I have been valuing my own happiness above everything else for most of my life, and it is little wonder that I was unhappy. In striving to be happy, we give first place to the selfish desires of our hearts, which displace other people and promote ourselves.

The world is a cruel, selfish place that encourages self-centredness and conditions you to be self-centred.
We are often told: Fight for your own happiness.
I am astounded I could miss the great degree of self-centredness in that.
Our own happiness, if possible to attain, would come at others' expense and misery.
Our own happiness means that we disregard the condition of others' hearts and exalt ourselves above them.

Instead of cutthroat competitions, where men come up against one another, it should be as: Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. (NIV)

There is a sense of mutual growth/ improvement in the Proverb, but in our human version of competition somebody gets hurt and left behind, thoroughly losing.

When we look at all the main sins and offences, we see that they have heavy overtones of self-interest in them. In coveting and in greed, where our own insecurity and self-interest instigate us to steal and claim things that aren't ours in the beginning. This of course harms the rightful owner whom we discount when matched with our desires.

In lust, we desire things that do not belong or cannot belong to us. We prize our pleasures and satisfaction either in the emotional or physical and sexual sense above all, and we do not care if it injures the people we love and care about or demean women who are of immeasureable worth.

Satiety and Fulfillment do not mean the same thing.

This is why I believe that the world is broken.
Some believe that love and neighbourliness will heal the world. I believe that it takes much more than human action to salvage the brokenness; I believe only Christ provides Salvation.

It is also unthinkable when we can be happy when our satisfaction is built on the misery of other people who are as precious as us.
What makes a person precious?
It should not be intellect, beauty, virtue. The human soul is precious.

Instead of self-centredness, we must be God-centred.

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Looking at how most belief systems make out how our earthly lives, it seems almost like we are in a rat-race, where only at the end, are the Elite with special unique qualities of strength and power and brilliant minds, as well as an ambiguous label of goodness, rewarded with heaven.

I would instantly say that most of us will not make the cut because these virtues and qualities are neither common, or attainable in a lifetime. With doing good, while we are selfish, even when the things we do have positive consequences, it is questionable if we have done good.
I could take this on in another lengthy thread.

My question is: what about the weak, the helpless, the broken?
Are they cared for and catered for while they fail to qualify for heaven?

In a society that celebrates and rewards strength, is there any place for the weak and meek?

My critique is that we give too much weight to our moral efforts and we believe that these will be sufficient to carry ourselves to a higher place, and we structure the end reward in a laughable competition against each other, matching each other's moral contributions.
So once again, we displace one another and advance at others' expense.

I find it strange that the path to heaven seems extremely similar to the selfish cutthroat competitions on Planet Earth.

*

We fully depend on Christ because all of our strength is insignificant, and we have no ability to save ourselves from our own brokenness, our own insidious, unloving selves. Christ cleanses us, declares us righteous and worthy despite our fallenness and empowers us to follow after Him, which we could not. He teaches us to love Him and one another, and in all of this, we give glory to God who is worthy of the highest praise.

Only in the Grace of God can we eat and drink without cost. Christ has paid in full.

It is a big step to yield to Christ.
I dislike the word receive, because it is too genial and non-committal.
Rather, we should stop rejecting and resisting Christ in the areas of our life.

*

I have not mentioned Sin. Most of us have no concept of Sin, or we mute it into the form of an occasional mistake that we can surely avoid.

This low view of Sin is dangerous and foolish.
In characterizing Sin, Sin is like a serpent that sneaks in unaware and takes hold of you and will not let go. It aims to bring you with it to death.

If you are angry, it will instigate you to hurt/harm others, even those you care about, and yourself.

It will pervert your normal sexual urges into something beastly and unnatural, that demeans and twists what is meant to be beautiful communion between man and wife.

It will make you forget about love and kindness and gentleness.

It will lead you away from God because God who is Holy is incompatible with Sin.

It will lead you to go against God, and incite you to violate His laws, which have been meant to protect and sanctify you, reserving you who are originally His for sacred use and His purposes.

Because of sin, we lose our place in God's family and kingdom.

Sin is not contented in occupying a small part in your life, or a small piece of you. It will want full claim over all of you.

I am not scaring my readers, but Sin is not something that is over and done with. It is a constant threat to our relationship with God, and while Christ has broken its claim over us, we must not let it dominate us once again.

If we do not think we need to be saved, we will not want a Saviour.
Christ will not be relevant to us if we are fulfilled and happy.

But most of us are neither happy nor fulfilled.




*

Days left to Enlistment: 13

I'm looking to spend the rest of my time getting together with good old friends whom I have not seen, or will not be seeing for a long time, and also to slip in as many times of weight workouts as my weak body can afford, without breaking down.

Where I am now a free roaming adult with no longer any fresh income and thus a relevant resolution not to abuse my ATM card, I have to regulate my outings also.

Wed 1:
Thu 2:
Fri 3:
Sat 4: KARATE DEMONSTRATION @ SUNTEC CITY

Sun 5: SERVICE (MORNING), THE PEOPLE FROM KARATE, MOTHERS' DAY DINNER
Mon 6: EVENING TRAINING @ KOLAM AYER CC
Tue 7:
Wed 8:
Thu 9 :
Fri 10 : FINAL KARATE TRAINING
Sat 11:

Sun 12: SERVICE, FINAL GYM SESSION
Mon 13: PPD
Tue 14: ENLISTMENT DAY

Unless something else seizes me violently, this will be the final expository from me.
And no, I am not a fanatic. If I were one, I would be very inconsistent, frenzied and beyond common reason.

