A WatCh NiGhT SerViCe RefLeCtiOn

"Watch me," he told them. "Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. Judges 7:17

Camp  signifying preparing for battle. How many times in my life.. have I felt that life was just like a battle ground. At battle between god and evil. The spiritual and natural, wanting to do the things of God and fighting against doing the things of the world. The bible says clearly that one man cannot serve two masters. If I am friends with the world, I am an enemy with God. Life is a constant battle, without life’s manual, it will only end me up with chaos and more chaos… just like ball of string all entangled, unidentifiable which is the head which is the tail.
Life. A battle ground… between obeying the voice of God in my heart and obeying my parents. Many times they try to find what’s best for me. But what about if God is bringing me through a test? Putting me in hot soup so that I can learn how to depend on God in trying times? And my parents are trying to prevent me from getting into that hot soup? I’m not trying to say that I can hear God’s voice clearer than them. Of course, I can’t say that I’m more spiritual than them in any way. It’s just an everyday battle in my life..

At the edge of  at the brink of. An edge is when you’re about to fall over. The decision you make at this point is very crucial. Because you can’t see what’s beyond the edge, you have to decide which way to go. Being at an edge is very dangerous. So… is it turning back? Or trusting God? Brother Fuji has been an inspiration to me. He told me once that he told his camper when they came up to the altar to be prayed for. He said, “coming up here is very dangerous.” When you decide to let go and let God, he will do anything he wants with YOU. Are you sure you want to take that step? Similarly, being at the edge is very dangerous. God will promise to lift you up but that doesn’t mean when he puts you at a higher or lower platform, there’s going to be less edges, in fact, there’s going to be more.
What are the edges in my life this year? Definitely I need to thank God for seeing ben and I through another year. There has been many times when I said to myself, “ok. That’s enough. No more.” But I chose to trust God, and we id go through more rough patches but God brought us true and the relationship became richer.
I thank God also for seeing me through the first full time semester of TCA. The edge for me was to decide whether I should continue to stay in NTU or switch to bible school and I felt God’s prompting and leading so I chose to go full time and I have seen ever since, growth in my spiritual life and have learnt so much more about youths and my own calling. Through writing the papers, although tough, I learnt that I could depend on Him. Without God really, I couldn’t do it.

When I get to  I realize that Gideon didn’t say IF I get to. He was certain. He knew he would have to face the enemy with the little men that he has. He said “When”. We will have our enemies to face. Everyday BEHIND ENEMY LINES.

The word I want to emphasize here however is this..

“Watch me”  Today’s going to be watch night service. But the question is, who are we watching? Why are we watching? And even, What are we watching?
Watching is sensory. What did Gideon say here? He said, watch ME. Gideon is the leader of his army. Who is our leader? Who is my leader? Tonight is a time to readjust my focus back to God. After the spiritual high at the camp and hearing God’s voice, my sine curve went down again. No quiet moments with God anymore. It was all fun and play. Lord, I want to watch YOU tonight. YOU are the star of my life. I wanna get closer Lord, so much closer, Lord to thee. I wanto “Follow Your Lead” and in every situation of my life, “do exactly as [YOU would] do.

QuOtEs..

“A dance is a very profound means to integrate the internal world with the external world.” Bill T. Jones, dancer/choreographer

“…the poetry of dance is the expression of unseen spiritual grace.”
Stewart Headler (19th century)

“The art of dancing…perhaps more than all other arts, is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.”
Ruth St. Denis, pioneer of modern dance, founder Sacred Dance Guild

“No, art is not catharsis. Just the opposite: Art is rehearsal. Watching or listening to other people do something is a way of mentally rehearsing it—which makes it easier for us to do the same thing. After all, that’s why businesses spend untold millions of dollars on advertising every year.” Chuck Colson, founder, Prison Fellowship

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
Thomas Merton, Trappist monk, writer

“Art takes the ordinary and alters it in ways which make us see a deeper reality, one of things not merely seen but both implied and inferred. It alters relationships and makes us move off our comfortable center, to see, hear and think anew. Art can, in the hands of great talent, make beauty which reverberates through our lives and carries us into rarified strata. It can shatter our perceptions. It can clarify our anger. It can help us to understand our sorrow…Art provides the channel for those qualities which endure beyond the turmoil of a chaotic and threatened world…In dance, one returns to long forgotten basics: the revelations of non-verbal symbology – the physical knowledge of emotion. The body has been learning since before birth.”
Bella Lewitzky, dancer/choreographer

“I scrub my hands with the purest soap, then join hands with the others in the great circle dancing around your altar, God, Singing God-songs at the top of my lungs, telling God-stories.” David, song writer, king (Psalm 26)

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—which is your spiritual worship.”
Romans 12:1 (NIV)

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.”
Romans 12:1 (The Message)

“The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.”
James 2:26 (The Message)

“Beauty is not only a terrible thing, it is also a mysterious thing. There God and the Devil strive for mastery, and the battleground is the heart of men.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, novelist (The Brothers Karamazov)

The StoRy oF JaCksOn

it GoEs..

Tong Tong Tong Tong Tong

Story of Jackson Tong

Who only lives in his small kelong

He only wears long thongs

And only eats lontong

And when he's free he will fish sotong!

So...

He is Jackson Tong

Who fell into a dong (hole)

And when they found him he became ding dong!

tong tong tong tong tong, tong tong!