Like this:

Again, it’s been a long time since I’ve written something here in my blog. The past 3 months has been busy and hard. Adjusting to a multi-cultural nation, work related stress, ministry and basically being out of your comfort zones for too long. That’s what I’ve been facing externally.

So, if you ask me what is happening internally? I could say that it is much more difficult than what I’ve been facing externally. To minister without your mentors and teammates for a long time is really challenging. You have dreams that you want to achieve, a family to think of back in my country and a lot of things.

To be the only Filipino in a local Singaporean church is hard specially when you carry a lot of responsibilities. To become a vessel of encouragement, change, and a lot of things is tough when your mentors are far from you.

When you are faced with stress and living in a very fast paced nation, you will find it very hard to be still before God. How can you be still when everyone around you is rushing and is driven by “kiasuism” (just search wikipedia about it)?

Then, you suddenly feel that you are lost, groping for light and thirsty for direction. When you don’t understand what you are going through, everything seems to go downhill and  all that you have is a vision or a word that God has given you and that word or vision is far-fetched from what you are going through.

Welcome to the Wilderness…

You are not alone. A lot of people faces it without understanding much about it or the least being aware of it.
As I searched my Bible, the wilderness is not a process that we have to go through because God has left us, forsaken us, or judged us because of sin or whatsoever. It is a PROCESS OF PREPARATION.
Moses, Joseph, Jesus and great men in the Bible faced this.

Wilderness is tough!!

When the Lord is letting you go through this wilderness experience and it is far getting much longer than what you are expecting, what are you going to do? Are you going to embrace and go through it or reject this experience and be bitter towards what is happening to you?

To be honest, I would ask God why I am going through this and God would just say that I need to undergo this wilderness process, anything than that God is silent. And that is really tough.
I’ve been to several wilderness experience in my life, but so far the one that I’m going through right now is the toughest. I feel as if I’m alone and left all by myself just like the previous wilderness that I’ve been.

In all of these, there were several verses that sustained me Jeremiah 29:13 and Philippians 3:10 . To search God with all of your heart is a tiring and wrenching task, because the Lord demands total surrender of the heart. To know Him in His death and resurrection is more than just a statement that was written by the Apostle Paul, it is a decision of when you sincerely make it a prayer and that is when you realize that the Christian life is to share in the sufferings of Jesus Christ and to be like Him. To take hold of Him, to pursue Him- laying down everything just to touch and see His face.

I find hope and strength in the knowledge that God is with me going right through this wilderness just as He is with the Israelites. Although I cannot “feel” Him, I know that my God is more than just a feeling but a reality that permeates me and transcend all understanding.

My prayer is that may His grace sustain me and you and for us to cherish this wilderness experience and learn from it, as I know that God is preparing me and you that is far greater than what we can think of.

Remember, before every blessing there is a battle and after every battle there is a blessing.