Fantasy?

We prepared for the worst. Far beyond my imagination, you gave the best.

“Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was beset as a city under siege.”
(Psalms 31:21)

All are under your guidance. Please, work at us, enable us both to will and to work for your good pleasure.

Give me a servant’s heart, as someone quotes from Cardinal Chan, “I have no accomplishment, I am just a servant.” You know I am so easy to be proud and foolish. Teach me your humility, gentleness and compassion, Jesus.

Jacob

God, please guide our meeting, be our real chairman, in all our hearts and minds, do us good. Let me be humble in this event, and you are the master of all the progress.

When Jacob had to see his brother Esau again, he prayed to you. He done all the preparation, the gifts, the servants. And at that night, alone in the ford of Jabbok, he met you.

He wrestled with you, and you struck his hip socket. But he wouldn’t let you go. His requested, “I will not let you go, until you bless me.”

You renamed Jacob as Israel, as he strived with God and humans, and have prevailed.

Jacob called that place Peniel for the memorial of your meeting with him. He said, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”

This is a real ambition: strive for your blessing.
Every time I heard Jacob's story, I thought of someone. He is ambitious and anxious. Lord, please, wrestle with him, and let him see you face to face. Give him a new name and heal all his painful wounds and cut. Let him strive for your blessing and get what he wants.

This morning assembly, Father shared your words, those about the servants who kept money for their master. You gave credit to both servants who earned as much as you gave in the same way exactly. Am I a good keeper of your gifts? Am I trying my best? Or I always ask for more without cherishing what I have?

Disobedience

When Saul didn’t follow the order of Samuel, offered the sacrifice himself in stead of waiting for Samuel out of fear that the Israel would all slip away, Samuel said to him,
“You have done foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you. The Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom will not continue; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart; and the Lord has appointed him to be ruler over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”
1 Samuel 13:12-14

Indeed, I pity for Saul. He showed great confidence in God as he collected only 3000 men against Philistines’ thirty thousand chariots, six thousand horsemen, and troops like the sand on the seashore. When Samuel didn’t show up himself after the appointed seventh day, the Israel began to step back. His disobeyed Samuel’s command from God, but is it really unforgivable?

Maybe it is beyond the topic of forgiveness. This is the awe a leader should have, as Saul, as David, as Moses, as Samuel, and all the powerful leaders in the history of Israel and contemporary missionaries.

We can do nothing to hinder God’s plan of His goodness will; a concealed message lies in Samson’s story in the Judges as well as Jonah’s . From a writer, “In Jonah’s disobedience the sailors in the ship prayed to the Lord and entered into a life of faith….In Jonah’s angry obedience, the Ninevites were all saved.”Obedience will not laud me anything, “for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)

I may, or had, lost my credit and merit due to my disobedience, which can explain my pity for Saul and my own sufferings. Nevertheless, I am still expecting to witness and be astonished at the miracles in my journey revealing the goodness of God.

聽我聲音

耶和華 求袮臨近
願我主 聽我聲音
讓我盡力 作為活祭
呈獻在 袮的面前
願我的禱告 如香陳列在 在袮的 聖殿之中
讓我舉手 求袮同在 頌讚歸於 榮耀的袮

我流淚，因為袮提醒我：袮是一位聽禱告的神。

一切如舊，

但他們一直在你的手中。