There Must Be More Than This
I have thought for quite some time on how to write this out. I guess what I am about to say is something that is very personal and I hope that I won't bore you guys to death.
Though I did'nt exactly grew up in a Christian home, my mom had always sent me to Sunday school and taught me how to pray since I was a kid. Even though my dad isn't a Christian, I have never been up to the point of being persecuted per say but at times it can be challenging. I have lived such a normal Christian life which makes you think that everything is ok~ People fall, people sin and without me knowing, I have lived a life thinking that God needs me rather than I need God. It is a very subtle sinful attitude towards God.
I grew up thinking that being a Christian is all about feeling GOD! I am in a good place with God when I 'feel' God and when I am 'hyped up' with Him. How foolish I was indeed.
I have thought about writing this for some time and interestingly a church member of mine shared his testimonial in church yesterday which I can relate to at some part. Talk about coincidence~
I had my ups and down in my spiritual walk and at some point it was all just plain darkness for a really long time because I could not face God who is all holy and I was just far from ok.
So I have lived my life where at times I am feeling God is near and at times I don't. Writing this statement and having said that so many times in the past made me feel so stupid because it really brings the question, is there nothing more than this when it comes to our relationship with God our Heavenly Father? I have taken God so much for granted that I actually thought that being a Christian, calling God as God means He must always make me feel Him in order for me to be convinced of my faith.
Don't you think that if this is a relationship between people, I am the kind of girl that the guy's friends would have ask him to dump? lol. Where I demand him to make me feel happy, to assure me that he is there for me like when I say "I want to see you means you must be there for me" and when he is not around me, I can just cheat on him per say because I no longer feel him close to me. If this is not the right way to treat another person, why is it alright for us to treat God this way?
My spiritual life revolves a lot on what people say to me and feelings~
Let's just say that the bible isn't my fav book and I treated it as some inspirational quote book where I like to pick few verses that makes me feel 'good' and if it does'nt speak to me aka 'ME ME ME ME~! being a Christian means, I will only read the bible when the main character is about ME kind of attitude' then I will not appreciate His word at all. I read the bible but I don't study the bible at all but back then I thought I did one lah cause I was just so blind and foolish.
However, God is sovereign and His plan is beyond my imagination. Even before I was born, Jeremiah 1:5 He had all planned out for me and to just think back about how my life was and because of my own selfishness, I have sinned and He could still turned it around for His glory. How powerful is my God?
I have always known God's undying love for me but by His grace, He showed me far more than that by bringing me to a group of people that was soooooo beyond my understanding and it was really hard for me in the beginning to fit in because I was literally like a fish out of the water. The irony was this is actually a church that I am talking about!
My KL church, CERC was a place where no one understood why I would be attending it because of my initial denomination but it was this feeling that I could'nt explain to people why I stayed even though it was so hard for me in the beginning and actually still am. It was as though God is saying to me that this is where He wants to grow me and now that I have understand Him on the kindergarten level, it is time for me to take it up a notch. Well, once again being all so self righteous, I actually thought I was already in some high school level one lah~
I really respect a pastor of mine whom I knew from Ipoh named Pastor Jeya. He created a foundation for me before I went to KL by showing me the seriousness of Christianity but the way I understand this concept was no different than saying you understand biology is about human body or organism and that's it. I get that I am wrong in taking God so lightly but I did not know what else to do. I noticed I am lacked of something but what?! He is an amazing servant of God and even for my Dad who can be quite obnoxious said that he respects the way Pastor Jeya preach and the things he say.
Coming back to why I was such a fish out of the water in the beginning till the point I just want to give up and stop going to CERC was because almost every sermon, it was so difficult for me to understand and I am not even being exaggerating when I say that it was as though I am a person who has never read a single page of the bible in my life and never been to church before. I could not grasp or understand the whole history that Pastor will be talking about and flipping between old and new testament for us to see the context as a whole. At one point I really felt like I want to stop going if this continue because I was so defeated.....
