a reflection on life and death

AM I WILLING TO DO ANYTHING FOR GOD?

I have at one time in my life thrown everything and willing to do anything for a passion, for an obsession. I left a high-paying job. I left my family. I left my home. I left the Deaf community and organization I have built up in Iloilo. I left my past. I left my comfort zone. I left my hometown to move to Cebu to chase a dream— to improve the quality of life of the Deaf through quality education. I thought it was noble. It was promising. It was full of hope. I almost had the dream at arm’s reach in three different occasions. But all of them vanished in an instant. I was left jobless, distant from home, desolate without a family, broke without a means of income, and drowned in debt and financial obligation. I was devastated. But it was during those instances when God’s glory and mighty hand is at work. God came and rescued me, picked up the broken pieces and brought me to Elim Community.

It is in Elim Community, that is where I realized I missed one whole point. That all my dreams, my passions, my plans, my hopes are not entirely for God and His kingdom. That I am just so obsessed with the things of this earth, fighting for the rights of the Deaf, regaining back their human dignity, improving the quality of the lives of the Deaf “on this earth.” I haven’t set my sight to the “infinity and beyond.” I have toiled and worked hard and given up my own future and just seeing them all washed down the drain.

That’s why it got me in circles, suspended me in points of high elation and deep frustration. It was a rollercoaster ride chasing that dream. I sobbed, cried, wailed, anguished, hopeless and feeling defeated. I asked God in sincere prayers to transform and rearrange my life. I have at one point given up on this “Deaf passion.” I said “Lord, I give up my work for the Deaf. It is only what you want me to do that I aspire now. Help me know what it is. Reveal to me what it is.”

God is in His superb and infinite wisdom, knows what He is doing and is still at work in me and in my life and in this mission and spiritual burden given to me. I still don’t know where it would lead me. But I wait on the Lord. And if it is His desire to have the Deaf included or not in my own faith-journey, then so be it, as the Lord wills it.

In an article, I wrote in my high school paper entitled “The Deaf, the Mute and I,” it was highlighted “I have ears but I don’t listen, I have mouth but I don’t proclaim the Lord’s glory.” True enough, I am just that- a mediocre and coward Christian. With God’s transforming work for me here at Elim, through the example of the Elders, through the prayers and guidance of my KG facilitator, through the spiritual friendship and encouragement of my KG sisters, through Team Revival Night, through the teachings, through anything and everything that God will use, someday soon, that would be a reverberating “YES, LORD, anything and everything for you!”

“Only those who throw away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the good news will know what it means to really live.”

(Elim Discipleship Studies 1: Servanthood)

Being Golden Vessels

“Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonored use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory – even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?” Romans 9:21-23

“Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to knowledge of the truth, and they may escape the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do His will.” 2 Timothy 2:20-26

REFLECTION

Many times I have failed to become a vessel for honorable use. Gripped by thoughts of failure and guilt, I fall and stumble in my faith-walk. I have sinned and I grieve consciously of the overflowing cup of suffering that I am causing and hurting my Lord because of my sins. I hid my face in shame but God’s mercy and love is bigger than all my sins. The enemy tried to separate me from the love of God by magnifying those thoughts of guilt, making me spiritually dry as the desert and cold as winter. I struggled and just one night could not take the distance anymore. I cried in repentance and ask for His forgiveness. God has shown me that He has never given up on me and will still use the vessel for every good work. The broken pieces of the golden vessel He has gathered once more and will make anew.

In terms of spiritual maturity, I consider myself still a baby and haven’t deeply rooted yet on firm grounds. Like that seed that fell among thorns. “These thorns of instant pleasures are formidable opponents. That situation when we lose our taste for prayer, reflection and self-denial, making it impossible to follow Christ unless we lead a life of mortification. Little by little the attractions of the world will overcome the things of God. (Source 366 Days w/the Lord, Sept.20 Reflection)

In running the spiritual race, St. Paul suggests that if you want to finish well, one must be committed to three things: commitment to excellence, endurance and integrity. The reason why we have so many underdeveloped Christians, who have that much substance to them, is because they hop in and out of God’s grace. And they are constantly undone because they don’t want to take the heat. We have so many underdeveloped Christians, because they refuse to remain under the weight. (98.7 FM DYFR teaching, Pastor Bryan Laritz). Listening and reflecting on that radio teaching, it was as if it was talking to me. I am one of those “underdeveloped Christians.”

If God sets apart a servant for honorable use, one must be excellent in all his ways, to endure and finish the race, and be a person of integrity, one practice what one preaches, and not living double lives. This is something that I need help and God’s grace to work on in my life as I am still struggling with inconsistencies with regard to my spiritual life. God has been gracious and generous to me all my life. God has given me special skills, talents, unique experiences, gifts, special friends, a mission, a passion for service to the Deaf. To whom much is given, much is expected. Am I using the golden vessel as the potter had intended it to be? Am I useful to the master of the house? Am I able to teach? Am I patient to endure evil? Am I correcting my opponents with gentleness? Am I being captured by God day by day to do His will? On my own, I cannot, but He who is in me, who is greater than is in the world, by His grace, I can do all these things through Him who strengthens me.