Finding Satisfaction in life : which road are you on?

I went out for a supper in the Potong Pasir Area earlier on with my girlfriend and her younger brother.

Over the bowl of delicious 大排骨虾面 in a busy smokey coffeeshop, we eat, drink and talk. My gf's brother, Ry , asked me a question that I once asked myself too when I was just starting out my adult life.

" How do I make more money?" Ry asked.

I replied: " How much is 'more' for you?"

"$5000 passive income" he shot quickly.

"Well, I guess you could buy a few property and rent them out then : ) " I answered rather wishfully.

The question behind the question is generally always: How can I find more satisfaction and meaning to life ??
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Thousands of years ago, the book of Ecclesiastes informs us that King Solomon, the smartest, richest, have-it-all King of Israel , that he " devoted himself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven" (Ecc 1:13), as he searches for an answer to satisfaction in life. He sought in all his power by doing things which he thought would help him find enlightenment, enrichment and enjoyment. At each end however, he came to the conclusion that everything is meaningless and is just like chasing after the wind. (try using your hand to catch wind, you catch nothing : P)

If you simply summarise Solomon's search, I would say whether we are chasing after riches or pleasure or wisdom, we are merely chasing after the wind, its a futile attempt.

Ps Benny Ho termed this as a Under the Sun perspective, where we will all kinda simply eat , drink and be merry on a daily basis.

My search for satisfaction
When I was just entering into adulthood in my early 20s, I went through the process of :

1. Seeking wealth -I assumed then that the more money I have, the bigger my house, the faster the car I drive, and the more beautiful a girlfriend I may attract . . lolz (but thank God, w/o the pre-requsites, i still have a most beautiful gf : ). And one could see that I am pretty serious about it, a look at the library of books that i owned and most of them teach about financial independence. (At least I attempt to study it!) I too, want to be RICH.

2. Seeking enlightenment , meaning of life- and in all futility, I actually believe that doing noble things such as doing social work will somehow bring satisfaction and meaning to my life.

Looking at my calendar back then, I must have somehow concluded that I will be immensely happy if I do a lot of charity work. Why? Life must be lived helping others, or there would be no meaning! Or so I thought...

My first full time day job was in the social services. Outside work, I involved myself in various volunteering work in children home, grassroot work, youth home, church's nursery. My weekly schedule was always packed to the full! This went on for more than a year or two till God put it to a stop for me.

So if you asked me whether doing charity works or helping the poor and needy helps one find meaning and satisfaction to life. Well, I probably would be a good person to ask.

My answer? Well, I can't help but also concurred with King Solomon that with this under-the-sun, eat drink and be merry mentality, i will indeed find myself chasing after the wind. Yes, everything is meaningless if we see life this way, no matter what noble things we might be involved in...

Like everything under the sun, whether we are millionaires or find ourselves eating air, we all will one day die n pass on from this earth, isn't that true? The road to enlightenment, enjoyment, and enrichment all but leads to the road of futility. Whether its your bones or my bones, it will all turn into ashes one day.

Get on the road to eternity

But thanks be to God, Jesus has come and gives us true satisfaction for He promised us from John 4:13-14 : ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life’”

Eversince I accepted Jesus into my life, I never have to thrist(find satisfaction) again, for I have found my answers and God has been faithful in providing and caring for all my needs.

When I start to see things from an eternal life perspective, I begin to do things with an everlasting purpose , and become more conscious on building on things that will last and not rust.

The conclusion of the matter: The question is not on how much money we have or how many people we have help, the real question is which road are we on?

Are we on a road to find enlightenment, enrichment, and/or enjoyment?

Or are we on the road to eternity?

God promised once we are on the right road and have the right right kingdom atidtude, all these things will be added to us. Read Matthew 6:33 : )

Somebody shout Amen!

Me, Offended?

As Jesus was sitting on Mount Olives, his disciples asked him what will the signs of the end of ages be, and Jesus went on in Matthew 24 to elaborate on it and from v10-24, the Lord showed us one of them:

In the NKJV version, its says:

"And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved." v 10-13

So who are the 'many' who will be offended?

