It seems easier for the guitarist to be sensitive in knowing where we should go. Most of the time, worship leaders become so distracted by the hand signals that they do not even lead by worshipping God themselves, the primary duty of a worship leader.
I have an idea to beat this problem though. I am going to experiment beforehand and write down the flow of the song. I will make changes as God directs before and during worship.
Pastoral leader Tim Chin preached an excellent sermon if you ask me. He has humour and charisma; it seems like he will be preaching really really well in the very very near future.
However, the reason Saturday was great is because for once I seemed to have heard and recognized God’s voice. Remember in the last entry I said God told me I will be a worship leader soon during last Saturday’s altar call? This week, Zaccheus Tree announced that they are recruiting.
I am going to answer the call and I hope I will be chosen, though I simply do not believe I have enough of what it takes to be a worship leader. I am not worried though; calling will always find its way around.
I might not get picked during the auditions but if it’s God’s will, I will still end up leading worship somehow. And if I do end up leading worship, God will make all grace abound in me to do exceedingly abundantly all I can hope or imagine.
The rest of the night was real ugly though. There were two spiritual attacks, one involving my sister and the other one involving my dad.
My sister was at Uncle Bobby’s when suddenly she started laughing for no reason and could not stop. She laughed so hard her lungs hurt and she had difficulty breathing. When I asked her if she remembered anything, she said she does not really remember anything except that her lungs hurt.
That was an outright manifestation and I am surprised no one sensed it quick enough. I was at Beauty World and did not know until my sister came to me after being prayed for by June.
I really hate the devil for harming my sister like that. This is not the first time and it will not be the last. This shows that he has no sense of goodness in him at all. Picking on a child, it’s only right that he deserves to go to hell. He is lucky he is spirit and not human. I will give him a beating or two even if I get defeated finally.
My dad came to drive me home and he was drunk. I shared my joy at being called to be a worship leader last week and how Z3 started recruiting this week. You will be surprised at his reaction.
He begins telling me that money is the most important and that we should thank him for being the breadwinner. I agreed with him but I told him how Jesus heals our emotional parts and is there during praise and worship. I told him it is not just singing.
He then went on to say that God did not touch him. He questioned why Africa is suffering and why God does not help them. He said Christianity is only for people who already have their basic needs meet. And he said his usual line, “God cannot save you, only you can save yourself.”
I told him about Tammy, Yu Ling and Jason’s healing in Singapore and about the poverty-stricken believers in Thailand who were healed. He told me I was inexperienced.
This is not the first time he has shown utter disrespect for what I feel, say and experienced. And he somehow does not want to communicate. He wants it to be a monologue when I just shut up and listen to his childish views on this world and what is important.
He once told me that he was not accountable to my sister, my mother or me. He believes that respect goes one way, from me to him. He wants to be the god of my life where I just worship him, the ‘one who is always right’.
We ended up in a heated argument. I tried to be as polite as possible. I even said I do not want to talk about it anymore. The funny thing was he said I challenged him to argue though he was the one to step on my toes. And he goes on with this speech about how he is a good father who does not object to me being a Christian. He has been the biggest pain to me ever since I became a Christian.
He got so angry he drove the car very fast, to intimidate us and show us that he is angry. He almost ended in an argument with a driver who was rightfully angry for my father’s outrageous regard for road safety. Just to show that he was not to be trifled with, he got in front of the car and drove slowly. If I ever become a hooligan, he cannot blame me for I had the best teacher as my dad.
When we reached home, he made a lot of noise slamming the car doors and just making a racket out of normal lifestyle habits.
That is quite enough of Saturday’s disappointments. Let’s move on to Sunday’s.
I had to go for a project meeting and did not go for bible study. Coming back from Orchard, I saw a Christian guy with a bible showing public affection in the train. His girl was hugging him and they were sort of kissing and caressing.
It looked disgusting, though I have seen worse. This is why boy-girl relationships at an early age is ill-advised. We are just not ready to love each other as we should. For ignoramuses, love is not only an emotion; it is a commitment. Sex is the reward for a long-term committment to loving a person unconditionally.
Girls are intellectual beings with emotions, just as they are physical beings with good looks and beauty. We are being really shallow if we focus so much on the tangible and visible parts and miss out on the wonderful goodness of the intangible and invisible parts.
According to the Bible, what is unseen is eternal. Our body will perish and a new and glorious one will be given. Only our personality and character will remain, unscathed by death. Why spend time on what is perishable? God made all of creation with certain principles, one causing what is worthless to waste away, perish and become nothing.
I do not think I am ready to date until at least 23. I do not want to date a girl until I can love my family as I should and love every girl like my sister. What’s the point of dating a girl if I don’t even love my family enough? She deserves more, whoever she is.
After all, she’s going to be part of the family one day and the vicious cycle of ungodly families and relationships will continue. We learn a lot, consciously and subconsciously, from our parents. After all, we are genetically programmed to become similar to them.
Generation to generation, God’s concept of unconditional love has been destroyed by of our selfishness. The sad thing is we have forgotten what is love. Love gives and does not expect. Love does what is best for the other person.
Love is not cupid shooting a person through his/her heart, impaling and her with the deadly arrow of short-term puppy love. Love is not blind nor should it hurt. Love is not possessive, selfish and domineering. Love sucks when the other person does all the giving.
Love is being the person you want to love. Love is keeping yourself chaste and pure for the love of your life. Love is God, God is love. Love is serving someone for the rest of your life. Love is as described in the sweet poem below:
Love suffers long and is kind.
Love does not envy
Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up.
Love does not behave rudely.
Love does not seek its own.
Love is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.
- What God says in a Bible verse. I bet I tricked you there. God does know what love is, eh?
Below is proof that we have gotten so shallow and forgotten what true love is. This is the message in a bottle God is sending us.
What do you see? An intimate couple or dolphins? Young children see the dolphins. Have a feeling that your innocence has been lost yet? Don't believe me? Check out this website: http://www.highfiber.org/content.php?s=images&a=view&id=1741
That is what we get for eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil! Adam and Eve looked at each other's naked body and lust never came up in their thoughts. We watch pornography and now desecrate women's bodies in our minds.
Cool discovery eh? This is why Jesus had to die for us. To bring us to the higher standard of holiness because innocence that is lost can never be regained in a world so corrupted.
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