Latest / Generations Church / Relationships Series 2024 - Part 2: Single Adults Session | Rev. Keith & Juli Tay

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Relationships Series 2024 - Part 2: Single Adults Session | Rev. Keith & Juli Tay · Generations Church

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Hey there, you're listening to the Generation's Church podcast. We pray that the
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word of God today will challenge change and channel you into your guard given destiny.
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Now let's get started. Let's let let's start with a simple activity.
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Okay, let's open our hands like that, put it in front of you.
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Is that okay? When I say three, you clap spit together?
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One, two, three, Let's do it. Okay, So let's let's
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see how many of you you notice that your right tom is on top of
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your left thumb, your right tom. How many of you left tom on
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top? You see? This is this is the simplest, simplest personality test
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that they say, if your right Tom is on top, actually a more
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logical person very rational. Uh So somebody's like, huh yeah, you're better
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with numbers, signs, signals. So this is this is a list of
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it. If you are left Tom on top, usually you are a little
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bit more emotional, creative, and uh you are better with relationship. That's
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that's how it is supposed to be. But the thing is is that don't
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don't don't store me for being not accurate. This is just a very very
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simple exercise to know yourself. But The magic is this. Now you switch
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just now, if it was right, right, turn to left, left,
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you turn to right. Just just switch the position of your fingers and
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tell me, how do you feel? Weird? Weird? Weird? What
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else? Uncomfortable? Tell me? Is it? Is it like after a
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while, even though this is your pair of hands, you only realize that
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you can get uncomfortable just switching a direction. I think a lot of times
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this is This is how it is when we come into a place where we
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don't realize. This is how we make other people feel. You know,
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when you switch. That discomfort that you feel is sometimes when you don't have
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self awareness. That's how you make another person feel they feel a little bit
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not too shure how to react, not to sure, how to respond to
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you, not to shure, how to get along with you? Later with
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my wife, we've been married seventeen years, with tree kids. My daughter
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is sixteen, twelve and then nine years old. So let me ask you,
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how many of you prefer rom com? How many of you prefer horror
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rom com or horror movie? Okay rom com? How many of you prefer
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Hollywood or k pop? Next Mountain or Beach Home? Kot are dining out.
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So these are questions that sometimes we find it very casual and we just
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just answer like that. But there are a lot of things about ourselves that
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we don't know until someone asks. And this often happened when we got into
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relationship, like your girlfriend or in a relationship, we'll always ask like,
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what do you like me? What was so good about me? Why do
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you love me? Why why do you choose me? There's a lot of
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such questions that unless one has a right relationship with themselves, they will always
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be seeking for validation. So you know, we are assummation of what we've
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been true generally in life, it can be our upbringing, our family environment,
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our childhood experience. And lately I've been telling a lot of my clients
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that all of us are still reacting to certain childhood trauma. There are certain
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traumas in our lives that we are still reacting to. It just that we
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don't admit because now that we are adults, we don't really say it out,
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but a lot of our decisions that we are still reacting. For example,
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after being married for seventeen years, there's something I grew up from a
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broken family, So my mom is a compulsive, addictive wards and a compulsive,
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addictive gambler. My dad was hardly home, so the last place that
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I want to be is home. So after getting married, I realized that
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a lot of the planning or activities that I have always revolved through outside of
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home. And then my wife would always ask me, what's wrong with being
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home? What's wrong with just being at home? I find myself very grumpy.
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I find myself very actually a very horrible person at home. I find
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myself very impatient. I pays around, I need things to do, And
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whenever we have a suggestion of let's work out on our relationship, let's work
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out on this a family thing, I will always suggest somewhere outside because I
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am still I was still reacting to my childhood trauma. That home was never
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a place that was suggesting to build something meaningful. It has always been.
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My mom used to rarely just say, you know, you know what,
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I regret giving birth to you. You know what, the earlier die,
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the better my life would be. That that was the common line that my
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mom would always say. And whenever she lost in her gambling activities, she
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will find any reason to whag me, any reason to just really it's not
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even ken. Whatever that comes across her side, she will just take it
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and then she would hit me. So whenever I'm home, it's associated with
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a lot of pain. That's why when I got into a marriage only,
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I realized that I'm actually not comfortable being at home, especially when I want
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to build so called love relationship. I would always be a better version of
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myself when I'm traveling. I would better be a always be a better version
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of myself when I'm in church, whenever I'm outside, when you're working with
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me, when we go to a mall, even the version of Keith in
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the mall is way better than the version of me at home. So I
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have to come to realization that if I'm still reacting to settle on my childhood
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trauma, I have to come to an awareness why. Because a problem that
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you don't know is a problem that you cannot solve. Am I right now?