In his book "The Bait of Satan" , John Bevere explained that in the bible, the Greek word for love in the above passage is agape. another commonly found word will be phileo defines a love found among friends, while agape describe God's unconditional love for His children (think Jesus)

So the "many " Jesus was refering to are beliver's whose agape love has grown cold.

Me, Offended?
Recently, I have an experience of being offended by someone from the body of Christ. Of cos, whether its a factual offence, or its a assumed offence , well it doesn't matter.. because I know I have been offended because I know I am hurt, disappointed, frustrated...etc etc...

It's a"Wah Lao, why do until like this" kind of feeeling.. argggh..

The higher the expectation , the higher the disappointment bah

John Bevere shared that most likely when we are hurt, we are hurt by people who are close to us and who matters to us...

how true isn't it?

i figured, if one were to keep record of the number of times someone caused you to feel offended, and we keep track of who they are. I believer most likley, our family members will rank top, be it parents or sibling or loved ones or the so called best friends that when young, we are seemed to have one best buddy who did something 'offending' and there goes the relationship.

It's process of refining, molding
1 Peter 1:6-7 tells us this (NIV) :

"6In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."

It's time where alot of fleshly "fruits" were surfaced in my life: anger, strife, unforgiveness, eetc...

Walls of protection or bars or captivity?
Our ancestors builds walls in their cities to keep out their enemies who had fight wars and hurt them before. Likewise, with my hurting experiences, I build up wall so thick and high, that was unpredented.

Call it isolation. Call it self-defense. Call it a wounded man walking in a offended heart trying to prevent himself being hurt anymore by building up that wall to protect himself.

No crossing pls.

the love. the agape. where is it? its froze up somewhere.

I realised though, i may have suceeded in portecting myself, but i have also make myself a captive behind the walls of bar . how funni

God's way : Sow love, the agape one.
Galatian:6:7-10 :

"7Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."

John Bevere shared that God once told him that he needs to develop faith in the love of God. As he prayed, God shared that we need to sow in the love of God , and we will reap the love of God. (Re-read God's spiritual law in the above scripture!)

Though the harvest may not come in the field that was sowed, or it may not come quickly. But is God a God who withhold his promises ???

Let's believe by faith that God will honor his promises in this spiritual law:

We will reap a harvest in the agape love of God, when we sow in the agape love of God.

Just think to the time when Jesus was being tortured mercilessily and crucified on the cross, he chose to sow the agape love by forgiving unconditionally the people who did it to him.

And from then, we see the harvest of love were reaped when generation after generation of people came to receive of the Lord's agape love.

This is a the most priceless harvest, just because of what our Lord Jesus chose to do in the face of massive offence:

To sow his agape love to those who don't love him.

And this truth just helps me to be freed to love others the agape way.

Amen!

to be cont'd...

I was reminded

I was reminded by the Lord the reason I am in the BB - to serve my leader and to plant cell.

My cell leader went on a Sabbathical rest this year and I was tasked to take on a acting role to help administer the coy. And it has been a whirlwind of admin work and management eversince.

Running the coy
Lots of my thought space were occupied with the admin part, and 99% of them are things I have never done before, and thus much of my action in part went towards making sure I learn the ropes well and not falter. The stress of it really adds on as its a Gold awardee company. It means that the running of the coy is tightly scrutinized by the HQ in terms of the various categories it has lay out in assessing a company's performance.

As its a niche area for the school, getting a sustained Gold award for a CCA uniformed group is a crucial Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to meet as it will affect fundings, resource allocation and many other stuffs.

The Personal Journey thus far
Honestly, it has been stressful for me thus far with what I have mentioned above.

But God is good. During all this, He sent experienced brothers who came in to steady the ship and together with a hardworking bunch of teachers, we actually did not a bad job. Nevertheless, much prayers are still needed to maintain the gold award as we head into a crucial last 3 months.
Relationship with the boys
If you ask me for an honest assessment, I think my relationship with the boys did not grow as much as I would have like. Lesser time was spent with them. And for their age, I think its important to spent time regularly with them to be of any influence.

