the upside down kingdom.

"the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."  

Proverbs 9:10

why fear, why must fear rule us when we see the Lord? why not love? isn't love a better word to describe how a relationship motivated by love is the kind of love that grows you? so i've realised the hebrew word for fear, yirah (יִראָה) has 2 meanings. one of which- fear, dread as it is. and the other- reverence, awe, respect.

why then, is it important to not just love the Lord, but also fear Him? because love alone does not imply respect. love alone could move the mountains, but it may not cause one to procure wisdom. just like how God could love us but not need to obey us, one could love another but choose not to obey. 

in this proverb, i assume that love for the Lord is already a given. then this addition of fear- a deep reverential fear for Him, will cause one to obey, to bow down before the heavens in humility for the Holy Spirit to take over. all of him.

i want to fear the Lord.

the winged ox

just finished the book of luke. jesus is a lot more controversial in the bigger scheme of things than i've imagined (all along, i've only been ploughing through specific chapters/verses during sermons and quiet time, never a book through a span of 4 days). i mean, i've read the book of luke, but not in this way, ever.

consistency. that was what struck me the most of jesus' actions. how much it would have taken someone, as He went about teaching, healing the sick, casting out demons and taking on the teachers of the law and the pharisees. he wasn't mollycuddled and affirmed like how we are today with 32% of the rest of the population of the world backing us up. he was plotted against, accused, betrayed time and again. at the end of the day, the son of God, our almighty, could be tempted to waver. but he chose not to, despite most of his life being defined by rejection.

yes, so faith is a choice. it is a choice to die to myself daily, to take up the cross. i know at the heart of it all, why i make this choice. but yesterday's sermon had me wondering about how much i'm willing to die to myself to fulfill His cause.

(call me lazy, but i'm jumping right into the book of Acts! hehe)

a hole in the heart, made whole.

a gnawing hunger. one that rises up from my left chest, residing just beneath my skin. i want to know you, God. verbatim. i've never experienced something like that. the yearning of daily conversation with You. the heart beats, faster and faster when i find out another facet of Your goodness and mercy. remember that struggle months back, where i couldn't for the life of me find a heart conviction for that mind conviction? when i found the key to that heart conviction and unlocked it with prayer, little did i know what God would bring me through on this journey. of greater self knowledge, of breaking lies, of seeing light.

somewhere along the way, i've found that blueprint of God's design for me. of self acceptance instead of self condemnation. so it's been done, Hui Xin.

it is the start of feeding on manna, it is the start of doing and being. i was dead but now i live.

Psalm 95:1

14 years ago i had a love affair with a particular music instrument while peering over its huge black body. i was so in love that i got my mom to sign me up for classes. it was rather short lived (all of 4 months), because i got tired of playing scales and doing theory. i didn't care for playing silent nights and silly Grade 1 score sheets; i wanted to break out of that beginner's lameness. fast forward 4 years later, i got a good friend of mine to teach me chords during recess and after school. we only managed in C major, and from there, i started playing everything in C major. anything and every song that could fit into C major i did. emo i was, playing songs from uh F4, uh westlife, uh S Club 7, etc.

then the inability to play in other majors or do any form of chord progression hit me and made me really bored. so mom sold the white elephant away. i mourned over its departure for abit, and decided to go back to good ol' trusty guitar.

a few months back, i got pretty excited after fooling around with the keyboard on garageband, and figured out how to do chords in different majors. and to add on i think i was rather inspired by a particular mr lau's playing. so, thus began my search for the perfect piano to rekindle my love affair. to cut the grandmother story short,

this sexy P70 baby now sits next to me.

actually he's been sitting around for quite a few months now. i finally got around to recording something. surprisingly on the 3rd take! the slightly banshee-sounding harmonies are blessings from God after a quarter of serving in the worship team. so cool how they come pretty naturally. i love you God! :)

Some things, you lose to gain

Luke 22:42 - "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." 

i believe on the day we accept the Lord and so occurred to us the presence of light and darkness, we were probably marked on Satan's blacklist. i've been tracing back on my past, and it has hit me, that it really was right about the time i accepted God, 10 years ago, that i started to let go of my own will to let the tirades of life push/pull me along.

