Theology and Apologetics
He has taught me to renew my mind, my heart & my strength so that I can live in God’s purpose for me. With a year older, I am a lot less naive and a lot more hopeful still. There’s one thing that never left me, that is wonder. For all this year has to unveil, here is my prayer to the Lord:
A lot of Christians fell out of faith because they rely on these “spiritual highs” to feel the Christian faith is for them. Mature Christians submit to God by disciplining their feelings, directing our willpower, to desire & obey God’s commands instead in the reality of our lives that is often not black and white.
The Bible calls us to believe in God who can change the impossible to the possible. He calls us to continue to walk in the path to His promises. What impossible are you believing for? Here are tips to continue on believing HIs impossible
You feel you’ve arrived. Your obedience to God has brought you to be famous in the eyes of men. If God has given you victories and conquer your battles for you, keep giving the glory to Him. You never become too successful to talk to God. You never become too prominent to surrender to God…
It's not your past experience. It's not your knowledge, nor perseverance. It is your faith that will heal you.
There was a lame man who had waited for 38 years by the well of Bethesda to get his leg healed so he can walk again. Having no one to take him to the pool, time after time, others always went in ahead of him as he just sat by. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, 'Do you want to get well?” And he said,“Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Then Jesus said to him, 'Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.'
Healing is right in front of you but you may miss it. You may miss the thing you thought that can heal you.
Jesus was going to be his healer. It takes trusting in Jesus that He will do what He said He will. Faith is in the unseen and by sight—We take responsiblity that if we want to get healed, we have to be determined and fight for it. We have to claim it and take as if what had been promised had been given to us because God is a good God. It takes faith to get into the Promised Land.
My Waiting Journey
I did not have the faith that God has something better for my future—-in the areas of relationship. I was tired of waiting. And I was disappointed, “God, I did everything for you, don’t I deserve that you answer this part of my life?” I did not know how to wait with joy and expectantly anymore. I shared this to a sister in Christ over breakfast. Coming from a similar brokenness during our upbringing, she said, “Tamara, God leaves you with a choice. it's a choice of whether you want to settle for what you’ve seen in your past or will you be determined to get out of the cycle and believe that God needs you to be where you are right now—-until you are ready and the situation is ready. He has a beautiful future for you, but you need to stop looking back.”
One thing I know to be true and stuck on me was: God rewards faithfulness. He sees what you sow in prayer.
Remember Lot's wife? God told her not to look back; but she did and became a pillar of salt. I was like Lot’s wife— I did not trust God for a brighter future and wanted to hold on to what I know to be familiar in the past. God needed to teach me to wait with joy & expectantly. And this was what he taught me.
Are you Waiting Well?
Waiting is a muscle that had to be practiced daily. It is waking up everyday and choosing to trust in God’s word, timing & His way. You can abhor, complain or be miserable in the waiting season or you can learn to practice gratitude, your character (patience, self-control) and prepare yourself for what’s ahead. When we pray, rather than we make demands for God to do good because you’ve done him good, He wants a contrite heart who prays, “God, I do not deserve any good thing and apart from you there is no good thing in me. Give me faith to see what I cannot yet see and give me grace to live today in your will in what you have revealed to me.”
A time of preparation
During this season, He needed to prepare you for the calling or the Promised land. If He is the one who give you that dream, only He can bring it to pass. Or else, you will get tired & give up.
Faith doesn't just wait, but it prepares. It's not just a wish, but an evidence of the things you hope for. It's an act of declaration, "God I dont see it but rain me for what I am praying for. Use me. I want to actively learn from this.”
Before He brings you to your spouse, He will work on your trust issues and wholeness in God first
Before He brings you to your higher place of ministry, He will mature your character and train your humility
Before He answers your prayers, He will teach you to want Him more than His miracles
While you wait
Prepare for what you’re praying for
If you dont’ have enough faith, lean on the faith of your friends (Mark 2:1-12)
Pray continuously that you will be found faithful
Fight with gratitude
Do not be weary of doing good, for in due time you will reap a harvest
If we don’t wait well
Abraham and Sarah who in their old age had a hard time believing God to give them a child, stopped praying and started doing things on what seemed good to their own understanding. Sarah ordered Hagar to sleep with his husband for a child. Look at how that created much pain and trouble ahead. If only they had been patient in the waiting..
It is rebelion and dishonoring to God if we settle for less and try to make His plan happen in our own way and time. A present given prematurely, we will not learn to appreciate. God is never late nor too early. He does not need our help to bring about His miracle.
If we do not wait well and not learn from our mistakes, God can skip a generation. It can be that we never enter the Promised Land, stuck longer in the wilderness like Moses never did, because God too knows that the Promised Land is for those who really want to be there with God & if the people are not ready, the gift will crush them more than it will bless them.
May we learn like Mary did when the Angel visited her telling her she will bore the Messiah, "Lord, let it be unto me according to your Word (Luke 1:38)”
“Dear God, help me to make this season of my life one of the best season. You know the desires of my heart that I still long for. Help me to still wait in joy and expectantly that you can bring that blessing in an instant, but you are waiting for me to be ready. So teach me in this opportunity to bloom. May I know more of who I am and who you are. Teach me Lord to be godly and when the right time comes, that it will be a testimony for all to see that you are the only One who can bring things together beautifully.”
