Awesome July

July 31st, 2010 The author

I can’t believe how quickly July has gone!! Really, if there has been any month in my life where time flew by ever so rapidly, it would be July 2010! Nevertheless July has been a fantastic month for me. Having just returned from 2 weeks training in June and witness 2 weddings, I gotta say I was eager to start July with a bang, and a “bang” indeed it was for me.

July pretty much kept me busy with work. We had a number of training sessions to concerntrate on, so my first priority was to work on the training materials which required some serious revamping work. I also got a chance to meet up with my intern who will be with the proejct until August.  I really thank God for giving me such a good intern. The guy is just awesome!

Also I just learnt that there is a good positibility that I will be returning back to my former project. This is really great news for me as I really felt that we kind left the project in a lurch,  and just a couple of weeks back, I heard that the client actually wants the team back to help with the change management aspects of the project! Damn, it really feels good when you actually feel “wanted” by your clients, so yeah I am really happy with this news!

Speaking about hectic work, in the midst of all the busyness, it was really awesome to hear my current client affirm me on my positive outlook and cheerfulness this week. This is actually the first time someone from work has actually complimented me on having a cheerful outlook to life. She actually told my project manager that he should keep me in the current project and that she loves my positive spirit, saying that it’s good for the team and it helps the project! Wow, talk about scoring brownie points man! But as always, I really am grateful to God for giving me such a wonderful spirit, a positive spirit which helps others, and not just myself!!

Faith-wise also  has been quite an interesting month for me. I finally decided to use the 3Js format, which I learnt from the Padley brothers in Lifeline, and I gotta say, I am really happy I actually did this. I have heard alot of positive feedback from the group leaders who have implemented this into their cell groups. For me personally, I think my favourite point is actually hearing the members share their Jesus moment, and its really interesting to see how they actually need to take time to really think it through. I think this really helps in building the spirituality of the individual, it forces them to just ponder, reflect and articulate their sprirituality to others around them. One of my fellow leaders also pointed out, that it also helps affirm one another and it allows the members to grow spiritually together which I thought was really true as well!

All and all, I am really pleased with the month of July. And I just hope August will be just as aswesome as July!

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week-END update

July 11th, 2010 The author

I had a number of ideas I planned to blog this week, but as always, most of my ideas get shelved. Why? Cuz of work, plus on the fact that I had started recovering from a nasty flu earlier this week. The flu is still there, but I hope I am getting better. I guess what I really need to do is to focus on taking my medications regularly and keep at it till my flu goes off. What usually happens is once I find myself improving, I would just stop the meds, only to realise that a few days later, my flu is back.

On the brighter side of things, my brother will be staying with me over the next 6 months. Yay! At least there is someone else at home. While I do enjoy living on my own and all that, sometimes I feel it’s nice to have another person around.  At least your weekends do not feel that lonely! So I am definintely glad I have him around for this time.  And also it felt great returning back to Lifeline after nearly one month of absence. It was wonderful to see my core leaders after so long and to just enjoy the company of my own cell group members! I was pretty happy with the fact that we did something which I learned from the In Between Sundays podcast, and that is the 3Js – Junk – Joy and Jesus Moment. 

I noticed most of the members had no issues sharing their 2Js, but when it came to Jesus moment, alot of them thought hard about it – some couldn’t even really recall a Jesus Moment , which kinda made me think that perhaps the reason why they were struggling with it is because maybe they didn’t really stop to think about God working in their lives, and to a certain degree, I don’t fault them simply because sometimes it is difficult to see God in the midst of our daily affairs. It’s only when the weekend rolls by, when we take a “break” from work is when we then can keep time for God – But I guess this is not a healthy relationship at all. How can we say we long for God and want to draw close to Him when we can’t even see him working in our lives each day? – Oh well, I guess this is a topic for another blog entry sometime in the future! But whatever it is, it really felt good to be back in my youth group after nearly a month away!

The Week ahead….

There are a number of things which I need to see to this week. And one of the most important things on my list is to actually get to gym this week. I feel kinda bad that I couldn’t hit the gym this past week due to my cold, but hopefully the coming week I will be able to make up for it.

The next thing is of course my work. I have a bunch of things to settle and I hope to get the draft of one my deliverables completed by the end of this week! Also I need to submit my claims! I just realised a few days back that I still have not submitted my expense claims for the month of May and June! So hopefully that one can be done by tomorrow itself!

