Initiative

Was drinking 7-Eleven's Slurpee with Peter during shepherding. Regaled him with yesterday's bus trip back with HQ, when HQ asked me to think about why I didn't flag the bus down, when it's like, ... it's definitely something that I would do on my own, and yet I didn't do so that night. To compress the whole story, Peter suggested that perhaps one reason why I do the things I do is because when I'm with people whom I'm familiar with, I prefer them to make the decisions for me.

Gee! After fitting and mapping this possible explanation to all my past experiences that I can recall, this hypothesis seems to answer my question most clearly. I had come up with other possible reasons e.g. laziness, anxiety, etc. But, seems that this explanation seems to explain all my past experiences and actions accurately so far. (And to think Peter was saying it when he was half-asleep. Must have been divine help from God at that moment! Haha... the whole time just seems so funny when I think of it. :D)

Gosh. Feels like I'm doing "R&D" on myself. It's really intense and interesting - here, deep thinking isn't exactly very helpful here... broad thinking (i.e. seeing the unseen links and connections) is more useful here.

So, anyway, Peter suggested one way that might be helpful for me is to take more initiative. Thinking for myself, I think some things I could practise is taking initiative to meet a need that I see, or just suggesting a place to eat, or contributing an idea, or giving feedback, and even taking initiative to lead people to just do something simple.

I'm like that, rather let others make the decisions and I follow. Much more comfortable that way - and safer too. But ... yeah, it's not healthy for me. I remember last time when I was the NUS ministry, after HH, Peter and Fengqi had moved on to Adults, I was one of the oldest brothers around. But I still didn't want to take initiative to gather and lead the younger brothers, until Flince egged me on, telling me that I'm the big brother now. -_-''' stressed liao when he told me that. But very glad for his egging on, so well, I did what I had to do. And thank God I did my duty as an older brother then.

Gee. Come to think of it, I really prefer people to give me instructions and direct me. In short, to take the initiative. I remember now why I became more and more stressed in Adults ministry after some time. I remember, it's because after putting in initiative, after a while, the momentum died down, and I felt increasingly discouraged. If not for HQ's and Peter's encouragements, I wonder if I might have slipped. I almost did at one or two points, but thank God for His faithfulness - when I was in need, He saved me.

Adults ministry. We have to keep on taking the initiative... and especially now, when it's taking care of our own lives, be it spiritual, mental or emotional. I've been insisting to my parents now not to show so much concern for me - that I'm old enough to take care of myself (but parents, being parents... hee hee! oh well. could be worse. at least they haven't pressured me to find a girlfriend. whew. praise God for His salvation! haha... eh! all in His good time, of course... :P)

Maybe one reason I'm afraid to take initiative in simple things, besides fear of failing, is that I don't want to appear as being assertive or pushy. Afraid to offend others, especially people older than me, because I keep thinking that taking initiative is casting aspersions on their authority. Hmm. Why do I think that particular thought? Perhaps my upbringing had a lot to do with this.

*But no, I'm pretty sure it doesn't have very much to do with the fact that I have a maid. I can do my own household chores pretty well, thank you very much. :) Thank God for my hostel life experience and even Scouts and Army experience - I can cook, iron, clean, wash my own clothes etc.*

And I know quite a lot of people see me as a younger brother. And I tend to accept it as a status quo. I wonder... oh well, probably because I've been the youngest in my family all my life, so I'm used to letting the 'older brother' make the decisions, give me advice, etc, for me.

And also because of my natural personality traits - I took the CALIPER profiling test, and discovered that my natural tendency is to be very flexible and accomodating (i.e. want to be liked by others), and am extremely low in assertiveness and have very low ego strength. Gee. But at least thank God I have a reasonably ok (albeit on the low side) level of skepticism. Otherwise I'd be completely taken for a ride.

So... after all this long long writing, I'm sitting back and thinking... I need to remember today's sermon: 2 Peter 1, which reminds me that God's divine power has given me everything I need for life and godliness... Amen! And I think I know what I need to do now - continue to grow in taking the initiative, even when I'm with a group of familiar people. But need to balance too, otherwise, knowing myself, I'll tilt to the other extreme, to the point of being obnoxious.

And we could also take the initiative to bless God too. :) to take the initiative to bless our parents too - this is something I learnt after watching my shepherd buy food for his mum. He wasn't even trying to teach me anything - just doing the normal thing that he does every Sunday, but... wow, this is a good principle, a good heart that I want to capture and personalize. To take initiative in my own learning. To take initiative to seek God, for He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

To take initiative in so many things... argggh... the phlegmatic in me really feels tired just thinking about all this. :P

Oh yah! just to add - after my 2nd DISC test, I realised that in social settings, I'm more of a S-C personality. A mixture of phleg-mel, actually. Just a bit of trivia.

Sleepy now! Zzz. Night and God bless!