Looking Forward to 2014

These few months had been tough… really tough…

Lord, I’m still standing here
No, I did not disappear

My faith is still strong
but I need your strength to carry on

My pillow is soaked with tears
and I hope you hear my prayer

Please… cast away my negative thoughts
as I follow you to the cross

Christ is Enough for Me

“Sometimes it takes a good fall to really know where you stand.”

For the past one month, I realized I was allowing all my troubles and thoughts to stack up one after another. It has been very long since I feel like giving up. Last night was one of the nights that I just crashed and broke down.

To be honest, I am usually pretty good at cheering myself up; I would watch South Park, Simpsons, and How I Met Your Mother etc. to lighten my mood. However, all those shows suddenly did not work for me since about a month ago. Little did I know, I began to feel very negative and trying to think of positive things stopped working.

Back to the topic, last night, after I crashed and broke down, I called my previous connect group leader. She talked to me and told me that I must see things in a different perspective. On top of that, I must not solve every problem all together. She said that I should solve them one at the time because I’m just a 19 year-old boy and I forgot that I could lean on God and seek God for help. It was one of those conversations where I received good advice and listened to her.

This morning, I went to church feeling very tired. During worship, we sang, “Christ is enough for me – Hillsong” and the bridge goes,  “I have decided to follow Jesus. 
No turning back. 
No turning back. 

The cross before me
The world behind me. 
No turning back.
No turning back”. The song reminded me that I have Jesus, my best friend, and I should lean on Him and continue to follow Him. I told myself I am going to set plans for 2014 as it is coming soon and I should prepare myself for upcoming challenges. This is because, I believe that every time I fall, I will know where I have initially stood, so that I can continue from where I was, tell myself to be stronger and go through these tough times.

Oooops

Do you ever have songs you hear that make you sit down and think? I saw this music video before on YouTube. It was "All I Want" by Kodaline and it got me thinking... Why do people always see the character surface of the person? Worse, getting judged based on appearances.

I admit, I also judge people by the surface and don't really care how great they actually are. That's why I always tell myself to show more grace. I will try my best and put myself in their shoes to try to understand their point of view. To be honest, I find it difficult because some people just love to take advantage of others and I really can't stand it. (These people are bullcrap... oops!) I guess this is how they somehow manage to find their way into my blacklist.

However, over time some people change and I started to see goodness in them. I believe I can learn many things from them.

I really hope I can cancel out as many people out from my blacklist as possible because I'm starting to realize that anger is filling up my mind and it's getting hard to forgive some people.

Definitely, I know there are some people who are just very selfish and do not care about their friends at all… and what I'm going to do from now on is to avoid them because I don’t want to keep thinking about how they make me angry. I’m praying that my mind will be free from negative thoughts and anger and so, I am going to start changing my mindset and believe in Him.

“Funny” people, please go away. 

Something personal…

I once had two dreams which are somehow similar, but they happened during separate occasions.

When I was primary 5, my parents decided to go their separate ways. Everything was changing too much for me and I realized I couldn't handle the stress. I literally didn't talk to anyone as I was very upset. One day, I told my classmate that I was planning to end my life. (Till now, I am not proud of what I tried to do.) On that day when the school bell rang, I went to some nearby block and went up to the highest floor. I placed one leg across the parapet and stayed at the position for close to 10 minutes (I dk why). Suddenly, when I was about to lift the other leg across, a voice in my head told me not to jump. Just then, an aunty saw me, shouted from her door and called me crazy. I was shocked and decided to go home. When I reached home, I cried to my parents about the situation. Sadly, I received a scolding from my father.

After few days of crying, I dreamt of myself lying in a dark room and a person was walking towards my direction. The person's face was not very clear as it was covered with a bright light. I remember very clearly that he took my hand and gave me a warm hug. I woke up and started to cry.

