Revelations at 4:30 in the morning! August 9, 2009
Posted by David Hiran Watson in Faith, Gifts / Talents.Tags: gifts, God, intercession, morning, spirituality
2 comments
I’ve been thinking and reflecting on intercession lately, especially tonight. My biggest (spiritual) gift is that of an intercessor’s heart. We, the children of God, are all called to intercede. But in the same way we are all called to evangelize, and there are some given the gift of evangelism, so it is with intercession. As far as I can tell, having it given to you as a gift generally means you have more of a heart tuned to that need, that frequency, even more so than others do. Or perhaps it’s not so much even more so, but even more consistently than those who don’t have the gift.
Well, as I mentioned already, I’ve been reflecting on intercession and spiritual sensitivity to the deep needs of others – the very things they don’t share – and the spiritual atmosphere of any environment. Tonight I think God just gave me a new revelation about intercession: interceding, or standing in the gap, for someone can involve just being and not doing.
I have two good friends of mine, a brother in Christ and a sister in Christ, who have been heavy on my heart tonight. If you’ve read any of my previous posts you can probably guess who they are, as they are engaged and they are the leaders of PalmSway.
Yesterday – August 9 – PalmSway had an opportunity to play at a concert at Asaiah Ministries Church, in the Cataraqui area in Scarborough. After the concert, these two friends of mine and I, as we headed back to our church to set up the equipment we had used for the concert, had an opportunity to chat about spiritual things. The bible talks about “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”, and that was the type of fellowship and conversation that occurred.
Since that time – actually beginning partway through that time of fellowship – these two were laid on my heart in an intercessory manner. In fact, much of the reason I’m still up at 4:30 in the morning is because I’ve been wrestling with what exactly has been laid on my heart, and what I am to do with it. Praise God there have been times of prayer and intercession even tonight for these two friends. But the sense I get regarding what has been laid upon me is that this is not a one-time prayer regarding something specific in a person’s life. Coming back to my point, as I was wrestling with what to do, and attempting some actions to prepare the atmosphere (to enter into prayer and worship), God struck me with the revelation I mentioned. Needless to say the actions I attempted were not fully working as I kept hitting a certain ‘wall’, which I believe was God stopping me from proceeding in a manner I wasn’t supposed to (at least not tonight).
So Father God I ask for Your guidance Holy Spirit in learning to just be and sit pregnant as it were with an intercessory burden. I pray to know when to move and act and when to sit. I pray for the discernment and understanding to see the intercession occurring in both states – the action and the non-action. Thank You. Amen.
DH
My first released song July 22, 2009
Posted by David Hiran Watson in About Me, Music.Tags: Music Production, SoundClick
add a comment
I finally finished (producing) and released my first song. I actually prefer the term music track, as song connotes a music piece with lyrics, whereas my song is an instrumental piece. Actually, the site I have created my artist page on - SoundClick – has a bunch of sub-genres listed under instrumental as instrumentals are getting quite popular.
Anyway, you can check out the song here – http://www.soundclick.com/dehin. You can also purchase the song for download. I plan to release a cd sampler over the next few months, and will be uploading new songs as I finish them. So, if you like what you hear, check back every so often to check out the latest tracks.
DH
2 months and counting… July 22, 2009
Posted by David Hiran Watson in About Me.Tags: personal growth
add a comment
So it’s been 2 months since I moved in with my sister, and I have to say “Praise God!”. Things are going great! My cuts (refer to previous post) are healing well. But more importantly my concerns about moving in with my sister were proven unfounded. We both relate as two adults who are brother and sister to each other. There are obviously times where we rub each other the wrong way, but even in those times she and/or I are generally good at broaching the topic and clearing the dust.
In addition, it’s good to be in a place I feel is my home. I’m finding that my ‘home-caring’ skills are developing. I’m still a guy and therefore will not be as concerned with how things are at home (ie, appearance, cleanliness, keeping track of household items) as my sister. But I am finding myself genuinely interested in keeping track of some of these things, such as making sure the house is clean, etc.
So, here’s to increased maturity and growth!
DH
Victory! May 30, 2009
Posted by David Hiran Watson in About Me, Daily Life-Walk, God.Tags: close friends, God's love, moving, SI
add a comment
I know it’s been a while since I posted, but I wanted to share what happened tonight and the past couple of days. For those of you who don’t know, one of the struggles I have is with SI – self-injury. To put it bluntly, I cut myself. I had two incidents last year, and three so far this year. I alluded to the first one in a previous post. I had two incidents over the past two days – one Thursday (May 28) night, and the other Friday (May 29) evening. In total I cut myself 26 times on each forearm.
