We should not settle for excellence when greatness is attainable.

I want to go to OCS, I want to be the best I can be, I can’t wait to see what I’m capable of.

I’d no longer shy away from challenges and apply myself. Yes, this is what I will do – my best.

... posted at 10:19 PM by jared.

I’ve never lost my sense of wonder and I only ever write about what touches me deeply – the people I love, my thoughts, and my heartaches, et cetera – things that trigger a synapse and evoke a profusion of emotions within.

In writing my blog, I endeavour a catharsis. It is in the process of writing that I tie down and straighten out my thoughts and reflect upon the day’s events. Everything I write is in the spirit of openness and candour. I don’t write for an audience, but neither do I mind sharing with you, whomever you may be, who so happens to peruse my entries. There is a reason why my blog is entitled, “The Journeying…”

I’ve recently been made aware of certain rogue elements, these quintessential shenanigans, who have engendered fallacy, perverseness, and moral decadence to what I’ve penned. I beseech you, with utmost sincerity; please desist from rescinding the innocence and honesty of which I expressed with my heart – simple, earnest, unadulterated.

My blog, my reflections, my life, isn’t a vessel into which any moron can pour his stupidities and indulge in his own erotic. He, you know who I’m talking about, and I, I assure you, are not in anyway controversial. Why must you construe what I wrote to be so? Doesn’t it show what’s already predominant in your mind? Sigh. Is it so hard to believe and have faith in purity?

Again I implore you; please, I urge you: in the spirit it was offered, take it. Don’t mar me, don’t carve a patina of scars and disfigure me, my life, or those who are dear to me.

Please?

... posted at 11:20 PM by jared.

My dad called. He’s been very understanding. Hmmm… what he asked me really made me think. He asked me which university I intent to go to. Gee… if anyone had asked me this years earlier, I would have immediately named Stanford. Now Stanford seems so far away, like some vague dream. I realise too, that there’s an underlying portent to why he asked me that: he wants to see me through. All’s not lost though. Stanford is still within my grasp. I just need to persevere and really discipline myself this time around.

I need to eat more and sleep more, haven’t been getting much of those lately. My goodness, can you believe I actually lost weight (is that possible!)? I’m like 50.5kg now. Argh, not an ounce of fat! Sheesh! All lean, but I need fat to build more muscles damnit!!! Oh yea, I’ve gotten back to running =)

These few days have really taken its toll on me. All the fasting, what little sleep I’ve manage to eke out, the emotional upheaval – I cried so much yesterday – and what have yous… I’m so zapped but God’s tiding me through this. What would I do without Him? His promise that came yesterday has given me tremendous hope and I’m now praying in line with His revelation.

It dawned unto me that in the past year, I’ve cried more than all my years put together. It was really tumultuous and there’s still the aftermath with which I’m having to go through. God gave me a promise; oh I pray I won’t do anything to hinder His will!

I was so exhausted and frazzled, I didn’t manage to pray as I was fasting today so I just sang Him praise instead and waited till I got home to pray. Even then, somehow as I prayed I didn’t feel the effulgence as I’m wont to have each time I pray. I’m thankful He looks into my heart; the groanings of my spirit just can’t be expressed. Oh the bus today, I realised that so many aspects of me have changed but then I wondered if my character has changed? Sometimes when I’m so tired, I just lapse, and that’s when it goes horribly wrong. Little steps, little steps.

I love you guys, keep me in prayer kayz? God bless

So tired, really need to sleep now. (^.^)zZZzzz

... posted at 11:20 PM by jared.

2nd Kings 19:14 ~ 19, 20: 3 ~ 3, and 20: 5 ~ 6 will forever be recherché to me…

You know I wept bitterly and hot tears streamed down my cheeks today. I felt so defeated. I kept hearing his voice, the echo of his angry words seared right through me. I was so lost, so utterly helpless, and my spirit grew faint.

All this while, these many, many, weeks, not a day went by without me fasting and praying, upholding my petition before the Lord. Even in times when I was so weary and exhausted, I persisted on in prayer with His help.

I prayed for Him to move, for His will to be done, not mine; I yield. I prayed that if be ‘no’ then take away the desire from my heart to pray over this matter. Nevertheless, whatever it is, I prayed that the Father would send me His Holy Spirit to witness to me, be it ‘yes’ or ‘no’. For 4 weeks I persevered, then when I read the story of Elisha and Naaman (2nd Kings 5: 1 ~ 19) during my quiet time, it dawned unto me that perchance the Lord wants me to seek Him for a possible faith-building step of submission? So I prayed in accordance to revelation: Lord is there a step of faith You want for me to take? If so, show me oh Lord and I will take it.

Unknown to me, my prayer was immediately answered the next day. For hours I wrestled, trying to write what God has purposed for me to do, praying that His inspiration would befall me, praying what’s He’s blessed me with, may it be used to bless others too. With all my heart I prayed so much so that tears came to my eyes.

The inspiration came when I remembered Debbie’s blog; she had written about the wind. I sat down in front of my computer, and for the next few hours, I immersed myself in writing.

Immediately after I penned my narration, I didn’t feel the acknowledgement of God for my work. In my heart I knew why God was silent. He remained silent because it isn’t what was, just a shadow. Looking back upon all my works, I realise that the most beautiful one I’ve ever written was of that day; I was afraid that if I removed the veil, if I wrote in truth, things not being the way they were, it would only serve to aggravate.

God desires for a people who will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, yet now, what I’ve written in His name, for His glory is not grounded in truth. I broke down and cried. I relented and wrote the true narrative. The moment I finished, the Holy Spirit touched me and it dawned unto me then, with clarity, that this may well be that step of faith God wants me to take!

I knew in my Spirit what was right to do but you see, I was afraid. I was afraid that he would be vexed and scoff in contempt. God remained steadfast in this; the veil, however beautiful my narrative remains, mutes the beauty of what I wrote: God rejects it. The quiddity that would touch the lives and inspire the hearts of multitudes is of love, companionship, and God. So many people look for this epochal tripartite, and my narrative seamlessly tied everything together – it would be a tremendous blessing to them.

I told God that though I was uncertain of the aftermath my narrative would harbinger, I was more mindful of pleasing Him, and doing what He wills for me to do. I obeyed His voice and I prayed He would carry me through.

Today I brought my narrative to church and would be meeting up with Daryl, Shengwu, Michael, and Sophia to trash things out later. But unforeseen events precipitated and as I sat on the bus, I was so mired in fear again, I just kept to myself and prayed: Help me oh Lord, please, please don’t let things take a turn for the worst.

So many doubts coursed through my mind and by the minute, I grew more faint: was I right to have prayed over us? The meeting with the guys went well and en route home, I was so affected by what happened earlier I couldn’t even pray. So many taunting voices, the echo of his voice, his anger then… I broke down when I got home, and I turned to prayer.

The doubts in my heart didn’t go away, but there was this deep peace that settled in my heart. I wrote an email out to the guys and I went to do my quiet time. I told God to speak to me with His rhema word, to reveal to me the truth, that the truth would be my guide and standard, leading me to obedience.

You know, I wept as I read those chapters I quoted earlier? I couldn’t stop crying as I read the prayer of Hezekiah and God’s response to him. What a parallel to what I’m going through right now! The Assyrian king is caricature of my doubts and the haunting echo of his anger, the prayer of Hezekiah’s kindred to mine. Hezekiah did not react to the threats of the enemy but cried out to the Lord for help, and the Lord replied with deliverance. When Hezekiah was told by Isaiah that he would die, he turned to the Lord and wept bitterly, the Lord replied by healing him. Is God encouraging me and telling me not to give up?

I struggled with this. I told God: let it not be my own feeble attempts to grasp and twist promises out of Your Word, to interpret Your Word according to my will, but let it be from You oh Lord, if it be that this is Your rhema word for me.

And again the feeling of satiating peace poured over me and a joy welled up in my heart. God confirmed it: a promise. God’s given me a promise! Delay does not mean denial: I will keep being proactive in my faith, to keep petitioning the Lord and uphold that matter of my heart before Him, I will not doubt nor waver again. I will cling to His promise.

[To you, for all that’s happened, I’m truly, truly so very sorry…]

you have made me glad, and i'd sing of the Lord:
you are my shield, my strength, my portion, deliverer,
my shelter, strong tower, my very present help in times of need... – Hillsongs: Made Me Glad

... posted at 7:14 PM by jared.

Reading through the blogs of Paul Tan, Iya and Dalglish; hearing about the loves of other people I realise this, that though hope if frail, it's hard to kill. We would relive, we would endure, perform the twelve tasks of Hercules and more, go to hell and back, for that one moment of validation, that we didn't believe in vain.

It’s ubiquitous isn’t it? The sympathetic resonance of our hearts, each tear, some vague hurt, how they swirl and dance around each other, and like the phoenix, a bitter sweet song arises out of its ashes, to sing of disenchantment and lost. The dream has shattered, we proclaim, love is no more. Remembering what we once had, fragments of which we clench so tightly in our fists, the pain as it tears into our flesh brings us quasi-comfort. Finally, something real, we tell ourselves, yes the pain, the pain is real. We relish it, the pain. In the emptiness of our hearts, the pain makes us feel alive still. Children bemoaning a lost dream, that fatuous hope: of make-believe, of fairies and of dreams, of rapturous love, we danced, we soared, and now we’ve fallen; helpless, hopeless, lost, and grounded.

...you promised you’d never make me cry, you said you’d never hurt me nor leave me…

Higher purpose descended upon us. I promise I will never hurt you, I’d never make you cry, I’d never leave you, they beseech, an impassioned cry so deep that it has metamorphosed into something else, into, perhaps, destiny. Entwine with me, come walk with me, temper my conflagration, and infuse my life with the meaning of your love, they said. The force of their yearning is so palpable that we – who love them with our lives, who know their love is equal of ours, who can’t see pass the coiling miasma of the unknown – take the promise seriously. As far as into the future, their undying love proclaimed. Name it and hold to it. That promise, that token. Given us their unsinkable word and it will keep us afloat all our lives.

...you promised you’d never make me cry, you said you’d never hurt me nor leave me…

If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that nothing stays the same for five minutes, not even your goddamn name. So this demand for an immutable love, it’s a storybook device, it’s some retro Knights-of-the-Round-Table Camelot-and-chivalry deal. Oh they did mean it, with all their hearts they did. They’ve mortgaged the future but in the future, they’ll be someone else again, they’ll have changed a dozen times, and nobody can expect their unknown future self to be bound by the mistakes and promises of youth. It’s like selling the moon. You can sell it if you’re able to find a buyer but only a fool would expect you to deliver. A promise, and after that it’s caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.

I've not grown cynical, neither have I been embittered. Through it all, my love has only grown stronger; I can love again. What they promised us, in the spirit it was offered, we took it, and had faith in them, in us. That's all that matters, for that and that alone infuse the entire panorama of time with meaning – love. And it's true: love makes all things worthwhile.

What Dalglish said bears repeating:

I can’t promise never to hurt you, for I may well do so without even know it. I might hurt you, but if you have faith, you’d know that I could love you too.

To this give credence: faith and love, that’s all there ever was, that’s all that was ever needed; faith and love will be our miracle =)

Isn't this wonderful? So much meaning, so much beauty, so much life! Oh for the love of it all, I can dance the night away ^.^ Thank You Father.

... posted at 2:58 PM by jared.

It strikes me that even now, sometimes when I’d pray for you, I can still be moved to tears. The groanings of my heart is beyond its expression. There is no sore, just a longing; a pining after; a desire. What was given to us was by no means quotidian. I clung to you, without touching you. In the whisper, in the shout, in our gentleness, of kindred spirits gelling, easeful it is, easeful it was. Those heavy burdens we bore willingly, asking for more, yet refreshed were we in our spirits for with love’s sweet grace comes the strength birthed in the union of two.

If I were as you, as the carnal, I would have given up. Peering into shadow, what light is there? I didn’t understand it when Pst. Yock Kiang spoke to me, but now I do. As the carnal man, seeing as with the eye, one can only see so much, but with the heart one sees much more: beyond the veil, to the transcendent, aye, beyond the pale.

So many times I grew faint, exfoliated by the attrition of time and abject despair, till the core, that still beating heart lay bare. It’s the question – yes – the question He asked. Why?

For long I wrestled with it, day and night I implored. In my passionate cries, it was not there. In my frustration it yielded not. Then it came. On my knees before the Lord, on my knees weeping in the brokenness of my heart and the woe of my soul, there in the midst of the silence the table cracked, the still small voice of my heart answered – for love, simple and unadulterated.

The old man in me grows weary, but my spirit grows strong. Each day passes, each day bleak, but my hope lies not in the seen, but in Him. Father, I cried out, please bear me a witness from Your Holy Spirit, be it yes or no, that I may know. If it be no, You have my amen to Your perfect will, I yield oh Lord; in You I trust. If it be no, take away the desire from my heart to pray over this matter I pray.

Between the Father and I, the heart of my prayer is known, the ‘why?’ satisfied. Sometimes when I feel discouraged, I dig deep, down, down into the heart and there the light from Him that evermore shines warms my heart and nourishes me. Close to His embrace, there in the radiance of His love my reason is before me. This experience has seen me grow, and I persevere. Since that day I have remained steadfast, and till He answers I will press on.

Lord hear my prayer.

... posted at 12:14 AM by jared.

There was such abundant inspiration flowing out of me as I penned the first draft to my ‘Foreword’ for the book we’re going to write. With all my heart, I pray it’d be used in such a tremendous way to touch and inspire a change in the lives of those who read it. Do we say Pulitzer? ^.^

Can you guess that I’ve been writing about you all this while? Even now, I still hear the echo of your voice and it’s been richly infused with what I wrote – my deep gratitude.

I thoroughly enjoyed the pleasure of your company today, you know who you are. There was such a sense of continuum in the way we communed with each other that the parenthesis of time, for that moment, drips, floats, stretches, shrinks, passes, and vanishes – poof! – there goes the law of relativity playing peek-a-boo!

