In His Hands

Yesterday I got really bitter over my then-close friend. By blue-ticking me, she gave me the impression that she didn’t care about our friendship. I’m 99% sure it’s miscommunication, but I’ll be a liar to say that I was unaffected.

Heck, I even entertained the thought that, “I wish I never knew her”. The hurt got to the point I wanted to sever ties again.

But I was wrestling between hardening my heart and letting God take over. And my impulse was to harden my heart and cut her out once again. That way, at least I won’t feel pain. I can be numbed to the suffering that I’ve endured the past 11 months.

A few thoughts did come to mind though. The first would be the blog post on how every important decision comes with a risk, and it’s not whether there is a risk, but is the risk worth it that should motivate my final decision. In this struggle the risk is pain, but I ought to go through said pain.

As I read Ps Prince’s ‘Live the Let Go Life’, he mentioned how Joshua and Caleb were eager to possess the land full of giants, a picture of risks that come attached to worthwhile decisions. Caleb treated the potential pain as simply ‘bread’. And he trusted God to give them the victory.

I also stumbled on a blogpost that reminded me that she cannot repay me. If my happiness is based on her fully compensating me for all the hurt she has done, I will never be happy. I was, however, reminded that, yes, she owed me a debt, but yes also, that Christ paid her debt to me on her behalf. The debt is paid. I can now justifiably freely forgive her, because Christ paid for her what she owed me. I had a just reason to let her off the hook. And release myself from the prison of bitterness.

Later on in the day, I prayed to God. I told Him that I did not want to hold on to any more bitterness and anger and pain and resentment toward my then-close friend. I was adamant to get rid of said negative emotions by the end of the day, before they creep in to destroy my 2018 as they did 2017. And by God’s grace, I felt way better nearing the end of the day. The bitterness for that day melted away.

To conclude, however, the Lord reminded me to do what I did in 2013: place my friendships into His hands once again. That was one factor that contributed to 2013’s success. Knowing that God is all love and will give me what is best really helped me entrust these friendships without fear. I’m thankful for my bible study groups and place them in His hands. I’m praying for my friendship with me then-close friend and entrust this friendship into His hands. I entrust my interactions with colleagues, university friends and just about anyone into His hands. Even for the blue-tick, well, I entrust that into God’s hands too.

And I will see the salvation of the Lord, and Him glorified in the area of friendships in my life. And I will see 120% restoration in every area of my life, not by my effort, but by God’s favor, and to His glory for Him doing all the work.

My life is in His hands, for no one’s hands are better than His’.

—Joel Kindiak, 5 Jun 18, 0801H

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Peace

There’s a peace far beyond all understanding / May it ever set my heart at ease / Dare anxiety come I’ll remember that / Peace is a promise You keep

“P E A C E” by Hillsong Y&F

In the friendship prayer, the last sentence talks about inviting God’s peace into my friendship. The sentence before that was about believing God to restore the friendship beyond my wildest imaginations.

I remembered praying that prayer, and whenever I get to that line on wildest imaginations, I sense a peace far beyond understanding. There’s just this assurance and rest that God is going to either restore my friendship so gloriously, or do something even better than that. Incidentally, one of the days’ devotional was about peace:

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” [John 14:27]

And so I’m quite convinced that for this season of my life, God is leading me into a deeper knowledge and experience of His peace, and how His peace can lead me to 120% restoration of my friendship and much more favor and blessing in every other area of my life.

—Joel Kindiak, 2 Jun 18, 2030H

Resurrection

The good news of Jesus is this:

God created the world and all that is in it, and us, so that we get the privilege to have a close relationship with Him. We decided we wanted to live on our own, without Him, and thus sinned, breaking the relationship. And the punishment of sin is death. No amount of morality or religion can remove our punishment, only except if someone is punished on our behalf. So God being love doesn’t want us to die, but being just He must punish our sin. To resolve the dilemma, He sent His Son, Jesus, to take our place, and die on our behalf, so that after we physically pass on, our soul does not die but lives on forever with Him.

In other words, Jesus came not to make bad people good, but dead people live. My soul lives on because His died on my behalf at the cross. And the same power that raised Him from the grave lives in me, to raise me from my death.

During service today, the thought came, “Jesus came to raise the dead to life. This includes my dead friendship.”

I do not have any sufficient Scripture to back this claim up, but this is a very interesting thought to have. And maybe instead of asking, “Why? Is there Scripture for it?” I should probably ask, “Why not? Is anything too hard for God?”

