Sitting in my car before heading home.

I joined the Men’s Health Urbanthlon this morning. Well I didn’t sign up for it but because I work in media, I was automatically registered by my friend Jaja from Summit. She put me up for 5k plus obstacle course. Now first things first, I usually host the runs and races–not join them competitively, and even though I dabble in kickboxing and other martial arts and regularly hit the gym, it doesn’t guarantee how well I’ll do in an actual race.

I woke up before dawn and I had a nervous knot in my stomach. As I walked up to the tent to register, I asked myself “What on earth are YOU doing here, Isaac? You did not prepare for this!” Hahha. My one and only goal was to finish it and survive it. My brother left me a lil note this morning that came with two packets of energy gel “I love you! Remember quality over speed!” My brother is my inspiration. He came from nothing and has since accomplished 2 full marathons and a few 21 k and 10k runs. The man is half machine.

Bottom line is I finished and I think I finished in good form. I loved scaling the 8-foot wall. It was the last obstacle before the finish line. I was quite daunted at the beginning seeing the other people struggling to get up and over, some ladies shrieking as they tumbled back. Just kept thinking “do it like there’s a buffet table of smoked salmon, caviar, foie gras and chilled sauvignon blanc on the other end—FREE of charge.” So I charged that wall and scaled it in a fashion that might make GI Jane proud.

After the perfunctory shakes, mutual congratulations, etc, I walked to my car in the warm sunshine just grinning from ear to ear. I drove down the beautifully-lit highway just thanking God for helping me through it and overwhelming me with His presence. I just kept crying tears of joy and saying “Thank you Lord for going through this with me.” Originally, months back, I had planned on doing this course with the former flame. When i chucked that idea out the window, I was then going to do it with another guy friend. But you know, I’m really glad I went alone. It was symbolic for me. Like it was God’s way of saying “see, no more loneliness–even when you’re by yourself. I will do all of it and go through everything with you. Always.”

For the first time, I joined a contest where my mindset was “I’m not in it to win it; I just want to live through it.” But little did I know that the prize awaiting to surprise me was a revelation of God’s omnipresence in my life. Such a sweet and comforting revelation.I can’t wait until the rest of this new chapter unfolds. I just know that God has quite a new season planned out for me. Quite exciting!!!

“Behold, I am with you heart and soul.” 1 Samuel 14:7 (ESV)

“Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.” Psalm 73:23 (ESV)

But if life imitated art and you were going through a tough time, I doubt you’d find any comfort in having as many options to rewind, relive and backtrack each particular scenario.

I’m at a crossroads again. Geez you must be well over hearing me say that again. But I can’t lie to you. I really am. I’m in a dip, a valley, in a rut, and all the other cliches you can think of. I don’t wish my life right now was a DVD where I can watch deleted scenes over and over again. I wish it were a flexible script where I can rewrite this difficult chapter and change it to say “End scene.” Shorten the painful time period, is what I want to do.

But Isaiah reminds us that our ways are not God’s ways; our thoughts are not God’s thoughts. His are higher–and thank heaven for that!

I’m so tired in the physical and sometimes I feel like I’m tired in the spiritual too. I crave rest. His rest. But I get bogged down by the arrows of the lies of the devil. Accusations left and right; condemning thoughts that remind me of my past and very recent mistakes. There’s no escape—but in the shadow of God’s wings. In the past two days a very emotional guy friend of mine has been unloading his burdens to me and I’ve had to set aside mine in order to listen to him. He gets to a point where he drains me of my energy and joy but then later I realize that hearing him whine and moan and complain about how much he has screwed up his life has brought out the innate encourager in me. I caught myself and heard the things I was saying to him and felt like God was speaking to me through that.

Sounds weird I know. But God is so amazingly creative in his ways of speaking to us. I just need to pass through this valley and wait out this dip while I wait on God. Someone once said, “If you’re going through hell, keep walking” and that’s what I intend to do. I get really afraid sometimes that the consequences of my past and recent recklessness will catch up and swallow me alive–then I remember the truth about God’s goodness and His tender mercy and steadfast love for me. Then I feel alive again.

