Patient Enough to Harvest, Humble Enough to Lose

You came into my life. You taught me to love myself, every single part. You showed me a love so warm and pure that I thought it only existed through my circumstances and life-changing encounters. You were the one that had me believing in soulmates.

Never had someone so wonderfully compassionate and adorably goofy at the same time gone to such lengths to know me, understand me and indeed, love me. Even when I gave you nothing to love.

Now, it feels like a significant piece of my heart is missing. I still walk past families wondering, their children beaming with hope and joy, what it would've looked like for both of us to have that. To share a future together, our fates intertwined for eternity. To spend the rest of my days building a life with you.

Every day we shared, both good and bad, I cherished. I thanked God that I even got the chance to go through all those things with someone who complemented me in all the best ways, someone who brought out the very best in me. As you so very explicitly spelt out to me on multiple occasions, you didn't see me through "rose-tinted lenses", acknowledging all the parts that I still had to work on. Things like my ego, knowing when to be less blunt, and valuing others' time. Yet you never shamed me for any of those. You saw the aspects that made many others overlook me, dismiss me, condemning me to a life of insignificance. And you embraced them, for you knew that it was in our weaknesses that God's strength is made perfect. Your heart was so big and full of His love that it overflowed into my life, changing it forever. My own heart grew three sizes (yes, I love my Grinch references), and I truly loved you with all of it.

Alas, something so right but in the wrong season is still the wrong thing. Namely, God's intended season for the "right thing" to happen for us.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-6 NIV

¹ For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

 ² a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
³ a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
⁴ a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
⁵ a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

We walked in the same faith, grew in similar directions. But we were not at the same place spiritually. And unequal yoke can be a debilitating factor sparking many non-negotiables in relationships, ultimately ending them before they ever get the chance to take off. Perhaps it truly is an inevitability when it comes to dating someone planted in a different church. You understood the significance and admired everything that I was involved in with my own spiritual community, my "fierce accountability and involvement" in my church's endeavours. It impacted and inspired you to start doing the same. Yet, we both knew there was a part of you that grew increasingly dissatisfied with me uncompromisingly always choosing to prioritize my church commitments over the ones I had with you, though I certainly did try my utmost to spend enough quality time together each week.

Evidently, what we want to accomplish and what we can accomplish are often two different things in reality. We valued many of the same things in life, from our passion for loving people down to our often unexplainable appreciation for all things Disney. But it's the two things (family and God) ranking differently at the very top that caused everything to come crumbling down.

We didn't value different things, we just valued those things differently.

My heart and visions are for the youths in my life, and to building people through the church. They belong to the lost sheep who once knew God, who have fallen out of that relationship and turned their faces away from Him, struggling to find their way back into His House and favour. All they need is a firm hand reaching out to guide them back, and I have been so blessed and honoured as to have had God doing that through me twice by this point in my budding Christian life. Suffice to say, I want to keep doing it. Over and over, at a high enough capacity where it can be said that I was a balanced Christian who still managed to truly live for the cause of Christ.

I want to watch the children in our care fulfill their dreams of becoming pastors. When my own children see all that our church has done and continues to do in this unprecedented movement of God, the significant battles fought for Him.. they will ask me: “Dad, where were you when all of these things happened?” I want to be able to say, “your father was right there, in the middle of the storm, fighting the good fight with his trench buddies.”

This past year, I found purpose for my life, and now I find myself in an impossible situation where I'm more willing to give up this seemingly perfect partner who has loved me so purely and fiercely, than to turn my back on the calling which my Creator has given me. I never would have imagined this for myself, to have become who I am today. And I have no idea how I am at peace with it. Breaking up with someone who has quite possibly been the the greatest (romantic) love of my life? Is it genuine because I am learning to put God first? I'm not entirely sure. My instincts and logical mind are screaming at me to turn back and not make the biggest, most unintelligent mistake of my life.

But the nature of God's plans are rarely fully known to us, if ever. He is an infinite mystery, one that we as His children have to learn to trust and embrace in order to deepen our relationship with Him. So today I want to come before God with humility, acknowledging that it is He that knows best, not me.

Every time I re-read your goodbye letters, I make a total emotional mess of myself. I may wonder, but I pray that I shall never wander. I'll just have to wait and see if our sacrifice was worth it. For now, all I can (and will) do is trust.

"All I want is to live within Your love
Be undone by who You are
My desire is to know You deeper
Lord I will open up again
Throw my fears into the wind"

- Hillsong Worship, "A Touch Of Heaven" 

First Experience Serving In Church

  The stars had aligned and my leaders had contacted me at last.  My ministry training done, the Telegram chats and channels set up. The back-to-back meetings were over, brainstorming sessions where everyone's creative brains would be firing on all cylinders. Finally, for the first time since I became a Christian, I would serve in the House of God..

