May 23, 2013
Holy Adrenaline
I’m 24. I have been to too many church camps. Camps I’ve embarrassed myself, camps I’ve physically hurt myself, camps I stalked my crush…
In every one of those camps, I encountered God.
And after every one of those camps, it turned out to be a temporary high.
It’s like once I left the literal mountain, for two weeks I’d be hyped up on holy adrenaline. Then life would nudge my shoulder and remind me I’m holding up the line. I find myself back at the place I was before I went to camp, but with a great story to tell.
Camp always brings you one step closer to God because you’re in an enclosed area where you’re praying holy prayers, eating holy food, singing holy songs; your heart is READY.
Anyone can win a fight with no opposition.
I challenge myself:
1) I will make this camp about other people
2) I will continue diligently to seek You long after Sunday passes.
[...]make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you
1 Thessalonians 4:11
On a side note: Completing long over-due work gives more satisfaction than knowing who Ted Mosby’s wife is. I feel like the guy at the bottom of this stack.
Thinking of: ARMOURED ON FRIDAY, cousin’s wedding in a few hours, teen pregnancies on Maury, jilted women at the altar, the quiet life and Sumi-made DNA so beautiful I cry. I cry.
May 22, 2013
Love In A Hopeless Place
People everywhere are trading their loneliness for temporary gratification. And I’m preaching to the choir here.
The book of Ecclesiastes warns us that one bad relationship can cost us the call of God.
Proof? Delilah. Remove Delilah from the picture and Samson would prolly have had many more chapters. And his eyesight.
The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner she will ensnare.
Ecclesiastes 7:26b
King Solomon, the wisest man to ever have lived, spoke those words because he had slept with over a thousand ‘strange’ women who led him away from God. He came to a place where he said among those women he bedded, not one was found righteous.
Why did he keep falling into this trap even when he knew his weakness? Well, that’s why it’s called a trap, it prolly caught him by surprise. Like a thousand times.
Note to self: Do not get entangled in relationships that will cost you your calling. Know your weakness. Keep your eyes peeled for the snares. Focus. Stay focused.
Hebrew 11:6 says God rewards those who diligently seek Him in faith. It does not say He rewards those who casually seek Him and wonder in doubt.
John Bevere. Having an Eternal Perspective.
Eff off, Satan!
Inspired by John Bevere’s Having An Eternal Perspective.
On a side note: SUCCESS WITH HERO! He finally let me pet him without trying to bite my thumb off! I sure showed that arrogant oversized hamster who’s boss. And how.
Thinking of: The higher way, how maturity has nothing to do with age but choices, god.tv, my website slowly looking better and why is it still so dark?!
May 21, 2013
9x-7i>3(3x-7u)
After I finished my PMR, my sister gave me this advice: “Start preparing for SPM! You don’t have ANY time to waste. Form Four is NOT your honeymoon year. You can rest when you die.”
Okay she didn’t say that last sentence but that didn’t stop her from teaching me Add Math during my holidays.
So first day of hols I saw this:
Chapter 1: Function
f(x)= 2x+13
Find f(4).
My first thought: The fudge is function x?!
I saw a problem. Which I did not know how to solve.
But my sister drilled me until I could do functions in my sleep.
I didn’t understand why my sister pushed me so hard. I had just finished my PMR. What’s the big deal? But come the first test in Form Four, I was the only one who got an A in Add Maths class. Which was funny because the teacher said she guaranteed everyone would fail the first Add Math test. Pwned.
At this point, functions were only a problem to those not equipped to address it.
Me? I had the knowledge and experience to tackle all functions and subsequent chapters that used functions as a base for new levels of problem-solving.
You cannot solve a problem on the same level you created it.
Albert Eistein.
What does that mean? To solve the function, I must have knowledge on how. That requires a higher level of understanding than I currently have.
Out of crisis comes the opportunity to learn something you never knew before
A.R. Bernard
God allows hardship in our lives, He doesn’t protect us from problems, but He patterns it so we can overcome.
In that respect, I must understand then that every crisis is a turning point for me. It creates contingency for a problem-solving process; to evaluate parts of my life I had neglected before.
It is my choice though, if I want this turning point to better me, as is God’s intention, or bitter me. That choice strongly relies on whether I have eternity in perspective.
See, what I do with the knowledge gained after the current crisis has passed will determine how I handle the next or similar crisis.
Ponder: Will I be better or bitter?
How I know I should feel:
On a more honest note: Dear Jesus, I am hard-pressed on every side, please deliver me before I burst like this watermelon.