I guess once this dry season is over, I will once again be a mangrove thriving by the riverbanks. By the time God’s carried me over to the other side, I will look back and see the mighty things He has done once again to restore me. Then I wouldn’t mind being a DVD that I could replay over and over.

God’s goodness in our lives deserves altars or landmarks. That way when discouraging seasons come, we can look back and remember His goodness and be assured that He will once again uplift us and be good to us.

Isaiah 54:8-10

It was the aforementioned book and it came with a letter where she encouraged me about trusting God in this season of my life. She said she couldn’t help but think of me upon seeing this book and as I finished her letter, I looked at the book cover with a little bit of dread and said to myself “Oh great, another self-help book for single women.” 

I tried to read a few pages but couldn’t follow through because my day was packed with meetings. But one Sunday afternoon, as I sat in my mum’s couch (I was visiting the family for the weekend), I had managed to devour the book in one sitting. I found myself shrinking back the writer’s experiences which I could so painfully relate to. In between chapters I would stop and cry out to God the very contents of my heart. I didn’t hear an audible voice talk back, but I did feel good knowing He heard me.

This book is about someone who went from serial dating to joyfully waiting. Ouch. yes. That’s me. Serial dater. I’m coming off a painful catharsis actually. God finally closed a chapter of my life and removed someone who proved to have really pulled me down and held me back for an entire year. I didn’t even notice that it had already been a year. Wow. I wasted 12 months on the wrong person. Then again, in those 12 months, I was sort of the wrong person too: wrong in the sense that I was not allowing God to mold me into the woman he intends me to be.

So here I sit hacking away my thoughts and emotions and slight self-recriminations about “having to start over” and “being back to square one” when my brother’s words echo in my head. He said “You’re not back to square one. You’ve reached another level. All the things you’ve been through were all ingredients, tools that God was refining to help you get through the next hurdles. Don’t think you’re back to square one. God is constantly and consistently at work in you.”

In a sense, I am starting from scratch but only is terms of having a clean slate. I’ve asked forgiveness and repented for my rebellious ways and the bad decisions I made, and I am claiming God’s fresh mercy and unfailing love to help me start over.

It’s not easy, but I won’t be alone. I’m learning to once and for all really entrust the key to the Maker of my being.

After work I had planned to just get a haircut and then perhaps a little mani-pedi at a nail salon that’s sponsoring my radio station. I thought nothing of it really, just walked into a nicely-lit salon with a beach theme and thought I’d prepare myself for some pampering. I didn’t realize that there was a much higher purpose for which God brought my through that door.

The moment I sat down, the nail stylists/beauty technicians all nearly instantly recognized me. One thought I was my older, more well-known sister, while others remember me from various adverts and TV hosting I’ve done. After a few niceties, while they began the paraffin wax hand and foot treatment, I started to engage them. The only other two customers had already finished and left so I had the whole place and staff to myself.

I started to ask them simple questions like where they were from, which ones were married and single, etc. As the conversations went on, two of them in particular out of the 6 started to get more personal and open. One was heartbroken over a boyfriend whom she’s not heard from in over a week; the other lady was airing her heart’s emptiness considering how her husband left her about ten years ago and has now fully stopped sending child support.

My heart broke but at the same time I felt an excitement well up inside of me. I felt the Holy Spirit just fill me with love and joy and empowered me to comfort and encourage them. Soon they were all sat around me as I talked (and waited for my Monroe Red nail polish to dry). I told them about how much God wants to bless them with a life full of passion, joy and peace and how much He wants to give them out of this life–if only they would accept Jesus as their savior and begin a personal relationship with Him. They agreed that they really could use a little more God in their life. It was amazing. We all had the same familiar emptiness that women who have not been brought together with their God-chosen life partners feel, and in that little circle, we found encouragement and hope.

