I'd rather slip
Walking on water
Than spend my life
Wondering, "What if?"
Lord, if it's You
Tell me to come
'Cause You alone can tame the wildest wind
At the beginning of the year, before the pandemic hits, somebody prophesied to me. She said, “You have this curious faith. God created you for adventures with Him.”
But you know, adventure means new places, leaving your comfort zones behind. And the thing about a journey of faith is : it ALWAYS involves RISK.
Banning Liebscher, director of Jesus Culture, wrote in his book “The Three Mile Walk”:
“Too many believers are afraid to take risks because they think, What if my dream does not happen? What if I step out and I pursue who God’s called me to be and do what He’s called me to do, but I fail in that? We cannot let the fear of failure stop us from dreaming. If we do not dream, we disengage. Instead of leaning into God, we take a posture of pulling back from Him, which is not the direction we want to be moving. Bill Johnson told me once that the difference between those men and women throughout history who changed the world for God and those who didn’t was that the ones who changed the world for God were not afraid to fail for God. We can’t be afraid to fail for God. We have to be willing to step out, even when it’s scary, because that’s what dreamers do.”
That paragraph has perfectly framed my 2020 journey HAHAHA.
God has given me a dream so big it scares me. At the same time, this dream is an invitation to a risk/faith-filled journey. I could choose to cower in fear but I know that God is a BIG GOD. And I wanted MORE!! I wanted to TASTE more. I wanted to SEE more. I wanted to experience God in a way that I have never experienced before. I wanted the fullness of what He has for me! I wanted to be so dependent on God, if He doesn’t come through, I will definitely drown! And just like Peter, (oh you brave/reckless one!!), I asked God “Hey, Jesus. If that’s you, tell me to come!” What a brave/reckless request! HAHAHAH. But I know that even the desire for adventure comes from the One who created my heart. Looking back, it’s just so amazing how He redirect my path. I was once aiming for stability and comfort and security. Now all I want is to live in complete abandon for the One that captivates my heart.
Looking back, I learned that it’s either we are dictated by fears, or we are following God by faith. But we cannot have both. I’m not saying that following God means you are free from fear. What I’m saying is: you have a CHOICE to push through and NOT let fear have the final say! LET’S BE REAL. Leaving Singapore for good, leaving my beloved friends and mentors, my job, MY EVERYTHING behind, just like any other normal human being, I pondered, “How if I fail? How if I leave the best part of my life just to find myself.. nowhere?” I know that my decision, in the light of my father’s passing, will deeply influence my loved ones. It’s not just a one man’s decision. It’s a choice that will alter the future of many.
Banning Liebscher said, “...the lie that if we listen to our fears, we’ll be protected. But we won’t be. Attempting to live without ever risking failure or rejection is the most dangerous and costly path we can take.”
SO SO SO SO TRUE.
Yes, sure. This is risky.
How if I fall? Well, how if I DON’T?
I looked back and all I can see is the GREAT THINGS God has done through my simple obedience. We are partners. One simple YES from me could open a door for God to move. And I’ve seen Him moved. He changes hearts. He changes LIVES! He redeems the most broken people to the most devoted lovers. Where there used to be dry bones, when I partnered with Him with just few words, armies came alive!
I rather risk failing than risk losing a generation (crying while writing this).
I do not know when or exactly how He’s going to move through me, but one thing I’m sure of is that : never underestimate the impact of one man’s obedience. I see Abraham. I see David. I see Ruth. I see Esther. I see Rahab. If God has created me with a purpose in mind, I WANT IN. I am willing to pay the cost of revival. I am willing to sow the seed, yes, even if I don’t get to see the result in my lifetime. I want my ceiling of faith to be the floor where the next generation stand on!
And you know what. It’s not even a year. But where I’m standing right now, I HAVE SEEN SO MUCH BREAKTHROUGH AND MIRACLES!
Just recently, God melt my sister’s heart. She’s now in the journey of forgiving a person that has inflicted so much wound in her heart for many many years. All this time, unforgiveness weighed her down. And the area where forgiveness was withheld is the area that cannot experience God’s love, and therefore, cannot grow. I’ve been praying for THIS and to see the miracle unfolds before my eyes.. it’s just.. beautiful..
I know this is just the beginning. There’s going to be so much healing and freedom in her life. And the area where she once struggled the most will be the area where she’s given authority to release the same freedom to other bound up people!! YAZ GOD! DO IT AGAIN!!
And for me personally, I’ve never felt so alive. I was exposed to a reality that is bigger than myself. I tasted (because I know this is just the beginning of SO MUCH more) the culture I’ve been dreaming of. THIS IS NOT AN UTOPIA. This culture of Heaven is real.. It’s like I’m one of those kids that found a Narnia inside my wardrobe. I was IN AWE. Captivated. Totally sold out to pursue this culture for generation sake (and mine of course HAHA. Because once you taste the freshness of it, how can you forget? You definitely won’t settle for anything lesser.)
