The Power to Change my Life...
I don’t have much to say and I don’t even feel like blogging but I will coz perhaps it should be good for me to do so, so that I can sort out my thoughts. It’s been a really strange week, well I must say it was fun doing some of the stuff I did last weekend, but other than that I have been plagued by some issues in my life that have been affecting me. So much so that, I can’t exactly say that I’m feeling fine, happy or even good. It’s just that I really don’t know what to make of the issues I’m facing right now, which have spilled over from last week. But, before I get into that on a lighter note, here’s the fun stuff I did over the last weekend. I finally went to watch a movie after months of having not done so already on Friday night, the movie being Star Trek…and no I’m not a fan of Star Trek but then again it doesn’t matter coz the movie wasn’t even created by a Star Trek fan neither is the movie made just for Star Trek fans, and it proved not a bad show at all although I was a little confused by the time travel bit. But, everything went pretty smoothly and the show was fine, but I must say I did enjoy the movie although not completely due to some distractions, so overall it was not bad, and we had dinner out before heading home. So that was that night, then, on Saturday after squad training, went with my dad to watch the play Much Ado about Nothing, which stars Adrian Pang (not my favourite actor to be honest). But in truth it was not that bad a play, though it really isn’t my thing. The only bit that wasn’t great was the difficulty it took for me to get to the top of the hill, but oh well if we were early perhaps a front row would have made it easier…oh and btw it was at Fort Canning Park. Then, Sunday, my mum wasn’t here for Mothers’ Day, since she had gone to Russia with my brother who is playing in a chess tournament where up and coming young chess players are invited to play, very prestigious event this. They left on Wednesday night. But anw, so we still had a nice Japanese lunch to celebrate well with my grandmother and my dad and older brother. But, I was glad that at least I got to greet my mum by phone. As for the other bits of last week, basically, I just the usual stuff in my schedule for everyday, read the Bible, browse facebook, chat on msn, do chess tactics on my com, surf the net, and watch TV.
But, since Wednesday the trouble started actually, not that anything is wrong…just was a little upset personally about some issues in my life. Firstly, basically, I feel like I’ve got so many character difficulties, personality problems, weaknesses, failures, mistakes and physical discomfort. And, just mentally and emotionally, I don’t feel good. And, in this case I’m not really just talking about sin but also about unpleasant traits and weaknesses. I know that for all my sins past, present and future the Lord has forgiven me because of what our Lord Jesus Christ did on the cross, so that by faith we are all made righteous, and in Christ we are a new creation. But, I began to wonder how I should make of my weaknesses then which has been a cause of many problems in my life, in terms of like getting along with others, conflict and dissatisfaction, and a whole lot more. In a sense, sometimes it causes me to do things which are wrong, and that is a bad thing, on the other hand, it may just make things difficult or just be some thing bothersome…well just not being good at certain things which is not wrong. But, I feel like mostly I think it causes me to do things which are not right, coz like because of the way I am, like hurt other people or really just disappoint myself and others and perhaps make life hard. Basically, just feel like the way I react to circumstances are not always the right way to respond, and sometimes the way I do things I don’t think always glorifies the Lord. The funny thing is that right now trying to think of all the bad things about myself, I can’t even rmb all the stuff that I feel bad about regarding myself as a person. But, one thing’s for sure, I feel somehow guilty and bad about not just the wrong that I do sometimes, but also the parts of my personality and character that are not good, my weaknesses and everything. I feel like I wanna be a better person, and I know that by God’s power He can change me into the person He created me to be (i.e. a person that glorifies the Lord). My issue in this however, is not about how to become a better person. But, whether it is alright, or even ok to have all these flaws and imperfections and the fact that as humans we are all not without sin. And, I stress that it isn’t that I don’t accept my mistakes and flaws, in fact I do and I admit that I have many flaws and have failed in many ways. It is more about does it matter that I am full of imperfections and than in many ways I have not done what is right? And, it is also more about, coming to terms with this fact that I am very imperfect. Also, I need to learn to be content with my weaknesses. To know that, it’s fine that I don’t do things