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Write Every Day

7 January 2021 blogpastor 2 Comments

It was so simple. I knew it from reading about writing. WRITE EVERY DAY. The discipline of writing every day yields benefits, as sure as sowing results in the joys of harvesting.

For the past week, I tried a few times to write, but could not get down to it. I did not feel like doing it. I did not feel motivated nor inspired. However, on Sunday, when a friend asked for help to write something about frequently asked questions about retreats, I got it done in less than an hour. I actually could write (without inspiration). I suppose the motivation was there though: the desire to help out as a member of a team that supports retreats. So I wrote, and as I wrote I did not feel inspired, just motivated.

Today over tea and curry puffs, I talked with a friend about writing, and journeying with younger pastors, post-retirement. I was pretty sure this is what the Lord is leading me towards thus far. I have given God a blank page and he has written. My friend casually mentioned something about the importance of writing every day. It hit me, like God was prodding me: Just write it. Don’t have to post everything you write every day. Some days the post is not complete. Leave it to stew. Work on more than one posts. Edit. Rewrite. More thinking and research. Then shoot when its ready to be sprung from the bow. That motivated me.

I sat down in the evening, and wrote this. Ha!

Thank you, Lord. Let this be the start of a fruitful and godly and happy habit. Amen.

I Am Grateful For 2020

1 January 2021 blogpastor Leave a comment

MENACING PANDEMIC

Covid-19 has cast a menacing shadow on the year 2020. It is the year of the pandemic. 1,816,120 deaths from Covid 19 in 2020, and these are only reported cases. 83, 260,611 infected, of which 59,049,598 have recovered. These statistics are bad, mad and sad. Singapore had also been in the valley of shadow of death. Anxiety, fear and frustration are the moods of the year. However, I do not want to dwell on these tragic details in this post. We are all familiar with the roll call of facts about the source, spread and devastation of the coronavirus. Rather, this post is about my personal reflection of 2020. Despite the darkness, I have experienced much of God’s abundance and redemptive grace. I have much to be grateful for.

REDEMPTIVE GRACE & ABUNDANCE

For one, my whole family is back in Singapore. For a while my wife and I were empty nesters with my son Joshua and his wife Ping studying in London, my second son Matthew serving the air forces in Australia with his wife and our two grandkids, and my daughter Elaine working in the USA. In 2019 my two sons returned with their families, and as if that wasn’t wonderful enough, my daughter was allowed to work from home in Singapore from March 2020. We were prepared to quarantine her at home but the hour she landed in the airport she was briskly brought straightaway to the Grand Park Orchard for government imposed and paid quarantine for two weeks. What a blessing and relief to know she was totally well.

Elaine works from afternoon to about 1am Singapore time and meets her office colleagues remotely at night. Then she would sleep in but we get to see her for meals like lunch and dinner and some weekends. It was wonderful to have her around. Now I wonder when she will be recalled back to her office in Washington DC. Hopefully she won’t be recalled until June 2021.

YEAR OF LEARNING & EQUIPPING

I am also grateful that the Covid 19 circuit breaker period and the months after necessitated the learning of new digital skills that I never had before. Speaking to an empty room with only a phone camera in front of me is something I have become comfortable with. I have also become strangely comfortable reviewing my talks on video. I used to squirm and switch off when I watched myself preach on video. Not so any more. I have also learned to use Zoom for meetings, as well as teach a Christian Education course. I can see possibilities in using these digital platforms. In the larger picture, the churches here have moved from being digital laggards to progressives, and this is a big, big positive in terms of future digital presence.

It has also forced me to purchase stuff online, mainly from Lazada. It began with buying necessary equipment to improve my recording of sermons and digital presence. Soon I moved on to stuff like bicycle lamps and camera lens that I wanted for my hobbies, to frivolous stuff like buying a linen shirt for dirt cheap price for the experience of it. I learned that when it comes to clothing, it’s better to visit the shopping mall.

SWEET RETIREMENT BY GOD’S GRACE

I am grateful that my retirement after 40 years of pastoral ministry in the same church was done sweetly. I am thankful that a home-grown church servant, Alvin Lim had been called by God to serve as the English Congregation pastor, and he willingly obeyed. I feel privileged to have seen God’s hand in forming a team of young people in full-time and part-time ministry, and weaving them with the more experienced staff. All this made it possible for me to step down as senior pastor with peace of mind. It was also a quiet but pleasant send-off with words of affirmation and good wishes, from the President and church leaders and members, and prayers of the three congregational pastors. All pre-recorded before a live audience and screened later for people to view on-line. I was feeling joyful during the recording of that segment, which was done straight after, the pre-recording of the ordination of service of Rev Alvin Lim on a Saturday morning. Very joyful and moving occasions when I sensed a strong anointing of God’s Spirit.

