I need Rest...

There's this thing called the Original Order of God...

That a man must work for 6 days a week, and on the 7th day, he must rest... It's set out in the tale of creation... I haven't been having a proper day-off since a few weeks ago and it's starting to take a toll on me.

It's not only that I haven't got the time for my girlfriend, I haven't got time for myself even sometimes. So, I found myself gasping for air and most of the time, I'm drowning.

Foresight

I have found that not many people have the gift of foresight.

Those who have foresight would normally get an edge over those who don't. But some people are so bad with foresight that they can't even see 1 week ahead. And that is really bad. But I'm not here to talk about the bad side of people, but I am here to propagate encouragement.

We need to have foresight, and we need to prepare for things ahead. And those who expect will almost definately take advantage of the situation. People aren't just lucky, they were prepared for thier 'big break' when the opportunity presents itself. This is a product of foresight and not just because this big piece of meat fell in front of him from no where.

I believe that opportunities for improvement and advancement will always come by in life, but only those who are prepared to grab it will get it. The rich men of today aren't rich because they sat there on their bums and ordered people to work, they moved when the timing was there and the opportunity was there.

Not Enough RAM...

Random Access Memory... yeap... not enough Random Access Memory...

My mind has been on so many things at one time that I don't think I have enough brian power to keep everything in check. I have been called to do so many things that I literally ran out of RAM in my brains.

Maybe an upgrade should be warranted.

There's so much to do, so much to think about, so many things to plan ahead for, so many demands...

Crap...

Focus

I've been faced with a few problems lately.

Namely, I am called to do a lot of things that I shouldn't be doing. Not that I want to complain about the nature of those assignments and chores, but to get straight to the point, they are not what I am supposed to do.

This means that I have been called to do something else when I should be focusing on other things.

I believe that everyone has a specific calling in life, and that normally involves something that only he can do within his community or vicinity. Let's put it this way; It's like you call for a plumber, you agree on a certain fee for his services, and you get him to fix the roof while your taps are leaking. It's not what he was called to do, but he has to do it nonetheless. Willingness is not an issue here, (of course I am willing to help out wherever I can) but some things, are just not what I should be focusing in.

The economist will tell you about opportunity cost. If I leave this ministry hanging because I have another chore to do somethwere else, then I have just forgone the opportunity to impact a few people's lives!

Such is the urgency of todays' church, that every single minute counts! And the devil knows this. I feel as though sometimes, I am called to do a lot of 'more important matters' that the things I should be focusing on has been given a backseat. To some, things like fetching a VIP is more important then your weekly cell meeting. But let's look at it this way. Which is what you should be doing?

It's not about importance, but it's about what you should be doing!

If you do not live by priorities, you will live by pressure.

And so many people in this 'industry' tend to lose focus after working for a while. I have heard of people working in church who hasn't been walking regularly with God! If that is the case, then what is the pull of working in church? The fella might as well go find a job out in the corporate world because the pay is certainly higher!

Such things happen because this guy has lost his focus. He has forgotten why he is working in church, and he has lost his focus of what he should be doing.

Possibly, he has succumbed to the pressures of the demands of those around him. The life of a full-time minister in church is so filled with demands that some have turned into work-horses without taking time off to re-focus why they are doing what they are doing. That is why, retreats are important for people serving in church. Retreat doesn't mean to go off for a holiday, but a retreat means to take a step back, and re-evaluate your own heart regularly.

Some people have no focus in life whatsoever;
Some people lose thier focus along the way;
Some people don't know what they should be focusing on;
While some stay true and tied to their call.

So, if you're called to fix the leaking tap, don't you go wandering off up to the roof!

What's your reward?

God has a funny sense of humour sometimes...

Sometimes, He rewards people with material rewards, like when you give back your 10% to God, and He blesses you back with more than you need.

Or when you see the faces of the people whose lives you've touched, and it just keeps you going.

Or when you put Him first as your priorities, and He blesses you with good results altough you didn't prepared as much as your peers.

But for me, the best reward after a long hard day's work is to come back to the house, and my lovely girlfriend waiting for me and we talk about our days' work, our problems, and just remind each other how much we love one another.

I'm learning to cherish the times whereby we only meet for that small amount of time, where she's so tired, but yet she makes a point to stay awake until I come home and tuck her in. We will chat for a while, and she'll doze off. And I'll go out and relax for a while... sometimes I go watch the tele, and later the tele watches me... sometimes I find myself wandering out to the mamak... sometimes I go straight back to my room and fall asleep... But all in a day's work, the highlight of my day is always the moment when I come home from work, and I meet with her. To see the smile on her face when she sees me, to be able to feel the warmth and the care that she's been storing up for me, just gives me the strength to tackle the next day.

Now I am truly understanding the phrase 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.'

Since I've been working, I haven't had time to go about 'dating' with my girlfriend. Even so now, that I have literally no day off, even if she's take a day's leave, I won't have the time and chance to go out with her. When I think about it, she's sacrificed so much of our time for me to go do my job...

And God' reward for me each day, is to come home and she's there with her appreciative smile, chirpy "Hello, I missed you." and her determination to stay awake until she sees me and gets her tuck-in. And my heart melts every night.

And I say to myself, what a wonderful day this was. Let's do it again tomorrow...

I'm learning to cherish, to make it a point to make it up to her each day, to recognise the sacrifice she's making, and to love her truly from my heart.

All Day...

All day... I was driving the whole day today.

Went up to the airport, and then straight down to KL to get this guy into his college. Well, we didn't manage to find the college, but we found his hostel... So that's a small let-off for us...

However, today, what we learnt in the car was that God's grace is always sufficient for us. Oh, how I loathe that word. Today was a whole sequence of sufficient-ness!!!

I had to technically be in 3 places at the same time to do 3 different things. We got calls to get these persons from the airport and send them to their college somewhere in KL, and then at almost the same time, we had to venture into the National Heart Institute to visit this ailling child who's got a hole in his heart. Then at the same time, I had to be in one of the colleges to set-up this booth opening thing with a friend of mine.

So, in the end, I had to make a difficult choice, but by the end of the day, we all saw that God's grace was indeed sufficient for us:

I had a friend who came back from Germany and told me that the transportation system in Germany was so good that you can plan your day's travel to the minute... Imagine doing that in Malaysia, and you'll see a recipe for trouble.

So I had to be in one of the colleges from 12-2pm, but I had to forgo that for this other job that I had to handle. So I left this poor girl set-up the booth all by herself while I slave up and down the tarmacs of KL.

We set-out from Sunway at about 12pm and managed to reach LCCT within 30 plus minutes, just in time to fetch the couple who's intention was to get to a college in KL, which conincidentally was just around the corner from the National Heart Institute. So we got them and rushed directly down to see this kid with a hole in his heart. Timing was perfect, a few minutes late and we wouldn't have gotten to the kid cause visiting hours closed at 2pm and we reached the Heart Institute at about 1.40pm... So I let my colleague off and proceeded to bring this couple to find this college which no onw knew where it was.

And the stupidest thing happened, we consulted the map, and we got ourselves pretty close to the place, but we just can't seem to find and entrance into the road that we wanted to. Thus, we got ourselves lost for a while and then after a bit of sign-board reading and being misled by them, we found ourselves at the hostel in which they needed to stay for the night. So instead of getting them to the college, we got them to their accommodation quarters, which, we were still in good time to get ourselves back to the office for closing time.

So, in a sense, if you really understand KL, we really did get everything done with perfect timing, which doesn't happen often in KL... So, the fact that I am here writing this post at this hour, just shows you that God's grace is sufficient for all.

And I just hate it sometimes that I don't even have a little bit more time to spare.

I'm a greedy person...

*Disclaimer-Post was written in a semi-comatose state after a straight 5 hours of driving. Poor brain + poor car...

It's a new beginning...

Sure it's a new beginning.

I have now lost my previous crop of readers and now I think it's time to start off anew. Last time, I wanted this blog to be a rather true representation of who I was, but then, it seemed that I wasn't true enough to myself.

Thus, when I switched from working in the circular corporate world into working in Church, I felt that I had nothing to write; But I had so much to do in terms of my day to day dealings with the church and its people.

I constantly find myself torn between the nature that is outside and the nature that is within me.

So now, since I have lost my previous crop of readers, I might as well work on writing about my passion and about my journey in these two years of full-time ministry.

I have been called to be a disciple-maker during this two year tenure whereby I shall go all out for God. I am now involved in so many ministries that I spend so little time at the office. That's also part of the reason why I don't get to blog that much.

My work comprises of going into colleges and start up ministries in college for college students. So far, I find myself travelling to and from colleges day-in, day-out.

So, from now onwards, I will try to blog more about my life as a full-time worker in the church of Christ.

I'm still here...

Yes, it is with great joy that I declare I am still alive, and this blog is still inhabited.

But whao, it's been so long since I've had the time and inspiration to sit down and write something. Such is the busy-ness with my new job, that it's virtually a 24/7 kind of thing. I find myself talking about 'work' all the time. With me now, it's this and that to be done, where and what there is to do, even when I'm having a time of leisure late night mamak.

I haven't been writing a bit since taking on this new job, and I spend so little time at my desk that sometimes, I feel as if I don't even need a desk at the office. Just give me a sofa and a notebook and I'll do you wonders.

So much of my time is now spent of communicating with people about stuff, sharing ideas and listening to needs, taking on responsibilities and helping out whenever I can.

I only wonder if my writing skills have dwindled and may at long last elude me. I have now truned into a 'doer' instead of a writer. There are ideas and thoughts, which a few months ago came to me as a thing to write down, which are now put into practise, and there are also practices that I have implemented while working on things.

The scary part about what I do currently is that involves a lot of people's personal lives. And that is a bit scary to say the very least. There are things that I say or do that may destroy or encourage a person. And I must admit that there's a certain pressure on me to 'perform' and to help people make the 'correct' decisions.

Well, at least I'm enjoying it, and I get to practise so much of the things that I learnt during Uni...

Education - Not Wasted...