lifesong
Everyone needs compassion
And love that never fails
Let mercy fall on me
When everyone needs forgiveness
Kindness of the Saviour
The Hope of the nation
Saviour, He can move the mountains
My God is mighty to save
He is mighty to save
Forever author of salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave
So take me as you find me
All my fears and failures
Fill my life again
I give my life to follow
Everything that i believe in
Now i surrender
Shine a light in and
let the whole world see
Singing, for the glory of the risen king
Jesus, Shine a light and
let the whole world see
Singing for the glory of the risen king
Sunday, November 19, 2006
-12:03 AM
Choices... Choices... Choices... CHOICES
Wow finally the first week has past. Life is alright inside.. only need to adjust to the new lifestyle. Guess i'm really gonna learn alot more enjoyable stuff over there. Spend my first few weekends helping out abit in church, and hanging out with friends. Sat night talk with M, certainly did help me get some thoughts organised.
We make choices everyday. I realize there is however 2 most important decisions we make in our lives. The second being our life partner. The first being where we want to spend our lives in eternity. Someone once described eternity as:
A bird taking a grain of sand from a very long beach, fly to the moon and brings the grain of sand there. Flies back take another grain and back to the moon. On and on.. until one fine day the sand on the beach is completely up on the moon... Well eternity has just begun!
Its a question that one may choose to avoid, and rather not spend any time thinking about it. But the way we live our lives does revolve around this one question.
Do you believe in ETERNITY? In life after death?
This question alone determines how we would live our lives here. If one belives in eternity suddenly everything in this world becomes so dim, be it money or fame... suddenly everything would seem so small, even the problems, such as loneliness and pain suddenly becomes so little. The very thing that drives our lives would also change. Perhaps its a question we may really need to ask "What are we living for?"
I spend a fair bit of time in my life building an image for myself. Reputation and glory meant alot to me. Its interesting what someone can do just to build up and image, even foolish things. But what is our image in the light of eternity? When we finally come to senses of what eternity really means, suddenly the very thing that drives our lives change. Because this 80 years on earth... is such a tiny fraction of the eternal life we were meant for.
Suddenly i want my life to revolve around this 2 statements, that i want my God to tell me...
"Well done my good and faithful servant" and "My son i am proud of you" Everything i do must revolve around these 2 statements. i live for it!! In the light of eternity it is all that matters.
If the answer is no... eternity really does not exsist, than if it was me, i would do whatever i want... whenever i want.. whoever i want.. whichever i want. Why bother to live a right life? Why bother struggling to live a Godly life? Why bother about conscious? After all if this is the only life i have... i should let my flesh take control of everything i do, and make myself happy.
The problem with why many struggle today is because they choose to stay inbetween. Indeed the most miserable group of people living on this earth is not those who believe in God or don't believe in God.. it is those who believe in God and yet live their lives without him. Are you feeling miserable today? This could be it... Let's not say we believe in eternity and live as if eternity never exsisted...
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
-1:49 AM
From SELF...
TO S-E-L-F-L-E-S-S
I could remember one moment during the days of taking SHSS 1 cell, some were sharing of their distance with God, while others share about the depressing thoughts they are facing, finding the routine of life meaningless and some to the extent of not wanting to face another day. It was quite a depressing moment... being a leader then, i thought there must be a way to all this. I then thought of the BELLY BOTTON.
- Whenever we stare at our belly botton, we tend to find that it appears uglier and uglier to us.
- Try bending your head all the way down and stare at it, not only does it appear uglier, its very tiring on the neck and it feels miserable after sometime, for some it may feel a little giddy.
- Stay at that position, now try shifting your eyeball around, you would notice you can't see others around you.
- Lift your head up a little, you notice you can now see the people around you, just a little.
- Now lift it totally and u can see everyone else around you.
Its good to reflect about ourselves, but when we wallow in guilt or in our depression and loneliness, we tend to feel ourselves and all that is going around us getting uglier and uglier, just like us staring at our belly botton for too long. Getting depressed is like the discomfort we feel on our neck.
Whenever we are really caught up with ourselves, we tend to not be able to notice the people around us in need. Its just like swinging our eyeballs around when we focus on our belly botton will not allow us to be able to see everyone around us.
I remembered a story of a man being brought over by an angel to visit heaven and hell.
In hell, he saw hungry man on the table, surrounding a pot of soup, each took his own scoop and tried to drink the soup with the long spoon. However all the hungry man could not drink it. As you imagine, the spoon is far too long to have the food scooped and then angle in towards the mouth. Everyone continued to be starving in pain
In Heaven, it was the same situation, everyone was hungry and was surrounding a big pot of soup, each given the same long spoon. However everyone in this situation was full and satisfied. Why was that so? Because they used the long spoon to feed one another.
And these are exactly the same thoughts that runs through the minds of those hungry people in hell inside the above story.Why should I feed the person around me. I am hungry myself. Besides if I be kind to the person opposite me will he recipocrate and be kind to me? Worst still, if I were to feed him, then there be lesser food inside the pot for myself. Why should I be so dumb?
This is indeed so: The man who adopts a selfish mindset is living in hell within himself. Only as we pray for a selfless heart like Jesus can we live free from our own depression, loneliness.
- It is often heard of people saying that they feel distant from God. And this something even i face it myself every now and then. However i realize that we often feel closest to our friend when we are really hurt and he is there to cry with us. When we are happy the friend is there to share the joy with us. Similarly, We serve a God who is all about people. If we are able to lift our eyes from ourselves and to share in the heartbeat of God, to bless, to cry, for the hurting and the lost, dispite how we feel, naturally we would find ourselves drawing closer to God once again.
"It takes strength to serve selflessly, it takes even more strength to serve selflessly dispite the storm we are going through."
"To be NEAR him, we must to be LIKE Him."
- " The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, but i have come to give you life and life to the fullest"
John 10:10
We may not realize it sometimes, but anger, bitterness and hatred puts us in alot of misery and often time we get angry because of our own ego, pride or our own rights. That is exactly what the enemy is out to do, to kill steal and destroy our relationships with one another, with God, our peace and our joy. We can't control who comes into our path, people we find hard to love, people who simply takes advantage of us, people we find irritating. But we can surely control the way we respond to them. If we choose to respond as Jesus would:
"But i say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you."
Matthew 5:44
Wow, this is a complete laying aside of oneself. But as the verse states "overcome evil with good."
- Life is full of routine, and when we feel life is meaningless and dull is because our life centres around oursleves. Our ambition, our pride, our benefits, our advantage, together with everything we call our own we prioritize it as more important then others.
"It not about you! The purpose of your life is far greaten than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind or even your happiness. Its far greater than your family, your career, or even your WILDEST DREAMS and AMBITIONS."
By Rick warren, the purpose drive life. Chapter 1, pg1, para 1.
Overcoming loneliness, and depression is to only lift up our eyes from ourselves for us to realize that there are many who are facing the same, once we bless them with the friendship, love and warmth, we onli find ourselves getting the same fulfillment. But not because the person reciprocrate to us with love and friendship, but because we know we are doing what Jesus himself would do, and we could receive the smile and approval over us which brings us joy and closer to him.
Its a struggle but i want to be as Jesus is. This a verse we often read across, but yet to live out these verses is really hard:
"Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better then himself."
Philipans 2:3
"... Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourself be cheated?..."
1 corinthians 6:7
A tree planted on cotton wool would not grow very high. But you would be surprise, that when you plant two trees side by side, they would grow higher then normal as they would try to outgrow one another. In being selfless, i would compete to outgrow everyone else around me.
Lord i want to be more like you! Break my callous and selfish heart, it simply breaks me to see myself so unlike my father.
