Saturday, March 18, 2006
When the oceans rise and thunders roar
I will soar with you above the storm
Father you are King over the flood
And I will be still and know you are God
Hi blog-ster. so it's been a REALLY fun week. i've just been having fun and more fun but God's telling me really clearly that it's gonna stop in let me see.. 2 days. wait. one day.. when my school starts again. it's gonna be hectic. it might even get mad.. but God's preparing me.. I can feel it. through alot of things. like songs. like when i heard this song again after a really long time during cell. God was just reminding me that there's really nothing to be afraid of and if i'm stressed or worked up or get obsessed as usual with my need to plan that He is King over all of that and there's no need to stress out.
I typed all of the above :D like 5 days ago meaning to finish up e draft and exactly what i predicted has happened. it's gtting so extremely busy but i just HAVE to type this. you see last satyurday after i came back from piano class.. i thought i'd brought back my piano bag, but it seems i didn't. mom mentioned the envelope with ms ong's and mark's money and asked me where it was but i had on idea. we searched the whole house but we couldn't find the envolopes. then mom suggested that they might be in my piano bag. then we searched all over for that, but couldn't find it. i just couldn't find it, but i was SO SO sure that i'd brought it home. so i just kept searching and re-searching when i got home from school but still couldn't find it. and i could have gotten really worried and agitated and so could my mom, but i had prayed that God would help me find it. that He would teach me a lesson but still help me find it in the end. and i just had faith that He would, and i'm sure God gave me and my mom alot of that faith cause now tihnking about it, i'm quite shocked we weren't more worried about it with so many books in that bag and maybe so much money. whatever it was, my mom and i didn't talk about it much, maybe fret over it a few seconds, but we were always confident God would bring it to us eventually, we didn't know when, but we knew He would. And God taught me a huge lesson, one that i didn't expect to be taught which was that faith and perseverence always delivers. today pa and me just sat down at the dining table and pa asked me to remember everything that happened. and i was actually quite annoyed cause i had recalled everything SO MANY times! but i decided nevermind i'll just try again.. and then i remembered!!! i'd gone to that christian bookshop to buy Rohan a cd and had left it on e ground while listening to it!! i knew at that moment that God had given me that revelation. nothing else! i mean i'd forgotten completely the past few days about my going there at all.. even when i saw the cd! and i knew that God in His own perfect timing had reminded me. What i learnt most from it all was that God wants eachof us to pray having COMPLETE trust that He has heard and that He will grant us whatever unless what we ask for is not the best way or is ging to hurt us somehow. but whetver the answer, yes or no, God wants us to have faith. there's no harm in it! but ALSO God's taught me that it's not only about faith, it's also about (well in my case) trying and trying again. it's about perserverence and sometimes hard work + faith. I was just reading ka jenny's book Glimpses of God and it has such an appropriate story. It was about a moment in the life of the evangelist, Dwight L. Moody. He was on a voyage in a ship and a boiler exploded during the journey annd the ship caught fire (it was wooden:)) and they formed a "bucket brigade" and tried to extinguish the fire. then one of the younger boys felt that they should all go to the end of the ship and pray cause "only prayer's gonna save us now". But Moody was like "Boy, you can pray and pass the buckets at the same time. Get with it!" And I tihnk God is really telling me faith and prayer's not enough.. hard work with strength that He will give me is what's needed. and it makes loads of sense. I mean if every problem were to go away if we just prayed and had faith and then if we just, slept and waited for it to go away, we wouldn't grow at all would we? we'd end up using God and not facing the trials on Earth and learning. And that also links up to my studies. i mean i'm always praying that God will give me the strength to study and having faith that He'll help me during my exams, but that's not all. God wants me to get off my butt and do some ACTUAL work. He's telling me that He can only give me the strength if i am willing to start doing some real work that requires perserverence and intelligence i do not have.. but right now i'm still slacking around.. waiting for god to bring me a miracle. wellllllllllllllll. anyway thank y0ou God for reminding me where e piano bag is.. and also for teaching me all those things!!! oh i know anyone who's reading this is probably wondering about e envelopes.. but i haven't actually gotten the bag.. it's in e shop and i'm collecting it on saturday with sure faith that they are! :D ..rubhi
Child of God;
1:53 AM
Thursday, March 09, 2006
well prabs i know it's a really hard concept to grasp but the fact still, and always will remain that so many many things cannot be explaied if there were no God. How did this World get created? how were we created? i mean we obviously can't have created ourselves, because that just doesn't make sense. and how do we know what's good and what's bad? where did knowledge come from? i mean you said the brain's amazing isn't it? isn't it's Creator so much more. i mean personally, i just can't look out of the window and say i created that. or it just appeared there. and like you said people need God and need one to sustain them through life and help them when they're down. and yea it IS a weakness! but let's say we did create a God to sustain ourselves.. then when I ask for that sustinence, comfort, help who is the one giving it to me? and about the love thing. i think you got me wrongly. what i said was that the love we find in that "someone special" cannot satisfy us in the end, because it is imperfect love. we say our i hate yous all the time even if you make up again after that and from that you can see that imperfect love. it's not always unconditional. so all i said was that love from another person is not perfect love that can complete you like God's love can cause every person is sinful and imperfect as you know. i mean love from another is very important, cause if it wasn't, God would have just made Adam, but instead He said "I will make a suitable helper for him", and made Eve out of Adam's very own rib. so what i'm saying is that that love received from that someone is very important, but one can still live without it like loads of people have (like Paul!) cause God is the one who sustains them. Like I said in my previous entry, Christianity is about believing in the one that takes away the wrath of God from you for your sins, so going to heaven or hell we believe, is determined by weather the wrath of God is still on you or not; so no, religion doesn't mean more caring and considerate people. it's about truth. anybody can be kind and considerate but not just anybody can accept the fact that they are imperfect and need redemption. and i know that you don't feel Go'ds prescence now, but that's mainly cause God's knocking at the door of your heart even right this minute, but it takes faith on your part to open that door ..rubhi
P.S i'm not too sure about that choir party anymore.. hmmm...
Child of God;
2:36 AM
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
hey bloggie..
so.. guess what. it's like my second day giving up tv and i'm already starting to realise what a hold it's had on my life. how much well, clutter it has created. oh! and guess what!! i ALMOST lost my wallet.. AGAIN! yep. but when i found out i'd left it again on e bus i knew what i had to do. it was out of my hands so i just prayed that God would deliver it into e hands of a nice person who would return it and He did just that. gave me a nice little punishment cause i had to walk 45mins home, but He also probed me to think alot and i've realised that when i get out of e bus, it's not e fact that i have my wallet with me that's e victory, it's e fact that i KNOW that e wallet is there. i mean loads of times i come out of e bus i furiously check my bag to see if i'd kept my wallet cause if it is, i unconsciously put it there. so yupp. it being there alone isn't gonna be what i'm happy about about anymore. and i realised that all this is really part of e whole forgetfulness part of me!!!! and that like mom said i just have to be more AWARE of e things that are happening around me you know?yup.. so prabs!! i know you're really confused now but first, let's all take a breather!.. aaaaaaahhhhhh. that felt good :) (i'm KINDA weird:))
So let me first explain what lent is. it's the forty days leading up to Easter Sunday. it's forty cause of the forty days fast of moses, elijah and Jesus himself, but personally i don't think the figure really matters. Lent is basically the time in which Christians prepare for Easter. It's not doing something to please God, it's just about giving up distractions to concentrate on God. It's a time to remember Jesus' crucifixion, to repent of our sins and just gain back sight of our purpose in life. so we give up something that's been distracting us from God and use the time (like when i'm not watching tv for 2 hrs) to spend time meditating on His word and remembering the grace He has showered on us. GOD DOES NOT REQUIRE US TO DO IT. i tihnk that was your main conern ya? we're not doing it cause it's just some compulsory thing in christianity. God loves you just as much if you don't do it. it's what we do out of our love for God. out of our want to be closer to God. and that's achieved as you take out e worldly clutter of life.
