WILDLY GATHERING TESTIMONY

There are times when life can be too fast paced, speeding past our beating hearts. And I had learnt some months earlier in my waiting, that the only way to live life is slow enough to take in moments. Because that's what life is - a string of moments.

I believed and bound that piece of wisdom round my neck. Until God plonked me in the middle of the advertising world where everything is an emergency and your days are not your own.

So there I was - unschooled to the rules and heart racing. Each morning would have me take a deep breathe when I walked into the office and then breathe out when I left. I was leaving work, yes, but never quite leaving the office. Somehow, I became the antelope that so desperately wants to lazily enjoy grass but panics at the slightest flutter or sound. And I was that way for a little close to a month.

Needless to say, it was hard to enjoy work. Life itself felt like a chore every waking and sleeping moment. I tried to talk about it with friends or anyone, but words... Words would fail me.

Me who had been told by God that I was not cheated into the place I was in, but that I was chosen. And I was reminded of this by brethren often and a long silence would ensue after. Chosen. All it would take was one look at my circumstance and what everyone was saying about me in light of it to fold in the palm of the world. Folded. Foetal. Small. I forgot how strong I am and would fight the pressures of work with weak bleeding fists. And I would fail. Everyday.

I was inconsolable. Knowing truth. Binding it around my neck but crippled by a raging fear storming deep inside of me because of how things looked like.

And that's always tough. When you know truth but don't seem to know how well to express it through you. That's bondage. And I was living bound for weeks.

But this wonderful spring morning, rain so fresh on the ground and clouds canopying above the sky, I heard God tell me that Eden is not a place but a person. That if one of us is missing, there's no Eden. And I nodded, saying, "That's true," as I packed my lunch and begun my long walk to the bus stop, not slowing down enough to realize what He meant.

But the walk was different. God pulled and tore at the mask on my heart. Too tired to fight, I wept. Talking. Walking. Weeping silently melting the hurt within.

He reminded me of every song He put in my heart so deep and high enough to gush out of me. That they were reservoirs for moments like this. Songs about how He will be near to guide me in my darkest hour. Songs about how He's conquered all and that I should believe. Songs about how no matter where I am or go, that there's testimony. Songs about how the only thing that matters is just to be close.

And I wept. When I let myself break in His presence (an instruction I honoured 4 days too late) I walked back into an Eden that I can carry with me. Because Eden is a person. God with us. Dwelling with and in us. Omni-accessible.

And oh how I needed Him today. You see, today was the hardest day at work but I had peace. Peace who is a Person - Christ. And I was calm. There were many mistakes, failures, demands that were unavoidably unmet but I was calm and at peace. Almost like I was still in bed wrapped around a blanket in this cold. And I loved it. I love it.

It's taken much time, but I realize (perceive, know and affirm truly) that God placing me where He has is not 'plonking' but positioning. He is firmly setting me in something too big to grasp right now but i'm ok, at rest and swaddled in Him. And I like it here. Moved in for keeps. There was always a place reserved for me. And there is one for you too. Always.

So this is me wildly gathering all the testimony I was too blind to see lying around me like low hanging fruit. Guess all I had to do was reach out.

* Thank You God for a job that is bigger than me - to grow me
* Thank You God for the best colleagues and bosses. Their hearts... It's hard not to love them
* Thank You God for family that has been standing with me while I was shortsighted and squinting at the big picture and David, who had gone before me, walking with me
* Thank You that this job has the makings of calling out authority and excellence in me
* Thank You because You never give raw deals if only we keep quiet enough to listen to Your heart
* Thank You because You know it all, and for all the right reasons

Love,
Your Daughter who's learning Your wonderful Heart

HERE COME THE BROKEN part 2

Part 1 here

If you want to learn about pursuit, there's no one better placed than God Himself to learn from. From the beginning of time, God has been steady pursuing mankind to redeem, restore and to reconcile us back to the place that He ordained and set for us. And we know by now that He never grows weary of doing that which He has promised and that He is not a man that He should lie or change His mind. So from everlasting to everlasting, His heart is for you with an ageless Love that He reveals to you in every season of your life.

To pursue in Hebrew is translated as "Radaph" which means to “to follow, to run after, to chase” or, quite literally, “to hunt you down.”

Matthew 9:37-38 AMPLIFIED VERSION

"Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few. So pray to the Lord of the harvest to force out and thrust laborers into His harvest.

Does it make sense why He (Lover of souls) is moved to force out and thrust labourers into the harvest? It's because every soul in need of redemption and an encounter with Christ counts. Each and every one.

Here's the thing though: We don't "radaph" lost souls much because we ourselves don't "radaph" hard after God much. Christians are called followers of Christ but do we really chase after and steady hunt down God because only He matters and satisfies? This is the one reason David was called a man after God's own heart. Nothing else mattered to him but God and God alone. The problem is, we're not hungry.

