What we can learn from the life of Jacob (Biblical story)

Jacob did not begin as a great man. Born alongside Esau, Jacob grabbed his brother Esau leg at birth (hence his name Jacob). Jacob went on to steal the blessing of the firstborn from Esau angering Esau desire to kill Jacob. Because of his sins, Jacob was exile for 20 years away from his family and away from God. However God is faithful and even though Jacob left his family  and no longer felt the presence of God, God has never left him ( God blessed him the land he was resting in ).  This tells us no matter what you did, no matter where you are, the presence of God is always with us, it is only a matter of whether we are aware of it. Thus do not be misled by the devil into believing that God has forsaken you and has turned His back against you. In contrary, God is always watching us. We cannot deceive the LORD.

Jacob wrestled with God until He broke Jacob's hip. That made Jacob realized God's presence. God also wrestle with each and every of us until we accept who we are and submit to Him owning up our sins and personal defect just like Jacob finally identified himself. Only after we accept who we are, addressed what we have to address and submit what we need to submit to the LORD will we be truely reborn just like God has renamed Jacob after his submission. So let us face who we are and act on the deficiency! Let us stop deceiving ourselves into believing that all is well! Do not be afraid to deal with your spiritual brokeness as the breaking of self is the start of seeing and obeying our LORD. I pray LORD Jesus that He may give us the strength to face our problems and reflect on ourselves and submit what we have to Him. Amen!  

Let us remember that our God is faithful and no matter what your origins are, God has an amazing plan for each and everyone of us!

How should we view our problems in our lives

In Numbers 13:26-33

In this book, it was mentioned that 2 groups went to scout the promised land. The promised land that God has promised the Isralites was indeed good. However the 2 groups that went to scout the land gave different reports. Caleb and Joshua the faithful servant of the Lord gave factual account while the rest provided a false report. Why so?

This is because they have different things in their mind. Joshua and Caleb both focused on what that is good in the land believing that since God has promised this land to them they will inherit the land without casting any doubt on how to gain possession over it. The other people on the other hand were short-sighted and were lacking in faith. Instead of seeing the good they will attain they instead focus on the problems. The people that is currently inhabiting their promised land became giants to them and they visioned themself as grasshoppers.

From this we can see that it is only a matter of perception. If you were to focus only on your problem, your problem will grow to occupy your life and take over your life rendering you as grasshoppers. If you were to trust and not be afraid of the problems and have faith in the Lord, you will see the good that are to come and be happy in them. For God is with us, who can be against us!

In addition, the false account by the poor in faith discourages and addect the faith of the God's people making people rebels against God. From here we can actually see that what we do and behave as Christians does not only affect ourselves but will also affect other believers' faith and make your fellow man stumble.

In conclusion, we should look to the Lord for his trust and protection, trust Him even more in tougher times and set your vision on Him and not your problem and with that act positively and influence the fellow brothers and sisters with your positive faithful acts!

Amen!

My media in China hw... thinking I would like to share what I thought of....

I know this maybe a bit off topic but I felt the need to talk about the need for media censorship and I sympathize with China’s government needs and probable intention of media censorship.

I would like everyone to visualize the Government bodies as parent which main focus is on their child’s overall well-being. Now visualize China’s Government as a strict protective and perhaps a little prideful parent. As parents, they do not want their child to mix with bad companies, develops bad habits and wants to protect the moral integrity of his child. Like any other typical parents, they also want to create a very nice image of themselves and would not want their child to lose the good image and reputation of them lest the child will not want to respect or listen to him after that. Different parents (different government bodies) also have different sets of rules they want their child to follow. Some parents might demand more from their child in some ways more than other parents (e.g. Results) but overall the parents, no matter of American origin or Asian lineage, their main focus will be on the overall well-being of their child. Using this analogy, I would like to explain China’s media censorship policies.

Much of China’s media censorship revolves around the protection of their cultural identity. China Central Propaganda Department (CPD) clams down any TV, Movie titles that are considered low taste, indecent, vulgar or pornographic. This act resembles that of your parent when you are in your growing up phase and this is also parallel with Singapore act of classifying movies according to appropriate age group. Who are these government bodies to decide what is appropriate for us to view and what is not? Like our parents, to shield their children from all known “bad” influences, they will simply prohibit their child to mix with certain group of people, do certain kind of things (i.e. Smoking, speak any words of vulgarities) or watch certain things (i.e. Pornographic or violence). The Government wants the citizen to behave in a proper and upright manner and wants to mold their citizen to what they want them to become but is that the right thing to do? I have no idea as to this question but I would like to say if you are a parent and given the option, most will still choose to do what that is easiest and perhaps the most correct option which is to censor things that our child are expose to than to take the risk of not doing so. This could be a reason why the CPD censors these genres of movie titles I have mentioned earlier.

