Living WITH Fear, or Living UNDER It?

3 December 2022 (Part 2)

    And so came my aunt's request in the afternoon. As the only young adult on my mother's side of the family, I alone was in the unique position to accompany the 3 little girl cousins to queue for and sit on the rides in Genting Highland's famous indoor theme park, Skytropolis. I was the only other family member able to take the rides relatively free of health risks, while providing adult supervision because Genting is, after all, a world-famous tourist hotspot constantly bursting with human traffic.

    I was shaken by my newly rediscovered fear of heights (or more specifically, being dropped from them at breakneck speeds), triggered by the cable car experience earlier in the day. Where was the fun-loving, thrill-seeking spirit I so easily embraced in my youth? Had my daredevil days flashed by me, gone before I had even realized? What a tragic thing to discover about yourself.

    Even the first ride we had taken, the very traditional Sky Towers (vertical drop tower) attraction made me question all my life decisions up until that point as it flung us up and down not once, but several times, and from different heights. I almost departed with my lunch, but then I remembered how expensive the food there could be. So I held it in. I remember asking myself over and over whether torturing myself like this for an entire day was worth it, whether there was an uncle or aunt I could beg and plead to take over my role after another ride or two. I asked myself, "Why me? I know this is giving them precious childhood memories, but why am I the only one being tested like this?"

Revelation 21:8 NIV

"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

      Halfway into our "fun"-filled afternoon, while bonding with my cousins over small talk and "who screamed the loudest on the last ride" as we waited in lines, I cursed myself for my own perceived weakness. The fearful will not inherit God's kingdom. I wanted to set an example for my young cousins, not to let them see me scared, not to be overcome by fear. But did I really have to get on the roller coaster as an answer to the fearfulness being condemned in Revelation 21:8?

2 Timothy 1:7 NLT  

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline."

  God started to connect the dots for me. It is very different to fear specific things, as compared to living a life dominated by fear. The first instance is nothing to be ashamed of. Even Moses feared the Egyptians and the king's wrath when he left Egypt (Exodus 2:14-15). He felt fear, same as anyone else. It takes different shapes and forms, but fear is a demon that exists within every human being. But for a Christian, the fear of God and the desire to obey Him is greater. In the challenges and fears you experience every day, you may look to God and pray for courage, for the strength to overcome and not be overcome. In my case, I was burdened with the duty of building the trust and mutual love with my cousins that would allow me to start bringing them to church, to share God's word and spiritual family with them.

    But when you regularly give in to your fears, you lead a life ruled by them. You continuously turn away from God. With every battle in your heart that you lose to fear, the list of sins and things to be ashamed of just grows longer and longer. Cowardice becomes a characteristic of your life, and you are in bondage to fear.

     Remember what they say about life being like a roller coaster? In the context of being a follower of Jesus Christ, this old adage takes on even deeper and more spiritually significant meaning. Yes, there are absolute highs in life. Mountainous peaks, even. Then you experience jerks and very sudden drops with no prior warning, no brakes to slam, no way to decelerate on your way down. All you can do is raise your hands and surrender.

    Life also has the deepest, most difficult valleys. This part of the ride, along with the climb back up, can seem excruciatingly slow. It is full of suspense, maybe even dread. Yet you just know you have to press on in order to reach the next high point in your life. You don't know when it will happen, or even if you will ever climb back up again. You weren't the one who designed the ride. Again, you can only surrender your fears and anxieties to our Heavenly Father.

    Let your faith overcome your fear. Walk by faith and not by sight. Ride out the journey God has planned for you. Reflect on the ups and downs. Though circumstances may at times be shaky and less than ideal, know that the ride does end, and that you will be standing on solid ground again. Trust the Lord to be your firm foundation.

    I end this devotional with the opening line of one of my favourite worship choruses:

"I'm no longer a slave to fear... I am a child of God".