    And what a time it was to join in on the action and learn the ropes. Strong Church Summit, where our pastors and leaders would share with their counterparts from all over the world (25 countries, to be exact) the heart and spirit that empowered them to build a Strong Church with a Deep Bench of leaders, from one generation to the next.

    I had always imagined my first time serving would be in a regular weekend service, with a slightly smaller crowd largely consisting of our own regular members. Intimidating, for sure, but at least I would be among more familiar faces. Instead, God had decided to test my mettle, throwing me straight into the mother of all fires... Social Media Ministry.

Capturing the key moments with hundreds of international delegates at a once-a-year conference, knowing that if I'd missed out on filming these moments, they'd be gone forever?

No pressure.

Armed with nothing but an outdated iPhone 11 camera and barely 2 hours of prior training, to say nothing of my downright atrocious boomer-level camera skills?

 No pressure.

My introverted self having to interact and vibe with total strangers, knowing my own conduct would reflect on the church because of my lanyard and volunteer pass?

.....Okay, maybe I was in trouble. Amid this whirlwind of thoughts was the nagging question: how could someone who had gotten out of touch with social media trends in the past year possibly have fresh ideas to generate buzz and interest in what God was doing in our church?

    Questions filled my head until, eventually, it hit me; I was merely the newest in a long and extensive list of cogs inside the well-oiled machine that is the Social Media Ministry. I watched in awe as everyone in the ministry collaborated to methodically plan objective after objective for the Summit, not unlike a strategic meaning amongst generals before heading out to war. Yet, for all the painstaking detail that was put into our schedules, shot lists and content, my teammates managed to stay flexible enough to adapt our posts and stories to accurately capture the actual atmosphere and encounters being experienced on the ground.

    We numbered about 50, but a spirit of unity brought everyone together with a single-minded focus to produce the best content for the NUMEROUS social media accounts we were entrusted with. Content which would move people for God, minister to them, touch lives in a way that only Jesus could. Yes, self-doubt had momentarily taken a hold on me in the days of preparation leading up to the event, but by the grace of God acting through my encouraging, competent and oh-so-patient leaders (thank you Ross), my fears were eventually drowned out by the sheer joy and fulfillment that came with this new way of living for others.

    I realize now what my church friends mean when they say we are so incredibly privileged to get to serve in this House. As a relatively new member, I felt especially spoiled by God for being allowed to participate in such a spiritually charged and life-changing event with global impact.

    All my life, I’d been looking for community, for some sense of a higher purpose. Granted, I already received many a godly burden and a sense of belonging in my church. But serving genuinely felt like I was taking the next step into growing my faith and a heart of servitude. I’m reminded of the two verses from the church's training material about serving in the house of God:

1 Peter 4:10-11 NLT

“God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.”

Romans 12:6-8 NLT

“In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.”

Core memories:
- Stepping into a service and roaming around on my own for the first time. As someone who avoids crowds like the plague and is uncomfortable drawing unwanted attention, I had to adjust and get over it very quickly so that I could capture the key moments on stage and in the audience from the various angles available to me. In this way, I broke my own barriers for God, zip lining between empty seats mid-service just to get a better shot 🫣

- RUSHINGGG around the whole of level 3 of our building with two similarly new but equally willing ministry mates, trying to get enough footage of different delegate groups and their hosts taking video selfies for a collage to capture the dinnertime buzz in a story. Equal parts funny and wholesome, at one point I was just camping at the foot of the stage steps hoping people wouldn’t hit pause on what they were doing thinking I had some important announcement to make to the room, editing away furiously at whatever preliminary footage we had already to save time. All so our leaders could post the stories in a timely fashion!

    All in all, I was grateful to God for supplying me with the strength and energy to keep going at 110% of my output the whole time I was out there filling up my phone's storage space, and I only started to feel the fatigue from the moment I stopped serving and sat down for the Leaders’ Meeting/Session in the evening (thank God for mints). It was then that I finally had time to scroll through what had been shared via the church-related Instagram accounts throughout the day. A couple of my footages and ideas had been approved and used 😮

    I was humbled at how God had used my previously untapped talents to do the significant, at a much higher capacity than I ever dreamed for myself a year ago. I felt like I jumped from being one of the fingers of God straight to being a whole hand or arm 🤣🤣 not trying to overstate my own importance in the grand scheme of things, of course. When working in a ministry, you get the sense that you've become part of something bigger than yourself, a veritable army for God and His kingdom. You all share in the triumphs, the encounters, the hardships and the heartbreaks. Above all, you discover new things about your own identity in Christ, deepening your relationship with God, as well as a clearer understanding of your role in His eternity. Man, you just don’t get this kind of experience anywhere else.

