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So w.e.f. last Tuesday, all my colleagues, including my buddy who works with me in the office (there are only two of us in the office; the other two colleagues prefer to work outside and dropped in only once in a while) have finished their internship and left the company. (Their internship is different from mine, as theirs was arranged by the school as part of the curriculum and had fixed schedule, while mine is not part of the curriculum.) My boss has his own office two rooms down, so I now have the entire office to myself.

Hence “alone but not lonely”. I am alone, but Jesus is with me. =)

One benefit of having the entire office to myself is that I can blast Ps Prince’s sermons through the speaker without using the headset (at a volume that doesn’t disturb others, of course) and I realize that as I do that, I have been having much lower tendency to fall asleep and higher productivity, so thank God for that. Must be either the sermons or the Communion or both. (I have been taking Communion, because I got a slight cold towards the start of the week.)

This is long overdue, but grats Roger (Federer) for winning Roland Garros, and now in the Wimbledon final. He shall win! I feel sorry for Andy (Roddick) ‘cuz I kinda was hoping he’d make it all the way to the final, and now that he did, well, only one player can win the Wimbledon and someone’s gotta give. I want to see Andy beats Roger to win Wimbledon (like, finally!) some day, just not this Sunday. Andy has been playing real long, and if not for Federer he would have won two Wimbledons. (Then again, if not for Federer, don’t think Andy would have improved this much, too.) Pray he plays many years of good tennis for time to come and get into more grand slam finals and take a few. Rather have Roger and Andy (Roddick) in grand slam finals than Rafe(el Nadal) any day. And I hope Noppawan wins the Wimbledon junior girl singles title, and perhaps the doubles title too.

That’s some tennis talk for you. I don’t play tennis, by the way. I only follow tennis. I’d love to learn it some day though.

Looking back at this week’s work, it’s kinda interesting. After a few weeks of working and noticing, I wonder if this is the way work is. Sometimes, you are really cruising, slashing and blasting through your tasks, but there are times that you can sit there and try for five to six hours (half a working day!) to crack a problem. You enjoy it when you are getting things done but hang in there when you are not getting anything done, which is kinda discouraging and is the main thing that makes you don’t feel like working (is that the main reason?)

Hmm.

This came as I am writing this, but to think of it, you kinda draw parallel with the walk with God as well. There are times when you are seeing yourself bearing fruit, doing things in the kingdom, and you praise God and you want to go on and on. But there are times that you are stuck in the daily deeds going around doing things in your life and you feel, um, ordinary, simply because you don’t see the fruits. Then when the time comes, you bear fruits and you have no idea where they come from, because it is God who works in you to will and to do of His good pleasure (Php 2:12). When it is God who works in us, it means when I am doing something, like working at my office, sleeping, eating and whatnot, God continues to do the work in me, and I will see the fruit of that work of His when the time is divinely right. It is so different from I work in me; then, I will have to take time to work in myself, read the Bible or do something Christian. Thank God it is Him who works in me, not I.

Now, I am by no means saying that reading the Bible is not important; what I am saying is that don’t make it a law. Read the Bible because you are hungry, not because you think that is when you work in you, or that when you read the Bible it is the only time God is able to work in you.

But what a truth in the Bible that there is a time for everything (Ecc 3:1), and that, as we are beautifully described in the Psalms, a tree planted by the water shall bring forth fruit in season (Psa 1:3).

So the Christians who are trying to force the fruit out by following this step that step, makes no sense in God’s principle. Apart from God’s beautiful timing, the “fruit” that is produced is self-effort are simply not real fruits. You try to produce patience by disciplining, you end up simply stalling away all your impatience until you explode along the way. You try to diet by willpower, you end up eating more when your diet is over. You try to evangelize, you end up with converts who became a Christian on a not sure ground (by that I mean, they are not sure if this is the truth; simply converted because they were persuaded) which is different from God’s ordained way that as the word goes forth (preaching, not persuasion, even though both starts with a “p”), people believe and are saved, saved before they pray to receive Christ (because the Bible says believe and you will be saved - Acts 16:31 - not pray the sinner’s prayer, and you will be saved). Self-effort has no place in God’s principle. It does not follow God’s principle of beautiful timing.

“But what I am saying is that we should try to strive to be godly! It has nothing to do with salvation, which is by grace, but at least we should try.”

(They don’t use ‘keep God’s laws’ these days, even though they say that the way to be godly is to look at what to do in the Bible, be it the Ten or something else, which is erecting your own law. Mixture has a way of making it subtle lol.)

The Bible says those who are of flesh cannot please God. (Rom 8:8)

(Flesh = self-effort. Read Gal 4:23.) Your trying to be godly does not impress God, be it trying to do so to become worthy of salvation’s price (”now that Jesus has died for you, you had better conduct yourself in way worthy of salvation!”), to earn blessings and healing, or simply to try to be godly.

So stop trying and let God work in you, let grace teach you to live godly and righteously (Tit 2:12) and in season, you will produce fruits.

