Xùdōng Wú

The Heart of Mission for Japan

Having finished reading the book Back To Jerusalem, I was not expected that God could work so differently that he put this burden in my heart for the nation of Japan. This video just shows how much Japanese people need revival need Jesus. Who knows? God might call me to go there one day. I should remain faithful and open to wherever God calls me to go. :)

“Travel Around the World”

I have sensed our generation values individualism more than the our parents’ grandparents’ or even older generations do. “Travel around the world” seems to be the dream for many youngsters despite which culture you are from, well including me before. What are we travelling for? burning up the money, paying the precious, crossing nation borders for what? for a nice hotel room facing the sea so that we could watch the stunning sunrise? for the pumped-up nerves and blood experience while venturing out to track in jungles? for a authentic local cuisine with a bunch of friends talking while having fun? for a beautiful beach where we could collect shells? really? is that all we want for ourselves? We may have deceived ourselves into believing we have built up our well-beings if we broadened our horizons and travelled to various parts of the world. But have we forgotten that if we are not even aware of the Creator of this world, how much we could be able to  see and appreciate the beauty of all His creations. I am not saying travelling is bad but this should not be our life goal. Imagine one day, you stand before the Creator of the universe, He asked you “Son/Daughter, what have you done in the world?” You searched your mind then took out something from your bag and answered, “ Oh Lord, here are my shell collections.” This is not funny and many of us are currently without awareness heading to this direction. if we all want our life to be amounted for something, then stop being the purposeless world traveller, instead be the world shakers and difference makers who trek the world to preach the Holy name of Jesus for God has given us the great commission, “ There go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

“Live For Now”

As I was reading the book Back To Jerusalem as part of my mission training, I could not help tearing my eyes. From what I heard and understood, many cruel and unreasonable persecutions for Christians were and still are strictly and mercilessly undertaken by the ruling party of China. This has also been proved to be real in the book. But what actually shocks me and put me to shame is that people who were tortured hardcore in the prison for years did not blame God at all and instead they sincerely thanked God for that time in the prison when they thought God and the Holy Spirit taught and disciplined them to persevere and obey. Considering claiming to be Christian in China is not “beneficial” and even faces with persecutions, their faith in Christ is then so pure and strong that many of them risked their lives to preach the Gospel and some of them literally shed their blood for the holy name of Jesus Christ. Just as Tertullian’s statement resonates, 

“Go zealously on, good presidents, you will stand higher with the people if you sacrifice the Christians at their wish, kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to the dust; your injustice is the proof that we are innocent… Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you; it is rather a temptation to us. The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.”

Chinese Christians were truly living their lives to the fullest for the sake of the Gospel to be preached across the land. However, God does not just stop there and He then put a even bigger burden for the Chinese Churches  He revealed to one of the Chinese leaders to bring the Gospel back to Jerusalem, “I not only want the Chinese Church to assume responsibility for taking the Gospel to Xinjiang but I want you to bring to completion the commission to preach the Gospel to all the world.” But the leader’s heart was hardened,“That section of territory is under the power of Islam and the Muslims are the hardest of all people to reach with the Gospel.” Then God rebuked, “Even you Chinese, yourself included, are hard enough but you have been conquered by the Gospel…..but I have kept for the Chinese Church a portion of inheritance, otherwise, when I return will you not be so poor?” 

Then this movement called Back To Jerusalem started. God indeed pampered the Chinese people in His plan with all His blessings.

Throughout the past semester, almost everyone has kept asking me the same question “ Hey Xudong, how is your internship hunting going?”. After a while due to no fruits of the hunting I became quite frustrated and also fatigued to answer them. Then meanwhile this inner voice has been looping around in my mind , “Oh man, people are talking about you are being lazy, you don't treat your study seriously, you are such a loser, your God doesn’t even work for you, you are a hypocrite!” This triggered me into entering the endless cycle of doubting and questioning. 

A few weeks back, I went to counsel with the leaders in my church. She shared that while I was sharing, she had this picture in her mind -  Peter decided to step out the boat and started walking on the water as Jesus called him but he started to sink just right after he saw the thunders and started to doubt. She then asked me, “Xudong, you have already stepped out the boat and are walking on the waters now. Why do you want to doubt?” It definitely made sense to me but I didn’t understand why I still doubted. Not once I wrote in my journal saying I felt so away from God and did not understand what He was doing in my life. These doubting and questioning emasculated me and made me quite fickle and scatterbrained in my journey with God. 

Since I doubted His plan, I rebelled and turned away from Him to venture out and try the stuffs that I would never try before. Also, looking around how my friends have been living their lives, I was jealous and thought of myself as a social misfit. They have maintained good credentials and are currently undertaking amazing internships. Engaging in relationships gives them someone to visually lean on and seek help for. Then I also tried on my own to subdue my fear of losing out by burying myself hardcore in studying or appealing to people around me, which instead rubbed me on my faith in Christ. The situation I was trapped in is like myself alone was slowly drowning in the oceans, struggling to raise up my head to breathe yet not able to do so.

At the end of the day, unsurprisingly I did not secure any internships. And at the same time I was also ditched and hurt by some people. Despite how much I was blaming this on God, I started to reflect on what God is trying to teach me through this. As I was meditating on the Scripture and reading books, I reckoned that God knows I am not suitable and ready for any working experiences now and he wants me to cool down my overheated brain and to resolve my life around His purpose again. I was perplexed by the world’s comments towards me and I need to stifle this atmosphere surrounding me of being numb to follow the trends. Too many of us have chosen to settle for less  without experience something greater.

Ironically, God used my failure to strike my stiff-necked mind and turned my eyes back to His face. I am thankful for Him how He has ministered to and protected me so far. I shall stop doubting and release my fear of not having enough and believe the greater has yet to come. Practically, I also need to cherish this chunk of free time that He gave to me and bring glory to Him in everything I do.

These several lines of lyrics from the song Oceans pretty much summarise what God has been teaching me for the past months.

"Spirit leads me where my trust is without borders

Let me walk on the waters

Wherever you would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger 

In the presence of my saviour"

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. I n love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will — to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. “ - Ephesians 1:4-6

During this special period in the junior year of college, almost everyone never cease to talking about internship and job hunting. Even while I am hanging out with friends, they kind of also only focused their eyes on this topic. Having been hearing lots of that, I felt myself is like sitting on the fence hesitated wondering and looking around which way I could go. I desire to serve God while at the time cant get away from all these distractions. My lukewarmness trapped me in such a situation that I did not have the joy in serving Christ anymore and also felt a sense of rejection from all my friends. 

Things even have gone worse. Slowly I put my security in people’s affirmation for me. A couple of months back, I started to open my heart to share my struggles with one of the brothers in my church, he rejected me in a way he showed no concerns and compassion and sort of ignored me. Since then, I have been layering up this bitterness in my heart against this person. Unfortunately, he is also the leader in my LG whom I would see every sunday. After a hard time of struggles, I decided to reconcile with him yet it did not go well. There was no apologise or encouragement as I was bold to say I was hurt. Then I started to ask if this is supposed to be a loving family where people care about each other? by asking that question I found myself could no longer put up with him and I totally close my heart to let the bitterness grow and take over me. 

My relationship with God was about to break too. The very sin I struggled came back as times stronger as before. It slapped on my face so harshly that I did not even have the courage to stand before God. Satan came in to take advantage of my weakness by whispering to me in many voices like “You cant do this”, “You are dirty”, “You have betrayed God”, “You have been abandoned”, “You are worthless”, “You are a loser” ect. Just because of people’s rejections and satan's poisoning words, I also began to reject myself. I became so insecure. The fear of rejections irritated and afflicted me a lot. I doubted God where are you? Ain’t you supposed to come to help me?

