Those Moments When I Surprise Myself

Okay found this from January 2011. I need to start writing like that again haha:

"Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors with all their heart and soul. They agreed that anyone who refused to seek the Lord, the God of Israel, would be put to death - whether young or old, man or woman. They shouted out their oath of loyalty to the Lord with trumpets blaring with rams' horns sounding. All in Judah were happy about this covenant, for they had entered into it with all their heart. They earnestly sought after God, and they found Him. And the Lord gave them rest from their enemies on every side." 2 Chron 15:12-15

When we earnestly seek after God with all our hearts and souls, He gives us peace. We don't even have to fight, He delivers the victory into our hands. I was reading Proverbs last night and came across this one: "Better to have little, with fear of the Lord, than to have great treasure and inner turmoil" (Proverbs 15:16). And even though it was clear to me that the juxtaposition of the two lines meant that the fear of the Lord is marked by inner peace, it wasn't quite clear to me EXACTLY HOW the fear of the Lord and inner peace was connected. But I think this passage gives us a little hint of the possible connections between the two. The people feared the Lord greatly and they committed their lives and the destiny of their nation into His hands, they constantly sought Him AND found Him, and one of the ways in which God showed His abiding presence to them was by giving them rest from their enemies. They put themselves in a position where they were literally able to give all of themselves to God because they didn't have to waste their time fighting other battles! And I think that when all our energies are similarly concentrated on fearing the Lord and knowing the Lord and searching out His unsearchable greatness, when we are focused on the right Person, then our souls will "know very well" that its Maker will take care of everything and that's when the peace that surpasses all understanding begins to flood our hearts. We don't have space to know anything else except the knowledge that we need only be still and God will fight for us.

There's also this beautiful story a few chapters before when Abijah confronts Jeroboam and he goes, "Do you really think you can stand against the kingdom of the Lord that is led by the descendants of David? The Lord is our God and we have not abandoned Him...So you see, God is with us. He is our leader. His priests blow the trumpets and lead us into battle against you. O people of Israel, do not fight against the Lord, the God of your ancestors, for you will not succeed" and the moment the priests blew the trumpets and the men of Judah began to sound their battle cry, "God defeated Jeroboam and all Israel and routed them before Abijah and the army of Israel" (2 Chron 13:15)!!!! SO AMAZING!!!

GOD IS WITH US and when He is with us, He will be our leader and victory will always be in our hands. I am tired of seeing Christians around me leading a defeated lifestyle. I am tired of MYSELF believing I must lead that kind of lifestyle and fight and struggle against all kinds of powers that have no real power in the presence of God. I am tired of the kind of Christianity Nieztsche scorned because it is not real Christianity, I am tired of people manipulating us into making slaves of ourselves to systems, ideas, people so that we will win their way. I am tired of people making their battle strategies so complicated when it's really so ridiculously simple. Later in 2 Chron 20 there's yet another story of Jehoshaphat being overwhelmed by the circumstances against him in the battle he had to face that he didn't know what to do, but he chose to keep his eyes on the Lord and they worshipped Him and God gave him one of the EASIEST victories ever. They literally didn't have to do anything. By the time they had arrived at the battlefield their enemies had already killed each other and they were free to take all the spoils of victory with them! So crazy!!!

Nic wrote in her post for me that it feels like everything just accidentally falls into place for us all the time. We never have to work particularly hard to hunt after them, God just ... drops them into our laps. Life doesn't have to be such a struggle all the time...or at any time for that matter hahaha. I am really convinced that we have been cheated of true victory in our lives because we do not understand/know just how SIMPLE God's ways really are. Modern Christianity has come up with all kinds of ridiculous theories and theologies + we keep bringing Psychology and Sociology and all their funny ideas into the way we do church too that we have confused God's words with the words/ideas/theories of men when we can find all the answers to all the problems in the world in ONE book. I realised that sometimes even I myself tend to overcomplicate God's Word, or to try to find answers to the problems of life from other sources. But over and over again, throughout the Bible, every single person who has gained victory in whatever form did so because their hearts were after God, and God was with them. They didn't need any psychology manuals, they didn't need any books from Tozer or Rick Warren or whoever it is that people are reading these days. They just had the Holy Spirit and they KNEW IN THEIR HEARTS that if God was with them, no man or power or spirit stood half a chance in the world against them.

And I want to join their ranks, so I've decided to try a new strategy hahaha. Since the Bible says that faith COMES through hearing [that means you don't have to go and look for a million ways to find faith, you just do what is necessary and it COMES TO YOU] and hearing by the Word of God, I'm going to read the Word of God aloud to myself, again and again until it sinks into my spirit. And I'm going to start collating all these amazing warrior quotes like the one in the speech Abijah gave, and David's, "I COME AGAINST YOU IN THE NAME OF THE LORD" and remind myself everyday that I have nothing/no one to fear except God.

And one day, MY NATION will live like that. In the fear of the Lord. Not the fear of Najib, or the fear of Anwar, or the fear of the ISA. But the fear of the Lord, the God of hosts, the Maker of heaven and the earth. Even if I never live to see it happen, I will live to bring it about.