Thanksgiving

I'm thankful to God for a few things today - a nice lunch that was too short, an e-mail that informed me that I was no longer needed in someone else's life, roadside flowers that greeted me in the morning, a lovely dinner that included eating preserved titbits with Yakun coffee with shoe repair on the side, and finally time for myself before I sleep around midnight. I'm also very happy for a dear friend who is being called to the bar tomorrow and will be returning to be with her husband in the US soon.

Seven Fountains and 10 reflections

• People enrich us, so connectedness is important. Be humble to know that one receives even as one gives. 

• I can impose clear and strict boundaries in both ministry and life, but rigidity is crippling. God brought to my mind the analogy of water. How I need to be more open and more sensitive. To go with the flow and to be more fluid in my responses to people and situations.

• Be sure that you love the life you're living now...Then you can trust that God will reveal to you the direction to go when the time comes. Don't try to know now what you only have to know a few years from now.* 

• Receive God's gifting and calling with joy and use them because they are for His service. Oftentimes, I regard them as a burden and view them with trepidation because I am not sure where they will lead me to. 

• God knows me through and through. His challenge to me is to open up and become vulnerable to people so that they, too, can open up to me.

• I have to trust that the more faithful I am in my solitude, the more fruitful I will be in my community.*

• I need to stay close to the source of all living water - Jesus. Our service for God does not detract from the first necessary thing of spending time in the presence of Jesus. 

• Why not always give and forgive, encourage and empower, give thanks and offer praise? We have to think generously, speak generously and act generously. When we refrain from giving, with a scarcity mentality, the little we have will become less. When we give generously, with an abundance mentality, what we give away will multiply.*

• To have courage is to listen to our heart, to speak from our heart and to act from our heart. Our heart, which is the centre of our being, is the seat of courage.*

• At the core of Jesus is a heart of compassion.

* Extract from Henri Nouwen's Sabbactical Journey. 

Resting in the Lord

Back from solitude with God at a Jesuit silent retreat in Chiang Mai for five days. 60 solid A4 pages of notes and reflections. Well worth the experience. Will read through and reflect on those pages and write short excerpts. Watch this space. 

Who keeps you together?

Christianity is not a story for those whose lives are all together. It is the opposite of that. Christianity is the story for people who can never get their lives together and a story of a great God that holds it all together.
– Louie Giglio

Three postures towards God

"Thanksgiving is response to God's actions, praise is response to His character, worship is response to His presence."
- Kris Vallotton

The normal Christian life

I have just started reading a book by Watchman Nee called The Character of God's Workman. It is one of those books, the reading of which convinced me that indeed, one can read a book only at a proper time in one's life. I remembered that I tried reading one of his books in my 20s and could never get into it. But now, as I read this book of his, everything is so clear, everything is so real and everything is so of God. In the book, Watchman Nee exhorts us to develop qualities that would indicate that one is a workman of God. I thank God that I am already blessed even as I have just read the first chapter. There is so much to absorb and so much to think about, which I would put down in future posts. Tonight, I went to find out who Watchman Nee was and realised through this website what a spiritual giant he was in China.

His background: Nee Shu-tsu, whose English name was Henry Nee, was born of second-generation Christian parents in Foochow, China in 1903. His paternal grandfather studied at the American Congregational College in Foochow and became the first Chinese pastor among the Congregationalists in northern Fukien province. Nee Shu-tsu was consecrated to the Lord before his birth. Desiring a son, his mother had prayed to the Lord, saying, “If I have a boy, I will present him to You.” The Lord answered her prayer with the birth of a son. His father later impressed this point upon him, saying, “Before you were born, your mother promised to present you to the Lord.”

His ministry: Watchman Nee’s rich ministry was the issue of both revelation and suffering. He carried out this ministry by preaching the gospel, teaching the Bible, traveling, contacting people, corresponding with people, holding conferences, conducting trainings, and producing publications. Watchman Nee not only spoke frequently both privately and publicly, but he was also a prolific writer. His publications included gospel tracts, periodicals, papers, newsletters, books, hymnals, and a chart of biblical prophecies. His writings are contained in a set of sixty-two volumes, entitled The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, which span from his first publication in 1922 to his final recorded speaking in 1950.

His legacy: During Watchman Nee’s imprisonment he was confined, but his ministry was not bound (2 Tim. 2:9). Under the Lord’s sovereignty, his ministry has spread throughout the entire world as a rich supply of life to all seeking Christians.

His ultimate burden was the spread and the building up of the church as the house of God, God’s tabernacle. Although his own earthly tabernacle (physical body) has been taken down, the building of God obtained through his ministry remains and still is growing and spreading throughout the earth. By the time Watchman Nee was arrested in 1952, approximately four hundred local churches had been raised up in China. In addition, over thirty local churches had been raised up in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia. Today there are over twenty-three hundred local churches worldwide because of the rich and faithful ministry of Watchman Nee.

To Watchman Nee, his life was a normal Christian life. 

A poor life this is...

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare. 

William Henry Davies