I've dug deep, but still have not found it in me to give a proper expository of what is going on in my head. I'm only going to do it in point form, and if my eloquence comes back to me, I might talk a bit more.

I have underestimated how much I would really miss school. I miss the groggy mornings and how I refused to starting talking to people until I've gotten to the study benches. I miss how Derek, Hakim and I irritate each other. I miss the smartmouths at the back row.
I miss the rendang from the Malay stall. I sorely miss talking over stupid topics at stupid times in stupid places with stupid people.

No, I am not a wuss. I'm only mildly sentimental.
Taking apart the word 'miss-ing', here's how I think of it.
1) Lacking in something;
2) Something is amiss, i.e. something is out of sorts.

So the above very excellently explained how I felt, or am sporadically feeling now.
It's funny how we now miss what we dread.

Then I thought about what I missed, and if I were to live through an extension of it again this year. I couldn't replicate the conditions or summon all my friends who've moved on.
I conclude that I miss the past, which is something that cannot be relived, only reminisced.



How cheerful. Being eighteen forever is an attractive but non-attainable thing.
I can only man-up and move on.

*

I am now like driftwood. So much freedom and no anchor.
I need funding for my pursuits, and I need real physical pursuits.


(Image Courtesy: TravelBlog)

I need a job and yet I fear a job would upset my current lifestyle, because the full hours would sap me of strength and drive to study God's Word, and heave big weights.

If only some teacher in Anglican would fall sick - I'm not intending this to be a curse, but there needs to be an opening before my entrance as an educator and while I displace you, I must add that it also means that apart from you getting more sleep, there will also be no pesky students in this same event.
Required: An Opening.

I had a very good dream this morning, that my results were very satisfactory. And while the endorphins had not yet receded when I rose, I got sober quickly, realising that the contrary always happen with me.

The fear that my results are inadequate are very real and suppressed by my regular treatment towards stress-giving objects (suspension) and my faith that wherever I end up, it will be God's placement.

REAL:
But I still am very much aware that it was my exam and my effort.
Though all of it have been in God's hands from the start, I will reap what I sow.
This worries me.

POSITIVES:
God controls the conditions and the outcome.
I have more years ahead of me which I could spend working towards something I should have attained in my youth.

Required: A swift disclosure of results, or Cambridge having lost all records in a localized fire that consumes only paper and bytes with no loss of human life.

Seek First the Kingdom of God. I got this in the same dream, which was a very strong message that lingered up till I was at church. Wanted to share it when it was time, but was slightly abashed and also because I deem myself dressed too casually, while the people serving were in robes.

I haven't gone deeper into this topic, but I understand that in seeking and receiving this kingdom, we must also embrace the Kingship of Christ. His commands and teachings will provide us with direction; His Word will be our daily nourishment, His way will be our way and we will pray unceasingly and continually. Christ rules over all of me.

Very often I hear people profess love for God. This arouses the skeptic in me.
I dare not say that I love God (as much as I should), and I know that my love for Him is miniscule compared to His for me.
I fear that I confuse love with emotion. Love is not just a feeling.
We humans have lousy, inaccurate ideas about Love.

Our love for Him is only shown through our obedience to Christ's teachings and commands.
If our profession does not match our behaviour, then-

In all,
I am highly dubious that God endorses our worldly pursuits of fame, riches and human success and human hobby.

We may have been expecting that the ungodly things that matter to us also have the same weight in God's sight. We must check ourselves all the time.

When we take on God's way as our way, we will then only be concerned with things of God.

Friends sighted:
Vivien; calligraphy
Aaron; army

Here's a goodbye from Derek and me.
Pictures courtesy of Catherine Chew :)

Most people who know me from way back and maybe not even that long ago must be wondering why are my posts and expositories always about Jesus and the Bible.

I cannot have had a genuine knowledge of Christ and be unchanged and still living the same way as I was.

I was a poor example of a man and I still very much am.

But I cannot have come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ and keep Him out of parts of my life and separate secularism and Christianity in my person.

He looked round again and could hardly believe his eyes. There was the blue sky overhead, and grassy country spreading as far as he could see in every direction, and his new friends all around him, laughing.
"It seems, then," said Tirian, smiling himself, "that the Stable from within and the Stable seen from without are two different places."
"Yes," said the Lord Digory. "Its inside is bigger than its outside."
"Yes," said Queen Lucy. "In our world too, a Stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world."
(Lewis,1956, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle)

My mood has been cheered slightly by the beauty in Lewis' work, but also dampened by a random atheist on the Internet. For my opportunistic atheist friends that I may have, no, my faith has not been rocked.

I have always thought atheists were ostriches.
But then we cannot make them see what they don't want to see.

We need the Holy Spirit so much.


From the Squalor of a Borrowed Stable
Stuart Townsend

From the squalor of a borrowed stable,
By the spirit and a virgin's faith;
To the anguish and the shame of scandal
Came the Saviour of the human race!
But the skies were filled, with the praise of heav'n,
Shepherds listen as the angels tell
Of the Gift of God, come down to man
At the dawning of Immanuel

King of heaven now the Friend of sinners,
Humble servant in the Father's hands,
Filled with power and the Holy Spirit,
Filled with mercy for the broken man
Yes he walked my road, and He felt my pain,
Joys and sorrows that I know so well;
Yet His righteous steps, give me hope again-
I will follow my Immanuel!

