Enlarge… Stretch

And yes… I’ve left this alone for farrrrrr too long. It has been such an exciting season in church with many many powerful sermons, so today, I thought I’d share my personal take-aways from two of these sermons!

“Enlarge the place of your tent,
And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings;
Do not spare;
Lengthen your cords,
And strengthen your stakes.
– Isaiah 54:2

This was a verse that Garrett used in his Enlarging my Capacity sermon, and it really spoke to me greatly! I have been feeling overwhelmed slightly recently, and this verse really encouraged me to enlarge in my capacity!

A few weeks after that, it was Pastor Lia’s sermon about The Power of Stretch! Pastor Lia shared that the breakthrough is in the stretch.. And it all began to make sense.

Often, it is human nature to stay in our comfort zone. After moving into a new environment, either at work, in our relationships, or really any other aspect of our lives, we tend to want things to remain status quo for a while. However, this stage is a scary stage, because if we get used to status quo, we won’t grow anymore.

Getting used to the status quo at works means I just appear, do my job, and go.
Getting used to the status quo in relationships means I just get used to the people in my life, and no longer make an effort to go the extra mile for them.

This is why the breakthrough is in the stretch.
If I am willing to step out of my comfort zone, I will begin to grow.
If I am willing to stretch, then the breakthrough is just around the corner.

And these are not even all the powerful sermons that I’ve heard recently! Currently, Pastor How is on a 3-part series on the Parables of Jesus. Part 1 and 2 have been so powerful, and there’s still Part 3 to come next week! Can’t wait for it already, let me know if you want to join me!

Decisions and Purpose

So it’s after midnight… And when I can’t sleep, I blog 😉

What a weekend at Heart of God Church! Pastor Tan Seow How preached about Faith-based Decision Making. He shared with us a quote from Franklin Roosevelt.

“… the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” – Franklin Roosevelt

This is so true. I realise that a lot of the times when I chose to stay in my comfort zone boiled down to fear. Fear that I will not do well, fear that I will mess things up, fear that I will disappoint the people around me. But if I operate out of fear all the time, then I will never truly walk into the entirety of what God has intended me to do, which is something that I can only do with faith!

”Err on the side of faith.“ – Pastor Tan Seow How

I was also very impacted by Pavan’s testimony! He was someone who had it all – good results, great future – but one question led him to what he is today, and that was the question of what was his purpose in life?

Many people I know have always asked this question, and I know of so many people who try to find their purpose through many different means. Some work very hard to earn a lot of money, get a good reputation; some find purpose in doing voluntary work, helping the needy etc.

Don’t get me wrong, these are all good things, and we definitely should work towards that. Yet however, a lot of these people somehow still end up feeling hollow and empty after they cash in their latest paycheque, after a whole day of volunteering.

Pavan’s testimony was especially powerful because from the eyes of the world, he had it all. Yet still, he was looking for something more. And when he found that something more in God, somehow everything clicked for him, and now, he’s living a life full of purpose and he’s loving it.

This testimony also led me to think about a Taiwanese celebrity who just died of cancer last week. I remember watching his last interview on YouTube, and one sentence he said struck me the most.

“这个世界上如果哪一天我死了，会不会有人记得我。” （Come the day when I die, will anyone remember me?)

He shared in the interview that since young, he has always been searching for a purpose in life. This question had kept him up all night since then, and he had to rely on medication to get to sleep.

This was also someone who, in the eyes of the world, had it all – at least, more than what most of us would have. He was a celebrity, people knew him and his songs, he was generally popular, he could live quite lavishly. Yet the same question of purpose nagged at him.

I don’t know whether the celebrity found his answer after all.

But what I know is how I can find my purpose.
This is why I go to church. This is why I do the things that I do. Even at the end of the day, when I reach home tired, I know that I am walking into the purpose that has been set out me in my life, and I can sleep soundly, knowing that I am loving my life.

A Time of Mourning

Over this week, the news of the Sabah earthquake has been constantly in my mind.

This sudden earthquake has taken the lives of many, but that of the young students and teachers from Tanjong Katong Primary School who were there on a Mount Kinabalu expedition hits home the hardest. I’ve been on a similar trip back when I was in secondary school to that exact mountain, and if I hadn’t fell sick, I would likely have used the exact same route to climb up to the peak of the mountain.

It is such a sad thing, because these children and teachers still have their full lives ahead.
It is such a sad thing, because these children and teachers are potential world-changers.

This is not the time to point blame, not the time to say who is in the right or in the wrong. In fact, no person is to blame for this tragedy.
This is a natural disaster, no human, no teacher, no government, no entity can claim responsibility for nature.
Heck, even insurance policies provide an exclusion for Acts of God.

This is the time to mourn and remember these children and teachers.
This is the time to come together and provide support to the friends and family of the victims of this tragedy.
This is the time to stand together with them and let them know that we, collectively as a community, are here for them.

Eventually, life goes on for us again, but for the families and friends of the victims, their lives will never be the same again.. Hoping and praying that they will find peace in the chaos, and quiet in the storm..

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Edit: My pastor, Pastor Tan Seow How wrote an article about this too. You can click here to read it directly!

We can’t stop the falling rocks but we can stop throwing stones.

#throwbackthursday

Woohoo! It’s been some time since I wrote something, but SOO many things have happened! So this is like #throwbackthursday, except it’s WAAAAAY longer than it should be on Instagram 😉

Last Friday was such an exciting day for Heart of God Church! Last year, we launched #loveothers14, an initiative to love the people around us, for no rhyme or reason! There were students who went around giving sweets and study packs to their friends, young adults who wrote bought bread and snacks for bus drivers and workers, youth who went to love the elderly at hospices etc… There were just so many different things that happened to love the people around us!

We thought that was about the end of it, but last Friday, #loveothers14 was awarded the Kindred Spirit Circle Certificate by the Singapore Kindness Movement!

There are so many things that were done in this initiative that it would be almost impossible for me to talk about them all, but you can read more about the stories over at loveothers.sg! If you want to be a part of #loveothers15, you can also go to that website to register your interest! I’m definitely going for it! 😀

We also had a great service in church last week! Charleston preached about 4 Keys to Have when God Shows Up, and it really challenged me personally to really up my prayer and spiritual life!

After service last week, DV3 and DV81 CG also went to hang out together! We went all to Saizeriya at Cathay, and to mix things up a bit, we all sat in groups that usually don’t hang out together!

Anabel, Jiayu, Harrison, Henry, Roger

Kelly, Sir Tong, Stephanie, Grace

Wess, Claudine, me, Joseph Yeo

We really had fun hanging out and spending time with each other, and of course eating!! Haha, we were so hungry that we didn’t even take any pictures of the food, but just ATE when the food appeared haha!

After that, we went to get the much talked about Milk Cow!

Haha, again, too excited about the food to take pictures LOL

And of course, we ended with a we-fie!

If you noticed carefully, you’d see some people who didn’t appear in the first few pictures!

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This is how every week in Heart of God Church is like! We might be people from different walks of life, different levels of society, but we are all people who simple love God, love people, love life.

Can’t wait for this weekend already! 😀 Off to have my fig tree moment now!

Hello world!

Ever since I’ve started learning coding on my own as a teenager, “Hello world” has always intrigued me.

It’s the first test of whether you can understand the basic syntax of any coding language. There’s the println("Hello world");, the alert("Hello world");, the echo "Hello world".

To me, this is how my life has always been.
This line of syntax means I will get this result.
Every action has a reaction.
If I do this, I will get that.

But only when I came to church did I realise that things are not always like that.
It is in church that I learnt about a love that surpasses all understanding.
It is in church that I felt accepted for who I am instead of what I do.
It is in church that I do the things that I do, because I was first loved.

As a result, this is how I see the world now. Most people have their own opinions about things that happen in their lives, in their communities, around them in Singapore, me included. It’s been soooooooo long since I’ve last had a blog, but hopefully this time round, it’ll actually last. 😉

Hello world!