Take my will, let my life be wholly thine

For the last couple of days, I have been asking myself, what could have gone wrong? What could be done? Is there anything that can help the situation? Desperation again. And desperation only drives me to one point. Desperation drives me to God. To seek Him for that answer that I believe can solve the impossible problem. My mind is just filled with the situation, the problem, the people that are hurting. My heart is hurting too. My eyes are often filled with tears. I know deep in my heart, these are people with love for God, love for His people, love for His ministry. Yet they can't seems to find a way out, they can't find peace with one another, they are holding on for that passion they have but they are also wondering if they should give up because that passion is diminishing. 

How, God, how do we help people to serve you without feeling hurt or hurting one another? 

So after dwelling in this for the last few days, after spending time praying and worshipping, after talking to my pal, and after coming to my own conclusion that this is not the burden that I should be taking up, this song came and as usual, a song that speaks so loud that I know the answer lies in this song.

Fill my eyes oh my Lord 

With a vision of the cross.

Fill my heart 

With love for Jesus, the Nazarene.

Fill my mouth with thy praise, 

Let me sing through endless days

Take my will, 

Let my life be wholly thine.

The composer of the song probably knew that we are often distracted, disheartened, disillusion by things around us. We get upset, angry with situation. We give in and then give up. We blame people, we blame the church, we blame the leaders, we blame everyone. And so when this song is written, he probably had in mind that in every situation we are in, if we had filled our eyes with the problems we see before us, if we had filled our hearts with anger and disappointment and if we had filled our mouths with complains and angry words, we would have lost the true meaning of following and serving God. 

But this is not how it should be. That our eyes should be kept at the cross, and that vision of the cross is a symbol of love & sacrifice for the reconciliation of man to God. There is pain, blood and even death at the cross, but then again the cross of Jesus is different from the rest. There is also hope, love & life (resurrection).

And in our hearts, Jesus and only Jesus should be enthroned. And only when our hearts is fully occupied by Christ alone, we can understand the love for people that surpasses all knowledge. We will then not be concerned about the things people do or do not do but we will truly be concerned about the person because Jesus' heart is for His people.

Eph 3:16-19 "...out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

And our mouths are such powerful weapons, that could either build or destroy. Our mouth can be a fountain of life* or an instrument used by the devil who is full of lies. And so we filled our mouths with praises. We need to replace angry words with words of kindness and encouragement. And if we find it so hard to speak good, then praise God first. There is no wrong in God so there could only be praises. 

When we can fill us our eyes with the vision of the cross, our hearts with love for Jesus, our mouths with praise, when we can do these things, I think we can then be in total surrender to God and say, this situation, this impossible, insolvable situation, God, not my will but yours be done. 

The outcome seems to be the same. But the posture is different. The first outcome is giving up and the latter is lifting up. The first reaction is God, this is beyond me so I am not going to be bothered by it anymore because I can't think of a solution. The latter is surrender unto the Lord because I have my eyes fixed on Him. The latter is understanding that GOD is in full control, not man. He is our sovereign God.

*Prov 10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

Divine Exchange

Coming into the presence of my Father is such a sweet and liberating experience. So drawn into His awesomeness, so caught up by His love and grace and mercy upon my life and the lives around me. A chance to download all my burden unto Him in exchange for His yoke which is light.
I have been caught up in the divine exchange with my Father. I sing till I cry and I cry till I am left with no more tears. I have lifted up my pain, my shame, my gain all to Him. The greedy me wants more from the Lord. Show me more, give me more, I can do more, I want to do more, I want to be more.
And my Father slows me down. He brought me into His presence. He wants me to be undone. To come to Him in total surrender. My state of undone-ness is one where my hands are wide open to the Lord.
And at this moment, I do not grasp on to anything. I come undone. I do not demand of anything. I come undone. I have nothing to offer. I come undone. I am just a child right now. I come undone. And in my undone-ness, my Father, my Lord started His work in me. The power that charges me up is doing its work. The living water is quenching my thirsty soul. His love, His peace, His joy is finding its way back again. I am living and breathing again. Thank You Father.

My heart is captivated Lord, by You alone

captured by the awesomeness of You alone

melted by the grace and mercy You have shown

I stand in wonder

I reach to you the one who make the blind eyes see

who breaks the chains of sickness with authority

restoring of what was broken so it may fly again

I live to worship you

I breathe to worship to you

all of my days, your face I'll seek

For as I worship you

You lead me to that place

To that place of divine exchange

Romans 8:35, 37-39

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

A Steadfast Heart

Psalms 112:4-6

"Light arises in the darkness for the upright;

            He is gracious and compassionate and righteous.

It is well with the man who is gracious and lends;

            He will maintain his cause in judgment.

For he will never be shaken;

            The righteous will be remembered forever.

He will not fear evil tidings;

            His heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.

His heart is upheld, he will not fear,

            Until he looks with satisfaction on his adversaries."

Be steadfast. Do not be shaken. Do not fear. Trust the Lord. Be gracious, compassionate and righteous.

In today's world where we no longer clearly differentiate the right from wrong, the light from darkness. Where everything is ok and everything is grey. We need to hold on to the compass that shows us the direction. Do not depend on tides and waves but to allow God to navigate. 

Praying for a friend who is in need to be firm and steadfast, that we can all find comfort and strength through our God. Simply because we all know that no one else can do a greater job than God himself. These are not mere words that are spoken easily out of my mouth, but words of conviction that I shall engrave in my heart too. Steadfastness. God is my anchor. 

Thought of the day

Whatever achievement we have made in life comes from God. If we think that our achievement is because we work hard, we are smart, we can talk well or we have plan well, then that's pride. 

If our motivation of working hard is money, then that's idolatry. 

I need to constantly get rid of the thoughts that "I am doing this so well" or "I am really good at this" or even "wow I've come so far to achieve this", because everything is done in God's timing, in His perfect will and by His grace. 

Break my heart for what breaks yours

In the song, 'Hosanna', a line at the bridge says 'Break my heart for what breaks yours.' When I first heard this song, it touched me a great deal. And I asked God to break my heart on the things that His heart is broken for. I do not think I will fully feel how broken God's heart is because I will never have that capacity to feel that brokenness.
Recently, I often have the heart-sore, heartache feeling. Each time I heard of someone being in need, being hurt, walking away from God, my heart will feel very squashed up. I will very quickly go to God in prayer and in worship and I will just cry and cry to the Lord. It's so strange to have this 'weak' feeling. Yet I know that in these moments of weakness, I can find His grace - "His grace is sufficient for me, for His power is made perfect in weakness. 2Cor12:9". At these moments which I acknowledged that no human power can make all the wrongs right, turn a family crisis around, heal a broken hurt or a broken marriage, I can only remember and rely on His grace. And in all our weakness, I can only seek His power.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saves a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I'm found. Was blind but now I see. Each time I seek him and come to Him in my wretchedness, I could feel Him feeling me like water pouring into me, watering and filling up that dry, thirsty patch of dessert. I dwell in His presence and the thirst slowly go away. My heart slowly gets overwhelmed by His love. It's such tangible love, such powerful love.
And so, (coming back to my original point), yes, I will not be able to feel how broken God's heart is. Because His heart breaks for each and every one of us, everyone.

Over the course of this week, a boy in my class lost control over his temper, a boy in Caleb's class got into trouble for fighting in school, a pre-believing mother realised that she can't come to church after she gave birth to her 2nd child, a parent heard bad news regarding their son from the school's PTM, a friend felt unloved and hurt by her mother.

And with so much happening around me, and so little I could do, I know I want to turn to my Saviour, my pillar of strength, my very present help during the times of need.
I played this song, with my limited guitar skill.

"Into your hand

I commit again

With All I am

For you lord

You hold my world

In the palm of your hand

And I'm yours forever

CHORUS

Jesus I believe in you

Jesus I belong to you

You're the reason that I live

The reason that I sing

With all I am

I'll walk with you

Wherever you go

Through tears and joy

I'll trust in you

And I will live

In all of your ways and

Your promises forever

I will worship I will worship you"

Hillsongs "With all I am"

"I love God more than I love you"

Happy Mother's Day.

A deep after thought in my mind about the conversation I had with my lil Bryan today.

For many many months, Bryan had started showing his displeasure, unhappiness by clinging to me and his I-want-mummy screams whenever I served as Sunday School praise leader in his class. I had always been Bryan's 'teacher' in KinderJam and Sunday School since he was really little and this behaviour just started showing recently. Well anyway, I know (really know) that this phase will past as it had happened to Caleb before (except that it happened to Caleb since the beginning, so there was no surprise) and today, Caleb will worship or sit in class like any normal boy when I am the one leading or teaching. He had gotten used to my dual roles both as his mummy and his friends' teacher.

So what brought me to blog down today's incident was really the response to Bryan when he was in his tantrum.

Here's what I told him.
"Bryan, you have mummy on Monday-Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. (Just to emphasise that he had my everyday, many days) But I only come here and serve God on Sunday morning. And mummy want to serve God cos I know God loves me and I want to love Him back....... You know mummy loves you right? But mummy also love God a lot, more than I love you. So can I just serve him on Sunday morning, please?... (conversation went on longer than this)"

After I had spoken that I loved God more than I love my lil Bryan, I began to search my heart on how true was I to my words.We all know that we are to love God more than anything, so theocratically, it's something I shouldn't be wrong by saying that. But yet deep in my heart, I truly want to know if I could love God more than my own sons & daughter.

Did Abraham love God more than Isaac that he could offer his son as a living sacrifice to God?
Did Job love God more than his family that he still stand in his faith even when God allowed everything be taken from him?

I do not think that God would want me to demonstrate my love for him by putting my son on to the sacrificial table, because the God that I serve and I love, loves me more than I do. And I know God will never want me to do anything that compromises my children, because they are his children too. Maybe it's just a reminder on my part that God had placed my children in my care in this lifetime. They are sheep that require my greatest commitment, love, care and nurturing to disciple them into adulthood. But I should never forget my first love - God. And as I remember that He is the source of my love for my children. He is love. God is love. And it is His desire for me to love. And as I love others, His love has been perfected in me.
(1 John 4:12-16)

Though I still can't be certain that indeed my love for God is more than lil Bryan, I will constantly remind myself not to love Him less.

Psalms 37:4 "Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."
Matthew 6:33 "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."