@hhChoooo… who sneezed?!?!

Some weeks ago, I shared with the JesusLivingStones Combine CG retreat on Finishing well, and I pulled out lots of analogies from running a race. In Paul’s Letters, its peppered with fighting the good fight and finishing the race.

As I pondered on running a race and how I previously competed and trained for Triathlons and Biathlons. There are much similarities in the physical as much as the spiritual race that we’re running.

Discipline: Without it, there’s no such thing as running the race

You can run, walk or crawl but never go backwards.

So really, there’s much similarities in running a race and running the christian race. May it be so that when the race gets hard and tough, He will continually strengthen and guide. That as I approach the finish line, I may see the smile upon the face of my Savior.

Hebrews 12:1-2
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

July 28

God’s Purpose or Mine?

He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side . . .
—Mark 6:45

We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God’s purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not. The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.

What is my vision of God’s purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish— His purpose is the process itself. What He desires for me is that I see “Him walking on the sea” with no shore, no success, nor goal in sight, but simply having the absolute certainty that everything is all right because I see “Him walking on the sea” ( Mark 6:49 ). It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying to God.

God’s training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future. We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience, and we are wrong to concern ourselves with it. What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself.

God’s purpose is to enable me to see that He can walk on the storms of my life right now. If we have a further goal in mind, we are not paying enough attention to the present time. However, if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.

The last few days from the devotional in My Utmost for His Highest has been so compelling. It speaks such truth and I can really identify with it as I reflect upon what I’ve gone through. To sum this day’s devotion, God is more concerned about the process than the outcome. He is more interested in my character than in my circumstances. Perhaps now I’ll see my prayers turned to changing the man within than the situation with-out.

The Way to Knowledge

If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine . . .
—John 7:17

The golden rule to follow to obtain spiritual understanding is not one of intellectual pursuit, but one of obedience. If a person wants scientific knowledge, then intellectual curiosity must be his guide. But if he desires knowledge and insight into the teachings of Jesus Christ, he can only obtain it through obedience. If spiritual things seem dark and hidden to me, then I can be sure that there is a point of disobedience somewhere in my life. Intellectual darkness is the result of ignorance, but spiritual darkness is the result of something that I do not intend to obey.

No one ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test regarding it. We disobey and then wonder why we are not growing spiritually. Jesus said, “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” ( Matthew 5:23-24 ). He is saying, in essence, “Don’t say another word to me; first be obedient by making things right.” The teachings of Jesus hit us where we live. We cannot stand as impostors before Him for even one second. He instructs us down to the very last detail. The Spirit of God uncovers our spirit of self-vindication and makes us sensitive to things that we have never even thought of before.

When Jesus drives something home to you through His Word, don’t try to evade it. If you do, you will become a religious impostor. Examine the things you tend simply to shrug your shoulders about, and where you have refused to be obedient, and you will know why you are not growing spiritually. As Jesus said, “First . . . go . . . .” Even at the risk of being thought of as fanatical, you must obey what God tells you.

Afterthought
Somehow, the consistent thought that keeps coming back to me is on the issue of obedience. I see this first and foremost for my own life and also in the life of the church. At Vision night today, a sister shared passionately about her walk with the Lord. Her desire to know God and not go through the motion in prayer, QT, CG, Ministry. It was heartfelt and real.

I pray I too grow in depth, in obedience in my walk with God. My heart too goes out to the rest of the church. May revival come.

July 26

The Way to Purity

Those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart . . . . For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man . . .
—Matthew 15:18-20

Initially we trust in our ignorance, calling it innocence, and next we trust our innocence, calling it purity. Then when we hear these strong statements from our Lord, we shrink back, saying, “But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart.” We resent what He reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust the penetration of His Word into my heart, or would I prefer to trust my own “innocent ignorance”? If I will take an honest look at myself, becoming fully aware of my so-called innocence and putting it to the test, I am very likely to have a rude awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I will be appalled at the possibilities of the evil and the wrong within me. But as long as I remain under the false security of my own “innocence,” I am living in a fool’s paradise. If I have never been an openly rude and abusive person, the only reason is my own cowardice coupled with the sense of protection I receive from living a civilized life. But when I am open and completely exposed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis of me.

The only thing that truly provides protection is the redemption of Jesus Christ. If I will simply hand myself over to Him, I will never have to experience the terrible possibilities that lie within my heart. Purity is something far too deep for me to arrive at naturally. But when the Holy Spirit comes into me, He brings into the center of my personal life the very Spirit that was exhibited in the life of Jesus Christ, namely, the Holy Spirit, which is absolute unblemished purity.

I remember someone telling me, Jesus Christ is either Lord of all or none at all.
Who is He to you?

I seem to get very disturbed of late, when I learn of fellow brothers and sisters taking the word of God lightly (by that, I mean when we do not obey and just do as we please or we rationalise away truth so that it would fit our circumstance, for eg. one of the most common is unequally yoked relationships, scripture is so clear on this, yet so many christians, good christians, wind up morally bankrupt because of that one compromise). I certainly hope I am not being self righteous or legalistic in any way. But I get affected by it and just feel great disappointment.

Perhaps its just God’s way of putting these burdens into my heart, that I would pray. But one thing I struggle all these while as a leader is, when do I speak up and correct. When is it a prompting to act upon and to correct/rebuke/admonish. And I struggle with confronting on such matters, maybe I lack the courage to confront, or it could be that I don’t act on it because I fear the rejection of the correction.

I personally believe that as a leader one has to step up to correct sheeps under their charge, and that once that correction is spoken, the ball is in their(believers) court to act upon it. In some sense, if there is inaction and continuation of sin, “blood is in their hands”. But if leaders fail to correct, then “blood is upon our hands”. Its also crucial that as leaders, we speak up, lest other believers get stumbled, or worse, follow suit. So why do I still fear correcting believers? Past experience maybe? Believers who leave because they don’t accept the truth.

Its terribly painful to see the sheeps leave the pen, headed towards the wolf’s den. And you know that they are heading that way of destruction. Yet its their personal decision and you cannot but helplessly watch them go down the wrong path!! Perhaps this is exactly how it feels like, the Father who sees his prodigal(wasteful) son walking away with his half of the inheritance. And the same Father who looks out daily from the fields hoping that the son would return.

Oh, that they would heed the call of scripture in the first place!

I only hope they would obey God and do the right things.

This bunch of people are really really precious to me. Though I have moved to the adult congregation CG, the folks from the JesusLivingStones CG(thank God we got a proper name change, else we’ll end up as BPJ/CCK CG) never fail to invoke strong wonderful memories and my heart is still very much with them.

It was great to have had a sort of reunion with the multiplied LivingStones CG (3 wonderful gps) at a retreat in the beginning of the week. I am really so very thankful to see almost all the original bunch from the first CG leading in some way, be it in the CGs or in the Campus Ministries. Really thank God that over the last few years, God has sustained each and every single person, and He faithfully groomed and grew each one. How exciting it would be to see in few years time, more stonies will be found serving and loving God.

It was just pure joy to hear individual sharings and catching up with them at the retreat. So great to see the older ones like Guan Hua, Willie, Kiat, Rebec, Joy, Sharon guiding and leading the others. And others who though young are rising up and serving Him. I really count it a priviledge to be able to serve alongside with them. I see many of the stonies with far greater maturity than many in the adult congregation, do hope you’ll continue to grow.

I have known many Christians whom I’ve served alongside in the past, who were fervent and who loved the Lord but today are no longer walking with Him, and it saddens me. A common thread is that it begins with compromise. I do pray that every stonie will hold fast and never compromise on God’s word and will leave a lasting legacy. Continue to press on towards the finish. Hope to see you all at the finish line!

To each and every stonies, my prayer for you is that you’ll hold fast to God. Hold fast to His Word. Never quit. Never compromise. Love Him always. Obey Him always.

Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. 1 Timothy 4 :12

We had a good night’s rest and were ready to go for our last two dives for the trip. How we wished there could be more. We headed back to Igara wreck for the last two dives because the original wreck we were supposed to go had very bad visibility and very strong currents.

The first dive had us going down with together with Vincent. It feels really great to dive with him coz he’s such an experienced diver and he really taught us well. So far I think he is one of the most meticulous and professional instructor I’ve ever met. Anyway, Vincent had to go down to look for the wreck to tie the descend line (rope). We followed behind him and stuck close to him. It was a fascinating experience and different from merely following down a rope to the wreck. This is because as we followed him, we too were searching and looking for the wreck! And when the wreck came into view. It was a thrilling feeling!!!