Secondly, the China’s media censorship also serves to protect the image and political standing of the China’s Communist Party (CCP). Similarly like any parent, you want to look good in front of your child so as to set a good example for them to follow. I believe any good parent will try to conduct themselves well in front of their child; this is likewise for the CCP. In terms of maintaining their image within the country, the CCP has been using the media mainly the Peoples’ Daily and all other CCP controlled media channels to notify their citizens of the good works that was carried out by them. They tend to focus on broadcasting their achievement over these media channel to continue to garner support and respect for their political party. This makes the CCP sensitive to other countries comments and criticism about them. This can be understood as a parent that would not want their child to hear other people complaining about them. Besides the fact that it might dampen the respect the citizens have on them, the CCP can also be said to be prideful parents. This is especially so for a communist party which have a different political system as the rest of the world. Just like the differences in parenting ways, you would want people to acknowledge that your parenting method works right, especially when you alone have your own unique parenting methodology. Thus this made China extremely prideful so they want to be perfect and not want their dirty linens to be washed publicly. This explains the reason for a lot of Government cover-ups like the (Wenzhou train collision, Melamine contaminated milk powder).

Lastly what would a parent do when their child witnesses a horror scene in a movie or witnesses a death or any other potential violent scene in reality? The most common reflex will be to cover their child’s eye with the palm of their hands of course. This act is to protect the child from seeing the bane of the society and not wanting their child to wake up in the middle of the night being haunted by the fright scene. A communist country is a nation that seeks to achieve to be a utopian society. In a utopian society, everything “is” perfect or in actual fact seems perfect. The China’s government in similar effort tries to make their country seems perfect so they tend to not report the “horror” part of the disasters that happens within the country and only focused on the rescue efforts. This makes the disasters in China to what seems as “victimless” disasters. This in a sense acts to prevent the public from getting mass panic and chaos from arising.

However, the China government like any other parents has made a very big mistake of not knowing when to let their children grow independent from their constant protection and shielding. The China government has to realize that their child has already grown up and should let them decide on their own from now and thus lift some of the heavy censorship they are imposing. The China government should also realize that by willing to admit their own mistakes and flaws will allow other countries and their citizen to truly respect them (we all agree that here and then, everyone makes mistakes and that no one is perfect right?) This act of acknowledgement of their mistakes actually triumphs over their acts to conceal whatever mistakes that they committed.

In conclusion, we should sympathize with the various decisions that the China’s government has carried out and we should give China a chance to grow out of their traditional mindset.

P.S: This is written with the idea of keeping my discussion neutral in mind.

Re-visitation of "my life"

I am feeling so much better now.
Life feels more fulfilling now.
I guess I have really let the past go.
No longer thinking about her...
Able to live life to the fullest now.
Army life is coming to an end... maybe that's why I am feeling so happy.
Maybe it is because of her (another girl).
Haha... anyway, life is so much fun now as compared to the past!

Let's do a review of my life.

Life as an NSF:

5 months more to ORD. Can't wait to ORD however I am afraid I would lost contact with my army friends, friends that I went through thick and thin with. I will try to make an effort to not forget them and make it a point to keep in contact with not all but some of them. Still feels good that ORD is so close... freedom is coming, slowly but surely.....

Life as a guy:

This title sounds wrong. I am not trying to say that I am not born as a guy but trying to relate the title to my BGR. Hm... as I said I have forget her already. Maybe through the help of another girl.
This girl is very special. She is strong, independent, sensible, sensitive(in a good way), cheerful and did I mentioned strong? She really have a very strong character. I really admire that part of her character. I have an urge to want to help her although she being independent rejected my help saying that she would like to deal with the problems herself. Thus the least I could do is to lend her my listening ear. I am really interested to know more about her and wanted to help her as much as possible. Really liked her. The day we went for the CN BLUE concert is 21st August. It is the first time I go for a concert. It is the first time I went out to a concert with a girl. That day was so much fun. Just remembered, it is the first time I walked off from the guy group movie plan to accompany her home. This actually earns me a chance to talk to her minus the rest of the class. Really enjoyed her presence although I felt bad for walking off my guy friends.
I hope that one day I could tell her how I felt about us and I hope she would felt the same too...
Before that, I would try to interact with her more... just don't want to scare her off.
The problem now that she is very busy right now. Besides school works, she still have to work to provide for herself. On top of that, being the eldest sister, she also has to take care of her 2 younger sisters in a broken family. See... told you she is a very strong person. Really hope she will have the time to go out with me sometime.

