solid as a rock

I wonder how some Christians can be so sturdy, like a rock, counting on God's faithfulness through thick and thin, through the seasons and through the fire and the sun & moon and the rain. Sounds so wonderful. why am i still like an immature child?

sigh sometimes i just feel like sleeping myself away for a few months and not opening my eyes and forget the world. 

taken from kristine's blog: 

THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS

Teach me your way, O Lord,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
Psalm 27: 11

My dad was the guru of shortcuts. He lived on an endles quest for the shortest route to all the places to which he regularly drove. My mom used to kid my dad that most of his shortcuts were in fact “longcuts.” In his search for the shortest distance to wherever, my dad would say again and again, “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.”

The life to which God has called us is the ultimate straight line. This line starts with dead rebels and ends with people alive and reformed into the likeness of God’s Son. The problem is that our living is seldom a straight line. We all take daily detours of thought and desire that move us off the straight path that God has placed us on by his grace. He has redeemed us from the jungle of our rebellion, lust, autonomy, foolishness, and self-focus and placed us on the narrow pathway of His Son. The problem is that we all tend to get tricked into taking detours that get us off God’s path and into trouble.

Our problem is twofold. First, we get diverted because we are impatient. The trip to where God is taking us is not an event; it’s a process. And the process isn’t easy. God’s road takes us through the heat of the sun, through storms and cold, through the dark of night, through loneliness and confusion. So, we get tired and impatient and begin to convince ourselves that there is a better way. But that isn’t all.

We get diverted because we are disloyal. Our hearts aren’t yet fully committed to God’s glory and his kingdom. We are still attracted to the shadow glories of creation, and we still carry around in us allegiance to the small-agenda purposes of the kingdom of self. So in our impatience and disloyalty we see pathways that appear easier and more comfortable, but they only ever lead to danger.

There is no time when this temptation is more powerful that when we are facing difficulty. This is exactly what the verse we are considering recognizes. When you are being hammered by the enemy, it’s very tempting to debate within yourself as to whether God’s way is the best way. It starts with bad attitudes. Perhaps you begin to doubt God, doubt his goodness, and question his love. Perhaps you give way to anger, impatience, and irritation. Or maybe you begin to allow yourself to envy. You wonder why the guy next to you has such an easy life, when yours is so hard.

These bad attitudes lead to bad habits. You quit praying because you reason that it doesn’t seem to be doing any good. You stop reading your Bible because those promises don’t seem to be coming true in your life. You quit attending your small group because you can’t stand to hear the stories of God’s love that others share, when your life is so hard. You even begin to give yourself reasons for missing the Sunday worship service, reasons you once wouldn’t have given yourself. Before too long there is a coldness and distance in your reationship with God that would have shocked you in the early days of your faith. Your difficulty has deceived you into thinking that you have reason for wandering off God’s straight path, and your attitudes and habits have placed you on the dangerous side-paths of the kingdom of self.

Have you gotten off God’s straight path? Have you given yourself reason to take side-paths? How about praying, once again today, “Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path”?

(Taken from Paul David Tripp’s A Shelter In The Time Of Storm)

What's the point of being emo? It was your own fault

Beck - nobody's fault but my own

Just so wasted - what could have been, something beautiful.
If the Lord is in this and willing, he will write a beautiful symphony through this cacophony and I promise I won't try to mess it up this time

She's out of my life
She's out of my life
I don't know whether to laugh or cry
I don't know whether to live or die
And it cuts like a knife
She's out of my life

It's out of my hands
It's out of my hands
To think for two years she was here
I took her for granted I was so cavalier
Now the way that it stands
She's out of my hands


Now I've learnt, loves not possession
And I've learnt, love won't wait
Now I've learnt, love needs expression
But I learnt too late

Dedicated to that someone.

whatever you want

whatever you want.

deep down it's me that's the spoilt one.

unless the lord builds the house they labour in vain

Psalms 127 says:
1 Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. 2 It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.


It is useless to go and fight the battle yourself - GOD must be the one who plants the seed and who builds it from day one, if not, I am labouring in vain. I have laboured in vain many years - I need to just wait and rest in Him and let Him work - let the Lord work. it is just vain labour otherwise, absolutely vain labour.


just the trust to wait for the lord. quiet, simple, disciplined, trust, in the Lord.


"let's take time to wait upon the Lord
let's take time to listen to His voice
unless the Lord builds the house we labour in vain
so let's take time to wait upon the Lord"

sigh waiting for her to reply to my email.

argh. maybe she doesn't really want to talk?

dont blame her anyhow.

