chronicles of young

I catch myself exclaiming this inwardly when I get the feeling that my prayers have been answered - which is a good thing right? - but there's a sense of being 'tricked' into something uncomfortable. Surely this is one of the reasons why God says 'No' or 'Wait' to our prayers. We do not know what it means for ourselves when we pray for certain things, or perhaps we ask without being fully ready for the 'Yes'. Anyway, just before I slept YW asked how come I got the feeling that it wouldn't be good for me to go for this Bible camp which I really took alot away from last year. Just vague thoughts about my participation not being very helpful for the other campers and not very aligned to the season I'm in so I didn't reply. This morning came the invitation to head the Discipleship Committee for church youth camp. Such is human nature: My first reaction was something like 'Wow! Good job, God! You answered my prayers in this way and no...

Having been a social worker for just close to 2 months, I must first apologise in advance if I make it seem as though I have passed a judgment or sound very coldly cognitive. My peers' very raw experiences of witnessing family violence, together with the Rohingya crisis, stir up visceral emotions of anger, horror and helplessness. Of which, I am quite sure, a few degrees removed I am sure. This week during supervision I was confronted with the fact that I have been engaging the youths I am supposed to counsel in a more cognitive way, when the root of the issue are heart matters like belonging to a family, trust, and feeling loved. "What is happening to you in the counseling room as your client shares this?"  Social work is a spiritual journey, I am sure of it. We, or I, must confront the questions pertaining to God so as to forge ahead more boldly with the people we work with. A lot of these questions start with 'Why'? Ecclesiastes reminded me again of ho...

Dreams verbalised to and encouraged by different friends. Vague as they are- do I even know what I am talking about? "Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NLT) 一步一步要凭着信心走 - 求神扩大我的心。 "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged until he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope."   Isaiah 42:3-4 (NIV)

Sitting at the window seat of National Gallery cafe now with the natural sunlight filling the whole space. Such moments like that echo of shalom.  Are they incompatible with the broken realities of the world? This question I have struggled with in my freshman year as I come face to face with human suffering and broken families.  I've thus far managed to come to a healthy (or so I think) tension where I know that shalom moments come by 'the slow, steady engagement with and practice of God's will' (Bruggemann, in Evangelism and Discipleship). Yet, have things become too convenient? For convenience is indeed the goal of the dominant culture.  There is no conclusion to this, for the corollary of the above statement is that because Christians called to the alternative of shalom, we are constantly reclaiming zones of alternative culture. In the same breath I thank God for the blessings I have at work, of very cherished friendships and exciting ...