A New Season

September 17, 2014 · By ·

If ever there is a time that I am allowed to blog all about myself, it has to be today.

38Some women are rather shy about revealing their age after a certain number, but I can proudly declared that I am on the far end of the wrong side of thirty. And that’s just about the ONLY thing I am on the wrong side of, at this point 😛

In my tradition of expounding on Hebrew Gemetria on birthdays, on the post that I did earlier this year on the numbers 7 and 17. I will be explaining the meaning of the number 38 draw the parallels to the new season that I am entering in with my birthday this year.

What season? Since I am living in a country that only experiences about the same season all year around; the heat and rain. The seasons that I am referring to is from this verse in Ecclesiastes 3:1.

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The word season is translated to mow-ad-dawh, which means appointment or a decided time. And when translated to Greek, it is pronouced as kah-hee-ros, which means the proper time or ar-too-oh, which means to prepare or mature. Time and seasons are used in two different ways in the bible, but they are similar in the way that both involve birth of something; either physical or spiritual, with the due time that is determined by God.

I have always been very in tune with what God is saying to me with my life. Simply because I spend time seeking Him daily, through reading the Word of God, praying and being still in His presence. With this, I am able to prophetically discern the time and season that I am in, moving in line with what His will for me. I don’t claim to be a prophet, but I believe any child of God who spends time daily seeking God will be able to prophetically discern God’s plans and His will for their lives.

So what new season am I now birthed into, entering into the thirty-eighth year of my life?

This new season is very much related to the meaning of the number 38 (lamed-chat) in Hebrew. The letters lamed means authority and chet (inner chamber, including the heart). 38 is the number of work, or labor. It is focused on the idea of one’s calling, or life’s work and purpose, which is the true authority that each one of us will possess in our hearts.

In John 5:5, we read of the man who has been sick for 38 years until Jesus healed him. Jesus said to him in verse 8, “Arise, take up your pallet, and walk.” In verse 10, it was seen that the Jews criticized Jesus for healing people on the Sabbath, considering that to be ‘work’. What Jesus really done was ‘rest-work’, where a person ceases from his own works to do the works of God (Hebrew 4:10, Isaiah 58:13).

In the New Testament, the 38th time that Jesus is mentioned in the 4 Gospels is; Mark 9:23, Mark 9:25, Luke 8:40 and John 4:34. In each of these passages, Jesus was doing His work, healing and casting out demons, work that He has been called to do in His ministry on earth.

In the same way, children of God who are pursuing the truth in the bible, living in obedience and according to the word of God, have the power of the Holy Spirit in them. Powered fully by the Holy Spirit, where work for God becomes ‘rest-work’.

Entering into this new year of turning 38, I have been given tremendous clarity on my spiritual walk moving ahead. I am still running Right Klick Communications, if you are wondering, not that I am going to be a missionary or work for a church full time 😛 I believe that I can still live out my spiritual calling, while juggling my responsibilities, to earn a living or fulfilling other roles that we have in our lives.

One of God’s greatest presence in my life have been during times of worship and in prayer when I am alone seeking Him, and these are the times I am able to experience the moments of intimacy of friendship with God. It has been in my heart for sometime to focus on prayer, so it is most fitting to start this little group.

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Contrary to the misconceptions of prayer, prayer is far from dull. It is a key discipline in a Christian’s spiritual walk where spiritual work and vision is accomplished. Most of the discontentment and worry that most Christians suffer is the result of disobedience to God’s word. Prayer is entering into a relationship with God so that we can determine His will in the matter and call His will into existence upon the earth. We pray because we want to be obedient to, united with and empowered by God.

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Today on September 17 2014, I started a prayer group together with a dear friend. Incidentally, we arranged for a first meeting today without realizing that it was my birthday today, so this is just another one of God-incidences for my life.

We are available to pray for anyone who has a prayer need, so feel free to drop me a PM in Facebook or an email. You don’t need to be a Christian, you just have to share your need for prayer, and we will gladly pray for you. 

