Searching for truth in the midst of lies

2009-02-02T10:09:00.001+08:00

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_332901.html

SINGAPORE'S top male and top female triathletes have been slapped with a competition ban for being caught alone together in a hotel room at the Asian Beach Games in Bali last October. -ST, 1 Feb 2009.

The issue i have with this is not the punishment. There was no question that the two athletes broke the rules. The outcry if any should be against the rule proper rather then the punishment.

And that is my question. What is the rationale for the rule?

Rules are set up to protect people. So if we look at the rule, does it serve to protect a person? It does actually guard the rights of the other people. That is when one girl invites a guy over to the dorm, or vice versa, they maybe other people around her or him that might feel awarkward.

Why did i write this? Because in my Moral Ed class today, we discussed rules, and whether we should explain rationales of the rules to the students. I think we should discuss and have the see the rationale, to try to understand and appreciate. But there are rules that i feel are beyond the ability of students to comprehend and appreciate. In those cases, it is clear that the optimal approach is to trust the teacher.

Teachers are in positions of trust. We should not violate that trust because the parents put their children in our guardianship. The children today more then ever need moral guides and moral adults to observe and learn from. We are that societal guides, to be present to set the tone for the upcoming generation.

Recessions and Ox

2009-02-01T21:23:00.002+08:00

These 3 years have something in common:

1985, 1997, 2009.

They are 3 consecutive year of the ox. (Chinese Zodiac has 12 animals, and 12 years make a cycle).

And they were when Singapore had a recession (Channel News Asia, S'pore must be disciplined, not dip into reserves at first signs of trouble, 1/2/2009)

It is even more interesting when you realise what an Ox is. A castrated bull. Poor thing.

But anyway this post is not about castrations and recessions, but it is about something that i have noticed.

There are two questions christian must answer. Who is God, and who are you.

Who makes a person is not his deeds; you can say William is a driver, or a teacher, but that is not him, it is his job, or his passion.

What makes a person is not his misdeeds; you can say that William is a speedster (which I am not). Again that is not him, just his deeds.

What makes a person is more then just what others see. It is the character of the person. It is who the person was made to be. It is yes, the person may be patient and knowledgeable, but those are aspects of him. To know who you are, you need to spend time with yourself.

I think that is something God wants me to know. Who am I. On a quest to verify that the person i really am, is the one i show to people, and the one that God wants me to be, and the one God will use to glorify himself.

Recently, i been under attacked. Felt somehow, i will be a lousy teacher. That i do not know how to teach. That i am useless.

Then I am reminded. I am not here because i am a good teacher. I am not here because i am good at teaching. I am here, because God called me here. I am here because God wants me here. Because he made me to teach to glorify his name. What more can i ask? Nothing more.

God in all things

2009-01-16T08:59:00.003+08:00

I watched Red Cliff 2.

The last part of the movie sees a violent ending of the war. Many people were killed. Losses were massive. I.e. Great War Show!

As i watched it, I asked. What price victory?

In the movie, the price was high, but the prize was higher. Freedom. The right to be free. This was the amazing price. The red cliff was theirs. Free from tyranny.

Life is about fighting wars. Freedom in the sense not to do what we want, but freedom to choose to do what is right. God wants us to fight for truth.

Then last night, i asked, is there a purpose in ministry? What is ministry? God spoke simply.

Life and ministry are one yet distinct.

To give context, i was asking God, what should my ministry be. The specific area i should serve in, above and beyond the usual christian life thing. But really, where in the church should i serve. But first i wanted to know what ministry was.

And this is my journey now. Finding out what is ministry in God's eyes. What does serving God mean. I don't know. I need to.

Another thing, i feel like i am crumbling. I don't know why, but i feel it in my spirit. To fall apart anytime soon.

Malacca

2008-12-11T00:44:00.003+08:00

I just got home from malacca with some of my friends. Really strange how people meet and bond.

The hotel we stayed at was actually where i first truly had a meeting with God. A place where 2004, i met God face to face, and broke down. Gifts of tongues, prophecy, and an experience of God were the things i took away.

I walked around the place, remembering the rooms, the layout at least. The views. The food. But in all that, i realised something.

There are places in your life that we can never return in hopes of resurrecting memories. That which are memories sometimes stay only as memories, and no revisiting of the place can recreate the feelings or thoughts.

Hotel Equatorial will always be the place where i first remembered meeting God. It holds a place in my heart. Malacca was where i went with my church, and came back with my family. It was where i had the worst time of my church life, and the best time with God. It was where, when the church failed to reach out to me, that God could show me that He cares.

Yet when i revisit the place, it is new again. It awaits for me to make new joyful memories. Make new experiences. Visit and do new things again. It is not waiting for me to return to recreate the old scenes of meeting God, it is waiting for me to return to meet God again.

I am now home, realising how much i enjoy being around people. I may not be a great friend to be with, but i enjoyed their company and they are a great bunch to hang out with. Sometimes, the best part of friends, is the silence. We need not be talking, but we can be communicating.

Outsourced

2008-11-26T10:59:00.002+08:00

Tagline:
Todd just lost his job. Now he has to find his life.

The show "outsourced" is an incredible show. It shows the journey of a man, called Tod, who finds himself sent to India because his company has decided to outsource the entire department (call centre, Order Fulfillment) to India.

The movie depicts how he gets around in India, how he hates it, then grows to love it.

I think the movie chronicles a great way to live life. Tod went to India resenting the way of life. He resents being sent to India. He hates it.

In the same way, when change happens to us, we find that sometimes, we hate it. We find it difficult to accept the new changes. We are forced into positions we cannot accept, yet have to make do.

Tod later learns to love India. In a especially poignant scene, Tod enters the river to clean up. You see him apprehensive at first, then he goes deep in, literally like a baptism, then he starts swimming and enjoying the river.

That is like life. Once we are able to embrace change, find the beauty and the life within the change, life goes on. That is what is meant by God giving us life to enjoy things. Life was meant for us to enjoy circumstances. Embrace the events that are in our life. Not all are good, even after the embrace, Tod still had some difficulty. But he learnt to take the good with the bad, the chili with the rice. Embracing life is about the good and the bad put together to make a decent experience.

Then Tod goes back to his office. He admits he was wrong in trying to run the office like an American office. He needed to make the place functional, not shoehorned into a model that did not apply.

That is like life. So many times, I find myself struggling because I am trying to reshape the circumstances to fit a model in my mind, or to make something work in the manner I know how. I fail to see that I should instead try to make the circumstances work best in the way it is meant to be.

This point applies to ministry. How many of us try to make our juniors like us? How many of us wants our youth to be like us, the good side at least. But the truth is, they will never be. They are not meant to be like us. They are meant to be them. They are meant to be the best that God made them to be. They are meant to reflect a different aspect of God from us. They reflect God, not us.

Parents want their children to be living images of themselves. That will never happen because it is not meant to be. Children should be stretched to allow them to reach their maximum potential.

And finally, the last scene. Tod succeeds in bringing down the time taken for each call to be concluded to 5 minutes, one minute below the target. His boss comes in to tell him that they are shutting down the business and moving to china. Tod is asked to go to china. He refuses, and sends his no. 2 man, while he returns to the states unemployed. Along the way, he loses the girl he loves (one of the staff there) and he returns to the states. Yet, he returns to a life. He embraces the change. He realises, he is in control of his choices.

That is life. Not everything ends well. Life does take a turn for the bad. You lose the one you love, you lose your job. Yet life does not end. Life goes on, and change has to be embraced. We choose how we would like to respond to the change. Life goes on.

That show teaches about life. It shows us that change happens, circumstances are NEVER in our control. Only our choices in how we respond to the circumstances.

$2 COE

2008-11-20T17:06:00.002+08:00

I love that. Too bad i not buying cars.

But what i so love is how people fail to understand what exactly COE is. Read the forums and you will be so amused.

Firstly, the COE does not affect the value of your car. COE is a RIGHT to drive that particular car. A low COE will not mean lower future value. On the contrary, when your car is placed alongside other similar models, it is at an advantage because your cost of purchasing the car is low. Hence, low COE is always good.

Secondly, the car market is a strange place. How dealers work is that they will refund you the difference between the COE and the rebate level. When you look for cars, there will be a rebate level. That is the COE price they expect to pay. If the COE fell below that price, they will refund the difference. If it is above, the dealer will make good the difference, though exactly how much is not clear.

FInally, the government is not able to control the prices of COE. COE is merely the right to drive on the road. Demand and supply of such rights will determine the true value of the COE. Yes, the government can reduce the supply, but this is on hindsight. If they restrict the COE by too much, there will complaints that the COE is too costly.

At the end of the day, COE is about purchase of rights to drive on the road. It makes no sense to blame anyone except the free market about the prices, because the market will ascertain the optimal for that period, dependent on demand and supply.

Bees

2008-11-17T23:25:00.003+08:00

First bees. Wasps to be exact. Meet this buzz.

This 'harmless' wasp was cold at around 4 am. So it decided to come into my room. Under my blanket. Where i was zzz. I moved. He stung me. I woke up, moved again, felt another painful sting on my leg. I moved one last time, and had a front row seat of this fly stinging me on my left thigh for the third time. OUCH!.

I spent the rest of the day in some pain. Oh boy it hurts, I can tell you. But thankfully it was not fatal though... Haiz.

Okie just thought it would be interesting...

Rights and Wrong

2008-11-11T09:31:00.001+08:00

I had a discussion with a few friends in my car about homosexuality.

So we started by asking, how can we bring God’s view on Homosexual marriage into a non religious perspective. Christians know that homosexuality is wrong. Why is it wrong, and how do we tell it to the world? A world that does not believe in God? It proved to be near impossible.

No matter what argument you put forward, the ultimate response was that it was discriminatory. By banning gay marriages, by restricting any rights of homosexuals, we have become discriminatory. Our laws have become discriminatory in nature. And because it so, we have a duty as Christians to fight that law. A law that is discriminatory in nature is necessarily wrong, even if it was aimed at achieving a good end. Means do not justify an end. And if you had certain assumptions, then that law is discriminatory.

But as we debated back and forth, my friend (non Christian, not supportive nor against homosexual) pointed out that on a strictly objective perspective, Christians were restricting the rights of a free individual to make decisions that they think would be best for them. And if you did not think homosexual was wrong, then it would mean that we were indeed discriminating against a way of life.

But as we argued even more, I realised the real heart of the debate. The true argument that the gay lobby has in Singapore, is not whether they had a right to have anal sex. The gay lobby in the world is not truly fighting for marriage. What they want, and the crux of the debate is simply this question:

Is Homosexuality wrong.

The debate is coloured when we discuss about gay rights because that is not main question. If homosexuality was wrong, there would be no rights to discuss. No right to have sex, no right to engage in marriage. Homosexuality is wrong, you commit it, you are a criminal, therefore your rights are removed. What the debate has moved on is on a presupposition that homosexuality is right. And I believe that is what is happening. We are moving not towards a new world order so much as muddling up the waters sufficiently that what is right and wrong is not clear anymore.

Strip away all the deceit, pull the stops, fight back to get to the core of the debate. Is homosexual wrong. Because it started there. We moved away and started dealing with the symptoms. If we said it was right, then I’m sorry, gay marriages have to be condoned. If we argued that it was wrong, then I’m sorry, gay marriages have to be condemned. I believe gays actually know this. That is why they move away from this debate, call themselves minority, and ignore the bigger issue.

So anyway, we changed topic. We argued why homosexuality is wrong. We asked the tough questions. And there was no answer. How do you have a fair answer to the question, is homosexuality wrong. It feels natural. It’s love, pure and simple. There is no simple right or wrong.

And then my non Christian friend pointed out an extremely sharp view: Christians have a assumption about right and wrong, and derive logic from there. Non believers have no idea of right and wrong, and use logic to find it. Christians use right and wrong to find logic, non believers use logic to decide what is right and wrong.
But by definition, right and wrong is not for discussion. Right and wrong are absolutes. If we use logic to derive right and wrong, then our answers will be flawed. Do consider that philosophers, while not maintaining a monopoly on logic do possess considerable expertise in the area, are not in agreement with right and wrong. Then in that case, does it not tell you that logic cannot derive right and wrong if the foundations of logic is fundamentally weakened due to a lack of knowledge. Logic cannot work without knowledge, perfect knowledge in fact. Right and wrong, does not depend on feelings, emotions, good enough reasons. It is an absolute. Black or white. Exclusive by nature.

But if you use a presupposition that God is real, and he is good, then right and wrong becomes clear, and logic becomes the tool you use to explain why it is right and why it is wrong. Christians need logic far more than anything else sans faith, because without it, you’d be floating around in nothingness. How can that be? We need logic to understand the laws of God. Without logic, you’d have blind faith. We read the bible, but we also need to verify what the bible says, and not just what the translation says, but careful study of the topic, not to understand the what, but the why God says it.

And even then, it came to mind that that was the main thesis of life as a Christian. For me, my biggest burden is not for the lost. But for the found and lost. I have a burden for those who have fallen away from God. And I know they feel, having been there. But I want to be a friend to them, the friend that I wanted and needed. The friend that can explain, why God is good. What does it mean that God is good. How is God good. All these questions, that were never answered but presupposed.

As like the gay argument that presupposes that homosexuality is right, we cannot merely presupposed that God is good, we have first believe that God is good and find out why. We need know why is God’s will good, pleasing and perfect (sic, out of context). We need to be convinced.

We need to know the why. True Christianity does not take things on faith. True Christianity dares to ask the questions no one can answer, deal with the lack of answers, and press on. True Christians are not afraid of things unknown, including knowledge and answers. True Christians deal with ambiguity because it exists everywhere. God’s law is clear; we just lack the ability to replicate it. We need to find it.

This topic could go on. But here is the conclusion of the matter. If you do not have an unshakable foundation of truth, not just feelings and emotions, but truth, then life is getting to be really hard for you.

Perspective again

2008-11-08T23:32:00.002+08:00

When you start an engine, many things happen.

First, pistons move.
An intake stroke fills the entire chamber with petrol and oxygen.
The compression stroke squeezes the mixture, increasing the pressure
The combustion stroke occurs at the tip, when the spark plug sparks, igniting the potent mixture.
Finally the exhaust stroke pushes out the waste gases.

In those four strokes, the engine would have turned a crankshaft. That turns the vertical motion of the pistons into a rotational motion.

The crankshaft is then connected to the transmission house, where via gears the power is then transmitted to the wheels. The gears play a role that is significant; without them, the only way to accelerate would be for the engine to spin faster and faster.

The power then goes through a differential, which controls the power sent to each wheel.

Even this description does not fully explain how a car works. There is just so much to be said at each stage. If one fails, optimality is not reached. So what is the purpose of this post?

In life, we are each like a part of a wheel. God's plans are much larger than us. He has plans that we do not know. We might be the pistons pushing up and down, not knowing that we power the car. We might be the differentials, not clear of where the power comes from, but delivering it to the the wheels. We might even be the wheels, thinking that we are the drivers of the car, but the power comes from elsewhere.

God's people all form one body. We are in that respect united. I am important, so are you. If i fail, God's plan falls from optimality. So if you fail, God's plan also falls from optimality. Sure he is in control, like the driver, but if the wheels wear out, the driver compensates. He is in control, yet not in control. God lets us have the freedom of choice, but He is in control.

Perspective

2008-11-06T08:57:00.002+08:00

I love that word. Perspective. It can mean so much, or it can mean so little.

I was having a discussion with two friends about the fine institution I am in. Now not an issue really, but I feel that is a lot to improve in the institution. Namely what happens in the course.

And both of them told me the same thing, it's about perspective. If I was able to stop whining and see that I have something to gain from the institution, or if I believed that I had something to gain, then my time there would be worth it.

And yes i agree there is so much in that statement. But there is a half-lie. Perspective does not change truth. Perspective changes response.

This is what I mean. When I complain about something, I do my best to ensure that the criticism I lay on the body is based on facts. Based on what is happening. It is not a "damn boring, or damn sian' but more of a 'not useful' attitude. And that is the sad fact, this institution does not or is not giving me the ability to do what I am supposed to do. It is giving me the theoretical knowledge but that is not something i guess i was looking for.

Knowledge and ability are two separate entities. But for another argument.

Perspective helps us check our responses. It guides us in our choices. It helps us through the place. But it CANNOT replace the truth. If the truth is the place sucks, it sucks. Perspective means we do our best about it. And it angers me to no end, when people are so interested in making me see the right attitude. When in fact, rather then tell the person what is right and wrong, guide the person there.

Telling and showing are two separate things. Maybe for a young boy, telling is more effective. But like the saying, give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach the man to fish, and he will spend the whole damn day in the boat. (Joking, correct idiom: Teach the man to fish, and he will eat for life).

Telling is like giving the man a fish. It tells the person what to do in a specific circumstances. But showing is like teaching. It gives the man the idea of how to behave. It teaches the man how to decide.

Guide, or better still, walk with your friend through life. We are all pilgrims on a life journey.

Hamilton Wins

2008-11-03T10:47:00.002+08:00

Massa fought hard, driving a race that was fantastic, leading the pack. To be fair, he had no need to defend his position; there were no other drivers near him.

But despite all that, despite the effort he put in, struggle and fighting for the championship, indeed winning the race, he did not win the championship.

Hamilton won it.

But the focus should not be on him, it should be on Massa. Massa put his heart and soul into the race, he raced as hard as he could. He fought the good fight, run the good race. (So did hamilton, but Hamilton won). Yet Massa lost.

That is what life is like. We fight the best we can, put on our hearts and soul into war, we wrestle with the circumstances that threaten to overwhelm us. And we lose.

That makes a man a man, a woman, a woman. One who fights, struggles no matter what, gives his best no matter the outcomes. One who gives his all and gives God the responsibility for giving him the resutls. The man who fights knowing he might lose, and still gives his all, is one we respect.

But the man we follow, is the man who is able, after a defeat, arises from the ashes shakes of the dust, pushes off and run hard again.

Sometimes we run the perfect race, yet we lose. Sometimes we are the faithful, and we get stoned. We cry out to God, and the devil responds. We seek for God, and God hides. We do the right thing, and we lose.

But do we pick ourselves up, be unjaded by the experience, and run?

I like to think, I do. No matter what happens, I sob during the event, but like David, I want to rise up after the event, and to worship God.

2 Sa 12:19 - But when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead: therefore David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead.

2 Sa 12:20 Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed [himself], and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the LORD, and worshipped: then he came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat.

We learn that later, David comforts his wife, and Solomon is born.

David did not carry his grudge. Last season, Hamilton lost due to inexperience, but this year, he did not carry the grudge, only the lesson. He suffered from racist attacks, yet he did not carry anger, but he pressed on.

Lets hope Massa learns that. To not carry rage, failures, grudges. But to carry lessons, skills. To be pearls and not jade. To shine from tests, not shy from trials.

Spirit of the Law, Letter of the Law

2008-10-28T17:03:00.002+08:00

I was in school early this morning, and I did my QT. During that time, God showed me Matt 5. The Beattitudes, followed by what murder and adultery is.

But as i prayed and read, God showed that the focus is not on what murder and adultery is, those were examples. And it was not examples of what sin was, i.e., thinking of something, but it was so much deeper.

The pharisees were famous for following it. They were literally living that life. But Jesus came to fulfill the law.

The pharisees followed the letter of the law. Jesus lived the spirit of the law.

God does not want us to live the letter of the law. The letter of the law allows us to justify sin, justify actions, permits us to lower the standards of right and wrong. It is the law that brings death. It is unachievable. But the same law, when viewed from the spirit of law, is different. It brings life. It brings joy and freedom.

The letter of the law reveals what we must or must not do. It focused entirely on the actions of a man. The spirit of the law reveals what the law intends to do, the purposes of the law. The direction of the righteousness of God. The spirit of the law reveals the intention of the creator of that same law. We do not live for the letter of the law, we live for the spirit of the law.

The Letter of the Law is Merciless in the execution of it's Gracious Standards.
The Spirit of the Law is Gracious in the execution of it's Merciless Standards.

The letter of the law means that people can wrap around it. Consider that the pharisees would see healing as bad on sabbath, consider that today we think it is ok if we have pre-marital sex as long as it is responsible pre-marital sex. We follow the letter of the law, finding ways to support our actions, or finding ways to defend our desires, or making sure that we do not get caught. The ultimate support of the letter of the law is that it says, if you are not caught, hooray!

But there is a price to pay. The letter of the law is merciless in it's execution. It is brutal, and there is no way out. If one is caught with another woman, there is no grace involved, only punishment by stoning. If one is caught speeding, there is no grace, only a ticket.

The spirit of the law on the other hand has an exacting standard. Perfection. It drives us to be like our Father in Heaven. Perfect in everyway. And once you have that standard, there is no way around it. It is perfect. It demands that in thought, action and breathe, we are like God. Perfect. Its standard is merciless.

But there is a price to pay. The spirit of the law is gracious in it's execution. Gracious, because someone thousands of years ago paid the price for us. He died that we may live. He died that we may be strengthened and cleanse by his blood. The spirit of the law is permitted to be gracious. It does not have to pass punishment. Even though judgement is swift, so is mercy.

The Letter of the Law is Merciless in the execution of it's Gracious Standards.
The Spirit of the Law is Gracious in the execution of it's Merciless Standards.

Today, life is about the spirit of the law. Yes, others live by the letter. But we Christians are called to be light, salt. We are called into a destiny with Christ. Lets live by the higher standards. Live by the spirit of the Law. Know the heart of the father, obey and love the cry of your God.

Idealism

2008-10-22T09:38:00.002+08:00

I realised how immature i was in University.

As i discussed an issue with a friend who is in Uni, i realised that the immaturity does not stem from a lack of knowledge, but a denial. I am not sure if that immaturity is good or bad.

The denial is of reality. Not running away from reality, but looking at reality and asking, why not? The pure idealism of youth questioning and prepared to fight for a truth. I think all of us should possess a belief, whatever they hold true, to be worth fighting for.

But when we age, that immaturity gives way to maturity. Or perhaps it is giving way to something else, death. We become practical people. Looking at the cost and the benefit of doing something. Analysing the issue, and bringing points to assist in a decision.

I think as teachers, we need to live a life of dichotomy. We need to be passionate and idealist about issues that come on our table, yet to treat issue with a dose of realism. We have to be strangle apart from reality to ask why not, yet have an anchor to truth to ask why.

Life is all about extremes. Live a life that is passionate for truth, angry at societal ills, courageous to go for the unknown, yet willing to listen to others, forgiving and working with others contented with what we have. To live a life as if we would lose it tonight, and to live a life that losing it is of no issue. To treasure the life we have.

And the only way to treasure this life is to use it fully.

RACE

2008-09-28T23:33:00.002+08:00

A race to remember.

After yesterday trials, Alonso was 15th on the grid. Now, lets face it, who the hell can win?

But He did.

He was 15th on the grid, near the end, and Alonso won!

Massa on pole, got in 13th. Raikkonen DNF. Hamilton was third.

Somehow, the amazing things happen. Alonso was brilliant. But even brilliance needs luck, and that is what Alonso got. It was lucky He pit well before safety car came out, he was lucky that Massa made a fatal mistake, causing him a pit lane drive through as well as a torn out fuel hose. Alonso was lucky that Hamilton was held up behind him.

I think as i watched F1, i feel that this really tells one thing.

We can plan all we want, prepare for everything. But God directs our path.

In life, God directs our path. He alone knows the events and He alone controls it all. He alone has amazing grace and mercy, to do what is best.

But back to F1, it was GREAT. F1, come back soon!

Sad

2008-09-28T07:54:00.002+08:00

Massa is on pole =(. Why... I want Hamilton to win.

But what i really want (and this is really bad) is for one of the cars (Not the top few) to come to an abrupt stop becaure they meet the water barrier. Preferably the barrier which i can see.

It will be nice if some red coloured car had a gearbox issue or engine failure. And it will be nice if a silver car moved really really fast.

See you at F1. Be there, and be deaf.

The Land

2008-09-22T08:30:00.002+08:00

A man comes to view a plot of land. War had visited the area. Rubble lie scattered on the ground. Dust covers the grassland, cakes the rocks, saturates the air. The air is stale and dead. Life struggles to find purchase on the barren land. Spots of weeds grow up in random corners. Death and desolation is victorious. Deep craters graced the ground, sharp steep walls hovering over deep chasms.

In the background there are hills, rolling hills of green grass. Bird fly around, and villages nearby have vivid signs of life. Yet on this area, there is a sense of desperation. To many, this land is useless. Life cannot thrive, death reigns and destruction rules. What is purpose of such a land?

To that man, he sees a hope for the future. He sees the land as having potential. He sees a chance for the land to be a blessing. He SEES the land.

The man slowly clears the land of the rubble. He sweeps the land clean. He wipes what he sees clean of dust. He carts the rubble away. He marks out an area for a home. He zones an area for a garden. He plants. He gardens.

Slowly, life returns. Trees sprout up and grass grows. The air clears. Animals run wild across the new plains. The sounds of birds fill the air, chasing out the dust. Death and destruction slowly loses grip over the land.

But the craters remain. The man looks at the craters and wants to fill it up. Inspired, He decides to do something. He fills up the crater with water. Animals look at the water, suspicious. But soon they take sips of water, and find it refreshing. Life giving. The animals come slowly and drink deep of the water.

Eventually, people travel and they see the change in the land. They see the change. They see the life that is growing up. They drink of the water. Their lives are refreshed by the water.

That is my life. The rubble shows the broken dreams. The dust shows the lack of care of my life. The craters show the hurts I have. God takes care of my life. Out of a life that appears useless, he clears it up.

God clears the broken dreams. Out of ruins, He builds a home. Out of shatter dreams, he gives new hope. Instead of just clearing the land, He builds.

God uses the wounds to bring life to others. The crater He fills with living water, that I might quench others. Instead of covering the wound, He fills it with His love and life.

God does not heal me the way I want Him to. Many times, I want Him to take away the pain. But God opts to let me bear the pain. Not only that will I learn, but that I might be able to share the burden. When another goes through that path, I can stand with that person and say, I know.

In some sense, I can see how God is leading me. First through showing me what loving God means, then loving people when rejected and then loving a person despite rejection. It hurts, but I guess I really see God’s feelings now. His pain when we reject Him. God does not see us as a people. He sees us as a person. The depth of rejection we show to Him, is really really deep.

Tired

2008-09-17T08:14:00.000+08:00

There is this sense of weariness in everyone.

On Sunday, I was speaking to a friend, and he mentioned that nearly everyone on msn says “Tired” in response to the question, “How are you”

Have we forgotten to rest. Have we forgotten what rest is. Have we been so caught up with work, we forgot we need to rest?

I think there is more than that. For myself, there has been a chasm between me and God. God is my refuge, strong tower, most of all, my Sabbath. God is my restedness. He is my rest. I am not with Him, which makes me unrested.

But as I probe deeper, in me there is a big issue. A sense of restlessness. A sense of rebellion within. Struggling to break free. There is anger inside.

The other day, I raced someone in the rain. When someone cuts my lane, I issue the most colourful language. When someone is slow in front of me, they get the light, the horn and the glare. I will also cut back into the person’s lane.

But there is an anger within. This angry outcry against something I know not. An angry heart that breeds resentment. This anger I have within that lashes out at anything I can find. This is not me.

I don’t know why I have this anger. It breeds inside like an algae growth in disused wells. Mould on wet bread. Rust on exposed metals. Grime on damp pipes. A house in disrepair, angry yet broken.

I am like that. A house in disrepair, angry and broken. I need to be rebuild. I need God to rebuild me. I need God to repair my heart.

Controlling your temper is different from dealing with your temper. Controlling merely puts a cap on your anger. It is merely you fighting to put anger back into the box. It is simply control.

Dealing with it is different. It is finding the source of the anger, the source of the restlessness. The rage. And dealing with it.

For me, it is unforgiveness. There is someone whom I have difficulty forgiving because of what has happened between us. Ok so, there may be more than one someone. But that unforgiveness is destroying me, because of the anger I feel against that person. Because in me, there is this self-righteous spirit that says, you cannot do this to me. But the truth is, that is just pride. The unwillingness to forgive and say, ok, I am sorry.

Sometimes restlessness for me is because I forget to rest. Sometimes it is because of unforgiveness. Sometimes, it is because I am away from God. Other times, it is because I am disobedient. Restlessness or weariness are but signs for me, that life is not in order.

Teaching.

2008-09-02T11:54:00.002+08:00

We spoke about the failings of economics in class today.

An opinion that was voiced was that economics is too positive. We do not have very much normative views on economics.

Positive views of economics concerns itself with what is. It is usually empirically verifiable and generally regarded as economic knowledge or truths. Concerning itself with what is, it is easier to deal with. What is unemployment? What is inflation? What is the absolute poverty line?

Normative views of economics concerns itself with what ought to be. It is value laden, judgment based on what is right or what should be right and wrong. It makes a decision or a stand, it is about people. Do you understand that an unemployed person is not a statistic? Should we not only resort to unemployment under dire circumstances?

Economics succeeded so well because we focused on the positive branch of economics. We do not manage normative values. One reason for that is that positive economics is far easier to deal with than normative. There is less room for discussion, no values to be discussed.

Yet is that what economics is about? Is it all about the numbers? The rationality of people, the desire to do better? Is it all about what that we want, the best for ourselves without regard to other things in life like values, desires and well being? Do we consider relationships as the fundamental building block of life?

I think there is a deeper struggle at hand. Underlying all these is the struggle, what can we teach? Can we teach values? Is there a right and wrong? Are values lost in today's world? Are there values? Is everything in life about knowledge?

Teachers teach students not to pass exams, or even to have an education, but we teach the students to become adults. Teaching is not just in the classroom; teaching is about life impartation. It begins when we are old and we start to think. It continues when we speak our thoughts. It is shown by the lives we live. It ends when we say, it is finished. Teaching is about life impartation. We need to teach our kids to live lives worth living.

Everyone is a teacher. The difference is, teaching can also be a profession. Ask yourself, what do you want to teach? How to make the right decision? Or mere head knowledge.

Hope

2008-08-29T19:53:00.002+08:00

What drives us forward is not the achievement of a dream, but the hope of it's achievement.

I come to realise that the greatest emotion that drives people is really hope. Hope pushes us on. When the going gets tough, hope gives us the direction of travel. Hope spurs us on, it encourages us on.

Love does the same, but love lacks direction. It merely exists as the crutch on which everyone needs to lean on, the water we all need to drink deep from. But hope functions as a compass, giving us a direction to move towards.

Yet hope can crash a person. Hope can destroy what joy that person seeks for. It can eliminate all the life a person has, it can wreck a man's life. I know. I had hoped. And my hoped crashed.

But the other day, i felt God's tender hand come in and say this. Only to those who dare to hope, do i put through such trials. It takes courage and character to have hope (true hope and not wishful hope). It takes a person who dares a lot to hope. Because Hope entails a risk of loss. Hope requires that a person dares to move forward in that direction, bearing in mind the risk of error. Hope trusts that the person dares much. Hope gives life meaning, yet takes away reason. Hope is a double edged sword.

Guys, you need to hope. You need because only then you will dare to move in the direction.

Life is made worth while of the things we hope for. May all your dreams come through, except one.

Birthday

2008-08-17T21:11:00.002+08:00

It was my birthday today.

It was a hard day to go through. Lots of things happening in my life and all. Going through things and feeling the pain. Realising the need to grieve when things happen and a loss occurs. Struggling to understand yet just needing to hold on. Feeling the pain yet pressing on.

But I have to go on. Not for myself, but because God needs it.

Have we ever realised that God needs us? Not in the need need, needy type God, but needs in the without us, His plans cannot come to fruition. Yes, God can but He will not do everything. There are things in our lives, purposes that no one else can fulfill. No one else can step into your shoes and do the things you do.

Why else did God pursue Jacob and make him into Israel? Why did God choose David instead of any of his brothers? God chose Saul, and Saul let God down. The replacement was David. We say he was the greatest King of Israel; I believe if Saul had obeyed God, he and not David would be the greatest King of Israel.

God chose Peter, the man who persistently crammed his foot into his mouth as the rock of the church. God selected Peter who betrayed Him to be the foundation of Church. God chose Saul, later Paul, to be the mouth piece and literally the author of the New Testament. God chose John to reveal to the churches the last days.

God chose me. God chose you. No one else can fulfill our functions better than ourselves. If we do not do our jobs, if we fail, other people suffer. God puts other people's lives and salvation into the hands of those He trusts and favours.

I have to press on because of the burden God put in my hands, lest i fail and others suffer.

For my brothers and sisters in christ, know that the responsibilities of God put on you MUST be carried on by you and you alone. No one else will do.

Trust

2008-08-10T20:35:00.003+08:00

I was recalling this phrase, Trust in God. And I know God is calling us to trust Him all our days, for He can be trusted.

But over the week, I watched a video called Dust. And it blew me away. Because it was exactly what I felt for the longest time, but could not put into words.

Did you know God trusts us?

The God almighty, the amazing God above, the creator of heaven of earth, the Matchless God, trusts us. He trusts us to do the right thing. That is the foundation of free will.

Free will is the ultimate declaration of God's love for us. He trusts us do the right thing. He gave instructions, commands, and even died for us, but in that time, God honours our choices. He cajoles, persuades, cries out to us, yet he still honours our choices. Because He trusts us.

Adam was the only man, yet God trusted that Adam would obey Him and gave him the garden to tend. Abraham had the task of giving birth to a nation. Issac and Jacob were part of that history. Joseph was trusted to be the head of egypt. God trusted each man to fulfill his destiny.

Yes God helps, Yes God loves and He guides. But did you know He trusts? When God says Follow me, did you know He is actually saying, I believe you can do what i do. I believe you can do it. I believe in YOU.

God believes and trusts you.

Caught by the past, Not fully present.

2008-08-09T07:52:00.002+08:00

I was watching Nooma and in it was a phrase, are we fully present? When we are still holding on to how things were, our arms are not free to embrace today.

This morning when I woke, God gave me a picture of a little boy crying. His hands were firmly clenched around a cactus. The cactus was covered by sharp spikes and the spikes were the cause of the little boy's tears.

The easiest way to solve the pain, is to let go of the cactus. It is the cause of the pain, the cause of the problem.

But God showed me two things. 1. The little boy is not letting go because of pain. The process of releasing will introduce a higher level of pain at the instant of releasing. Physically, when we are firmly clenched onto something, letting go results in blood rushing into the area and causing more pain. In the same way, the little boy has tried to let go, but it resulted in more pain for a while, and he was unwilling to let go.

In life, letting go of the past means incurring a short run pain. This temporary but sharp pain will penetrate you. But like the little boy, to remove the source of the pain, we need to let go fully.

2. The little boy does not let go because of fear. The fear of the unknown. The fear of what happens if I let go. I have a cactus, yes it is painful, but feeling pain is better than feeling the pain of not feeing anything. Of not having anything. Possession no matter how painful is sometimes preferred to the uncertainty of not having anything.

In life, sometimes there are things that we are unwilling to let go because we lack knowledge. We do not know what is next, what happens next. We are stuck in a corner because of a fear of the light ahead. Of the freedom of today. We dare not let go, and embrace what we cannot see. The present.

But like a loving father, God will cleanse the wound, put healing salves on the injury, hold your hand, love you to health, that He may give you a better present. One that will not hurt. One that will bless you.

Jam 4:14 (NKJV) whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

Seize the day!

Insomic

2008-07-30T02:04:00.002+08:00

I cannot sleep.

It is now 2 in the morning, and i am awake after a mere three hours of sleep. I cannot explain it.

Things have been going on. Not really sure how to vocalise them, so I shall not. I cannot admit that it was easy, neither can I say it was entirely a shock. Sometimes, I just wished life was easier.

I think life is hard. Life is hard because that is what it makes it worth living. We come into contact with situations that force us to make tough choices. We come into maturity by making hard choices. We come into character by bearing the consequences of our choices. We come into destiny by choosing the appropriate path.

Many situations force us to make tough choices. When we are younger, the tough choices include following our friends, obeying our parents, listening to elders. Doing our homework or watching tv. Going out with friends or staying at home. Choices that involve sacrifice, and the sacrifice is known as OPPORTUNITY COST. But when we grow up, the choices become harder. The opportunity cost rises. We make harder decisions. To work here or there. To stay in a relationship or to get out. To wait or not to wait. To stay a believer or to walk away. To buy this or that.

We come into maturity by making hard choices. Yet it is those very same hard choices that marks our maturity. When we were young, such choices trained us for a lifetime of life. When we are old enough and have to make tough decisions, it is those decisions that mature us. We learn to assess situations and develop decision making skills. We learn to count the cost and walk that path. We learn to be grown up to make the decisions ourselves. Maturity is not an incident; it is a journey.

We come into character by bearing the consequences of our choices. The choices we make have consequences. There are always consequences and repercussions. But our character is formed through hardship. When we encounter hardship as a result of a decision, do we back down immediately? If we choose to teach and hardship comes, do we back out immediately? If we find ourselves in a JC that we do not like, do we whine and complain? If we are in a relationship that has problems, do we sort things out? Character like maturity is forged over time. No one has character; it is carved out. A mature character makes hards choices and sticks to them. True, there are times when we need to change, but that is when information that comes in greatly differs from what we had at the time of decision making.

We come into destiny by choosing the appropriate path. A mature character at the end of the day is our destiny. God did not make us for anything else. But a man or woman in His image. One that has maturity and one that has character. Identity. There may be no I in team, but there is Me. Identity.

Sometimes we will make decisions on impulse. Nearly all the time we make decisions with a lack of information. But this is key. Choices will have to be made. The issue is not so much whether we've made the right choice all the time, but more that have we put in effort to make the choices right?

Leaving

2008-07-19T21:12:00.002+08:00

I have left CJC officially.

I am now a student teacher. Essentially, I am a student who is paid to study. I have no idea what to expect as I get conflicting advice. I shall simply go there with an open mind and experience life.

Right now I am struggling over some doubts. Some issues that have cropped up in my life. I don't know what to do. I want things to work out, yet somehow I am not sure how they work out. I wish things were easier, but they are not.

There are struggles that people do not see and merely think that I have no issues. There are struggles in my life that others somehow just fail to see, fail to remedy. I do not know what to do.

God is not silent. I am merely not listening to Him.

Movies

2008-07-11T21:07:00.002+08:00

I watched Hancock and Wanted. Wanted was a show that broke so many physics laws it should be behind bars in physics world. Hancock was well, interesting.

Personally, i felt Wanted had too much blood, gore. But i remembered one line and it was spoken by Angeline Jolie: "We never know how far the ripples of our decision reach". I find that line so true.

In life, every decision we make has ripples. And the truth is we do not know how far the ripples reach. We cannot really tell but what we know is that every decision we make has consequences. As Samuel L Jackson in Jumper says, "There are always consequences". We need to realise that every decision is important.

However, we cannot be made impotent by that fact. We need to occasionally ignore the issues on hand, and simply make the decisions. We cannot be overawed by the amount of information available, or to hold decision indefinitely until we have all the information. The truth is, you never will know how far the repercussions of a decision is. So the next best thing? Evaluate and when ready, jump.

The next movie i caught was Hancock. Was a good movie. I liked it because of one scene where a girl had a conversation with another person.

"We are immortals until we find our partner. Then we slowly cease to be immortals."

"Why?"

"So that we can be like mortals and live our lives out normally."

Hancock is a movie where the immortals are like people searching for their one true love (another immortal). They are drawn to each other. Once they find each other, they lose their powers and become mortal in order to live out their lives in love. What happens is that Hancock's other half is shot and mortally wounded. Hancock chooses to run away so that she can regain immortality. He stays away later, so that he can be the super hero.

I love this part because it shows the power of Love. Love does not demand that both parties stay with each other or that they must be a certain way to the other. Love demands an action that is costly. Love demands a sacrifice. Love demands that the other person's best interests are put forward. Hancock chooses to live a life of eternal want in order that he may do his duty, and ensure his loved one is still able to find love.

Life is full of teachings wherever we go. Open your eyes and see.

Property Rights

2008-06-29T20:55:00.003+08:00

I am frustrated.

My brother wants to borrow my car. No problem, except that it will be till late, and i do not have the peace to let him have it. Plus there will be five people in the car, and i get the feeling it is very easy to speed, by being goaded on.

I know this sounds selfish, but it is my car. Not the family car, not a family car, not for sharing. But my car. I do not like to let other people use my car simply because i don't know if you are taking care of it MY way. I am fussy about my car. The first 1 plus km must be driven with the revolutions below 2k, the last 1 plus km as well. When you turn off the engine, the aircon, fan, radio, lights everything that runs on electricity must be turned off before the engine. The wheels must be straighten out too. No one who smokes must enter my car. No more than five people can be in the car, unless you know how to cross bumps and all that. No speeding above 3.5k revolutions.

I am fussy about my car. I maintain it well, i wash it, take care of it. My brother doesn't bother to help, only use. That is not my beef; even if he offers i will be happy (and turn it down politely because i like to wash my car alone) but at the same time i just want my car my way. I am fussy about it, anal even.

Yet i know this is being selfish, not lending my brother my car. But is it being selfish? Not sharing? I do not share my underwear, my girlfriend, my wife, is that being selfish?

I think that property rights must be respected. At the end of the day, if the item belongs to me, i have absolute right over it. I have the right to share of course, but if i feel you will not take care of the item, i also have the right to reject that. I think selfishness arises when someone cannot show himself or herself responsible to take good stewardship of the item that he or she requests to borrow. I think it reflects badly on the other person. Of course there must be grace, it may be that the lender is really selfish and have no real reason not to lend. But at the same time, we outside must remember the cost to lend is borne by the lender, not anyone else. It is all very well and easy to stand at the sidelines and say selfish. But if you consider the whole issue, you'd probably have to bite your tongue and scold yourself.

Have you ever lended someone something and regretted? Some people refuse to lend money; i am actually ok for that. I can lend books, clothes. But not my car. it is just that part of me that is too close to my heart. UNLESS you can show that you will take care of my car for me perfectly, it is not likely that i will lend you.

On the one hand, it is selfishness. But view from another point, it is merely respect for property rights.

Pursuit

2008-06-20T09:21:00.003+08:00

Last night I asked God what it meant to pursue a girl. And the words of John Eldredge came to mind, in Wild at Heart. To fight for a girl.

I always thought that that meant chasing her, making her feel like she felt safe. Yes that was a true part of life. But there is something more.

There are so many fairy tale stories of how a princess is caught in some castle inside a forest, waiting for a prince charming to come and sweep her off her feet. Waiting for her rescue. Many have tried but equally many have failed. Yet one man will fight through the forest, one man will struggle with the forces in the said forest, and he will prevail.

Then it dawned on me, what fighting for a girl meant. It means to fight to be who you are.
It means to fight to be the PRINCE that God made us to be. It means to fight to be the WARRIOR that God made us to be. It means to be who you were made to be. It means to claim destiny. I cannot fight for a girl until I know who I am, until I know what my destiny is. Until I am aware of what destiny is. Until I am my own destiny. Fight to know who I am, that I may become that person.

I don't know if I am who I am supposed to be. I think I am on that path. But the question God asks me this time is not who am I. But am I ready to work things out. He gave me an analogy a few days back.

A relationship between two people is like a single gear shaft. Each gear is manufacture to fit the teeth of another gear. Every car's gear box is engineered such that every part fits each other. Yet even still, on the first few thousand runs, there is still some grinding and rubbing, some fine tuning that the connected parts must go through in order to run smoothly. Until finally the parts fit perfectly.

That is the same with life. Two parts that are able to fit must still be refined by each other to run perfectly. The question is, am i ready to work that part out?

Back

2008-06-15T21:58:00.002+08:00

Hellos

I am back from Europe. Photos come later.

It was fun trip. Spent good time with friends. Europe is a beautiful place. I love to go there! But to stay? Maybe not... My retirement place is still New Zealand.

This is more of a blog of my return flight. I watched the Qatar Debate on the issue,

"This House believes that torture is only acceptable under legal supervision " (May 28th , 2007)

It was an interesting show, long and really insightful but two things cropped up for me.

One, under this issue, the underlying question is really does the ends justify the means? Do we or should we perform actions that are conventionally regarded as wrong? Do we have a right or a duty in fact to do a wrong in order to make a right? Should we use the ends to justify the means?

Personally, i believe we should not allow torture under any circumstances. We cannot forsee the future, why should we stand for allowing a current wrong to potentially right a future error. Even if the action would lead to a good future, if the action was wrong, we should not perform it. Hence, if we were to ask if murder is wrong, i'd say yes even if we were to murder the worse person on earth. (State sanction murder is not murder in my opinion).

The second issue that arose was the responses of the debaters. Each and everyone of them lost their cool, albeit for a moment or so, and voices were slightly raised. Yet if these people were professionals on television losing their cool over issues that they were passionate about, and i can assure you they were passionate about their stand, what more us? What more me who is no where near a professional debater or a public speaker. How much more grace do i need when i flare up at friends when i try to press my point? I think a lot more.

To my friends, when i argue and if i ever lose my temper, i apologise. Because i believe that my stand is right, and i am passionate about it. However, too many times i allow my emotions to crowd my thinking and my actions. That is unacceptable.

Anyway, less serious stuff, Europe is lovely. Photos later.

Life

2008-05-25T19:22:00.002+08:00

I come to see God leads me through many stages of development.

He first asked me who He was. That led me through a while of reading His word.

He next asked me who He was to me. That was a struggle for me as God stripped me of everything i had. And then He asked me was He still good.

Next God asked me who I was. That was a journey of discovery. That was a journey that culminated in me realising who i was and what i wanted.

God then asked me, what sort of girl i wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

But now, after all that, God is asking me, What do i want to do with my life? What is my purpose on earth? What is my worship to God?

I do not know what it is, but this new journey of discovery i know is hard yet will prove to be fulfilling. Because at the end of the day, everyone needs to answer 2 question: Who am i? What am i doing here?

The answer to both depends on the ultimate question: Is there a God.

For me, there is a God. For me, i am answering the last question. Before i continue on my journey of life.

Pride

2008-05-21T23:17:00.002+08:00

I want to break for God.

I went away for awhile because today i hurt a friend. So i decided to go talk to God at my favourite haunt.

God spoke on one topic. Pride.

It is the thing that corrupts me within, the issue that burns. The hunger from validation stemming from a proud character. One that craves to be noticed. And God wants to deal with it.

And i need to humble myself. My friendship is not a test i have to pass. I do not have to be a person who is right, who can teach, who knows. My friends do not test me to see if i am acceptable, good, A+. There is no grading in life.

Friendship is about being real to one another. At the end of the day, relationships is about realness and truth. It is about blessing others. About letting others fail and picking them up.

For my own ministry, God has reminded me. Hear their hearts. Hear their cries. Hear my people.

I cannot explain

2008-05-20T18:40:00.003+08:00

For some inexplicable reason, i am in a foul mood.

I think a part of me feels a bit sad that the day is over. The day is here. I have taught for six months. And i will be leaving CJ in awhile which saddens me. The friends i have made, the relief teachers are leaving and for that i will miss them. Each one of them in their own special way has made going to work a delight. Every one of them has ended their stint as relief teachers. For everyone of them, i thank God that He placed them in my life, because they each blessed me in too many ways.

I will miss my table kaki (but i shall tell more when i leave properly)

I will miss teaching my classes.
In a sense, this was my last days with them. I do not know if i will continue teaching them until the day i leave; i hope i will. I will miss 33's cheek, 21's engagement, 2's pleasure. To be their teacher, to have an opportunity to make a change in someone's life. I do not know if i have been a teacher that God has called me to be, but i pray that i have succeeded in some ways where God wanted me to do.

I am going through a transition season. I wish i had a friend to walk with me through this.

Movie

2008-05-19T09:58:00.003+08:00

I caught a video last night, fight club. And in it was a quote.

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.".

It initially struck me as being Christian. Afterall, Christians are asked to die to self, to give everything up. To surrender. But i felt this as a re read the quote and realise this is not a Christian as it sounds.

Jesus never asked us to lose everything before we gain his freedom. The young rich man, whom Jesus asked to sell his possessions to give to the poor, that young man was unable to do that because he was tied down to the possession. Because that young man loved ownership of things. Because that young man loved wealth. And that was the issue at hand.

Jesus never rebuked a man for being rich per se, but being fully enamored with wealth, material well being is not the right thing. Good stewardships means we own the wealth, the wealth does not own us. God wants us to own and to master the blessing, not the other way round.

If you work for money, for your next meal, then the job or the pay check owns you. If you strive for acceptance, for validation, than your friends masters you. If you pursue glory and fame in any fashion, than power controls you.

If you work to bring God glory, than God owns you. If you strive to be a Jesus to your friends, than Jesus masters you. If you pursue the humble things and God rises you up, then the Holy Spirit controls you.

Good stewardship comes about when we learn to own and master the blessings God gave us, yet not be controlled by that same blessing.

"The Lord Giveth, the Lord Taketh. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

I'd change the quote to:

"It's only after we are the master of our blessings that we're free to do anything."

God placed you on earth, with a charge. To rule and master the world. (cf Gen 1)

Truth, Life.

2008-05-10T21:43:00.003+08:00

Truth is not the conclusion.

I came across a thought when i was reflecting on issues. And this was the point. Arguments worth pursuing are those when both parties are on a quest for truth, and when both parties are willing to suspend common sense for the study of truth.

Truth is the essence of life. It is the pursuit of that which matters. And yet it is not an end in itself.

Truth is that which we need to put into practice. We need to set it as our cornerstone of life.

But the obvious question will be, how will we know what truth is? From a honest opinion, we cannot. We cannot be 'know' in the scientific sense of the word 'truth'. But we need not give up our search and quest for truth. We need to fight and find it. We need to have a strange dichotomy with respect to truth: To hold on to it with all our effort, yet to be willing to lose it in an instance.

One must believe in the truth one holds dear, willing to give all for it and yet view it carelessly. One must realise that the truth we hold dear maybe a half truth, or a lie, and it requires us to give it up.

But we must never mistake truth for anything else. And therefore, we must never argue from anything else other than fact. We may test and see if the truth others present is robust, but this is different from arguing using common sense.

Ultimately, we must learn to know. But of equal importance, we must know what we do not know. To argue based on common sense, is a clear sign that you do not know you do not know.

WHy study economics?

2008-05-03T20:09:00.001+08:00

TOP 10 REASONS TO STUDY ECONOMICS

1. Economists are armed and dangerous: "Watch out for our invisible hands."
2. Economists can supply it on demand.
3. You can talk about money without every having to make any.
4. You get to say "trickle down" with a straight face.
5. Mick Jagger and Arnold Schwarzenegger both studied economics and look how they turned out.
6. When you are in the unemployment line, at least you will know why you are there.
7. If you rearrange the letters in "ECONOMICS", you get "COMIC NOSE".
8. Although ethics teaches that virtue is its own reward, in economics we get taught that reward is its own virtue.
9. When you get drunk, you can tell everyone that you are just researching the law of diminishing marginal utility.
10. When you call 1-900-LUV-ECON and get Kandi Keynes, you will have something to talk about.

An economist is a trained professional paid to guess wrong about the economy

Talk is cheap. Supply exceeds Demand.

Bad, Worse, Terrible.

2008-05-03T19:42:00.002+08:00

Bad - You fall
Worse - In public
Terrible - During a teacher's race
Impossible - In front of your students.

Sigh...

Is the Pepper Potts (in Iron Man) a blonde?

2008-05-02T00:15:00.000+08:00

Debating with a friend over this deep issue. Is she a blonde? I shall find out...

Winning

2008-04-23T21:38:00.002+08:00

What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?

In a way, i believe this sums up something i been struggling with. I want to win. Nobody I know likes to lose. Nobody i know hates to win. So I want to win. But to what end?

Do I need to win every argument that comes my way? Certainly not. For even if i won the argument, I could have lost my friends. I would have lost everything that was important and got back nothing worth mentioning.

The bible translates soul as best as it can, but the greek word used here psychē, meaning the essence of life, or the essence of being, the essence of who we are. What is the purpose of winning if in the end, we lose ourselves?

I do not want to stop winning; there are times i need to fight for what i believe to be true and what i hold to be real. But if they are insignificant, then i believe i need to learn to let it go. Why fight what is irrelevant? Hold on to the truth. I do not need to win arguments, i just need to win people's trust.

Will you?

2008-04-21T20:22:00.002+08:00

God challenged me.

Will I follow him fully.

And the sad truth is, no. I cannot. So many areas in my life i want to surrender, and i don't know how. I don't know how to give it up to Him. I want to want to know Him.

Christians say qt is important. How do they do it regularly? I don't. I don't know how. I really don't.

God i don't want to love you. I just want to want to love you.

You are your worst critic

2008-04-19T23:05:00.002+08:00

My friend reminded me that very statement last night.

You are your worse critic. I am thankfully fairly self aware; it simply means i am aware of who i am. The problem is, i have come to see the flaws in myself, the demons within, and i fail to see God's hand in me.

We are all born in the image of God. That means in everyone, there is that inherent goodness. I have always wanted to find that Godness in everyone, that i may say that is the characteristic that God put in that person that He is like. In a way, God is in everyone (but you cannot be God, only be like His son).

I realise also God put me in CJC also for another purpose. Workplace ministry was the word He gave me. The word means that my ministry is at my place of work. To my friends (who are colleagues but i prefer to call them friends) from CJC, i hope that in the ways that i have failed to be a friend to you, you will forgive (and tell me so i learn). In the ways that i can, i will try my best to bless you.

To my other friends, i will do what i can to see the best in thee. Otherwise, keep reminding me when i have failed. (be nice also to remind me when i have done well=p)

Cheers
And to YOU naggy friend with a brain of 60, thanks... I am STILL a civilised human being.

The cost of choice

2008-04-08T21:26:00.002+08:00

Economics students will know this. What is the real cost of choice?

I read this off a blog. I know once i write this, several people will immediately realise something.

"There will always be 2 choices in every teacher's life: To do what is necessary to help the student to achieve their dreams; or to simply let them be where they are. Both have different price tags. The 1st is a big prize, so is the price to pay. "

Every teacher can choose to push their student to find a dream and fight for the dream. Or they can sit back and watch their little ducklings fumble. Every teacher can choose to cheer the students from afar, or stand beside them guiding, encouraging, cheering. Every teacher can choose to teach, or choose to be a teacher. To teach is the career. To be a teacher is a destiny.

Every choice has a cost. You opt to give up your next best alternative. To be a teacher, one will lose a lot of hours preparing, praying and believing even when hope seems fruitless. To teach, one will lose the opportunity to bless and enrich another person's life. One will choose to surrender the opportunity to leave behind an impact in a person's life.

I do not just restrict this to those who fill in forms that ask occupations as "Teacher". We are all teachers. Every one of us who comes into contact with another living person is a teacher in some form.

Choose for yourselves this day, your decision.

A story

2008-04-06T15:41:00.002+08:00

A man was asked, "Sir, of your two daughters, which do you love more?"

He replied, "Neither. I love both equally." Later, he added, "However, if you asked my children, my younger daughter would think that i love my elder daughter more. "

His friend asked, "Why do you think it is so?"

And the man replied, "Because the elder daughter talks to me more."

It strikes me as a short but powerful story. Because the elder daughter talks to me more. How many of us thinks God practices favouritism, or that God loves other people but not you. How may of us look at our lives and think that God or in fact, any one does not love you.

The truth is measured simply by looking at the time you spend with that person. With regards to God, how often do you talk to God and more importantly, how often do you hear God? God speaks. He still does. He will speak if you will listen. I could blog on how to hear God, but for that, it is better if you asked me personally to share my own walk.

Your friends speak. How often do you hear their hearts. Do you know how to?

Your heart speaks. Are you your own friend? Do you hear your own heart? Many people i know, do not listen to their own hearts. Listen. Spend time with yourself. Spend time with your friends. Spend time with God.

I am

2008-04-04T22:30:00.002+08:00

I am.

There is nothing worse, then friends seeing who you are.

I am transparent. People say i am transparent. I do not try to hide. Wysiwyg. What you see is what you get. There is no other side of me. That is bare for all to see.

I have a horrid temper, and i lose it ever so often. I blow up at people. Only by grace of God do they stand by me. I don't know why.

I am passionate. I give my life for anything i believe to be true. I believe God speaks. I believe God is real. I believes He saves us. I believe there is an absolute truth. I believe to live life without passion is to live no life at all.

I am serious. I take things and i consider them. People think i act too fast. I do not. I process things faster than most because i have been doing that for a long time. I am serious. I consider much about alot, i just do not bother bringing it up.

I am weary. I am not walking right with God, and i need to. I need to draw on Him.

I am lonely. I need a friend who will listen and not chide, hear and not advise. Sit and not speak. Be present.

I am real. I hate people who use God speak unless we are debating theology.

I am afraid. I mess up as a teacher no more or less than others. My students pay for my mistakes. It is not fair, but that is who I am.

You might think me blasphemous to use God's name in this blog. Perhaps you are right. But I am made in the image of God. And some characteristics of God i know i have. Because we each have some characteristic of God.

I am this. I am more. I am nothing.

On Right and Good, on prayer.

2008-03-30T21:13:00.002+08:00

Two things happened today when i was in church.

The first was on prayer. We were praying for some people and i asked what was the purpose of prayer.

We all know the purpose of praying for ourselves is so that we are aligned to God's purpose, or to be aware of God rather then having our prayer requests honoured. Phi 4:6 says it that we present our requests to God and the peace of God will come on us. Jesus says we pray but the Father knows what we need even before we ask (Matt 6:8). So prayer purpose is really for God's will to be in our lives, or that we draw nearer to God. To pray that we will obey God.

But then i asked how about praying for others especially if they are not around. How about if we pray for them when we are beside them, we lay hands on them? What is the purpose? That we aligned ourselves to God by knowing His purpose for them? Sounds iffy....

Then God said this, You pray for others that you may show love to them. Boom. That changed it all. That reversed my entire thinking. We pray for others that others know that God loves them enough to send little angels. We pray for others that others know we love them. We pray that we may show the love we have for others. We pray that we may love others.

That idea springs about so many different dimensions of prayer. Prayer is not about that the person learns anything new about God, or about affirmation (although it can be). Praying for others at the very core is really praying to show love to the person. Praying for others is at it's core loving others.

The other idea i learnt today was the doing what is good is not necessarily what is right. It is good to help my students clarify understanding, it is good to teach them step by step. But it may not be right if it cripples them in the sense they no longer bother to study on their own. It may not be the right approach if we as educators do not make them do the discovery of knowledge on their own, but we deliver all they need. Educators purpose is that the students have the love for the subject to pursue it on their own. We need to pass on that love to the students. The good thing is to teach. The right thing is to pass on the love.

In a stagflation, governments must not pump in more money to boost the economy. Stagflation is almost always a supply side problem. Keynesian economist argue that in a recession, government spending has to come in. In a stagflation, the government's best bet is to let the economy cool down, suffer higher unemployment for a while and a lower price level, before the economy moves back to origin. The good thing is to spend, the right thing is to suffer.

Jesus did not heal every one who came to Him. There was a man whom Peter healed. this man according to acts laid at the temple gates everyday. Now Jesus entered the temple several times, yet He never healed that man. Because it was not Him who should do the healing, but the Father had ordained that Peter would heal that man. It was good to heal, it was right not to.

Why do i write this? For christians, we must be careful. Do the right thing, not the good thing. Too many times we want to deal with sin and everything. That is the good thing. The right thing is to come to God and cry out for help. The good thing is to rebuke people who say the wrong things. The right thing is to ask why. The good thing is to pray for others. The right thing is to walk with them. The good thing is missions. the right thing is asking God when.

The right thing is to admit we are useless sinners who deserve nothing but hell, that apart from God we are worthless. Our value is that God loves us enough to give His life for us. That is the right thing to declare.

Do what is right. Not what is merely good.

letting the values we know become the values we live by

2008-03-26T07:31:00.003+08:00

Someone said values are caught and not taught.

On first instinct, i believed in that argument.

But yesterday something happened that made me realise that that is not true. When people know the values but do not put them in practice.

Many times, we know values. We know what is right and wrong. They were taught to us. Whether in school, by the media, by parents, or however, values were taught to us. We are taught values.

However, living out the values, letting the values we know become the values we live by, knowing in the head and knowing in the heart, that is the part that we as people have to do. We need to put into practice that which we know in our heart that we may be able to go from knowing to doing.

The final step is being. When we finally realise that people around us are picking up from our habits, when the values we hold true and live by are being caught, then we have gone from doing to being.

Check our hearts. What are the values we hold to be true? What are the foundations of those values? Do we grasp the urgent need to hold those values as true and do the actions that exhibit the values? And then do we cross the line to allow those values not just to shape us but also to be our life?

What if

2008-03-22T20:43:00.002+08:00

Talked to my friend about what ifs. She mentioned that she was afraid of the what if, of the what if she made the wrong choice.

I came to the conclusion, we must never entertain the what if once we have made the decision. The what if's must be dealt with at the start of the decision making. We need to get that out of the way. Once we made the decision, hold in our heart the conviction that based on the information put to us at the point of time, we made the right decision after going through all the steps.

The what if questions are crucial to help us paint the appropriate picture of our choices. The what if questions will highlight our opportunity cost, or the real cost of choice. We need that.

This applies even if God calls us to a place. We need to evaluate the choices set before us, and decide if we want to obey. Luke 14:28 urges, no instructs us, to count the cost. And part of the cost is to consider the what if.

After that, do not look back. After that, do not hesitate, turn from left or right. But press on. Once we decided, do not live a life of regret.

You have one life. Live it fullest. No regrets.

Return to innocence

2008-03-13T18:57:00.002+08:00

These few days, God's been telling me, come home. Like the prodigal son in the bible, come home. Stay no longer away from your father's embrace. Come home.

I am fighting to come home. Fighting to get my house in order. And I know it is hard, uphill task. To love someone whom we do not see, nor feel. Not to fabricate love, but to utterly give your heart to one. To be fully devoted to Jesus is not easy, but necessary. We fight to love God unconditionally. We need to fight to love Him unconditionally, to guard our time with God. To guard our heart with God.

This is the heart cry of a christian gone off. To come back to innocence.

The scariest issue

2008-03-03T22:11:00.002+08:00

Can man live without God?

My answer is Yes. That answer scares me.

It scares me because that means i do not need God to live a full life. It scares me because it means i can run wherever i want to do whatever i want to be whoever i want, and live life to the max.

It scares me because that means I am in control. It means that the consequences of my actions are fully borne by me. It means that i need to make decisions and be totally in charge. It means that all responsibility for my life is mine. It means I have to make this life count based on my own efforts. It means i have to play a game of rules i do not know nor fully understand, because the maker of the game is on vacation.

Yet i know I can. Am i losing my faith? I do not think so. Even worse, my faith is evolving to that of one who says that i believe in God but i somehow do not need Him. What makes it painful is i know that is not true.

I want to want God. I want to need God. I want to be in a relationship with God. I want to know Him.

Listening

2008-03-03T17:29:00.002+08:00

Day before was the first in a long time that i returned to the arms of God.

It is hard to return to Jesus. Because you know you do not deserve a return embrace but a shun aside. A rejection of any sort is sometimes better than blind acceptance.

The love of Jesus is exactly that. Blind acceptance. It is nothing more or less than blind acceptance. Jesus is standing there with arms wide open, waiting for us to return to him. Yet we opt to run away from him.

But the first thing was God said was this,
What have you lost?

You strip away all that I am, you will find the only thing worth removing from me is my talent of listening. The gift of listening deep into the hearts of people, the cries of broken hearts. Yet even this i have lost, perverted and discarded. The sensitivity i had to Jesus is another thing i have lost, ignored forgotten.

To listen is my gift, and that i have discarded. In do ing so, i have rejected my use for God. I have rejected my gift God gave that i may go my own way. In the same way, i have rejected God.

In that vein, God asks, How then can i bless those to whom the blessing will be a curse to. How then can i send blessing to whom it will kill.

I want to run after Jesus, to run hard after God. To be still in the wind and the waves, to be calm after the storm, to be collected in the fires, to hear the still small voice of God.

In the wind, the rain. Storms and fire. God is there but he will not be found.
But in the silence, He is waiting to be found.

My son, are you ready to live in your father's home as His son?

Blog

2008-02-29T21:02:00.001+08:00

It has been a long time.

Teaching at where i am teaching has been a joy. 1. the students are great. 2. My colleagues are great. 3. The management is great=p.

I think while this place is great, i cannot decide if i will apply to ask them to request for me to come back. In truth, i have always been in a mission school and never in a government school. I dunno if there is a difference.

For practicum i think i shall let MOE decide on my own posting. As for permanent posting, i shall see

Anyway, with regards to QT, i must admit, i am distant from God. Really really far. Running away.

Need to go back to Him.

On what do i base my ideas on?

2008-02-03T18:43:00.000+08:00

I had an interesting revelation today.

I was driving back from church. And was just musing over why we would want to repeal 377a. However something struck me.

I feel that we should repeal the law because the law intruded on the rights of two consenting adults. Then i felt God say, when then do we not legalise pornography?

Participants in pornography are all consenting. Viewers are certainly consenting, performers are assumed to be consenting (i am talking about obviously the normal kind, the ones where the actors are presumably legal, consenting). Why then do we ban it?

And then it struck me, my thoughts are based on what i feel is right or wrong. And i justify my stand using arguments. I believed that the law should not intrude on people's lives, so i justified my stand on 377a on the feeling that it is right not to keep the law.

But I am a christian, with easy and ready access to the bible, with the training to understand the word of God. If i believe in God, if i love God, i have the responsibility to base my life, my ideas, my stands, my beliefs in who God is, and what He has said. I have the word of God; i cannot continue to base my actions on what i feel is right or what i feel is what God wants. I have to base my thoughts and my life on who God is. I have to submit fully to the call of God.

Ends and Means

2008-01-29T21:48:00.000+08:00

I was asking myself this question in my class's ethics lesson. Do the ends justify the means?

The question is:

A Captain of a sinking ship is forced to make a decision. IF he threw some people overboard, he would be able to save the rest as the ship would be able to stay afloat and they could steer the ship to safety. If on the other hand, the Captain did not throw people overboard, then everyone would go down with the ship.

The captain decides to throw some people overboard, and he decides to throw the weaker ones as the boat needed people to row. Now those who were not thrown overboard were rescued, but the captain was charged in court.

If you were the jury, how would you rule? Did the captain do the right thing?

I found myself asking should the captain have murdered the few people. But if he did not murder the few, he would have been responsible for killing the many. But if he did kill the few, does the ends justify the means.

Christians would say always do the right thing and let God take care of the rest. I am agreeing with that statement except in this case, there is probably no right or wrong thing to do. Either action or inaction is arguably neither, or both, right. Worse, your decisions affect others.

I think in life, it is very hard to live by a hard and fast rule. Circumstances dictate the rules in so many cases. On the one hand, it is conceivable that the captain HAD committed murder. But if the captain had not, he would have committed negligence, of not doing what he can to save those he could. In such cases, i believe it is best that the captain be set free from all charges, as he did what he felt was best in the situation. Since it is not clearly a right or a wrong action, i would at best say that the captain was not a killer neither was he neglecting his duties. He is innocent, forced by circumstances to make decisions that were bad and worse.

Oh dear

2008-01-25T21:05:00.000+08:00

I come to realise something.

I have become so interested in theology, i forgot people. I forget to love people. I forget to ask people. I forget about people.

Theology without people is religion. Theology without love is legalism. Theology without heart is pharisee.