I think one big question you were asking out of that was why should we do things trying to reach God's standards when we already know we can't and when God already knows He can't. well that's e main difference between Christianity and alot of other religions, we don't. we don't like you said "not eat meat on certain days or poke oneself with needles to repay God", all we do, like go to church take holy communion, celebrate lent is basically all out of our love for God. christians are still redeemed even if they don't go to church or celebrate christmas or lent, as long as they believe in Jesus Christ. and why is that? cause you see before Jesus came, the people were contantly (like in Islam) sacrificing goats, lambs, sheep cattle and even their first borns, to gain atonement from God for their sins. to gain um redemption you know? ya. but when Jesus, the Son of God came down to Earth, He died on the cross as a sacrifice for all our sins and that's why He's called the Lamb of God. cause you know, He was like a lamb being sacrificed for the atonement of everyone's sins, only much, much bigger. and that's why only if one bleieves in Christ will they be saved, cause if they don't then God's wrath is still on them and they have not been atoned for our redeemed. make sense eh. so UNLIKE other religions, christians don't have to do good works, like pierce needles onto their bodies or avoid purple:) or sacrifice animals to redeem themselves cause Jesus has alreadylinked us to God Himself. cause it was our sins that were getting in the way of our having a relationship with God, but with Jesus overcoming that, we can. phew. i hope you understand now. "Why then do you have to try to please him/her by abstaining from certain things, like TV, in your case." you see i don't HAVE to prabs. i do it out of love for God, out of wanting my life to be a holy sacrifice for Him, out of wanting to clear up the clutter in my life to make more time for my relationship with God.
you also said "Why do you see a need to always be closer to God or please him/her when you already know that he/her is as close to you as is possible?" It's true, yup, i DO know that God is as close to me as possible, but that doesn't mean that I am as close to God as i possibly can be. and that need is created in me by God. why? cause God made us and wants to be partners with us throughout our lives so that we may be complete in Him. that need has been created in everyone, even you prabs. why else do we all look for a God? i mean why did we even START asking that quesition who is God? EVERYONE has asked it. not one has not at all thought about it. everyone chooses their own path whenever in life they may find it. i mean you decided to be agnostic, but only after searching and thinking about a God. fact is, that need for God, that need to know a higher being, that need to find completion is a god-given need so that you may find Him standing right next to you.
you also asked"And why, pray tell, do you seem to think that TV, studies and whatever else is keeping you away from God? Wasn't he the one who put you on this Earth, knowing very well that you will grow to love all these things and maybe forget him/her a little?". well yes He did put us on this Earth but He did not create the TV or whatever else would distract one from Him (cause it's all quite personal), he LET us create them. yes He did know that we will grow to love these things more than Him and forget Him, it's practically everywhere in the Bible, but that is created by sin. our sin. our sin has pushed God out of our lives. our sin has made us forget that the Greatest and Holiest is God. that all glory belongs to Him. so basically, (i'm using this word way to much:)) I think TV and EXCESSIVE studies (actually it's just the fact that school takes away the focus of, actual learning which eventually leads to glorifying God, to studying/memorising to get the marks) does keep me away from God cause it distracts me away from the main focus of my life, God, but it is not God that created this distraction. it's our own sin.
"And why, and this probably made me the most indignant, do you think that love is just spending time with another sinner? Is that how people with a religion have classified themselves and others? As sinners? Well, that is terribly tragic. I do not consider myself a sinner, I consider myself a mere human, learning new things everyday and growing to appreciate the world and people around me and also myself." okay i sincerely don't understand your first line. love is just spending time with another sinner? when did i say that? love is much, much more.but you answered your question in e next line, in e following one. you said that you considered yourself a "mere human". what does a mere human mean? it means you're not perfect. you mean every human has done wrong and therefore when one does wrong, we say that we are merely human. so you see we all know that we have done wrong and that there is NO HUMAN that has never done wrong, or sinned in their entire life. not one. so instead of saying we are mere human, we say we are sinners. is it not essentially the same thing? we all do wrong and we all learn from those wrongs but that does not mean we are immediately redeemed cause God is Holy. and that level of Holiness cannot be reached by any of us. which is why we are redeemed by the atonement of our sins by the sacrifice of God's Son. you see! it all makes so so much sense!:) okay i better not get too excited. hehe.
