Make yourself happy? :-D
Or serious? :-@
Monday, June 23, 2008
Refiner's Fire - YouTube Video and Lyrics
As a response to my earlier post Malachi 3:3.
_____________________________________________
Refiner's Fire
Words and Music by Brian Doerksen
©1990 Mercy / Vineyard Publishing
VERSE 1
Purify my heart
Let me be as gold and precious silver
Purify my heart
Let me be as gold, pure gold
CHORUS
Refiner's fire
My heart's one desire
Is to be holy
Set apart for You Lord
I choose to be holy
Set apart for You my Master
Ready to do Your will.
VERSE 2
Purify my heart
Cleanse me from within and make me holy
Purify my heart
Cleanse me from my sin, deep within
_____________________________________________
Refiner's Fire
Words and Music by Brian Doerksen
©1990 Mercy / Vineyard Publishing
VERSE 1
Purify my heart
Let me be as gold and precious silver
Purify my heart
Let me be as gold, pure gold
CHORUS
Refiner's fire
My heart's one desire
Is to be holy
Set apart for You Lord
I choose to be holy
Set apart for You my Master
Ready to do Your will.
VERSE 2
Purify my heart
Cleanse me from within and make me holy
Purify my heart
Cleanse me from my sin, deep within
Fighting Dawgs
One fine day as you are walking along the street, you see two stray dogs fighting. Law of nature tells you that, if animals fight, the dominant will win, even if apparently it only lasted for several screams/barks/gnarls or even bites. The question - How do you know which one is dominant?
1. The dominant one seldom makes audible noise.
2. The assaulted barks more.
3. The dominant one trots away with its tail raised.
4. The assaulted runs away with its tail covering its private, and with its head lowered a bit.
5. The dominant will have company (if there is a pack of more than 2 dogs).
6. The assaulted, after left alone, turns back and continues to bark cowardly at the dominant one (as if it is not "satisfied" with the outcome of the argument - the sour grape reaction).
I observed all the above whilst playing basketball yesterday evening, and there were 3 strays right in the middle of the courts causing much commotion - from the losing dog, of course. :-)
1. The dominant one seldom makes audible noise.
2. The assaulted barks more.
3. The dominant one trots away with its tail raised.
4. The assaulted runs away with its tail covering its private, and with its head lowered a bit.
5. The dominant will have company (if there is a pack of more than 2 dogs).
6. The assaulted, after left alone, turns back and continues to bark cowardly at the dominant one (as if it is not "satisfied" with the outcome of the argument - the sour grape reaction).
I observed all the above whilst playing basketball yesterday evening, and there were 3 strays right in the middle of the courts causing much commotion - from the losing dog, of course. :-)
Malachi 3:3
I received this from my nephew Pete. Another forwarded email it seems, but since the subject of the email quoting a Scripture verse attracted me. I read on, and at the end of the passage I nearly wept. It is awesome to know that God is always watching us purified and never abandoning and leaving us alone to destruction, and looking forward to seeing His own image in us.
________________________________________
Subject: Malachi 3:3
Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."
This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.
One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.
That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.
As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.
The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time.
The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.
The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?"
He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it."
If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.
Pass this on right now. This very moment, someone needs to know that God is watching over them. And, whatever they're going through, they'll be a better person in the end.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path. - Proverbs 3:6
________________________________________
Subject: Malachi 3:3
Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."
This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.
One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.
That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.
As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.
The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time.
The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.
The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?"
He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it."
If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.
Pass this on right now. This very moment, someone needs to know that God is watching over them. And, whatever they're going through, they'll be a better person in the end.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path. - Proverbs 3:6
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Performed by Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke
Mary Poppins, 1964
As mentioned in my earlier post on long and short song titles.
Performed by Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke
Mary Poppins, 1964
As mentioned in my earlier post on long and short song titles.
Friday, June 20, 2008
'Lost' Time
How would I feel - or rather - how had I felt when I found out that I lost one hour of sleep? Weary and sleepy. I experienced that in one fine spring Sunday morning when I was in Folsom, CA. The date was March 11, 2007 - the day the daylight-saving (DST) time began across US. I was like - c'mon, I slept at 1am and woke up at 7am (for Sunday Mass), but practically I slept for 5 hours only. Duh...