This is how it looks like following the rope.

A picture of the wreck.

After tying the rope to the wreck, we followed Vincent to the bow of the wreck. Again it was a fascinating view. Looking up from the seabed up the bow was an awesome view! We swam around and came to a crack in the hull of the wreck. We swam through the crack and through the wreck. Below us we could see stairs and beams and the feeling was just great! Coming out of one of hatches of the wreck we were welcomed by one of the most beautiful sight of a whole bed of corals that has made its home on the deck of the wreck! Truly this was the most enjoyable and most memorable dive for the entire trip for me!

Going through the wreck to come out on another part of the wreck.

Our final dive was a short penetration dive. We had a chance to enter the wreck. It would take good buoyancy control for this dive and I think Vincent felt that we were ready for this “rite of passage”! We went in through a small door and inside the wreck was darkness. My imagination ran wild with thoughts from movies, that as I shine my torch at some corner there might lurk some big monster fish or the skeletal remains of one of the crew of IGARA. Heh heh! The passage we went through was narrow and we moved through till we came out at one of the hatch, again to be welcomed by a fascinating sight! Lovely!

Here we are fooling around!!! Haha!

More photos of our dive from VinceQ’s camera can be found here
And photos from my trip are found here

We got back to singapore around 8pm, but Dary, seby and myself felt a craving for Ice Cream, and headed down to Changi airport for Swenson’s! I wonder if Ice cream craving and Unexplained Idiotic Behaviour (UIB) is a symptom of Post Dive Narcosis (if there is ever such a thing). For those who do not know what is narcosis, its kinda like an effect you experience when you dive deep, and the nitrogen in your body causes poor judgement, sleepiness, stupor, slow thinking and etc.

Its got to be Narcosis… then again, could just be Daryl’s bad influence on the rest of us!!

We awoke to our first dive of the whole trip, morning was overcast, mostly cloudy day with little sun. But man! were we ever ready to get into the water!!

Our first dive was pretty technical, coz we were taking our advanced divers course. We didn’t see much since we were doing stuff on improving our bouyancy as well as underwater navigation. All this done on the deck of a sunken BULK CARRIER SHIP!

The Wreck is an italian ship which sunk in indonesian waters in 1973. It was called IGARA. Apparently it struck some rocks on its maiden voyage (and got quite a lot of insurance from it!) and travelled a little further till it arrived and sunk at errr.. that location.. (No GPS, sorry)

Here is a drawing done by DrMike on the IGARA. He was also on the boat with us and he used a rebreather gear on the dive. Pretty cool stuff as he could stay at the bottom for 3-4 hours! (you can see more images of the IGARA wreck from DrMike’s website here)

The ship was at that time carrying iron ore, and part of the ship was salvaged. The salvage people blasted off part of the ship with the engine and propellor, then towed it back for salvage. The rest of the Ship lies today there. Good thing for us is that this wreck lies about on the seabed of about 42 metres, so its quite assessible to divers. Another good thing is that not many dive groups can go to this site to dive (due to some marine legal mumbo jumbo, only our White Manta boat could get there without incuring trouble), means its marine life is still relatively nice and untouched.

On our second dive on the wreck, we went to the stern of the ship, and there were plenty of fishes there. A whole school of Barracudas swam past us, and not only that, they circled around us for quite awhile. A School of Trevally also joined in… It was truly a surreal experience!! Too bad, none of us had any cameras… Hai, but its gonna stay here in my 486 memory chip!

Coming up from the 2nd dive, many of us blessed the fishes with our breakfast, all chewed and semi-digested. Including yours truly! haha!, but it really felt much better after hurling my breakfast! hahah! The water was just too choppy!

We did drift diving for our 3rd dive, and currents were really strong. This was the boulder that stuck out of the sea, and had lots of gulls and swallows flying around! (really quite an interesting sight) We did our drift dive here!! We saw lots of fan corals, some really big ones.

Of course we did a lot of relaxing and fun on board the White Manta, here are some shots of us (daryl) fooling around!

Us on the makan area just chatting

Us on Sundeck of boat

Here’s a cool shot of PKK, taken using a special camera filter to capture the sun. (Filter name: Okly510 filter, commonly known as Oakley Shades!! Heh heh!)

Sexy legs and choppy waves

We ended the day with our Night dive. Saw a sea turtle asleep under some corals! Really cool. Vince Q took a nice shot of it, Will share some of it here once he’s uploaded it! Also got to see cute little shrimp and a pair of Scorpionfish.

More shots will be uploaded at my multiply site

We’ve been planning this trip for some time, and I’d say Kudos to Mr Ku and Mr Lam for organizing the trip. It sure took lots of emails and smses to get everyone coordinated, and finally, we met at the Tanah Merah Jetty to set off to Batam to the Nongsa Puri Marina, where the White Manta awaits.

Joining us on the trip, we had CheeXiong (seen here eating Roti John), my dive buddy on the last dive trip in Aur. He’s our super last minute inclusion for this dive trip!!!

Also there’s Ah Fook, ready to tuck into his Ba Chor Mee!!

The Regular folks, Seby, Daryl were there too, and we had two more mature gentlemen with us! (Vince Q and PKK). There was also Chelsia (somehow I think I got the spelling wrong), the only lady who joined us in our group!

We got there and took a minibus to the boat, check out Daryl’s ever so “glam” supermodel smile!

Here’s a picture of the dive boat, in the night, It was the only boat lit up in the marina. A super cool boat!!
My apologies if the pictures seem blurry here, coz the platform was really rocking up and down from the waves!

This is one shot of us in our aircon cabin. WHoo Hooo!

Just before settling into bed… supper was served!!! Seby loves food!!

And finally…. sleep… however “supermodel” we may look….

Its Matriculation day!

Went down on Sat afternoon to NUS to collect my stuff from the department. Officially I’m a student AGAIN!!
Yippee!! Got my matric card too!!! Here’s a look at it, heck, I’ve scanned in my old matric card for comparison (its an antique!!)

(HAHA!! Long hair Centre-parting!!)

School starts in August, and I’ll be doing my Post Grad in Financial Engineering, if you’re wondering what in the world this course is… Its a combination of Mathematics, Finance, Statistics and Computing! What a hodgepodge of a course is this!?!? Well, demand for such a skill set is on the increase and this is one area that I’m really keen to grow and learn, hopefully I would enjoy the course and that my training in engineering as an undergrad would help in the more mathematical modules!.

Met a few folks who will be my future course mates and we hit off pretty well, do hope to get to know more people there, I’m pretty sure there will be lots of ministry opportunities back here in school. Really reminds me of undergrad days of VCF!

Somehow, being back in school just feels so different. I’m excited to WANT to learn… that’s pretty odd considering that I’ve never been really serious about my modules as an undergrad. Used to skip lectures ever so often, and the only learning comes in the mugging 2 weeks prior to exams, I really wonder how I managed to pass my modules!! But looking back, I do believe that interest plays a part in helping you want to learn. (guess I just went with the mass-govt-indoctrinated-herd to go into engineering. It seems that the default choice of the JC Science Faculty was Engineering. And today… its Life Science.. To you younger folks, go find out what you’re passionate about, ok? Don’t just go by default.)

Well, I really hope I can cope with all these extras. Hope and pray that I don’t compromise on my time with God, or ministry.

Had a great thursday afternoon swim with a whole bunch of brothers at NUS. Well we wanna stay and keep healthy and so we decided to swim regularly each week. Well, it was almost all brothers, YauChung’s colleague joined us for swim too.. and…. outswam all us guys, Yikes!

After the swim, I got to hang out with Linyi, Wern and Tze. At Wern and Tze’s place, I finally got my hands on something I wanted to try out. The OSIM PRO THERAPIST!! You know its the thing you see in the TV ads, where these shapely models stick some pads on their tummy and they pass some volts to the muscles causing it to contract. Its of course touted to make you have rock solid abs or whatever you’ve got hidded beneath that layer of lipids!

Here’s how it looks like!

Well, Linyi and myself managed to have a go at it… and the effects were… you can say different.
The pads were placed on the stomach and you have this control pad where you can choose the voltage and current being “zapped” to your muscles. Its quite cool coz you actually feel your muscles tensing and then relaxing. At times I could really feel my stomach muscles trembling vigourously but when I looked at my stomach, I actually saw no movements whatsoever!… I could feel nothing either with my hands… but I could sense the muscles moving?!?!

