Even as I sit back and reflect on my life I must admit that there are indeed many episodes, many milestones, or many experiences that are actually worthwhile remembering. Looking at my life at this point of time; being an Executive pastor of a fairly large church in Penang overseeing the training-equipping arm of the church, oversee the development of the mission strategy of the church, and many other leadership roles within the church seems overwhelming and actually demands that I sit back to re-evaluate my ministry. Somehow I feel that I am presently living an overcrowded lifestyle when I am also in the midst of trying my level best to graduate from MBTS. But being an idealist in nature and forced to think deeply through the discipline of seminary study I do have something significant to record about what I think I would like to see my future role and ministry in the Body of Christ.
PAST MILESTONES
I once heard a preacher said when teaching on the guidance of God that “there are many milestones of obedience but very few cross-roads of decisions.” After these many years of walking with Jesus (40 years to be exact) I have discovered that there are few occasions that demand a difficult decision in my life but there are many milestones of obedience that God had called me into. My relationship with God has not always been smooth. There were many times of falling flat on my face, many times that I battle with the reality of God in my life, and the guilt of not being able to meet up to the supposed “standard” set by God about spirituality and holiness.
There are perhaps some very significant times in my journey of faith that I would like to put on record. My teenager years were really turbulent. I came from a Christian family whose Christian roots goes way back to China under the ministry of John Sung and Watchman Nee. I practically grew up in a Christian home but my faith was but an adoptive faith. I was able to parrot all of the bible stories, the gospel message and sing all the hymns, etc but I hardly knew God. Well into my teenager years I began to rebel, I began to find excuses to stay away from church and were spending more time with ungodly people. My education was plummeting and my grades were failing real bad. By the time I finished high school (17 years old) I picked up many bad habits and was on my way out of the church.
I thank God that the story doesn’t end there. I actually went for a youth camp that year due to the pestering of my mother whom I love dearly. It was at that camp that I encountered God for the first time. All the years before I had a head-knowledge or a working understanding of God, Jesus, and the church but I had no personal relationship with Him. I was truly lost in and to the world but at that camp I met God in a real tangible way. I found myself weeping uncontrollably for a long time. After that I felt good, I felt anew. I had never understood God in such a way. It was not dramatic like seeing a vision or what-not but there was a definite sense of the presence of a transcendent God that was so near me. I have continued to treasure that sense of the presence of God even until now.
At that point in time I believe that I met God for the first time and I experienced the reality of the love of God and His Word began to make a lot of sense to me. Two days later I stood up to give my life completely to serve Him. My life took a complete 180 degrees change since then. Looking back since then I am amazed that this year is my 23rd year serving Him in full-time capacity. I have never had any regrets since then and I am still grateful to the Lord for counting me worthy to be part of His work in the vineyard!
One of the things that I managed to keep this experience alive in me is to constantly rehearse it to myself, share it with my children, and spoke often to people about His goodness. As I relate this spiritual experience of transformation in my life it seems like yesterday that it happened. I must admit that since then I do experience many ups and downs in my relationship with God but the vision of this transformational experience in my life always managed to get me back on track with Him again. The second major transformation occurred in my spiritual journey was at the time I was at a cross-road of a very big decision. I knew I gave my life completely to Him. I was very happy serving God in everything in the local church I grew up in; arranging chairs, distribute hymnals, song-leading, music, and etc. I loved God, I studied the bible and I read a lot of books but there come a time when I felt a stirring in my heart to stop working and to go to be trained in a discipleship school. I struggled with that for a couple of years because the church I was in were a renewed Brethren-Pentecostal church who didn’t believe in Bible school only in-house training and study.
I remember it was one afternoon that I saw a vision of God. I must put it on record that I am not one of those who live on dreams and visions though I come from a Pentecostal-charismatic church. I am not into a lot of “goose-bump spirituality” and I am known as a fairly rational person in my thinking. But this was one of few visions that I knew was not out of my vain imagination. I stood affixed and saw myself standing at the edge of a cliff and seeing people walking aimlessly and blind right over the cliff. I heard the Lord spoke to me that there are many blind confused people dying everyday unless I do something to stop it. I knew straight away that God was there; his presence was overwhelming. I found myself crying for a long time. Soon after that I quit my job, and left everything behind. With a one way ticket I left Penang for Singapore to join a Bible School.
Since then I have never allowed anything to distract me from the presence of God. I have always guarded jealously the presence of God because I knew from then on that if I don’t maintain the presence of God in my life everything that I do would be out of my flesh and would be worthless. I have enjoyed the presence of God until now. Over the years I have come to know Him even more. I have come to know His heart, His expectation for me, and I know very clearly whenever I moved away from Him. It is really hard to explain but I just know it when God speaks, when He wants me to step aside from everything and just listen. Of course, I must admit that there were times when even I knew He wants me to put everything down I kind of push it aside. God is a loving Father. I have always known it.
The third experience that I would like to record was God’s dealing with a part of me that was buried deep within me for years. In my growing years my father was never around. He spent his time working and I hardly saw him except on Fridays and even than, he was usually drunk. I had an alcoholic father who was mean and abusive. I grew up with a seething hatred for my father. Even after my transformational experience with Jesus and a powerful vision I was never healed of my hatred for my father. I was able to cover it deep within my psyche. Three years after I came back from Bible School my father was diagnosed with cancer. It was at one of those times in God’s presence that He brought to my mind my earthly father. I felt overwhelmed with God’s presence and He spoke gently to me about dealing with the hate that is still residence in my heart. To cut the long story short I felt the love of God even though I was not worthy of receiving it. It was a case of Jesus making it possible for me to receive the love of God and to love God. With that I was determined to forgive my father and to work out reconciliation. I took action by taking care of my father when he was going through operation and recovery. I had a restored relationship with my dad and till the day he died I was able to see him came back to the Lord, love Jesus and read his bible everyday. It was refreshing. I will always remember such an experience.
