Happy Days Are Here Again

Christmas is round the corner. The lights in Orchard Road are up. X"mas songs are playing all over department stores, and the X'mas sales are beginning. With students wrapping up their exams by this week or so, and with the company bash coming up this friday, it seems like everyone is ready to start winding down to the year, and enjoy the festive season.

Yet it is always the season that makes me rather pensive, and more than just a little depressive, I suppose. Maybe its because the whole year has tired me out. Maybe I'm naturally more withdrawn in the seasons where people have more time for each other. Maybe its because there's no one to spend X'mas with. Maybe I'm just plain boring. Hehz....

Whatever the case... yeah...

Time for a sad song once again...

Where's My Next Song Coming From?

The past three days, a line from this show some of us watched on sunday has been haunting me. The show, Touched by An Angel, was recounting a story of a terminally ill kid, very sickly yet very brave. Along comes junior angel, discussing the kid's condition with senior angel. And senior angel said "The kid's very sick. His dreams are all broken, so that the Lord could give him wisdom."

And somehow that line has just stuck in my mind. Larry Crabb says God shatters our dreams that we might be recipients of the dreams that are well and truly God's, instead of our own. Gene Edwards says our dreams are broken and we live through pain that we might learn the kind of humility befitting a Servant King. And now senior angel says that we experienced broken dreams that we might gain wisdom.

Gene Edwards says in another book of his, The Inward Journey, where he talks abt the passage in Hebrews that says Christ was perfected in His suffering. And he goes on to say that Christ had to learn abt suffering in his time on earth, something he had to experience. And so he made a statement to the effect of how there are lessons to be learnt through the process of pain and broken dreams.

Yet I feel the crux of the issue lies in the perseverance through such pain. The one who is unwilling to go through it will emerge bitter and hollow, having picked up nothing from his trip into the valleys. It is only the willing traveller through the valley of death that will emerge all the wiser, and all the more glad. Only willingness will allow the Lord to turn mourning into dancing. Anything else is meaningless pain that we struggle to get out of, albeit in vain. Maybe that explains why so many Christians have great difficulty in trusting God to lead them through pain, and turn away. Because they weren't willing to enter into the pain at all in the first place. The demands that God seems to place on us to trust and obey, even when every fibre within our being is crying out for release, to cut loose and run away from our burdens... it seems almost too cruel to have come from a God who claims to love us.

The past 2 years of blogging has shown me that I'm only 2 yrs into what seems to be my own 40 yrs in the dessert. I keep circling around back to the same issues, dealing with my past failures and my longing to recapture my shattered dreams. Two songs that I treasure has served as sort of like the two pillars that kept my life from crashing everytime I felt the urge to just break away from God and indulge in my desires, to find some release for my heavy and tired heart. The first is a classic oldie, Trust His Heart. I remember the first time I heard it, and how the tears just wouldn't stop flowing at every word of the chorus. It was exactly the words I needed to hear back then.

"So when you don't understand, when you can't see His plan, when you can't trace His hand... Trust His Heart."

Not His promises in the Bible, because it just sounds so hollow. Not anything people can tell me about Him, because it seems that He's never failed anyone except me. Instead, trust His heart. Something intangible, yet the only thing that I can grasp at when it seems that there's no other way to make sense of what I was going through.

The other song is the one I posted up. If You Want me To, by Ginny Owens. I guess after my initial brush with failure and disappointment, and have learnt to handle it, I managed to make sense of it by telling myself it was moulding my character, and shaping my spirituality. I managed to convince myself that there was value in it, and thus not an exercise in futility. All my failures, all my demons, all my loneliness was there because God wants to use these trials in my life to shape me into the man that He wants me to be. Yet after 2 yrs, I look back and I don't think my trials have taught me much. I'm still as bitter, still as lonely, still as weak, still as insecure... and I still feel as far from God as I was for the longest time now...

That was when the song really struck something in me. I learnt not to start looking for agendas in the things I go through, to make excuses for God, that all those things I went through have been turned by God into something that worked for my good. I've learnt to acknowledge that my life is far from ideal. In fact, it is the pits. And realistically, it doesn't look like its going to get better. This world isn't geting any brighter. Its getting darker. And the scars I bear will probably never disappear magically, but will be what I carry with me till the day I die. I guess what the song has taught me is that despite all this... I will go through it - as long as it is what He wants me to. Simple as that.

