When All Comes to Nought

What happens when what you planned to succeed turns out a disaster? Total opposite of what you hoped it would have dreamt it to be?

Do you get angry? If so, whom can you get angry with? With no one to blame... who can we blame? God? Ourselves? People?

I had spent the whole of Friday night from 2 - 5am, and then Sat morning till afternoon, say 10am - 4pm.. doing up this video thing, and a flyer, for the youth mass. But what happens? Turns out the sound system can't work today of all days.. Impact lost. Words inaudible. Music garbled. As for the flyer, you see people reading it, and crushing it and putting it away. Or you see people not want to take it... Or what else...

So, ok... I tell myself, don't take it to heart. But somehow, my heart is not that strong.

I still hurt...

I don't spend so much time for no purpose?

I dun know why that strong a reaction in me... But i'm so pretty disappointed tonight. After the youth mass. And who can i turn to? I don't want to complain and just upset everyone too.

Maybe I want to turn around and blame someone. Blame God.... or no, God always has the bigger picture, and maybe he's trying to teach me something. Yup, i agree... but i can't help it if the emotions get beyond me.

I'm plain upset.

So blame who? The audio equipment == for failing at the most appropriate moment.

Or blame myself, for being over-perfectionist, and too uptight.. I could just shrug it off as an unlucky day... and smile again. But is there such things as lucky and unlucky? Not something God already knew beforehand?

So when I'm experiencing this, I know maybe there's a 'message' in there. There's always a message in the things we are experiencing. Something to learn from. Yar yar.

So then, what... maybe it's telling me, that I need to let more people in on the big idea, or maybe i'm supposed to reflect on this whole episode and find out what my dreams for youth mass really are.... and get everyone to work together, and not act solo..

Actually what I just wanted was as simple as to have something different in Youth Mass. And since no one was doing anything, I thought I would be a pioneer to start off something different -- like a home-made video... instead of the un-impactful P&W sessions we try to have each time.

Turns out, once again, people can watch, but can't understand. And this time it's not even because the message was too deep. It's because of AUDIO PROBLEMS!?!? stupid reason.

Maybe I just wanted human praise, and when i didnt get any I got upset..

All in all...

It's plan upsetting. To see effort go down the drain -- or so I choose to think.

Maybe it has a few good parts, like Mar & Abi did tell me it was good.

But why do I still feel so unhappy? Did I expect too much?

Can't I expect at least minimally that people could have heard the words?

But truth is -- no one could have helped this situation.. the audio system just chose not to work on that day! SO I didn't want to rant to people and get everyone sad... so my blog gets it now, - and so does the person reading this blog, unfortunately.. very sorry.. to you who's been reading till here, ok?


WELL... There are good things that happened too this week. Like going out for a night walk with Mama Penny on Thurs...

... Like celebrating Abi's birthday with the Ensemble people..., it was a pleasant outing to Blooies! And another good thing is to find that our Ensemble member, Aaron, has the same birthday as me! That part was pure amazing. I still laugh at the shock I had!

And well... tonight wasn't too bad lah... we went to Jac's house to watch Stardust. Nice show, but the comedy bits is not for me.

ANd yes, it was great to hear Sylvester doing his Testimony at the mass...


Ok ARGH Well, back to youth mass, Ultimately, I think today it was like me charging to battlefield (trying to touch people or change hearts) without a battleplan. Yes, and so, you only get hurt in the end. No one supporting, no one even knowing the plan I had in my mind... I felt like a lone ranger in my passion for the youths. Perhaps, i got too idealistic,... too happy producing the artwork, that I forgot I had to also convince people about it. (why should I?)

Whatever the case, I am just broken once again.

Why is it always so disappointing when we try to do more? In the end, why not settle for just bare minimal? Like we already are? It's so sad that our sessions have less than even 50 people turning up.. less even are the new people, or parishioners. The 90% majority are our ministry people.

Are all our efforts for nought?

And I'm imagining that God just shakes his head at me..

And so I ask, did God not speak to me, or did I not hear God?

Am I sinful or something therefore things does not go along smoothly?

This is just perplexing. Does anyone have the answers?


Well after all that talk, I went to this site and read this article. Which made me cool down. So it's not Why God? But Ok What Next? READ ARTICLE

Feeling Thankful

Dear God, Today I reach toward Heaven and ask You, and depend on You, to be the source of victory in my workplace and my life. May Your banner wave over my work and life so that You might receive glory. I know that You bring love and joy into my life, and I am a better and richer person because if it. Help me to share your love and life with others. I love you. In Jesus name, amen.

What is Obedience?

Obedience to God is such a 'difficult' term. Much less obedience to our parents, seniors, older advisors, teachers, church leaders, etc.

We have always sought to break the rules. It is even a trend, cool, or simply, the 'way' out there. Who wants to follow rules? Follow the Law?

But, Jesus said in John 14:6 -- "I am the way, the truth and the life".

