YTrusting vs. Evidence
There was a consequence, by the way, and it just hit me today.
Aaanyway...
This past week God seems to be distant and it's really confusing. I don't think it's Him that's being distant; it's me. And i know why I'm drawing away from him. It's so funny, because while I want to draw closer and closer to Him, I also involuntarily (it seems) distance myself from Him.
It has to do with my needing to know for sure that it's real, and here comes another weird state of mind I have. I know He is real, but yet, I don't, and I need evidence to prove that He is real. Concrete evidence which does not involve anything to do with me, but with...His creation...
Y'know, something like a discovery that there really was a flood or an ark or something.
But you know, if there were evidence of His being real, evidence so concrete it cannot be denied, the whole world would believe in Him. That not true. Even if Jesus came and punched us all in the face, there would be some who wouldn't believe, because they just make up their mind to refuse to believe.
The thing is, I'm going to have to have faith that He is real. It is through faith that we are saved, not anything else. (I know i'm interpreting that verse a little differently.) I guess God made the Bible the way it is so that it would be historically accurate and yet historically incomplete, so that we are forced to operate on faith.
And so I'm balancing between having faith and needing evidence. I don't think I will ever let go of Him, though. Maybe that says something: deep inside my heart, I know He is real.
P.S. I have been faithfully reading my Chinese book. This is the part where you clap. :)
jac was here with you
11/28/2003 04:03:00 pm
YConsequencing What?
SS pre-camp starts next Sunday...whoa. Feeling apprehensive and excited about it at the same time. Gilly's birthday is tomorrow and...shhh...i still haven't thought of what to get her.
Anyway. About that decision. After all that deliberating, and that finally decision-making process, nothing has happened yet. Wasn't that stupid? Spending so much thinking time on it and in the end, not seeing any consequences? Knowing the way things work, nothing will happen. Which is probably a good thing :)
jac was here with you
11/25/2003 06:02:00 pm
YGrey Areas
And one more thing: Jac does not like making decisions. And God is giving her a lot of decisions to make.
A lot of very interesting, grey decisions.
jac was here with you
11/21/2003 05:58:00 pm
YMooching
Jac has no life. She will stay at home and mooch around while Adora runs around like a headless chicken trying to find margarine for LTC today. And she doesn't know where Shirin is because she hasn't replied to her email. And Zhen should be online doing up her site like she has been for the past three weeks, just that she isn't. And Kim and Gaia are goodness-knows-where and Jac shall try to play the guitar but right now it's sort of nice to just sit on the computer chair and surf around the net and talk to her friends on messenger.
Jac is talking rubbish. Please ignore her. Her back aches.
jac was here with you
11/20/2003 03:57:00 pm
YParalysed
I'm terrible at making decisions. It's not the decisions I make, it's actually what happens after the decision--I worry about it. Because I'm afraid that every decision I make could be wrong and could backfire and screw up my life forever.
It's funny how it's paralysed me. I think even the question on what I should eat for lunch would stump me, because I could have the cheaper meal, or the nicer-looking meal, or the more unusual, rare meal. And it would make a difference!
So what happens when I have to make bigger, more impacting decisions, like if I should drop Bio or if I should admit to my friend that I interfered when she explicitly told me not to or if I should be a GL? I don't do anything, and it eats away at me because not dropping Bio or not telling or not being a GL, that's a decision in itself that I made. It's the safe decision, but not necessarily the best one.
I tried to listen to God and see what He had to say, but I still don't know if what I heard was my own common sense or my conscience (the one that works overtime) and, hold on, is my conscience reflective of the Holy Spirit? And even then, what if I still make the wrong decision and everything blows up in my face?
I'm slowly coming to realise that "GOD IS NOT SADISTIC!" (As Gilly shouted tonight) Because He's not. And He's not going to have a set of right answers and wrong answers, and if we choose the wrong answer, we're doomed for life. It's not like a maze where, if you choose the wrong path you're probably going to end up at a dead end. Not like a maze where you get to start again.
This is what I learned today: If we truly love Him, He has a plan for us, one full of hope. If we make a wrong decision, He will guide us back to the right path. And if He doesn't seem to be answering, maybe He just wants you to learn that you shouldn't be scared of making decisions!
And that's why the verse of the moment is Jeremiah 29:11-14a. Because He holds everything in the palm of His hand, and because of His grace and love, He will never fail to lead us back to the straight an narrow if we truly seek Him.
It's no coincidence that the song of the moment is Worlds Apart, by Jars of Clay, either. That song speaks volumes to me because it reflects how conflicted I feel, torn between the world's way and God's way, when I know His way is the true way.
And more than that. When the world tells me all I need is self-esteem, and belief in oneself to succeed, God tells me to be still, know He is God. He defines success in another way. Nothing on the earth that I will ever have will truly be mine. All that I claim to be mine, all the positions I hold, all the gifts I have, God could take them away at any moment. It is by no accident that He gave me these, because He has a plan.
He's slowly trying to get me to realise all of this, so that ultimately when He asks, "Who are you going to choose, the world, or Me?" I will be able to answer truthfully, with all my heart, "You, Father. Let me rest in Your arms forever."
jac was here with you
11/15/2003 01:18:00 am
YFoot-In-Mouth Syndrome
Maybe I should stop opening up. I don't know. Because half the time I don't know what I'm feeling and when I try and verbalise it I hurt someone. And then I realise I didn't know, I didn't think, how my actions could hurt and how she could feel now because of it. Especially since I've felt how she does now but I was too stupid to realise.
And then I realise how far away I am from being the way I should be, but I tried my best, and now what do I do?
I don't do anything; I can't do anything. It's hard to explain, but in some weird, warped way, I understand, and in another way, I don't.
So now I...wait on Him.
jac was here with you
11/13/2003 02:26:00 pm
YLoving Obeying Him
We were doing Psalm 119:9-16 yesterday for cell and the verse that struck me the most was verse 14: "I rejoice in following Your statutes as one rejoices in great riches".
The reason why it stuck in my mind is that it wasn't the normal response to following God's laws and obeying Him. At least not my response. I definitely don't delight in following God's laws. Usually it's more of a "Huh? Oh...all right..."
But the Psalmist does! And not only that, he rejoices! He considers God's statues as precious as 'great riches'. Someone brought up this point: how would you feel if the most powerful person in the world struck an agreement with you? Honoured, definitely. I'd do whatever I can to keep to that agreement.
And that's what we're doing with God. It's a kind of agreement, and His precepts are the terms of the treaty (sorry, too much history). We should feel honoured and eager to have this opportunity but most of the time I feel reluctant to obey and sometimes even break these 'terms'.
jac was here with you
11/08/2003 04:57:00 pm
YPretty Shoes!
Found a nice black pair of heels for $28 as Charles & Keith yesterday with Gilly. I would show it to you guys, but I can't find it on their website.
A set of nice shoes I found on the Charles & Keith website.
:) I am amusing myself with pretty shoes after Chinese. I think Chinese O's was today. To Tash, Adora, Gaia, Alicia etc: Hope everything was all right.
My grandmother heard my grousing about not having enough shoes to wear, so today she said she'd give me shoes for Christmas. "You got out there and choose what you want and tell me the price, and I'll give you the money to buy it."
Oh, darn it. I feel so bad.
jac was here with you
11/07/2003 04:18:00 pm
YYay!
I feel good (lalalalalalala!) I'm so happy! And you guys (especially Zhen) would be proud of me because I have learnt how to get an image hosted! And put it on this site! So that lovely picture of the girl and swan is courtesy of my hard work :)
C'mon, admit it, Zhen: You're proud of me :)
jac was here with you
11/05/2003 05:25:00 pm
I am sick. Actually, I am on the threshold of actually becoming sick, but my mum pulled out all stops, anyway. Made me stay at home (so now I'll have to wait to get better before I can go over to Mum's friend's nail shop to work) which, I supposed, buys me extra time to study. Gosh. And so today I will:
1. Read a Chinese book. My Chinese is atrocious. Horrendous. I can't even speak a coherent, grammatical sentence in Chinese. I realised I don't know how to say, "Go to the back." It sounds weird when I say it. Hee ^^ I am such a banana.
2. Go through chem, physics, bio and English exam papers. I want to know why I only got an a2 for Physics and how, with the amount of red crosses I saw on my chem paper and the fact that half the time during the Bio exam I didn't know what the heck I was talking about, I got an a1 and a b3 for chem and bio respectively.
3. Get to sleep by 10. Last night I spent a few hours talking to Deanne and Gilly over the phone, which caused both my parents to get irritated and angry with me. Normally my dad hates it because he wants me to get to sleep early but my mum was angry, too, which is a cause for concern. So I got off reluctantly, but by the time I went to sleep it was around midnight.
I just finished reading my last library book this morning. It's called The Song of Names, by Norman Lebrecht. It's about a Jewish violinist who disappears the day before his international debut. For some reason it strikes a chord within me. It's been a while since a book has done that.
jac was here with you
11/05/2003 01:03:00 pm
YTripping On Technicalities
It's driving me mad that I want to please God yet i recognise that I can't because I'm so imperfect. It bothers me and reminds me of what happened when I was really really interested in ballet. Ballet is really technical, and there's this perfection all dancers strive for--perfect turnout, flexibility, balance, all that, and the more I read the forums and everything the more I realised how far away i was from attaining that perfection. it made me miserable to not be able to be that. then slowly I decided to stop visiting the forums and stop obsessing about every single technicality and just enjoy. and so i did, and I felt happier. i don't know if my technique improved, but I love to dance and I just banked on that to pull me through. so if I bank on my love for God, He'll pull me through. Right?
...and suddenly the world seems a lot brighter, and the load I've been carrying is lifted.
jac was here with you
11/04/2003 04:20:00 pm
Lose myself...
In this imaginary world
Of mine.
It hurts to think...
Hurts to see
Recollections of what would be.
Little girl's lost her pillow
Misses it so much.
jac was here with you
11/04/2003 11:50:00 am
YFamily Fiesta
Nothing to shout about except that I learnt how to use a steamer. And my friends learnt to never make Chris and me do things together because we will screw up (it was pretty funny).
Yeah, things went well. I'm so tired, though, and although school's already over it doesn't feel that way. Somehow I didn't get that nostalgic feeling I usually get at the end of the year. All I really feel right now is that everything went by so quickly and here I am, starting to prepare for next year, when I'll be sec 4.
I shall not reminisce any more about how it seemed like just yesterday I was sec 1 and super scared of everything. Time doesn't seem to pass by quickly when you're living in something but when you take a step back at the end of it you realise it does and you don't know what to think about it.
I don't really like holidays now, because it means hitting the books time, and I have to, on Hannah's advice, start revising all the sec 3 stuff I'm weak in, which translates to all the sec 3 subjects I hate, like Chinese and Bio and Social Studies. *sigh*
And then, before I know it, it'll be January again, and I'll don that blue-and-white uniform, ready to start my last year in the school I've been in for nine years with apprehension and excitement and a little reluctance, banking on Him to carry me through the monster year.
jac was here with you
11/02/2003 04:25:00 pm