And when this thought first hit me, it was pretty liberating. It made me understand how there were so many who could so graciously bear up under the most gross of injustices, and with so little in their life to cause envy. I guess it was a lot easier to bear with the pain when I no longer had to look for rhyme and reason of why I go through what I go through. So I no longer need to wonder why I go through each day with a heavy heart, or why my days seem to be characterized more by defeat and surrender rather than victory. I just need to trust His heart, then live through everything that comes my way, as long as it is what He wants me to do.

And a timely reminder it was tonight. I seem to have entered into another cycle of restlessness and melancholia. Christmas is round the corner. I remember posting a while back about how I can't wait for Christmas to be here, that I might have something to stir up hope within me. The last two weeks I felt I was running out of time. That its getting harder and harder to care for people. To reach out to those around me. To look out for them, and to keep up with them. Increasingly I found the temptation to shut myself in to be stronger and stronger. To just about anyone else, I would have seemed to be doing well. I'm getting better and better at hiding the melancholia and depression that is eating away at me inside.

Tonight as I sat down to think a little, I guess these two songs provided some form of comfort to me. It reminded me of a time when what I went through wasn't meaningless, because my meaning was found not my my self-fulfillment, but in fulfilling what He wants and desires.

And I'm left with a longing for yet another song to come my way, to serve as yet another pillar in my life, to keep it from crashing down around me. I once had such a song for 4 yrs, but that one has come and gone for good.

I'm still waiting, and I guess I'll keep on waiting... if He wants me to.

Its Monday AGAIN...

2nd post in 2 days... those guys who complained that I dun write as much anymore are gonna regret they ever said so.

Hehz...

Anyway, I really liked today's message at chapel. I wasn't really myself when leading worship. I dunno why. Mebbe its cos I really didn't have the time to prepare... It was the first time I prepared a worship without knowing what the verse was going to be. I just had a sketchy grasp of the content of the sermon. So I told God I was really gonna throw the worship into His lap, and that He was going to have to lookout for me. So for once I kept my eyes closed for most of the time, instead of trying so hard to pay attention to everything around me... and I for once I decided to just really let myself worship, and let God be the one leading it. And maybe somehow in the midst of that, God prepared my heart for the message that followed.

Zhang Mu Shi spoke about love, and how the essence of love is one that is a response to the love we have received. And I guess it was always a topic that weighs heavily on my mind. All my brushes with authoritarian figures in church and Crusade have always left me wondering how can someone who on the surface seem to be doing what is biblically right - inflict more pain, and do more damage, than sitting by and apparently "letting the sinner get away with his sin"? Why is it that these people who seem to be on such an intimate walk with God be so blatantly guilty of trampling on people's dignity and the worth that God has placed on every person, and still feel so self-righteous about how they have been doing the will of God? Isn't it an act as blind as those who proclaim the grace of God right alongside the prosperity gospel?

So how does a spiritual dictator measure up against a spiritual shepherd?

I think of the one person above all who stands out in Campus Crusade - Anthony, and if I were to write down the first 5 words to come to mind, its would be Godly, Meek, Humble, Kind, Gentle. Anthony's no push-over. Those who know him better can tell you that. Yet unlike quite a few other staff members who always had the tendency to assert biblical authority to keep things under control, I always had the deepest respect for Anthony, for how he showed me what its like for a man to be able to trust God to be in control. I was never under any pressure from him to live up to any standards set. He was the first discipler I had who showed me what an unconditional acceptance was like.

Without meaning to let it serve as a finger-pointing session, I've also worked with some others who loved God so much that they forgot to love man. Their actions were always couched in biblical origins, with some very very good rationales for what they did. Yet the end result more often than not is that their acts of "living righteous lives that serves and pleases God", is that people leave the ministry. I've seen many who left Crusade, after having been stung by some very harsh words spoken with a lot of spiritual knowledge, yet devoid of any spiritual wisdom and love. And I've seen a lot of that in church as well. Of course, I don't put the blame solely on those people in places of authority. Leadership is a tough role, and there are many who leave a place where they dun get the affirmation they crave, to search for some place else that would feed their ego.

