Testimony for 18/01/09

On the coming Sunday, I will be sharing my testimony in church. So I figured that I should post a rough work here, since my thoughts come randomly and I go to a Chinese church.

Here to share my New Years resolution which pretty much has to do with what I brought back from MNC.

1. Word of God

• I'm sure that everyone has problems when reading the bible. May it be delays, hard to concentrate, new vocabulary, hidden meanings, lack of understanding or inconsistency.
• I had my ups and downs too. In fact, there were times that I didn't read the bible for a pretty long time, up to probably a month. Try imagine not eating for a month!
• So it was during MNC (Malaysian National Convention) that I got the conviction to really hunger for the Word. Before if you'd ask me about the Word of God, I'd say : "I love the Word of God", but now, I'd say : "I hunger for the Word of God".
• This hunger would be like, you really want it, how could I say it? The feeling is like "urrggggghhhhh", but it's not constipation hahahaha. Imagine your favorite food, you really like that food and you hadn't eaten it for quite some time. Yep, the feeling would be like "uuuurrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh"!
• This hunger from God wouldn't just be like reading the bible only, but to understand what actually happened back then. Those aren't just words inside, they really happened, emotions and feelings were involved, real people in real life situations. I can't just read these events life stories or facts from a science textbook. I have to go in-depth, to explore, to imagine as if I was there too. What pastor had shared in the church, how in-depth it is, how true and real it was during that situation, never ceases to amaze me. Like that sermon pastor shared, about a widow who is poor and through faith how God had blessed her. How was she poor in the first place? Even when her husband was a person who reverred God? Real things in real circumstances happened, this is the insight that I seek when reading the Word of God now.
  
• Apart from that, I received "messages" from God. I treasure so much His direct messages and messages given by Him through brothers and sisters that pray for me. This reminded me that since I treasured them so much, actually His Words are also messages from Him.
• Since MNC, I hadn't fail to read the Word daily. Which is more than a month now and I had managed to read more than 30 chapters, without fail.
• I remember one night, when I was in Damai with my family and my relatives. Everyone headed to bed and all the lights were off. I was lying on the bed, but I felt something was missing. Then it suddenly came to me, I forgot to read the Word of God! And so I got up, took my bible and went to the toilet. Indeed that night God gave me His message, for I had to lead P&W in the coming CG, He told me which songs to lead and what messages He had in store for His students. Unfortunately, the coming CG, I was dead-sick and I couldn't lead P&W. Though I did have the chance to share about the message, not everything was told.

2. 20 people Target

• I set this target during MNC when Ps Jeffrey made the alter call, it was after one of His sermons. He called all the CGL to come forward and he asked us to shout out a number, a number that we wanna see in our CG by 2009's MNC. He said: "On the count of 3, I want you to shout it out." So there wasn't much time thinking, considering our Student Unit's target was 50 people, so I thought 20 was a reasonable number, but I didn't do much thinking because it was only 3 seconds.
• So currently there are only 5 people including myself in my group. This means we have to multiply by 4, so each person has to bring 4 people.
• 20 people, it's a huge number, but I've never been so convicted. A target is set, not because you can achieve it, but because you wanna see it happen and you will work for it to happen. This is what I've learnt regarding targets.
• Actually, in this student group, sometimes they really get to my nerve, so rebellious, so many problems, so many excuses, so immature, they never change, this and that. There are times when I really wanna give up. But I'm sure this is where my ministry is and if there's one word I can say about this unit, it's potential.

3. Transformation

• I know that I'm not a very good person, but I realise that if I wanna do more things, I need to improve. Not just change, but transform.
• I realise that I'm not good at expressing myself. At creating conversations, to show my manners and respect. Please pardon me.
• About conversations, it's a very important skill at reaching out to people. Often when I talk to people, I'd be the one who's answering, and my answers would be short and shy. Often I found out that I was in an awkward conversation, a conversation that turns cold, where there are nothing to talk about anymore.
• Well I've learnt the secret about conversations, which is care. Caring about the person you're talking to. When you care about someone, you will wanna know about them, and that is where all the questions come from and conversation begins.

To conclude things, I would like to use a passage that I reveived through lottery during CG. 1st Tim 4:12 [Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity] Though I'm not considered the young one in Cg, but I'm sure it compares me to adults and it really means a lot to me. Forgive me if I didn't do good enough, but please remind me. Thank you!