By the way: 1. Ps Zhenya’s mid-week service was good. Those who didn’t come, you missed out! Lol, but no condemnation. =) 2. I am considering signing up for Twitter. Just thinking what username to use.

In response to Debbie’s comment. Go to the post here to read it. =)

I have not really studied the subject on taking up the Cross though, so there is still much to discover.

Breaking news that won’t break any legs…

Yes, it’s official. I have rescheduled my flight.

Honestly, I have absolutely no problem staying in Singapore. In fact, I am happier staying in Singapore. Sounds disturbing, no? Someone who doesn’t want to go home to parents. But I do hate to miss church (I intend to simply take a break from church while in Thailand… my visiting church preaches mixture and don’t think my parents will drive me long distance to a church that my leaders can recommend) and especially miss the Zone Youth Conference. Missing the concert is fine with me, but when I heard that Hillsong United is conducting workshops I was like duh! I want to attend. Lol. So I wanted to go, but I was happy of going home too, and besides, I knew that it is important to honour my parents, so I was getting ready to fly (actually haven’t done anything yet, because I was thinking of packing and all that after my internship ends) when Dad got worried about the swine flu.

He called me on the Friday before the camp and said that the swine flu situation in Thailand is getting worse, there were hundreds of cases already, and he was not sure if he would let me fly anymore.

Now, I have no problem flying home. I believe that God honours Psalm 91. I believe that even if the entire plane gets the flu, I will not. (But if that happens, I’ll be quarantined, duh.)

But I told him that if it worries him for me to fly rather than gives him happiness, then I’d rather not fly. In the end, we discussed after I came back from camp, and decided not to fly.

So thank God that He answered my desire to stay in Singapore and not miss the Zone Youth Conference without dishonouring my parents.

Anyway, today, I traveled all the way to my workplace (which is NUS) to find that I forgot to bring the power cable for my notebook PC. There was no other alternative; I had to take the bus ride back home to grab my power cable. Extra hassle, aiz.

It turned out that on the bus, about one hour and a half, I had a wonderful Bible study with the Lord. This trip to and fro the workplace turned out to be an answered prayer, because I have been asking for time to spend in the word, and on Wednesday and Thursday, I wanted to do Bible study, but I ended up discussing with my parents about the trip home and, for Wednesday, following Roger Federer on Wimbledon (lol). Actually, during the nights, I had a wonderful fellowship with my brothers and sisters-in-Christ also, and we talked about God’s word, so I was thinking that it was okay already, but thank God He also set aside time for me to delve in and receive revelations. Talk about more than enough. =)

I started my response to Debbie’s comment on Taking Up The Cross as well. I’ll post a link when it is done.

Although I cannot share on the spiritual things about the camp, I can definitely, positively share that as we let God feed us real good spiritually, “all these things will be added” to us, and we definitely had good food added to us! =D

The hotel food was really good. I liked pretty much everything (except the tofu, ‘cuz I didn’t like it, nothing to do with the food quality) and the nasi lemak for breakfast was simply HALLELUJAH! Lol. I know there are better places for nasi lemak in Malaysia, but so far in my life this is the best. =D The peranakan dinner was awesome too! I love the teh tarik, even though someone mentioned it was too sweet. =) The mutton is worth mentioning too, as it’s one of those things that I don’t get to eat in Singapore. And before I came to the camp, I had a craving fo vegetables haha, been deprived of it because I have been eating at the NUS canteen, and the things I order usually have very little vegetables, so when I saw kai lan, I was like HALLELUJAH lol. I mean, the meat was nice too, everything else was nice, and I ate loads of ‘em too, but this one is “an answered prayer”. Lol.

On the way back to Singapore, we bought Ramly burgers during our pit stop. It was real nice! Didn’t have time to savour it though, ‘cuz the break was 25 minutes and queueing up for the burger was already 15-20 minutes. ==”

Then I closed off the night with unagi omelette at Shokudo for dinner with my CG. Top that on 5 days of good hotel food and you have heaven on earth when it comes to food. Lol.

Best thing of all? I have not confirmed this ‘cuz the scale at my house might be wrong, but I think I didn’t gain weight during the camp! In fact, I might have lost weight xD I ate a lot during the camp, but on the contrary to back in Singapore, I didn’t feel bad about it (perhaps I was led!) I felt as if God took care of this area and I need not worry about it. =)

ARROW later. =)

Hmm. Where do I even begin?

The camp has been real awesome. Someone (I think Lionel) shared about the camp being a place where God compressed so many things, on top of five feeding sessions, into five days; that is so true for me. I learned so many things, and I know that God is working in me in so many areas. I really received so much in feeding, friendship and impartation.

Most of the things that I received in the camp are personal, or are not for public sharing here though, so if you are expecting an 8-page post (since I did one on ANNTIC last time) hmm… don’t think it will happen. =)

The song God of My Forever has been ringing in my head.

ARROW later. The 8-day extrava-God-za is not over yet. ;D