the chosen one

Henri Nouwen - Life of the Beloved

firstly, know that you are the beloved. Secondly, become the beloved. Enflesh the truth. a lifelong process. 3 spiritual disciplines - firstly, recognise the world for what it is - deceitful, lying, dealing always in condemnation and destruction. the truth is that you are the beloved, well-loved by the perfect One long before this world took you and spat you out. secondly, surround yourself with communities that speak this truth to you. thirdly, overflow with gratitude.

when you recognise that you are truly chosen, it does not breed in you any sense of superiority or arrogance, but rather, it opens your eyes to see the chosen-ness of every other person around you. when you no longer approach people in fear of rejection, or in a condemning spirit, you are free to fully engage with them, wholeheartedly, lovingly. that is why it is said that streams of living water will flow out from within us.

rushed post. don't have too much time nowadays. :)

Yesterday morning I got pretty angry at God over a trivial thing. Let's just say it was related to a computer game, and I was accusing God of not loving me. :) Really silly, I know. In my defence, let me say that I believe so firmly in God's power that I believe it extends even to computer games. :)

It brought to mind something I read in the Philip Yancey book, "Reaching for the Invisible God", where the author relates a thought that one of his friends had brought to him - "I believe that God is good, but what good is God?" It seems that sometimes being a Christian makes no difference to your life except point out in great detail what your faults are. We don't see gifts and miracles operating in our lives any more than we see them operating in the lives of others around us, and we wonder why we signed up for this faith of self-denial.

Part of the answer lies in the book of James. "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." God loves us enough that He will not give us something that encourages our faults - He risks our anger and our rejecting Him to keep us holy and pure and set apart for Him. God wants to teach us not to covet the things of this world, so that we will not always "quarrel and fight", "kill and covet", and that we will not cultivate a friendship with this world.
There is a difference between our wants and our needs, and God WILL respond to our needs, and MAY respond to our wants, if they are not against His will. Will God give you a million dollars if He knows that it will encourage you to become lazy and slothful, and to indulge worldly lusts?

Another part of the answer is in James 1. God is training us in perseverance. Other parts of the answer lie in our own sin. I was talking with some friends about salvation, and whether it was truly a free gift in light of all the Bible says the different things which we must not do, or that we should do. It seems to me that we do others a disservice, when we emphasise the free gift that is grace, and make no mention of the life change that needs to follow.
After some thought, I guess that freedom and grace are free indeed, but that by our own actions we willfully walk back into the slavery of sin. No one can serve two masters - if we sin continually and willfully, we are putting ourselves into slavery under sin, and we forfeit the freedom that was bought for us by Christ. That is why the Bible says that idolaters, drunkards and other miscellaneous evil-doers will not enter heaven, because such men have returned to Egypt and slavery. This was confirmed for me in the book of Jude, which condemns those who "change the grace of our God into a license for immorality". Do not be deceived; God is holy.
Grace is free, but no one said it was easy. Jesus himself said that those who come to Him must hate even their own life, and be willing to carry the cross as He did. (Luke 14:25-27)

"I no longer call you servants..."

Still reading John Bevere's book... the lessons are rather hard to take.


A servant obeys, but not always willingly. He may be unhappy in his heart with what he has been asked to do, he may not always be able to understand the will of his Master, but he obeys because he understands that obedience is non-negotiable.

A friend understands the heart and innermost desires of the Master. He does what the Master asks with great joy and without hesitation, and desires what the Master desires.

Taking the analogy a step down, a parasite or thief lives off the generosity of the master. He neither obeys nor recognises the authority of the Master of the house, but in spite of this stridently claims food and board as his right.

I obey, but not always joyfully. The fear of the Lord is helping me to keep His commands. But how does one move from servant to friend?


