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This week was unnaturally quick. Before I know it tomorrow’s Friday! I feel like its unreal how my life is rushing past when I work. I kinda don’t want to work because before I know it I’ll be in my fifties knowing I spent most of my life in an office somewhere from morning to night every weekday. So depressing!

Spent the evening at home having dinner with the family and then thought it would be nice to bring Hannah to pop over and play with aunty YX. I packed her into the car and she asked for the chinese childrens’ songs CD and off we went for a 15 min drive over.

“When Jesus died on the cross he had blood all over him” – Hannah

That was how the short conversation interspersed with Chinese songs went. As odd as it seems to me viewing from a 3rd person’s perspective, I took the opportunity to share the gospel and check up on her level of understanding. I can’t remember all the details but it went something along the lines of what is sin, explaining that sin needs to be punished and Jesus was punished in our place. Then I asked who Jesus died for to which she replied her cousins and her (after listing some naughty things her cousins did.. haha..).

In all it was interesting explaining soteriology to a three year old and it’s really much simpler than you’d think. Some things are harder to explain than others but the important bits are not too hard! Another funny thing was trying to explain the songs to her. Some of the Chinese was unintelligible but it was pretty funny trying to help a 3 year old understand what is praise and other ideas we take for-granted.

Everyone should be able to teach a 3 year old the gospel, I think it really tests your true understanding of the essence of what we believe.

Heh, and another year comes to a close. This one has been pretty quick especially after starting work. One photo for each month

January -  Just came back from a nice hong kong trip..

February – Josiah Tan is born

March – still bumming about, managed to take a trip to ubin and get some photos

April – Odd jobs with David Wang..

May – Fire exhibition at the victoria concert hall area. I must mention I get employed about now too.. haha..

June – same as previous month.. a small celebration for all the grads

July – Convocation. Proud moment for my parents I should think.

August – Next baby arrives! Ze Jing is born.. here’s the anxious grandma.

September – Eating breakfasts with bro each week since Dency is confined at home. Last of the unhealthy breakfasts too.. Anyway this is the month we shifted to Jln Bukit Merah too.

October – My birthday at Rider’s Cafe

November – I get the girlfriend of six years to agree to marry me. haha..

December – What’s better than a family of Herbsters? two! I was blessed by all their ministry.

So it was a pretty good year. I mean, convocation, Job, Engagement, Shift to new building.. so much more happened that I’m sure I forgot.. too much to be thankful for. Think I enjoyed digging up the photos, kinda didn’t want to hang around so long at the gathering so I could take some time to look through my year. Now that I’ve done so I think I feel better. Kinda feel like I just let the new year slip by though.. :\ don’t wanna live so thoughtlessly.

As an aside, after a few encounters I think I give people the impression that I am to following

1. Hard-assed Doesn’t-care-what-you-think
2. Doesn’t think and plan much

The startling truth is both are true! haha, to some degree.

For #1, People like me when I agree with them and am being #1 but hate me when they don’t agree and I’m being #1. Now how is that fair?? I’m just sticking to my guns.. too bad if its pointed at you.

#2 could be a result of me being a “cross the bridge when I come to it guy”. The truth is I don’t like to plan much but that’s only true when there are too many unknowns to plan for. I’m not a computer you know.. Now see if I plan when I have 42 domains to migrate on a server with a stupendous amount of customizations and information is readily available. That’s something you can plan for, otherwise you’re going to have a super organized, well thought out plan… for an outdated situation because the situation changed 27832 times since you worked out your plan.

This is a late post.. was actually written on the 17th but had to wait a little before I published it.

Short Story:

If there is anything I’ve learnt over the past six years with YX, its that “I Love You” is something you do, not something you say.

Long Story:

Its has been six years since we started everything, time sure flies. From the 14th of November 2004, the time I was soon finishing NS and she was carrying on to J2 until now when we are both working. That’s our whole tertiary education together. Its been a blast spending a quarter of my life with her already, I wonder what the rest of my life will be like. No doubt even more things will change and we will keep learning but I feel like we’ve already changed so much and learnt so much from each other. I’ll share some of I’ve learnt here:

1) I can’t have conflict resolution and keep my pride

How silly it is to think that I can enjoy fellowship in any kind of healthy relationship without surrendering my pride. In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God shows us the pattern for restoration with him, a model we would be wise to follow when dealing with others, not just those close to you. So here’s how we settle things all the time! It used to take 3 days, now it takes a couple of minutes to hours..

1. Humble myself
2. Communicate with the offended one
3. Stop doing whatever it is to hurt each other

2) Don’t do thing for each other as leverage against him/her, do it lovingly

Colossians 3:23  and 2 Corinthians 9:7 speak about working and giving to God but the same is just applicable when working out differences in people and doing things for the sake of others. When you’ve agreed to it, don’t whine or complain later! Do it in love! Through the years we’ve been doing things we probably don’t like or are not used to for each other and so many times the whole value of the action is lost when we do it grudgingly or “just for her sake”. The “just for your sake” should become “I’m glad to do it” not “aiyah bo pian la, she like what..”. How do I know I love her? When I recognize that her needs are more important than my own (speaking in the realm of preference here!) and that it really doesn’t matter if I get my way and damage our relationship.

3) How you spend your attention and time reveals your true priorities.

When I wish I were watching TV / playing game / out fishing or *insert whatever I enjoy here* and I actually go ahead and choose it over something else. That shows it is more important. When your attention is sucked into the TV screen or that football match instead of listening to something important, you can be sure it is more important. It really doesn’t matter what you think or say, what you do with your time, money and attention tells far more and is a definitive answer to what is more important at the moment.

I’m glad that after so many years we’ve been able to learn so much about ourselves and each other! And I’ve very glad she’s still with me in spite of knowing all that.. haha..

Had poor sleep these 2 days due to work at odd hours (3-5am) and all that for money. With all this money I might be tempted to think that stuff I buy is really mine. Money I give is well.. above and beyond the norm which is hoarding supplies. While in earthly terms that is in fact true and we enjoy the fruits of our labour I think we sometimes just get lost in all the stuff we accumulate. For Christians, I’d like to propose that the stuff we buy is not ours.

1. Our lives are given, our eternities are bought with a price. That makes us wholly and solely owned by God.
2. We spend our life which is our time, earning money which we then spend on stuff.
3. Stuff is really bought with our life.
4. Therefore stuff is really God’s since it was bought with the life he gave to us.

It really doesn’t matter who gets what I guess.. we’ll never know what his specific will is in this life but we do know we need to  glorify him in this body since we were bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). As long as that happens (which it hasn’t) you can be assured God would be pleased because his hidden will doesn’t go against his revealed will and he cannot deny himself regarding what he has said and promised.

Putting whoever is really right aside (since everyone thinks they are right, this speaks to all..), being right is no license to being barbaric with the hammer of truth. I’ve learned that time and again when dealing with people and being a sore winner doesn’t show love. I just wished everyone would act their age and stop fighting over their toys.

Off to bed I go! Hopefully get some good sleep. Bought a wireless mic today and realised how expensive they really were.. lol..

Slept at 12, got up at 4 to pic my mom and dad from airport, couldn’t go back to sleep for quite a while but managed to lie down until 8. Haha.. Suprisingly don’t feel too bad. On the mrt after visiting a client or a couple of minutes. I still thank God for work and stuff that comes along. Got 2 queries about photography that I couldn’t follow up on but I’m sure it’s okay.

Last thought is that His grace is always sufficient and I only start to flounder when I’m not plugged into it. Have a great Monday! It’s not O.S.I.M, always just TGI Mondays that enable you to enjoy TGI Fridays.

The Post actually ended with the following:

Today was good.. the 2 ah-yees and groom’s sister were pretty great! We saw lotsa action in the morning and did tea ceremony thing 3478392 times then everything else was a super big blur then we were in church then super big blur then it was dinner then super big blur I took 1000000 photos of people leaving then I went home and typed this. Haha.. no seriously, I can’t remember anything form today already because its already happened 200 times before for me already. I’m just waiting for photos to import because I stupidly decided to give a RAW workflow one more try.

Anyway I’m pretty happy for the couple.. I sometimes ask myself why people fall in love and get married.. and I never get a specified answer. It just seems like the same formula each time which is pretty nice: a partnership of two people who love their spouse more than themselves. I’d actually love to see more people do that.. and to learn and teach people how they can do that too would be so cool.. but as I always say in office “I just a technician..” haha.. maybe one day I’ll find myself doing that.. babysitting relationships instead of servers.

The Post actually started with the following:

I can’t remember how many weddings I’ve photographed. It not because it’s so many I can’t remember.. its probably because I’ve helped out in so many weddings it doesn’t even seem any different whichever role I play. Every role ends the same.. busy, tired and mostly a blur. To add to the already bizarre idea of doing it expecting nothing, I help people who will almost certainly never be free enough in future to ever help me out when I need some myself.

C’mon, these guys and girls are all gonna be so busy with their lives that they can’t really do much for you in future. I guess in the end everything is paid forward in advance by the next generation and the losers are those who help out most. That said, the losers who help out most are still the biggest winners somehow with some intangible satisfaction gained at the end of the day, knowing the time and energy spent was an act of love towards the couple on our part in a very tangible form of music, ushering, chairing, ah-yee-ing, driving, co-ordinating, catering, flower-arranging, make-up-ing, bestman&maid-of-honour-ing and solemnizing.

Haha.. I sound so cynical but I really do hope somehow people actually do step up when I need them next time. I think this stems from my you-can’t-trust-anyone-except-yourself-to-do-stuff mentality and the occasional total domination approach to getting tasks done.

You often hear of girls imagining what their weddings will be like in gory detail. Let me tell you mine: if you secretly dug into my mind and saw my wedding fantasies you’d probably find one that my friends don’t need to do any work, my enemies don’t have to come (with friends like these who needs enemies! lol!), everyone goes mad, enjoys themselves and it costs roughly $0.

Heh, I’m really not a sour person or having regrets or what.. just.. wondering.

This has alot to do with my quest to discover my abilities and more recently why I cannot seem to become excellent at something and just remain average or just above average at everything.

So today while meeting a guy after offering to fix his camera I asked him what he thinks makes the difference or the jump from decent/above average to excellent. He’s 27, studying for a phd and wasn’t happy with his engineering job after half a year graduating from mechanical engineering so he quit and went back to school. This is kinda the gist of what he said

I think it’s diminishing returns. The professional guy spends alot more effort just to get that little edge above that average guy.

And also, he said

2 kinds of jobs, one makes you rich one makes you happy. If you can’t get rich, at least be happy loh.. haha..

So that’s what intrigued me for the evening.. that and some talking in the car with my dearest. haha.. So I concluded i have no determination to get that extra edge because it takes so much more effort to break out from “decent” to excellent.

Do I love the gift more than the giver?

Is the question posed today during Sunday school. I’m definitely not a fan of glossing over material that has been picked out whether or not I think its useful.. all of God’s word and teaching is useful and there are always ways to incorporate anything you want into a lesson. Every topic you touch crosses into every other topic with many basic Characteristics of God and doctrine being the basis for other higher level deduced truths.

Anyway it was still an interesting thought from some “supplement” material because I was wondering how I can actually make this fact useful in my own life. As far as I could think I could only come to the conclusion that if you that God for only the things you like him to give you without regard for his will, you  don’t just have a problem with misplaced or absent gratitude, you have a totally wrong view of God’s character and how he works. Reading piper’s justification of many “bad” things (eg. death) as being gifts from God really intrigued me and how diving into the little nuances of the sentences yielded these conclusions too.

Still, the question remains.. how does this affect my life? and is it another one of those “LEARN THIS! AND YOU’LL BE THE SUPER ULTIMATE CHRISTIAN YOU WERE PREDESTINED TO BE AUTO-MAGICALLY!” kind of one principle to rule them all statement/axioms/summary-of-the-christian-life things? haha.. Honestly I’m so tired of people sharing the latest thing they learn as if everyone else is completely ignorant or unresponsive to it.. God works in different ways in different times with different people and everyone is at different stages of learning.. so lets not push stuff on each other and play the holy spirit.

I honestly think I might not be fully understanding what are the implications, but I think I’ll take a couple of days to think about the practical implications of consciously loving God more than the blessings he gives and more importantly, actually do it. There are days where I wake up and my first thought is of God and how good he is. I really like that.. I just wonder why it doesn’t happen all the time but I can’t remember if I’ve ever had a terrible day and sit down thinking God is so good too. That, is probably where the rubber meets the road.