My leg has recovered considerably since that day I remember that I went to Hope Church in China Town. Thank God for that

Day 6 in IH

At this time I thought it would be good to just sit down and reflect on the past few days in IH. First off I have not been sleeping well because of the people wandering around at 1 am in the morning, talking really loudly. I just put up a notice on my board outside for some peace after midnight, I hope it works. As far as I've experienced, many university students will leap at any opportunity to belittle others with their "intelligence".

Secondly, I have been distracted from my work. After getting my CLAW assignment back which has made me realise the importance of reading a question VERY CAREFULLY before doing it. Result of not reading question has put me at a disadvantage for the final exam. Still I have already made preparations for the final and I hope to flesh it out over the next few days. (18 days to finals)

It is very easy here to get distracted trying to get to meet more people since it is supposed to be community living. The desire to get out there can some times be very overwhelming.

So the focus now is pure revision of work in this room and trying my best to get a good night's sleep.

Oh and on the side I shouldn't neglect my exercise routine and now with proper food I should try and eat more healthily.

Touched by his spirit once again

Dear Readers,

As I sat tossing and turning in my new home (which can be rather noisy), I reflected on my day and time in this new place and some how his spirit touched me in that way it did those years ago.

*(Take note that psychology has shown that there are many types of people so this might not apply to everyone)

I thought about intelligence (real or conceived) and how it can be like the rich man who finds it hard to follow Jesus.

Let's take the example of a young Christian Singapore man living in this age of technology and change, he adapts to life by being intelligent and fast on the uptake.

He goes through the army, he turns into a young man, he starts to become independent of mind and will.

He is intelligent but he uses his mind to see the wrongs, evil, misguided intentions, problems in others. He justifies himself by his knowledge via books, the Bible, experience.

Psychologists call this person a Perfectionist Melanchonic.

Can you see how it will be difficult for a man like this to be a sheep, a son of God, a follower, a brother, to love?

"Focus on what is good..."

But then again can you see how powerful a man like this can be?

In our churches today we have many grounds to say that we are hypocrites, that we are lukewarm, that we do not put enough efforts into theology, that we are not as "good" a Christian as we possibly can be.

Just thinking with this mindset will destroy us.

A man who can have great knowledge has the responsibility to learn. To be patient with others. To be humble. To be kind. To be gentle. To love. To shine for God.

How can you help your brother when you have that splinter in your own eye (to paraphrase)?

A matter of philosophical logic,

A man of great potential has the responsibility to master himself, to have a relationship with God, to read his living word, to commit his days to Him, learn his purpose in the greater picture of things, learn humility and servitude, not rush or be hasty to judge, slow to anger like the Lord.

This is not a comprehensive list but basically:

He must learn how to become more like Jesus in everything he does.

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On a more personal note, some of us have become defensive from a life of protecting ourselves. Our fight or flight response helps us keep safe but leads to high stress levels, a somewhat intimidating presence, a mind that searches for dangers (even dangers in other peoples' personality!). This becomes an obstacle for a person who wants to live a christian life.

Solitude/Depression is a circle of disaster and is one of the most effective ways to lose your desire to live. Let us examine this.

An important part of being a Christian is community, a person may spend a few years in the wilderness learning to grow, but a floater will never truely be happy (this is a generalisation).

Thus leading to the error of permenant "church hopping".

I am taking this out of context of a person who has lived somewhat like me, who has had to adapt to change a few times in life and has displaced his comfort quite a bit in this regard. Church hopping is a good idea in the first few weeks, but eventually a person should settle down and discipline himself to stay in a church which caters to his needs and where he can find a sanctuary to learn, rejuvenate, grow, etc.

The question is why do we find it so hard to stay in one church? One has to examine what his top reason is for going to church, are we in the church that God wants us to be? Or the church where we want to be?

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I think Dale Carniege made it very clear in his book (don't be put off by the title) 'How to win friends and influence people', that a person is much better off if he develops a care for his fellow man, a desire to see others happy, to make the world a better place by doing small things for other people whether it be remembering to say the person's name often, to smile and to greet, to speak in terms of the person's interests, not to complain and gripe, to have genuine interest.

One can think that this book's purpose is to teach you how to manipulate people to like you and do what you want.

Dale would spit quite bluntly that that was never the intention of the book.

His desire was to teach people how important it is to life to have a genuine interest in other people, and its ripple effect on yourself and others.
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One important part of the Bible to me was Solomon's lament about the futility of a life lived in the wrong way.

I think that a person needs to find a drive to persue his life and to find his passion.