It was like this heavy shattering of my ego because I thought that I am a Christian who knows what the bible is about and etc but here I am so lost weeks after weeks because I was simply not good enough to understand it. It was like what on earth have I been doing in the past 8-9 years of my life?! Pastor Robin did say that when he preach, he expects a certain level of understanding of the bible and I thought I was in the safe zone >.> Truth was, my knowledge of the gospel was no different than a non Christian. Taking law as an example, a lawyer/law student is someone who is suppose to know how to interpret the statute and understand them in a different level than a lay man reading the statute but I was the lay man.
Nevertheless, I started going to growth group aka cell group because Jou said that it will help me understand the sermon better and I also joined my HELP bible study group. There must be a reason why I can't understand, there must be something wrong with me and there was just something that I really want to discover though I was not sure what to expect. I won't say I am there every week because my schedule can be quite busy and most of the time I was just being back home in Ipoh.
In my walk and journey with my church members, they have opened up my eyes so much and my bible study session has mind blown me beyond words. The same passage but now more in depth with the understanding. The history of the bible (many people actually think that the whole bible is like some fairy tale story that has no historical background) and just sooo much more.
Till this very day I can still be quite lost and felt like I am thrown into the midst of theology scholars but it no longer makes me feel defeated but rather it challenges me. I was revealed with so much that my puny lil human brain was quite incapable to absorb and apprehend but by God's grace, He gave me my brothers and sisters in Christ who were such faithful servants and love me so abundantly that God blessed them with patience when dealing with me. They took their personal time out to minister to me, to help me with the lessons that I have missed out and the love and kindness that they showed me was the kind of love that is only possible because God has first love them.
When I was much younger, It was the same kind of love that changed me to become a believer. The kind of love and kindness that was shown to me by Tien Tien and aunty Jane, the way they have ministered to me was the beginning of me turning to Christ and I can never be more thankful for them.
CERC has taught me so much especially the way I was taught to focus on the bible and not what people say. Whenever I have a question, I will be asked back "what did the bible say about this?" and obviously I will say I don't know because it has been such a common habit for me to just absorb what people preach to me without reading the bible myself. The way that the bible is always there whenever they want to speak to me on certain things change a lot on the way I view the bible. When I start to pick up on all the small details, why the author use such words instead of another, why such metaphor? the things he said was actually from the old testament and etc has definitely made me appreciate the word of God so much more because this chunk was missing from my whole entire life. The yearning of this missing puzzle piece.
I have lived a one way relationship and how dare I ever claim that I love God all these years without even wanting to learn and read about Him. How foolish I was to have misunderstood so much from the bible simply because I like to pick out only those 'nice verses'. My passion for God was no longer because of some feeling, some beautiful verse in the bible that speaks to ME, the worship session was so 'intense' but because of the truth that I am reading. The logic behind all things and how very wise is GOD! The way He thinks and act are so great that it was like trying to understand a mind of a person who is beyond genius. The bible showed me how real and impossible to deny the existence of this Creator and more. The bible speaks so much on who we are and who God is and what we must do. I learn to understand that even the greetings from the letters bears so much significance that helps us to understand why the author will say such things to the people.
I have been challenged a lot on my understanding of the Scripture or even do I really know what I am saying when I claim that I am Christian. It was through studying and not reading the bible that nailed my faith to solid ground. When I look and observed my brothers and sisters in Christ, I see so much inadequacy in me. They are writing essays and submitting them like some assignment that carries 100% marks in exam and I am ashamed to say that there is no way I can write an essay at all or even half a page. Even Jerome understands my incapability and said he gives me the option. I guess you can say my goal is really to write a theology essay one day and hopefully I don't fail my paper T.T God was so real that I can no longer compromise the gospel even if it gets sooo hard when evangelizing or ministering to people but it only challenges me even more.
