God’s Plan and Sovereignty
I had been wandering off spiritually, not praying, not reading the Word of God, just doing whatever I felt like doing. I felt guilty everytime, sometimes I just gave certain justifications and excuses to clear the guilt, and recently I forced myself to pray, read the Bible, and listen to a sermon.
I stumbled upon Rev. Stephen Tong’s sermon on youtube on Ephesians 1:5-9. I always searched for his sermons because somehow I felt most rebuked by his preaching (probably because it’s in Indonesian) and culturally closer to my experiences and situation.
He argued that most of the churches had been declining spiritually due to the fact that they focus too much on human’s experience of God, on the crystallization of the human experiences in the history that they failed to see through God’s eyes. Not only do we have to look near and far, but we have to look from top down (through God’s eyes).
Besides, what I think is really affirming is when he mentioned that there are four type of God’s Sovereignty:
1. God’s Eternal Plan
His unchanging plan which exists before the world, before the concept of time and space, before there are any creature besides God Himself. The plan that was in Him, in His eternity
2. God’s Control/Sovereignty in the history
God leads and controls whatever that happened in the history of mankind. It is more difficult for those from the Western part of the world to accept this fact since more often than not every single part of their lives are planned and organized very well. However, spiritual things go beyond man’s understandings.
One of the example he gave was about Jude, the author of the Book Jude in the Bible who originally wanted to write a book on God’s salvation works but God’s controling, God’s push and burden were so strong on him to write on the end of the world. This is because Paul at that time was already writing the Book of Romans, about God’s salvation works.
Therefore, we as Christians have to obey Him and be sensitive to His plans to be able to see God’s plan.
3. God allowing sins and unpleasant things.
This is clear where God allows human beings to not obey Him. Because at times, man is so daring to misuse his/her freedom that God gives them. God’s control and sovereignty is to give freedom to men and to allow them to act unpleasing to Him.
4. God giving the disobedient over to sins
As in Romans 1:26,28,30.
It is still under God’s power. And in God’s sight, these people who are given over to sins still have to be responsible to God, the Judge of this world. It is at this stage that people nowadays think that they are FREE, that God does not exist, but sadly, they are just in a stage, very slippery slope towards eternal death.
One very rebuking point to me, who complains a lot about God, to God when I was faced with a small bitty bit of problem and difficulty is this:
Be grateful to God who still meddle in our lives. Giving us hindrance, difficulties, pain, waking us up to the fact that we’re wrong because we, human beings, are just too dangerous to be left with freedom and without any obstacles because in our smoothness of life, we sleep spiritually, we pride ourselves, and slowly leaving God.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that if we’re sitting in a very comfortable chair, it is rare for us to not be drowsy.
A sleeping spirituality is even worse than animals.
God wakes us up by whipping us, giving us failure, to remind us that we are human beings, limited creatures who can’t do anything without Him.
Rev. Tong, then, cried out with these two sentences that had so far been stamped firm in my heart. He asked us to tell God that
“I’d rather be in Your hands, to go through difficulties, than to be in Satan’s hand and be prosperous.
I’d rather be under Your teachings, guide us, O Lord so that we can be perfect, than to be free to do whatever I want but blinded by Satan in his plan”
It is true that sometimes God gives us something so beautiful, something we can be proud of, something so secure, OUR DREAMS and suddenly take them away to tell us that we have misused those things or that we are not the OWNERS of those things. And at those times, we just cry, angry, and are disappointed at Him. Maybe we started telling Him, “Why did you do this to me, God? I hate you, I don’t trust you anymore”
It’s exactly at those times, God will say
“I don’t care about you trusting me or not, but you have to care about WHY I DESTROYED YOUR DREAMS”
“You are pained by your lost of worldly things? I am pained because I lost you”
Beneath The Cross of Jesus
Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land;
A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way,
From the burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day.O safe and happy shelter, O refuge tried and sweet,
O trysting place where Heaven’s love and Heaven’s justice meet!
As to the holy patriarch that wondrous dream was given,
So seems my Savior’s cross to me, a ladder up to heaven.There lies beneath its shadow but on the further side
The darkness of an awful grave that gapes both deep and wide
And there between us stands the cross two arms outstretched to save
A watchman set to guard the way from that eternal grave.Upon that cross of Jesus mine eye at times can see
The very dying form of One Who suffered there for me;
And from my stricken heart with tears two wonders I confess;
The wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness.I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face;
Content to let the world go by to know no gain or loss,
My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.
I love the last two stanzas.
It is quite disappointing that usually in recorded hymns, only the first and the last verse is sung. Hymns like this can’t be really sung with deep conviction without really reading the words, saying Amen to it, and sing it. Most of the times people hate hymns because it sounded boring, repeated for 4 stanzas with the same tune.
They want music that’s closer to their ear, their generation, pop music, rock music. And the words? Don’t make it too difficult, I won’t be able to ‘feel’ it right away. Write about feelings, write about how Jesus loves ME, dies for ME, blessings for ME, or… I love you, all those love song phrases. It’s not that I have anything against those phrases, it’s okay if we’re still in the start of our spiritual journey with God. However as we progress, shouldn’t we praise God with songs containing words portraying our depth of understanding? That Jesus and me, not only Jesus died for me, Jesus loves me, I am so thankful. What’s next? How about our repentance? Like about redeeming love and unworthiness in the 3rd verse?
The wonder of how a love so amazing, can redeem an unworthy soul like us. Shouldn’t understanding of that makes us not take everything for granted, and struggle in our lives to live according to what our status says “in Christ”. What the cross meant to us? What does Jesus’ love to us meant? How should we response?
I remember a few years back I was still attending a Methodist Church in Singapore and I loved the worship part, and fell asleep or zoned out during the sermon part. Imagine the excitement when I heard about a session under the stars, only singing worship songs. Not to mention that singing is really a passion of mine. So it doesn’t matter what I sing, I sing with feelings. Why? because that’s how the words and people around me forced me to be. All feelings but apparently no understandings.
‘I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face’. This has such a deep meaning. Yes, definitely more than “You are my all in all”. Why? because sunshine is such an essential part of every living things in this earth. Sunshine is like our main source of energy in this world. But why I ask no other sunshine, than the sunshine of His face? This is similar to David saying ‘Thy loving kindness is better than life’. Without God’s love, without Jesus’ light on us, our life is practically meaningless. We’re all doomed. So why live life without God’s loving kindness, or Jesus’ face shining on us?
It’s the same in the apostles’ time and even now. How Good Friday isn’t much celebrated compared to Easter or … Christmas. Christians do not want to see the suffering Jesus, they wanna see the triumphant Jesus. The apostles were expecting Messiah who would be rebuilding the physical kingdom on earth and be their physical king. It’s hard to understand why the Cross is our glory. The hymn author wrote ‘My sinful self my shame, my glory all the cross. ‘. Know where our position is. Knowing our unworthiness, knowing that nothing in this life we can be proud of because nothing we have doesn’t come from Him. To be proud, instead, of the cross. Of who we are, what our status is, knowing that it i through the Cross that we accept all those.
Thanks be to God.
Yet Again?
A stable spirituality is one which is not stable.
That’s what someone told me while I was struggling with beliefs, faiths, and sins.
It is so hard to accept the fact that no matter how stable I try to act or be, there will just be this shattering period, a period of uhh I’m so tired of everything, uhh I hate the way I am, uhh I hate this or that person.
Being someone who sometimes can’t help but be extreme, sometimes very strong, sometimes too weak for anything. It’s even more frustrating.
I’m not even sure which one I actually am. Is it the strong one, or is it the vulnerable one? Or is it really both? So this is normal? It is okay to be unstable?
I don’t know. I will remember to response correctly in front of God, but… should I just stop the but, and just move on doing what I know I should do.
The Word of God, that’s what I need, and that’s what I am avoiding everytime I feel rebelious.
Sad…
Recent Thoughts
I figured that whatever thoughts I had and whatever lessons I had learned, I really have to write it down, I do not trust my head, do not believe that it can contain that much information. Maybe some I can absorb and learn right away, maybe some I can’t. I am sure writing it down will give me more chance in the future to be reminded or to relearn.
I just read A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. It’s Lewis’ personal writings to reflect upon his reactions towards his wife’s passing away, and the response to God that he finally decided on. I found it very honest, very descriptive, too many details that honestly I had troubles understanding them. But it is amazing to learn from the way people think, how the thoughts developed, how feelings are described in words. And what I found is mostly true for me.
I dare not compare what I went through with what he did. I have been in grief too, but grieving over myself, and my own loss of “possession”. Selfish grief. Nothing really, if compared to most of the grievances went through by people around the world. But the reality is that it is there, and I can’t just brush it away knowing that it is small compared to others. I saw the need to learn to overcome it, to learn how to response correctly in God’s presence.
