Wednesday, May 19, 2010;
Live for the audience of one.
Indeed, the above statement is especially hard to live up to, esp when one's getting older and more mature. Throughout my 2 years in NS, I try to live up to this mantra, but it was never easy. On one hand, i wanna live for God, but ppl are forever trying to test my limits and force my carnal nature out. I always thought going out of NS and entering worklife, would made life easier. Instead, I ended up compromising more. As in, sometimes u wanna do wat is right, yet in order to save time (n ur ass sometimes), I jus kept quiet and followed suit.
However, by constantly mediating on God and praying, i realised that during those rash and uncomfortable moments I tend to curse less in my heart. Maybe perhaps I'm more tolerant to the prepare, as usually I'll either say sth nasty and regretted it aft or i jus backed off n sweared in my heart. The latter default mechanism is in-built since army days, when u r flooded with crude and vulgarities.
Personally, Fasting does works for me. Whenever the hunger pangs, you will tend to think of food, but when u realised u r spending the day fasting, u'll naturally pray. As a result, u will not want to be so unspiritual, as u r more aware of God, as if he's watching my every step, word or intention. Thus, I would say i did live for Him, for that instance.
This is exactly wat happened today. In order to prepare ourselves spiritually for ID conference, my tg aka cg decided to Fast n Pray to
1) Prepare ourselves for the conference
2) Fun n Fellowship
3) Greater dependency and obedience to God and Holy Spirit.
I'm really looking fwd to a time of Fun n Fellowship. May the lord continue to bless me n my tg.
Thank you.
I love you God ~
12:30 am
Wednesday, November 18, 2009;
ORD is drawing near as i just finished another milestone in my NS life--fought Atech in Austrailia. In exercise wallaby, my unit went Aus to have an evaluation. If one will to ask why we go so far just to be evaluated, well my ans will be that Aus is only big enough for my unit, as we r too familarise with Singapore terrain.
But then again, I'm quite sure we are well-versed with SWBTA, esp the most seniors. Even, i myself came last yr to recce the place. Maybe this is called cheat code or 'half a battle won', as in fact, we knew the place better than Atech.
All in all, it's a good fight and we r awarded only silver, as our sis, adf is our enemies. (if not for those chiongsters, we may get exceeding expectations result)
Life is actually quite tough there, for we r forever in the field with absolutely zero form of sanitation. One can never get his feet clean before sleeping. Even showering is subjected to water, thus we must RATION the water output. Some actually resorted to using drinkable water to shower or vice versa--obtaining hot shower water for hungry cup noodles nites.
It's either hot in the day or cold in the night for the 1st part. Then the weather changed drastically to cold and wet towards the 2nd half of the stay. In a way, being wet is good, as the rain prevent some dust from flying. Basically, in polygon camp, it's forever dusty or muddy. since the higher up don't wanna invest in gravel n small stones, unlike other camps.
Life is so pathetic that even our basic food must be transported, since the place is too dirty to have a kitchen. Ironically, we (even) BBQ for our end of frame dinner. In the beginning, many opt for cup noodles, as the teleported food isn't as fresh. While, at the end, many resigned to fate and have no qualms on eating cold food with a speck of sand, dust, flies or wat not.
As for the use of internet, there are only 4 previous coms using ONE cpu, to be shared amongst 400 plus tech-savy and bored soldiers. Some re--kindled the passion on facebook games, over the about 1 month stint at Queensland, Rockhamton.
However, I'm back, and am a transformed man, as i begin to appreciate things. Such as home-cooked and Singaporean food, sanitation (clean feet to bed!), communications, aka internet, etc.
In a nutshell, it was a different and enriching--esp thr last night at polygon-- experience! Cheers!
Live for the audience of ONE.
I love you God ~
3:42 am
Wednesday, October 14, 2009;
I love you God ~
2:18 am
Thursday, October 08, 2009;
In another 11days, I would travel to Australia to fight Atech. Hence, the battalion is like tone down a lot. As i forget when is the last time we had a full 5.5 day week, let alone a 4.5day week. Ironically, they would rather burnt our weekend than weekday. Just last week we booked in on wed night(when man u played wolfsburg) for live firing, then sat is another live firing.
To make matter worse, i was thrown an arrow to do COS on sun, like on thurs! like that i effectively burnt 2 weekends, and that is too much! How can i get adjust to the sudden confinement? After enjoying so many long weekends and offs. Thank god, i got a wisdom tooth extraction on tues, means i got a break..
However, it's terrible as my bottom left teeth is stuck and is growing sideways, thus i need a minor opeartion. I lost a lot of blood in the process, and my whole face swelt up! Nonetheless, though i was given 7 days MC to recuperate, i nd to return to camp to pack my bag for some stupid overseas trip..
