By Josephine Lim Weston
Initially I wanted to write a blog article entitled "Have No Doubt God Answers - During Silent Moments He Still Answers" but due to busyness of life it has to be postponed til now. By now the title has been changed at least four times, and I am convinced that this final title and its contents will encourage all of you the most.
Yes truly I have been very busy looking after a very active and curious almost 2 year-old boy. He's very observant, alert and not afraid to explore. Nothing's missed his eyes and if there's a game to guess where the tiny ball is among the three cups, he is likely to guess it right. I do feel guilty at times when I don't spend quiet time with the Lord as much as I wanted to. Life has been quite overwhelming most of the time. There's always the never ending things to do. It just never ends. So what I did was I will just pause for a moment and say to the Lord, "Lord I love you. Lord, I need you. Lord I want you to know I remember you and I want to draw near to you more and more so help me Lord."
Few days ago I watched the interview of Jim Caviezel on TBN channel with my family and after talking about his role as Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ he spoke about hearing God tell him (while he was acting the crucifixion scene) - "They don't love me. There are very few." Hence Jim Caviezel decided to profess his love for God in a public way, despite the repercussions.
So while I was praying to God for the right blog article to write - an article that I am convinced would be a great encouragement to my beloved readers - God kindly linked my busyness in life to His love for me. Let me explain - when we're busy and not spending time with the Lord in the way that we wanted to how do we feel? We all feel guilty and "not nice". Is this the feeling that the Lord wants us to feel? No, of course not because our God is different compared to the way we think. The enemy (the devil) always there to accuse us and make us feel inadequate as a child of God and will try to separate us from the love of God. The enemy is happy to condemn us in order to distant us from the assured love of God and His grace towards us. So the Lord prompted my heart that the most powerful thing to realise is this:
1 John 4:10 Amplified Bible (AMP)
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [that is, the atoning sacrifice, and the satisfying offering] for our sins [fulfilling God’s requirement for justice against sin and placating His wrath].
So from now onwards whenever I'm occupied with busyness instead of allowing guilt to take over, I decided there and then to say and declare, "Thank you Jesus, you love me! You are with me. Your grace is sufficient for me. You favours me. You guide me into all things. You protects me and provides me with everything I need and much more. I lack nothing good. Thank you Jesus for everything!" And I felt so loved and encouraged all over again and I could feel God smiling at me.
The Lord wants us to know that He is near. He will never leave us nor forsake. Nothing we do could ever separate us from His love. Nothing we do could ever make Him love us less or more than He has already loved us more than His own life. So all He wants is that we are assured of His amazing love for us and dwell in it with confidence. Do you know that the most powerful song is the most simple song and yet so true - "Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me for the Bible tells me so." Recently my brother posted a video recording of his second daughter Jolene singing with actions the song - "Yes, Jesus loves me" to her almost 8-month-old adorable little brother Joshua. Joshua loved every single moment of that rendition and smiling and giggling with approval of his sister's ministry. As I watched four to five times the video clip with my son Jean-Luc who enjoyed it as well the heaviness and pain I experienced on my head since that morning til afternoon just vanished and disappeared in an instant. What a powerful song as if God was telling me He approved 100% of the truth in that song and accurately tells of His heart for each one of us.
Do know that during those "silent moments" that we're experiencing after we prayed to God for certain things is not that He is not answering or unwilling to give us what we pray for, in fact he still answers if we're only willing to listen to what He has to say. I have been bringing Jean-Luc to "stay and play" at the nearby children centre and the children's playground almost everyday. Recently we have been experiencing hot summer days even though it's spring season. To protect my son from sunburn I would stand with my back facing the sun while clothing myself with hooded jumper facing my son (of course oblivious to him as he's busy playing). Last Saturday morning I observed that my husband also did exactly that to Jean-Luc to shield him from the sun without Jean-Luc realising as he was playing at the children centre playground. In the same way we're like Jean-Luc busy "playing" with our day to day tasks, career, studies, looking after our loved ones, ministries, etc but God is constantly there to bless us, protect us, provide for us and loving us without us realising or acknowledging it most of the time but whether we realise or not His love and grace never fail.
So whenever we're too busy that we don't spend enough time to pray or study His word or we think we have fallen short of His glory (not doing His will) and feeling unworthy of God's love, acceptance and approval, God wants us to be assured of this - that He still loves us regardless. So to overcome false belief and thoughts, start declaring that Jesus loves me and He bless me still regardless. I am truly richly blessed, highly favoured and deeply loved by God forever and ever!
Beautiful rendition of the song "Yes Jesus Loves Me" to share with all of you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jABcYKhDrI