It is your faith that can make you well.
x,
T.W.
A lot of Christians fell out of faith because they rely on these “spiritual highs” to feel the Christian faith is for them. Mature Christians submit to God by disciplining their feelings, directing our willpower, to desire & obey God’s commands instead in the reality of our lives that is often not black and white.
The Bible calls us to believe in God who can change the impossible to the possible. He calls us to continue to walk in the path to His promises. What impossible are you believing for? Here are tips to continue on believing HIs impossible
Is it that you feel stuck because your own sins has kept you stuck in the same cycle of trouble? Here is where a lot of Christians falters. A lot of us believe in Jesus, but never allow His Kingship to rule their lives. Which areas of your lives are you not surrendering to God? No wonder, we are battling the same battles like we did 3-5 years ago. “Show me your battle, and I will show you a place you are not surrendering”
Where was church when I needed them? My requests for help fell on deaf ears.Here is where I show up every Sunday to. And rather than showing grace to walk with me, I was met with "get your life together.”
How can the Church drive you away when you are stumbling in your sins, instead of walking with you in the messiness of your faith? This is when I realized, you dont' have to be the most knowledgable about the Bible to be a good Christian. Rather, often times, what people need is you being a good friend to them for you to be a good Christian.
This is Church at its best. Instead of preaching at people, but walking with people.
Though I know He has promised me, “The man I have for you will be worth the wait”, Though I know I am booked with work this season and He is calling me to a time of ministry of deeper friendships and giving, Though I know He is pruning my heart still, the middle is confusing and full of uncertainty.
It starts to get lonely in Friday nights And now looking back seems good. What to do in the waiting when you are tired and lonely?
Did you mess up that you think you are beyond saving? Overwhelmed by your guilt and carrying shame like a blanket? You are not alone. Jesus can speak to where you are right now. “Yes, you are broken. That only makes you more beautiful now than you were before.” My friend said.
Have you ever questioned everything you thought you knew about life--your purpose, work, and your significance?. Though I was living in my “Ikigai”, I still felt unhappy as if something was missing. But this quarterlife crisis brought about an incredible clarity to my quarterlife calling
I kept languishing what could have been if God did not say ‘No’. Why does God says no? What should we do when he says no? God says ‘no’ to what you wanted now, but He is saying ‘yes’ to the prayer you desire most—that is, to grow in His holiness.
The drug of success, led me to always searching for the next high. I thought.. “I just need that accomplishment. If I hit that goal then I will finally feel satisfied.”I was looking for that relationship., thinking it will fulfill what’s lacking.
Inside there was this dryness. The more I fill my cistern with what I thought would fill me, the emptier I felt.
How blessings followed after suffering I am yet to see. It is easier to look back to what I have built and dwell on its ashes, rather than chart the uncharted and begin the rebuilding.
John Bunyan wrote on the Pilgrim’s Progress, “You’ll find your steps shallower or deeper as you believe the superiority of the King.” It’s here that He call you to trust.
I wanted to run away from my calling. it has been an extremely difficult path that constantly humbles me to my knees.
Fear has taken a grip on me. The fear is not fearing personal failure as it once had been. It’s the fear of risking the livelihood of 30 other people in the team.
These are 3 things to hold on to when you want to quit your calling:
I prayed to God to surround me with people who can hold my hand as I lift up my staff as Moses did for the Israelites in battle. I asked the Lord three times for Him to remove the thorn in my flesh. Yet He chose not to—and said, “My grace is sufficient, for My power is made perfect in your weakness.” So He often just gave me the gift of Himself.
"You’re not fast enough. You’re not big enough. You’re not profitable enough,” dictates culture. Even if you’re probably doing everything right, there’s constant pressure to how you’re supposed to run the race. It drove me to work really long hours. The over-time consequence? I am unable to rest and undividedly "waste time” with the Lord. Always distracted. Always hurried.
The work is certainly rewarding, though it is hard work. Not that it is difficult because God calls me to do things I am not equipped for — rather He has been kind to sharpen the gifts in me—, it is hard because it is tiring. God does equip me, but there are definitely days where things are overwhelming.
You’re in your mid-20s, thinking you would have things figured out post-college. yet you’re still clueless? You compare your life and FOMO kicked in? Aka you’re in a quarter-life crisis. So you search for your calling, but what is this calling?
Since the global pandemic, I mourn because for a lot of people, their lives have not gone as planned. Do you believe God is in control and is good through it all? I still do. I hope you will too. May this be a time when beauty and purpose are born.
Life isn't filled with big and grand things; I am living in the daily, mundane routines. Taking the MRT, working out after work, Studying the Bible on Thursdays and Going to church on Sundays. My discontentment and boredom grew. In turn, my faith became rather dull and empty. All was routine.
“Isn’t there more to life?” Here is how you can escape the noon-day demon of boredom and disconcentment
He has taught me to renew my mind, my heart & my strength so that I can live in God’s purpose for me. With a year older, I am a lot less naive and a lot more hopeful still. There’s one thing that never left me, that is wonder. For all this year has to unveil, here is my prayer to the Lord: