Busy like dunno what.

My life is so busy that sometimes I myself can’t believe it. Here’s how my typical week goes (after lessons):

Monday: Rugby
Tuesday: Voices
Wednesday: Voices
Thursday: Rugby
Friday: Voices
Saturday: PAC meeting (morning)
Sunday: Church (morning), Vocal lessons (afternoon)

And that is why I usually reach home around 12am. LOL. And last night, I reached home at 12 plus, have a test this morning at 10am and a tutorial at 12pm. By the time I’m done washing up, it’s around 1am. And then, instead of starting on my tutorial and studying for my test, I had to settle Voices stuff, which took me until around 2am. In the end, I slept at 6am. And I woke up at 8am to reach school on time for my test. Worse thing is, I foresee this going on for quite a few more weeks. Can feel my body cui-ing and want to sleep early but also cannot. Really is busy until like dunno what. zzz.

Give more and you will receive more

Today’s Campus Crusade CG touched on a point that I find really important. When you give more, God will definitely bless you with more. He will never shortchange you.

Touching on that point, there are tons of examples in my own life that fully justify this principle. And yet, so often, my own tendency is to keep whatever to myself and not give it away so easily. After all, isn’t that what our parents have been teaching us since we were young? Have I, therefore, been placing my faith enough in God?

It’s time to start giving.

Some old ghosts just like to come back to haunt you

It’s amazing how your actions can have such long lasting consequences. Things that happened and passed does not mean that people are going to forget about them. Time may heal, oh but it definitely is going to take its own sweet time.

Yes I was wrong and I had already admitted to it. I have offered reconciliation and I know that does not mean that it will work out and I’m prepared for that. But why do people still judge me is such ways? The Word says that we should not judge, for we are all unworthy in our own ways, and unless you have been given authority, i.e. judges, you should not judge, just leave the judging to God. And yet, people simply like to judge you based on what they hear or see. Maybe it’s just inevitable. Heck, sometimes even I make the same mistake, even though I will remind myself not to do so.

Either way, I can’t change people’s perceptions or mindsets. I can only persevere on in what I believe.
One day, He will make everything work out, even if it means 20 or 40 years down the road.

Words that escape me…

I usually have a lot to say on my mind. And I sometimes tell myself that I can probably blog about this, to share my views on some things that are happening. But too often, these words escape me by the end of the day.

Being slightly on the lower side of life recently have provoked many thoughts and self-reflections; and I have gotten some answers while wrecking my brain over these issues. Things that touched, in some cases, wounded, my heart, causing me to rethink about some of the values that I’ve been holding on, and in some extreme cases, even my own identity as a person, as a Christian.

Maybe it is the sheer complexity of things that caused me to be unable to put them into words, maybe it is an unwillingness to expose my own weaknesses, maybe it is a fear of rejection of my own views, or maybe it is just pure laziness. In any case, words and writing aren’t really my best of friends.

Well, at least the climb to the higher side of life have started, and though it is slow, I’m glad there is some progress. I am delighted that God has picked me up once again, but I am not going to simply relish in the goody feeling. Make no mistake, I’m no pessimist. But life is a cycle, what goes up must come down. Failures and setbacks, and even backsliding to a certain extent, are inevitable, for they are the tools with which our character and faith is honed. By simply relishing in the goody feeling of being on the high, I am only allowing myself to forget about lessons learnt, and to be hit harder when the setbacks in life throws a punch at me. So I’m going to have to constantly remind myself of how it feels to be down and to be picked up, the promises that God has given me, the faith that He has showed to an unworthy, insolent fool like me, and the immeasurable amount of grace that He has given to me.

Growth will be present as long as there is faith that involves action.

Holy and Anointed One

Your Name is like honey to my lips,

Your Spirit like water to my soul,

You Word is a lamp unto my feet,

Jesus I love you, I love you.

“I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.” Psalms 104:33

What is the meaning of knowledge?

It was a wet morning. I was walking to the MRT station on my way to school, thinking about my studies, what I should do to get good grades, whether I am working hard enough, comparing myself to others and feeling inadequate, etc. Looking down deep in thoughts, I suddenly noticed the large number of earthworms stranded on the path due to the rain. This is when I noticed the birds happily enjoying the windfall of food, hopping around on the path, totally oblivious to my presence, even when I walked past them.

Right at that moment, I was reminded of a verse from the bible. Luke 12:24 says, “Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!”

Humankind has always been proud of our knowledge, and we have always claimed that it is our wisdom that has set us apart from the mindless, wisdom-lacking beasts and creatures that populate the earth with us. We have always placed our success on our wisdom, saying that knowledge is the key to power and to everything that we crave to achieve. Without knowledge, we would not have prospered and progressed to the stage we are today.

But what of the birds? Why is it that they, the ones whom we deemed to be useless and mindless, sometimes survive better than us? Why is it that they, the ones whom we deemed to be lacking in the knowledge we so desire, prosper and do not fret about life like we do?

Why am I in this race for knowledge? Why is it that there is such a large number of people I see in the lecture theatre who are so concerned with the amount of knowledge they have, revelling in the fact that they know more that the others, and then fighting to get more knowledge?

What is the meaning of knowledge? Why do we then, need knowledge if we will be taken care of by God even when we have none of it?

At that moment, God spoke. Knowledge is not about us. Knowledge is not something for us to boast of. The reason why we have knowledge is for us to realise just how wonderful God is and how great His love for us is. We have knowledge to let us understand the great works that He has done for us.

Humans always take pride in our own discoveries, with the recent discovery of DNA deemed to allow us play God. But how many realise that our so-called “discoveries” is merely naming of what was created by God at best? Did we create all these “discoveries”, or did we simply put a name to it?

The birds who do not have knowledge simply enjoyed what God had provided, and never understood the greatness of God. But us, who are God’s special creation, His children, have been bestowed with knowledge not for us to indulge in self-pride, but to allow us to see His greatness and to therefore give Him all the honour and praise that He deserves.

Therefore, if that is the meaning of knowledge, then the reason why we seek so much knowledge is no longer to get better grades or earn more money, but it should be so that we can honour and praise God even more than we are doing now.

Maybe then, it’s time we take a new outlook on our pursuit of knowledge in our lives.

It doesn’t matter how fast or slow you are moving, as long as you keep at it…

I was watching this video posted by my friend on Facebook. It’s this music video of sorts by this guy called Jon Schmidt where he plays the song Love Story on the piano with a cellist. I’ve watched him doing another beautiful piece where Love Story meets Viva La Vida. Watching him and hearing the beautiful music, I suddenly thought about how long he must have practiced before he got that good. And I start thinking about what he did when he failed in the past.

I was going through a rough patch recently and everything weren’t really going that well. I spoke to God, more of in a frustrated manner, but He is so faithful that He spoke to me in an unexpected manner that brought me back to His side just like that.

I was walking at Jurong Point when I passed by the shop Precious Thoughts. And it was playing Facing the Giants on the TV at the entrance. I’ve watched the show before, and watching it again, I just thought that it’s so nice that I want to watch it again. So I went home, and watched the entire movie on Youtube. And the part about how our priority in our lives is to honour God in everything that we do just hits me. We honour God whether things go smoothly or not. I guess I’ve slowly let other things move up my priority list, to the extent that I’ve neglected God. And suddenly everything just makes sense. I know He’s there with me. I know there’s gonna be a reason for why things aren’t going my way. We usually focus all our energy on being successful but I realize that success means nothing without God. Everything in our lives should be a tool that we use to honour God and that should be the most important thing.

And when you realize that, you realize that whatever failures you face now, as long as you honoured God in the process and put in everything you’ve got, are no longer considered failures. You are never a failure in God’s eyes. Just keep going. God has a plan for you and one day He will fulfill it for you.

I guess we have been bought into the world’s idea of how everything should be done fast to the extent that we have neglected the value of patience and how things can only be properly done when done slow. Learning is a process and takes a long time but we often forget that. We often just want the fast track but that is usually impossible. Maybe it is time to change our mentality.

Struggling in the waves…

Have been so busy that once again, I’m not updating my blog. Sorry to you guys who do check out my blog.

Really been busy with all the projects and assignments, and the one module that really pisses me off is Business Communication. Too much to be done with too little time, to the extent that I feel that I’m not really learning anything but merely rushing to meet deadlines. Seriously, they should look into the organization of the module for the entire sem.

Just realised that I got removed from Facebook as friend by someone. Yes, that particular someone. I’m not sure when it happened, but I found out just when I thought things were moving on. So yes, another wrench is throw into the gearworks again. And we are still not greeting each other. How to move on and just go for CG? I have no idea. Don’t ask me.

Think I’m really getting lost and moving real far away from Him. And the worst thing is, I’m not sure how. Have been praying, but somehow the passion still seems to be lacking.

I’m just hoping everything can be over real soon. This sem is really shit.

Birthday gone…in a flash!

Haha. This year’s birthday is so come and go. I was still busy rushing out assignments on my birthday eve and birthday. LOL. Anw, had a pretty shiok birthday this year, nothing fancy, but I really cherish the time spent with my loved ones and friends. It was just such a happy time.

Anw, have been freakin busy like nobody’s business. This sem is not just hell week, but hell sem as a whole. LOL. The pace for a level 3000 module is really fast and there’s really quite a lot to do, not to mention I’m taking 3 modules which have projects. -.- And…I joined teamNUS rugby this sem. LOL. Sounds like I committed suicide eh. LOL

But, I have to say that I totally never regret my decision to join rugby. The feeling of standing on the field and playing rugby again is really just incomparable to anything else. Training is tough, but I’m really kinda enjoying it, and there is so much more motivation to train now. Gonna have to gym hard. =D

Voices is progressing along well too, with the lessons done now and we are moving into Mini Concert preparation soon. Hopefully the juniors will really enjoy the entire process and form bonds in Voices that will stay with them throughout their uni life. This year’s Emerge is going to be huge too. Target no. of audience is 1000, which is like the past 2 years’ Emerge combined. Let’s make this huge.

It has been going on for sometime but I guess I’ve never really said it here. My friends and I formed a band and we call ourselves Grey Area. Woots. My very own band. I’m really excited about this. Haha. Anw we went for the Ben&Jerry’s @ The Cathay auditions for their open mic exposure and we got through so we’ll be performing there for the very first time on 24th Oct, Sat. And I’m picking up bass too. So many things going on, so many new thing being learned. This is really a busy period, and yet so exciting. Haha.

Really hope everything will go smoothly. Have to start catching on my studies though. I really wouldn’t like my CAP to suffer cos of all this. Haha.

He is faithful and His love is everlasting

My God is a faithful God and He deserves all praise. I thank Him for all that He has done for me.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

This is how strong God’s love for us is. We go through difficult situations, and yet everytime He is there for us.

Learn to let go, to leave everything in His hands, for the world is insignificant.