Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Redefining Friendship Pt 1

Today I was awoken with lingering memories from a dream from last night’s slumber. 

In the dream I was chatting and laughing and adventuring with friends I had not seen for, and had parted ways with, a number of years past, and my heart broke (yet again) as I reflected upon how we would not be crossing this next year together. I was surprised at this, for since it has been practically a decade since I laid the pain of friendship lost to rest, and at least several years since having walked with Jesus through the healing process for those old wounds, should there still be such a visceral ache in my heart at this very moment? 

Troubled, I arose at an unusual 6am, and began the day’s contemplation. As I journaled and sat with Jesus, a verse came to mind: 

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity - Proverbs 17:17

Now, one might read this as, there is love within friendship, and nothing is stronger than the support of God given family in times of trouble. However, as I contemplated, another lens began to surface, which I invite any who chance upon this to consider. 

As I dwell on friendship, love and family, and my true experiences of them, I begin to read this passage in another way:

The love of Godly Kingdom friendship endures all seasons of life, and out of Christlike love and friendship is born Kingdom Kinship which bears each other up in life’s times of sustained trouble, difficulty, pain, and lament. 

The deep love of Christ always has more capacity to love. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. For one, and for many. With boundaries, but also knowing no bounds. 

Though we might not walk side by side on the same path any longer, my love does continue on. 


Q’s for Contemplation: 

How have I viewed friendship up until this point? 

How have I been hurt by past friendships? 

How have I hurt others in past friendships?

How have these experiences shaped my view of friendship? 

How can I lean on Jesus as I continue to grow friendships in the present? 

How do I lean on Jesus as I continue to bear love and perhaps mourn friendships past? 

How do I love friends and friends turned kin with the love of Christ? 

Who is my kin in Christ? 

What does it mean to be kin in Christ? 

How does this shift in perspective impact my relationships? 

Friday, January 26, 2024

Stand on them Shoulders

 I'M BACK. 

Yes. I am alive! After 7 years, I make a come back. Really a perfect number of years, if you like a little light numerical significance. 

In some ways I'm the same ol' person, and in others, a completely different one. Without shifting my tone, let me jump right back into it!

The concept of standing on shoulders came to me either in the preceding year, or the year preceding the last. Really a revelation regarding the legacy that one leaves that can be within the boundaries of almost any relationship. 

An example is the legacy of worship leading, or bible reading, or prayer, or even church building.

Its the idea that a spiritual warrior in one aspect can place building blocks in a junior's life to help them to build their discipline in the same area of spiritual focus. These building blocks are usually formed by the spiritual warrior's own journey in developing and growing in this spiritual discipline. 

The legacy is then carried forward when the junior then has the humility to stand on the shoulders (i.e. the building blocks, experience, and learned wisdom) of the predecessor, in order to further their ability to comprehend, expound upon; further their understanding and go deeper in the practice of said spiritual discipline.

Humility for both parties is important. The latter must have the humility to see the wisdom, experience, and labour poured forth by the former as valuable in aiding them in their understanding and journey and ability to see further than they would be able to if they were building from ground up. 

The former must have the humility to realize and accept that once the latter is now standing on their shoulders (building blocks), they now have the ability to take their wisdom and understanding even further than they would have been able to envision, and to heed and take to heart the compounded vision of the later party. 

What a beautiful relationship can be formed by such, as each continually pushes the other deeper and deeper into a richer and richer relationship with God and practice of their faith!

Ideally. 

... Course, we know how it usually goes. But hopefully this tidbit is helpful in suggesting that you might take the humble approach the next time you find yourself on either side of this coin!

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Testing and Discipline

Deuteronomy 8:2-5

"2 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you."

It seems God takes us through times of testing when we have to wait a long time for Him to fulfil His plans or promises to us, but ultimately these times teach us about our own hearts and humble us. They show us how much we need him and cannot go without His word. We become disciplined through being discipline, and become more reliant on God.

You can definitely tie this passage to Jesus' testing in the wilderness.

Jesus spends 40 days in the desert fasting, paralleled to the Israelites' 40 years of wandering in the desert. This time of testing reveals what is in Christ's heart-- showing His obedience in following God's will and words. Jesus is absolutely humble, relying fully on God despite being fully divinely powerful himself. Jesus only quotes God's own words as a sustaining protection and weapon in this battle with Satan.

Jesus fulfills God's words in V3, by showing that He does not live on bread, but by God's words that are life. He knows God provides, not himself. God, literally his father, disciplines His son! And Jesus comes out, revealed to be completely faithful to God and obedient- righteous.

