do sometimes think about the title "Volunteer Coordinator" and although I am a person who works for job satisfaction more than title, it would be nice of course to have a nicer job title; one which people will not associate as being an entry level job, one which would be an nice affirmation of my work. But then again, it is just a title after all. I am kindly of torn between wanting a title "upgrade" versus keeping status quo. I did share with my boss that although it would be nice to have an "upgraded" job title, I do also agree that having the "Volunteer Coordinator" title might make it easier for people to relate to me; not feeling I am like some person working "high up there" who does not understand the ground level. Well, I am just leaving it to my boss and to where God leads me... if there is indeed a title "upgrade" then I will gracefully accept it. If there is none, it is fine with me too.

But one thing is that I am becoming to be aware of a little bit of politics here and there and pray that God will just heal broken work relationships and also work with the politics. I hate to see such stuff.

I am also praying that the upcoming by NCSS will go well because although I am confident that my organisation is focused on its mission but there is always the fear in me that I will be disappointed. With all the scandals in the charity sector, I just do not wish my organisation to be one of them. But I am still positive our organisation will fare well in the audit.

"Spiritual" Ministry
All these blessings at my work ministry has somewhat made me wonder why does God bless one ministry but allow my cell ministry to still be in a bad shape? To this day, I am still lost and do not know where God is leading me in cell ministry. Is the calling to reach out to the backslided, misled and broken-hearted my calling or the cell's calling? Or is it that I am misreading it all together? Tuesday's staff devotion was on "Beware of Open Doors" and it is just making me confused with regards to the calling. I have been asking for God's affirmation and in Quiet Time over the past few days, God seem to have spoken affirmative to it. Is God speaking? Am I reading too much? I did ask my cell to pray about it and we will discuss it on Friday. I do pray that God will also affirm the calling through them, if this is the direction for this cell.

In other aspects of spiritual growth, seem to be doing rather well... I did make a resolution that I will try to have quiet time every morning but then up till now, I have not been successful in waking up at 7am. But then, thanks to a friend who dedicatedly sends a bible reading plan everyday through SMS, I have managed to have a bit of QT on the bus on my way to work. So far, I have been rather successful in doing my QT based on that reading plan while on the bus. But the joke is that everytime I do my QT, I will usually end up accidentally making a call to my friend because his SMS is left open while I read the bible. I have also managed to put together a prayer list and boy do I have a lot of people on the list.

At staff devotion, I am really glad that we are back on track on our weekly devotion and it is really encouraging to see my colleague who recently accepted Christ joining us more regularly now for devotion. However, seeing that a couple of my colleagues not being able to join us at the devotion has somewhat affected me. On one hand, I am concerned but on the other hand, I struggle with talking to them about it. It is like that at work place and it is also like that for cell. Boy am I rather disappointed with myself. But in the meantime, I am still praying for them.

God In Control
Looking back at my life, could it be that God has His plans that things in my life seems to fit together?:

• It is true that my early training in IT and my social work training in university has helped me excel in my current work by giving me the ability to be systemic and establish systems in the social services
• It is true that my work experience as a medical social worker and subsequently as an executive in a professional association has exposed me to both macro and direct social work that has helped me in my current work
• It seems that God had sent my guardian angel into my department (although she has already left now) to just help me bond with my department. Since I am seated alone and away from my department, I could have easily been forgotten and isolated from my department but my guardian angel, with her cheerful nature, seem to have helped me grow closer to my department by always remembering me and popping by
• It seems that God has brought me through some past bad experiences so that I can minister to people with similar experiences

Relationship Matters
Well, last Monday, the one who I was taking a liking for gave me a call and asked if I wanted to meet for lunch. We met up and chatted for a while but I made my way back to work after that. She did share with me about a recent decision she made at work which kind of make me glad for her but also worry for her. As we parted ways, she took out a bag and gave me a whole durian struddel :) Wow, boy did the strudel make an impact in my workplace :) (Strudel picture from You Get What You Give)

Anyway, I think chances are that she does not like me. When parting ways, she suggested that maybe we could have steamboat with another three other cell friends later in the day. However, all 3 could not make it and so I suggested that maybe we can catch a movie and have dinner. But she declined. Anyway, since it is unlikely I will take the initiative, I think I am just gonna give up. Anyway, don't want to jeopardize anything, so gonna keep things the way it is.

WIP, Stand on the Rock!

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Came across 2 interesting Christian cartoons by Tim Bertram: