Tenant 5202
Firstly, the tribunal application. I'd like to rally for prayer support, to everyone who reads my blog! This will be my first experience, my maiden voyage into the many legal battles to come in my aspired legal career. I've never been to court even as an intern, and now I'll be entering and self-representing. Pray for wisdom and for God's favour, for it is the Lord who fights our battles.
Fellowship
Recently this has been where God has been leading me. Through a short period where I was undergoing a depressive state of isolation and loneliness, I cried out to God and He answered. Within a couple of weeks I found myself surrounded by supportive brothers and sisters showering me with companionship and concern. It was a real feeling of deliverance, because I learned to open my heart and to fellowship with others freely. However, this was a lesson to also trust in God and take delight in Him only.
"In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him. He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him with the fruit of the fields. He nourished him with honey from the rock." Deut32:10-13
Coming out of that minor trial, I realized how apparent it was that many others had their share of struggles and secret woes, but with no one to share their burdens with. How many of us have splinters in our flesh, that we try not leave unnoticed until we strike them and feel the pain again? How many of us attend church service and lifegroup sessions with a smile on our faces but heavy hearts inside, just wanting to 'survive' and go home?
We need the Lord. We need encouragement. We need fellow believers to support us when we're down, to grow together with, to sharpen each other and to learn from conflicts, to love and be loved.
I've been praying and asking for wisdom, and taking small steps to grow in this area. I'm also being careful not to run ahead of God and take things into my own hands.
Polishing, refining, molding, growing
Several people have been telling me this. That God's growing and shaping me [more] in this season [than "normal times"]. Minor trials and little lessons. I've also been learning from actions of others, positive aspects I'd like to adopt and pick up, other areas that I caution myself not to follow in. It's almost as if God is putting me through a trials buffet, having a taste of everything so that I'll know what it's like in the shoes of others when they're facing the same trials.
Also having to root up some stumps from struggles that I've had, to renounce old sins and discarded habits completely. Someone shared with me that we can get so used to tiny bits of old things that remain in us, not realizing that they're footholds for the devil to continue to distract and hinder us.
At the OC, Ps Brendan Kirby told us that sin in our lives undermines the authority given to us by Christ, and we are less able to work with God. Ps Wen An shared last year that God can't use a vessel that isn't pure. We are called to be holy because He is holy. The prospect of righteousness is joy (Prov10:28).
Sine ira ac studio
This is a Latin phrase that means 'without anger or bias'. Read in context, it can mean 'without frustration or a judgmental attitude'. This really represents the attitude I was telling myself to take whenever I faced the trials and negative sides of others' behaviour. Impatience, flirtatiousness, pride, weaknesses, selfishness etc etc.
"If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her" (John8:7)
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." (Luke18:10-14)
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