Then Linyi had a go at it… His stomach moved and his muscles trembled. And it was visible!

Enough said, I know the reason why I could not see any visible trembling or movement….
There’s sufficient “padding” to cushion any vibration. In engineering terms… the damping is good lah… Heh heh… Oh well, it has its use too… otherwise how can I float and swim better than the other guys at the pool??

Anyway, bible says… The fats belong to the Lord!!

Managed to catch YC in the week over a drink, and we spoke about lots of things in the CG, in our lives, what we observed, our Personal time with God. It’s really great to have a brother who’s a kindred spirit to share, encourage and spur each other in this pilgrimage. The conversation meandered into the area of obedience. And it brought to mind something that PCK (Pastor Chung Kai, haha, not the yellow boots one) shared with me few years back.

He shared a little hypothesis, which I feel to some extent is rather true.

I’m sure most of us are familiar with IQ - Inteligeance quotient (can see I don’t have much, can’t spell). And recently Emotional Quotient - EQ for short. PCK introduced something he termed the OQ, which is the obedience quotient.

Many of us can quite clearly recall our walk with the Lord when we first became Christians. As new believers in the faith, we sense the intense presence of God in our lives and the leading of the Holy Spirit is so clear and intimate. But as time goes on, we start to feel the distance in our walk with God. Sometimes God feels so far away. So why is that so? Some folks say its natural and it happens. Some say that in the beginning of our journey with Him, we lack faith, so He guides us closely through experience. Some say…

Well, this is PCK’s hypothesis… We all have OQ. You can see OQ like a glass flask, like that of a measuring cylinder (the ones we used in sec sch science labs). As New believers, our knowledge of God’s word (which is the top/brim of the flask) is at a certain level (say 20cm). And because our knowledge is low, its easy to obey, and so we score quite high in our OQ. So the OQ level in the flask is say 19cm. And so because our obedience quotient is rather high, we have not grieved God’s spirit, and thus feel the intimacy. (Here, I’m risking a debates over the christian experience, whether its impt or should we focus on it blah blah, but lets just leave it for another day)

Now… fast forward few years, we grow in knowledge of God’s word. But our obedience level hardly keeps up. So now, the flask looks like this. A super tall measuring cylinder of height 150cm. But sadly, the OQ level measures only at 55cm. And so, we have a lot of knowledge, but we are just not obeying what God has spoken in His word, and so we feel distant from God’s Spirit.

What I’m not saying here is that we should keep our OQ high by having low knowledge of God’s word. THAT’S missing the point. The point in this is let’s start to OBEY. Let’s DO what God is saying to us today in His Word.

Well, this is what scripture has to say about OQ…

He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” Luke 11:28

Lord, help me to start obeying. Amen.

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

This hymn means so much to me.
Looking back on the various trials that I’ve gone through, this hymn has been a constant companion. When situations are grim and tough, the richness of the hymn brings me back to my position in Christ. Somehow it expresses my deepest and most heartfelt convictions. I would love to have this hymn sung at my own memorial service..

Father,
Thank you for the richness of hymns as such. Its easy for me to sway away, be bought over by temporal glitter and riches of this world. So easy for me to get disheartened, for me to lose heart in times of trouble. But my prayer is that You be my Vision, ever be my Vision. Capture my heart, O Lord of my heart. Amen.

Sorry folks, this is an insider joke that only divers would understand, nonetheless, some parts are still funny. For you divers… heh heh, better check if your buddy shows signs of these… Number 4 is hilarious!!

10) You have to lend him weight so he can get under.

9) He keeps calling his scuba cylinder an “oxygen tank”.

8) When he asks you to share air, he uses your snorkel.

7) He fills out a dive log entry for every pool session.

6) He plays victim in your rescue course, but he isn’t playing.

5) He says, “Just yawn to decompress, like on an airplane”.

4) He takes out his knife when you give the sign that you are out of air.

3) He suggests doing your last check-out dive right away — since your flight doesn’t leave for another 2 hours.

2) His new dive computer is a Palm Pilot.

1) You ask him what he thinks about nitrox and he says, “Aaah, all that wrestling crap is fake”!