I'm not so good at talking after all...

"I don't think that is what the psalmist is saying..." Some classmates commented that they lost me halfway through my sermon and others added that my sub-points were in no way linked back to my main point.

I've just preached at my Preaching for Dummies class, and this was the response I received. Good valid constructive comments. Very humbling too (coincidentally, at our SEBL group, we've just talked about genuine humility). I've always thought talking was one of my strong points, but I guess I have so much more to learn.

I preached on Psalm 27:4-6 and somehow or another, I completely missed the point of the psalm and read into it a "future" perspective and even mentioned praying for Christ's return (as an application of the psalmist longing for the completion of the temple). Blown it completely. But I'll learn. I have to learn!

In reflection, being in Perth this last 3 years or so has really taught me a lot. Especially in humility. In Singapore, I used to assume I was a fairly good worship leader and musician, small group leader and yeah, administrator and leader of a worship team and camp. In the last three years, I've realised that I'm actually not so good after all.

With OCF, I realised that despite pulling out all stops in my two years of leadership, even as president, I was completely helpless in making OCF relevant on our campus. Despite all the hard work, time, prayer and energy devoted into talking to people and trying to convince them, it has all come to naught.

As a musician, I'm perhaps the worst guitarist on our team at Mounties and make so many mistakes and screw-ups each Sunday despite practice. Yeah, I'm nowhere close to leading worship at church. I just don't sing well enough.

As a friend, I haven't made any effort to maintain close and intentional relationships with people around me. As a worker, I tend to be too OCD in the things that don't matter to be productive. As a student, I'm far from exceptional, just average, maybe even below average at a very average university.

What has all this taught me? I once thought that if I put my heart and mind to something, I can accomplish anything. But maybe I can't. I'm not so special. I'm not so clever. I'm not so significant, really. However, despite the failures, I pray that God will still use me. I need to be more submitted to the Lord and His power working through and in me. Truly, not by might, not by power but by the Spirit.

April issue of "My Journey"

I've finally finished the 2nd issue of "My Journey". I apologise for sending it out so late but it has been a really busy month! You can download it here. Thanks for supporting and praying for me. God bless!

Should people know I am a Christian?

Something that has been on my mind. Should people be able to tell that I'm a Christian just by looking at me? Or do people know that I'm a Christian simply because I tell them that I am. So how different are Christians from the average everyday person that we come across? Are Christians meant to be that different that we are exclusively so? Yes, we have a joy and a hope in Christ. Yes, we have love and a concern for fellow man. But how do exactly do we demonstrate that without seeming "over-zealous"? More to think about.

I'm just back from the OCF WA Easter camp and looking forward to the two non-teaching weeks ahead of me to catch up on work and rest. Working on the April issue of "My Journey" which should be out shortly!

John 3:16

So right, halfway through my New Testament class, my lecturer said, "so who said 'for God so loved the world...'?" Of course it was Jesus, no? Apparently, maybe not. In the original Greek text, there were no punctuation marks and thus the translators had to just simply make a decision. In the NIV, they decided that it was said by Jesus. If you have a red letter edition, it'll show up in red plus the quotation marks. However, if you look at the recently updated TNIV, the translators have opted to REMOVE those quotation marks and have them as John's commentary on Jesus' teachings.

How crazy is that? I've spent my entire Christian life believing something that Jesus said but my interpretation was simply at the mercy of the translators. A quick look at various translations show that most translations i.e. the KJV, NRSV, NASB, The Message, NLT, etc has the text marked as said by Jesus but only TNIV doesn't. WHY? Haha, questions to ask the translators sometime.

Anyway, I've been keeping real busy with the assignments and tests. Did manage to pass my Hebrew vocab test right on the dot. Have one more on Tuesday. Below is a photo of Dawn and me on our trip to Nannup on top of a 61m Gloucester Tree. It was a long climb indeed.