Jesus must lead

I have been really stupid doing all this by myself . The song Jesus take the wheel is so important that in everything I gotta let Jesus lead. Why always try to meddle with his perfect plan that he's doing in your life ? With him the more you do sometimes the worse it gets the thing you need to do is to let him take over. Reminds me of the disciples at the storm when the lord calmed the storm. I need him to do it.

If you are reading this i am sorry and I can't say it enough and it may seem like only words but I will prove it to you what I told you, with Jesus's help. I wil wait for you, promise.

Pain

There's the pain that's still there - the pain - it's not going away - it's just pain and pain and more pain.


Will God heal my heart? He must - I asked how the hurt can go away - only time can heal
but it's just pain.


Just pain


never mind i'll find someone like you?
really?


I don't know la. I shouldn't have gotten so emotionally attached to my friend. [i hope you're not reading it - but maybe you are. crap. but well my cards are open]


"i've played all my cards, but you've kept them in the hand
there's nothing more to say, you've taken your final stand"


[a modification of Abba]


if only God will help me to be patient above all else, how wonderful that will be. I have to be patient, I must!


=D

You and I - know the reason why

Wow one of these days I want to be able to write a song just like this, from the most talented Rachael Yamagata. A song that really stays with you through the thick and thin, and through the heartbreak and the joy. This is "The Reason Why", which is apparently (I believe) about her departure from the band Bumpus as she is asked to "head out alone" and she'd "hope for the best". 


It's a joy to listen to her music because it's so organic and you can feel the raw emotions that are running through her music, and not just underneath the surface or bubbling under like the brook but boiling over, engulfing your innermost desires and souls (which should ideally have belonged to God in the first place) but yeah. 


Here it is: The Reason Why


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuQvja_t1FY


Lyrics: Music and lyrics by Rachael Yamagata, from the album Happenstance

I think about how it might have been
We'd spend out days travelin'
It's not that I don't understand you
It's not that I don't want to be with you
But you only wanted me
The way you wanted me

So, I will head out alone and hope for the best
And we can hang out heads down
As we skip the goodbyes
And you can tell the world what you want them to hear
I've got nothing left to lose, my dear
So, I'm up for the little white lies
But you and I know the reason why
I'm gone, and you're still there
I'm gone, and you're still there
I'm gone, and you're still there

I'll buy a magazine searching for your face
From coast to coast, or whatever I find my place
I'll track you on the radios, and
I'll sign your list in a different name
But as close as I come to you
It's not the same

So, I will head out alone and hope for the best
We can pat ourselves on the back
As say that we tried
And if one of us makes it big
We can spill our regrets
And talk about how the love never dies
But you and I know the reason why
I'm gone, and you're still there
I'm gone, and you're still there
I'm gone, and you're still there

So, steal the show, and do your best
To cover the tracks that I have left
I wish you well and hope you find
Whatever you're looking for
The way I might've changed my mind,
But you only showed my the door

So, I will head out alone and hope for the best
We can pat ourselves on the back
And say that we tried
And if one of us makes it big
We can spill our regrets
And talk about how the love never dies
But you and I, you and I know the reason why

When you feel that peace in your soul, that's when you know it's Gods will. Amen

leap year - damn awesome! 

woohoo I didn't think anyone was going to be born on this day, but apparently there are=)

my colleague was right - to a certain extent. that was a little stupid thing to do. but then I trust God, I have to! =D

how is everyone doing?

It's a choice - do you want to be controlled by your emotions and carnal feelings, or do you want the Holy Spirit to lead you?

Please pray for me. I need the HOLY SPIRIT to lead me. that's all.

I'm mr Brightside!

coming out of my cage -

what cage?

Never mind I'll find someone like you

Seems like youve got someone new . No expectations I had really, just a little pain - my own fault for not guarding my heart and letting it run away. Sigh. The heart is deceitful over all things, who can fathom it?

Ok everyone be happy that's all I can say. Whoever said I've outgrown my emo stage ??

The someone new is really cool I believe. Charming handsome cute and all those things an emo boy is not. He's got game. Ok fine I understand.

It's a bit like Lionel Messi coming into the S-League to play soccer against your team (thankfully I'm not the left back or right back). Just don't have game, Shawn! 

*^*()*&^%^&*(

Gotta learn how to be "fake" happy - being an INFP is horrible in the context of being cool. Friends, we feel too much. Learning to be that kind of feeling individual is not what's required. What's required is the ability to wait out, to "dong" through the storm, to let it just wash away, to be mindful to just "observe" instead of doing anything.