My experience is not losing someone to death, but more of losing someone whom I thought I would spend the rest of my life with, maybe forever. It’s childish, it’s selfish. But I guess it suits my level of spirituality. Thinking that I have gotten over everything, proud to be okay, just to find out that, there are things that I just can’t control. Things like feelings. Maybe instead of trying to make those feelings totally vanish, I thought I should learn how to response to those feelings instead.
In the beginning chapter of A Grief Observed, Lewis wrote:
“There are moments, most unexpectedly, when something inside me tries to assure me that I don’t really mind so much, not so very much, after all. Love is not the whole of a man’s life. I was happy before I ever met H. I’ve plenty of what are called ‘resources.’ People get over these things. Come, I shan’t do so badly. One is ashamed to listen to this voice but it seems for a little to be making out a good case. Then comes a sudden jab of red-hot memory and all this ‘commonsense’ vanishes like an ant in the mouth of a furnace.”
I learned from him that I should first be honest with myself. I am not that strong a person to say I don’t mind this and that, the reality is that I am troubled. But am I gonna let the troubles take over my whole life, control me into this lunatic girl who behaves whatever way she wants? Well, I’ve gone through that and I can safely say no. Now, I want to know, I want to learn what response from me that will please God.
Then it comes the time when I was very depressed and sad, I ran to God, I cried out for Him, but without any answer. I was questioning whether God is ignoring me altogether? I’ve even come to think that I may be not one of the ‘predestined’ one and He has never deserted me because I was never His in the first place. Stupid thought, I know. But whatever thought came through, I knew deep inside that He’s still there, upholding me quietly.
Lewis continued with these:
And so, perhaps, with God. I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.
On the other hand, ‘Knock and it shall be opened.’ But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac? And there’s also ‘To him that hath shall be given.’ After all, you must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can’t give. Perhaps your own passion temporarily destroys the capacity.
Someone told me before that usually it’s our own expectations of what we want to see happening blocks our view for what God is working on in our lives. Something along the line of what Lewis explained, or maybe sometimes we focused too much on our pain, on ourselves, that we are blinded and deaf to what God wants to teach us.
And lastly of course, another very important point I have so far experienced and also learnt.
“My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?”
The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are ‘offended’ by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not.”
The shattering is painful. I do not dare to ask pain from God. But if that is the path that God wants me to go through, I pray that He gives me strength with it. I want to keep believing in Him, having faith in Him. Rev. Stephen Tong once said “A man is how he responds to God”, reminding me each day that whatever I am doing, I am responding to God, and if I am to do that, I pray that I will always respond in a way that pleases Him.
Thank you Lord.
At Calvary
The common mercies we enjoy all sing of love,
just as the sea-shell, when we put it to our ears,
whispers of the deep sea whence it came;
but if we desire to hear the ocean itself,
we must not look at every-day blessings,
but at the transactions of the crucifixion.
He who would know love, let him retire to Calvary
and see the Man of sorrows die.
- CH Spurgeon
Good Friday Revival
Year by year since I decided I wanted to be a serious Christian, Good Friday and Easter came and gone so quickly. Sometimes I selfishly go to the service without inviting anyone I know, selfishly absorb whatever lessons I get from the atmosphere, from the Word of God, from the sermon. It is pretty frustrating at times for me to promise myself every year that in one year’s time, I will at least bring one person to the rally and it just fails every year. I wasn’t even at the point of getting rejected for asking, I didn’t have the guts, or didn’t care enough to actually ask those I care about to listen to the word of Life that has personally changed me.
Maybe I wanna keep all my friendships at a comfortable level, no conflict, no this and that, nothing. I am just too scared to face problems, or in another sense, I do not trust that if I seek God’s Kingdom first, all the rest will be added. Such a weak faith.
This is the first Good Friday and Easter where I would not be in Singapore. I did not even know that it’s coming so soon. and at the blink of an eye, I have agreed to sing for my church here in Sacramento for its Easter Service. It felt so easy here when I am not in Singapore, and I do not have all those responsibilities. So easy, but so wrong. Maybe God is giving me time to reflect and do not what others asked me to do, but what I am convicted to doing.
I hope I do not go past day by day thinking it’s okay to live without referring to His Words, praying and understanding God’s heart, and thinking that I own my own life. I am too old to play around. I need to grow up, I need to have the pain and the passion for others. I need more convictions. I need God’s help.
