Resting in God

It has come to my attention that I've been too busy doing many Christian things and I can no longer keep up doing all of them. This term I've been involved with prayer meetings, gospel choir practice, choir singing at churches (takes like 4 hours each time), book study, womanhood workshop, fellowship, 2 church services (I've been church hopping), Bible reading, CCF, sharing the gospel with people and I'm sure there's more. What the heck?!

I can't belive I've been doing all of this every week O_O Part of it is because I wanted to try out new things (ie. new form of worship, hence the gospel choir) and part of it is because once I say I'll go do it, I stick to my guns and do it. And also because I want to learn more. But I really need to stop. I can feel God putting up a huge stop sign in front of me when I start wandering to those meeting places; I felt restless and definitely not at peace. I've been getting soooo drained out and need to pass out on my bed for at least 2 hours everyday. At first I didn't know why, but now I know.

It's very easy to start off with working with God and things just slowly turn into earning God.

There was a retreat (I didn't go) at one of the churches I've been attending. And their theme for retreat was Resting in God. So for the entire long weekend, they only had 2 sessions and most of the time was free time for people to quietly rest in God. That includes physically resting (sleeping) and just not doing anything but just rest and enjoy the presence of God. Being physically tired is a sign that you do need to rest. Have enough rest so that you can be refreshed and rejuvenated to continue to work with God. Now I know exactly why the Sabbath is so important. And this should be the point of retreats as well; to get away from the business (we put ourselves through) and just rest so we can be refreshed.

There were many retreats I used to go to, but from experience, I and everyone else always leave retreat more tired than before going. Not trying to bash retreats or anything, but we tend to forget what the point of retreats is in all the excitment of being around friends. The reason I stopped going to retreats is because I know that I'll die from a lack of sleep due to playing too many GAMES.

Another thing, we get busy because we want to learn more. It is true and I'm not going to deny it, learning more about the Word is a good thing and you can definitely get new insights. But are you really enjoying that time or are you just checking items off from your religious to-do list?

Quality quiet time with God is different from CCF, Bible studies, prayer meetings, gospel choir, serving etc. You can't replace dwelling in the presence of God (WOW! How awesome that sounds already!) with CCF gatherings or cell groupsss. It is a 1:1 relationship. You take joy in the complete presence of each other.

God can!

Three weeks ago I witnessed God turning hope on in a man who was determined to "disappear"...

The look on the man's face was so downcast, so solemn, so... hopeless. People wanted him to start one to one intervention the week after, but the whole time he did not want to. There wasn't much I could do at the moment. The only thing I knew to do was pray for God to just turn a bit of hope inside of him on so that at least he won't "disappear" in less than a week.

And within seconds after praying, he asked what he was supposed to do at the intervention. Wait! What?! So... he's agreeing to go? Yup and it was just like that.

Knowing exactly what just happened, I was awestruck. What made my mouth drop even more was when I saw him last week. He was sooOoo bright; the look on his face was different and so were the content of the things he talked about and the tone of his voice.

To be honest, I was quite bitter even after he agreed to go to the intervention --> "Oh swell! He's not going to disappear till the week after! =D" But I later ruled that out because there was no way that God would turn hope on just so the man can do what he used to determine to do.

And it was right to rule that thought out because of how different the man became just after two weeks.

I'm not sure what God prepared for him or when God will go meet with him to touch him. But I know it will definitely be pure amazing =)

On another note, even with these awesome crazy things happening I sometimes forget that God can change my stubborn heart too. I'm not sure if other people forget that as well, but a lot of times I think that God can change everyone else but me. Argh! lol so dumb, but for some reason it totally makes sense when I'm senseless and forget that God can move the immovable.