God truly works in mysterious ways
Hi LOG =)
Okay, I just randomly clicked LOG Blog and I saw Jess post about how god worked in her daily life situations which I found super cool. Anyways, I wanted to share my reflection of retreat with you guys but I guess I will just summarize it into a short paragraph because it is related.
Okay, YMC Retreat was awesome. During the retreat I prayed to feel god and I promised him that I am going to be open to him fully and yeah I was. I thought the retreat was truly enriching and it renewed and gave my sprit a jump start again I guess. I just want to share about the pray with where I felt god. It was actually after the pray with when we had to sing the praise and worship and just to glorify our god it was amazing. I know that I am not the only one who felt god truly present embracing each one of us during the praise and worship when we walked towards the cross and surrounded it and just sang our hearts out. God blessed me in abundance during YMC retreat and I praise him for that. =)
However, when I went into deeper reflection I had the desire of wanting the gift of tongues and I wondered if I will ever receive it. Then on Monday I went back to school and during a lesson of mine my Moths teacher called me and told me she had to say something to me. I listened silently as she said “Gregory, I had a dream of you on Saturday and the dream was from god, I want you to pray and tell me what you think god told me" And I was like standing there in dies believe and in awe. I was freaked out that firstly, a teacher of mine had a dream about me. Anyway, that day I went for mass with my parents to IHM and during the first reading it began with “I am the chosen one " and that verse just didn't want to leave my mind and I was getting confused and anxious. I just prayed and surrender everything to god. I came home and I messaged my moths teacher on face book saying that I think that she dreamt about god telling her something about my will from him because that is what I prayed during pray with. And I received a reply
“Hmm... on what context did you pray for this?
What happen was like this... I was planning to wake up at 6am on Saturday to read God's word and spend time with him. But before 6am about 5 plus, I was woke up by the Holy Spirit, and he told me to pray for you. So in my half waked mood, I sat up on my bed and prayed in tongues. What I gathered from that incident is that the Lord wants to bless you. What I thought was that He will bless you with Wisdom that you never have before in your studies and relations with people.
But now knowing what you asked of the Lord, I would like to say that the Lord is Very Happy to know you love Him and desire his Will for your life.
To Christians, we believe that God's will for all his children, is to cultivate a heart that seeks to obey him and grow in love for God. And as we receive God's love for ourselves, we will know his heartbeat for everyone on earth to receive His love, for all to be safe through Jesus.
So when asking God, what's his will for me, you need to think if you have first fulfill God's calling to all his children to be salt and light. Only when we seek that he will lead us to more specific area in our lives.
Hope this is helpful. Don't worry so much, just love him daily, and read the word to know of his love for U. And he will reveal much in his time"
That was her reply. I know how weird right. God just works in ways in which I never expect him to! I was really confused but then I realize god just wanted to tell me that for now I am just blessed with the gift of wisdom and that I should be grateful for it. And yes, after praying after confirmation, god did tell me that I had the gift of wisdom but I just wanted the gift of tongues so badly. Now I have decided that god will provide in his time and we should be grateful with what we have .
Lastly, just want to share a verse which came to me in YMC retreat countless of times.
Isaiah 41:10 : So do not fear, for I am with you;
I am really sorry that my post is so long but I just felt that god urged me to share this. My purpose of this sharing is that God works in ways we never expect him to and that at time we have to be really open to him if not we may just miss him.
Have a blessed holy week.
Love,
Greg =)
1 Comments:
greegggg dont need to say sorry for long post cos i really enjoy reading your sharings! praise God tt you had a wonderful retreat(:
anne
Funny ways of God.
Hi guys! I must share with you how God tears down ALL barriers!
Story #1 Work
Haha so initially I wasn't able to go back to SFX for Mass of the Lord's Supper on thurs because I have work and I felt bad to ask my boss to cover my shift. I was quite sad that I had to skip mass but no, God speaks through my mummy and tells me about 4pm mass at Risen Christ. So I was really happy but that's not enough for God! My boss called me up the other day and tells me I don't have to come to work on thurs! So amazing right, so yay I can be in church on thurs :D
Story #2 Chrism Mass
I was all psyched up for Chrism Mass cos it'll be my first time going for it. But I got the church's location mixed up and forgot that the mass will probably be 2 hours long. Impossible to rush from St Bern's to NUS in 30mins for my test :( But God has his own plans! I just checked my email and guess what, my test got rescheduled for 3pm. So now I can go for Chrism Mass, then my test and still have ennough time to rush back to church for 630pm mass YAY!
God is truly amazing and works in the funniest ways, and this is my little testimony to that. Random events perhaps, but I think God's hand was definitely involved.
Praise God and see you guys all tmr/fri/sat/sun! I love Easter!
