I was tired after a whole day of class and it takes a long time to walk from class back home with a bag full of books, a toddler’s school bag, a laptop and many other things with her happily toddling along, picking up stones and leaves along the way, dwaddling… I found myself nagging and almost at the verge of coercing, can you pls hurry up and walk faster!?!

Then at the end of the day as I was preparing for the next day’s worship on the Father Heart of God, I read this: -

"The other day I rushed into my den urgently needing some information from my files. As I sorted frantically through my papers, my five-year-old son repeatedly blew his shrill tin whistle. I told him again and again to stop. There was a period of silence followed by a deafening blast right next to my ear, including a spray of saliva. I reached around, swatted him with the back of my hand and bellowed at him in anger. Immediately I felt that the Spirit of God had been grieved. I remembered the biblical statement that God is slow to anger and delights to be merciful. I took my son in my arms and asked him to forgive me. It was only right that I should correct his disobedience, but our children should always know that we discipline them because we love them, and not because we are venting our momentary frustration.

Our Heavenly Father is at this very moment being slandered and misrepresented all over the world by man’s cruelty and selfishness. Not only in the home, but in all forms of human government. His laws of love have been ignored and our mangled hearts continue on in carrying out injustice to all those smaller and weaker than ourselves." Excerpt from John Dawson’s article on The Father Heart of God

Oooo here I am ministering the Father heart of God in class and causing wounds to my own daughter at home because I failed to represent God rightly. How sensitive am I to grieving the Spirit of God when I discipline Sophie? O Lord, teach me your ways.

We just got back from the YWAM 50th year Jubilee celebrations in Tauranga. YWAM is 50 years old! It was amazing! More about that in the next post.

But back to my inspiration posts, I saw our school leader doing this. We were praying for the nations using this HUGE gigantic map laid out on the ground. The map was almost the size of 1/2 a football field. Almost a 1000 of us walked across from one side of the map of the world to the other side praying for the nations and everyone had finished walking and I saw him alone, still standing over India (btw, he has been a missionary in India for almost 20 years) and still praying. You can see his heart even as he stood there.

That man is a man of prayer. That’s passion. Btw, he even speaks English with an Indian accent!

I’ve been meditating on the outreach, kinda like debriefing with God and the passage that He’s given me over the outreach which is Galations 5. It talks about the law and the Spirit.

Having an expectation is like having a law. We all have laws, whether good or bad, reasonable or unreasonable written on our hearts – my teacher should be this this this, my parent should be this this this, my husband should do this this this and then, they’ll be right.

My question is, should there even be a good or reasonable law for others or for ourselves? King David says I have hidden your word in my heart so that I will not sin against you, not I have hidden your word in my heart so that I can make sure others don’t sin against you!

Even if there is a law written in our hearts (which is true), Paul says in Galations 5 that "it was for freedom that Christ has set us free… you who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen from grace…", which simply means that the law serves to judge us and steer us towards what we should do but it’s not to beat ourselves up about and get all stressed up because Christ has come to set us free! If we continue to beat ourselves up according to the law and trying to be right all the time, we are "alienated from Christ"  – that’s so sad! And "fallen from grace"! Yucks! Who wants that!?!

I’ve always known this but since coming out of Singapore, I’ve felt it and realised it even more than ever – as a Singaporean, I have a terrible sin – I need to be right ALL the time! I am so afraid to lose and I hate to be wrong or fail. Worse of all? I put everyone around me under the same "law" or judgement! Esp James and Sophie! Eeks! How awful is that?!? (Btw, we all cover this up real well as in we don’t go around telling people directly why they are wrong, it is uncovered in our best when we complain, gossip or worst, SULK. We are terribly good at that.)

Anyways, back to what I was saying, if operating out of the law is opposite to operating out of grace referring to Galations, then, that explains why as Singaporeans we are struggling so hard to be a gracious society! Personally, I struggle to show grace and my carnal instinct is to judge and complain when things go wrong (but I only complain in my heart k… see I’m so righteous, I don’t complain what!?!, I just complain in my heart only… ok sometimes to my husband… ya right right… ). Need to grip it at the thought life.

I need to understand this – the law is governed by God and God alone. The law that we hold for ourselves/others which I equate to expectations here in this reflection, might not always be fair or holy. Only He alone is the judge and ruler of all. He gave the law out out of love to set the boundaries for relationship with God and men so that men will not "bite" and devour" each other (Galations 5:15). He is perfect (bible calls it holy) so He alone can demand perfection and keep to perfection (not me). Because He is love and grace, he alone made it possible for man to be free from the judgement of the law through His son’s death and resurrection.

Note to self:
I cannot keep the law. I can only say sorry and move on. Even trying to do the right thing doesn’t work. In my study bible, it says "the burden of the rigorous demands of the law as the means for gaining God’s favor – an intolerable burden for sinful humanity." No way I can keep the law and I must stop making other people keep the law. Need to eradicate expectations. I have no right to expect. I am the receiver of that love and grace. "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through LOVE." The New Testament parables that Jesus told all pointed to this – stop pretending to be all righteous, stop judging, stop throwing stones at others, LOVE, GIVE, SHARE, even to your enemies. Because you can’t keep the law, you can only receive of love and grace and freely give of that.

How would I know if I’m showing grace and love? – "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is NO LAW!… Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other." I need to move in the opposite spirit.

Oh wait, btw, need to remember I would probably complain and judge again so at the heart of it, I must learn to say sorry instead of justifying myself. So, at the heartiest heart of it? It’s all about being humble. How hard is that for a Singaporean? Hardest of hard. Lord, help me.

P/s: Scary thing? So many countries are trying to be like Singapore just because we’ve done so well, seemingly. Oh Lord, pls help. I love Singapore but we really need help here. We need a change of heart.

P/ss: Erm, this reflection might not be all theologically sound so pls take it with a pitch of salt and it’s more a personal reflection. I’m not really good at talking it out so it helps me to process my thoughts if I write it out. And I’ve gotten all lazy with handwriting (maybe I should do Handwriting without Tears with Soph!) and it’s much easier typing. And since I’ve typed it out, I might as well post it out. Haha!

The more I seek you
The more I find you
The more I find you
The more I love you

I wanna sit at your feet
Drink from the cup in your hand
Lay back against you and breath
Feel your heartbeat
This love is so deep
It’s more than I can stand
I melt in your peace
It’s overwhelming

This song is our theme song for this season of our lives.

We are finding that as we press in, the more we discover God. In the past, it would have been so easy to just live on the surface on our relationship with God and just accept it as it is but we’re discovering that there is so much to God that we have yet to discover.

Faith truly comes from hearing the word.

My heart longs to hear but my flesh is so weak and I’ve been struggling to really press in and search God’s word out for ourselves. But being in this environment of hearing the word and hearing testimonies after testimonies of the reality of God is really spuring our desire and hunger for more of God.

5am prayer time with the class (ok the truth I that I haven’t made it at 5am exactly but nearly there…) has been a tremendous boost to my experience of God. It was hard trying to enter in and pray at 5am every other morning (James and I take turns to go) in the beginning but oh my, it’s so good! I seriously have no idea what pushes me to wake up at that unearthly time! It really must be God! Funny thing is, I don’t even feel tired through the day.