Life as a person (civilian):

I have started revision for my A levels Biology and Chemistry.
I even started playing guitar again.
I am learning music theory from Aaron Chen Jia Jun, my 30SCE platoon mate.
I am learning driving. Waiting for BTT.
My relationship with my parents is better. I will try to do more activities with them.
Waiting for Fallout New Vegas to come out.
I am reading books again although I always failed to read the newsweek I subscribed.
I have more confidence now.
Life is just so much better now.

My motto: Don't live your life in the past or future, live your life as it is right now, Live the moment!!

Miss me?

Hey, It has been 9 months since I last post.
During this 9 months, I have been through several ups and downs which moments are both pretty memorable and disturbing (sometimes).
I don't know how I should go about describing my life during these 9 months of absence.
Firstly, I just wanted to express how sore I was for not being able to enter to the command school and now am stranded in a "Men" position. One where you are told to do stuff blindly and not allowed to question your superiors no matter how superior your superiors may be.( NSFs should know what I am talking about). I am also sad that this kind of life is going to continue for 15 more months. Haiz...
Bravo Mike Tango was a terrible experience. It is where you convert your civilian mentality to a soldierly mindset and get used to getting your thumbs perpetually wet. Life is tough but still bearable because I have one thing in mind -going to command school. However reality is always different from your ideal life. I failed my indian papa papa tango and ended up as a "men".

Being preoccupied by prejudiced thoughts about "men", I entered the gate of my unit reluctantly.
Seriously, life isn't as bad as I have imagined it would be. Life is pretty much slacker. The most interesting part is that I got to meet people from all sort of background, people I would not meet in Sierra Indian Sierra Papa Echo Charlie or Oscar Charlie Sierra. Listening to the life that these people went through was really a eye-opener or rather "ear-opener" to me. (thanks reuel for influencing me in making such lame jokes) You guys rock! ALPHA coy all the way!

Seriously these 9 months allowed me to experience life that I had never experienced in my 19 years of living.

P.S: I still miss you a lot. I don't know why... ...

Wisdom from Matrix <2>

"Love is only a word, what matters is the connection behind the word"

"The pattern of love is the pattern for insanity"

"Everything that has a beginning has an end"

"If we have to give these bastards our lives, we give them hell before we die!"

"Only a human mind can invent something as im-------(foolish) as love"

Arena will be back in business, no more emo stuff.

Arena will be back to talking about social issues and current affairs. Sorry for the emoness, all those posts are shifted away to somewhere safer. Haha! Now we can focus and concentrate on discussion which is what the blog is supposed to be (remember I used to put the hyperlink in my MSN personal message because I wanted people to come here to discuss about stuff) and sorry about flooding you with useless emo entries. I will never do it here again. haha, so enjoy!

Wisdom from Matrix

Mind over body-"Do you think that's air you are breathing?"
"Focus!"

Control or being controlled, so what's control? Do we have control over our lives?

Moral and principle fundamentally do not changes, what that changes are our attitude.
"Somethings always do not change but something else do"

There is always reason for everything that happens, what matters the most is if you can see the reason or not.
"Cause and effect, it is how everything works."


"If I am not wrong, you are like everything around here, you are a program so how can I believe you(Oracle)?"

If we will die by doing nothing, why not die trying to make a difference and change your fate.
"If the prophecy is wrong, tomorrow we will be dead but what does it matter from any other days"

"Hope gives one the greatest strength but is also man's greatest weakness"

http://miniclip.com/mko.php?c=pUorqEottotEporFBoUBopBEosquBo43jS7otFBU

Play this game... Kinda fun!!

