India - Post 1

Two of the most important thoughts from India:

1. Reminder that the most important part of Jeremiah 29:11 is not the fact that God has good plans for us, but that GOD KNOWS the plans He has for us. He knows. At the end of the first session where I had to share my testimony, about how God humbled me and brought me to the lowest of lows [to me] so that I'd experience the height of His love and greatness, daddy said, "God doesn't make mistakes, only mysteries."

Thank God then that He has given us the mind of Christ, wherein is hidden all the wisdom and knowledge and mysteries of the world, so that they eventually become more than just mysteries. They become signposts of His love, markers of the fullness of His friendship and love and partnership towards us, evidence of our maturity and growth in Him. I hope my heart will always be awash with wonder and excitement, not cynicism or bitterness or resentment or disappointment every time I am privileged to be a steward of such mysteries.

2. Always keep the flame of passion alive in my heart.

I have not been passionate about God in any way for the past few months, out of many reasons - laziness, complacency, at some level anger towards God, confusion. But these are all unjustifiable reasons. And as I locked myself in the bathroom to try to hear God's heart for what He wanted me to share the next day [haha daddy was fast asleep and snoring pretty loudly so I had to lock myself in the bathroom], I realise how easy it is to let our hearts grow hard and calloused, how easy it is to let all the things we've worked so hard on to build up, all the painful lessons God taught us, slip past our fingers just like that. And one of Jesus' warnings to the church of Philadelphia in Revelation 3:11 came to my mind: "Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take away your crown."

Our crowns of life are not forcibly removed from our heads...they are given up when we allow others to come in and steal them from us...when we cease to place them on our heads, cease to believe we are worthy of wearing them, when we start desiring to be paupers and beggars and "commoners" instead of the kings and queens God redeemed us to become so that we can walk in the ways that our hearts desire, when we carelessly leave them lying around thinking that we don't need God's covering over our heads 24/7, maybe because it is more "comfortable" to not have something heavy on our heads reminding us of our responsibilities, maybe we don't want to constantly call people's attention to who we are, we'd far rather walk around with the shroud of our shame because we've grown so accustomed to being defined by it and we start to think that maybe we can keep our crowns in our treasure boxes and whip them out on "special occasions" or when the need for it arises and still pass off as kings and queens because we're dressed as one.

No.

There is no point in God sending me out to share anything in the world if He is not alive in my heart, coz no matter how amazing my words are, they won't be life-giving, they won't inspire, they won't do anything but appease our flesh.

I forgot the thrill that I'm supposed to have sharing about God to others because I was so caught up in all the little fleshly details. And I didn't have any thrill because there was no fire inside of me. And I didn't have any fire because I had not been standing before the Consuming Fire, but had allowed thieves of all kinds to stealthily move into my heart and steal my wood and oil for which to build their little castles around God's castle in my heart. And because I hadn't been allowing myself to be pruned and my ugly thorns uprooted, those creeping plants and moss start to grow all over the walls of my castle, obscuring my view of it, making it impenetrable. And these little thieves light up the fireplaces of all the different castles in turn, one by one. For a moment, pride becomes the stronghold of my heart; for another, the lusts of the flesh; and then judgmentalism seizes upon the biggest logs it can find and sets ablaze an uncontrollable forest of fires; and then, confusion, fear, hopelessness, apathy reign, until my heart becomes weary of all the merry making and the carnival that goes on relentlessly.

God was gracious enough to give me some pretty cool words...but He didn't let me speak all of them, probably for my own good. And I learnt, it's not just what you "know" or having the right words to say that's important, but really having the message branded on the inside of you until it becomes a burden you are willing to make a living reality, to flesh out with all that is within you...it is your stewardship of those words that determine your eligibility to speak them. It's not just about the act of speaking them, but the condition of your heart that makes those words mean something more than just words. A heart that will not cheapen the pearls of God's words, but one that is able to surrender those words back into God's hands and say, "These words are not mine, but are drawn from Your wellsprings. Whatever fruit comes from it are not mine, but Yours."

There are times when God has revealed something to me when I prepare to speak for offering or whatever, and somehow He doesn't let me speak them. And then someone else [usually PR] goes up and says the exact things He had put in my heart, and I used to wonder why He would give them to me if I were not allowed to say them. Now I understand a little of the mysteries of God's ways, and I have asked God not to send me anywhere else until I have built a secret life in Him that's strong enough to withstand anything that tries to pit itself against the knowledge and nature of God.

I was reminded again that God's call upon my life is to be a fool for Him - have I been a fool? Or have I been foolishly chasing after the pretensions of the wisdom of this world?