I guess it was always a tough call to make. But there were so many things that were said today in the sermon that touched a chord in me. About the need to identify and put oneself into others' shoes... the need to love because we ourselves have been the recipients - and God has promised that anything we invested in love will always reap a plentiful harvest... the need to step out of my myopia, and embrace a larger world than the one that I have marked out for my own comfort.

And everyday I am challenged to do that. From friends around me that disappoint, where I have to learn to see things from their point of view and so be more understanding than condemning... to colleagues that spook me out with some really weird inclinations, where I have to learn to always keep in mind that they too have a dignity and humanity that God has ascribed to them, which I have learn to respect... to even all those times where my efforts to reach out to a brother or sister continues to hit a brick wall after so many years, and I feel like giving up...

Just two weeks ago I was speaking to Stefan, Simon's friend from Germany. we were talking abt Europe, and how even tho 90% are professing Christians or Catholics, less than 10% go to church. In Asia, almost 70% of professing believers attend church, even tho the percentage of believers are a lot less. So while we look at them and wonder what sort of hypocritical faith they havem they too have issues with our faith. To them, they find it meaningless when they see so many who attend church, who walks out and continues to behave as though God only loves those who merit His love... more eager to trample on others' humanity to embrace God's divinity. Yet to us, we wonder what sort of blind belief could it be, that allows a person to claim to be a believer, yet be so all-inclusive of the things they believe in, until they might as well not have believed in anything at all.

And in my conversation with him, the one word we all agreed upon, which had repeatedly come up in our interractions, was the word "acceptance". And perhaps such really is the most important ingredient of love. If love truly covers all, then it would be more interested to build up people and bridge people, instead of tearing them down and dividing them. It does not mean a blatant indifference nor an absolute ignorance on what is right and wrong... but it means a willingness to overlook it on behalf of Christ, for the purpose of His family and His house.

I guess I'll have plenty of opportunities to learn these lessons in the weeks ahead. All these years have taught me that God's irony and timing is impeccable. The minute I claim to have learnt a lesson, He requires me to prove it.

Hehz... Ah well.

I guess that's also part of learning.

Can't believe its back to work again.

SIGH.

Once In A Blue Moon, I DO Write

People have been asking why I don't write as much anymore.

I don't know. Maybe its because I'm tired of always writing about the same old thing. Maybe its because I'm too tired out by work and studies. Maybe I've just been too busy. Or maybe I'm just trying to not let the melancholia get the better of me.

Today I attended Aaron's wedding. And even as there is part of me who is really happy for him that he's finally settled down with a good girl, I've had more than a few questions over Aaron's choice. There are some guys out there who "just need to have someone in my life". And so these guys would rather settle for a life with someone that has managed to cross the minimum standard, and who has said yes. And I used to think Aaron's like that. I'm not so sure now, but the question is still somewhat nagging at the back of my head.

Lately, there have bene a couple of guys who came up to me, telling me how much they miss their ex boyfriend/girlfriend. And they really do. One started crying when she dug up some old stuff that represented the remnants of a broken promise to spend the rest of their lives together, while another is unable to muster up any sense of joy in the light of his longings for what he's always wanted so badly, but which seems destined to be denied him.

And not too long ago I've been asked what I would feel if Grace were to get attached again. Honestly, I really don't have a clue. All I know is that even till this day, there have been moments when I catch myself still letting thoughts stray to her. No longer the angry thoughts of the betrayal that hurt so much, no longer the longing to regain back the sweet moments we once shared... but perhaps just the nostalgia of what it was like to have someone share your life with you. Of those times when there was at least one person out there who would know you like no one else ever did. The one person over others where you had no need to maintain a facade, simply because she's spent so much time with you that any pretence would have been unbearably tiring. And so there is a nostalgic kind of longing, that is tinged with the regret that it is impossible to go back again. And since looking forward is too tiring, and too uncertain, I guess that explains why I let my thoughts remain in the past...

