12th Southern Region Church Camp - Sneak Peak 1

More to come :)

Thank you for the cross

Currently listening: Great is the Lord

1. It's been pretty busy and hectic lately. Got assessment next week (when I really did not expect it to come this soon). Quite unprepared. But in the midst of it all, really give thanks for how God opened up a way in certain things. This week I am supposed to be on call for Easter Sunday, and due to some incidents at work, was a bit concerned that the changes in on-call days might not be approved (so I was asking God, "How ar?"). Nevertheless, was glad that He made a way, when I was asked to replace a fellow colleague on Saturday instead. Praise God for this little miracle.

2. Easter Evangelistic Movie Lifegroup

It was a time to once again reflect on how God demonstrated His love for us - while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). As God saw the value in each life out of love, and Ben saw the potential in Jake, both were willing to invest and pay the ultimate price with their lives, hence let us truly live our lives well as a testimony to the work that was finished on the cross.

Currently listening: Laura Story - Blessings

Verse 1
We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Chorus
‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

Verse 2
We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Chorus

Bridge
When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home,
It's not our home

‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of the greatest thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

More of You, less of me

Currently listening: Keith Slaten - Lord I thirst for You

"The layer of human turmoil - looting and scuffles for food or services - that often comes in the wake of disaster seems noticeably absent in Japan.

“Looting simply does not take place in Japan. I’m not even sure if there’s a word for it that is as clear in its implications as when we hear ‘looting,’" said Gregory Pflugfelder, director of the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University.

Japanese have “a sense of being first and foremost responsible to the community,” he said.

The communitarian spirit at the foundation of Japanese culture seems to function even more efficiently under the stress of disaster, he said.

The natural American inclination is to operate independently.

“So you do everything you can to protect your own interests with the understanding that, in a rather free-market way, everybody else is going to do the same. And that order will come out of this sort of invisible hand.

“And Japanese don’t function that way. Order is seen as coming from the group and from the community as a sort of evening out of various individual needs.”

Will this social attitude help Japan recover from this disaster? "In a word, yes."

Ref: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/12/orderly-disaster-reaction-in-line-with-deep-cultural-roots/

1. Laying down ourselves. Something which I believe most of us find very hard to do in the midst of today's society which emphasises on grabbing what is best for ourselves whenever we can. Yet, in an island nation riddled by disaster, there are lessons to be learnt. Where young people make way for the elderly during food distribution, where there was order and respect for the law rather than complete and utter and chaos in places like Europe (during riots) and maybe even our own country. It's a good reminder to be sensitive to the needs of others.

2. This week has been a good learning experience. Challenged myself to lay down what I perceive to be lack of confidence to coordinate lunch sharing after Sunday service, and it does encouraged me to hear testimonies from people whom I have never heard from before. Also it taught me a lesson how I should learn to listen / respond / encourage when people share their troubles / dilemmas..

3. Received my 2 months of salary, and gave tithes for the 1st time (as a working person). There is that sense of joy giving back what God has provided.

4. Movie ECG, morning prayer at UTM's lakeside on one of the days, and CG evaluation reminded me of 2 things: 1) do my best and leave the results to Him (whether good or bad), rather than being obsessive about how things should work out 2. today it is not so much about how much we do, but that our being is also more important than our doing (our actions mean nothing if it is not supported by our life testimony, and our mindset determines the things that we do). It's hard to lay down certain bad habits, but would like to believe that this quarter will be a quarter of spiritual breakthrough and great harvest.

5. Shepherding this week was short, but Ethan's sharing reminded me of 2 things; 1. to learn to be flexible, when people or things are unable to fit our expectations - not to be demanding. 2. not to take things for granted, but to really treasure the time and opportunities I have where God has put me, coz we will not be in student group forever.

6. This week has been quite draining, as I worked from 6.45am-6.45pm everyday. In fact, when parents came on Tuesday, by the time I got home from accompanying them at 10pm, really totally knocked myself out in bed until the next morning. In addition, since I did not get much sleep from preparing for a case presentation on Thursday night after LG, even the decision to go for prayer meeting on Friday after work is really tough - when your brain is shutting down, your legs are giving in on you, and the traffic jam was horrendous. But I was glad I went - it was a night of intense prayer, spent seeking God wholeheartedly, and one which (coupled with this week's experience) spoke to me that if you really know who your Maker is, what He wants to do, and live a life surrendered to His will, certain things no longer matter / bother you (eg what people say, who offended you, what you didn't receive etc) which seem so petty in comparison to His plans and purposes. Coz today it's no longer about us.

8. You just never know where unexpected blessings will come from when you choose to honour and do God's work, as I just found out when my dad called me and offered to exchange a new laptop with my Dell PC. So I now have a new laptop! I prayed for a new bicycle to be more effective in my daily life and ministry, duno where it's going to come from, but we'll see :)