Testimony 1

This retreat allowed me to slow down to experience God in ways which I have not even thought of. In (Luke 24: 13-35), Cleophas and the other man could not recognise Jesus all the way until when He took bread, blessed it and gave it to them. This passage certainly is a mirror reflection of my daily life. My eyes are always held, my mind is always fixed on anything but the presence of Jesus. Often, I only recognise Jesus when He answers my prayers explicitly. I am constantly waiting for a sign when Jesus has always been all along with me. Let me share a few of my definitive moments with God in the retreat.

During morning prayer, when we were asked to find an item that could relate to us, I became disinterested as I had done this a lot of times in retreats during my younger days. However, in the next moment, I was prompted with the word tree, and I was standing next to a coconut tree (nothing special about this because we were on a beach with trees everywhere). Sure, it was the tree of life, what about it? I realised I was representing Jesus on earth and that I was a tree of life. As I looked closer at the tree, I saw ants crawling, and I sensed that the ants were like sins creeping on me, I felt a little uncomfortable. A second thought came the ants may not be necessarily symbolising sins, they were also an indication of lives. A question popped in: am I a tree of life that has sins crawling all over me or am I a tree of life that is a shelter for the living?

I treated myself to a ocean view spa package and for the first thirty minutes they put me in a hydrotherapy bath, just an enticing name for foam bath. At first I enjoyed, I guessed I did not play with foam for a long time. But as it kept coming and multiplying , I grew into frustration as the froth obstructed my sea view, so I sought to sweep it aside with my hands but my view of the sea remained temporary. I brushed it off again and again until it turned into metaphoric sweeps of my sins. No matter how hard I tried to sweep away my sins with my strength, they will never go away, perhaps for a short while. To stop generating the foam, I had to find the switch and off it. Jesus is the switch of my life. I have to search for Him and give Him a press and the scattered pieces of jig saw puzzle will fall nicely into the picture of my life.

Next came the massage. The masseuse was good, her strength was just nice for a massage; not too hard and not too soft. Five minutes into the massage, I experienced pain and relief of muscles. This is similar to the concept of life: there is sorrow and happiness. Jesus is the masseur, when I call upon His name, he gives me a massage which will cause me strain and ease me at the same time. At the end of a spiritual massage by Jesus, my soul is enlightened to realise why I have to go through certain pains in life. It is like at the end of a physical massage, muscles are all relaxed and revel in comfort.

The moment for Kelong fishing finally showed up, the weather was perfect with a blistering sun. We managed to reach the Kelong with a ten minute boat ride. We were excited and chatting away as we gathered at the same spot to fish. Suddenly I could sense that God was going to talk, and I kept still to listen, at this point of time Felicia, Dom and Joe remained silent as well. I wondered if God was speaking to them too. In this calmness, I visualised the sea as a spiritual world and that with proper equipment I could stay but not live in it. Gifts of tongue, knowledge and healing were just like diving equipment, which helped to stay in the water. I needed to become a fish to live in water. What does it take to become a fish? I was playing with the fishing rod and I lingered it in the water from one point to another. It took about ten seconds and it did not take too much effort. Next, I tried moving the rod again from one point to another with all my energy, it also took about ten seconds because of the natural resistance in the water. In the spiritual world, I have to feel and move towards God and He will guide me towards Him with His current. If I try too hard to move myself towards God in a hurry, I will face resistance, probably from myself and it takes much more efforts to reach God.