The idea of discipline, a time of testing required for humility to develop and a person's true nature to be revealed. I think I often fail during these testing periods, but God is gracious still and He continues to discipline me. Hopefully one day I will be able to live in His word instead of giving in to my worldly fleeting desires-- to be overwhelmed with emotion and self pity.

The "bread" isn't just physical food but all that we find security in in this world. What we think is our life, what is valuable to us, what we think we can't live without. We hold on to these things as what will help us, save us, give us security in life. This defines our value in the time of testing, but these things will not hold up.

Only God's words withstand all testing. Only who we are in Him is eternal.

God will put us through the time of testing to reveal to us what we value in our lives and strip away our reliance on those things, so that we will be disciplined to rely on Him and His words to sustain us through the trials.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Reflections on Daughtering

Long Excerpt: A Sharing in Parenting
Mother
  
"Through these years as a mother, my realization is that in order for our family to grow together, we really need God in our family. We need to have the very living essence of God to be in what we say, what we do, not just on Friday nights and Sunday mornings, [because] the impact of God [isn’t just] real only on those days, but on every day, and in every moment of our lives. That’s what our children see. They see us at home, and they see us outside the home.

... No matter how I teach my children about biblical truth and living, they will not understand and live it until they see us as parents living it. I must first make sure I have what I need in my life, [in order] to nurture my children into God loving and fearing adults. My children have been going to Sunday school the moment each of them reached a month old... They’ll give you lots of good and even biblically correct answers [if] you ask them questions, but they lack the day-to-day spiritual living of the biblical truths they have learnt... they can have so much fuller a life if Peter and I can guide them to seek the Holy Spirit to be their most intimate friend and personal counselor... We, like so many, have missed the unspeakable riches, the glorious reality, and intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit (who is the third person of the Godhead)... He is to be worshiped as God, and He will lead us into worship in Spirit and in truth of the Father God, and the Son, our Bridegroom King. His desire is to personally teach each one of us the ways of God; [to] reveal the deep desires of the heart of the Father and of the Son. This is what I desire of my children to experience for themselves.

All along, I have been following the do’s and don’ts of parenting. Not that [that’s] bad, but [its] definitely not enough to guide our children to mature into adults who seek to delight God in everything he or she does– preparing them to be the bride of Jesus, our Bridegroom King. 

... It is really [about] what’s in my life that I can impart to my children that will leave an everlasting impression in their lives, such that they will not stray from God’s love, but yearn to grow closer to him every day, [relying] on the Holy Spirit for every counseling that they need for every decision that they will make in their lives from now, until adulthood. In short, [for them] to be able to develop the internal sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s prompting– an internal sensor or compass, if I may call it. When I think about that, wow, that’s not a small feat! That’s a great responsibility on my part as a parent. 

... As I mentioned earlier, all it boils down to is one thing: We cannot give our children what we do not have within us. As a parent, I must first pull my act together and seek to be a delight to God, just as I want my children to delight me. My children will not be what I teach them to be, but what they see [in my actions] and [experience through their interactions with me]. Essentially, they will model after my actions. The inconsistency between the teaching of God’s word and my living it out will cause them to be confused, [leading] them to distrust, and eventually [leading] them away from God. Therefore, I must not only teach them God’s word, but [must] teach them [to have] reliance on the Holy Spirit to guide them. The Holy Spirit will always be with us; He cannot be taken away from us. My children need to see that both [their father] and I have that same reliance on the Holy Spirit through an intimate relationship and fellowship with him!

I’m just learning to see my children as God sees them in their potential, not as they are today. God loves me for who I will be the day Christ presents me to my father. So, I need to love my children as God loves me. Now, every moment must be a teachable moment. I’m learning to be more patient with my children, just as God our heavenly Father has been patient with me all these years as his child. He has not screamed and yelled at me for being disobedient to him. He has been waiting patiently for me to turn around and just run to him in love– as such I must be with my children.

