Isaiah 61:1-11 - Rescue and Release

I find that I have problems reading passages like this one, whenever there's verses relating to calling etc, I always think that it only applies to the author. For example, v2 "He sent me to preach good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken", I read it in the perspective of Isaiah. But I've never considered that it could also apply to me.

I'm not someone who particularly cares about the poor or the heartbroken, in fact I'm leaning more towards being classified with the ignorant trait.

But ultimately, no matter what avenue of serving we're called to do, the goal is to tell people of the rescue plan. So in the end it's all the same, as long as we have joy in God not joy in the rewards from serving, then we'll never burn out.

Isaiah 54:4-10 - My love won't walk away

I went to a single sex school, an all girls' school. I've seen every possible episode of friendships breaking, mending, breaking, mending. Love back in the junior years was so insecure.

Here, our redeemer God is saying that He once turned His back on us, but only for a moment. From that moment on, (where the Israelites had a bad scene with God, again), we were able to enjoy the angerless God. He promised that His love won't walk away from us, and His covenant commitment of peace won't fall apart. And we are certain that it is impossible for God to lie, therefore we are the luckiest generation alive. Until Isaiah, we've seen two covenants, Noah's rainbow and this covenant here. So we'll never have the same flood that Noah's had, and we'll never have the same anger that the Israelites had. Are we not living the life or what?

Isaiah 53:2-12 - The Suffering Servant

One of the most common things people list as causing the most anger, would probably be betrayal/being framed. Ever experienced being framed for something? When I was in year 1, (that's when I was 5-6yrs old), I was framed for stealing in class.

In Hong Kong, discipline was really important in schools, so primary students had to sit straight with their hands on crossed on the table in between classes. The 2 class captains would walk around catching everyone who talked, fidgeted, or simply had a bad posture. Our schoolbags (the standard school bagpack) were placed behind us leaning against the back of the chair. During one of those "in between classes" periods, the female class captain suddenly exclaimed, "oh no, I lost my notepad!" So everyone looked on the floor for her, on our desks and trays, but nobody found anything. The female class captain got a little frustrated by then, and started accusing that someone in the class had stolen her notepad (like who would do that? a notepad?). So the class captain continued to scout around the room for her notepad, while everyone else gave up. Now usually our schoolbags are closed behind us, but since I'm the personification of laziness, I never close my bag, and leave it wide open. Out of the blue, the class captain shouted behind me "You stole my notepad!!" So I turned around, to see a cutesy notepad lying on top of my books at the opening of my schoolbag. Everyone gave me the "I can't believe you" look, at this time, the teacher came in. Of course, the captain told on me. The teacher made me stand up and gave me a 5minute lecture on morals. At the end, I defended myself by saying if I had stolen it, I wouldn't have left it at the opening of my bag, I would've hid it at the bottom. Also, if I did really leave it at the top, when we were helping her look for it, my neighbours would've seen it. While I said it, I had tears coming down my face, due to anger, betrayal and helplessness. It had all become clear to me, the class captain thought she had lost her notepad, but in fact it was in her pocket. But she didn't want to be embarassed for making everyone look for her notepad for her, so she decided to put the blame on someone else. Being a top student at the school, it was an embarassment and an insult if I had to have such a bad record on my name. After hearing my defence, the teacher laughed, and told me to apologise to the class captain and we'll both rest our case. Obviously the class captain was happy with that verdict, since everyone had heard my interpretation of the event, and everyone was laughing at her behind her back already. But I wasn't going to succumb that easily. I didn't want to have to bear the responsibility of someone else. So in the end, I didn't say sorry, because I was right.

Jesus was right, in everything. His suffering was the consequences reserved for us. Yet, He was willing to ruin His reputation, and take on the punishment. He was willing to bare the sin, the crime and the title of being a liar - the title that nobody will willingly accept.

He also embraced the company of the lowest. I have a certain dislike of "The West". In Sydney, like most major cities in the world, we have rich/comfortable areas, and we have the poor/dirty areas. The West is definately part of the poor, low, dirty and repulsive areas of the Sydney. Whenever I drive past it, whether to give people lifts, or visiting friends house in The West, I feel a sense of disgust. The state of the train stations on The Western Line, is enough to make anyone who's just eaten, puke. Yet, Jesus who lived in Heaven, who lives in a much richer, cleaner, nicer place than any of us have lived in, is willing to embrace the lowest.

We are leaders in some ways, but do not forget that we are servants as well.

Isaiah 49:13-18 - The (Un)Forgetful God of Heaven

Everyone's experienced a time when someone is naming a list of people, maybe in a community or a group or part of a project or whatever, and they have forgotten your name. You feel a sense of, "ouch, rejected".

We do that sometimes as well. I always fall in the trap of emailing a group of people for a meeting, but I always manage to forget to send it to at least one of the members. Unintentional, of course.