Why is it so hard for me to move on in a relationship, when for others it is so easy? More than two years on, I still find it hard to convince myself I'll be able to love the girl as much as I loved Grace. Not to mention the scars of that r/s still leaves me with a deep sense of insecurity that she won't do to me what Grace did. Maybe that's why I'm still waiting for the girl to make the first move, so that it gives me a measure of security that she really wants to be in such a r/s. I'm done with being a tryout for someone else.

Not too long ago, I told myself I'll spend my bus trips back hom praying to God... and make it a discipline. I used to love praying... I used to feel so close to God when I prayed. Yet now, I feel like Susan in Chronicles of Narnia, who grew up and out-grew the wonder of it all. For a couple of weeks, I really did pray. Then this week I started to find that everytime I prayed, my thoughts would wander to three things - My studies, work at Reuters, and a r/s. My longing to make right both my studies and r/s this time round, and also always at the back of my head the question of whether or not I'll still be a Reuters next year. And no matter how hard I try to pray, it always comes back to these three things.

Yet the funny thing is, I really don't know what I want in all these three things. My choice of studies is increasingly looking like a bad idea. I'm thinking of switching course for my second year onwards, from a degree in general management, to business management. I dunno if extending my contract is a good idea, since I DO need to make time to study. I dunno if I'm ready to enter into another r/s. Of course, the irony is that from the moment I'm ready to enter one, it might still be another ten yrs before someone right comes along.

SIGH.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this isn't a crazy world.

Maybe its just me.

Hehz...

Of course, not to be so locked up in my little world, its also time to finally put down on this blog, my hearty congratulations to a very dear friend for having finally taken a plunge to step into a r/s. I guess by now she shd have told all those around her who read my blog, so its safe to put it down now.

As much as I'm happy for her, I'm running out of 'scapegoats' whom I can divert attention to the next time someone asks me abt dating. That's gonna be something sorrying.

Hehz...

Worship Leader Insecurities at 2am

As I sit here at 2 in the morning, having finally finished preparing for worship practice later, I realise that my choice of songs is inevitably influenced by my present mood…. When I’m in a state of confusion, or when I’m feeling rather lost, my choice of songs reflect a really poor flow of theme and music. Disorganized and all jumbled up, I very quickly forget my purpose for putting it there in the first place. Making up reasons becomes the instinctive next step, giving little thought to the flow as a whole. The process repeats itself at the next song, and the whole worship becomes a shamble.

Tonight wasn’t one of those nights. But as I sat and thought about it, I realize that my rather pensive mood did show itself through my choice of songs. These past few days have been hectic and stretching, yet somehow I don’t find myself feeling particularly overwhelmed by tiredness, or emotionally drained by the things ahead of and around me. Thus I’ve stopped picking songs about tiredness, and finding rest in God. I remember times in the past where every week that I led was very much held together by the over-arching theme of finding rest in God…

And I guess even though it should have been common sense, it did strike me in a way, just how much of worship is still led by my self, instead of something supernaturally put together by the hand of God. And yet somehow if my heart was right before God, then no matter how scatter-brained I was, no matter how much my preparations were affected by my state of mind, then God could use the preparations to make a difference at the service, and turn something worthless into something priceless.

I guess I needed to know that now, because my worship prep still feels really sketchy and ill-prepared. My thoughts kept wandering back to some things that have been bothering me for some time now… and so even though by and large the preparations are done, I keep having the nagging doubt that its gonna turn out right. Worse part is, I can’t decide if the feeling stems from a genuine lack of proper preparations, or due to my current state of mind.

Aaarrrrgggh. Nevertheless, I shall put it aside and strive to catch some shut-eye, and take comfort in what I’ve just learnt.

Safe In A Crazy World

Its funny how clichéd it sounds when I speak again of how God seems to keep me safe in this crazy world. Yes, not sane in a crazy world, but safe in a world that seems to have driven itself mad. I was just musing to myself that this whole world seems to be moving on so fast that I can’t catch up. Everyone’s all moving on with their lives, getting married and getting their careers slowly settled in order… they’re all slowly entering the adult phase of their lives, saving up as they work. And the fear inevitably arises, that I’ll be forgotten in the wake of the distance that has come between me and the world, and all those whom I hold dear to my heart.

