"Pain isn't the worst thing. Being hated isn't the worse thing. Being seperated from the one you love isn't the worse thing. The worse thing is failing to deal with reality and becoming disconnected from what is actual. The worse thing is trivialising the honorable, desecrating the sacred...
We don't become mature human beings by getting lucky or cleaver circumventing loss, and certainly not by avoidance and distraction. Learnt to lament. Learn this lamentation..."
- Eugene Peterson
I think.. That sometimes what I think doesn't have the final say.. But what I think is important too.. Because that's who I am..
I would love to always be able to think what God thinks, and I know that what I think sometimes isn't what God thinks.
1st Harmoni gathering. SIBA, 1B. Ps James
Why do you call yourself a Christian?
What does it mean to be a Christian?
What is following Christ?
Its not just a set of rules, regulations, precepts, tradition...
Its not even a philosophy
Is it a way of life?
It is.... A relationship.
Being born in a Christian family, being used to coming to church, rituals, singing, listening to sermons.. Its all possible without a relationship.
As long as you don't have a relationship with God... Your status as a Christian is... Questionable.
1 tesselonians 1:6
1. A Christian is someone whom is chosen by God.
It is not a human effort. It's not membership, charity, Good works. We can never reach God no matter what we do. Others try to find favour with God, try to please God.... But we can't.. We're not holy, we're sinful, and we'll never reach his benchmark.
Only when God himself reached out to mankind. Is it possible.
The selection is offered to us. As long as we don't choose Him back. It is incomplete. The transection is incomplete.
Offer and acceptance
Many are called, many chosen, but few respond.
2. A Christian is someone whom has responded to the Gospel.
2 Corinthians.. This I pass on to you, Christ died on the cross for our sons, was buried in a tomb and three days later He resurrected.
The core of Christianity.
3. A Christian is someone whom appreciates Christ above everyone and everything else...
Along with the suffering. Along with the hardships.
Our hardships aren't the end of our life. The final destination for our souls have only two places. Eternity with God or eternal separation.
Jesus is the Saviour
Because Jesus died and rose again.
We will follow after him in death and resurrection.
4. A Christian is someone that has a transformed life
They are so different from others.
Because they've repented. And changed from their old ways. There's evidence of change and difference. You can see it in them. You can feel.
This is a man/lady of substance.
Your life is not like the ways of this world.
We don't party and celebrate like the rest of the people in this world. With alcohol, drugs and
Some people think clubbing is good to release tension and stress that's built up over the week...
But the best way is..
Praise and worship
The question now is.
Do you know God has chosen you.
Can you listen to the Gospel.
What is your response?
Your fragrance will be different.
A Christian is someone whom is
Sold out for Jesus.
Not half hearted. Alang-alang.
Jangan mandi tidak basah.
Sometimes we do something for so long.
That our thoughts become crystallised in our minds.
We do things in certain ways over and over again, until they become a part of us.
And we find others that resonate on the same wavelengths, appealing.
Vibes.
You see things that others don't see.
As if everyone was living in a fog. A viel covering their eyes.
Really takes a powerful force to break it.
Jesus..
Please...
Help me
Would you like to join us for dinner?
I miss saying this with a smile
Bringing people together
I no longer do that..
I'm just trying my best to get by each day
"who are you with?"
"where are you?"
So many questions that have the false facade of being 'caring and concern'
Why bother asking these when the person is already doing that.
Just... Trust.
Atleast she told you she was going out before she did so.
Why be so... Possessive.
Over-protective, over bearing....
Don't you know how much that weighs and tires down a person?
Just... Trust.
If you're good enough that person will come back to you.
Are you?
"refrain from anger and trun from wrath,
Do not fret - it leads only to evil" pslams 37:8
The Bible isn't perfect.
God had regrets.
God still needs to fix things.
Even if you don't read the bible,
Jesus still loves you.
God meets us where we are.
And as He reveals more of Himself,
We are guided to be more like Him.
Transformed more and more each moment.
Changed.
Lossing more of ourselves
He is here with us.
No matter where we are.
God became so small, we could crucify Him.
God has enabled us to love others whom are not like us
Is that the best plan God can come up with?
God cannot help not loving.
God doesn't love,
He is love.
If there's nothing to love,
There must be something to love.
Sweden
"save us from the vikings"
They are now one of the best country.
But many don't believe in God anymore.
The seed was planted, the tree grew, birds perched on the branches.. Eventhough the birds don't know where it came from.
That's something appealing to me,
Their life... Forgiving.
If you want to love, it's not by attending more bible studies. It's when you go to people whom are not like you.
When you hear a high school play bethovan.. And it doesn't sound good... Don't blame bethovan.
But sometimes we get it right.
And there's a glimpse of that melody.
Don't blame the church if it isn't perfect.
The Gosple is best spread person to person. We are a small part God left behind in this world.
Why do people nowadays don't know their purpose?
Your calling is when the worlds deep hunger and your deep... Intersects.
It takes time.. To reveal itself..
It emerges..
By a leap of faith.
Prayer, wisdom from friends, community
One thing called to do?
Academics, writing papers that nobody reads.
Mark Martin.
"Start with a job that can become a career that become a vocation that becomes a calling"
Someone's got to collect the rubbish..
Brother Lawrence washes plates.. Because that's where he can meditate.
People have the need to move from success to significance.
David Brooks : a second mountain
Dissatisfaction. A process to redefine.
Fight for rights and justice, but use weapons of grace. My goal is to love the policeman that is hitting me and throwing me into jail - Martin Luther King Jr.
Nobody wants to be like someone mean.
Where is God when it hurts in suffering..
I don't know
Jesus never really answers it.
Romans 8:28 - it all worked out for good in the end
Nothing will separate us from God's love
"dew fresh"
Pure clean feeling one has from waking up refreshed in the early morning at sunrise.
I can't remember the last time I had that.
I wonder why
Viktor Frankl was a Jewish psychologist and philosopher who spent time in three different Nazi concentration camps. His life’s work was destroyed. He lost his wife, his parents, and years of his life. It’s not a surprise that a major theme of his work involved the inevitability of suffering. Every human suffers, and there is no way to avoid that, he said. But, he also believed that humans have the power to find meaning in that suffering. As he wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, of his time in the death camps, “the question that beset me was, ‘Has all this suffering, all this dying around us, a meaning?’ For, if not, then ultimately there is no meaning to survival; for a life whose meaning depends on such a happenstance — as whether one escapes or not — ultimately would not be worth living at all.”
“Why You Should Study Philosophy” by Ryan Holiday https://link.medium.com/h61YKsG80X
Wanted to post this response to this post. But yeah. I still feel like it's abit.. Harsh
https://www.facebook.com/154273194629212/posts/2371274869595689/
Palm oil takes up forest land. Forest land is under state and not federal. Find the sabah politicians to really stop more destruction. (should be easier to twist their arm instead of the other)
And Theresa did say we should try to understand what they're currently doing. I think it's wrong to sow hatred in children no matter the cause, school should be sowing eagerness for understanding and not bigotry.
“I also urge the school’s headmaster and the teachers involved to come to my ministry and the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) to understand all efforts to improve the industry and also all efforts to preserve the environment by industry players.”
Kok pointed out that protests against the palm oil industry have been staged overseas against Malaysia.
“I didn’t expect such a thing to happen in an international school here.
“To the teachers, please come forward to understand what we are doing instead of criticising us.
“I think they are doing a disservice to the country,” she said during a press conference in Parliament on Tuesday (July 2).
Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/07/02/anti-palm-oil-presentation-by-students-is-a-disservice-to-the-country-says-teresa-kok/#9Pq3hB2WVuO8JUjx.99
Morning A _ _ _. Ah, what's the detailed job scope again?
I'm quite torn between things. To stay in KK and finish off my masters or go to Sandakan for this job offer. I'm also concern about if I've got the appropriate skill set for it. I studied Forestry, and although am interested in waste management and human resource, I don't have any formal training in it.
Would I need to start soon? I'm going back to Peninsular for quite an extended period of time, July until late Aug.
And then there's the masters, and the dilemma to finish it or quit it. I keep thinking about others, my supervisor, my colleagues in KK and sdk... As much as I want to make the decision on just how I feel, I still care for the perception of others, or more like the testimony I would be. Maybe I can still continue my masters part time while working in sdk.
And i haven't consulted Crystal or my parents about it yet.
Sorry I can't give you any clear answer for now. But if you do happen to have another potential candidate, please don't hold back the slot for me.
As you can see, I'm a bit reluctant not jumping on it fully, yet there's that weird small hope that it's a possibility.
If its not too late, maybe could I let you know after/during the silent retreat?
John 9. The man born blind.
God above the "whys"
1. Some things are a mystery.
Some people that walk into my clinic are immensely courageous. The woman whom stooped so low, but had such a high perspective of life.
Man with cancer. Still so loud. So happy. What a great God, what a great life. At his funeral, people were still rejoicing for God's goodness.
Lady with cancer of ovary. Is now married and pregnant. They light up my life.
They found a secret that has enabled them to overcome.
God of the.. Mystery
Jesus was debating with pharisees about them saying they have a faith of Abraham, but jesus said he was even before Abraham. He is bigger.
They wanted to stone him, he slipped out.
This should not be happening to me. I don't deserve this. Self righteousness.
Maybe the sins of the past are coming to find me. A sense of condemnation.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are under grace not law.
When we ask "why".. Its on the wrong premise that the disciples asked.
Jesus never answered the question.
A question Jesus wants us to ask:
2. Mystery does not mean no prupose
Jesus: it was not that this man sinned, ro his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
The real question :
God, what next?
What do You want me to do?
That the glory and works of God might be displayed
God's work, his deeds, his accomplishments..
Nothing there that God promised that there'll be a supernatural healing miracle...
But that His work will be done. And for His glory.
All means all
Good means good
Stop digging the why pit
It is a abyss.
10, 20 years later still asking why.
God why, I can't tell you, cause you're not I heaven yet.
3. Follow through. He is the light of the world.
God can only do the works while it is still day. Jesus is the light of the world. Yesterday, today and forever. Period.
As long as we don't allow Christ to come in, then it'll be night.
Allow God in.
We can never predict what miracles God will do.
Jesus healed 5 blind people. All of it was different. Barthemaous. Just spoke the word. 2 blind people: he laid hands on them. Bathsaeda: pull one blind man out of the crowd. Spat on his eyes. I can see, but they are like trees. Let me lay hands on you, why two stage? Even healing there is no standard procedure.
Mud. Still didn't get to see. Asked to go wash at the pool of Siloam. 1 km away. Feast of tabernacles. It would have been packed. Gates of the temple. To that distance.
Where is the pool? He had to struggle.
If we follow through, His light will shine through.
So he went and wash and came back seeing. Somewhere along the way he was healed.
Surrender to him, speak healing. Leave the healing to him. Always be purpose..
Wheather it heals or not.
If we focus on the healing. We'll be asking the why question.
Healing is great.
But greater is glory of God.
A new look to enducation.
Why am I learning things?
Who are the lecturers? Who is the student? What is work? Who gets paid for what and who paying for what.
I have a fear of approaching lecturers.
To ask them about things.
Especially things I don't know about.
Its weird. I thought I would want to be able to learn new things from people whom can teach.
Where did I all go wrong? Why don't u feel safe asking educators anymore. Is it because I see them as bosses? People whom aren't there to help but to judge my work and redicule me.
Why... This is such a wrong perception of them. They are essential nice people. Wonderful people willing to help.
They are paid by the government as lecturers to teach the university students whom in turn pay tuition fees to get the tutoring and knowledge. It's a right to claim their time and attention.
Right? How come I shy away from waking to my lecturers door. Why do I feel like he's too busy for me and I shouldn't disturb him. He's always wanting to meet me. Or am I passive, am I just waiting for work. Am I just a slave to obey and have no right to think for myself what to do.
Why...
Am
I scared.
Why do I fear.
Is it because I don't want to give the perception to them that I'm inadequate, incompetent, lacking in knowledge.
Pride.
I don't see them out of my own pride.
How do I do away with that?
I thought I was being humble by giving them time to do thier own things. But its wrong, in not seeing them I'm causing more grief and worry. While they should know and rest assured that they don't need to worry about me and can focus on other thingngd.. They worry. They start worrying.
I'm not smart.
I'm not as smart as I think I am.
If I'm shy to ask for help.
I thought everything could be solved with a quite check to Google. Wrong, things get solved when we take the effort to approach people that know how to solve things.
Don't be lazy.
Googling is like cheating. Taking the short cut.
Take the long road. Take the walk to school. Take the walk to the lecturers office.
Schedule an appointment.
Say "I don't know how to do this, can you please teach me?"
A teachable mind, heart and soul.
An attitude that isn't proud.
That doesn't put down people.
That doesn't put myself down.
That...
Is willing to ask for hwlp
And be guided.
Its different from thinking
" owh the other person did all of this for me and hence nothing is my own work."
Itvia being able to embrace...
The help of others..
So that we can achieve greater heights.
If I don't know. Ask.
Vision is crucial.
People without a vision perish.
Chracter to inspire people to move together with you.
Autocratic and being firm is hard.
Like a helicopter going round,
Going to land and just take off again.
The right timing.
Actions should be consistent with our words.
Respect others, but at the same time live your own faith. They will respect you back.
I can shout but the other guy won't hear,
I can whisper but the other will listen.
Which style do you want.
Where to learn leadership?
Older siblings will take care of younger ones.
Young children carry parang to collect firewood.
Unconsciously exercise leadership.
When there are older people,
Go to them, sit down with them, talk to them.
Don't always just be with your own peers.
Wife: when you come back to the house, leave your minister stuff outside...
In the house, a father, a husband. Faithful and loving.
Outside: integrity and credibility.
A person they can trust.
I do what I decide, if not you'll be caught in people's perception.
Ladies have expectations of husband.
But they always fail us kan.
Trained to speak her mind.
But no need to shout, just whisper.
God put me there for a reason
When I meet God, I can say..
I what you put me here for.
I hold God fully responsible.
I'm an opposition at heart.
Need to be patient.
The way government do things is so slow.
God is responsible to protect me.
He's responsibility to make sure we're alive.
She's the mother of all the lawyers.
She's the speaker of the house.
Straight forward.
If only local schools could work together with NGOs
To let voluntary teachers educate the stateless children using thier classroom facilities after school hours.
I mean, what's the point of it being empty right. And it's not like taxpayers money is to just build schools for our own kids, it can bless others that aren't so fortunate.
The ministry of education can have some kind of CRS. Often the villages are just outside in the vicinity of nice buildings.
Any room will do.
They are going to be here whether you like it of not. They are still going to grow up, the least we can do is provide basic education so that they can find someplace to belong in this society.
What you doing want them to belong?
Is... Non existent
Everyone falls short of this standard.
Some trip or hit walls,
They show cracks and scars
Others fall, picking themselves up
With some scrapes and bruises.
And those that reach rock bottom
They are broken and...
Can't be repaired.
I fact, no one can really repair themselves. As much as we'd like to think so of being capable.
No,
There is only one Way.
And it is not found within us.
There is only one Way,
It is when we bring th broken clock to the Creator. It all makes sense now, reading that He made and formed me, not just physically.. but knew me... Mentally and emotionally...
Why did he have to make me..
So flawed.
No, He made us with the intention of being perfect in His image. All He made was good, just like Adam and Eve.
But it was free will.
Was it the devil? Was it sin?
No I was my own choice.
It was me..
I am the cause of it.
Pride
The devil just tempts.
Jesus was tempted.
The serpent just put a thought.
At the end it wasn't a mistake.
I didn't... Accidentally sin.
It was willing
It was because of my free will.
And unless I make this will a slave to Christ.
I will always sin.
I will always be prideful.
Unless I can die to myself...
No.. I'm not even capable to choosing that.
Only God can put to death me.
Only God
Only Christ.
Christ alone.
Crucified. Because of my free will.
He can nail my will and sins and shame to that cross too.
He can.
God can.
If only I choose Him.
There it goes again...
If only I... I... I .. I. i. i. i..
If only God..
If?
Only God
God alone.
