Beauty and Charm

"Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the LORD will be praised." (Proverbs 31:30)

An encouragement, a rebuke and a reminder of what is important; what is permanent; what will last for eternity; what God values and what He thinks is good, praiseworthy and of eternal value.

Beauty and charm are not bad things. But there are better things.

But for the grace of God...

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

9To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' 13"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' 14"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18:9-14)

It's funny, whenever I have thought of this parable, I have previously always only seen myself as the tax collector, especially in the past when I have struggled with "self-esteem" (for want of a better term). And in some ways I was, and have been the tax collector. But, people are strange creatures, (or perhaps I should not generalise, and simply say that I am a strange creature), and we are not characterised by merely one thing. I sometimes am the tax collector and I am also, probably more often than not, the pharisee. Even in reading this story, I have looked at the pharisee, and thought to myself, "Good thing I'm not as arrogant as that silly old pharisee! I'm much more humble! I would never go and pray like that in front of other people!" God sees the pride in my heart, and he sees that I am just like the pharisee whom I scorn.

It's amazing how pride has been festering in me for so long. Who knew that poor "self-esteem" in no way means you are not fully infected with pride. I admit I have been, and I am. All the times, when I have gotten angry at the behaviour of others, and thought to myself that I would be/am different, I would be/am better! That was pride. But for the grace of God, go I.

Who am I to judge others? I have seen and learnt that, under the right circumstances, I am no better. I am no different.

Different (a poem)
I can’t pretend that I am different
When, in fact, I’m just the same
I am, too, a lowly sinner
Making old mistakes again

I can’t pretend that I am holy
When, in fact, by sin I’m stained
I can’t point my judging finger
For I am naked and ashamed

I can’t say that I am righteous
I have fallen to my knees
I can’t hold my head up proudly
Jesus, save me! Save me, please!

Jesus, may you make me different
So I stand out from the crowd
Not so others then will see me
But so Your Name be praised aloud

Jesus, may you make me holy
For holy you call us to be
Break my pride with Your great mercy
With your grace, teach me to see

Jesus, may you make me righteous
Fill me with the Spirit’s power
To stand against the world’s dominion
And glorify You every hour

God helps me to be BRAVE!

Brave
(by Nichole Nordeman, Jay Joyce)

The gate is wide
The road is paved in moderation
The crowd is kind and quick to pull you in
Welcome to the middle ground
You're safe and sound and
Until now it's where I've been

'Cause it's been fear that ties me down to everything
But it's been love, Your love, that cuts the strings

So long status quo
I think I just let go
You make me want to be brave
The way it always was
Is no longer good enough
You make me want to be brave
Brave, brave

I am small
And I speak when I'm spoken to
But I am willing to risk it all
I say Your name
Just Your name and I'm ready to jump
Even ready to fall...

Why did I take this vow of compromise?
Why did I try to keep it all inside?

So long status quo
I think I just let go
You make me want to be brave
The way it always was
Is no longer good enough
You make me want to be brave
Brave, brave

I've never known a fire that didn't begin with a flame
Every storm will start with just a drop of rain
But if you believe in me
That changes everything
So long, I'm gone

So long status quo
I think I just let go
You make me want to be brave
I wanna be brave
The way it always was
Is no longer good enough
You make me want to be brave
Brave, brave

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:6-7)

But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. (James 3:17-18)

Forgiveness

hello my friends,

Just wanted to share a new poem I wrote as well as some thoughts I have been having.

The poem (below) is about anger and forgiveness. But before I share my poem, I also just wanted to share some thoughts I've been having about anger and forgvieness.

Anger

Unfortunately, I have known great anger in my life. And the scary thing is that for a long time I had no idea of how angry I was. For a long time, I didn't recognise the anger I had. Maybe it was because I was afraid of anger, and therefore did not allow myself to acknowledge my anger. Recognising and acknowledging the anger and hurt (calling a spade a spade) has been a really important step in actually forgiving people who have hurt me.

