I finished the preparation for the talk on Saturday, and while I was watching House tonight, I did some surfing on the Internet. This is what I found. There are some pretty cool suggestions on where to hide things from burglars.
Evolution is not something I buy into, but I thought this design was pretty cool. Lego and I go way back.
Just found this website that is so much fun. It makes a word cloud of a big batch of words from your blog or whatever and makes it look something like this:
But what I was talking about yesterday was about love, and how we work with it, because our awareness of what is right, and what we need to do makes something change in our lives.
What am I talking about?
What I’m talking about is how we work our lives to reflect our knowledge of the Creator’s intention… His glory… His imagination. I’ve been talking about this with a friend, and just about how we know we’re loved by God, like I was writing about before, because of how all purpose is fulfilled when we love. But I think it’s more than that, and the conversation I’ve been having with him is that it’s not enough to just be aware of the love; something else must be done, too. That’s why this week at Solid Rock I’ll be talking about love, and about how it makes a difference in our lives.
We don’t just get impacted by the love that God shows us; we need to do something with it so it doesn’t just stay in us, or stagnate in us. So John 13:1-17 will be the focus.
I didn’t get around to finishing what I started in my last post because I kind of have a stabbing headache right now that comes and goes. Right now it’s a good bit. More tomorrow about love, what to do about it, and what it means for me. I’m sure you’re all practically vomiting in anticipation…!
I wonder how much of what we feel on a day to day basis is exactly what God wants us to feel, and how much of it is stuff we simply can’t control.
I’m having a conversation with a friend, and I’ll say more about that later because it’s really making me think about different things right now. More later, when I get back from seeing someone for dinner tonight.
Didn’t end up going to Macau as it took all morning trying to open up a new bank account at Hang Seng. Man, their procedures are dumb. They asked me for my nationality, so I said British, and then they asked for my passport. When I said that I didn’t have it with me, they replied, “Okay, since you have a permanent residents’ ID card, we can write that your nationality is Hong Kong Chinese or just Chinese. Would you like us to do that?” Seriously??
The ramifications of that snippet of conversation… I wasn’t aware we could just write anything for our nationality on a form…
The whole thing just frustrated and confused me. This is what I wanted to do:
But since I’m 25 years-old now, it’s kind of embarassing to bare my ass to all and sundry in the local bank. So this is what I reminded myself of instead:
Because it’s true - when we realise that God created people in His image, we can honour each other, and we’re bringing something good back into this world. It just happens when we are respecting the image of God in each other. That’s all it takes to forget about cultural, wealth, age, height, background or whatever other kinds of differences.
Before the bank, I had to visit the doctor for a refilled prescription, as I’ve run out of the pink ones for the past couple of days (but I’ve been fine. Just a bit angry at times, but at least not down like I was before). He said I’ve grown a lot since I first went to him, and said that I’d be down to a quarter of a pill at a time - 5mg of Paroxetine, as opposed to 20mg. I was very happy to hear about that, although I’ll still be on full dosage at night. I also told him about the biggest issue with my mother right now, and he said he’d try and have a word with her the next time I came, to give it all a bit of time.
But it’s amazing the difference a bit of hope makes. My whole day became much more enjoyable, and I’m almost looking forward to the next time I see him.
It’s important for me that things are clear, and that emotions are discussed, rather than hidden. Sooner or later it all comes out, and when it does, it becomes very messy, the longer it’s kept hidden.
I’m preparing the talk for Solid Rock this week. I’m excited. It’s hard work though, stalking people… That’s all I’m saying about that 
I had a dream last night about something that made me feel very secure, but somehow insecure too. When I woke up, the feeling that remained was one that made me feel quite uncomfortable. I don’t really remember it enough to say a lot about it, other than the thoughts I had upon waking.
I have been saying for as long as I can remember that I have no plans to get married, that I have no desire to have children.
It started on Friday, when I had that chat with the pastor’s wife, but the dream made me think about these things more. I’m still working on the thoughts, and what it all means for my future, whatever it holds. So I’m going to wait, and think about it some more, and pray about what it all means.
What I know though is that I’ll be speaking at youth group this coming week, and I know exactly what I’m going to be talking about. It’ll take a while to prepare though, so I’m getting started now, even though it’s nearly the end of the day.
Tomorrow, Macau.
At Solid Rock tonight, the talk was about love, what it means to love, and what it does to us when we do. Because it changes everything. James was very creative, and the little boy/girl envelope held a mirror for the youth to see that God loves all different kinds of people not for what they have achieved, or how they look, or where they live. Rather, He loves people because they’re made in His image. That was insight that came again, and was amazing.
I need to learn that He loves me, again.
I spent too much money on clothes, shoes and bags today, but one of the things I got were a couple of John Mayer’s oldish CDs from HMV. I am loving Room For Squares (2001), and as I opened the plastic wrapping, I had all these thoughts about how all that plastic wrapping is ridiculous and excessive, but also part of the experience of getting a CD, which, when I was younger, was a relatively-major luxury as I had to tutor and do other little things to earn money and I had to pay for all this kind of stuff by myself. But anyhow, flipping through the liner notes and glancing at the lyrics, smelling the smell of the new purchase and so on… that’s all lost with digital downloads.
But then they do make so much more sense, don’t they? Unwrapping 3 layers of plastic to get to the disc so that you can record it to put into your mp3 player just seems a bit dumb. So I did a bit of searching around the WWW and found this website that has some ideas on what to do with those CDs, of which I have so many they’re cluttering up the space beneath my bed and collecting dust.
Buuuuut… the songs on Continuum (2006) are making me very chilled out right now… I like.
I met up with my pastor’s wife this morning, we ended up chatting over coffees for 3 hours. It was marvellous to be able to talk about stuff I haven’t been able to articulate. Probably boring-as for her though… Aiya. Why does life have to be so hard? I’m determined to make changes though, and I’m going to find my life.
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This weekend’s going to be quite busy, I think, but no more money is to be spent other than on essentials.
Shopping. Clothes, stationery and so forth. Am I looking for something in particular? A beating on my self-esteem, most likely.
This is what I’m posting instead of something normal because my brain is drained from all the Dexter I’ve been watching this evening.
But also because it’s just the most horrific squid I’ve ever seen. GAH!!!
