Reaching For You.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

PSALMS 23
The Lord is my sheperd, i shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters,
He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
Even though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, i will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You annoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and i will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

FOP was not bad yesterday. Hillsong was good and even though i've never heard Delirious in my entire life before, they're pretty cool. heh. but what made the difference was the people i was with and that we were worshipping in Spirit and in Truth. Praise the Lord!!! :)

even though i woke up late again, God has already blessed me with His Word and i'm so in awe of what He has given me. i'm trying to read 5 psalms everyday cos it's a must to read the Bible everyday and that's when i get refreshed by God. :) i thought psalms would be a great book in the Bible to read especially when you're trying to write songs. it's always great if the lyrics of the song are from the Bible so that the congregation will be singing the Truth. can you imagine me writing a song that describes the wonderful visions that God blessed me with and making the whole congregation sing it with me? my goodness. i'll be making them a bunch of liars! haha! so what better way than to start with a book that praises God so beautifully?

i read psalms 111 to 115 just now and so many verses jumped out at me. psalms 111:10 says "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts have good understanding. To Him belongs eternal praise." what really struck me was that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". i never knew that. somehow i always put them under separate categories like wisdom was linked to knowledge from God so as to do His will and to lead His people and fearing the Lord was always well, fearing God. we learn something new everyday. :)

something i've been praying for is unshakable faith in God and psalms 112:6,7 says "Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever. He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord." and it's like "hey! God hears me!" haha. but the amazing thing is that this verse was written centuries ago. awesome ain't it? :) i'm going to meditate on this verse big time man.

Psalms 115:1 "Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to Your name be the glory, because of Your love and faithfulness." and that should always be the way right? all our gifts are God-given, therefore we should give Him the praise and glory due to our Lord and Saviour. ask the Lord to reign in your creative drive because we're called to be radical worshippers. when i was reading darlene zschech's extravagant worship she said in one chapter that creative people often feel the need for attention and that's so true. i've shared with the beautiful people in the young adult cell that i'm in, about the time i crashed in the middle of a worship session. everything just blanked out and i just didn't know what to play next. i was panicking big time cos this had never happened to me ever since i started serving in the music ministry which was about 6 years ago. it was a huge lesson to learn about humility. God had to bring me down from the pedestal that said "i'm good because i'm good" and not because of His grace and blessings. false humility, which is a form of pride says, "love me because i'm gifted!" but true humility says "let me use my gift to show you how loved you are in Christ". and that's the way we should treat our talents, blessing His people in turn because He has blessed us with wondrous gifts. we were put on this earth to serve God and His people, not to be served!!

i admit that a few weeks right before i went for the Hillsong conference i wasn't really playing in the Spirit ever since i crashed during that worship session and it was so obvious to me, and i don't know how many of you, that i was playing using my talent and not in the Spirit and using my talent to praise God. i became stagnant in my playing and even my dad who sings out of tune and is not very musically inclined told me, "the new style that you're playing on the piano sounds horrible. it's really horrible." might be harsh for my dad to tell me that but i appreciate honest criticism cos it makes me a better person after learning from it and of course my playing will improve (hopefully) in the following weeks. but when my dad told me that i was thinking, "what new style? i didn't change the way i've been playing." and that really struck me that i'm not GROWING! and the reason why i was playing in church was so wrong! no wonder i kept getting "dry" when i served God and i got tired and impatient easily. but i'm so different now. the conference somehow cleansed me. God puts us through the fire but the furnace is a refining fire, a purifying fire, as Bobbie Houston describes. it gets rid of the nonsense, the garbage, the facade and whatever that prevents Christians from reaching their fullest potential. tough lesson that i learnt, but i wouldn't exchange it for anything. God always knows what's best for us, and always does what's best for us and His timing is always PERFECT. AMEN? our God is an awesome God and He reigns from Heaven above with wisdom and power and love. Praise You Lord!!!

Left@| 12:01 PM

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