Christianity is about people, about love, about heart. It is about you, me and everything. It must not be apart from the things that make us human, it must be about the very element that makes us human. The love. The emotions. The failings. The relationships. It is about people, love and the heart.

Who is this King of Glory, Son of God and Son of Man

2008-01-22T10:42:00.001+08:00

Last night, i had a debate with my friends from VCF. It was about whether God can call you to do something that He knows will fail. That is despite obedience, it will fail.

Today, during my religion class, God spoke. Using a video showing Buddhism. The video was about a parrot who tried to do the right thing. The parrot was in a forest, and a fire broke out. Seeing his fellow friends in trouble, the parrot tried to fight the fire by diving into the nearby lake, flying over the fire and shaking off the excess water to quench the thrist of the fire.

Now that was a hopeless, useless task. There was no way the fire could be defeated by a mere sprinking of the water. However, the Gods (let me say that while i do not believe the story, i do believe it is trying to teach something.) came and mocked the bird. The bird rebvuke the Gods, the Gods, now abashed, cried in repentance and stopped the fire.

Now the issue is this: Sometimes, we see the objective as the achievement of our actions. God said no. He said, It is not what you do, but how I use what you do to achieve the goal. If you obey Me, I will use it to My good.

At the end of the day, i asked the question would God call you to failure. God turned the question around, and said achieving the objective is what He would do. But our actions may or may not achieve that goal.

Abraham was given the promise, the duty even, to have a child of Sarah and himself. He went to sleep with Hager, came up with Ishmael, you now have another race that fights the jewish people. Saul helped in the persecutions of the early church, God called him one day and he became a large contributor of the new testament. Jacob had 12 sons, one of whom became the governor of Egypt, yet not because Joseph ran for public office, (if anything, Joesph ran into Jail), but because he was faithful.

Many times, our actions may not achieve the goals we want, or even think they had a contributing factor to the goal. But God uses the actions. His ways are not our ways.

To give the jews back their homeland, genocide of the jews in WW2 happened. To bring israel out of egypt, all the first borns of Israel were killed; save for Moses who became the Pharoah's son. God's ways are not our ways. We merely obey.

Consistency

2008-01-21T10:11:00.000+08:00

My pastor preached that christians are christians everywhere. We should not differ from sunday and the rest.

The truth is, you need to be a christian playing different roles. Whether a christian friend, a christian colleague, a christian teacher, a christian businessman. No one can be merely a christian because we all play different roles at every moment.

Jesus was a christian preacher, full of righteous fury when he threw out people from the temple. Yet he became the tender healer when he touched the repentent and those who were sick. To those who asked questions, he was the wise teacher. To those who loved the law, he was the embodiment of rebuke.

Pauline epistles vary from encouraging, rebuke, prophetic, doctrinal and so on. Yet the heart of it is the heart for God. I do not think it is possible to be the same person everywhere. You play different roles at all times. Student, teacher, friend, lover, disciplinarian. But at the root of it we are a christian.

That means we love. The theology of christianity is love. As a lover, you know how to show passionate and intimate love, aside from sex. As a teacher, you show love for your students, wanting them to achieve their destiny. As a student, you show love for the subject, desiring to understand the truth behind the words. As a businessman, you show love for your clients, not desiring to cheat but only have your clients best interests at heart.

Ok E! asked me to give fluffy post. So i shall.
I am wondering if i should buy a hush puppy shoe. Ok that is not right; I need shoes that are less ah pek then mine. Will go buy later.

Cop Out

2008-01-19T12:45:00.000+08:00

We (me and my friends) had a good discussion on copping out.

My friend said one thing that pissed her off about religion was that we copped out. To many questions, we answer "That's God's will", "No one can fully understand why".

I agree with her that such statements could be construed and could actually be used as an answer to avoid admitting ignorance. It could be a cop out.

But from a believer's perspective, we say such things with conviction because we believe it to be.

To the question of suffering, i realise that every biblical response can be torn down by a non biblical response. (Biblical simply means an answer from the bible).

At the core of the argument is this sentence "You cannot rationalise everything". The christian believes that. The skeptics would say that you must be able to rationalise everything. We have a brain, we need to be able to understand why. The christian will say, but the why is not always for man to know. The skeptics then retort that is copping out. (This is not exactly what we discussed).

Faith is both rational and irrational. We do have a basis for faith: Bible, experiences, prayer. It is irrational: It cannot be fully rationalised. But like the negative number example Philip Pullman gives, Faith can never be fully rationalised. Once it is rationalised, it dies.

Gossiping

2008-01-17T20:54:00.000+08:00

Today i asked myself, when does it change from gossip to concerned.

People talk about other people. Sometimes in jest, sometimes maliciously, sometimes to care. We talk about other people, colleagues, friends, family. It happens. No one can say that they do not talk about other people. But when does talking about others become gossip and when does it become caring.

I was in the toilet and God said something about that. (David sat on throne for 40 years, i sit for 40s.). Gossip is when we talk about people without intention of doing anything to help. Concern is when we share information about people with the intention of helping the person. (in both cases, the said person is not around).

Bible tells us that people who sow discord are the most hated by God. They break relationships, they break communion. God dislikes such people because they go against the very character of God. Above all else, God is love. God is relationship. For God so loved the world. Whoever does not love does not know God. I am the Lord your God. Adam walked with God. How can two walk together unless they are agreed. God is relational.

I want to learn to be a good friend, i want to learn to stop gossiping. I want to learn to back away when people start to gossip.

Weary, Yet Ready

2008-01-17T16:16:00.000+08:00

I am tired.

Do not get me wrong; I love teaching. I love my students. It is just that I am spiritually weary.

I think I know why. I have not met up with friends for a long time. I dun just mean christian friends, but friends from my own college. My colleagues are exactly that, colleagues, not friends. I think that drains me, because i have always wanted to be someone who is approachable and able to make friends easily.

Yet as i ponder on why I grow weary, I hear God saying this: Then go.

Friendship is grows. It takes time and effort. Sometimes, i just do not bother with the people, and i do not know why i am such a person. I do feel like a person who does not understand what makes a friend, though i may know in my head, my heart is devoid of such understanding.

Father, would you give me a spirit of friendship, that i may know and love my colleagues more.

Two Issues, Unrelated

2008-01-12T19:42:00.000+08:00

I ama bout to talk about two separate issues.

One. I was at a open air carpark, and saw a very nice car. Honda Civic Type R, UK version. Now it is a powerful lovely car. A potential next car for yours truly. Unfortunately, the chap driving it, (who incidentally was with a hot chick) could not ( and i really mean COULD NOT) park the car. The lovely car was exposed to repeated attempts to enter a massive lot, it was humiliated by a driver of low ability. The car must have been so upset, when the driver, after holding up traffic for the better part of 10 minutes gave up and drove off. What made it worse was an even larger car, the Lexus RX 350 SUV nonchalantly parked into the space. Argh, why are good cars in such drivers hands.

And secondly, this comment i have heard.
"Who to blame then? Government and TV for imparting wrong messages to them and the failure of parents to teach properly (sic)"

Everyone blames the government, the media. Some blame the parents. But few discuss solutions. We become a nation of blamers, fingerpointers. We are quick to blame, slow to admit, slower still to repair.

It is a solution for the whole society, parents teaching the child discernment about Media and truth. Church preaching Discernment and wisdom, not blind obedience. Schools teaching understanding and knowledge instead of just the ranking system. Why have we focused on issues that are temporal and not deeper issues of behaviour?

As a teacher, i told myself my objective is first "To teach the child to be a person of integrity and of statue," and of equal importance, "To educate the child to love Economics". Because a teacher must do both, educate the child in the course of study as well as to reach and make an impact in the student's life.

Let's stop blaming people for the problems, and lets start dealing with the solution.

School

2008-01-10T17:44:00.000+08:00

I enjoyed my class today, but i dunno if it is what i want to do.

I love my students. I love my colleagues, bosses. I really love the environment I am in. I just feel bit down now and i cannot explain it.

Perhaps it is because i have not really spent time with God over the last few days. Perhaps it is something else. A spiritual attack. I don't know. Whatever, I love what i am doing. And i need to press on.

Work

2008-01-01T21:04:00.000+08:00

I am starting work tmr.

I am now officially a teacher, at a particular Junior College. I shall refrain from typing the name of the College out, because Google is the new police.

Pray that I have God's blessing as i step into the new world. Pray that i stay close to God. I want to, i need to.

Starting work tmr. Wonder how.

Sharing

2007-12-31T00:17:00.001+08:00

When people share, they are sharing their hearts.

If we try to correct their sharing, we miss the rare chance of entering into people's hearts. Listen instead to the heart beat behind every word that people share, and be less concerned about the theological meaning of the sharing. SO many times we encourage peopel to run hard after God, which is good, but when people are sharing and you hear something wrong, dun be quick to correct and judge, but wait, listen and ask God to show you what the person is really saying. Listen.

Exhort

2007-12-28T00:56:00.000+08:00

I felt i needed to blog this.

Be the best. We each need to run hard after God SO that we can achieve our destiny in Christ. No one else can do our job better than us, because God called us. We are His First Choice, God calls us.

We need to grab hold of our destiny, in whatever field, do our best that we may bring the greatest glory to God. In the position of our calling, where God calls we need to excel that others may see both US and God.

Bible tells us, God exalts the humble; The humble are those who know who they are in christ. They know their abilities, their skills. They are aware of who they are, and who God is. God exalts them. We have to be living excellence on earth, that God may get glory. If we are doing something for God and it is not good, then we need to check ourselves; is it because we are not putting effort or is it because God does not want us there.

I believe if God calls us to a career, job, task, opportunity to shine for Him, it means we CAN shine for Him. There are times, when God calls us to do something and it does not work out, i do not rule that out, but then, the heart of the matter remains; Do we give our all for God?

No one can do the job God gave you better than anyone else.

updates

2007-12-26T11:02:00.000+08:00

I got baptised yesterday.

Yup yup so haha today is the first day of the rest of my life. Lets pray that i have decided to follow Jesus, i wun let go, neither will i lose grip on my walk with God.

But here is something me and a friend talked about a few days ago. She insists that she retains the copyright.

Why i blog about this one issue, is because i felt it was interesting.

We were discussing sin, and it's consequences. Does forgiveness from God absolve you of the consequence of sin?

I think we can safely say that with regards to sin bringing forth death, then yes forgiveness of God due to the sacrifice of Jesus deals with that. But how about the physical consequences?

My friend's conclusion was (and i agree with her):

*** says: (11:14:33 PM)

God's forgiveness gives you the grace and what you need to bear the consequences of your sin

*** says: (11:14:56 PM)

salvation gives you forgiveness, not erasing of consequences

I believe God gives us the grace to bear the consequences of sin. David had to bear the consequences of his sin (losing his son, his kingdom never reaching the same heights before the fall), Abraham too (lying to Pharoah about Sarah, resulting in his children doing the same thing).

But Saul did not fully repent, instead he wanted restoration without repentance. That caused him to fall hard. David had the grace of God, which was why he managed to finish his race well. Among the bible heroes, there are many who started well, very few who ended well. I believe David's sin caused him to end lesser well then he would have, yet for God's grace, he still ended well enough. His kingdom did not fall.

Sold For God

2007-12-16T19:58:00.000+08:00

This season is so messy.

On the one hand, God is teaching me about life. And the two things are simple. In fact the two words are:

Simplicity
Responsibility

Simplicity means this: The whole message of the bible is that God loves you. Full Stop. Anything else is theology.

Consider this analogy:
Economics at it's most foundational level is simply scarcity. Because of that, there is demand and supply. Everything else is simply peripheral.

If you are doing physics, the fundamental is simply the energy, whilst Mathematics is making order out of chaos. Of course there are other levels, but at it's rawest form, this is what it is.

It is the same with Christianity. God's whole thrust is this "I Love You". He made us so that He could love us. God made us to love us. God is LOVE, that is His nature, and His name. How awesome.

And that is the whole crux of the message for me this time. God Loves me.

The second is Responsibility

It does not mean a burden or duty, but it means to respond. God loves us, so our duty is to love Him back. Because the love God has for us is not the same love a couple has, it is a love a parent has for their child, and then some. We say that we should love our parents because they love us, how much more our heavenly father.

The truth is, we need to be sold for God. In my life, i need to surrender all for God. Today God challenge me, to really live it all for Him. To really die to self, so that His will (and hence me =p) be done. I want to do that. Trust Him.

Also God promised me that His plans for me are exactly what would make me the best. The best i can be. Only trust Him. He will never fail.

In this stage, i will run hard, fly hard, never let go. Cos there is nothing else worth living for.

Whereabouts

2007-12-08T20:59:00.001+08:00

Just got back from a great Camp. God spoke, broke and really came. Thank God.

Next week another camp. Will update after.

Golden Compass.

2007-11-30T11:52:00.000+08:00

Like the release of another show, the Da Vinci Code, Philip Pullman’s Dark material consisting of three books, The Golden Compass (Previously Northern Lights), The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, has raised a uproar in the Christian Community.

Pullman is an atheist with a special hatred for Christianity. He is firmly against the church; his books are about killing God. He is definitely not someone we want our children to read blindly.

But dig a bit deeper. Do we want to bring up a generation of children who cannot think for themselves but need to rely on parents or the church for moral guide on everything? Do we not want them to learn discernment instead of robotic obedience?

The truth is, careful guiding of the children through the books is far better than a outright boycott to the books. Please note, i believe that the nature of Dark Materials is indeed something that Christians need to have discernment, and not a Carte Blanche approach. Especially young children. Perhaps with the really young kids i might advocate not letting them read but for older children, discernment.

The books are what I believe to be far better written than C. S. Lewis much loved Narnia Classics. Lewis is more of a philosopher; his books are arguments construed behind a fictional landscape, put forward by characters. (From another view point: The enticing pagan worlds nurtured by C.S. Lewis and his myth-making friends were not inspired by God's Word or Spirit. Those stories grew out of a lifelong immersion in the beliefs, values, rituals, languages and lifestyles of former pagan cultures. The site portrays Narnia as a pagan book).

As a work of fiction, this is a great book. Narnia unfortunately (or fortunately) does not rank as one of my must reads. I read it once, and never felt like reading it again. So I am NOT bashing Narnia, but I believe it is not in the league of good fiction. Lewis writes superb non fiction books of which many atheists would be hard pressed to measure up.

Let me put forward my thesis: The dark materials, if properly discerned does have excellent teaching materials of truth. The problem with truth, (or the power of truth) is that one cannot escape from it no matter how hard one tries. The power of truth is not in its presence, but in its absence. If there is no truth, there can be no force in any argument. That is, if there is no truth, then every argument automatically fails. Because there is truth, then we can have hope that something we believe in is possible.

So I believe that a careful reading (and I do not mean a careful in the sense of studying but careful in the sense measuring up the book’s teaching against the bible) will reveal some things.

I deal with them book by book because it is easier. The first book, called Northern Lights (I prefer it’s original name) talks about Lyra. She lives in a world where humans have daemons (pronounced demons). These daemons are a person’s best friend, more a soul. If someone were to touch or hurt a daemon, the person would hurt. It is like being able to commune with your soul, in fact in Lyra’s world, only humans have souls.

Lyra, through a series of events, gets thrown into an adventure (or so she believes) to save her friend. She goes all out to save the one she loves, and never gives up. She travels to the north, and never loses sight of her goal; something I believe I need to learn. To never give up.

Lyra finds friends that she never knew, gypsies who are the social outcasts. And they remind her, she is not them; she needs to find out who she is. (identity).

A very powerful scene is that of Lyra talking to the seaman. When the humans are young, their daemons take any form they want. As they age, the daemon settle. The humans learn that as a result, the daemons show them who they are. The kind of person they are. This is a lesson I feel every Christian must learn. They must know who they are. Saying the son of God is not enough. Loving God involves loving Him with your soul, your make up, your spirit, who God made you to be.

The seaman’s daemon is one of a seagull, and he says, “(K)nowing what kind of person you are. Take old Belisaria (his daemon). She is a seagull and that means I’m a kind of seagull too. I’m not grand nor splendid nor beautiful, but I’m a tough old thing and I can survive anywhere…”

The man knows his station. He knows the person that he is, and he is satisfied about it. He does not give up being better, but he knows who he is. The world cheers on those who follow, it stand aside for the one who knows where he is going, it is in awe of one who is confident of who he is.

Subsequently, the man talks about being contented and be satisfied with who one is. Never be dissatisfied with who you are inside, the talents the abilities. Sure learn skills and better yourself; but dun be unhappy with who you are and try to be someone you are not.

Whoa, this scene is so powerful. It breaks my heart. We need to tell our children and our friends, you are loved for WHO you are, not what you can do. And this book tells it.

The truth meter (alethiometer, the Golden Compass) tells the truth. It is valuable not because it is rare, but because it’s ability is important. Even the atheist have to admit that the most valuable commodity is truth. Because if there was no truth at all, then you might as well die now. Because if what you believe is cannot be true at all, why bother? The tool helps Lyra decipher what is going to happen as well, but you know what? She doesn’t want to.

