Eyes wide open

Psalm 136:4-9 “to Him who alone does great wonders, His love endures forever. who by His understanding made the heavens, His love endures forever. who spread out the earth upon the waters, His love endures forever. who made the great lights - His love endures forever. the sun to govern the day, His love endures forever. the moon and stars to govern the night; His love endures forever. ”               We know that creation demonstrates the creativity of the Creator, as how the glory of an artist is in his paintings. So in the same way, we see God’s amazing mind when we see the fruit of it – the work produced – the watercolour evening sky, the year-round snow-capped mountains, the vast and mighty oceans, the gargantuan Redwood trees, the animals – tiny ladybugs and humpback whales, the humans – faces with such inexplicable beauty. We understand that pretty easily, and indeed that’s pretty captiv...

A disclaimer before you read what I share: I try to be cautious not to write judgmentally and not to appear unduly critical  - these are my observations so that all of us, myself included, can perhaps be more mindful of this.. trap, I would call it? - when we worship. "I feel it." I admire those who pay much attention to the Holy Spirit, being led through the Praise & Worship set list by Him, thanking God for making His presence known among us as we put our praise on the altar. But I also wonder if anyone else makes the mistake - as I have done before, of focusing too much on emotional highs/lows, the leap of your heart, the sudden assault of goosebumps, the sudden tear-jerker... and mistaking these temporal physical reactions to be the fullness of God's presence. Undermining Christ. In many praise & worship gatherings I have been in, I see Jesus Christ reduced to a box only opened on Sundays for a good temporal goosebump thrill. Has the amazing life-changing...

              Little details catch my eye. Tiny mistakes raise alarm. Where other people might view fine details in a project as trivial and unimportant, I pay painstaking attention to each and every detail and expend time and effort to make sure every one of them is in perfect order. To be clear, I don’t have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) – and maybe the description of my attention to detail above might be slightly exaggerated... But I definitely must say that I'm a perfectionist, wanting to make every effort a flawless one whenever I can.               I have been given several roles in ministry where my perfectionist eye is put to much use. For example, in my writing I try to choose each word carefully with my nose in an open thesaurus, also rereading each line twice or thrice to make sure it has a nice ring to it. When designing graphics...

I'll sing to You, Lord, a hymn of love for Your faithfulness to me.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm carried in everlasting arms; You'll never let me go through it all. 4th Feb 2017 | MCKL Graduation | @Dream Centre Emily has graduated! ...but not from university just yet. I finished my A-level programme last year and we had graduation last Saturday. I had the privilege of doing Scripture reading during graduation, and the selected passage was Psalm 33. The psalm professed truths about God that I felt were so timely. "Don't count on your warhorse to give you victory..." We are often so materialistic, not in the sense of material wealth and possessions, but in the sense that we trust more in things we can see & discern physically (like a warhorse) than in the omnipotence and loving Sovereignty of God, who orchestrates all things carefully and gloriously out of the "vast reservoirs...

So I have decided, in view of my epically transforming journey in Methodist College (July 2015-December 2016), to document some of the amazing experiences and opportunities I've gained during my 1.5 years there. I hope you enjoy these little recollections, as I recount and share the little and big things that have established for MCKL a dear place in my heart. Wew, thank God for giving me this wonderful experience.  ♥ Okay let's start with some very dear friends of mine - for it is the brothers & sisters that make a place a second home, right?  Nobody's Birthday [Est. January 2016] Our friendship/sisterhood definitely goes back to 2015, but 'formally' as 'Nobody's Birthday' we were established in January... following a plan to surprise Shin Li (one of us) for her birthday! And to avoid blowing the surprise, we named the planning WhatsApp group 'Nobody's Birthday'. Occupationally, our little team exists to surprise each oth...

I'm done with college and I am at home resting for 9 months from the past 11 years or so of studying! Yes. What a relief. I thank God for how faithful He has been in the past years, walking by me and leading me on in a journey that has me looking back in awe and wonder. I've grown like never before; I am nearer to what is called 'womanhood' - still a very distant future in my view. I have left things behind which are not of worth in my journey with Christ - old mindsets of the world, goals which do not seek to honour God, plans which crowd God out of the picture. I don't even want to look back at those things in the rearview mirror, because where I find myself now commands no backward-looking nostalgia.   (view of Ipoh from Kledang Hill, Menglembu) As with most people when they talk about the close of a long chapter in their lives and wait for the start of a new one, I have pondered on God's faithfulness that knows no end. We can never praise God e...

Psalm 66 "Shout with joy to God, all the earth!  Sing the glory of His Name; make His praise glorious! Say to God, 'How awesome are Your deeds!  So great is Your Power that Your enemies cringe before You. All the earth bows down to You;  They sing praise to You, They sing praise to Your Name.  Come and see what God has done, How awesome His works in man's behalf! He turned the sea into dry land,  They passed through the waters on foot -  come, let us rejoice in Him.  He rules forever by His Power,  His eyes watch the nations -  Let not the rebellious rise up against Him.  Praise our God, O peoples,  let the sound of His Praise be heard;  He has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping.  For You, O God, tested us;  You refined us like silver.  You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads;  we went through fire and water,  b...