VirtuaLife

On Christmas Eve, I will retire again.

Retire from the Library, that is. Three months on, one temporary promotion later and after numerous air-conditioning break-downs, I'm at the end of this road.

I've achieved everything I set out to do. I performed ergonomics self-assessments, analysed workplace settings in the context of OH&S best-practice principles, acquired some new skills, made different friends, and increased my tolerance of an interesting diversity of work colleagues. In the face of these achievements, there is nothing left for me to do. And money is an increasingly poor motivator to work passionately.

In return, I have to set out to do the things I aspired to. I committed my whole unidus pledge to God dependent on acquiring this job. I commited to reinventing my attitude of excellence, which admittedly waned from excellent to merely-bumbling somewhere in 2004. I committed to raising my standards of discipline and integrity to a whole new level. In return for this job, I pledged to commit to God and recommit to life.

This opportunity - this door, as some may be inclined to call it - was indeed an opportunity in itself. But I see it as so much more, if not just for the fact that it is not a job I found particularly memorable. No, this period was about learning to let go. Learning to release already existant opportunities in order to accept the better ones coming by.

In three days, library work will be over. The next time I walk through thoe doors, I will be a customer and not a service assistant, not ever again. But the opportunities created by this chapter live on.

In Faith, Hope and Love!

One-way trip to Philippines is BOOKED. And with a four-hour stopover in Singapore to boot.


So... who can I terrorize with my presence? ^^

Ever since those halcyon days of worship ministry in COC, or the mind-numbing nadirs of AIESEC life, I have never felt such an urgency.

An urgency for God, that is.

Today after work I decided to administer a little spiritual tonic to myself. with several hours to burn I decided to finish off a self-directed study on the Christology of Christ, in response to a certain Adam Pastor who commented on this blog a while back. So I went to search the online catalogue for books that both supported and rejected the beliefs of Trinitarian Christianity.

As I was searching, one of the workmates came over - let's call him Q. Q has a hearing difficulty which makes communication hairy at the best of times. In the past 3 month I have been working thus far, we have only acknowledged each other in the shyest of fashions - a barely visible flicker of the eyes followed by a wave.

But today, as Q walked past me something caught his eye. He came back for a second look. Thinking he needed the computer to print out timesheets, I gestured for him to take my place. He waved me off, but a big grin almost split his gentle face in two. He waggled his eyebrows at me and continues staring at the screen. I turned to see what he might have been looking at.

At the centre of the screen was the title 'Understanding Jesus'.

It took a while of reflection, but God finally spoke to me; in the same way that wind gently rustles the bullrushes, God posed a whispered challenge; "Seek and they shall find - even the deaf shall hear my message. I am as relevant today as I ever was. Are you ready to sow and reap?"

Every single time after that Q ran into me (on a different computer this time because I was typing up my document surroundided by piles of books) he would give a big smile and a hearty wave. So... uncharacteristic. And unexpected. All because... he saw something on my computer screen. Or did he see someone?

God moves in mysterious ways. And we need to be prepared to move with Him. And let me tell you, there is nothing sweeter than being able to testify how God, in His infinite wisdom, is initiating heartchange in the lives of precious ones around me. I have two weeks left in the library. What a romance it would be to leave God as my legacy in this place!

In Faith, Hope and Love!

6am. The mobile alarm rings. I sit up to turn it off, or at least try to. Instead, I swipe the mobile off the windowsill and it crashes to the floor, losing its battery.

Off to a good start! /sarcasm

After forgetting my (formal) shoes, leaving my wallet in the car (at work), forgetting my formal shirt (after work), going to the wrong graduation venue, and leaving the wallet in the car again... not to mention almost missing the city ferry stop because I fell asleep on the Citycat. I wonder if anything is going to go my way today. It seems like a morning of prayerful joy is not going to influence the rest of the day.

I meet up with Karl from NZ in the city, who is en route to Sydney to tag Sue Lynn whereupon both will be off to Tokyo (lucky bums...) and had a pretty involving chat - so much to catch up on! Nice bloke, that one. Then there is the half an hour just trying to choose the right vitamins (where's Vitamin when I want her? *grumble grumble*) almost two hours spent on err flowers and other decorative apparel and an extended browse in a section involving lots of... balls. I realise that I don't like shopping, really. I'd rather be stuck at work. But... its who and what I"m shopping for that makes the experience enjoyable. As such, time passes quickly.

Time passed, and I caught the bus back to the girlies' house. Failed an attempted surprise attack on a river-gazing tortoise. Spent 1+ hour waging war on MSN until in my fickleness I decided to tag along with the B-bunch up to Cootha - after all it was peak hour traffic and there was no way I was driving home at that time. So up we go, with a nauseating smell of chlorine-infused deep sea chicken... or was it sea-fried chicken? Hard to tell - nose was playing up. Gah. I could also smell jade blossoms from a previous permitted encounter with turtles.

Almost get kicked from our table by a waiter who I think decided to be nice to us coz we were asian and the girls were all smileyfaced - hows that for favourable discrimination? The chikas were in constant hysterics over small cockroaches, shadows and squeaky noises. On my behalf, I seemed to be in the business of digging quite a few holes... was just too slow for the sheer amount of wit on display. B was in beyond-top form, caught me totally off guard as I anticipated a more... sedate version... after a long day at the waterzoo. Even the ex-homies were uncharacteristically bubbly, or so I thought. 'God!' I screamed to myself silently, 'Slow them down! Cannot keep up!'

After many suppressed laughs (we did not want to destroy the romance of the place) we finally tailed it down to some place in the southside for soy milk bubbles... is that what it was? Some kind of solid soy milk dessert... and I got laughed at again coz I ordered froot with mine, which I totally DON'T understand especially when the bowl next to me looked like some kind of primordial goo with the viscosity to match. Hmpfff!

Add to that a great game of corners in the car (I won), a humorously disjointed wordgame (which nobody won but I will nominate that Lena lost ^^) a completely and unashamedly malfunctioning neuron, unintended references to getting nekkid, frequent miscommunications, topic discussions on nightingales, sheep and perverts, and just a bunch of utterly different and completely crazy peeps who were willing to laugh at anything, including themselves...

... And God really does change a day around.

And now I'm spent. Cheeks are aching from grinning like an idiot, tummy hurting from a combination of oil, original chicken and vegetable stuff, and brain hurting from being convincingly stomped on by at least two pairs of razor-tipped heels. And yes, it will be another night I get to marvel at His amazing blessings by the people and circumstances He chooses to grace my life with.

Love YOU peeps. God is showing me much more, but that shall wait till later :)

In Faith, Hope and love!

Realized I spelt anointing wrong in the previous post, kindly pointed out by a friend.

Its amazing how after so many years - decades even? - of writing about my Christian walk, I've never 'noticed' the spelling for anointing. SO, instead of editing the previous post, i'm going to leave it there as a reminder that, no matter how mature we think we are, there are always areas in which we can improve.

In Faith, Hope and Love!

Just a few thoughts on today's sermon:

Today was about God's annoiting - what it means, how it was administered, who and what it was administered to, and its importance in our spiritual lives as Christians.

All in all I really enjoyed the message - having finished exams, I am once again finding that sweet spot in 'listening to God', that is, the point where I can critically analyse what is being taught in the context of my Christian walk without going off on numerous unproductive tangents as I am so prone to do.

However, I do beg a point of disagreement. This is not something I have discussed with any other, but one of which I harbor a growing conviction about. See, it was alluded to in the message that without God's annoiting, we and all our plans, and devices would surely fail. The context of failure given was that of a material pursuit, namely the establishment and running of a business.

The reason why I beg to differ is that there are many business run by non-Christians that are massively successful. And I am also sure that there are many businesses run by Christians without God's explicit annoiting that are successful. Therefore, no annoiting does not equal failure.

Rather, I believe that just like faith in God is central to salvation, so too is annoiting absolutely and irrefutably central to accomplishing meaningful works in God. Because when God annoits you, he enables you to do something beyond your own power, for His glory. And then it comes back to the question that most Christians should ask themselves... what did God create me for AND what do I live for?

This world... well, it CAN function without God. Yet, like the author in Ezekiel despairingly writes, if that were to happen then, 'meaningless, meaningless; everything is meaningless!'

Brothers and sisters, pray for annoiting not because its a 'spiffy' thing to have. Pray for it because it endows your actions with meaning, and God-given purpose.

In Faith, Hope and Love!~

Sometimes I wish I could... happen to myself.

Imagine Theodore meeting Theodore. I don't think it would be a pretty confrontation! I mean, put into a tiny room two stubborn egos that think they know alot more than they deserve to with enough general knowledge to hold up a convincing facade, two minds that are cynical to the core and engage in multi-front psychological warfare over a casual dinner date and what will you get? Probably... a mess that's very hard to clean up?

I look back at the post that made me stop blogging. I remember the incident... vaguely. It struck my mind more than once how FULL of myself I must have been at that very moment to have proferred such a violent and in many ways undeserved rebuke of the people involved. I feel embarrassed, a touch frustrated and overwhelmingly silly that, despite my whole 'relationships' drive, that I can still flare up in the heat of the moment. Yes God, I still don't deserve my girlfriend :[.

But I'd be foolish to let this be my stumbling block. life is full of many errors that decorates our journey like trash on the footpath. But we do not stop walking, do we? It is only an obstacle should we choose to make it. To draw the metaphor further, if indeed we were concerned citizens, we would probably pick up the rubbish and place it where it belongs.

God called me about two weeks ago to, in my words, stop feeling sorry for myself and start serving Him again. Who knows that when God calls its hard to ignore? I thought about it at worked, masticated it during dinner, and even slept on it throughout the night. Peace only came (in the sense that I felt I was flowing with my thoughts rather than against it) when I actually did something about it.

That God is willing to use me despite my many sins, I feel honoured. Something I do less well is to feel humbled, but that, like the rest of my life, is something I am excitedly anticipating change in.

In Faith, Hope and Love

Something's been tickling me over the last few days.

It's a well established observation (if not fact) that when Christians need God, their spiritual walk seems to swell in proportion to the urgency of their need. Look at (Christian) teenagers when they want to rebel, young adults when they suffer the indignities of exams and no money, and the older ones through their many crises and life decisions. And when everything gets cruisy again, God goes out of the window and the ego takes centrestage once more.

So I find it exceedingly strange that, for myself, I have found the holidays so far to be one of rejuvenation and refreshment. Instead of bargaining with God, I have instead made myself supplicant to His will. Instead of blotting him out of my schedule with more 'exciting' things, I have been overjoyed (no exaggeration) to create time in my schedule to ponder His word in greater depth.

I am left with two conclusions. Either: 1) Exams no longer constitute a crisis to me, or; 2) God is readying me for something big!

Of course, if you were unlucky enough to see me during exams, you would know that the former is a rather untenable conclusion. So, the latter it is!

I'm feeling something I haven't felt for a loooong time. It's a barely perceptible excitement but with steadily gaining momentum, like the calm before the storm with the backpressure building up. God has something new! And for once, I don't care what it is; I just want to experience Him so intimately again, as a friend but also as my Saviour. I want to feel that annoiting (I believe He has already showed me a part of it!) more strongly than I ever have! And to do that, God issued me a challenge tonight.

"Purify your heart, read my words, and Seek."

Yes God. I shall.