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Thursday, April 30, 2009

When My Son was Hospitalized

If you have been following me on Twitter (@junjiehuang) or on FaceBook (as Junjie Huang), you'll know that my elder boy recently came down with some gastro-something viral thingy and had to be hospitalized. It was not an easy decision, but when he had high fever and kept vomiting out everything, even the fever medicine and water, we had no choice. He had to be put on a drip, so he had to be warded.

It was an interesting experience, to say the least. There was one young boy (at the most 2 years old) who was clamoring to go home. And his mum kept telling him that they were going home soon, just after the doctor checks him one more time. Come on, the kid was already in hospital clothes, the doctors had already made their final rounds for the day, it was after 9pm at night... she was lying through her teeth there! What's gonna happen to her when the kid grows older and he refuses to trust her because she has lied to him too many times before?

And there was this other kid, even younger than the previous one. He was initially quiet when he saw me in the ward, but by the next day he was taking my kids' toys and loudly shouting "MINE!" when any of my kids wanted to get them back. The mother would quietly take them away from him and return them to my kids when he was distracted with something else. But what message was she sending to that boy about respecting other people's property? That he was the centre of the world and the rightful owner of ALL he surveyed?

Of course, Jessiah wasn't totally perfect too. I must admit I was disappointed at his total abject fear of having the needle stuck into his hand so the nurses could insert the drip. I guess at that moment it was a little too late for me to teach him pain disassociation and calming techniques, right? It did not feel good to me, pinning him down with my arms, holding his arm and hand in place for the nurse to insert the drip, knowing that it WAS going to hurt because his hand was so tense from fear. What happened to all the breathing and calming techniques I taught him before?

"JJ, you're expecting too much from a 7 year old kid!" Yeah, maybe you're right!

If you have been following my emails and blog posts for a while you'll see that my two boys trigger off a lot of my thoughts, ideas and posts. I think about my kids a lot, especially in the context of spiritual matters. Recently as I spent a lot more time on Deuteronomy, I realized that God has our children very much on his heart also. Many times in Deuteronomy we are admonished to teach our children, to impart godly wisdom and teaching to them. For example:

Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, "Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children." (Deuteronomy 4:9-10, NIV)

God has children very much on his heart. And he wants us to prioritize teaching them. We are to make the most of every opportunity to teach them, using whatever is in my environment and daily schedule as a context for training them in the fear of the Lord. Consider this:

"Hear, O Israel : The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." (Deuteronomy 6:4-7, NIV)

In other words, get obsessed with God and keep talking about him to your kids!

Raising up kids is tough. And it's gonna get tougher and tougher as the days go by. This is one thing that we MUST work at together, as a community of God and as the Body of Christ. There are three main groups of people on my heart as I write this message.

1) Parents with growing kids

Don't isolate yourself from the rest of the Body of Christ. It is a bad move in general, but it is extremely devastating when it comes to parenting. No matter how strong you are or how wise you are, you will need help. So get help!

Work in partnership with other parents. Trade tips, help mind each others' kids once in a while, just look for ways to sow practical help into the lives of other parents and be humble enough to accept the help offered by other parents too.

For example, my current ministry means that I am VERY busy on Sundays after the service. As long as my pastor isn't done, I'm not done! If he doesn't get to eat, I don't get to eat! All that is fine, except that if I have to manage my kids by myself they're not going to have a decent lunch until quite late in the day. And I don't like that. Thank God for the other parents at my church, people who know me and my kids and are willing to help feed them while I handle lots of other stuff!

2) Parents with grown kids

If you have already been there and done that, help us younger parents. Share your advice, wisdom and experience. Don't let us make all the same mistakes you did. And do encourage us. We can read all the parenting books, even excellent ones by writers full of the wisdom of God, but it just doesn't compare to you coming alongside us and telling us "this is a passing phase, your kids will grow out of this and they'll be fine!"

I know this may not be easy. Especially if you are trying to help people like me. There's just something about me, when it comes to raising my kids people tend to think I know what I am doing. That's the impression I tend to give other people. I don't. Most of the time, when I look so confident and certain on the outside, I am desperately praying for God's wisdom on the inside. When it comes to my kids I really appreciate wisdom from people who have walked the path before. And I am sure other younger parents are like me, they appreciate your help too. So please help us!

3) You're too young to have your own kids

As long as you are old enough to walk and hold something in your hand you are old enough to learn how to help manage children. Start small. If you are an only child or you never helped your parents manage younger siblings before, go volunteer in your church nursery. An extra pair of willing hands will always be appreciated. Give the parents in your church a hand, help them lift a pram up a staircase, help them carry a bag (milk bottles, powder, diapers and all that can get heavy, trust me, I know!). Do all these little things to get yourself in contact with children, to get familiar with them, and to make yourself useful with them.

Jesus said "And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?" (Luke 16:12, NIV) Show yourself trustworthy with other people's kids. The experience will prove invaluable when you have children of your own!

You may be wondering, I am a Worship Trainer, why am I talking so much about children? For one thing, God's Word wants us to care about children, to be forward looking in planning and caring for the next generation. And that's good enough a reason for many people.

But for me there is also another reason. As a worship minister I pay a lot of attention to the life of King David, the most prominent worshipper in the Bible. And one thing that really struck me about David is this: he was one lousy father. Think about it, Ammon was a selfish kid who raped his half-sister, Absalom was a bloodthirsty and violent coward (rare combination, I know), even Solomon eventually turned away from the LORD to worship other gods.

This is sobering when I look at my own two boys. What kind of people will they become? The Bible says we are to train the child in the way he should go, and when he grows old he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6). And this tells me that David COULD have prevented his sons from becoming like this. But he didn't.

I don't want that to be said of my life. And that is why I think so much about my sons, especially when it comes to spiritual matters. I feel very keenly the responsibilities the LORD has entrusted to me in this area. So that is why it colours a lot of what I share with you.

Anyway, that's what I'd like to share with you this time. Be blessed!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Watch and Be Blessed!

If you have been following my posts and emails long enough you'll see that I almost never share with you material from other people. I use my own stuff, thank you very much. But here is a video that has blessed me every time I watch it, and I'd like to share this video with you.

This video comes from Todd Vaters, and has been listed by Faith Visuals in their Top 10 New Easter Videos list I pray that this video will bless you as much as it has blessed me!

