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We are all discoverers... travelling the world, learning its truths, its people and its meanings every single day. Grab your backpacks and let's embark on this journey of mine, one that holds a lot of meaning to me... Lilypie Kids birthday Ticker

Monday, September 15, 2008

 

Saviour King

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Saviour King

Saviour King (Acoustic) - Hillsong

And now the weak say I have strength
By the spirit of power that raised Christ from the dead
And now the poor stand and confess
That my portion is Him and I'm more than blessed

Let now our hearts burn with a flame
A fire consuming all for your Son's holy name
And with the heavens we declare
You are our king

We love you Lord, we worship you
You are our God, you alone are good

You asked your Son to carry this
The heavy cross our weight of sin

I love you Lord, I worship you
Hope which was lost, now stands renewed
I give my life to honor this
The love of Christ, the savior king

Let now your church shine as the bride
That you soar in your heart as you offered up your life
Let now the lost be welcomed home
By the saved and redeemed those adopted as your own

I give my life to honor this
The love of Christ, the savior king

Sunday, September 14, 2008

 

Burdened

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With my personality, it really pains me sometimes to see others upset. Put that together with the heart of a ministry leader and it becomes really emotionally intense.

One Sad Person After Another...
Last weekend had been just so, having met with one upset person after another...

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The Negatives
By the end of the night, I was rather drained and had just wanted to sleep. But I guess all that with all the worrying, it wasn't much of a good rest... Already I was already battling with some negative thoughts about myself in ministry and then had to deal with these. Again, I was entertaining thoughts about how lousy a leader I was. Recently, I took a cab and was talking to the taxi driver. He shared with me his problems at home and as he shared, I felt that an opportunity became available to share Christ with him and also a deep prompting to pray for him. But I did neither and this did make me feel rather disappointed and lousy. Then, later in the day, I was talking over MSN with another brother-in-christ who I had been ministering to for a long time but who I felt could grow more in his maturity and faith. But that evening, I felt rather irritated talking to him. Much later, another friend who I had been praying for and trying to help for years also came online and messaged me. But my response were rather short and abrupt and I slowly find myself being rather irritated with him too. I could not understand myself but then I was rather disappointed with myself feeling like that about them. Then, I was compiling email to send to my cell but found that I was rather reluctant to send an annoucement about an evanglistic rally. Somehow, maybe because I am an introvert, I projected my thoughts and feel that no all will feel comfortable about rallies like that and so I struggled with sending it. So on one hand, I struggled with sending it but yet on the other hand wonder why I hesitated? Then, I was watching a youtube video taken of the rally years ago when one director walked past and heard it. She asked me what I was doing and feeling uncomfortable and not wanting her to know I was watching youtube, I told her I was listening to music. But immediately, I realised how I had lied and felt horrible about it. Then, I started to compare myself again to KM and how people take to her relatively well and seem to always want to talk to her and share things with her, even though I did come to realise that God had intended us to play different roles in ministry and how our giftings complemented one another. But then, I was suddenly feeling all discontented about this again. I wasn't sure if indeed I am facing spiritual battle again because I do know that the enemy knows my weakness in this area and is always using negative thoughts to discourage me from ministry.

The Positives
But even though there are these negative thoughts, I still thank God for using me to speak to a friend who was not coping well with her emotions and job situation. I felt burdened for her spiritual walk and after having agreed that she would come to cell and church to visit for a few times and in the end not come, I was concered for her. Then, I felt a prompting that I needed to "carefront" her on this but I thank God that He used me to minister to this friend through MSN as we chatted. It did start off a little rough and she did feel that I might have been harsh but gradually, God ministered and I am glad that she seemed better towards the end. I am still praying that things will work out for her. I also thank God for the leaders' meeting and the reminder about how blessed I am able to worship God with such freedom here. At the meeting, a video was shown about the persecution of the Dallits in India for turning to Christianity after centuries of oppression and isolation for being the untouchables. The video called for prayers for the situation in Orissa and showed how Hindu militants attacked the village, threatened the people and wanted them to convert back to Hinduism. In one of the scenes, one of the victims shared about how he has come to know the true God and will not abandon this God despite the opposition. Suddenly, it made me realise how blessed I am to be able to worship God and to have such peace and how strong a faith this person has, much different from me, whining from the slightest trouble. I thank God for the reminder.

Things Brightening Up
But I thank God for how things cleared up... For my fellow leader in the campus ministry, I am glad how me and KM were able to meet her on Tuesday and talked about things... We shared stories and encouragement and I was glad when I heard how she was feeling comfortable with our cell; a gathering of introverted people... As she shared about this, I thanked God for helping to make the cell so... months ago, I would not have thought I would see this day when God would use this cell mightily, drawing the right people to this cell and ministering to them.

For my fellow leader, I have yet to see him after the leaders' night but then I trust that God will see him through and knowing that he is having help in his ministry now does make me feel relieved. All I can do now is just pray. For the visitor who was non-conversant on Friday, I thank God that she replied my message on Sunday even though there was no response on the whole of Saturday.

For the friend who was upset with the remarks some visitors made about his house, I am glad that he looked OK on Sunday and instead of avoiding us, he had lunch with us. I do not know whether God ministered to him but then when I know that Pastor was going to spend some time speaking about the upcoming Christmas program and urging people to open up their house for it, I was thinking "Oh no God, must we talk about this now given what happened recently?" But nonetheless, I trust that God is in control of the situation. So I thank God that things seems to be OK and that evening, when I returned home, I realised that this friend had emailed me the day before and he did say that he will open his house again when things are more settled and he settle down with his partner in the home. Thank God!

Meeting the Parents
Having been worried for people the whole of Saturday, both KM and me decided that we will just commit them into the Lord because that evening, I was supposed to meet her parents for dinner for the first time. I was nervous beyond words and throughout the whole dinner, I was rather quiet and did not even know what to do, whether to take food for the parents or what to say. KM assured me that I did fine but I totally said nothing to her father because I knew no cantonese while his father only spoke cantonese. Several times, KM had to translate and I even heard the questions wrongly and answered wrongly... Then, I remember crossing glances with her dad a few times and quickly looking away because her dad did look a little fierce and I felt awkward. KM told me I did fine but then I am not very sure what's the parents' first impression of me. But nonetheless, the dinner went OK and at least nothing major went wrong. I later learnt from KM that her father did ask me to learn cantonese so we can talk.

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