I'm still totally amazed and awed by how God came through for the RAYs Ministry ytd. It has been a long and tiring journey but i can say for sure that i don't regret one bit of it. For me, this journey started in December last year as i was helping out in the directing of the Christmas Musical and God just told me that we had to do a Youth Musical for our youth friends. A production that would tackle the needs that youths in Singapore face. Initially i wasn't completely sure of whether we could do it. When i brought up the idea to the rest of the RAYs leadership, the initial general response wasn't very encouraging. We were into January by then and the major concern that we had was that there wasn't enough time for us to come up with a Musical from scratch. Particularly because we had not done such a thing before. Our youth ministry isn't very large as well and we were concerned that we might not have enough people to be able to carry out the entire production on our own. These were just some of the first obstacles we faced among many others to come.
Nevertheless God kept reassuring me and eventually i was certain that this was definitely what God wanted us to do as a Ministry. It was time for us to take a bold step and take some risks. To depend on God for our strength and not always try to do things which we know we are capable of doing. Eventually, the RAYs leadership reached a consensus and we decided to go for it. We only started working on the script in the first week of March. That gave us just about 4 months to get everything ready. We faced many more obstacles as we went along. Alot of the original plans that we came up with kept getting messed up. Personally i was left frustrated many times. All my 'best case scenarios' kept getting screwed up. I just had to keep turning to God and He just kept providing. All the way until the last week of practice we still made changes like bringing in people to act because others could not make it at the last minute. We also had to cut down our full dress rehearsals in the hall to ONE. We did not have our full recording ready until about 2 weeks before the day itself. If God was not with us, the situtation would have just looked entirely hopeless. But we knew all along, God was with us. He would never forsake us and he would pull through for us in the end. And without a shadow of a doubt He did amazing things yesterday.
Personally God thought me some major things. Firstly, to believe more in the people around me. I always like to have things within my control because i always fear that others will screw it up. But God just told me to let go. Due to the limited number of people that we had, I had to make some of the younger youths take up considerable responsibility and God just told me to trust them. Although i resisted at first eventually I obeyed and they did a fantastic job with minimal guidance.
God also humbled me immensely. Alot of the ideas that i had and felt were good got screwed up. Other ideas that were better of more practical came up and replaced my ideas. Initially i just wanted to hold on to what i thought was best. But more than once God just showed me that I had to be more open to others and be more ready to consider their ideas. Furthermore the fact that i had to constantly depend on God for the strength to persevere though the journey just left me totally broken and knowing that without God i could not have made much if any progress.
Finally God thought me how to just listen so closely to him and seek him for guidance. I've never directed a musical on my own and although I've helped out for 1 Easter and 1 Christmas Musical, doing everything from scratch without any guidance was on a whole new level. God just assured me that I just had to keep looking to Him and keep listening to Him and He would provide me with everything I needed to get the Musical done. Thought all the obstacles and all the stress I was never in doubt that God would come through for us because He was reassuring me every single day and after every single problem that came up I just felt God telling me what to do and how to overcome the circumstances we were in. Truly He is awesome and sovereign.
All Glory to God for the Rags Musical 2009!
[Deebs]
`ALL Glory to God!
7:20 PM
Monday, June 15, 2009
The Wonder of Worship
Worship is ALL about God. I've known this since quite some time ago. However, only recently have I really been making a conscious effort to ensure that i put this knowledge into practice. Many times I evaluated worship based on how much of a touch I received from God. When i did not feel any kind of sensation from God, I would focus myself so much in order to receive that touch. Many times I did receive that touch but ended up missing the whole point. Worship is about giving. Have I ever thought about worship in that way? Not until recently to be honest. Worship is the time for us to give God thanks, praise & glory for what He has done for us. Now stop and think about it and you will realise that what He has done for us is just about every single thing in our lives. What we have today is because of Him. Where we are in life is because of Him. Who we are as a person is because of Him. The sooner we realise and accept this, the sooner we will be in awe of him to an extent that worshiping God and GIVING him thanks, praise & glory becomes our focus. It becomes the main event. We have to move away from the consumer-oriented mindset which is always focusing on what we can gain for ourselves. When we realise the significance of worship it will become something that is important to us. When that is the case we will prepare for it. When we prepare for things we call always do those things better and God deserves nothing less than the best from us.
One thing that really hit me through the sermon was this statement: "Sunday's worship is a result of the weekdays' walk with God". How true this is. When we choose to walk counter culturally, every time we behave radically for God, we are preparing ourselves for worship. Everytime we put into practice the things that we have learnt, we are preparing ourselves for worship. Worship is not just the songs we sing, the way we behave can also be a form of worshiping God. If we think of worship as just the 20 min segment that starts off the service on sunday, we are getting it all wrong. Everyday there are ample oppotunities to see God working in our lives and to be in just absolute awe of him. We got to learn to worship God 7 days a week and not just on sundays. When worship goes off track, our spiritual lives follow suit. Worship at it heart is GOD-CENTRED not human-centred. I have learnt so much more about worship recently and on sunday God just hammered in the thought that were floating around. God just works in awesome ways people. Discover Him for yourself!
[Deebs]
`ALL Glory to God!
10:22 PM
`deebs
`18 jan 89
`20 yrs old
`ex victorian
`ex innovian
`man utd rules
