here's what Mark Twain wrote: At first, God made idiots. Then He made the school boards ok, so maybe God didn't make idiots... in fact, He obviously didn't... but i think Mr. Twain had a point... that i still have to figure out..haha been studying my head off and of course relaxing my head in as well throughout the past weeks. played some football and i still check my emails. had a great wonderful chat with a friend in Canada about love and relationships too!.. oh yeah, ps. sivin has added some interesting tips on "love and other mysteries" in response to my advert.. check it out! the link is at the side of this webpage i wrote a short song while doing my devotion a couple of weeks ago. wanted to write it down in blog but i've got the opportunity only now.. so here it is: Tiada yang lain yang kusanjungi Tiada yang lain yang kuhormati Tiada yang lain yang kucinta Selain daripadaMu Yesus only God knows why it turned out to be in Bahasa Melayu, the Malaysian national language, but for those who have got no clue, here's a translation: There's no one else I honour There's no one else I respect There's no one else I love Other than You, O Lord it has spoken a lot to me in recent times since i've been getting closer to God after i had slowly "backslidden" for quite a while. I guess in all the hype and stress of what can be probably the most arduous exam of my life, God reigns supreme and really, there isn't anyone else (or anything, like exams, for that matter) to stand in the way of my relationship with Him. Only God can be God in my life.. nothing else. i've had some wonderfully welcoming emails from some big people in my life. i got one from my grade 6 teacher in the US and today, my kindy teacher emailed me all the way from the Netherlands. If there were two teachers who have made the biggest impact in my life, i'd gladly say it would be the both of them. they're both doing well and my grade 6 teacher is now 6 months' pregnant! there's a book i'm reading, a birthday gift from a friend, entitled "How Now Shall We Live?" by Charles Colson. Based heavily on the original book by Francis Schaeffer, it teaches you to look at Christianity as a worldview.. an extremely recommended must-read! it works well for me esp. when i have to study political ideologies and so many questions arise, like is the Christian doctrine of original sin (that every man is sinful since the day Adam sinned) really true? its a thick book, but a great one for the intellect alright then, i guess that's all for now... "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" - 2 Corinthians 13:14

the "war" has begun..... yeah, exams.. just about the worst thing that could ever happen to mankind.. if i'm not mistaken, good ol' Mark Twain once said.. oops..forgot.. i'll put the quote on when i remember.. anyway, today's one was quite a good one..I must thank and praise God for it! thanks also to some of my friends who have been praying for me, even a couple of them who turned up to pray for me before the exams.. you guys know who u r..thanks so much!! really appreciate it. i think it was eisenhower or winston churchill who said after the success of D-day that "This is not the beginning of the end. It is the end of the beginning" i guess that's what it is at the moment.. merely the end of the beginning..one and a half more months and its the end of it all.. but I know God's gonna be with me all the way and that's what keeps me going.. fight on, comrades...

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A lesson from �Here I Am To Worship� Many of us have probably sung the famous Tim Hughes song �Here I Am To Worship� in our praise and worship sessions in church, in school CF, in camps and even in our own homes. And for those who have not, for the sake of sharing with you what I learnt, here are the lyrics: Light of the world You stepped down into darkness Opened my eyes, let me see Beauty that makes this heart adore You Hope of a life spent with You Chorus: Here I am to worship Here I am to bow down Here I am to say that You�re my God You�re altogether lovely You�re altogether worthy You�re altogether wonderful to me King of all days, o so highly exalted Glorious in heaven above Humbly You came to the earth You created All for our sake became poor Bridge: I�ll never know how much it cost To see my sins upon the cross Anyway, in my quite time (which I have not finished but I write now in order that I may not forget this precious lesson), as I sang this beautiful song, it occurred to me that there was something about the bridge that I had neglected. Have you ever wondered what it meant by ��never know how much it cost to see my sins upon the cross�? Will we ever know? I ended my song there. I realized that for some reason, I wasn�t really meaning what I sang. I had to ask God: how much did it really cost to see my sin upon the cross? I remember a few times where I�ve heard of people telling me that whenever we sin, we in essence nail Jesus to the cross. It is as if we take the hammer into our hands and take our turn to drive the inches-long nails into the cross. Or it is as if we drive nails into the feet of Jesus, or flog the Lamb of God with whips attached with bone and sharp shrapnel. As much as I do not dissent to this, I learned that our sin isn�t so much about nailing Christ to the cross. I believe that where it hurt the most, it was His heart, His spirit. All of us can take pain, whether it is as excruciating as Jesus had or less. I believe that what caused Him to suffer the most was not so much the physical sacrifice, but rather the spiritual turmoil that He underwent. Any martyr would tell you that the pain they went through, no matter how painful it may be was nothing considering the fact that God was with you and if you died, you�d be in heaven anyway. As Paul mentioned, �For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.� (Philippians 1:21). However, unlike any martyr, with whom God promised that He would never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5b), God turned His face away from Jesus. The spiritual state He was in while on that cross was total darkness. This once pure and holy man led Himself to the sacrifice as part and parcel of a mission: to take away the sins of the world. And to do that, He would have to �gather� all the sin; past, present and future and bring that to the cross. And because of that, God forsook Him. The words that rung so clearly in my mind as God revealed it to me was �My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?� (Mark 15:34) He was rejected, forsaken and God turned His face away from Him. Why? Because of all that sin that He carried in His heart. In that moment, Jesus� heart was full of filth, dirt, pornography, deception, lying, gluttony, murder, prostitution, death, ethnic cleansing, homosexuality and a host of immorality. God simply just could not look upon His Son. In that moment, Jesus took the hardest pain and sorrow: ultimate rejection from His Abba Father. He was alone. �I�ll never know how much it cost, to see my sin upon the cross� I will still sing that song. But whenever I come to the lyrics at the bridge, I know that the hardest pain He went through was not so much the nails on His hands and feet or the pre-crucifixion flogging. It was deep down in the recesses of His very heart. Every time I sin, I make that heart darker and the darker it goes, the further God rejects Jesus. I will still never know how much it cost, because I am in no position to take His place, nor can anyone else on the face of this earth. But whenever I look upon Jesus, His crucifixion now takes on a greater meaning than before. The cost of our sins was that in that crucial moment, the turning point of the history of mankind, He was rejected. Whenever you sing this song or any other song of praise and worship to God, ensure very much that you take into heart the meaning of every word you sing. God has got more up His sleeve to reveal to you than just the words that come out of your mouth. �But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds we are healed.� Isaiah 53:5

another 8 days... wait a few more days, ok? ok, no lah.. i'll blog again.. i'm trying to keep it to a consistent routine where i blog at least not infrequently. i tried to do so once in two days. in fact, if you looked at the dates when i blogged earlier, you'd find that new blogs appeared every two days.. now, its been 8 days since i blogged.. dunno how i'll keep up..hehe what's been new? nothing much, just the fact that exams are near. i've got less than a week's time before the a levels judgement day arrives. and guess what, it isn't judgement day for "day"'s sake, its a whole one and a half months of intellectual outpouring and mental (well, some say) suffering.. i dunno, but i guess those who have done a-levels or those doing it now would probably be singing the same song i'm singing now.. been working on my law paper since they're the first two to come out in the exams.. praying that all goes well.. nothing much else i can really think of...oh yeah, i'm pretty much well recovered from my flu and fever and cough.. praise God! i think it was because of the blood donation and my body just didn't adapt to it well, but i'm ok and fine and yes, i still absolutely encourage donating blood..unless you have medical problems like anemia or diabetes or low blood pressure, etc... i guess that really is about it... my mind's blank, sort of.. been working for about 7 hrs on law now so i thought i'd take a good break... so much for taking a break... i'm now scraping whatever's left in my skull to blog about.. ok, now i really and absolutely believe that i've got nothing else to say..so God bless and may you keep the peace!