Posts by Abigail Soon

This past week, I tuned in to this global church conference livestream, and one of the things that stood out was this short video that was played near the end. It’s a song written by the Indonesian attendees for the Japanese church. One of their lyrics was “We kept the shape but lost the heart.” I think it resonated with me because sometimes we try to “keep the shape” in the sense of conforming to norms of society or what…

I’ve been catching up on our Family Weekend recordings, and one of the main things that stood out for me from Stephen Hawkins’ sessions was when he spoke on the walls that we put up around our hearts. He said that out of our hurt, we put up a wall around our hearts because we don’t want to get hurt again, and when we do, we “lock out” the Holy Spirit from ministering to us. This also hinders our faith…

One of the quotes I’ve heard a lot around LifeSpring is “The longest foot is the distance it takes from something to get from your head to your heart [paraphrased].” Lately, I’ve found that to be true as I’ve been experiencing a lot of what I intellectually know, but haven’t internalized. Let’s take a common phrase: “the Grace of God” – which can be translated to “God’s gift and favor to us that we didn’t and couldn’t earn.” It has…

While we were at last weekend’s Wildfire Retreat, we learned about Father’s Heart as told in the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32 (you can see Andrew’s recap of it here). I really liked that even though I was a leader, I still learnt a lot from the sessions and youth. My big learning moment was when we focused on the older and younger brother. When the younger son returned home after spending all of his share of…

A few weeks ago, I was struggling to put together a songlist for a worship event I was doing. For those who don’t know, the songlist is the song and order of songs for a worship set. I was having a pretty bad week and was not feeling like I wanted to worship at all, which wasn’t helping with creating the songlist. At around the one-hour mark of wrangling (or strangling) my songlist, I felt the Lord say “[Bring a]…

Trivia Question: What do the movies K-Pop Demon Hunters and Thunderbolts* have in common? Answer: They’re both centered around the concept of shame. (I was also late to the trend and watched both of those movies for the first time last month.) In the movie Thunderbolts*, two of the characters, Yelena and Bob, end up in another dimension comprised out of “rooms” of their most shameful memories. With the help of their teammates, they were able to face their demons…

I’ve been thinking of Hagar lately. For those who don’t know, Hagar was Abraham’s wife Sarah’s slave, with whom Abraham had a son named Ishmael. Hagar and Sarah had a contentious relationship because of that, which led a pregnant Hagar to run away from Sarah. Then, the angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert, and the angel told Hagar to go back to Sarah and submit to her. The angel also declared that they would…

Lately, I’ve been listening to a song called “Every Morning” by the band Lost & Found. It’s about how God’s mercies are new every morning, and the chorus is based off Lamentations 3:22 – 23: “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. 23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.” This is a very well known verse in the church that inspired numerous hymns and worship music. However, the context of this…

“Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” 29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw…

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” – John 20:29 NIV This is one of the famous “doubt verses” that we often throw at our questions. Some might even take this as a rebuke from Jesus towards Thomas for doubting. However, when we look at the passage as a whole, we can see that this not the case.  “Now Thomas (also known as Didymus),…

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. – Corinthians 13:11-12 (ESV) We often think of doubt as the enemy of faith. After all, we’re called to believe in…

I was recently updating my resume and was struck by now much I’ve changed and grown in the last few years. My resume was a snapshot and a great reminder of where I was 3-4 years ago while in the process of graduating highschool and being very uncertain about my direction in life. There are days where I don’t feel like I’m growing at all, and sometimes it helps me to take a look back in hindsight to remember how…