"God of Relationships" - Set Free Seminar

Dearest BASIC,

As you all know, I went for a weekend retreat @ Malacca by Fritz and Diana (Couple Missionary) from ICPE - India. It was known as the "Set Free" Seminar where it touches a lot on psycho-spirituality and human sexuality. How psychospirituality can really affect our relationship with God and the people around us ... One of the important lessons i learnt over e weekend is that psycho-spirituality is about this .. that we uses psychology to understand ourselves and also the relationships that we encounter in our daily lives. HOwever, we can't just simply depend on psychology as it will just stop at understanding but forgetting the importance of the Divinity of God .. hence, psycho-spirituality is also about allowing the Holy Spirit to heal that area of our relationship so that we could move on to be a much more wholesome person ... to be set free from our bondages that we are not even aware of. So the goal of healing is about allowing God to make us to be whole once again ...

In any case, I would say it is quite a handful for me .. there were so much thoughts in my mind that i did not really had the opportunity to jot down and to internalized my thoughts until last evening when i was with the Men-to-Men Fellowship session at Coffee Bean (S'goon Gardens)... there are 13 of us there. It was when i started internalizing and sharing that i got the whole big picture of what is God telling during the weekend. And again, He is challenging some more now ... after so much of Divine Experiences on His Divine Providence.

Well, before I began, perhaps, I would like to give a summary of what we actually went through over the past three days. One of the topics we dealt with was on Erik Erikson's personality theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Erikson). Diana was the one who presented the topic and she gave quite a number of examples. It was when she spoke about young adults on (Intimacy vs. Isolation) and then she go on sharing about one particular example on promises. During that period, I felt the Holy Spirit was really speaking to me - this is really the time when God intervene into my life. I broke down when Diana mentioned about promises and waiting and it was exactly when i remembered the time when I was really young i kept pestering and asking my father when he will be coming back. I was waiting and waiting but to no avail. He promise that he will come back but he did not. I remembered how I have this deep belief that the family that prays together stays together so I was actually literally waiting for him to come back so that we could really pray together as a family that was what i really wanted at that point in time.

And then, the Lord shared with me more stuff over the next two days where it was really written in the Scriptures that those who says that He love the Lord but does not love his neighbour is a liar. It really hit me as well. I really that i could really relate to God of Providence so much especially after so many experiences i had with the Lord in the area of providence. It then dawned upon me that i could trust in His Divine Providence but could not trust Him in terms of relationships. For those who have been journeying with the Community long enough would probably agree with me that most of my mistakes that i have made in the past are all related to relationships. I realised that i had this tendency to cling on to people very easily as what Diana/Fritz would put it ... co-dependent relationships. That is not a healty relationship .. and all these are due to my deep insecurity in me hence, causing so much of mistakes especially in the area of ministry. I have fallen so many times because i was not able to trust in the God of Relationships. And this also applies to my struggle with the people within my family and even Janice. I could not trust Him enough that the time will come when He will provide me with the right person in my life. With regards to the Divine PRovidence, well i guess I was able to trust Him in the area of providence simply because I was provided much when i was very young before my parents were divorce especially since i was the only child. Whatever i asked for, I was practically given but of course, they know their limits and they would provide me what is really important for me.

I felt the Lord is really challenging to accept what has happened in the past of my father not promising what he promised and to move on. But i do admit that i have move on in the area of my anger towards my father in a lot of ways but there are still some areas that God is going to move me more and more. But i guess another message that the Lord was telling me was my relationship with my mother. What i felt was that i was able to relate to God the Father so much that i have neglected my relationship with my mother and the people around me such that i have isolated myself . In fact, I was pretty aware of how much i have isolated myself from the rest of the people through using the laptop or the computer in my office to shut myself off from the people. This isolation i felt was so much to do with the many hurts i have been through due to the mistakes that i made as i cross many boundaries of others and not learning to balance to take a step back when it's necessary. I was fearful to create a healthy relationship with others hence this isolation has been so evidental lately within my family and hence, the Lord is really challenging me to come out of my comfort zone which is really a big struggle for me.

But i believe that i first need to accept myself more and more and also to accept that situation that happened many years back when my father did not act on his promises which affected my situation now.

So i pray that God will heal me more and more and to set me free from the bondage of being isolated from the people around me.

Thanks.

With Love,
Your brother in Christ,
Colin Sng