In a scene near the end, she and Roger (her best friend) discusses about asking the meter to find out about what will happen. But instead, they decide, they rather remain in the present and live things as they are. How powerful is that! We want to know our every step till the day we die, when here, the children are interested merely in knowing the next one and to walk step by step till the events unfold slowly.

This is something important. Too many of us want to know what step 100 is when we should be focusing instead on step 1, when t=0 (now).

Subsequently, Lyra talks to Lord Asriel (her dad) about things. In here, Pullman proves something so opposite to his stand. We cannot prove the bible. We cannot prove the existence of God nor the existence of Adam and Eve even. We cannot even prove whether the Solomon existed (because his temple ruins have never been found). But yet listen to this, “…think of Adam and Eve like an imaginary number (the square root of -1)…, you can never see any concrete proof that it exists, but if you include it in your equations, you can calculate all manner of things that couldn’t be imagined without it.”

Exactly that! You want a hard core poof of God, you will not find it. You cannot. If you did prove God’s existence fully, you’d need no more faith. No more faith = no more hope = death. But you can prove that without God, many things that you observe now cannot be imagined, and that is key to Christianity. We cannot prove God’s existence fully; but we can show you that if you take God out of the equation, every equation out there collapses on itself. (btw, imaginary number is not a bad thing; in mathematics it is called so because it cannot technically exist yet it must. It’s proof lies in part due to the fact that without it, you cannot proceed in many cases). In the sense, there exist some proof of God, but the greatest proof of God is simply if you remove God, then you have nothing and everything collapses on itself.

God can use all things, and I believe He can use Pullman (albeit unwittingly). God’s truth comes out everywhere. In books that are blatantly evil (e.g. books of witchcraft, teaching on touching the spiritual realm, pornography etc) avoid them in entirety. Otherwise, read them with discernment.

There is another part I would like to refute. Pullman writes about the church being oppressive and fearful, as being the ultimate authority. I agree with him that such a church deserves to be torn down. And in fact, it did exist one time.

The church that Pullman describes is one that we need to fight against. It is not the church of God, but of man. A power hungry, oppressive unsafe organisation that we cannot allow. Such a church demands that Christians fight against it. And remember, the catholic church USED (not any more) to be like that. Pullman is right in saying church history is ugly; no other religion’s history is as bloody as ours. But it is ugly because of corruption in the church and hence we do need to be careful of such a church. (BTW, if you are a Methodist, Lutheran, Anglican, etc etc, at one point, you were a heretic. We are all born of heretical movements.) What Pullman writes is not heresy, it is truth.

The corrupted church can come, it might have come. We need to prevent it.

“Without exception, Pullman characterizes churches and anyone connected to them as agents of wickedness, oppression, torture, murder and malevolence.” (taken from http://www.pluggedinonline.com/thisweekonly/a0003516.cfm?eafref=1&eafref=1) I agree with the statement, if the church involved is that described in the book. Then the church IS an instrument of torture, inhuman activity, murder and essential a debasement of God’s church. Mind you, such a church is more of a devil’s bastion and not a temple of God.

In the end, I am here merely to say that the Golden Compass, and any other half truth books, must not be put under a blanket ban or boycott but an educated study of the materials is required. To extract the right lessons, refute the lies, explain the ugly truth when necessary.

Change, Death.

2007-11-28T09:13:00.000+08:00

I was reading a friend's blog and came to the realisation. (Ok Aeon Flux helped too)

Change is what makes life worthwhile. Knowing that situations will end and change makes the situation either more bearable (if it is bad situation) or more valuable (if it is good situation.)

A great situation that lasts forever is definitely less valuable than one that lasts for short time because you'd cherish it. Because you know that it might just end.

What makes life worth living, is that one day you will die. It makes you realise that every moment counts, whether or not you use it. So use your time wisely.

Mountains

2007-11-25T20:47:00.000+08:00

Today's sermon was on mountains. To climb Mountains. To find your own mountain, and to conquer it.

I think that is vital. We each need to find that arena in life, in the world, where we fight to conquer it for God. We need to find the place where we can roar for God. Where we are the ones who will bring that mountain under God's rule. We are called the children of God, to be saviors in the world. We need to rise up.

I wish I could I say with courage that I love God and have love FOR God. I wish I could say that my walk with God is great, that everyday i grow to be more like Him. I wish i could say that i am a follower of Jesus, prepared to die for Him, to surrender everything for Him.

I cannot. I cannot even say that I have anymore love for God. I still love God, just no longer have the passion for Him anymore. Somewhere, the weeds of the world have choked my desires for God.

I want to have the same faith I had for God when I was in NUS. When I was on fire for God. I want that same passion to seek and to desire for God. Not just an act of loving God, but to want to love God, that is a desire that comes from knowing God.

I have lost. And I want to come home. Just pray for me.

I keep coming home; only to find that I want out.

On an emotional side, I am feeling lonely. Think I have been single for too long. Haha. But there is just the problem that I feel, that I am not ready yet. Not fully. There is a thorn I need to get rid of.

Stamp Eternity on my eyes

2007-11-17T23:06:00.000+08:00

‘When I stand at the judgement seat of Christ and He shows His plan for me
The plan of my life as it might have been had He had His way, and I see
How I blocked him here and I checked him there and I would not yield my will
Will there be grief in my Saviour’s eyes, grief though He loves me still
Would He have me rich, but I stand there poor, stripped of all but his grace
While memory runs like a hunted thing down the path I cannot retrace
Lord of the years that are left to me, I give them to Thy Hand
Take me and break me and mould me for the pattern that thou has planned

One thing i have learnt, we need to see eternity.

Tribulation, Perseverance, Character, Hope.

2007-11-16T22:18:00.000+08:00

Rom 5:3-4 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.

I had that verse in my mind yesterday, wondering why would tribulation ultimately lead to hope. So many times i hear the final word being Destiny, but according to this, it is Hope. Not destiny, Hope.

Trust is in the person's word.
Hope is in the person's character. When we say hope, it means what God says, He will do BECAUSE of His nature, His remains faithful. He cannot deny himself.

Then a friend sent me this: A person’s character determines how he interprets God’s will (Oswald Chambers). And it made sense.

With every trial, IF we persevere, we WILL develop into perseverance, which in turn develops our character which in turn furthers our understanding of God and therefore, increases our hope in God. That is why people who persevere through trials have greater Hope, because they pressed on. They did not give up. Their Hope in God is growing because they have greater understanding of who God is.

To those who are struggling. know that no where in the bible does it promise you to understand what you are going through till after the process. God never reveals to you His plans (in totality) even for the season, until the end of it. There is no point. Listen to His voice, and run for Him.

Pornography

2007-11-14T11:54:00.000+08:00

I am blogging about pornography.

Last night at our JYC meeting, my leader mentioned something really true. 2 sides of porn.

One side, Guys watch porn. That is simple. Internet has made hard porn accessible. More, FHM and maxim have made soft porn very accessible. Sex is no longer a gift but to be exploited at every turn. Television glamorous sex. The female form is now used in every advertisement (can anyone please tell me why you need girls in skimpy clothes to display the new ferrari or Honda??) We have made porn to be so accessible everywhere, we are desensitised.

God says Man gave God over to Idolatry, God gave man over to Immorality. Once we idolise anything, immorality comes in.

On the street, porn walks all over the place. Look at what the girls are wearing, short skirts, shorts, translucent etc etc. Once we look at a girl who covers only the essentials and we lust for them (guys, you know when it is lust; it is when you turn your head), that is idoltry and immorality comes in. We desire what we cannot have, we 'worship' them.

Of course, a good christian may say that he does not look lustily. I believe it is possible, but far more of us indulge in porn then we know. Especially in singapore where the warm weather gives girls the 'right' to wear close to nothing.

Which brings us to the next point; Girls commit porn.

By wearing those clothes, they are conveying the message look at me. Look at me and desire me. Worship me.

Guys, when you look at a girl lustfully, remember, you dishonor her, you dishonor her Maker. You dishonor God.

Girls when you wear clothes that reveal too much, you stumble your brothers. And woe is He to stumbles his brothers.

I am not condemning girls who wear skirts, neither am i asking for girls to wear a black shapeless cloth; that is legalism. That is NOT LOVE. I am asking girls to love your brothers and wear things that do not stumle your brothers easily.

I am not asking guys to walk with their eyes down. But i am asking them (myself included) to love the sisters. And not dishor them.

Some Thoughts

2007-11-07T23:03:00.000+08:00

I was reading Ravi's book, The grand weaver. Very good book.

But something struck me as being very true:

We say there is a sacred secular divide. That is not true. The opposite of sacred is not secular; it is profane.

What Zacharias was trying to put forward was his thesis that we are all temples of God; every place that we are in in actually a sacred place. Every job we enter is a sacred task. Set apart for God's purposes.

Then i was thinking: So many times we christians are called into the working world, we think we are not doing God's work. Actually, if you are working in the so called secular world, then you have two jobs.

Some definitions before i go on. I come to see that there are some jobs that should be held separate from the rest, no matter what people say. Church work is one. Full time church staff must be called; the levities are a chosen people out of a chosen people, set apart for service in the temple. I take it that unless we are called, do not consider church as a vocation. Do not close the door, but do not pray about it unless you feel there is a call. Church work is not of equal standing, not because it is holier, but because it is God's temple and He calls people to it.

Secondly, mission work. I define it as when a person, out of a call of God, goes out to the field to evangelise through the love of Jesus to the people. Such a person does not hold a job; they are funded by either church or others. I set these vocations apart for the reason, you are doing the work of God only. Spreading his love.

Why that definition? I have come to see people who are called into the marketplace, whether in business, in government, in non-church, non-missionary organisation, they will hold two jobs.

One is to evangelism through the love of Jesus. The default of any christian. The second, is to do their job the best they can. Neither is more important. Jesus never said to neglect our day jobs; when the tax collectors and army people asked Him what they should do, Jesus simply told them to do what was right and not collect more then authorised, in other words, fulfill your function. I believe that this call is as important as the first. In any job, we must do it well. We must excel at what we are called to do, in that field we must excel.

Ultimately, being a christian is the working world is not more glamorous nor more important nor less than those of the church or mission. It involves the christian to be fully who God made him to be. A light of the world. To shine for Jesus.

Favour of God

2007-11-04T21:21:00.000+08:00

I decided to do a study on favour of God. Long story.

The word Favour (Hebrew: chen,) (Greek Charis) is sometimes translated as Grace, and in some translations, Kindness. In the new testament, it is also translated as Grace, Thanks

I have largely used NKJV, unless otherwise stated.

2 Sa 15:25 Then the king said to Zadok, "Carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the LORD, He will bring me back and show me both it and His dwelling place.

Pro 3:4 And so find favor and high esteem In the sight of God and man.

Luk 1:28 And having come in, the angel said to her, "Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!"
Footnote:
NU-Text omits blessed are you among women.

Luk 1:30 Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

Gen 6:19 "Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die.

Ps 84:11 (some versions, "For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor;)

I think that favour of God exists. It is not favouritism per se, the way we know it. But I believe that for those who have accepted Christ and lived a changed life, a surrendered life, a faithful life, God's favour is on that person. But for those who do not accept Christ, or even accepted but not lived a surrendered life, God still loves that person as much as the former, but he CANNOT give anything great blessing on that person because the person is not faithful in the little things.

I believe that favour is like a gift for faithfulness; not saying the faithful or the more faithful get a lovely life (See Paul, John Baptist etc etc) but that they enjoy the favour of God.

After doing this, i am convinced that God practices Favour. But more importantly, i realise I have a bad habit of thinking God's morals are what i feel is right. And not what bible say. I think when we mention favour of God, favour sounds like a bad thing, impartial. I actually think fairness of God is not what the world sees it as, i treat you equally. That is impartial; God is faithful, He loves all the same, but bestows favour on the faithful.

Love and Favour is different; Love is a gift from God, Love is an action (1cor 13, Jn3:16). But Favour is a blessing/Mercy (see above).

I want to be faithful, not for the favour of God, but because it is HIS mandate.

Heart Surgery

2007-10-31T10:33:00.000+08:00

The word i got for this week is transformation.

And to do that, is the heart surgery i need. Prov tells us to guard our heart for from it springs the issues of life (Prov 4:23). Jam 1:14 - 15 tells us the reason we sin, that there is desires. Roms 1 tells us of the wrong transformation, one where we are transformed wrongly to a sinful life.

But as God manages the deepest issues in my life, the removal of desires not for God, i find myself confronting my greatest struggles. My deepest battles against loneliness. The pains i buried, to ignore. I realise that deep within me is a cry. A cry that i have not heard for so long. And that cry i need to deal with. The cry to be heard.

I hav forgotten how to listen to hearts. I hear but do not listen, i have ears but speak too much. I need to remember to hear the cry of hearts, the tears that people cannot see. The pain that people ignore. I need to go back to the root of listening.

Last night, God told me again, love my people. Love my people without expectation of return. Love my people like I love them. In the face of rejection, God continues to love.

Anyway i need to confess, i have not taken up the ministry of God seriously. God gave me the ministry of JYC, and i have wasted the time there. Wasted the people who join JYC, the leaders. Everyone's time i have wasted simply by not taking the ministry seriously. How many youths have i caused to lose their hope in righteousness. I dunno, but i realise that i have squandered my responsibility away. Being lazy. I need to recapture the burden from God.

Listen

2007-10-31T00:08:00.000+08:00

Beyonce Knowles - Listen lyrics

Listen,
To the song here in my heart
A melody I've start
But can't complete

Listen, to the sound from deep within
It's only beginning
To find release

Oh,
the time has come
for my dreams to be heard
They will not be pushed aside and turned
Into your own
all cause you won't
Listen....

[Chorus]
Listen,
I am alone at a crossroads
I'm not at home, in my own home
And I tried and tried
To say whats on my mind
You should have known
Oh,
[Listen Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com]
Now I'm done believing you
You don't know what I'm feeling
I'm more than what, you made of me
I followed the voice
you gave to me
But now I gotta find, my own..

You should have listened
There is someone here inside
Someone I'd thought had died
So long ago

Ohh I'm free now and my dreams to be heard
They will not be pushed aside or worse
Into your own
All cause you won't
Listen...

[Chorus]

I don't know where I belong
But I'll be moving on
If you don't....
If you won't....

LISTEN!!!...
To the song here in my heart
A melody I've start
But I will complete

Oh,
Now I'm done believing you
You don't know what I'm feeling
I'm more than what, you made of me
I followed the voice, you think you gave to me
But now I gotta find, my own..
my ownn...
(Thanks to http://www.lyricsmania.com/lyrics/beyonce_knowles_lyrics_728/bday_lyrics_30631/listen_lyrics_332433.html)

Anyway i just had a conversation with a friend, and it really irritates me.

We have become a generation of christians who know how to give answers, who are trained to know what answers are to be given to what questions. We have forgotten how to love one another.

Love does not entail giving answers. Love does not mean we point each other back to God. Yes that is our ultimate objective. Yes we need to bring the person back to the realisation that God is who the person needs. But we need to stop playing church, stop giving cliche answers. Start listening to the person's heart cry. What exactly is the person saying?

Don't listen to the person, hear his heart. This is the key to relationships, and i admit i have stopped it. Because let me tell you, hearing a person's heart is the hardest thing to do. Up to now, i know of none who does it well. Listen to the heart. Not to the problem. Don't be problem orientated, or solution driven. Be person focused. God's whole purpose of life is relationship. If relationship is about doing, then God would just have washed the entire creation away in the flood and left us there. But He rebuild the world, in the desire for a relationship.

He tore the veil that we might approach Him. He tells us His secrets if only we would seek Him. He says Seek and He will be found. Draw near, and the lord WILL draw near. God is not about making us grow; He is about knowing each other.

Know one another. Listen to them. Walk with them. Until you earn the right to speak into their lives.

Wondering

2007-10-28T22:26:00.000+08:00

Well, signed with MOE and all that. Pray that I have actually heard and obeyed.

These few days, did not do QT. Have not the strength to sit down and just be quiet before God. I think it affects my temper badly. Lost my temper at another driver, whom i dunno if really my fault or hers. But anyway feeling that i been over reactive lately. Need to find the secret place with God again.

That is all for now.

(all of a sudden, i am feeling very lonely. Friends getting together, staying together. Whilst i am alone. Bleah. Maybe i should start praying. For anyone!!!)

I want to OBEY you God

2007-10-24T21:55:00.000+08:00

Well that is it. I am officially turning down an offer with SIA, which entails

2.6k a month for 16 months a year on average (4 months bonus)
One free ticket (economy return) to anywhere
Subsidised tickets
Great ROA.

But at the end of the day, the call is this: Am i prepared to set aside my dreams, desires, even blessings, that i may fulfill my calling, my purpose, indeed my destiny? Am i prepared to obey God even unto i sacrifice?

Obedience is not obedience until you learn to sacrifice what you really want for what you know God wants. If there is no price, if i had no other Job, that is not obedience by boh pian. Now i cannot say no choice, i have a great choice. But i have decided, to follow jesus. No turning back, no turning back. Only trust and obey.