Why I Would Not Survive As Spider-Man

3 December 2022 (Part 1)

    What I expected to be a relaxing and completely stress-free start to my 2-day holiday in Genting ended up testing me in very unexpected ways today. After a relatively chill breakfast at a cafe within Resorts World Awana (where my family stayed), my mother decided to bring the 3 little cousins, their father, and their helper Mary for a cable car round trip. The Awana Skyway gondola lift system was one that I was not familiar with, having only sat in the cable cars for the older, now-backup Genting Skyway route in the past. I was curious, and did not want to waste the extra ride coupon the hotel had given us, so I thought nothing of tagging along when asked to join.

    Acrophobia is a very real monster that plagues children and adults alike, dear readers.

 Why It Was Unexpected

    Before I continue my recount of this incident, please allow me this vain yet very relevant attempt to vindicate myself of being called a chicken (consider yourself warned).

    I'd had no major gripes or issues sitting on amusement park rides like roller coasters before. My most notable achievement came from conquering "The Claw" in Dreamworld Gold Coast, back in 2016 on a polytechnic graduation trip to Australia. This pendulum of death was a Gyro Swing that swung you and up to 31 other strangers to a maximum height of 27.15m (or about 8 stories), at speeds of up to 75 km/h. All while spinning you at 360 degrees in the air.

 

    Truly a machine of nightmares that would make you scream, "Why, Jesus, why?" for 1.5 minutes, although given that I had not been saved back then, my train of thought was probably closer to something like "If I die up there, at least it will be a shorter trip to heaven!". For some strange reason, I was more exhilarated than afraid during the whole experience. I definitely became disoriented and came uncomfortably close to losing control of my own bowels a handful of times, but I was a braver and more reckless young man who had nothing to lose. So I coped by screaming with false bravado, then leaning and swaying with the momentum of the swing to counteract the fear threatening to overtake my body and mind completely. I surrendered to the moment and experience completely and in doing so, chose to overcome my fears.

    The 8-to-10 year-old Caucasian boy seated next to me was dead silent during the whole ordeal, and I did not have the courage nor mental capacity to turn to look at him. So I figured that he was even more terrified than me, to the point of being shocked into silence or even fainting without others realising. Either that or he was trained by his parents to fight grizzly bears since young and had the fortitude of an iron wall, and this 20-year-old kor kor sitting next to him was just embarrassing himself by freaking out over a ride so "trivial". Nevertheless, I believe it is safe to say I left that theme park with no significant or lasting mental scars, and went on to sit on many more rides in the years to come.

Back To The.. Present

    Given my track record with rides at a height, I boarded the glass gondola lift on Awana Skyway with my family expecting a pleasant ride with opportunities abound to take photos of the sights during the trip, including lush forests, cool mountainsides and the ever-impressive Chin Wee Caves Temple. Instead, what I received were snapshots of the terror on my face as the lift accelerated and decelerated at surprising speeds near every station we passed through, constantly having one or both sweaty hands desperately gripping the railings and never daring to lean fully back onto the seats (which had an ever-so-tiny opening below them, just large enough for a phone to fall through). The fear in my heart was expressed very clearly, courtesy of the exceptional camera quality of an elated mother sadistically giggling at her son's first cable car experience in years, which seemed to last for precisely that amount of time.

Small Miracles, Big Faith (Part 2)

2 December 2022

Romans 1:20 (NLT)

“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.”

    It’s absolutely mind-blowing that the same Creator of the universe, who hears billions of prayers and pleas every day, is still capable and so willing in gifting miracles that feel so personalised for each of us. In fact, it’s the miracles granted in the “minor” areas of our lives that speak the most to our individual hearts. It often filled my head that it is selfish to “bother” God with trivial matters such as misplacing my laptop, securing a table without booking at a restaurant for the best atmosphere for the CG and even good weather.

    But God is present in every detail. He’s never too busy to listen to us, to guide us, because our Lord not only knows us by name, He knows every detail of ours down to the number of hairs on our head. He cares for every aspect of our lives, big or small.

    It’s encounters like these that enable to me attribute to God what I used to accredit to my own efforts, luck, or even the miracles and blessings that I was too hard-hearted to notice. He is not a God of limitations on His love, but one that we should invite to be present in every situation, every decision we make.