right all the time, coz after all we are human and we are imperfect people living in an imperfect world. And, I don’t have to be ashamed anymore of my mistakes, regrets, weaknesses, failures and even my sin, because God loves us regardless and we are not saved based on how good a person we are but by faith alone…also God uses our mistakes and all our failures for the ultimate good and to conform us. More importantly, I think is that God can and will transform us into His image and into better people, I mean that is the whole purpose of life other than the here and now, that we are here, to become more Christ-like in preparation for eternity. And, it took me reading all three of Rick Warren’s books to understand this again and much more…as a side not I just wanna say that I always turn to these books for advice though they are by no means a replacement for the Bible, and it just happens that I don’t exactly own that many Christian books, but so his books are just books that I like to refer to for advice. Anw, I’m slowly learning and I hope to expand my horizon, but for now these books have empowered me and have never failed to even after reading it over and over again. So, I just really hope to put all my guilt and shame about my failures, weaknesses, mistakes and sins behind me, and truly let God change my life and make me a better person. It really does not matter at all that I’ve failed in so many ways, but the most important thing is that my heart’s desire is to be the best that I can be, to bring glory and honour to God and to live a life that is pleasing to God, and that my faith and hope and joy and strength is in the Lord, and I know that God will empower me to become a better and changed person.
But before I move on the my last point, I just wanna to share some of the words in the books which I have drawn inspiration from that has helped me overcome this or at least begin to, I’m referring to the being ashamed of my failures, weaknesses and sins. Basically, it says firstly in God answers in terms of how to change that the four step process is crisis, commitment, confession and cooperation, but all this must be done by letting God do it and facing up to the problems. As for failures, when our best is not enough, we must not give up but know that God wants us to be successful, but so what do we do? So it says here that, we need to appropriate God’s presence in our lives cooperate with God’s plan and anticipate God’s promises. God wants us to be successful and can do it, as long as we do this. Also, the comfort of God’s grace is that God can take a total failure of a person and use him for great and mighty things. God uses ordinary people who have imperfections and weaknesses and failures. Only by God’s strength can we break free from the things that are preventing us from living the life God intended for us to live, He alone can unleash the true potential in our lives.
Next, in the first chapter of Rick Warren’s The Power to Change your Life, I found some words of encouragement I so desperately needed, so here they are. It begins with wanting to get rid of our bad habits, be positive and not be negative. But, how do we do that? Here is where the secret to it is revealed, that is THE RESURRECTION POWER OF JESUS CHRIST which can and will change our lives. It is the power to cancel our past, the power to conquer our problems and the power to change our personality. In terms of the past, it refers to our failures, mistakes, sin and regret. Many can’t seem to let go of the past. But, God says, it is unnecessary for us to go around with a heavy load of guilt, old hurts and memories of mistakes. He has forgiven all our sins and cancelled every record of debt we had to pay. Jesus Christ came to rub our sins out and change us, and in Him a clean slate is possible. He will remember their sins no more. Today, when we come to Him, admit our sins to Him, then ask Him to forgive us, He cancels our past. God chooses to forget our wrongs. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8: 1. We short circuit God’s promise if we don’t believe He has forgiven us. God’s power will conquer our problems too. We all have problems and many a times, we try to solve our problems with our own strength, and we become frustrated and sick and tired. God wants us to stop trying and start trusting Him with our problems. Many people say that their lives are out of control or that they are a victim of circumstances. However, we cannot control our circumstances but we can control how we respond to our circumstances. We should focus on God instead of our problems. In Christ, we are more than conquerors. No matter how hopeless life seems, God brings hope. The power that enabled Jesus Christ to rise from the dead will help us to rise above our problems. When the Holy Spirit controls our lives, it produces the fruits of the Spirit in us. God can also change our personality especially those undesirable traits. In essence God can change our lives for the better and there is no need to be ashamed of our imperfections.
And, in the Purpose Driven Life it says in the chapter God’s Power in our Weaknesses. Everyone has weaknesses, flaws and imperfections, but God loves to use weak people. But the issue is in that, we deny our weaknesses or even resent them, but this is not what God desires. God’s perspective of weaknesses contrary to what we believe is to use our weaknesses for His glory and not just our strengths. God allowed weaknesses in our lives to sow His power through us. God is not impressed by strength. God uses imperfect and ordinary people to do extraordinary things. A weakness or thorn, is a limitation that we inherit that we have little or no power to change. Despite these God wants to use us. We have to admit this coz after all we are imperfect humans. The next is the most important I think for me now, that is to be content with our weaknesses. Contentment is an expression of faith in the goodness of God; it says God I believe you love me and know what is best for me. Reason to be content with our weaknesses: they cause us to depend on God, prevent arrogance, encourage fellowship and increase our capacity for sympathy and ministry. God specialises in turning weaknesses into strengths. He wants to take our greatest weaknesses and transform it. The other two things we have to do, is to share our weaknesses honestly and glory in our weaknesses.
Now then to my last point, I guess from last week and beginning of this week, I somehow began to think about life again and just the week before I even posted about trying to live my dreams out in my life. It was coz I was watching an old episode of Oprah about the book called The Age of Miracles about the mid-life process…haha instead of crisis. Must be wondering why on earth I would be watching such a show about mid-life, haha no I’m far from the mid-life. Perhaps it’s a good reminder to enjoy my youth haha…Anw, seriously though, well, I guess, the message was that one can live the best life even at any age, in this case the mid-life, but I feel that this is also relevant to youth like me, in that we should not let anything stop us from living our best life. Life should be lived to the fullest regardless of anything. Basically, the deal is this, I know I’ve always had the passion for life to live life to the fullest, but somehow in the past week, I’ve slightly lost that passion, desire and motivation to live life to the fullest and I don’t know why. What I do know is that seeing how even people at such an age as the mid-life or even older are able to truly live their dreams, make me wanna achieve things with my life and live above the ordinary. But, I guess having suddenly stuff to really do last weekend, after being so bored for so long was strange for me, and I was thinking about like is this really the life I’m after, does having more activities in my life really matter that much? And, I guess, having spent many months bored at home I kind of got used to this kind of mundane life that I suddenly did not feel as passionate about going out into the world to live life. I realise that of course, it is true that having more activities does not make my life more meaningful but that is if it is done just to fill my time…but spending every moment of your life doing all the things you know you can do for God’s glory and for your purpose and doing all the things you love to do and achieve success and our dreams in God’s terms is what gives meaning to life, and so in that sense everything has meaning, so to the more activities. Right now, I just need to and hope to rekindle and rediscover my passion for life and to find what I really want and what the Lord would have me do. I must not let the fact my dreams seem so far away, make me lose my passion for life, coz I know by God’s grace and if I never give up I know it is not unrealistic to finally one day live the life of my dreams. As for a reason to love life, I feel is that life is so fun and exciting, and most importantly, we only live once on Earth so it can only be worth living it well with our only chance, not that we forget that there is more than the here and now, and that there is an eternity waiting for us but to really make the most out of the time on Earth not just doing something that will have a lasting impact, also to enjoy this gift of life here on Earth. Life just has so much potential that it would such a waste to not make the most out of it. There so many possibilities and opportunities in life. There is so much to experience and having friends to share them with makes it all the more meaningful and amazing. I stress again that by no means is anything greater than developing our relationship with God but there is nothing wrong in experiencing life itself. But, even as I have slipped into this moment where I don’t feel as passionate about life, I know that in my heart there is still an undying passion to live life to the fullest, just need to find it again. I know there has to be more to life than where I’m at, it’s just that I’ve stopped to try and accept that right now I’m not doing much. Of course, I still hope to really enjoy, make meaning out of and to make the most of life. I just need to realise again how beautiful life is, and figure what makes life fun and meaningful for me and bring myself face to face again with the things that made me fall in love with life. The truth is that God only makes life worth living and most importantly in Him I hope to find back the passion. But, deep inside I know it’s just one of those lows in passion, but the highs will always be back again…so in that sense I’m not too worried. So I just pray that the Lord will fill me up again with that passion to live life and help where I’ve never really been able to live up to the live life to the fullest motto for life. Life should never have a dull moment and there is so much we can make of life, there is no way we can sit back and not embrace every moment to live life to the fullest.
