Project Report #34 - A Simple Plan

Hey people, hope you’ve all had a great week so far. It has been a very eventful week for me, we had Rev Kumar to speak in our church last weekend, it was a very powerful time. He spoke on the 3 Ds of Success – Desire, Discipline & Dedication. To just briefly summarize the entire message, every dream or vision must begin with a desire, in the Bible it says that God will grant to us the desires of hearts, it did not say that God will grant to us our heart’s desires. So in other words, the desires of our hearts are God given. Get it? It was such a fresh revelation to me personally.

Then to carry out that desire, we need to be discipline to maintain the pace to head towards our dream or vision. Discipline will keep us going, but Dedication is what brings us further. Discipline will only bring us to the level expected, but dedication will bring us to supersede the expectation. However, dedication cannot be activated without first having the discipline, and discipline cannot be activate without first having the desire. So cool right?

Other things that happened in past week is that Carol injured her spine to the extent of not being able to walk or sit up straight for short periods of time. It was probably aggravated during the days where she needed to finish her final thesis, the chair she sat on for long hours didn’t give her good back support, which result to her having backaches every other day at the time. It just took one dance practice to trigger a chain effect that caused her back to sprain. Plus she had an accidental slip when she went shopping and fell on the floor, which probably made it worse – this I only got to know last night. The doctor diagnosed her condition as Acute Spinal Sprain. But really praise God that her condition is much better now, at least she can move more now compare to a few days back. Do continue to pray for her that God will bring about complete healing to her spine.

A team of us went up to Ipoh last Saturday to minister in a ministry called Song at YMCA building. We really had a fantastic time there, Calvin spoke a good message on Talents, encouraging the young people there to really put effort in developing and using their talents faithfully for God’s glory. Other than ministry, the food was fantastic too =) We went to the new Foo San dim sum restaurant and had a good feasting session there. Again, we saw Phebe Ting there, haha! Second time we caught her in Ipoh. She was there for makan session after doing a camp in Cameron Highlands. It was really nice to see her again, we are all so proud that she’s still so fervent and faithful in her ministry to God.

Speaking of faithfulness, it is so vital for us to remain faithful in whatever we’re given at this current point of our life. A few weeks back, Ps Victor Wong came to our church and gave a word to people saying that some of us are getting restless with the positions we’re currently in, be it in ministry or in our careers, everything seems like it’s static and going nowhere, but God is asking us to remain faithful in it because He is working something in us even in these mundane times. Stay in the small pot for because God is still grooming and preparing us, when the time comes, God will move us to bigger pot. We just have to remain faithful in our small pots for now, that’s our responsibility, whereas promotion is God’s responsibility.

When I was reading a Daily Devotion posted by Rev Kong Hee about God Uses Faithful People, the story of Gideon really stuck me hard. Upon further studies, I found that many principals that we could learn from Gideon even before he was called by God to do great exploits. A brief explanation on the situation during Gideon’s time, in Judges 6:1-10, because of the disobedience of the people towards God, there was great oppression on Israel. Every time their crops were ready for harvesting, the enemies will swarm them over locusts and take everything away. Nothing was spared, event all their livestock were either taken away of killed. It’s like one of those moments in our lives that we wonder “where is God?”

Then in Judges 6:11, God sent an angel to meet with Gideon while he was threshing wheat in winepress. If this statement doesn’t seem weird to you, let me further explain, pay attention to the words ‘threshing wheat’ and ‘winepress’.

