Today's Reading - Mark 7:24 to 8:21

7:37 People were overwhelmed with amazement. "He has done everything well," they said...

For I know, whate'er befall me, Jesus doeth all things well

-a hymn


It seems an impossible task, to do all things well. Especially so in this crazy, madcap, fast-paced world which we live in. We run like insane hamsters, just to stay in one spot. Our schedules are crammed tighter than sardines in a can. The winds of circumstance blow, and the storm rages on. How can one possibly hope to do all things well?

Many people ask themselves that question in some form or other, whether with regard to specific failings or just the general stresses of life. The question highlights the fallacy; there is no need for us to do all things well - Jesus does all things well. There is no doubt that, with the skills and gifts and talents that have been granted us by the giver of all good gifts, we have the capability to do some or many things well. But the ability to do all things well is beyond reach of any human, even Oprah.

There will be times when your best is not enough. When you lack the skill or the strength, or events simply seem to conspire against you. On these occasions, I urge you to bring these things before God, and cry out for help in humility, and commit these things into His Almighty hands.

I am currently facing a situation at work, where I lack the talent needed to complete a task assigned to me. I have prayed, and I await an answer expectantly.


8:12 He sighed deeply, and said, "Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it."

I'm sure there's something significant here that i'm missing about those last seven words, besides the fact that they differ slightly from the other account of the same incident (i think). hmm..


8:16 They discussed this with one another and said, "It is because we have no bread."

This is downright hilarious. Go read it in context. Honestly!! "because we have no bread" what?! make no sense whatsoever. but these are the same guys who, 2 chapters earlier, "drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them."
Maybe they lacked intelligence, wisdom, perception, whatever. But with the faith that they had, and with the good example of Jesus before them, they cast out demons and healed the sick and preached repentance to the people.


You don't have to be smart.... "If anyone lacks wisdom, he should ask for it" in James somewhere i think....

first over everything

Now playing: WOW Worship Red: Disc 2

Dear Lord, forgive me.

Forgive me for always forgetting who is first over my life. Forgive me for forgetting what it is that should take the first priority each day, each minute, each second. Forgive me that i can neglect you for days on end, and let lame, flimsy excuses take me away from time with You.

Dear Lord, i choose to repent. To change my mind. That these lousy excuses of having no time, having no mood, having no privacy will no longer stop me from coming before You.

Help me, Father God, for I am weak. I have not disciplined my mind to be quiet before You, and so often when i try to pray, my mind is just a tangled mess of thoughts. Help me, O Lord. I believe that when i commit these times to You, Father, that you will bring forth good fruit from it. Grant me strength to hold fast in times of adversity, that i will not forsake your ways when stressed. Be First, O God.



Jesus
Be the centre
Be my source, be my light
Jesus


Jesus
Be the centre
Be my hope, be my song
Jesus

Be the fire in my heart
Be the wind in these sails
Be the reason that I live
Jesus, Jesus


Jesus
Be my vision
Be my path, be my guide
Jesus

WOW Worship Red: Disc 1
Be the Centre - Kathryn Scott; Michael Frye


Apologies to the copyright holders.

once again

here i am, once again. on duty on a beautiful saturday, my friends are at sentosa playing frisbee, having meals and sending friends off at airport in the evening, and i am here. to use mild language, bah humbug.


i've realised that i'm not much of a blogger. anyone who actually comes here sometimes (i don't have a hit counter) would know it from the sporadic entries. but upon just a little bit of reflection, i've gotten a clearer picture of my attitude towards this whole blogging thing.

hmm... reflection, clearer picture. so true, even literally, that you never know quite what you look like unless you look in a mirror..


so often, i think of something that i feel like entering here. but its not always convenient, i'm not always near a computer, and i rarely have privacy. it would help if the computer in my room had internet, but i've given up on making that a reality anytime soon. i need the privacy somehow, a strange contradiction considering that what i type is available worldwide. but i do, and it hinders the frequency of my entries.

besides, i always think i have better things to do than blog. it seems a better use of my time to be actually doing things than blogging about them.


this exceptionally long break was due to a long-awaited family trip that lasted about nine days. it's the first time we've gone overseas as a complete nuclear family since Feb 2002, which is a 3-and-a-half year hiatus. it's been my first trip of over a week since December 2001, which is significant to me because i think that breaks of under a week are not sufficient to fully recharge the batteries.


the previous day's duty clerk has just left, which means that i will be interrupted at intervals by the telephone. as such, excuse any incoherent writings which may follow beyond this point.


we went to perth, and it was good. we left on a tuesday afternoon, and therefore i spent tuesday morning packing, amongst other things. wasn't too sure how to pack for winter, eventually found a general concept to work with which made things easier - long sleeved tee, short sleeved tee, jacket, jeans as one set, packing about three sets.

