A need to intercede

Pray:
- that the 21 South Korean hostages held by the Taliban in Afghanistan be released unharmed as soon as possible
- for Mr Hamid Karzai and his government officials as they negotiate the release of the hostages, that a peaceful resolution will be reached very very soon
- for the hostages themselves, that they will experience God's nearness and comfort, and that He will sustain them physically and emotionally
- for the bereaved families of the two male hostages, that God will comfort them in their time of mourning
- for the Taliban, that they will respect the value and dignity of human life, and cease the violence immediately

Good Friday

"Why" by Nichole Nordeman

Full lyrics to the song

The Cross did not happen to Jesus. He came on purpose for it.

The center of salvation is the Cross of Jesus, and the reason it is so easy to obtain salvation is because it cost God so much. The Cross is the point where God and sinful man merge with a crash and the way to life is opened - but the crash is on the heart of God.

- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest

Still

Hide me now
Under your wings
Cover me
Within your mighty hand

When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with You above the storm
Father You are King over the flood
I will be still and know You are God

Find rest my soul
In Christ alone
Know His power
In quietness and trust

-Reuben Morgan, Hillsong

N/B= The song is on my sidebar, above the tagboard.

To whom do you turn?

At the end of it all, when nothing anyone can say or do can change a thing, turning to Him in meekness I once again find peace and comfort.

What does it take to learn a lesson about God?

Through imperfection, I see how perfect He is.
Through weakness, I draw upon His strength.
Through crushed ideals and dreams, I see that only He holds the future.
Through rejections, He accepts and approves via Jesus' sacrifice for me.
Through insecurity, He loves more than I can ever conceive.
Through periods of spiritual drought, He satiates.

Can I just say, nothing satisfies like the Lord.

Third Day Syndrome?

Luke 24:21
"but we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since.."

Spiritual lust makes me demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God Who gives the answer. What have I been trusting God would do? And today - the immediate present - is the third day, and He has not done it; therefore I imagine I am justified in being dejected and in blaming God. Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer.

- Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost For His Highest"

Journey

by Corrinne May

It's a long, long journey til I know where I'm supposed to be
It's a long, long journey and I don't know if I can believe
When shadows fall and block my eyes
I am lost and know that I must hide
It's a long, long journey til I find my way home to You

Many days I've spent drifting on through empty shores
Wondering what's my purpose, wondering how to make me strong
I know I will falter, I know I will cry
I know You'll be standing by my side
It's a long, long journey and I need to be close to You

Sometimes it feels no one understands
I dont even know why I do the things I do
When pride builds me up til I can't see my soul
Will you break down these walls and pull me through?

Cos it's a long, long journey til I feel that I am worth the price
You paid for me on Calvary beneath the stormy skies
When Satan mocks and friends turn to foes
It feels like everything is out to make me lose control

Cos it's a long, long journey til I find my way home to You

Yesterday

"The God of Israel will be your rear guard." Isaiah 52:12

Security from Yesterday. "God requireth that which is past." At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.

Security for Tomorrow. "For the Lord will go before you." This is a gracious revelation, that God will garrison where we have failed to. He will watch lest things trip us up again into like failure, as they assuredly would do if He were not our rear guard. God's hand reaches back to the past and makes a clearing-house for conscience.

Security for Today. "For ye shall not go out with haste." As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.

- Oswald Chambers in "My Utmost for His Highest"

God with us

Advent and Christmas this year has been speaking loud and clear to me about one thing in particular: That God is with us. That He became Man, dwelt amongst us, and continues to be with us whether we are conscious of it or not.

Genesis 26:24
God to Abraham: "Do not be afraid, for I am with you"

Genesis 26:28
Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Isaac: "We clearly saw that the Lord was with you"

Genesis 28:15
God to Jacob: "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go"

Exodus 3:12
God to Moses: "I will be with you"

Joshua 3:7
God to Joshua: "I am with you as I was with Moses"

Jeremiah 1:9
God to Jeremiah: "For I am with you and will rescue you"

Acts 18:10
God to Paul: "For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you"

The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel - which means "God with us". Matthew 1:23

A very simple message, really. But how often it is that I forget, and live as though the battle was all mine to fight.

And you know what an even more amazing thing is? Not only that He is Emmanuel, God with us - but He is also Christ the Saviour who rescues. You know, (hypothetically speaking) I think if God wanted to reach the cows and rescue them, He'd come as a calf. If He wanted to reach and rescue... I don't know.. kangaroos... then He'd come as a joey. Likewise if it was the penguins he wanted to save, I imagine He'd give the uber-cute Mumble a run for his money.

Wonder why He came as a baby. (=

The Gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls and an equally intense resentment, because the revelation which it brings is not palatable. There is a certain pride in man that will give and give, but to come and accept is another thing. I will give myself in consecration, I will do anything, but do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is to accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.

We have to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God; we must either receive it as a gift or do without it. The greatest blessing spiritually is the knowledge that we are destitute; until we get there our Lord is powerless. He can do nothing for us if we think we are sufficient of ourselves; we have to enter into His Kingdom through the door of destitution. As long as we are rich, possessed of anything in the way of pride or independence, God cannot do anything for us. It is only when we get hungry spiritually that we receive the Holy Spirit.

- Oswald Chambers

For you

Faith by its very nature must be tried, and the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character has to be cleared in our own minds. Never confound the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, much that we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith in the Bible is faith in God against everything that contradicts Him - "I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do". (excerpt from "My Utmost For His Highest")

"Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." Job 13:15

The Prayer of Jehoshaphat

2 Chronicles 20

O Lord God of our Fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in Your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand You? ...for we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.

And thus saith the Lord:
"Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's."

"In the train of a Conqueror, it does not matter what the difficulties are, I am always led in triumph." - Oswald Chambers

When God disciplines us

"It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them by the arms;
but they did not realise
it was I who healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness
with ties of love;
I lifted the yoke from their neck
and bent down to feed them."
- Hosea 11:3-4

I don't know about you, but to me those few verses have such strong undertones of tenderness and compassion. Actually, they are simply spilling over with tenderness and compassion. Thank God for His love that is so persistent!

Mountaintops and valleys

We are not built for the mountains and the dawns and aesthetic affinities, those are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle. ... The height of the mountain top is measured by the drab drudgery of the valley; but it is in the valley that we live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mount, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the sphere of humiliation that we find our true worth to God, that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at the heroic pitch because of the natural selfishness of our hearts, but God wants us at the drab commonplace pitch, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship to Him.

- Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost For His Highest"

Torn

Between two decisions, two paths, two opinions, two desires.

I've learnt, and am only beginning to accept, that it's not about reconciling the two. Just like a piece of fabric that is torn, you either come away with the piece that is being torn off, or you stay with the main body - the fundamental piece. I suppose, it really is like stripping away that which is unwholesome, unwanted etc, and keeping "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable.. anything [that] is excellent or praiseworthy" (Philippians 4:8). One cannot endeavour to satify both the Spirit-man and the Flesh-man. With every decision you make at that point of being "torn between two", you weaken one and strengthen the other.

There really shouldn't be a halfway, should there? - If I'm going to be torn, let it be all the way.

"How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him."

1 Kings 18:21

torn all the way,

-may-

Be still and know that He is God

In Your presence I finally find peace and comfort. The peace and comfort I so often seek to obtain from worthless things. In Your presence I remember how to become like a child again, who knows nothing yet trusts in the arms of the one who holds him. Am I not always covered by Your wings of protection and love?

And whether I remember it or not, You are always with me.

"Where can I go from Your spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, You are there;
If I make my bed in the depths, You are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there Your right hand guides me, Your right hand will hold me fast."
Psalm 139: 7-12

Don't know what I'd do without You, Lord.

Hold my breath

You know the feeling of desperately trying to hold your breath for as long as you can, as if to freeze a moment in time?

Breathe in, breathe out. The seconds hand ticks away atrociously and it doesn't wait. In a perfectly quiet room the ticking of the clock torments you; it becomes louder and louder until it transmogrifies from a mere sound into an invisible yet tangible hand that grabs you by the collar and shakes you furiously, never ever letting go. Breathe in, breathe out. The earth continues its stubborn revolution, it doesn't wait for you either. Every step you take, takes you further away from where you were.

With every contraction of your lungs to expel air, the strokes that write in the sand on the seashore of the story of your life are being formed. Can you possibly afford the time to take a few steps back? To stand back and look upon the big but unfinished picture laid out in the sand? You have to keep writing; everyone keeps writing. For who knows when the tide will come and wash it all away..

And so you hold your breath. If anything, the stillness shall shut out the sounds. Your eyes are yours to close. And for a moment - just for one short moment - time will stand still.

Age to age He stands
And time is in His hands
Beginning and the End
Beginning and the End.

My times are in Your hands.

A maths paper like never before..

Yesterday I sat for the last math paper of my entire life. Little did I know it would also turn out to be the worst math paper of my entire life. )= By the end of the paper, I knew my hopes for a first class in my second year were reduced to ashes, and that's not me being pessimistic - it's me being realistic. Maths carries the bulk of the examination marks - almost a quarter of the whole examination with five other papers. And I was banking on Maths to pull up my overall percentage so that I might just scrape by with a borderline first class overall. But no. )= If anything, at least the blow was softened by the fact that everyone else thought it was the killer too, (misery loves company? No lah... I'm not that selfish) meaning it wasn't just me not performing up to standards, and that the paper WAS indeed a killer. Unless a miracle happens and they scale the marks soooo significantly that I somehow manage to get well above 60% for this math paper, I can kiss my hopes of a first-class goodbye...

