Ever since I join high school retreats in Lakeside Bible Camp, I fall in love with this little island at the big lake. There's just something special about this, like a beautiful postcard.
This little island which is located a few feet away from the land of the bible camp attracts me to go there, sit down on the one and only bench, and write. I can just write anything! The waters that crash against the island edges are just so soothing; it brings me to this tranquility and focus on getting new inspiration for new writing projects (poetry and memoir for example). It's like a mini writer's retreat. =)
Here's a poem I wrote during three hour break yesterday afternoon at the retreat. I sat at the bench for like half an hour or so and wrote the first stanza, then crappy rain poured down that ruined my writing mood, but I finished it in the cafeteria anyway.
An island sits a few feet away from the lake.
Its features never fail to amuse me,
a pretty model for an artist to create a masterpiece.
Six pine trees
dominating the height of a giraffe,
lining randomnly on the grasssy circle.
You walk on a bridge connected on the right
and down to a corner
where a handsome ruby bench
beckons you to sit back and rewind.
A lighthouse,
white with a blinking bulb on its cap
will greet you with a "hello" from your back.
You will shiver like a new mint lead
as bitter wind blows against your skin.
But frown no more,
for the quiet folding waters surrounding it
will gladly accompany you.
I wish I can sit on the bench for an hour or two because I've never felt so calm and peaceful when sitting there! The ambiance is just so relaxing and the lake waves that hit against the rocks and the edges of the island really switch my inspirational writing mode on! Oh well, hopefully I can go to Lakeside Bible Camp again and settle back onto that bench!
The food served is like eating a five-star hotel buffet! From sunrise casserole to creamy Alfredo pasta and garlic bread to juicy steak to cinnamon french toast and crunchy bacon to pizza! And the coffee with two little cups of French Vanilla milk I have these past two mornings are just refreshing!
Okay, the messages! I really enjoy the lead brothers' speaking throughout the weekend, especially the testimonies told in message three. Message three talks about "the sense of life". Romans 8:6 says, "For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace", this shows that we who are in the church life can experience this sensation/ feeling deep within us when it comes to do something. When we focus on the Lord, we will have peace in which we feel comfortable, good, and natural. On the contrary, death includes emptiness, weakness, depression, and darkness in life. News all over media consists of death, including the horrific events of the missing Malaysian Airlines aircraft and the tilting Korean ship. Even after you watch a movie, you'll only get some awesomeness of a fictional character, and not a real person, namely the spirit that lives in us called Jesus Christ. I'll probably won't go through the whole message but I want to point out these things on how to know whether we've living in the flesh or in the spirit. We need to know that after we got saved@baptized in the Holy Spirit, we have God entered into our hearts and have His divine life flowing in us like a waterfall. God is also abiding and operating in us to express Him and to tell other people about Him. You know, this brother who discusses this message really got me interested by his stories that I want to write an article or an autobiography about him! XD
He shares how he meets his wife, which is a funny story that got me laughing almost like a hyena. In two years of Full Time Training (our churches' perfecting school), this sister's name kept appearing in his head whenever he prays! It was odd because he didn't know this sister well, but he had this feeling that there's something about her. So he seek help from an elderly brother who (to his dead surprise) predicted that he was in love! The sister was a year later than the brother, so he wanted to wait till she was done with the training program. And then, one October, he got a call from the elderly brother who gave him an appointment of meeting up next June. Can you imagine a person appointing you to meet up at such a long length of time? Awkward! But anyways, the elderly brother help untie the knots out by pairing them up together, and that's how God's special spark is formed between them!
The brother also presents an analogy of a human nerve. Science majors or takers, we know that a nerve is protected by a layer called myelin sheath, and when it is attacked, the nerve is unable to transmit electrical impulses to their neighbouring nerves. This causes slow reaction to situations. This neuropathy example teaches me that we need a strong sense of life to be aware of what we do in order to satisfy God.
He also shares these two stories that I recommend you who are interested in real-life stories to look up:
- Hudson Taylor, a missionary who traveled to China to preach the gospel but was preyed by an anti-Christian group called the Boxer Rebellion. He was not afraid, for he sang hymns, even in front of his co-worker. It wasn't pointless to rejoice with the Lord at a frightful time like this.
- Brother Watchman Nee and his cellmate in prison for 20 years. The cellmate was released and flew to USA to share his experiences of being behind the bars with the saints. He became a brother and put his trust to the Lord. (The brother in the camp explains a bit more but I forgot to jot it down...dang it).
