I will not be Intimidated!

I can’t hold this back… I had promised a friend with whom I discussed the essence of the post an hour ago, that I was going to write it tomorrow. But hey, something just happened that has made my heart to race, literally, and I feel this rush in me, a gush of inspiration to push this out. If this is the feeling people get when they are called, then I totally get it – now! This is what happened… as mentioned in my last post, I am appreciating Grace in a totally different but holistic way, and that is thanks to my new favorite Bible Teacher, Pastor Joseph Prince (http://www.newcreationchurch.org.sg/). I went back to his daily devotion passage of Sunday and the logos (The WORD!) suddenly became the rhema (verse of Scripture that the Holy Spirit brings to our attention with application to a current situation or need for direction). That is when I started feeling this urgency to write this article!

The title of the devotional is ‘BE NUMBERED AMONG THE UNDEVOURABLE’ and the key verse is 1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (www.newcreation.org.sg/resources/daily-devotional). I will permit myself to copy and paste sections of the lesson as they fit my narrative (In green)… the rhema.

These past weeks have been trying to me. Last year ended in a not so good note, financially. Not that we didn’t have enough money, but because of some things that were happening that were rather unusual to me. First of all, let me take you back into history a little (sorry I am never consistent in narration, and I am not struggling to be). A few months ago, I discovered some ‘disappearances’ of money from my purse, with no one claiming responsibility. When I noticed about the third time, I decided to keep a record of my spends but that seemed like an even more difficult task as I still couldn’t get a balance between what I record as ‘spent’ and the what I have left. But I persisted nonetheless. The weekend of Jan 1, I didn’t leave the house (except to get fuel) and was so certain of how much I had left in my purse. Lo and behold I noticed some money was missing. I informed my hubby but we decided tokeep quiet about it.

First week of January, our Finance Officer informed me that an EFT of my salary had bounced, and then I discovered in the details of the report that they had my account number wrong. So I decided to go to the bank and get my statement from when I started work in my new organization. To my greatest dismay, I had received only 1 salary out of 5. I reported to the office and a week later my account manager at the bank informed me that money had still not come through. In addition to that, my gratuity payment from my former employer had not been paid yet, about 3 months after leaving them. To compound matters, a very distraught me went home on Friday, with a purse in which I had put some money in the morning and spent none, and in the evening before sleeping I was convicted to check my purse and some money had again ‘disappeared’, of course with no one claiming responsibility.

That night, I had a conversation with God about the situation and even then I thought I will confront the situation, and person(s), physically. But in the morning, the voice of reason came to me and I reminded the devil that he is a liar. I will not be fooled, caught up in his lies. It was a trap the devil was setting to place me under the bondage of money for this entire year. As Pastor Prince writes
‘The devil cannot just walk right up to you and rob you of your health, peace or family. He cannot just come into your life to enforce disease and destruction. If the devil can do that, then he does not have to walk about “seeking whom he may devour”. He only has to walk straight up to anyone he wants to devour and devour him! But since the Bible says that he goes about seeking whom he may devour, the truth then is that there are people whom he cannot devour.
You see, the devil goes about like a roaring lion trying to stir up fear in people with his roars. But the people who are not devourable are those who refuse to be intimidated by his roars because they know that the true Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ (Revelation 5:5), has already come and rendered powerless him who had the power of death. (Hebrews 2:14, NASB) They know that the devil cannot just do anything to them because the Lion of Judah resides in them, and that He is greater than the devil who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)’

I told the devil on Saturday and Sunday that even while I am continuing my conversation with God about the devourer (physical I am convinced, but could be spiritual), I WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED! Satan, try elsewhere because you have failed in my house – God’s sanctuary!
Certain situations come to us, even through the ones we love, accommodate under our roofs, our children and siblings, that may make us want to blame them and hate them. But I have learnt to go to the source and see what God’s plan for me is in that situation. If God allows the tempter (don’t be fooled, if you are a child of God, only God can give the devil the permission to tempt you because He knows you are well equipped to put the devil to shame – read Job’s story) to come into my home, then there must be something in that situation that will be for my good, and for the edification of those around me to the Glory of God! You may be wondering what I am yapping about, let me break it down in the way I have learnt in this potentially destructive situation that I have turned in my favour to God’s glory:
- I started keeping a record of my spend, which is quite a healthy thing to do
- Today, I had a spark moment which caused me to start planning my spend, which is even healthier. So I make weekly commitments to myself (weekly because I am not very much a planner - monthly or quarterly will work for planners), and see how I perform at the end of the month. Difficult to explain but I hope this snapshot spreadsheet example will help. You can copy and paste it in Word or Excel document for better appreciation. Analyze it anyway you please according to what you are looking for