Threshing Wheat – To beat the harvested wheat so that the wheat grain would be separated from its chaff. This is normally done on an spinning horizontal cylinder-like device to collect the wheat grains. Here is a picture, adopted from MyWarHistory.com website, of how wheat threshing activity looks like.
Winepress - A wine press is a device used to extract the juice from crushed grapes during wine making. Here’s how a winepress looks like, image adopted from Bible-History.com website.
Just by looking at the images of the how the two activities are done, it’s so obvious that it is not right, unnatural, senseless or even stupid to thresh wheat in a winepress or crush grapes on a wheat threshing device! Yet, Gideon had to do this ‘stupid’ senseless act in order to hide from the enemy so that he and his family could have food to survive. No one would suspect that he’s threshing wheat in the winepress because it doesn’t make sense to do so. During the oppression, Gideon didn’t have the luxury to thresh a whole lot of wheat at one time, he probably had to do it little by little to avoid being detected. He didn’t have to just do it once, he probably had to do it faithfully a few times a day, single every day.

This ‘stupid’ act in our today’s terms, if we refer to what we have today, is like mixing our bread flour in a juicer machine! Isn’t that senseless and downright STUPID?! I found this very amusing when the Holy Spirit revealed it to me, yet it stuck my heart to its very core. Would I be found faithful if I am called to do something diligently without complain, even if it seems stupid and senseless to others around me? Something that others view as valueless and insignificant, would I still be found passionately working at it? You see, Gideon had to do this, not only just for his own survival, but also for his family. This speaks to me personally that I have to be faithful in the mundane, boring tasks given to me not just for my benefit, but the benefit of my family, which is the church!

Many times, big things come crumbling down because small things were not handled or executed well. If your little toe’s bone is broken, did you know that your entire body’s balance while standing up is affected? So we have to be faithful with the little things, even the stupid things that others look down on, in order to keep the church going. Rev Kong Hee said that when the angel of the Lord appeared before Gideon, the angel found him being faithfully threshing wheat in the wine-press. When God appears before us, will He find us being faithful with even the smallest task given to us?

In the bible it says that for those who are faithful with the little, much will be given (Matthew 25:21) God found Gideon faithful, that's was why He could trust him with the great things that was about to happen. Gideon rose up to be a great man in battle, he defeated the enemies that were oppressing the people of Israel (Judges 7:22-25). He was used by God to deliver and bring salvation to an entire nation, such was the great exploit that God has enabled Gideon to do. When we’re faithful with the little, God can even trust us with the revival of our nation! Imagine that!

So in conclusion, I have to speak even to myself, that we have to remain faithful in our current positions even though it may be small and insignificant, be it in church, in our companies, or even in our families and among our friends. What we do and who we are now may seem insignificant to many, but if we’re found faithful in God’s eyes, He can use us in things far greater than what we can even imagine. There are days where I feel like what I’m doing is not much appreciated and sometimes even unnoticed. But I have to constantly remind myself that above everything, I am ultimately serving God in all I do and I know He notices me. Did you think that Gideon had in mind that he was gonna be used by God, to deliver an entire nation from the oppression of one of the greatest armies of the world, while he was threshing wheat in the winepress? I highly doubt so, he just faithfully did what he needed to do, even when no one else notices.

Hope you guys are blessed by this short sharing. This is something I hope that will open up your hearts and challenge you to be faithful at a greater level as it did to me. This short passage of scripture in Judges 6 has really spurred me on to serve in my church, company and family more diligently.

PROJECT REPORT~! Nothing much has happened to my car lately. I drove if up to Ipoh last week and noticed a lot of heads turning. They probably wondering why they haven’t seen this car around although it is a Perak number plate, or maybe they’re just thinking who is this Ah-Beng driving this Ah-Beng car? HAHA! Anyway, when I got home from Ipoh, I found that my break fluids are leaking a bit from one of the brake caliper pistons. Will have to send it in for repairs hopefully this weekend. I did however made a new personal top speed with my car on the way back from Ipoh. How fast? Hmmm… I won’t announce it on the this blog ;P But just for the record, there were no other cars on the highway that time and I was actually just following behind a BMW 5 Series when I realized how fast I was going, haha!

That’s about it from me today, hope you’ve enjoyed reading this post as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Do pop by Harvest Generation Church tonight, we’ll be having Ps Frankie Khoo, a powerful prophet of God, to speak in our special service. We’re really expecting a wonderful time tonight. Take care people! God Bless!