Covetousness is the root of much sin. Covetousness tells God that He isn't doing His job properly, that you could do a better job than He, and that your own personal needs are more important to you than your relationship with Him. The Israelites were unhappy with how the Lord had been sustaining them. Balaam always questioned the Lord's commands. Covetousness is like the sin of idolatry (Eph 5:5 I think)

Hunger

Today I was reading chapter 3 of 'Drawing Near', by John Bevere.

he talks about some churches which have grown lukewarm. Quoting from Revelations 3 - "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold not hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth." (v15-16,NIV)

The cause? in the very next verse. "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked."(v17) We allow the things of this world to satisfy us. One way to detect this life satisfaction is to listen to what we are excited to talk about. Do we love to talk about the amazing things God is doing in our lives? Or do we get more excited talking about our plans for our ministry? Or do we get most excited talking about sports, school, common friends etc. I admit, this must be corrected slightly for our Asian culture, but still.

To be clear, this is not sin. This is only a failure to take hold of all which God has to offer us, to settle for the smallest fraction of God's goodness.

v20 is often used by evangelists, calling the unsaved to repentance. The verse is familiar to all of us - "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." (v20) Yet this message was being said to the church. God is knocking at the door of our churches, and asking to come in. This is further confirmed in verse 22, "He who has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." (emphasis mine)

We will hunger for what we feed on. This concept is similar to what Rick Warren pushes with his '40 days to form a habit' message, but I prefer John Bevere's take on it, because it gels so well with what I've been experiencing and hearing in my own life.

We will hunger for what we feed on, and this is true with real food. If we are always eating junk food, we will crave more junk food. But when we make that deliberate step to change our eating habits, to take more vegetables and fruits, it may start our being very difficult, but then we learn to tolerate it, and then later to enjoy it. It's taken me a couple of years to love my dark green leafy vegetables, but I'm so glad for it. Similarly for my Bible reading, or Christian literature. It's starting to become a habit - not a discipline, but something I enjoy and look forward to. It's so amazing. "A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb." (Prov 27:7) And it's also painfully obvious that I've never made blogging a habit. =) but it's not terribly important, so that's alright.

My life must be Christ's broken bread
My love his outpoured wine
A cup o'erfilled, a table spread
Beneath his name and sign
That other souls, refreshed and fed,
May share his life through mine.

Albert Orsborn, ex-general of the Salvation Army.


I'd include the other verses as well, but I don't fully understand them. What is the winepress? Why is the fruitful vine a burden?

Encouragement

Hebrews 3:13 says, "But encourage one another daily, as long as it is
called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's
deceitfulness."

I was greatly encouraged yesterday, as I met up with a few friends who
had just been on a mission trip to the Philippines, as they testified
non-stop about the goodness of God as shown through the trip. It was
not a time of great signs and wonders, of miracles that gave glory to
God, but more of an eye-opening trip, as God showed each of them more
about themselves, and humbled them through the faith and the witness
of the very people they had come to serve.

It amazes me that anyone could bring themselves to preach about
tithing to the extremely poor, or about faith to those in dire
straits. We, who have never been through the kind of hardships they
face every day, surely have no right to even speak of these things to
them. Yet God's grace was abundant in them, as they accepted the
message, and by God's grace, the message even ministered to some of
them.

And as I read this verse, I remembered the wealth of emails I had
received these past weeks testifying of God's goodness. And I've been
putting off reading them, because I've just grown cynical about such
things, but as some of my friends said yesterday, these things are
there to encourage us, and keep us from becoming hardened.

Elsewhere in Hebrews 3, it refers readers back to Ps 95. It talks
about the journey of the Israelites through the desert, and how they
angered God until He declared that they would never enter His rest.
And this is an analogy for our lives too. The Israelites were
obedient to the call to leave Egypt, an obedience borne out of the
fear of the wrath of God. But like many Christians, they became
complacent, demanding, disobedient, and lost their inheritance.

This is a warning to those who believe that once saved is forever
saved. Believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord is a continual process, and disobedience will disqualify
us from our eternal inheritance just as surely as it did the
Israelites. For our God is an unchanging God, the same yesterday,
today and forever.

Made perfect through suffering

In Hebrews 2:10 thereabouts, it suggests that Jesus was made perfect through the suffering he endured here on earth, which seems to me a strange thing. How can God be made more perfect?

