Wednesday, December 20, 2006
The worship sessions in KK taught me quite a few songs, and now, I shall share them with you people. I can't even find the mp3 to many of these songs, but never mind, because what remained now in my head is the sound of the team worshipping to the Lord. And that was the best type of music :) We had three theme songs in this trip namely:As Bread that is Broken the song for the mission. Many hearts are hungry tonight
Many trapped in darkness
Yearn for the light
So many who are far from home
And many who are lost
Oh Lord, your wounded children need
The power of your cross
As bread that is broken, use our lives
As wine that is poured out, a willing sacrifice
Empower us Father
To share the love of Christ
As bread that is broken Lord, use our lives
Help us to begin where we are
Help us to love the people near to our hearts
Then give our faith a mission field
Wherever You may call
Lord love your world through each of us
Until we've touched them all
One Voicethe song of unity Father we ask of You this day,
Come and heal our land.
Knit our hearts together,
That Your glory might be seen in us;
Then the world will know that Jesus Christ is Lord!
Let us be one voice that glorifies Your name.
Let us be one voice declaring that You reign.
Let us be one voice in love and harmony,
And we pray O God, grant us unity.
Now is the time for
You and I to join our hearts in praise.
That the name of Jesus,
Will be lifted high above the earth,
Then the world will know that Jesus Christ is Lord
Give us Clean Hands THE theme song We bow our Hearts
We bend our knees
Oh Spirit come make us humble
We turn our eyes from evil things
And Oh Lord we cast out our idols
So give us clean hands
Give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
Give us clean hands
Give us pure hearts
Let us not lift our souls to another
And oh God let us be
A generation that seeks
Seeks your face
Oh God of Jacob
There was also a few new songs that I learnt and was meaningful.Knowing You (All I once held dear) All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres, and wars to ownA
ll I once thought gain, I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now, compared to this
(Chorus:)
Knowing you, Jesus knowing you
There is no greater thing
You're my all you're the best
You're my joy, my righteousness
And I love you ,Lord
Now my heart's desire is to know you more
To be found in you, and known as yours
To possess by faith what I could not earn
All surpassing gift of righteousness
(Bridge:)
Oh to know the power of your risen life
And to know you in your suffering
To become like you in your death my Lord
So with You to live
And never die
We are an offering We lift our voices, we lift our hands,
We lift our lives up to You,
We are an offering
Use our voices, Lord, use our hands,
Lord, use our lives,
They are Yours,
We are an offering.
All that we have, all that we are,
all that we hope to be we give to You,
We give to You.
Okay, that's for now, when I remebered now I shall add on
Innocence
4:16 PM
I missed the trip.
I missed the morning roll calls, the nice hotel beds, the looks of everyone in the morning, the morning worship sessions, the prayer room, the sound of God’s children worshipping at his feet, the devotions vy the officers, the kids at KKCS, the slum community and most importantly, the love.
I remembered vividly how everyone put down what they were doing and started praying for Russell when he was lying sick on the day of departure from KK. Wesley and Tim Lim were on the guitars, Gareth was like leading the session, and we began worshipping the Lord. I don’t remember what songs we sang that night, but it was just so on going. A couple of prayers and when there was silence, a new song began and then more prayers and then songs, people who happened to see was and had nothing urgent on hand, joined us and the group grew bigger and bigger. This went on and on for I don’t know how long. It was splendid because of the tue worship it was to the Lord, the true desire for a brother to get well. And with all the worship and love that was poured out in this prayer session, you would have thought we were at the prayer room while doing this. But no.
All these were held at the corridor.
And we were all sitting at the corridor., singing praises to the King and interceding for a friend.
All this happened too fast at that time (after the session we were all rushing to get the luggage out and board the bus) and because of that, the true meaning of that never dawned to me until now. How pretty the worship was, how spirit led it was,, how everyone’s eyes were focused on one God. Who cared if there were people living in those hotel rooms, our God reigns first. Who cared who joined, as long as you love your friend, join us in prayer. There was no need for a verbal invitation, God made sure they felt welcomed.
And God was indeed moving.
I found myself wondering, how many times do we do this sort of things. I mean, we have had prayer meetings, but how many of these prayed for healing? How many of these were not so called constraint but one limitations or another? How many made everyone felt welcome and important? And how many was so spirit led? Very few.
It was a simple prayer meeting, no crying or anything of that sort or some form emotional high. But God, even in this trip reminded me, is Him all about emotional highs? The whole trip was not a emotionally high one, but I could almost hear His voice saying, if there was no emotional high in My journey with you, will you still love Me?
Then I realized that it wasn’t about emotional highs or powerful intercessions anymore. It’s about Life. It is about God. Not the sensation during emotional highs or the tears of wretch ness, those are part of Christian life, but the main crust of our Christian life is not about that. It’s about walking with God. It’s about loving others. It’s simple, without much decorations. And many Christians who had experienced powerful intercessions during mission trips, found themselves lost or even backsliding because that emotional high became all they were searching for in their Christian life. If there was no emotional high sensation, they felt that God wasn’t with them and thus it became a devil’s tool for persuading Christians that God was silent and God is not with them. But in the trip, God reminded me that these emotional highs were like special festivals on our calendar, not the whole walk.
