310506

verses read: Psalm 24

Well, I think I should finally put a post on my blog. The last few entries just too political to put online, would probably be cautioned by the ISD if I had.

Well, tonight’s the big meeting. It’s an honour indeed to be part of this whole event, one that can shape the direction of worship in Singapore, it was something that I prayed for more than 6 years ago, when I was asked to dream big. And yes, a big dream is coming true.

I wonder if the other dreams that I have been having lately will come true. They have all been about Tanjong Katong Secondary School, or Tampines Junior College or Tao Nan School. Maybe I will be posted back to one of my almar matars. Well, I will know in three weeks time. A big part of my wishes to be posted back to one of these schools, but a larger part rather be posted to one of the more obscure neighbourhood schools. That’s where the real work is.

Shot an arrow at myself yesterday night. But it is something that I don’t mind doing for yet another year. An opportunity to work with another batch of sec 3s. It will be interesting, this batch would be exactly ten years younger than me, would be interesting to see what and how they think.

Mathematics Honours gathering, I really wonder what that would be like. I would really not mind going for it, but will be away at Church camp, so won’t be able to make it. It will be quite interesting indeed to see how nerdy the place is! But my guess is that I will be seeing quite a few of them in NIE.

Done with a whole brand new look to the One Voice handbook, even more updated than the version sent out to everyone yesterday. Will publish it once the team leaders approve of it. The format looks a lot better now, though it would be difficult for some to read! But at least I will be saving a lot of paper with this new format.

270506

verses read: Psalm 21

Just got back from badminton. Really tired now! I’m pretty sure that when I wake up tomorrow morning, it’s going to be really bad!

Met up with the maths guys yesterday, some of them at least, it strange how the topics change with each stage of life. Once upon a time it was numbers after numbers, module codes after module codes, now it’s salaries and jobs. I wonder when will it be buying flats, getting married, which school to send our children to…

Life just passes so fast. In less than three weeks I will begin a new phase of life, really just want to start afresh and leave the pain of the past two years behind. I guess I will have to get used to standing in front of the class form now on.

There is still band practice tonight. Fitting. I was the first to lead at the MPH, and now I will be the last as well. This will also be one of the last times that I will be leading. I think the countdown can begin soon.

260506

verses read: Psalms 20

Good Psalm to read, especially after yesterday. Why does this always happen like this? Well, just going to keep moving on, and trust in the Name of the Lord.

I have officially graduated. Second lower honours, my results were expected, no surprises; thankfully. Well, have another three more weeks before matriculation into NIE and the ESE. I really wonder which school I will be posted to, I really hope Springfield Secondary, that would eliminate the whole conflict of interest problem.

Going to clear up my room, stuff that needs to be thrown out has to go, and going to as much of my notes as possible. All except maybe the mathematics ones, I will need those eventually. I also need to prepare for my sharing session with the BB/GB tomorrow! Last minute self-arrow!

250506

verses read: Psalm 19

Been a while since I updated my journal. After returning from USA, been trying to shift my body clock to wake up early in the morning and sleep early at night. Been pretty successful so far. So it’s early again, so most of my entries from now on will be about the previous day rather than the day that has just passed. More awake as well.

Last few days have been pretty uneventful, watched Da Vinci code on Monday, it’s quite bad. Bought a metronome to help me keep time, been practicing scales quite relentlessly last few days. Good training though. Got the TTA a few days back, read through the whole stack of documents. Quite daunting. But well, at least I have a job, if you can consider it as such. Three more weeks to go.

Today is results day. Wonder what I will be getting, or if I will get honours at all. Don’t think that would be a problem. Honours would mean an immediate pay rise though. Wonder what class it will be. Then again, won’t really deviate much.

dreaming of eternity

When I preached about heaven a few weeks ago, I really wonder how far I can push that concept. I first came face to face with the question of "am I going to heaven" when I was in my membership class in 1999. What will it be like?

I dreamed I went to heaven, and you were there with me. We walked upon the streets of gold and beside the crystal sea. We heard the angels singing...

It's such a beautiful image of what heaven will be like isn't it? Not just that, it is really the image that the Bible paints, streets of gold, the river of life that is as clear as crystal and everyone, every angel singing praises to God.

Actually sounds kind of boring to me. But in the last few months, I've been thinking about this quite a bit. And I think, that even as we spend eternity worshipping the Lord, I would like to think that there will be opportunities to meet, and "catch up" with those whom we have lost contact with and are in heaven as well.

I really like the image that the above song paints. While it may not be accurate, I think God will be so loving and gracious to allow me to speak to friends who I would have lost contact with, or with friends who would go before me, or after me.

Tonight, I sang "Declare His Glory" for the last time as an official member of the VCF. I don't know if I will ever sing it again. I don't if I will ever see the people whom I've met and come to know and love in VCF ever again. I'm sure I've seen some of them for the last time tonight.

And I wonder how many more "last times" I've had in the past few weeks. But I will dream of eternity. And I will see them all there again. And we can walk by the crystal sea, and maybe even sit by it's shore and have all the time in heaven to catch up.

Little things that you had done, sacrifices made. Unnoticed on the earth, in heaven now proclaimed. I know that in heaven you are not supposed to cry, but I am almost sure there were tears in your eyes. As Jesus took your hand and you stood before the Lord, He said, "My child, look around you, great is your reward".

God is good, all the time!
All the time, God is good!

070506

verses read: Psalms 2

This is a very appropriate passage in light of the end of the election yesterday. And well, the lawsuits and detentions have begun; as expected. Managed to vote, I hope the next election, I will have a choice again. But in light of the results here in East Coast, I wonder if in the next election I will end up in Tampines or Marine Parade GRC.