In all this, I have but one consolation: I know I did my best, and I'm not regretting or blaming myself for not working hard enough. Because I did. I think I would have been less upset if it wasn't because I was looking to Maths to help me redeem the first-class that I missed last year. But really, all I can do now is to continue working harder for the remaining papers, and pray for a miracle to happen.

Or maybe I shouldn't place so much importance on getting a first class, some of you might be thinking. Not if you knew how I underperformed last year and how much I want to 'redeem' myself by getting that first class this year, not just for myself but to be really honest, for my parents too... although they aren't really putting pressure on me in that way. And almost everyone (i.e. the Malaysians in my course) got a first class last year... Only last night did I find out that some people think anything below 65% is considered 'bad for Malaysian standards'. Harsh, but true.

And to think just last Sunday at church the international evangelist William 'Gypsy' Lee preached an entire sermon on miracles, and said something which hit home rightaway: "it is one thing to believe in miracles, and another thing altogether to expect miracles".

Am I to expect a miracle? How? And why? Why do I even deserve a miracle? Deep in my heart I know I believe God is a miracle-maker, but dare I also say that I believe with all my heart that I have a share in all these miracles? Just like how you don't expect extraordinarily bad things to happen to you - for example being zapped by lightning and dying on the spot - you also don't expect extraordinarily good things to happen to you. Or maybe that's just me.... Are miracles for me?

Three One-things

Debbie tagged me! (And yes, madam, I have finished doing all my Maths past year papers, madam!)

1) What is the one thing that you dream of doing with Jesus Christ if you had all the time in the world and there was no one else in the world but Him and you?

I imagine at first I will not be able to do anything but bow down in adoration and worship, I'd just be completely speechless and in awe! But once I get more used to being in His wonderful presence - we'd talk and talk and talk. And laugh together, even discuss worldly things like music, food and hobbies. He would tell me all the things I didn't even know about myself. I would definitely want to hear His own account of the Passion, although I know it would make me cringe and even make me cry. (Hmmm, and the Bible says there will be no tears in heaven...) But whatever it is, I reckon we'd have a jolly good time together! (=

2) What is the one thing you would do if you could be where your best friend (or super close friend, no need to provide names) is right now.

I think I'd like to be at the beach with her, just minutes before a sunset. And we'd sit leaning back to back, maybe share a box of Krispy Kremes. And depending on the mood, we'd either just sit in one another's presence in silence while enjoying the sunset, or we'd be yakking our heads off like that evening two years ago in an abandoned playground in Ipoh, talking about the future we'd go through together, the future we wouldn't go through together... oh no, this is beginning to sound depressing! Lol.

Other than that, I would love to be at a sumptious eat-all-you-can Thai buffet with her. We'd sit for hours and stuff ourselves silly, and in between buffet rounds we'd be gedik, tease one another and laugh at one another. If we felt like being noisy and silly (and even more unashamedly gedik), we'd go to Redbox!

Or, we'd be in Bentong, and we'd go everywhere together and people would ask if she's my long-lost twin sister.

3) What is the one thing you would start doing if you had a pay / allowance rise?

Er, go for the aforementioned Thai buffet with afore-unmentioned best friend (but maybe I shouldn't publish this here, later the greedy girl come to me demanding her buffet....)? Haha. But I suppose you meant things I'd do on a regular basis if I had an allowance rise, right Debbie? In that case, I'd buy more original CDs. Save more money every month so I won't need my parents to send so much. Not feel so bad about choosing to take the tube over the bus.

N/B: At this point, the author realises that the title of the tag is "Three ONE-things" and not "Three many-things" - oooops. d=

P/S: And oh dear, I'm so bad at answering questions! The second question was what would I like to do if I could be where my best friend is right now... not where would I like to be with my best friend if I could be with her right now! Big difference. Lol!

[Edit] Forgot to tag three other people, eheh! I pass the tag to Sook Meng, Jenny and Grace (=

Retrospect

Looking back, I don't know what all that emotional brouhaha was for. A little uncalled for, don't you think? Yet I know everything happens for a reason, and nothing is in itself a 'waste'. But for now and most likely for a long time to come, I just want to focus on the real deal: Me and my Maker. And I am more than content. (=

It's not about self-discovery. It's about God-discovery.

All other ground is sinking sand

So this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
"See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who trusts will never be dismayed.
-Isaiah 28:16

Lord Jesus, I thank you that you are my rock and my firm foundation. I thank you for giving me faith to believe every word that comes from the inspiration of your Holy Spirit as recorded in these scriptures; and in your promise that the one who trusts in you will never be dismayed. Let me build solely upon you as my foundation in everything that I do - my studies, my future career, family life, relationships. I know that a building is only as strong as its foundation. Let there be no flimsy foundation such as wealth, security, success and dreams, upon which I build my life. Lord God, so wonderful are your promises to me, all praise to you for I know whom I have believed in- and He is Truth!

Amen.