Gone indeed are the days, where I would go down on a weekday to catch them with some after-school activties like drills, games and word-sharing. I missed the days where one of my bros and I regularly did it and relationship with the boys was pretty close. Well, things happened, and as time grow, it became a non-existent event.

What really matters
The other day, while resting, it just kinda dawned on me the things that really matters. I remembered really actively sharing the gospel or just simply doing a personal pray alongside thingy with the boys. I saw how God moved and lives were touched by His love.

Yet over the last half a year, I just kinda stop doing all of these that matters and turn to things that really are important in man's eyes .. And the realization of this just knocks me off .

From my perspective, I thought I probably see more man's hand that God's hand in all this. And yet, by the grace of God, I am still here writing a report on the fact that I have not depend on the Lord as much as I should.

Thank God for His mercy. I just pray that I get out of this pattern and do the things that matter more to the heart of God and depend on Him instead of me.

Thank God for seeing me through this season indeed.

Amen!

Recharged

Hi everybody,

decided not to shift this site after all. Was mystified by how come the side bar of this site was shifted to the bottom of the page. After much changing of templates, the problem still exists. Thus, I contemplated a site change.

Due to some stubborness, I checked up the blogger help page, and managed to find out that the culprit was one of my posting in August. It has a image that was too wide, thus pushing away the side bar content to the bottom of page.. talk about being IT savvy, phew..

Encouragment
at God has prompt
During my one month sabbatical writing rest, I was encouraged to receive two comment postings from strangers that googled their way into my site. They commented how that particular posting has given them some relevance to their life. I re-read the posts and was kinda amazed in what God has put in my heart to write at that point of my walk in the Lord. Praise God indeed.

I always believe in reading for new knowledge, info, and experiences from others from all sort of sources like books, newspaper, blogs, etc.. mainly to satisfy my curious being i guess.. : P.. I am therefore thankful to God that I have a personal space in this webby world that I can be a voice for Christ in such a way to a wider commumnity.

To my younger readers, I guess I have a responsibilty to write sensible matured stuff in an interesting and encouraging way. Hopefully, all this does not come out from a self -righteous position. But, prayerfully, I continue to write out of a God-given willingness and motivation, with a clear purpose to forcefully advancing His kingdom.

To my friends, I think its a fantastic way to stay in touch in more travelled world.

May the Lord anoint my fingers and thoughts as I make it a point to share more regularly.

The Lord has been good to me in my life, and will continue to be.

Hallelujah!

Keep PUSHing

A man was sleeping one night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with, and God appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin. The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might.

So, this the man did, day after day. For many years, he toiled from sunrise to sundown, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all his might.

Each night, the man returned to his cabin, sore and worn out feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain. Since the man was showing discouragement, the devil decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man’s weary mind by saying, “You have been pushing against that rock for a long time and it hasn’t moved.”

Thus, he gave the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure. These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man. Satan said, “Why kill yourself over this? Just put in your time giving just the minimum effort and that will be good enough.”

That’s what the weary man planned to do but decided to make it a matter of prayer and to take his troubled thoughts to the Lord. “Lord,” he said, “I have labored long and hard in Your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimeter. What is wrong? Why am I failing?”

The Lord responded compassionately, “My friend, when I asked you to serve Me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all of your strength, which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it.

Your task was to push. And now you come to Me with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed but, it that really so? Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back shiny and brown; your hands are callused from constant pressure, your legs have become massive and hard.

Through opposition you have grown much, and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have. True, you haven’t moved the rock but your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom. That you have done. Now I, my friend, will move the rock.”

At times, when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually what God wants is just simple – obedience and faith in Him. By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains but know that it is still God who moves the mountains.

When everything seems to go wrong - Just P.U.S.H
When the job gets you down - Just P.U.S.H
When people don’t do as you think they should - Just P.U.S.H
When your money is gone and the bills are due - Just P.U.S.H
When people just don’t understand you - Just P.U.S.H

PUSH is Pray until something happen.


Though no one can go back and make a brand new start,
anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.

---CBD PG weekly encouragement

Hallelujah!

Last Sat I brought some of my boys for a chinese drama show organised by my church called "Life No Take 2" . Acted by TCS Artistes, it was an interesting gospel play that ends with a altar call.

It was an harvest event and I was pretty excited by it and when the tickets went on sale, I went ahead by faith (not Singaporean Kiasu-ism )to buy 30 tickets in anticipating that my church mates and I will be able to combine and fill the full number.

Well, it didn't happen and I kind of only get slightly more than half the number filled. I wanted to ask my own friends to go, but I decided that I should just focus on the teens this round. So I disappointedly gave back the tickets to the church staff.

Through this , I learnt a really important lesson - don't be OVER-ambitious! haha . I pray that God will mend the holes in my pocket right away! Amen!

Still, I thank God truly for all the boys who attended, along with my gf's girls and friends. I think its probably the first time that we combined outing , and thought its a great start! Praise God and really look forward to more of such activities!

Well, every now and then I will always pray to God for encouragement in terms of harvest. And lo and behold! to my very ultra genuine surprise, during the altar call, one of my boy prayed along with the Pastor, put up his hand and went forward to receive Christ into his life for the first time!

Hallelujah!

Praise God.

I am really surprised! and obviously ENCOURAGED by the Lord! Angels rocking in heaven, can you hear them!?!?

Of cos, experience and history has tell me that this is really the beginning and my prayer for this boy is that God will bless him and show him that there is only one and one true God in Jesus and that God will keep him for eternity, that he will worship Him and Him only. In Jesus name , I pray, Amen!

To end off, I am really thankful for this fruit, because he is someone that God has put unto my heart to pray for and befriend since I started in BB and sometimes, you just feel that he is so close le, yet sometimes he seems to be drifted away, and its seems hopeless and you just feel discouraged.

But from time to time, I believe God has heard my prayer for him and that in His grace, all things are made beautiful in His time.

Let's continue to pray for our love ones, and in His time, God will pour out His love and grace upon our land abundantly from heaven. Fruits will grow where there are none, spring will burst forth, angels will rejoice greatly, and we will marvel together, the glory, the awesome glory of Jehovah God and call upon the name of Jesus.

Picture it.

Praise God!

I don't know how

I started attending our church's youth ministry leader's meeting some 2 years ago . My youth pastors has always bring across a deeper sharing of the word of God in building up my faith in the Lord.

tonight's certainly one of those time when I come away reflecting and coming away asking myself some serious question.

Qn 1 : What do I see ?
Jeremiah 1:11 "The word of the LORD came to me: "What do you see, Jeremiah?"

Pastor Eugune shared that the question behind this question is :

What do I (want to) see?

To focus, I seek to question myself that in the context of engaging the youth.

What do I want to see in the youths that I spent my time with?

Other than to see them on Saturday mornings for parades, running the program, befriending them, hanging out with them?

What else? I realised how true and important it is to know what I want to see.

And clearly, to admit : I don't clearly know!

Proverbs 11:27 " He who seeks good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it

Thus I pray that the Lord's hand be upon me to show me and to lead me into the right path in search of the answer.

And I am excited by the Lord's promise from Jeremiah 33:3 :" Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

Awesome, isn't it?

And in addition to the question of

1) " What do I (want to ) see ? "

A second question will be:

2) How do I engage the teens of this generation?

From time to time, somehow I forget that I am a leader in a sense to the boys thats the Lord has placed me with. really.. not sure why, but its to my onus that i start to really lead lead like a leader should.

but i will do good to remember the way to lead in the kingdom of God is to serve first, like what our Lord did.

Truthfully, I am at really at a lost of really how to effectively engage the teens and do I continue to do what I have always done, and what new things should I engage in ?

Questions , questions... n I need answer answers!

Awesome!

Praise God!