    The more we trust God to handle in our lives, the more such works and miracles we will be able to witness, and all these seemingly small occurrences accumulate over time to lay the foundation for a faith so strong that it will move mountains, see the sick made well and ultimately, empower us to lift His name above all the rest 🙌

1 Peter 5:7 NLT

“Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.”

    If our seemingly “mundane” requests can sow within our hearts the seeds for such strong faith, imagine how unwavering yours will be when God has seen you brave the trials and challenges you may be facing in your own life? At the end of it all, how big will our God be within the nuances of your story?

No Miracle Too Small (Part 1)

2 December 2022

Matthew 7:9-11 NLT

“You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.”

    Today I am reminded that no miracle is too small (nor too big) to ask of our Heavenly Father.

    My uncle and I had to enter Malaysia half a day later than the rest of our family, who were already in Genting, for our family vacation. I was just coming from my final exam of the year, he from a tiring day shift at work. He drove while I provided “moral support” with my Spotify playlists and casual conversational skills. We had an estimated 5-6 hour journey ahead of us.

    The usual Friday night jam at customs, the usual long and winding roads. Then came one particular highway.

    It was pitch-black, there was an endless stream of cars in front of us as well as on the opposite side of the road going the other way. You could barely tell if any distant glow you saw in the darkness was another car or street lights until you were right on top of it. It started raining, not even a gentle drizzle but quite a heavy downpour. Our already limited visibility got shortened to barely a few metres ahead of us. My uncle, pessimistic as he is, was cursing and complaining about how this would make it even harder to see the road and slow us down significantly.

    For some unexplainable reason, my first instinct was to pray literally mid-conversation with him. Prayed for the path to be clear, for the rain to cease and for the journey to be time-efficient. Not just for the two of us, but all the other motorists on the highway. The prayer lasted barely 1.5 minutes.

    I couldn’t believe what happened next. Mere seconds after the usual thanksgiving and saying “amen”, the raindrops stopped appearing on our windshield. It never rained on us again for the entire night.

DEC 2022 MALAYSIAN TRIP - START

Calling A Brother To Be Firmly Planted

30 November 2022

Psalms 1:3 (NKJV)

"He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper."

    During final exams week, I saw my friend asking for help to book a room in school for studying. He had no more weekly credits to do so himself. Let's call him Felipe for privacy's sake. God had spoken to me recently that this friend was in need of Him. I had already planned to come to church to study on the same day, so I thought to myself "why not try my luck and see if he's open to join me, maybe that'll be a good gateway to inviting him for service so that he may come to know God".
 

    Felipe accepted immediately and, to my utter shock and surprise, told me as we were walking through the gates that he was already Christian by birth (total bruh moment). His family had grown disillusioned with church and the faith, largely due to feeling "forced" to tithe. But Felipe continued to attend service against their wishes as a youth, then stopped because his was a CG that was not active in gathering nor showed much care or concern for their fellow believers. He did not feel any sense of belonging in the church and hence was not firmly planted.

Hebrews 10:24-25 NKJV

“And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

    I find Christ-centred friendship to be one of the underrated yet most precious treasures to be found in society. From communion with Jesus Christ also follows communion with our fellow Christians. That deep, shared devotion to the gospel and long-lasting camaraderie (we never graduate from each other) is something that I would wish and pray for everyone to have, especially those in crisis.

    To summarize Felipe's first experience with HOGC, he was shocked and in awe of what kind of spiritual home we have, making amusing yet wholesome comments about the facilities and people we met from the L4 lobby to the Auditorium to even just sitting in the atrium to study. He had already agreed to come for Christmas service earlier but he said this whole experience made him even more excited for it because he "really liked the overall atmosphere and people here, all so friendly". At the end of it all, having gone our separate ways,  I received a text from Felipe thanking me for rekindling his flame, or at least providing a spark which he really needed.

My heart is exploding with God's love and a love for His children this season.

