Beautiful Day

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

As if to the Lord

"And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men."(Col3:23)
A few years ago while at college, I was assigned to a job which I sort of grew up despising it. It was a simple job with a lot of repetition. I didn't really find any meaning in doing that job and resented in my heart. A few other collegemates were doing that job with me as well, and they also were trying to find excuses or pretend to be sick to get out of that job. I pretended to be sick once, too.Then I felt awfully wrong and I felt the Holy Spirit dropped that verse into my heart. Miraculously I almost instantly changed. My attitude changed, my energey changed, still the same boring job, but I did it whole heartedly, and I found myself overwhelmed with joy, in every minute, and throughout the days. I loved what I was doing, and I really didn't mind it if I was to do it for the rest of my life. In fact, this job became the first job that I did after graduation. All I wanted at that time is a simple,ordinary job, but I could engage my heart to the Lord. And I found it so fulfilling and so satisfying. It really doesn't matter how much I was earning or what position I was in. But when I did it as if to the Lord, I did it with the best that I could, and I felt rewarded in every way. It was really a peak of my life.
But somehow down the track I lost that first love. And work became more and more of a burden, rather than a joy.
This week I felt the Lord is challenging me with that verse again. For people that are close to me will know that I have a hard time with housework. It seems to be that way all the way I grew up. My brother and I are so different. My brother's just born to love chores. At 6 years of age, he was killing and cleaning fish in the street for family dinner and attracted everyone's praise. Everyday in primary school he arrived school an hour early to clean up the classroom(nobody wanted him to do so), sweeping the floor and mopping the desks,etc. But he hated study and he wasn't very good at exams. I was the opposite way. I hated chores, my mother never succeeded in making me do housework, but I didn't mind study. In fact, in school holiday times I went into the library at 7am and got out 10pm. I was very self motivated in study.
So being a full time housewife for the past 8 years wasn't a very natural thing to me. I really struggled with housework. I don't mind taking Ellie to 12 lessons(dance, piano,etc) every week apart from school(which is 30 minutes drive away), but to keep the house clean and tidy is a major challenge to me. When there's resentment, there's no joy, and life becomes a burden. So this week I've been reminded of this verse, to do it wholeheartedly, as if unto the Lord. And I find that I'm starting to enjoy the little chores around the house.
Simple things, ordinary jobs, when it's done with the right attitude and heart, and when it's engaged with the Lord, can be the most awesome, most fulfilling and most satisfying, most rewarding things in the world. This is what I learned years ago at that job I did, and it's also what I'm trying to restore in my life.

As seen by Susan @ 12:22 AM

Sunday, April 18, 2004

Spirituality

Inside my body lives the real person that's called me. I have a personality. It's really ageless and goes into eternity. I can feel, I can know things, I have a will to make decisions.
But apart from my own self, I can get into contact with other spiritual beings. They also have personalities. And they can also come and influence the use of my body. For example, (a bad one) a spirit of drugs(or smoking, alcohol,etc)can come and make suggestions first, saying,"come on, just try one, it's not gonna hurt you, everyone else's having fun, just be cool." Then I might agree with that suggestion and put into action. The spirit gained an access. The next time it'll get a bit stronger, and stronger.Gradually it will find a place and stay. Now all this spirit wants is drug, it can not live without drugs. So I'll start to feel desperately in need of drugs all the time and losing control and will of decision. It's like another personality in us that's constantly battling with me wanting drugs. With my knowledge I know it's not good, but this other person starts to have more and more control over me each time I give in.
Now (a good one)the Holy Spirit can also come and live in our bodies. He's a gentlemen, He won't come unless we ask and invite. He also has a personality. He can also have many forms(or mostly called, gifts). Like, a spirit of dance. I can be natually totally untrained in dance, but when this spirit comes in, I can feel a deep desire to dance, to move my body the way the spirit wants me to move, and when I move, this spirit will be very happy, in the meantime, "me" can feel totally different, like shy, questioning, selfconcious... Or it can be a spirit of songwriting. I might not know anything about writing songs, but this spirit comes, and I just feel "myself"singing new songs that're amazing to myself. "Gee, is that me? I don't know I can write that beautiful songs and everone else like them,too." And when I'm writing songs, it becomes so natural, so smooth, without much thinking or my effort trying to make things up: it's already there! All I need to do is let this spirit live through me. If I don't do the things that the spirit wants to do, I'll grieve this spirit, but this spirit will not force or manipulate me(big difference!). If I yield to this spirit, and let this spirit live out, people will feel the presence of God. The forms of the Holy Spirit can be many, like teaching, prophesying, hospitality, singing,writing,etc. Have you heard this term, "She's a gifted singer." that means, she has a singing ability that's beyond herself. It's different than the skills that are learned.
The Spiritual gift is also an annointing. Literally, it's to put oil with something to make it shiny. If someone has an ability that makes itself look like shiny, it's because of the annointing.
Recognise what spirit is influencing us can bring a dramatic change in our lives. When you have the discernment and the dicision to choose which spirit you'll allow and follow, I'm sure you'll know the difference!