My second dream was when in secondary 3. I started to become another person; I was rude to my teachers, nonchalant about life and I started to smoke. One day, I dreamt of myself in a place full of fire around me. Suddenly a huge leg, with feet like a dragon's, landed in front of me. I couldn't see the rest of the body but at the moment I somehow knew I was in hell (I don’t know why). I knelt down immediately and begged for forgiveness from God. After a few minutes of intense praying, an angel lifted me up onto a mountain. He was enormous. While he was spreading his wings I approached him and rested on his left foot. I woke up and decided to do something about my life.

Well, because of these two dreams, I was somehow convinced that I have a guardian angel watching over me. You can say that I am weird… but I will continue believing in it.

Drifted away

It has been a long time since I had posted anything as my holidays are over. I spent most of my free time resting, playing guitar or spending time with my girlfriend.

One of the things that has been bothering me this week is some people who were close to me are slowly drifting away. I know there is this saying, “people come and people go”, however, I’m sure all of us will be upset when that person who meant something to us and just drifts away.

When some people decided to stop talking or connecting with me… I will somehow put the blame on myself and think that I should have done something about it, and now it is all too late. However, when I think again, I did really try my best to maintain the relationship.

Recently, I have been having lesser and lesser conversations with this person and this person is the first person that I looked up to as a leader. Still do, in fact. Well, I hope things will be different and better soon. I’m just lost for time being…

For now, I know it’s time for me to let all my negative thoughts go, go out and start again. I know it’s not that easy but I believe I can persevere with God’s guidance.

My favourite verse

Today, I’m going to touch something religious by sharing one of my favorite verses. I apologize in advance if you are not a Christian. On top of that, if any of my sentences had offended you, I’m sorry. I’m just sharing my thought!

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. – Jeremiah 29:11

I believe that this is a very common verse from the bible. However, I think some of the Christians misunderstand this verse.

There are many Christians that like to pick out one verse from the bible and treat it like a fortune cookie. I don’t really blame them as I used to do that and this is because some verse will actually makes us feel peace in our mind. However, I believe that we should actually study the verse or the chapter and know what God actually meant.

Based on reading that verse, many people may look in a way that being Christian is all about having happiness and awesome life. And because of their thinking, when trouble come… all they are going to do is just waiting for God to do a miracle and escape.

From my point of view, the verse is telling me that in the midst of our troubles, God wants us continue with our life and do not want us stop believing in Him. Though Jeremiah 29:11 is a wonderful verse, Jesus shared with us one thing: “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, I have overcome the world” – John 16:33.

I know that we all do not want to suffer but in my previous post, I think I did mention that suffering can help us in becoming a better person. However, God do have wonderful plans for us and He will give us a wonderful life BUT we must always remind ourselves that we should face our suffering; we must continue with our lives and keep on pressing unto Him, not just wait and just believe that God will sort it out for you.

I hope you enjoyed reading this post. Don’t give up and keep on going.

Heaven is my home

What a “wonderful” Wednesday… I stayed at home the whole day and I spent my day watching “Arrow”, a TV series about Green Arrow. On top of that, my mind is still kind of filled with rage and sadness (and I still don’t know what the cause of it is. I know I am weird...) While I was watching “Arrow”, I wished that I can become some superhero and save the day. However, I know it’s impossible.

I always tell myself to think that Earth is not my home. And Earth is a place where challenges are given to me. I believe that as long I trust Him; all these challenges will help me to become a better person.  My boy brigades’ officer told me that Earth is just a temporarily place for me to serve God. And when I die, I will be on heaven for eternity.

I know I am not perfect but I will not give up in developing myself into a better person. We all make mistakes but I think that we should not look at our mistakes but to learn from it. As for now, with the remaining time I have… I would want to do things that glorify Him. 

Stupid Feelings

Lately, I'm not able to sleep as early as I want to. The reason is there are so many things in my mind but I don’t really know what exactly they are in details. There are so many mixtures of feelings in my mind, for example, paranoia, anger, sadness and many other sorts of negative thoughts. Any stuff could just pile on top of it and I don’t really know how to release it. 

