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Ps 91:1 Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.[a] 2 I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” I didn't come to Christ in a moment of intellectual reflection of the love of God for humanity in Jesus Christ. I came because I challenged God demanding as a young child that He showed Himself real for I sought a relationship with the I AM not just a hope or an idea or one of the many gods. And Jesus showed up when I was taking a bath, shutting down the lights and His presence drove me to my knees in the midst of the hot water raining down. The glory of the Lord was so heavy that I could not stand up. I had asked God for forgiveness for I challenged Him and doubted His existence in a world so full of pain and suffering and then He appeared. I became filled with the Spirit of God and had my own Pentecost. I became a Pentecostal Christian. Who am I to raise my hand up to the heavens to ask God to show Himself real, yet God answered the promise and hope of that little child who sought His friendship. I never forgotten that day and soon learnt many of the hymns of which "Jesus loves me this I know" became my favorite and I looked forward to every Friday night in the radio broadcast of the Old Time religion. I begin to read the bible and to have a large collection of Christian books. Later I attended church not once but twice on a Sunday. I wanted to know so much of God and His glory. It became a love relationship with Jesus. At university I had great friends who tolerated me as I quized them from the bible their liberal, catholic, and evangelical faith traditions. I was from the Anglican High church tradition. But the deeper journey to know God took me beyond, first to visit the Catholics, then the Evangelicals and finally to the Pentecostals. In my intellectual mind, there were just too many inconsistencies in many of the Christian faith traditions but I don't have many answers to the faith questions either. But one thing I did enjoy was to dwell in the presence of God. Ps91: 14 “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. 15 He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. 16 With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation.” I read the entire bible over and over again and bought expensive concordances and bible commentaries but often it just didn't fully explain the bible. The bible scholars with their seminary degrees didn't make any greater sense either. For I guess we know in part until we see God. Twenty years ago, in a prophecy given to me in private and later in public that I would go through the valley of the shadow of death but God will lift me up. I cried for I know that it would be a time where the closeness and fellowship with God in the quietness of life will be no more in the midst of the fiery darts of the enemy and struggles of life. I had contented to live a simple life in a monastic existence of prayer and bible reading, but God had to pull me out of the closet to face the world and to face myself. In order to know God more and be in deeper fellowship and relationship, God sent me to my own desert of life where I had lost all. There was something deep inside me that was hindering my personality, my studies, my relationships. My whole sub-conscious existence was based on hiding. Surely even my parents would have known I was gay for they sent me to martial arts classes because I was too soft. I became hardened even to real myself. I have been walking in the desert of faith for the last 20 years. I started when I begin to reliase that I had a strong attraction to guys and had to leave my girlfriend to go far away to another country. I had to restart again. I sought to the answers of faith in the midst of pain, rejection, and loneliness. I knew the love of God and that God had accepted me but I couldn't accept myself. It was one night more than 15 years ago, whilst reading Isaiah, I heard God say so clearly that I was a Eunuch. I was confused, for I was not a transgender. Then the verse in Matthew came forth, for I was a natural Eunuch, born as such from the mothers womb without a liking for gals. Jesus talked about the men who got married because they were attracted to the gals and later got divorse when a better attraction came. One cannot be exempted of this heterosexual tendency unless of course, one is gay. I cried the whole night and later left the mega church I was in, in Payar Lebar, to be alone with God. It was a journey in the desert with very little water, with little communion with God but more of an inward search and journey to know oneself. It is learning to love myself for I have such inward sub-conscious hate and rejection of myself. I had loved God but to truly grow and love God more, I had first had to learn to love myself. God sent me through a journey of faith and inward discovery and acceptance. The journey to City Harvest thought me about Faith, Lighthouse Evangelism thought me about Hope, New Creation showed me grace, and GLBT churches thought me about loving myself of accepting the divine within. The dangers of looking within is that one becomes delusional and live in a dream like world where we and our intellect are the center of humanity and the existence of God. God becomes generalised as love. Alternatively, we are zealously seeking God and proclaiming His deity but often we worship ourselves and our self righteousness when we become more holy in seeking God. The middle road is the road least traveled for your heart must be big enough for all. Churches are either very liberal or conservative. We either worship our own humanity, our own religiousity, or the church hierachal. My faith goes back 30 years ago, when as a young kid the Holy Spirit fell on me. The Pentecostals are supposed to be the least absolute in their theology because they are guided by the Holy Spirit of God. Other than Jesus being the way, the truth and the life for which our very communion with God makes this real and tangible, we walk and move as the Holy Spirit of God leads like the wind which moves without being dictated by absolute norms. We becomes Jesus' hand, feet and mouth continuing the ministry of Christ, and proclaiming God's love and salvation and abstaining from causing harm under all circumstances. Ps 27: 4 One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple. I return back to that place of communion in Ps 27:4, more than 20 years ago when the one thing I asked of God was that I might dwell in the House of God, in that special place of communion and annointing. That was my heart's cry for I loved Jesus. And it took me to find myself, and to accept my sexual orientation in a journey of faith far away from the safety of the House of God to the back streets of life and the community. It was in the dark night, the dimmed places, and the thirsty emptiness of the desert life, that we walk only in the abundant revelation of God's grace, love and mercy. When we have nothing, when there is darkness, then we can see the burning bush of God. I have come back to the full circle of life, having died many times. I have got nothing much but that simple love for Jesus remains with me. He sent me to the desert and the valleys of the shadow of death for He loved me. He was with me and I now return to Him, to that place of communion and fellowship with God. The Holy Spirit never left me. But I had to walk the journey myself. Today, I am coming back to that place of communion, with a bigger heart, more whole in accepting myself and others, to love God and be in fellowship with the Holy Spirit. I go back to the place where I received Christ 30 years ago, when God already knew that I was gay, and when the Holy Spirit of God fell upon me, I became a Gay Pentecostal Christian. God saw me from far away of, even when I didn't know myself. He saw me and accepted me as a gay person even though I hadn't learn then to accept myself. It is now time to live and come out of the desert, and be fellowship with Jesus.
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