Personally, it really touches my heart to see how much Jesus cares for me. When I see His love for me, I feel so bad I really don't want to sin against Him.
Why the title "Breakthrough campaign"? For two reasons:
1. My church is having a breakthrough campaign. Breakthrough in every area of our lives - be it financial, spiritual, emotional, mental, physical and so on. And this is the general direction for every member in the church. Breakthrough, not only because the church says so, but simply because God Himself wants us to have a breakthrough in faith.
2. On a personal basis, it's a personal desire to want to break out for once and for all - make a full-scale charge "over the top" to tackle one area that has been hindering me in my fellowship with people.
And along the way, while looking for the solution to my problems... I've realised that Jesus doesn't just know the solution... He IS the Solution.
I can't win this battle on my own. I've tried so many, many times, and it's been getting worse and worse... the old wineskin, left unchanged, will burst in the face of new challenges. After my CL and shepherd asked me whether I prayed to God for help with my problems, I realised that I've not been praying to Him actually for help.
Guess I'll just copy and paste from my personal journal here. They're bits and pieces of my thoughts, so might get a bit confusing at times. :P
Day 1 (Sep 1) of personal breakthru campaign started with this:
What Sijia told me:
"...and that He rewards those who EARNESTLY seek Him."
Rewards - a growing character is the MAIN reward; tasks and titles are secondary.
"Do the right things. Not many things."
Note to self:
Learn from QN! After learning God's word, this brother goes back and faces himself honestly with the Word.
To be honest, I still feel scared when I think abt that... would I be able to stand firm and honestly confront myself?
Lord, help me look hard into the mirror.
Attention-seeking... root issue is: have I sensed God's acceptance of me?
Personal thoughts:
Feel quite excited, Lord... I believe You promised me that this semester will be a breakthru. To charge out of the trenches, the stalemate... and with Your help, we'll bring down this attention-seeking area in my life once and for all. No more retreating, no more stalemate... it's been like that for almost my whole life.
Day 2:
Thank You Father for today's shepping. Think my shep was quite drained by the time though. :P but really tks shep. :)
Points Peter told me:
- Assurance from God.
- Seek God's attention.
What makes me want to change? Because people tell me... or God?
YA, remember what made you want to stop your dirty jokes and swearing when you first became a Christian.
"Dear Jesus, I want to be a good testimony to Your name. I don't want to tell dirty jokes anymore. In Jesus' name, Amen."
So now... it's the same thing, Yeu Ann. You change because you want to honour Jesus. You don't want to dishonour Him, to bring shame to His name. You love him, you know that.
What Peter told me near the end of our shepherding:
"Pray to God daily, ask Him to help you overcome these problem areas. Ask the Holy Spirit to guard your heart and help you keep watch over these areas and temptations. And you'll see a change. Pray DAILY."
Prayer for Protection:
"... and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
Day 3:
Just as my shepherd suggested yesterday night, prayed to God this morning about my problem areas. Was conked out, but thank God for His help, as I struggled to pray while still groggy, somehow He enabled me to pray in more and more detail over my life. Spent half an hour praying... wanted to sleep again, but remembered His words, "Are you still sleeping? Pray so that you will not fall into temptation."
Prayed against leaning on my own understanding too.
Near the end of the prayer, I thought about this: I'm a person who really really wants attention.
But perhaps this attention-seeking nature was actually uniquely given by God... my fallen attention-seeking nature seeks to gain attention from men, but really, I think He gave me this attention-seeking nature with the full intention for me, when I have turned back to Him, to seek HIM and HIM alone. And it would bring Him such joy...
I think He, having redeemed me, wants to restore my nature to what it was intended all along to be: To seek God's attention with all my heart... and God, being Himself, would be so full of joy when He sees His son seeking Him, crying out for His attention... it would bring so much joy to His heart, just like when a father's heart jumps for joy when he hears his son just wanting to be with him.
During worship service today, shared with God about the desire again to want to be paid attention to... (somehow God had arranged things such that I really felt left out.) Felt very distracted during service, so cried out to him quietly during worship.
Then I remembered something my shepherd told me the night before: "Don't deny your emotions."
Then think the Spirit here helped me put 2 and 2 together... (It's one of those "Oh yah hor... now I see..." moments.) The emotions that I feel when I feel neglected, feel left out... I've been attempting to suppress these emotions and tell myself it's wrong to feel these emotions.
But as somebody put it so well, "Thirst was made for water." Likewise, my heart was meant all along to thirst for God's love.
Then I remembered one of the films that I had watched for one of my modules. It was a scene of a woman pumping water from a tap. It was good clean water, but it only came in spurts as the woman pumped.
Then I realised that my church, being made up of imperfect people, is at best a pump-well that we have to regularly pump. Of course, it supplies fresh water, good water, clean water... it is part of God's plan all along. And compared to the surrounding desert, well, the well is practically paradise. =)
But the well, as we see it now in this world, only gives spurts at best. The well was meant to sustain the thirsty traveller, the weary wanderer... and point us to the Source Himself, the Spring of Living Water. Think of drinking from a continually flowing, gushing spring of crystal-clear, clean and cool water... I remember what Jiexian's testimony today... she described experiencing God's presence as "very shiok." [Thanks sis! It was a wonderful testimony. Believe God used your testimony to touch many hearts and turn them around that day.]
So I realised then that it's ok to feel these emotions... but I must seek God's attention and go to Him to satisfy this emotional thirst. Whenever I am emotionally thirsty, I need to go to Jesus who loves me and seek His attention.
(Just like it's normal for a thirsty man to feel thirsty... but he MUST go drink some water ASAP.)
Looking forward to spending more time with You, Lord. Thanks thanks for the understanding today. =)
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