Like I said, you can't fight Lionel Messi. We all have passions, and I'm going to do something about it. Watch this space :)

Happiness, spontaneity, and the lack of dopamine

People always ask me how come I don't seem genuinely happy. To be honest, from an outsider's perspective, it would seem rather easy for me - I am, after all, talented in music (not as much as some people but sufficiently so, by the grace of God), not too bad looking (except a bit fat), have a decent job (as a lawyer now), a good family (not a broken one, as my mother would keep reminding me), have loads of friends (although mostly acquaintances and only a few close ones), etc. 


But do they know the struggle inside? The struggle that I have obsessive compulsive disorder, a disorder of the brain that creates thoughts that do not seem to want to resolve itself, BAD THOUGHTS that keep floating in my mind and refuses to leave. It is by the grace of JESUS that I still live, and still stand alive today. I spoke with Christ about this OCD and he told me that "my grace is sufficient for you" (this was circa Saturday morning, before my visit to my shrink). "My grace is sufficient for you" - what a wonderful promise. Everytime I speak to Christ he tells me in love to "put my helmet of salvation on" and that he calls me dear, "dear Shawn" - that I am dearly loved. The perennial question is NOT to let my illness destroy the hope that I have in Christ - the hope that still is deep within me that is born out of GOD and not out of men. The hope that does not stem from simple things of the world, but of a deeper sense that God has planted the seed of hope in me, and it cannot be destroyed.


To that note, I repeat Stuart Townend's song, "there is a hope", which states impressively what this whole "hope" is about. Something unflinching, something that never dies, and never ends.


Good night.

true life lessons

I'm back from Phuket, a little burnt.

Learnt some important life lessons: (1) there will always be some bigger fish out there in the sea. it's inevitable. you're only as good as your last ... hit single (see Whitney - whether she was depressed or not, I don't know), but it's true - you're only as good as the next time when another bigger cooler smarter posher fish comes along. (2) people don't have perfect information and thus you need to sell yourself - they cant' read your bloddy minds. so have to sell yourself, bopian. it's life, it's so unbohemian but then again we're in singapore. if i were somewhere else it'll be much easier, but i have to learn that hey this is singapore. everyone cares about appearances, faces. it's not a perfect world out there. pretty imperfect actually. As someone said, you "maketh the best, not the worsth". Really? sometimes one needs to have that higher level of FAITH in God to believe that whatever comes out of your situation is good. and I can't keep on giving the excuse that I have little faith to be something different, something that I can be. Doesn't work that way does it? No, didn't think so.

blah i'm ranting at 2.25am in the morning and it reminds me of my teenage days which were rather angst-ridden and unproductive, really. Still on the mend, still on the mend, but sometimes lapsing back into the past. arghhhhhhhhh

I must not LET MYSELF GET EMO ARGHHHHH *($%^&*()^%R$E#$%^&*(.

IT'S SO IRRITATINGGGGG

i like to look at life circumspectively, with all these things up my sleeve, and thinking aloud to myself - it gives me the tingles on my back which is really quite lovely a sensation to have. but then again it is again UNPRODUCTIVE thinking. in fact it just makes everything ugly and you look through life thinking what the ___ could i have done better.

i don't think i can. it's not me anyway. i'm not going to sing lady gaga that i was "born this way", but then again, i'm not here to be thrown to the hoards of fishermen out there, like simple sardines. when it happens, it'll be special, no doubt about that. just like how everything fits together, one day it will be special.

Really now?

shawn you're just freaking scared to go alone into the dark

but i'm scared! i've been bitten before. do i grow stronger or do i flinch back? i can't tell really. what the hell am i doing as a lawyer? i also can't tell. Not enough balls to go and break out of this, perhaps.

(who reads this blog anyway huh huh huh huh huh)/

and i know that we're making mistakes again and again but do i ever learn? hardly hardly.

i sound a bit like aaron tan talking to himself actually (seen the video before? it's hilarious, really - i could just watch that over and over again).

i swear, all i need is a bit of adele or rachael yamagata, and snuggle in. sounds so amazing. but yeah. it's a wonderful sensation yeah, to be a little bit emo and a little bit...drunk. it helps the soul to numb itself from pain and hurt. hurt because of expectations that frankly speaking shouldn't have been there. but things happen. as it is written, "the heart is deceitful above all else". we are all a bit messed up inside, but that is the way things are. can't be helped yeah.


(i love blogging actually ,damn therapeutic). in fact it's almost as therapeutic as a spa treatment. no kidding.

good night world i guess tomorrow i will feel better.