I’m confessing all of this to say the following: God is SO loving and amazing! I shared what I did with three close friends, brothers and sister in Christ – Gabe, Mish, and Bryant. Later in the evening, God set up a meeting with Bryant, Gabe, my pastor, and myself. And through the meeting God spoke to me, showing me what I’ve been doing to myself, what I’ve been allowing to go in my life, and what needs to happen going forward for healing. There was a lot of prayer: my brothers prayed over me, and I prayed to the Father. It’s so precious to me how we can come to God as we are!
Through the prayers and counseling, it came to light that what has been going on in my life has been a spiritual battle. I say it came to light because although I’ve known that I’m in a spiritual battle, I didn’t put two and two together in regard to the depression and the negative thoughts. It didn’t connect in my mind that I’ve been tormented by a demonic spirit trying to keep me focused on the past and the negativity of disapproval. I needed to stop seeing God through the lens of my parents and who they are and how they interact with me, and see God for who He really is.
With the help of my brothers in Christ, I repented, rebuked the tormenting spirit(s), and humbled myself before God again. I have to say: it feels so relieving to humble myself before God. The weight just lifts right off my shoulders, knowing that God is in control again 
.
God, through Bryant, spoke after the prayers about my spirit-man, or inner man, and how I need to feed him and make him strong again. I know it’s not going to be easy though. In fact, sitting here in front of my computer, just before I wrote this post, I was tempted to cut again! Thankfully God spoke to Gabe and Bryant and got them to take the knives I was using away. Anyway, I’m going to end here. If you’re reading this and you pray, please pray for me.
On a side note, I’m moving again; I’m moving in with my sister to a 2-bedroom apartment. I might be without internet access for a few days, so if you leave any comments I won’t get them until I have access again.
DH
Dear God April 5, 2009
Posted by David Hiran Watson in About Me, Daily Life-Walk, Faith, God.Tags: Faith, God, life, struggles, Superchic[k]
add a comment
I’m going to take a page out of love, devi and style this post as a letter to God:
Dear God,
Tonight was pretty difficult; I’m sitting here at this moment listening to “Courage” by Superchic[k] and I have two questions to ask you. First, for those dealing with hurting and pain and difficulty, what difference does believing in you make? You and I both know that both questions arose in me earlier tonight while traveling home on the TTC. We also chatted about them at that time – well, more like I voiced them to you and then focused on the music coming out of my mp3 player. But I’m recounting them now both for the sake of anyone reading this, and because writing it this way is part of the healing (answering) process.
So back to the first question; if you recall I thought of the Footprints poem, and the line about how when there was one set of footprints, it was you carrying the dreamer. But I realized that both non-Christians and Christians get through hard times. (For those reading, I use those two terms in the traditional sense of the words). For example, a non-Christian, when confronted with losing a loved one, will experience the pain and loss. They will shed tears, go through the whole grieving process, and move on. Eventually the pain from the loss will completely cease, or at least subside to almost ‘background noise’. How is that any different from a Christian who turns to you during the grieving process for help? Alright, I admit that perhaps they will have a shorter grieving period, and there is also the prospect of hope that they will see the loved one in Heaven (should the loved one have been a Christian as well). But, in my eyes, there is no major ‘advantage’ to turning to you during the grieving process.
Or let’s look at another example: someone who is struggling with a difficult time, such as breaking an addiction. There is a lot of pain and hurt and hardship associated with an addiction – whether you’re the addicted one or someone you love is the addicted one – and breaking an addiction. My “church” upbringing tells me the ‘right’ answer to this scenario: my trusting you gives me your strength and invites you into the situation. But many who don’t trust you, who perhaps are not Christians, break addictions. Many who don’t trust you have their families healed and restored back from the damaging effects of an addiction.
