Learning to be Authentic
by KL
As I write this, I feel as though my skin has being peeled off with a really rusty blunt blade. The past few weeks I have just been on complete auto pilot mode. I am in this mode because I have just seen myself in a light that is not complimentary and my normal reaction is to resist change. I know what I must do but I fight against it because I really am worried what will happen if I let go. Every week I go to church and I am crying my eyeballs out even when they’re singing jumpy happy celebratory songs.
I know the expected testimony for anyone who has finished EH is to say they found freedom. But I am a little slow in that area as right now, I am merely just finding traces of light. I have not fully come out of the darkness. But praise God because I know this is not a 100m dash to the finish line and I am taking my time to get on the right path once again.
Before I entered EH, I knew I had issues. But to me, they were daily struggles and nothing major to worry about. Yet, there was just so much striving. After the first EH school, receiving some breakthrough prompted me to press on. Little did I know that from that breakthrough, I turned it around and made it a stumbling block. That little success really prompted me to strive and I became obsessed in moving towards self-cruxification. Somehow I heard that in order to find healing, you’d have to find your way to the cross. If there is such thing as striving to be self-crucified, I am the model example. I was so frustrated with God because He didn’t seem to want to crucify me fast enough.
After much prayer, God just revealed my sins one by one. He did so by allowing me to get sick till I needed to be quarantined. So for a whole week, I stayed in bed with nothing to do except to process all my thoughts. Truly, it is God’s divine intervention because He knew that I had been abusing EH by coming for classes to get more head knowledge on how to ‘fix’ myself. From my time in quarantine I found I had all these false refuges (PO, fantasies, lustful thoughts, masturbation & etc.), Bitter root judgments, bitter root expectancies. I was also defiling everyone around me. Initially, I was just concentrating on getting these problems fixed. But as I prayed , I was convicted that there’s more to it. After looking at the roots of all these things, I discovered the only thing that I can pin down is that I am just plain selfish and self-centered. When I discovered these awful truths about myself I really mourned. I finally understood how God looks down when He hears my prayers and think WHAT A BRAT and self-seeking creation. But thank goodness God doesn’t think like how I think. He sees me more than whatever I might see myself as. No wonder I love God so much because truly, we love because he first loved us. How can I not love someone who would die for me despite me being so sinful and wretched?
On the last day of EH, the last DVD was about corporateness. Truth be told, I read all the other chapters way before classes started because I was excited about healing. But being that self-seeking person I am, I skipped that topic because I thought, I doubt this chapter can benefit me or at least help me in my pursuit of fixture. The funny thing about it was that I kept getting this thought in my head that said, you ought to find a book with a title ‘How to deal with selfishness’. I thought to myself if I ever find the answer, I’d write a book on it and I am sure it will sell a million copies because honestly, we will all become lovers of ourselves as predicted in the Word of God. To my amazement, in the topic that I thought would least be relevant, I found the answer. Perhaps not the total answer, but at least a section that read: how to move from self-centredness. At the moment I heard it in class, my heart was racing as I was thinking, truly God you really know what I am struggling and you provide a glimpse of hope that there can be a way out of this black hole.
My life is on track in church. People have a good impression about me there. Sometimes I use that as comfort that I am not ‘that’ bad. I tell myself now I just got to fix this and that part of myself, then I am on my way to the crown of life. But no one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. I mean, I am not such a bad person. I know I am no angel but I took pride that I am not a devil either. But can God use a vessel such as that? Now I look in to the mirror and I see the Pharisee in myself. What a horrible thought as I remembered it was the Pharisees who crucified Jesus on the cross. All this while I felt, it is OK to just be a little sinful, because no one is perfect anyway. As long as I try my best to be a good person, help the poor, be a faithful friend and a filial daughter, I think God will be fine with me. But I think that’s really the lies of the Devil. It says in Scripture that be perfect, because your Father in Heaven is perfect.
Why has EH made me feel like I’ve been peeled open without anaesthesia? Because EH has once again reinforced truth and shone light where darkness dwelled. I didn’t know light would hurt so much. Before I came to EH I thought I was OK. After EH, my life has been turned upside down. So much gunk in my life, I know my healing would have been truncated if I had just accepted the little breakthroughs and not do a major overhaul in my life. Currently, I am still undergoing that grinding process in my life and praise God, God is fixing my engine to release me out to be all that He has called me to be. I don’t want a life of mediocrity. I want to live life abundantly as Christ has said I would. I have been called for a higher purpose. I will not stay in the areas as the Devil wants!
Which stage am I in right now? I was a slow, fat caterpillar before this, just eating leaves and destructing plants and really being a pest. Right now, I am in a cocoon, really unable to do much but just waiting on God to grow into a butterfly. Unlike a caterpillar which destroys plants, I have an assurance I will eventually be a butterfly flying from one flower to another helping the pollination process. Hallelujah, I will no longer be a waste of oxygen! But the beauty of it all, I will be a butterfly because God Himself in His mercy will make me one and not because I succeeded in trying to look/act/feel like one.
I cannot express my gratitude enough towards EH for giving me this avenue to learn about God’s truth and to be authentic. I really feel this ministry is equipping saints for the furtherance of God’s kingdom. When Jesus comes back again, He will say well done, good and faithful servants!