Beauty

The world is so beautiful today. The trees are all dressed in pink blossoms and everytime I walk to the library, petals fall all around me and I just want to sit on the grass and take in all the beauty around.

God is so beautiful. It is us who create the ugly things. Most of all these few days I have realised that man is so imperfect. Man-made groups are imperfect. The most we can do is seek after His beauty. But even then so often we fall short.

It is us who have the ugly things inside us. Lust, envy, pride, hatred, dissension, wanting others to see us, wanting to be exalted above everyone else. Not having enough of his heart. Each one of us is guilty of that, not knowing His heart. Knowing about Him, but not knowing Him, proclaiming Him in public and not running after Him in secret, making ourselves out to be good people and hiding our weaknesses which should magnify His strength.

I see beauty around me. But I also see so much ugliness around me. Help me to run, run, run, after you, and let your beauty shine so bright in my life. And let me not lose sight of the beauty in others too.

Heart Matters

Someone told me something lately that made me very angry, and I had to rebuke for the first time in a long while. It was the worst rebuke I had ever given to a person in quite a long time.

I also shared the gospel with him. But I know I did it more out of anger than of love. And perhaps I did it because I didn't know what else to do or say. I just pray that He will override all my wrong motives, and use my words anyway.

I sometimes find it so difficult to have the heart of love for other people, to see them through His eyes. And when He asks me to spend time with people and to seek them out and care for them, I sometimes feel so tired. Sometimes I feel as though it is easier to pray for them and not move out of my room and neglect my work. But love has also to be active as well.

To love those who wrong you isn't easy. Nor is it natural. Sometimes it is not even easy to love those who are your brothers and sisters in Christ. But love isn't a feeling; it is patience, it is kindness, it is humility. It's a sacrifice of yourself for others. It's wanting to make sure they are fed, wanting to make sure they grow, above yourself.

Because in the end, the only thing you have to make sure for yourself is that you delight yourself in Him. That is the only thing we need.

Desperation

I realised how much I do stems from impure motives. To be seen by man, to be flattered by man, to receive praise from man, to be liked by man. It's not a new discovery and it's not a nice discovery. When I think I am living for Him, very often I am just living for myself.

A few weeks ago I read this story about a guy who felt led to share Christ with someone in the hospital who was slightly deaf. He had no alternative but to shout the message of the gospel to the patient and to let go his fear of feeling foolish. And he wrote that as he stood there at the foot of the bed shouting something in him broke and he moved from the fear of man to the love of man.

I know I need that kind of love and that kind of desperation.

Help me, to move from the fear of man to the love of man, not to care what man may say about me anymore, but to move from flattery to encouragement, to move from discouragement to rebuke, and always to speak the truth in love.

Force / Surface Area

An essay due this Friday and a dissertation due this week, and many worries and problems weighing down the mind of the author; but never fear - after these two weeks I'll have a short hiatus and then it'll be down to studying for the exams.

How much pressure can a human being take? I seriously believe that time stretches to accomodate everything you want to do, as long as you focus fully on the task at hand. So when you're studying, concentrate and then you won't have to spend so many hours on it. And when you're playing, play hard! When you talk to people, focus on them because they are important! And somehow you will manage to accomplish much in very little time.

So by writing all this down I'm giving myself a pep talk as well, and am going to take a break from blogging until these two weeks are over.

Mommyy

I was talking to my mother recently, and she was telling me about the relief teachers under her and how they were so glad to be under her because she had given them such good guidance. At this I said, "Yes, mom, you are a good leader. You have good leadership skills." Which is true. My mom is very strong and sticks to what she believes in, she never wavers to the right or to the left, and she's not at all bothered by what people think of her or say about her.

And she paused and said, "So are you, you know. You have this leadership ability too."

And I was a little shocked, because I seldom receive praise from her, so when I do I know it's sincere. I knew that she really meant it, because she's very frank and makes no bones about anything. I knew she didn't say it just to encourage me, but I knew she really meant it!

And when I feel inadequate, I often think about what my mom said now. Things are starting to pile up, and work is coming in so fast that I feel overwhelmed. To be put in a position of leadership makes me feel all the more vulnerable. And sometimes it's difficult to be honest with other people about how inadequate I feel because I want them to have confidence in me.

And yet in some ways I feel that God has given me gifts that I should use. That He has given me alot, and so He requires alot of me. I have a debt to repay - a debt of stewardship. I don't want to have false humility and think that I shouldn't use what He has given me, that I should hide it, because I should use His gifts for His glory.

If I were the Mona Lisa, I might have said to Leonardo da Vinci, "Why did you give me such a beautiful smile? Make my smile less brilliant so that people won't look at me!" But that's false humility. I forget that my smile doesn't glorify myself, it glorifies Leonardo da Vinci. So I'm being proud by thinking that my smile would make people look at me! Because it wouldn't make them think of me at all! They'd be thinking of Leonardo da Vinci and what inspired him... ahahahhah.

So I'm glad that my mom said what she said, and that she sees this in me. It gives me all the more courage to be myself and to be used by Him!

Although the road ahead doesn't look smooth or easy, and in fact looks rather impossible, I am glad that it looks impossible, because only when there is a huge chasm between two cliffs can I take a leap of faith! If not, it would just be a step of self-reliance.

Thanks, mom.

Utmost

I'm glad to be alive. My eyes are blinking now and my brain is fully functional allowing me to tap each key on the keyboard to produce a coherent mass of words that come together in your brain and mine to become new thoughts, new ideas: daughters of invention, not mine but compiled from what I see around me and the thoughts of people of old. My heart is beating fast (as is yours), driving the blood around my body and making everything work together in perfect synchronisation.

Your eyes are moving across this sentence, scanning; and as they move you suddenly become aware of yourself and aware of the fact that you are you; aware of your thoughts, aware that each blink of your eyelids, though involuntary, though taken for granted, when taken away becomes an essential factor for survival. People with leprosy used to go blind because they weren't able to feel when they needed to blink, and so their eyes became drier and drier until the sight was gone.

You are alive because you can blink, and because you can do so many other things you never think about everyday.

And now, me and you, we become conscious of the little clock below the computer screen, the blink of the colon showing the passing of each minute, irretrievable, gone forever.

And we think, time is so precious. Each group of fifteen minutes can accomplish much. And it is inexpressibly good to be alive right this moment. Shouldn't we give our full attention to whatever it is we're doing at the moment, pay full attention to whoever we're talking to at the moment, do our utmost for His highest?

Prayer

Touch me deep inside, I need you to reach down and touch me.
I don't want to be empty and dry.
I want to cry when I see a sunrise
I want to laugh when I see a squirrel scamper
Touch me deep inside, and make me human once again.

Touch me deep inside, and let me realise how you love me.
I don't want to be hard and cold.
I want to see you in the words that I read
I want to hear you in the silence of listening
Touch me deep inside, and help me know you once again.

Touch me deep inside, I need you to reach down and heal me.
I don't want to live with hurts and bruises.
I don't want to resent and not forgive.
I want to see your beauty in people,
I want to see with the eyes of the Lord.
Touch me deep inside, and let me feel your heart again.

Questions... and answers

Came back late in the night with many things to think about and, after vacuuming my room, sat on my mattress (my bed had been taken away the day before to swap for a new one) with the fairy lights on, my Bible and notebook and had a good think. Maybe it's a psychological need of women that they need to have a good cry once in a while, and certainly I've been doing that almost consistently the whole of this week as I think about my life and my priorities and what really matters most to me. And things that I still struggle with, being so caught up in the doing and the talking sometimes that I forget about the being.

Let me talk less and do more. Let me do less and be more.

This morning I was woken up by a loud banging on my door and I knew the Mattress People had come to give me a new bed. So I climbed off my mattress and pulled on a jumper and opened the door expecting to see Ricky Martin, our cleaner, who's called Ricky and whom we call Ricky Martin and who is balding and thin and whose trousers are always falling halfway off his bum.

Instead of Ricky Martin I was surprised to see a tall young handsome bloke and he came in and took my mattress away and brought in a new bed and everyone was coming out of their rooms because of the noise and commotion. I did ask him, while I was still half-asleep, whether I could just do without a new bed and sleep on my mattress for the rest of the term, because I quite like being so close to the floor and having everything so simple. But he didn't have the authority to grant me a bed-less room, so I had to accept it.

After that I vacuumed again and sat down for a think again.

I'm glad that it's so much quieter in halls and I'm glad I'm living in halls. There's so much time now to just be yourself and to write and to be quiet and to be comfortable with who you are. There's time to sing in the showers and to come back late at night without facing uncomfortable questions from your housemates and to eat all the unhealthy food you want without being teased, and there's time to listen to music and to sit in my room with my own thoughts and with the twinkling lights in the windows of the halls opposite like will o' the wisps guiding the way to the promised land of dreams.

These few days little nagging doubts have been creeping into my head one by one. The first one came when I read yesterday in Judges the horrible story of a man cutting up his concubine (whom he had sent out to be abused by wicked men) into 12 pieces and sending out each piece to the 12 tribes of Israel to ask for justice. Then going online to try to unearth the mystery or the significance of it I found another story of this guy Jephthah who'd made a foolish promise to God and had sacrificed his daughter to God.

Reading up for my dissertation also caused some questions to plant themselves in my head. I read about people who felt that they'd experienced the presence of God. Scientists found that by stimulating the temporal lobe, they could cause some of their patients to have "epiphanic experience" - seeing great lights, hearing sounds, and experiencing overwhelming feelings; in other words, experiencing the presence of God. Hence Patricia Smith Churchland, the author of the book "Brain-Wise", concluded that the evidence supported the case that a Supernatural Being did not exist, since by using manual stimuli we could conjure the feeling of the presence of God.

I felt really sad when I read that. I think the first two stories were included in the Bible because we have to know how mixed-up man is. How sometimes we think we have the right motives and thoughts but we make rash promises to God. How sometimes we think we're in the right but in reality we can be wrong and yet He can be so tolerant of us. How imperfect we are and how we tend to fail when we try to take matters into our own hands. I think the first two stories weren't about the injustice of God, but about the inadequecy of man. And how the Bible is so relevant today, because it doesn't gloss over anything unpleasant, but it shows us how much depravity the average person is capable of.

As for using manual stimuli to make people feel as though they were in the presence of God, why, it doesn't prove that there isn't a God. It just shows that when people experience God, this is what happens to their brains. And that we have built-in circuits in our brains to experience Him, that these circuits are still there after all these years, just shows that He really wanted to make sure we run after Him. That we need Him in our spirits, but that He also made us, even biologically, to want Him.

I've already been told 3 times this year that the church people were weird. Or more; maybe I can't remember. But one of the people who told me this said that she was prepared to become weird herself, another said it was nice and she could get used to it, and the third wanted whatever it was we'd got. And maybe if you are reading this now you will never believe me when I say "Jesus Christ is the way. He was either mad or lying or He was God." But I hope that you will seek after the truth, and sometime soon you will know it...

With regards to my dissertation and all the arguments flying back and forth over my head the last few days, I would like to say:

'...the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength...'

Perhaps I don't have all the answers, but I do know the truth, and I know it is the truth, because it has set me free.

The Little Dreamer

I dream of many things...

I dream of a future home where all feel safe, where turmoil can be raging outside but where my family can come back and feel fed and peaceful. I dream of warm quilts and creamy colours, I dream of the laughter of children and the smell of babies.

I dream of being in a foreign country, where people gather round to listen and learn, where nights are spent working and where the day starts before dawn. I dream of hearts and lives being transformed, of the love of God working through communities like yeast, spreading without hindrance or slowness.

I dream that one day my friends might see something different in my life and become drawn to it; that they might think I was weird, or crazy, or boring, right now, but that one day they would be prepared to be thought crazy themselves.

I dream of love and a family, and yet I dream of a life dedicated to His service. Do these dreams contradict each other? I don't know.

But what can I do besides dreaming? I was reading Proverbs 31 yesterday, and learning about a woman "who could laugh at the days to come". That meant that she wasn't afraid of the future; she wasn't afraid that her dreams wouldn't come true. She wasn't directionless. And the main thing that stood out about this woman was her capability and responsibility. Not some timid, sweet doormat, mind you, even in the Old Testament times. But someone who was responsible, capable and diligent, someone who woke up in the morning while it was still dark, didn't let her lamp go out at night, and was a blessing to the poor and to those around her.

And I realised that that's the only way to pursue my dreams - to live in reality now. To be diligent, to be responsible, to be strong. To set about my work vigorously, to ask Him for wisdom, to work hard, not to "eat the bread of idleness". Thoughts and dreams are empty and substanceless, if we do not live in the present, and ask Him that we should be a blessing wherever we are.

Yes, we shouldn't be so caught up in working that we forget to love Him. But we need to be deliberate and intentional to be a blessing to those around us as well, and to train ourselves up for future tests and trials in whatever we choose to do. Which brings me to the question of studying. Studying isn't pointless, because it disciplines us to do whatever work we're called to do in future, even if we feel called to church work. Studying helps us to be disciplined and forsake short term pleasures for long term gains; and this will come in useful one day when you're living your dreams.