How I do it is I look at the end, when I am lying in my death bed, what do I want to feel? Personally I do not really care what people think of me, because of the life I have had so far. So the next question I ask is did I complete what God intended me to do in this life? Is God happy with his sheep?

This gives me the drive and energy to live my life.

And now I am tired again, time to rest.

The burden of youth and the frustration of genetic disease.

I am young, I make mistakes.

I am broken, I was born an ineffective human, broken, disfunction.

My situation is bleak, it seems this year will be wasted on plain study, and a lot of extra effort will be required to "have fun".

But I continue to exist, so what do I do? I struggle against my life. Because you cannot quit, you cannot stop, you either fall or you continue to fight against being alive.

You fight because we live in a wicked world. If we can find peace and joy in this horrible place, we should fight to keep it, hold on to the glorious peace if we can find it.

Once I have fought the fight I will escape this world. To a place where the evil of money and power cannot touch me.

For now I fight the fight because no one else will, and I fight it not for God, though I believe he stands there.

I fight against my life because I have to.

SUV vs. Ben

I need to clear my head and realise that this problem is going to be major (about 800 odd OZ/1000 sing worth).

I need to speak with Frances about this problem, I have a break at 12 noon and finish school at on and about 3 pm.

Structure of argument:

Try and get full refund for period that I am missing.

The amount of 40 dollars a week was changed to 20 dollars a week, should be deducted backwards.

Get them to keep the account open for the rest of the year.

If all else fails you have to think of how you can spend close to 800 australian in 5 days. Probably in terms of toiletries which can be kept long term. Medication. Vitamins. Long storage food stuff. Try and sell off to people at IH via notices.

Juggle work, play, fitness, physical problems, admin problems, school problems, career problems.

No one else can help you, just be thankful your parents have the money to let you make mistakes.

Lesson learnt:

1. Never commit to a contract without looking at the situation from at least 4 perspectives.
2. Read every section to its deepest detail (eg. compulsory ucard use fee. These people should all be shot and placed in a shallow grave.)

This is a notice to self to go check out the details of IH.

Awake not wanting to close my eyes

Is there something wrong? Why do I feel like something is wrong?

It is now 3:20 am and I think through the high of being awake at this hour, my mind has reached a strange sort of state.

I need to stop playing basketball. It is sad but true. The body does not seem to be capable of handling this much stress no matter how much I want it to, possibly once every 2 weeks, but it is too much stress on the joints.

My legs hurt, my left arm is injured, tomorrow I shan't be able to walk far, I should rest and revise, exams are coming, the move is coming, but tomorrow I shall rest and not worry about the world.

Persist to get there

So I spoke to my dad again about the whole business world thing. Accounting and finance, the basic thing that all business people need.

So I have to do it. Time to just stick to it and finish it off.

A new church, basketball and a bruised elbow

Just came back from basketball, still can't shoot for nuts but passes, dribbling still quite good. Went to a new church, met new people, going to buy groceries after my bath, woohoo~

Wow what a life to lead.

When you were born your legs were screwed up, but you said that's not going to stop me.

When you were in school people made fun of your lack of ability, but you said I'm better and stronger then any of them ever will be.

When your parents told you that your desires were not the way to go, you decided to go anyway.

When you were too young you tried to help a broken thing become better.

When you were 16 you said hey let's try something new.

When you were 17 you said hey I'm not going to get screwed over by the army.

When you were 20 you said hey let's try something better.

When you were 21 you said wow what a life to lead.

After all these years, you made some mistakes, you did some good, you learnt a lot of things and you're proud of yourself.

You know your capabilities, you know how far you can go, you know that people are going to try and make you think different.

Nothing can stop you because you've defeated the one thing that can hold you back.

Yourself.

The world is yours.

The Golden Key

It has been great fun over the past few days learning more about my personality traits, skills and likes. It has made things a lot clearer in terms of my career and motivation for living. Artisan - Composer, who knew? I always thought I was more of a teacher - idealist but I guess after the army and BRMC I kind of lost that desire to teach and bring unity to a community.

Today I went for the Golden Key talk which was about community service, three successful people in their fields talked about their experiences with helping the needy, it was another interesting thing for me as I found myself very drawn to the idea of going overseas and into these kinds of communities to help people.

Then of course there's the worry that I can't handle the outdoor life, too used to nice clean toilets and the like. Hehe.

Need to remove these contact lenses and find some food.

Insomnia

For the past few days my sleeping patterns have been out of wack.

Oh I saw a beautiful rainbow today,