1 Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.
3 The voice of the LORD is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.
4 The voice of the LORD is powerful;
the voice of the LORD is majestic.
5 The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars;
the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
6 He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,
Sirion like a young wild ox.
7 The voice of the LORD strikes
with flashes of lightning.
8 The voice of the LORD shakes the desert;
the LORD shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
9 The voice of the LORD twists the oaks
and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, "Glory!"
10 The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD is enthroned as King forever.
11 The LORD gives strength to his people;
the LORD blesses his people with peace.
(NIV)
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Making Sense of Pain
How do you make sense of this great catastrophe? It is so devastating. So much grief. My mind can barely register the rising death toll that seem endless. I think my mind is still in a state of shock at the extent of the damage. Just imagine, thousands have gone to an eternity without God overnight. Words seem to fail to express the loss and I can only pray 'Have mercy, O Lord'. We fear the worse is not over. With almost zero resources, survivors have little to help them stay alive. Even if they have enough clean water, can they make it through the feared diseases?
How can I help? How can I make a difference? My fear is that my only contribution is to watch the news and follow it because it's the in-thing, then walk away unmoved. Or if moved, do absolutely nothing about it. Slowly my heart will grow hard because it needs to de-sensitise to these constant bombardments by the media; there's a limit to how much one can take. I need to pray. That's the least I can do. Give towards the Disaster Fund. I'd like to go and offer help if I can do something to relief this pain in a small measure.
However despite the senseless pain, I was reminded at prayer meeting tonight that God is holy and worthy of worship. In the midst of all the sadness, I tell myself that this has been foretold by the Lord. I know one day all these will come to an end. He will return and bring an end to all these wickedness and destruction. My duty in the mean time is to share the gospel with as many as I can because I know the time is short. Much too short.
How can I help? How can I make a difference? My fear is that my only contribution is to watch the news and follow it because it's the in-thing, then walk away unmoved. Or if moved, do absolutely nothing about it. Slowly my heart will grow hard because it needs to de-sensitise to these constant bombardments by the media; there's a limit to how much one can take. I need to pray. That's the least I can do. Give towards the Disaster Fund. I'd like to go and offer help if I can do something to relief this pain in a small measure.
However despite the senseless pain, I was reminded at prayer meeting tonight that God is holy and worthy of worship. In the midst of all the sadness, I tell myself that this has been foretold by the Lord. I know one day all these will come to an end. He will return and bring an end to all these wickedness and destruction. My duty in the mean time is to share the gospel with as many as I can because I know the time is short. Much too short.
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Mixed Feelings
It's Boxing Day. Finally opened up all my Christmas gifts. Thank God for friends and family members. 2004 has been a pretty good year with a high learning curve for a young pastor. Somehow I noticed that I am most happy when I have a high learning curve. It's a pretty consistent pattern. Am grateful for opportunities to touch lives and be a channel of grace for Him, albeit a pale shadow of the Real Thing. There is still lots of room for improvement and I look forward to another year to learn more about Him. Learning to respond to His redeeming work in my life; to better reflect Him, to appreciate the people that He allows to cross my path; to depend on Him and trust Him.
At the moment I'm watching the breaking news of the worst earthquake in the world to hit in the past 40 years. 8.9 on the Richter scale from Sumetra! Tsunamis arising from it have hit and caused havoc in the region all the way to India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Yet we, who are just a stone's throw away from the epicenter, are relatively spared, except for parts of Penang and Langkawi. This is another testimony of the grace of God upon this nation. With thousands dead and death toll still rising, it has cast a shadow on this year's Christmas, resulting in mixed feelings.
At the moment I'm watching the breaking news of the worst earthquake in the world to hit in the past 40 years. 8.9 on the Richter scale from Sumetra! Tsunamis arising from it have hit and caused havoc in the region all the way to India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Yet we, who are just a stone's throw away from the epicenter, are relatively spared, except for parts of Penang and Langkawi. This is another testimony of the grace of God upon this nation. With thousands dead and death toll still rising, it has cast a shadow on this year's Christmas, resulting in mixed feelings.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Penny for your thoughts - pen it!
One reason I started blogging was because I enjoy writing but am not ready to write anything worth publishing. I can't help to wonder if it's just me or are there people out there who feels the same. I love reading and books - simply love buying them and wish I have all the time in the world to read them! That's probably where I got the idea of writing and tell people that I'd like to try my hand as a food jounalist or write reviews on F&B outlets when I retire! When I shared this idea about writing with a friend, we both agreed we'd love to write but couldn't think of any subject for me to write about. I guess this is because while there are a lot of things that interest me, I can't pinpoint any particular field I consider myself to be an expert.
This Christmas I received a gift from a friend. He is an aspiring writer and has come together with a few friends who call themselves the The Write Company. They meet up regularly to encourage and share their lives with one another as they pursue their dream to be writers. They've recently produced a collection of excerpts of their writings to give the public a first taste of their work. Birds of the same feather flock together the saying goes... It is funny how people who share the same passion will find each other out and we tend to be drawn towards like-minded folks.
My blog entries are mostly submitted at the wee hours of the morning, including this one. I wish I had more time to do this but those seem to be the only times I can find to do so. That's not exactly the most conducive time for me to exercise my creative writing skills but as my friend always remind me, we hardly ever operate under ideal conditions. This will have to do for now. I am enjoying every bit of it including the part of picking up some basic html commands along the way.
This Christmas I received a gift from a friend. He is an aspiring writer and has come together with a few friends who call themselves the The Write Company. They meet up regularly to encourage and share their lives with one another as they pursue their dream to be writers. They've recently produced a collection of excerpts of their writings to give the public a first taste of their work. Birds of the same feather flock together the saying goes... It is funny how people who share the same passion will find each other out and we tend to be drawn towards like-minded folks.
My blog entries are mostly submitted at the wee hours of the morning, including this one. I wish I had more time to do this but those seem to be the only times I can find to do so. That's not exactly the most conducive time for me to exercise my creative writing skills but as my friend always remind me, we hardly ever operate under ideal conditions. This will have to do for now. I am enjoying every bit of it including the part of picking up some basic html commands along the way.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Fatal Attraction
What are some things that keep you awake at night? For me, that's a mystery. I've learned not to battle for sleep, or you may say, I've given up the fight. If it comes, great; if it doesn't, life goes on.
The title of this blog entry stems from something that is close to my heart. As a pastor and friend to many young adults (and a young adult myself), I know many struggle with this issue of attraction. No thanks to the media, we are made to believe that attraction equals to love. Thus if you feel attracted to someone, you should 'pursue' the person. Some of us may, on a good day, stop to evaluate the basis of the attraction, which could range from physical appeal to positive character traits. The truth is sometimes we can't even explain it because more often than not, attraction is a sensual matter, ie. it is something picked up by our senses, rather than a rational one. What usually happens for some is we get attracted first, then try to understand why certain people attract us, rather than going around with our radars to see who is 'worthy' of our attraction. Well, perhaps I'm just speaking for myself.
Attraction is a very important factor for any relationship to begin in the first place because we don't fall in love without attraction. Falling in love itself is a matter of the heart, rather than the head. However that is not a reason to exclude the head altogether as attraction should not be the sole basis for pursuing a relationship. This is especially true if the source of attraction is temporal, for example like how good a guy looks when he flips his long hair back in the wind.... most of the factors in this combination are transcient!
How many times have I been told that falling in love itself is not to be confused with love? If we love merely on the basis of attraction, which could be dependent on transcient factors, then it is not surprising that such love would be equally temporal. Thus I need to differentiate between attraction and love. It's sounds simple enough on paper but often, the heart rules in such matters and the head is ignored. I like to think (and suspect I'm not alone in this) that this sort of silly attraction only happens to young teenagers. However to my dismay, that's hardly the case. Attraction happens all the time, sometimes it hits us unexpectantly, other times it gradually grows on us, without us realising it.
I believe attraction is a good thing; a God-designed good thing. However He's also taught me to guard my heart, that is to watch what my heart gets attracted to. Yes, it is not always within my control but if the subject of attraction is not a godly relationship that I should pursue, then I have to exercise self-control on how the attraction develops. Being attracted to someone is not a sin but if I dwell on it or even just allow things to take its course, then I'm being reckless of how it can eventually lead to sin. He's laid down principles for the basis of pursuing a relationship and that's what I should use for evaluating the subject of my attraction. Attraction and matters of the heart are not always something easy to control, but that does not mean they have to lead to fatal results.