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So the problem that you don't know is called blind spots, And all
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of us here in this room we have our blind spots. And I realized
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that the more I grow up, the more I need to understand my blind
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spots. It could be culturally, it could be family upbringing, It could
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be how you're raised in certain a way of leadershi, it could be your
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education background. But I realize that the best gift that we can give to
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someone we love, whether it is our family, our relationship, or our
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organization, our company, or our friendship, it has to be a healthy
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you. This evening, you need to learn the best gift that you can
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give to someone that matters to you is your health. Why because whenever you
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are sick, it is very hard to be with you. There's a lot
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of things that you cannot eat. You will lose your appetite, you will
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lose your curiosity. You will see every problem as detrimental. You will see
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every problem. As I remember once, I had a leader that she went
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through a lot, and when I ask her why, she said, it
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seems that everyone wants me to die. It seems that everyone is against me.
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It seems that everything is going against me. But it's her world view.
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Because you are sick on the inside, everything that you see, the
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mountain seems to overwhelming, the ocean seems to be drowning, the challenges seems
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to be very threatening. It is all the condition inside of you that caused
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your perspective outside to see things like that until you come into realization, Oh,
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Keith, you are actually not good at home. You need to learn
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to be home more. You need to learn to rewire certain synapsis, you
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need to learn to reframe some of your values and your thoughts. That slowly,
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especially when I become a father, slowly I learn to reprogram myself and
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learn to be home more and more, you understand. So, so we
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just came out from COVID right that you can imagine after all that I said,
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then two years you are homebound, or I tell you, I slip
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into a lot of anxieties. I was so anxious or pacing around. I
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couldn't take it anymore. I will walk out of my house and just walk
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for five ten kilometers until I can come home. It was magnified. This
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problem that I know that I'm working on was magnified to a greater degree.
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And lo and behold, that was when I become impatient and I realized this.
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Guys, don't don't miss it. Hurry kills relationship. Whenever you are
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in a hurry, you always kills relationships. So when I am in the
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anxiety mode, in that hurried mode, I always feel that I have no
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capacity, no space to love somebody or even hear somebody properly. So I
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want to challenge all of you today is that you must come into a place
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where you want to invest in yourself and know yourself. My point here is
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this A lot of times when I talk about when you consider dating, or
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you're already dating, do you know what do you bring to this relationship?
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Or even if you are in a friendship, or even if you're in your
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family, you're still young and you are a son or a daughter, do
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you know what you bring into that relationship? Not because a lot lot of
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us we there not really look into the mirror, understand the person that is
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inside the mirror, and work on ourselves. A lot of people resort to
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blaming. A lot of people tell me that it's not fair. A lot
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of people have a lot of issues that they don't want to face. And
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as a result of that, my point is this, if you anchor your
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identity on just your performance, on just your possessions, on just your popularity
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or pleasure, just case in point, right, how many of you right
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you have seen someone Instagram? I hope I'm not talking about anybody that they
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have the same selfie of themselves with different clothes, and when you just open
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up that patereot, it is just maybe fifty pictures of them, just same
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smile, same angle, just different clothes. Sometimes it can be a joke,
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but sometimes when you think about it, this person is actually looking for
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someone to see them. Do you see me? A lot of people are
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constantly checking if somebody is following them and following them because they want to be
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sin And one of Jesus' ministry when he saw the prostitute, when he saw
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the leopard, when he saw the widow, when he saw those that are
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lame and blind, is that he had a ministry of noticing people. As
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Christians, unless you are healthy, you won't notice people that are in pain.
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You won't notice that people are in need. You won't notice even your
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partner, your spouse, the people that are beside you because you are not
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healthy. A person that is unhealthy has no ability to care for the other
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person. So as a result of that, if you are unhealthy and you
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get into a relationship, you will have this issue of you must complete me,
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you must meet my needs. You must be the profile that fit me.
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But the Bible teaches us when we get into a relationship, we are
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ready to love, we are ready to be giving. You understand what I'm
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trying to say. So sometimes we anchor so much of our identity into because
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I'm a doctor, accountant, engineer, lawyer, therefore I am worthy.
