yeah, just a verse that i thought of today while stoning outside the photocopying shop waiting for stuff to be sent to me

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

- 2Cor 9:8

yup, there doesnt have to be any sort of special day for God to show His grace and love for me. cos He gives me the best everyday.

on another note, thanks to those who remembered. :)

this weekend has been quite powerful and refreshing. even though i hardly spent any time doing what i'm supposed to be doing, i dont really have regrets and i trust that God will also help me in that area so that even when i am growing spiritually, He will take care of all the rest. quite interesting to rmb that just last week i prayed to God and told Him that He can deal with me in any way He wants to this week, even though i'm busy with a lot of stuff. now its just about learning to let go, i guess.

started off with prayer mtg. went up for the altar call and just lay down all that was distracting me from God and which made it so hard for me to feel His presence. pastor talked about losing our first love, which i think really relates to me a lot. then EX on saturday. adrian led the worship, and i felt that this time of worship that we had was really very powerful. adrian told us to just focus and concentrate on God, its not about us, but its about Him. and somehow God just moved and let His love become so real to all of us, that when i was singing, i just felt that i was really able to tell God what this song says, not just simply singing and trying to be so emotional about it. altar call was about renewal of our love with God, and i just went up and responded. even though i didnt exactly feel a lot, but i know that God heard my cry and will do something in me.

today was the day that really shook me a lot. lots of things happened, which honestly speaking, was a painful experience, but as i prayed last week, i should not be so afraid of pain. the first thing was a struggle with someone, which i shall not talk abt, cos that will be gossiping. during service, pastor talked about worrying and how that is a sign that we are trying to run our own lives instead of letting God do it. felt that really applied to me. this period i've been worrying up down left right about all sorts of things, and when he was just sharing about how we can let God remove it from us i felt a form of release within me. went up for altar call and asked God to help me give the right to take control of my life back to Him. this time, i knew that God had done something within me and went i left the hall, i just felt so free from all my worries and troubles, something which i had been praying about this whole week.

after that from lunch all the way to the north mtg i was struggling with another area inside of me. i dont think others around me noticed it, but for me the pain of it really stung me. now that i think of it, this is really a way that i was worrying about and is quite a small thing, but i guess that just shows the state of my heart. it was so bad it affected me during the mtg, and i really cried during worship. those feelings of self pity, of fear of rejection, of lack of acceptance were too much for me to take. it seems like quite a trivial and silly thing if i share what that thing i was struggling about is, but i guess it really means a lot to me, much more than i would like to accept. enough of putting on a brave front and saying this does not matter. if it can make me feel so much pain, then i guess its not so small an issue after all.

and i guess today God also revealed to me that my service has been a lot about just seeking the acceptance of people. maybe that's the reason why my passion dies out so easily and i give up on others so easily when they give up also. mingzhu said that she felt that some ppl in the room were going round and round in circles with some problem, and God wants to give them a breakthrough in the area they are facing. i felt that i was one of them. the issue of acceptance is something i have been struggling with since the start of the year, and it really feels like i've been going round and round in circles.

no matter what happens tmr, i hope that i can learn to focus my eyes upon God and learn that it is not about me, but Him. even if those thoughts come back again and haunt me, i hope that i can stand firm in my faith. God, i do not know. You know. and i know that You know best.

everything about tomorrow
i dont seem to understand
but i know who holds tomorrow
and i know who holds my hand

well, its been a weekend with a very hard struggle, but i've finally broken the hold my studies have taken over me, in the last post that i was talking about and certainly all the pain has been worth it. as we read today, consider it pure joy when God is bringing us through trials and difficulties

Amen.

found this while reading through the devotionals in my email after posting the last post:

2007/09/06

Radiant Certainty
by Jon Walker

“I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” (John 16:20-22 NIV)

There are some days when, frankly, I don’t feel much like worshiping God. There are probably more days like that than I’d care to admit.

But usually those are days are when I’m staring at my circumstances and making faithless judgments about what I see around me. And I struggle with the God-truth that he is in the circumstances that surround my life – all the circumstances.

Have you ever considered that heartbreak is part of God’s plans for you, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”? (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV) We put so much energy into avoiding the hurt when God would have us embrace it. He wants us to know that he can heal our hurts, even use our hurts for his benefit, and for us to faithfully believe that sometimes the circumstances we think are harming us are actually positive situations God is engineering.

God, who is omnipotent, sees the breadth and depth of our circumstances, and he knows his plans for our lives. Thinking, then, like Christ, we can slowly, ever so slowly, begin to understand that avoiding the pain in our lives is actually an act of faithlessness. God calls us to faith in him during difficult circumstances; we’d rather place our faith in avoiding the circumstances.

As always, Jesus shows us the way – because he is the Way. Jesus embraced the pain of God’s plan for his life, and he did it with full faith that God was still working the plan to bring a “hope and a future” to your life and mine. Christ was so sure that his grief would turn to joy that he showed a radiant certainty in God’s faithfulness (“Radiant certainty” is a phrase William Barclay uses to describe the attitude of Jesus at the Last Supper).

Our Brother Jesus, who is also our King, was heading into a crisis that would cost him his life, yet he was so certain – radiantly certain – of God’s faithfulness that not one of his disciples even discerned the gravity of the crisis! Jesus was so certain of God’s faithfulness that it radiates throughout his whole being.

And we, too, can have this radiant certainty about God’s hand in our lives. We can say, when it comes to God’s faithfulness, “I know because I know that I know.” That’s radiant certainty! The cross was Christ’s glory, not his penalty – and the same is true of difficult circumstances in our lives.

So what does this mean to me?

· God’s faithful character – You will develop this radiant certainty in God when you learn to trust in his faithful character. Your daily worship of God is irrevocably tied to your faith in God.

· Praise God anyhow – You must choose to praise and worship God every day, no matter what the circumstances of your life. Developing a radiant certainty in God begins with simple steps of faith and obedience.

· Respond to God, not your circumstances – When faced with a painful or difficult circumstance, ask God, “How do you want me to respond to this?” Keep your eyes wise for the “Why me?” traps that lay about your circumstances.

· You can be radiantly certain of this: Difficult circumstances are opportunities for you to intentionally focus your faith in God and to see what he will do to give you hope and healing.

parts

some point this week i was just staring at my comp screen which was displaying my pw report, and just felt like giving up. feels so tiring doing all these stuff and to be honest, i'm starting to feel rather pressured for pw and promos. so many things to do in so little time. dont even know if i can finish revising for phy, chem and econs even if i completely dao math.

this period i just have being doing a lot of academic stuff. mainly wr and mugging for promos. since abt last week, i think. feels like God seems so far away from me while i'm doing all these stuff, like my life is so filled with studies that God doesnt seem to be able to fit in somehow. guess that's been affecting my mood a bit also. my leaders tell me this is because i have been compartmentalizing my life and only let God into certain things, such that when i do work i dont really involve God and try to draw near to Him. initially i wasnt too sure whether i agreed, but now after thinking about it and looking back i think what they say is right. i just tend to want to do my own things at certain times and just forget about everything else, just drowning myself in my work. somehow it feels more comforting that way.

guess God has to bring me through such a period now, cos i really get to see how my true attitude towards Him is lacking and how much i have indeed been saved and restored by grace, not by my works and what i have done. it can be quite a rude awakening, and although it may seem that God shouldnt 'touch' me while i'm in this period of preparing of promos, i think God does have His plan, and i want to trust Him that if He gives, its good for me and if He takes away, its not good for me.

feel that God is also removing my trust in man, but teaching me how to be more desperate for Him and seek Him instead of just turning to humans for help with my problems, especially those emotional ones. even though i know that it is a very tough struggle and it can get really painful at times, i thank Him for what He's doing.

God, help me.