After awhile, I asked them if it was okay that I prayed for them. They seemed really excited and asked me if I really would. So I did. I thanked God for their lives, for their hearts and for letting our paths cross. I asked that God would bless their livelihood and their families, that He would protect their hearts and their health. It was amazing how the Holy Spirit was just there.

I told them I’d visit them every now and then just to say hello and that they shouldn’t hesitate to text me if they need a prayer or encouragement. I walked away from there feeling absolutely blessed and humbled that God would use me after the many times I’ve failed him.

And almost instantly, after a God-glorifying afternoon, the enemy comes and tries to ruin it for me.

I attended the first in a 5-week class on Escathology. “Escha-what?” you might ask. Eschatalogy means the study of the last days. Yes, the last days when God judges the world.

I grew up in a Christian home and so doctrine is nothing new to me. I grew up barely resisting or questioning the Bible until in my late teens to my early twenties. My mid twenties (not too long ago to honest) were spent teeter-tottering here and there in my walk of faith–not to be mistaken as a seesawing between belief and disbelief. I always believed and still do believe in who God is to me. It was more a matter of actually applying to my life the grace that was given to me (and at such a cost too).

It’s easy enough for people to qualify their reasons for living a good life–it was simply for the sake of being “good” because it was the “right” thing. But as I sat there in that class, listening to a 27-year old preacher who is a brilliant young man (who had his own bout with atheism in his early years), I couldn’t help but be moved to tears. He spoke of being “eternity-minded”–of living life with eternity in mind.

Let me try and break it down. Let’s say you were told to go to work on a Saturday but you weren’t too sure you were getting extra pay for it, would you go? What if you found out that getting a fat bonus at the end of the year depended on your cumulative weekend overtime? I’m sure you’d come to work with bells on both on Saturday AND on Sunday, am I right? Crude example but it’s all I can extract from my brain (especially considering my brain is still splattered across some wall from last Wednesday’s class). My point is, if we thought about what all this amounted to, if we knew, understood and believed God’s Word about how every word said, every action committed and every thought processed were to be judged in the last days, wouldn’t that somehow change the way you live? If not right now, then at least sometime soon?

I’ve been moaning about some things that didn’t go the way I hoped, or perhaps things that went sour. Some are trivial and some are more monumental. But the bottom line is, those things won’t matter in the end. When I’ve reached the end of my life, I’d like to face God and be told that He is pleased at my faithfulness and that I had lived a life worthy of His eternal presence with me in Heaven.

All of a sudden the trivialities of this world and the nitpicking of people around me didn’t matter at all anymore. The insults hurled and backhanded compliments that were suggested no longer sting as much–or at all. Suddenly my mind was fixed and obsessed with the Eternity that I was going to face. With God’s grace, this is why each day has become easier for me as I learn to move in the unforced rhythms of His grace. I thought I knew Him already. But it turns out that in my 29 years of existence and knowing of God and knowing God, my knowledge of Him isn’t even a close to the size of a bee’s knees! (Bees don’t have knees, but you get my drift)

Who is this God I serve and worship? He’s too great for words! And yet, even as He fills me up, I don’t burst at the seams!

Can’t wait til the next class

The sky was really dark and grey today and it was only 2pm when I caught a glimpse of it. It seemed ominous, foreboding even and I did’t want to risk my car stalling in flood water and thereby risking my safety. So I stayed in. I just end up sleepy and tired, but if I nap I feel like I’ll waste the day. Then again, aren’t I already wasting it now?

I can smell the rain. The wind is harassing the trees outside my balcony and I can smell the rain and the earth as it wafts up and through my balcony doors. Feels like its 6:30pm and it’s only 3.