The title of this blog entry stems from something that is close to my heart. As a pastor and friend to many young adults (and a young adult myself), I know many struggle with this issue of attraction. No thanks to the media, we are made to believe that attraction equals to love. Thus if you feel attracted to someone, you should 'pursue' the person. Some of us may, on a good day, stop to evaluate the basis of the attraction, which could range from physical appeal to positive character traits. The truth is sometimes we can't even explain it because more often than not, attraction is a sensual matter, ie. it is something picked up by our senses, rather than a rational one. What usually happens for some is we get attracted first, then try to understand why certain people attract us, rather than going around with our radars to see who is 'worthy' of our attraction. Well, perhaps I'm just speaking for myself.
Attraction is a very important factor for any relationship to begin in the first place because we don't fall in love without attraction. Falling in love itself is a matter of the heart, rather than the head. However that is not a reason to exclude the head altogether as attraction should not be the sole basis for pursuing a relationship. This is especially true if the source of attraction is temporal, for example like how good a guy looks when he flips his long hair back in the wind.... most of the factors in this combination are transcient!
How many times have I been told that falling in love itself is not to be confused with love? If we love merely on the basis of attraction, which could be dependent on transcient factors, then it is not surprising that such love would be equally temporal. Thus I need to differentiate between attraction and love. It's sounds simple enough on paper but often, the heart rules in such matters and the head is ignored. I like to think (and suspect I'm not alone in this) that this sort of silly attraction only happens to young teenagers. However to my dismay, that's hardly the case. Attraction happens all the time, sometimes it hits us unexpectantly, other times it gradually grows on us, without us realising it.
I believe attraction is a good thing; a God-designed good thing. However He's also taught me to guard my heart, that is to watch what my heart gets attracted to. Yes, it is not always within my control but if the subject of attraction is not a godly relationship that I should pursue, then I have to exercise self-control on how the attraction develops. Being attracted to someone is not a sin but if I dwell on it or even just allow things to take its course, then I'm being reckless of how it can eventually lead to sin. He's laid down principles for the basis of pursuing a relationship and that's what I should use for evaluating the subject of my attraction. Attraction and matters of the heart are not always something easy to control, but that does not mean they have to lead to fatal results.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Getting to know me
This is the result from a Job Personality Profile Test that I took. Gives a little insight about the kind of person I am. I agree with some parts but not so sure about others. That's alright because these test results are never determinative but merely descriptive. It's not meant to be used as a label and definitely not as an excuse for a pattern of behaviour, especially if it is a misbehaviour!
It's fun. Have a go at it yourself. Would be thrilled if you care to share the results with me.
Job Personality Profile Test
Summary
Cheryl Wong, your responses indicate that you are very outgoing, warm and friendly in a non-aggressive manner. While you are remarkably good at influencing people to adopt your viewpoint, you also rely strongly upon your motivational ability to urge people into action. Although you prefer that other people delegate authority and detail work, you enjoy developing people if given the opportunity. Your high sense of urgency excites desire for a great deal of variety in your life. You show commitment to supporting organizational standards and structure.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Communication Style
Cheryl Wong, you have strong social skills and are excellent at quickly establishing rapport. You enjoy talking to people and do so with enthusiasm and spontaneity. Your style of fast, lively expression is both engaging and effective. You are a fluent speaker who expresses thoughts quickly, optimistically, and persuasively.
Also, Cheryl Wong, you express urgency when relating with people. You like fast paced exchanges and, at times, your tone may be impatient.
You enjoy talking and can put people at ease. You use a fun, indirect style of communication. You are people-oriented and can easily relate with another person's point of view.
Cheryl Wong, you are a natural team player. You readily delegate authority, and you embrace training. You do not care to be involved with too many technical details. You let others set game plans, priorities and time frames.
You function well when you are allowed a lot of people-interaction. You would rather talk about details than write them down. You enjoy being the focus of attention.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leadership Style : Persuasive
You perform your leadership role by using your excellent ability to interpret people's actions and dialogue, and then by persuading them to do things your way. You like to build team spirit and rely upon team decisions. You develop your subordinates, and you delegate both authority and details. You actively promote change and like to find new ways of reaching goals.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conscientiousness
Your personal style tends to be somewhat easy-going and relaxed. You do your best work on tasks that you enjoy, but you may be able to sustain an adequate degree of effort when it comes to essential tasks. You may or may not be concerned about extremely high levels of achievement. You like to maintain a balance between work and relaxation. You may apply positive motivation for consensus-building work activities, but maintaining focus on bottom-line results may be a challenge for you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Motivational Needs
Cheryl Wong, you tend to be motivated by a great deal of interaction with people, and by identifying with a prestigious organization with a good public image. You desire opportunities to make more money for yourself, or to improve your status within the organization. You are motivated by praise, public recognition, and by acceptance. You are most productive when working as a team player, and when you are liked by others.
You tend to be demotivated if your territory or opportunity is reduced in size, or if you are not allowed a significant amount of people-interaction or teamwork. Insufficient recognition from management and/or peers can also affect your motivation. You can be demotivated by a perception of not being personally liked, and by not being invited to meetings with peers.
Primary Motivators
• A lot of interaction with people.
• Meeting new people and making friends.
• Opportunities to make more money and improve status.
• Being a team player within the organization.
• Praise and public recognition.
• Identifying with an organization that has prestige and a good public image.
• Awareness of what is going on in the organization.
• Acceptance and being liked by others.
Primary Demotivators
• You perceive you are not liked.
• You are not invited into meetings with your peers.
• Your territory, (opportunity) is reduced in size.
• You feel you are not part of the team.
• You do not have enough people contact.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emotional Intelligence
Cheryl Wong, your responses indicate that you tend to recognize your own emotions, moods, and drives as they occur. Furthermore, you are aware of the impact of your emotions on others. You display appropriate self-confidence and perform accurate self-appraisals of your talents and abilities.
It's fun. Have a go at it yourself. Would be thrilled if you care to share the results with me.
Job Personality Profile Test
Summary
Cheryl Wong, your responses indicate that you are very outgoing, warm and friendly in a non-aggressive manner. While you are remarkably good at influencing people to adopt your viewpoint, you also rely strongly upon your motivational ability to urge people into action. Although you prefer that other people delegate authority and detail work, you enjoy developing people if given the opportunity. Your high sense of urgency excites desire for a great deal of variety in your life. You show commitment to supporting organizational standards and structure.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Communication Style
Cheryl Wong, you have strong social skills and are excellent at quickly establishing rapport. You enjoy talking to people and do so with enthusiasm and spontaneity. Your style of fast, lively expression is both engaging and effective. You are a fluent speaker who expresses thoughts quickly, optimistically, and persuasively.
Also, Cheryl Wong, you express urgency when relating with people. You like fast paced exchanges and, at times, your tone may be impatient.
You enjoy talking and can put people at ease. You use a fun, indirect style of communication. You are people-oriented and can easily relate with another person's point of view.
Cheryl Wong, you are a natural team player. You readily delegate authority, and you embrace training. You do not care to be involved with too many technical details. You let others set game plans, priorities and time frames.
You function well when you are allowed a lot of people-interaction. You would rather talk about details than write them down. You enjoy being the focus of attention.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leadership Style : Persuasive
You perform your leadership role by using your excellent ability to interpret people's actions and dialogue, and then by persuading them to do things your way. You like to build team spirit and rely upon team decisions. You develop your subordinates, and you delegate both authority and details. You actively promote change and like to find new ways of reaching goals.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conscientiousness
Your personal style tends to be somewhat easy-going and relaxed. You do your best work on tasks that you enjoy, but you may be able to sustain an adequate degree of effort when it comes to essential tasks. You may or may not be concerned about extremely high levels of achievement. You like to maintain a balance between work and relaxation. You may apply positive motivation for consensus-building work activities, but maintaining focus on bottom-line results may be a challenge for you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Motivational Needs
Cheryl Wong, you tend to be motivated by a great deal of interaction with people, and by identifying with a prestigious organization with a good public image. You desire opportunities to make more money for yourself, or to improve your status within the organization. You are motivated by praise, public recognition, and by acceptance. You are most productive when working as a team player, and when you are liked by others.
You tend to be demotivated if your territory or opportunity is reduced in size, or if you are not allowed a significant amount of people-interaction or teamwork. Insufficient recognition from management and/or peers can also affect your motivation. You can be demotivated by a perception of not being personally liked, and by not being invited to meetings with peers.
Primary Motivators
• A lot of interaction with people.
• Meeting new people and making friends.
• Opportunities to make more money and improve status.
• Being a team player within the organization.
• Praise and public recognition.
• Identifying with an organization that has prestige and a good public image.
• Awareness of what is going on in the organization.
• Acceptance and being liked by others.
Primary Demotivators
• You perceive you are not liked.
• You are not invited into meetings with your peers.
• Your territory, (opportunity) is reduced in size.
• You feel you are not part of the team.
• You do not have enough people contact.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emotional Intelligence
Cheryl Wong, your responses indicate that you tend to recognize your own emotions, moods, and drives as they occur. Furthermore, you are aware of the impact of your emotions on others. You display appropriate self-confidence and perform accurate self-appraisals of your talents and abilities.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
I'm-patient
Patience seems to be a virtue that always elude me. I like to be accurate, right, effective, etc (revealing the choleric side of me). But more than all those, I like to be fast! My greatest challenge in doing well in Maths when I was younger was simply due to the fact that I was too impatient to check through my work. It's not as funny as it sounds since I've lost many precious marks for making careless mistakes! I have learned through the years how costly my impatience could be.
It takes discipline to stop myself from getting caught up in the fast-moving pace of life around me, without me speeding things up even more. My impatient nature is also reflected in my impatience with myself. I hate making mistakes (streaks of perfectionism) and can be very hard on myself when I do or when I feel I am not learning as fast I would like to. I look around me and tend to compare myself with the experts and those who've been around for much longer than I - then subtly tell myself, if they can do it, I can do it too and better, NOW!?!
It's this drivenness that I need to watch out for because I know life and nature has its own course of time. It's unreasonable to stand in front of a child and get impatient with him because he isn't growing up fast enough - by my standard and for my pace! I am learning that I need to give people room and space to grow, recognising that God is at work (usually not at my desired pace). There are times when I think they can do better but that doesn't give me a right to tell them off when they're not living up to their potential, or worse still, my expectations. Impatience and sarcasm is a lethal combination, and under absolutely no condition am I ever justified to use sarcasm to tear my brother down. God is at work and if He is not complaining, who am I to think I know any better? People do not intentionally fall short of their full potential and I must not assume otherwise. Grace is giving them the benefit of the doubt that they tried the best they can for that occasion. One thing I know I should do but don't do often enough, is to acknowledge and appreciate others for their efforts. Instead I am ever so quick to point out how far they missed the mark, as if they don't already know! I've seen how encouragement can help my friends gain confidence and believe in their own potential, that they would be willing to try again even after a 'fall'. However I have to be careful not to use encouragement as a subtle form of manipulation or pressure to make others perform! It's a fine line sometimes but I think people can sense when we genuinely believe in them and their full potential, yet accept them as they are!
Grace is really love in action. I'm constantly looking out to see what grace would look like under different circumstances.
It takes discipline to stop myself from getting caught up in the fast-moving pace of life around me, without me speeding things up even more. My impatient nature is also reflected in my impatience with myself. I hate making mistakes (streaks of perfectionism) and can be very hard on myself when I do or when I feel I am not learning as fast I would like to. I look around me and tend to compare myself with the experts and those who've been around for much longer than I - then subtly tell myself, if they can do it, I can do it too and better, NOW!?!
It's this drivenness that I need to watch out for because I know life and nature has its own course of time. It's unreasonable to stand in front of a child and get impatient with him because he isn't growing up fast enough - by my standard and for my pace! I am learning that I need to give people room and space to grow, recognising that God is at work (usually not at my desired pace). There are times when I think they can do better but that doesn't give me a right to tell them off when they're not living up to their potential, or worse still, my expectations. Impatience and sarcasm is a lethal combination, and under absolutely no condition am I ever justified to use sarcasm to tear my brother down. God is at work and if He is not complaining, who am I to think I know any better? People do not intentionally fall short of their full potential and I must not assume otherwise. Grace is giving them the benefit of the doubt that they tried the best they can for that occasion. One thing I know I should do but don't do often enough, is to acknowledge and appreciate others for their efforts. Instead I am ever so quick to point out how far they missed the mark, as if they don't already know! I've seen how encouragement can help my friends gain confidence and believe in their own potential, that they would be willing to try again even after a 'fall'. However I have to be careful not to use encouragement as a subtle form of manipulation or pressure to make others perform! It's a fine line sometimes but I think people can sense when we genuinely believe in them and their full potential, yet accept them as they are!
Grace is really love in action. I'm constantly looking out to see what grace would look like under different circumstances.
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