Jess
0 Comments:
______________________________________________Sunday, March 28, 2010
For You my Dad and King
Hi all, just wanted to share a song that really struck me deeply on Friday as I was listening to my Ipod on the bus. Its called Forever by Hillsong United. Here's the song:
I'll Worship at Your Throne
Whisper my own love song
With all my heart I'll sing
For You my Dad and King
I'll live for all my days
To Put a smile on Your face
And when we finally meet
It'll be for eternity
And Oh how wide You open up Your arms
When I need Your love
And how far You would come
If ever I was lost
And You said that all You feel for me
Is undying love
That You showed me through the cross
I'll worship You my God
I'll worship You my God
I love You
I love You
Forever I will sing
Forever I will be with You
I think this song was God speaking to me, telling me to allow myself to be His beloved, which was coincidentally one of the major themes for the YM retreat that just ended!
For You my Dad and King
I'll live for all my days
To Put a smile on Your face
And when we finally meet
It'll be for eternity
This part of the song really ministered to me as I was feeling unprepared and distant from God for a few days before the retreat. It reminded me that I didn't have to do anything but BE THE BELOVED. You know like many PnW songs place an emphasis on our God being someone so high up and mighty, but they fail to capture the essence of our great God, which is why this song spoke to me so much. The childhood simplicity of the lyrics and the innocence conveyed - something I would like in my relationship with God. For Him to lead, to guide, to comfort and to protect. For He is my Dad, my Father, and not someone who is distant and faraway. And our mere BEING and PRESENCE in Him, puts a smile on His face.
For those of you feeling lost, lonely, and think that He is not with you, this song is for you.
God Bless and have a spirit filled week ahead!
Love,
Soo
0 Comments:
______________________________________________Saturday, March 20, 2010
hullo
Just before i leave again. Thanks for the previous comments.
Yes one of the many problems i have is prayer. Was just thinking about it before.
A number of us pray for God's will to be done. After a while we get..bored. stop praying on a regular basis. I actually did that in secondary school. For some of us we have a simplistic view that God has a certain route for us in life in mind. But then again we were given a bit of free will. So, in all its complexity God might actually given many of us a lot of 'correct' paths to begin with. We should include God in our decisions, such as if we choose to be a CEO, we could choose to practice corporate social responsibility, thus including God in our vocation/career/choice. (i chose that because not likely anyone will be this in the near future(about 3 years?))
It's kind of just like a child praying for God's will. If you were to talk to your friend about plans, you'll go over details etc. Like let say you say you pray for world peace, do you know what conflicts are there? What are the details? What're you going to do about it? just leave it be?Wondering if there's such thing as a spiritual adult...
For those who are facing a prayer crisis, you might want to form a structured plan we Singaporeans are used to some regimentation, structure. Maybe draw a timetable, or what, don't fall asleep before finishing your prayer. Maybe Monday pray for yourself, tuesday go mass, wed divine mercy, thursday rosary etc. maybe like that not so boring.
Yes this is going to be the last week of lent, then holy week. Me haven't made much of it (actually almost nothing). You might want to chiong a bit. Maybe try to pray everyday, do something crazy or out of the ordinary, go watch some catholic/christian movie, cell group sharing (my cell group don't disturb me next week!). Just make a small sacrifice in the middle of the busy week.
A little thing can turn into a miracle. Just offer your few cents or 2 loaves & 1 fish.
yes to go
bye
Dom
3 Comments:
byebye dom! god bless yew :) come back safely!
By 
poey,
March 20, 2010 10:22 PM
Come back in one piece eh? hahas!
Come back in one piece eh? hahas!
______________________________________________You need to see the growth in others to remind you of the growth you had in the past, & that you're growing.
The trouble with many of us is that we lament the lost of the many strengths & talents we had the past. Some times we become overwhelmingly obsessed about; being too regretful & despairing about it. As we go through time, some of our 'native' strengths we discovered to have disappeared completely, we becoming weak in its opposite, like we became impatient when we were very patient. Naturally we would want to reclaim the gifts & set ourselves to be accumulative of our talents & strengths.
God has always granted us gifts, gifts that suited us in our time & being. Naturally these talents would be taken back in time, especially when we fail to nurture them. However we must come to know that God places value in us in not the gifts we have, what we've done in the past, who we are, but simply in us. Our value is in us.
Value is not in the sum of our being, but who we are, children of God. As we move on together, let us share our lives together in the path we've taken.
see you in about 2 weeks
night
dom
4 Comments:
Hey Dom, thanks for such an insightful post, praise God for the truths within it (: Have a save trip and continue to keep us in your prayers as we go for ymc retreat, and you'll be in ours too!
Soo
Whoops spelling error haha. SAFE* trip.
hey dom praise God(: that was actually smth i've had on my mind for awhile now but nv could put it down in words til i read this
By anne,
March 20, 2010 3:40 PM
thanks for your post :) it's so relevant to what i'm going through right now. praise God and enjoy the cherry blossoms dom!
