Jesus frees leader to experience joy in her ministry assignments

O was silently struggling with doubt and fears as her ministry grew, until she sat down for an inner healing and deliverance session where the Holy Spirit brought truth and ministered to her inner child. Then she experienced liberation and freedom. Praise God!

(简体中文 > 耶稣使领袖在她的事奉任务中体验到喜乐 | 繁體中文 > 耶穌使領袖在她的事奉任務中體驗到喜樂)

I have been heading up a small ministry since 2018.

For almost seven years, the Lord has led me to serve different Christians NGOs and churches on a project basis through this ministry. The roles I took up have all been consultative or advisory in nature. I enjoyed this work because I bear no real decision-making responsibilities within any of these established NGOs or churches and I am held accountable mostly only to a few top leaders, rather than to a myriad of stakeholders. A simple line of reporting without much complications. 

Towards the start of the eighth year, I sensed a shift in the Spirit, and I knew in my heart that the Lord is about to place greater responsibilities upon my shoulders. I could no longer “just” be doing work quietly as an advisor anymore. With more responsibilities, I know I will face more potential scrutiny, with more people coming to me with various “demands”. Inwardly, I could feel all kinds of known and unknown “fears” start to build up inside me. 

I was recoiling from whatever opportunities that might lie ahead of me. 

Indeed, as 2025 drew to a close, the ministry workload increased, and the project I had been working on gained more attention, which added significant stress in me. Many past memories crowded my mind and my emotional space: memories of people’s complaints, memories of needing to deal with irresponsible and unempathetic leaders, memories of tremendous tension in working with people who were antagonistic towards me, memories of needing to find ways to “make bricks without straws” so as to “ensure the ‘show’ goes on”, memories of being forced to justify how money was to be spent in this and that minor item. 

Fears welled up in my heart and mind. I simply could not shake them off. I became fearful of all sorts of “world’s requirements” that I may need to be obliged to fulfill again. I knew I needed help – the kind of help that can only come from the Holy Spirit, who is able to cleanse me and refresh my spirit, to transform me into a new creation and relieve me of burdens of times past. 

I prayed hard, put my head down and kept working, but I was not in a good state 

Soon after, I caught the flu, which put me deeper into the emotional and spiritual rut. 

I waited for the Lord’s help to come, and He indeed never leaves us nor forsakes us! The Lord moved my church deacon to pray for me, and he was led to introduce me to deliverance ministry. I was deeply thankful that “a game plan” emerged to address my spiritual challenges. Amazingly, the deliverance session was scheduled on Easter Sunday – Resurrection day. I was really looking forward to getting “resurrected”!! 

In the days leading up to the scheduled deliverance session, I decided I would set aside time to prepare my heart and seek the Lord. I wrote down the list of fears I had been experiencing as best I could, and tried to articulate what was “blocking” me. 

At this time, a voice arose in my heart, saying that I had been through these deliverance sessions 10+ years ago, it was great and I knew what it was all about, I could self-deliver, the deliverance minister probably could not help me too much anyway. I became aware that all these thoughts seemed to be undermining the deliverance work. 

So I prayed a prayer to confess my willfulness and how I presumed on the Lord’s work in me, and said words of repentance. 

Thankfully, I felt my heart humbled after the prayer and I finally felt ready for the deliverance session. 

The deliverance session ultimately took around six hours, which was a real surprise for me. Based on my previous experience, a deliverance session would last no more than one hour. During those six hours, I was affirmed by the Lord that the ministry I am engaged in is pleasing to Him, which is a great encouragement to me. I also came to an understanding of the different causes of “fears” in my mind and soul, and how deliverance actually works. 

First, we dealt with ancestral and cultural idols. One main deliverance was to set me free from covenants that my family across the generations had/have unwittingly formed with ancestral and cultural idols, when they burned incense and bowed down to idols during family rituals. 

I was led to confess the idolatrous sins of the family through the generations and renounce them. 

