Currently listening: City Harvest - Sanctuary
I shared a testimony during prayer meeting on how God did a wonderful work in the life of me and my sheep, D*. Unlike me last year, whom had over a month to bum around and worry about my future, D did not have such a luxury of time, instead being informed that he will have to attend an induction camp immediately after Christmas, which will determine his hospital placement.
That late Tuesday night after leadership meeting, D rang me up to inform that he got his 3rd choice (Hospital Kuching - ie his hometown), although he put HSAJB and Hospital Sultan Ismail as his top 2 options. I asked him what does he think, and he did share his belief that in such a brief period here in JB, God is not done with him yet, and he desired to see a greater things coming to past in the LG. Hence me and my shepherd encouraged him to submit an appeal for his hospital placement.
At the same time deep inside my heart, there was a feeling of anguish. Putting East Malaysia as one of the option apparently increases one's chances of being sent there, due to a critical shortage of doctors. I was blaming myself a bit for not taking this into consideration, otherwise we might have probably advised him to consider elsewhere. I asked God, "If we lose this key member, does it mean we have to start from scratch as far as Monash Lifegroup is concerned?"
Nevertheless, it encouraged me to see how as he took the step to appeal, instead of re-listing the same options, he struck Kuching off the list (only putting down his 1st 2 options in JB). His mentioned reason? 'Commitment to local church' (same as what I put last year). In the next few days, our unit spent some time to fast and pray for this cause. During this time, Ethan (my shepherd and unit leader) encouraged me that as long as we have done the right thing in terms of what is humanly possible, if he still gets posted to his initial option, then perhaps it is God's wonderful plan for him to be there. It is not the outcome that matters, it is the process - because God looks at our heart. Perhaps God is testing us to see if we are serious in what we do.
On the last day of induction when the appeal results were supposed to be announced, a group of us were having our year-end retreat in East Johor. As of lunchtime, we still have yet to receive any news from D, and I was starting to become nervous. As we ended the retreat with a time of praise and worship, we sang the song 'Sanctuary', and as we were worshipping God, a message came from D, "Hi all, got the appeal results today. Thank you for mobilising the entire unit to prayer, because I'm allocated to HSAJB. God is faithful!" Words could not describe the sense of joy upon hearing that news.
Throughout this process, we learnt a valuable lesson - of how as we choose to honour God in our decisions, He will honour us. Nothing is impossible with God, His timing is just perfect.