Inspired by A.R. Bernards ‘Faith in Practice’.
Thinking of: Watermelons and Hayden Panettiere in Remember the Titans.
May 20, 2013
The Vultures Have Come
In the chase for the ultimate dream life, the vultures will follow.
When promised descendants as many as the stars and the grains of sand, Abram hadn’t even had one child yet. Yet he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. To bind that promise he sacrificed to God animal offerings.
Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away.
Genesis 15:11
The moment you seal yourself to God, this massive radar goes off in Hell’s mission control station, deploying every available demon to break that promise. The devil finds his greatest joy in destroying anything God is establishing.
Then the vultures will come to pick away at your offering. They will lie, put doubts, trip you up, stir confusion and we must chase them away. It’s not like swatting flies, I don’t know if you’ve seen vultures before, but they’re big, ugly and persistent. And they travel as a committee which would explain why sometimes when it rains, sigh, it really pours.
Notice it was Abram’s choice to chase the birds of prey away, he didn’t wait for God to strike them dead.
When vultures clean, they Monica clean it. They will leave nothing behind.
What would it mean if Abram had let the vultures be? Well, what would it mean if you make a meal for your loved one and you allow a lizard to sit in it?
How sacred is your commitment to God? How far are you willing to go to protect it?
Inspired by Carol Ho.
On a side note: BUSINESS CARDS LOOK AWESOME!!!!! I yam happy 
SPECIAL THANKS TO: Sumi Naidu’s Parents, Lara Liau, Michelle Wee, Roshie John, Jeanli Wong and Vincent Fong for tirelessly helping me out in the designing and putting up with my whinging for perfection. I know you guys were sick of the “Is this ok? Okay anot? Are you sure it’s okay? Change to what font? What colour? The film strip looks like crap! I cannot do thiiissssss!” Bless your hearts for loving me
MASSIVE SHOUT OUT TO: WONDERPRINT for their amazing patience, creative talent, affordable prices and punctual delivery of my GS cards. I am utterly impressed with your service. Special thanks to Charlene for allowing my millions of changes to the designs. FB them here for your printing needs.
Business cards got me feelin’ so fly #supernaturalhigh
On a Disney note: The vultures from Jungle Book were originally supposed to be voiced by the Beatles! They kinda look like them too O_O
Thinking of: Sheep, Buzzie, Flaps, Ziggy, Dizzy, The Beatles, Giler Selamba Jane, what an irresponsible cousin I turned out as today, how convenience is creeping into laziness, no more folding of hands and more sheep.
May 17, 2013
The Bell Jar
I get a lot of rap for not being very, um, how you say, Potato-ish. If I had a Ringgit for every look of disgust from society when they find out I’m Potato illiterate, I could prolly pay for my one week stay in Dubai. Not for a lack of want, mind you.
I recently took a questionnaire for my friends dissertation. It was on how traditional Potatoes have evolved by choice.
In many of the questions, it seemed very pointed at blaming the internet, non-influential siblings, condoning parents, cross-cultural relationships, MTV, Americanization, etc.
In my honest onion, I believe that is 100% true. All these things HAVE played a part in me choosing not to stay a Potato.
“Mixing with other Potatoes influences the current Potatoes, creating a new Potato where the traditional Potatoes are left behind to decline.”
What is to explain for the sweeping amount of Malaysians who are not picking up the Potatoes of their “moremothers”?
Who defines Potatoes anyway?! Bah, another debate for another time.
I can’t speak for others but I speak for myself, my Potato is this; I practice what I believe in. I follow what I understand.
It seems like I’m breaking the mould, but really, I’m creating my own. I don’t take pleasure or find strength in rejecting the conventional model, but what I have created, whether by traditional standards or not, I have found through my own expedition with Christ. One that I wouldn’t force even my own children to bow down to, strongly suggest, but never force.
You should know by now, I’m not talking about Potatoes anymore.
To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.
How did I know that someday—at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere—the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again?
The Bell Jar. Sylvia Plath
If one day, I realize I haven’t fully self-actualized because I was wrong, then I will concede. Until then, Joan has died so I can live. I shan’t feel guilty anymore.
Ponder: How many people do you need to love you, before you believe that you are loved?
Speaking of breaking the mould
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Thinking of: Sylvia Plath, how I do know I’m slowly getting a grip, when the wallowing will be over, forgiveness versus stubbornness, a better deal and the value of suicide.
May 16, 2013
Happily Transmitted Disease
When I went through really hard times in my life, the word ‘Joy’ or ‘Happiness’ was not a word I could speak.
I would desperately turn to the pages in the Bible pouring over ANY sort of encouragement to lift my spirits.
It’s amazing, then, to know that the most positive book in the Bible was written by a prisoner in a Roman jail, waiting for his execution during one of the darkest times of his life. He didn’t just write a book about finding joy in adversity, he lived it.
Joy is fundamental to human survival. And people are recognizing this. Especially living in an age with the highest suicide and depression rates. Companies are starting to hire ‘joy consultants’ to build their employees up so they can be more productive.
Research has been done on happiness and they found that it is about as contagious as sexually transmitted diseases.
JOY is a choice. It’s that fight you need to make, for yourself.
Push your hair out of your eyes, push your back from the wall and giggle to yourself.
Smile. Laugh. Stop getting angry. Because until they can prove the existence of reincarnation, this life is all that you have and know. And it’s too da*n short to waste crying in a curled ball.
Here are my remedies:
1) Read the book of Philippians
2) Watch an episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
3) Talk to your best friend. Unless she’s emo too then find someone else a happy person.
4) Dress up. Go out. Do something you love.
5) Look at pictures of cute puppies.
It’s easier said than done. Sometimes getting out seems impossible.
It’s kind of fun to do the impossible. Walt Disney.
You are not alone. It gets better =) If it hasn’t, then it’s not the end yet.
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done.
Philippians 4:6
Inspired by Rick Warren
On a side note: I have new found respect for Angelina Jolie. *salute*
Thinking of: Amazing mothers, my mother and how she did it, I’ll never know.
May 15, 2013
Oranges In An Apple Tree
I think the worst part of any day is me running from my humanity.
You can’t stick an orange in an apple tree and call it an orange tree.
You are the fruit you bear.
Like I can’t claim to have the fruit of patience if I’m constantly p*ssed off at people.
I’m no orange tree but I want to be.
You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds;
Ephesians 4:22-23
Metanoia. Guess it’s all in the mind.
The battle to change the defects in your life is always a mental battle. It starts in the mind, and it’s won or lost there.
Rick Warren
On a side note: I had the weirdest dream within a dream of a friend owning a demon-possessed ring and me running out into the streets in my pyjamas.
On a pedal side note: This is what I’m talking about!
Thinking of: Oranges, Crash Bandicoot, Ern Suey’s grandmother’s ring, Lorelai, DNA and how it’s already WEDNESDAY!
May 14, 2013
Tears Of A Spoilt Brat
There’s a joke that the Chinese ideogram for ‘peace’ is a woman under one roof (安), and the ideogram for ‘trouble’ is two women under one roof.
There once lived a man with two wives. One wife was barren while his second wife gave him many sons and daughters. The first wife, whose name was Hannah, wept frequently because not only was she barren but the second wife would constantly vex her on that very fact.
Why was she barren? The Bible says that the Lord had closed her womb.
Naturally, then, one would conclude that her cause for barrenness was not a bodily defect but an act of God. Which means she was barren for God’s definitive purposes.
But whether or not that was the case didn’t matter to Hannah because a woman’s badge of acceptance before the women’s liberation movement was, and I would like to quote the great Napoleon Bonaparte here, ”Women are nothing but machines for producing children.”
So Hannah wept bitterly.
There are many kinds of tears; tears of lack, tears of discomfort, tears of sadness, tears of pain, etc.
Hannah cried the tears of a spoiled brat because she didn’t get what she wanted.
Her husband sees her inconsolable and averse to food and asks her, ‘Why aren’t you eating? Why are you grieving? Am I not worth to you more than ten sons?’
What a kick in the nuts. Isn’t that just like a man to throw the very thing you want to gift him back in your face?
It’s not that he didn’t know why she was plagued with grief. It’s not that he didn’t know her greatest desire was to please him with a dashing young heir.
–2 second feminist rant–
“I want to give you kids more than anything!”
“Why? Isn’t having me as your husband more than a house full of kids? Hey babe, could you make me a sandwich while you’re in there?”
–End of rant–
I believe those words were when Hannah’s tears turned to tears of utter brokenness. The Bible says she was crushed in her soul.
I expect every woman has been crushed in her spirit by the man she loves at some point in her life.
And when Hannah had previously said, “Lord, give me a child so I can bless my husband” she now lay at the feet of God and said, “Lord, give me a child and I’ll give him back to You.”
God will not take away anything we put above Him. He wants us to give it to Him willingly.
What seemed like a judgment upon Hannah was the prelude to God’s amazing providence, but it all began with withholding.