It is hard, but at the end of the day, I have to be about my Father's business.

Homosexuals versus Heterosexuals (edited)

2007-10-19T17:10:00.000+08:00

There are two contrasting websites that have been circulating around. Both are on the Homsexual issue, specifically the issue of sex. (legal term: Unnatural offences)

Here is the act (http://statutes.agc.gov.sg/, Section 377 of the Penal Code):

Unnatural offences.

377.

Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animals, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall also be liable to fine.

Explanation.Penetration is sufficient to constitute the carnal intercourse necessary to the offence described in this section.

Outrages on decency.

377A.

Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years.

This blog is NOT about homsexuals and their sex life. This blog is about the responses.

Two online petitions have been set up, one called http://repeal377a.com/ and the other http://www.keep377a.com/. Their names should tell you the idea behind the petitions.

The issue i am struggling is that i am convinced by neither side of their stand. On the one hand, i agree with Repeal that sexual acts between two or more people are private choices and since they do not affect others, the law should not be used to restrict the rights of others who desire to practice such sexual acts. On the other, i do feel that Keep does have a point in that its view is the more prevalent view in singapore; Singapore is concerned about the masses and not so much the minority and in some cases the needs of many outweigh the needs of few.

Keep's stand is that if we repeal the law, going by examples in the world we will find that our society will soon degenerate into a very bad moral standing. The slippery slope argument, our known moral standards will be trampled upon and we will be no different from the world. Remembering the casino debate, someone did asked is Singapore heading the wrong way. Perhaps we are.

There is no sure evolution of the way societies head. We may say that every other society becomes a certain type, but then we are not sure that is the path we lead. Every society is different, just because that society developed into that stage does not mean we become that type.

What makes Keep even more unattractive is simply there is nothing else to their stand. There is no valid point strong enough for me to place my beliefs in. Perhaps we should consider the stand that not just is sex between two consenting males is illegal, but we should consider instead fighting against sex outside marriage. Sex (God's design) is the ultimate connection between male and female. It must be in the context of a marriage; outside that it is wrong.

That said, Repeal does not appeal to my tastes. Their reasons for change is due to changing domestic outlook on homosexuals, on international trends, on the damage to the gay community

International trends are not a reason for following. Gay marriages, the permission for pornography, the tolernace for drug absuers etc are reasons why not. We must never allow our society to develop in the manner in which the world dictates it should.

Domestic trends should not be used as a measure of the law; the law has a purpose is safeguarding the interests of the country and not the desires of the people, and more importantly of the 'so called minority'.

I do not agree that homsexuals deserve the term minority simply because such a term has a means that the behaviour of a homosexual is normal. It is correct for men to love men, women to love women, sexually. I am a firm believer that we are NOT born gay; God made MAN and WOMAN in HIS IMAGE. A homosexual image essentially contradicts heterosexuality. This is not about contrast or about tension, this is contradiction. Just like God is both Good and Bad, Light and Darkness, all knowing and not knowing. Contradictions that are NOT true. God is NOT both Good and Bad. He cannot be.

Ultimately, i wonder if repeal or keep are promoting their own agenda or the agenda of others. Is Keep trying to influence the making of law because they benefit from the status quo or is it because they truly believe this is for the betterment of society. Is Repeal trying to further the cause of the gays or is it fighting for greater freedom by attacking small areas of the law?

Personally, i am keen for repeal because the law should not be used as a tool of oppressing the masses in their strictly private life. That is why i believe that homsexuals may practice whatever sex they so desire behind closed doors; however they should not be given the tag of 'minority' group nor should they be treated as specially from the rest. Teaching that homsexuality is normal is not right, but neither is condemning them for what they do in private. At the end of the day, what you choose to do behind closed doors is your life, but the moment it intrudes on my life, then i believe I have the right to respond to it.

Also, Singaporeans, Singapore is YOUR country. YOU have a very heavy ONUS to tell YOUR government whether it is doing the right thing or not. You need to tell them what you think, because they WORK for you, not you for them. They have power given BY you; we give them the right to rule, to do things best for our country. But we need to tell them what we think is best, and they act accordingly.

(excerpt from keep)
Sexual preference is not about civil rights and has nothing to do with equality or tolerance. Repealing S377A would in fact be the first step towards mainstreaming the homosexual lifestyle, which has been shown elsewhere to lead to:

Calls to specify the minimum age for consensual homosexual sex;

A public education system that teaches acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle under the banner of "tolerance";

The redefinition of marriage to include (gay) civil unions and same-sex marriages, and to extend marriage and parenthood benefits to them;

Adoption by same-sex parents.

(excerpt from Repeal)
The reasons why this repeal is so important are manifold.

1. Singapore’s Founding Principles.

2. Constitutional and Legal Rights.

3. International Social Mores and Trends.

4. Domestic Social Mores and Trends.

5. Damage to the Gay Community.

6. Pragmatism, Leadership and the Future.

Divorce Fair?

2007-10-17T19:36:00.000+08:00

Vienna to host world's first-ever 'divorce fair' (Channel News Asia 17 Oct 2007)

When i read this, my heart took a leap. According to the report,

"Vienna is to host what organisers have dubbed the world's first "divorce fair" this month, aimed at couples whose wedding dreams have turned sour and who need help in untying the knot as painlessly as possible. "
...
"Nearly 50 percent of all marriages in Austria end in divorce and the figure is 66 percent in Vienna. The upcoming two-day fair is being held under the motto: "Start your life afresh". Organisers are hoping it will bloom into a twice-yearly event. "

Nothing hurts more then a divorce. As a christian, i believe strongly against divorce. I know there are people who argue that sometimes there is no choice; well, i believe there is a choice.

I know i am not going to win converts here, but i say this with all honesty, i will never look to divorce as an option, much less a choice. A marriage is a sacred union of two people far closer then any other two can become, closer even the parent child. When we opened the doors for divorce, we open a can of worms.

Christians, note that divorce is NOT part of God's plan AT ALL.
Mat 19:8 He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. (italics added)

God never allowed for divorce; it was allowed for because of the HARDNESS of our hearts. In any marriage, divorce is due to the hardening of hearts. When we harden our hearts and do not humble ourselves, we set ouselves up for a fall, for a violent fall. We rebel against God. I believe with God's grace, it is possible to save the marriage, more to bring LIFE back into the dead are of marriage.

My Testimony

2007-10-06T09:58:00.000+08:00

This is my Testimony. It is not so that others may see and believe, it is so that I may read and remember.

I graduated from NUS in June, specifically June 30. Technically my exams ended 28 april and then it was off to EUROPE!!!!

I started to look for a job in early july. I knew a few things:
No banks/"church work"
Teaching after a few years.

I applied for several, MoM, MoH, MoF, Mizhu, SMU, CAAS, NCSS, MFA, STB, SIA

God intervened. Only the bank, CAAS and SMU responded. (SMU later realised I was Fresh Grad. On hindsight, I believe God gave me what I wanted. Response.)

I was also offered a temp (4mths) job at IBM. But it required that I not leave for the duration of my employment. My mom dissuaded me from taking it. I now can say uneqivocally that God intervened through my mom.

The places I wanted to and could go were closed to me. God did not let me go. My friends were given access. I was praying.

Then God asked me one day, is teaching a job? I replied yes.

Days later, He asked me why I din apply. I said I was not qualified/experienced ... .
God replied, I qualify the call.

So I applied for relief teaching. God opened the door. I found myself being recommended for a teaching job by a friend. I took it up. The amazing thing was, i later found out, my friend was doing relief for another teacher. That teacher was a teacher from SAS (Saint Andrew's Secondary.) She taught me in her last year at SAS and i remember her, not because of her teaching, but how she was as a person. Dun ask me to explain, i cannot, but somehow i just knew she was someone who was different. I discovered all this when i was praying for confirmation.

Teaching at fairfield really opened up my eyes to what God called me to do. It is something special on my heart. Something that i can really relate to, and have a passion for. Both teaching and connecting with the students.

But now I am still walking. Small steps. God says baby steps. Again and again, He is calling me to go to him at ANY time I am tempted. At any time I am struggling, to go to him for help. And God gives grace to the one who is humble. As long as we choose to submit to God, He will send grace.

Now as I am continued to be called back to Fairfield, I learnt a lot of lessons so valuable. Firstly, the students they want and need to know that you are on their side. They need to know that someone is not fighting them, someone is fighting FOR them. They want to know that they are cherished and loved. They want to know that they have a chance. Because they themselves have forgotten they have a chance.

Most of all, they need to be loved more then to be taught. Many of them do not see a future, much less a destiny or a destination. Our jobs are sometimes to help them search for an attainable destiny and help them work out how to get there.

And now is the call to obedience. Even as I wondered whether I should take up the job of teaching, I believe that God is one who never forces. He has given me the option of saying no; SIA is calling me back for the last round and i think it is usually where they offer you the job. I think. This is God's way of saying, it is your choice. I know in my heart, He wants me to teach. At least for now.

On another note: To 4i: You guys really taught me alot about being a teacher, being patient and loving you guys. For that, i will never sacrifice the experience. NEVER.

Fear of the Lord

2007-09-28T21:32:00.001+08:00

I been asking God about how Fear of God and Love for God. How can the two go together.

This morning, God said while i was driving

"The fear of God keeps you from sinning. The love for God keeps you doing the right thing"

And that really hit me hard. I decided to do a study on the fear of God.

Firstly, it is not a OT issue (Matt 10:28, Luke 1:50). New testament talks about fear of God, a lot.

Secondly, the fear of God is far more then just reverence (Heb 4:28). It is really a fear of who God is, the fear of what God can do. Rev 21:8 warns us (pretty severely) for those who are basically sinners (of which we all are saved only by the grace of God), that they will suffer. If at all, it is a worthy fear. Jesus says in Matt 10:28 "fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (emphasis added). I think it is safe to say that one reason we fear God is because of what He can do to us.

Heb 10:26 tells us that if we continue to sin, then what we have left is a fearful expectation of judgment. The reason we Fear God or why we should, is because ultimately, God will judge us. He will test us. He can destroy the soul and body in hell. God can do that, it is not just His prerogative, it is his ability. God is God, the maker of heaven and earth, where Earth is his footstool, the palm of his hand spans the stars, He is the Alpha and Omega, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, Angels cry Holy. The first and the last, the one who knows the measurements of the earth, who shut the sea with doors, commanded the morning,seen the doors of the shadow of death. Treasury of snow and hail is His. I mean, should we fear Him? YES.

I used to think that Fear of God is the wrong thing. Like i mean, why should we fear Him? He tore the veil, allowed us into the holy of holies. Yet God's nature does not change. He is STILL God! Fear is inherently selfish, it is self preserving. Because we fear God, we will keep from sin (prov 16:6)

Ultimately, the Fear of God is simply this: The revelation of who God is. If we come to realise who God really is, then we know that what keeps us from two deaths (the first which none escape from, the second which is reserved for those who reject the truth) then we will really FEAR Him who can destroy the soul and body. And God's mercy is only on those who Fear Him (luk 1:50).

But then, how about Love? Love the Lord your God, love your neighbour (Deut 6:5, Mat 22:37-40, Mrk 12:28-34) tells us that the whole law hangs on LOVE. Why?

Because if we love God, if we truly Love God fully, then we will do the things that will not hurt Him. I.e. we will do the things He wants us to do, not just not sin, but to do the right things.

Fear keeps us from straying away. Love drives us toward God. The law serves as a tutor to faith, to show us what it means to love and have faith in God, and also to show us what happens when we sin.

God, i need that fear of you. because without it, I am finished.

A walk to remember

2007-09-22T20:51:00.000+08:00

Today was Yee Farn and Linda's wedding.

I think weddings are fantastic times. The union of two people, is something that i believe God ordained and more then that, made it one of the few things that are standard in our lives. I mean by default, marriage is what God wants us to enter in. Singlehood is something that you are called into. (I have talked a lot about that so i shall just leave it at that)

But anyway was a great day. Celebrating the union of two people. And Pastor shared something so true:

Joy is simply: Jesus, Others, You. When we put Jesus first, Others second, Ourselves third, then we have Joy. When we humble ourselves to take blame, to take a step back and allow another person to win, to submit and release our rights, then Joy can come in. Once more i am reminded, Joy comes from placing others before self, Jesus before all. At the end of the day, when we lay down our rights, (not our identities), we will be one step closer to Joy.

Lay down of rights is the hardest yet most essential thing to do. Many christians i know are struggling to. Even Jesus struggled to lay down His right, when He prayed hard for God to remove the cup, Yet NOT by His will but God's (the Father) be done. That prayer time was when He struggled, but Jesus chose to lay down His rights. When we have the option to, do we come to God to ask Him to help us lay down our rights? Or do we simply dump it? Or do we fight for it? We need to ask God to help us lay down. Because when we simply dump our rights, that is an act of disobedience. When we fight for them, that is when we think we know better.

So many lessons learnt will blog more next time.

Teaching

2007-09-19T20:39:00.000+08:00

Today was a lesson in teaching.

Some sound advice came in and got me thinking. One of the other teachers said, "Sometimes, we teachers need to love more and teach less".

I think I agree with her. With some students, the issue is really they need attention. What happened was today one of my students had a bad day. I do not condone the students activities; to the fairsians who read this, please remember that this is NOT what you should be doing.

Shortly after, the student started to give me an attitude. To be fair, the student was obedient enough to sit down when told to do so. But when i tried to talk to the student, it started to get ugly and the student became all hard and aggressive. I decided to be patient and just leave it.

The issue here is really as teachers, sometimes we need to love them for who they are, and listen to their hearts. The student's cry was really, no adult understands me. No adult bothers about me, all they care is scold and scold and see my bad points. And sometimes we as teachers fail to see their good points and encourage them. This was for me a lesson, as I was reminded to love them first.

Later, at tennis with Evan, she said one of her senior teachers said" Some of these kids do not have any idea where they are going. Your job is not to teach them, but to help them find and get to their destination"

Too true. I assumed the students wanted to pass their exams and yes it is good for them, but some of them do not want to bother with the exams, because they have no goals nor direction. (At 16, what goals and direction would you have? And if you did have them, are they still the same today? If they were, i'd suggest a careful study of them to bring them back to reality. at 16, i'd say most if not all of us were too young for proper planning).

So our duty becomes (this is more so for the normal classes; express classes generally will head for JC/Poly) to help them find meaning and direction in life. Not merely to pass the exam, though that objective must be emphasized as a MEANS to and END, not an end in itself.

Why do students in 3a-e study? because they want to go to JC or poly, because they have a end view, though it may not be complete at least it helps them press on this sem. But there are some who do not have the next stage thought out, whether poly, ITE, private school, Shatec (all these are good, none better than the other), and these will find that they are studying for the sake of studying which is meaningless. And of course a chore that sucks. So we need to help them find their end, their purpose. To do so, we need to connect with the students.

Finally, the teacher who spoke to me reminded me of this "after a while, you will ask yourself, and God, where are the changes, why are the students the same or worse, getting bad? Then we need to remember the call of God, gird ourselves, and take one step at a time."

Miracles may happen, but God mostly works in steps. Are we patient enough to obey for EVERY little step?

Updating.

2007-09-14T19:11:00.000+08:00

Been a long time since i blogged so here goes.

SIA called me up for interview last week (where i met chris) and this week they asked us to go for a written test. it took one day. One essay, one precis, GMA (maths, abstract and reasoning). Total time, 4 hours 30 min. Even NUS exams not so fierce.

MOE asked me to go for a medical checkup. Which i went (at raffles hospital). Turned out, i am fit for teaching.

Over this week, i been teaching 4i. People tell me "you teach 4i? Good luck." I realise that is so bull. I love the class. The students yes they may not be smart in terms of how MOE sees it, but they are brillant in their own ways. And so lovable. Is just that some of them don't bother to study. But talk to them one on one, you can connect. you can talk to them.

I think the important thing to be teacher, one must know firstly connect with them, but also remember, you are on their side, not their friend. The problem is when we think we want to be their friend; that option is not opened to us. Teaching is ultimately about being a older person whom the student respects and looks up to. Being a friend is one small role, it is the role on which the student wants to share to , but it is the teacher role that student wants advice from. The teacher whom the student can trust to share his story with as well as share troubles with, is one whom the child respects.

Students need to learn respect, but we as teachers need to learn to love them the way they want to be loved. Of course, this means if they go out of bounds, we warn them not to. We are ultimately their teachers and they may not like us, but they have to respect our office. Because of our office, being friends is too limited.

On a more jovial note, i found a few pictures of peole whom i know who come from fairfield. If you do come from fairfield, tell me so that i can search for your class.

UPDATE

2007-09-06T21:36:00.000+08:00

Ok LONG time since i blog.

Update. This week has been pretty strange. Realising that God answered my prayer. MOE has called me up for an interview today. Pretty scared when i went.

Then Uncle David from my church smsed me, and he said this, Be yourself. Which is what i did. Basically, i think the interview went ok. So praying la. If God opens this door, then YEY!!!. Course if He opens the SIA door then i also blur already. Got interview tmr.