I always fancied myself as a man with a small heart. One with little faith in others, and even less in myself. And along with that comes the inevitable barrage of questions that I ask in the silences of my mind, about how important those around me are to me, and how important I will be to them. How do I actually view them in all those times when they aren’t aware of my take on them, and how they likewise view me apart from the times they let me know. Then I after answering those questions myself, I question if I was right in my judgment, and if I was being either incredibly naive or unbelievably cynical. And each time I find myself in a position to love someone and be genuine, these questions surfaces to haunt me, and stop me from opening up more than I really should. And since these questions don’t really ever come to an end, my subtle paranoia never ceases. In short, as I question others, and question myself for questioning others, I lock myself into this senselessly mind-numbing experience that paralyses me from being able to function normally. I therefore spend almost equal amounts of time trying to give as much as I can to all those around me, as well as totally withdrawing from everyone back into my own shell.

Enter God, into the equation. I don’t become any more sane. I still question, I still worry, and I’m pretty sure I’m still as paranoid as ever. But somehow there’s a part of me that dares to every now and then venture to open up with reckless abandon, within that small window of grace, where I somehow feel the safety and security in something bigger than me, to reach outside of me and connect with someone. Somehow as the song goes, as long as there was someone out there who understood me, and embraced my fragilty, I could feel safe, and rest in the comfort of that knowledge.

So as Sarah Mclachlan sung, its time to stop weeping for the memories. I used to love the song for its second stanza, yet strangely revisiting this song tonight, the chorus jumps out at me, to learn to leave and let go of the past. And I really do cling an awful lot to the past. To all those whom I’ve once shared bits and pieces of my heart and my life with, who has now seemingly faded out of my life. Now when we meet up, it seems that all we do is reminisce, and don’t really make any effort to catch up anymore. I think back to the days of my fellowship and cell group, and the original gang that did so much together - and after a while, my social circle in church runs the risk of being made up of absent friends more than the ones present who really deserve more from me. In ministry I keep looking back to the times when the Lord was gracious in blessing the things we did, and the church seemed to be on fire for God - now that there remains the need for us to be faithful stewards who persevere at what we do, I catch myself living in the past, on the excuse of trying to draw strength from the times when God’s been good to us, forgetting that God is still as good to us as He was then. In love, I find myself questioning if any girl would ever love me like Grace did, and if things would ever work out. For two years, my search was for a replacement. Mebbe that’s why I never did find anyone - even now I'm still reminding myself whenever I feel the urge to start a r/s, that it must not be an exercise in seeking back that which I lost, but the discovery of something brand new.

Then of course, there are those people whom I’ve even given up trying to reminisce with, or bother to remember, despite us having once been so close. My JC class is slowly becoming like that. And even as I mourn the loss of some very dear friends whom I once held so very close to my heart, part of me is acknowledging that its time to move on. That even as there’s no need to cut off contact, there also needs to be the decision to recognize the end of a segment of my life. “Don’t let your life pass you by, weep not for the memories”

Lastly, there are those whom I feel I’ve gradually lost touch with, that I’ve always been reluctant to do so. Like some of those in Crusade, whom I valued very much. Yet graduation, work and ministry inevitably takes its toll on a friendship that has lost much of its context and reason for meeting up. The rest just depends on pure effort, which very easily gets brushed aside in the light of busy schedules and all.

And as life around me seems to be getting crazier everyday, and its harder and harder to make any sor of sense of all that goes on around me, I find myself going back again to one thing I realized about myself – the answer for me isn’t to have a solution to this world I live in, an answer for all the ironies and all the cruelties that this life extracts from me. Making sense of it won’t make any difference. Feeling safe in spite of it all would. And that’s what God has somehow done for me. Somehow, in these two weeks, one of the busiest that I’ve ever experienced, He's done that for me.

Somehow, He found the time to subtly let me know He’s around, so that even though I missed it when he told me, I felt His presence after that for the rest of the week.



P.S., Man Utd ended Chelsea's 40-match unbeaten streak last night with a 1-0 win at Old Trafford, posting for themselves their first win in 13 games. I guess not only did He make sure I felt His presence this week, but He made sure to let me know He's a Man Utd fan. Grins.