This morning as I woke up, I was meditating on the journey of Abraham. Last night I was reminded of the resemblance of my own faith journey with Abraham’s. Those memories were triggered because of a post I had read yesterday. I wasn’t much in a reflective mode recently because I was all raring to move forward. I could not wait to see what the new season holds.
But I felt that God seemed to be telling me not to rush this process, for it hadn’t been just a year or two that passed. It was an entire chunk of 13 years of my life, with the past decade spent in preparation at home. I really didn’t expect to embark on such a journey in Jan 2008 when I sought the Lord for the next season of my life.
On 18 Jan 2021, it would be exactly 13 years since God told me to trust Him for what He was doing in my next season when I last sought His will. God told me that it was a faith test for me. I didn’t know I was about to enter a long season of wilderness after God led me out of Egypt (my old workplace). But thank God that I have passed the faith test. An entire chunk of my life had been completed.
At that time I was just hoping to hear from the Lord when I could leave my company and stay home to take care of Joshua. It had been my heart’s desire to be able to stay home. Well even though I knew that returning to work was only temporal after I gave birth, I still had to be patient and wait upon His timing to leave. Only if He gave the green light to resign.
I so very much wanted to jump on an opportunity to resign in Oct 2008. There was a door to part time work that had opened. But after I sought the Lord, I decided it wasn’t a good time to leave yet. I had unfinished business in that place. So I had to stay on and cooperate with God on whatever He wished to accomplish in that place.
And the days became months and years. I ended up staying there for another 3 more years before God led me out. Later on I understood the reason why God had me stay on. He wanted to do a restorative work before He took me out of corporate world. He had to cause me to leave with my head lifted up. He had to drown those enemies in the Red Sea.
Towards the end of that season, things heated up and I almost lost my bearing during the shaking in my workplace. But thank God I kept focusing on Jesus and cooperating with Him. That was how God caused me to conquer and stay afloat when the others were all sinking. It was like going through the fire. But thank God the tough times didn’t linger.
When God did what He wanted, He wasted no time to move me out of that place. It came to a point when I didn’t think that I was going to leave that place because my new season had begun there. After all it seemed like I was stuck there indefinitely. What I thought was temporal actually lasted for three years. I didn’t expect it to take so long.
But God is faithful. He is really not a man who changes His mind. When His plan for that season was completed, He really moved me out. I was glad to have cooperated with Him when I saw how I left that place in honour. The enemies I saw in that season, I saw no more. It was on hindsight that I realised what mattered most wasn’t the length of time taken for His word to come to pass. What was more important was to close each chapter well.
In that way, the enemies of my past couldn’t come and haunt me in the new season. Because they were all drowned in the Red Sea. During that time, my enemy was the taunting of my defeat in another company, how I left that place in shame. But God restored my honour and lifted me up. It was a glorious finish to my corporate life. After all I really wasn’t sure if I was ever going back to the workforce.
At the start of my stay-home season, it felt like days of heaven on earth. I was finally living my dream life. Staying in a beautiful condo environment, not having to work yet still receiving passive income. I was not only able to spend more time with Joshua, I could spend unhindered fellowship with the Lord. This was really a luxury. I couldn’t be more grateful to Him for His wonderful plan.
But as the days turned into months and years, with no sight of a promise God gave me in Feb 2008, I began to get restless. Honestly I really had no idea when this promise would manifest. I also didn’t know what God was doing in my life. How long I would remain at home and whether I would go back to the corporate world. Or whether there would be a change in my vocation. My life was so dependent on the doors God opened for me.
Back then I was just so happy to jump into the stay home season without much thoughts about my future or even our finances. I figured out that since God has called me to stay home, then He would provide for our family. In fact, just like Abraham during his sojourning, God prospered us a lot. He caused Heng to rise up to the top in his career. He prospered us along the journey with Him, not knowing where He was leading us to.
In many ways our lives mirrored Abraham’s. Even in the area of relationships, there was much strife at the start when I was still very much attached to my mum’s family. I had a lot of trouble with my ‘Lot’ until I had no choice but to separate ourselves from them. After that I had some peace in my life. But the emotional ties with my mum’s family were only cut off last year. It took many years for God to do that.
Even my ministry was similar to Abraham. I was praying and interceding for others, helping them out in their times of trouble even while waiting for my own breakthrough. We are blessed to be a blessing. God justified Abraham even when he lied about Sarah being his sister twice and protected her from being violated. Abraham also prayed for King Abimelech’s household to have children while Sarah was still barren.
But now I am impressed upon the time In Genesis 17 when the three angels visited Abraham to bring good news of the arrival of Isaac. Before that God told Abraham to circumcise his household. Ishmael was 13 years old at that time. It reminded me of the time when God told Joshua to consecrate His people for tomorrow God is going to perform miracles. It was a time of consecration for Abraham before the promised child came.
In Feb, I was given a word on Joshua 3:5. During the subsequent months, I too went through a time of consecration. God had to make sure that my heart was pure and my allegiance was solely to Him. He was performing a circumcision of my heart all these years. But at the appointed time, He came and told me to consecrate myself again. That was the when I saw the post about Joshua 3:5 on 3 Nov and 14 Dec. The time must have come.
The reason for consecration is so that we could be presented as pure and sanctified vessels for God to pour out His glory through us to bless others. God can do miracles independent of us but He wants to partner us so that we can share in His joy. God is so good. He seems to be saying that there is a finality to a long-standing issue in my life.
Just like the time when I really thought I was going to be stuck in that workplace forever, yet when my time came, God moved me out just as He promised. It didn’t matter how long I waited for my promise to manifest. It didn’t matter how it didn’t look like it was coming soon. It didn’t matter that everything seems the same in the natural for a while. If God said it, it is done. He does not lie. If He said your appointed time has come, then it has come.
Just continue to press in, move forward and only believe. Rest in His faithfulness because the battle belongs to the Lord. Don’t even touch it. I have truly come to the end of this journey. It is going to be 13 years on 18 Jan 2021. I should know the times and seasons. My time and season. I should be aware by now that God has started releasing me from my prison and concreted my calling. That was the second wind. So don’t look back anymore.
This month, God began to show me how I have passed the faith test. How I have finished the race, crossed the finishing line. I have fought the good fight of faith and He said: Well done, my good and faithful servant! He began to impress upon me that my past season was finally done. He was closing the chapter. He pointed out the story of Joseph with the 13-year wilderness and said it wasn’t a coincidence that I have walked through 13 years of wilderness since Jan 2008.
God also pointed out that for the past two years I had been in prison but now I am being released from prison. In 2018, Heng also likened me to Joseph being in prison, waiting for God to release me. As I looked back on hindsight, I saw that I had indeed walked through a long season of wilderness, wandering in the desert. But now it has finally ended. It wasn’t a coincidence that another sister who had been with me on this journey said she believed the process she had been going through in this season was complete.
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