And probably my 3rd to-do item would be to draw closer to God! I realised that my faith meter over the past couple of weeks have been an all time low record. I guess it’s to do with my work (the stress) and my health (I had food poisoning 3 weeks back, and my recent flu sickness). Trying to juggle it all and keep your balance can be difficult and I realised that during this whole time I had been quite distant from God. Even though I did manage to attend daily mass on Friday, I still feel far away from Him. I do realise He is around, but sometimes I feel it’s more about me than Him – whether I WANT to want him,  as I wrote in my previous entry.  But I believe it all starts in the WANT, in the desire to want to draw close to God. I have always believed that God has been there with me, through both the good times and bad times, and usually I can only go so much without returning back to Him, just like the prodigal son.  So that’s my 3rd to-do item. Probably I would start by reading the daily gospels, praying the rosary (for each day) and attending mass sometime this week, and possibly going for confession as well!  If you’re reading this, please keep me in your prayers this week!

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Longing for God

July 2nd, 2010 The author

It’s interesing to observe the kind of stuff we would do to fulfill our physical needs. Be it hunger, food and attention, we find all sorts of ways to fulfil our needs. I know for myself, the first things I would do once I reach home is to fix myself a sandwich or rush to use the bathroom to ease myself.  Or if I am bored or in need for some entertainment, I would not hesistate to drive out to watch a movie or hang out with friends. I even need to sometimes fulfil my need to read something before I retire for the night – brain food before I head to bed.

Physical needs are easy to be met, because they shout right at ya. They demand our immediate attention as though flashing red lights are going all off in our brain control center.  I was listening to one of my favourite podcast In Between Sundays earlier today and I was particularly tuned to this episode entitled Spiritual Hunger (you can click on the link to go to the webpage) and it really got me thinking seriously on my own prayer life.

As a young adult catholic I do struggle sometimes with my prayer life. Especially when I am just swamped with stuff to do until I actually literally forget God at times. Work takes a toll of my life and lately (over the last couple of months) it has become more challenging. Part of it is also because I am due for a promotion in the next few months to come, and so the pressure is on.  However despite my work, I still did managed to find time for God. I would spend almost an hour each day in the adoration room of my parish church and if I am lucky, I would even make it for daily mass!

However after a while, I don’t know for what reason, suddenly you just find yourself no longer being able to these kinda things. And it’s not because of work or anything, because to me personally, sometimes I find “work” a cheap excuse to cover up our for our lack of prayer time with our Lord.  As what Jeff Young, who was the guest of that podcast blatantly mentions :

“We do make time to eat at some point in our daily life, why is we can’t do the same with prayer?”

Is it because prayer is not something that can really give us a fulfilled physical need, like a cheeseburger? Or perhaps without food, simply put we would die,  yet carrying on without prayer for 3 days won’t really result in any MAJOR issues/life-threatening problems?

Or to draw on another anology : Can you go on for 3-5 days staight without talking to your girlfriend/boyfriend/family? How does that affect your relationship with them? I know I have done this before in the past, and it sucks as  you feel something is empty, and even though you might miss them, sometimes we get too hung up with our own work we forget the rest of the world. 

It’s about the want

While fulfilling hunger pans and thirst will resolve a NEED, spending time with a person is always a WANT (unless you’re forced into it) .  We need to have that WANT to spend time with others, and that WANT needs to be genuine, not something with strings attached. Likewise it’s the same with God. Finding that spiritual hunger requires that WANT for God.  It’s so much easier to pray when there’s something on your mind, but what about those moments when everything is just normal and dry? What do we do then? Do we still have that same WANT?

But as Jeff mentioned, prayer DOES have it’s physical effects on a human soul. I love the way he draws comparison with exercise in the sense that intiatlly we wouldn’t have the motivation or interest to go exercising but when we get into it, we are in another world. I am sure we have all had this feeling before and it’s the same with prayer.  Perhaps initially, we might feel tired and too disoriented, but even spending just 10 minutes with God will have some changes in our lives over a period of time and I speak of this from my own experience.

God is always there for us, its whether we are always there for him. It’s really sometimes whether we WANT  Him.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart – Jeremiah 29:13

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