PRESENT JOURNEY
What can I write about my walk with the Lord today? How do I fair in my relationship with God? These are not easy questions to answer but I must say that it is pertinent that I know how to answer it for myself. I enjoy going back into my past and reminiscence of my past spiritual experiences but I must be able to articulate clearly about my present walk with the Lord. I am fully aware that my relationship with the Lord is an ongoing thing.
For the last three years God has been working powerfully in my life and causes certain changes in my life; my perception of Him, and my understanding of the heart of God. I am glad that God sees me “worthy” to be part of His work and to lead me into another dimension of my spiritual walk with Him. There has been some what of a make over of God on my spiritual life and ministry. I must say that the Holy Spirit is still working within my heart and mind and I felt like I am being “born again” all over.
There are three significant things that the Lord has been working in my life. First, my approach to the Word of God has taken a complete change. I found myself engaging in God’s Word not just with the heart but also with my mind as well. I found myself to be more reflective, to think outside the box, and to try not to just have textbook answers but to take the Word of God seriously. I felt that it is no longer enough to engage with the Word of God that would make me feel good, comforted and encouraged but that which would challenge my thinking consequentially so as to affect my life and lifestyle. I was led to love God with my mind.
Second, the Lord had led me to take time to understand the contemporary cultural scene that we are facing today. Perhaps my years working with the youth and now with the college and university students forces me to become acutely aware of the cultural forces that is quickly invading our society.
Today, the contemporary culture is a potpourri of many varieties of western ideologies plus the resurgence of world religions plus the keen interest in spirituality – the supernatural and the metaphysical. And all of these converged into an ideology that is prevalent today which is postmodernism; there is no more absolute truth, truth is what you belief to be true. Then, in the midst of such cultural milieu is the ever present problem of sex and sexuality. We are living in a sex-saturated society. If I may say so, it has become even more blatant and we are living in times that is far worse than the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. Thanks to the media!! The pop-culture that comes through the media – music, movies, the arts, internet, and the printed pages – have all invaded our living room. The lines are blurred. Christian virtue, discipline and worldview are under attack as never before. People have the so-call opportunity to adopt alternative worldviews including honest Christians.
Third, there is such a drive in me to go back to history – to study church history, to study the development of western thoughts and its ramifications to us today because much of secularism that we live with and breathe in today has its foundation in Western ideologies, and to study historical figures and their “contributions” to our present dilemma.
That’s pretty sum up a major part of my present spiritual pre-occupation. I do not see this as separate from my spiritual journey, apart from my spiritual quest, and different from loving God. In fact, I see these passions for the Word, understanding the times in which we live, and frequently going back to our historical roots as loving God with my mind and loving Him with my whole being. I see that as part of my Christian spirituality.
The other thing that I treasured most since before and still going on is what I called “my personal worship experience.” I had stopped doing quiet time or daily devotion as is so often taught to new believers. I called my time with God more than just a devotional time or a quiet time where I read the bible and pray. I called my time with the Lord as a “personal worship experience” – (1) I spent a personal time of worship with songs but songs that I sing are not random but with a specific focus. (2) If you are sensitive to God, and truly worshipping Him, you would probably have entered into a realm of petitioning, intercession and warfare, or communion and hearing from God. (3) Few things would almost always resolve into at this stage: (a) Prayer concerns, heart intercession & warfare, (b) Quieting down to hear from God for direction, (c) Enter into bible reading & meditation OR, (d) Self-reflection e.g. repentance, dealings of God on personal conflicts, unresolved issues, personal renewal.
I do not want to sound spiritual but these two spiritual exercises kept me going for God today; to love God with my mind and to consistently have a personal worship experiences with Him on a daily basis. I find these combination works very well in my spiritual walk with the Lord – loving Him with my mind and my heart!!
FUTURE HOPE
Since young I have always been a dreamer and an idealist. I have dream many dreams and some of it I have seen it come to past but there are still many that have remained just dreams (in fact, some are bordering on fantasies now).
Looking back at my life and ministry for the past 26 years I have enjoyed pastoring; caring for people, and attending to the flock have all been rich experiences. As a person I have also grown both mentally, relationally, and spiritually. At the time of writing my spiritual journey I felt being stirred once again by a deep passion that has been residing in my heart and spirit for a long time now. I have often in my prayer time with the Lord spoke about the time of release and a time of new beginning in a new direction for me.
I have constantly placed before me this vision of seeing many young people who are seeking for truth, who are seeking for an answer to their confusion, and who are lost coming to a safe place where they can engage and dialogue and in the process help them find their way to God. The safe place is a place where they feel the freedom to explore without afraid of being misunderstood, a place where they can engage with philosophical issues bothering them without being called queer, and a place where the “outcast” of society and the church can call a home where there is love and healing. I would love to build a sanctuary – a safe haven – for the many young people who are lost; the many who could not distinguished their right hand from their left.
That’s my dream, that’s what I am praying that God would take me to the next level and I would love to be able to impart into lives the word of God and to see transformation taking place right before my eyes. I often prayed that God would allow me to take this journey for the rest of my life.
Well – it’s still a deep desire and a dream that is placed securely within my heart. I believe that as I walk faithfully with Him, as I choose to walk closely with Him that He will continue to direct me and show me His perfect plan for me.