I’ve met people that oozes the love of the Father, darkness must flee when they say a word. I’ve seen people leaving their countries, their homes, taking their spouses and children with them, to a single-trip journey because they hunger for more of God (no degree promised, no job vacancy secured, no nothing!). To be in midst of giants of faith who constantly champion others and speak life to each other, those who are bravely vulnerable and let you into their world, is like stepping into another world full of wonders and possibilities where GOD cannot be limited by one’s theology. Now I know why God brought me to this place. OH YOU’RE SO SO SO SOOOO GOOD! I’m in love with You!!!!
But the greatest breakthrough is in me. It’s in my understanding about God.
I never wrote about it but I was in the journey of contending in prayer.
The journey began in 2017 when God asked me to pray for something (those who know me knows this HAHAHA LOL I LOVE YOU GUYS! THANK YOU FOR BEING IN MY JOURNEY. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE). And even if I can’t write everything explicitly, I can say that this journey was THE HARDEST and THE MOST CHALLENGING. My faith was stretched so much. So does my capacity to persevere in prayer, persevere in loving and forgiving others and myself, but mostly.. In believing that God is who He says He is. I can’t say that from the other processes in my life, this one is the most MINDBLOWING, the most IMPOSSIBLE, yet, the most rewarding. I understand the scandalous Love on that Cross, the Love that left the 99 for the one. I learned how to honor one’s free will the way God has honored mine. Through this journey God has shaped me to be who I am today : a risk taker for God.
Everyone who has been in the journey of praying for so long sure can relate to this. But you know that the hardest thing about contending in prayer is not just about the impossibility of the circumstances, but also about the LENGTH of it. How much more should I persevere, God? Did I hear you right? If so, why I can’t see anything? Is this just a waste of time?
I’ve put so much energy in trying to put an end to the journey by rationalizing that HEYYY, maybe NOW is the end of it? But God kept coming back with His assurance that were (for me) SO EXTRA LA GOD!
April 2020, Gece texted me. She told me she dreamed about God, floating around the galaxy, carrying a baby while staring at the stars above. She could describe how the baby looked like. God even gave her a name. Gece said, “Am I gonna have a baby?” God even told her other things about how this baby will create so many new things. But she dared not say it to Cuil (the husband) because she didn’t want him to be disappointed. She said she was excited, but at the same time she’s so scared of disappointment. How if it’s just her imagining things?
I told Gece, (still got the text right here!)
“I believe that God is BEYOND what our mind could conceive. And those things you told me, apart from God, we wouldn’t be able to imagine such things! Well, we hear so much from God. Yet we doubt much of what we hears, too! God is good, Bep. BELIEVE! God loves the ufo baby MORE THAN you could ever love her.” (At that moment, Gece hadn’t tell me that she saw the baby with a ribbon headband.)
On June 24, I received a text from Gece.
An ultrasound image with caption, “Hello onti Kekesssss”.
Hello, aunty Kezia.
My heart stopped.
Apparently God has told her the specific timeline which was around May/June. And true to His words, to the last detail. And at that moment, God spoke so clearly to me,
“See. Believe Me now?”
“NIH. Masa kamu masih ga percaya sama Aku?”
I CRIED AND CRIED AND CRIED. Because I know that there’s one promise that I dared not believe. One particular promise that I pushed aside so much it’s forgotten.
BERTOBAT AKU TUH. Ok God. Ok. Ok. I believe. I believe You are who You says You are.
So my journey of contending in prayer continued.
I gave up the fight to stop remembering. I gave up the fight to rationalize God’s promise to the level of my understanding to have a pain-free prayer life HAHA LOL.
Another time, a sentence from a sermon hit me,
“God is a good Father. He’s not a tease.”
I realized that all this time I’ve been thinking that MAYBE, God used this promise as a carrot stick to make me continue walking until I reach a certain point in life. But no. God is not a tease. He is PURE goodness. There’s no shadow of wickedness in Him. Another revelation of a lie I’ve been believed in about God DEBUNKED for good!
I believed Him until the end. Until Lazarus died. Until it’s impossible for me to pray anymore and the worst thing you can imagine happen: you hit the wall. It’s a DEAD end.
That night, God reminded me of Genesis 15 when God brought Abraham out of His tent to count the stars, that’s the number of his descendants! I stumbled into a random article and I was MINDBLOWNED. I always thought it was night time when God brought Abraham out. But it was NOT. The fact that God brought Abraham out at daytime where there was not a single star speaks so loud about Abraham’s part in this journey of faith : BELIEVE IN THE UNSEEEN.
Out of confusion, I asked God, “Why God? You said You’re a good God?”
He immediately answered me.
“It is because of MY GOODNESS, I have to offend your understanding about me.”
“Justru karena AKU BAIK, I need to offend your mind about Me.”
Right there I realized that He is building something precious and foundational in me.
