Chinese Niu Year in Auckland

It's my 3rd consecutive CNY away from KL. I haven't done much - either I have serious jet lag or my aunt's coffee ain't strong enough. I did finish "Winnie-the-Pooh" though... and I think I'm a little like Eeyore in my head. It's kinda refreshing to laugh at Eeyore, then recognizing a little of him in me and laugh at myself too.

My thinking process is not quite complete but I no longer trust myself with unguided thinking. Anyhow, I'm returning home with these thoughts:

• Time to stop moping around and get on my feet again. I may not have the strength but at least I have the desire to begin with.
• Gotta make the best of everything. Gotta stop wasting time.
  

Today I found myself wondering why I often felt a sense of belonging only after I've left. Time to stop living in the past. Feeling the sense of belonging doesn't count, what matters is counting oneself in.

I am almost glad to be heading back and returning to work right away. One needs to keep oneself occupied. I just need to learn how not to keep myself mindlessly occupied.

2009...

Here's an attempt to revive my dead blog.

I'm not sure I know where to begin. I seem to go blank a lot these days. Things have changed so much. For one, I'm not sure if the title of my blog should still remain. There's truth in it, so I guess I'll keep it until something else comes up.

So here I am in Auckland for Chinese New Year. Am I waiting, searching or running away? There are a few things I need to seriously think through I suppose. But sometimes I feel like I no longer have the energy, or whatever it takes, to do what is right. Left on my own, I am a mere sinner. A pathetic, helpless sinner.

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."

-Romans 7:15-20

Why do I feel like I am trying to justify myself?

Anyhow...

"So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my member. What a wretched man I am!" (Romans 7:21-24a)

I suppose it does help to know that someone I look up to have felt the same way too. And better yet, he knew the answers:

"Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

(Romans 7:24b-25a)

"So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." (v.25b)

I've allowed the heavy chains of sin to tie me down in bondage.

But I am no longer a prisoner, am I?

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (8:1)

"the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace" (8:6)

I've always liked this song:

"My chains are gone, I've been set free,

My God, my Saviour has ransomed me.

Like a flood His mercy rains,

Unending love, amazing grace."

I quote Yancey in his book "Reaching for the Invisible God":

"Transformation comes, in the end, not from an act of will, but an act of grace. We can only ask for it and keep asking."

Lord, help me.