back after a long time.

It's 3 am in the morning and some things run through my head.

When it comes to apologetics I always think of the more technical side of things. The things that the people who consider themselves logical and intellectual tend to rely.

The logical and intellectual need evidence to lean on. To believe in God: no solid evidence, and peers may judge them foolish. To not believe in God: plenty of "evidence" available - although mostly generated by the selfsame peers - and a far more comfortable position to hold, since as human beings it's extremely unpleasant to go against ideas respected by others.

I can't sleep. Because the areas of contention keep running through my head.

Let's see. I read somewhere else, something along the lines of "How can people believe in a text that is obviously altered down the years, changed repeatedly according to agendas?"

Easy enough. The original manuscripts dating back to time of writing exist; it's not a long daisy-chain of translations going backwards in time. Originals are taken out, and examined, and retranslated each time we have a new Bible version. And the Aramaic and Greek are translated the same way hundreds of thousands of other non-related texts are translated, so not much room for argument there.

There's a huge list for Flood related points of contention. That includes strata deposition (reasons for uniformity); the reasoning behind strata-based dating (supposedly strata age->fossil age ->back to strata age, circularly, but what happened to carbon 14 dating (good up to about 60k years) and others. Here's a link :

http://www.godspointofview.com/public/answers/flood.html

Evolution? I always found there's one basic principle evolution violates the most badly. The principle of systems always decreasing in order of complexity and stability over time, not increasing.

Evolution requires that order and complexity of the global or smaller ecosystems and their subsystems (habitats, species, individual organisms etc) increase over several million years, purely by chance. I believe it's a fundamental of systems that

1) without outside intervention they, on average, steadily decay as time passes
2) decay decreases level of complexity and order.

Technically life consists of very very complex systems of energy and matter flow. Tiny disruptions over time are enough to decrease order and complexity significantly; increases in order and complexity by sheer chance are outnumbered by the decreases.

The Bible gives evidence for God's existence based on the level of complexity and order the world demonstrates. External influence is required to design/maintain complex systems. I believe that's an incredibly difficult observation to topple.

i want.

I want to be like a willow tree with its roots firmly planted; planted in God, in the Word, in the Spirit. To stand tall and be happy when the sun is out; to bend but not break when the storm comes, my roots firmly in the ground.

I feel like - I feel like a vine on the ground, sometimes able to find solid purchase in the ground, but so often blown around, and then lying on the ground to wither and die.

My own desires blow so hard at me. My sins, my lusts, things like that, suck at me and pull at me.
It's hard to believe i can even someday stand firmly, every day, consistent and faithful.

Dear Father God; dear Jesus, who died for me on the cross that I might be free of slavery to sin:
tear sin's roots from me and write the Father's laws on my heart; engrave them there; discipline me, scourge me that I might learn.

I am so unteachable, my soul is full of black rebellion. Punish me that I might be clean; fill me with Your Spirit that I might walk tall; heal my wounds, cleanse the poison, fill my heart to focus on You.

Give me wisdom, Father. Wisdom to control myself, to spend myself struggling for mastery in every situation, to take up my cross and never put it down, no matter how difficult or tiring it becomes.

Cut me to the quick, cut me to the bone and the marrow and the spirit with Your Spirit and Your Word, God. Cut me down, help me to find death for my body, death for my sins, so that I can live in Christ alone.

to live in Christ alone; to live in Christ alone! To live and not perish, to bend but not break, to stand in the gap not just for a week or two weeks but day after day after day, a man focused on God, a man desperate and refusing to give way in pursuing God and the ways of Christ.

my dream, my dream, my only dream; help me to spend everything i am for it, God.

on my knees I pray. please let it be, Father.

amen.

youth camp shirt design

A design for a orange coloured jersey-style shirt for church youth camp. Hope they like it...

The back:

and again, when

when rest comes, put worry away.
when love comes, hold its hand in yours.
when life grates, look beyond the desk.
when the heart aches, hold His hand and rest.

when

when confronted,
let your shoulders down.

when blocked,
uncurl your hands.

when hounded,
turn around slowly;
and in peace ask what is wrong.

when sad,
talk about it.

when depressed,
sing a song.

when burdened,
hand it over.

with Him, to Him, and to Him.

when trivial things lure you,
blow them away.

when with friends or with loved ones,
blow time away.

when work waits,
walk to it with a steady heart;
rush forward not;
flee not.

when loved ones wait,
run to them as the wind;
they cannot wait
forever.

what is life after all,
but listening to Him when He speaks
and waiting for Him when it is quiet

and taking deep breaths when He is here.

Hey! Will you be free on 2nd December? Would you like to
visit my church?
Music sharing session..
I won't be playing,
but it'll still be fun!

end of my schooling life.

I'm leaving NTU for good, at least the schooling life part of it, very soon. For those who want to see how I'm doing, to keep in touch, i've added a tag board to the blog.

I've decided to make this blog more introspective. It may be hard for anyone without interest in how I am to come back and read this blog regularly; but I think, perhaps I should let myself be okay with that.

I'm quite uncomfortable with ending my schooling life. The campus ministry in CCC seems to be growing, but I have to part with it now.

Some of it is regretting not being more involved in past years; but then again i had my own problems, which I hadn't learnt to really work out until lately. I'll be honest; many of my past years have been filled with a spirit of folly. But I can't say they're totally wasted either; just to deal with my own folly, i've had to learn a great deal.


Some of it is my own discomfort in not having a ministry to participate in, at least one that consists of my peers; church youth has a more diverse age group and culture, and it's much harder to gel in such a group.