I will conclude with the rest of the lesson from the devotional
‘My friend, the Lion of Judah is in you. He has given you rights, privileges, authority and power. He redeemed you with His blood. Therefore, everything about you and your life is redeemed by His blood. So if you are fearful about losing your job, cover your job with the blood of Jesus. If you are worried about your children’s safety in these days of terrorist attacks, plead the blood of Jesus over them. If you have received a bad report from the doctor, speak the blood over yourself.
Whatever you have covered with the blood of Jesus, God declares, “Protected! Redeemed!” And the devil flees when he sees the blood. And when he flees, he takes with him sicknesses, diseases, pains, sufferings, destruction and loss.
Once the devil knows that you know who you are in Christ and what you have in Him, his days of intimidating you are over, and you are numbered among the undevourable!’

I am not saying that all my problems have been solved in the physical realm, but I know they have been solved in the spiritual because I have covered my finances and my home with the blood of Jesus! Devourer beware, I declare I AM UNDEVORABLE in the blessed name of Jesus!

Grace, not Anxiety!

I like to write about self-development, be it spiritual, moral, physical, economic, social... It is important to me because that is the overall goal or purpose of our existence. I am just off the phone with my hubby and as I was informing him that my mom had just retired, a flash bulb lit up in my head. Why do we get into a state of uncertainty when we or ours are about to move on to another stage in their existence? Shouldn’t we just roll on with those changes as if they are expected and already taken care of? Do we get surprised at the arrival of dusk or the dawn of day? Albeit some of us do!

God has given us all that we need to get us to a point where we take changes as normal phases in life… He has told us not to be anxious about anything (Philippines 4:6). Isn’t He still God? Have our anxieties changed Him? ‘He knew us before we were conceived’ (Jeremiah 1:5)– doesn’t that count for something… for everything? Don’t we trust Him when He says ‘I know the plans I have for you…(Jeremiah 29:11)?’ Like little kids (Matthew 18:3), He asked us to become. My son shows me exactly what Jesus meant when he said this. My son is at the curious age, he wants to feel everything, press every button, etc. He loves switching off the TV among many other exploits that adults may find irritating. When he does that 3 times, I send him to the room for a few minutes. He stays there alone, cries and bangs at the door. After 5 minutes, I open the door and he immediately stops crying, starts laughing (one of the treasures he got from me) and runs into my arms. He celebrates this freedom and doesn’t blame me. I am just human, tons of deleted wrongs on my record… he is just my son, oblivious of the stresses of life… what more of the infallible, ever true Jehovah Shammah?

Before conception, our parents get anxious about wanting a child, and then we are conceived and birthed and they start worrying about germs, eating habits, safety, etc. We develop into tots and they get anxious about our education, morals, future… and these anxieties don’t go away when we start school. In fact they increase. And then we become teens and they worry about relationships, waywardness, attitudes, … We become adults and take over most of the worrying… job, marriage, family, deceptions, love, accommodation, … We get married, and start worrying about fidelity, sustainability of the marriage, tolerance… With children, we start having same anxieties as our parents had with us. Then while working we worry about job security, salaries, retirement… I can’t remember God saying He created us to be worried about moving from one developmental stage to another. But then we are just humans!

That is not excuse enough, being humans! Jesus proved to us that we can live anxiety-free lives by His everyday actions. Remember the fishermen at sea who had no catch? Remember the crowd with 2 loaves of bread and 5 fishes? Is there any account of Jesus getting worried? Not even when the soldiers came to arrest Him did He show any signs of being stressed up. He trusted His Father and believed that the burden was not His to bear but God’s. Why is it so difficult, almost impossible, for us to live anxiety-free lives? Why am I obsessed with thoughts about how my mom’s life will change now she is on retirement, about my son’s safety, about staying away from my son…? Tough one because trust me I am not different from most people. I even worry about dusk coming too soon 

I have come to have a deeper understanding of the meaning of Grace! Grace is what is takes to totally surrender all to God, not our efforts, not our good deeds, not how much we know… just un-merited favour – God’s Grace. Through Grace, God has already taken care of everything so we need not worry, because He knows even before we ask (Matthew 6:8). We don’t have to work to earn His Grace, it’s free! Just claim it and it will come to light in your life. My prayer for 2012 is that God should teach me more about Grace, open my eyes to see the application of Grace in my life, and share this great gift with as many people as possible. God bless you!

