Hanging by a moment...

This day o Lord, no matter how much time I spent listening to praise songs, I couldn't get to stop thinking of my anguish... but only this one song got through to me Beautiful God, You reached out to show me life... despite all my pride and foolish way, caught in Your infinite embrace....

I don't know how many times I have tried to stand and stay strong, and it is so tiring o Lord... Why couldn't I  rest on You while watching for Your divine intervention to act or just stay in tune otherwise?  

the psalm of David inspired me to cry out to God...

My heart is in dismay o Lord, for the devil has taken hostage of my beloved, and I don't want to be separated from them. The enemy keeps luring me to leave the Fortress, and join them... and I am at the verge of my own strength to just watching them from afar... The devil has deceived them and they don't see Your Mighty Hands reaching out to them... And so I departed for a battle against the enemies and I know the darkness is creeping to consume me, and I ran out of energy... yet Your wisdom kept me alive to come back to You, o my safe refuge..

What do you want me to do o God? How long more do I need to wait for their salvation? Protect me o Lord from trying to act on my own and go without Your Spirit going before me... Thank You for keeping me safe even when I have been disobedient to You when I couldn't understand Your plan. Comfort me o Lord and let me stay in Your fortress with Your children and fight together whenever and wherever You send us out to. Keep us safe o Lord, and fight wearing Your armor, with the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Remember my family and friends o Lord, and send Your servants to deliver them from the slavery of sins in the darkness, unlock their heart with Your unfailing love and joy of salvation that they see in Your children. Please do to them what You did to me, when You opened my heart to see Your Salvation... 

[Psalm 147:10-11] His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,     nor his delight in the legs of the warrior; the Lord delights in those who fear him,      who put their hope in his unfailing love.

Aiji, you are so laid back! -.-

~~Halfway through DEEPER~~

I have got to say that I am quite puzzled that so far I did only 4 SOAP journals! I thought I'd have more time to spend on journal-ing when I am sick coz I am not going to uni, but... how did I missed them all??? I probably did read the daily devotional, and that's it... 

So I confess my failure in keeping up on SOAP journal, and I still do not have consistency on chewing on the Words of God. But I know that from the beginning of DEEPER God's been speaking to me on the issue of pride and prejudice.

"Do not think highly of yourself more highly than you ought, but think of yourself in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you." [Rom 12:3]

Looking at what I have written, all  4 days, I prayed for change of 'judging' attitude that I have... I know that I do have this problem to always want to be 'right' and I am so accustomed to despise what is 'wrong' and so I am always quick to avoid people are doing the wrong things. I never want to associate with them and maybe under my conscience, I started to put labels on the people around me, 'kind', 'trustworthy', 'not reliable', 'gossiper', 'backstabber','proud', etc etc... And their labels highly affect how I treat them...

Paul warned the church in Corinth not to make judgment ahead of time, because God is the only Holy one who has the right to pass judgment on human beings. And everyone of us is flawed and guilty, if it's not for the washing by the blood of Christ. 

I thank God that He has convicted me on this, and even if it's just on this one thing that He wants to reveal to me, I am glad that He speaks, and will continue His work in me, from the inside out. 

& as I am God's workmanship, I shall boast only of my Master's skill =D 

Devil-ish choc cake

On the fourth day into DEEPER, I allowed myself to have for breakfast some choc cake Naomi brought home last night...
When I looked at it in the fridge I had a warning within me not to eat it, but I told myself, why not, I haven't set myself to fast from snack the whole time, only between lunch and dinner, so I can eat a cake for brekie, it is looking so good, I am eating it! Humm... it was yummy, and i loved the thick cream cheese on it, and some thick caramel cream in the cake? It tasted a bit bitter like... liquor-ish ! And it felt really heaty down the throat! Oh my, I sensed trouble coming my way... 

Uh yeah, it came swiftly like the wind blowing me down in the middle of the night! I had a sore throat the next morning and kept coughing the whole day And that was just the beginning, before I drank energy drink+alcohol mix in the arvo (participating in a research). After the alcohol, it just got worse, I had headache, neck-pain, and funny-feeling stomach, AWFUL! It's really hard to fall to sleep at night with the coughing and neck-pain...  And I was supposed to go to visit Shermi with Wen cs the next day, but I couldn't bring myself together and just had to rest at home, the whole day, with sore throat and neck-pain...  

Owh, I learnt one thing:: disobedience/ ignoring God's warning leads to danger =( God's warnings or prohibitions are for our own benefit. They are to prevent us from unnecessary pain in the future.. I enjoyed the choc cake for half an hour that morning and suffered the sickness for a week, was it worth it? I wished I would have heeded the warning in my heart.

I am a good girl, NOT.

Two days into DEEPER just got me started again on chewing on the words of God.

Yesterday, I was challenged to go back to have my quiet time, although I was tempted to stay back in the office because I had work that I could do while I was still at it... "God, I need to work hard rite, now I could work, let me stay back and work. I have spent some time interpreting bible verses this afternoon, now let me spend some time on my thesis." But the voice within me keep nudging me to leave...  Hesitantly, I agreed to leave the office and had devotional time in my room.

The title of today's devotion is 'Being a friend to those in need'. From the title, I thought,"Yeah, that's so general, I know that", but reading the in 'Application part' as Ps.Sally wrote about being slow to judge and quick to help, I was prompted to pray for that area of my heart, because I know I am always quick to judge.

Okay, that's the prayer point for me tonight, and later at night was bible talk from Mike with the boys, man, that's alot of 'bible study' that I had done today! Am I not doing too much? Hmm, consider this as payback for the many that you missed! Now, just keep munching on the words -NomNomNOm-

So Mike talked about spiritual gifts and LOVE, on 1Cor13. He said lots of things, but one thing I want to point out was the part when he said every spiritual gift is used for the glory of God, not for our own glory. The apostles did miracles and healings in the name of Jesus and refused worship from the people but point them to Jesus alone. Paul and Barnabas replied to the priest of Zeus and the crowd when they wanted to offer sacrifice, "Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them." [Acts 14:8-18]

In todays' society, how easy it is to use the spiritual gifts to lift up our reputation, or the local church reputation. Oh yeah, our local church has great people, awesome gifted dancers and singers and prophets, etc etc...

How good does it feel to have people say 'You are a good person.' I felt good when Molly said that to me because I prayed for her, and I took it as if it was my reward, but I shouldn't be content with it. The bible says that 'No one is good, except God.'

If I had not had spent time reading the bible and praying these two days, I wouldn't be prompted to pray for her... Without God I would be just a selfish judgmental girl that she sees everyday. So it does make a lot of difference when I spend time reading the bible, it transforms me, I wished I could have encouraged her to do the same too, that she'd find peace in the promises of God, "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through Him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God." [2Cor1:20]