God’s will over mine, Trusting in the Lord

As believers, we always pray for God’s will over ours. We talk about surrendering our all to Him, trusting that He is our provider and will give us, His children, the best. But do we really mean what we say?


~ Obeying His Will (Work & Travel USA) ~

Recently I was presented with a great opportunity to work & travel in California, USA. I was so excited about being able to travel in the nearby cities such as San Francisco, San Jose, LA, and Disneyland! However, I decided to consult my spiritual mother, Camilla and my pastor, Pastor Josephine first before making the decision.

To my great disappointment, their answer was strictly ‘No’. I prayed about it, but I hear no answers. I guess my heart was not right in the first place when I went into prayer, as my own desires made me only want to hear God say “Yes”. That Sunday, Pastor Doug Lambert came to preach, and God gave me a word, “obedience”.

Yet my desire to go was so strong, I followed my own will and paid for the programme. On the first day of Sanctification Week, God spoke to me once again through Pastor Julie, when she shared the verse Hebrews 12:14 “without holiness, no one will see the Lord”, that if we really want to ask big, we first have to go deep, that we have to learn to “say No” to worldly desires. What is the point of singing on Sundays about how great and miraculous God is, when you don’t believe that He will indeed give you the best and change your lives [Titus 2:11-14]? Pastor Julie also shared that many of us cannot hear the voice of God because of fear, fear to hear the truth, because truth hurts.

After that first day of Sanctification Week, I told Cami, my spiritual mummy, that I have already paid for part of the programme. Saying that she was upset is an understatement. She fears for my safety if I were to go USA. She shared with me her own testimony about how she too, had struggles with surrendering to God’s will. The phrase that struck me the most was “she wants to trust God, as He knows and will give what is best for us, as long as we chose to follow His will.”

That night, I went home with a super heavy heart. With the words from God that I heard from my spiritual mother and also during Sanctification Week ringing in my ears, I had a decision to make. All along, I chose to go with my own will. And to disregard my spiritual mother’s and pastor’s advice, to me, was just between me and them. It never did occur to me that it was between me and God. By not listening to their advices, the disobedience was essentially towards God. I was not following His will and not trusting that He will give me better things than what I myself can “earn”.

At that point in time, it seems that all odds were against me giving up the trip. I had promised my friend that I would accompany her on this trip; I had told many friends that I will be going; last but not least, I had paid. But God spoke, and He made it clear by repeating, and thus I decided to obey, I cancelled the trip.

I told my spiritual mum the decision. She was very happy for me. After making the decision to obey God, He showed me more truths and revelations about my future dreams. Camilla also shared that by choosing to obey God, it is also a move towards being more holy and to draw closer to God. Basing this on the Johari Window model, being more holy means it will be easier to let his glory shine through me, that He will be able to use me more to reach out to others and do His good work!

Indeed, God is great, as He showed me the fruits of choosing to obey Him.


~ Trust in the LORD (My family) ~

After the third and final day of Sanctification Week, the key takeaway was to come before Him and read His words before meals [Job 23:12]. Therefore, I decided to implement this by starting to read the chapter on Proverbs. Adding on to this was my learning from SOL2 to pray for someone everyday using the “3X3 prayer”. I prayed for my family and some friends.

That Sunday after service, I took the train home. As the train was heading to Paya Lebar station, I saw a small billboard over a warehouse (?) which says “In God We Trust – Index Cool (name of the company lor…)”. That reminded me again to trust God! And as I started to read Proverbs, guess what? It is written in Proverbs 3:5-6 that “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” as well as in Proverbs 3:11-12 that “My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” God is speaking loud and clear to me that I made the right decision when I chose to trust Him.

I moved out years ago. I only go home once a week, every Sunday after church. Every time before I go home, I always had the mixed feelings of worry and hope. Worry about – will there be a quarrel at home today? Would I be able to respond Godly enough? Hope about – that it will turn out to be a nice and warm family gathering. Deep down, I know it’s actually my fear of returning home to see a broken family, because my family means so much to me, and also because of that, it sometimes causes the most hurt.

When I went home that Sunday, God showed me the fruit of obeying Him when I saw multiple breakthroughs on that Sunday night’s family gathering. It was the most peaceful one I ever had. For starters, it was one of the rare times where there were no quarrels! It was also the first time that everyone in the family actually came together to watch soccer. I even said grace aloud before dinner (my family are largely pre-believers)! Just a simple dinner, a simple get-together, but it meant so much to me. Thank you, God.


~ Thank God for spiritual family! (Interview) ~

Recently I received an interview offer with a company I prefer (possibly got it too because I chose to obey God by cancelling my USA trip), and my spiritual mum, sisters, brothers, aunties, uncles helped to pray for me before the interview. Hmm… it felt good! Because of God’s assurance, and the showing of His love through spiritual family!


~ Counter-Culture (A truly blessed Chinese New Year) ~

Despite great fear and uncertainty, I invited my mother to church on CNY Chu Yi and she agreed (though upon certain conditions). Not only was I glad she was with me in service (she was just cursing Jesus 5 years ago), I also treasured the rare chance that I get to spend time with her alone, and taking care of her needs. God also gave me a chance to accompany my friend to visit her mother, who was admitted to ICU just before CNY. Prayerfully, God will touch my friend and her family in this trying period and that He’ll use me to reach out to them.


~ Key Takeaway ~

Mean what we say and say what we mean!!! No point saying it over and over, without believing in it. What is faith without action? The words will just become some empty rhetoric repetitions until God opened our eyes to see what it really means. To end off, would like to share this phrase I got from Daily Bread, “When we open our heart to the Lord, He opens our eyes to the lost.”


Mary Yeo