How much time can you give?

Now I get the real meaning of the phrase ‘enjoy your youth’. What is interesting is that when one is still young, no matter how much advice is given, we never take it seriously, until such a time when responsibilities bug us down and consume our existence.

As you get older, you see the necessity of investing your time in productive activities. At the same time, peoples’ desire to get your attention increases. The only constant here is the length of a day…24hours. As you get older, you meet new people, make more friends, build stronger bonds professionally and socially… all these requiring a piece of your time. You take up more responsibilities at work, maybe having parallel jobs like running a business alongside your regular 7.30am to 5pm, or sitting in one committee or another, church responsibilities, etc… and it’s still 24hours a day. And then here comes marriage [in-laws] and/or children to add to the [over-indulgent] relatives that you already have!

What compounds the situation is that all these different time-demanding entities require your full attention and expect you to be efficient when interacting with them. How possible can that be? Now here’s what I think (it’s my thoughts, my secret thoughts, and I take full responsibility for it: FOCUS ON THE ESSENTIALS! Let me break this down in the next few paragraphs.

Essential 1: My job. Ok, shoot me because I didn’t start with family but remember I didn’t say I was listing in order of importance. I am starting with professional life because it has a structured timetable already, it will help me to work out the others around it. My job is very important to me. Before I used to think that when I start having children, I will give myself a professional break and have them all at once, take care of them and then go back to work. Let’s be real here fellows, when you have all these degrees burning in your back pack, a job with prospective, people who look up to you for financial support, increasing job scarcity and fears of job insecurity, you just can’t afford to say ‘aaahhh!’ to your job. Some people quit their jobs to take care of their kids and end up taking it out on the poor little pumpkins because of frustration. Even as a mom who so badly loves her son, I don’t think I will be happier if I quit my job and stayed home with him. But I am just one in millions of women on earth. The contrary will work perfectly for some, maybe most, women… don’t take my word for gospel, it is just my thoughts! So with my job safe, I block out 6.30am (or whenever I leave the house in the morning) to 6pm (or whenever I get back home).

Essential 2: With the food on the table, I now move on to immediate family (micro family as I love to call it). In case of emergency (celebration of events, ailment, doctor’s appointments…) at this level, Essential 1 will step aside for Essential 2. That tells you how very important immediate family is. If I have to, I will wake up at 4am to do laundry, prepare the baby’s (or children’s) food, prepare them for school, before getting ready for work. In the evening, I will prepare dinner, prepare spices for the next day meals, iron dresses, make sure assignments are done, school bags packed, etc. I will sleep for a couple of hours if that is what it takes to make my immediate family happy. On weekends, spend as much time as possible with them, go shopping with them, go to the park, … just making sure that whatever activity I am carrying out involves them. That way I can do the things I need to do and still have my family’s attention.

Essential 3: Religious, social and moral responsibilities. Whatever activities you are involved in that give you a sense of fulfillment, could be leisure, clubs, etc, then give them some attention after prioritizing family and job.

Essential 4: Extended immediate family (siblings & their kids, parents). Call me what you may but I have realized I need to discriminate between my immediate extended family, and the larger extended family that includes cousins, uncles and aunts. I will give up some of my family time for this group of people depending on the necessity. I will give them a few days of my annual leave. I will call them from time to time to find out how they are doing.

Essential 5: I love my friends and they represent different things to me, every one of them special. I use friends here in the real sense of the word, not just loosely. My friends have almost same privileges as immediate extended family but for the fact that we will have more cumulative face time over the year. Not that I will spend days at a time with a friend, but we can meet over lunch, a couple of hours every month… and then by the end of the year we might have spent more face time than I would with most of my immediate extended family.

Essential 6: Extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins) and other friends (acquaintances). I know some cousins are as good as sisters/brothers, but in trying to prioritize my time, I draw the line. Most of these people I never get to see, or we meet occasional (events, celebrations, etc). These only get the piece of my time that comes by chance (like a chance meeting), or when there is such an emergency that I cannot ignore.

If you notice I haven’t said anything about in-laws. That is a very slippery terrain that I will like to explore in details in another post.
Those are my secret thoughts, what are yours?