I thank you all so much for grooming me, for rebuking me and sacrificed your time for me. I am not mentioning name specifically though I am obviously closer to some but it was the church as a whole that I am thankful for.
Even after I have left KL, they still text me to check up on me! I remember sharing about how I am quite weak when dealing with stress and I dealt with depression before and instantly Steffie look at me full of sincerity and asked how can they help me if I ever face problem like this again. That was something that really startled me because of the way they really uphold the word love. They don't just listen, pray for me and walkaway but they really want to be a part of my life and sincerely care about me. Once again I feel like what have I ever done to be deserving of this kind of attention and love? Obviously this is just one of the many occasion where these people just make me wanna cry because of how they embraced me with so much love and sincerity.
I have truly developed a friendship with them and there are so many people in CERC whom I am really sad that I could not get to know better. I am absolutely not a fan of KL at all but part of me really wishes that I could stay and not only to continue to learn with and from them but I really want to know them better too. I have shared the really ugly side of me to them and not even once have they ever look at me and judge me but I am so thankful that they will rebuke me and not just say nice things to me. I appreciate it so much on how they will give me tough love and tell me I am wrong because to me, that is what I do too when it comes to those I call friends and love. I will not choose to be a nice person over seeing someone I claim to care and love fall.
I have grown to love studying theology so much and seriously, I love spending hours on discussion with them cause it has been so insightful for me!
I am so thankful to learn how much of a sinner I am till this very day and I admit that I still have my ups and down. I am very ashamed to say that it is still very hard to give up on the flesh desire and live by the spirit. I am a wretch and far from good. Therefore, I thank you Him for His amazing grace where it makes no sense to me to why He wants to love me, save me and protect me but yet He does....
Thousand times I fail and yet your mercy remains.
Though I did'nt exactly grew up in a Christian home, my mom had always sent me to Sunday school and taught me how to pray since I was a kid. Even though my dad isn't a Christian, I have never been up to the point of being persecuted per say but at times it can be challenging. I have lived such a normal Christian life which makes you think that everything is ok~ People fall, people sin and without me knowing, I have lived a life thinking that God needs me rather than I need God. It is a very subtle sinful attitude towards God.
I grew up thinking that being a Christian is all about feeling GOD! I am in a good place with God when I 'feel' God and when I am 'hyped up' with Him. How foolish I was indeed.
I have thought about writing this for some time and interestingly a church member of mine shared his testimonial in church yesterday which I can relate to at some part. Talk about coincidence~
I had my ups and down in my spiritual walk and at some point it was all just plain darkness for a really long time because I could not face God who is all holy and I was just far from ok.
So I have lived my life where at times I am feeling God is near and at times I don't. Writing this statement and having said that so many times in the past made me feel so stupid because it really brings the question, is there nothing more than this when it comes to our relationship with God our Heavenly Father? I have taken God so much for granted that I actually thought that being a Christian, calling God as God means He must always make me feel Him in order for me to be convinced of my faith.
Don't you think that if this is a relationship between people, I am the kind of girl that the guy's friends would have ask him to dump? lol. Where I demand him to make me feel happy, to assure me that he is there for me like when I say "I want to see you means you must be there for me" and when he is not around me, I can just cheat on him per say because I no longer feel him close to me. If this is not the right way to treat another person, why is it alright for us to treat God this way?
My spiritual life revolves a lot on what people say to me and feelings~
Let's just say that the bible isn't my fav book and I treated it as some inspirational quote book where I like to pick few verses that makes me feel 'good' and if it does'nt speak to me aka 'ME ME ME ME~! being a Christian means, I will only read the bible when the main character is about ME kind of attitude' then I will not appreciate His word at all. I read the bible but I don't study the bible at all but back then I thought I did one lah cause I was just so blind and foolish.
However, God is sovereign and His plan is beyond my imagination. Even before I was born, Jeremiah 1:5 He had all planned out for me and to just think back about how my life was and because of my own selfishness, I have sinned and He could still turned it around for His glory. How powerful is my God?
