Giants

Woke up this morning to the most welcomed sound - that of rain pattering down upon the awning outside my bedroom window. Mmm... Looked out to see the hill glistening in all hues of fresh, wet green. (You can imagine how close my block is to the hill for me to go into such detail.) Awesomeness. If God hadn't given the trees a drink from the heavens, they would have withered away in the hot weather and haze. Watching the trees always gives me faith - if God can so faithfully care and provide for them that they grow strong even while they hardly call out to Him, then what more for us - when we, His children, fiercely cry out to Him? Perhaps we will not recognize the gifts and blessings when they come - but we ought to take comfort in this unchangeable fact: God is faithful and an unfailing Lover.

Drove to pick Vanessa up for lunch in the afternoon. Went to our favorite (cheap and good) Malay food place again and spent some quality time chatting about life, God, purpose and fruitfulness. We prayed in my car before I dropped her home again. I was very edified and encouraged by a vision she saw whilst praying for me, because it was actually a similar one to the vision one of my church leaders saw of me when I was attending EN Dublin. And that was probably more than 5 years ago. Thank You, God. Truly, forgive me for my unbelief and doubts - I have no reason to doubt You when You've shown me that with You, all things are possible!

I think God was not done speaking to me about the things that are hindering me from growing, moving on and giving myself to Him fully. (You can read some of my previous posts to get a rough idea of what kind of season I am currently in.) Leadership class today got me wondering what/who my greatest GIANTS (like Goliath) in life are. I couldn't decide what/who my greatest giants are. (Dr. MT said that her giant is her bed -___-" ROTFLMAO!!! The reason? She says that it's a waste of time sleeping - but her bed seems to be calling her all the time and distracting her from her work. Such a sensible bed, huh? Guess what - she sleeps at 3am everyday! I think the bed is not the giant. Rather, the giant is...uh, her workaholism.)

Well, it's a little clearer to me now - I think I should be fairly accurate when I say that one of my giants is my fear of failure and mediocrity. Perhaps, it's because of the way I was brought up. My parents adopted the rather discipline-and-performance oriented culture of the Chinese in bringing us up. I eventually associated the cane/rotan in my mum's hand with failure/mediocrity - and because I feared getting caned, I now also fear failure and mediocrity! Haha. (Reminds me of the Pavlov classical conditioning theory which I learned in Psychology). Of course, there are many fear factors other than this (if my hypothesis is even true), but we won't go into them here. Anyway, this fear makes me a little intimidated and insecure when I see another who seems to perform certain tasks better than myself. Especially tasks which require the use of my gifts. Subsequently, I'd think: Hm, maybe God gave me gifts of "lower grade". Or perhaps I don't actually have those gifts - rather, what I have are delusions of grandeur! I realize that I can still think this way, even when God has affirmed and re-affirmed me through my loved ones/friends/prayer partners. Also as a result of my fear of failure and mediocrity, I am a perfectionist, I often over-strive to perform even at my own expense and I am sometimes resistant to change. However, Vanessa's vision reminded me today that I do not need to benchmark myself against anyone else. Instead, I should trust God, be myself, embrace my uniqueness, take more risks, change my perspective towards failure (it holds valuable lessons, no?).... and enjoy working my God-given gifts as authentically as possible.      

There are probably more giants in my life. But right at this moment, I cannot remember them. *Yawn* It's time for bed.