I love you God ~
9:54 pm
Wednesday, September 30, 2009;
On my birthday...
29 Sept 2009, is my actual 21st birthday. I woke up just to take a cab to go for coy cohesion at
SDBA. My platoon boat came in 3rd in some coy Dragon Boat competition. Being 3rd is mediocre and good, as we did not get a day off and more importantly, we aren't the luggage party.
As a birthday boy, I expected to get wet. Low and behold, I'm the target man, and those around me suffered too. Sorry my neighbours. We went to eat beef
hor fan and tau
hui at
Geylang later, where PC treated us with lime juice.
When the night falls, my core team met me at my house area and we had
Pastamania for dinner at
hougang mall. Soon after the meal, three of them disappeared and abandoned me, saying there are some surprises for me, so i waited lonely at the eatery.
Joel then brought me to the 13
th storey of
blk 461 (where I recalled my ex-shepherd gave me a visual illustration to encourage me to win my former school--
hihs then). When i looked down, I saw "HAPPY 21ST" clearly spelled out with candle lights. It was such a touching sight. I mean, I wonder who will create such a wonderful surprise for me! And that's not all! They gave me a really LARGE black card, with our cg members scribbled all over the edges, PLUS there is a "pop-up" of Luke's figure, wearing a cross embedded t-shirt; scoring a goal! On top of it all, I was given a self-baked chocolaty cake named "Death over Chocolate", which is my 1st love too!
It was an awesome display of
hardwork, appreciation, and delicate love! Darryl included all my desires--Christ, buddies, soccer and chocolate! I mean, who actually bother to be so meticulous, unless he is keen and sincere in seeing a wide smile from me!? Thank God for you, Joel, Darryl and
Wenwei! It is great to know and serve alongside with marvellous brothers like you all!
Even my family love the wonderfully made chocolate mousse!
Let's win the camps toge!
I love you God ~
4:19 am
The Special Day!
YO! To all who made the effort to attend my 21st birthday bash: THANK YOU ALL for making it so special and memorable. I don't think i would forget 25th Sept 2009.
Celebrating 21st to some is just another birthday, or worse still, another day. But to me, it's special, as it is a time for me to reflect on my life, setting some goals and deadlines. In short it's very authentic to me.
So I recklessly booked a 3 days 2 nights chalet and get the food ready at the eleventh hour. To make matters more exciting, I hold the coveted BBQ event on a Friday evening, when majority of my friends are busy with their work. As oddly, exams and unit events are usually stipulated right smack in the middle of late Sept!
Therefore, it was such a great encouragement to witness 50 over guests turning up to celebrate with me. Never do I expect to see so many people from different walks of life (don't know whether appropriate to use this expression) to surround my tiny J20 BBQ pit. The crowd is so overwhelming that I do not know how to cope, for I'm not a trained public speaker or am taught well on crowd control and management.
Due to my inadequacy, one could see how I frantically scurrying around trying to serve food and make everyone feel at home. On a side note here, i will like to apologise for not being a good host.
Seriously, i did enjoy myself, from
-trying to start a fire,
-BBQ food,
-setting up the place,
-bringing out the frozen food,
-coordinating and planning my own cutting of cake,
-smsing and picking up calls and directing to J1920,
-smiling and taking different groups photos,
-playing pranks (cake smashing)
-clearing up the place,
-forever entertaining people
-serving people
-wrestling,
-watching phobia 2 with my bunkmates(screaming like a mad dog in the theatre!)
-sleeping with 13 men.
All this experiences are only possible with your presence! Thank you once again, all who participated in Luke's 21st growing up party. May God bless us in the years to come.
I love you God ~
3:36 am
Live for the audience of ONE.
This could be an emotional post.
I figured out that it is pointless to live for anyone, since nobody is forever worthy of my life. Well,
I'm not
suicidal, just very realistic. There are times where people will fail and disappoint you.
It is always easier to live for 1 person, as you only need to be concern of Him and His attention on you, etc. Basically, you need not divide your concentration on so many audiences, and try all your efforts to please him/them.
However, it would also be hard to live for yourself. One would realise that, as human, one will err, thus, during those weak moments, it would be impossible to depend on oneself. In addition, by living for yourself only, it would be a lonely task, as there is no another person to evaluate you or encourage your progresses.
Therefore, on hindsight, I've decided to live for the
audience of ONE. For he worth all my life, time, energy and talent.
Dear God, please help me to live for you only. Do always remind me of
WWJD. I really am sick and tired of trying to fix myself to suit certain people. I mean, can't i be who I am and yet gain 100% approval? Well, only in your eyes, I am forever your treasured possessions. (
Deut 7:5-7)
This is my sincere prayer.
From your son, Luke.
I love you God ~
3:24 am