As seen by Susan @ 3:53 PM

Friday, April 16, 2004

New blog

My husband's just starting a blog, although I was trying to stop him. Now we're going to have lots of "fights" over the computer. But he's determined. Sooo, it should be interesting.
Please head over and welcome him to the blogging world.

As seen by Susan @ 12:23 AM

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Push the rock

I found this at Alberto's blog. Very touching. Have a look!

As seen by Susan @ 11:27 PM

Dream

I've been reading Darlene Zschech's book "The Kiss of Heaven", where she talks about writing your vision and dreams down. She said in her book,"I always sense that whenever I commit the desires in my heart to paper, I literally set them in motion."
And thus I have been thinking about what exactly my dream and calling is.
I remember a while ago when taking my kids to dance lessons at Hillsong, I suddently felt a light walking along the hallway. It was like an angel. A beautiful, heavenly scented being or spirit. I looked, it was Darlene. But the point is, I didn't know it was her. I just felt something very bright and beautiful moving toward me. I think she's so full of the Holy Spirit that she's a living and moving temple of the Holy Spirit. She doesn't have to sing, you just have to see her and you can tell that she's full of the Holy Spirit.
So today at Hillsong women (Sorry I have to mention Hillsong women so much as this is the only time that I can be alone with God undistracted by my children.) I felt sometimes the blessings of heaven are just like heavy clouds hanging over the crowd, it's so close and so low that we can nearly reach it. But there's a thin veil that's holding it. Sometimes it only takes one person's close relation with God, someone that knows the Lord face to face, that knows how to go to the heart of God and break that veil loose, and then the blessings of God will just be pouring down over the whole place. I see people like Rodney Howard-Browne, Benny Hinn ... they all have this mandate. They are the people who will break through the thin veil and bring the Lord's blessing down to everyone that's around them.
So, this is my dream. I want to be a person that knows the Holy Spirit in person. I want to be a living and moving temple of the Holy Spirit, that wherever I go and whatever I do, people around me will just sense the presense of the Holy Spirit. I want to be a person that will break through and bring heaven down to earth. I want to be a channel that will bring the presense of the Holy Spirit into people's lives.
I'm not really a communicator. But I feel my calling is to go through places like desert and to know God in a deeper way, face to face. To know Him, and Him only.

As seen by Susan @ 5:07 PM

Friday, April 09, 2004

Responsible

I took my two little ones to church(Hillsong women) this morning. I dressed Kati (18 months old) in a beautiful light pink set of clothes. It was about 40 minutes drive as I had to drop Ellie to school first. Anyway Jamie found some Easter eggs in the car and she kindly shared with Kati. And by the time we got to church, Kati looked really chocolatish all over her.
Well, what can you do? Babies are babies, they just can't care less what they look to other people. White or pink dresses? Perfect for chocolate messes!
As I was just cleaning up Kati, I couldn't help but thinking, isn't it how we are like a lot of the times with our spiritual clothing? The Lord washed us clean and dressed us in white, the clothes that He dresses us in are costly and of fine quality. But we just take it for granted sometimes. When we let unclean thoughts and gossipy words out, we're just like wiping some yummy chocolate on the dress. The dress that we have is called righteousness. But how many times are we just like the babies, dirtying our white dresses without any sparing thoughts of how we're gonna look like in front of other people? Some times we ask the Lord to dress us in white wedding dresses, but are we really ready to be responsible enough, discipline enough to be "restricted" into the fine clothing? Now I can understand a bit why some of the superstars hate spotlight.
Hmm, maybe that's one of the reasons why we all need to take communion on a regular basis -- to let the blood of Jesus wash our sins off and to keep our garment clean and presentable before our heavenly Father.

As seen by Susan @ 12:50 AM

Thursday, April 08, 2004

Back to life

A friend of mine was telling me of an amazing experience of her friend last week. The husband got ill after Sunday night service and the wife took him to the hospital. He looked blue. The staff in the hospital didn't treat him appropriately and consequently he died. He was clinicaly, officially pronounced dead. The wife had a simple faith. She just kept praying and wouldn't give up. And four days later, the husband came back to life. He has been to the heaven. He saw amazing things in the heaven, and he saw his grandma that he lost when he was very young. He was told that his time wasn't due yet and he needs to go back. He said that everything was golden. He's still in the process of recovery as his throat was even cut open. But my friend said that as soon as she walked into the hospital room she could immediately feel a strong annointing in the room and there's a shining about this man. He hasn't been able to say much yet, but obviously he has experienced quite a lot.
My friend is organising him to share his experience to others once he's more recovered. I'm looking forward to hearing some more.