God here however, never forgets about us. We are like children to Him as He is the mother nurturing us. I don't know of any mothers who forget about their children. I heard a true story from a grandmother who had one of her many children adopted by another family. This child never contacted her back. Decades later, she still thinks about how that child (probably in his 50s by that time) is doing, still regretting. We are like that to God.

7 Jul 2009

Do you ever get the feeling where you look back at something you just said 1 second ago, and think "hang on, I'm not that mature". Recently I've had a few occasions where I was in the position to give advice to various people. I was able to sensibly give a well thought answer in all incidents. And I kept thinking "hang on, my maturity isn't of that level to give such good advice..." Maybe they were God Encounters.

Lately, everyone around me seems to want to hear God's voice. We want to know what His answers are to all our questions. What's my personal purpose/goal in life, what role did God want me to take up? Or, is she/he the one for me? Or, I think I heard a calling, but it might be my own voice. Etc etc. The list goes on. I think everybody, at one point in their lives, have said "wouldn't it be nice if God spoke to me physically face to face like he did with Adam?" Things would be so much simpler. But He doesn't, because He's God and we're human. So all we can do is just sit and wait and try to listen to His soft voice. Waiting.

There's a saying in the Chinese culture which says "one who is close to ink is black" (sorry, dodgy straight translation there) and it implies that if your friends are evil, you'll turn evil. That's the second part of the idiom, the first part says if your friends are good, you'll turn good. But in the Bible, Jesus approaches the "sinners" of those days, prostitutes and tax collectors. He is able to become their "good friend" and bring upon change. What happens in the case where we're not strong enough, and one black sheep turns a group of people bad? Do we still try and spread the Gospel to them even though we've failed to influence good deeds on them? Hm...

"If you want to walk on water, you've got to get out of the boat" - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 is titled Discerning the Call.

My favourite quote was "it is wrong, it is sin, to accept or remain in a position that you know is a mismatch for you". It's bold, but I somewhat agree. It makes me scared too, because I haven't really determined what God's ultimate goal for me is. So what if everything that I'm doing right now, is a mismatch. But luckily the author also says "discernment honors previous decisions and commitments". Which basically means that God's ultimate goal for me, will take into consideration all my experience and all the skills gained from what I'm doing now.

We also have a big barrier here when discerning the call. Maybe it's due to how we're being raised up, we always view ourselves higher than what we're worth. Socially, we always complement each other, so we're enlarging everyone's heads slowly by slowly. So we have all these people who refuse to admit to weaknesses. This will lead to a "mismatch" will it not?

"A calling is something you discover" and "Our calling is not so much choosing as it is listening". Another common trap. We always choose to do ministry that brings the most "fun", like youth ministry, or music ministry. But if we don't listen, we might end up like Jonah. So we must work hard at trying to discover what our calling actually is.

"We're not called to work for God. We are called to work with God." Great, great quote. I have experienced how much easier it is to work with God rather than handling it myself and then submitting the final product to God.

Therefore we must discover, with discernment, what God wants us to do.

"If you want to walk on water, you've got to get out of the boat" - Chapter 2

Even though I've finished chapter 2 of this book for a long, long time, I've only had the self discipline to write a reflection on it now. One of many things that I should be ashamed of.

The title of the chapter was Boat Potatoes. A good pun on "couch potatoes", of which I am one. It talks about how people find comfort in staying inside the boat, because it is an environment that we are familiar with. We look outside the boat, and see the storm, which isn't something that we're comfortable and familiar with (I hope).

It's a good concept for me, as a couch potato, because I can really see what image the author's trying to create. It's like you're watching TV, during the ad-break, you look across to your desk and see a pile of things you're supposed to do. But since the TV gives you more comfort, you stay watching the ads.

But one good thing about being a "boat potato" in the Christian walk is that we get to see "what it could be". Just like how Peter walked on water, the other disciples got to see "what it could be" for them, if they conjure up the courage.

The chapter also touches a bit on "gifts". How God doesn't need massive talents to make something out of you. He can turn any of your talents into something that matters for eternity. And how Sloth and Fear is the most common reason for not stepping out of the boat (hence boat potatoes).

Wake Up!

I had a few wake up calls lately. There's this brother in Christ who has quite different worldly views as me, so of course these differences will sometimes lead to slightly different interpretation to our Christian values. Well only trivial ones, I do hope that our belief on our Christian Doctrines are the same, otherwise that's another issue... But as we're both quite stubborn, we never really reach any conclusions.

However, there are some key ideas that are in the Bible, but I realised how crap I am when I tried to quote the Bible, I couldn't. I know the general gist of it, but I have totally forgotten where in the Bible it was from, or even the exact wordings of the Bible. This is a really good wake up call, because I've always considered myself a Pharisee style of Christian, I love the studying of Bible Knowledge. But when it comes to application, I can't conjure up anything.

