Perspective Change- Goodness and Grace.
So this year has been amazing and atrocious all in one bundle of 365.
There have been amazingly high highs including my YouTube channel having over 100 views in some videos, getting the opportunity to preach twice at DICF, having the biggest Caught in Purple day to date which had over thirty people give their lives to Christ- we were able to minister and donate goods to five different places including two children’s homes and a hospital and we were able to see two people healed in that hospital. I was also able to start a book club and finally get reading some books that have been sitting in my files for ages.
This year indeed had high highs, the epitome which was undoubtedly graduating from Dalian medical university not only as top of my class with one of the highest GPA’s but also as the chosen class valedictorian and being able to give the final graduation speech and even be offered other incredible opportunities. Also, in the midst of that seeing God’s fulfilment of an over 50-year-old prayer.
This year has had very high highs, I have had friendship like never before, sleepovers tuned keshas with likeminded people and wow, this year I’ve laughed. I have been poured into by mentors and surrounded by those whom I in a million years would never had believed could even know my name. I have had mentors and peers and mentees. I have had the great opportunity to speak into the lives of many and see lives transformed, I have had the privilege to have been used by God.
This year I have walked on a runway in scrubs, written and organized shoots, witnessed proposals and marriages, written and coordinated spoken word pieces that were performed before thousands and broadcasted to an even wider audience. In 2019 I’ve thrown several surprise parties and even be surprised (for the first time in three years) and had the most epic 25th ever. This year I had the honour of treating my parents in an amazing way that I had been saving towards for years and even accompanying them on holiday. This year I was even able to take myself on a one-week getaway to Beijing and truly rest.
This has been an amazing year.
That I cannot dispute
I have indeed seen the goodness of God in the Land of the living.
But, it has also been an atrocious year.
Atrocious definition: horrifyingly wicked, extremely bad or unpleasant
This year has been a year of long lows, seeing situations that I’ve been praying for not get better but actually worse. Watching those around me suffer in the wake of bad prognosis. It has been a year of attack after attack, if it wasn’t physical it was spiritual, if it wasn’t me it was someone close to me.
This year I have witnessed the most cases of anxiety and depression in my immediate circles. I have had my knees get ashy and prayers grow into silence then wails as I prayed for the minds and hearts of those around me desperately pleading as distance wouldn’t allow me to embrace those whose shaky voices worried me. I have been worried for the very lives of people I love because they were alone with themselves- I’ve never wanted to buy a plane more.
This year I had forgotten my purpose and well watched my goals pass me by not because they were unattainable but because my focus was blurred- this has literally been one of my least productive years in life. This year I have done at most four out of the things that I was hoping to accomplish, and the worst thing is I didn’t push harder to get there but instead waved my white flag in surrender and said ‘oh well that’s that’. I lost my drive, my passion, my zeal.
This year I also lost friends, nope- not with death but in life. Not one but four different people who I still hold dear to my heart decided to walk out of my life and never return. Having people who you have shared so much of your life with, people who you have spent time in food, fun and prayer with get up and leave- now that hurt and quite honestly the last one almost broke me.
This year I have seen those whom I thought were unshakable get shaken at their core. I have seen the ugly face of envy and how it completely destroys as it unveils evil hidden beneath a poisonous smile. I have seen my tear ducts run dry because frankly I was too tired to cry. This year I realized that a Jesus loving, well-meaning individual like me could be toxic and suffocate with care, smiles and hugs. This year I have had to walk away.
This has been a year of complete and utter apathy. There was no answer coming from heavens ceilings and the more I obeyed the deeper the thorn in my side pricked and I tossed the ball one last time into God’s court and said I’m done, you do whatever it is you want. This year I was tested in faith and in my trust in God.
This has been a long, tiresome year.
But you know what is funny… I have never been more convinced!
Of what? You might ask, well- of the goodness of God!
The latter half of this writing has the capacity to eclipse the former. It looks huge and demoralizing and everything that came before it may seem
like nothing because it existed but please don’t get it twisted: GOD is GOOD!
My grace is sufficient for you because my strength is made perfect in your weakness
I can testify to this.
Why? Well certainly not because I have had the strength and breezed over all the hardships like a boss. Not at all. But instead because I have been broken and had almost all my strength lost.
I have never been more incapacitated and ill- equipped to handle the punches life had prepared. I prayed less and even weighed less due to stress, hehe. I wish the waistline was because of a diet plan- lol.
But wow. In the midst of me being overwhelmed GOD!
In the midst of my insufficiency he multiplied my one percent of existence with his infinity of infinite power and grace. This year I have not just survived, relied and been sustained by grace but I have actually thrived through grace!
I am in awe of His goodness grace and mercy. This Year I have truly experienced God in a way like no other. His names are no longer just theory that have been written in an age-old scripts but have jumped from the pages and had to become a reality. You see because of this year I understand Hagar who was running and was so sure that God had forgotten her but in that moment- GOD! He was there even when she wasn’t a saint but simply a child in need of His comfort. If you have ever felt like you’ve been forgotten by God let me inform you that He is “El Roi” - The God who see’s you in the wilderness, valley, pit or whatever hole you may have gotten yourself into. This year has convinced me that God will never abandon me, that He will never leave nor forsake me.
Oh I tell you God is GOOD!
I have seen Him be a mighty warrior fighting battles for me and those around me. I have seen Him be Jehovah Jireh, and have lacked no good thing. I have seen God be Jehovah Rapha, our Healer and great physician. I have seen him make a way where there seemed to be none (ask for a testimony someday), I have watched him prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. I have seen him be a comforter to those who were in deep despair and depression people who I was separated from by distance He would be the one to go forth and send His peace. Oh, there is power in prayer- you can not convince me otherwise.
God is so Good.
So, I have to rewrite the introduction of this passage to realign my perspective.
Realigning ones perspective is so important because when you don’t the hand of God gets eclipsed by what seemed to have been things turning against us when in reality it was God fighting for us. Though the enemy rose up like a flood each and every time God raised a standard! I have got too many testimonies of Gods awesomeness from one year alone.
In Psalms 27 if we read verse 13 without context you would mistakenly believe that David is writing from a position of victory, a mountain top. But if you add the rest of the passage you realize that he was in a space of potential defeat. He had been on the run from King Saul and had his life in danger for a while. He had every excuse to feel abandoned by God and question the promise of God on His life.
But God never left Him, and David knew who was sustaining him. Who ensured that in every near encounter with Saul and his army God was the one who covered and kept him. Even in the midst of the encounter that he did not invite but simply ended up in because he was called by God instead of turning to God as the founder of the problem (Which is what we honestly tend to do sometimes, I must admit that I too have been a culprit of this, and start to accuse heaven of bringing trouble our way) but instead He in verse 8:
My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek.
Psalms 27:8
He sought the face of God and because of that time He spent in the presence of God, because of realigning his perspective he became so bold as to say that even in the midst of trail, trouble and persecution He was convinced that he would see the goodness of God. Not when he dies, this wasn’t and eternity perspective prayer- he was very specific in His wording:
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Psalms 27:13
In the Land of the living! Wow.
Sorry to all the people who have been around me for the passed six months because I have been saying this like a broken record but it took the
whole of 2019 for this to become such a deeply embedded conviction so best believe that it is going nowhere soon. That not only have I already tasted and seen that God is good- I will continue to be a witness of the Goodness of God in the land of the living before I meet Him up in glory and see Him Face to face.
So in spite all the things that went wrong this year I have joy, peace and love like never before. The Joy of the Lord, Complete (ly- insane amount of) peace in my heart and finally love, so much love from the Father first and then I have literally been embraced in a blanket of too much love from those around me (personal space my people, I need to breathe- lol). In what could have been the longest less talk worthy years I have been blessed beyond measure!
2019 has been an amazing year, I simply can’t wait for what God has in store for 2020.
2020 I hope you’re ready because we’re coming in hot!
