Read it all the days of your life.

"It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left." Deu 17: 19-20

I've now had my 2nd week of classes. This quarter I'm taking 3 classes, I wanna attempt 4 for some quarters. Fuller has been simultaneously everything I expected and not. Which is great, I'm loving the challenge. As an international student, I can definitely feel the difference with which people respond to me once they know I'm from Malaysia. Very interesting...

On occasion people I meet on campus ask me, "What do you want here? What's your prayer?"

The only reply that I stick to when asked, the only prayer need I share most often, is that my time of studying here will not cause me to be puffed up in knowledge but void of life transformation. In essence, what I'm really desiring is a heart that reveres God more. To study the Scriptures (both in and outside of class) in such a way as to grow in reverence for my God.

(If the question was, "what brought you here, halfway across the globe?" I'd give a different answer altogether. Maybe that would be another post.)

One of my professors asked in class, "Have you been reading your Bible lately? What has God been speaking to you about?" Isn't it great that this Q is asked in seminary? Hilarious yet necessary. In reflection these couple of weeks, the verses God has used to shape my life over the past 10 years have been making a comeback in my thoughts and finding their way to my heart. You know how, like a Heroes rerun, you see some connections you never did previously? I love how God draws a person to Himself, directs him/her to grow in that relationship, and develops the character in Christ toward divine calling as part of His universal plan - so BIG yet personal. I can recall the first time the Word of God interacted with me, when His Word was more real than it ever had been before that day.

"Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." " Isa 30:20-21

That was one rhema I never forgot, and the 1st time I wept because I KNEW He was speaking to me. God does that. Getting a rhema word from Him like that can never be equated with any other string of letters, no matter how philosophically profound or intelligent or illuminating or inspiring. Inspired versus inspiring. Since then, there have been many other life verses. My own current definition of rhema = a timely word spoken out of the Divine's complete and perfect knowledge of you with exactness that both transcends yet speaks to your limitations and experiences.

So, I've been seeing some connections in this rerun that I never did.

When God gives you a word, cling on to it. Hold fast to His every syllable, but above all hold fast to Him. Over the course of your life, how He reveals His heart, His nature, His character to you...hold fast to that, never let go. You may look back 10 years (or less/more) from now, and marvel at His timeliness, His lovingkindness, His mind-blowing, heart-piercing, tongue-tying knowledge of who you are and JUST what you need to hear. Yet you can be assured that He will even go beyond that, and speak prophetic words that becomes your sustenance far into the future, words that decades later still find their way into your heart to further bring life transformation.

"It is the Lord your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him." Deu 13:4

No other book does that. 

No other GOD does that.