Well God's timing's reli so exact... Had been feeling quite down for the past few days due to many things and I juz cant seem to get out of it... Then today there was a conference at night abt managing ur emotions but I couldnt make it cos I had tuition... Then close to 2pm in the afternoon, I received an sms from Jia Qian asking if she could cancel her tuition tonite cos of her heavy workload from sch... To me of cos its a loss of $50 but then I'm like ... Hey I can go for the conference!! N this is the 2nd time within a week tat something like this happened!! Last week I managed to push forward my tuition timing so tat I could go for another conference and this week God made it happen again!! Wow, totally didnt do anything and it juz happened, and the timing is perfect too! =)
Well I didnt regret going for this conference and I learnt some stuff, though most of it may seem to be quite straightforward... Basically the pastor started and ended with one main theme, and that's WISDOM... He quoted the first part of Proverbs 1:7 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" Then he went on to say why we are having a harder time nowadays managing our emotions, touching on the stressful environments that we usually find ourselves in... In short there are 2 main reasons why we're having a hard time... First is due to the ever-changing external circumstances and secondly becos we have the wrong self-expectations...
He went on to say that all of us, whether we know it or not, look at other people thru different kinds of glasses/spectacles...
1. Money (we look at someone and think abt how much they are worth to the company)
2. Family Background (We give due respect to the minister's daughter but don't really care about some hawker's son)
3. Academic Background (similar theory, juz think abt ur automatic view of a person when he says that he's from RJC compared to someone who's from YJC)
4. Occupation (compare doctor/lawyer/lecturer with hawker/road sweeper etc.)
5. Authority (some ppl have the right connections and after pulling a few strings they get things done quickly whilst those how don't struggle to do the same thing)
6. Body Figure (this shd be quite obvious)
Here he's trying to say tat the world nowadays has become so complicated (as u can see from the 6 points above)
And after that he talks about the basic nature of human beings...
1. Self-preservation (its in us to protect ourselves)
2. Happiness is preferred to suffering (obviously)
3. We want things to happen without doing anything (plain laziness la)
4. We only accept praises/nice feedback and shut ourselves off from all criticism
5. We're only interested in things that will benefit us or make us gain something
6. We despise ppl whom we think are not as gd as us
Not too sure wad's the link from this 6 points, but thought it would be interesting to share =)
He goes on to talk abt how we can take steps toward better management of our emotions...
Firstly, instead of running away from our problems, we shd face it bravely... Bring it to God and know that He is always there with us, that that which is in us is greater than the world... Secondly, everyone is given their fair share of 24 hrs a day and its up to us to manage our time wisely... He recommends doing one thing at a time at home (being focused) but doing many things once u step out of the hse (so tat u dont waste unnecessary travel time)... Thirdly, we shd quieten down and pray... No matter how busy we are, there shd always be a time set aside to seek God everyday...
He ended with the following quote (quite well-known I think) which again leads back to WISDOM...
" God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference. "
*Singapore got the bid to host the Youth Olympics in 2010!!! =)
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