Eagles' Wings

Perhaps the wounds of exile had healed in Moses, but the scars remained. His anger, guilt and sense of loss may have subsided, but the underlying anxiety and insecurity caused by his disconnection from his blood family and heritage continued. 

However, God knew Moses' name and now addressed him as one with a heritage going back to Abraham. The Lord was saying "This is who you are and this is how I will relate to you." Hearing this began to bring healing to Moses' soul. 

Identity is always given from the outside before it becomes reality on the inside. Moses heard God confirm his identity. In time, his confidence grew, and his long-dormant capacity to lead emerged.

reading about Moses in Covenant and Kingdom has been one of those "meet God" moments. surely i've had many break my heart for what breaks Yours moments for people in the past 10 years as i come to realise through a period of being broken down, that life isn't just about me.

however, my heart has always been left broken because i could never make sense of my abilities and thought them inadequate to transform any lives. i never found it in my sense to piece it together with God. i decided to focus on myself instead, nitpicking those flaws with a critical attitude and trampling on my own self-esteem. as with the many areas of my life, it had laid strewn while this discontentment seeped in. that part of me hates that feeling of responsibility towards what i've felt a heart for, and a part of me dislikes myself for not being good enough. but then a tiny part of me believes in the power of God to transform me for His purposes, and i know that if i don't do anything about it, the Spirit will continue prompting, and i'll never be fully yielded in the life that God has planned out for me.

the struggle of Moses with God couldn't epitomise mine any better!
my life in the past 10 years went something like that:

Lord, why me? what if no one listens?

reveal then, my Word.

but i can't, i'm not much of a talker and i trip over my words. i'm abit ditsy at times.

who gave you your mouth?

urgh. You. :(
sigggh. please God, anyone but me. look at him! he can do a better job than me. when he talks, people melt into smooth creamy butter and buy all his dreams in a jiffy.

don't worry my child, what you lack, i will make up for you. i will send people who possess smooth creamy butter words to help you.

grr. haha ok ok God, show me what now, i should do. :D

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i know this sounds like silly banter, i can't believe how God chooses to entertain all those whines and complains about my insecurities and inadequacies when i choose not to depend on Him. because i know now, my identity is in Him. yup. not in my family, not in my friends, not in social acceptance, not in appearance. Him who will grow the strengths that i discount, Him who will grow the weaknesses that i attempt to bury.

anyway this seriously hit me like one of those meet God face to face moments. a secret that only God and I could share, the growing of a covenant, and eventually, kingdom responsibility.



and He just broke down another wall.
You're amazing, God!

Luke 9:23

In Christ alone, I place my trust 

And find my glory in the power of the cross 

In every victory let it be said of me 

My source of strength, My source of hope 

Is Christ alone

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no major frills or revelations

just something simple tonight.

that whenever i revisit the cross,

all i could ever turn into is a messy puddle. 

because the truth is that 

the cross is the immensity of God's love for me;

how Jesus beared the cross for me.

to have the weight of the world upon His shoulders,

to humble Himself, betrayed, spat at by the very people He created.

i could talk about the complexity of the love of God personified in Christ Jesus,
because the more i question and seek the more i realise the profundity of the nature of this covenant, the more i am amazed by how my God is a God of supernatural wisdom.

but yet at the same time,
at the root of this complexity
lies a much simpler truth.

He loves us.

that is all.

amazing, isn't it?

but it is the reason why i want to serve.

not to bring people to Christ,

but to bring Christ to people.

Music in my ribs, kidneys, liver, heart.

a thought is a landmark to a treasure that holds little value
when hidden, yet the risk of bearing your soul is the potential
for its value to be diminished by someone else

i realised, that how ever much i attempt to be cultured, scrutinising an art piece by its artistic profundity, visual perfectness, thematic representation, the truth of the matter is that the way it touches the hearts of many out there will forever remain much subjective confundity.

to me, i cannot for the life of me feel tugging of heartstrings at a bunch of lego bricks perfectly pieced together to mimic the human anatomy as much as the perceptive flair of the artist amazes me. perhaps, it is the way most modern visual art possess this avant garde like nature, ambiguous to the point that it communicates none of what needs to be said to mainstream audience. very much like avant garde of the auditory kind, but thank God much of music is still layman and soothing to the ear. 

so post afternoon of dragging my half asleep self around the art-science museum has had me thinking about what it is about visual arts that puts me to sleep, and what is it about music that makes my mind and soul and heart go crazy. 