"I am not at all ashamed to say that I do tend to look forward to things like American Idol and Survivor and huge shopping trips; it's what makes me human, but most importantly, it's what makes me happy. And I'm sure God, if such a person truly exists, wants us all to be happy. And by giving up TV, what are you doing? Creating more time to spend with God? It's all rather silly (I'm SO sorry if I'm offending you, but I find this whole idea very hard to swallow) if you ask me. Anyway, what does talking to God acheive?" you're right-o again! God DOES want us to be happy!!! and He does want us to enjoy the things of the World but He does not want us to be attached to them cause they can only provide temporary happiness. I'm not giving up American Idol cause i shouldn't enjoy these things, i should! but i'm giving them up cause they're things that I look forward to, and when they end i get so upset cause they've played such a big part of my happiness. God wants us all to realise that we can't depend on the temporary happiness that we feel on Earth cause that can't sustain you. and you see personally that was e trouble i was having. i was constantly looking for things to sutain me, to bring me that short-lived pleasure and so i've given it up for 40 days to find the love and happiness that God wants to give me so that i may once again sustain myself on that love! on God! because He is the only never-ending thing that exists. HE is the ONLY thing that one can depend on because everything else will fade away. no. He's the only thing WORTH depending on cause everythine else will fade away. s what God's saying is, go ahead! ahve fun! enjoy e pleasures of the World, but don't depend on them cause when they end you'll just be groping aorond for more of these pleasures and never be fully complete, satisfied.
okay about the second part of your quesiont, what does talking to God achieve? in other words, why talk to God? Well firstly, christianity isn't really a religion, it's a relationship with God and in relationship, it's natural that we relate to Him by talking to Him. He mainly talks to us through His Word and our questions are answered, we are comforted (like e time after my geog exam remember?) and we can give thanks for our blessings. you are just in this secure place. this place where you know you can't be shaken. you remember your purposes in life, i mean when you set aside time for God everyday, your life just gets back on track, you remember everyday your focus in life, God. the centre of your life, your decisions. you remember that God leads the way and you're just, secure. it's quite ahrd to explain, but it comes with a relationship with God. and you say talking to God isn't gonna change the World, but prayer is talking to God and God can change the World. but that also requires faith on your part. God said that faith can move mountains and it can also cure the sick and help the needy. God is has all the power inthe World. many people tend to forget that.
you also said,"And besides, so what if you can't take material things with you after death, at least you got to enjoy them while you're still alive." the saying/verse isn't saying that you can't enjoy the material things in life at all. God says enjoy them! but don't depend on them. Well anyway i believe that in the whole of eternity, our life here on earth is a small little dot and that the rest of eternity is spent in heaven, so is it not more important the treasures stored up there (the joy and peace experienced form being eith God) rather than our earthly treasures. is that not what we should be looking forward to??
"If there truly was a God who made me so beautifully perfect, with no birth defects and a fully-functioning brain, I don't believe in being thankful and worshipping him and "pleasing" him all my life. I believe in playing God and trying to perfect someone else's life." you must understand that doing good for yourself andespecilly for other is mainly what pleasing God consists of. IT's written all over the Bible that doing good pleases God. One of our main purposes on Earth is to do good, which pleases God. "For we are Go'd workmanship, created inChrist Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do". light-bulb moment?? yea. so a lot of things please God, one major thing being doing good works:) okay i've answered every question that i can find to e best of my ability in your blog so i hope this has helped ..rubhi
Child of God;
1:54 AM
Sunday, March 05, 2006
hey bloggie!!!!!!
i've got so much to think about. so many decisions to make and it's so terribly hard. i don't make many of my decisions. i usually follow someone else or ask for answers (my mom loves giving em). i think it's time i make my own decisions. so first up.... worship team!!! should i join it or not? will i be creating more stress for myself or will i be helping myself shift my focus from studies, school and more school to pleasing God in other ways and having a more rounded life. i mean i DO need to be more involved in church and get to know more so that i can find other ways to help out. AND even if it IS my o-level year, next year i'm gonna be in JC!! and e year after that it'll be my A-LEVEL year! and so on and so on.. SO, instead of procrastinating i think i'll just join. but as a trainee first:) okay now that's settled. second thing. what shall i give up for lent??? i'm tihnking TV. but is that a bit too much? okay reasons: 1. it takes up alot of my time. because of TV i take like an hour to eat my lunch/dinner whatever and that time could be used to have some quiet time with God instead. and i just watch it for e sake of watching too. i sometimes just watch nonsense shows too. i really don't know why. AND i'm forever looking forward to tv programmes throught e week . I mean i'm either waiting for American Idol or Survivor or some other reality tv show. and i shouldn't be. but why??? well cause i'll start being sustained on them and that can NEVER be good cause like everything except God, they'll end. (i HAVE to keep reminding myself:)) and i started thinking maybe i'll give up like meat. i mean tv is to relax! and what am i gonna talk about to my friends if i don't watch AMI. i mean meat is MCUh more difficult to give up. THEN i realised i was just making up excuses cause it's not true. tv's what's gonna be most difficult to give up but i tihnk i'm gonna grow out of it. i REALLY think so. to know that ic an get through my week without TV? that's gonna make me realise what an awesome God I know. i mean food and stuff sure i know God supplies that and that even if i was stuck in a desert God would still provide food, but would i really be, sustained??? it's because i try to sustain myself on programmes and trips and performances that i don't realise how much of that sustinence is from God. i use the word sustain ALOT. but i think that's one of e key problems i face and i can't think of any other word! think think think think think think think think think think think think think think think. sorry. i keep typing tihnk!!! anyway i tihnk (THINK!) that's about all i need to clear up with myself. so i'm joining e worship ministry for back-up singing and giving up TV for lent. sounds good. better go finish up my work ..rubhinni
Child of God;
1:45 AM
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
helooooooos!!
i'm here instead of doing work again. am still having loads of phlegm in my throat. it's actually mucus that's travelling down that whatcha-ma-call-it (never realised that that's really what-you-might-call-it:)) canal and i just keep swallowing it cause i'm so tired of spitting it out into some tissue and getting my tongue all dry after wiping the phlegm off it. i know. eeeeeee. and e nasal spray is quite intoxicating especially when your nose is all blocked in e first place. oh and um, john who commented on this blog, i really don't want people rating my blog sorry. i'll feel pressurized to type interesting things and e purpose of this blog is not to entertain :). anyway i seriosuly doubt you're gonna be checking to see if i really joined that thing so i'm really typing to no one. Pastor Ian did a series on boyfriend and girlfriend (don't you think they're kind of stupid names to give?) relationships these past few weeks and surprisingly it was quite interesting. i mean i've always thought i've had enough cme lessons and "talks in the hall" to know just about everything about e topic but i didn't. like i never knew that there IS still that thought that one day my prince will come and carry me away from all my troubles etched in the back of my mind although i know logically that'll never happen. and it's all because of these fairytale stories, movies about perfect couples and strangers meeting online and "falling in love"(i strongly believe that can never happen:)) that unknowingly influence teens everywhere. i mean so many are blinded from e fact that you'll never find that perfect man although you can see it in marriages everywhere. i personally have never seen a "movie-perfect" marriage or a 'happily ever after' ending in real life. I think in the end what everyone's really looking for is that sense of completion and satisfaction and unfortunately movies potray that completion through a partner very very well. and that just ends up in a person waiting a third of their lives for that 'special someone' and then end up not finding satisfaction though them and becoming desperate. but then again it IS in these times of desperation that people find God's perfect love. fact is we can never find completion in a another sinful, imperfect human being can we? cause they're looking for e exact same thing too. i mean i see so many of my friends so desperate to get a boyfriend that they put up pictures of boys from other schools on their computers they've never even talked to before, only seen. and it's ruining their studies. it's ruining their already shaky morals, principles. i mean one doesn't go looking for a partner, when it's e time God will present someone before you and i so wish i could tell them that. well i guess i can. i'm personally just so thankful that I've already found my prince charming, Jesus and that well, He's taught me these things. And i guess now it's my turn to help others ..rubhinni (i love my name!)
Child of God;
4:17 AM
