Dear…
There is no healing of thy bruise, thy wound is grievous……..
Nahum 3:17
As I walked down Bt Timah Hill, I felt a disconnect between my right big toe and the rest of the foot. Thankfully, albeit with some pain, I managed to make my way down and walked the 6 km home. It has been almost 6 weeks and till these past couple of days, the pain from the inflamed tendon and possibly metatarsalgia never seems to heal.
But now with the enforced near static immobility imposed upon me by the need to stay within my quarantine room to sit out the covid19 positive me, my long suffering disjointed toe seemed to have finally returned to the fold.
Something to be thankful for and indeed good does come out of every situation, just like no tourists for two covid19 years allowed the once pristine beaches of Thailand to be restored.
Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria…..thy people are scattered upon the mountains and no man gathered them.
Nahum 3:18
What a strange past few months. God speaks to us through others if we seem tone deaf like in my case. A non believer friend who had the privilege to witness first hand my health woes of the past one month succinctly put it, God wants my attention.
In two years of almost daily walking, I never had any real blisters till recently. That painful mark of overuse of the foot did not deter me from making my weekly jaunt up Bt Timah Hill. And that was what led to the inflamed tendon and long layoff from walking. But never to be daunted, if one cannot walk, one could swim, and with all the fervency of an ex corporate warrior, I intensified my daily swim, and it was going good till an unprecedented case of diarrhoea derailed that momentum for a good 8 days. Upon recovery, I figured that though my toe was still a little bit off, I should be able to start walking again, but lo and behold, the covid19 virus decided to make my body its home. And here I am, totally no room for exercise or even to just move around, stuck in my little cave.
Cornered, yet positively a time of solitude, away from the family, yet a time where one can truly learn to be still and be in the presence of the Lord our God.
…that you may declare the praises of Him Who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God…..
1 Peter 2:9-10
It has been a couple of months since my litany of physical ills. I have in the main recovered from covid19, yet it has never fully left me. I still encounter days of fatigue, and just a couple of weeks back, though not dire, it was a little disconcerting when my heart rate dropped to 45 for 3 days, and it was disorientating and uncomfortable.
I am reminded that we are but a breath, or more like a heartbeat away from eternity
Is our good Lord giving me a message??
(watch sermon by Pastor Samuel “Put your trust in God’s Word)
This was the sermon delivered back in 2018 by the late Pastor Samuel Shaw of the Banner Church in Tai Chung, Taiwan.
Late because he has just passed on at age 63 from a rare brain disease.
A few years back, I chanced upon Pastor Samuel in my search for a good Mandarin Church where I could learn my Mandarin in obedience to the Word that our good Lord had given me many years back.
It is with sadness to see him go, yet with joy that he is with our Lord, and the ground that he has ploughed will be used by our Lord to bring forth a fruitful harvest.
(watch sermon April 2022, remembering Pastor Samuel)
Indeed our good Lord has a message for me, for you. And it was to no longer feel overwhelmed by my circumstances and move forth His way, holding on to the Word that He has given me back in 2011, a call which I have answered these past 11 years yet have often struggled with.
Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain. And washed my hands in innocence. For all day long I have been plagued. And chastened every morning.
Psalm 73:13-14
Believing and following the call of God is a commitment to a time of discipleship. And like all training, it is a transformative period. And it will be daunting, for the old in us must die, and the new can grow forth. And it is not easy, for in my times of weakness, I look back longingly at the days of bondage in Egypt and would it be great to leave the call of God behind and go live a life of seeming ease without the burden of the cross of following Him?
It was too painful for me. Until I went into the sanctuary of God……
Psalm 73:17
Only by clinging on to God, to live out and not leave His Word, will we be able to overcome and be the child He wants us to be.
But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like an eagle, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:31
Like Pastor Samuel, he was always thankful no matter his circumstances. It was never easy, but he clung on to and sought to live out the Word of God, for God is the Word. And like Pastor Samuel, God will decide when it is time for us to be taken home, for only He knows when we are ready for eternity with Him.
We have fought the good fight, we have finished the race, we have kept the faith.
2 Timothy 4:7
God Blesses
Eng Hieang
An afterthought : Leave it to our Living God
God knows our limits. But He will still allow us to struggle in the mire of our own understanding, and at His timing, His graceful outstretched hands will be finally grasped by us, a surrendered soul that stops trying to understand the why of our circumstances, and instead, just cling on to Him.
Affirmation from our loving Father is immediate, and often we ask ourselves, how silly of us to take such a long time before we take the step of faith. Yet the imperfect us will continue to wrestle with our understanding of the next challenge that comes our way. But growth in our faith is not about no struggle, for we are all imperfect. But about being quicker to grasp the loving hands of our omnipresent Father than before.
But it is good for me to draw near to God.I have put my trust in the Lord God. That I may declare all Your works.
Psalm 73:28
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