High times, hard times, hand of God

High times

High times are those periods in our lives that were especially meaningful in a positive way. An example might be a time when a particular talent was applauded by others and a decision was made to pursue that talent further in life.

In 2008, I made a decision to commit myself to attending and serving in one church. It was a low point in my life. I was a resident doctor in career crisis: I knew clearly what specialties I did not want to do, but had no idea what specialties I wanted to do. I did not think I will have any chance of getting a boyfriend if I continue the same lifestyle working in the hospital. I felt stuck and was pessimistic, with a heavy weight on the top of my head constantly. If God had not intervened, I would have become clinically depressed. Fortunately it was during a church camp that I suddenly felt such a strong presence of God’s Spirit amongst me that it filled me with joy and all the heaviness on the top of my head lifted off. Such a transformation occurred in me that I burned with passion for God and no longer felt so disgruntled against my parents. Subsequently, my mother, who was quite critical of my faith, accepted Jesus as her saviour!

Hard times

Hard times are those relationships, experiences or seasons in our lives that were particularly difficult or painful. An example might be a childhood move from one school to another that was hard and caused you to build up some defensive walls that have been difficult to break down ever since. Perhaps there’s been a relationship conflict that has not been restored.

Dr Paul Kang, who leads the transformational discipleship group I am currently attending, mentions there are scholarly articles which demonstrates that suffering act as a catalyst for spiritual formation! I agree. I find it very hard to remember God when things are going along smoothly, even though I may still be able to keep up the routines of attending church and praying. I tend to feel desperate for God when things do not go according to plan, or when I face a great “unknown” in front of me. In fact, it is quite easy to say “I’ve got faith in God” when things are relatively smooth sailing, when one is blessed like Job was in the beginning of the book of Job. However, when faced with suffering, that’s when we know what we are made of: some people may renounce their faith, some people’s faith actually grows stronger. However, there will always be a wrestle before the gold becomes refined.

In May 2013, my father suddenly passed away. This event radically changed my theology. At that time, I had a “prosperity gospel” type of theology. Things were smooth sailing in my life, as well as in the church I had been attending. The predominant theologies in the environment I was in was that “if you got faith, you can do anything… if something doesn’t go according to plan, that’s because you don’t have enough faith and  haven’t been praying hard enough… God always wants us to succeed,” etc.

Coinciding with the passing away of my father was a call from God for me to study in a seminary. I had to stay in Taiwan for four weeks to sort out things related to my father. I went to a praying room in one church and saw a seminary school pamphlet. I had been to this praying room several times in the past and never seen this type of pamphlet before. Then, I went to another church’s praying room, and saw another seminary school pamphlet. When I returned to Sydney, the friend whom I usually pray with suddenly mentioned to me, “the Baptist churches have a strong foundation in the Scriptures, and going to a Baptist seminary school will be great to build a good foundation.” That was when Morling College popped into my mind, as it was the closest seminary school to my home, and it is Baptist in denomination. Since then, growth began happening in a way that would never have happened if this difficult time had not occurred.

Hand of God

There are the times when God revealed His sovereignty and grace in our lives in a special way. Maybe at a particular time of need God sent just the right person with just the right perspective that enabled us to keep moving ahead in faith. Or perhaps His Word came “alive” to us at a critical point.

I see the hand of God working on my life and on those around me constantly, including the high times and hard times I’ve described previously, so I will just pick another example here.

I have always liked the verse on the fruit of the Spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23). However, I also see my inadequacy when I read this verse, as I am quite an impatient person, and often wished I could grow fruits at a much more rapid rate. Well, my prayer got answered when I encountered Chris, who is now my husband.

I encountered Chris briefly at church in 2008 because his cousin’s family and I used to attend the same church, and his aunt got admitted into RPA (the hospital I was working in) that year, so I became a bit more familiar with them as a result of that. Anyway, Chris came to check out the church I was attending and we shook hands. I had a negative impression of him during that encounter, but he added me on Facebook.

Then, in the second half of 2014, a series of events occurred. In July, an elderly man suddenly gave me a painting of plum blossoms with a Chinese poem which is essentially asking “what is love?” In that same week, our small group watched the film “Fireproof” which kind of answered that question (google "the love dare"). In that same week I noticed that one of the trees on my investment property suddenly blossomed flowers that looked exactly the same as the elderly man’s painting.

In late October, right before I left home to see a play called "Marriage" (where a sister from our small group, Naomi, played the bride), I noticed that the flowers outside the windows of the first room in my house were in full blossom, and couldn't help taking heaps of photos with the flowers outside the room.

Then, less a month later, the mysterious “plum” tree produced fruits, and it turned out to be a peach tree, which was a pleasant surprise as I like peaches much better than plums. It was around this time that Chris had a Facebook status update saying he’s been asked to vacate the rental property which had had been living in for seven years, because the owners wanted to renovate the place. I also had an empty room in my four bedroom shared house that I wanted to rent out, and was advertising it on my Facebook. It was the room where the flowers blossomed. I secretly thought to myself, “this annoying guy better not enquire about my place.” Then, in the beginning of 2015, Chris enquired about my place, because his next work project was located near my place.

As Chris returned to his car at the end of the inspection, we saw a butterfly at his windshield, flapping its wings furiously mid-air, but not moving anywhere at all (this looks a bit like when birds try to fly against the wind). We’ve never seen anything like this before. Chris said the butterfly had been there like that since he first got out of the car to inspect my house, which meant it had been like this for at least ten minutes. This unusual image stuck in my mind. Furthermore, he mentioned his project is only going to last for 6 months, which seemed very short term anyway. So I broke my usual rule of renting to females only, and rented this empty room to him.

Little did I know that once Chris moved in, he will never move out again.

When he first moved in, I was pleasantly surprised about how different he was compared to my initial impression of him. There were also many times where I got extremely annoyed by Chris’ rigid thinking and debating nature. However, each time I become like this, I get a supernatural sign happening along with a supernatural increase in my capacity to tolerate him. Many of these conflicts actually resulted in me seeing my own problems through self-introspection, and growing in a way I never would have if I had not encountered him. I knew that the hand of God is upon this encounter. This fruit-growing process continues repeating itself over and over again, and I believe it will continue until we return to our heavenly home.