Messed Up~!

Goodness... can't believe that i didn't blog for an entire week! And wow.. there are just sooooo many things that i wanna talk about.. hmmm.. ok.. if anyone asks me what God is doing in my life, it's that He's messing me up.. He's messing me up real good just to take every single ounce of religion out of me, every ounce of control, trying to do things my own way and He just wants me to trust Him and rest in Him.. sounds easier said than done... He wants me to get rid of all striving and perfectionism cos guess wad.. perfectionism's not gonna inherit the kingdom of God...

And when i was on the bus just meditating on what God is doing in my life, i heard the Holy Spirit say "It's gonna get worse".. hahaha den i told Him "yes, Lord. It has to get worse before it gets better..." Really.. the Bible says how unsearchable are His ways and His paths beyond tracing out.. yet we still attempt to try to aggregate them down to systematic formulas... what he's been showing me is also that even in times when i don't desire Him, He's still in control of my life and what happens to me and sends people and incidents along the way to bring me back... that's how much He pays attention to each and every detail of our lives... He wants me to know i can trust Him even when i'm not in control...

It's part of the big picture of how when we were at Gatekeepers last fri, while Alvin was praying about the removal of mindsets at the roots, i saw a whirlwind... and then i realised that that's the fastest way to uproot a tree.. when the whirlwind comes in and roots it out... and yeah, we get tossed around and pretty messed up when that happens but it's for us to learn how to trust God and know that He's in control even if we're not...

Just to drive this point across, even before Gatekeepers, i just wanted to spend some time with Him in His presence.. and so i turned on the com, played some worship music and said "God i just want to spend some time with You..." and His reply surprised me.. He said, "Wanna play facebook?" haha.. so guess wad.. i got up and went online to play just before Gatekeepers.. :P hmmm... to the religious mind, it sounds absolutely ridiculous to play facebook just before a prayer meeting.. after all, we should start preparing our hearts rite? But God's not like that.. and many times, we make the Christian life and the Christian walk so complicated...

And then there would also be times when He would show me how inadequate i am and how i need Him so much.. it's like when i was first given the job to take the new batch of 2nd liners.. the Eagles.. i was like "come on let's do this".. i was kinda filled with a blunt form of enthusiasm that was proud enough to think "yeah, i can do this" and that kind of mentality would somewhat entail that i would do things in my own strength.. but then during the first time i met them last Saturday it was as if i was feeling so unlike my usually confident self and feeling that i was just too inadequate for the job.. and it's God's way of telling me not to run off on my own but that i really really need Him on this! After all, how do you bring people to go beyond you?? It's like Solomon telling God "Who is able to govern this great people of Yours?" Yes, in myself, i am not enough but God will bring me beyond myself.. His strength is made perfect in my weakness...

God was teaching me another thing last Saturday.. you see, i have developed this religious mechanism of trying to correct myself in certain situations.. specifically, when i'm singing, worship leading or when i'm playing keys or whatever, i would sometimes think to myself "hey that sounded pretty good".. and then i would then tell myself "no chris, you're not supposed to think that way.. don't let pride come in.. don't worship the worship" blah blah blah... But God was showing me what He thinks about that.. the truth is that that whole self-correction crap is all religious nonsense.. cos ultimately, He also wants me to enjoy the gifts He has given me. so even when i sing and i think it sounds good or when i play keys and i think it sounds good, it's not pride but the basic capacity that He has given me to appreciate beautiful things like music... and because of that, i'll be able to appreciate Him more cos He created me and He delights in the fact that i am able to appreciate the gifts He's given.. He wants me to enjoy the worship music too as much as He enjoys it.. :)

How else does God mess me up?? One of the first lessons of spiritual warfare He taught me was that you gotta be at the right place at the right time.. otherwise, the enemy might just score an opportunity against you.. and that's what he did with King David who was at the wrong place at the wrong time.. He stayed in the palace while everyone was fighting on the battlefront and cos of that he committed adultery with Bathsheba.. And so how does God mess me up?? He brings me at the wrong place at the right time.. so that i'll learn to trust in Him and that He's able to keep me regardless of my own human tendencies to fail Him..

So at the bottomline, He's teaching me how to trust Him... One of the things that God kept saying during our last Gatekeepers session was "Don't you trust Me?".. it's about whether we trust Him in school, in our studies, with our lives.. and He wants to do a major overhaul of the way we think and see things so that we'll be able to see from His perspective.. that's the renewing of our minds. He's been showing me how i can't get righteousness on my own, by myself.. i have to trust in Him, in who He is.. and for so long, i've suscribed to the lie that unless i tell God what to do with my life in prayer, then He won't do it.. and so i've tried religiously in the past to direct God's hand to things in my life and instead of committing them to him in prayer, i would end up nagging Him to do it in prayer... Yeah.. He told me that i was nagging Him... but that's all rubbish.. cos even before we could tell Him anything He knows it completely and He's already at work even before we begin to direct Him to the work we want Him to do. He was telling me "You do your job and I'll do Mine" all we have to do is to trust in Him ...There's always the tendency in us to want control and to get impatient, wanting things done our way.. but His way is higher..

Let me belabour this point... you see, for so long, i've held a warped understanding of confession.. we're supposed to confess our sins rite? and so i've tried to fast forward the process by trying to scrutinize my own life and confessing as much as i can to try to get myself to conform to what i think means spritual perfection.. being such a perfectionist and all... but God gives us time you see.. He takes time to work in us and to change us and He requires different things from us at different points in our lives... He's not so much after perfection as He is after relationship! So the result of my self-scrutiny would often be a frustrating mess of guilt and feeling of failure that i can't meet up to His standards while actually the standards i set for myself have been higher that what He requires of me.. and God shows me just how ridiculous i've been in all this.. in fact, it's so ridiculous that i laugh at myself for baing so stupid when God gives me the revelation.. (so now you know why many times i laugh randomly for seemingly no reason)... So the result of that self-scrunity is looking to myself and my own weaknesses instead of trusting in Him... But God requires trust and surrender.. and surrender cannot come without trust.. and trust cannot come without relationship...
God was showing me another dimension of Isa 22. When the people of israel were at war, they tried every thing, built fortifications etc etc.. but they didn't turn to the One who establishes jerusalem.. they were trying to defend themselves with their own efforts and strength instead of trusting in God.. and God was showing me how many times i've been like that.. And He was showing me that my perfectionist confession ritual prayers were like trusting in a system instead of trusting in a Person, His divine Person... instead of trusting in the Holy Spirit to work in my life... like once when i thought i had committed the sin of pride and then i proceeded with my usual lifeless confession rituals, God was showing me that it was greater pride to try to accomplish "holy things" and righteousness in my own way...

The tree of knowledge of good and evil represents ourselves and our own way of doing things, our own desire for control by our human efforts.. and no matter how "good" our efforts may look, the fruit of it will always end in death if God's not in it... Like how Adam and Eve trusted in their fig leaves and covering themselves up with human effort, that's how our own righteousness will look like... The bible says the mind set of the flesh is death and even the best of our own efforts in trying to achieve righteousness or to please God will result in death.. but Jesus is the Way and all we have to do is trust Him..

God is dealing with my mindsets so that He can use me in that area too to speak against them.. The axe is at the root of trees.. of all these mindsets that don't bear eternal fruit.. or better yet, not just the axe but also the whirlwind to root out all religion, all trust in man and our own efforts.. Bible says in Jeremiah 17 "Cursed is the man who trusts in man.. blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord"..

God bless! :)