I tell 'em there's a lot to learn down here on the ground

Set Me Free / Don't Bite The Apple / A Place of Greater Safety
26.11.06 - 7:00 p.m.

Prison gates won't open up for me
On these hands and knees I'm crawling
Oh, I reach for you
Well I'm terrified of these four walls
These iron bars can't hold my soul in
All I need is you
Come please I'm calling
And oh I scream for you
Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin'

Show me what it's like
To be the last one standing
And teach me wrong from right
And I'll show you what I can be
Say it for me
Say it to me
And I'll leave this life behind me
Say it if it's worth saving me

Heaven's gates won't open up for me
With these broken wings I'm falling
And all I see is you
These city walls ain't got no love for me
I'm on the ledge of the eighteenth storey
And oh I scream for you
Come please I'm calling
And all I need from you
Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin'

Hurry I'm falling

All I need is you
Come please I'm calling
And oh, I scream for you
Hurry I'm fallin', I'm fallin', I'm fallin'

- Nickelback, "Savin' Me"
(one of the songs performed by the youth group of my church at an outreach performance some time back. I like this song quite a lot heh, it contains a few of my personal 'sacred images'. It also reminds me of Lymond and of certain French Revolutionary players, erm, but that's not the point.)

=======================

At homegroup on Saturday, Hsia Pin was telling us how he never thought of himself as prone to the lure of materialism before, but recently when he decided to get himself an mp3 player he found himself drawn to iPods even though they cost a lot more than other mp3 players with the same functions. The more research he did, the more he found the desire for an iPod consuming him even though he realised that he'd be paying a lot for the brand name (and the cool touch-scroll thing!! :D) rather than the practical functions hahaha. In the end he realised that it was materialism that was the driving force behind his desire haha so he decided to just let the desire go. (That's not to say that buying iPods is bad of course - just that in HP's case it was materialism / 'keeping up with the Joneses' that he caught himself succumbing to! :) which I guess shouldn't be the driving force behind buying things.) Then he said, "Ok, today's sharing is entitled, 'Don't Bite The Apple!'... Er... I didn't call it that because of the iPod!" Hahaha! :D

Don't Bite The Apple! (SHINE! #1)

(Note: The forbidden fruit was not really an apple lah the Bible just says "fruit" - but since tradition has called it an apple we'll just call it an apple for convenience!)

God created us for a relationship with Him. But if all God wanted was a relationship with us, He'd just rapture us into Heaven as soon as we were saved. He doesn't because we were also put here on earth to SHINE for God so that others may know Him too!

But we can't shine unless we are free of habitual sin ourselves. Yet many Christians are not able to shake off some sinful habits which still enslave them after being saved, so that they try to act 'clean' in front of others but are still struggling with sin and are 'half-in and half-out' of the light, so to speak. This weakens our ability to shine for God - and is precisely what the Enemy will try to do.

Some of the strategies of the Enemy to tempt us to sin are illustrated in Genesis 3, the story of Eve eating the forbidden fruit. Recognising them helps us to guard against them:

1. Genesis 3:1 - Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did GOd really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

The Enemy will prompt us to justify sin to appear not really wrong although in our spirit we know it is - eg justifying premarital or homosexual sex by saying that because it feels 'right' therefore it's "natural" and permissible - 'not really sin'.

2. Genesis 3:4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.

The Enemy will fool us into thinking that there can be such a thing as sin that will not lead to death. But "the wages of sin is death", as Romans 6:23 puts it. Not necessarily physical death (nor, if one has been saved, complete spiritual death), but every sin produces death in some way - death to relationships, to health, to personal peace and joy etc.

3. Genesis 3:5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

The Enemy will try to make us mistrust God by sowing the suspicion in our minds that God is forbidding us to do something because he's conspiring in some way against us to withhold good things from us, that he's really a bad God, someone who can't be trusted, who only seeks to have control over us and doesn't care about our welfare. These lies produce the mentality, "If God knew that this was so desirable then He shouldn't have created it in the first place to tempt me" - we excuse ourselves from succumbing to temptation by by blaming God for creating it, and what's more we blame God for creating misery in our lives by showing us something beautiful and not letting us have it.

This has actually been my (Joanna's) personal greatest struggle in my life. I tend to focus on the one thing that I can't have or can't do according to God's law and end up full of anguish, asking God "Why can't I when I want it so much?" At such times God seems a spoilsport, withholding pleasure when it seems right. All Christians go through times like these when we feel that God's law is spoiling our fun.

It's focusing on the few things that we can't have or we can't do, though, that produces embitterment towards God and a surly attitude that destroys our relationship with Him. In reality, by forbidding us to commit sins, God is saving us from rotten fruit that will make us ill - and we fail to notice that He has made so many other beautiful things for us - He has given us all the rest of the garden, all the other fruits, from which to eat. The fraction of things that look 'good' but in which we are not permitted to indulge is really very small - just one tree compared to the rest of the garden. But we make the mistake of focusing on just that one tree and agonising about its forbidden fruit and thinking, "I'm so deprived!" when in reality we are not deprived at all.