You know what I really want? A deep and intense hunger for God’s word. I bought a new Bible (ESV) because my NLT seemed a little…traditional. It felt like a bible and looked and read like a bible, Having grown up in a Christian home all my life, bible-reading can become a mechanical thing. So I bought a different version so that the experience could be new to me again. I feel terrible just admitting this but it’s the truth. There are some days when I can’t wait to crack open God’s Word and then there are days when I feel like it’s a story far removed from reality. I feel like I’m ready a story book on people who may or may not have existed. I hate it! I know in my head it’s real. But I want that truth and knowledge to make the distance from my mind to my heart.

Lord help me desire, thirst and crave Your Word. Help me want it so bad that I feel an intense need to read Your Word and hear from You. I want to desire You more and more each day and in every way.

I know You are faithful and will be found when sought earnestly. Help me get off this plateau Lord and back on the high-adrenaline race of life and fight of faith.

Pastor Grace Ayiedogbon; Pastor Rice Broocks; Pastor Jackie; Pastor Mark; Darlene Zshech; Dr. Jun Vencer; Efren Penaflorida; Pastor Jim Laffoon’s prophesy for the nations; Pastor Norman Nakanishi; Pastor Wolfy Eckleben; Pastor Steve Murrell; Pastor Yesupadam and the others who stood up and shared with us the wonderful stories of their lives. I could barely wrap my mind around it. For awhile there it felt like I was watching a movie or TV show and had to remove myself from a ‘spectator’ mindset and remind myself that this was real. These people are real. Their stories are real and they still happen today in many different parts of the world.

I learned to understand for the first time what it meant when the woman with the demon-possessed daughter spoke and begged Jesus for the crumbs that fall from the table. I never once considered that if crumbs could make the devil flee, how much more the other things served on the banquet table! For the first time it really struck my heart how I was given two feet that ought to walk out into the mission field to harvest souls for the Kingdom. I never really saw the honest and truthful reason for my existence in such a palpable way that it made me truly see things the way Paul saw it: how he considered everything else garbage compared to knowing Christ. To Paul, everything–as in EVERYTHING in his life was rubbish compared to simply knowing Jesus Christ. The past 3 days has instilled that in my heart. Not that I should live in thoughtless abandon, but that my life has all been planned and written out and that my ONLY reason for existence was and is to HONOUR GOD. Period.

Wow. My mind is blown.

Tonight I spent it with a huge group of international delegates and other local churchmates. It was wonderful. To come together, laughing and joking about and just sharing the love and fellowshipping with one another–bringing a smile to our Father’s face. It was almost too difficult to say our goodbyes–as though three days spent with our guest delegates were enough to forge a bond so strong that geographical distance simply tears at the heart. We are sad to say goodbye. But we are excited at the thought of seeing each other again one day in another country. Our God will bring us all together again somehow–if not on earth, then in our real home: Heaven.

I think I will take the next few weeks just ruminating on what I’ve heard and learned at this conference. I know I’m not even halfway close to truly understanding the depth and height of Jesus’ love for me. But all I know is that His love for me is all I need to live. I didn’t know I was looking for love like this until He found me and saved me.

Praise You, Lord Jesus. You are the one, true, living God.

I don’t remember the last time I had such fun and found such joy in simple meals and conversations like that–especially those involving one boy and one girl. Usually it’s in a setting where there is an understood romantic aeromancy hovering about waiting to be trod upon. But here and now it’s simple, honest, not-entirely harmless but also non-malicious and non-perverted time between one man and one woman. They’re enjoying a meal together and having fun, lighthearted conversations. How I’ve missed this. The primal dynamics of the male and female species have been overly complicated by society and it’s crazy how a simple date or day spent together could bring in its wake an aftermath of “what ifs” and a wave of insecurities and fears washing over you way before you’ve even gone on a third date.

I like the simplicity and honesty of things. I love that God is being honored by our conversations and fellowship. I love that we are enjoying being just friends without thinking of what it could be. “What it could be” is for God to know and “when it could be” is for God to decide. No gun-jumping here. Just honest-to-goodness friendship.

I do, however and in total honesty, hope there will be more of these to come

xxx