Divine Encounters

View of Chiang Mai from Doi Suthep

I want one thing, I do another.

Mary desires to sit at the feet of Jesus, but Martha, the highly-organized and efficient one, is calling.

I am on this journey, the journey to come closer and come up higher...but there are many distractions, too many opportunities to be sidetracked.

Oftentimes, the distraction is not evil in itself--like, there is always one more cup to wash, one last load of laundry to put in the machine, just one more page to read, one more little weed to pull out. One thing leads to another and before I know it, the morning has gone by.

For many a time, I have found myself engaged in this battle: the pull of the temporal versus the call of the Deep.

Somewhere along the way, the light of heaven breaks through, and God reaches down to reveal Himself to this hungry and thirsty wayfarer.

In an earlier post, I have written about my decade of pruning which began in mid 1989.

To be more precise, the pruning never really ends. But it was in that particular decade of my life that my ears were opened to more distinctly hear the "upward call" of God.

It was 1992 and I was on board my flight back to Bacolod City. I had just left Manila after spending a week with my father who was ill and was in hospital. My heart was still heavy, reluctant to leave my sick father behind, but I was also needed back at the school where I worked, and by my family at home.

The plane was about to take off. Leaning back, I closed my eyes and began to pour out all the heaviness of my heart to God. No, I wasn't complaining, or spilling out unwanted stuff. I was telling the Lord how much I loved Him, and how much I appreciated His love, His presence, and His care.

My heart was offering all it could at that time...wordless praise.

I felt the heavy load lifting, and my heart getting lighter... and lighter.... Then there was a gentle, but unusual, stirring within my stomach, like a bubble was forming. And I felt this bubble begin to slowly rise upward until it reached my throat.

Before I realized what was really happening, I had the sudden, uncontrollable urge to ... laugh!

The plane was taking off, and there I was covering my mouth because if I didn't, I just knew I was going to burst out laughing.

I thank God that He wasn't grieved by what I did, I thank Him that I was saved from embarrassment, and I didn't end up laughing out loud, just chuckling quietly to myself... but that bubble of joy brought healing, and remained inside of me for a long time.

It was shortly afterward that God gave me a new name, and my life was never the same again.

It was also in 1992 that God spoke to me through Psalm 40:1-3, when He gave me a new song to sing, but that is another story.

Toward the end of 1996, our church held a week of teaching under Paul and Bunty Collins, an Australian couple. It was at this time that I received a deeper understanding of the five-fold ministry of the Holy Spirit in the church.

Things were coming into clearer focus, and I knew that I was at the threshold of another season. Let me put it this way: It felt like a denominational label was removed from my forehead and although I have remained loyal to my home church, God showed me that the true nature of His kingdom extended far beyond the four walls of the local church.

This realization gave me a tremendous sense of freedom. I realized that the longings of my heart mattered to God and that He was just waiting for the right time to lead me to higher levels of growth. My calling as a prophetic intercessor was also birthed at this time.

In 1997, God directed my steps to Rasa, Switzerland, where He gave me another new name, and another pathway for me to come closer to His heart.

Just a few months before I embarked on my Rasa journey, someone lent me Mike Bickle's book, Passion for Jesus. Reading that book became another defining moment in my life. It opened a new way of looking at God.

There had been times when I thought God seemed like a cruel taskmaster, but after reading that book, a new paradigm in my relationship with God was opened up to me, the bridal paradigm. This paradigm simply means viewing the Kingdom of God through the eyes of a wholehearted bride with loyal devotion to Jesus. Jesus is one day coming back for His bride, the corporate church, and we are in the process of being made ready.

How true it is that when our relationship to God is only fueled by discipline, the result is self-pride and self-righteousness, or a battered self-worth. It doesn't make sense for me to look at my relationship with God as being defined by a sense of duty. Discipline and self-will are important, but there has to be a deeper motive for drawing near.

Passion. It makes all the difference.

I hasten to add at this point that the passion I am referring to is not in any way the erotic, sensual kind, a view so prevalent these days through the teaching that presents Jesus as "lovesick" for His bride and attracted to our weaknesses. The teaching itself has Biblical basis and personally, it has helped me grow. And like many others, I believe in intimacy with God and am pursuing a deep love relationship with Him. I also realize that He is revealing a much softer, more approachable side of Him in this season for the church, something that our fellow brothers and sisters in ages past may not have been privileged to experience.

But as we are in the last days, we also have to deal with the rising tide of deception that promotes a wrong doctrine of God that waters down the absolute standard of His holiness. He is still King and the throne belongs to Him alone. I want to be aware of, and stay away from, any twisted and distorted teaching about this area of relating to God as our heavenly bridegroom.

Paul talks about an entirely different kind of passion, a determination to count all things as loss in exchange for the excellence of knowing Christ. His beautiful words, written so passionately from a dark Roman prison, have always infused fresh blood into my spirit each time I read them:

Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation.

For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so...

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed, I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ...

that I may know him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering, being conformed to His death....

not that I have already attained, or am already perfected;

but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me...

but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:1-14)


What passionate words Paul uses! Even if his body was in chains, his spirit was free. He had indeed learned the secret of being content in whatever state he was. To press on, and reach forward to what is eternal.

In Rasa I recognized that the contemplative Mary in me is not in competition with the hard-working Martha. I just have to learn when to say "no." More important, I have to let my passion for my King take the lead.

The enemy is a fault finder, and he imparts false guilt. Paul reminds me to be aware.

Developing the inner life is not really a struggle as the enemy wants to make it appear.

It is a dance... with an unforced rhythm.

And I have since learned to be kinder to myself, and much less demanding.

I hear the voice, it's the Voice of the One I love, He's calling my name...

The chores can wait.