Free Will and Choosing Prayer

28 November 2022

The following thoughts stemmed from two question I often pondered even as a non-believer: if everything is pre-destined as part of God's plan, how much say do we have in our own destinies? Does God actually influence our choices and free will and, if so, to what extent?

Determinism vs Fatalism:
"God has determined every single event. At each moment there is only one possible future: the future God has determined." vs "If God has determined every future event, then my choices don't affect the future.

Prayer Changes The Future

God not only ordains ends, He also ordains means. He plans the final destination as well as the "small" events (journey) to get there. PRAYERS are one of the many means which God determines to reach it. They release His power.

Eg: If a woman is to be healed of cancer, where it is today or three months from now, God has already determined the prayers that will be made on her behalf, and even the birth of the oncologists who would operate on her and the opening of a medical school that they would attend to gain the skills and knowledge necessary to save the woman.

Praying Is A Choice (Also a reminder on free will)

God wants us to choose, because we love Him and want to obey Him, to make our decisions within the overall blueprint of His will. To choose faith and be filled with the Holy Spirit who can guide our choices even as we have freedom to make them.

There are events that will not happen, souls that will not be saved, and relationships that will not be restored unless we pray for them. In ordaining His interventions to be in response to faith-fueled petitions, put simply, God gives us the privilege of including us in His work.

1 John 5:14-15 NIV 

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him."

Choose The "Bad" Sermons

26 Nov 2022:

Ephesians 4:11-13 NLT

"Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ."

    A leader in the CG had recently returned from a holiday to Australia and recounted his experience at a Sunday service at a certain church in one of the cities. He had.. pointers and feedback about how the pastor preached. "Very good content but like no main flow or sequence" was the gist of it, I believe. To make matters worse, people kept going in and out mid-service and even left during the worship segments. It was a horrifying image for me to envision in my mind, much less even consider attending such a service to witness it in person. It was, after all, a far cry from the atmosphere and energy exhibited every week in my own church's services (a fact that I am very thankful to God and perhaps even proud for).

    But then I considered how the person preaching must have felt. These are the very words of God that the Holy Spirit is speaking to his church each week. How discouraged and utterly disheartened they must have felt to watch both the saved and unsaved alike walk into their services with hardened hearts, sermons failing to engage their minds and the word of God that they are no doubt enthusiastically sharing being lost on deaf ears.

1 Corinthians 2:1 ESV

"And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom."

    What I've come to realize that is SO important to remember is this: in every sermon, in house of God, His presence is still there. God would want us to keep our hearts open - the more spiritually mature you are, the more you are easily edified. You can always receive something from the word of God no matter who preaches it and how they do it. Matthew Westerholm, whose article "The Benefit of Bad Sermons" was a main inspiration behind this particular revelation, said it best:

"Just as a loving husband notices his wife even when she is dressed grubbily, Christians can show their love for the living Word of God when he is proclaimed by inelegant preachers."

    My conclusion is that the really spiritually mature believers can see beauties that unbelievers and baby Christians miss. If you dismiss a “poor” preacher, you miss an opportunity for growth. Poor preachers are gifts from the Lord, to demonstrate your love for Christ by understanding that these men and women carry the heavy load of speaking for Him, and what we are hearing is not the poorly formed sermon of someone who may not have theological sophistication or eloquence in public speaking, for it is ultimately not from these that we receive life, but the living Word Himself, Jesus Christ.

    A dear friend and kindred spirit of mine summarized her own philosophy on the matter very succinctly:

"If there are two preachers: one very good, one very lousy but trying, I will listen to the 'lousy' one. Because he needs (the) support and I also feel that perhaps God can speak to me differently." 

 If a man has a message to preach, and the Spirit of God is within him, then may God give us ears to listen.  

Sources:

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-benefit-of-bad-sermons

Foreword

This blog was started primarily to share the daily devotionals written or otherwise formed in my head during my extended family's trip to Malaysia, primarily my mother's hometown in Kuantan, Pahang. However, I thought it useful to note down some of the revelations I had received from God in the days prior to the trip as well, as a sort of precursor to the formation of  this new godly habit.