... Oh how vulnerable we had become in our mistakes before our children! [Their father] and I were properly humbled and we repented before the Lord that night, as well as before our children. You see, they see us at our best [but also see us at] our worst and [in our] most humbling situations. What learning moments [these are] for our whole family."
  
~~~

Excerpt: A Child’s Perspective: Spiritual Inheritance
Daughter
           
"It has been over ten years since the giving of the preceding sharing by my mother... As I listened, I grew not only astonished, but also grateful and full of praise to our God for the way He works in our lives. After I had finished listening to the recording I asked if I could transcribe it.

I believe in Spiritual Inheritance. I think that while you do not necessarily end up in the exact same family situation as an adult that you had growing up, your childhood and your family does have an influence on your life in the future. We like to think that we can forge new grounds for ourselves, and be our own person, separate from our pasts. However, I implore of my peers to take our own histories to heart, to understand our pasts, to review them from a spiritual perspective, before we can understand the steps we can take as we move forward. The idea of spiritual inheritance has only recently begun to descend on my heart, even if the idea has been in the making for sometime. My recent realizations regarding spiritual inheritance lead me to analyze these thoughts that were shared years ago, and as a result, I then wished to share the child’s parallel perspective.
I have always been quite family orientated, having had these values instilled in me by my parents from birth, and from birth, my parents had sung and taught and ingrained “God”, “Jesus” and “the bible” as some of the core necessities in our lives. As my mother mentioned, our lives were changed drastically when we moved. As a young child then, I naturally did not understand reasons, or foresee the challenges that our family would face in the years ahead when we first began the journey. As I look back on how my parents have changed over the years, I see God’s hand in our lives. He has really given them so much wisdom and passion for Him. I see how this built up over the years we spent there, and continues to build up as we live today. My parents have always been quite liberal with us, in explaining the reason why they do certain things, why they make certain choices, in trying to teach us to understand, and perceive. They allowed us room to ask questions, to bargain with them, to argue with them. Not that I think that all of our retorts have always been respectful or even honoring. I know that I have sinned in some of my addresses to them during arguments. Yet, I cannot deny that my parents did allow us to reason with them, to discuss with them, and so allowed us to have an active relationship with them.

When we moved, and as I moved up in elementary/primary school, my father began to share learning that he went through, and great passions that God placed on his heart. He spoke to me, expecting maturity in listening and understanding. If I had questions, or desired clarification, or more information, he did not withhold it from me. I remember talking to him for minutes, and sometimes, even hours after dinner about the latest topic God has been teaching him. I appreciate so much that he did this– stretched me to see that there was so much more than just an elementary life. There was spiritual warfare– battles and challenges beyond the tough challenges of schoolwork. There was the bride of Christ– relationships to be developed beyond the basic sinner turned convert. There were prayer walks, long nights of worship, dancing, shofars, and waving of flags. There was so much more than graduating, getting a job, getting a family, retiring, and then dying. (Edit: Not that I didn't participate in activities of a student, but I was aware that there were other pursuits above my present understanding.) 

Perhaps it was in my later years of high school; it definitely solidified through my years in university– the need to have the Holy Spirit, Christ, and the Father with us every moment of our lives, not just on Sundays and Fridays. I grew to understand that to not have Him with me always; to live a dual life was false, and even folly. My experiences with God on Sundays and Fridays were so filling; so real, and so rich that life outside it seemed flimsy. I wished that it would not be that way, and I eventually caught on to the fact that it isn’t supposed to be– that God is with me each moment, that I should seek to be aware of His presence with me. I would say my parents did have a part in guiding me to this realization, in displaying their desire to follow God’s ways always, in the household, out of the household, in all our fights, and in many of our interactions. They trained me to think of God’s response to situations I faced, and I did so unconsciously, but I would say that God ultimately gave me these epiphanies: that this is how He wants to walk with me.

I found it interesting to hear my mother (back then a younger mother) share about her worry that we “lack the day-to-day spiritual living of biblical truth”. I see so much beauty in her words, her desire to model what living God’s truth would look like; when I look at my parents today, I thank God for them– I acknowledge that in my life there are no role models I look to more than my parents. Of course, they are not perfect. We are far from perfect. We still have arguments. We still make mistakes. We still have misunderstanding. We are far from fully sympathizing with each other. And yet this allows my mother’s convictions– that while she wanted to model God’s love and wisdom, she wanted us to look to Christ as our ultimate model of love and wisdom– to stand. My parents, in my eyes, are indeed flawed, but I admire them all the more because they have shown time and time again a reliance on God instead to find the right way as they struggled with parenting. Their humility left in me no shame in being wrong, or flawed, or not knowing everything; instead pushing me to seek and rely on the God who is righteous, perfect, and all knowing.