Don’t get me wrong God, I’m not saying I don’t trust you or that I don’t want to trust you. Until recently, I struggled with the whole “If God is loving, why does He let us go through difficult times, etc” issue. I finally fully understand why your letting us go through hard times IS an act of love – I understand and believe. Of course it’s only because you broke through and made the intellectual understanding become heart understanding. My current struggle is, therefore, not why are people going through hard times. Rather, it’s whether trusting in you during our struggles makes any major difference? Honestly, I can’t see any major difference on the surface between someone who trusts in you and someone who doesn’t while they are going through a rough patch. Eventually both the person who trusts in you, and the one who doesn’t, gets through the rough patch and does so seemingly victorious and stronger for it. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule. But those exceptions exist, as far as I am aware, in both camps. Perhaps any major difference exists underneath the surface…
DH
My Struggles, Pt. 1 February 25, 2009
Posted by David Hiran Watson in About Me.add a comment
I’m going to get quite personal in this post; I have been debating in my mind how personal I should get with this blog, but at times like this blogging helps me to focus my thoughts and perhaps by my sharing others can be encouraged. Also, I don’t recall how much I’ve shared in previous posts and I can’t be bothered to check right now, so if any of what I share is ‘old news’, bear with me.
I’ve been going to counseling for about 1.25 years now, and the purpose is to work through the various issues I struggle with deep down. In many ways we all have issues we are working through. But some people, like myself, have issues that are quite deep and complex; they are usually the type that cause people to see counselors and/or go on medication. They are also usually caused by a person’s childhood – that is, one or more events, or the general way the person was raised, directly created this (these) issue(s). I like the way my current counselor put it – this (type of) person has cracks in the foundation that develops in our childhood.
For me, there is pretty much only one major issue, and it stems from how I was raised. My issue is lack of parental approval. A lot of people struggle with this to varying degrees, but it generally becomes a deep issue in someone’s life when the parents failed to instill an underlying positive message of self-worth. A healthy message would go along the lines of, “You’re approved and have worth in being, not in doing.” In other words, someone’s self-worth shouldn’t be reliant on what they achieve, but just in the act of being a human being. Getting back to a person’s parents and the message they convey, there are two points to keep in mind. One, the overall, long-term, message conveyed can be different from the message conveyed in specific instances. Two, messages (especially from authority figures) can be conveyed through non-verbal means. In fact, most of everyday communication is non-verbal. And further, if our verbal and non-verbal communication oppose each other, the receiver tends to latch upon the non-verbal communication.
With those two points in mind, it’s easy to see how in my case (and many others), my parents ended up conveying an underlying negative message of self-worth and approval. I say my parents ended up because chances are that it was unintentional on their part. Also, there were times where they expressed a positive message, both verbally and non-verbally. Unfortunately, the negative messages stuck more to my child psyche – perhaps because they were more frequent, or they were the non-verbal messages whereas the verbal ones were the positive messages.
At any rate, this issue has made itself a presence in my life since about 2001, when I went away to university. For the first 5-6 years, and especially for the 4 years I was in university, I didn’t have much conscious awareness of what the issue was. I more felt it was there subconsciously and was very reactive as a result. (Picture having a physical wound but at first not knowing where; all you feel at first is the pain of it, and your response is what I would term reactionary.) From about 2002 onward, I did see about 4 other counselors before I went to the one I’m seeing now. However, I only saw them for short periods – from about a few weeks to about 4 months. I was also misdiagnosed as OCD, and in about 2006, through the help of one of the 4 counselors, realized that I was clinically depressed. In hindsight, I’ve been clinically depressed since about 2001/2002, although perhaps not continually. It has only been in the past 1.25 years, with the current counselor, that I’ve had a lot of conscious awareness about this issue – what it is, why I’m struggling with it, etc.
I had started this post with the intent to write about what came out of my last counseling session, which has been on my mind a lot. From that point of view, all of the above is preamble and background text, which is necessary. However, it’s late and I have to wake up in about 4.5 hours, so I’m going to end this post. I’ll try and write about what I actually wanted to write on soon.
DH
Twitter Account February 20, 2009
Posted by David Hiran Watson in About Me.Tags: interests, twitter
add a comment
Now, to anyone following this blog, I apologize that I have not been posting in a while (since the end of last year, 2008). However, I do have some big news: I just signed up for a Twitter account; you can find it at @dEhiN.
As for the sparsity of posts, I must confess that I completely forgot about this blog. Well, at first I gave into procrastination, but as time went on, I forgot about this blog. Part of the issue is that I very quickly move from one interest to another, and so do not tend to ‘persevere’ with an interest for long. I do, however, tend to cycle through a small group of interests. Thus, in the long run, any interests I have get developed.
