The Voice Inside My Head

Yes you know it, that voice reminding you about the one flaw, one mistake and one thing you've been running from all the while. A week ago, that voice came alive, spawning into form right before my very eyes and I really thank God for making this happen because I'm rid of that nightmare now, and this illustration being extremely appropriate since it does feel really surreal even as I look back at it.

David Pierce set the wheels in me into motion with that madly emphatic sermon on how he leads a lifestyle surrounded by sin yet is kept safe in God's arms and the way he processes his thoughts when making decisions.

I've always stood up for rights, how we should have the rights to know certain things, rights of choices in situations, the freedom of expression, the freedom to use our lives however we deem fit, and among that, subconsciously deciding that I should follow the parts of God's word that I like and avoiding the parts which I didn't like too much. I was always confident about my ability to tell right from wrong, thinking about the grey areas of life and reasoning them out myself and hence forming principles one after another.

Now I've learnt that rights are a luxury and freedom at it's best as man sees it, is an extravagant form of selfish madness. Absolute freedom is empty, it is a life of options. It's empty because then we are forever insatiable, meaning there are always going to be that many goals and ambitions and purposes in life and with absolute freedom to pursue everything, we would end up with only an insignificant portion of everything. In fact total surrender and submission to God is, was and always will be most fulfilling. And contrary to what most people might think, what God made you to be is actually a far more conceivable notion than the infinite number of goals possibly achievable in our life on earth.

Through much drama and craziness before and after the church camp, I've experienced myself how satisfying it feels to do right by God. How wonderful it feels to be nice and good altogether. How wonderful it feels to shut that voice up, the one that takes the form of our conscience everytime we cling on to our rights and freedom with dear life and let that individualistic margin dictate our every move.

And even as I write this I know that people will read and people will be skeptical or even think this is hilarious bullshit, but I've been running from even blogging about this for a while, and if I am even afraid to blog about what God has taught me and the kind of person I long to become, how am I possibly to ever live it out? As the song goes

Empty hands held high
Such small sacrifice
If not joined with my life
I sing in vain tonight

I know the holidays will end, I will be back to school once again and far from the church. I know I will be tested time and again and I will fail time and again. But I'm glad I've been shown the right direction already and I know it would be up to me to walk along the arrows. Cornelius said something which really struck me during the camp, something about not being afraid to proclaim our beliefs just because we do not live perfectly by them. Of course there's a fine line between taking the right amount of comfort in that and taking God's grace for granted, so I guess I just have to be really careful there.

Submission is the key to true freedom which means to not be bound by the options and choices of worldly freedom. That is what is meant by freedom in christ. The beauty of the paradox.