I'm slightly stunned that it is April again.

I often post in response to somebody else's expository, before I either relate to that somebody's post or go off in another wholely different direction.
(This post was motivated by reading Catherine's.)

My first and foremost query is:
Do people actually read my posts properly and take in what I say?

I will come back to this.

I must address the 'A' Levels, in order to validate it having been a real experience for my person. The outcome was within my expectations when I had not finished the coursework. Xiao Yu tells me, all the way from Canada, that this is a shabby excuse and I concur.

Most of the nerves were lost on me on Friday, because I lunched with Derek first and had beef as well. I like beef because it is succulent (when cooked masterfully) and muscle-friendly and it spites the cow-abstaining idol at home.

I then had to pay $30 worth of fines at the library for a book I borrowed in 2007, and promptly returned into the book-drop because it was unhelpful. I reasoned that if I had paid, and my results were horrific, it'd be even more of a rip-off. Because of this (and other expenditures), I'm broke this whole week. Myself, and several others have been victims of the flawed system in the college library.

While waiting for the long-sighted lady to leaf through the wad of results slips of other compatriots marked down by the unmerciful library, the woman almost gave me a slip with Ds and Us and Ss. It was a rude shock and I thank God my name, "LAU" is super distinctive from other names like "LIM". I'm so sorry, Lim.

When I finally got my rightful slip, by virtue of stark comparison, it felt strangely liberating, though a mild, awful emotion did appear for a bit. I call it the "it should have been me" feeling, triggered when I watched, and recalled watching old friends go upstage to claim their deserved congratulations from the principal.

Back at the hall, even the VP kindly give me counsel and evaluated my results for me. Hakim gave me "The Killing Joke", a 1988 Batman graphic novel as a birthday gift, and it was very entertaining and distracting, while the people who did excellent were called onstage.

God's faithfulness was a solid comfort, because our future in Christ is extremely secure.

John 10:27-29 (NIV)

"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand."

This is a most important question I've been mulling over for quite some time.
Q: How do you tell if you are a sheep of God's flock.
A: Easy. You follow Him.

I also remembered to praise God for His divine arrangement which the short-sighted creature that I am cannot see. We survive only on His grace, and to also mention a delightful worship song, His Grace is Enough. My extensive study of Scripture then gave rise to two hard-sought A's amidst the other ugly alphabets, and I am thankful.
On hindsight, this was God at work, even through a lazy vessel like me.

A happy conclusion to a Korean drama, and a night at Karate which was slow-paced because of the visiting Swiss Blackbelt, made things better.

And this is how I've closed the chapter on my pre-university education. Even then, I will not entertain intrusive questions about my exam performance. I will then proceed to feign amnesia, in the hope that you might get my meaning and go away, else I will need to behave violently.

I have learnt more about leadership recently and although Gandhi is a pagan, he was pretty accurate to say: "I suppose that at one time leadership meant muscles, but today it means getting along with people."

This is not to say that Arnold Schwarzenegger makes a lousy governor, but that leadership is not a commanding presence or an inspiring one. It begins with humility, enthusiasm and offers respect to coworkers and especially subordinates. It concludes with appreciation for them when the job is done. I saw this in a slim man whose hair was growing white.

The Pyramid of Leadership
Image Credit: Google



If Christ is real, then He should be our everything and occupy all our thoughts all the time and unceasingly. There will be no self, no 'me' but only Christ.

We should strive to have Abraham's faith. God told Abraham to "Take your son, your only son, Isaac whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." (Genesis 22:2 (NIV))

It was incredulous, and it seemed incredulous to Abraham because God had said it was through Isaac that Abraham's offspring will be reckoned and he could not understand how would God still bring forth nations and the kings of peoples if he were to put his heir to death.

But his response was prompt:
"Early next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey." (verse 3)

Abraham trusted that God would provide and make his paths straight, and obeyed God IMMEDIATELY even while he could not understand what God was doing.
In short, trust God even while we cannot see and cannot understand.

In Genesis 15-22:19 (NIV),
"Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward."

1) God is our shield (refuge and shelter) and our defence.
With His protection, we are safe and secure.
But: If we put off our shield (God), we are extremely vulnerable.

Psalm 46:1-2 (NIV)

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,"

2) God is our very great reward. The best of all things are with God. He will protect, enrich, deliver, and correct us.

God is not just speaking to Abraham here. He speaks to His people who come from Abraham (was Abram).

We can even draw lessons from Genesis.

In contrast with how Abraham was willing to give his firstborn son to God. God gave His Son for all of us, and did not hold back. What else do we do, other than devote ourselves to Him.

*

In closing, having a good time should be the least of my concerns, because I should not be living for myself or my selfish pleasures and joys. My life is no longer just my own.

My favourite lines from a worship song, "Blessed be Your Name"-

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Praise God all the time, read His Word all the time, pray all the time.
Spiritual hunger must be satisfied with the correct spiritual food.
Christ is the Word of God, and will fulfill and nourish us.

Do you really read what I write, or you just stare at the pretty letters and wonder how come I'm so eloquent?