God's Word to My Mum

Today Pastor Patrick did a visitation to my house.

We had some conversation, mostly on the topic of our upcoming marriage. I introduced pastor to my mother who was also around at that time.

When the time is up and before pastor leaves, he offered to pray for us. Since my mum was here, I decided to ask her to come around for pastor to pray for her. My mum says that she wants pastor to pray over her regarding her sleeping problems, as she suffers from severe insomnia.

As pastor prayed in tongues to seek the Lord for guidance, God impressed upon pastor that the problem is due to my mum keeping a lot of hurt within her.

Pastor told my mum that she should let go of her past hurts, and he asked her to "bless" my dad. When he came to this part, my mum began to feel uneasy. She told pastor that, she had never blessed dad before and that she doesn't need to.

Pastor wisely did not press the matter further and asked her to consider forgiving my dad.

As I sent pastor out to his car, I thanked pastor for the timely and accurate word. My mum has been bound by these hurts for all these years. My family history has been complicated and not a happy one, to say the least.

She did not respond immediately, but given time, I believe that she will be able to truly let go of her past. It wasn't easy for her to release her decades of hurt and betrayal on one single prayer session. I pray that God will continue to minister to her and heal her wounds.

Thank God for a godly pastor who is able to speak God's healing words into her life.

My New Job As Legal Advisor

It has been more than a month since my last post. At first it was because of the hectic Chinese New Year celebration, then i got this new job... Oh! This is so exciting! I thought I must get back to my blog to record it down, to give glory to God.

I was approached for this job from a friend whom I have not been in contact for some time. Quite unexpectedly too! He said that his company is involved in a new project, and needs to hire an in-house lawyer.

I went in for an "interview" and agreed on the job on the spot. The terms were so appealing, what I would call an ideal job. It's like God had the job tailor-made just for me:

1. The retaining fee (salary) was slightly more what I used to get when working as a legal assistant, with a promise to increase it to almost double from what I used to get after 3 months.
2. My main job functions are to advice on company law and drafting agreements. Exactly what I had wanted. Something I enjoyed doing, and something I'm good at (I think!)
3. The job is on a retainer basis, meaning I can still practice as a lawyer or even get retained by another company (or companies).
4. They will give me a room to work in. My own office. They even invited me to set up my permanent office there. This one I'll have to consider. The downside is that I'll be "on-call" the whole time, but I can sure live with that. The plus side is I get my own office rent free, and I get to meet my own clients there.
5. The project they were planning to do is going to be a huge one. It is a nation-wide campaign involving some big names. In terms of exposure and experience, this is surely a God-sent. How I can get myself into this? This is surely by the grace of God. I soon found out that they are actually planning another large-scale project, and there's still another one in the pipeline. Talking about God's double blessing... this is a triple or multiple blessing.

All these I have been wishing and desiring in my heart, without actually putting it into prayer. All I remember doing was just a simple thought in my heart, "wouldn't it be nice if..."

Now I'm already in the job for about 2 weeks. During these 2 weeks, God has granted me favour upon favour with my "bosses":

1. The CEO offered that I may charge a further small amount for each of the agreements signed. This is being generous because the whole idea of retaining a lawyer is to save up on costs because they are doing the agreements in bulk. This "side-income" is expected to add up to a lot, as they are planning to get some couple of thousand agreements to be signed.
2. The Owner asked me one evening after dinner in which we had conversations about when I'm going to get married, etc, asked me, "So when do you plan to get married?". I said, "probably end of this year or early next year." Then he replied, "Good... because by that time you will probably get a big angpow from me. If your wedding is now then I can't afford a big angpow."
3. The CEO said to some of us in the executive level, that he will try to get us a salary of xxx (what they promised to give me after 3 months) starting from this month.
4. One of the managers, my friend who had invited me into the company, told me that he will try to talk to the bosses to double up my salary, ie. what I will be getting this month because now I'm handling the matters for 2 companies (ie. for the second project).
5. The CEO again. This only happened today: As part of my job, I have been requested to draft and prepare letters and correspondences with other parties. So, this afternoon as he was going through one of my draft letters, he said that I can bill the company separately for each of the letters prepared. And he said that I can bill the company for xxx amount (a very generous sum for drafting letters), just send him the bill and he will sign it. He added further that, he wants me to earn xxx amount (a very, very generous amount this time) every month while working here.

The amazing thing is, all these "additional terms" were offered by them out of their own initiative. I had not requested or demanded for a single item.

I believe that this year my life is going to be marked by God's favour. God's goodness and love will surely pursue and hunt me down, because the LORD is my Shepherd.

Sound The Jubilee

The theme this year for Renewal Lutheran Church (my new church) is "Sound the Jubilee". The verse for this theme is taken from Luke 4:19, "To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

The Jubilee is part of the old testament law where on every 50th year the land must be rested from all agricultural activities. The other significant facts about the Jubilee are:

• all the debts owing until that day will be cancelled or written off
• any Israelite that has been sold on slavery must be set free
• all the land that has been sold during the 49 years must be returned to its original owner

For us Christians, we believe that we have entered into a perpetual Jubilee from the moment Jesus died on the cross, where all our sin-debts has been cancelled and all those who are bound as a slave to sin has been set free once and for all, and we are to return to our inheritance as children of God.

However, our Jubilee, just like any other promises of God in the bible, it doesn't happen automatically. We have to firstly be aware that we have that promise, secondly ask God for it and thirdly believe that we have it.

That is why Ps. Joshua, having received the word from God, has proclaimed that year 2008 shall be a year of Jubilee for the whole church.

Quite amazingly, with just a mere few weeks into year 2008, the church has already experienced its manifestation of the Jubilee. The following testimony was shared in today's church service:

There is this anonymous church member who for the past one year had this secret desire to help paying off the church building debt (incurred for the purchase of the church building some 10 years ago), so he prayed to God to provide the money. Some time ago recently, the Lord has blessed this brother tremendously, that he was able to issue a cheque to pay off completely the church building debt, which amounted to more than RM2 million!

Wow! Talk about leadership by example! The pastor and the church leadership proclaimed the Jubilee by faith, taught the church about it, and God has blessed the ministry by the miraculous cancellation of debt.

God is with RLC, and he did not let the words of the pastor to fall to the ground! (1 Samuel 3:19).

The Jubilee has been proclaimed for this year. The church as a whole is already experiencing it. Now it is up to the individual member of the church to claim it for himself personally.

I thank God for this blessing. I am so excited for this year. I believe that this is going to be a year of breakthroughs! I am believing God for it, and claiming it for myself in Jesus' name.

My 'Joseph' Moment

Last night I went out and had supper with some friends to discuss some matters. At midnight when I was driving on my way back, I received an unexpected phone call. It was from someone whom I got to know through another friend, when I handled his matters sometime back. He asked whether I will be free to meet up the next day, which I agreed. Then moments later he called again and asked if we can meet up immediately. I agreed, since I'm already driving on the way.

This friend wanted to engage me to handle a matter for him, which needs urgent attention. He is planning to make a bid to takeover a company, and is seeking my advice over some difficulties because some of the preliminary steps were not taken. He wanted to engage me to conduct the takeover exercise.

I was so overjoyed at the opportunity! This friend wants me to handle this multi-million dollar deal, which normally is being handled by large legal firms, all the while knowing that I run only a small firm and had just newly set-up. I am not a well-known lawyer and don't not have a track record to show. Humanly speaking, there is no way I can land up in these kind of deals. There is only one explanation for this: God's favour!

If I can solve the problem of this friend and successfully carried out the takeover exercise, that would mean a financial breakthrough for me... and not forgetting the other major jobs that will follow from a happy client. The result would be an abundant prosperity!

My situation now reminds me of Joseph before the Pharoah. He was in such a distressing state for a long time, humanly speaking, until a moment when God provided him with an opportunity. The Pharoah had a problem which needed Joseph's help. Joseph looked to God for the answer and said, "I cannot do it, but God will give Pharoah the answer he desires." (Genesis 41:16)

He provided the solution and Pharoah decided to raise him up to a position to be able to carry out the solution. All in it just took less than an hour for Joseph to experience his breakthrough.

One moment of God's favour is able to release a tremendous breakthrough!

Lord Jesus, I ask that you will give me the wisdom and knowledge to handle this matter. I can't do it on my own... please give me the ability to do a good job for your glory. I need your grace and favour!

Help! I've Lost My Voice

I was assigned to lead worship in GetReal 2007 Youth Camp. According to the schedule, I would lead on the first night, then followed by the final 2 sessions.

When I was approached for the job, my first reaction was, "Okay, this time don't blow it... I must control myself from shouting too much during the camp."

You see, for the previous few instances when I led worship for camps (youth camps especially), I would have no more voice at the final session, where normally it would be the most powerful and anointed.. The camps would be too much fun, and I just can't control myself from screaming and shouting during the activities.

So, this time I have been reminding myself over and over again... "control!". Everything went well on the first day of camp. I was so prim and proper... such a good boy and well behaved. Then we went for our first worship session... and during the fast songs itself, my voice cracked. Probably the songs were too high, probably because I was over doing it. Oh well... There were still 2 more days before my turn to lead again... Perhaps I can recuperate by then.

Still no good! For the next 2 days I can't even talk properly. I led devotion times in the morning, telling stories to some BB boys, and they can hardly understand what I said... my voice was so cracked! Oh God, help!

Then came my first worship session. Situation didn't get any better, I can't sing that much, and the worship session went... emm... okay, could be better. I was not that satisfied, but it's an offering to God anyway.

On the next day I was getting concerned. My voice was still cracked and I can't speak properly. I need God to help me! I quickly grabbed Alisha to pray with me, and remembering one of Ps. Prince's messages, we did holy communion there in the canteen. He mentioned that Jesus' body was broken so that ours may be made whole. And then I went on to bed, can't do much, just have to trust God.

On the next morning when I woke up, the condition still haven't improved. I had breakfast and did devotion again, and still no voice. Worship session started, still the same, but this time I was determined that I will worship God nonetheless. Voice or no voice, I'm still going to enjoy the worship...

And then it happened... halfway through the worship session, I found that my voice was okay. Wow! I thought to myself, this must be God... I tested my voice cautiously to sing some higher notes and, I can do it. Towards the last song, I thought to myself, this is already the last song of the last session, let's do it!

At that last song, I went on a really high note, and encouraged the youths to really give all out to worship God. It was an intense time of worship... i don't know about the rest, but I definitely enjoyed it very much. It was such a fulfilling and satisfying experience worshipping God.

Praise God for his healing!