Circle of Life

After more than 20 years in Sembawang, it seems that yet another chapter in my life is drawing to a close. Today I return back to Thomson, where I spent my childhood before moving on to Sembawang.

Talk about coming back full circle.

And yet the irony is that it also isn’t home. The saga my family has been enduring in the seemingly endless merry-go-round of house rentals is merely entering into yet another chapter. For now, I actually like this place a lot, and so really would want this to be a more permanent solution. Or at least, that we’ll find somewhere more permanent and be done with this darned packing-unpacking shenanigan.

The only good thing that inevitably comes out of it, is that I finally packed up my room, and cleared out tones of rubbish that I should have done long ago.

Ah well.

The proverbial silver lining in the dark cloud.

Worship Evaluation

This isn’t an evaluation of the Levites Ministry. Its an introspection into the condition of my worship.

I think the same few questions I’ve been asking God each time will always be universally valid:

1. In the course of my being a worship leader, how often have I traded the altar for a stage? How have I played at worshipping God, instead of being authentic before Him?
2. What sort of masks do I continue to wear before God and the congregation? Do I know which of those masks that I wear before the congregation are valid and which of them I need to remove?
3. Has my worship of God been with the same songs, or am I singing new songs unto the Lord? New songs borne out of a radically new experience of him instead of just new prose and melody?
4. What are the blind spots I currently have, that I need to be working on? Who do I currently have in my life that can be pointing them out to me?

Maybe I err too much on the side of caution, but I am very sensitive to the fact that being on stage is inevitably a stroke or a stab to the ego. Its so very hard to make it about God once you’re up on the stage.

Sure, its easy to profess that we desire God to be first. But more often than not, our actions and our pre-occupations betray our heart. I find myself instinctively gravitating towards concerns such as whether or not I know what to say, so that I won’t sound stupid up there. Or whether or not there will be anyone at 0930 if I start worship on time, so that the “happening” song I had picked will not be wasted.

So much for playing to an audience of One.

I guess there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being concerned about such things. But when I spend 90% of the time concerned about them, instead of being concerned about whether or not I am right before God (so that my worship might be acceptable before Him), I really have put my cart 100 miles ahead of the horse.

With the recent wave of “trouble” in the Levites Ministry, I guess I really need to guard my heart against resentment and the martyr complex. Its His ministry after all. I have NO doubts whatsoever that my listening to IDMC 2009 was God’s divine intervention, reminding me through the words of Edmund Chan, that:

1. God is good.
2. God is in control.
3. God will bring it to pass.

Lord, the more the burdens increase, the more You remind me that I am not the one carrying them. I only need to stick to that which you entrusted to me, and depend on You to bring it to pass…

May you let my worship before you always be authentic, and to always remember to love those whom you love.