Further down in the chapter it explains that this was partly to do with Jesus' role as a mediator on our behalf and high priest, who is now better able to empathise with our sufferings, having gone through many of them.

it reminded me of something i read in a book some time back, which posed the conundrum that when God created the earth and man, He knew that it was going to descend into the sin and anarchy that we have now. But He created it anyway.

The book went on further to propose that suffering is key to greater glory. there is no glory in being a middle-class person from an average family who grew up to do something great. There is great acclamation for the boy who came from a poor and broken home who grew up to do that same great thing. It's like that quadriplegic who completes triathlons, with his dad pulling him all the way. We admire them because they had a much tougher route to get to where they are now.

Why did God allow Satan to wreck all this havoc in what was once a 'good' world? Because what comes out of the chaos has been tested and proven.

The Creator

In days long past,
every possession was hand-crafted lovingly by an artisan,
and it was easy to imagine a Creator God who did the same.

In the days of the Industrial Revolution,
possessions are cranked out ceaselessly by impersonal, uncaring machines,
and it is easy to imagine that the Universe works in this way too.

But Who created this machine?

Wanted: Me

Been doing alot of thinking of late. It started with feelings of guilt, about certain things which I've been putting off. Things which aren't really my responsibility, but which would be good to do anyway. And the train of thought derailed into a far-ranging discourse on serving God, and what exactly it is we are called to do, helped along by various discussions about our life's purpose and how we glorify God.

I reflected back on my journey with God, starting from when I first started to get serious about this whole God business some six or seven years ago, way back in Sec3, where my idea of glorifying God meant putting all of my heart, mind, soul and strength into worship. Shouting out the songs at the expense of my voice, analysing each line and word of every song to see if I could truly mean the words that were being sung, and being quiet if I couldn't. It was all the love that a child knew how to give. The rest of my life wasn't particularly significant - I spent approximately half my waking hours playing computer games - but I worshipped God the only way I knew how.

I remembered how when I went to JC, loving God meant setting aside time for him each morning to seek His presence - the first time I had ever managed a consistent quiet time. I was not satisfied to give Him 15 minutes of my morning on a crowded train - I desperately wanted God's presence each day, giving myself huge amounts of leeway time so that I wouldn't feel any time pressure when I came before Him. Getting to school at insane hours to enjoy the quiet hours with Him. Before I cracked open my Bible, I would sit and pray until I felt God's presence with me, and then I would start reading. Yet I coasted through the other parts of my life, blessed in all abundance with intelligence and good friends.

Over time, I was convicted of the need to use my gifts to serve God. I felt that the next step for me was to move out and begin serving, to stop being a parasite living off the church, but an active, contributing member. I felt that God gave me gifts so I could use them to bless His people, not to hide them under a bushel, a prompting made all the more urgent by the multitude of gifts I knew I had been given. And this new direction has challenged me greatly, forcing me far from my comfort zone in some circumstances, leaving me often weary in mind and body. And in doing so, I have been discovering new strengths, new gifts, and I know that God's been working in me, to repair the broken bits and to strengthen the working bits. And it's been great.

But wondering at these feelings of guilt, which are gradually becoming more familiar, I come to the realisation that I have wandered from my first love. I have subscribed to the belief that doing significant things is the measure of my day, and by extension the measure of my worth. Although I have heard this message many ties before, it has never struck home like this. I remember ending many days with regret at time wasted on worthless things, set upon by thoughts of self-condemnation. And measuring myself by this yardstick, I have come to measure others in the same way, leading to a judgemental attitude.

I pondered upon the analogy of a parent-child relationship, and reflected on how that relationship was independent of any outside success or failure on either person's part, dependent only on mutual love. I thought about the stories I've heard about children who felt overburdened, and ultimately unloved, because of the weight of parental expectation, and I remembered that my God is not like that. My God is the perfect Father, and He loves me with a perfect love that is unchanging and unshakeable.

