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
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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
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]
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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
God IS February 20, 2009
Posted by David Hiran Watson in Daily Life-Walk, Faith, God.add a comment
So, anyone who has interacted with me over the past 2-3 months will vouch for the fact that I have been struggling in my faith, and my relationship with God. I am not going to go into all the details, but suffice to say that my journey over the past few years of working through some deep issues that arose through my childhood has seemed to take on a cyclic path over the past 1-2 years specifically. Cyclical meaning a cycle of highs and lows, where, during the high cycles, I go through a time period of being close to God and, as a result, having greater success in dealing with the deep issues. In the low cycles, I still walk with God, but have decided some aspect of the struggle is too much to bear, and set a threshold on how close I allow myself to draw to God. In other words, I stagnate to a degree in my faith. This usually happens because I start focusing on the struggle itself a little bit too much. Throughout this process, God is still guiding me and (patiently and faithfully) helping me work through the issues. The counselor I’m seeing is one of the ways God does this.
Anyway, getting back to the point of this post, these past few months I have been in a low cycle. Again, without going into full details, I was, through a combination of struggling with sin, getting angry and blaming God, and picking at the scabs of my own pain, stagnating in my faith. Essentially, I loved God and had a relationship with Him, but I did not surrender to Him, allowing myself to believe that it was not safe to do so.
Tonight God broke through all of the farce and walls, and suddenly gave me a experiential revelation that it is safe to surrender to Him, because HE IS SAFE! I love it when God does that – breaks through all the mud and mire to shine His light and truth. He had actually been laying the building blocks to this moment of revelation for the past week or so, ever since the SI incident last Thursday (Feb. 12).
I do want to thank God for this moment, and His putting up with my selfishness. I also want to thank Him for the Christian brothers and sisters I have talked to within the past week; I am eternally grateful to them.
DH
Reflection on my day… December 1, 2008
Posted by David Hiran Watson in Daily Life-Walk, Education, Faith, God.Tags: depression, email, how God works, university
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Today has been a hard day; I am definitely still battling depression or at the least, depressive thoughts. Ever since going to uni, back in 2001, I developed and battled depression. There have been good and bad times, highs and lows, and I must say that 2008 on the whole has been both a high and low year. It has not been the lowest year I have had, but it has been one of the highest. Looking back on this battle, I am amazed at the faith God had and has produced in me. The process is still continuing, but throughout the battle I have never stagnated or backslid from God. In fact, He has been the o/One I have consistently turned to. It is like having a friend who is always right beside you. I did not always “pray” in the traditional sense, but I would instinctively talk to God whenever my mood changed or I was stressed or trying to figure things out or, in general, needed to express myself. I have to say “thank You” to God for His faithfulness!
Coming back to today, I was quite down and out this morning. After meeting with my counselor I some new perspective on the jumble of thoughts and feelings racing through me. The rest of the day has been a time of God ministering to me, giving me back my hope; hope that He is in charge and holds me in His hand. I love how God knows exactly what you need and gives that to you. Even that last sentence God reminded me of through His ministering: I was checking my email just before writing this post, and a friend of mine had sent me a forward about how it is God’s job to supply my needs according to HIS riches, and to make me happy. The forward was not saying that God is some kind of genie, but that as His child, it is not my job to try and keep myself happy via things or other people. Instead, I need to trust God and let Him take care of me.
DH
It’s been a long road… November 19, 2008
Posted by David Hiran Watson in Daily Life-Walk, Faith, God.Tags: Faith, God, how God works, Star Trek: Enterprise
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Does anyone know the title song from the tv show, “Star Trek: Enterprise”? The one that starts off with “It’s been a long road getting from there to here / It’s been a long road, but my time is finally here”? I was thinking of that for the title of this post, but changing it to “It’s been a long while…”; I haven’t worked out the rest of the lyrics yet. But I guess it HAS been a while since I last posted. Truth be known, I had forgotten about this blog (!), but was faithfully reminded about it by God through a comment to my post God is GOOD!.
It’s amazing how God works; I have a friend who uses analogies describing God’s ways as that of a master weaver, or master chef, or master baker, or (I would add) master composer. HE knows just the right time for everything and He brings you to something or through something at just when it’s needed. And what’s really ‘mind-blowing’ is to sit back and watch how that right time is not just specific to you. That just-when-it’s-needed timing is applicable to you and all of those around you. I see this in the interaction and friendship (fellowship) of brothers and sisters in Christ. I have Christian friends whom I interact with on a fairly intimate level, and many of the times I only see how much God uses them as a source of encouragement and help for me. While I know that the friendship isn’t mainly one-sided, I still can’t help feeling that God mostly uses them in my life. And yet, in every instance where I’ve voiced that to the friends in question, they have responded with the same but reversed sentiments.