I have always known God's undying love for me but by His grace, He showed me far more than that by bringing me to a group of people that was soooooo beyond my understanding and it was really hard for me in the beginning to fit in because I was literally like a fish out of the water. The irony was this is actually a church that I am talking about!
My KL church, CERC was a place where no one understood why I would be attending it because of my initial denomination but it was this feeling that I could'nt explain to people why I stayed even though it was so hard for me in the beginning and actually still am. It was as though God is saying to me that this is where He wants to grow me and now that I have understand Him on the kindergarten level, it is time for me to take it up a notch. Well, once again being all so self righteous, I actually thought I was already in some high school level one lah~
I really respect a pastor of mine whom I knew from Ipoh named Pastor Jeya. He created a foundation for me before I went to KL by showing me the seriousness of Christianity but the way I understand this concept was no different than saying you understand biology is about human body or organism and that's it. I get that I am wrong in taking God so lightly but I did not know what else to do. I noticed I am lacked of something but what?! He is an amazing servant of God and even for my Dad who can be quite obnoxious said that he respects the way Pastor Jeya preach and the things he say.
Coming back to why I was such a fish out of the water in the beginning till the point I just want to give up and stop going to CERC was because almost every sermon, it was so difficult for me to understand and I am not even being exaggerating when I say that it was as though I am a person who has never read a single page of the bible in my life and never been to church before. I could not grasp or understand the whole history that Pastor will be talking about and flipping between old and new testament for us to see the context as a whole. At one point I really felt like I want to stop going if this continue because I was so defeated.....
# A pic I captured during CERC Geddit session.
my attempt to capture something artistic jadi or not? lol
It was like this heavy shattering of my ego because I thought that I am a Christian who knows what the bible is about and etc but here I am so lost weeks after weeks because I was simply not good enough to understand it. It was like what on earth have I been doing in the past 8-9 years of my life?! Pastor Robin did say that when he preach, he expects a certain level of understanding of the bible and I thought I was in the safe zone >.> Truth was, my knowledge of the gospel was no different than a non Christian. Taking law as an example, a lawyer/law student is someone who is suppose to know how to interpret the statute and understand them in a different level than a lay man reading the statute but I was the lay man.
Nevertheless, I started going to growth group aka cell group because Jou said that it will help me understand the sermon better and I also joined my HELP bible study group. There must be a reason why I can't understand, there must be something wrong with me and there was just something that I really want to discover though I was not sure what to expect. I won't say I am there every week because my schedule can be quite busy and most of the time I was just being back home in Ipoh.
In my walk and journey with my church members, they have opened up my eyes so much and my bible study session has mind blown me beyond words. The same passage but now more in depth with the understanding. The history of the bible (many people actually think that the whole bible is like some fairy tale story that has no historical background) and just sooo much more.
# Glorious meal that I get to enjoy for 6 weeks during Geddit sessions.
Geddit was an evangelistic event by CERC to invite new comers to understand better
and easier
because like I shared, it is quite hard to just jump in and join them half way.
Till this very day I can still be quite lost and felt like I am thrown into the midst of theology scholars but it no longer makes me feel defeated but rather it challenges me. I was revealed with so much that my puny lil human brain was quite incapable to absorb and apprehend but by God's grace, He gave me my brothers and sisters in Christ who were such faithful servants and love me so abundantly that God blessed them with patience when dealing with me. They took their personal time out to minister to me, to help me with the lessons that I have missed out and the love and kindness that they showed me was the kind of love that is only possible because God has first love them.
When I was much younger, It was the same kind of love that changed me to become a believer. The kind of love and kindness that was shown to me by Tien Tien and aunty Jane, the way they have ministered to me was the beginning of me turning to Christ and I can never be more thankful for them.