To end, really just to tie in everything that I’ve said, I’m no longer ashamed of all my failures, mistakes, sins and regrets, coz the Lord will use all of them for good and after all we are all human. And, where my passion is running thin I know it’s still burning somewhere, and I will continue to strive to live life to the fullest. In fact, I’ve been feeling much better after writing this, and the great insights I’ve got on the word of God has really inspired and empowered me and helped me get back to feeling great again… I’ve just learned so much and it’s amazing. And, I know that by the Lord’s power He will enable me to change my life for not even the better but for the best, to live life to the fullest for His glory and in accordance to His will and purpose for my life, and to put the past behind and looking forward to becoming completely the person God intended me to be, in His image...THAT IS THE POWER TO CHANGE MY LIFE IN CHRIST…
But, since Wednesday the trouble started actually, not that anything is wrong…just was a little upset personally about some issues in my life. Firstly, basically, I feel like I’ve got so many character difficulties, personality problems, weaknesses, failures, mistakes and physical discomfort. And, just mentally and emotionally, I don’t feel good. And, in this case I’m not really just talking about sin but also about unpleasant traits and weaknesses. I know that for all my sins past, present and future the Lord has forgiven me because of what our Lord Jesus Christ did on the cross, so that by faith we are all made righteous, and in Christ we are a new creation. But, I began to wonder how I should make of my weaknesses then which has been a cause of many problems in my life, in terms of like getting along with others, conflict and dissatisfaction, and a whole lot more. In a sense, sometimes it causes me to do things which are wrong, and that is a bad thing, on the other hand, it may just make things difficult or just be some thing bothersome…well just not being good at certain things which is not wrong. But, I feel like mostly I think it causes me to do things which are not right, coz like because of the way I am, like hurt other people or really just disappoint myself and others and perhaps make life hard. Basically, just feel like the way I react to circumstances are not always the right way to respond, and sometimes the way I do things I don’t think always glorifies the Lord. The funny thing is that right now trying to think of all the bad things about myself, I can’t even rmb all the stuff that I feel bad about regarding myself as a person. But, one thing’s for sure, I feel somehow guilty and bad about not just the wrong that I do sometimes, but also the parts of my personality and character that are not good, my weaknesses and everything. I feel like I wanna be a better person, and I know that by God’s power He can change me into the person He created me to be (i.e. a person that glorifies the Lord). My issue in this however, is not about how to become a better person. But, whether it is alright, or even ok to have all these flaws and imperfections and the fact that as humans we are all not without sin. And, I stress that it isn’t that I don’t accept my mistakes and flaws, in fact I do and I admit that I have many flaws and have failed in many ways. It is more about does it matter that I am full of imperfections and than in many ways I have not done what is right? And, it is also more about, coming to terms with this fact that I am very imperfect. Also, I need to learn to be content with my weaknesses. To know that, it’s fine that I don’t do things right all the time, coz after all we are human and we are imperfect people living in an imperfect world. And, I don’t have to be ashamed anymore of my mistakes, regrets, weaknesses, failures and even my sin, because God loves us regardless and we are not saved based on how good a person we are but by faith alone…also God uses our mistakes and all our failures for the ultimate good and to conform us. More importantly, I think is that God can and will transform us into His image and into better people, I mean that is the whole purpose of life other than the here and now, that we are here, to become more Christ-like in preparation for eternity. And, it took me reading all three of Rick Warren’s books to understand this again and much more…as a side not I just wanna say that I always turn to these books for advice though they are by no means a replacement for the Bible, and it just happens that I don’t exactly own that many Christian books, but so his books are just books that I like to refer to for advice. Anw, I’m slowly learning and I hope to expand my horizon, but for now these books have empowered me and have never failed to even after reading it over and over again. So, I just really hope to put all my guilt and shame about my failures, weaknesses, mistakes and sins behind me, and truly let God change my life and make me a better person. It really does not matter at all that I’ve failed in so many ways, but the most important thing is that my heart’s desire is to be the best that I can be, to bring glory and honour to God and to live a life that is pleasing to God, and that my faith and hope and joy and strength is in the Lord, and I know that God will empower me to become a better and changed person.