And this is my favourite testimony the brother tells. There is one hymn written by Annie Sherwood Hawks. She is a poet and a busy housewife. But she loves the Lord and she writes this hymn with all her heart. As an aspiring poet, this inspire me to write a hymn too! Well, should I?
Oh, what am I doing? I should start from the first message to make things clear! Oh well, if you're wondering why the title is called The Knowledge of Life, is because...life is not just our human life. Do you know that we have a spirit in us? And that person is Jesus our beloved Lord? He is not only a spirit, but also life. He represents the real and true life in us mortals and he IS the life to us. His eternal life is immersed into us and is spread from our spirit to our soul and body, and eventually passed to other people too! With God's life, we feel alive! The Bible gives us hints about life, starting from Genesis which talks about the tree of life until Revelation which talks about the water of life. Therefore, life is not devotion, good behavior, power, gifts, or increase of knowledge. Life is simply the Lord Himself!
John 3:15- That everyone who believes into Him may have eternal life.
Message two talks about regeneration. We humans are created by God as empty vessels to contain/ be filled with God. We are like empty bottles produced in a bottle factory, and we are regenerated in order to possess God's life. To be regenerated is to allow God to enter into our hearts and to express His love and life inwardly and outwardly. So how to be regenerated? We can do so by praying, repenting, and believing that Jesus is our Savior. Regeneration gives us the opportunity to know that God is life, learning about the law of life (that is we spontaneously know how God feel when doing certain things, e.g when you skip school because of a party and you feel that God is telling you that skipping school is wrong), having our originally hearts of stone to be renewed (to be softened so that we can have intimate feelings toward God), having our hidden spirits to be opened and transformed (when our hearts is renewed, we can use our spirits to contact God and to fellowship with Him), allowing God to make His home in our renewed spirit, and gaining Him to become our life. With regeneration, we can fulfill God's desire: to become His children (spiritually), to become a whole new creation (an element of God because of our knowing that God is life), and be united with God as one entity (we are no longer alone because we have God in us!).
Romans 8:6~For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace.
We must hate death! Silence is the symptom of death! We must cry out "O Lord Jesus! I need you as my life!" We must love life!
The fellowship of life is a good message too. Fellowship can be defined by these three options: common interest, communication, or flowing. Spiritually speaking, fellowship doesn't involved in discussion about something a group of people have in common or a one-to-one lecture session. Fellowship is the flowing of God's life. This flowing life is passed from God to his fellow saints (that is us!) God's life is moving, like gas particles, that's why he is flowing one by one. He adds his entire life into us, and it spreads continuously. However, a fellowship can diminish depending on where you at. For example, when you're in a movie theater instead of attending Lord's table meeting on a Sunday morning, your connection with the Lord is cut off like a broken wire. When this happens, our sense of life causes us to feel like something is missing deep within our hearts. This is normal, and it can be restored by confessing to God. Like a lightbulb or any electrical appliance, we need to be "plugged in" so that we can be "charged" by God's "energy". The speaking brother (priest) shared a story of a Russian guitarist who got both of his hands cut off because of a terrible frost bite. He got drunk, fell asleep in a bus stop, and his fingers got frozen. He then lost his family, job, and happiness. One day, a saint preached the gospel to him, and he instantly received the Lord. He ended up becoming a painter and instead of hands, he used his palms (no fingers) and mouth to paint.
To conclude this message, he reminds us that the sense of life tests us about knowing the condition before the Lord, and fellowship of life supplies us.
God= the Word= the Word of life= life= eternal life Therefore, God= eternal life
1 John 1:2-3~And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and report to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us; That which we have seen and heard we report also to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His son Jesus Christ.
In fact, the sense of life and the fellowship of life helps with the anointing. The anointing is the pouring of oil or ointment over a person's head and probably to the body, like paint. The anointing is a combination of sense of life and fellowship of life, that is God moving, operating, and adding Himself in us. To be anointed is to be cleansed by the shedding of God's blood. The ointment is like a refreshing bath from all unnecessary things God wants to remove from us such as negative and worldly thinking. The more we are cleansed, the more we confess, the more we are anointed and the Spirit enters into us. God's life is released from the anointing which helps us to gain more of God and alerts our sense of life to know what God wants us to do. Not only we need the anointing to be filled with life, but it also causes us to stay within the fellowship with God. The anointing moves us to stay close with God and to interact with him like a normal human. God's intimacy will never fail to attract us. The anointing layers us up with coats of God and His life as the holy colours will transform us into a renewed spirit, a renewed heart, and eventually a renewed person.
Brothers and sisters, don't you think God's life is precious to us? God is the life we need to live on this earth!
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