Love vs Hate

I remember distinctly reading a poem in one of my high school magazines. It was a rather bitter/unhappy poem from what I remember... I can't remember much of it, but there was one line... one prickly line that stuck, like a burr, in mind. The line read: "love is strong, but hate is stronger". This is a terrible lie. Do not believe it. Love is not only strong, but it is SO MUCH STRONGER than hate. For God's love is stronger than anything! And nothing can seperate us from it! As it says in Romans 8:35-39

^"35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶As it is written:
   "For your sake we face death all day long;
      we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."^[l]

³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[m] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The love of God for the world (John 3:16) was shown through sending Jesus to die on the cross. Jesus' death was not a defeat, it had nothing to do with weakness. And I have needed to remind myself of that recently. Easter Sunday was not long ago, and this was the time that Jesus rose, victorious, from the grave. He defeated death. The powers of hell could not hold him down! Jesus is meek and gentle, humble and lowly, but he was also strong! He was the Son of God! Though the people nailed him to the cross in anger and hate, though he was mocked and spit at, Jesus loved the people and us - praying that God forgive them even as he was dying at their hands! His love was strong; stronger than hate.

Forgiveness

When I am angry, though I want to forgive, if I try and do it of my own power, then it is pretty impossible. I can tell myself to "get over it", I can suppress it, ignore the problem and the feelings, but for me to actually acknowledge my anger and then be able to let it go and keep loving the person who hurt me? To recognise the hurt, to feel the hurt, and then to forgive the person and say that they owe me nothing? It's REALLY hard! I guess it's understandable how people could feel that 'love is strong but hate is stronger’... they believe it because it is what they have seen and experienced.

God’s Love and Forgiveness

But God has forgiven us, through a deep, deep love - much deeper and bigger than any anger, any hurt we know. We have committed worse transgressions against God than any person will ever commit against us. We owe God more than any other person can ever owe us. We need more forgiveness from God than we will ever need to give another person.

This world is sinful and as a result, there are people with deep, deep hurts and probably deep, deep anger, and even deep, deep hate. But no matter how strong that anger, how strong those hurts, how strong that hate is... God's love for us is stronger! Not the wishy-washy, watered down version of love that the world celebrates - it is such a poor reflection of what the word love actually means! And if all you know is that kind of love, if you do not know the love of God, then maybe you will shake your head and disagree when I say that: 'hate is strong, but Love is stronger'!

I am a sinner, but Jesus died for me and has set me free from death and His judgement! Now, I can only love and forgive others, because I have been/am loved and forgiven by God so much more than that! Similarly, I must choose to love and forgive, because I have been loved and forgiven of so much (Matthew 18:21-35).

Anyway, so... after that rather lengthy introductory spiel... here is the poem I wrote, which is about my struggle with anger and forgiveness. Hope you like it. (Apologies for the graphic-ness.... but I was really very angry)

Putting Down the Spade

I could take this spade

In my hands

And hit you across the face

Hard

It would crush the bones of your face

You’d look at me,

With bruised, bewildered eyes that asked

Why?

Not spluttered by a mouth,

Too full of blood and broken teeth

I could count the times

You held the spade

And told me it was all

My fault

I cried because you didn’t understand

You wore that face

So right, so beautiful; I was

Wrong

Thrown upon frightened knees,

By raging eyes and that damned spade

I will take the spade

Into my hands

Leaden and vindictive

But

I can strike no blow I do not deserve

Greater was my debt

With pierced and tender hands, set

Free

This heavy labour ceases

When the spade is taken from my hands

See! I see this spade

In my hands

And I will put it down.

Even though anger or hate can be big, the love of God is even bigger. I will leave you with the prayer that Paul prayed for the Christian Ephesians:

¹⁶I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Amen! God bless you! =)

p.s. if you want to read more about forgiveness I recommend a book called “Bold Love” (Dan Allender and Tremper Longman), which I think is absolutely fantastic.

Reflections on my return to Australia

Hi Xanga World,

Have been meaning to update for a while... but have been waiting for inspiration to hit... for something deep, meaningful, substantial to share with the world.... but yeah.... I've got nothing. I mean, I've had a lot to think about... but nothing clear enough that I felt I could write a whole post on one topic. Lots of little thoughts about a lot of different topics. But I guess it's not always about epiphanies.

I've been back in Australia for 2 and a half weeks now.... after 3 months overseas. This was a life-changing time... I think. Why am I uncertain? Well, I worry that eventually, I will return to being just the way I was before I left. That all the lessons I learnt overseas will fade and it will be like i have never gone at all. I feel like when I left Australia, there was a little mould of people's expectations of me, and now that I am back, I'm just going to re-mould myself to fit back into the shape everyone expects me to be in. I felt that while I was overseas, there were no expectations, and it was like this free-form sort of self. hmmm, to some degree anyway...