After counselling with my church leaders and through many prayers, I realised that His love is unchanging and He accepts me as whom I am. “Your attitudes, actions, responses, and reactions to life’s circumstances are greatly affected by what you believe about yourself " (Neil  T. Anderson). Due to people’s rejections, I traded the truth with lies to believe that I was worthy of nothing. Satan’s scheme is specifically powerful to use our doubts and confusions to deceive us into believing his lies. "If you see myself as a the helpless victim of Satan, you will probably live like a victim and be in bondage to his lies. But if you see yourself as a dearly loved and accepted child of God, you will have a better chance of living like one.” (Neil T. Anderson) In Ephesians 1:5, God has “predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ”. I acknowledged that he is not abandoning me, even if I was rejected and hurt by other Christians in church. “We all fall short of God’s glory” yet Jesus Christ is the only one who never sinned and instead crucified for our sins. Even if I might be rejected by all the people in this world and ended up with being homeless crumpling and wandering on the streets, Jesus will still not reject me since he has already accepted me by dying on the cross. Then what now?

I need to repent and ask for God’s forgiveness. No hiding, no escaping, no excusing. In order to let God come in and heal me, I have to give him all my broken pieces. Even this process of healing means many pains and cries, I believe he will still faithfully turn those broken pieces into a master piece. Ya, we are all initially God’s master pieces but we sinned and ruined these master pieces. Now it is the time for God to restore us by giving us all to him. At the same time, I have to rebuke the Satan’s voice in my minds and take every thought captive to God’s promises. Also, repentance  means nothing unless I have changed. So I ll choose to radically live my life in a changed way that brings glory to him. 

I guess I can never put a full stop to this busy life in Singapore. :( Unexpected things always popped up from no where after I’ve strived so hard to finish one. Sorry just wanna complain a little bit about my junior year life before I start haha. Well, Having lived in Singapore for 3 years, here is one valuable lesson I have learned and tried to secure it in my life. 

I used to not really like life here in Singapore. I asked questions like “Why people here are so busy working yet not fulfilled?”, “Why is this country so organised yet I could still feel smiles on people’s face are fake?”, “Why people could line up for so long yet choose to ignore the underprivileged on the street?”. What I saw were all negative and because of that I refused to know more about this country. Doubted and confused why I came here, with my feet crumpled to fail, the freshman and half the sophomore year passed away with no purpose. Ya, my attitude back then towards life was quite negative and all about myself, which leads to confusion and fear. 

But since when this country has become my second home that I love most except my home country? I love it because of the fresh air, the food, the people and even the things I used to blind my eyes on. The answer is that it started when God entered my life. Ever since I got plugged in this Christ-centred family - HMCCSGP, I started to see things differently. I believe this about-turn over my attitude towards Singapore reflects how God has changed me. Yes, God changed my negative self-centred attitude to positive God-centred one along the way through many trials and hardships and showed me how to have this right attitude even in times of struggles and depression. God is so faithful and he is capable of turning negativity into positivity by starting changing our attitudes. This right attitude means no matter what happened, I must believe God still works and he did not owe this to me, he did it because he loves me. I appreciate I have learnt that even in a hard way. 

Back to now, in this season of uncertainty, I should and must choose to stick to this lesson I learnt. Even if it means no response received for the internship hunting for now or no job secured after I graduate or even no roof over my head in the future, embracing this right attitude that consistently giving thanks and praying to God are the things left to me and I can choose to do so.  

“Fear not, for I am with you. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

“The stones that builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” — Luke 20 : 17

As I was defeated by various temptations from this world, I started draining away from God. While being apart from Christ, I felt such an emptiness that crying loud in my heart. Even if I know that Jesus is the way, the life and the truth, I rebelled and chose to walk my way. Then inevitably my life entered this sinful endless downward spiral, which slowly kills me inside.

On one hand, I could not get away from sinning against God and chose to stay the same. When temptation comes, I undoubtedly failed. I got tired of fighting. Self-conscience and self-condemnation made my mind numb and I did not even bother thinking anymore. Thought my life won’t change even if I tried. It has been always and would be always like this and I ll be fine with it. Ya, I hated myself. I hated my weakness, my wickedness, my unstoppable sinning cycle. Yet I refused to change. I wanted things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because I was afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins.

On the other hand, since this crying void misery in my soul could not be fulfilled by God, I turned myself away to seek for surrogates that I thought I might gain comfort from. I desired this relationship — imagining someone would just walk into my life and show me the kindness and care I needed. It did not happen. I tried hard to search for internship. Thought if I got busier, the void will be left behind and faded away. It did not and the void shouted even louder. I asked friends to eat meal with me everyday. Thought with their company, I somehow could be satisfied. But it still did not work out, the problem only got tougher. 