But then again, I haven't really been involved with the ministry side of Crusade that much. It seems I took too long to learn enough maturity to be of real service, and the schooling phase of my life has passed.

I sincerely hope that there will be space in the working phase of my life for me to make use of what I've learnt so recently, in wisdom and spiritual things. At least let there be a balance; let there be times when what I have, in what i have grown and in what Christ provides, is enough to do the task well. At other times when i need to be stretched in order to grow; both to learn new skills and wisdom, and to also grow in trust in God.

There are some opportunities appearing in my church however. There's a music ministry of sorts growing, and it looks, in some ways, fairly solid. With some anticipation and hope in my heart, i'm planning to put aside time right after the exams to begin practicing songwriting, even while i simultaneously hunt for a job. Perhaps i can participate in this ministry, perhaps not - my church already has more than enough talent in many areas. But someone once said, luck is simply preperation meeting opportunity - of course, I don't believe in luck.

I think.. God-given inclination and/or talent needs hard work to mature into proper preparation; preparation that God can use, can provide opportunities for. To have a hope of being involved in a music ministry, I must have the skill set; thus I will prepare myself.

The years that have passed, I've done what I can and I've contributed in some ways to God's Kingdom - just not in the ways that someone more mature could have. But, at least part of the time, I did work as hard as I could, in blood and tears, and into God's Kingdom I've come into more.

The rest of the time that I was lost in escaping from pain in indulgences, in wasting my time away, in either letting go into despair or being unable to break from it - let my God who is the God of the past and the present and the future take it, and redeem it for His glory.

I was who I was in the past years, and the time has passed so nothing can change that; but I will be closer to Who I want to be like with every day from now on. And that is something worth looking forward to.

But. On a more sentimental, bittersweet note(but more sweet than bitter). Besides all these considerations of how i'm growing and proceeding; in the short term, I will really miss Campus Crusade in NTU.

Some of my fondest memories will always be of Campus Crusade in NTU.

Crusaders reading this: Abide in Christ, and take care, and I will keep all of you and the ministry in prayer.

there's some things i want to try.

some things from a book i want to apply.

but it will take immense and long effort.

life is going to be hard, trying to face up to things i've never been able to face up to before.

if you're reading this and care,


please pray for me in this season of my life.

I really want to give up.

Am I really useless to You, God?

i mean. what else can i try.

when will things turn around.

i'm so tired. i just want to lie down and die.


i don't know how to change things, God.]

i don't know how I can change.

and honestly. i'm sick of praying, asking You, asking for help, or guidance, or to discipline me, or to guide me, or teach me..

praying into the void, praying into the emptiness, praying into the cold and uncaring.

don't see a difference between my having prayed and my not praying.

don't know how to have more faith, i've already tried my best.

i'm so tired God. just so tired.

so tired, so tired, so tired.

just want to lie down and die.



but still i try again, because there's nothing else to try.


please help me God.

I have no one else to confide in, no one else who could understand, no one else who can help me;

sometimes i suspect, no one else who loves me that much..


i'm already half given up, half in the grave, half lain down and died.

please tell me, somehow, that there's some kind of progress, that under all this Your plan is still operating.

please God.

again.

Haven't blogged in some time now. Just as a update, my spiritual life finally seems to be going straight again.

Began

1) doing quiet time every morning.

2) asking the Father to reduce my vulnerability to temptation, to increase my tolerance , to really do so by renewing my mind.

3) learnt to keep thinking of my eyes and my mind as belonging to God and not myself, bought at a price; thus i have no authority to choose what i want to think or see. Thus i have no choice but to avoid lust and avoid looking at anything that invokes it; and I give thanks to God that I do not have that authority over myself, to use my eyes and mind as i feel like it; my eyes and my mind are slaves to God, bought at a price, and I give thanks for it.

4) Commiting in my mind to focus on nothing but obeying, pleasing and following God.

Unfortunately, I didn't wake up and and come to the computer to write down the developments in my life. I woke up, unable to sleep, and came to the computer because again I find myself unable to manage my feelings for a sister.

It is very, very frustrating. Telling myself to let go, asking God to take away these feelings from my life, causes the feelings and the desire to solidify and to affect me harder. The act of acknowledging they exist make them immensely rigid and unyielding in my heart. This struggle really drains me; and once again I find myself losing sleep while attempting to deal with these feelings, in a period of my life and of the semester where I was aiming to learn to optimise my sleep and increase the productivity of my days. Such a draining paradox; I can do nothing with these feelings except work to reject and leave them behind, and bring them to the Lord in prayer, but doing so causes me to focus on them all the more.

I find it so hard to not analyse the situation and looking for adjustments I can make so that a situation where my feelings are mutual can come about. I keep looking for reasons why my feelings are not reciprocated; I keep finding myself thinking about this situation as if it was only natural that we should be together, and that it was simply a series of barriers that with enough effort and care could be cleared out of the way.

I find it so, so hard to let go. I find it so hard to be a man, to accept and convince myself that she is not someone special to me and that I am not someone special to her, and that in all likelihood we will never be so. I need to learn to be logical! How can I be so smitten over someone who has already in no uncertain terms rejected me in such a straightforward manner?

What is wrong with me, that I come back drawn like a moth to the flame, always about to burn myself to death on a dangerous flame of disappointment and shame.

I would try to focus on my shame from the last time, but I fear that would just cause scarring in my self-esteem, cause me to be that much less useful to God's kingdom.

Lord, I lift up my cares and anxiety and worry and pain and longings to You. Please do with them as You see best; please teach me what is real and what is not. Please teach me to stop seeing things that are not there; please teach me to stop seeing potential that is not there.

Jesus, please help me. In Your most precious name I pray.. Amen.