Reflections…

I haven’t been writing for a while.

It is like I have been silent silenced.

And I know why.

My voice has been silenced by worries and fears…

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It is at times like these that I realize how far I am from David. David wrote psalms to record his hope and trust in God even while in the midst of his misery. While I still hope and pray and praise and trust God in my heart, I just couldn’t bring myself to write about my journey of faith while in the midst of trial and testing. I guess it is because a part of me fears… I fear that what I hope for may not come to pass in the end. I think a part of me does not know how to deal with that. I won’t be shipwrecked, of course, but I may find it a little challenging and painful to try to find a resolution to the inevitable disappointment that may come should it happen. Therefore, pain avoidance mode kicks in. I keep the tussle with faith internal, and I simply couldn’t find myself able nor wanting to give expression what went on inside.

So I give my respect to those writers who write to encourage others to keep faith while they remain still in the midst of their struggle with faith. It takes courage to put words to the battle in the heart.

Looks like in this journey of faith, I still have a long way to go.

I am writing now… found my voice, of sorts… because my hope has materialized. God is faithful as always, of course. I needn’t have worried or feared.

It is easy to articulate that now. 20/20 hindsight.

And since I am writing, I might as well document some random thoughts I’ve had during this journey, if nothing else, for record purposes / future reference.

1 John 4:18 says, “fear involves torment”. It is very true. To be fair, I wasn’t exactly in fear, but I worried, big time. And worry is a form of fear, albeit a milder form. And so I worried, and it was tortuous to my mind, giving me no rest. I was quite at the brink of desperation in wanting to escape from that mental cage. How desperate? Enough to make me run to the Bible to pull out all the verses I could find on worry, and also peace, and when those weren’t enough, I pulled out all the verses I could find on mind and what I should do with it. Did all that searching into the Word help? I guess it was a no, because I remained worrying, and found no breakthrough for that bondage of the mind. There was one key thing I took away from all that time of looking into the Word, though, and it was my deep realization and conviction that what a human mind really needs is not more wisdom, nor more understanding, nor more creativity, or brilliant ideas, or moments of inspirations, or inventions, but what the mind really needs – like air to the lungs – is peace, which is a fairly underrated thing in this world today. Anyway, where was I? I digressed. So I was saying that after running through all the Scripture verses I could find on worry and peace and mind, I found myself still plagued by, not freed from the clutches of that irritating, underlying sense of worry – underlying in the sense that my worries were below the surface, muted, not uncontrolled, didn’t flare up in anyway, but they were there nonetheless, a constant thorn.

I eventually found my breakthrough, though, during one worship session at Church on a Sunday morning. We sang songs about faith that day. Just that one session of worship, and my mind found peace. I was freed. So… hmm… how did that peace feel like? How should I describe it? To be honest, it felt a bit underwhelming. There were no fireworks, no rainbows and confetti, no starlit bubbles – nothing of that sorts. I just felt… normal, like I could – like finally! – breathe normally again, think normally, live normally… like I was living life as how it should be lived. And I felt relieved, and was grateful. It made me think of the parallel to the Christian life. The Christian life is supposed to be the normal life, life as it should have been – freed from sin, enjoying fellowship with God. In contrast, a life bound by sin is the abnormal life, not according to God’s purpose or intention. But today, a sin-bound life is normal life, while a holy, righteous life is a freakish abnormality. In the same light, the plague of worries is the norm in the world today, while peace of mind is a rare commodity.

I also recalled the breakthrough of the mind that I had in 2014. That plague of the mind (not worries) went on for years, and almost broke me. And then, over one prayer meeting session in 2014, I obtained definitive breakthrough and was freed. That bondage of the mind lost its power over me, like it never existed, and I walked away from that session freed, and never looked back. It was an amazing, dramatic, transformational experience. I reeled from the giant impact of that God-granted liberation for a long time.  I hope I will always never forget that experience.

Given that 2014 experience, and coupled with this recent experience, I am left very much intrigued. I had experienced and understood the overwhelming, all-encompassing, hopeless and dire situation of a troubled mind. And I know that such a mind cannot be dealt with human means. Such breakthroughs of the mind do not come through the mind being persuaded with more positive thinking, or soothed with more words of encouragement, or reasoned with through greater clarity of thinking. A mind in bondage must be freed, and that liberty can only come from God. The sad thing is that though I have gone through this process twice, I still couldn’t pinpoint nor replicate the conditions for such a breakthrough to happen. It comes when it comes, as God determines. This pains and frustrates me, because I see so many people with issues or bondages of the mind, and even though I have walked through the breakthrough experience twice, and know that their only hope is to obtain liberty from God, I still don’t know how to guide them to that breakthrough. It is like staring at a key in my hand, and yet not knowing how to turn that key. I pray that God will give me the key to operating this key. It is very much needed in this peace-starved world today.

Anyway, back to my almost one year of journey of building faith and managing worries, there are three things that held me through this time:

1. The memory and comfort of my previous experience with God some twenty years ago. There was a situation then, and I was exceedingly worried. And in the midst of the turmoil in my mind, I heard God speak to me, telling me that He was already there before me in my future, and I did not need to fear. The storm in my mind ceased immediately. I experienced instantaneous peace.
   
2. The trust in God that just as He had seen me through in previous times before, He would similarly see me through this time. My Church friend gave this analogy: How do you know that the chair would take your weight? Because it has taken my weight before. Simple as that.
   
3. The constant coming back to the Scripture that says that those who put their trust in God will never be ashamed / put to shame. I have trusted in God, and He will not let me be ashamed / put to shame.

And so, indeed, God came through for me.

For that, I am grateful.

Thank you God.