We were looking at a discussion question which asked us what our primary purpose in life was, and I answered that it was to glorify God. My answer has changed. Our primary purpose in life is to love God. A lesson I was taught a long time ago and had forgotten till recently was that if you had done nothing else of worth in a day except worship God, then that day had been well spent for that reason alone. I remembered Micah 6:8, which had been my favourite verse once, a long time ago, which tells me that the Lord requires nothing of me but to love mercy, do justly, and walk humbly before my God. I imagine the joy which a parent would feel, when a child comes back beaming from a day of fun and relaxation, and I imagine that God would be the same way. After all, God is happy when we are happy.

The caution then, is not to take this lesson overboard. As in bringing up any child, there are times to love them and times to discipline them; times to comfort them, and times to challenge them. As I have been challenged, I hear this call to remember my first love, and to shift my focus to where it should never have left. But even as I feel more justified now to do things which are relaxing and recreational, I must not make them the focus of my life, and I have no idea how the lines are drawn. But one thing I know - that as long as I make room for God in my life, I am moving in the right direction.

knowing

The Christian has a great advantage over other men not by being less fallen than they, nor less doomed to live in fallen world, but by knowing that he is a fallen man in a fallen world - Clives Staples Lewis

Both these things lead us to the feet of God. Who else can we turn to? Either there is a God, and we have a faint and flickering hope, which can sometimes be seen, and sometimes not. Or else there is no God, and all we do here on this earth is meaningless, and without a final purpose.

One issue which I have with Christianity nowadays, a trait which seems to me to be thankfully in remission, is the reliance upon cliched answers to vexing questions. I am surely guilty of it often enough, which is why i try as far as possible to relate my own personal experiences rather than just biblical teachings.

The Bible does show a number of persons who persist in offering cliched, Scripturally accurate answers across 37 chapters, and they are roundly rebuked as having "not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." Job is said here to have spoken rightly of God, but what did Job say?

Reading: Reaching for the Invisible God, by Philip Yancey.

Someone likened God and his creation to be like an author with his novel - ever-present and invisible, working all the threads together towards its intended end. Never appearing in person, but manifesting his will through circumstances and the decisions of the characters.

ministry

someone approached me recently to talk to me about full-time ministry... said that the door would always be open if ever i wanted to consider it... talked about how he and others had always been favourably impressed by me...

somehow i always seem to leave a favourable impression on adults i work with... i have no idea why, because i know plenty of people who are more capable than i am... and i guess that i'm quite familiar with all my faults, so it always surprises me a little...

yet our faults are always the part of us hidden most deeply... is it any wonder that no one ever sees them? you can do all the right things in public, but no one ever really knows how faithful you are in the secret place...

the exams are over, and it seems that my life and ministry has been suspended for about... two months or so. which is sad, really...

"Resist the devil....

From the book i'm reading...

"He doesn't treat the temptations and accusations as if they are weaknesses within himself;"

how hard is it to believe this? we are so willing to believe the worst about ourselves... we are sceptical or disbelieving of things in the spiritual realm... it seems easier to think that we are innately pre-disposed towards sin, and that we are 'dragged off by our own sinful desires' (biblical, can't remember where). But the truth which i have trouble believing is that my heart is now good, that my heart of stone has been replaced by a heart of flesh, and that God's Spirit lives in me, such that these sinful desires are no longer part of me. They were banished when I became a Christian, but the devil continues to try and input them into me daily, taking advantage of my belief in the lie that I am sinful by nature.

"nor does he act as though they will go away if he tries to ignore him."

the secret to resisting the devil is not in self-discipline and determination, but in active resistance. demolish the lie, speak the truth, claim the blood of Jesus Christ and command the tempting spirit to leave in the name of Jesus... again, I have forgotten these things for so long... i have failed to see my struggles as spiritual in nature, and i have been joyless these two months.


i was asking God earlier... "How can I know You more?" asking whether i might have someone to come into my life to train me up in these things - but i remembered that God can do that just fine, even without human help. and i was wondering what i could do now, to learn more about God, and i remembered my book! and a pretty good book it is too! first book in ages - really need to develop a habit of reading edifying stuff.

book

been reading "The Way of the Wild Heart", by John Eldredge. it's a sequel of sorts to "Wild at Heart", which is a book written by the same guy some years ago.

