Worship......

“Worship is the submission of all of our nature to God.
It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness,
Nourishment of mind by His truth,
Purifying of imagination by His beauty,
Opening of the heart to His love,
And submission of will to his purpose.
And all this gathered up in adoration is the greatest of human expressions of which we are capable.”

William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1942-44.

I have something to say...

After dinner today, I went to get myself some Frolick frozen yogurt. When I got to the store, I ordered a Cup B original flavour with granola and blueberry toppings. 

As I received my cup of desert, I noticed how it was filled to overflowing with toppings. The blueberries were perched precariously on top of a mountain of granola. 

And as I walked and ate my wonderfullydeliciousandyummyyogurt.......

*bop*... 1 blueberry rolled off the granola and fell to the ground......

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I walked  some more......

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*bop*... 1 blueberry rolled off the granola and fell to the ground.......

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I neared the carpark......

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*bop*... 1 blueberry rolled off the granola and fell to the ground.......

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I DROPPED 3 BLUEBERRIES WHILE WALKING AND EATING MY CUP OF WONDERFULLYDELICIOUSANDYUMMYYOGURT!!! 

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I just needed to tell someone...

ok bye...

Worship the Lord

"This is the paradox of Christian worship. We seek the invisible, know the unknowable, comprehend the incomprehensible, and experience the eternal. Like David we thirst after God and we're satisfied and dissatisfied at the same time. Like Moses, we cry out for His Glory, all the while knowing that our mortal eyes could never behold God's glory in its fullness."

(Warren Wiersbe, Real Worship)


What a beautiful statement. It perfectly captures the essence of our worship of our God, the Lord of all.

I've been thinking a lot about worship lately, trying to focus on Jesus and His grace. But sometimes it's so hard, my mind wanders and centres in my own failings, my own weaknesses and sins. I begin to lose perspective and it becomes just another THING I DO, another thing I struggle with, another thing I'm never gonna be good at, as opposed to my life as a LIFE OF WORSHIP. I get so caught up with the technicalities and all that, the things which COULD be part of worship, things which could help my expression of worship to my God, but ultimately things which are NOT worship in itself.

I don't ever want to make my worship about anything else other than my Lord Jesus. I don't ever want to lose the wonder of the creator God from whom everything we know and have has come from. I want to ALWAYS be overcome by awe as I sing to my Jesus, my Saviour.

The Westminister Confession states,"Man's chief purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."

In our different pursuits in life, and in our attempt to "progress" in our expression of worship, let us never ever steal the glory away from the Lord.

Augustine said,"You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."

We should be most satisfied when God is most glorified.

This made me laugh...

61

I took a bus to work...
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sorry just had to say it. =)

Weakness...

His Word says that we should live in a holy, reverent fear of the Lord, and not fear man. But therein lies a struggle for me.

Insecurities; caring too much about "what other people think"; being afraid to look stupid (hard to believe, but true...)... I've struggled with these issues alot. I find myself always wanting to make people happy, always wanting to please people. And being afraid, too afraid of people not liking me at times.

And I think, this is what really got to me today. Like I was allowing my mind to play tricks on me, I got intimidated by the situation. I was sooo afraid of "screwing up" that I actually did. It wasn't major, but I let myself get affected too easily.

I HATE to disappoint people. I HATE to know that I've let someone down. And I've let many people dear to me down over the years. I need to know I can't always please everyone...

This can't go on... I'm turning around. Hanging on to His every word. He alone is my identity. He alone defines who I am and what I do. He alone deserves my all...

I'm desperate... for HIS GLORY


Lord, I surrender
May I seek to put YOU above everyone and everything else in my life
May I be desperately passionate for YOU and YOU ALONE
May I seek to please YOU before any man
Give me the courage in the face of adversity and struggle
You are my ROCK.....

Melbourne snaps (& moooves...)

After being on a number of holidays so far, I have concluded that I'm definitely not a good holiday photographer. (or actually, I'm not a good photographer... period).

But seriously, I always get so caught up in the moment, enjoying my holiday and whatever specific activity I'm engaged in at that point, that I always forget to whip out the camera to capture it.

I really marvel at those who, in the middle of something really fun or whatever, can suddenly go,"oh! this would be a great photo opportunity!... Let me get out my trusty sony/nikon/canon/panasonic digicam (or camera phone)!"

Like how DO they do that?! I'm normally just too engrossed in whatever's happening at the moment.

