Public Prayer

I was reading part of the church manual when i came to this. I'll quote:

Public Prayer "Christ impressed upon His disciples the idea that their prayers should be short, expressing just what they wanted, and no more. . . .

Page 73

One or two minutes is long enough for any ordinary prayer." Testimonies, vol. 2, p. 581.

"When you pray, be brief, come right to the point. Do not preach the Lord a sermon in your long prayers." Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 201.

"Let those who pray and those who speak pronounce their words properly and speak in clear, distinct, even tones. Prayer, if properly offered, is a power for good. It is one of the means used by the Lord to communicate to the people the precious treasures of truth. But prayer is not what it should be, because of the defective voices of those who utter it. Satan rejoices when the prayers offered to God are almost inaudible. Let God's people learn how to speak and pray in a way that will properly represent the great truths they possess. Let the testimonies borne and the prayers offered be clear and distinct. Thus God will be glorified." Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 382.

I think of the prayers people give during the worship. Some of them can last for 5 minutes. Hmmm....perhaps the old adage of "short and sweet" applies.

There are indeed interesting things written in the church manual. I was reading the part about Sabbath School since i've a meeting tomorrow about that.

Rich Dad Poor Dad

I'm currently reading the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I've been curious as to why it's been a bestseller for the past few years but never got to reading it until i got into this retirement mood and was at MPH when i decided to buy it to give me some retirement ideas. I'm barely a quarter way through and already i'm hooked to this book. I liked the idea that he mentioned most of us work for money instead of letting money work for you. Even better is, almost the whole world have this concept from their parents: "Go to school, study hard, so you can get a good job and earn good money". My own parents said that to me too and so once i was out from university i had this career ladder in my mind that i would climb (slowly). We've all been brainwashed to go this path and never thought how else we can be rich. As i'm barely a quarter way through i haven't got the whole picture of what the author is putting forth but basically this book is about challenging societal's concepts of finance and how you can make yourself rich.

Josh Mcdowell

Tonight i attended Josh Mcdowell's seminar. He's a relationship guru and the 3 hour talk was extremely insightful. It broke down some of the beliefs about relationships and how to treat children especially. Well, he kept mentioning examples on how he treated his own 4 children. There are a couple of things i picked up. I'll be reading his books to further establish some of his findings.

- Don't say "Because the Bible says so". For example if a kid asks you, "Why can't i kill?" Don't just tell him "Because the Bible says so". Share also why it says so. If not, you become a legalist.
- The Father has an extremely important role to play in a child's development. The absence of the father results in a phenomenal incidence in negative behaviour and activity for the child when he's in his late teens.
- The best way to reduce the number of times you need to discipline a child is to have a lifestyle of catching them doing things right and expressing appreciation. To me it's like training a dolphin by giving it fish when it does something right. Pay attention to what they do right so they too will pay attention to what's right.
- Don't tell your kid "Can't you see i'm busy?" when he comes up to you in the middle of a conversation. It's obvious your kid can see it but you're telling him that you love him BUT that he's not important enough as other things come before him. Give the kid priority always.

Ok, these are just some of the things i picked up during the seminar. Will be going to the next one tomorrow night.

2005 Hennessey SRT-10 Viper Venom 1000.

NICE

This has got to be the best rear (for a car) i've ever seen.

monday

i'm in the office and i thought i'll blog abit. My company will be going to Batam this friday. They call it a team building session.It's a day activity and we'll be back in Singapore around 630pm. Good thing coz it's before Sabbath. I've no intention of staying out into the Sabbath hours instead of being at home resting or at church.
Yesterday i finally signed up for an insurance package. It's a medical insurance package. Actually it's 2 of them so it can cover almost 100% of my hospital bills if i ever go in there. These insurance agents have been pursuing me like paparazzi since June and i kept telling them i'll only have the mood to look into insurance at the end of the year so it wasn't procrastination. And the kinda frustrating thing is they seem so insecure such that they have to meet up with me almost every week. It's as if having a gf who is so insecure that she wants to meet you everytime instead of trusting you. Why do insurance agents behave like insecure partners??? Thankfully one of them isn't like that. She's my primary sch classmate and she respected my decision and only got back to me this month without bugging me too much. (No prizes on who i signed under.) I think what this world lacks is trust. Then again, there are alot of reasons why ppl don't trust. It's because the other party play them out. So to have a fully trusting society is difficult unless everyone works together.

Oh yes, and i'm in need of cash to get a notebook and a desktop. The main reason is because i need it for video editing of which my present computers are too old to support it. The other things on my wish list is a smart phone and later on an mp3 player. No wait, the smart phone will handle that. So it's just this:
-Notebook
-Desktop
-Smartphone

And realistically speaking, i'll be able to afford all these before my birthday on 23rd march. But i'm impatient!

Anticonformity

"I am a 16-year-old girl who loves God and who stands up for "anticonformity" says rock artist Krystal Meyers. "I've chosen to find my identity in God instead of society. There are too many people doing what they shouldn't, and I don't want to be like that. I don't want to bow down to those pressures so I'm not going to." Read more

I bought her CD at the Integrity Media Asia sale 2 weeks back and the first time i heard it, she reminded me of Avril Lavinge. Sounds abit like her. But the big difference is that she's very very mature spiritually. Her lyrics says it all. Look at most of the bands now. Most of them have lyrics associated with sex, violence, suicide, profanity and romance. And to think she's only 16 and going against the flow!!!

In Singapore i see many youths sucked into the whirlpool of the herd instinct. They can be as young as 10 to as "old" as 23 and you see them being rebellious to their parents, speaking like a profanity dispenser and dressing up like their bad-boy/girl idols just to look cool and hip. Why are they like that? Coz they are just following what their peers are doing. Some of them also embrace more adult(not the X-rated kind) topics and spew them out in conversations just to sound more knowledgable than their classmates or to be IN with people older than them not realising that they're so weird not acting their age. The main reason for all this is to be a part of their friends' lives. As a result, they conform to the behaviours and actions of their peers and the resulting conglomeration is people who don't bother to think what is right or wrong. The only thing that they care about is whether what they do is what would be accepted by their peers. Attention seeking is at the top of their list. They say lame jokes(some damaging and degrading) just to gain some connection with their friends and to score points with them rather than talking what's wholesome or at the very least, not at the expense of someone else. It's just so sad hearing all this crap from youth.

There's something better than being a part of the IN gang. It's to be different like Christ was different when He was here. And when we strive to be Christlike, it tells others that you're bold and strong enough to go against the flow. It tells others that you have your own brain and that you've chosen what is the right way to lead your own life. Rather than letting others mould and shape you, you let God's word do it. That to me is cool.


Edit: The herd instinct can be seen in ppl my age too who want to act up to date especially with regards with western behaviours.

I'll be going to Egypt and Israel in June 2006. Thomson church is organising the 12 day trip and when i heard from jeff about it, i wanted in. 3.5k is the sum. Seems like i gotta do some planning to cough out that amount by then. Would affect my retirement plans abit but, i gotta do it.