It's a book for men, and I think that alot of what he writes is spot on. About men running from challenges that seem too big for them, about men and their refusal to approach people for help (the lost-and-refuse-to-ask-for-directions cliche), about their non-relationships with their own fathers and how this transmits down the generations.

He talks how each man needs a mentor, a 'sifu', a father figure to guide him. not just to teach him how, but to stand alongside him, watch him as he tries something new, to give approval, encouragement, feedback. something which i am particularly sensitive to, and which i try consciously to do, because i thought it lacking in my own life.

he talks about the different stages in a man's life, and how many of the crisis' that face men as they get older is a throwback in some sense to stages of their life that had been abruptly cut short. it spoke to me so strongly that i can even remember the stages without needing to think too hard about it - it seems almost intuitive. beloved son, cowboy, warrior, lover, king, sage. it helps that he draws examples from classic literature (LotR again!!) as well as more contemporary offerings (The Lion King and many other movies I've never watched).

There's a ladies version too, apparently. Co-authored by Stasi Eldredge (his wife). Should be an interesting read... won't mind finding out how women work. :)

A winning mentality, or...

one thing which scares me alot about my personality is that i cannot play any game without trying my best to win.

even if i decide mentally that, ok, i should play less competitively because i'm spoiling the game for everyone else, i still find it impossible to resist winning when i see the opportunity.

a little of it depends on my focus going into the game - if i am deliberately trying to build relationships with the people i'm playing with, then my focus will be shifted away from the game. but if i have no ulterior motive in mind, then i will focus to the best of my abilities on the game at hand, plotting and scheming my way to victory. this might also have something to do with me being a sore loser sometimes.

it just scares me, because i wonder what it is in me that desires to win so much. and i see a strong need to show that i am better than others, which strikes me as plain arrogance, because even if i am 'better' at one particular thing than someone else, it is by God's grace, and the other person probably stomps me flat at other things.

it also speaks to me of a deep-seated insecurity, that i don't believe that i am a capable person, which drives me to prove myself in any arena placed before me. this also explains some of the times that i am afraid to try new things, because i hesitate to show my incompetence in things i have never tried. and why often i don't ask questions even when i don't understand things, because i am afraid of appearing stupid.

and it's just sad, because this pride has really hindered me in many ways. i know that i could have done so much more with my life had i been less prideful. and that's sad.

anyway, what brought this discussion about was a game of Absolute Balderdash, which i won without talking too much to anyone in particular. sigh... but i enjoyed myself!

Christianity of Harry Potter

pretty good, well-balanced article on a Christian perspective on Harry Potter. extremely well-reseached and documented, and especially meaningful to me because i know his reference material very well (Narnia,LotR, and to a limited extent, CS Lewis' space trilogy).

http://decentfilms.com/sections/articles/magic.html

however, the article only compares the works based on their respective treatments of the concept of magic, and does not address the over-arching themes of the stories, which is one reason why i like Harry Potter so much. so it's not a complete view. further comments here.

http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?p=4470031

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dTofMmaIKmk&mode=related&search=

just putting this here so i can remember where it is...

Matt 10:33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.

parental approval

i had this mental image of God talking to one of the othe beings that hang around in heaven, pointing at me and saying, "Look! See that guy there! Yeah! THAT one! That's my son!"

it feels quite nice.

poultry-fication

i chickened out today. like a chicken running from the chopping block, when push came to shove, i exited, stage left. i'm mixing metaphors too. apparently it's a bad habit.

and so i'm left to ruminate on what could have been. the conditions were all right - pastor was there, lending his support. there were a whole bunch of old faces whom i hadn't seen in forever, and i do believe that they came for a reason. some people gave me discouraging remarks, but i had put that away as the result of an over-analytical mind. in every song i found words of encouragement, spurring me onwards. but.

and i feel a little bit like Peter, after the rooster crowed. left alone to rue decisions made in the heat of the fight. so terribly apt that i testified about failure today - look! it has come true again!

i am looking for the restoration that Jesus gave Peter, but i think that it has to come from the mouth of a person. and i have a few people in mind, so i guess that's good.

i've got a page of my planner that's gradually filling up with blog entries delayed. somehow i don't think they'll ever get posted.

gay

Been reading 1 Corinthians for my daily QT... i realised some time ago that the Bible actually refers to homosexuals fairly often... it condemns homosexual activity in manifold locations in both the old and the new testaments... and I came across one of those references again today in 1 Cor 6.