4. Genesis 3:6 ...the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye...

Sin often looks very attractive. Eg. Premarital sex and promiscuity is glamourised in all forms of media, notably the movies, and music and poetry as well. Why does God allow sin to look so beautiful and be such a strong temptation?

God allowed choices so that He could be glorified when we choose the right thing. Hsia Pin used a simple tongue-in-cheek analogy of a man and a woman who are the only inhabitants of a desert island, with absolutely no other temptations - and over the years they just naturally get married since there's no one else around ("Have you watched 'The Island?' I asked. [Edit: ARGH! I meant 'The Blue Lagoon'! It's called 'The Blue Lagoon'! Heh I haven't watched it myself but I know what it's like.]) No choice there. But if there're two guys, Man A and Man B, on the island, and the girl has to choose, and she chooses Man A, then Man A is glorified by her choice! In the same way, God would not be glorified if we would automatically choose good, whether because sin were unattractive or if we were 'programmed' to choose good every time. But sin is allowed to look attractive - the Enemy is allowed to paint a picture of how good it looks to us - so that by choosing God anyway, we are demonstrating that we love God more - that He is even more attractive to us, even more beautiful than the sham beauty of temptation, more real.

Something to think about is the spirit of God is grieved when we sin and He calls out to us when we're about to sin. If we ignore Him and sin, we grieve Him and we're less able to feel His presence - and then we wonder why God seems distant from us.

In summary, the purpose for which God created us was to shine for Him. So, choose Him! Glorify Him through the decisions that we make in our lives, what we choose to use our lives for. Don't let there be the death in our lives - the loss of hope, of human relationships, of joy and of love - that comes from choosing sin.

===============

I found this very useful to me - a reminder of all the false mindsets to guard against, especially no. 3, the suspicion that God is not truly good because he withholds pleasure - a false method of reasoning. I think I'm currently at a point in my life when I can see that most the struggles in my life were caused by this lie in particular. Now I find it a lot easier to just trust in God first and obey Him even when it seems that it means missing a chance to grab a 'fruit' that looks truly beautiful, because it only means that He has much more beauty in store and is guarding me against what will not truly satisfy.

Looking back down the path of my life, I see that some 'fruits' (not necessarily persons - some ideologies and habits too, some ways in which I could have used my life), which were once such distractions and temptations to me, and whose loss caused me so much distress, once viewed from the other side are revealed to be rotten to the core and would not have helped me much in my pursuit of happiness even if I had been permitted to have them. And to think that when I let go of them in order to obey God, I did so with such a bad grace and so grudgingly - when He was only saving me from rotten fruit!

* * *

A Place of Greater Safety

During homegroup God also gave me the picture of a camel in an oasis, with the message: "You are now in a place of abundance, so make sure you drink your fill and nourish yourself with My Word before you are called to go through the desert again."

And I hadn't noticed it till He said it to me, but yes - I think I have arrived these few weeks at an oasis period in my life, when I have more issues sorted out than ever before in my life, including the biggies like:

1. my personal war between poetry and medicine (I am finally at peace with the decision I made 5 years ago to give up my personal aspirations poetry-wise to try to be a doctor, having sorted out all my thoughts and feelings regarding the matter)

2. distrust of God due to the conflict between feelings and thoughts (I've learnt that in a conflict between God and feelings, the feelings are to be distrusted, not God! :D haha how elementary is that - but difficult!)

3. the messiness of my love life (all sorted out within myself at last, and I've learnt that loneliness can only be filled by God, not by men - er, Man :D)

4. feelings of rejection and loneliness since childhood (I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never be entirely understood by other human beings and nothing can change that fact, so my expectations of relationships are much lower and I'm much happier), etc etc.

5. Also, God has gotten rid of a lot of deeply-rooted pride and prejudice I didn't even know was in me - since birth, I think - which makes me easier to get along with as well!

I think, in general, God has used the terrible events of the last year to lower my expectations of life in general haha, which has made me a better and more cautious person, a lot less inflexible and better company. And certainly, many stupid hang-ups which I once had are gone, along with many barriers to making friends and enjoying life.And He gives me lots of things every day which make me smile or laugh :P It feels like a good time. It feels like a place of greater safety and stability than I knew before.

I will be glad and rejoice in your love,
for you saw my affliction
and knew the anguish of my soul.
You have not handed me over to the enemy
but have set my feet in a spacious place.

Psalm 31: 7-8

* * *

Set Me Free (reprise)

For you, O God, tested us;
you refined us like silver.
You brought us into prison
and laid burdens on our backs.
You let men ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water,
but you brought us to a place of abundance.