The deliverance minister helped me to understand that the voices of accusations, the seeming “demands” from the world that had been on my mind and were weighing me down, were linked to these covenants with idols. These generational covenants had shackled me and I often felt that I would fall short of meeting the requirements of the world, which became fears that I carried in my heart. These idols confused me and my commitments to the Lord vs. to the world.  

The Asian cultural values of loyalty, faithfulness, piety, honour, righteousness are all seen as good and should be upheld to the best of our abilities. Yet, although these words sound good to our ears, no one actually has real agreement on how exactly these qualities should be properly lived out. 

Therefore, each family, ministry, community formulates their own standards and requires their members to firmly abide by them. 

Just like many fellow Asian sons and daughters, I too, have been subjected to these rules and requirements since a young age, not knowing of their detrimental aspects, aside from all their benefits. To uphold these values, rules and requirements, everyone is made to conform without kind considerations of context, needs, and exceptional issues of each member. These rules would be upheld blindly in inconsiderate ways, which can so easily kill off love, kindness, consideration and compassion.  

Oftentimes, these rules are meant to build up our moral character, our commitment to our family and community. But somehow, along the way of upholding what is good, we made these rules and requirements into an absolute and supreme goal to be met. In other words, we turn these values and rules into idols, something we can become proud of, which we can wear on our sleeves like a badge of honour. As we fall into this mode of living, we listen less to the needs of the weaker members of the family and puff up our own glory – based on the honourable ways of our moral practices. 

We become less and less loving and patient, and more and more committed to upholding our collective honour.  

I believe this is the silent pain that many of us have lived through in our early years. Growing up, I was very mindful of the importance of upholding the honour of my family and other people around me. This weighed heavily on me. As one can easily imagine, I became consumed with pleasing everyone, doing what is right in everyone’s sight, whether it is my family’s or my teachers’. 

By the grace of the Lord, the Lord humbled me and made it clear to me early on that I was simply not able to bear this way of living emotionally nor mentally. He opened a different path for me, a path of many personal failures, which showed me who I am, and that “life” is not as I had understood it. 

And the Lord taught me to seek truth, the truth of the Lord, and not of the world. 

I am blessed that the Lord has granted me many years to work separated, set apart from the cultural norm, and allowed me time to develop Christ’s way of living and working. But it is clear that I now have to re-enter the world that operates with the culture of honour and traditional values. I feared whether I could get sucked into the tides of the times again. I feared that if I allowed myself to “swim” in the cultural norms again, I would lose my freedom, because I thought I would have to be obliged to meet the world’s requirements. Indeed, would my loyalty be divided if I were to operate under the authority of the world again, especially given that my family’s covenants to these idols are still in “live” mode? 

Psalm 86:11 (NIV) says “Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.”

If I choose to follow the Lord, I must deny myself, pick up the cross and follow Him (Mark 8:34). Also, in Luke 14:26, it says “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” I always thought that it is unfortunate that the English word used here is “hate”. To me, this verse means that I cannot continue to uphold or honour the same values that those closest to me held supreme. I can only uphold Christ’s ways, not my own and not any one else’s. 

There’s no grey area. I cannot uphold Christ’s ways, and my family’s ways at the same time – I would be divided in my loyalty. 

This does not mean I love my family less, I still honor and respect them as best I can, but it does mean I cannot conform to their ways (Romans 12:2), and I must intentionally choose not to make the ‘badge of honour’ to be of the utmost significance in my life.

I am thankful that through this deliverance session, I have formally renounced all the cultural idols that may have been tied to our family for generations, and broke ties with them. With my loyalty no longer divided, I do notice indeed that there are fewer “voices” calling threats in my head, and much less “fears” welling up in my heart. I am rested in Him. 

I am able to hear the Lord, His quiet still voice better than ever before.  

I can imagine all that I have said above may offend my family. But being unshackled from the idols and the corrupted covenants now means that I am more free to love and care for my family, and to carry on with the ministry of the Lord, relying on the Lord’s faithfulness, trusting Him to guide me forward and not be dependent on my own strength, experience, and wisdom.    

Psalm 28:7 “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.”

As I was sharing about why I feared taking on greater responsibilities and authority, I was led to share about a particular childhood memory when I was in primary school. 

The teacher was teaching us English vocabulary, and each student was given a card which we had to read out, such as “I am a policemen, I am a fireman”. But my card said “servant”. As I read out loud “I am a servant”, I felt something strike my heart, and a deep shame came upon me. Then I started weeping unstoppably. I could not understand why I lost control like that. But this memory began to influence my sense of identity, and especially after I decided to follow Christ, I thought that washing people’s feet is a humble service, so being a servant is not shameful. So I gladly took on the Christ-like “servant” role. However, the Holy Spirit revealed through the deliverance minister that ‘servants’ have no given authority, and they do not have any decision-making power. 

But in my current leadership role, making decisions is a daily occurrence, and is at odds with the ‘servant’ identity. 

If the Lord has given me the authority to lead, it would be remiss of me to ignore this anointing and remain locked in my narrow definition of a ‘servant’ of this world. This “truth” set me free from the inner conflict that I experienced, and cast out the doubts that I had, in terms of whether I rightly deserved to be in a position of authority. 

The Holy Spirit also reminded me about two important truths:

1. Never make ministry about yourself or how I look; I am to die to that part of myself that felt obligated to justify my existence
2. And I am to stop making it about what I cannot do, but what Christ can do; I am limited, but when I depend on the Lord, I am unlimited [Psalm 28:7]

I can be a child-like boss, gentle in nature and loving at heart. The world worships leaders who appear strong, confident, decisive and unyielding, able to be ruthless at times. 

For a time, in a secular setting, I was told I am too nice to be a good leader. 

Frustratedly, I tried to be a strong leader in the way of the world, rationalising that if I am destined to be a leader, then I better learn to develop strong “leadership skills” and leadership attitudes. Now, I can resolutely refuse to be that kind of a leader. I can wholeheartedly pursue the Lord’s way of leading. Being the gentle and wise leader He trains me up to be. 

James 3:17-18 “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.”

To be a good leader in the world entails us to be diligent in getting the work done and being an exemplary model to others. 

Hardwork is a definite requirement in the Asian context. And we all have to persevere through the difficulty we encounter and “get things done”.  

Since serving in ministry, I have enjoyed much delight in working with talented teams in the field and I delighted in many opportunities to co-create projects, problem-solve organisational issues, and bring about good transformations to different working teams at large. 

However, there would always be those hours when I worked alone on specific tasks and assignments, and I would crunch down and shut down my heart and work with singular focus. I didn’t realise though that as I asserted my “will” and forced my mind to focus on various tasks at hand, I cut off all sources of joy. I worked like a soul-less being, submitting to the “reality” that “this is the way it is” and “what needs to get done, needs to get done.”  

The Holy Spirit explained to me – I have effectively shut out the Holy Spirit when I worked like that. 

This was the “Aha!” moment for me, when I finally came to understand why I would feel so dry after working in that mode, and I would resort to watching videos on YouTube as a way to find comfort.  My heart was not being treated well. “Escaping to YouTube” was a coping mechanism and bad habit that I took up years ago, which I had not really been able to completely break off. After this realisation, and after repenting from trusting in my will/efforts and mistreating my heart, I resolved to trust in the Lord and to seek His help and His comfort promptly and regularly.

As a result, I have found a new quietness and contentment in being with the Lord. It was awkward at first to always need to remind myself to call out to the Holy Spirit before I start typing something on the laptop. But I am learning to smile more, giggle more, and gaze out to the distance more to look to the Lord, the Holy Spirit’s presence, remembering that I am not alone, the Lord is with me, in every word that I am typing, and every thought that runs through my mind. 

How blessed we are, we are His. I am comforted and I am not alone.