And the thought which has occured to me before, and struck me again today, is that such activities must have been fairly prevalent for the Bible writers to address them directly. Moses, in the Pentateuch, addresses all manner of deviant sexual behaviour including homosexual activity and sex with animals, specifically instructing the Israelites NOT to imitate any of the despicable practices of the tribes which they were about to displace. Paul urged the early Christians not to engage in activities such as homosexual activity and male prostitution, which must have been fairly mainstream if word of it traveled all the way to wherever Paul was writing from. Given that Paul wrote his letters in the first century AD, and that the Pentateuch was written well before that (church tradition places it around 1400 BC), we see that such problems are not unique to our modern culture.

And so perhaps the Bible is more relevant than we think it is.

Socially Acceptable

Technically, this was written 4 days ago when i had a severely malfunctioning laptop and no internet, but i haven't found a chance to post it till now...


Obeying God’s commands, or obeying social norms. When you proudly declare that you have never murdered anyone at all in your lifetime, is that because you fear God, or because you fear the potential repercussions?

That’s an extreme example, so bring it a little closer home. Right next to where it says “Thou shalt not murder”, is a similarly well-known line “Thou shalt not lie”. Yet somehow, we see the two as a world apart in terms of “severity” and “gravity”. Why?

What brought this argument to mind was that discussion on how ladies choose to dress. Someone was talking about bikinis. How the amount of materiel used to make a bikini is significantly less than the amount that goes into normal underwear. How the amount of skin being covered dwindles to an insignificant amount. How the styles and designs, or lack thereof, leave extremely little to the imagination. How is it an offence for a lady to walk around in underwear in Orchard Road, yet be perfectly acceptable to wear even less at the beach.

The truth is, of course, that men need to learn to stop staring. If a man wants to look twice, he will find something to look at, unless the ladies are dressed in burqas and veils. But that’s entirely besides the point. How can one person have two different opinions of right and wrong based on circumstances? It’s like saying it’s ok to lie sometimes, and ok to kill sometimes. And it belies the truth, that as Christians we no longer hold on to the gold standard we once had. The truth is that often, our values are based on what is socially acceptable within our own networks. Because our networks are so often mainly Christian, so our standards are somewhat higher than some other people. But because we come into contact with others, as we must, those standards melt like snowmen in the sun.

It is a tragedy.

Black//White

It’s past midnight, but I can’t sleep. Have an ansolutely full day tomorrow… schedule packed full fropm 9am to 9pm, and I need my sleep, but I can’t. thinking too much.

Thinking hard about an absolutely long talk I had on Sunday with a few friends. Talking about two issues, mainly. How ladies dress nowsadays, and clubbing. Asking about what Christianity had to say on these two things, and the general principles involved. About where the standards lay in these two areas. And we couldn’t seem to agree on a standard, which seriously worries me…

The simple view is: there is no standard. There is nothing explicit mentioned in the bible. Take the issue of ladies dressing for example. we are instructed not to be a stumbling block to others, but that verse has been used to justify so many unreasonable things that it is hard to apply that verse now. The second one that I just thought of is that a ladies beauty should not be in ornaments and perfume, but in good character and a godly spirit. But again, there is no clear cut standard.

One argument I heard is that we cannot isolate ourselves from the world. One extreme example would be the mormons, who are instantly recognizable by the way they dress. But no non-christian would dare approach them, and few Christians would either, such is their reputation. If we begin to impose rules and standards on people, is that where we are headed? Besides, Jesus admonished the Pharisees, who tithed on mint and cumin and dill, but ignored grace and mercy, when both should not be neglected. Rules are not the be all and end all of things, yet we should not rely on the law.