Anyway that is the big thing in my life. My Job search. Which i hope will be stopped soon. On a side note, been meeting up with my former students of fairfield. To teach them LOGs. After every lesson, become dead log. Hopefully they understand Log.

And since they know my blog...

REMEMBER: log (x/y) = log x - log y, NOT log x / log y. Consequently, log x / log y does NOT equal to log (x/y). Make sure you remember your logarithm rules.

Also, (sin x) x (sin x) = sin (squared) x, NOT sin 2x. Goes for ALL trigo.

And sin x + sin x = 2 sin x, NOT sin 2x.

AND MAKE SURE YOU MEMORISE YOUR SPECIAL ANGLES! 0, 30, 45, 60, 90, 180, 270, 360 for ALL sin, cos, tan.

Finally, R formulae NOT given in exam. MEMORISE.

Ok on more fun stuff, i met up with people this week, been taking opportunity to meet up with friends. Last night met a friend and went to changi (which turned out to be bad place to eat, though nice place to see plane). Then today met another friend in school.

Ok well, that is all this week. super tired. Tmr got tennis and interview at SIA. Cheers

Everything

2007-09-06T21:34:00.000+08:00

This is a response to YOUTube, it is called GODTUBE

Sigh

2007-09-02T22:27:00.000+08:00

My dad is one hard man to love.

I guess to him, I have failed him simply by not being who He wanted to be. He is a man who is safe, and wants to be self dependent.

I am a man who desires the relationship of others, who is unafraid to lose life, though more afraid of losing a chance at life. I too am hard to love, a sure sign of me being my father's son.

I dunno, it is just tiring i guess.

Disciplines

2007-09-01T08:42:00.001+08:00

Out of love, you discipline yourself.
Out of discipline, you fall in love more.

I had this analogy from God. I love cars. That is why i 'discipline' myself to read up on as much about cars as i can. In essence, i am in training. Out of the training, you fall in love with cars more.

As with athletes, they train out of a love of the sport, and out of the training, they love the sport more.

As with God, we discipline our lives out of a love of God, and out of that discipline, we come to love God more.

At the root of it, it is really love, but at the surface, it is a series of discipline.

Thursday, i disciplined a class, and i said this "I will teach you discipline, if not in the heart at least in the actions". Out of the actions, i pray that the heart will also be moved.

Relief

2007-08-28T18:55:00.000+08:00

I went back to Fairfield last week (friday) and the last two days for relief.

It is the most tiring day i have had in awhile.

Monday i took several classes, including one Music Class, One History Class, One E-maths Class and one Sec 2 Maths class.

The music class was where i did nothing because the task that the students had to do (go to sfskids.com and investigate instruments) was not possible with the server down.

History was was. I had no idea it was History until i stepped into the class and the students told me it was History. It was a Sec 3 class (the class that i took again for E maths). Was super fun. Cos all i did was to talk to them and help them for the Maths test they were going to have in a while. Lala.

After history I took a break and took the same sec 3 class for E maths. It was essentially a invigilating lesson; they took the test and i watched to make sure they din cheat. There was one girl with a toy dog on her lap (big one, it was her birthday) whilst she took the test. What made it funnier was this other boy with a smaller dog on his table. Why do students need comfort toys?

It was also interesting to realise that Robert William Straughan, Pauline Straughan's son. Yes the NUS sociology prof's son. He is one very polite young man. (Whilst browsing the NUS Sociology Department webpage to find out how to spell Straughan, i just found out that Stella Quah is a woman)

Anyway then i had a sec 2 Maths. Was pretty cool, my JYC youth was there, scolded one kid for using a vulgarity (and i mean a very crude one at that) made him stand up for the rest of the class.

Today was more FUN!!!

First i took Sec 2 Maths. Super Cool. I love the sec school kids. They make me feel young. As opposed to how Clara calls me Uncle Seah.

Then I took a Sec 3E (Robert's Class) for A maths. Waaa, super slow la. Dunno whether Sharon (their maths teacher) will sock me for being so slow. After that i had a Sec 3A Chemistry Class. This was essentially let them do an assignment set by their teacher whom i was reliefing.

I then took the same class for A Maths (more my territory). Was ok, again a bit slow. Trying to teach them the basic of A maths. It is so much easier to learn then to teach.

Then the most exciting Class. 4G. A normal acad class. Rowdy and just basically could not be bothered with a Relief Teacher. So anyway just set the the homework, and let them do. The bigger problem was i totally cannot teach them because it is something i never did in Sec School.

Why oh why can't i teach Economics...

Oh well, i miss my students. I realise now that Teaching is really my passion. Lives ARE in the MAKING here, Hearts ARE in the WAKING here.

A new start

2007-08-26T23:25:00.000+08:00

I was wondering how do the lessons in my life over the few weeks tied in. But today i learnt it all in one session.

First, the last few weeks were solely on faith. On walking in faith, on the truth that Faith was not a feeling but an action lived out according to what God says. It is an active response.

Then slowly i felt that walking in faith was hard, because i could not. I learnt that Life is not about the choices ahead, but the CHOICE ahead, that we can only handle ONE Choice at a time. We look at the past, we are distressed by our track record. We look at the future, and we are discouraged by the distance left. What we do is to choose to put step by step the next stage.

Later God pulled me on a journey of discovering the disciplines of loving Him. That loving God is a discipline, that loving anyone is a discipline. Not just emotions, but an active discipline. We choose to love God totally.

Subsequently, God showed me what Loving Him means, that doing the QT is not for loving Him, but to build a restedness in Him so as to have the faith to walk in. To walk in faith is not possible if we are not rested in Him, for only when we are rested in Him can He enter our lives and us in Him.

Finally God showed me that total picture. That right now i am rebuilding my entire christian life. One based on discipline because i realise His love for me, and i love Him. This disciplines will instead of stressing me out, makes me rest in Him, allowing me to walk out my life in faith. And from that faith, i can wait eagerly for the righteousness that we are all entitled to but so few attain, the righteousness by faith, not by declaration that God is saviour, but the righteousness by faith. And all this boils down to one word.

Choice. A choice will determine your character. Your character defines your destiny. Your destiny is NOT a destination, nor achievement, but it is who you are. God made you and He knew who He wanted you to be. He wanted you to be someone, He had a plan and a purpose for you, and nothing makes Him happier nor more glorified than if we fulfill our purposes. We choose Him. Not over the big things, but the NEXT decision. The next one, the next one. God gave us free will. Choose. Choose God now, next time.

Dun worry about the future, worry about today. It is hard enough. Choose God NOW. Dun hesitate. Choose Him Now. That you may achieve the DESTINY that God has for each and everyone of us, that we may attain righteousness by faith, that same faith that is the only thing that can please God, that same faith that will produce works, all boils down to the living faith that is an action. Walking in agreement with God. And to get that faith, we need the disciplines of loving God.

Dinner

2007-08-26T22:32:00.000+08:00

Ok quick recap over me birthday.

I had one dinner from Rachel (at this semi atas place called C&F. Nice place. Sell nice bottles too. End up with high spirits (cos i put my liquor at the top shelf). Thanks Rachel.

Then i had surprise dinner with the people from CF with two nice shirts. Bit of a surprise there. Din expect it.

Had some angpows from mom dad aunty and god ma.

Had church people giving me birthday cake. (to eat not to smear).

But overall, it was great. Thanks to everyone involved. Thank you God for sending me friends when i need it most

God's Glory

2007-08-25T22:03:00.000+08:00

Something my friend sent me.

When anything in creation fulfills its purpose, it brings glory to God

You bring God glory just by being who you are and who you are is great

Prov 16:4
The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil.

Is it more simpler than that? No. To be who God made us to be, to fulfill his purpose for us, gives him the greatest Glory. There is no need to go out there and make huge numbers of believers, to even build churches, to go for missions. It is so easy, to be who God made us to be. That above EVERYTHING gives him the greatest Glory.

Everything is made for God's Glory. If we defy his purposes, we sin. As long as we are not in his purposes, we are sinning.

If we fulfill his purposes, no matter how small, God says Well done Good and Faithful servant.

BIrthday Surprises, Hair Saloon for dinner.

2007-08-25T21:45:00.001+08:00

Last night, i was surprised.

Adeline, Liz and me arranged to have dinner together. what i did not know wat that was just part of the group.

We met at marina square, me being totally clueless. Ade said we will be eating at this place called Helio Asia. Which WAS a fusion restaurant of sorts.

I say was because when we got there, the mall directory actually insisted it was a health care shop. Of course it turned out, it was a spa. So it was a bit hard to have dinner at the spa.

We then proceeded to Cafe cartel where Ade asked for 6 seats. Which of course set my mind off, because i went, ADE????????? Six seats for 3 people?

Shortly after, Clara and Meisi turned up. With Cake. For my face. So sweet of clara to cream me and i din even know la. Walked back and forth from the table to the inside to get bread, smiling at a cute girl, and not realising i had some brown chocolate on my face.

Anyway, we had bad meal. The Cafe Cartel at Marina Square LOST our orders, the ribs that were supposed to be good were bad. Anyway, halfway through the meal, Daniel came down to join.

We adjourned for dessert at a very atas place, (where clara wanted to steal the menu) at Swissotel. Looked nice, dessert was great, but pricey. And coffee with liquor really came as two cups. One cup coffee, one cup liquor. Bleah.

Anyway, Matt, Lester, Ruth, Evan Joined us at the place. Giving me an even bigger surprise. Evan baked (so touched). And she kept trying to get cream on my face. Which she did (din i mentioned i was so 'touched' by the chocolate, literally?) Took a lot of napkins to clean up.

Ok so anyway it was a great time. Wanna really thank the following people( in order of appearance):

Adeline
Elizabeth
Clara
Meisi
Daniel

For the great dinner and the shirts

Matthew
Lester
Ruth
Evan

For dessert and the shirts

Jocelyn
Huishan
Pearlyn
Sida
WeiYing
Winnie

For the shirts

THANKS SO VERY MUCH GUYS. YOU really made my birthday memorable. Hugs and Kisses (if you will receive them)

Tussle for outward worship during an internal storm

2007-08-23T00:33:00.000+08:00

This is a honest replication of what i feel.

"God i gave you my fourth year. I honoured you the best i knew how to. I gave you my time. I gave you my love. I loved your people as you called me to, no matter the cost. I fought for you. I honoured my covenant with you. I was as faithful as any. And yet i have no testimony of faith. I have nothing i can hold up to show of your faithfulness.

I am as yet jobless and single. I have honoured and yet i have not seen your fruit. My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? What good can i declare of thee? What declaration can thy mouth make? I cry to you O lord, hear my grievances."

I find myself asking this question, is God Good? I dunno. I really dunno.

This has to be the longest time i am fighitng this battle. It feels so tiring, to be a christian and still have to fight. Where is the victory in my life? Where is the war that i should have won? Where is my God in all this?

The worse part are people who know me not coming up to me and saying things like have faith, pray etc etc. I dun need advice, nor counsel. Words of truth i too have. What i hunger now is for God to bring to pass what He has promised me. Yes i have hung onto the promise too much, perhaps even neglected the promiser. But don't you tell me that. Just pray and sit beside me.

At the end of the day, to choose God even when you feel forsaken, to choose God no matter what you feel, even when the circumstances tell a whole different story. You know what, when you do that, that is hard core faith. Do i have it? I dunno. Have i a testimony? I do not know. But this thing i know, "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me." (Phi 3:12)

Faith

2007-08-20T13:10:00.000+08:00

To continue on faith

James 2:17 Thus also faith by itself, if it is without works, is dead.

I always thought faith and works, the whole issue of fruit or works being the evidence of faith, i.e. good works, like blessing others, love others, etc etc. What we would call, good work la.

But reading on james, you come to a question. James points out Abraham and Rahab, and their works were well good, if you were to put yourself in their shoes at their time, their works were actually a leap of faith.

The works James talks about here is an action birthed out of faith, to take a step despite the more attractive alternative. To move in a manner that opposes that which is more conventional. In essence, faith that causes us to move in a irrational manner, but rational in the sense it is obedience to what God calls us to do.

The works i need to do, is to move in obedience to God, even if a alternative that is more plausible is present. Faith without works, faith without moving in agreement with God, faith without obedience is dead. Faith is not a desperate plea for help, not a desperation for God. Faith is the dependence on God.

Today, i was reminded of a saying
"If you can, do.
If you can't, teach.
If you can't teach, teach those who teach."

I think it should change.
"If you can do, teach.
If you can't teach, do."

SOrry i very teacher mode i dunno why. Pray with me k, as i walk in faith that God calls me to teach.

F word

2007-08-19T20:34:00.000+08:00

Today's blog is on F word.

Funny.
I am shamelessly copying this off my friend's blog

"The bad thing, was that we were 'treated' to a really ridiculous, arty-farty performance with some kind of neo-pagan deity dressed in red and running about on rollerblades who was like the the personification of some kind of spirit while his minions worshiped golden calves. I mean come on, surely they could have done something better than show us that. Like some history stuff, or a performance that everyone could enjoy, not just those who splash paint randomly on canvas and see art in their expressionistic departure from artistic norms. Bah. I certainly didn't like that bit. I fell asleep. "

Funny guy, Dan.

Funny

Conversation with ClaRA

Clara: yawn

i shall pack my lappie

me: for? you going china?

Clara: ...

as in the files inside

me: huh? why you packing them? leave them in the laptop la. you take them out the laptop not going to be lighter lor

Clara: ...............

Ah ClaRA. Can see her Swing Hair.

Faith

Anyway, service today was a timely reminder from God. Pastor was just sharing, that at the end of the day, Faith is the substance of things NOT SEEN. We do not base our faith on the seen but on what God has told us, his spoken word to us, both the Word (bible) and the Word (God's voice).

God has told me a few things. I am claiming in faith.

1. I will teach. He said a few things concerning that, including " He qualifies the call" and "If my called do not go to redeem what i call them to, who will?".
2. God said, no matter what others say, what I say is what you base your faith on. Have faith.

So essentially on this journey of discovering God again, i am fighting for faith, fighting for my life to be free to worship God, to live a life For God.

Bless you guys.

Blogs

2007-08-19T09:40:00.000+08:00

I must be careful.

I found my students blog, from Fair Field. So i decided that from now i have to be super careful. Google is the new police.

Anyway i think my students from the said school are super funny. Reading their blogs, learning about who likes who. I realise that as we age, relationships only becomes more complicated. Not too sure if people do mature enough to handle them. But oh well.

To every student in my classes, bless you guys. Keep you guys in my prayers.

In the event any of them finds my blog,
MATHS TEST ON WED, CH 10 AND 12. DUN FORGET. MAKE SURE YOU DO THE QUESTIONS IN THE BOOK.

drifting

2007-08-18T09:31:00.000+08:00

I write this because there is a part of me that realises i cannot hide anymore.

This morning as i woke i decided to QT (right now is a choice thing). And the first thing that hit me was this simply, that my heart is empty of God. I am no longer sure if i love God, because i have been playing church and christian so long, enough to hide behind everything. I have been playing church. Playing Christian.

Day before i had a question. God laid two choices before me:

The first was that i could choose other than God. That means i take control of life. I fight back. I find my own way.

The second was despite what i cannot understand, despite all that i see, i choose God again. Then today, i find that i need to make the choice to stop playing church either way (because God cannot be mocked) i need to find God or i need to stop finding God altogether. There is no half half.

The truth is, drifting has showed me what my faith was founded upon. Upon playing church. So now i have to decide, what will it be.

I write this partly to share a journey but mostly because i just need to let it all out. I need clarity.

Mistakes

2007-08-16T10:14:00.001+08:00

When a doctor makes a mistake, his patient dies.
When a lawyer makes a mistake, his client goes to jail.
When a policeman makes a mistake, a criminal goes free.
When a teacher makes a mistake, he cleans the blackboard.

I made boo boo today. About parallelogram. Bad boo boo, bad boo boo. Took one hour to dis explain and still cannot get it. Leave it to glen. Haha.

I love my classes, full of life, but like any children requiring the occasional bouts of discipline. I think i rather have them responding then simply quietly doing work. Lifely.

Tmr is my last day here. Feeling a bit sad because i have grown attached to the classes. Will miss their noise, their actions. Pray that each and every one of them will rise up to claim the destiny that God has for them. I wonder when God is not in the school, what then? If God is not allowed into the place, what will education be?

Teachers who come in, do not come in because it is a noble, good job. Come in because you want to bring God to the environment, including to the teachers. Come in because you are called.

2007-08-15T14:13:00.001+08:00

Funny conversation overhead:

Teacher: Wa my students are, very smart
2nd Teacher: Why?
1st Teacher: I told them, class, silence is golden. Not bronze, not silver, not wood, golden. Then one of the girls replied
"But gold is very rare, hard to find, just like silence"

... Students.

Then i saw this guy waiting outside the class for dismissal. I was wondering why, until the class was dismissed and walked to their next lesson. This young man went up to one girl. I think he was sec 2 at most. 14 and dating!!! oh man i am 25 and single!!! HELP!!!

Anyway praying hard for something. Pray k? Pray that God's will be done.