I try

While doing my QT with KLove playing in the background, I heard one of my favourite male singers do a song from his new album.

The words caught my attention.

Although I look mostly easy going, under the veneer is a constant struggle with a perfectionistic streak that threatens me and so many of my relationships.

There are times when I find myself wielding a ruler, measuring myself or others dear to me against its painfully high standards. It isn’t a pretty sight to see what happens to those who have come under the rule.

I have become fed up that I cannot find perfection in myself yet I expect the world from others.

I am fed up that I have become a monstrous dictator that won’t take anything less/different than what I want.

What is perfection?
Why did God call His creation “very good” when it would turn around and betray Him?

I found I didn’t know the answer.

But what I did know …
I seek perfection in an imperfect world.
So my perfection can only be found in Perfection Himself.
In Perfection, I find my fulfillment.
So if Christ is the perfect being then …

I am nothing without Christ. Nothing.

- Nothing Without You
“Take these hands and lift them up
For I have not the strength to praise You near enough
For I have nothing, I have nothing without You

Take my body and build it up
May it be broken as an offering of love
For I have nothing, I have nothing without You

Take my time here on earth
And let it glorify all that You are worth
For I am nothing, I am nothing, I am nothing without You”

~ Bebo Norman – “Try”

I can only imagine

Imagine my shock when I heard this song blasting from somewhere above me while I was waiting for the train home.

I didn’t know SMRT had piped in music and I sure didn’t know they played Christian music.

Then a sign half-hidden behind a pillar on the floor above the platform caught my eye -”Zion Christian Book and Music Store”.

O.o.

Coincidental as it sounds, as I heard the chorus go “I can only imagine”, it was by no mere coincidence.

I spent the day catching up with a good friend after a loooong time and came away with the conclusion: God is a marvellous God and I can only imagine what it’ll be like when we get to see Him face to face.

Gotta start making sure I’m ready to see Him though.

I CAN ONLY IMAGINE ~ MercyMe 1999

“I can only imagine what it will be like, when I walk by Your side…
I can only imagine, what my eyes will see, when Your Face is before me!
I can only imagine. I can only imagine.

Surrounded by Your Glory, what will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you, Jesus? Or in awe of You, be still?
Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing ‘Hallelujah!’? Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine! I can only imagine!

I can only imagine, when that day comes, when I find myself standing in the Son!
I can only imagine, when all I will do, is forever, forever worship You!
I can only imagine! I can only imagine!

Surrounded by Your Glory, what will my heart feel?

Will I dance for you, Jesus? Or in awe of You, be still?
Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing ‘Hallelujah!’? Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine! Yeah! I can only imagine!

Surrounded by Your Glory, what will my heart feel?

Will I dance for you, Jesus? Or in awe of You, be still?
Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing ‘Hallelujah!’? Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine! Yeah! I can only imagine!

I can only imagine! Yeah! I can only imagine!! Only imagine!!!
I can only imagine.

I can only imagine, when all I do is forever, forever worship You!
I can only imagine.”

Women! Submit to your husbands (and fathers)!

Yesterday’s much needed public holiday was spent in great fun at the new house and JL’s place for the YA cookout.

I got home with a throbbing headache and before slipping into unconsciousness I prayed for a dreamless sleep till morning.

I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night, my legs itching like crazy. In my semi comatose state I tried to ignore it but after a while, I was wide awake and it didn’t make any sense to ignore it any longer.

Flick. Switch on reading light.
Scratch. I’ve got 7 mosquito bites the size of 50-cent coins.

I wasn’t in any mood to go catching mosquitoes and sleep was already impossible, so the next best thing: I went online to check who was around for a late night chat.

Every single one of my darling night-owls were asleep. On a public holiday too. =*(

I still couldn’t sleep, so looking around for a book to read, I picked up Elizabeth George’s “A Woman after God’s own heart” and thumbed my way to the last dog-eared chapter – “A heart that submits”.

Even though Elizabeth George was talking about wives, husbands and kids, it felt as if she was speaking straight to my heart.

A verse she pointed out came from 1 Peter 3:3-6, a book that teaches a lot about Christian living.

“Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty that depends on fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should be known for the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God. That is the way the holy women of old made themselves beautiful. They trusted God and accepted the authority of their husbands. For instance, Sarah obeyed her husband, Abraham, when she called him her master. You are her daughters when you do what is right without fear of what your husbands might do.”

In Chapter 3, Peter directs 6 out of 7 verses (just one to husbands!) to wives and how important it is for them to submit to their husbands. In a post-modernist, feminist, my-feelings-first era, this is a tough lesson to swallow. Coming from a man at that!

Reading 3 chapters into George’s book I began to see what it meant to submit to your husbands. I shan’t go into specifics now, but there were a couple of things I responded to:

1) Submission to my Heavenly Father, earthly father, leaders of the church/ministry, etc
I realised that as a young woman, I’m still under the umbrella of protection of these men in my life. If I rebel and refuse their protection, I am opening myself to attacks from satan. Looking into my life, I may be submitting myself sometimes but there are many instances where I’ve come head to head with my dad, boss and leaders. Learning to submit and serve them is beneficial as my witness to them as well as to the body of Christ and the world.

2) A heart that submits is also a heart that values being a mother.
Some of the greatest mothers in the Bible were women who treasured God’s teaching and poured them into the lives of her children. Women like Jochebed (Moses), Hannah (Samuel) and Mary (Jesus) were just some examples whose children went on to become spiritual giants.

I won’t be a mother any time soon but even then, I’m in the company of young Christians, non-Christians, youths – potential for showing them how to find God even in the littlest detail. What I can do in the meantime, is to memorise Scripture, talk about the Scripture and show the Scripture through my life.

