Have you really ask yourself this question....
What does grace really means?
Although it may seem that I should have at least know how to answer it, being in a church that preaches grace, it never did occur to me that I dun truly know it yet.I may have become so accustom with it that I never did question myself this. Like wat Deacon shared during campus...we have been so well fed with grace message that we sometimes "lose" the excitement over it compared to those who have never heard of it before ie.his trip to myanmar when e people were so overjoyed with the gospel of grace till tears were seen in their eyes.
I knew it as undeserved favor or charisma. Getting what we dun deserve. People often say "Ask for the help you need from his grace".yea....but how does this grace thing really work?How do i know i'm living it or i'm doing out of my self effort.For example, two students may have been given an essay to be handed in the next day, both went home to do it.Same action, same task....but one can be regarded as doing it by God's grace and the opther out of self effort.How do you differentiate which is of grace/self effort?
As I was jogging yesterday(yes...he speaks to us anytime/anywhere=)) I question God.
What really is grace?I ask Him many times.I wanted to know it as a personal revelation to me.Not of head knowledge as I might had, but of heart knowledge.
Then I gave Him an example. Imagine a guy who wants to lose weight and build his muscle mass.He cant possibly sit there and stare at the picture of the one who has it and say by God's grace i'll have it too.He then says I trust His grace and rest.Thats absolutely impossible. He still have to work at it. A guy cant possibly sit down and not go out to meet gals if he wants a galfren and say that by God's grace He'll drop one...???
Then He gave me this two words.
Desire and ability.
He said if that guy wants to lose weight and he's not an active person....and going to the gym each morning or after work seems to be the hardest thing for him, He'll birth the desire in that guys heart and give him the ability to do it. All of a sudden, he would wake up one morning filled with the passion to exercise, he himself wont know why, but he is in love with this new hobby now and wants to do it not for the sole purpose of losing weight although he may have wanted it. Now His action is govern/not driven by his initial wants but by his love for going to the gym. Weird in the natural. And when he steps in the gym, he will have the ability to lift the weight he once find difficult but now he does it with ease.
After He showed me this, I started to put this to every situation that comes to mind and do a check if I'm living by his grace or by my self effort.And it really works!Hee.Go try it out.
A simple example would be like this.You want to do well for your exams. But you just dun like to study.We've all been there=) But try to recall a time when you trusted His grace to grace you thru. You suddenly have an interest to read and everything becomes so clear to you in a few mins compared to the hours you tried to understand it by yourself. Be careful the next time you ask, you may become so interested in studying just like how pastor is to preaching four services when grace lives in us.Hee~A rest that comes from directed activity.
Then later, He impress this on me. Do you see that many times
it's the wants that you're asking from me.And not the process to it.I then saw a picture of a line, from one end to the other.The line being the process.For example...you want a galfren.You will not ask Him that you want to buy a flower for her, you want to hold her hand, you want to open the door for her but you do it because it's an overflow of your love for her.It's a process that you go thru to having a galfren.But wat was the actual thing you wanted?the flower?I hope not.Hee.Of course the gall=) But what drives you to chase her...it's your desire.And do you have the ability to?...yes for the first few months/courtship,but the years after marriage will only last if God was the one that initiated it.The married man may find it a chore later to open the door for His wife because he is no longer "in love" with his wife like he had in their honeymoon days...God's grace is when He puts the passion and desire in Him to love her again and grace him with the ability to do it.
This verse then came to mind.
Psalms37:4..."Delight yourself in the Lord, And He will give you the desires of your heart"
If it was He who has birth the desires in our heart/to love the things we do in the process of our wants...then we see the amazing thing in this verse why He will answer our desires.Because He was the one who initiated and planted the desires in our heart, will He not fulfill it=)
If you do not want to go thru another heart break from another gal.keke.Mmm.i dunno why i'm writing this, maybe someone needs to hear this =) Ask the Father.
Remember, the boy wants a galfrren or the gal wants a boyfren.Ask the one who knows best for you. Ask Him to give you the desire for the rite gal. If He was the one that gave you, you do not need to work for it.It's all His part in doing and fulfilling it. He will give you His ability to go after her and it'll be a smooth one. No more "fearful expectation" of what might come.Hee. If He was the one that initiated it, He will be the one that will help you thru when trials come.He who began a work in you, will complete it.
God is longing to put desires in our heart. Tell him your wants.
If you want to serve God in a ministry. Tell Him you want to serve. He'll give you a desire in the specific ministry.He wont come in front of your door to tell you which one to go to, the Holy Spirit is already in you to give you that desire for the specific ministry. And that is His will for you. His desires becomes yours now.
Another translation Psalms 37:4(New Century Version)
..."Enjoy serving the Lord,and He will give you what you want"
Delight yourself in the Lord.Tell him what you want. He will do it for you.
This was all confirm by what I was reading in the bus this morning by brother Lawrence(the practise of the presence of God)
Only recently, Brother was asked to go into Burgundy to get supplies for the monastery. This chore was difficult for him because, first, he had no head for business and second, he was lame in one leg and could not walk on the boat without falling against the cargo of barrels. Nevertheless, neither his awkwardness not the errand in general caused him any distress. He simply told God that it was His affair, after which he found that everything tunred out nicely.
Things went the same way in the kitchen of the monastery, where he worked. Although he once had a great dislike for kitchen work, he develloped a facility for doing it over the fifteen years he was there. He attributed this to his doing everything for the love of God, asking as often for grace to do his work. He said that he was presently in the shoe repair shop and that he liked it very much. He would however, be willing to work anywhere, always rejoicing at being able to do little things for the love of God.
Grace be with you always, God's beloved!=)