*phone rings. i just called a sergeant a sir. owell*

got pretty annoyed with my dad that morning. kept bugging me to help out with the house cleaning. i had expected house-cleaning. i had planned for house-cleaning. but i had planned house-cleaning AFTER bag-packing, as my priorities stood. my mum packs for my dad, so that he is free to clean house, but i don't have that luxury. i mean, there isn't much point in cleaning up all the stuff in your room only to dig it all out half an hour later to pack right? yeesh. had to consciously watch my mouth and hold in all the sarcastic/whiny comebacks i could think of.

i was ready to go 10 minutes before schedule. shoes on and all. dad was in the toilet and didn't get out till five past. hmm. took cab down, checked in luggage, stole address tags from neighbouring airline counter (valuair doesn't provide those), wandered into duty free. bought nothing. never do. got free coke from McDonalds, took many photos in the cactus garden in the airport itself. went on plane.

plane was approximately 80% empty. 34 passengers for 168 seats. my dad counted, being the walking encyclopedia that he is. after take-off, he shooed us all off to find a set of three seats to lie down on for a little shut-eye. the food was really really really good. very simple, but very good. rice, hot-plate tofu, kailan. piping hot, very tasty. i took a few shots of it.

touched down in perth. was going delirious stepping through those airport doors. "We'reherewe'reherewe'reherewe'reherewe'rehere!!" something like that. happy. tasted the brisk wintry air of 11pm Perth, and revelled in it. took about 50 brochures off the shelves at the airport, hopped into cab. went to hotel.

the roads were entirely empty. we had entire stretches of road completely to ourselves, and went minutes at a time without seeing another vehicle. checked into hotel. we had booked just one room, seeing as we only planned to stay one night, from about midnight to 8am. figured we could survive for that long. turns out we almost didn't. the heater, as far as we could tell, wasn't working. and in the morning, we discovered that we had left a small window open. it was 3 degrees out. genius.

anyway i've typed for an hour and i'm tired. more later.

Mark Chapter 3

Verse 4: "Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent" A useful verse to remember sometimes when tempted by legalistic thoughts. It will always be lawful to do good.


Verse 5: "He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts....."
It's not wrong to be angry, and even deeply distressed. I think it's probably wrong if you are angry but not distressed, because that anger is probably on your own behalf, as opposed to anger + distress, which i see as the anger at someone doing wrong accompanied by a distress for that person who is lost.

blogscape

it's quite fun surfing blogs randomly when you've got spare time and nothing to do with it.. its like, connecting with people. it's the benefit of life experiences without having to go through them yourselves; it's putting yourself in someone else's shoes, its a boon to curious people.

which is why i haven't told anyone about this blog yet. well, all of two people, actually, but they're not the type to go reading blogs, i think. 'cos the stuff i share is deeply personal, and i am at heart a very private person. you'll never hear me talk about some of the things i say here aloud, so if my friends read this.... well, it'll be strange. someday i suppose i will tell more people, but that can wait awhile...

it's been a bad couple of days.

had a great church camp. i did. and even while having the great church camp i was keeping an eye out for what happens next, which is the crash...

well, i didn't exactly crash. but my life didn't exactly change either, which was exactly what i testified about. "all these spiritual experiences, moves of the Spirit etc., aren't the things that change your life. It's in the daily, disciplined walk with the Lord that real change occurs, that real joy is found." let's add something to that, something which i began to realise this past week... if you're not moving forward, you can be certain that you are slipping backward. so it seems to me anyway. the drift will be quite imperceptible at first, but weeks later, when you struggle to get going again, it will be 100 times harder than it was in the first place. humbug.

i'll say it frankly here. the last time i had proper, consistent quiet time was back in 2002. three full years ago. and every once in awhile i try and get back on my feet, but the effort is massive, and my will is weak. and i slip and i fall, and i lie there for awhile gathering strength to try again... i can't find the exit sign! that song that twila paris did a cover of really yelled to me.. "The Warrior is a Child"...

i've always intended to spend at least some time when doing overnight duty to read my bible and be quiet for awhile. it hasn't really happened... instead i spend time surfing the internet and doing bad things. today was about a hundred times worse than usual - just about everyone i met had work for me which kinda just stacked up into a pile that then proceeded to fall on me - hard. basically working till i fell asleep almost, managing to forget the two things given me by the highest-ranked one and earning myself ire. nothing to be done about that now, but i think i will try to avoid a certain officer when the duties are being planned now..

just to post a link here.. http://icestryder.blogspot.com/ came across it while randomly surfing blogs... it was abit of an encouragement to me. to pick myself up and start moving again. icestryder, if you ever wander across this post - thanks. i often hope that my own writings will sometime be an encouragement to others.