Well, by the time I finished reading that chapter, I was ready for bed.

I woke up today, raring to try out my new found knowledge on my father. Though I didn’t quite submit as I was supposed to, God willing, in time He’ll smoothen out the rough edges.

And the greatest of this … is Love

Recently, John MacAuthur’s Grace To You ministry approached my boss to buy time to air their sermons. To me, this couldn’t come at a better time! It means that my program load is halved and that leaves me time to craft the script of my other three programs as well as more time to work on PR and other stuff.

So, on my way home yesterday, I popped the CD into my player for some good spiritual company on the 1.5 hour bus-train-bus ride back.

Guess what MacAuthur was talking about? LOVE…………..

Oddly enough, I’d been thinking about love these few days. Mostly, it was about the one thing that I honestly struggle with – my singleness.

CNY is coming right up and it’ll be that time of the year when your family gleefully leaves you to deal with the silliest questions that only you can answer. At least my sister will be!

But unlike my more passionate counterparts, I don’t do the eyeroll-smart answer thing. Each CNY is filled with renewed hope that next year I can finally bring someone with me so that I can revel in my relatives’ praise about the good choice I made in a mate.

Then another year passes, and I’m still single, still alone, and still fending off the pitiful looks of my darling aunties, uncles and cousins.

Heck, I want to be in love but if I don’t find somebody, is it my fault?

The church has pretty much swept the issue of singleness under the carpet. I’ve gotta gripe here: Why don’t we have a singles ministry in every church? Why doesn’t the pastor talk more about the potential effect that singles can have on evangelism and discipleship? Why don’t married couples “adopt” singles to better prepare them for marriage? Why doesn’t the church make a strong stand that single doesn’t mean incomplete?

We see kids, 12, 13 years old, in the church dating, and we shake our heads, but how do we tell them not to do so when the underlying mindset is “get married or look out of place”?

We’ve come a long way since the early church but it seems that when it comes to the idea of love, we’ve backtracked to primitive times. Gatherings, weddings, fellowships, Bible Studies, services, something-a-thon have all become hunting grounds – for the potential mate. I see, I like!

Everytime I get together with a bunch of my Christian girlfriends, we inevitably end up bitching about how thoroughly pathetic the dating scene is in the church and I bet the guys do this too.

I’m interested to know,

Where has the idea of genuine love hidden itself to?

Can singles serve their brothers and sisters in Christ without having a MO of turning them into spouses?

One more, a dicey one.

Can one continue loving another but not ever expecting to be loved in return? Don’t say yes yet, think, really think. Can one do that?

Bother, I’ve sidetracked.

Back to John MacAuthur, I was feeling all depressed and all wondering if there was any hope for love. Love – the greatest thing of all yet now downtrodden, misunderstood and worse, abused!

I didn’t get to finish the sermon because I met a spiritual uncle on the MRT but MacAuthur said something that got me rolling: Love ain’t about the sentimentality, it ain’t about having a common understanding with others who don’t believe in the same God, it ain’t about romance…

It’s about self sacrifice.

“No greater love has he that laid down his life for his friend …”
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”

“Now you can have sincere love for each other as brothers and sisters* because you were cleansed from your sins when you accepted the truth of the Good News. So see to it that you really do love each other intensely with all your hearts.”
1 Peter 1:22 (NLT)

Ahhh…there we have it. That’s the answer I’m looking for. God loved us so much so that we could love each other just as much.

To tell you the truth, its very much easier to not have the eros element in agape love. Makes things simpler.

Sure, I’m still looking out for the one I want to marry. I believe deep in my heart that God created the various facets of love to be enjoyed and in return, He gets glorified.

But meanwhile, while I’m still figuring that out, I’ll be enjoying the company of my brothers and sisters in Christ, learning to love and serve them, genuinely. Self-sacrifice, that’s what they call it.

No false thoughts, no presumptions, no rosy-coloured dreams that are built on non-biblical values.

And I hope by the time God thinks I’m ready to partner someone on his road to become more like Christ, I’ll be more familiar with the art of self-sacrifice.

Putting my hand to the plow … and not looking back

I never got round to take the quiet time away to prepare for the new year. Once CCIS was over, it was back to work and the load was actually greater because of the NYE’s holiday.

However, God knew I had accumulated too many wrong beliefs over this one year … and it was time to get rid of them.

I had my first keyboard lesson yesterday and for this term we’re focussing on the Tabernacle found in Exodus. We talked about the Moses and the burning bush. Bernice (the teacher) asked us to think about the “burning bushes” in our lives. “Burning bushes” that help you see the majesty of God clearer.

It wasn’t any accident, neither was it the tsunami tragedy (though God used that to show me the value of gratitude), nor was it a life-changing experience.

The “burning bushes” in my life are my friends. People I’ve known for years, people whom I’ve recently grown close to, people I met in CCIS. They don’t know it, but in the conversations we’ve had over the past couple of weeks, some off-the-cuff remarks were like search beams inside of me.

One particular example came from an Uncle Winston who quoted a paraphrase of the following verse over dinner, but it haunted me until I tracked the verse down. Here it is:

‘And Jesus said to him, “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”‘ (Luke 9:62)

Go figure. It’s too long and too complex to explain it sufficiently but it pretty much has to do with my life as a full-time ministry worker, my spiritual relationship with God as well as relationships with the people around me. (If you’re interested, I’ll speak to you indepth.)

Anyway, thank you my friends. You know who you are. If I haven’t had the opportunity to speak to you in the past 2 weeks, I hope to learn from you in time to come.

God speaks. For a long while, I’d been searching the Word for refreshment but I was too bogged down with the world and its many distractions to understand.

And He knew. So He got a few of my favourite people to speak from the Word to me.

Thank you Lord for your patience to such a worm as I.