But before I move on the my last point, I just wanna to share some of the words in the books which I have drawn inspiration from that has helped me overcome this or at least begin to, I’m referring to the being ashamed of my failures, weaknesses and sins. Basically, it says firstly in God answers in terms of how to change that the four step process is crisis, commitment, confession and cooperation, but all this must be done by letting God do it and facing up to the problems. As for failures, when our best is not enough, we must not give up but know that God wants us to be successful, but so what do we do? So it says here that, we need to appropriate God’s presence in our lives cooperate with God’s plan and anticipate God’s promises. God wants us to be successful and can do it, as long as we do this. Also, the comfort of God’s grace is that God can take a total failure of a person and use him for great and mighty things. God uses ordinary people who have imperfections and weaknesses and failures. Only by God’s strength can we break free from the things that are preventing us from living the life God intended for us to live, He alone can unleash the true potential in our lives.
Next, in the first chapter of Rick Warren’s The Power to Change your Life, I found some words of encouragement I so desperately needed, so here they are. It begins with wanting to get rid of our bad habits, be positive and not be negative. But, how do we do that? Here is where the secret to it is revealed, that is THE RESURRECTION POWER OF JESUS CHRIST which can and will change our lives. It is the power to cancel our past, the power to conquer our problems and the power to change our personality. In terms of the past, it refers to our failures, mistakes, sin and regret. Many can’t seem to let go of the past. But, God says, it is unnecessary for us to go around with a heavy load of guilt, old hurts and memories of mistakes. He has forgiven all our sins and cancelled every record of debt we had to pay. Jesus Christ came to rub our sins out and change us, and in Him a clean slate is possible. He will remember their sins no more. Today, when we come to Him, admit our sins to Him, then ask Him to forgive us, He cancels our past. God chooses to forget our wrongs. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8: 1. We short circuit God’s promise if we don’t believe He has forgiven us. God’s power will conquer our problems too. We all have problems and many a times, we try to solve our problems with our own strength, and we become frustrated and sick and tired. God wants us to stop trying and start trusting Him with our problems. Many people say that their lives are out of control or that they are a victim of circumstances. However, we cannot control our circumstances but we can control how we respond to our circumstances. We should focus on God instead of our problems. In Christ, we are more than conquerors. No matter how hopeless life seems, God brings hope. The power that enabled Jesus Christ to rise from the dead will help us to rise above our problems. When the Holy Spirit controls our lives, it produces the fruits of the Spirit in us. God can also change our personality especially those undesirable traits. In essence God can change our lives for the better and there is no need to be ashamed of our imperfections.
And, in the Purpose Driven Life it says in the chapter God’s Power in our Weaknesses. Everyone has weaknesses, flaws and imperfections, but God loves to use weak people. But the issue is in that, we deny our weaknesses or even resent them, but this is not what God desires. God’s perspective of weaknesses contrary to what we believe is to use our weaknesses for His glory and not just our strengths. God allowed weaknesses in our lives to sow His power through us. God is not impressed by strength. God uses imperfect and ordinary people to do extraordinary things. A weakness or thorn, is a limitation that we inherit that we have little or no power to change. Despite these God wants to use us. We have to admit this coz after all we are imperfect humans. The next is the most important I think for me now, that is to be content with our weaknesses. Contentment is an expression of faith in the goodness of God; it says God I believe you love me and know what is best for me. Reason to be content with our weaknesses: they cause us to depend on God, prevent arrogance, encourage fellowship and increase our capacity for sympathy and ministry. God specialises in turning weaknesses into strengths. He wants to take our greatest weaknesses and transform it. The other two things we have to do, is to share our weaknesses honestly and glory in our weaknesses.