What is that most precious thing you desire for? You have been waiting for so long but are denied. That very thing that makes you question God why does He withhold it from you, why isn’t He blessing you in this area?
God wants you to come to a place where you will withhold NOTHING from Him, and in your complete brokenness, true worship is birthed.
True worship, is when you finally bow your knees to the sovereignty of the One who deserves all your attention in the first place.
Many are content doing the permissive will of God, but a broken spirit and a contrite heart will yield every desire that foreshadows Jesus as number one to the perfect and pleasing will of God.
The day Hannah yielded her desire for a son to God, He opened her womb.
She had finally discovered the true meaning of Total Surrender.
Inspired by Dr Neal Patterson
On a side note: Will not be doing a review on Iron Man III because it’s not worth that. Okay that’s not true, mini review right here.
SPOILER ALERT!
Robert Downey Jr.: Awesome. Plot: So-so. Dialogue: Semi-emotional masked with wit. Pepper Potts: nice body, useful, should’ve stayed dead. The Mandarin: Worst villain ever.
BEST SCENE: Sexy RDJ dance at the beginning When Iron Man calls the suit to protect his lover.
STUPIDEST IRON MAN MOVE: When Tony Stark gives the villain his house address. Did you learn nothing from the Dark Knight Rises?!
Since this is a mini review, I shan’t rate. It is understood it’s a feel good movie so watch at your own risk.
SUMIE RATING:
Thinking of: Women who need to know their value, Gilmore Girls, the completely useless chinese version of IM3, a broken spirit and a contrite heart.
May 13, 2013
Eyes Above The Waves
When He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly.
1 Peter 2:23b
You have never failed, and You won’t start now
Ocean (Where Feet May Fail)
Thinking of: A.R. Bernard, the seed, CHC Singapore, Mother’s Day, how desperation is getting thick, Hillsong’s Oceans, recovery and restoration.
May 9, 2013
Den of Morons
CAUTION! This post may contain extremely biased personal opinions and is only reflective of the author’s two cents.
The moment I saw, “Apa lagi Cina mahu?” [trans: What more do the Chinese want?] I just felt this myriad of emotions:
What kind of moron puts something like that up on the front page of a local newspaper?
What has he been smoking and how short should the rope we hang him on be?
Is what I would like to say, but that wouldn’t be very Christian of me.
Violence is never the answer.
Especially upon aggravation.
But can we be angry?
Angry at the injustice and unwarranted provocation?
Angry that our concerns on illegal and fraudulent elections fall on deaf ears that just want us to ‘accept’ defeat without any explanation, even AFTER reports were made and evidence produced?
Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry [...]
Ephesians 4:26
Now this is just my onion; anger, like any other emotion, comes uninvited.
When we are wronged, anger is a natural emotion to feel.
The sin, I guess, isn’t anger, but what we do with that anger. The same for sadness, or lust or even hunger.
Are we feeding our monsters?
Even Jesus got angry at the salesmen who made His father’s house a ‘den of robbers’. I questioned Jesus emotional actions in over-turning the tables. Drama, much?
But then I asked myself, if I had come home and random uninvited people had turned my living room into a wet market without permission, how would I react? Anger at the disrespect, yes. But would I be calm in shoo-ing them out? Certainly not. I would do whatever it takes to get them out.
Jesus loved His Father’s house, and He protected it. He ‘turned the tables’ on their focus because they had made the the place of prayer into something opposite. *Parallel note: the same anger God showed during Jeremiah’s time .
I never thought I’d be witness to such a revolution.
So this is what unity looks like.
Only one man has the guts to turn the tables on the criminals who has made our country a den of robbers.
The Man on Fire: A Beacon Of Hope
Dear Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim,
You have liberated us more as not being our Prime Minister, than if you had come into power 15 years ago. Then you would have just been another face on the plaques in PWTC, today every Malaysian fighting for equality and anti-corruption will carry your plaque in our hearts: The People’s Advocate. Malaysia will never walk the same dirty path ever again. Thank you for protecting this house, Sir.
To the Other Side,
On a side note: BUSINESS CARDS ON THE WAY!
On a scary HG note: Is it me, or is Najib like President Snow from The Hunger Games? If that is true, is Anwar Katniss? O_O
Calm your anger and abandon wrath. Don’t be angry- it only leads to evil. Those who do evil will perish. But those who wait on the Lord will inherit the land.
Psalms 37:8-9
Sigh. All this mud-slinging is making me queasy.
Thinking of: Revelation, the end, my end, end.