I am super sleepy now, I realized that I’ve only had about seven hours of sleep in the last 48 hours due to the wedding and the election. Stayed up last night to watch the results, and after that to print my journal and the scores for the songs today. In all, I got exactly three hours of sleep last night, because I snoozed only thrice rather than my usual ten times. Was so sleepy I had trouble leading worship this morning; my fingers could not even move in synch with my mouth.

Today was a marathon day in church, from 8am to 8pm. The accountability session with Pastor Aaron was really good for the soul today. It was more like a counseling session if you ask me. But then, I really needed to say what I had to say and hope that others will keep me in prayer as I face tomorrow.

*rest of this post is in my private journal*

Nasi Brani...

Here is somemore food... before I leave for USA. Will probably cook this once I"m there! Let my brother have a little taste of home. I have to say that this is one that went pretty well! It's a recipe taken from Keith Floyd.

Ingredients:
Rice (washed)
Chicken fillets, cubed
Onion and Garlic, chopped up
Tomatoes
Curry powder
Soya Sauce
Chicken Stock
Pepper
Cashew nuts and raisins



Heat up the wok, add some oil, stir fry the chicken until half-cooked.



Add in the onions and garlic, make sure you added in a lot of oil in the beginning, you will need that to make the onions and garlic fry well.



Add in the rice. The rice has not been cooked yet, you can do the steaming in the wok. Add in some curry powder (and a little more tumeric if you like) on top of the rice.



Stir the whole thing to get the curry powder well distributed.



Add in water and a little chicken stock; add in the tomatoes as well. Make sure there is enough water to cook the rice, and not too much water or you will get chicken porridge. Cover the wok, and stir occasionally to get flufy rice. Add soya sauce during the cooking process to taste.



When the rice is cooked, add the nuts and raisins!

M

Unbelievable... but my name has somehow been truncated to "M". Not by me, but by quite a number of government agencies and statutory boards. The elections department and MINDEF at least have done so. A bit "James Bond" isn't it?

That's the name that has been on my polling card as well as all other correspondences from MINDEF. Interesting heh? While on my NRIC, Birth Cert and Driving liscence, my name is sill Marcus. Well, everyone makes administrative errors don't they?????

PS: My name appeared in the papers today (Wednesday)... try find it

sacred vs secular?!?!

If you all are wondering why my Bible reading posts have not been updated, it because I just came back from Pentecost Encounter. But also, it's because it's election season, and since the guidelines on what can and not be put on a blog is so unclear, I've decided to just censor entire posts!

Pentecost Encounter, it was really refreshing and there were quite many things that I've learnt, two main issue actually. The first is about what rebellion really means. And the other was a revelation from God, about the whole issue about the Sacred and the Secular.

I've always wondered why I've never ever felt that I've struggled with the issue of seperating the sacred and the secular and always maintained that nothing is really secular, maybe except sin, but everything when looked at from the correct angle can be considered sacred. But yet at the same time, something seemed to be not right, to be lacking in that definition as I still struggled with so many thing. But God revealed through His Word what the real struggle was.

There is a sacred and secular divide, but that notion by itself is not-entirely Biblical, but secular in it's own origins. However, addressing the sacred and secular is actually a simple matter. The struggle is not sacred vs secular but rather the "Flesh vs Spirit". Which is actually our lifelong stuggle with sin.

That's what Paul was struggling with when he wrote:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. - Romans 7:14-20

Our beings can be viewed as 3 parts, not separate parts but parts that are interconnected.

Now may the God of Peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your who spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. - 1 Thess 5:23

Three parts are stated in that verse, the spirit, soul and the body. We are spirit, we have a soul and we live in a body. The body can be viewed as a "container" for the soul and the spirit. The spirit, is not the Holy Spirit, but our own spirit, that is kind-of passive till the Holy Spirit comes to "awaken" it (loosely speaking of course). Our soul is where our mind, our emotions and wills interplay.

Our will is what causes our body to act a certain way. But our will is influcenced with what our minds and/or emotions want. But when our spirit has been activated, it begins to influence our will, and if our minds and emotions are not aligned to what our spirit tells us, we struggle. And that's the struggle that I've been having, and will have for the rest of my days.

And it's true that before, receiving the Holy Spirit, I had very little compunction in using vulgarities or doing stupid things, but after accepting Jesus as my Savious, all the things that I had previously had no problems doing, I began to struggle and still struggle with till today.

All this was a big revelation to me, as I had problems catergorising what was the secular and the sacred, it all seemed wrong to do it the way I did. But when we look at the struggle between what the flesh (the mind and emotions) wants versus what the our spirit tell us to do, at the influence of the Holy Spirit, it all made so much more sense.

The division between soul and spirit is even more blurred than that of what is sacred and secular; and that was why I struggled so much. But at the heart of it all, God has provided a simple to understand but yet difficult to pull off way out. And it's encapsulated in our old Sunday School song, "Read your Bible, Pray everyday". Now I understand why Pastor Aaron wants us to read our Bible and Pray everyday.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of yur mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" - Romans 12:1-2

Familiar verses, the idea of not being not conformed to this world is a lot clearer to me now and so is the idea of renewing the mind. When our mind is in step with that of the spirit, our will and thus our actions will follow. Tough.

"For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account" - Hebrews 4:12-13

It all starts with the Word of God. How to overcome, how to deal with, and how to break away from the struggles of flesh and spirit. Now I finally understand why I've been struggling so hard.