And yes, while I’m fully aware that God might deem it better to leave my friendship with my then-close friend the way it is: as strangers, I can and should cast my desires and cares to Him. To pray for peace in my friendship. To pray for a healthy phileo love between us. To pray for favor with my close friend. The focus should not be the outcome of my prayer, but the action of praying and telling God these desires.

And God, I desire that You resurrect this dead friendship. I pray You give me the best, to glorify Your name.

—Joel Kindiak, 2 Jun 18, 2022H

Friendship Prayer

Lord Jesus, I bring my friendship with _______ to you right now. I invite Your grace to come into this friendship and take charge of it. I ask and thank You for favor with _______, and pray for Your wisdom and healing to restore all brokenness in our friendship. Thank You for mending, restoring, and causing my friendship to exceed my wildest imaginations. Let Your peace reign in this friendship. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Adapted from Joseph Prince Ministries

—Joel Kindiak, 31 May 18, 2346H

Nothing But The Blood

I’ve failed big time in many areas of my life, especially my friendships.

I’ve a bad track record of sustaining close friendships, due to oversensitivity or a bad case of the “what-if”s.

I’ve sinned big time, and sin leads to death. Primarily of the soul, but also to the death of other areas, like dreams and aspirations, friendships, or blessings that were alive.

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

And only His cleansing, forgiving, restorative blood is what can remove my sin, and the plague of death on me.

Jesus came not to make bad people good, but dead people live.

And I believe this applies to dead dreams and aspirations, dead friendships and dead blessings too. Jesus came to make them alive, so that He alone may be glorified in resurrecting the dead.

In all senses of the words ‘resurrecting’ and ‘dead’.

—Joel Kindiak, 29 May 18, 0951H

2018 Hits

I will say that 2018 has one of the best song playlists for me this year, at least tied with 2014’s selection. As I listen to the songs on my train ride, I’m going to type down the ones that particularly stood out (which is basically everything lol):

1. Love Come Down (feat. Seth Condrey) [Remix] by North Point InsideOut
2. My Soul Magnifies the Lord by Chris Tomlin
3. You Are Good by Planetshakers
4. I Will Boast in Christ by Hillsong Worship
5. God of All My Days by Casting Crowns
6. Glorious and Beautiful by New Creation Worship
7. Greatest Hallelujah by Matt Redman
8. Open Up the Heavens by Vertical Worship
9. The Lord Reigns by Gateway Worship
10. Born is the King by Hillsong Worship

Do give them a listen and I hope you’ll be blessed by them!

—Joel Kindiak, 28 May 18, 2122H

Desire

In recent days my friendship with my then-close friend has vastly improved. It’s still not as close as our closest moments, but to me, it’s close enough, in that we can talk without a trace of discomfort, and joke and laugh as we would with our other friends. This is in fact how we started out as friends before we progressed to being close and subsequently too close for comfort.

Firstly, let me give all glory to God. I have zero clue how He did it, but somehow we are texting again, that is, rebuilding communication, and it’s very natural, and I genuinely enjoy myself, unlike in time past when I must fake my interest when I have none. I feel real interacting with her again, and it’s only by His grace that this is in fact possible. Yet, it isn’t full restoration yet. God wants me to pray for full restoration, and I will, though if it doesn’t come yet, I’m actually very, very happy.

Here however is the problem. I remember with this friend having big plans: a pseudo-prom night where we would dress fancy (which she really likes), a staycation and a holiday to Gold Coast, of course with others so that we don’t stumble one another. Yet, life messed up last year and the latter two desires were fulfilled by other people close in my life. The prom night dream though seems totally off.

And then our communication improved drastically. And I started having desires again. Only that by now I am convicted that my sole purpose to pray for this friendship to be fully restored is not because I can gain anything out of it, but because I’m called to be a blessing to her. This means doing things not out of my desire, but for her desires.

I started imagining having our long-delayed pseudo-Prom Night if we ever grow that close again. And then this got me thinking: why? And upon serious contemplation, I concluded that the only reason I wanted it is because I get the chance to look good and take photos with her who looks good in fancy outfit.

In other words, I almost fell for the same trap that led to our huge falling-out last year: thinking of myself before her.

Thus I asked God to take this desire for fancy photo-taking with a gorgeous lass and do as He please. Either I get this opportunity with my then-close friend or someone else or not at all, I’m giving this desire to God. It’s His problem now; I do not worry!

And honestly, my life will still be awesome even if I don’t see this desire fulfilled, because of the fresh purpose God has given me at the start of the year.

—Joel Kindiak, 21 May 18, 2009H