I was stretched a lot overseas. For someone who likes to keep their world small at times, as a (sad) attempt to control things, I was certainly overwhelmed with my little taste of how big the world is... of life without the safety net of family and friends... of going around in languages you are not that confident in and trying to converse and relate to people... of often being completely oout of control of things.... of just being completely out of my comfort zone. I felt like I was changing while I was overseas. I liked it. I saw changes in myself I liked.

I also had my eyes opened to a lot of things about me that are bad. Was confronted with my own self-seeking, selfish, self-centred and self-absorbed attitude. I forget that everything is about God, and I have a tendency to think it is all about me.

In China, I realised how in my life, I have sometimes used and treated and thought of God as a tool for my own self-improvement! How wrong! The self-improvement and changes that I have sought to make .... have often been done seeking my own good - and that is it. it's all me, me, me. For a long time, I've continuously and endlessly tried to improve myself. And while I did have some God-centred motives, I can also clearly see that often, it was squarely focussed on myself and making myself a better person for the sake of me being better. I was so focussed on being 'better' - on fixing myself - and for what? for whom? 

I have also long craved for wisdom - ever since I first read about clever King Solomon, who asked for wisdom, and ended up getting everything else from God anyway - so that I would know the right way to live and so that life would be awesome for me (I do cringe at how selfish this makes me sound...). That is why for so long I have been confused about how fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.... because I ultimately viewed wisdom as a means to achieve comfort and happiness for myself (which in itself is actually foolishness, I guess). Wisdom is about seeing the world clearly as God sees it - and it makes so much more sense when I realise this. In all things, including wisdom, it is not about me, but God and glorifying Him!

I saw a similar thing in my desires for my future family. I have just finished reading "Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother" - and one huge, take-home point for me was that the primary REASON for being a loving and godly wife and mother is NOT just to have a happy family. Previously, I realised that this is why I have yearned and yearned to learn more about being a godly woman/wife/mother - because I yearned to have a happy family. I coveted this with an idolatrous passion, and I am sorry for this. Now, I realise that learning to be a godly wife/mother will lead to a happier family, but this SHOULD NOT be the reason I seek to be a godly wife/mother. The book showed me that the primary REASON should be for God's purposes, not my own, and not even for my family memebers themselves.

In Titus 2: 4-5, it says:

"Then they (older women) can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God." 

The reason why the younger women should do all those things is not so they have a happy, functional family (thought it will also lead to this, because doing things God's way is the best way for ourselves as well), BUT so that no-one will malign the word of God. It is about being faithful reflectors and shiners of God's light!

So... hahaha, while I said at the beginning of the post that there are no epiphanies, well I was wrong... I did have one after all! Man, there are so many epiphanies in my life! I love epiphanies - which is a good thing I guess, cos I sure have a lot of things wrong in my head that need to be weeded out and be changed by the truth of Jesus Christ, and power of the Holy Spirit.

So the epiphany of today was: it's not all about me!

seemingly simple - I've seen those words multiple times before. I've read them and I've pondered them. And I wanted to truly believe them, and live like that - but well, I didn't have the strength to change that about myself. I've still got a long way to go, I'm sure... but right at this moment... I've had a real epiphany.

It's nice. Everytime you have an epiphany, it's that short time when you've kinda just reached a new mountain peak in your climb. You look back and look down and you're like woah! look at this view! I'm on top of a mountain! This is awesome. When I turn around and face the rest of the climb, I'm sure I will look up and see that I am at the base of another or even a continuation of the same mountain, but at this epiphanyl (may have made this word up...) moment, I am looking back and the view kinda rocks! ^^

Also, regarding changes that last - was encouraged by a sister that the changes are not just superficial ones created by my will or experiences, but the work of the Holy Spirit, and therefore, I should not be afraid that they will be washed off so easily.

sorry for poor structure and expression - it's mostly thought diarrhoea (but honest and sincere thought diarrhoea)... it's late and i'm tired.... there's still much in my head... maybe will try and post/reflect more later... we'll see.