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Also, we welcome any Christian friends who wish to join us as part of a dynamic, Holy-spirit-led (we believe in the giftings of the Holy Spirit and are prepared to be bowled over by miracles and healings!) Intercessory Prayer group. And are able to look beyond the boundaries of the church walls and be available on Wednesday mornings to pray for others. Our prayer meetings will be weekly on Wednesdays from 10am – 12.00pm in various locations of Thomson/Bishan/Toa Payoh/Upper Bukit Timah.  

 

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Learning to Simplify Life

September 3, 2014 · By ·

It’s been 4 months since K and I have been spending most of our weekends without dh. Do we miss not having dh around spending more family time together? For sure, but K and I are managing really well.

So what helped us?

Life can easily get cluttered living in fast-paced Singapore. Most of us tend to want buy more or just do more. Doing more makes us feel productive and ‘its always nice to own more.’ It gets even more challenging when friends seem to have the best lives, have nice things, are able to do plenty of exciting activities with the family, acquire good things for their children and are always planning for their next family vacation round the corner.

Surrounded by many friends who seemed to be living their best lives now, I wondered, is that all life is? It is all about what we have and what we seem to be striving for?

I took a step back to evaluate where we are now as a family and what we want out of life. And I decided that I wanted to live a simple, uncluttered life. This helped tremendously to manage the adjustments and to put things into perspective.

 

3 Steps that I took to simplify life: 

1. Get Rid of the Physical Clutter 

Screen Shot 2014 09 02 at 12 33 07 PMIt starts with clearing physical clutter of possessions. I have sold my home a while back and had to downsize my possessions to fit into a much smaller space. I gave/threw away more than 3/4 of what I possessed. Furnishings, clothing, books, toys, stuff. The things that I am left with now can be kept in 4 closets and some boxes in a storeroom.

I am now tempted to further downsize things in my storeroom. So I try not to visit this storeroom too often, as I will likely end up purging what I see and haven’t used for the past 1 year.

Only buy what you need. This also relates to your debt and finances too, don’t live beyond your means.

 

2. Spend Quiet time at Home

As a blogger, to get invites to experiences for my child is commonplace. It has been 1.5 years, and I have stopped accepting invitations to bring K along for a free ride, free meal or experience in exchange for a writeup on my blog. Besides wanting full control over what I share on this blog, I do not wish to be obligated to write.

Also I  prefer not to over-indulge K, who might start to develop expectations for things. Besides I want to avoid being burdened with the obligation of having to plan for some interesting activity every other weekend.

So exciting outings and activities are kept for the school holiday, and I prefer to plan and pay for my own way, thank you very much :P.

We spend the weekends relaxing and doing the things we enjoy at home, watching DVDs together or playing board games. K gets to scoot, while we run our errands around the neighborhood. Or he plays his video games for a couple of hours, while I catch up on my reading or listen to Christian sermons online while crafting.

Simplelife

Once a month, we catch a movie together, or eat out in a nice place together, when hb comes back for the weekend.

Holidays are not on our top of our list, as I detest traveling. Travelling disrupts my routines, especially when it comes to my quiet time with God and puts me in a state of complacency spiritually, and I prefer to avoid that.

Having the discipline to set aside time to do this daily, means that it makes no difference when I don’t attend a physical church.

The last time K and I visited Manila for 2 weeks, I had to spend a few days getting used to doing my devotional time in the bathroom for 2 hours. So that’s why going on vacations do not appeal to me at all.

 

3. Don’t Schedule too many things

I made a deliberate effort to shift the focus from activity and accumulation, to just simply spending time together. It meant that I had to schedule less activities daily, have less extra classes to go to weekly. Already having to go for Chinese Enrichment, Judo and Art Class weekly keeps us rather busy on some days.

When I have less things planned mean that we will have less chances of wasting time commuting from place to place, also less probability of having to lose my cool when the boy takes his slow and leisure pace to get ready to leave the house.

 

Simplifying my life comes from my desire to live life from an uncluttered heart and it stems from my hope to align my life to what God wants for me.

It calls for a radical change in lifestyle from what most of us are used to, it is more than just eliminating things from your life that you don’t need, but it also a mindset change to re-direct my time and money into ways that will enrich my life and hopefully, the lives of others around me.