We both know it isn’t some fillip, a quirk of cosmic causation; this confluence engendered by One far beyond our scope and grasp, it’s infinite Purpose immanent in the eternal I AM.

I trust in us, and I trust in Him, to keep us from pendulousness. We both feel it, the intangibly tangible. The whisper of a thrill tantalises my heart and captures the vividness of my imagination – oh the sheer joy of anticipation, the wonderment of the unknown realm – come, come, walk with me. Shake rattle and roll! =)

You know, I can’t help but smile when I peer into the heart of things. There was Jonathan, and then there was Dalglish. What joy it is, His benevolence and love out of which flow His tender mercies: another chance, a time of grace – my jubilee.

I still love and I do love; to the two lost in shadow, I pray light; to the one purposed, I know hope.

Oh Lord hear! Oh Lord hearken! Oh Lord do! You who knows the desires of my heart before its utterance, You who love me and did choose me before the age, You in Whom the light shines evermore: guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus with the peace that transcends all understanding; satiate our hearts and pervade our minds with the hope of Your calling, and in Your grace mercifully restore all things; may redemption propagate, may love guide and heal; let everything work together for the good of those who love You, those called according to Your purpose. Amen.

... posted at 3:37 PM by jared.

Wow! I'm so wonderfully incredibly deliriously blithe! Hahaha~ *bounces all over the room* Things are really going full swing for me: doors to opportunities I never thought I'd have are opening to me, blessings of grace and love pour forth renewed each day, there's a bounce in my steps, and my path is going brighter and brighter until the dawning day.

There's this great spiritual awakening being realised in me. I've been waking up at 5 - 6am the past few days just to pray and spend time with Him. I say this with God as my witness, that next one and a half to two hours are the hours I enjoy most everyday. I have praised my King, I have heard from my Lord, and I have read His Word; I come to the conclusion, with all the years I've been a believer, the days that have gone best for me are the days I've heard from Him first.

What a joy it is, to enjoy sweet communion with Him in that special time we have together; that I may bask in His radiance, be encouraged by His love, and my heart prepared for the day ahead: come what may, I know there's nothing I cannot overcome with Him in me.

Thank You Lord for these moments yea,
Thank You Lord for life this way.
Thank You now for brand new mercies of grace,
That meet me every single morning when I wake~

... posted at 11:58 PM by jared.

Had a sleepover at Michele's on Friday. There's an allure to watching them sleep. Snoring away beatifically, dead to all the world in sweet repose, in that one moment of time, that fraction of eternity, I see them shimmer and transform: smoothened away are traces of duress from their faces, this quiet grace creeps over them, and to the perspicacious, all deliquesces into a tenderness.

Discordant to the cacophony of life, this sole salient reprieve has them at their most serene, most accessible, most vulnerable; I see them ‘differently’. You know, as I regarded them, the smile that was on my face was reflected in my heart. Inexplicably this sense of deep love welled up in my heart for them. I realise, we’re not too different after all. Beneath the veneers we've polish to a shine, under all the make-up, the same heart beats in us. Life just goes on, hurtling away to its inevitable end, and we do what we must to be the better for it. Amidst the myriad vicissitudes, beneath all the improvised selves we create, there’s this unaltered, unvarying, timeless crave. Love, love.

In their own way, they’ve inspired me, shared a part, a glimmer of their lives with me. Seeing them as they lay there, warm thoughts pervaded my mind: I wish we’d have more moments like that, to have them as they are, away with artifice and façade, in the blithe of sleep. For in that window of time, they are truly as they are, alive and resplendent in the fullness of their Spirit, showing themselves undisguised.

When the first rays of the dawning day rouse them from their slumber, will the beauty remain? I pray it’d be yes. The fear of the other man staunches the unveiling of the inner self. Please oh Lord, may it be yes. Perfect love casts out fear; oh I pray, I pray for love. Love makes all the difference. Help us see ‘differently’ Father, to behold brother and sister as You see us, in Spirit and in Truth, with all love.

I slept soundly that night.

See me too, the real me ^.^

This is the day that the Lord has made,
And I’m so glad He made you.
Withrejoice, I will rejoice with you.

This is the love that the Lord hath made,
You and I, we are one.
Love’s mystery is unfolding today,
Written for us in the sun.

Oh… for better for worst, for rich or for poor,
Each day that passes I’d love you more,
‘Coz this is the day that the Lord hath made and I will rejoice,
I will rejoice, I will rejoice with you.
each rising sun you are here by my side,
You are more than a dream come true.

Oh… to have you, to hold you, to love you, to pray,
To share with, to care with, to hold hands and say:
This is the day that the Lord hath made and I will rejoice,
I will rejoice, I will rejoice with you. – Vineyard: This Is The Day

... posted at 6:04 PM by jared.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky...

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