Labels: 2008, me

Devotion for today is taken from "A Godward Life" by John Piper, on the topic of "The American Revival of 1905". Though the title itself seems irrelevant, yet there's one sentence that raise my attention.

Revival is the sovereign work of God to awaken his people with fresh intensity to the truth and glory of God, the ugliness of sin, the horror of hell, the preciousness of Christ's atoning work, the wonder of salvation by grace through faith, the urgency of holiness and witness, and the sweetness of worship with God's people.

Have you ever attended a gathering with someone important and you realised you can't stay long as you find it so hard to believe the host actually invited someone you were trying so hard not to meet?

In fact, the reason behind the avoidance not because of hatred, but the inability of accepting who the person is, though you've forgiven someone. It is more like what happened in the past where so many people got so surprised when Jesus befriended Zacchaeus, Levi and more. The inability to see that's how this works, and inability to accept the fact that I am one of them too that makes me feel so sick.

Lesson learnt for today (though not an easy one), love is not only about forgiving, but also accepting, not others - but ourselves as a sinner.

The disabled sinner by name and righteous by faith, only in Christ alone.

Only by then, everything will turn sweet again :)

Labels: 2008, me

If you do follow my twitter/facebook status, you would know I got my early Christmas "gift" on 13 November. A glimpse for you... kekekeke... :)





On the other hand,

Weird things happened again, with the 10% discount "supposedly" help to reduce people's burden on Toll rate, Razak says on Najib no-no, mainstream media silence on the important question raised by a reporter during Q&A session (English Version Here). I bet some of you didn't read this one ;)

Labels: 2008, me

Rocky Bru provided some of Dr. Mahathir's speech on Bangsa Malaysia.

Though many left comments in agreement with Dr. Mahathir, I beg to differ.

After March 8, we are more racial than ever. Former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has told those who say the last General Election was a vote to reject race-based parties and politics to stop deluding themselves. "We have become more racial than ever since the last General Election. We debate about race every day, more than before," he said. In an off-the-cuff lecture on Bangsa Malaysia in Putrajaya this morning, he said if the outcome of the March general election was a rejection of racial politics, there would be less talk about race today. Instead, race has become a central issue since March. That election has stimulated discussion about little else other than race.

I beg to differ, discussing racial issues and discriminating or systematically depriving certain races are two different thing. I still see certain party keep raising petty issues such as placing multi-lingual signboards while that party itself did similar things, in Arabic language. No offense to foreign "Visit Malaysia" Arabs, but hey, you did offended locals "Loyal Citizens" such as Chinese and Indians.

"And if PAS is not a race-based party, then I am not Mahathir Bin Mohamad," he said.
DAP not a race-based party? "Apart from some window-dressing, it's still the old DAP".
And PKR? "It is said to be Islamic, it's also pro-Hindraf, and pro-Chinese educationists. But that's because there is this man with many faces who leads the party. After him, who will lead the PKR? If it is led by a non-Malay, it will not have the support of the Malays."

Emm.... Mamak does qualify to join PAS... same applies to those loyal non-muslim supporters in their PAS Supporter Clubs. Wait a minute, do you mean only Malays can be Muslim? That's absurd to my knowledge.

Bangsa Malaysia without Bahasa Malaysia? Dr M also chided those who clamour for a Bangsa Malaysia but are unwilling to give due regards to the national language. These people, he said, should emulate Obama and children of migrant races in the US, Switzerland and Australia.

"Obama, who must be in some ways a descendant of a slave, is today US President. The blacks had tribes in Africa but after years in the US they all speak English. English is their mothertongue. The speak English at work, at school and at home. The same as the migrant Jews. They became naturalised American citizens. But they accpet that as Americans they must speak English."

I beg to differ, The States does not have an official language. In fact, Spanish language is the second-most common language, spoken by almost 30 million people (or 13% of the population) in 2005. [1] In fact, states such as Hawaii [2] and Louisiana [3] does have Hawaiian and French along with English as their official language.

In contrast of what Dr. M said, in 2000, the census bureau printed the standard census questionnaires in six languages: English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese (in traditional characters), Vietnamese, and Tagalog.

Though Seattle (not sleepless though) [1] did own a trash can with multilingual labels, I didn't see anyone carrying banners walking around crying outloud for injustice like mad dog.

I'm not Malay Malaysian. Dr M said Bangsa Malaysia exists but mostly among Malaysians abroad, he said. "I've met many Malaysians overseas. Those who approached me introduced themselves as Malaysians, not Chinese Malaysians or Indian Malaysians or Malay Malaysians. Just Malaysians.

"But back home here, they want to go to different schools."

I personally introduce myself as Malaysians. Full Stop. I'm not sure about your "friends" though. Vincent Tan, Eusoffe Chin, Lingam, etc.

Sekolah Wawasan. For a Bangsa Malaysia to be born, the current race-based schooling system must go. "This is the only country where we have different streams of schools: Chinese, Tamil and National schools. The Chinese educationists think their kids should not get any close to the kids from the national schools. Or they might turn into Chinese Mat rempits."

The idea of Sekolah Wawasan was to put the 3 schools in one campus. This will compel the children of different races to meet and interact with each other. Morning assembly would be held together. The pupils will be in one assembly. When they play, they'll play together. Not Chinese school vs National school.

"I must admit the Sekolah Wawasan concept did not get support, especially from the Chinese educationist groups. They don't want to have anything to do with the Malays."

True, we might be the only country with "streamlined" schools. Other countries just have schools with different language as medium of instruction, without any discrimination.


Heck, what a lousy spin.


PS: Aya.... I guess you're too old to bother to google or to check wikipedia...

Labels: 2008, malaysia

It all started of in the month of October. The feeling of living in a world where everything seems with no rights and wrongs, inferiority of inconsequential life. Piling up issues on top of issues, problems on top of problems, until the last finale staged on 19th October which nearly brought me down and almost make me feels that life is no longer meaningful, and fatally destructive.

It is interesting to see how much I took the pain and suffer throughout the entire 3-week where I find it difficult to live passionately, fruitfully and relentlessly for the God whom I supposed to believe in. So difficult to worship, so difficult to live in the joy I used to believe in. I fall into sin, doing things that is absolutely the opposite of Job. Instead of standing right in Him, I chose to dwell in the pit of hate, anger and the refusal of forgiving.

I still remember the heart-aching moment I had during my uni days, as the exact same moment God reminded me of how I should live in moment of difficult times. Today, God again reminded of Job, to be living right in moments of suffering. How many of us would be willing to live right, instead of surrendering ourselves to lust, anger, hatred and refuse to surrender fully to the one utmost high?

Dear friends, I'm back and no longer willing to waste all my thoughts in unfruitful matters. Thank you for being there when I need you most.

One lesson I learnt. There's no necessity of keeping all the past memories into a hidden closet, as I finally understand the meaning forgive but not forget. Though I wouldn't say I will cheerish the past, but I'm very sure with the past it will be a meaningful future - where the beauty of the future lies beyond our description, in Christ alone.

A song sparked my thoughts, click here to listen.

Labels: 2008, me