I just want to thank my cousin Tammy for blessing me with this song by
Laura Story. Recently she felt a great burden to pray for me and she forwarded this song to me.
I can relate to some parts of the song. However, I have never been angry with God since the beginning of this journey.
"We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near"
He gave me great peace and strangely to my mum too and later to Henry that God will deliver me out of this. What I struggled with was His timing. I wanted it so much my timing. I actually put it as 31 August 2009 and then it was 31 August 2010 and now I almost dare not. Knowing me, I know I will still plead God. :) I just keep seeing the number "2"! It could be 2 months, 2 years..I dunno.
What I can relate to the song is about crying and tears and to me, every time I feel weak or have a symptom, I just cry out to Him and it is these moments that I feel really close to Him.
"What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?"
I really feel His love and most recently He has revealed to me these treatments. It is like He did it to show me yet again how much He loves me and I am so overwhelmed by His love. I can see myself under His wings until disaster has passed. He has shown me His blessings in terms of the funds coming in and the support from friend, relatives and even from total strangers! I feel God's love through their love.
Even at times, I just want to reach out and touch Him and just desperately want to feel Him close to me, I realize from this song:
"And all the while You hear each desperate plea
As long that we'd have faith to believe"
Sometimes I wonder how His word sinks to our spirit man and recently He has showed me it is just by meditating on it, praying in His words, speaking it aloud or just saying it in my mind over and over again. But I feel a need to speak it out to let the devil know where I stand. These days a bit tough since I do get breathless. My aunt Agnes ( dad's side) says she can hear my breathlessness because she is a trained nurse. I thought she would not be able to tell since I could hold a conversation with her but she picked it up.
The trials in this journey is God revealing His love and mercy to me. I really want to be at a point that I completely cannot doubt because He has shown me so many great things, so many miracles, the latest being the provision of these treatments which we completely cannot afford.
I was reading the "Taming of the Tiger" by Tony Anthony and it has removed so much doubt from my mind of how God works in my life and in the life of others. I struggle with explaining to others of His many miracles he has done in my life. I sometimes feel people do not believe me but in Tony's case, he is soooooooo convinced, he does NOT care less what people think of it. He has experienced God's love in such awesome ways (coming from bhuddist background and deeply entrenched in the way of Kungfu, chi and all which he wrote in such great detail), he just wants to go and share to everyone what he experienced!
These days he discourages people from taking martial arts. He said in the west, people take it up for fitness and self defense but he warns from his own experience ( he is a 3 time world Kungfu champion), that it is rooted in spirituality which he believes is misleading and dangerous.
He says the way of Kung Fu is different from the true way of Christ. I remember that is one of the areas I was trying to explain daddy about the difference between bhuddism and Christianity. My dad just reckons that all religion leads to the same path and it is only a change of label of what each religion calls god. I shake my head.
Kung Fu to Tiny Anthony is a way that builds false confidence in self. Martial arts appeal to a person's fears, weaknesses and ego. Christ's way is to release a person into new life, freedom and security through and in Him.
I heard that 'Taming of the Tiger" will be made a movie someday. You must must catch it. His life was so colorful, like really out from a movie!
This was Tony's rhema from God:
John 8:36
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Anyway, back to the 'Blessings' song. Here are the full lyrics and the link to you tube. Laura's husband had brain tumour and their journey was very long before healing came. The back ground story can be heard here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDiTuSLSJB8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Blessings (lyrics by Laura Story)
We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things
Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops?
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?
What if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise?
We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
And all the while You hear each desperate plea
As long that we'd have faith to believe
Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?
And what if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise
When friends betray us, when darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home
Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near?
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the achings of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst
This world can’t satisfy?
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise?
You tube movie for the song "Blessings"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKR4wEURV1Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Tel Nagila Excavation Report Submitted!
1 week ago
Hi Liz,
ReplyDeleteIndeed, we do not be angry with God even when we do not feel He is near.
God hears all the time, even though in rare instances, He may not want to listen. The Hebrew word, "Shema" could mean "hear" or "listen". In fact, it has shades of strength, right from a mere hearing to listening to grant. Persistent wickedness in the life of a believer can, at time, cause God to turn His face away, even so, He hears.
In the Old Testament (OT), the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, was NOT indwelling believers or people of God, but today, anyone who has received Jesus into his life, has the Holy Spirit indwells him. So, on top of God hearing, as in the OT, and so, we still pray, God knows us directly, our thoughts and all, through His Spirit in us.
Similarly, concerning the presence of God, He is, in a modern day believer, present in us, through His Spirit, and as in the OT, also can come upon and about us. When we do NOT feel Him, it is we do NOT sense His tangible presence. We all long for His tangible presence, a manifestation of Him. But all the time, as a believer, we must recognise that He exists, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Heb 11:6).
Liz, I can see your posture in your journey is honoring to Him, and so, continue to be of good courage. You have shown us perseverance that is so much exhorted in Scripture, concerning a Christian's journey with the Lord. Despite your physical weaknesses, you have demonstrated growth, in humility, in understanding of truths of the faith, and in His ways, and you have demonstrated your faithfulness unto Him, choosing only to do that which He approves of, and staying away from those which He disapproved; and you have continued to exercise and grow your faith in the face of adversity. Indeed, you are a princess of God.
Continue on next comment.
Continuing from previous comment above.
ReplyDeleteYou indeed have a teachable spirit, and I thank God for that. Concerning qigong, martial arts, and the likes, indeed we have to be careful, for when engaged in those, to the higher levels, spiritual dimensions could kick in. It is indeed tempting to "go for" the "benefits" of such alternative "therapies", but you, when pointed out to you, of the offence that such have, to the Lord, have been willing to leave them, even as it is humanly quite understandable to want to do everything and anything to relieve yourself of pains and discomfort, and to receive recovery from your ailment.
As you are receptive, may I point you to this e-book on Qigong, but you MUST read all the way to chapter 3, if you do read it. You do NOT need to read the rest if you do NOT want to. The link is this: http://www.chinaforjesus.com/resources/qigong/index.htm
Concerning reaching out to your Dad, and about Buddhism and Christianity, you may want to read this book by Steve Cioccolanti: About From Buddha to Jesus: An Insider's View of Buddhism & Christianity.
I am privileged to have followed your journey. Anthony Chia.
Dear Anthony,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for being my guardian angell n always guiding me n praying for me will read de links u gave me god bless u n your ministry.
Liz