Love is...

Seasons in Delay

Spring



I yearned to be surrounded with fireflies,
In the meadow of knee-high bushes
Like a secret meeting under the moon.
I desire for the one, but I found no one still but me
And the hush of the frosty wind.

And if I caught those hands,
I would never let them go.
A photo of delight, like a portrait on a wall.
Striding behind the river,
So clear that whenever someone sees the sky in it,
The clouds seem to be like waves, veiling the splendor of the countenance of the moon.
But do not be hoodwinked by the sweetness of its loveliness,

Do not be awaken, until the time is right.

Summer

How lovely the frailty of humanity,
It knows how to love, to pant and weep.
And I thought that someone needs to fill the spaces of these fingers.

All alone I spied as the trees shed its leaves
Counting the stars one by one, as if they were the hands of time.

I may not prophesy what lies after me,
But by faith I believe that the eyes want to see what the heart desires,
Dreams will come into existence.

Those voice painted a song in me, brushed in the chambers of my heart.
Like an inferno, the brightest among the flames I the midnight sky.
But do not be awaken please, until the time is right.

Fall

Live with a moment or depart this life with just some memoirs.
Live like it’s the last fall of the leaf.
Or with some thoughts fallaciously sculptured in one’s imagination.

A dove stretching its wings in a miniature abode of grates and bars.
On thirst of desire to belong to where it should be.
In the air that kisses it with warm embrace.

How long the risen sun fall into slumber, and the moon would paves its way.
How long would neither the river flow nor the leaves run dry.
How long would I wake up alone and sleeps in desolation.
How long would this agony last as the day come to pass?
But do not hasten the flowers to bloom until it so desires.

Winter

Snow falls like feathers
They sewed a grin on my face.
But it penciled too a tear on my cheek which turned then to ice.

The sands of time swiftly subsided beneath.
I never noticed the river’s gloss is in absence,
Could it ever shine the beauty of the night?

No waters can quench, nor could rivers drown it,
If someone tried to buy it with wealth, that offer would utterly be scorned.
The fruit was still raw, unfit for harvest
But no one could condemn it, how melancholic its life had been.

Was it a curse?
If to rue was a drug, I would live like an aficionado.
But it was not but a gift,
Like an endowment that I have to hold on to until the harvest time comes in.

Tomorrow will indubitably come,
As of the moment I would willingly speak,
“Do not be awaken until the time is ripe.”

Legions in the Tent II

II

Cities of Siddim

The Kings of the North made war with the Kings of Siddim. The armies marched out and drew up their battle lines. Swords rest upon their breastplate geared up to slash and fight, and shields fortified to build a firm wall against the enemies. In time, battle cries echoed, throats begun to run dry. No eyes had seen such as this, as the heavens painted with darkness and the field in scarlet. The rain made a sea on the ground out of the veins of the dead and the undead.

Victory was of the North, they cheered in wines and dances. In the middle of their sounding sleep, the overpowered kingdoms barged in and reclaimed their dominion. Taking all their possessions and wealth.

“Blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.” A declaration crafted upon their hearts.

But not long after the salvation, cities take root in evil. Demonic oppression, vices, homosexual deviation hovered around the city. No one remembered how they where once freed from slavery, but made themselves slaves of the Evil One.

It was evening when two angels appeared, walked upon the city gate. There seeing them he rose and bowed down. The visitors then visited his house. Their radiance seems so overwhelming that the town people fixed their eyes on them.

Before they had gone to bed, all the men in the entire city- both young and old- descended on the house from all sides. Their fist pounded heavily upon the door, wanting to come in. He came out and pleads to let them go, but they forcefully pushed him aside. The angels passed through and stroked them with blindness leaving them groping in the dark.

The outcries and shrieks of the people here to GOD are deafening. GOD is resolute to blast this place into oblivion. With the coming of the dawn, the angels urged them to hurry. In lingering, they seize his hands and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and brought them forth outside the city.

“Do not look behind you or stop anywhere in the whole valley; escape to the mountains , lest you be consumed.”

The sun opened its eyes in intense degree that moment. The clouds opened itself, and the wrath of God poured like rivers of molten rock. All that was seen and panted in the entire city melted in fire, and had vanished with the winds. Behold, smoke belching from the ground like smoke from a furnace.

“We had forgotten YOU , and lived among this depreciating race. Stood upon the darkest of this valley. And laid my head in rest along with this chaotic hearts and sinful-nature individuals. But during the night YOU have sent YOUR WORD in the midst of us. Carried us out with wings of YOUR cherubs away from the pit. You rained YOUR wrath in this place, so we can never look back to it, fix our eyes upon it and remember it no more. YOU handed us new beginnings. May all of YOUR works be carved upon the chambers of our hearts that we may not forget YOU. All praises is YOURS.”


“Do not earnestly remember the former things;
neither consider the things of old.
I, even I, am He
Who blots out and cancels your transgressions,
for My own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.” Is.43


(Part II of The Legions in the Tent)

The Box of Slavery

“Let any one imagine to himself six or seven hundred of these wretches chained two and two, surrounded with every object that is nauseous and disgusting, diseased, and struggling under every kind of wretchedness! How can we bear to think of such a scene as this?” – William Wilberforce (1789)

It would be a complete freedom for some to be enclosed in a box of chocolate. People could certainly live for several weeks, breathing in as much all the aroma of those sweets, and savor every variety of chocolate beside him/her. Box would definitely a sound of heaven.

But during our time, the word box for us Africans sounded like coffin. Today, coffins were fashioned with soft cotton linens, but our boxes were far different and may be called as the most horrible one. We as slaves were placed on different boxes piled like apartments, with manacles around our feet, hands and neck for several days. Food where not as plentiful as air, and sanitation is even rare being practiced. There you could find a bed, a dining table and a toilet fused into a six-sided box, where even sunlight cannot pass through. The last sunset I saw as we were dragged into that filthy ship is the best moment I can remember.

“I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a greeting in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life; so that, with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste anything. I now wished for the last friend, death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on my refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across, I think, the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely.”
-The Life of Olaudah Equiano the African (1789)

I hope those moments could be left on those box, but before, they were on hunting me every time I close my eyes. Nightmares of disgust, painful agony and shrieking cries of solitude, hunger and thirst. Whenever I see my freed hands, I saw the chains on them, the heavy metals of slavery pulling me down.

I believe all of us have boxes of slavery. Despite that we are already bought to freedom, we still keep on weighing the heavy chains around our neck, feeling every clicking of connected links as it pierced heavily on our flesh. Its grip maybe gone, but we still feel its pain as if its still there. We never move on. We choose not to move on.

14 “Since these children are people with physical bodies, Jesus himself became like them. He did this so that, by dying, he could destroy the one who has the power of death—the devil—15 and free those who were like slaves all their lives because of their fear of death.” Hebrews 2:14-15 (New Century Version)

Sin locked us to our boxes. Made us blind, and not seeing the true freedom. But the Son of God poured His blood to unbolt our chains and gave us the liberty from every kind of enslavement. Now, it is our choice if we want to step out of our boxes or opt to remain inside it. To move forward or still linger in the abode of torment and excruciating dwelling place of our past.


Where are your boxes?
Do you still keep them?

If yes, then this is the time for you to get the blazing fire of the Holy Spirit and burn them completely. For when we repent, As far as east is to west so far have our sins been removed from us.
“For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has freed me from the law of sin and of death.” Romans 8:2 (Amplified Bible)


I was blind, but now I see…..that I am free.

The Loneliness of God

Before time, God , upon His throne knitted a magnificent plan upon Him. That is to form a world of love. A canvass where He could exhibit diverse hues of His affection. A display of His love.

Trees were made; various animals were created in a simple utter of His lips. But there, with His hands, out of mud, He created man. Perfectly formed and shaped.

When God loved man, man loved God too, but not that much when a sparkling fruit caught their eyes. In an intense motion, flowery words and tempting visions, man had fallen. The hide and seek game then started.

Have you ever loved someone who loves and is loved by another?
Is it an embarrassment to continue loving them despite their unfaithfulness?
Is it fair to love and not be loved?
How lonely is loving when the heart you love is frenzied by another?

Throughout the leaves of religious history, God pursued the hearts of an adulterous generation.
He manifested in details and powers, the sky trembled in awe of a thousand miracles. Waters were divided, food where poured like rain, rocks flooded with waters from within, fire where formed in clouds, series of plagues and wonders where displayed so magnificent that 3D motion pictures could not beat. At the end, they chose to love a gold fashioned idol, rather than worship a God who enabled them to taste liberty from stings and miseries.

Powers and might indeed couldn’t stir hearts.
It couldn't move them to love.

Would His manifestation make a difference when all of His wonders make us love them more than Him? Would His audible interaction make a difference when all of us tremble in fear and chose to live like controlled race, trying to meet every law, and at the end of the day, disappointed because of failure?
He understood that even if He communicates us in person, it wouldn’t lead us to Love Him more. And at the peak of a hill, He illustrated the grandest act of Love. With His nail-pierced hands, He opened His arms so wide for all who cares and also to those who doesn’t care, waiting and anticipating and hoping that one day they would love Him back again.

How lonely it is to love and not being loved in return?

( “The LORD said to me, "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes."
So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, "You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you."
For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days.’’ ) –Hosea 3


God RECLAIMED us….God loves us again despite of our unfaithfulness.
God REDEEMED us…..Indeed He bought us with a price.
God RENEWED us…… In Him, we can be purified and cleansed.
God RESTORED us…….And the day is near when we will be back to our First Love….GOD


God gave His all, but no one is willing to have it all.
God couldn’t be lonely. But I could just feel, how lonely it is pursuing someone, giving the whole thing, even your life, but at the end of the day, you are still not needed. How lonely could be God?


Do you feel His loneliness?


“The central idea of the great part of the Old Testament may be called the idea of the loneliness of God-G. K. Chesterton”

The Scalpel of God

I have been a graduate of a medically inclined course way back 2008. It may be a miserable period, but let me share to you an instrument that doctors been using during operations. For those who have a fear whenever blood and the like are mentioned, don’t worry, I wouldn’t really let you capture in your mind what really is happening there. Just this little tool that surgeons use. The medically knowledgeable called it scalpel. It’s used to incise certain parts of the body that is believed to be affected. So its purpose is for them to examine more clearly the affected part, uncover certain areas so that they can diagnose the condition more accurately. A useful tool used in treating the ill physical body.

Same as our physical body, our spiritual body also used a special kind of scalpel, much better than it that it could expose even the deepest of the deep. Unfortunately, this spiritual scalpel were mostly neglected and rarely used by some of our brethren.

The Bible….The Written Word of God….. Is our spiritual scalpel. Let’s open our Bibles to the book of Hebrews 4:12. Then let us sort out few words from the passage for us to really grasp the importance of this passage.

In verse 12, we can observe the tense used, alive, in other translation is living. Alive or living is in its present form. It means that it exist and still existing, thus applicable to this very moment. In a sense that whenever we read God’s Word, or whenever someone share the gospel to us, it speaks, it’s as if God was speaking to us audibly. The word active in this passage also denotes that it is full of power thus it continues to move, is moving, and not at rest. Next the word sharper is from the word Tomoteros from Temno means to cut. Means that His Word has a cutting quality. The two edges sword here describes the two character of God’s Word. The God that saves and invites, is also the God who exposes and Judges. We can picture here the purpose of His Word and that no area is dull, all edges are significant. The Word of God is so powerful that it penetrates even the marows of our bones. Searches us out in great detail to the very core of man’s being. Its exposes, to see the true us, even the secrets we conceal on the very edges of our soul and hearts.

Well, every one of us became witnesses of the magnificent quality of the Bible. All of us can attest to that. It’s indeed a blessing that it could search us thoroughly, on the other hand, whenever doctors pierced or incise skins, without anesthesia it would surely be painful. Our spiritual scalpel sometimes can be painful too, especially when it exposes certain sins we hide, or certain areas we tend to hide from God.

Let me ask you some questions, How is your spiritual health? Is God pointing something in your life? Is God exposing a spiritual sickness in your life that you have been hiding all this time? How are you reacting to God’s diagnosis?

Whenever those questions arise in you. Always remember that God’s scalpel is there to heal not to harm, to cure not to worsen, to bring life not death. Whenever God incise our souls, let us not use our spiritual anesthesia and become numb to his rebukes. And if you have been spiritually sick all this time inside, here is an assurance that God’s Word is alive and full of power, to bring healing, deliverance to everyone who is willing to undergo such spiritual treatment.

His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God's Word. We can't get away from it--no matter what.


The soul that God incise is the one who gains life. The one that God divides is the soul that can survive.

Willing Heart

I have been a believer of Christ for years. Been to different churches, sang a lot of worship songs, memorized dozen of verses, entered to different ministries, met a lot of believers. It amazes me every time, people will comment that they had been so pleased with my life, and I was such a blessing. But every night I stayed up late, I felt that there is a huge hole in my heart, so big that I regard those good comments just some sugar coated phrases puffed in the air. I felt that not a single of my dreams, goal, and plans came to pass. Every day then, I grew discouraged, bitter and cold. I tried to examine God’s Word, but it turned out that I was just staring on a bare page. Then I stopped hoping, stopped believing. I was not contented, and my heart is not at ease. I asked God, what’s been missing, what is really the problem?