Through the kisses of a friend's betrayal,
He was lifted on a cruel cross;
He was punished for a world's transgressions,
He was suffering to save the lost
He fights for breath, He fights for me
Loosing sinners from the claims of hell;
And with a shout, our souls are free
Death defeated by Immanuel!

Now He's standing in the place of honour,
Crowned with glory on the highest throne,
Interceding for His own beloved
Till His Father calls us to bring them home!
Then the skies will part, as the trumpet sounds
Hope of heaven or the fear of hell;
But the Bride will run, to her Lover's arms,
Giving glory to Immanuel!

God's Love and Mercy; God's Righteousness

I don't know who reads my blog, but I feel really compelled to do this, and explain the nature of our God, and why there is a need for Jesus Christ, His person and also how did He save us.

The world is drawn to a God who loves and promises goodness, because the world is a rough place and we are tender deep down, longing for care and nurture. That's why it appeals to us when we hear that there is a person called Jesus, who loves us no matter the condition of our mind, body and heart, and we take likely to Him.

Jesus had great love for all of us, if not He would not have the strength and courage to walk to the cross and be crucified.
His whole life was gearing toward His death at Golgotha.
His foreknowledge that His death would bridge God and man and triumph over sin and His love for everyone enabled Him to carry on.

When Jesus was arrested, He said:
"Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?"

Matthew 26:53-54 (New International Version)

God loves us and He cares about our suffering, our distress.
But Jesus came not to make our lives better in the worldly sense or to give us riches and prestige.
The blessings that Jesus brought and promised through Abraham, through Israel were not material wealth, but the promise of closeness and intimacy with a God who is mighty and full of love and power.

Yet our God is also Holy. God is righteous and just. He loves justice and hates iniquity.
He does not condone sin; sin is opposite to Him. God's righteous anger, God's wrath is incurred by our wickedness and our falleness. All have sinned, and there is no exclusivity.

Proverbs 17:15
"Acquiting the guilty and condemning the innoccent-the Lord detests them both."

Because of His righteousness, sin is serious to God. Sin is an offense against an infinite God, and as a result, the punishment is rightly infinite. God cannot, despite His love for us, compromise His justice and holiness and pardon us without a price.

Out of His great love, God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ to take our place and suffer God's righteous anger on the Christ. Jesus who is divinity became man and lived a perfect life as the perfect man, pure and blameless. He came and taught us by example the perfect godly man that we were designed to be, and did not turn away from His intended course-to death on the cross.

Christ Jesus is the Son of God and having infinite worth; therefore He was fully qualified to take up all the sins of the world past and future and pay it all for us. When He died for us, He paid it in full, saying "It is finished" before He gave up his life.

He died for us and He offered us a way out of our brokenness and fallenness, and a way to God. If we believe in Him, we gain life because His blood has fully washed away our sin and He has redeemed us from our death by His own death.

Isaiah 53 is very clear in telling us what was God doing through Christ. God's own arm worked salvation for Him and for us all.

Isaiah 53

Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied ;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Romans 3:23-26
"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus."

With this, we are new creatures in Christ who have received life from the Spirit and must live by the Spirit and according to Christ's teachings in Scripture to imitate and take on the likeness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:14-16
“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy."

Finally, God says in Isaiah 44:22, "I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you."

We are redeemed by Christ's sacrifice for us, and His resurrection authenticates the reality of God's grace. In this we must repent, believe and trust in Christ Jesus, submit to His Lordship and walk in love, obeying His commands and teachings and to bear fruit.

We should not only have passive faith, but active faith.

This new year isn't festive, but familial.
Handshakes and hugs were longer and there were more laughs.
I managed to sit down with my cousins at every stop on the first day for meals and it was sweet.

The day before, my uncle had a little Hennessy which made him extremely talkative over steamboat. Red face and loose lips are excellent tell-tale signs of inebriation.
He gave me some sips which I suspect spread the headache over.

I now decidedly like steamboats, because they bring people together. I've had a few since last week and oh, they fill me up. The small space and the hot boiling pot with goodies in it, and humour flying across the table. The jokes strike you and make you purge rice out your mouth.

Meals are really powerful in bringing people together, especially if the meal is excessive and we are compelled to dine. Such pressure evokes humour which make stuffing yourself more pleasant. This classifies as the best part of all Lunar New Year.

Of the three cars setting off from my grandmother's place when we went to Hougang and the car I was in, with my witty uncle was first even though the odds were stacked against us. I like to thing that the vehicle I was on is blessed.

It was startling to run into Jamie from the back of my father's lorry on Lunar New Year Day One on Upper Changi Rd East while she was in her family's vehicle. Shouting across to her on the road was strange but pretty cool too. Meeting a friend from school on New Year is a rare first for me.

