kings and boyfriends

greetings! i hope all is well on your side of the page. (if it isn't, well..hang in there. trust God.)
it's funny how certain seasons in life can strike you hard and make you forget the things that matter most to you. where am i getting with this you ask? well..that's for you to find out as you continue reading this article. haha. so don't skim this one through.

so the other day i was out with a bunch of my pals. we were heading off for dinner after a long day of practice. (well..it was long for me =p). and as we were sitting at the table i realized something- all of my friends were 'paired up' (if you know what i mean) except me. well. it was no surprise to me at all. i mean, i didn't mind being the only one without a physical 'partner'. i didn't mind hanging with those who did either despite the fact that i was left out most the time. it didn't bother me at all. at first.

previously, i thought to myself, "it's all good. God has something awesome planned out for me. i just know it! i don't have to rush into something just because everyone's doing it." i thought i was gonna be fine. i thought that the LAST thing that would actually make me feel insecure about myself is not being with someone or having someone by my side to do life with.

but just the other day i foolishly deprived myself of some well-needed time with God. in other words, i missed to do my daily devotion. and it shocks me on how missing just one day with God makes me VULNERABLE to the core. that just proves how important He really is to me.

with vulnerability comes weakness. and this was when things got very interesting.
 
so back to the whole 'forever-alone-dinner-situation'. i mean..i wasn't craving for attention or anything. i knew very well this was what i had to face whenever my friends bring their 'plus-ones' along. i didn't mind.  even when their partners were not there in the flesh they would be busy (and when i say 'busy' i mean 'completely-lost-in-their-own-world' busy.) communicating with them through facebook or whatsapp or whatever means of advanced texting there is out there. and being the only one without a smartphone to keep myself occupied made the situation just that much awkward for me. gosh. call me shallow but it was awful being neglected by the company you're with. and that my friends was the vulnerability talking. haha. i was going through a lot at that time as well. in the end, i gave in to weakness and indirectly doubted God's sole place in my life as the true lover of my soul. i kept thinking to myself how awesome it would be to have a darn boyfriend so that i won't be the only one starring at the food on the table and complementing on how good it is during dinner.

remember what i talked about in my previous articles? on how there can be no substitutes when it comes to God? i guess the key issue i was really bothered with was not being 'loved' in the flesh by someone. you see folks, i was foolish enough to default to the need for the temporary attention of a man instead of resting on the eternal, everlasting, unfailing love of God; thinking that if had someone by my side, i'll feel better about myself. and boy i was wrong.. i. kid. you. not.

then it hit me. i was reading the book of 1 Samuel in the Bible the other day and one of the chapters in it tells of how Israel wanted a king to reign over them. you see, they wanted a king to reign over them not because they really needed one but because they wanted what the other neighbouring nations had. they thought "hey, if we had a king we would certainly own people in battles and stuff". they forgotten that it was God whom (in His unfailing love and faithfulness) delivered them from all their previous enemies and gave them victory after victory.


Don't get me wrong. having a physical partner to do life with is one of the greatest blessings one can ever receive in their lifetime on earth. God gave us marriage as a beautiful reflectance of our relationship with Him after all. But it all boils down to what your real intention is to have a mate in the first place. Is it for the sake of God-centered companionship? or just like the Israelites, for the sake of conformity? 

you see, all they ever needed was God. But instead, they wanted a king to reign over them as a physical evidence of leadership that they can refer to. This brings me to another segment of this article-  to truly rely on God's love takes faith. There are people out there who are not convinced of God's love towards humanity because they expect present physical evidence of it. well guess what, there WAS physical evidence and it came in the form of Jesus Christ. As His children, we must take God at His Word and be fully convinced of the fact that: 

1. He loves us (Eph. 2:4-5)
2. He is for us/on our side (Rom. 8:31)
3. He will never leave us nor forsake us despite our shortcomings (Deut. 31:6)
4. He is all that we need (2Cor. 12:9)

We can never truly experience nor enjoy the love of God without first believing that He loves us. am i making sense?


with love that comes from God,
Theresa

Blessings in the form of the body

hey guys! how's it going? hope all is well with you guys. i know i said it like a million times but it has been insanely long since i blogged about something or written an article on my journey with God. To be brutally honest, there were SO MANY things i wanted to write about and i believe it was God's way of speaking to me too.

Anyway, it's my second semester here in Kampar (if you've read my previous article, "entering unknown terrain", i've referred it as the "land up north". hehe. moving on.) and i must say it has been an incredible journey *hearts*. God has indeed blessed me a great deal lately and one of best blessings i've had when i first got here were incredible friends. You see, God surrounded me with very extraordinary people. Why extraordinary you ask? these are the kind of people you would know are completely sold out for God and whose lives are devoted to loving others and doing His Will. They may be young, but they know first hand that God has set them apart for things greater than themselves.

1 Timothy 4:12 says, "do not let anyone look down on you just because you are young but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity."

A wise person once said that a man is defined by the company that surrounds him. Now for me, that is true to a certain extent. Because i've experienced first hand how these wonderful men and women of God encouraged me and inspired to pursue a deeper love for Him. You can have all the theology in the world within you but if that knowledge is not accompanied with an earnest, sincere and desperate desire for Jesus then you know you need to get fixed.

Glory to God for designing this entire body in such a way that every part does not contradict one another but compliments one another. Now, for many of you who don't exactly know what this statement means, God has made you and i to support and enhance one other in Him. I use to think i was fine on my own and that i didn't need people for support because God was all that i needed. But God proved me wrong by showing me that depending on your spiritual family is NOT a sign of weakness in anyway. Don't get me wrong, the bible still tells us that our hope should rest on nothing less other than God Himself.

Depending on someone doesn't necessarily mean that your complete hope is in them. People often mistaken the whole concept of "not putting your hope on men but on God" as sign that they should run a one man show. As for me, what it really meant was that we must fully rely on God for all things; including spiritual support. God's form of Spiritual support comes from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Think about it, God can provide us with support anyway He chooses. Be it through a personal touch or encounter with Him but i believe that He is capable of using other people as well. A perfect example is to have other people lay their hands on you to pray for you. God said after all that His body is the church and that He has made the Church so that the gates of hell will not prevail.

sincerely yours in the Lord,
Theresa