My Church, My Lifeline

I feel every fiber of my being tested to the max - physically, that is. My weary but restless body is crying out for some relief. I tried moving my limbs and stretching a little - still no relief. I could well have unconsciously let out a moan sometime in between. Is it a sign or ageing? I don't remember my body feeling as tired as I am today. I glanced at my watch. 4:30pm and the pervious service in still not over. Pastor is 15mins overshot and I've been standing on the same spot for almost an hour. If it's not gonna move soon, it would have claimed its first victim. I can imagine the headlines tomorrow - Girl Collapse While Queuing For Church Service. I tried to suppress a giggle. Who has ever heard of queues at church? Churches are half filled most of the time, people think. Yeah....but New Creation at Suntec City is different. We issue seat tickets one service in advance for early birds while the rest of us start forming a queue as early as 1.5 hours before service starts. In the old days, without the ticket system, I heard rumors of a handful of us who would start the queue as early as 3-4 hours in advance! Then there are those who brought their own foldable chair to wait it out. One might think they might as well camp there. Every Sunday the queue draws curious stares from shoppers around the vacinity. They are even more bewildered when they found out what we were queuing for. They probably think we're a bunch of fanatics.

Missing church for whatever reasons other than those not within my control is not an option for me. I can work my other activities around church but never the other way round. I suspect some of my friends think I'm too rigid, not being able to sacrifice church once in a while - though they kept it to themselves. While some others probably think all the singing and listening to the preaching of ancient text is a complete waste of time. What they do not know however is that my church is my lifeline. I don’t know if every Christian feels the same but it is so to me. I need it to make it through each week. To ask me to skip church is the equivalent of sending me on a marathon without food or water, or running my car on an empty tank. Corporate worship is to me what God’s manna was to the Israelites. It is God’s provision for my sustenance. In some miraculous ways, the shackles of burden break and drop to the ground each time we come together in worship and hearing of the Word. I can count with one hand, the number of times I did not emerge out of a service lighter and livelier. I suspect the very act of focusing our heart and mind on God instead of ourselves is already a sort of cleansing in itself. What more with the feeding of God’s love and wisdom. How much you feed on every Sunday will determine how far you can last through the week. But no matter how filled you are, you’ll never get pass the 6 day mark, which is why I think God ordained the sabbath rest for us once a week.

So there you have it. It is not because I am super spiritual that I must go to church every Sunday. It is simply for the selfish reason that I NEED TO BE FED.

4:45pm. We are finally moving! Pastor dear, you're half an hour late.


rk