Yet without the law, we have slipped up. How are we set apart from the world, if in every respect we look and worse, act just like them. As the song by Steven Curtis Chapman puts it, what about the change? What about the difference? What about the life that’s showing I’m undergoing the change?? It is all to common to hear nowadays that people believe in our God, but they don’t see anything different about becoming a Christian.

So, pondering these things tonight, some things came to me and I must write them down before I forget.

Someone mentioned to me today that beyond all of our theological arguments of where the standards lie, deep within our hearts we know that there are certain standards to be followed. As people, we are all too good as using logic to justify our actions, twisting words for our benefit, while suppressing the voice of truth. A friend once told me that the more he found himself trying to justify an action, the more likely it was that the action was wrong. A thought that came to me some days ago was that we as people tend to make our decisions first and then tailor our arguments to support our decision. The verse which comes to mind goes something like, be ye doers of the word also, and not just hearers only, thereby deceiving yourselves.

We must learn to be honest with ourselves, and listen to that still small voice within us, the voice of truth that tells us a different story from what the world argues. For if we are truly born again, then the Spirit of God resides within us, and we can depend on the Spirit to guide us. As it says in Scripture, as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. Jesus himself said that we, his sheep, know his voice and follow him. Let us take the advice of Mary, mother of Jesus to heart. "Whatever he says to you, do it."

oh what a dreadful day

how foolish i was to think that that day would be great. in my naivete i neglected to consider the repercussions. thankfully i have a girlfriend who is experienced in such matters to advise me.

general principle: the day after a spiritual high tends to be absolutely terrible. revenge attacks, if you will. won't elaborate much, but the 'highlight' of the day was dropping my laptop. it's spoilt now, and is in for servicing indefinitely, which just about cripples my work life. sigh...

but what i really want to thank God for is for friends who will remain oblivious to the storm clouds over your head and the "Go Away" written plainly all over your face, and hang around and chat happily to you until you actually feel better.


another observation from wise gf - if a person is being exceptionally unreasonable and refuses to accept plain logic, it could be a spiritual stronghold? hmm...

Beholding God's Glory

A concept introduced to me some time ago by a lady called Sarah Yang was "Beholding God's Glory". Don't really understand it, but it involves meeting God not through the Word, nor through worship, nor through prayer in words or tongue, but a kind of sitting and resting and... beholding. Just looking and seeing God's glory. She would put a worship CD on, and just sit and behold, and I tried that today.

So I was lying on my back, on my bed, gazing at the ceiling. I was wide awake, but lying down, because it seemed that God was up there somewhere, and a picture came into my mind - i saw the night sky, and the stars winking in the darkness, and I saw a tube made of some translucent, clear material, stretching away from me up and up into the Heavens, and a thought came to mind. The exact phrasing eludes me now, but... "Now that I'm fasting, I have a clear, direct, unimpeded line to Heaven." and then this. "Ask whatever you want."

So I spoke what I wanted. It seemed important to speak it aloud somehow. Three things I wanted. To know the will of God, to do the will of God, and to be empowered and anointed for the doing. and then, after a few more minutes... nothing. And I wondered whether I had said something wrong, or whether I had missed something somehow, whether I'd been distracted. And I pondered that for awhile, and then i decided that, you know, perhaps that was what God wanted to say for today, and that I would find out more tomorrow. Eagerly waiting tomorrow.

I write this here as testimony, and a reminder of what I am promised.

that'll be six dollars, sir. here's your change

funny thing happened yesterday while i was watching a play at the esplanade.

me: i'll have the apple juice please
bartender: that'll be six dollars, sir
*i hand over a fifty dollar bill(
*she rummages about in the till and extracts my change*
bartender: that'll be six dollars, sir. here's your change.
*she hands me six dollars*




me: er... i gave you fifty dollars.
*i show her how much change she gave me*
bartender: ... oh, sorry sir.
*takes back the change, rummages in the till again, and hands me $46*
me: er...
*hands a two dollar note back*




kinda reminds me of that riddle i heard in J1 about the 3 guys having to pay a $30 bill at a restaurant. =). i hope i didn't traumatize the bartender for life.