Hungry people don't have etiquette. They're not proper. Their hunger cannot be hidden. If the refugee camps are anything to go by, when food shows up, there's a struggle in the camp to get to it. If only His people hungered for Him like that...

What about when God shows up?

Are we conscious of His presence?

How do we respond to Him?

We forget easily. One time past, you were a wandering heart wildly chasing after the illusion of a better life before you finally ran right into the arms of God.

There is a selfishness resident in every ungodly contentment. It's the contentment that makes us stay when we are called to move. It's the contentment that makes us look away when the wail of a sick heart pierces our ears. It's the contentment that makes us watch a soul fade away.

The simple truth is that the great commission begins where you are. It's not for you to pack suitcases and leave to far away countries when people outside your doorstep are perishing. Our God is a God of charity. And charity (love) begins at home. And the message of love is the message of Christ. Of a Love that breaks boundaries, a Love that covers sin, a Love that redeems and restores stretching wider than our imaginations.

Increase your radius. Where you are right now, God needs to use you if you are willing, available and obedient. That's the genesis of the great commission (Acts 2:44-47) Because God saves the limping ones and gathers the outcasts. He draws them to Himself (Zephaniah 3:19-20) His heart is for them even when all they see are broken bones, wounds and shame. God loves people more than anything. 

But how will they know what they have not heard?

Even more, how can we preach what we are yet to fully trust and believe?

Our "radaph" is incomplete because we don't trust the reputation of the One who choreographed all life to brings us back to Himself. 

Yet His message of love is simple: He desires you above all else. You. Not things. Not doings. You. Just you. This is the simple message at which burdens that coil around a life fall. It is the message that wipes years of shame, guilt and regret from our faces. That we mean everything to Him. 

And we cannot preach what we ourselves do not know. We need a personal revelation of God's immeasurable boundless Love. We need to thirst after God until His heart is bare before us. Until our heart is like His - beating with the same passions and desires as His own. It's the only way that we will passionately minister to the lost about Christ. It's the only way that we will see the broken as He does: People aching for perfect Love that never fails. And we will know where to lead them - right to His Heart.

HERE COME THE BROKEN part 1

Most nights, you can be sure to find me gathering manna. Wildly surfing for strong words to feast on is the only way I know how to spend the early hours of my day. And that's how I stumbled upon a video a brilliant mind I had met and known in University had shared on his Facebook profile. It was a snippet of a video documentary his boyfriend is currently working on about transexuals in Kenya. I had to click it. And I watched silently fighting back tears as my lungs groped about for air. In the video, his words.. Her words were coloured with reckless surrender of a soul seizing the day with undertones of pain tucked so deep you might miss it if you aren't keen enough.

Loneliness. It's its own kind of muck that clings so close to the soul. We all want to be accepted and understood and will do anything just to find a semblance of home in this cold cold world. And that's the ache in humanity not just gay people, lesbians and transexuals, whether we know it or not. Like them, we're all looking for home and family and acceptance but we each take different paths to find it.

An unfamiliar heaviness settled in my spirit. It became so clear to me. The wound of the world is this: to love and be loved in return. But the fallen state of humanity makes our love broken, carvenous, in need of a completeness that fills us. And when we turn to everything else but God, our love is drawn empty.

Matthew 9:37-38

"Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few. So pray to the Lord of the harvest to force out and thrust laborers into His harvest.

Those words echoed in me. "The labourers are few..." Christ, moved with compassion, ached for the souls yet to enter His kingdom. He was in need of labourers. He was in need of me.

But will I heed His call?

Will I allow Him to thrust me out into the harvest or will I kick and scream when He elevates me to a place of being entrusted with souls? 

If I step out of my life for a moment and see through His eyes, will I see them as He does? 

Sheep in desperate need for a shepherd? 

How deep is my love? 

Can I love them like a waterfall, raging and without bounds, just like He does?

Because they're coming... They're not so far away.. And my heart's already breaking for them...

They are in search of their identity, searching for completeness, searching for acceptance any which way...

The crack that is the source of their pain became wide and gaping with time. They're lost in a canyon of their hurt. 

No one ever told them they're wonderful just as they are. Not the voices that mattered at least. No one told them that they're perfect just as God made them. The world points fingers so they doubt. And they choose to be different to fit in only to stand out. A crowd of lonely people looking for love. 

God never makes mistakes. I wish they knew that. I wish they believed that. But faith and trust are words far removed from their vocabulary. I wish they knew that perfect peace is a surrender away. That healing and an end to all the anguish is a door away if they open up and let God in. Only He can fix what is broken. Only He knows where it hurts most. Only He knows how to end it. Only He can begin again with you...

Tonight, my heart is breaking... And if my heart is breaking like this I can only imagine the ache in His heart for their souls...

Lord of the Harvest, Lover of souls, prepare me. That I may lead them straight to you in their weary journey.

Part 2 here