Mixed Race Kids and Jesus

4 December 2022 (Part 2)

    I was born to parents of two different religious backgrounds and grew up learning many different belief systems from both sides of the family. Consequently, you can imagine this often muddled up my life philosophies and personal beliefs quite a bit. To confuse my readers even more, I spent my teenage years being a member of the Boys' Brigade (Uniformed Group very much rooted in Christianity) for extra-curricular activities. From childhood to even the adult years before being saved, my spirit felt like it was being forcefully stretched out by horses tied to me by rope and running in different (religious) directions.

Our whole lives, children that come from inter-faith marriages and relationships face, in a sense, twice the risk of persecution by family members and friends. 

    Families who are strongly united in religion tend to also be united in their views, including their stance on other religions, but my mother and father came from two completely different worlds/cultures that tend to have very polarising and different views on one member's "apostasy", or deviating and renouncing their way of life as dictated by their god(s).

    Many families and even countries in this day and age would even try to misrepresent this exit from their religion as blasphemy. They consider it perhaps the greatest sin to commit, a crime punishable by death in some parts of the world. Your family may even go so far as to hate you. At best, they may attempt to send you to religious schools or to speak to spiritual leaders in order to correct and rehabilitate you. They may isolate you and your branch of the family; your parents, siblings and future children.

    At worst, they will even actively attempt to do harm to you, sometimes with devastating impact on your lives. Some families have a strong enough bond that they will unconditionally love you no matter what faith you live your life by, respecting your freedom of conscience and religion. 

    I had not realised it until this trip, but God had blessed me with a family that fits this description. We may have our petty squabbles, and fights between siblings may get bad, but at the very end of the day, we stand by each other. For that, I offer our Lord all my love and praise. If it is within His will, may these loved ones join us in His spiritual kingdom and channel the Holy Spirit in blessing all who are around them. The apostle Paul and Silas, when they were imprisoned by the Romans, said it best to their jailer:

Acts 16:31 NLT

"They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household."" 

Acts 16:32-34 NLT

"And they shared the word of the Lord with him and with all who lived in his household. Even at that hour of the night, the jailer cared for them and washed their wounds. Then he and everyone in his household were immediately baptized. He brought them into his house and set a meal before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced because they all believed in God."

Becoming a First-Generation Christian

4 December 2022 (Part 1)

1 Corinthians 8:5-6 ESV

"For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist."

Exodus 20:12 NLT

“Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the LORD your God is giving you."

    For as long as I can remember, I've been closest to my mother and maternal relatives. They are devout Buddhists, with my mother often chanting in sutras for hours and praying with her opened hands joined together (a Buddhist mudra). So you can imagine my hesitance to tell my mother, aunt, uncle and uncles-in-law of my recent decision to accept Jesus and convert to Christianity, back in October 2022. I harbour no shame in my heart for the God I love, praise and worship, yet declaring my faith so boldly in their faces had the potential to jeopardize my relationships with my family, something that has been near and dear to my heart for my whole life. They always will be, even as these relationships may be of the world.

    Yet, two nights ago on this vacation, my relatives casually revealed to me that they had known for months how I had been attending service in a church and integrating with a Christian community (thanks to my mother sharing of my adventures and whereabouts on the weekends). All of those weeks stressing out and formulating plans on how to tell them, and they nonchalantly drop this bomb on me, that they had known all along. Not necessarily that I had become a Christian, but at the very least that I was drawing closer to our God and was well on the path to living like one. In a hotel room, of all places. There was a World Cup 2022 match being broadcast on the huge TV in the midst of our nighttime conversations.

    They teased that they no longer knew whether I was a Buddhist, a Christian, or something else, given the whirlwind of religions I grew up in as a mixed child. They were snickering beneath every other comment made, as if to say they did not believe I was convicted enough to stay on this path and devote my life to serving the church, bringing gladness to our Heavenly Father's heart. However, at the very least, I sensed no animosity towards me for keeping these secrets, no judgement for deviating from the path followed by all the generations of our family that came before me. And that was strangely liberating.

     Perhaps some would admonish me for not being firmer in my beliefs, for holding on to my fear and allowing it to keep me from publicly declaring myself as a follower of Jesus. All I will say is that these are struggles only people born and raised in a traditional family in a multi-ethnic society like Singapore would be able to fully relate to, and that the social or even legal consequences of leaving your family's religion assigned to you from your youth are very real, particularly when traveling to other countries with official state religions. In spite of all of this, however, I will continue to seek God and hope to one day learn how to surrender these earthly fears of mine and indeed, lift my entire family into His hands, praying that they may one day know Him for themselves.

    Rather than focus on their skepticism and reacting in anger, I saw their passive acceptance and relaxed approach to the subject as a sign from our Saviour that, through this tiny chip in the armour of their hearts, the Holy Spirit would guide me in my good works and sharing the gospel with them, gradually opening those hearts, that they might one day receive Jesus. Only then will we be a family in perfect unity and union with Christ.

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.