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It is a flawed framework for our lives. So how many of you you
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would admit that sometimes you are quite an insecure person? Me too? What
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cousts you your insecurity? Have you ever asked this question? Or in what
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kind of environment you are most insecure in? What kind of environment you are
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most easily triggered? In? What kind of environment you are most easily emotional?
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Or you wall up? You straight away cannot feel, you cannot cannot
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judge, you cannot cannot assess you at all. Do you know your trigger?
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Do you know your trigger? Or not? If you for for me
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a lot of times because of my family background, Like I said, I'm
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still reacting to my certain childhood trauma. Whenever I realized that there is a
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sense of lack, you know, because when I was growing up, my
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favorite activity was stealing. I stole so many things in my life before I
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was a Christian. I can tell you that all the toys that I want.
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I would steal from Parkson, I would steal from Iron, I would
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steal from the store and Ocean because my family had no money to buy the
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Tamia cars that I want. I don't have the control card that people has.
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I don't have all the game station that people had, so I resolved
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to stealing. And a lot of times when I steal it is because when
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my friends had it as a boy, I don't have it, so I
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wanted. My insecurity caused me to the sense of lack, caused me to
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do something to push beyond the boundary that I do a lot of unnecessary things.
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So what caused you to behave at your worst behavior? Do you know
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or not? What caused you to be absolutely insecure? Because in a relationship,
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the insecure version of you will cause a lot of emotional turmoil, like
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why are you like that again? Why are we quarreling over this thing again?
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Why am I hating myself again? You know, when I was fourteen
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to sixteen, for two years, I would wear a cat because I hate
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to look into mirrors, so I would not do anything to my hair,
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and I hated every mirror that I've seen because I just don't like who I
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am. So a lot of people when they say, okay, let me
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just give you an example. If you don't have self awareness, you don't
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even know you are sick. Have you seen someone that coughing away and they
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just live a normal life and you people will go to them and say,
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hey, do you want to get check or out? Have you seen someone
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that is totally overweight and live a normal life, and then like, do
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you want to get checked? Like? They don't even care, they're used
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to it already. But until you come to recognize that, okay, this
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is the standard for my high, for my age, for my body type
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should look like that. So a lot of people are sick and they don't
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know. But if you are sick and you know, then you can move
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from sickness to wellness. You understand if you don't know even that you are
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sick. In certain areas like finances, if you keep using money and you're
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always in depths, you're always having to pay the minimum amount of your credit
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card, you don't even know that in depth you are sick. And if
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social setting, you don't have friends, when you are lonely, you don't
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know who to call, You have no prayer partners. You have nowhere to
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turn to. Everyone is just casual friends. You are sick in your social
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life. You're sick in your finances, you are sick in your fitness,
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You're sick in your spirituality, you are sick in your ministry. You are
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sick in your whole life. You don't know, then you cannot move to
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wellness. But unless you are you realize that, Hey, Keith, I
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think I'm sick. Then from sickness you can move to wellness, and from
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wellness you can move to fitness, and from fitness you can move to impact.
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But a lot of people say, I just grow. I want to
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have an impact, but you are not. Why are we talking about impact?
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So a lot of times entering into a relationship when two persons are equally
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sick, they feel each other, they understand each other, but they have
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no way to fix each other or help each other, and it becomes a
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very, very very toxic relationship. And that kind of relationship that I have
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counseled where a girl was being abused and she keeps going back to this guy
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or a guy that is being controled and manipulated to craziness, and she keeps
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going, he keeps going back to this girl. I've seen it again and
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again and again. I wonder why it is because this person is sick and
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they don't admit it until you say, hey, I think I have a
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problem at home. There, I think I have a problem with the version
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of the husband that you have at home. Then I can work on it.
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You understand. Then I learned to design myself to be slightly not immediate
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transformation. Go to the front, pray, then you'll slain, and then
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you turn to another person not like that. Daily you learn to be a
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better version of yourself at home. So that that's very important for us to
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understand. We cannot give what we do not possess. We cannot give what
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we do not possess. Whatever future that you imagine, guys in this room,
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whatever future that you imagine the next five years, ten years, it
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has to involve a healthier version of you. If you want, if you
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want travel the world, it involves a healthier you to walk around. You
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understand. If if you want to take nice photography, it involves a healthier
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you to enjoy the scenery and to appreciate nature. It involves a healthier you.
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Whatever future that you imagine, let's say we imagine a better church for
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generations. It involves a healthier you to love people, to lead people,
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to impact people. So I just want to say this, unless you are
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willing to invest in your own health, there is no way you enter into
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a healthy relation ship. A healthy relationship is consist of two healthy persons,
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a healthy church, it consists of a healthy community. But if we don't
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have that, what do we do? We will always want more pleasure,
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we will always want more popularity, we will always want more possessions. And
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today I want to challenge all of you that as much as we are a
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meaning machine, I want you to know this that you are not a mistake
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and you're not an accident. So when I when I travel, I travel,
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I just I just came back from Moscow, actually not long ago.
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And Moscow is a metropolitan with twenty million people. You know, just a
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city is about the size of Malaysia, so there's a lot of people.
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So I remember when I was in Tokyo and I was I was in Shanghai,
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Wan time, I was overwhelmed with a panic. I suddenly down in
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the train station, I sense my heart pulpit sating very fast, and I
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suddenly felt like I am losing myself. Then I began to ask questions,
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like with this kind of crowd when it is a peak hour, if I
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have anything happen, and if there's a stamped. I don't know why these
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thoughts just came to me. There's nobody, literally, nobody that knows who
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I am, and I will just die like that. Suddenly a very scary
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thought came upon me with that kind of if you have been to maybe a
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Coplay concert, you've been to a Black Pin concert, you know that kind
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of amount of people, and then suddenly like everywhere it's just people. And
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I was overwhelmed, and I said, hey, if something happened to me
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and I collapse, people might just walk over me. Nobody will stop suddenly
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in my life, in my world, I thought, I don't know whether
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you have this stop before that. Nobody will stop for you. Life goes
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on, if you are hospitalized, if you check your Instagram, life goes
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on. If you die, to tomorrow, people still go on. They
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still go cycling, they still go running, they still go for marathon.
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Tomorrow got a snoopy marathon. They still like, hey, will the church
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even stop a service for me if I'm in the hospital. No. So
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suddenly I was overwhere I said, God, man, I'm suffocating. And
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then God said to me, it is because I'm not enough. It is
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because I am not enough. God is saying that, because he is not
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enough, That's why I'm seeking for all these things that will never satisfy me.
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And then there I had a peace and I said, God, actually
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you are enough. You know me. If I fall, I can trust
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you. If I fall at that moment, I know you're faithful, someone
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will be sent to help me. So you must know that when God created
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us, we are not an afterthought. We are a forethought. Okay,
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So Romans of the Aid res twenty nine Romans the eight Rest Night. He
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says, God for new us and destinies to be conformed to the image of
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Christ. That means you are not an afterthought. You know. Jeremiah one
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five says that before I form you in your mother's room, I already know
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you. So though it is very cliche, as you listen, if you
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don't register that you are not an afterthought, you are a forethought. That
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means you are by design, someone thought about you first. You will always
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struggle with a lot of insecurity. How many of you you actually doubt that
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you are actually adopted. I always thought that I'm adopted because I don't look
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anything like my siblings. And my mom said, the earlier you die,
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the better you are. Maybe you don't understand in your kind of upbringing.
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How would the parents say that that's my upbringing? I would always question,
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like a am I adopted? Why am I such a curse to the family.
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But it is until you realize that no matter how your childhood is,
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God already know you and you are not an afterthought, there comes your security.
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Your relationship with God is your great security. So I just want to
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say this, there's no one solution fixed. All you have to get embark
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into this journey today by being curious about yourself. If I ask you this
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question, just try to answer this question in your heart. How much do
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you like yourself? One to ten? How much do you like yourself is
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how much you value yourself. If you don't know how to appreciate yourself from
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where God has created you and know that you are not a mistake, it
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is always very difficult to be in a relationship with a person like you.
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So Psalm one hundred and thirty nine, verse fourteen, I praise you because
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I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. And then the Summi
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said, I know that full well. My question to you is this,
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do you know it full well or not? I guess a lot of us
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we don't know. Do you know it full well? If you don't know
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that, you need to fall in love with God in a deeper relationship.
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I just want to say, it is the posture of your spirituality, your
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understanding of God that will shape your identity. So today I want to share
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something very very interesting. Do you know when someone said about your identity?
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A lot of times we related to where we come from, how we are
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raised, what kind of background we had, what we have gone through.