2 days ago, we had a Bible Study training day, where the Pastor outlined different ways NOT to study the Bible. As in, wrong ways of reading and interpreting etc. We didn't pinpoint "The Correct" way, because I don't think that would be right, but we did go through why some methods are wrong. It really woke me up. I've always tried to study the Bible for knowledge's sake. I want to understand all of it, I want all the answers. But I've forgotten that I once used to enjoy the Bible. So I laid there on the grass that day, spent 1 hour reading only 5 chapters of Judges. I slowly tasted every bit of it, reading from both the English and the Chinese Bible. Listening to nature's voice, birds were chirping around me, insects (which I totaly detest) were around me but I didn't mind during that 1 hour and the sun was on my back. That's how good the Bible's supposed to be.

I'm going through this special prayer project which we named Project Timebomb. We're praying for a brother daily for 3 months, he is also someone who I can't stand. We haven't started the project for long, but yesterday when I saw him, and he was in close proximity, I noticed that while I still preferred to talk to other people, my "instinctive disgust" for him was gone. Oh, the power of prayer! Don't just think that praying for others only benefits them, it also changes your heart.

Isaiah 46:1-7 - Dependable Gods?

Before reading today's devotion, I prayed about how it's sometimes difficult for me to attach myself emotionally to Him, because He is so abstract. And I named a few of my "ideas" to make myself a better person.

Then I saw the passage. It speaks straight to me. Modern society doesn't really worship physical idols anymore, well at least not the traditional ones we relate the word "idol" to anyway. But we do worship ideas and beliefs. Like how money is a source of security. But it is! Ever tried forgetting your wallet? Or tried walking around the city with no cash on you? You're always paranoid that you won't be able to get home, or something sudden happens and you won't have the money to do anything etc. I've been jobless these couple of weeks, and as my bank balance dropped about 25%, I panicked. 25% of my savings can get me a trip back to Hong Kong, or a nice Pacific Island holiday or something. Money gives us a sense of comfort, that having these savings will secure us from anything that might suddenly come up.

There's also another belief that we worship, appearance. We love ourselves, a little too much. Presenting yourself well is in the Bible, and I do believe that it's polite to do so. But I think we've gone a bit overboard. Our secure comes from our looks, even more so than money I think these days.

It's a good wake up call, but I still can't get rid of these beliefs... I pray that I can slowly change and see things the way He sees.

Isaiah 43:1-4 - You're Mine

Initially when I read the passage, I though, what? God is a biased God and is willing to trade off all the lives of the Egyptians and people in Cush and Seba just so Israelites can have their way? What happened to loving the world, and if Jesus' life was okay to redeem the world, and the world's lives are okay to redeem Israel, through "transitive" mathematics, does that mean Israel > Jesus?

Then I remembered a story from a sermon. A pastor loves all the kids in the church, but he favours his own kids because they're his. The same goes for God. He loves the world, but He favours His own children (us) more than the others because we are exclusively His. Before Jesus' coming, Israelites were the only chosen ones who were exclusive to God, therefore they get special treatment.

Then I thought, if God is willing to trade all these things for me, then why do the "others" all have this "thing" that I want, and I don't? Maybe it's greed, and I'm not content with what I have. But I've wanted it for so long, they've all got it, but I don't. But yet, I'm still His. He said my road won't be a dead end, it's a promise.

Isaiah 37:9-20 - The only God there is

How come Hezekiah gets to go inside the sancturary of the Lord? That's not fair, I thought only the high priests could do that. Well, other than that, it's interesting to see how differenty he reacted to a crisis as compared with the King of Assyriah.

The King of Assyriah is kind of like what we normally do, we try to bluff and hopefully increase our strength. Like how he tried to bluff to Judah. But Hezekiah however, recognises that the crisis is actually pretty big, and that it might be bigger than what we can handle. I also like how he prayed, he asked God to let all the kingdoms of earth know that He and only Him alone is God. Now I don't see why God wouldn't answer a prayer request like that! It's kind of putting God on the plate. Very, very smart move, Hezekiah.

Isaiah 35:4-9 - Pictures of Restoration

How embarassing, it's been such a long time since posting. But this passage speaks in such perfect timing.

God has put amazing teachers in my life, not just in the conventional sense of "teachers", but all sorts of different people who took up a mentoring role in my life. Yesterday was a day when I realised too much of my flaws, I knew some of them all along, but the severity of them only hit me yesterday. It was all thanks to my teachers.

But God is a God of restoration as well. He opens the eyes of the blind, and heals the ears of the deaf. I trust that He is also a God who restores a darkened heart. A heart full of impatience, pride and ignorance.

God promises that His path will be one where it's impossible to get lost. After so long, I have decided to retake this path, and I know if it is not my own desires, I will not be lost.

Today was the first day I decided to train my "listening" skills as well. Heard nothing. But I'm sure that even though I heard nothing, God has heard me and seen my heart.