Blessed everywhere we go =]

I have always been a home-girl before I embarked into my college life and maybe that affects my preference but most of the time I would rather stay at home than traveling to places alone. I will never ever plan a holidays by myself like some people would, unless it is free of course =p

And this year, I did get the chance to travel sponsored by Swiny to China, yes, I flew off Melb on 14 Oct ^o^ (I can't believe it was already last month! How time flies!) If u ask me why China out of all places ⌈it was just a suggestion from my supervisor and I thought that's a safe option compared to Hongkong, as I don't speak Cantonese at all..⌋ Sure, traveling alone to a land that I don't speak the language is so much more troublesome! Hence, I should minimize the possible hassle by not going to places without a chinese-speaking companion - and I have anticipated the trip will not be so much 'fun'. But God has got a different plan for me, He showed me that He could do more than I ask for and He is willing! =]

First day of the conference: nothing but registration, so we could go to the conference hotel anytime between 9am-4pm to register and that is it for the day. Fortunately it was written on the schedule so I didn't need to wake up early for nothing =p So I went to the venue at 10:30am and settled the registration very quickly, and I'd get to checkout the famous seafood place 'Shenjiamen', YAY!
What I didn't expect was I'd have a companion to go there!! This chinese guy that I met at the registration was so kind to come with me for lunch =D So, not only Shenjiamen mission accomplished, but also I made a new friend, JinDi is the name~~~ How good is God to me in this all-by-myself trip?

Second day: I came to the conference to listen to the guest speaker and sat next to a friendly girl who saw me with a handful of things and offered to put them on the empty seat next to her. Eventhough she only speaks Chinese, and my Chinese is not so good, we got the chance to chat and got to know each other's basic backgrounds =) It looked like she's not the type that chat much plus communication barrier made it harder yet she is quite a sweet girl, LiuWei. Although she left in the middle of the presentation and I thought ok byeeee, didn't think that I'd see her again, but only God knows ;)

Anyway, the presentations weren't quite related to my area of research & I was not interested to listen any longer so I also left the room, and apparently, JinDi saw me and called to arrange meet up for lunch and he asked if I'd like to join him and his friend from the same uni to go to Putuoshan after lunch, and Tadaaaa...♦ his friend is none other than LiuWei! What is the chance that the two out of hundreds people that I actually made friends with at different time, actually know each other! God is writing a story here!!!! Oh yea, the Author of my life story, Jesus, You are my BEST FRIEND, always surprises me in many ways!

And on the third day of the conference, we are divided into smaller groups for the presentations, and I chose telecommunication section (morning) over control system (afternoon) and while I was quite sleepy sitting in the room waiting for my turn, observing how the presenters talk about their stuff, and there was this girl who has brought some notes to present her project and she introduced herself in details like no other would! What's more, she is a PhD candidate too, not just a master student, and BUM! I just had the feeling that I could make friends with this girl... ♥ I WAS SO RITE ♥
Then we agreed to meet up for the day trip organized by the conference committee, + her bf & another friend from HangZhou, that made the 4 of us.. Then, + LiuWei was in the same bus with us & when she came to me I introduced her to Zhouli & she joined us since. Oh,God, You know I loved how they are so welcoming, what a nice group of friends for the beautiful day =D=D=D I am so blessed that I am not going for the day tour alone, that makes the day-tour from "it's allrite" to "AWESOME!"

Thank YOU Jesus for making me enjoy tht trip so much and not letting me feel lonely on my birthday this year ♥ ♥

When my mourning turned into ...

an embarassing moment

What a morning! First, I had a fight with Mc. Just because I made a long comment on her one sentence, she raised her voice telling to to shut up and that hurt, although my first reaction was of being offended so I raised my voice on purpose, as a way of expressing my anger.. Later on after my anger subsided, what's left inside was the sadness from being shouted on and I just had to expressed that too coz... hello! it's still in the morning, if I don't let it out, it'd bug me the whole day... So with a very soft voice this time I told her that it is actually quite hurtful, and she then apologized. ~~Yeah, you've got to know; Sorry doesn't cure, woman! ~ But it did make me feel better and at least I could move on then~~

Then I went to uni and I thought W was alone in the office so I told her the small drama of the morning and how it made me sad and I was determined to expect a good day ahead, hallelujah! (I was so loud) Little did I know that there was another person in the room, whom I failed to notice when I came in... Oh my... I just recalled how loud and emotional I was and if this guy heard it... I am  sorry >.< that was embarassing..