DH
Moving Tales December 14, 2008
Posted by David Hiran Watson in About Me, Everyday Life.Tags: computer monitor, moving, roommates
add a comment
So I finally moved my computer monitor from the garage to my room! Yay! Um…I suppose I should write a bit of back story, especially why this is a yay moment.
For those reading this who don’t know, I moved (again) on Nov. 29. I had finally (and permanently) moved out of my parents’ place mid-August to a 3-bedroom place. For the first month and a half I was the only one living there, and then my former landlord’s step-uncle moved in as a superintendent. A young couple then moved in to the third room in October. At any rate, things were pretty good at first, but then soured with the super, and he turned out to be fairly difficult to live with. After thought and prayer, I decided to move out and make November my last month.
The place I’m in now is a townhouse and I’m actually rooming with a friend of mine and his mom. It’s a nice place, and definitely a much better atmosphere than the old place. (Side note: I never realized before how much the presence/absence of Christ changes the atmosphere of a place.)
Back to my moving tale: while at the 3-bedroom place, I unpacked some stuff – mostly my bed, and my computer and speakers. I was even using a garbage bag for my everyday clothing, instead of hanging them up! In retrospect that made it easier to move, although it did not do much for contributing to a sense of belonging or finality of moving in. In this new place, it has been a couple of weeks, and I have not even unpacked half of my items! I have set up my bedding, and (a step further than before) hung up my everyday outerwear, although I am still using a garbage bag for the rest of my clothing. Coming back to the monitor, when I moved, I had stored some things a week earlier in my friend’s mom’s garage beside the townhouse. On the 29th, I moved everything into my room, except my computer monitor. This is why the monitor being moved into my room, and actually set up on my desk, is a big yay moment.
Now if I can only keep this momentum going, and actually speed it up…
DH
Ways to deliberate December 2, 2008
Posted by David Hiran Watson in About Me, Daily Life-Walk, God, Relationships.Tags: About Me, God, my blog
add a comment
I’m not sure what to write yet…I think at times I just like typing – it’s very soothing for me. I think I know what I’ll write on – the book study I was a part of today. But first, that initial sentence might seem a strange way to start a post, and you might be wondering why I did not just delete that sentence once I knew what to write on? I think the answer to that is partially related to who I am and what this blog is to/for me.
For those who know me, I am someone who hides aspects of myself, and will open those areas up only when I feel completely comfortable. I suppose we are all like that to some degree or another. For myself, mostly because I have felt burned in the past when sharing and expressing certain areas of who I am and my personality, I tend to express those areas only when I am by myself or around individuals/small groups I feel safe in. You could say I have been operating under the “once bitten, twice shy” principle in these areas.
When I started this blog, I wanted to use it to express myself. I quickly came to a point where I was filtering in my mind what I would post on, and that filter was set to only allow subjects that did not ‘expose’ those aspects of myself I wanted to hide. I believe I mentioned something to this affect in a previous post, but I have consciously decided that I don’t want to intentionally filter out those aspects of myself, both in my posts and (more and more as I’m able to by God’s grace) in life interaction.
This is my lengthy way of saying that the initial sentence is tied to one of those aspects. In particular, it is one of the ways I walk with God. I will talk out and express what I am feeling or thinking as part of the decision-making process. For example, if God tells me to go to a location, and I do, I will usually say out loud, “Ok Lord, what now?”. Or if I am in the middle of an activity and I get hungry, I might say out loud, “I’m starting to feel hungry; should I go eat something?”, and deliberate from that question. The point is that I, for some reason, feel more comfortable to deliberate out loud even if it means saying out loud all the thoughts and feelings going through me, akin to a running commentary.
So I don’t have time now to post on the book study – have my church’s worship team practice. I will try and write about the study later tonight or tomorrow.
DH
Moving November 28, 2008
Posted by David Hiran Watson in About Me.Tags: moving, my blog
add a comment
I’m moving this Saturday – Nov. 29. If you take a look at my previous posts, there was a gap from July 12 to November where I didn’t post anything. As I mentioned before, I forgot about this blog, but that was mainly due to my moving out on my own in August, and then not having internet access for a couple of months. I don’t have regular access anymore – haven’t had for November – and I won’t have it until I move. This explains the gaps between posts. I’m currently at my parent’s house, and have been there for most of November. If you’re wondering why I have my own place but am staying at my parent’s place, it’s due to the same reason I’m moving – roommate issues. Anyway, all of this is to say, for anyone reading my blog, that once I move and have regular internet access, I hope to post more.
DH
