2nd week of holidays

Heyy,

I am back, after quite some time of rest from blogging. Ha. So, its the second week of the holidays. It has been, quite fruitful. Well, I dare not say about the first week. But the second week has been really fruitful to me. I truly thank God for it. Overall, I have been training, playing computer, reading, sleeping, praying, listening to music. Ha. Yeah thats roughly what I have been doing.

First I think I talk about my training. Ha, have a feeling that I had over trained for the first week. Cause my calves are abit strained, but I dare not take too long rest ah. So I have been praying that God will heal me. But this week has been abit slack. Monday I did 9km for single session training. Didn't train in the evening. Cause there was really a strain on my calf muscles. Then tuesday I did 2km before resting the whole day. Ha, slack. But I think God wants me to rest, I did pray about it. Because now every training is quite important. So I hardly dare to slack, but rather had been quite hardworking.(: Wednesday I did 10km. Felt as if my legs were gonna collaspe anytime. But still manage to pull through. Thought I deserved a good rest for the evening. Thursday I did close to 16km. Ha, but its flat ground, and I rested quite sometime in between. It was quite a good run. Because it was Deepavali, so there was no official training. I ran from my house to East Coast and all the way to the Lagoon Hawker Center, I think it was about 9km. According to my timing. The pace was quite fast though, so I don't really know the exact distant. But it was quite a nice run, despite the heat from the sun, with my mp3 with me. I rested for about 45 mins or half and hour at the beach. Ha, was quite nice. I prayed and listened to music. And the weather was good, cooling.. Or perhaphs a more exact term would be called "sea breeze". Ha. Then asked God for strength to run back. But I didnt really run back, ran until the bus stop outside and took a bus into my estate. Tiring man. But really, after the prayer. I felt so recharged. Not in the physical body, but in my Spirit, I was quite burning and was able to run another 10km lor. Ha, but really must thank the Lord for helping me. I was really stranded with $1.10 in my pocket for bus fare(if necessary). Then didn't have money even to buy drink. And if I happen to be too tired, I was to take bus back. So I was left alone, just me and God. And I had to depend only on His strength to help me pull through the run back. Ok, thats about it for my training. Later going to Yishun for a run before tomorrow's hard run. I was hoping to be able to go for prayer meeting after that because tomorrow there isn't any youth meeting. So, hopefully if God wills.

Well, the past week I was kinda addicted to computer games. Sadly, I was and it didn't have an immediate effect on my spiritual life. I wasn't very wary of it. But it made me very tired and I didnt have energy in the night for my quiet time. So it still does have its negative effects on me. But this week I was able to commit it to the Lord and I was quite able to control my usage. I think I do not play very often now. And I have energy in the night for quite a good time spent with God. I'll still take it as a little form of leisure, but I believe as I continue in His will, my delights and so called "leisure" would just be doing His will and His work. So hopefully that I am able to extinguish this taper pretty soon if God wills.

I think I committed myself this week to God and He had been faithful in helping to keep this commitment. I feel that I had drawn closer to Him this week and I am really glad. I had been faithfully praying, praying for almost everything I could think of. And when I have free time I would usually pray. Thats nice. I will spend quite some time reading His word, and highlighting some important verse. Hopefully commiting it into memory. Though at times I still fail, but I still repent of them and quickly fix my focus back on God. I came across this verse while reading through the new sunday school book which is in Colossians. It is a very beautiful verse.

Colossians 1:9-14

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

Nice verse right? Its something we should be praying for daily in our lives. That we may be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,(so that we may understand and know God's will), to walk worthy of God(pleasing Him in all we do), be fruiful in good work, increase in the knoewledge of Christ(through His word), strengthened with all might, and to be thankful to our Father who has redeemed us to be His stewards. Something that I have committed myself to prayer. Paul prayed for the church in Colosse all these, and we should also be praying for one another and for ourselves these too! Hope that you will commit it to your prayers.

Something very interesting I picked up in Sis Chiao Chyi's journal is that sometimes we cannot base on our feelings and emotions to think that we are right with God or we are looking to "special spiritual experiences as the test of holiness". Read the following excerpt that Sis Chiao Chyi has kindly typed out from a book called 'Discipline: The Glad Surrender' by Elizabeth Elliot.

