“Therefore I am now going to allure her;
       I will lead her into the desert
       and speak tenderly to her.

There I will give her back her vineyards,
       and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
       There she will sing as in the days of her youth,
       as in the day she came up out of Egypt.”

Hosea 2:14-15 (NIV)

Since late last week I was impressed in my mind with His word from Hosea, that God intended this period of ‘waiting’ with my impending job search for me to draw closer to Him in terms of dependency and reliance on Him.

Achor when translated means trouble, is what God brought the Israelites thru in order to gently remind the Israelites of His covenant and love for them where they were brought to the truth that God was their my sole security to be confidence and not their own strength based on their own or allies armies, not on acquired wealth or knowledge and not even social status as the Chosen people of God. 

Likewise, this period of job search for me is my Valley of Achor where I am drawn to spend time lying on His lap and allow Him to take full care of me; growing in my trust in Him despite being in this ‘valley’.

Thank God that so far during this period I have had two interviews. Both for similar positions in Marketing Communications and both yet to reply with their verdicts =p

Honestly, I had being anxious as the thought of getting off the payroll crept on me with the practicalities of living in Singapore. 

However the passed few days in deeper intimacy in fasting and praying with Him has helped me to see things in His perspectives and enabled me to feel secure in being in His strong loving Arms.

I never knew I would experience this term, “Money drop from the sky” or to be more exact in my case, “Money drop from Heaven!”

Some time last week I received a surprising sms message…

Read the text below:

God prompt me this afternoon to give u some money. If u need it, just tell me your account number. Need not be now, maybe in future. Just saw your blog, so more convicted to help if u can’t find a job or whatever. God bless.

Imagine what went thru my mind when I read the sms text?!

Wow… God really works in amazing and mysterious ways =)

Last Saturday was to be the day that this party finally became a reality!

Held at the Handicaps Welfare Association (HWA), this Unit new year’s bash was to be another first for the year as we had with us special guests- HWA members.

For many, this was the perfect platform to make new friends across backgrounds from all walks of life. And this platform was intended to have all us adding ZEST into our 2007!

Personally the party didn’t turn out the way I had planned it to be and on the same night I could hardly sleep with my mind pondering hard on what exactly was it that had failed.

However, I was reminded at the same time that regardless of the outcome, the glory goes to God. Even if it didn’t turn out the way I had planned, it went on according to His plans.

Hopefully this event would path the way for us to organise more such initiatives to serve the under-served and being an effective salt and light for Christ.

The focus on Growing disciples, Serving society and Planting churches have one similar element and that is love.

If you do not have His love, you CANNOT grow disciples, serve society and plant churches as they all involve people.

And since responding to His call to care for His people, I’ve witnessed (am still) the ‘surgical’ work is doing in my heart in respect to my understanding of true love, and my attitude and actions in loving others.

In the past, I had always thought I was a good people person, hence I assumed I could love people easily. But God was to prove me so wrong… Ha ha ha…

I can recall the earlier days when I started ‘following up-ing’ on others. What a nightmare it was!

Doors were slammed in my face, I was spat in the face and trampled upon like dirt. But of cos figuratively speaking lar… what I meant was that waves of rejections, insults and feelings of unappreciated continually hit me hard thru out the ‘follow up’ process.

Those were the moments where my initial reactive thoughts would be like what is depicted below…

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Yeah… a head butt on those people were what came to mind then… Ho ho ho… (Thanks Zidane =p)

But of cos I had never reacted like that but submitted my anger and hurt to God. Cos everytime when that had happened, the Holy Spirit did well to remind me how Jesus had graciously died for me despite my unreciprocal love to Him.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!                        Philippians 2:5-8 (NIV)

He meekly submitted to the will of His Father and left the rest to God like how He continued to love and forgive His enemies while He was pinned to the cross like a ragged doll by them when He could actually with just one call, wipe out His enemies with a legion of heavenly armies.

Presently I still do receive this kind treatment from people, but somehow I’ve accepted it as part of loving others and identifying with Christ in His sufferings.

What is important at the end of the day is that I love as God loves (unconditionally with no agenda), the response from others is secondary.

From this, not only I’ve come to understand better what true love is (its about giving and a choice, not based on feelings or preferences) but at the same time I’ve grown secure about who I am in Christ and not allowing what people’s opinions of me tear me down.