In the past, I do have ways of releasing it, like boxing and smoking. I started boxing not because I want to kick someone's ass on the road but I just find it interesting and I love it. After my O levels, I have to study for my Diploma which means I do not have the money to continue so I stopped boxing. I started smoking when I was around Secondary 3. I was just doing it out of fun but I didn't realise that it became a bad habit in my life. Since then, whenever I feel stress or rage, I took out a cigarette and lit it up. I can’t explain how the feelings were able to go away but I did that to control myself. 

Two and a half months ago, I thought about wanting to stop smoking. I believe that if I stopped smoking, I will able to save up more money and afford to pay for my guitar lessons. The second thought came into my mind was God, my girlfriend, my future and the people that are close to me. That night, I still remember… I smoked my last stick and told myself that it is time for me to find a healthy way of letting out my rage and sadness. Since that night, I haven't lit up any cigarettes but sadly, I am still struggling to find a way to control my thoughts. All I know is just pray and trust Him.

Guitar

Recently, I begin to start learning guitar seriously by taking up lessons because I realised that by knowing chords only are not good enough. Hence, I want to challenge myself further and I hope one day I would able to play the guitar on a stage in front of thousands of people. To be honest, I did not pick up the guitar to pick up any chicks but actually for God. I hope it’s not weird~

It was all started when I was in secondary 2, after listening to Pastor Kong preaching about having visions, and during that time… I had a vision of me singing and playing my guitar on a stage in front of my church. After so many years… during Dream Camp (my church camp), I was reminded again with that vision. I was very happy during the point of time because it was so real. And then I looked back in the past… It is just amazing to see myself able to achieve what I have today. From a tone deaf to a boy that able to figure out what’s the root key and roughly ear out the chords for the song. I’m just very thankful that He has blessed me with this talent. Well, I believe I can achieve more and I will definitely not give up on this vision because my life is His.

Alone

Is being alone a good thing or a bad thing? I had been wondering for many months now… Should I be surrounded by people? Is it weird that I do not have a lot of friends? Why people do not really ask me out often? All these questions had been in my head for the past few months and I do not know how to respond it positively until recently. I began to realize that being alone allows me to have new experiences. I started to have my meals alone more often and walk a longer distance back home. Surprisingly, I began to find enjoyment in being alone. In fact, I want to be alone sometimes even though my friends ask me out. I’m sure people do not want to be alone but it is fun if we take it positively. Having meals alone = do not experience any awkward silence if you do not know what to talk about. Jamming at home alone = nobody is judging you.

However, hanging with your buddies is definitely good too. Different fun I guess. I saw this YouTube video, the person said that if you don’t like hanging out with yourself, who will hang out with you?

Lastly, I am happy that I have a girlfriend that makes me feel that I do not have to face all my troubles alone. Ihearther. 

Leaders

Firstly, I just want to say that I am an imperfect person believing in a perfect God. I believe that Jesus is just like a shepherd and He will always look after His sheep. And I also believe that I should learn more from Jesus so I can take good care of my “sheep” in future. The reason why I said this is because there are quite a number of leaders that I had seen… Do not really guide the people that are under him/her as they are busy or whatsoever. And somehow along the way, he/she realised that he/she lost one of his/her sheep and it is too late to get her back. On the other hand, I got to say that being a leader is very hard because he/she have to cope with their life and be there for every single person that they are leading. To me, as a leader, he/she must learn how to balance and learn how to connect with their sheep as they cannot forsake their responsibilities and have a nonchalant attitude. If they really do not take care of their sheep, their sheep will drift away from them slowly...

Well… after all, leaders are human too. They are imperfect. What I think I should do is to have a basic respect for every leader as authorities are to him/her. One more thing that I want to add, I am glad to have some leaders in my life because they have input many knowledge into my life and I appreciate every single one of them