God is always there.
It is up to us to keep our hearts open for Him, to keep our eyes focused on Him. We love Him because He loved me first, we loved Him because we loved Him for Himself. It’s not the gift that we are seeking but the giver. God does not need to do anything; just His death on the cross was enough for us to use our lifetime to worship Him.
Oh Lord,
I love you.
Innocence
4:09 PM
Mission Trip 2006 Khon Kaen Thailand10 Dec - 19 Dec I will make this entry a quick one because I need my sleep.
This trip is a beautiful trip, really beautiful. The beauty of this trip is that it has taught me how to live. I remember Gareth said, Prepare to die in the trip. But God was never restricted by our imaginations, we thought we would die, but God taught us how to live. Usually mission trips, there is always a defining moment, but in this trip, EVERYTHING was defining. It was so overwhelming that even up till now God is just slowly revealing the meaning behind this trip to me. For now, I will just list down some lessons that I have learnt in general as the Lord leads and perhaps tomorrow when I am much more awake then I will type more.
I remember lesson 1 that God taught me was of patience. I remembered complaining that there wasn’t anything mighty about this trip. No super emo worship, super high prayer and God just said, “Be patient and I am in control”. Usually when God says be patient then we will have to wait like ages (in human terms) but it is just amazing how God’s be patient reaped results by the Christmas Concert which was like day 5. For one moment, I thought, God must be throwing into a sample life. You know, when we buy things there a samples and it has everything in small proportions, that was exactly how I felt.
It is also amazing how everything strings up so nicely. My complains about mundane prayers and worships and an absolute lack of interaction with the kids only turns out to make myself look so ignorant in front of God. If I had not pop down to KKCS for Christmas concert preparation, and if I wasn’t bored and had nothing much to do, I wouldn’t have met Som. Within 5 mins of speaking which each other, we prayed for each other and she even introduced me to her friends. Her fluency in English made her my translator and her craziness got me as crazy as her. If not for the relatively short prayer sessions that we have, I wouldn’t have spent time talking to my members – I would have been too tired to fellowship. If we had been so busy and tire ourselves out during the day with things, we wouldn’t have the mood to have a daily primer debrief which was indeed a blessing. It is just so refreshing every night to be able to talk to Daryl, Gareth, Fuiyi. Justin, Alf and Jun Wei when most of the day we are busy with stuff. It’s just amazing how everything strings up.
I also found out that really, God’s ways are higher than our ways. The reason why we just don’t seem to see the point of things is mainly because we have not known God’s heart well enough. Just as what I was said in the previous two paragraphs, we complain about how things don’t “seem right” but I guess our Father in heaven is smiling to himself and saying, “This is exactly how I wanted it to be” . God did not intend this trip to be one of hypes or so much of warfare, but He wanted this trip to be one of love. Loving one another, loving others. You know, the word “Mission trip” means a trip with an motive in mind and this time the motive is love and getting to know Him more deeply. And when we finally realize that that was God’s heart in this whole matter, everything falls into place. Now, nothing seems mundane and pointless. Everything had meaning suddenly.
To sum up my first part for today, I apologize that it’s a bit unorganized is that I have learnt to be patient because God had a plan for me. A good plan for me. He has everything crafted so we should stop trying to let our little selves rationalize what’s going on or what’s good or bad, but instead, know that everything will turn out perfectly in the end. He knows what He is doing, we don’t.
That’s all for now and I assure there is more. I just keep getting more and more insights, it is as though I have experienced 10 over events, leant 10 over lessons about God and myself, and I need to slowly sort them out.
Innocence
1:18 AM
Monday, December 04, 2006
Alright, we all know there is something called the cross. Jesus Christ died for our sins and He who had no sin became sin for us. And we know He did that in love. We know that He could have said no to the task, but yet He suffered for us.
That sounds common, no? But what does it really mean? I find myself praying that God, thank You for the sacrifice on the cross. But I don’t feel anything. So what does Jesus’s death on the cross means? What does He who has no sin became sin mean? How painful is that process? I shall try to (with God’s help) break all these down into simple terms that appeals to us and makes us understand what exactly is the fuss about the cross.
What we say:God’s sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ is the ultimate anthem of love
What it really means God really loves us. Imagine you are Jesus, you have the power of heaven and earth on your hands, the angels are under your command. If this is a bit hard to imagine, maybe you can imagine that you are the King of some country. Now, let’s say you are the King of England. You are captured by captors, what do you do? The normal reaction would be to show something that says you are King. I remember watching Chinese serial shows that portray Princes with this gold plate thing and when the guards come and try to create havoc or maybe he will summon his own guards to fight them in order to protect himself.
My point here is that, by all human wisdom that I can garner, a normal person would have to tried to defend himself in front of all these.
But did Jesus? Let’s see.