...

call me marvin

people are depressingly stupid.


i was on a train, headed home, bone tired and achey all over. mental faculties were functioning at a minimal level, kinda taking in the hustle and bustle of rush hour without paying too much attention.

there was a bunch of young people standing next to me. guessing they're just into adulthood, so i suppose i should call them old people since i have yet to attain that distinction. two guys, and a girl. the conversation somewhere turned to army, a favourite topic among Singaporean males. one guy was going on about some CO or other who went on a route march with his men, in admiring tones. the other was like, yah right. he took a rover right? bet he carried nothing at all. went on to comment how there are a zillion and one ways to chao keng in army, and how COs get paid the most money but don't need to do all the tedious marching and all that stuff. how depressingly stupid.

at the risk of actually taking what he said at face value (maybe he was just acting dumb for the sake of having someone to insult), someone obviously does not understand that this whole not-marching business is NOT the sum total of the job of the CO, but that this job entails much more in the way of man management, logistics planning and other tactical stuff than he can get his sodden brain around, and that HIS job of marching long distances carrying heavy weights has ACTUALLY BEEN MADE OBSOLETE by this guy we call Henry Ford. seriously. complain that the guy doesn't march with you when he has to wrestle with the responsibility that his every decision may result in massive loss of life. how depressingly stupid.


getting off the train, and groaning under the burden of a heavy load, i chose to take advantage of the convenience of the recently-installed elevator system to get my weary bones down a level to where the exits were. entering the lift ahead of me was a slick young guy, hair combed smoothly back, in a pale pink long-sleeved shirt and black trousers.

i happened to notice that instead of slouching about in the lift waiting for the inevitable closure of the door and subsequent descent, as i was doing, this pro-active, full-of-initiative, gung-ho young man was doing the following:

a) pressing the button "1" as well as the "Door Close" button simultaneously, holding them down in fact withno small amount of force.
b) glaring vehemently at the closing door as if threatening anyone who dared to disrupt his nefarious plan of efficacious door closure and elevator descent and subsequent world domination.

now, it makes exactly zero point zero zero sense to hold on to the door close button, since the door close button simply doesn't work that way. the door has a uniform rate of closure whether you hold down the button or jab it repeatedly or invoke mysterious powers of tai chi on it. holding down the door close button will also fail to override any outside attempt to halt the closure, since the lift button OUTSIDE of the lift will override the door close button INSIDE the lift.

it seems that some people think it terribly unprofitable should they even have to wait for TWO SECONDS for someone else to enter the lift, even if waiting that two seconds would save the other person a minute or so of waiting for the return of the lift. obviously their time is far more valuable than anyone else's, time being money and all that sort of malarkey, and should any insidious force even ATTEMPT to disrupt their effort at going down in the lift as quickly as possible, such people will affix the culprit with menacing glares and mutter ominous sounding curses under their breath. how arrogant to believe your own time more precious than anyone else's. how depressingly stupid.

i realise that the sound of the dripping sarcasm actually hinders the full appreciation of the point i am trying to make. excuse me, and read the above again.


i really sympathise with marvin.




Now I lay me down to bed,
Darkness won't engulf my head;
I can see by infra-red,
How I hate the night.
- marvin

Will You Be My Friend?

somehow i feel like the person i was chatting with online ignored me yet again. am i paranoid? it started with a long silence... which i ventured to break with a sarcastic remark about long conversations... and then the person disappeared.


i think i'll start approaching inanimate objects and asking them ot be my friend. real people are so fleeting.

birds i have known

O thrice-accursed rule that forbids us from carrying cameras into camp.

I have had the greatest privilege of being in a less-built up area of Singapore, where trees are plentiful and the air is cool. On my daily sojourns to camp and back, and even within the camp compound itself, i have been blessed in observing the wonders of creation practically at an arm's length.

I was walking. An innocuous activity. I heard a hooting, and marvelled that that owl was up so early, it being only 6pm. Curiosity piqued, i peered into the trees, searching for the source of the sound.

Seeing as there was but a single row of trees in my immediate vicinity, i plodded along it, discerning by triangulation the exact tree from which the sound emanated. Eyeballs straining at their sockets, i sought to see the surreptitious songbird silhouetted against the evening sky. And behold, i beheld it. And it was sitting on a branch. And shaped seemingly like a dove. Only by the nearly imperceptible motion of its beak did i identify it as the mystery singer, carrying on an avian conversation with another dove some distance away. it really did sound like a conversation, one bird saying something, and receiving a response some moments later. i was fascinated. the soft yellow light from the dying rays of the sun did little to dispel the magic of that moment, giving the creature a certain golden hue. my flab was bergasted (i mean i was flabbergasted). i have also mentally reclassified that particular sound as a "coo", as opposed to a "hoot"

minutes before that, i saw a beautiful bright blue kingfisher swoop straight into a little crevice in a wall, for reasons unbeknownst to my mammalian brain.

this morning, i saw what seemed to be a kingfisher, complete with disproportionate tail and beak. it was trilling. i found it quite... thrilling. normal bird twittering is just so uninspiring.

and there is absolutely no real point to this post. owell, they can't ALL be gems.