YM

pre youth prayer last saturday was awesome!!!
there really was unity of spirit, all of us prayed something about hearts. i was reminded of a sermon that was about a heart that had alot of muck and goo on it, and was representative of bitterness that had built up over time, and prevented the heart from receiving.

but before i could pray that, almost everyone prayed about heart conditions hahaha. i was wondering if it was because i was specifically hearing for hearts, but when i asked robin and evan later, they both agreed that they too felt led to pray for hearts. awesome man!

which also kind of brings me to something that i find very odd in myself, i think i'm too much of an achiever, somehow i view prayer-out-loud as a race to pray the coolest and most soul searching prayer. maybe thats a reason for wanting so many spiritual gifts too. i wonder. but i do know in my head that its not a competition to pray the most pharisical prayer, but somehow i just get led in that direction.

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originally, robin wanted to do a sharing-prayer thing, but betty decided against it (i still am quite... disturbed about it). but i do see that God worked out what he wanted, darryl shared with me that God was leading him in a prayer-worship thing; so even though robin didnt go ahead with the prayer bit, it was transacted through darryl. and i felt God was very present during worship. i loved it :D been a while since i knelt down in worship. i pity the adults though, the seating in church is so not conducive for free worship.

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kingdom assignment! i (along with 11 others) received a hundred bucks from betty, to do this kingdom assignment thing. which was... 100 bucks from God, spend it on his purposes and see what happens! hopefully it'll snowball. anyway it was very cool cos i was thinking of doing this for street evangelism before betty did it.
we're going to do street evangelism on the 11th, and there would be some people that wouldnt feel comfortable sharing the gospel, so one other option for them (i was led to think) was to give them some money and have them find some way to bless the community. i was thinking give out coke! (after seeing the servant evangelism video on youtube, which was INSPIRING)

in any case, i have a hundred bucks sitting on my desk and i dont know what to do with it. but i'm sure God'll open doors. i think it was ron that said to invest the money that you have excess of; if you win 4d, keep some for yourself and invest the rest, if you lose the money its ok, because you're not bankrupt :)

when gods collide

you see, my dad brought me to parkway to get a phone for my bday. i wasnt exactly so keen on getting a phone but since i had no better idea, why not? so anyway, i went to the hello shop, and saw that they had a 99 dollar offer for the nokia 6280, which was like.. ok, cool.

then we went to the m1 shop to see if they had any interesting deals (the m1 student plan is better, so i would rather get an m1 line) and saw that same phone, at 98 bucks. they had a test piece, and like when i felt the thing slide, it was the love man. (its a sliding phone btw)

so anyway, i queued up, and halfway thru the queue (it was a long boring queue, they have slow service man) the person told me that the 98dollar offer was over already and she tried to work around it but couldnt

so i was like.. heartbroken man. but its alright.
then my dad told me i should pray about it first, cos they only prayed about the washing machine (we got one, and i must say its fun to watch a front loading machine spin around and foam). so... initially it was already in the back of my head that i shouldnt get this phone, but i ignored it. i mean, logically what can be better!

so since i had the same offer at singtel, i went down and on the way was praying, and eventually it stopped at 'if you allow me to get the phone... let there be... something striking green in the singtel shop'

well there wasnt, even though i was looking like mad hahaha. : (

so anyway i decided to go home, since God said no. we went home, and i've been raving all week about the nokia 6280.

this afternoon i went to bugis, checked out the 3 mobile service providers, and only singtel still had the offer (which ends tomorrow btw) and im like. AHHHHH.

SO, i blocked off the God side of the equation, and wanted to get it. i still had some hesitation because God had earlier said no, but.. darn i want it : P sooo after making up my mind to get it, i went to the singtel shop and after scanning through the terms and conditions of getting that particular deal, i knew i could get it.

so essentially i snooked God when i said 'but hey, if you really dont want me to get the phone, then somehow make some clause appear that disallows me from getting it'.
nahahahah i thought i had it all covered, but anyway, they required my dad to be there in person, or with a letter of authorization. which... sucked.

so i went home, and was like. whyyyyyy i like the phoneeee why cant i have it?
so yes, hi dad, my dad reads my blog. thats why you saw me moody on the couch at night, because i want the phone and the bigger dad wouldnt allow it.

so, 'so' is the word i use the most to start a sentence. someone teach me how to use other.. words.

in the midst of all this, while brooding on the way home, while i was going why why why; i realised that alot of times, when we ask God 'why?', it's because we have our own notions about what's best for ourselves, and God doesnt follow that. so we ask why. i asked why. why isnt a nokia 6280 for me! why! why wont you let me get a pretty chick for a girlfriend before i go into NS so i can make her wait 2 years for me! (i'm just kidding)

i mean, ideally, logically, secularly, the phone of choice with the circumstances, it cant get any better than that. i guess God still knows best :) im not hoping that somehow someone will drop his 6280 and i find it with no way to contact the owner (God forbid that the phone i get should have been dropped by another). i'm not hoping that someone would be selling his phone at a lower-than-supposed rate. i've surrendered, if He doesnt want the phone for me, so be it, His will above mine.

i dont know where im going with this, but i think friendships dont matter anymore.
i've held on to my friendships for a very long time, i always thought they'd be there, i always thought it was godly to have friendships. it was! but i just never let God handle my friendships, and i'd get upset when i didnt get it the way i wanted it. another step to total surrender, as far as i know now, i'm at God's feet again, with nothing i'm holding onto on earth. (of course if i could do this, i'd be a saint, so i guess i'm not all surrendered yet)

its been great, the past week or two, i'm starting to get on the same frequency as God again: i don't know what i'm doing right this time, and i dont know what i was doing wrong before, but i get the sense i know where God's headed, and its a good thing to know.

there are changes to effect when we move to SIM, i'm still not happy with the way things are handled in church, and i think the legalism is as my dad would say, an insidious influence. (i learnt this word when he told me not to work after my Os because of influences.) i think all saints should ease up a little and have things more spontaneous. but thats just me, evan says i'm anti-establishment.