Blessed 2009

It's been another year, a year of great and awesome blessings if you choose to look at the good things that had happened and give thanks to the Lord; but it was also a year of ups and downs, challenges and difficult times. Praise God, I'm still right here, at where I am, whole and well, more blessed than a lot of people in the world. Hallelujah!

Someone once said a statement that took me quite a while to fully understand and agree with it, but I finally did. It was about Fact and Truth. Both can be true, 100%, without bias, but it's what you choose to believe and put your faith on that really matters.

The FACT is, the economy is bad. Market is slow and dwindling downwards. Recession hits the shore and will be more evident than ever in less than 3 months' time. Job security wavers. Money shrinks and devalues. This will eventually lead to social instability.

But the TRUTH is, God's promises are real and will never be slow to materialise. He is the Provider and is unlimited. In Him there is no lack, no poverty. In Him there is security and peace. He is in control.

Hence, I will rejoice. Bless the Lord, O my soul, bless His holy name! Because of His faithfulness and loving kindness. Because He gives a promise and He remembers it. And simply because He is God.

It has been a year of learning, of struggling, of humbling, equipping, waiting... It has been a year full of transitions and of letting go to acquire the new. It has been a year that challenges for commitment and decisions made from the heart. I've not seen another rainbow, though for the past months I have been silently praying in my heart that God would show it again. When the going gets tough and I really just want to give it all up, doubt sets in and faith doesn't rise up, His grace is sufficient for me and His strength is made perfect in my weakness. His promise is the same, and I want to remember it, I want to know that it is a surety of His goodness, and I believe that He is the Beginner and Finisher of my faith. He has begun this good work in me, and He shall bring it to completion.

I'm moving into a new phase, a new stage of development. I can feel it in my spirit that I'm in for something great that the Lord would enable me to do it. But I've got to take the first step of forgetting the old to acquire the new. Isaiah 43:18 -19 says: "Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

And after putting away the old, this is what Apostle Paul urged us to do in Philippians 3:13-15 "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you."

Year 2009 shall be a year of action, not stagnation. It shall be a year of looking unto Jesus, who beckons us to step out of the boat into the storm to where He stands with open arms, ready to embrace us as we trust Him to walk on raging seas. It shall be a year of rejoicing in the Lord, praying unceasingly and giving thanks to Him with supplication. May His peace that surpasses all understanding guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus, as we brace ourselves to face it all.

So come what may, I have Jesus!