This reminds me that I met a lot of people on Sunday in Tampines after my workout. I was pretty outraged that every food place was closed and I couldn't have my salmon or beef post-workout meal. The good Lord has made me see people whom I haven't seen for a long time for reasons that I humanly cannot fathom, but am grateful for.

White wine helps me sleep I think. My grand-uncle was very generous while emptying the wine bottle. I'm resolving to get some into a private store which I will toast to the health of my big heart. I think beer is coarse and unbecoming of my refined character.
And it makes me nauseous.

I've been stuffed so much, I think I've probably taken in 3 times the amount of carbohydrates recommended by the RDA of Singapore for 20 year-old males. Steamboat and/or rice at every stop. Right now, I feel that my midsection has been compressed top and bottom and thus it has no other option but to balloon outwards.
This is a purely horrid sensation.

I'm wary of the effects of downing a last dose of milk tonight for fear it will upset everything within.

Realisations Recently :
We must magnify the child in us, but have an adult nearby.
I'm pretty sure I like muffins more and more.
I've bulked up, but I've added fat to my frame. Which is dismal.
You never recover from the death of a close one. It's a gap that doesn't get filled in.

With God who is all powerful, nothing is impossible. Also for us humans as limited beings, our definition of impossible is far off from his. Is anything too difficult for God?

I must love because I am a reflection of my God, who is Love.

1st Corinthians 1:27-31
27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

E.Coli Is To Blame

Recently, writing for me is like starting a car with no gas.
I will avail to reproduce some of the intellectual things that go on in my head.

I call it structural irony on Saturday when I was watching the eighth season of Scrubs and then got admitted into hospital some hours later. The diagnosis was pyelonephritis.
E. Coli again was the source of my agony.
The three-day hospital stay was unasked for but was absolutely necessary I realised, because God was at work.

INSERT-
[The way God works, He does one thing which has multiple and diverse effects that all work for His divine purpose and this is so complex that we haven't even been able to preceive all the things that He's been doing.]

This is what I realised: an antibiotic treatment can be a useful metaphor. If you don't finish the course, the bacteria doesn't die out and you still get sick.
What I really mean: God, unlike an antibiotic, never stops treating you. We need to go back to God, who is the physician and healer for follow-ups all the time. If not, sin cannot be excised from us. We need treatment constantly.

Faith expresses itself through love.
Galatians 5:6
"The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

All relationships need maintenance, whether if it's with another person, and especially if it's with God. If we leave it by itself, it'll degrade and start to stink.

We buy into lies when we think that we have enough of God sometimes after a heavy 'dose' of Bible Study or Christian literature. Only God fills us up. There is an infinite gap in all of us and only the Being who created us knows how to fix us up and we run away from His fix.

Humans have shallow perceptions. We make judgements based on what we see, and most times, we're not very far-sighted. This is why it is wiser to refer to God all the time.
In Isaiah 8:19, Isaiah asks "Should not a people inquire of their God?"
To Isaiah, it seems ludicrous that the Israelites turned to alternatives other than the Almighty God who had all the answers to every question.

But I guess we turn away from God because already know that God cannot concur with us and that we of course, are in the wrong.

The people we meet and come into contact with in whatever small way is definitely within God's plan. And for good reason. I think Romans 8:19 is especially concise in summing up what is taking place in the world.

"The creations waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. for creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God."

The human definition of freedom disparages with God's. Our definition of freedom is:
Autonomy from external sovereignty, even from and especially from God.

The freedom God actually gives is freedom from the bondage of sin.
Which as humans we actually love and uphold to be as 'nothing wrong'.
However, sin corrupts and is an object of God's righteous anger.
Dismal.

I enjoyed my hospital stay strangely, and it was not because of the food. I enjoyed the attention and maybe because I was grown up and the needles did not bother me that much. Maybe it's because being told I need to have some blood taken out of me immediately gives me little time to react when the needle is already in my arm.

Or was it because Vivien had her appendix taken out and was downstairs in the hospital. So though alone, I was also technically not alone.

I'm deeply impressed with the nursing team at CGH, and especially with the nurses on call at night. They really have a way of making me feel reassured. I have more respect for nurses than people in any other occupation. The student nurses are really cute though. And by cute I mean their disposition and gentleness. I am abashed to admit that I am attracted to one of them who somehow did not attend to me.
I wonder why.

I like to think that it was to safeguard their professionalism and not fall in love with me that they stayed away.

But the way she attended to the old man in the bed diagonal from mine really struck me because she was so caring and endearing with him. I'm going to ask God if I will see her again.

Visiting the Accident and Emergency area is a pretty interesting experience and it invokes several emotions. There's death, and you feel compassion for the bereaved; there's pain and you sympathise with them for you cannot imagine/understand their distress.
You also become a semi-detective who tries to figure out who's in for what, which can be slightly fun.

I'm grateful to my mentors who visited me and talked with me, because they really helped me a lot in defusing boredom and growing in understanding and knowledge.

In all, I'm grateful to God for everything. My attitude must first be right.

Sweet Ballad