i would first like to point out the singular and dual dimension of visual and auditory arts respectively. a visual work of art is crafted by the artist himself, of which had taken form and shape in his mind or some sort of draft medium, now ideas translated through the dexterity of his fingers. when finished, the piece holds a personal value known only to the artist/artists himself/themselves. music, on the other hand, is dual dimensional, where the composer crafts what it in his mind, and it takes form on the stave, where every staccato, ritardando, change in tempo, crescendo and diminuendo lovingly sits waiting for the conductor's/musician's interpretation to take form. the resulting work of art and its communicated value lies a relationship between the the composer and the musician. any one could feel such a personal connection when he plays the piece, and lives the notes.

secondly, their elemental natures in its complete and finished form, visual and auditory - respectively dead and living. visual art, in the midst of the doing, starts to take form and come alive. but once crafted into a tangible form, it ironically becomes dead. one where people poke their noses into, mull over and stare at, misintepret (or perhaps, was the original intention of the artist anyway. that is something i will never get. is post-modernism an excuse for a poorly communicated work of art?!?!?!) but it exists as it is, never to be remolded and remade (you could, but it will just be an imitation, which is not cool) ever again. 

music, on the other hand, appears dead in its finished form in the composer's hands. but for every time curtains go up and the band resumes, that is when a work of art truly comes alive. every piece played will never take the same character as it did the day before, or the day before yesterday, even if it were by the same people. because what comprises in that performance, is the marriage of both the conductor's and musicians' souls and their state of minds and emotions at that point in time. the watching audience are a part of that raw atmosphere, contributing another dimension when their presence somehow changes the delivery of music, and they are a part of this work of art in its playing. 

and thirdly, their abilities to reach. chances are, the best pieces of art will travel around the world, be a subject of institutional discussions, go through auctions, land themselves at places other pieces of art dream about. but nothing like the transcendental nature of music. for every time a piece is played, even reinterpreted and remixed, the arms of reach extends, further and further. it crosses geographical and cultural boundaries, holding a value close to the hearts of the musician and the listener. it even surpasses the dimension of time, for playing a Tchaikovsky swirls up the settled dust, every replay bringing life to the ideas of a man long gone in this world.

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i was 9, and out of my school bag i took out some lyrics that was passed out during music lesson. and on the school bus on the way home, i sang 'Home'. that was the first time i heard my own voice speaking back into my heart, like some sort of a self-monitor- the pulsing of the vocals and how i could effectively take charge of my voice and mould it. i kinda liked music. it wasn't till much later in life, that this became a little more serious.

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everyday, i think i know myself a little better.

i always knew music spoke to my soul, but never could quite put a finger as to why. now, as i'm slowly inching towards a breakthrough in the marriage of my inner compass and thought processes- the heart and the head, i am realising why i gravitate towards the things i do. more often than not, it is because it holds a little bit of the relationship like that of the Maker and us.

Music encompasses a creator-creation dynamics that mimics the relationship between God and man. Music, like life, takes a living form once creation is finished. Music, like life, is alive and present, like the living nature of the relationship between God and us. Music, like life, holds the ability like that of the gospel to reach far wider than His once chosen people. this juxtaposition couldn't point any more towards the realisation that music is God-breathed.

totally mind-blown and comatosed right now.

(i'm sorry, visual arts, but you're too much like the God whom people who don't understand Him think He is- a God of the yesteryear, a God who speaks but not listen, a God far away in the tabernacle.)

breakthroughs are cool.

more on this coolness!

Neither rhyme nor rhythm, prose nor poetry

 What! You too? I thought I was the only one.   

- C.S Lewis 

an improbable friendship, but which proved to be special. the kind in which, you couldn't quite put a finger as to what made it so special. but it is.

bouncing sadness and happiness around that dissolve the former and magnify the latter. just 2 months, and we've pretty much shared things in life that we've never to people whom we've known for the longest time. i understand the things she says that people do not. gone music seeking, grocery hunting, kopitiam hanging till wee hours of weekday nights. i don't know why simple things like sharing a subway sandwich, a conversation with random people we meet, sitting beside each other occupied with our respective pamper necessities (the oxymoron) mulling over the idiosyncrasies of life- such simple things but truly the ones that make me happy.

and if i picked a pebble for every amazing friendship that God has blessed me with