Today, I kinda experienced the similar feeling from a totally different incidences. Yes, I was back in Malaysia, and being an all-time-summer tropical rainforest country, and our time zone in Peninsular is approximately one hour ahead of our local time, it is as good as DST all the time. So, it is IMPOSSIBLE to lose one hour due to DST. Nevertheless, I experienced and noticed that:
- I woke up at 7:50am, almost exactly one hour later than my normal waking-up time @ 7am.
- My housemate left for work at 8:10am. He normally left at 7:15am.
- My supervisor reached office at 8:50am, almost the same time as me. He normally reached on time at 8am.
- Another colleague reached at 8:50am (no idea what time he reached normally).
Strange... Not really. For my case, I was deprived of quality sleep for many days. The others - no idea. :-P
Today, I kinda experienced the similar feeling from a totally different incidences. Yes, I was back in Malaysia, and being an all-time-summer tropical rainforest country, and our time zone in Peninsular is approximately one hour ahead of our local time, it is as good as DST all the time. So, it is IMPOSSIBLE to lose one hour due to DST. Nevertheless, I experienced and noticed that:
- I woke up at 7:50am, almost exactly one hour later than my normal waking-up time @ 7am.
- My housemate left for work at 8:10am. He normally left at 7:15am.
- My supervisor reached office at 8:50am, almost the same time as me. He normally reached on time at 8am.
- Another colleague reached at 8:50am (no idea what time he reached normally).
Strange... Not really. For my case, I was deprived of quality sleep for many days. The others - no idea. :-P
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
A 'New' Frontier
Part 1
Last Friday, I drove a fully-loaded car of 4 people to Sitiawan to attend our colleague's wedding dinner in Sitiawan. Dinner was at 7pm 'sharp' (I inverted-commaed the word - Malaysian Chinese should understand why it is so). So, we gotta leave office at 4pm in order to avoid the jam on the Penang Bridge. And, tell you what, we left at 4pm sharp (note: no inverted-commas), and yet when we reached the northbound bottleneck to the bridge at 4:10pm, it was already jammed. Sigh...
Taking a detour (using southbound bridge entry instead) and having filled my car with the RM2.70/liter gas, we finally left Penang Island at 4:30pm. I was a bit excited over the journey, because I NEVER traveled from Penang to Sitiawan before. [Ya lah ya lah... I traveled from Penang to Ipoh 100++ times, and I traveled from Ipoh to Sitiawan 10++ times, but never straight from Penang to Sitiawan lar... :-P]
The journey was interesting... I got this map above from the bride herself. Quite informative, but I would prefer a backup map, so here you are, Google map!! See below - click on it to enlarge it.
Half of the journey was on the blood-sucking PLUS highway - a journey far too familiar to me. After taking the Changkat Jering exit at 5:25pm, I ventured into a totally brand-new route. It was a two-lane slightly-widened trunk road which crosses Pantai Remis and Segari, not mentioning 3 long bridges across Sungei Dinding (one of them is 1-km long!!). Sorry folks (my car passengers), it is not Sungei Perak... Haha... I was speeding like crazy. PLUS highway limited me to 110kph, so 110kph I went. The trunk road got speed limit but no speed trap, so 120kph I went! Haha!!
No photos. Of course lar... siao ah? I was driving you know? Passengers cannot take ka? Cannot! Camera in my car boot... and I just enjoyed speeding on the empty trunk road. Hahaha!!! Too bad my car suspension was not as good as AE86, or else I'd do the Takumi stunt!!
I reached Sitiawan at 6:29pm. :-)
Part 2
The dinner ended at 10:20pm. After lingering around, I left Sitiawan at 10:30pm. Another group of friends (in another car) wanted to go to Ipoh for an overnight stay and Ipoh food the next day. So, I led that gang to Ipoh. Using the Ipoh-Lumut highway, I soared again for 120kph, with the other car trailing some 300-400 meters away. Man... The highway used to be a 2-lane trunk road, and it used to take 1.5 hours between Sitiawan and Menglembu. But now, the 2-lane trunk road was upgraded to 4-lane highway. That's why I sped like mad - it only took me 40 minutes to reach Menglembu.
The funny incident during this journey was that, because of the 300-400 meter distance, I tend to shoot past a green light, and right after that, the light turned yellow, forcing the tailing car behind to stop for a minute. At that moment, I would slow down my car till the light turned green again, so that my friend behind was able to catch up with me before I sped again. That happened at least 3 times - from the 2nd time onwards, all the passengers in my car (include myself) would laugh!! Why? Because we kinda expected that my friend behind us would flash high-beam to us!!
Last Friday, I drove a fully-loaded car of 4 people to Sitiawan to attend our colleague's wedding dinner in Sitiawan. Dinner was at 7pm 'sharp' (I inverted-commaed the word - Malaysian Chinese should understand why it is so). So, we gotta leave office at 4pm in order to avoid the jam on the Penang Bridge. And, tell you what, we left at 4pm sharp (note: no inverted-commas), and yet when we reached the northbound bottleneck to the bridge at 4:10pm, it was already jammed. Sigh...
Taking a detour (using southbound bridge entry instead) and having filled my car with the RM2.70/liter gas, we finally left Penang Island at 4:30pm. I was a bit excited over the journey, because I NEVER traveled from Penang to Sitiawan before. [Ya lah ya lah... I traveled from Penang to Ipoh 100++ times, and I traveled from Ipoh to Sitiawan 10++ times, but never straight from Penang to Sitiawan lar... :-P]
The journey was interesting... I got this map above from the bride herself. Quite informative, but I would prefer a backup map, so here you are, Google map!! See below - click on it to enlarge it.
Half of the journey was on the blood-sucking PLUS highway - a journey far too familiar to me. After taking the Changkat Jering exit at 5:25pm, I ventured into a totally brand-new route. It was a two-lane slightly-widened trunk road which crosses Pantai Remis and Segari, not mentioning 3 long bridges across Sungei Dinding (one of them is 1-km long!!). Sorry folks (my car passengers), it is not Sungei Perak... Haha... I was speeding like crazy. PLUS highway limited me to 110kph, so 110kph I went. The trunk road got speed limit but no speed trap, so 120kph I went! Haha!!
No photos. Of course lar... siao ah? I was driving you know? Passengers cannot take ka? Cannot! Camera in my car boot... and I just enjoyed speeding on the empty trunk road. Hahaha!!! Too bad my car suspension was not as good as AE86, or else I'd do the Takumi stunt!!
I reached Sitiawan at 6:29pm. :-)
Part 2
The dinner ended at 10:20pm. After lingering around, I left Sitiawan at 10:30pm. Another group of friends (in another car) wanted to go to Ipoh for an overnight stay and Ipoh food the next day. So, I led that gang to Ipoh. Using the Ipoh-Lumut highway, I soared again for 120kph, with the other car trailing some 300-400 meters away. Man... The highway used to be a 2-lane trunk road, and it used to take 1.5 hours between Sitiawan and Menglembu. But now, the 2-lane trunk road was upgraded to 4-lane highway. That's why I sped like mad - it only took me 40 minutes to reach Menglembu.
The funny incident during this journey was that, because of the 300-400 meter distance, I tend to shoot past a green light, and right after that, the light turned yellow, forcing the tailing car behind to stop for a minute. At that moment, I would slow down my car till the light turned green again, so that my friend behind was able to catch up with me before I sped again. That happened at least 3 times - from the 2nd time onwards, all the passengers in my car (include myself) would laugh!! Why? Because we kinda expected that my friend behind us would flash high-beam to us!!
Mormon-ed
Yesterday I was back in Ipoh (don't ask me why... that's not the topic here). At around dinner time, there were two Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (LDS) a.k.a. Mormon church missionaries from US came 'evangelizing' around the neighborhood. One of them, something Kwok (I'm bad at names), in the normal Mormon long-sleeved white shirt and tie, came knocking. I approached him, of course without allowing him in, and he started asking whether my family members were Christian. And I answered yes. He asked which church I was from. "St Michael's Church in Ipoh and Holy Spirit Church in Penang" was my reply. From my response, he acknowledged that I am a Catholic.