Now then to my last point, I guess from last week and beginning of this week, I somehow began to think about life again and just the week before I even posted about trying to live my dreams out in my life. It was coz I was watching an old episode of Oprah about the book called The Age of Miracles about the mid-life process…haha instead of crisis. Must be wondering why on earth I would be watching such a show about mid-life, haha no I’m far from the mid-life. Perhaps it’s a good reminder to enjoy my youth haha…Anw, seriously though, well, I guess, the message was that one can live the best life even at any age, in this case the mid-life, but I feel that this is also relevant to youth like me, in that we should not let anything stop us from living our best life. Life should be lived to the fullest regardless of anything. Basically, the deal is this, I know I’ve always had the passion for life to live life to the fullest, but somehow in the past week, I’ve slightly lost that passion, desire and motivation to live life to the fullest and I don’t know why. What I do know is that seeing how even people at such an age as the mid-life or even older are able to truly live their dreams, make me wanna achieve things with my life and live above the ordinary. But, I guess having suddenly stuff to really do last weekend, after being so bored for so long was strange for me, and I was thinking about like is this really the life I’m after, does having more activities in my life really matter that much? And, I guess, having spent many months bored at home I kind of got used to this kind of mundane life that I suddenly did not feel as passionate about going out into the world to live life. I realise that of course, it is true that having more activities does not make my life more meaningful but that is if it is done just to fill my time…but spending every moment of your life doing all the things you know you can do for God’s glory and for your purpose and doing all the things you love to do and achieve success and our dreams in God’s terms is what gives meaning to life, and so in that sense everything has meaning, so to the more activities. Right now, I just need to and hope to rekindle and rediscover my passion for life and to find what I really want and what the Lord would have me do. I must not let the fact my dreams seem so far away, make me lose my passion for life, coz I know by God’s grace and if I never give up I know it is not unrealistic to finally one day live the life of my dreams. As for a reason to love life, I feel is that life is so fun and exciting, and most importantly, we only live once on Earth so it can only be worth living it well with our only chance, not that we forget that there is more than the here and now, and that there is an eternity waiting for us but to really make the most out of the time on Earth not just doing something that will have a lasting impact, also to enjoy this gift of life here on Earth. Life just has so much potential that it would such a waste to not make the most out of it. There so many possibilities and opportunities in life. There is so much to experience and having friends to share them with makes it all the more meaningful and amazing. I stress again that by no means is anything greater than developing our relationship with God but there is nothing wrong in experiencing life itself. But, even as I have slipped into this moment where I don’t feel as passionate about life, I know that in my heart there is still an undying passion to live life to the fullest, just need to find it again. I know there has to be more to life than where I’m at, it’s just that I’ve stopped to try and accept that right now I’m not doing much. Of course, I still hope to really enjoy, make meaning out of and to make the most of life. I just need to realise again how beautiful life is, and figure what makes life fun and meaningful for me and bring myself face to face again with the things that made me fall in love with life. The truth is that God only makes life worth living and most importantly in Him I hope to find back the passion. But, deep inside I know it’s just one of those lows in passion, but the highs will always be back again…so in that sense I’m not too worried. So I just pray that the Lord will fill me up again with that passion to live life and help where I’ve never really been able to live up to the live life to the fullest motto for life. Life should never have a dull moment and there is so much we can make of life, there is no way we can sit back and not embrace every moment to live life to the fullest.
To end, really just to tie in everything that I’ve said, I’m no longer ashamed of all my failures, mistakes, sins and regrets, coz the Lord will use all of them for good and after all we are all human. And, where my passion is running thin I know it’s still burning somewhere, and I will continue to strive to live life to the fullest. In fact, I’ve been feeling much better after writing this, and the great insights I’ve got on the word of God has really inspired and empowered me and helped me get back to feeling great again… I’ve just learned so much and it’s amazing. And, I know that by the Lord’s power He will enable me to change my life for not even the better but for the best, to live life to the fullest for His glory and in accordance to His will and purpose for my life, and to put the past behind and looking forward to becoming completely the person God intended me to be, in His image...THAT IS THE POWER TO CHANGE MY LIFE IN CHRIST…
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