Friday, July 11, 2008
When will I learn to trust You?
Hey readers.. It's me, back from the trip that was most amazing and eventful! Many things to thank God for, but I will NOT do it now.. =P Was just reading a devotional this morning and I thought it really speaks to me. Just wanna post it and hope it encourages my readers. Thanks for your comments and responses to my posts. =)
The Path to Straight
Margaret Manning
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6 were some of the first Scripture verses I memorized as a child. For some reason, the words seemed to bounce with joy, energy, and a sense of lightness as I learned them. For me, these were very "happy" verses in Scripture--verses that seemed to indicate God's direct guidance for all his children down happy, straight pathways. I inferred that trusting in God's guidance would be the result of seeing the wonderful, straight pathways laid out before me that I would willingly and gladly walk on towards all my goals, desires, and dreams.
While these are still precious Scripture verses to me, I have come to understand them differently as an adult. I recognize now that trusting the Lord was easy when everything was going my way! I didn't rely on my own understanding because I didn't have to! But, when dreams began to die, life-goals went unmet, and desires dried up, I realized the challenge these verses really offer; they offered me the opportunity to learn the real meaning of "trust." "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding" took on new meaning in the face of absence, want, and unfulfillment. Real trust in the Lord is only forged out of the fires of testing--testing that reveals whether we truly trust in the Lord or in what we want the Lord to give us. In other words, do we trust the Provider, or the Provider's provisions?
In my own life, when it seemed that God withdrew the "provisions" and things stopped going my way, my plans failed, or my goals and dreams didn't materialize, I began to realize that my trust was in my own understanding of what was necessary to make my paths straight. So, as God had abandoned my plans, my test of trust began. C.S. Lewis once wrote in his marvelous book The Screwtape Letters that in order for the believer to mature in faith and trust,
God must withdraw "all the supports and incentives" and "leave the creature to stand up on its own legs--to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish." He continues this thought through the character of Uncle Screwtape, the senior demon coaching his nephew Wormwood on the skills of devilry: "It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He [God] wants it to be. Only then, when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's [God's] will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."(1)
You see, when our paths are crooked we are tempted to place our trust in the things God provides. As God withdraws those supports we have the challenge of leaning on our own understanding (grasping for things), or allowing true trust in the Lord to develop and bloom (grasping for God). As we trust God even while feeling lost and abandoned to crooked, twisting, and unsafe paths, paths that we thought would lead us to our plans, dreams, and desires, only then can we follow the ever-straightening path to our heart's desire found in God alone.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight." As you find yourself wandering down crooked paths of disappointment, may you find God leading you to place your trust in Him alone. As your trust grows, may you see straight paths of rest and contentment unfold before you. As you release your own understanding, may you find the Lord to be your heart's desire.
"Cos sometimes it feels like I'm a 'lost & found';
Like I know I belong but I'm yet to be found
And I'm still waiting for a Savior,
Haven't You given me Your promise?
When will I learn to trust You?
How will I truly surrender?
Lord, I'm here in my boat,
And I'm asking, 'Lord, is it You?'" -
Lost and Found, Vincent WangMantou at 10:54 AM
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Final Pre Trip Post
Wassup Beautiful Ppl..
I'm now inside the Budget Terminal for the first time and waiting for my flight to take off.. The time now is 0551 hrs and I've been awake since yesterday morn 0830 hrs.. Somehow I couldn't sleep. Wait.. Not somehow. It is after my first holiday!
I gotta say I'm really excited.. Before the flight I spent the whole night at the airport cos I wanted to save on cab fare. Really budget hor. Haha. My luggage for the whole trip is only 9.5 kg! The lightest of the lot cos one was 10 and the other 11.2.. But I'm quite sure coming back will be a different story altogether. =P
First stop for me will be Ho Chi Minh, as I take a special arrangement of going to Ho Chi Minh before taking a domestic flight to Hanoi. So I get to spend a few hours at Ho Chi Minh. I shall attempt to venture out of the airport and take a look at the city or at least grab a bite but scoot back to the airport at the slightest threat of losing my way. XD
As promised, I'll blog about Sapa! My dear friends have already arranged the tours! Great to have C profiles in the DISC profile in your tour team. =) They leave no detail uncovered. So Sapa..
It's on the border of Vietnam, a countryside boasting all the charm of tranquility and calm. The countryfolk are quite a sight to see and their handicrafts have all the tradition of Vietnam infused in it. Wait for the pictures! Gotta go! Check back soon.
Cos I'm leaving on a Tiger plane.. =)
Mantou at 5:49 AM
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Surprised by the wisdom of humility
I know I promised to log about Sapa and Halong Bay too.. It's in the pipeline ok? =P
Tonight, I need to reflect on some things that I've said during my private prayer with God, after I heard a verse during prayer meeting today. Just for the record, for the longest time, I could not verbalise a prayer before God when alone. Some of the struggles of a guy who finds it hard to relate to God on a personal level at that degree.
But today, I went back to my knees. I went back to talking to God about what's weighing on my heart. It felt strangely peaceful. It was after I had reflect on this verse found in Matthew 15:21-28, the account of Jesus and the Canaanite woman.
And going away from there, Jesus withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
And behold, a woman who was a Canaanite from that district came out and, with a [loud, troublesomely urgent] cry, begged, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is miserably and distressingly and cruelly possessed by a demon! But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, Send her away, for she is crying out after us.
He answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
But she came and, kneeling, worshiped Him and kept praying, Lord, help me!
And He answered, It is not right (proper, becoming, or fair) to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs.
She said, Yes, Lord, yet even the little pups (little whelps) eat the crumbs that fall from their [young] masters' table.
Then Jesus answered her, O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you wish. And her daughter was cured from that moment.
Now this passage may be perplexing to many, as it is so easy to wonder why Jesus would be so mean to that Canaanite woman. But what Jesus said was culturally relevant and acceptable, even to the Canaanite woman. Israelites were supposed to inherit the land of Canaan, leaving no Canaanites in Canaan. In that sense, the Promised Land was God's inheritance for the Israelites, but somehow they did not manage to inherit it totally. So Jesus replied what was logical, in that He came to minister to the Israelites only. Ok, this is not a theological debate. In any case, this passage had a really profound impact on me. The Canaanite woman was praised for her great faith when she answered in such a wise manner.
I was humbled when I realized the truth in all that was transpiring between Jesus and the woman. Yes, the woman might have to acknowledge she isn't part of the inheritance. That she isn't learned in the ways of God and His people. But she still acknowledge that whoever she is, she still belongs to to God, the master! And that's not all, she acknowledges that however little she can get from God, mere crumbs as it were, it would still be more than the world could offer! That was what I confessed to God in my private prayer. That however unworthy we are, to receive the least of what God had to offer, it would still be more than what the world has to offer, more than what we could ever provide for ourselves! No matter how small we are in the eyes of God, it is still bigger than in the eyes of the world! Truly humbling. It leaves us no room to give excuses that we are not worthy to come into the presence of God, because doing so only means that we believe somehow we can gain more from being elsewhere. Sometimes being humbled reveals at the same time the sovereignty and wisdom of God.
Mantou at 11:40 PM