______________________________________________Friday, March 19, 2010
Worthy Is The Lamb
Hi loggers,
came across this vid. very powerful but very painful to watch also. hope it reminds us what lent is all about.
just a tiny reflection: Jesus did not die an easy death. so in the same way if we are to break away from our sinfulness and bad habits, it is not going to be easy. but if we pray and pray and pray, and desire more than anything else to become the beloved, God's grace will pull us through. pray for my weaknesses as i pray for all of urs.
Love,
sim
0 Comments:
______________________________________________Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Were You There?
Hi guys, this is something I blogged about on the SOW blog (mountainmovers.tumblr.com - go check it out) but I thought should be shared with all of you as well:
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
So the question is, were we there when our Lord Jesus was being crucified on Golgotha?
“Joshua Bell is an American Grammy Award-winning violint, who plays a 300 year old Stradivarius worth 3.5million, and charges 1000 USD per minute for his performances. In an experiment by the Washington Post, Joshua Bell posed as a street busker at the Metro subway station L’Enfant Plaza on January 12, 2007 as exactly 7.51am. The experiment was videotaped on hidden camera; among 1,097 people who passed by, only seven stopped to listen to him, and only one recognized him. For his nearly 45-minute performance, Bell collected $32.17 from 27 passersby (excluding $20 from the passerby who recognized him)”
- Wikipedia
So what is this telling us? Unless we have the correct disposition, we are not really there even though our physical selves are. The passerbys could not appreciate or recognise a world class maestro before them because they were not disposed correctly, as in, they were all rushing to work and had their minds elsewhere - on their problems, to do lists, etc. Let’s say we were told that we would be attending a world class concert featuring the critically aclaimed violinist Joshua Bell, only then would we be disposed to appreciate his talent and genius.
The exact same thing applies for Jesus’ crucifixion on calvary. The day when God died for all of us sinners, how many of us were there, and how many of those there (the women of Galilee, the roman soldiers, Pilate) were really there? It was the greatest concert ever played, with Jesus as the maestro, but how many of us can appreciate and recognise it? This event is the centrepiece of salvation, and is the single most defining moment in history, are we going to let it pass by as ‘just another execution of a criminal’?
Fr. David Garcia gave a very insightful example by citing Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph was part of the Sanhedrin, the council of elders that put Jesus to death. He had been a secret disciple all along, and had been fearful of what might happen to him if he revealed where his true loyalties lay. However, he was transformed by the event of the Crucifixion as he was there, and it gave him the courage to finally BE a disciple of Christ. He was the one who offered the tomb for Jesus’ body, and more importantly, was the one who asked for Jesus’ body. Under normal circumstances, Pilate would not have let anyone take Jesus’ body as he was afterall, a criminal, and should be buried in the mass grave. However since Joseph was part of the Sanhedrin and was of certain political standing, Pilate agreed to his request.
This has enormous consequences as if Jesus was buried in the mass grave, who would have known of his resurrection 3 days later? The empty tomb is the evidence of Jesus’ triumphant victory over death, and this would not have been possible without Joseph’s intervention. Joseph of Arimathea was able to rise to the occasion and respond to God’s call when he was the most needed, as he had the correct disposition at the crucifixion, and was there in body, mind and soul to contemplate the mystery of God’s unconditional love for all of us.
I guess this message from Fr. David is extremely apt as we are fast approaching Holy Week. It is a call for all of us to be truly present when Jesus is performing His great act of love. It is a call to be there for Him, just as He is there (upon the cross) for us. It is a call not to let this year’s Lenten journey and Holy Week just pass by our very eyes, just as the saviour of the world passed by Pilate’s without him noticing…
Where you there when they crucified my Lord?
I hope our replies this year will be, “Yes I was there…”
Love,
Soo
(Everything I’ve just shared was taught by Fr. David Garcia yesterday at SFX’s Charismatic Session which Mel and I attended. There’s a lot more to what I’ve just posted, so feel free to ask Mel since I may have left out important bits. Or even better, get Mel to post what he remembers! God Bless!)
0 Comments:
______________________________________________Sunday, March 14, 2010
Laminin
Hello Log,
I just wanted to share with you this amazing video which my best friend actually shared with me. Some of you might have already seen it but this was my first time and I was truly amazed.
The link = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e4zgJXPpI4
The video has made me realize a few points.
* We are all truly made in god’s image and liking and no one can deny this
* We are truly blessed to have such an awesome and wonderful god
* We are all people of god and truly we are called to radiate Christ
As usual whenever we go to any talks, retreats and camps, we never fail to hear that “You are made in the image and liking and god " and some of us will wonder am I really made in such a way? Am I truly made in the liking of god? This video answers it for me. Definitely YES, we are truly made in the image and liking of god and from now I will never ever doubt it.
Many of us might, Hiaz I am not holy as the other person or hey you know what, I don't really have god in me to spread the word and blah blah but have we ever taken the time to think that god treats us all equally and he gives us all the ability to spread his good news with different talents and abilities yet equal in value which is god’s love. For me, this video changed my perspective for the day.
I tried uploading it on the web but i coudn't. If any of you can please do so.
Hope that this video benefits you too. See you guys later!
Love,
Greg
0 Comments:
______________________________________________Thursday, March 11, 2010
from the mind to the heart
As Brother Jovita put it, the longest journey is from the mind to the heart.
It was what i was praying for and expecting to happen at the Core Leaders retreat and true enough, as Cheryl's image while praying over me would describe, a fountain in a arid desert - its starting to flow through me.
I had struggled for a long time to be open to that experience of God in me again. If you would remember, I became more cynical about how P&W works in people and because of that, my own cynicism had blocked me from praying in exaltation. It started with my first trip to visit the SOW people. Joining in their P&W, I told myself to let go and I truly danced and prayed. Thereafter, I slowly disregarded all my doubts about whether that feeling welling up within me was from the music or from God. It peaked at the leaders retreat where Mike and Celene really called upon the Spirit in their times of worship, and I really let go. I felt the reassuring presence once more and I praised at the top of my lungs.
Then I thanked God, for His faithfulness to me. Bishop Sim opened my eyes to what being the Beloved means and it was beautiful to tear down myself and to accept this love. I guess God must have waited a while for me to disregard my intellectual doubts and to embrace him. I had the image of running up to Jesus and giving Him a big hug and it was such a wonderful experience.
I would end with another Bro Jo's quotes, "to know, to love and to truly love." I won't be ashamed to say that I think I just went past the "to know" stage, went past just a bit.
Praise God!
Mark
1 Comments:
praise God :)
______________________________________________Friday, March 05, 2010
Father's Love Letter - Video
Hi LOG!
I came across this video while randomly surfing through youtube. it struck a chord in me, so i thought i shud share it with my dear community! haha. hopefully all of you will take a few minutes to just listen to the words of god spoken to us through scripture. even if you have seen this vid before, surely it cant hurt to hear god again aye? ;)
One particular verse which struck me was based on Jeremiah 32:40 .
"I will never stop doing good to you."
to me this really means a lot, knowing that god is constantly watching over me, blessing me, and protecting me from my own sins. i must admit that in my effort to thank god for every good thing that happens in my life, the unintended consequence is that i also blame him for the bad things that happen. this is especially when in my opinion i hv already done enough to deserve god's graces. for example, when i say a morning prayer and then end up missing the bus to work, i ask god why is he so unfair to me. or even worse, sometimes after reflecting through the day and praying at night, i find myself unable to sleep! then i become pek cek and ask god how come even though i do self-examination and prayer, he still dont give me a good night's sleep! lol.
a tiny moment of reflection brings about two responses to my issues. first, have i REALLY done enough to deserve god's graces? he DIED ON A CROSS for ME and here i am thinking that a few half-hearted words of prayer earns me god's grace? nonononono. let us always remember that god's gifts and graces come from his love, and his love alone. it is not a response to our love, or our good deeds, or our perceptions of self-righteousness. we can never do enough good to demand god's love.. and yet, he loves us 100%, even the worst of us, ESPECIALLY the worst of us. yay. so it is not a matter of indebtedness or obligation, but unconditional love that governs god's unending presence in our lives. he will never stop doing good to us.
secondly, are any of us entitled to a 100% perfect life? believe it or not, the answer is a resounding YES. the difference lies in our perceptions of perfection. perhaps david beckham has a perfect life cos he has a stable family with a lovely wife and 3 kids, and he plays pretty good football, not to mention he is damn good looking and rich? or maybe bill gates has a perfect life cos he's stunningly intelligent, ridiculously rich and has a perpetual warm fuzzy feeling in his heart due to his outstanding contributions to charity? nonononono. perfect life, my bros and sistas, is the life of JESUS! a life peppered with moments of glory (a la his baptism, transfiguration etc), but deeply rooted in the pain and suffering of human life, and governed by above all things, love. so the point here is PERCEPTION. i do not and cannot see things the way god does. but if i stop complaining for a moment and let him show me his plan, perhaps i would feel a lot more blessed in many areas of my life. who knows, god could hv kept me awake at night just that little bit longer to remind me, that he will never stop doing good to me.
God bless! Love u all deep deep.
Sim.
1 Comments:
omgosh sim is blogging! its a miracle hallelujah praise the loorrdd!!!
just kidding :b
thanks for blogging :D hope u wow all the little sec1 kids with your awesomeness. or awesome lameness. lol.
By poey,
March 06, 2010 6:21 PM