'It is a great temptation to look to special spiritual experiences as the test of holiness. To feel oneself carried away by the Spirit, to exhibit certain unusual manifestations, or to be thrilled by sudden exaltation in prayer or success in some particular effort made for God are all too often taken as proof positive that we are, at last, on the right wavelength.Hannah Whitall Smith, in her book Religious Fanaticism, writes: "A quiet steadfast holding of the human will to the will of God and a peaceful resting in His love and care is of infinitely greater value in the religious life than the most intense emotions or the most wonderful experiences that have ever been known by the greatest mystic of them all."Those who insist on such sign invariably split communities and draw attention to themselves rather than to Christ. It is Christ who is to be exalted, not our feelings. We will know Him by obedience, not by emotions. Our love will be shown by obedience, not by how good we feel about God at a given moment. 'And love means following the commandments of God...'.

I have been guilty before of thinking this way. But now I realise that we shouldn't base our "rightness" or "holiness" on how "special" the experience we have when praying, singing hymns, reading His word. No, we will be exalting our emotions instead of exalting God if we do that. Instead, I realise that we should be faithfully followin God's commandments, and walking worthy of the Lord in every way. That, we can know that we are having a blessed relationship with Christ because we show that we love Him because we obey His commandments to us. Something I thought we should learn. Because I was once guilty of it, and hopefully we can understand that walking faithfully and closely with God is the only way to know that we are having a blessed relationship with God.

Oh ya, thanks to Tze Gang's pirated mp3 collection, ha, I've really been blessed with many songs and music. Wow! And some songs are really nice. Ha. So much meaning and so "express what I feel inside". Like the one before this entry. If I was to be a wannabe missionary, I will sing it with all my heart mann. "I will hold Your people in my heart." Reminds me so much on how the missionaries reach out with all their hearts in Lisuland showed in Isobel's second book, Nest above the Abyss. Of course, many missionaries are all over the world, giving their all to God because they had also committed to God to hold His people in their heart. So they really feel for the people there. The lost, the unsaved, the people groping for hope, that we civilized people often abandoned, that Christ can bring! Oh, how I wish that God can send me right not to those places to bring the gospel to them. Ha, wishful thinking. I am not even prepared! But, if God really leads, I will go mann!

I think I am going to do a End-of-the-Year review soon. Ha. About how the whole year has been for me. But this year is really very very special in my life. How God changed me last youth camp and consecrated me to His service. I can't really imagine the amount of changes He has brought to my life. Looking backk just one year before, I see a totally different Jeremy. Indeed, as this verse suggests:

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Not that I was not saved before.But I am awed at how God changed my life when I took the step of faith and decided commit my life to Him. NOthing I did before was the same. Truly, my God is a wonderful God!

Well, I've decided to add a prayer list in this post. Hope that anyone passing by would take a few mintues of your busy schedule to pray for these things.

1. Youth Camp and Children Camp - Pray for God to be leading the organising committee. That they would be seeking the Lord's will in everything they do. Pray for a fruitful camp, a God-pleasing one, and a spirit-filled camp, which God is pleased to use, to move mightily in each and every camper's heart.
2. Our church's youth ministry - Pray that we would continue to be united and bonded closely through the Holy Spirit, loving caring and accountable to one another. That we will be able to serve our Lord, in One accord. Pray for youths who have backslidden, that God will lead them back.
3. Friends that we are going to invited for camp - Pray that we would be asking our friends bodly and in the Spirit to come for the camp to allow God work mightily in their lives. Pray for their parent's and their hearts to be soft to the Spirit's leading.
4. Brothers and Sisters taking O and A levels. (Benji, Ze gang, Charissa, Shirley, Alodie, Joel and Grace) - Pray that God will grant them wisdom for their papers. That they would be seeking God even in their tight examinations. Pray that they will do it for God! Pray that they will be able to pull through with the Lord's grace.
5. My family- Pray that the Lord would soften our dad's heart and allow us to come for youth camp and children camp. That my sister will be willing to come to church, and turn from worldliness. That my brother will be able to grow and mature in Christ. That I will be faithful in seeking God. Pray for my dad's salvation.
6. Pray for our dear missionaries, our brothers and sisters our there working their hearts our to reach the lost with God's simple plan of salvation. Pray for more labourers to be willing to accept God's call to work!

I think thats all.Thanks for praying! (: