Don't Trust Her

You would have guessed by now but I love C.S Lewis.

I love him. I love his works. I love his thinking. I love his humour.

I say all the time how I wish I was born during his time so I could write to him. He doesn’t even have to reply. Anyway, as I come back to his work over and over, today I came across this quote and someone’s take on feelings. I must give that feelings do the great work of deception in me. Fo Sho! And I felt the pinch in my heart reading this. because this is soooooo me.

Read on.

(* by the way, the Screwtape Letters is a book about a senior demon advising a young apprentice demon how to tempt his first assigned human) 

“Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings by the action of their own wills. When they meant to ask him for charity, let them instead start trying to manufacture charitable feelings for themselves and not notice that this is what they are doing. And when they meant to pray for courage, let them try to feel brave. And when they say that they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by the success in producing the desired feeling and never let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired at the moment.” - -

-The Screwtape Letters-

James Eldridge says :

“ As I heard this, my conscience definitely gave me a prick in the heart. This is exactly what I do so very often. Being someone who naturally follows feelings over logic, I cannot count the number of times I have taken a walk around my campus in prayer with the desire to feel close to God. I will pace back and forth in passionate prayer with God, thinking that I am praying for His glory to be done when I am actually attempting to fabricate this feeling of peace and faith.

As I was driving, I kept thinking how this striving for feeling impacts other areas of my life. My thoughts were directed to worship and singing in church. I asked myself where my heart is during those times. Sometimes I am genuinely praising the Lord. But more often there seems to be a rush of emotions that, if I were honest with myself, attempt to selfishly feel close to God.

Who is my God? Is it a certain feeling for the Most High or is it the Most High himself?

As C.S. Lewis said, gaining this euphoric feeling during prayer is fickly dependent on our circumstances. We have good days and bad days. Some days we will feel happiness and contentment, and some days we will not. God has created us to live in what Lewis calls "life’s undulation." There are ups and downs to life. God uses each moment to continue the good work He started in us (Philippians 1:6). Our feelings will follow the ups and downs; therefore, the angels of darkness strive to turn our attention to ourselves and our feelings rather than our Creator.

Feelings do not last. Feeling close to God is a blessing and a gift, but it will not stay. Just as God leads me by streams of living water, He will lead me through deserts of dry emptiness. If euphoric feelings are what hold my affection, then I will be destined for a roller coaster ride of euphoria and despair. But if God is my rock, then I can rejoice. I must live according to the truth that joy in the Lord can be found despite the darkest of feelings.”

There, he said it all and so well. Dont trust feelings. Dont trust her. Exercise your muscles to recognize that feelings are doing to you and triumph over them. Lets live in reality, not in deception of what we think is reality.

Journey to Joy

“My own idea, for what it is worth, is that all sadness which is not either arising from the repentance of a concrete sin and hastening towards concrete amendment or restitution, or else arising from pity and hastening to active assistance, is simply bad; and I think we all sin by needlessly disobeying the apostolic injunction to ‘rejoice’ as much as by anything else.”

-C.S Lewis-

Ok. So,
where to start,
I know this sounds gay but I’m just like that so you’ll have to excuse me.
So I have been under the radar intentionally avoiding my blog because,
it was one of my new years resolution to think simple. so I decided to not to go into deep thinking. and when you write, you think. Hence no writing.

Well, with the big move, from Australia, from my career, from my living situations and relationships altogether, I was in haste to detach myself from it all and just go with the flow. I don’t even remember how I got on the plane. But otherwise I knew I would never leave.
The detachment phase went so far as to stop me taking photos as well. All the money that went to buying the big fat lense, lets not go there.

Fast forward 7 months,

I'm in Seoul. I got a new job. And its in advertising. Can you believe it? I have finally escaped from banks. ( I kinda miss it. it's bittersweet) I live with my mum and dad, we fight over remote control every day. It is quite a different life I have here. I had the biggest emotional breakdown. I learnt knitting. I travelled to China. I went back to home to Australia. This time, to get fully rid of my home that was left and really leave.

There is a mix of emotions from sadness of leaving to fear of the unknown. But I know Im just not done with it all yet. I must go on. Take the new path and see where it takes me.
So anyhoo, was reading through my pages
boy oh boy,
I realised that I was SO, SO EMO!
Wow. Like, so emo it made me cringe. so emo that I would like to apologize.
Im sorry for being gloom and doom for so annoyingly long. Then, all the choices and sacrifices I made to fight for hope and faith felt like the biggest weight on my heart. I couldn't see anything but myself. I was bitter. I couldn't trust God. But then I was healing. It just took a while.

Last 2 years from what felt like a rock bottom to today,
it was quite some journey,,, to joy.

I was talking with a friend the other day and I said Joy, is never an action or will of a heart. You cant have it, do it genuinely no matter how hard you try to be “joyful”.
Joy is always an output. Its a result of something. You always need basis for joy.
Last two years, I tried really hard to find joy and I was digging a deeper joyless hole.

In the end though I still might not have what I wanted. I might be in a totally unwanted and unexpected place. But even with unfulfilled desires and hopes deferred, guess what? There is joy that triumphs all other, that is worthy of your choosing.  I have a reason for joy.

Bible tells us to “rejoice that your name is written in the Book of Life”. “rejoice that nothing can separate you from the love of Christ”.

Of course I have heard that before. I didn't expect that He’d be serious to expect us to rejoice for this reason when a rug is pulled out from under you. Can you really rejoice because of this “christiany, religious reason” when your world is falling apart?

Of course not. so I thought. But the prolonged season of joylessness taught me that yes you can. When all of your other basis for joy, your identity you were clinging onto, when all transpires into vapours, then this joy, from Christ can come alive.  

Sometimes, God comes in and rocks your boat and thats him drawing near to you. And 99.99% of the time our initial reaction is fear, even disappointment or anger. But he does that to teach us real joy. Joy you can have when you are a nobody. when you lose your job. when your health fails, when your hopes turn sour. No matter what, You can be joyous. Joy. Full. Sealed. Untouchable. Its done.  

You are called to joy. I am called to joy. God wants us to live joy filled, joyful life. That’s his desire. How does that make sense in the storm you are in? It will. I don’t know how to tell you to make it all magically work in your life. But keep digging at it. You will, come to the end of the rope. You will find joy. Through various stages of grief, loss, anger, bitterness,emotional rollercoaster, my grounds for joy from knowing Christ as my saviour from my storms became real, strong and experiential. My closest friend in loneliness, my lamp in darkness, my umbrella in the rain. =)

So yeah, I don’t have a success career change story. sorry.  I dont have any other interesting photos, or travelling experiences or anything. And Im not loving Korea, gotta be honest.
But I can rejoice. And I truly am, so happy.

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

Rom 8:32

Career Change?

BOOM!

2012, August,...
My very first post of the year. There is a reason why.