Interesting, when one don’t crave for possessions or experiences, I seem to be blessed with many things and I am never in need. It is like experiencing this verse coming to life, ‘But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. – Matthew 6:33’

The concept of ‘Selling all my possessions, give to the poor and follow Christ (Matthew 19:21)’ is still difficult to follow, since I have a child who is fully dependent on me and I still have bills to pay.

Maybe. one day, when K grows up and becomes independent, that will be a possibility. So no plans for a comfortable retirement for me 😛

Goodlives

‘A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is a life of greed;

it requires more and more.

The life of the spirit required less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet.’ – Anne Dillard

 

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Truth in Love

July 15, 2014 · By ·

I like controversies.

In fact, I think controversies are healthy challenges for a parent to have to deal with. When bringing up children, societal beliefs and practices throw plenty of curve balls at a parent, so the challenge is to conform or to question?

Controversies are also very useful to me as an individual. As it serves to question my convictions and make me ask questions, “Society is claiming this, my friends also believe in what society says. But what exactly do I believe in?”

Beliefs in a society have become a variable these days. One moment, psychology or health experts can say that a conclusion is drawn after extensive research, but a few years later, the conclusion is different after new findings are discovered.

To further complicate things, there are mindsets. The common thought these days is like this, ‘Nothing is really true of false, it is depended on the point of view that you look at them. Even if you believe in your truth, it will be rude to say that the opposite is a lie. You need to be tolerant of others’ point of view.’
LoveandTruthquote1.jpg Disagreements will still exist with Tolerance
I agree with the tolerance bit, except that the disagreement still exists, which explains why there is a need for tolerance.

The definition of tolerance is ‘the ability or willingness to tolerate the existence of opinions or behavior that one dislikes or disagrees with.’ I can tolerate the existence of things that I do not agree with, but it doesn’t mean that I have to agree with it, or not express my disagreement.

Society tells us that it is not smart to make unpopular statements, or to say things that will seem to discriminate a group of people, especially if they are friends or relatives, who have differing opinions from you do. Make too many statements and it will look like you hate, or it is fear that motivates your comments.

We should also not interfere in others’ in their freedom of expression to love. If you point out that the pride of life and lust of the flesh is a problem, then you are being too judgmental and self-righteous. Who made you a judge anyhow, especially since you have your own problems too. We are not to protest against changing societal mindsets, if not, be considered a bigot.

Is Sincerity and Love Enough?

Society will be so much better, if only, there was more sincerity and love.

Let’s put it this way, quoting the words of Charles Spurgeon; ‘If a person traveling North, was really sincere that he was going South, will his sincerity bring him to the destination he wanted to go? Or if a man starved himself, while he sincerely believed himself to be feasting, how long would it take him to get fat?’

You might see that these things are contrary to the laws of nature in the first place. Likewise, many things in nature are fixed, who are we as mere man to want to change nature’s laws to suit our lust and fancies? Love and sincerity in believing a lie, will not change the lie into truth.

Like what I always tell K, every choice and decision we make have a consequence. If we are honest and sincere in keeping the road towards ruin, the natural end of the road will be eternal destruction.
LoveandTruthquote2.jpg Love Means Telling The Truth
As for love. Love means telling the truth even when it hurts.

It’s always easier to keep our mouth shut and not risk rejection or confrontations. But I believe in this saying, ‘sometimes the most loving thing a person can do is to wound a friend with the truth’.

As a parent, there will be no short of opportunities to meet controversies in the face and examine what does truth means to us.

Truth cannot be relative for a parent. Societal beliefs and practices are too wavering and fickle for parents to depend on as the final authority. Who will pay the price of the fickle-minded society, whose counsel for parents and their children, may not be for their ultimate good? So what truth are you convicted by?

Our children will pay the price of our choice.

Truth will be tested by time, and it will endure plenty of oppositions. If you are a Christian parent like me, who holds by the truth and the Word of God, how willing are you able to share your stance, despite much disapprovals? Especially when society is adamant to change natural laws according to their fancies and lust.

Do you fear men approvals or do you fear God? If fearing men is more important, then it is probably time to ask if you were truly convicted by your faith in God in the first place.

Ultimately, the truth will prevail and I have made my choice as a parent and as a Christian. LoveandTruthquote3

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