August 2011 : Sometimes He speaks a lot louder than you think!

So this weekend was quite interesting... spiritually. I have been struggling with a few things in my life at the moment and to a point, I was really feeling the toll of it - a broken friendship with my best friend, direction in life and to top it all off, someone close to me is also at a low point in her life and needs encouragement.

I am not really going to go in detail about the situation, but bottomline is, all these 3 situations put together certainly is taking a toll on my emotional strength and sometimes my faith. Not that I dont trust God but it is just trying lah especially when you feel everything is colliding and you wish the light at the end of the tunnel is a lot closer. In a way, all these things have driven me back to doing something that I sorta abandoned for a while - my prayer journal.

So, one morning I decided, it wasnt just enough to put things in words, I had to verbalise it out loud. And following that, I have had a few Divine Appointments with God.

Friday's event were quite unexpected which landed me with time to pop into church and speak to Raj about something totally random, but eventually brought me to James 1 : 2-16 and 1 Peter 1 : 3-9. Basically, both passages talk about trials and temptations and how everything we experience is not to trip us in our faith but to expose us to the refining fire, teach us perseverance, trust in Him and ultimately, strengthen and mature our faith. In fact we spoke quite a bit about the refining fire and how it is meant to burn away the impurities to reveal the priceless gold - much like our faith.

The thing is, I have no doubt in my mind that God is in control. I really dont. Enough has happened in my life for me to believe that many moons later I will turn back and give thanks for this moment of trials and testing. It is just a bit hard right now to see the light. And He knows it, so the conversation, especially after the prayer I said in the morning was like God reaching out to me to tell me He heard my prayer.

And if that wasnt enough, the sermon on Sunday was about trials and temptations as well, and sometimes we bring the temptations to ourselves because of the desires of our heart. A few things that was said by the preacher was like reiterating my conversation with Raj. Odd that I should be struggling with the temptation to get in touch with my best friend and fix our broken friendship - which is clearly not the right thing to do now for a few reasons. In addition, in doing so, I am not giving God control of the situation.

THEN, today's devotion was looking at Phillipians 4:6-7 whereby we should commit our prayers and petitions to God and then trust Him to sort it out for us. *sigh*

I feel like God is slapping me left right and center...

So seriously... He does answer... and He does speak. Problem is, are we even listening?