But is it better to be embarassed than to be sad? I opt yeah, if I had to choose! but better still a happy day! I am still gonna make it with the HS within, who restores my joy ;)

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]

Investing towards eternity

Time is the most tricky property that every human possesses. Everyone has 'time' living on earth, and we spend it for things that we love and value! Earning money, shopping, watching movie, dancing, cooking, and the list keeps going... We can look at time being invested for other things that are important to us, and when the bible tells us to invest for the Kingdom of God, that includes our time, and it says,

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, ... But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." [Matt 6:19-20]

So, this is what I think when I read this verse: we are to invest our time for eternity, not the just things of this world, like food, fashion, game,etc etc...

What does it really mean? First of all, where is heaven, how can I store treasures in heaven? 

At first I thought it meant that I should spend my time, money, energy, any possessions on things that will lead to eternity with God, so it's like a long-term investment to gain heaven... But then when I read what I wrote, it sounded so wrong within me, this isn't it, so what is?? it's either this world, or Heaven.. It did not mention 'hell'

So maybe it's not talking about 'heaven' where we go after death but 'heaven' when we are still on earth? How does it work?

Hmm... To think about it, death is not as scary if it's not because of the thought of judgement and suffering that is gonna happen after death itself. BUT, these things are happening on earth too, some people do live like they are in hell, suffering and persecution, slavery of greed and pride..

So laying up our treasures 'in Heaven' maybe would be to invest into the 'goodness of God' in this corrupt world, rather than investing in 'goodness' of this world?

I am just thinking about myself, yesterday when I was so obsessed by the pair of shoes that I saw in Rivers, and I pursued them from Southern Cross->South Warf->Camberwell->Bridge Road.. That's an example of 'treasure in this world' and yes it was beautiful and I was happy when I get it, but it didn't make much difference in my heart if or not I have them. It does make a difference in outward appearance when I wear them of course, but it won't be as good unless my heart is at peace.

Proverb 4:23 "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the well spring of life"

and my heart is at peace only when I know God is not mad at me.. 

I'd rather not have that shoes and be in peace with God than have that shoes but being cast out from His presence. So, I know I have been distracted every now and then by fear of failing PhD, and I tried to comfort myself with sweet treatment and shopping and trying to chillax! But I they don't last long...  I feel dry within me and no treatment from the outside can't drench my thirst for peace within from the Spirit of the Lord, and I need to stop treating my 'brain power', and start working on the 'spirit power'.

I think the best formula for the remedy of my broken heart is this:

Jesus heals, Holy Spirit comforts, and the Father approves.

And that leads me into DEEPER - prayers and fast - 2012

Stay sober

"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit..."

[Ephesians 5:18]

I have always wondered how it felt to be under alcohol, is it really that good to be 'high'? Today, I finally tested it and all I felt was dizziness and a little bit of easiness. I thought I'd lost control but no, I managed to stay in control because when I wanted to relax and just go with it, there's a thought in my head that warned me, "Do not let the flesh to take control, let the Spirit reigns over your body and mind!" And it said,"Stay alert!" So I tried not to stay awake, not to lose my mind and I didn't! 

 I knew Minh said I talked a lot and so I stopped talking... Although I wasn't clearheaded coz the alcohol's effect started to kick in, but it was still fine, I thank God for protecting me from drunkenness... I never drank liquor before so I don't know my limit and Sarah (the researcher) said there was a lady who passed out after drinking the alcohol, so I thought it would be so strong and I probably would lose my mind, but I didn't, thank You Lord for answering my prayers and strengthen me physically and mentally to stay sober. 

 And, this experience has affirmed my opinion: ALCOHOL SUCKS! (at least for me) Headache, dizziness, neck-pain, and funny stomach for the next day(s), what's the benefit of these?