All of this recognition about how God works makes me often wonder why I don’t trust Him more. Surely, even if I’m struggling through an issue, and I’m not sure how God is going to resolve it, I can at least look back to the past and draw strength from how God has come through for me every time I’ve needed Him.
DH
Faith-Walk Interference, part 2 May 22, 2008
Posted by David Hiran Watson in Daily Life-Walk, Faith, God.add a comment
I want to continue my thoughts from the previous post earlier today. When I wrote what I did, a specific incident had just happened that fit the template of what I wrote about. It was the latest incident in a string of them over the past 12-18 months; all the incidents have involved different people and regarded different topics/circumstances.
I was talking to a sister-in-Christ tonight and shared with her the latest incident from today. I didn’t mention this topic; I just shared the details of the incident. A comment she made in response struck me: the other person is entitled to think the way they want to, and I can’t try to control their feelings or thoughts. Based on that realization, I suppose my comments about ‘how dare we’ were a bit overstated! We are each entitled to our opinions and thoughts, based on our understandings of the world. And if we have good intentions, that does count for something.
The problem is that good intentions alone don’t stop someone’s comments from potentially causing damage. I’ve been the victim of a Faith-Walk Interference (actually a number of them), and it was quite difficult for me. On the one hand, you don’t want to enter into pride and think that you have it all figured out, and the other person is completely wrong. That doesn’t mean they can’t be wrong, but to dismiss them outright can stem from pride. On the other hand, if God did speak to you in the area that you excitedly shared, to fall away because of doubt based on someone else’s understanding isn’t good either.
Perhaps it comes down to: do we trust that what this brother/sister-in-Christ who is sharing is capable of hearing from Holy Spirit directly?
I would like to write some more on this, Lord-willing ( *looks up to heaven and waits on God* 
, but I have to go for now. If anyone is reading this, leave me some comments on your thoughts.
DH
Faith-Walk Interference May 21, 2008
Posted by David Hiran Watson in Daily Life-Walk, Faith, God.add a comment
Why are we as Christians so quick to interfere into another brother or sister’s walks with the Lord? Or I suppose it’s not all of us, but some of us? I know we mean well, but why can’t we trust them unto God? I’m just as guilty of this too: one Christian will (probably excitedly) share with another Christian something God has shown him/her – a new understanding of a Scripture, or a direction God wants him/her to walk in for the next season of their life. But all too often, the other Christian will respond with something that in actuality is an attempt to ‘temper’ or ‘balance’ what the first Christian is saying. The response is (and should be) Scriptural, so in one sense it can’t be denied. But I’ve noticed that, many times, that response isn’t one that God is actually speaking to the first Christian. In our desire to not let our brothers and sisters become imbalanced in their Scriptural understanding or in their walk with God, we step out believing that we know what God is speaking to the first Christian. How dare we?! Really, do we know the mind of God? Just because a brother or sister is seeing a certain Scripture in a new light, or heading down a certain direction, does it mean that they have forsaken the other interpreations of that same passage, or dimissed or decried the other directions in life that can be taken? (And I’m talking about Godly directions in life.)
DH
Sin struggles May 20, 2008
Posted by David Hiran Watson in Daily Life-Walk, Faith, God.Tags: Bible, Christian walk, Faith, forgiveness, God, grace, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, love, mercy, repentance, Satan, sin
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Why is is that whenever you are trying to go deeper with God, to get to the next level as it were, there’s such a struggle involved in it? It’s like at that very point, Paul’s words, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19) kick into effect. Sometimes I wonder if my heart desire is true or not. One moment, I’m saying to God, “Father, I want to know you more and I surrender all of myself”, and then the next moment I’m doing that which is the very opposite of surrender. Now I know that Satan is our Accuser and that a good portion of the doubts about my heart desire stems from his lies. But wait…the Holy Spirit just reminded me of something: God does not accuse us in any way! That means that not just a good portion, but ALL of the doubts stems from his lies. That still doesn’t excuse my sin, nor diminish the need to overcome it. But, as Paul goes on to say, “Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it” (Romans 7:20). And further on in the chapter, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7: 24b-25). I can only keep coming back to He is the Author and Perfecter of my faith, and that because I live in the bounds of time, every moment I am able to make a fresh choice to pursue God or not. That means that even though I sought to grow in God one moment, fell to sin the next moment, if I repent and seek to grow in Him again the next moment after that, the choice I made to sin is over and done with. That is, my sin is forgiven, and the choice I made doesn’t negate the choice to repent and seek Him again! And furthermore, the choice to sin didn’t negate the choice to seek God in the first place (or moment); it just slowed down the process. Amen, thank you God for Your grace and mercy, love and forgiveness.
DH