Dreams are important and dreaming is sweet. But perhaps they aren't so important as working hard right now, doing things that you can't really see the point to doing. Because there is a time and season for everything, and I think that the time and season for me right now is to work hard - for God's glory. Help me, to do my best in my studies for You.

Postscript: I've just lost my coat in the library! My good grey coat! I'm sure that I have a long long way to go, to be as capable and careful as the woman in Proverbs 31. Hehe... sigh.

Time

You know, if you set your phone on "vibrate" and stand it on a table on its base, and get someone to call your phone, your phone can start dancing around, still standing up, on the table. Try it! It's so cool!

Katie showed me this great discovery one day when we were both in my room and she was doing her essay while I was lying on the bed eating pizza. That was the night I talked in my sleep and she recorded my "sleepy talk".

Now she's in France, for three months, and I wonder if you ever become used to missing someone, to the feeling of them not being there. It hurts when you realise that some day you will just become used to missing a person. I remember the time I went to the Philippines. We went to a little village called Cabugao and stayed for a week there. Everyday we would play the guitar together, sing together, work together, and we became very close. When I left, I couldn't see them waving for the tears. They ran alongside our van, waving, and I couldn't smile. But now it's been 4 years since, and I've just become used to the feeling of them not being beside me.

When I saw Katie for the last time she was standing beside my train waving, and it seemed as though we were going to see each other very soon again, that we had only spent a nice day out together and that we would soon be in the library studying together and having breaks where we would buy Kinder Bueno chocolate, where we would sit on the library steps and chat, or go to the gym and try to work off the excess study fat.

I try not to think about leaving this place, I try to live in the present and to treasure my times with people here. With some of my friends, I always feel as though I'm in the presence of greatness. I always see so many things I admire about them and always think that they will become great one day. That's why, when I spend time with them, I always have a sense of awe. Even though I know I may never see them again, I really want to seize every day, every moment, that we're together.

Time is so short. Tick tock tick tock, and people come and go and whirl in and out of your life. How are you going to leave a lasting legacy in theirs?

More Thoughts

It's been raining today, heavy sheets of rain that keep on coming down and trickling down the windows as I struggle to write my dissertation and to do the work I have to do. Periodically I go into the kitchen for pizza and listen to the comforting hum of the microwave beneath the howling of the rain.

Sometimes sitting alone in my room looking out of the window at the clouds in the sky, ever moving, ever changing, I pray that I may see God. And then I stop, listen, listen, and watch. Two birds fly across the sky, or the tree in front of me starting to blossom all over gently moves. And I try to listen, try to feel Him, to hear His still small voice, telling me that He loves me.

Things have been changing around me. Friends have gone away, and sometimes I feel lost now. Seeking out the company of friends becomes a necessity; something I have to do deliberately for my own sanity rather than something that happened so naturally before.

Sometimes I ask, "Are you there?" and look out for a reply. And in return there is silence. But I see the grandeur of the world he created, the infinity of the sky, the grass rippling in the breeze, and I remember what He said,

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it is from, or where it is going."

and I remember that He said, "Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed."

And I know I don't have to have an answer. Because now I see in a mirror dimly, but then I will see face to face...

Ta Bao (Takeaway)

If one day the sun refuses to rise for me
If one day the birds refuse to sing,
If one day the skies withold their glory
Or if one day the storms come rushing in

I will rejoice, yet I will rejoice, in the Lord my Saviour
I will be glad and be joyful in the Lord
Although my heart awaits in fear and trembling
I will rejoice, yet I will rejoice.

If one day the world shuts down in chaos
And my friends leave one by one
If one day my lips hold back their laughter
And my heart's dreams that come true are none

If one day He takes away all that's precious
And leaves me helpless in Him
If one day He tests my heart's desires
to see if He is Lord within

I will rejoice, yet I will rejoice, in the Lord my Saviour
I will be glad and joyful in the Lord
Although my heart awaits in fear and trembling
I will rejoice, yet I will rejoice.

He will yet make my feet like that of a deer
to climb the rocky places
He will enable me to go on the heights
To soar above all that comes my way,
and I will rejoice, though the fig tree does not bud
I will rejoice, though the crop is failing
I will rejoice in the Lord, yet I will rejoice
and be joyful in Him my saviour.

Habakkuk 3: 17 - 19
"Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD ,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights."

Thoughts... Looking Back

I think I should write about what has happened in my life over this past year, and I hope that as you read this that you may find some parallels in your own experiences and journey.

Last year was a very hard one for me because of Singsoc and because I gradually lost direction in life. I felt as though I wasn't giving my best to Singsoc, and I was running around like a little ant doing nothing, basically, helping to organise trips and dinners and activities where people would just go out, enjoy themselves, get drunk, mess around. We had to organise parties and we all had to go, and to seem like a part of everyone I was the wildest dancer there, the one who knew everyone, the one in the middle of everything.

In the midst of it all things happened which really shook my world and the storms came in, someone I'd thought outstanding since I first met him showed he had feelings for me, and we almost got into a relationship which was thankfully prevented. He was not a Christian. However, it seemed as though a new side of me was opened to the world around me, and I realised that things weren't as bright and rosy as I always thought they were. I realised that even though I'd been a Christian all these years, the pull in me to do the things that everyone else was doing was very strong.

I became more thoughtful and tried to explain Christianity logically to my friends and to him, and I remember telling Haoern before that some people were too intellectual to accept that Christ was the way in their hearts, and that you had to convince them of Christianity philosophically first. The fact that I was taking philosophy then made me even more cocksure and I always thought that I had all the answers even though my life was quite a mess.

Because of that relationship which had been prevented, I sunk into depression and stopped going to church for a while. I felt as though the people in church wouldn't understand what I was going through. I felt that the people in church were too otherworldly, too godly to understand, that they wouldn't have the answers for me. I remember praying then and telling God that I still loved him, that I knew that He was there for me, but it was just the people in church that I doubted.

During that period of time, 3 angels were sent to me. One of them was my cell group leader Vincent, who patiently gave me his time, listened to me, and never judged me, gave me space and showed me care and concern, never gave up on me. The other two were Haoern and Florence, who visited me at home, bringing me chocolate. It was such a small thing, the chocolate, and they never said anything about church, they never said "Are you alright?" but they just came and spent time with me, and even though it was such a small thing, that really touched me.

So slowly, and I don't know how it happened, I went back to church, and a little later after that my first friend accepted Christ and became a Christian. God showed that He could still use our lives in the midst of turmoil...

At the beginning of this year when I came back I was still going to parties and of course there were the usual guys and the usual temptations and I was already numb to it all. There were times when I knew I was doing the wrong thing and sinning against God, but I would just push the thought of Him out of my head. After a while, it seemed as though sin was normal, that it was an easy thing, that it didn't matter anymore and it didn't hurt God or hurt myself. I was still going to church every week and serving in church, but I knew that He didn't have my whole heart.

Then we went for an Encounter Weekend in the Yorkshire Dales, where we spent a few days listening to talks on the love of God, the freedom we have as Christians, the kind of gifts God gives to us as Christians, etc. I went with great expectation of having my life changed by God, because I was tired of living my life in defeat and tired of pretending that nothing was wrong when in fact there were so many things wrong.

I remember then surrendering many things to God, especially relationships. I remember then feeling so joyful in His presence, and yet crying my heart out over so many things I'd done that had hurt Him, times that I knew I'd pushed Him away, and yet still being able to feel His presence then. It really touched me that He was still willing to give me a chance.

After that I left feeling fresh and new. It wasn't that I didn't fall into sin anymore. But the desire in me to sin lessened, and I wanted to serve Him more.

Then I started doing many things for Him, bringing my friends to church, and saw two more friends become Christians. I saw miracles around me as their lives were changed.

And then now in the midst of doing so many things, I realise that when God looks at us, He doesn't see the things we do. What can we do but come to Him with empty hands, because He has done it all on the cross for us. How can we think that just because we have met up with someone today, just because we have shared the gospel today, just because we are going to church or just because we are serving Him, that we are more qualified to come to Him than before? Or how can we think that just because we have sinned today, or that we have neglected something we know we should have done, that we cannot come before Him? Because in both cases we approach Him by His grace alone.

How can we think that just by doing many things for Him that we are wonderful Christians? Because in the end, the only thing He asks from you is your heart and your attention.

I realise now when I serve Him, that I do not serve Him to earn His praise. I serve Him because my life is His...

As I look back I realise that everything that has happened in my life is thanks to Him. Thanks to Him, I am no longer a slave to sin. Thanks to Him, I can be joyful everyday and thanks to Him, I have the strength to love where I cannot love, to do what I cannot do.

Thank You : )