I cannot deny that God has been with our family. I cannot deny that we have grown a lot over the years. I cannot deny that I am blessed richly to have parents who love God, rely on Him and desire to serve Him with all they have. They have given me the foundation to seek God first... I agree with each of my mother’s sentiments that she spoke of all these years ago, and yet, am amazed to hear them because these are all lessons I myself have learnt as I journeyed as a Christian over my own short life. Now, I alongside with my mother, desire to experience for myself knowing the “deep desires of the heart of the Father and of the Son” as I live.

Coming back to my initial thoughts, I want to reassert that I believe in spiritual legacy. Abraham’s involved a covenant with God, which created a bond so powerful it transcended generations, from Isaac, to Jacob, to Judah, to David, to Jesus. Another notable legacy mentioned in the bible was Lois’, who was passed on to her daughter Eunice, whose faith was later seen in her son, Timothy. It means understanding the path that your parents (or predecessors) walked, and how they grew in their walks with God. That requires analyzing the life choices they made, and the kingdoms they built through their work. These efforts and time they spent building you up becomes the foundation that you continue to build on as you then take responsibility for your own walk with God. This carries on their spiritual legacy. Of course not everyone will be given this from his or her parents. However, once we first learn of our need for God, we have the opportunity to choose awareness of our place with God, and can begin building the spiritual legacy that we will one day pass to our children as we teach them, through our own example, of God’s ways.

I guess I wanted to affirm that as a parent, you truly do have the responsibility to bring your child up in God’s ways, and this can really give your children a great foundation to their own walk. (I do want to insert that not every child will turn out the way you always hope even if you have made your best efforts. This is simply because each individual has his or her own walk, and choices to make. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to be the most God glorifying parent you can be.) I also want to affirm that even if this is something you have not done, that God still works in your child, and you have to entrust that He has been and will guide your child, as he continues to guide you. Even so, in this realization, there are still choices you can make regarding your family that honors the Lord. I lastly want to affirm that although your parents may not have begun or left you a legacy, that that is not something to mourn over either. You have still the choice to start your own legacy. So, my sisters and brothers, be aware of the spiritual matters the Lord has given you authority over. May Christ’s wisdom, patience, trust in and faithfulness to the Father, be with you as you walk and build.



Monday, October 3, 2016

The Gospel of the Kingdom

"The perfect and only God always existed. This God is one, but also three, because being so great, in love and life, He beheld His own son. This son was with Him always. The three– Father, Son and His Spirit, are absolutely joyfilled in their fellowship, and were greatly glorified.

Wishing to share this great glory, joy, love and fellowship, God created all things, from time, to space, to matter, to people. To share in the greatest joy, glory and love, people would have to find them in their source– God Himself. They would have to live in a way that honoured the source– in God's right ways. Living in God's ways says He rules in their lives and thus, establishes His kingdom. God wanted people to love Him truly and freely, not because He commanded them to, so He gave people freewill to choose: live in His right ways, or in their own ways. 

However, existing outside of time, God already saw through all history that people would choose their own selfish and temporary pleasures. Turning away from the source of life meant that people would have to loose eternal life and absolute joy; they instead would die. So God, before creating, established a masterplan with a secret key which would allow creation to not die, but live in His joy. This secret key was His own son who was with Him before all creation began. 

He gave His son, in the place of all created man, to be put to death to ensure that selfish creation that chose the path of eternal death, could be given a chance to choose eternal life instead. 

Because this son was put to death, the penalty for selfishly turning away from the source of life was paid. And because this son always lived in God's ways, he was completely innocent of all selfishness, and so when he was put to death, death itself lost to him, and the son was brought back to life! 

Any Man or Woman, if:
• Repentant
• Believing that the son did indeed die for them and rose again to life
• Having changed, lived in God's ways

... were given eternal joy, life and glory! Just as the son died, and was brought back to life, mankind (though deserving death), could come back to choose life as well! 

At the end of all Time and History, God's rule will be established– God's glorious kingdom come at last. God in fellowship with His people will live forever, glorifying God, and sharing in the greatest joy, fullness and purpose of life that could ever be conceived of."

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Battling Inadequacy

For you I have not enough time
For you I have not done a good enough job
For you I am not fast enough
For you I am not competent
For you I am too distracted
For you I do not show enough love 
For you I am not present
For You I do not give my all
For you I do not give enough 
For you I am not enough like the world
For you I have not experienced enough
For you I am not good enough. 

For try as I might, I am human. 

What say You? 

For in You is all time
For You have done all that is to be done
For You see the work of my hands, and all that is in my heart
For You would spend an eternity walking with me however long it takes 
For You are fully adequate 
For You are all focus
For You have accepted my love 
For You are always present 
For You have given me Christ
For You I want to give my life
For You I am not of this world
For You I will experience and grow 
For You make me good, as You are good, 

because You are God. 

I will keep living and working so that of me You will be proud, with me you will be pleased, and by me You will be glorified.