I was also grateful for the final retreat I would have as a senior pastor. Lance Ng, my spiritual director guided me to reflect on the 40 years of pastoral ministry and the desires that the Spirit is stirring within me with regards to the future. Co-discerning what God is saying and doing is so vital and that is the spiritual director’s role. I was excited with the desires of my heart that surfaced during that five days of silent delighting in the Lord at Life Springs Spirituality Centre. I have been giving God a blank page for post-retirement, refusing to plan but instead to wait on Him, and the Lord has started to reveal the steps I am to take after retirement. Exciting new chapter.

SUMMARY

To summarize, although 2020 was a “negative” year in terms of the adverse effects on mental health, the economy, jobs, separation and loss of loved ones, and the surfacing of ugly politics, for me personally God has graciously allowed me to experience his abundance, guidance and preparation for the future. Oddly I will remember 2020 rather fondly because I see too many positives for myself and my family and the church– the lot has fallen nicely for us.

Personal Prophecy from Amos Jayarathnam

29 December 2020 blogpastor 2 Comments

A dinner invitation to John & Martha Johney’s home? I was told prophet Amos Jayarathnam would be present too. Wonderful …great. Furthermore, I used to enjoy his late dad’s and mum’s hospitality. Even better, Amos will probably pray and prophesy over each of us.

AMOS JAYARATHNAM, A PROPHET

Amos has the marks of an authentic new covenant prophet: holy, godly character, Word-based, humble, tried and tested and found faithful in years of ministry and hardship, and many of his prophecies have substantial accuracy. This I can attest to, for he has ministered in our church over many years. He is one of the few friends of World Revival Prayer Fellowship of whom we can say, “kaki lang”, which translated from Hokkien dialect, “one of us”.

John had invited Paul and Miriam Chan, my wife Jenny, my daughter Elaine, and myself. Dinner was a feast of flavours, colours, textures, smells and the taste was plain delicious. The fish briyani was the first I have ever seen or tasted, and I liked it. Martha packed some briyani in an ice-cream tub for me to bring home, and I am now writing on that energy because I had it for lunch a few hours ago.

Amazing and amusing stories of faith and God’s interventions in the politics of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and laughter peppered the gulps of water, roasted chicken, chapatis, curries, and mango salad.

After dessert, the gear shifted with Holy Communion and when Amos started to pray and prophesy over each one present including the domestic helper. We recorded our prophecies on our voice recorder app in our phones. This is one of the advantages of mobile phones: we can record and later transcribe our personal prophecies, and this is important, because our memory usually misses out on important details. Personal prophecies need to be prayerfully assessed, meditated upon for the Holy Spirit to throw further light on them, and interpreted in the light of God’s word and his past dealings in our life.

WRITE, WRITE, WRITE

This is the umpteenth time over many years that I have received this prophecy, and I am glad that with my recent retirement, I have already begun to write more regularly on my blog. At least I have taken some steps to obey the Lord. I was too busy earlier with studies and ministry burdens to write much, but now there is more space for me to do so.

The prophecy to me is that there is a lot I can write about: manuals, teachings, messages to the Body of Christ. That writing is timeless and can bless God’s people of different generations. God’s riches in my life can be released to bless, lead people to truth and free people from lies. Giving the balanced Word can renew people’s conscience according to the true knowledge of God and not according to the world’s values and expectations.

I like the part where the prophetic word urges that I do it slowly, not under pressure of deadlines, but according to the inspiration and motivation that the Spirit gives. I believe that discipline is important, but I have been in the place where discipline is futile, because there is no sparkplug. So I liked this bit of instruction to me about when, how and what to write.

The prophecy encouraged me to model myself after apostle John in the island of Patmos, living in solitude and prayer, giving God the space to grant revelation and inspiration, so that I could write to instruct and inspire hope in God’s people. This restfulness, focus and inspiration need to permeate my writing. As an introvert, this suits me fine. My prayer room, my home, the parks nearby can be my Patmos.

Do pray for me as I seek to obey the Lord. He has stirred my desire to write and I pray he will be in the front and back and center of all my writing – whether in this blog, in future e-books or in other social media like Instagram.

Have you received personal prophecy from others before? What do you think of them? What has been your experience?