why?

that question w-h-y.

the question that caused debates aplenty.
or rather the opening of the question.
quarrels abundantly too.
and much more pensiveness in all of us.

the double-u, ech, wai.
used to dig deeper into issues (EIC module applied! :D).
used to manipulate conversations.

used by conscience to question why am i even asking why?
the 'why am i...." or even 'why should i or should i not?'

WHY doesnt always reveal why we want to find out why.
why is why so.. why-ie? (huh?)

Why questions why i chose these decisions, feelings, plans, and decisions-to-be, feelings-to-be.

why did i even type this whole thing?

ok, im beginning to sound like a 3 yr old.....

priorities

decisions i make or struggle with really shows where my priorities and heart lie....

it obviously aint grades. but we're a team. so...

i'm sorry jaz and MR. that i;ve been a liability.

MUFHH 22nov

November 22, 2007

Shallow and Profound

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God —1 Corinthians 10:31

Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person— God became a baby.

To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all— the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, "A disciple is not above his teacher . . ." ( Matthew 10:24 ).

We are safeguarded by the shallow things of life. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.

Make a determination to take no one seriously except God. You may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.

thankful yet utterly useless

thank You, God, for such great team mates... i really feel so useless sia, since they're so zai. oh wells. i will still do my best.

but sure hope they will not take it to heart.
in a way its more than a blessing.. i can spend more time for ministry.

but at the same time, my work mustn't be compromised "cuz im in cf, so u better allow me to slack" which obviously is a warped point of view, though very much appealing.

oh wells. as a student. my testimony has already been shattered.
haiz.

i'm at the other extreme from most others.people strive to get As and good grades. i don't even try.

i really don't know if i am at a position to lead for CDOP.
God, it's You. not me. not us.

CDOP is something really.. well.. must obey one lor.
but with such a call, comes the opposition too.

thankful for cornelyus! he's the CCC chair.. thanks for your full support, and our resonance!

oh wells. CDOP, CHRISTmas 'party'. God. Salvation belongs to You.

screwtape letters

borrowed this book from sch library (like finally)...
at last they had it... i've reserved it since beginning of yr 2 can! hahha.. but it's really interesting how CSLewis brings about thoughts thru satire. which is something i've learnt to appreciate in sec sch...

was just reading this chapter.
here's a letter from Screwtape which really is quite meaningful and apt.
in case you didn't know, Screwtape is this demon uncle who writes to his demon nephew Wormwood giving demonly tips and advice...
so Our Father (Below) = Satan
Enemy = God
Patient = this young christian guy whom Wormwood is supposed to tempt

so here goes!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS’ CHAPTER 8

My dear Wormwood,

So you ‘have great hopes that the patient’s religious phase is dying away’, have you? I always though the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old Slubgob at the head of it, and now I’m sure. Has no one ever told you about the law of Undulation?

Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy’s determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.

To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more that on peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To use a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is filled and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.

And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, to assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up in its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot ‘tempt’ to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is please even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon the universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

But of course the troughs afford opportunities to our side also. Next week I will give you some hints on how to exploit them,

Your affectionate uncle

SCREWTAPE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

obviously i'm not the first to type this out... i didn't.. someone else did, and the magical Copy and Paste did the job :P

haha... nor was i the first to find this chapter so meaningful... especially when dry times just left, and seem like its back again...

Thank You God pt2

Thank You God!
http://nicrome.multiply.com/journal/item/93/got_purpose_one my own reply...

Thank You!

and the change is more than evident!
Could it be true? that now so many people are being made ready for God for this yr's CHRISTmas Harvest?

i do see many around me, yours truly included, being renewed, restored, refreshed this season. and they are close close friends to me. sisters in Christ especially!

Jesus is LORD.