Ghims' Mind - It's Dangerous (Not really)

Thoughts when on a bus

I get a lot of such stuff. I’m on the bus now and I just love it when things just surface out of nowhere.

Thought of the day:
As Christians, especially serving Christians (I speak for the lifegroup leaders), we simply cannot expect life to go on without challenges, and when challenges come, we overcomes them, and sometimes we fall a little.

Sometimes we get to the “I’m not close with God” phase or the “I am not good enough” or the “I am so cui in my walk with God” phases. And a strange thing happens. Based on all these “reasons”, suddenly this person (me included) drops all his responsibilities with a seemingly noble “I’m so cui, how can I disciple them/lead this lifegroup”.

I thought about it and I was asking myself why. Why do we think this way?? It seems right….. But something seems wrong.

Then it hit me like killer litter.
The reason why we think this way is because we’re overly concerned with ourselves in our ministry. Every time we say “I’m not good enough” or “I’m cui” takes away the fact that God’s always good enough, and that He is never ever, not in a million years or the years after that, cui. We have to stop being pre-occupied with ourselves and occupy ourselves with Him!

This is not a “license to cui” don’t get me wrong. But a reminder that ministry is never about us and what we can or cannot do, how bros we are with the Holy Trinity, but rather it is about God and the people He loves. Even Hitler in all his evil couldn’t stop His will from being done. When we put on our noble masks and say stuff like “I’m so cui how do I serve/lead/feed my members”, perhaps it’s because you’ve been the centre of your ministry all along.

P.S. Sorry if this is abit messy. No time to organise my thought lol.

Growing Up

For the longest of times I’d always thought that growing up entailed these few things: making decisions on your own, being accountable to yourself and yourself only, being brave enough to go into things you only dreamed of before, freedom to decide what is best for me, being able to make my mind up etcetc.

After all, this was what we used to dream of when we were kids, no? A life without interfering parents, without people to tell you what to do. We all started out asking for advice on the decisions we make, and soon started making decisions on our own thinking it’s the “grown up” thing to do. After all, we’ve all matured haven’t we?

I couldn’t have been more wrong about it. The more I grow up the more I cannot afford to make decisions on my own. The more I grow up I need the advice of wise counsel. I’ve come to realise that the freedom I had when I was a child was not because I had everything planned out for me (I chose my own school etc), but because I went into things knowing that I had sought wise counsel in them.

The wisest man in the world, Solomon, even had advisors. Moses appointed men to make decisions with him and assist him when he was governing the Israelites. What more us? What more a bunch of people who are hardly the world’s brightest nor wisest? The bible couldn’t have been clearer when it said that a man’s heart, above all, is deceitful. Wise counsel causes us to examine our objectives, our purpose, and our methods.

We cannot do without wise counsel. We couldn’t do it before when we were kids and the stakes were low. Even more so we cannot do it when we have our destiny at hand.

“As iron sharpens iron,
so one person sharpens another.” -Prov 27:17

Ruined.

Today i got ruined. i got ruined bad.

The moment Pastor Henry said this sentence,” Holy Spirit is not a faraway Spirit, but a Person,” i got ruined. I got ruined upside down, inside out. And i love it when Holy Spirit does that.

People who’ve read my previous blog posts would know that 2 to 3 weeks back i faced a very tough period in my life and thought of giving up my ministry and even my walk with God. I was starting to pick up these 2-3 weeks. But God had other plans. All He needed was a moment.

And in that moment, I began to see.

All this while I’ve known that the Holy Spirit was a Person. But not to this extent. Never to this extent til today. I’ve realised that my struggling in my ministry and in my walk with Him was all down to the fact that i didnt have a firm and sturdy partnership with Him. it worked well and good in the past, but now is the season to move on to new things. a newer, better partnership. and what better way than to reveal it to me through RADCON11. when i realised that Holy Spirit is a Person, i realised where this partnership had to go, how to grow it. all in an instant.

But more than that, i saw a vision that completely broke my heart.

See, in this time where i was struggling i did things i am not exactly proud of. And said things that i know were wrong. And thought thoughts that could’ve and would’ve led to spiritual suicide, if there was ever such a term. But at that very instant Holy Spirit opened my eyes to where He was during that time. The times of the struggling, the times of despair and self-ruin. He was there all along and looking at me. I could see myself do, say, think the things during that period. As in, literally see. And i felt Holy Spirit’s grief. His grief for His people is more than what you and i can ever ever imagine. He is so so passionate for you, more than you think. He thinks of you more than you think of any thing.

As i am writing this tears are welling up in my eyes and i cannot hold back. He is good. He loves you and i so so furiously and passionately that despite being at our spiritual crime scenes He still chases after us. He still blesses us in the abundance of His heavenly storehouses. He still gives, He still loves. 

i am ruined. and i want to be ruined daily.

Yesterday as I was reading my Bible I came to these verses.

“As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

“Bring them here to me,” he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.”
- Matt 14:15-21

The thing that got me right here was what Jesus said. The disciples knew that it was way out of their depth to feed the villagers, and asked Jesus to send them away. Logical enough. Jesus didn’t say “hmm let me consider” nor did he agree. But he said “YOU give…”

But before they gave they brought it to Him first. And He made it abundant.

I guess everyone put in a position of leadership of responsibility has the idea of running away at some point or other because we feel that what our responsibilities are way out of their depth. And often times they are.m so we direct them elsewhere, thinking “nobly” that “I cannot feed you, someone else can”. But Jesus’ reply to this situation still stands today.

“You give them something to eat.”
“But I got no talent, no money, no nothing, I can only (insert ability)”
“Bring it to me”
*mind blown*

Just realised how foolish it was of me that I looked at my 5 loaves and 2 fish that I forgot to first bring it to Jesus. Leading 10-20 people can be done easily, but close to 40 people, that is way out of my depth. But if He could use 5 loaves and 2 fish to feed 5000 people, how much more can He use you and me to feed and clothe more than just 5000 people.

He is Good.

“God is good all the time, and all the time God is good”

Hands up in the air, I admit that I have looked down on this phrase for the longest of time. I consider myself a deep thinker and for the entire time I have been thinking that the Christian faith is about something deeper, more profound than just “God is good all the time, all the time God is good.” I searched, I read and I gained new insights.

But then I realised that the moment I was in trouble the only idea that I could hold on to was “God is good”. There was no other idea that held so much truth, so much comfort, so much encouragement, so much strength.

Then I realised again that all the “deeper truth” I had been searching for, that I had been reading about, all went to reinforcing this point: God is good all the time, all the time God is good.

In fact, this phrase should sum up the Christian life, that our lives are all about the goodness of God. Because once it’s not about that, it becomes aboutt our selfishness, our depravity.

Reader, whoever you are, don’t just read this and forget it. Let the truth sink in.

“You are good, all the time, and Your love endures forever”

Easier

Just now during service, pastor mentioned this.

“Why do people reject a God that loves them so much but accept a god that tells them that they need to do this-this-this, that-that-that before he loves them?”

I thought about it for awhile and I realised that it is so true, for most of us, sometimes we’d hanker after the world’s system of conditional love. I thought for awhile and this is the answer I got.

People reject a loving God and accept other gods because it is the easy way out. It is much easier to say “that god loves me conditionally, so I just do the doing, and I don’t have to love him back” than to say “God loves me unconditionally. The only proper response is to love him wholeheartedly”.

It is the easy way to do the doing and not love the loving. Loving God requires one to dig down to the very core of one’s identity. Doing something just because He says so requires less.

I haven’t been doing great all week. But I do know that my God is great all the time. And the only proper response to His love is to love Him back with all I am.

Fighter

I’ve never come so close to giving up. The past 1week plus has been such a struggle. I’ve had thoughts on giving up before, to just leave my ministry and just be a “normal member”, but they were never this strong.

I know the consequences, the implications should I make a decision such as this, to leave a lifegroup that I have partnered with God to build and is currently bearing fruit.. I used to think Alvin was weak (if you do read this, which you will cos I’ll ask u to, I’m sorry for ever thinking thatt way) and I judged his decisions and what he did wrong and what he did not do. I couldn’t understand the situation he was in, the struggles he faced. Now I know. And they weren’t half as easy as I expected them to be.

Now I know what it is like to want to honour God and yet think otherwise at the same time. Everytime I think of giving up, I’d ask myself if I could ever live with myself not fulfilling my destiny. I couldn’t. I really couldn’t. Seeing so many wonderful things happening around me these few days and only being able to watch them pass me by, the feeling really sucks. I cannot put aside the dreams that God placed in me, the burdens He put in my heart just like that.

It’s not to say that I didn’t receive anything from Him recently. I have. He told me that He saw this day coming, when I would consider leaving Him and get consumed by the desires of the world, but it was also He who put me to where I am today, blessed me with what I have, despite knowing that. He is good. He really is.

Sorry for the hugely incoherent post with such a lousy flow. Many thoughts all at once.
I’ve already decided that I’m not going to give up. My light and momentary troubles are nothing compared to the glory awaiting me in eternity.