Putting God First

Just this morning while chatting with chew yan, she suddenly raised the idea about Putting God First. The following are my thoughts so far on this oft-quoted christian cliche.

I hear countless times about the need to Put God First in our lives. It becomes a cliche somewhat and after a while, when i hear it, it becomes of no effect. I hear so much of it that i don't even question the fact that we need to put God first. It's like a McDonals ad where it keeps bombarding people on the media. It's so effective that even though i might initially don't have a preference for McDonalds (the fries are too salty, the pattis not that fantastic, the bread abit plain), i have come to treat McDonalds like a friend because of all the hype about it. Even though i don't know what exactly is so great about it, but it's become my friend. So so what? Whenever i'm in need of a drink of a snack and an outlet is nearby, i just head to it without hesitation over other fast food outlets. It's similar to the phrase "Putting God First". It becomes your friend coz you hear so much of it. But the problem is, do you really understand what it means to Put God First? Do you really know what's so great about McDonalds?

Being the inquisitive sort, i found a new challenge and that is to find out what it really means. First, i decided to put my work last to pursue this new challenge.(hopefully my boss doesn't see what i'm doing) Second, i began to think how exactly i Put God First in my own life. What came to mind was Obedience to God. But what does that mean? It means being who God wants you to be.(And, i just realised i'm doing circular thinking) Third, i started to search online for answers.

Putting God First:

1) Regular Devotional time with God. This includes reading the Bible, prayer and meditation on His word. You can get up 15 mins earlier for this purpose. For me right now, i've been getting up at 7am so i can have a quiet time of about 20-25 mins before i head to the bathroom. I've been memorizing some bible verses so part of my devotional time is in meditation on those verses. You can also have a nightly devotional time too before you sleep. Make sure you end your day earlier so you can have those minutes of quality time.

2) Communicate with God throughout the day. God loves us and He always wants to communicate with us in some way, any way. And whenever we turn our attention to Him, He drops everything He's doing and listens. A bad monday morning at work? Talk to God about it, complain, ask for strength or if you can even, give thanks. Facing a crossroad and you don't know what to do? Seek God for advice. Tell Him about the possible options and ask for wisdom. Having a happy time? Don't forget God! God wants to be a part of the fun too! Thank Him for allowing you to experience a happy time.

3) Serve in ministry/ies in church. In an environment where nearly everyone believes in God, it's where you can work together in daily church activities. And it's not just the act of serving, but the effort you put inside that matters too. Give not only quality time but quality results as you serve. If you're in charge of taking video for the whole worship service, do it well. Remember that what your viewers ultimately see is in your control! Represent the sermon well. Keep the speaker always in your camera screen. In charge of the PA? Make sure to turn on the mic when someone wants to use it otherwise he will keep testing 123. Focus your attention on what you're doing and do it well. Even if people come and talk to you, don't let it distract you from what you're doing. But if you find that you're ignoring a great deal of people because of the many ministries you're in, then you might want to change that by re-arranging your priorities.

4) Serve others. "Husbands and wives can listen to each other. Parents and children can be attentive to one another. God cares about how we are with each other." God feels hurt when we treat someone else with disrespect or if we have fights because He knows that things doesn't have to be this way. Have a car? Help transport people home sometimes becauase they live far away and it's late. Have money? Donate to charity knowing that it'll help someone or donate to someone you know in need of it like if they need to fund their studies. Be kind to people. Say nice things and compliment them to lift up their spirits. God loves it if people are happy. See litter in the church sanctuary? Pick it up and get rid of it. See the aircon and lights not off when everyone's not needing the room? Turn them off. See the tap running in the toilet? Turn it tight or go down and turn the valve off.

5) Serve yourself. Plan to take care of yourself. It makes sense that if you want to serve well in any way, that you need a good body and mind. Just as we set aside time for people and God, we must also set quality time off for ourselves to eat and rest. It's not healthy to sacrifice sleep and food even though you may be doing church work. God wants you to be healthy, happy people. So you need to eat well and rest well so you can be fit enough to continue the first 4 points above with the right attitude.

In conclusion, the "Putting God First" principle is summed up this way:

Matt 22:37-40. Jesus said to him," 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.(NKJ)

Now if you excuse me, i need to put my work first.

love and commitment

Got this from Mei Jye's blog.

Love is really a commitment not just excitement, a decision not just passion, a covenant set in God's presence before the fall not just a twosome fulfillment.

It needs cultivation and nurturing so that it will blossom and bear fruit. Through the wings of storms, love grows stronger and firmer.

Alot of times, couples would find it tough to stay together in a relationship. In this article, it says:

You may wonder, “Are we still in love?” or “Is this relationship still worthwhile?” If those thoughts don’t come up, that’s a red flag.