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Serve as unto the Lord

But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. (1 Chronicles 29:14, NIV)
Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing-- grain offerings and drink offerings for the LORD your God. (Joel 2:14, NIV)
What do the two verses above have in common? The idea that whatever we offer God came from him in the first place. We aren't really giving him anything, we are only returning to him a part of it.
Putting it simply, we are ALWAYS getting the better part of the deal.
That's something we need to keep in mind when we actually SERVE God's people. In 1 Peter 4:11, it says "If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides" (NIV). And we are told that because we are serving God, HE is the one who will reward us (Col 3:24). Not men.
And that is an area that has stumbled many who step forward to serve God. They subconsciously believe that because they are serving certain people, their reward will come from these people. Of course, we can cover this up with spiritual jargon, and say that everything we do is unto the Lord. But the acid test is when people let us down. What then?
Let me share with you my personal experience, in case you think I have my act together all the time.
One of the ways I earn a living is by giving personal lessons in worship music. And I have learned the hard way NEVER to serve at a place where I already have students serving. Because these students will stop taking lessons with me soon after that. And my income suffers.
The first time this happened was with a church where I had TWO students serving on the worship team. They lost a core musician and they were scrambling to fix the vacuum. So two of the more proactive people heard about me, checked out my teaching and decided to take lessons from me.
Problem was, no matter how quickly they learned they were not gonna be able to fix the music vacuum straight away. So I was invited to play piano for them, help them out for one of their services and all that. Being a sucker for a sob story, I agreed. The idealist in me thought "This is a GREAT way to teach them, they'll see me actually do what I tell them to do, and in front of their own eyes they'll see it work!"
That was what happened. They saw that I actually did what I told them to do. Some parts where I have told them not to play they saw me actually put my hands behind my back. (Something most church pianists don't have the guts to do, I noticed). They saw how well the congregation responded to all the subtle changes I explained (and now demonstrated) to them.
And they stopped taking lessons.
In retrospect I understand why this happens. People usually do things (like take worship music lessons) to get rid of pain. When I started serving in that church I immediately took away a huge source of their pain, the pain that comes from having rudderless musicians playing junk for a church service. So by stepping forth to serve I shot myself in the foot by taking away their motivation to take lessons from me.
I do understand that life is unpredictable and things crop up. And that was what happened to one of them. But the other one gave me loads of hyper-lame excuses. Let me give you a sample:
1) "I am not called to play music instruments" - show me from the Bible where there is such thing...
2) "I want to check my motivations and the condition of my heart" - I could tell you what was in this person's heart - laziness! Check out the other excuses and you'll see what I mean.
3) "I don't have time to practice" - which sounds really funny because soon after this person said:
4) "I'm busy with classical piano lessons, because that would help with worship piano" - Look, either you've got time or you don't. And if you don't have time and you want to learn worship music, then learn worship piano playing directly! It's like someone claiming she wants to learn Japanese but is too busy to take Japanese lessons because she's learning Mandarin to help her with her Japanese.
This person also metaphorically slapped me in the face. One day, during band practice, this person openly approached another pianist and asked this pianist to teach this person's kid. Well, at that time this pianist was a student and didn't have any teaching experience, and she knew that I had loads of experience teaching both adults and children, so she asked "Why don't you ask JJ?" The reply was "What JJ teaches is very complicated..."
OK, that was going a tad bit too far. I usually watch my manners when speaking to people in positions of leadership, but this time I spoke up and said "If you can say that, you obviously haven't been listening!" This person quietly moved on to do other stuff while the rest of the musicians and back-up vocalists waited in uncomfortable silence for the band practice to begin...
Yeah, that was what I put up with, in addition to the financial hardship that came from losing two students and giving up prime teaching time for the sake of serving. Would you believe that in the end I stopped playing for that group, not because of financial hardship, but only because of my family? My son was acting up, my wife suspected that it was because he needed even more time with me, so she appealed to me to give priority to my kid. And I did.
Not that I am such a dedicated and devoted servant of God. I think it's just because I got into the habit of turning up, that's all. Sometimes that's all God really needs from us to serve him powerfully...
I buried this season in my subconscious and tried to forget all about it. Until this happened again and again. Even with students who have been faithfully taking lessons from me for years and risen in prominence in their churches because of their growing effectiveness in the worship ministry. (Which shows you, by the way, that it's not because of my lousy people skills. If that was the problem, why would these students continue taking lessons from me for so long?)
Once I start serving WITH them, they stop lessons very soon after that. And my income suffers.
And so I have to battle bitterness and resentment. Hey look, I don't get paid to serve God with them. I do it because of the opportunity to sow more into my students' lives. The time I give up for serving could have been used to bring in more money for my family, but I forego income willingly for that purpose (that makes me a lousy businessman, I know). And so I feel betrayed when my students stop taking lessons from me. It's like them not respecting my time after I start giving them even more free lessons.
So I have two choices: give in to bitterness or really serve as unto the Lord. If I expect that people would respect my serving and so I would see SOME form of concrete appreciation from them (like continuing to take ridiculously under-priced lessons from me) I WILL be disappointed.
It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. (Psalm 118:8, NIV)
BUT if I see my reward as coming from the Lord, in HIS good time, in the way and manner that HE chooses, my heart will be able to rest in him. Seriously, what did it cost GOD for me to serve him? It cost him his son, who died to make me fit to serve God. And even whatever I use to serve God came from him in the first place, right?
For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? (1 Cor 4:7 NIV)
So, as Jesus said before, "Freely you have received, freely give." (Mat 10:8, NIV) This does not mean to refuse monetary compensation, because in the same passage Jesus said "The worker is worth his keep" (Mat 10:10, NIV). But at the root of it all, serve as unto the Lord. And expect your reward to come from him.
Does that mean that I am now going start serving at whatever place I am invited to serve at, even if I have students there? No way! My first priority is to provide for my family (1 Tim 5:8), and that means getting more students AND keeping the students I now have. That's my bread and butter, I have to guard it wisely.
It DOES mean that I have to walk in forgiveness continually, just as Christ has forgiven me. It means that before I do anything for ministry I now count the cost. Can I afford to bear the financial consequences of serving in a particular way? And not expect anyone to come along and help me bear the burden? If so I go ahead. If not, I decline the opportunity to serve.
Conclusion: after the most recent time I lost a student after serving, I was very offended and frustrated, as you can imagine. I kept wrestling with the offence. Every time my anger arose I kept telling God "I'm gonna serve because it's you, not for any other reason. In the end you gave me everything, I am only returning part of what you gave me in the first place." And within a few weeks God opened for me a door to minister in a place and a way that I didn't believe I ever have, and even sooner than I expected. I honestly feel like Joseph taken from the prison to Pharaoh's court, a huge change overnight.
I can't share the details now (this post has gone on long enough!) but suffice it to say that I finally feel as if I am better utilized for God's Kingdom. More of my giftings and abilities are called into play. I am even busier than before, and yet there is this sense of peace and rest that pervades everything I do. I really can't explain it, but I am certainly enjoying it!
All my struggles and frustrations honestly look so small, compared to what I am enjoy in my life and ministry now. The Lord has rewarded me, and I am grateful.And that's what I'd like to share with you today.
If you serve, whether in the Worship Ministry directly (as I still do) or indirectly, or even in some other form of ministry, you can tell if you are serving as unto the Lord or unto men. Just watch what happens when people offend you or despise you. If you struggle to continue, some part of you is still serving as unto men.
If so, my dear sibling-in-Christ, don't let the offences and your disappointment cause you to give up. Your reward is on the way. Our God remembers everything you do for him and his Word declares:
Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Cor 15:58, NIV)
Be blessed!