- Psalm 66:10-12

What I find interesting about the above psalm is that it says, "You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs". For the past year or so I certainly saw myself as being in 'prison', one of my personal 'sacred images' (I'm using this term the way Auden uses it - not in any 'religious' sense, but in the 'poetic' or symbolic sense), which stands in my life/thought for abandonment/loneliness/betrayal - how I felt is summed up best in this verse from Les Dix Commandements -

Je laisse � l'abandon
Avec toi tous les espoirs
Qui me restaient � croire
Et te voir t'en aller
Est la pire des prisons

And hey - it was God who brought me into this prison. Why? I guess so that I could, while 'doing time', sort out so many things in my life. And also because maybe it's what I was most afraid of in my life - and now that God has let me experience what I was most afraid of, I'm no longer going to be so scared of anything again. And the best thing is that since He brought me into it, He could also take me out of it. And, in the last week or so, He has. I sense that the prison cell has dissolved at last and I'm out - God has set me free of la pire des prisons. And there's still hope, and there's still belief. Less hope and belief in man, bien sur (alors, c'est ce que j'ai vraiment laiss� � l'abandon - tous les espoirs du monde, mais il me reste toujours tous les espoirs qui sont � moi gr�ce � Dieu) - more hope and belief in God.

Set me free from my prison,
that I may praise your name.

- Psalm 142:7

But the prison is also a product of our own mind (cf. Psalm 107:10-11, one of my favourite psalms too ever since I was saved because it tells my story). So often we struggle against such demons in our head - such great conflicts between what we want and what God's law really is, or seeming contradictions that we can't understand - which can give rise to such awful suspicions against God's true nature that our love for God can be turned into distrust and hate. And I think I've been struggling against such demons all my life (I've certainly had big problems in the past with depression and fearfulness which I've learnt to master but which occasionally still rear up at times). But ever since God saved me, He has been saving me from everything else that I need to be saved from one by one, especially all the tormentors that come from my own head.

In my anguish I cried to the LORD,
and he answered by setting me free.
The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
The LORD is with me; he is my helper.
I will look in triumph on my enemies.

- Psalm 118:5-7

(The past year taught me a new way of reading the Psalms - I tend to identify the "enemies" in the Psalms with my personal foes of darkness and depression - the thoughts and feelings which betray me. I tend to read the word "prison" in the same way heh.)

I know that ever since I was saved my whole life is a process of freedom, and I thank God that He has broken a few more chains this year (hah - a new meaning to Rousseau's "Man is born free but he is everywhere in chains"?). I'm really grateful to God for His salvation - not just an abstract transaction that took place somewhere in the supernatural realm, but a concrete, a tangible breaking of the chains which frees me in life to live as a free person, free from so many things that bound me before, and better equipped to play my part in the battle to reclaim territory for the good fight - and, as He has been reminding me, free to know Him better and to read His Word and drink from His oasis while the season permits.

It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in man.
It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in princes.
...
I was pushed back and about to fall,
but the LORD helped me.
The LORD is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
...
I will not die but live,
and will proclaim what the LORD has done.
The LORD has chastened me severely,
but he has not given me over to death.

Open for me the gates of righteousness;
I will enter and give thanks to the LORD.
This is the gate of the LORD
through which the righteous may enter.
I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
you have become my salvation.

- from Psalm 118

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21/09/2006
Set Me Free

When I walked into our room Dawn (who for some time has been a fan of Casting Crowns and seems to be a bigger one every day heh) was playing this song - and though I've heard her listening to some songs on the same CD before this one really caught my ear - and made me ask for the songs too :) After listening to them all I think this is still my favourite.

Set Me Free
Casting Crowns

It hasn't always been this way / I remember brighter days / Before the dark ones came / Stole my mind / Wrapped my soul in chains

Now I live among the dead / Fighting voices in my head / Hoping someone hears me crying in the night / And carries me away

Set me free of the chains holding me / Is anybody out there hearing me? / Set me free

Morning breaks another day / Finds me crying in the rain / All alone with my demons I am / Who is this man that comes my way? / The dark ones shriek / They scream His name / Is this the One they say will set the captives free? / Jesus, rescue me

As the God man passes by / He looks straight through my eyes / And darkness cannot hide

Do you want to be free? / Lift your chains / I hold the key / All power on Heav�n and Earth belong to me

You are free
You are free
You are free

* * *

And this is Dawn's favourite (possibly my second-favourite heh)

Praise You In This Storm
Casting Crowns

I was sure by now / That You would have reached down / And wiped our tears away / Stepped in and saved the day / But once again, I say "Amen", and it's still raining

As the thunder rolls / I barely hear You whisper through the rain / "I'm with you" / And as Your mercy falls / I raise my hands and praise the God who gives / And takes away

I'll praise You in this storm / And I will lift my hands / For You are who You are / No matter where I am / Every tear I've cried / You hold in Your hand / You never left my side / And though my heart is torn / I will praise You in this storm

I remember when / I stumbled in the wind / You heard my cry / You raised me up again / My strength is almost gone / How can I carry on / If I can't find You

I lift my eyes up to the hills / Where does my help come from? / My help comes from the Lord / The Maker of Heaven and Earth