CERC has taught me so much especially the way I was taught to focus on the bible and not what people say. Whenever I have a question, I will be asked back "what did the bible say about this?" and obviously I will say I don't know because it has been such a common habit for me to just absorb what people preach to me without reading the bible myself. The way that the bible is always there whenever they want to speak to me on certain things change a lot on the way I view the bible. When I start to pick up on all the small details, why the author use such words instead of another, why such metaphor? the things he said was actually from the old testament and etc has definitely made me appreciate the word of God so much more because this chunk was missing from my whole entire life. The yearning of this missing puzzle piece.
# Meet Bryan. The boy who no longer believe me when I tell him
that I will not be seeing him anymore. lol. Wait till he miss me after I am gone for a year!
I have lived a one way relationship and how dare I ever claim that I love God all these years without even wanting to learn and read about Him. How foolish I was to have misunderstood so much from the bible simply because I like to pick out only those 'nice verses'. My passion for God was no longer because of some feeling, some beautiful verse in the bible that speaks to ME, the worship session was so 'intense' but because of the truth that I am reading. The logic behind all things and how very wise is GOD! The way He thinks and act are so great that it was like trying to understand a mind of a person who is beyond genius. The bible showed me how real and impossible to deny the existence of this Creator and more. The bible speaks so much on who we are and who God is and what we must do. I learn to understand that even the greetings from the letters bears so much significance that helps us to understand why the author will say such things to the people.
I have been challenged a lot on my understanding of the Scripture or even do I really know what I am saying when I claim that I am Christian. It was through studying and not reading the bible that nailed my faith to solid ground. When I look and observed my brothers and sisters in Christ, I see so much inadequacy in me. They are writing essays and submitting them like some assignment that carries 100% marks in exam and I am ashamed to say that there is no way I can write an essay at all or even half a page. Even Jerome understands my incapability and said he gives me the option. I guess you can say my goal is really to write a theology essay one day and hopefully I don't fail my paper T.T God was so real that I can no longer compromise the gospel even if it gets sooo hard when evangelizing or ministering to people but it only challenges me even more.
I thank you all so much for grooming me, for rebuking me and sacrificed your time for me. I am not mentioning name specifically though I am obviously closer to some but it was the church as a whole that I am thankful for.
# Steffie, me, Jay Lyn
My HELP amigos whom I was privilege enough to know and love.
Even after I have left KL, they still text me to check up on me! I remember sharing about how I am quite weak when dealing with stress and I dealt with depression before and instantly Steffie look at me full of sincerity and asked how can they help me if I ever face problem like this again. That was something that really startled me because of the way they really uphold the word love. They don't just listen, pray for me and walkaway but they really want to be a part of my life and sincerely care about me. Once again I feel like what have I ever done to be deserving of this kind of attention and love? Obviously this is just one of the many occasion where these people just make me wanna cry because of how they embraced me with so much love and sincerity.
I have truly developed a friendship with them and there are so many people in CERC whom I am really sad that I could not get to know better. I am absolutely not a fan of KL at all but part of me really wishes that I could stay and not only to continue to learn with and from them but I really want to know them better too. I have shared the really ugly side of me to them and not even once have they ever look at me and judge me but I am so thankful that they will rebuke me and not just say nice things to me. I appreciate it so much on how they will give me tough love and tell me I am wrong because to me, that is what I do too when it comes to those I call friends and love. I will not choose to be a nice person over seeing someone I claim to care and love fall.
# Meet Munn Kent, the boy who is probably twice my height!
Thank you for always fetching me and talk to me when I rant ><
I have grown to love studying theology so much and seriously, I love spending hours on discussion with them cause it has been so insightful for me!
I am so thankful to learn how much of a sinner I am till this very day and I admit that I still have my ups and down. I am very ashamed to say that it is still very hard to give up on the flesh desire and live by the spirit. I am a wretch and far from good. Therefore, I thank you Him for His amazing grace where it makes no sense to me to why He wants to love me, save me and protect me but yet He does....
Thousand times I fail and yet your mercy remains.
The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness. Jeremiah 31:3
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