Journey mercies

Yesterday went to watch "Walk His Trail" by the Footstool Players. It was a little trying on my short attention span initially, because it spent the first half building the background of the five missionaries to the Auca tribes in Ecuador. If you have never heard the story of Jim Elliot and friends, you should google it up.

It's a true story of five missionaries who burned with the vision of evangelising to a violent and murderous tribe who was feared by all who knew of them. And the moment the missionaries finally came to the point of physically approaching them after a time of peaceful overtures, they were speared to death leaving their wives widowed.

But some of the wives continued in reaching out to the people of this tribe, and eventually built a strong church among this tribe, and the murderers of their husbands became God followers; elders of the church, called 'grandfather' and baptized the children of the murdered missionaries.

How beautiful is that? Of forgiveness, repentance and salvation.

What really struck me about the story was that at the end of the play, they quoted Elisabeth Elliot, the wife of Jim Elliot, "Obedience is our task. The results of that obedience is God's alone." Thoughts also linked to this.

And the murderers of the missionaries later testified after the killings, they saw bright lights stirring above the forest trees and singing. And it awes me, how amazing God's plans can be. I pray that there will be more men who would serve God wholeheartedly. Of course, women too. But coming from a Brethren background, the roles the men and women play are more vivid and distinct to me. But let's talk about perspective another time.

After the play, there was an exhortation to respond to what we might feel may be God's prompting in our lives. I started my prayer with words that has become a habit in the last few years, "Lord, I'm sorry I'm not more for You."

And before I even finished my sentence, it was as if I felt God's irritation with those words and indicated He wanted me to stop saying it. Those words implied that He could not accept me and wanted me to be more than who I am. His love is unconditional.

And I had to reword my prayer. Help me to be who I am for You.

Reversing the timeline, I woke up on Sunday morning before the play at 6.30am, and I thought of taking a morning walk with God. In that moment, while I was still half asleep, I felt my stomach tighten and I felt stress! And I had to ask myself, why does the thought of walking with God stress me?!

And it finally hit me today, I really do have an unhealthy problem with high expectations over myself, which pervades not just in work (which my colleague has been pointing it out to me for the whole year), but it also spills into my relationship with God. Despite knowing in truth that His love is unconditional. I was stressed about the thought of walking with God because I was feeling really sleepy and I didn't want to walk, but I felt guilty because I should want to walk with God and that expectation over myself to be a 'better Christian' stressed me out.

Another vestige of growing up in the Chinese Malaysian culture. Of course, expectations is a universal problem, just that I find it more intensified within the Chinese Malaysian families than the other races in Malaysia.

About the same time as last year, I yet again feel winds of change in my course. As it is every year, next year is indicating a different season. Of course, I have already begun sailing into that. Nothing excites me more, than sensing the strokes of the Master Painter on my canvas. Or to be the protagonist standing in the pages of the book looking out and seeing the story of my life being written out by the Author. It's very different, when you watch it live, than seeing it as a replay.