As seen by Susan @ 11:37 PM

Thursday, April 01, 2004

More about encouragement

Our new house is finally getting closer to being ready. My husband has been building it nearly all by himself, and it's not a small house,either. The hardest part of the whole housebuilding is the laying of the bricks. It took him about 10 months. (He has a very busy full time job as well). He's very fussy about the quality of brick laying, and he just can't trust anyone else. It's a very time consuming job, especially when you want it to be perfect.
Now I see encouragement is like the mortar in brick laying. Sometimes in parenting or discipling, all we're focusing on is the result, the achievement, we're hurrying to lay all the pieces of bricks in, and we just tend to forget about the mortar part, which is encouragement, that holds all the achievements together, to keep whatever's finished firm and strong. Without encouragement, we might have put a lot of knowledge or progress in our children, but these achievement are just like a brick wall without any mortar, shaky and unstable. If we are diligent in giving our children encouragement while putting knowledge and ability into them, they'll grow up strong, healthy and established, and they'll be able to handle all the challenges that their lives might encounter.
It's a constant requirement. Every brick needs to be surrounded by mortar. For our children, every effort and progress needs to be recognised and encouraged properly. Encouragement plays a vital part in their character beings.

As seen by Susan @ 10:49 PM

Prophetic

My home church(yes, you hear me talk a lot about Hillsong, but my home church isn't Hillsong) is a prophetic church. Just about everyone including children in our church prophesies. They're all very well trained. But we're still relatively new to the church and haven't been able to go through any trainings. So at times I get loads of words or visions toward other people, but I don't really know how to properly release them, and I run into trouble a lot. Whenever I get bored sitting in a big church, the most common game that I play is prophesy in my mind to different people. Usually I can get a word for everyone I'm thinking of until I get tired. I get frustrated a lot because I don't feel the freedom to release them.
I'm craving for prophesies for myself in the meantime. But funny we don't really get spoken a lot in our church. We do get prophesied now and then, but not often enough, unless requested. Well, these two days I suddenly thought, instead of getting frustrated by not being able to tell other people, why don't I just prophesy to myself? And that's what I did. I found a picture of mine or I just looked in the mirror and started to prophesy as if I'm a complete stranger. Very interesting. And the result is completely surprising and amazing. Only two days I found so much power in the words prophesied and I've already seen so much changes in me.
So, if you're prophetic, you can have some fun have a go yourself. It's quite amazing.

As seen by Susan @ 9:16 PM

The proposal

My favourite book in the Bible has always been the "song of songs". To me it's a love story. It's beautiful, it's romantic, it's electric. It's all about dating and courting with the Lord. The missing and heartbreaking when apart, and the joy of being together. Do you still remember the time when you were first in love with someone and all those beautiful moments of dating your loved one?
For me, Hillsong Women has been a place of "dating" between me and the Lord. During worship time, especially the last worship song, I usually feel this strong presense of the Lord, and I actually feel the hugs and kisses in the spirit. I'd hear Him talk to me, whisper to me of His love for me. It's an emotional high moment for me for the whole week. When I was in the worship team before leading worship, I'd feel stronger this presense of the Holy Spirit, and in those moments I know that my face change, and I'd have a big smile on my face, and there's a deep sense of satisfaction and wild joy in me.
Today at Hillsong Women, I somehow sensed there's something unusual and different. I actually felt the Lord's crying. I felt Him saying to me," Honey, I love you too much. I've been waiting and waiting for you to come. Sometimes you'd come and see me for a few minutes, sometimes I'd wait for a long time before you'd turn up, and sometimes I even wait at the dating place for you to come, and you didn't even show up. Honey, I miss you! I can't stand this dating and courting any more. Would you marry me? I want to come in to your life, and live with you, Yes, I want to be with you every minute! Not just dating, meet and seperate. I want to eat, sleep, play, work......live with you! All the time! Would you allow me?"
I was overwhelmed by this revelation. I was awestruck. I can't believe it's real. I can't believe how much the Lord loves me and wants to bless me. It's my rejection and insecurity that has blocked everyone out of my life. I've been living behind the walls, and I felt the Lord pulled down the walls and He wanted to be my walls Himself!
I'm still pondering and meditating, but definately I felt it has been different today.

As seen by Susan @ 2:27 PM