And yes, having a Mormon missionary at my door, I kinda expected that he would begin his 'evangelization' some time soon. So, without wasting time, I invited him to begin by asking him, "What are you doing here?" There, he began to explain that the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus was lost since the death of the last Apostle, until their 'prophet' Joseph Smith 'received revelation and from God' that he would receive the fullness of Gospel 'truth' in year 1820. (Let's do simple maths - that's 17 centuries of 'apparent darkness' according to LDS.) With that 'truth' he founded LDS Church, and later he was identified as a prophet who restored the 'truth', a prophet same as Moses and Elijah.
Next, his question was how I would feel when God answered my prayers. Thereafter, he pushed to me his tract and made me promise to read it and pray to God would answer my prayer that the 'truth' is revealed in the tract. What the...
Well, my arguments were but only two:
1. If both of us believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are the Body of Christ - why keep on pressing? My post reflection says otherwise - I doubt if they care, hence I do doubt their belonging to the Body of Christ.
2. I pointed to him Matthew 28:20, in order to refute his argument that the Gospel was lost for 1700 years. Jesus said that He will be will us till the end of age. Mormons teach that the Gospel was lost for 17 centuries. A big conflict - a big one which I am not even at all convinced at the Mormons' claim. If the Holy Scripture, or rather, the synaptic Gospel according to Matthew is True, then the Mormons are flawed. Well, I now know that, to LDS Church, the Book of Mormons are more authoritative compared to Holy Scriptures. Too bad for them...
I nearly wanted to bring up the fact that the Gospel was alive all the while through the teachings of the Church Fathers, but I did not think they would buy into it. So, I saved my breath.
In the meantime, I was a bit bugged by a more pressing issue. So, I attempted to shoo him away by returning his tract. He refused to take it back - rather, he reiterated his little demand. Well, I would not have problem promising him to finish reading it. I would not even have problem praying about it. My main concern was to pray to God to help me strengthen my hard earned faith. :-)
Nevertheless, I did feel better with me having that tract. Now the missionary has one less tract to mislead people. :-)
To learn more about the LDS Church, click here. Mind you, I do not approve of the teachings of Mormons - c'mon, it's evident if you click the link - it's sourced by Catholic Encyclopedia! :-)
And yes, having a Mormon missionary at my door, I kinda expected that he would begin his 'evangelization' some time soon. So, without wasting time, I invited him to begin by asking him, "What are you doing here?" There, he began to explain that the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus was lost since the death of the last Apostle, until their 'prophet' Joseph Smith 'received revelation and from God' that he would receive the fullness of Gospel 'truth' in year 1820. (Let's do simple maths - that's 17 centuries of 'apparent darkness' according to LDS.) With that 'truth' he founded LDS Church, and later he was identified as a prophet who restored the 'truth', a prophet same as Moses and Elijah.
Next, his question was how I would feel when God answered my prayers. Thereafter, he pushed to me his tract and made me promise to read it and pray to God would answer my prayer that the 'truth' is revealed in the tract. What the...
Well, my arguments were but only two:
1. If both of us believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are the Body of Christ - why keep on pressing? My post reflection says otherwise - I doubt if they care, hence I do doubt their belonging to the Body of Christ.
2. I pointed to him Matthew 28:20, in order to refute his argument that the Gospel was lost for 1700 years. Jesus said that He will be will us till the end of age. Mormons teach that the Gospel was lost for 17 centuries. A big conflict - a big one which I am not even at all convinced at the Mormons' claim. If the Holy Scripture, or rather, the synaptic Gospel according to Matthew is True, then the Mormons are flawed. Well, I now know that, to LDS Church, the Book of Mormons are more authoritative compared to Holy Scriptures. Too bad for them...
I nearly wanted to bring up the fact that the Gospel was alive all the while through the teachings of the Church Fathers, but I did not think they would buy into it. So, I saved my breath.
In the meantime, I was a bit bugged by a more pressing issue. So, I attempted to shoo him away by returning his tract. He refused to take it back - rather, he reiterated his little demand. Well, I would not have problem promising him to finish reading it. I would not even have problem praying about it. My main concern was to pray to God to help me strengthen my hard earned faith. :-)
Nevertheless, I did feel better with me having that tract. Now the missionary has one less tract to mislead people. :-)
To learn more about the LDS Church, click here. Mind you, I do not approve of the teachings of Mormons - c'mon, it's evident if you click the link - it's sourced by Catholic Encyclopedia! :-)
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