He was betrayed by a kiss from Judas. Did He get angry and blow up? (think Chinese serials, YOU BETRAYED ME! THE THINGS I HAVE DONE FOR YOU! HOW COULD YOU?) While being captured did He say ‘Oh no! Angels help me!” He could have. The reality is, He had the authority. But He did not. At Pliate, He could have said,, “Look here, I am the King of the Jews, I am God’s Son, if you don’t let me go, You will be cursed for eternity” Could he have said that? Well, He had the option. Or maybe when He was being whipped or nailed onto the cross, “AHHHH ANGELS! I NEED PAINKILLLERS!!!!!!” or “ANGELS!! LET ME DOWN!!”
And I am quite sure the angels would have gladly done so.
My point here is that, we keep forgetting that Jesus had a choice. We kind of treated Him pretty much 2-Dimensional. We felt sad that He had to go through all these, but perhaps, on a subconscious mind, we did not realize how he feels. Senstive girls like many of my girlfriends shruddered at the thought of the nails piercing through our hands. We say, it must have been very painful, Jesus mist have felt the pain.
And it kind of stopped there.
What went through Jesus mind? Was he tempted to stop all these? I guess He was very tempted. I guess in His mind He must be wondering, “Must I do this? Is it really necessary? Is there is a better way?” And the angels beside Him must have been like “Hey Lord, command us to bring you down! You are so much in pain!” And upon hearing that, I guess our Lord must be tempted to say, “ Yes, bring me down”
In fact in any stage of the whole process, He could have requested a stop. And He would have been granted the wish. I mean change the name Jesus into let’s say, your good friend’s name or your name. Don’t you actually find Jesus.. Stupid? Is like saying, my mum is giving me 1 billion dollars and I say I don’t want. Or maybe should I challenge you and say, go out, stand in the road and wait for the car to bang onto you? You will say I am crazy!
But Jesus was that crazy.
Crazy enough to in our daily terms, stand in the middle of the road and let the car bump onto Him and die a painful death.
Because He loved us.
Cannot fathom the love? Let’s have an example. I remember watching some TV serials and basically this pregnant woman has cancer or something and the doctor suggested for her to abort the child so that they can go through radiotherapy with her and she can actually muster a full recovery. And guess what, the woman says no. Well, even her husband tells her never mind about the child, afterall if she recovers, she can have more children. But she still says no. She rather die for her child to live.
That was how Jesus felt.
Was that love? Yes, The ultimate one. To quote Jesus on in our modern day terms, it would be like saying, “I don’t mind dying because I loved you too much. I love you too much to see you die, so I will die on your behalf.”
This is true romance.
And that’s my interpretation for today. Jesus had an option not to die. Or at least, not die in such a horrible way. But He did. He knows if He did not endure all these (which He did not deserve) we would not get our salvation. He knows that He cannot be selfish because a whole would go to hell if He did not. And I can imagine that every slash that He took he must have been thinking,
“For the sinners”
For the weight of the cross that he had to carry all the way to Calvary, he would have said,
“For the people”
And for the pain that He endured as He took every single breath on the cross he would have looked around and thought,
“For you”
“For you”
“And for you”
He chose the nails.
For you.
If the whole world died and you were the only organism on earth, He would still have gone through the whole journey for you.
Just for you.
-------------------
And upon reading on that, I realized God had just showed me another of life's revelations on how to love. You know we always complain, saying things like, "GRRGHHH! She is so irritating" and things like that. But when I look at how Jesus loved, I suddenly know why our God is a God of love. Catch this, people crucified Him, for goodess sake, they crucified Him and what did He do just before He died? He say" Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing"
I look at myself, and suddenly I felt so bad. Did anyone crucify me? No. Did I suffer the same things that Christ suffered? No. And here I am, complaining up and down, complaining to God to people, saying how unfair it was. Saying how can I love these unlovables. Then I realized. Hey. I really don't deserve to feel that way. If Jesus, who got treated so badly can say 'Forgive them please" what right do I have to NOT forgive them. And when the Word of God says, "Love thy neighbours" it means just that, it means, No matter what insults they throw at you, no matter what bad things they do to you, how hopeless they can be, how hurt you arte by them, you will never retaliate. NEVER. You will never give up on them.
Because you loved them.
Innocence
9:29 PM
Friday, December 01, 2006
There is a longing
only You can fill
A raging tempest
only You can still
My soul is thirsty Lord
to know You as I'm known
Drink from the river
that flows before Your throne
Take me deeper
Deeper in love with You
Jesus hold me close in Your embrace
Take me deeper
Deeper than I've ever been before
I just want to love You more and more
How I long to be deeper in love
Sunrise to sunrise
I will seek Your face
Drawn by the Spirit
to the promise of Your grace
My heart has found in You
a hope that will abide
Here in Your presence
forever satisfied
How I long to be deeper in love
- Deeper in Love, Don Moen
Innocence
10:48 PM
I like you, I love you
I want all the world to see
Without You Jesus there's no me
I wish I had a symphony
But my simple gift is me.
Innocence
10:18 PM
