Surprised By Joy!

Wow, I just feel so happy. Really want to thank God for all His goodness... hee!

Got a testimony to share how God has suddenly spoken to me, and healed me, over the weekend. It was so surprising - I was surprised by joy... :D

(No, it's not my hearing problem, though that would be an equally wonderful testimony!)

Think a lot of you will know that for many years, I have had a deep struggle with insecurity. Hence every time I made a mistake, especially if it was a social mistake, I would become very depressed and emotional. And if people rejected me, I would be very emotionally affected and take a long time to recover. Hence, I struggled constantly with the lack of joy, and that affected my confidence level - it would go up and down like the stock market.

This lack of confidence affected me in more than relationships - for starters, it affected my university grades, and even caused me to screw up very badly in an interview for an NUS scholarship interview in my first year.

Of course, by God's grace, I had my up moments of confidence, and God used me and another brother when I was in my first year in NUS to wonderfully share the gospel with a fellow freshman. He received Christ, and years later, he is faithfully following Christ, and even discipling others. That is the power and importance of being confident as a minister of Christ.

Still, for me, I still struggled very often with low self-esteem and constant feelings of inadequacy, rejection, incompetence and even uselessness. These feelings only served to hinder my effectiveness as a minister of the gospel, and especially in blessing people around me relationally.

Over time, as I received more of God's grace in my life, especially in 2005 and 2006, God answered many prayers of mine for breakthroughs in emotional stability, relationships, character, and even answered my prayer to take care of a sheep. Still, I often felt low and broken in spirit, often feeling inadequate and incompetent as a man.

But Jesus is so good. :D

Recently, I went for a missions trip to Kenya. One of my objectives was to be transformed, that I would come back a different and better person.

God really answered my prayer. During the trip, I struggled a lot with insecurity again, because the rest of the team was so much more competent than me in many things, that I felt increasingly inferior and down.

So I met up with Jason to share this feeling of uselessness and downness with him. He counselled me, and one question that he asked really struck me:

"Yeu Ann, where does your joy come from? Is it found in your relationship with Jesus, or is it found in your relationships with the people around you?"

I knew that my answer was the latter. No wonder my joy as a Christian kept on fluctuating... not stable at all, and not very effective in ministering to others some more!

Then, during the trip, I had the opportunity to borrow a book from Lisa and Lichuan, our two church planters. Also, Huaqiang had lent me a book too to read. Both books spoke strongly about God's work in our souls, and the power of God's grace to transform, strengthen and renew our lives. These two books made me start thinking even more.

And then... last Friday, God spoke to me through two more channels. First, I went for Men's Ministry Night and Pastor Jo shared about what makes a real man of God. One verse in particular that he shared pricked my heart.

John 5:19
Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

Ps Jo shared that a real man of God is not one who can do everything. He told us that the Bible says in Isaiah 53 that Jesus was not a handsome man. On the contrary, he "had no beauty or majesty, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him." And that he faced rejection: "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering..." And that Jesus himself said that he could do nothing by himself.

But he went on to tell us that despite all this, Jesus had this confidence in Him that drew many men and women to Him. And even though he had this confidence, he readily admitted that by himself, he could do nothing, but only what he saw his Father doing.

So that sharing by Ps Jo really spoke to me, because in my heart, I whispered a prayer to God, "Dear God, I really want to have this kind of confidence that Jesus had, that I can be a real man of God too."

Then... later that night, when I returned home, I talked with a friend on MSN. And she shared with me a testimony. Her testimony really touched me very much. She shared about how God turned her from an insecure and bitter person into a loving and caring soul.

That part really, really made my heart very envious, because inside me, I was asking God...

"Lord, she has experienced this transformation... Oh, why is it that I haven't experienced this peace of heart and overcome this insecurity that has been plaguing my heart for so many years? Why so many years?"

And I stayed up until very late, just thinking about this question that my soul was asking.

Then... the next morning, I woke up. Or rather, Weizhu woke me up, calling me at 9.30 am, 'cos I was supposed to go down to his place to have breakfast with him. I rushed down in a cab.

And I decided to have a quick quiet time in the cab. I resumed my daily reading of the Gospel of John. And as I read John 5, my eyes popped upon this verse: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."

It was the same verse that Ps Jo shared with us the night before. I felt a soft stirring in my heart.

So after I had breakfast with Weizhu, and had taken a nap, I decided to read again John 5, because I felt God wanted to say something more to me here.

I read, in that chapter, about Jesus meeting a man who was invalid for thirty-eight years. "Thirty-eight years! That is a very long time," I thought to myself. I continued reading on:

When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

That verse suddenly spoke straight to me. I felt the Lord was asking me too, and directly... "Yeu Ann, you have been struggling with this crippling insecurity for a long time. Do you want to get well?"

I was shocked. I'd never really seen it from that angle. The Lord challenged me: I have the power to heal you. But do YOU want to get healed?

And then as I read on, these words rebuked me:

[Jesus said:] "I do not accept praise from men, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?

He showed me clearly what was my heart's attitude.


So I sat down and pondered. Finally, I put all the pieces together. I think I knew what Jesus was trying to get across to me: That I have to make the decision to just accept what God says about my identity and worth and competence by faith.

I looked at Weizhu, who was working on his computer. I turned to him and shared with him what I thought the Lord was telling me. He listened attentively, and after I had said everything, I asked him, "Hmm... well, I don't know. I could be wrong in my understanding... but what do you think?"

He pondered, and then replied: "Well... I can't think of anything to add at the moment, because it seems whatever that needs to be said, God has already said to you."

So asked him to pray for me. And he prayed. After he finished praying for me, I felt a sense of gratitude and peace in my heart. :)


And since that time... somehow I just have this new sense of security, that my identity is truly in Christ. That even though I'm still far from perfect, my joy really is found in Christ. Now I really understand in my heart that I am free to walk in the new life that He has given me - free to live as a new man of God. :D

I don't know how I understood this truth finally in my heart after so many years.

And the thing is, it's such a joy... I have a new sense of confidence - a more sure confidence that is based on my identity in Christ. Think I have finally tasted the goodness of this promise of Jesus in John 16:22

So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

This is a deeper and stronger kind of joy - the joy that comes from my relationship with Jesus. The kind that, if even people reject me because of my weaknesses, faults and sins... it is a joy that will still last and endure, because as long as Jesus is alive, my joy is alive too. Wow...



It's a very long testimony, but I must carry on. Because to show that it is not merely a good feeling that lasts for a few days and then fade away (and to satisfy my inner skeptic too), over this weekend, God worked through me to share a relevant aspect of my testimony about the Kenya missions trip. And the sharing was so relevant... it was about CG, and it was just right, fitting the topic that Huaqiang wanted to share. Amazing! God is so good.

And then also, the next day, He used me to bless quite a few people along the way, and I felt so thankful to God. Because it is not I who can minister to the people, but Jesus who lives in me that is ministering to the people around me. I'm so amazed again.

And... wonderfully, there was this brother who was not on speaking terms with me for a long time, because I had lost my temper with him many months ago. But all of a sudden, today, he started talking much more to me and taking the initiative to ask me about things going on in my life, and about the missions trip. In my heart, I was very surprised, and wondered what caused the change in his attitude towards me. Especially since the last time we had contact, we had quarrelled. I think it is totally the power of God. Wow. Amazing again.

And wow, while meeting another friend, and listening to him/her share about a struggle, and I was wondering how to help this friend overcome the struggle. Suddenly, in the midst of this friend's sharing, the Holy Spirit gave me a sharp, specific question to ask this friend.

AND WOW. The Spirit of God is so powerful. Through that specific question, He helped me unearth a major key issue in my friend's life. And we prayed together, and wow again, my friend shared that he/she was relieved after all this time. And what is even better is that this friend thanked God for His power, how He showed His power in such a specific way.

Felt so so happy that when I was walking back home, I started singing, "The Spirit of the Lord is great and mighty / The Spirit of the Lord is my victory and strength..." And I just started dancing along the street... so filled with joy because of what the Lord has done for us! Oh, Jesus is just so so so good! :D (I made sure to look around first to see that there was nobody else around.)

It is so true! I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. AMEN!

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor...

Hee. It's a very, very long testimony, but really, I want to thank God so much for the joy that He has given me. And I believe that just as Jesus told the lame man in John 5 to get up and walk, I believe that He has made me just get up and be a new confident person in Him, just like that. So I don't have to lie on the mat of my old self-pity and negativeness anymore, but I can now walk with a new kind of confidence - not a confidence that comes any longer from my own abilities, but a different kind of confidence that comes from Christ working through me.

Dear friends, just want to end off this testimony with this verse. Hope and pray that this encourages you too!

2 Corinthians 3:4-6
Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

God really loves you! :D