Harry Potter IQ Test

been awhile since i did this badly for a test... dangzit. obviously reading it thrice is entirely insufficient. nooo.....

I Come From The Spion Kop

listening to: Poor Scouser Tommy, via the official Liverpool FC website. pretty funky lyrics for a football cheer. think the local schools have alot to learn when it comes to cheers. =)

was waiting at the bus stop today. saw a guy behind me, from a local secondary school. pretty sure he was in lower sec... still in shorts, he was. he was smoking, which shocked me personally, and his conversation was sprinkled liberally with hokkien.

after i got up on the bus, i was thinking to myself... you know, these are the kind of people i am expected to reach out to when i become a teacher... or, now as i type and think... even now, if i come across them.


i've always had abit more passion for the quiet ones, because that is who i was/am. i believe that i could have achieved and learnt so much more, and become so much more, had someone challenged me when i was younger. not challenge, as in confrontation, but challenge, as in to hone, as iron sharpens iron. to bring me out of my comfort zone, to find the limits of my talents and abilities. army finally did that for me, but it should have been done so much earlier, and school is one place where it could have been done.

but what can i do with the destructive ones? the ones with a dim view of authority, who take pride in rebelliousness, who insist on standing out in every negative way possible? i was thinking about this on my bus ride...

it's an attention-seeking thing, i'm sure, though i have no experience and authority to back me up. challenging authority, mocking the values of the day are the easiest ways to gain notoriety and a certain kind of respect, and my gut feel is that these actions stem out of a lack of self-worth and identity. so i guess a solution would simply be to engage them as people. consult their opinions on things - try and get reasoned opinions out of them if they spout anti-authority rhetoric at you. learn about their lives, relationships and interests as if it were something tremendously important to you, and not just as if it were important, but because it is important.


i categorise people whom i meet and see, and i interact with them accordingly. and the way i act with different groups of people is painfully obviously different to me, and it ashames me, because it seems like such a judgemental thing to do. how do i break out of this?

Happy New Year

happy new year.

didnt sleep a wink last night, but just crashed out the entire afternoon.

watched chronicles of narnia again (in bits), and i really enjoyed the bits i watched, especially how the relationship between the two brothers develops throughout the story, and the character development in general. there were some bits i felt were not particularly well-acted, but it was quite good overall.

looking at the allegorical view of it, there was one part which i was very familiar with, but that i never really thought about? the whole bit about 'he'll be coming and going, he's not a tame lion, you know'. and i suppose it's something to do with the whole omnipresence vs manifest presence that i've heard about, but what i really wonder is, what's the significance of Aslan not being around? Do we then not have guidance in those times, and rely on our own sense of judgement? After all, in the novels it seem that Aslan only appears in times of great trials - what happens in the times of relative peace?

and it's a question that has much relevance in our lives... i mean, we often hear the lament that it's only in our troubled times that we turn to God, but C.S. Lewis seems to be writing that it's only in our troubled times that He draws near to us.



played soccer in the social hall for over two hours. blistered feet. really miss soccer.

visited the Botanic gardens in the morning. walked my feet off. saw 'ang moh' ducks sitting in a tree, and a host of Lesser Whistling Ducks as well. saw a terribly grumpy looking heron (think it's a grey heron?) who had been sitting immobile, and all hunched over on a branch the entire morning. Saw stork-billed kingfisher, which is the yellow-headed one, as well as the comical white-breastd waterhen with the funny red bum which bobs up and down as it walks. spent two hours there, strolling, and was absolutely shattered by the end of it. home, and rest.

my days are filling up much faster than i want them to, and school hasn't even started yet. the holidays were far too full, and i'm feeling distinctly put off-balance by the stuff which still needs to be done. i want one full day at home to do some of this stuff, but i don't think it's happening.