Reflecting on this, I find that... if Jesus is the way, then all our methods of doing or solving things just falls to the ground because the 'JESUS' method is still the best...

Once again, in my life, I have a renewed conviction in this statement. We tend to question why people would blindly believe this statement from a man who lived 2000 years ago. But then again... rather than believing in nothing (which may simply be a self-delusion that God does not exist)? OR believing just superficially (which means believing but not changing - and even the devil can do that)... I will choose to believe. Like how the P&W song titled "With All I Am" goes.. the chorus goes like this:

"Jesus I believe... in you... Jesus I belong.. to you.. You're the reason that I live, you're the reason that I sing,.. with all I am.. "

If Jesus is the way and the truth, and the life-giver ---- then Jesus who was also very obedient to His Father.. sets the pace for all of us - Obedience. If we want the way, the truth and the life in this world... we need JESUS because he not only claimed it... he proved it.

And if we need Jesus, we realise, Jesus always advocated obedience,.. so we need obedience..

Not blind obedience though. God would never advocate us to obey an evil person, obey sinful lifestyles. In fact, he tells us to walk away from those.

It's spiritual obedience. Yield to our Father in heaven... and then blessings will flow - pouring out into our lives. THEN only we will have the way, (clear about our path in life),.. the truth... and LIFE! :)

Doesn't it just make so much sense? Or perhaps, i'm ranting because i'm on a spiritual high?

But nothing happened. Really nothing happened. I just told God... or at least, kept telling God.. Yes Lord Yes Lord, whatever you want... I will Go, I will follow.. God is moving - for only His purposes - something i can never know or fully understand as well... and even if I don't want to move... I am moving already.

So... I am just seeking to live each day.. one at a time... My perception of God.. as we talked about at YAM session last week.. is like a distant lord and father. But perhaps, each day, I can just inch closer a bit.. to discover more of Him.

And indeed, HE works in mysterious ways and through things like coincidences. I prayed 2 funny prayers... and it happened...

1) I prayed that if God would have me to stop thinking of a particular thing.... to make my little string quartet practice suddenly get cancelled drastically. Well, it happened. Right up till saturday we were agreed on the practice, till the cancellation came... 2 people suddenly couldn't make it on that sunday.

2) I prayed a prayer of loneliness and despair.. I was out at Lunch today buying some Art canvas.. and I happened to bump into a old ntu school mate whom I never saw since graduation... and that stark coincidence... made me realise God is there for me.

Yup. So He is so real. He is always waiting for our hearts to turn to him, fully - and that, in part... obedience.

Do the things you love

I figured, to be happy in life, one must simply do the things you love.

If you are not doing the things you love, somehow, there's always something that makes you unhappy.

And if you are already doing the things you love, just be happy!

God - a consuming fire. magnificent. indescribable.

Good News Reflection
Wednesday of the 26th Week in Ordinary Time
October 3, 2007
http://gogoodnews.net/DailyReflections

"Following Christ is never a static position. It's an adventure that changes as soon as we settle down and get comfortable. God calls us away from doing one good thing to do a different good thing. The hard part is recognizing when it's time to let go of the old to start something new, especially when it makes perfect sense to keep on doing what we've been doing, and even more especially when no one else can do it quite as well as we can."

I think I am getting it. Slowly getting this idea. Man.. it's been a long time, since I felt so alive... that God is calling me, that there is a new purpose, that God is doing a new thing!

Truly, it is Isaiah 43 for me. http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/isaiah/isaiah43.htm

God says, See I am doing a new thing. In the desert, I will make a way...

In the deepest of my heart, I know that I am 'swept' up in a new move by God in my life.. I don't know when it had begun, i dont' even know when the past had ended...

All i know is that in the last few months of struggle, not knowing where God is leading me, of feeling high yet low, low yet ok, stale yet ok, ok yet not ok.... I am now sure that God is still around.

Isaish 43's verse 20 - 25 says it "painfully" to me..:

I put water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland for my chosen people to drink,
21
The people whom I formed for myself, that they might announce my praise.
22
5 Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob, for you grew weary of me, O Israel.
23
You did not bring me sheep for your holocausts, nor honor me with your sacrifices. I did not exact from you the service of offerings, nor weary you for frankincense.
24
6 You did not buy me sweet cane for money, nor fill me with the fat of your sacrifices; Instead, you burdened me with your sins, and wearied me with your crimes.
25
It is I, I, who wipe out, for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more.


For this, I cry out, "Forgive me Lord!" Becuase I did not even call upon Him. I did not offer Him my sacrifice of Praise. I did not offer him my deeds of Love... Instead, I burdened God with my sins, and kept on living life in a cycle of questioning, guilt, doubt..

Yet God remembers my sins no more. It is indescribable.

It is HE who moves. Let us just yield to the Spirit of God. Pray earnestly, and ask for forgiveness. Let God give you a vision, a flame, a passion.

He is a consuming fire.