I was reminded of the Pharisees and Sadducees who refused to SEE that Jesus IS the Messiah. All this time, they have this preconceived notion that the Messiah would come as a POWERFUL KING with tons of armies and political influence and that He would overthrow the Romans. So when Jesus, a child of a random carpenter from Nazareth, came riding a harmless donkey, they refused what was actually clearly seen by sinners and less noble men around them : THIS IS THE ONE THEY’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. Instead, they were offended by Jesus. Jesus didn’t fit their theology of a Messiah. Because if they admit that THIS Jesus is the real Messiah, that means ALL THESE TIMES they had been believing a lie! GOD FORBID!
God has to offend my thinking about who God really is. Because the box where I put God in right now is TOO SMALL. And if I want to GROW in my understanding about Him, I have to let Him break out of my box. GOD IS BIGGER THAN THIS BOX IN MY BRAIN! If I want to grow, I gotta let Him out. Even if that offends my pride, I want God to be BIGGER IN ME.
So I gave Him full access and permission to just do His work in me. I surrendered my heart AND my mind to the One who is the most trustworthy. Then I went to sleep. HAHAHA.
The next day, I was texting a friend when I realized that.. I was actually okay.
My heart was actually okay. Like it’s just another day.
I was waiting for the bomb of disappointment to explode, maybe followed by anger or by me throwing tantrum to God (as per normal HAHA THANK YOU FOR BEING SO PATIENT WITH ME, FATHER!).
But the thing is..
I was.. Not harmed. Not even disturbed.
HAH KOK BISA?????
And then God unveiled the biggest lie I’ve believed about Him..
“Ke.. You are convinced that I am WITH you and FOR you.
But you thought, maybe you’ll be the one who leaves..
If you’re too disappointed, too angered by Me, you thought you might leave me..
And that scares you the most. Losing Me. You thought, you’d lost the very thing that worth living for: your FAITH in Me.”
“You see, Child. There’s one thing that holds you back from trusting Me..
The fear of losing your faith in Me.
But child, don’t you know that the very foundation of your faith is ME?
Once I get ahold of you, I do not let go.
And I will never, ever, let you go.
You can try. But you will fail. Because My love will compel your heart back to Me.
Don’t you see, now? We are one.”
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When God unearthed this lie from me, there’s this newfound courage rises up in my heart. The courage to follow God even more radically, more boldly, more.. Fearlessly.
Because NOW, I CAN’T LOSE.
I CAN’T LOSE GOD!
He is the author and perfecter of my faith!
He SUSTAINS me! No more fear to BELIEVE God wholeheartedly!
Nothing can hold me back anymore!
38 So now I live with the confidence that there is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God’s love. I’m convinced that his love will triumph over death, life’s troubles,[a] fallen angels, or dark rulers in the heavens. There is nothing in our present or future circumstances that can weaken his love. 39 There is no power above us or beneath us—no power that could ever be found in the universe that can distance us from God’s passionate love, which is lavished upon us through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One!
(Romans 8 TPT)
“Ke. You can’t give what you don’t have. And you can only take people to a place you have been before.”
God has brought me to a place of deeper faith. Where faith is waaay surpasses my logic about what could and could’ve happened.
WOW GOD. WOW. YOU OVERWHELMED ME WITH YOUR.. GREATNESS!!!!
And if you ask me, “So Ke? Is God true to His promises?”
I’ll say it again and again.
“HE IS A PROMISE KEEPER. He is who He says He is.”
I may not see it or understand it right now, but one day, I will understand.
Because when God said He’s giving you a box of present, He’ll make sure the ribbon on the box is tied up securely. He finished completely what He started.
And if you ask me, “Will you do it again? Will you go through all this journey again?”
Yes. In a heartbeat I’ll answer YES.
Because the best thing you receive in this journey of faith is a deeper conviction of who God is.
And the fullness of Him is the final prize that we’ll receive at the end of our race.
SO CHEERS TO THE REMAINING FEW DAYS OF 2020! CHEERS TO MORE OF MOUNTAIN-TOPS MOMENTS AND VALLEY LOWS, TOO! CHEERS TO THE FATHER WHO HAS MY HEART NOW AND FOREVER MORE!
Whatever the question is, my answer is YES, Father.
I love You!
I got a faith
Deeper than feelings
'Cause I know a name
That's greater than the storm
I got a God
Who never ever fails me
He's close enough to catch me if I fall
Yesterday He said,
“Ke. You think 2020 is a wilderness right?
You know.. The fact is..”
He didn’t say it. He showed it to me.
He showed a lego-sized me walking around in the palm of God’s hands.
“Ke.. You’re never wonder away. You can’t.
You are safely held in My hands.
And you’re forever will be.”
...cry
....
This is how you walk, how you walk on water
One foot in front of the other
Never gonna let you go under
Just put one foot in front of the other!
For those in the journey : KEEP BELIEVING. KEEP OBEYING. KEEP ENDURING!
THE GOOD GOOD FATHER HOLDS OUR FUTURE IN HIS MIGHTY HANDS!
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