As quoted earlier on, love is a commitment. It is also a choice to stay committed to a person and not even thinking about getting together with someone else. After all, the grass might not really be greener on the other side.
Even though it's frustrating and painful at times, it's the level of openness the couple has to discuss things with each other to explore on how to improve on the relationship. Ultimately each person would love to marry someone who is in tune with each other's likes and dislikes, and knowing exactly which buttons to push to make each other happy. Growing a relationship needs time to nurture and much effort. Time, because every learning process takes time. Effort, because to not take each other for granted, to see the other in a fresh perspective everyday, to remind yourself of the good points of your partner even though the bad points seem so glaring.

Most importantly, the key to a loving relationship is having a good spiritual life and an ever open heart towards each other.

Learn something new each day for a week

This is my post to learn something new each day for a week. Certain things i put may be too boring to readers but i just want to see how it goes as i try not to take my daily life for granted and pause and think what i have learnt today. Of course i would expect to learn more than 1 thing, but i'll just include what i feel comfortable to include here.

Sep 13: Found out how to get from singapore to senai airport. Take bus 170 blue plate from kranji mrt to kotaraya II terminal or take CW-1 which is about $1. Go to City Lounge and buy a bus ticket for the Senai airport bus(RM8) which has intervals of about 45 mins average. Get an updated schedule before you go. This one is correct as of 13 Sep 07. It took me 1.5 hours to get from Senai Airport to my home at Sunset Way, Clementi.


Sep 9: Learnt how to play sardines. It's something like hide and seek except there'll be one person in a group chosen to hide somewhere of his own choosing and the rest of us has to find him. Once a member of the group finds him, he will join him in hiding. It goes on like this until the last member finds him and gets to be the next person to hide.
Sep 8: Cadaver. A dead body, especially one intended for dissection.

Farewell class

Yesterday was my last day of Advanced Korean course. I had waited for this day to come as i longed for the freedom that i could have from weeks to come. I would have more time rather than go to class each week and to study at other times. I would also be able to re-align and adjust my priorities ever since i started learning korean in January. What needs my attention is currently church work and my own relationship with my gf. Both of which probably hasn't got my quality attention as much as i wanted. And since i'm in a long distance relationship, it makes it even more necessary to make sure whatever i do is thoughtful for her as we're not physically nearby so we don't get to enjoy the interpreting of other communication cues.

Close to the end of the class, katherine (our teacher) brought out 2 korean language books and mentioned that we have only covered the equivalent of half the first book. All along i've wondered why this course was called Advanced when it wasn't really Advanced. She said that it was about Beginner III instead. And as usual, she wanted me to join for Advanced II or whatever the school calls it. This time i had less interest to sign up as i had longed for this day of freedom and the idea of continuing wasn't that appetizing. And she was quite persistent as she tried to get the girls to persuade me to join the next class and asked Andrew to join too so i would have more reason to join. This morning she had personally emailed me and andrew persuading us to sign up.

She's a wonderful teacher and very concerned about the student's korean language proficiency and i would join if i had a longer break between courses or more time. But they only announced a 1 week break before the next class and i thought i couldn't spare the time so right now i'm determined not to sign up. Also, the fee has increased by $40 to $340. Apparantly it's still much cheaper but still to me it's not about the money but the time that i so dearly treasure. I do hope that i'll be able to tutor under her if i get back to continue my korean study as it doesn't seem that she has any intention to teach Advanced II at a later time. It's almost as if once she teaches this class, she's out of here. But i think i might be wrong again. She tell us that she's teaching another class, maybe intermediate and in there there's an american guy who is in that class because he had a korean girlfriend. It's understandable that when you have a partner, you'd want to use all ways and means to connect with her. At the end of the class, we were treated to her home-cooked korean "chap chay"..that's supposed to be in korean but i can't korean in this blog...well someone said it's vermicilli. And it was supremely delicious!! I've not had such delicious noodles in a long time. It's something like glass noodles but it's slightly thicker and softer. She put alot of sesame oil which made it so oily..but i loved it still..lol. Also inside were some small sliced onions.


And here's the one and only shot of me and the teacher.

It's important to have plans and goals in your life. And the most immediate goal is to plan what we're gonna do once she and her family comes down next week. argh!!!!so fast!!so little time!!!parents coming too!!streeeeeeeeesssssssssssss!!!lol...just kidding...

I think for a start, i should be more conscious of how i live my daily life. So often i take for granted that the usual day has passed me by without any fan-fare. This time i will try to blog each day of 1 new thing that i have learnt. Let me see, i'll give a trial of 1 week.

Before i showered, i thought i'll take the wonderful sky out the window..but apparantly it didn't turn up so well in picture.