Having a contract-based society

Nowadays, people only do things as to what they promised in their contract. These people will not go the extra-mile to help others and that was what I considered as being calculative. I repeat “ over-calculative”. To elaborate this, I will quote an example. Some people will always do stuff as promise and is stated in the contract. This contract-based help have a dateline. After the dateline ended, That person will not care or bother about anything related to the person on the other end. Even anything happened that can be helped by him, that guy will not care.

Many people nowadays are calculative. Is it because these people have done too much mathematics causing them to be over calculative and always wanting a definite answer? Nobody knows. Even love nowadays seems to be contract-based. Don’t you think so? May not be true to everyone. I am still positive to find true love. Haha =). Lolx.

Anyway that how I feel. Everything nowadays just seems to have a contract behind it. Everyone seems to do something because they are forced to and this seems that they are being tied down by a contract.
Why not just be helpful a little, help others when it is necessary and just go the extra mile. As a Chinese saying goes, “ Everyone are good since the day one is born.” I believe everyone can go the extra mile to help others. The decision is yours to make. Make this world a lovely and friendly place to live in!

(Pardon my poor English) (Sorry for being offensive)

About me

Me? I am just a normal average living organism on earth. Just part of the ecosystem, like anyone, any organic living organism on earth. An omnivore and also a tertiary or secondary consumer. Haha!

Okay. Let me tell you what kind of a person I am. Firstly, I am stupid. Like everyone else, there are a lot of things, a lot of stuff out there we are unclear of and are unknown to us. Therefore I am quite an n00b. I like to play computer games but yet I am still lousy at it.

Secondly, I am lousy in English. In fact my English sucks (big-time). Anyone that read my blog before knows that. I am a secondary student but yet I do not even know the basics of English, Grammar! My also not so good in expressing myself using English and so sorry I believe you all will not understand my blogs. Sorry!

Thirdly, I am not so sociable. I am not a friendly person. Bu luckily, I still have some good friends. Yah! I am really lucky to have some friends to accompany me and stay with me when times are hard. Willing to talk to me, as I am a relatively boring person. (Talking to me must be a real torture, its like talking to the sea or talking to the wall, at most you can only hear your own echo) But haha, luckily I have some friends.

And last but not least, everything I done seems to fail. Always failing my own expectation. Just do everything terribly. Haiz! * give a long sigh *

In conclusion, you should already know the answer. Yah! In a nutshell, I am a lousy person.

(Pardon my poor English)

Have everyone lost the art of speaking?

Have everyone lost the art of speaking?


Can't they articulate their words in a better manner so that everyone will be able to respect him?

I don't enjoy and don't like talking to people that are "over straight-forward"(the way they speak).


These people are too overpowered by their own thinking and own perception. They cannot understand others and with their own puny mind and thinking they have, they will just shoot out hurtful words from their mouth. They do not know what they are talking about; they think that they are considerate when they are not. ARGH!!


(Pardon my poor, not understandable English)

What have the world become? <2>

Friends, tell you all something.
Not everything in the world is define.
Not everything have an answer.
Not everything have an answer of "yes" and "no"!
Not everything are either black or white, some are grey.
Not like logic gates either high voltage '1' or low voltage '0'



So stop being obstinate.Don't always expect an answer for everything... ... Defination is not always a must. For those people who are like that, bear this in mind.




Don't always bear a hope and think of getting a fixed or definate answer for everything. Friendly Advice By Daves



Brought to you by Daves cooperation

Offical sponser : LucKom©TM enterprise Pte.Ltd

What have the world become?

I have been asking myself this question.

Why people want to be at the top for most of the things they do?

When did the world become so competitive?

People just want to strive in almost every field.

Everyone wants to be an all-rounder.

Even some kids are forced to learn all sorts of things when they are young because they think that kids pick up things faster when they are young. (That’s true though). This is a battle between kid’s childhood vs. the more skills learned the easier life will be for he kids when they grew up (this is for your own good). This often results in many of us losing our childhood to be forced to learn some skills. I am thinking that the parents actually can know their kids interest and make decision over what should e thought to the kids and perhaps provide them with their own choices and give them some limited freedom like how British granted limited self-government to Singapore in the past.

Why can't we just be ourselves, enjoy life, sit back and relax. Why people just likes to "chiong" for everything and ended up with lots of injury (setbacks).

That all I want to say. Actually there is too much to be said but I just want to stop here. (Pardon my poor English) By the way, 21st June is my birthday...hehe =)