perhaps i belong to the odd minority of humanity, for my will was not that i wanted things my way, but that i recognised that i had a will but couldn't be bothered to take control of it. the greatest lie probably ever told to me was that i could lose control of what was happening to me, and let my life be controlled by fate. or possibly that divinity would look after me. or possibly that being anti-establishment was the easy way out of not desiring achievements in life.

so as much as i had let passivity gotten the better of me, it turns out that divinity did see me through these years. the point of turning back to God saw a confluence of many reasons, one of which, was recognising that the only reason i had managed to pull through life since drawing away from Him, given minimal effort on my part, that it was high time i acknowledged His blessings and stop being an ingrate.

God helps those who can't help themselves.
God helps those who can help themselves.
God helps those who can't be bothered to help themselves. (guilty as charged)

the idea here is this -
given how selfish we all are, God loves us all the same anyway. so much that He gave us the freedom of choice hoping that one day we would come to yield to Him when we start loving Him too. all these under the wings of His protection.

the question now is -
do i wanna continue shortchanging Him by just scraping through life, yearning for these cheap thrills of blessings, without first willing myself to put my all in what i do?

first, break me out of the mindset that anything that requires discomfort is beneath my mediocre, carefree life.

so done with this part of me.

Endless light

it's been 4 days since popo passed on.
there are mornings i sit in bed praying
wondering where she is
could i have done anything differently
there are nights that i'm awakened by gong gong
standing over her. breaks my heart.

i know Your ways are higher than our ways.
i continue to pray for popo to rest in peace.

john 4:14

my one fear in life, is that I do not do the things I do with the root of a heart conviction. to me, a mind conviction is a flow of logical thought processes that i was trained and conditioned to make choices in life. that of which the world teaches us to do.

mind convictions worked in my life for the short term. a project or a major exam, i could put in my 100% and saw through them. they never worked for long term commitments like random CCAs, being consistent in my school work, interests. on the contrary, the only heart convictions i've seen through is my commitment to follow God and music.

which was why when i was repeatedly brought to question the consistency of my spiritual habits, i actually did know what the right thing to do was. which was of course,

more prayer + bible study → know God's character more → make Godly decisions in line with His Kingdom

uh, yeahhhh.
today i realised how much of a silly i am.

i'm not just reading about a God to know Him more.
i'm meeting Him, i am talking to Him, i am listening to Him.

who am i to confess that He is Lord and that i love Him and am in a relationship with Him when i don't even take the effort to meet and talk and listen to Him? if i could make it a point to meet my family and friends because i love and care for them, then what more God, whom i've chosen to follow?

this is my heart conviction:
prayer + bible study → meet and talk to God, the love of my life → understand His ways and His character more → love Him even more → wanna serve Him and His people even more


i confess that i love God above all,
but my actions thus far have shown otherwise.

the great gatsby

concluding thoughts from the movie:

themes discussed could seem larger than life (or not, perhaps in part living in a privileged and sheltered world), but no matter, the darkness of the fallen world is always relatable. the fact that we humans get so disconnected with our sins of pride, greed, gluttony..etc, is something i recognise and am both repulsed by at the same time. i.e. we are still the same people who spat at and sent Jesus to the cross.

crowd pursuit of the material dream is a universal delusion of how we've managed to believe in lies that we are living right in a world of fallen standards. a scary thought and definitely much reason to pray about.

and,
mutual indispensability is romantic. (the notebook)
unrequited indispensability (coupled with perceived mutual indispensability) is cruelly delusional and sad. (the great gatsby)

matthew 25:33

i've uncovered the key to the long distance race.

focus on being faithful, not fruitful.

we be faithful.
and the fruits of faithfulness are for God to bear.

now the question is, how.
be back soon with the answer!

life on mc

sleep for 3 hours
do work for 15 mins
talk to mom about random strange stuff that papa and her do/come across
laugh very loudly
eat meds
sleep for 2 hours
wake up to eat some fungus soup by mom
whatsapp friends
do work for 20 mins
eat meds
sleep for 2 hours
wake up in time for dinner
accompany mom to go grocery shopping
get bored looking at her stare at labels
go for a run
:)
hangout with xz till the wee hours

a glimpse of those school days. ah, i miss them.