BUT, in spite of that I managed to capture some snaps from my trip... here goes... =)

My trusty sneakers which took a severe pounding during the trip from all that walking I did.

Quiet time at a cafe? Haha... I do this in Singapore too!

(I thought this flower shop looked cool... )

I should really learn to smile more... =p


The chapel at Scotch College which Sue Lynn got married in.

Inside the chapel.

And the wedding begins...

Sue looks gorgeous...

Someone's happy...

Chris and Kax feasting on some antipasto platter at some random time of the day during which people normally do NOT eat... haha.

A picture of my future. Me and MY LAKE... and my 1000 pet ducks. (ok seriously, it's just the wedding dinner place)

A sampling of the food. This was deep fried zuchini flowers, which totally rocked.

And that's Sue, Chris & myself. (like seriously check out the girl on my right. Her name is Ann. She's a post grad pharmacy student. And I think she's like quite the pretty... )
And she sat beside me the whole night. She must have been honored.

A shot with the bride & groom.

Deserts from Greco @ Crowne. Taken on the last night of the trip. It's a Mars bar cake on the left, and Hazelnut meringue on the right. Shiokness...

And to prove I actually met Kax... here's a shot of us... hahahaha... (why do we both look so sleepy? Must be the amount of food we ate)


And here come the videos...


I look like terrible in this... Haha... rough plane ride lah.


Yum Cha?


check out this guy man!... wow

Melbourne April '08

My short trip to Melbourne (4 days) was just about the best thing that could happen to me over the since the year started. It was just what I needed: time away; many hours to do nothing; great food; too many coffees for your own good... pretty much perfect.

Ok I'm sure many people know I love Australia, especially Sydney. But when you can't get Sydney, Melbourne comes a close 2nd!


Here's some highlights from my trip:

Matthew & Sue Lynn's wedding
Ok this wedding was the reason for our (Chris & I) need to make the trip down to Melbourne in the first place. Sue Lynn is our longtime friend from ACJC (she was in SB1, me in SB2, Chris in SB3).

Ok about this point, I could actually start gushing and raving about the wedding like how silly girls do, but I'm gonna spare you people that horror. Haha...

But seriously now, it was a fantastic wedding. THE BEST. The quaint little chapel on a hill; the fantastic weather; the simple worship team made our of just a guitar, a piano and 2 voices; the 2 fantastic pastors who did the ceremony and the exhortation: and of course... the bride and groom themselves.

The ceremony was similar to what we have in Singapore, in our Anglican church. But the pastor conducting the ceremony (Ps Timothy Goh, their pastor over there) just put so much heart into the whole ceremony, bringing out the rich meanings and symbolisms of each step in the marriage service. Fantastic...and the speaker who did the exhortations was awesome too. (he's from Singapore, so Connect... you'll get to hear him! haha)

Oh oh.. and the wedding dinner!... it was at this restaurant by the lake, which was beautiful. And Matt & Sue chose the place because their first date was at a restaurant ACROSS the lake on the other side! Haha... how cool.

Ok I'm done talking about the wedding. If you wanna know more ask me when you see me.

Kax
Kax was our "host" for the trip, and I think we hung out with her every day we were there, except when we were at the wedding.

It was good to see her again and I think I spoke to her more than I ever did in Singapore... (maybe... haha). Hanging out with her was good fun. And we spent most of our time eating, and eating... Haha!... Hanging out at cafes, yum cha, meat & wine co. Shiokness...

Take care Kax! Thanks so much for the company and the chats. I hope you managed to get your "money's worth" of dirt. Heh...

Planetshakers
Oh yeah, and we (the people) went to Planetshakers for church as well. This was my 2nd time to the church for service and I was blessed by the service. It was an awesome time. The songs were unfamiliar and quite hard to catch at times, but God's presence was there and there was a real sense of worship in the place.

The Word of God was brought by Christine Caine from Hillsong. What a woman of God, with an even more powerful testimony! I was pretty impacted by her message as well. She preached on "Stop Acting Like a Christian, BE One!". Good stuff. We were saying she really reminds us of Auntie Carol at times.

If anyone wants to borrow her book, you can let me know. I bought a copy. Haha. (ihavetoomanybooks)

Ok I'm done with Melbourne for now. If I've got anything else to post I'll add it later... meanwhile standby for pics...

Jeremy Camp's testimony...

I know this is stuff you normally see in movies and other hollywood fluff.

But to see that this is possible by the love of God is pretty amazing... Now I know why many girls are crazy about Jeremy Camp.

WATCH THIS: