Some interesting links: Relevant Magazine, Crosswalk.com. Both are links for Jesus freaks! Beware!

I met an acquaintance from my old church today. Had a good talk with her about Roman Catholics being represented at Sonic Festival. I think it's so good that something like that is happening.

And now, a little testimony.

Recently, God showed me this verse:

Psalm 118:5~9 (NRSV) says

⁵ Out of my distress I called on the Lord;the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.⁶ With the Lord on my side I do not fear.What can mortals do to me?⁷ The Lord is on my side to help me;I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.⁸ It is better to take refuge in the Lordthan to put confidence in mortals.⁹ It is better to take refuge in the Lordthan to put confidence in princes.

Since May, this has been the general outline of all that has happened to me. There was that one fateful night when I cried bitterly in my room to the Lord. I sad a lot of things I usually would not say. And I was venting my anger and struggling, id est, wrestling with Him. Two days later, I was more or less in a 'broad place' (v.5 connotes salvation, release; correspondingly distress here literally refers to a narrow constricted space), telling Marcus about my struggles.

And so things moved forward, because they had to. I think what happened was the Lord really advanced my life. He protected me in the wilderness and cradled me forward. He gave me a safe feeling; he made me secure (v.6).

So many things have happened. I went through some pain and agony over my past two years of backsliding, and I keep thinking my community was against everything that I suggest. I thought they were against me. But the Lord provides me, He helps me aby telling me that He is by my side. His presence is in my brothers and sisters. They are here to help me.

So I quit smoking. Why? Because the Lord had called me to be obedient unto Him. He has been calling me to obey him so for a long time. Sometimes, I obey Him. Sometimes I don't. From now on, I want to obey Him. And I quit smoking because I wish to obey Him. Not because of health reasons or being inconsiderate to my brothers and sisters. I quit smoking because He tells me to quit smoking. That my brothers and sisters do not suffer my smoke, and that my health improves, and that I do not stumble or encourage smokers or ex-smokers in the habit... these are just consequences of my quitting. I do not quit because of the consequences in this case. I have tried quitting because of the after-effects. But what's more powerful is not caring about the after-effects and pondering upon how I can trust the Lord.

Because the "Lord is on my side to help me" (v.7), "I shall triumph over those who hate me." (Perhaps a personified evil.)

Last week, verses 8 and 9 kept coming back to me. I've decided to make a commitment to take refuge in the Lord. To trust in Him and not in people. I do not want to put my faith in others but the Lord. I depend on Him to make my relationship with others worthwhile and enriching in His honour. I have shared these last two verses with two friends in the last one week. I hope that they are encouraged by it.

Ps 118 is my currently favourite Psalm because it is a thanksgiving for victory in battle. In our world today, where temptation actively seeks to ravage the senses of humankind, and where we fight to prevent ourselves from giving in to temptation, we can observe, then, that we live in a constant state of warfare.

Yet, if we recognise that Christ has already won our victory, it should be a song concerning such joy and laud that should be upon our lives.

One of my favourite lines in all of Ps is also in Ps 118:

²³ This is the Lord's doing;it is marvelous in our eyes.

It is a thanksgiving note that the psalmist hits on when he wrote this. And it is very much what I say to the Lord in thanksgiving. Indeed, I have much to thank for. If one looks at the verse just before it, one would find a clear reference to our Saviour (cf. Lk 20:17):

²² The stone that the builders rejectedhas become the chief cornerstone.

At times like these, when scripture hits me, I always feel a tingling sensation that God is giving me instructions. I feel so encouraged now and will push forward for a while, always askng Him to build me up. In a way, as the days go by, I think am getting stronger (sorry, thinking of that Surreal song now). And now that Sonic Festival is only in 3 days' time... God's timing for me is perfect.

My hope in the Lord is to grow closer to Him during Sonic Festival and even closer thereafter. For now, my highest joy shall be to worship Him and praise His name! That's all I wish for now. And I know already that this hope will be granted. And it will be marvelous in our eyes.

Signs of Life claim the following Psalm:

Psalm 150 (NRSV):

¹ Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;praise him in his mighty firmament!² Praise him for his mighty deeds;praise him according to his surpassing greatness!
³ Praise him with trumpet sound;praise him with lute and harp!⁴ Praise him with tambourine and dance;praise him with strings and pipes!⁵ Praise him with clanging symbals;praise him with loud clashing cymbals!⁶ Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!

Braces are out! Thank God! And after almost 5 years too!

For those who don't know, I've been wearing braces since the second half of year 2000. But no, my teeth weren't so bad that I needed all of 5 years to get them into the alignment that you observe today.

What happened was a lot of missing appointments and going overseas and not seeing an orthodontist over there.

Well, it's finally done. There's only 1 year of retainers left. Supposedly, I'll get on the retainers next week and wear it for 24 hours everyday for 1 year.



Some of you have seen my name card. So far, I've printed this off my home inkjet printer. But I'm thinking of printing it at a proper print company. Any suggestions? Maybe Front-Line Creative will have to do.

Rueben and I had the best set ever since we formed Signs of Life. I think we're beginning to get the hang of how we're supposed to work together, especially for Sonic Festival.

Signs of Life will have a banging set on the third day of Sonic Festival this year at the Theatre stage at Fort Canning. There has not been a tighter SOL set.

Last 2 weeks, I think I died to myself like a dozen times. I've quit smoking, so every time there is the urge, I'd have to really scream at myself to prevent myself from smoking. It's working though, because I think this time I really put my trust in the Boss.

A verse from last night:

Ps 19:1~2 (NIV) says

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God;the skies proclaim the work of his hands.² Day after day they pour forth speech;night after night they display knowledge.

Note: My website is designed on a Mac. I designed it for Macs. Therefore, while I try to make it as compatible as possible with Windows PC browsers, my website still looks better on a Mac.

Saying so, it's not that you can't do anything about it. You can. But there is usually only one best solution: switch to Mac.

Bay Beats 2005 was quite cool. The crowd was huge because the government happened to have a NDP rehearsal on the same weekend.

It's been a long time since I last saw Surreal perform; they have, without doubt, quite a fan-base here in Singapore. It's one of my favourite bands in Singapore, because, firstly, they are good, and, secondly, they are a band made up of super-experienced, yet down-to-earth musicians. My other favourite Singapore bands are the once-upon-a-time Plain Sunset, and Astreal.

Talk about National Day. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the National Day fly-bys, by which I mean the F-16 planes doing a display flight - or whatever you call it - for the crowd at NDP. Well, at least, I enjoyed it yesterday. A couple of weeks ago, they had a rehearsal too and what happened was I didn't know. I happened to be in the City Hall area when they did the fly-by and I got a little worked up because I thought some sort of terrorist attack was going on (didn't see the planes, heard the sound).

There is this person I know who has a very negative view about a lot of things. One of those 'things' is Christianity. Sometimes I think he has been so misled by the things of our sadly post-modern world that institutionalised religion just isn't ethical anymore. He is a baptised Christian himself, but only in name. Let's call this friend K.

Some days ago, K had a friend, J, who was going through some rough patches. K told me about it. So what I thought was that I'd go over to J's house and pray for him, since K and I happened to be in the area. But immediately K said,

"No. Cannot."

Why? I asked.

"He doesn't want to see anyone now."

We argued for a while. I kept saying that I just wanted to pray over J. J is a back-slided Christian. But nothing in the time that I had known J had indicated that he was against Christianity. In fact, he seems to be the sort of person that hasn't closed the door to God completely.

K just didn't like the idea at all. He didn't want me to pray over J, saying that J needs time alone, and, besides, J doesn't go to church any more. He doesn't need your prayers. He needs time alone.

Fair enough. He needs time alone.

But what is the issue here? Why was I upset? The reason is this: K is so opposed to Christianity that for me to pray over his friend J is a bad thing. He thinks that I will try to 'brainwash' J into going back to church and becoming a nerdy-churchy person. Already, K is upset that he has 'lost' me to this church.

This really upsets me personally because I feel that K is one of the many people who forsake God because they feel as though they do not need a community. They make up their own beliefs and doctrine about God and live according to their own rules, not realizing that God wants them to show the community His Love, which means that they are by default made accountable to the community in church. They are ultimately responsible for sharing their life with other Christians.

I really prayed about this and asked God to give me grace in this situation. Because at any time now, I'm about to burst out at K, though I know whatever I say to him isn't going to convince him of how negative he is toward God and hence why he feels that God doesn't exist for him, or that his version of God is different from other Christian's version of God.

I will probably say to K that his thinking is arrogant. Arrogant because he thinks that God exists for him and so he makes his own rules to live by. If he really believes that he exists for God, he would've known to obey God and therefore become responsible to his community in Christ. K is so smart that he thinks he can come up with his own principles.

A few days before this incident, P, an old friend of K, called K. He told K, "I really don't see God in you at all." K came complaining to me about how hurt he was to have receive this criticism from P. In fact, I'm actually ashamed that out of fear of losing my friendship with K, I had not said it earlier. I have to admit, as well, that I did not want to believe that K has long forsaken God, even though K doesn't admit/believe that he has.

Ah, God, what to do? K's my friend. I don't want to see him drown in his own arrogance.

Sonic Festival 2005 is coming up on the 27th, 28th and 30th of July. Yes, it's that time of the year where the ministry holds the biggest Christian music festival in South East Asia.

Visit the website, and check it out.

Stella & Arthur

Things getting busy again. Since getting back from America, I've gone back to working on the catalogue and websites for money. Also took portraits of Terence, Rakesh and my cousin Yan (visit The Lonely Eye). Also agreed to help Michelle Tan in the administration for Sonic Festival 2005. And this Thursday, Jade from Adonai will be assigning me more work for Sonic Festival's Village coordination.

The last week has been a good one. It's really nice to be working in the environment of Sonic Edge again as an active participant, however much less than what I did before. In a way, I feel that it's the first time I've been obeying God for the last two years. So perhaps, this is His way of making me make peace with Him, making amendments to my own faith, as well as getting back into the groove with the ministry. I believe that I'm drawing closer to Him again just by helping out at Sonic Festival. It's the reason why I so easily agreed to commit more by offering help to Jade.

I've also decided to start strengthening my knowledge and obedience to the bible. Marcus recently recommended me Fee & Stuart's How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. It's a start. I've also stopped using the New Jerusalem Bible in favour of the NRSV because most of my other friends use the NIV. The NRSV is much closer to NIV than the Jerusalem Bible. In August, I'll be joining Marcus and Gordon for our own bible study.

I'm still taking requests for portraits for those who want theirs taken. The same deal: you don't pay me, I don't pay you. I don't charge for developing. But the original negatives/slides are mine. You get free digital prints. Any paper prints, I'll get them for you at cost price from the shop. Examples of portraits can be found here: The Lonely Eye.