Maybe some of us were on that position right now. Undergo some experiences and seasons in life. Seasons of bliss, victories and winter nights. Nights of despair and misery. And when disappointments seemed overwhelming, we are susceptible to temptations. If we yield to it, we turned cold, numb and insensitive towards God and His Word.

King David, who should be at war, focusing on what God wants Him to do, chose to be left behind. During the night, he was tempted and later yielded. He formulated plans to cover his sins, covering his sin with another sin and another sin. Here we can see that David’s heart grew numb. Sins were repeatedly done with no remorse, sorrow, and guilt, evil actions were justified, truth is suppressed, conscience is silenced, private fantasies are permitted without restraint. But God knows and cares, thus sent Nathan to rebuke him which led him to have that willing heart for repentance. Psalm 51 was conceived. In this passage , let me read to you the verse that strucked me the most (READ v. 10), in verse 10 , David emphasized create. Create means to make into out of nothing. You can see the desperation of David for a new heart, pure, chaste and untainted. The Bible tells us that only God can only be the one who can create something out of nothing…(Genesis)

Just like what I’ve felt, maybe some of you are feeling like that right now. Do some of you feel empty, frustrated, bitter or hopeless? Are you struggling with something and you don’t know what to do? Or you discern what to do but you don’t know where to start.
When you study the Bible, sing songs and offered supplications and prayers but have seen that there is no transformation in your life? Well maybe, there is a stronghold in your life, a baggage you’ve been carrying at your back which you have not surrendered. Right now, God is speaking to you, maybe there are like Nathans in your life, now is the time to pay attention.

Where then we begin?

1. Until we see our need for help, we will not treasure His hope, we people tend to have that mindset that we can change on our own, but we end up exhausted and hopeless. In Him there is the true hope to change.

2. Until we treasure His hope, we will not know true Joy. We can never experience true joy when we are still in our sins. The world points us to seek for happiness in other things, learning to love money, indulging to immorality and other worldly stuff but still end up unfilled, vacant or empty. But if we just only reflect to what Jesus had done on the cross, giving us the opportunity to taste liberty and giving us the gift of salvation, shouldn’t that bring us Joy? Imperfections really do not cease on this earth, but in the midst of it, God can be the only one who could give us the right spirit to respond to these problems. Who could not just restore our broken hearts, but could create in us a new heart, a pure heart, a clean heart of flesh.

Of course this is not an overnight thing…
It is then very impossible to change my 20 years of worldly lifestyle, a life of disappointments within a day. But if we will have the willing heart to surrender , repent and go back to Him like David, then He will surely give you a new heart and fill you with love that never cease.


"Our complete surrender to God is the beginning of our hearts refinement."


.............

IF YOU DON'T HAVE A WILLING HEART
ASK HIM TO GIVE YOU ONE
IF YOU CAN'T SEEM TO MAKE A START
TRUST IN HIS POWER
FOR THE LORD OF LOVE IS WATCHING YOU
HE SEES WHAT YOUR GOING THROUGH
HE WILL MAKE A WAY IF YOU WANT HIM TO
IF YOU DO
THEN TELL HIM SO

Legions in the Tent I

I

The Battle

It has been ages since the battle has begun. Days of obscurity eluded the earth that no light can pass through those thick dark billows.

Banners were raised. Sounding trumpets were heard. And in all the people I cried out to the heavens, “ Do not be frightened and do not be saddened at the great horde, for the battle is not yours, but God’s. “

With triumph on their lips they raised their swords with might.. But they stood with wavering knees. Faces of trepidation are on their faces. Faces of soreness, gloom, spinelessness, weakness and hesitation.

Midnight came. Suddenly heavy rain started to descend. Flashes of lightning illuminated the battle ground. The thunders were on our ears. The breath of the earth was like raging waves passed through our armors. Death is rapidly approaching.

I ran into the sanctuary, dragging my feet as if manacles were coupled upon my feet. With all the vigor left in me, I pushed the door. Brought myself kneeling upon the hushed halls of the inner courts. I watched the bare table in front. I seized my blade upon my chest and pleaded for clemency. “How imprudent I am Lord to draw closer into Your hallowed presence with stains of blood and guilt upon my hands and shield. The sword in my hand which I had used to pierce Your heart every time I let the demons make a footstool. Traces of the former times are still in my mind, but I come in meekness with a mass of supplications at hand. There was no other place like this, being in serenity in the middle of war, being still at the heart of a hurricane. My innards groan. You are my shelter and my stronghold. Who equipped me with strength for the battle. You made those who rise against me sink under me. For this battle is not ours but Your’s alone.


The horse is made ready for the day of war, but power to overcome is from the Lord.
-Proverbs 21:31