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But identity today is not just the past and now, what you are doing,
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How old are you, which school do you go to, who do
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you associate with, what do you like? It's not just the past and
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the now. A concept that I want to send to you, to present
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to you today is that your identity is also your imagination of your future.
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That means, right, if I am in a relationship with you, my
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imagination of my future, my identity is not just my past and my present.
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My identity is also my future, which the Bible language language calls it
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your calling. If you don't know your calling, you will never be an
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attractive person. Trust me, you know, everybody has a job, some
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people has a career, but the most attractive person is always the person that
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has a calling. When I say a calling is not full time ministry,
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you understand, a calling means you finally know why you're created, why you're
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put on this earth, what you're supposed to fulfill. So a lot of
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people has a job and they suck up with the job. They just got
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to tolerate with the job. Some people has a career that means it fits
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them well, they are able to survive. But those most attractive people are
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those that has a calling. They know why they wake up, they know
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what keeps them awake at night. They just can't wait to live out their
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And these people are very attractive to be with because they have a good sense
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of clarity and direction. But when I'm with you, do you have a
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calling? Not in your life? Or you're just bumping around and just going
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through one day after one day after one day, you say, oh,
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I'm just a happy, go lucky guy, or I'm just a simple guy.
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I'm just an ordinary guy. Even an ordinary person must have a calling
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in life. If you don't know what you're created for, the most frustrating
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thing is to be in a relationship with you because you're not going anywhere.
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That means right, the fulfillment of that relationship is just companionship. How pathetic
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is that a relationship cannot just be companionship. It has to You have to
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make each other better. Like the Bible says, irons sharpened irons. It
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has to bring out the best of each other. So, if you are
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in a relationship, I want to encourage you make this commitment and say,
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my role is to bring out the best inside of you. My role is
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to bring out the best on the both of us, on each other.
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That this relationship is man to bring out the best of what God has called
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us to do. So, if you are still and you are young,
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which some of you are, that you're not even thinking about dating, I
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want to say this, develop a good relationship with yourself. You got to
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enjoy being who you are. If you don't enjoy yourself, nobody will enjoy
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you. You understand what I'm trying to say. If you don't even like
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yourself, it's every way of liking you is wrong. If you don't even
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know how to like yourself. I'm not talking about love yet. I'm saying,
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if you don't even like yourself, every way of liking you is wrong.
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Every way of liking you is inappropriate, every way of liking you is
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abnormal abuse because you don't even like yourself. But if you know that you
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like yourself being like that, that means you are able to tell that person
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maybe what's your love language, What would make you feel appreciated, what would
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affirm you? What you will give you assurance. So, developing a strong
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relationship with yourself starts from developing a strong relationship with your creator, that is
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God. Pursuing personal growth. You know, you got to like growth in
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life. You need to like progress in life. And then if you are
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still single, remember be happy when others are attached. Don't be envious or
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jealous. It is very important your time will come. I always tell people,
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before God gives you something, you steal it. Other people sing well.
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So I have a sermon that I used to preach is about the title
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is it's not your party. It's not your party. Why is that sermon
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important to me? It's because right when the prodigal son came home, the
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brother could not celebrate. You know, the brother has no capacity to celebrate.
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That means right. If you're a person that cannot celebrate others, right,
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you aren't still not there yet. You must be able to celebrate other
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people's successes. You need to be able to celebrate other people's a moulestone,
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then you are a right person to date, to be datable. You know,
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it is not about finding the right partner. It is always about being
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the right partner. It's always about being so attractive irresistible that people will rarely
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find it fulfilling to be part of your life. Is that okay? So
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for me, I just want to encourage all of you. Remember, a
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problem that you don't know is a problem that you cannot solve. You cannot
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give what you do not possessed. So unless you are willing to invest in
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yourself, it is always going to be very difficult. I give an example
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of my upbringing. I'm sure you have ideas of how you are raised,
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what kind of culture you are raised, and what kind of background you were
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shaped. Understanding that and telling it out it helps you to know yourself.
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So to me, I'll give you a tip. There is a magic in
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writing out. When you write out your own thoughts and you read it back
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to yourself, right, it is always so clear. But when you are
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always just thinking in your mind without committing it outside of your body, you
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will always have a way to manipulate that. But if you're willing to journal
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down or you have a friend that you can share out this is what I
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think about myself, you will have a lot more clarity in your life.
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Thank you for listening to the Generation's Church podcast. We hope you have been
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blessed by the Word of God today. Remember to stay tuned by subscribing to
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