Blessed New Year

Blessed New Year Everybody!

Floral arrangement by SACC member, Ang Chew Kim (2006)

Thank you for all your love and support throughout this year (",)
Most of all, may all the glory and honour be unto God our Father.

I want to thank God for His protection over little Daniel today. Being the first day of the Lunar New Year, we were visiting my aunty. Daniel, enjoying his lunch of noodles, tried to take a sip from his glass of water. All we heard was a loud crash and Daniel crying really loud. When I turned, I saw him covering his left eye with his hands. Apparently, the glass had slipped off his hand and fell to the floor. Immediately, we rushed to him and try to find out if bits of glass had flown into his eye. As I comfort him, my uncle also attended to him, while my aunty tried to clear the area of the glass pieces had shattered all over the floor. My father quickly grabbed toddler Anna away from the area. Still crying, Daniel said that something had hit his eye and it was rather painful. Thank God, he was able to open his eye for us to examine. Thank God, as we probed further, he said that he did not feel anything stuck in his eye. His eye also looked pretty normal and he is able to see clearly. This is really God's protection and blessing upon him.

When he was crying and covering his eye, my heart really dropped. At that instant, I was really scared that my family might have to spend the rest of the day at a hospital or something. But not for long, somehow anxiety did not overwhelm me but a sense of peace prevailed over my heart (Though I do not know why at that moment, I know it is from God. For He had promised peace beyond human understanding). Indeed, God has worked in His own miraculous way to show the family (especially my father) of His reality. Daniel spent the rest of the day happily playing with his cousins because of God's protection over him.

From this incident, I am reminded once again of God's love and He really loves the little children (it's real, and not just plain lyrics of some children sunday school song).
Thank you once again, my dearest heavenly Father. May all the glory be unto You!

Learning to trust God more

Dear God,
I know You are always in control. Even when things do not seem to go my way, or the way it should be in my opinion, You are still in control and they are still within Your will. Teach me to trust You more each day. Shape me to be more like Christ each day.

God egoistic?

Is God egoistic since he wanted everybody to worship Him?

i'm just thinking: does God need anyone to worship Him in the first place? He's so glorious, almighty, yet gentle, amazing, righteous, yet loving. He is all-sufficient, and does not need anyone to worship Him to give Him more glory. Even if all mankind does not worship Him, I am sure even the rocks will raise their voices to worship Him.

God wants a relationship. He does not want empty worship.
He created us and knew the plans He had for our lives. (Just like when we make something, say a bag, we know a bag is for holding things, and it is not for writing or cooking.)
He knew what is best for us, even when we have not come into being on earth.
He knew that our lives would be far more enriched and fulfilled if we allowed Him to be the King in our lives.

When Jesus was living on earth, He described God's desire
for a close relationship with man through the story of the prodigal son...
A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, 'I want my share of your estate now before you die.' So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, 'At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, "Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant."'
So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.'
But his father said to the servants, 'Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.' So the party began. (taken from Luke 15:11-24, Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers.)

Just like the father described in the story above, God is like that. He desires us, his children to remember he is truly the Father who loves us and return to Him.

On the other hand, we are like the younger son who abandon the father. We do not acknowledge God in our lives. We fail to recognise that He is truly our heavenly Father. Even when we do, we would still go against His wishes.

Our worship stems from the relationship we have with God as our heavenly Father. Our earthly fathers may be fantastic, some may not be very good, and some may even be very bad, but our heavenly Father is ever-loving, ever-present. No matter how far we drift from Him, how badly we treated Him in the past, He is still there waiting, looking out for us to return back to Him, just like the father described in the story above.

If you still do not have a relationship with God yet, do not hesitate to give it a go. God is waiting. Say a simple prayer like the one below (praying is just talking with God): "Dear heavenly Father, I thank you for being the loving father described in the story. I am sorry to have do you wrong by not acknowledging you as father. Please forgive me. I want to return back to you through what Jesus has done on the cross for me. In Jesus name, Amen." (Amen is I agree, or yes in the Hebrew language.)

If you want to find out more about God, or if you have just said the above prayer, do visit a bible-believing church near you.

The Son of God died for us - this is the miracle

today in class, we were going through the Gospel of Mark.
my lecturer said something that i have never thought of it in this manner before.
he said, since our Lord Jesus is the son of God, he cannot die.
resurrection is expected of Him, but dying is the real miracle.
Indeed Jesus did the greatest miracle for mankind by dying on the cross for our sins. For He is the Son of the EVER-LIVING God, He is EVER-LIVING! But He allowed himself to go through DEATH and gave up His LIFE so that we might live.

simply so blessed

survived half the semester
thank God for mid-semester break
did well for the mid-semester test
praise be to God for His mercy and grace
couldn't have done it without Him
Thank God for my parents and parents-in-law
who help to care for anna,
so that i can have extra time for revision and studies
i also thank God for william, always so supportive,
for "tahan"ing the messy home

busy days coming up...
term paper to write,
last cycle of SBC4JY to plan and teach,
Youth ALPHA to run,
2007 coming soon...
stressed, NO. (for God is the provider of all my needs)
excited, YES! (for i feel really privileged to have the opportunity
to serve the Lord in so many different areas)

i'm just so grateful

may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord... Ps 19:14

1st day of school

yesterday was my first day of school.
it is really quite an experience (for william n me)
- waking up early, getting daniel & anna ready, sending them to school & my in-laws place, then william sent me to school and got himself to his school
(this will be the norm for the subsequent wednesdays to come)
it has been quite some time (some 9 yrs) since i last studied formally.
i'm really thankful to God who made this possible.
i'm also very thankful to God for the teachers.
they are very professional, qualified and reasonable.
well it's a new beginning of homework and writing papers, on top of existing roles and responsibilities.
But, with God's grace i think i can manage. :-)

What Matters Most?

What Matters Most?

Youth Sunday - lots of fun - lots of joy
but most of all, lots of glory to give to God
for indeed it is He who made all things possible
many giftings He has given -
many things we can do with our hands (good & pleasant things or bad & nasty things)
many words we can say with our mouths (caring & tender words or hurting & vulgar words)
many songs we can sing and play to worship Him
is God in our heart?
are our hearts directed towards Him?
if our answers are "yes"
good & pleasant things will come out of our hands
caring & tender words will come out of our mouths
songs will come alive and reach the heavens
i can just imagine the smile He has on His glorious face
He would indeed smile upon us
how pleased would He be
On the other hand
if our answers are "no", "maybe", or "not sure"
... what might come out of our hands
... what might come out of our mouths
... maybe we may not even feel like singing
how will He feel?
i can also imagine His disappointment (for He will never leave us or abandon us)
i can also imagine His anger at our insincerity (for He will always be just and true)
but most of all i can also imagine His loving outstretched hands (for He is compassionate and understands our frailty)
reaching out to us,
beckoning us,
awaiting us to direct our hearts back to Him

"The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at outward appearance, the Lord looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7b