But God was consistently being faithful throughout all these messes. He put brothers and sisters in my life to rebuke me and to remind me of his righteousness, even if  we are far apart from each other. Lord, forgive me again, I am such a sinner that I did not listen to them. I still kept rejecting God's grace and have gone too far from him.

But still, God never fails. As I kept rejecting him, I was just driven to the edge of my wits. Until one day, I could clearly hear the sound of the collapse of  the skyscraper I built in my life. Finally I realised that no matter how much I took from this world to build my life, if the foundation cornerstone is not JESUS CHRIST, it is doomed to collapse one day. 

"Lord, thanks for your gentle reminder. Thanks for being so patient with me. I repent for my weary heart and my wicked actions. I repent for my selfishness that I have done everything I could to please myself. I repent that I have been so inpatient with you. I repent for my stubborn heart that rejected you so many times. 

I have been at home for two days. Even within these two days, so many distractions have already came up. I am not used to the cold weather, which you might imagine how hard it can be to get out of the warm bed in the freezing cold morning. My parents continue to treat me as a non-grown-up boy and they cover all my needs……etc.

But I believe God is still working powerfully here in my family. Yesterday, I got the chance to share the video about the Papua M trip w/ my dad. Although he seems to be quite ignorant about it I still believe it is a good start that I could slowly share my faith w/ him. And also yesterday I basically shared how our church is like w/ my mom. She is quite open to affirm me being a Christian but she said she wants no part of Christianity to do with her life. They still talked about my future about how much money I can earn how great I can be a support after I graduate. Yes, it is hard but I won’t escape anymore. I ultimately believe our God is mighty and powerful enough to cover all my worries here. 

Besides that, I also wanna share w/ you guys about how I have been feeling in our church and what I have learned from the INSIDE OUT retreat. It has been a while I barely witness people come out to our church. I am wondering why our church is not expanding (it is not about numbers)? Why in acts groups who gathered in his name were added in numbers but it is not happening in our church?Here I offer my sincere advance apology for those who might get offended. But please still allow me to share all these thoughts in my head w/ you guys.  :)

Firstly, are we believing our God is almighty, awesome and powerful beyond all our imaginations? as for me, I have to repent that I am thinking of our God as small God and on-demanding God in deeds. I still remember the Let It Rain prayer I wrote on my bible - more students will come to know Christ in ACCESS. When I look back what I have done, I think my commitment slap so hard on my own face. I totally forgot that this is God’s church not my church. I cannot and never will be able to build up the church depending on my own strength God says “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”(Matthew 16: 18) I guess that is why I could not endure all the hardships that came along while committing in ACCESS but not committing to God. So, if our God is mighty enough, how can we still depend on ourselves and at the same time blame God is not working?

Secondly, are we speaking truth and going deeper with each other? as for me, I guess I am just being polite and not comfortable at all to go deeper. It might be our culture that we are not used to share vulnerably w/ and pinpoint the transgressions in each other’s lives. At least I am not. I still recall how every time I met up with my LCG that I purposely kept the conversations on the surface. I doubted that he accepted not accept me if I confided in him. I was also afraid that he might not think of me as a nice person if I started to spot his wrongdoings. Bible tells us that "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” (James 5:16) 

Lastly, are we really praying for our church? Again, I have to repent I did not. I listened to one of sermons (forgot who) on the hmcc sites before, which talks about prayer. I still remember there is one sentence that stroked my mind “ If someone really loves his/her church, he/she will pray for the church.” It has always been a lot of distractions that hinder us from praying for our church. They can be Facebook, music, study, comfort on bed and you name it. We need to take our initiatives to pray for our church even if it means we might be on our own. I used to always wait for ZA (Sorry, ZA) to partner with me to pray but we all turned out to excuse ourselves as busy studying. It is great that someone or a group of people can partner w/ us to pray but it does not mean we can not pray on our own for our church. God is our great helper and partner I guess. When we are struggling, PRAY! when we are seeking, PRAY! when we are doubting, PRAY! When we are joyful, PRAY! When we are faithful, PRAY! For it is Jesus’s will for us. "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)