What fires up your heart?

What fires up your heart?

If there are no peer pressures, 'society constructed norms' or 'biblically correct answers' to this question, what would be the answer?

For quite a long period, perhaps 2 years or so, I thought that the thing that fired up my heart was serving in church. But as 2005 draws to a close, I begin to see things in a different light.

Serving in church was a form of telling me that 'things' are alright so long as I am in line with 'expectations'. However, there are two problems in my outlook on serving God. Firstly, I could not exactly pinpoint the 'things' that are 'not right'. Nonetheless, I believe that as long as I am serving, these indefinable things should be resolved somehow. Secondly, on whose 'expectations' am I really trying to meet? I suppose I was trying to meet God's expectations, or to meet the natural expectations that come with leading a cell, or at a more human level of meeting the expectations of the senior church leaders.

But I am not sure if you have ever felt that at the end of the day, or at the end of a Sunday, there are things that seem so hollow or empty in the deepest core of your heart despite your every effort to live a Godly-centred life in the best possible manner? After all, isn’t Jesus supposed to fill that emptiness in your heart the day you accept Jesus? So what is it that triggers the tear on the Sunday nights, and the soft brushing away of the alienated heartache by a mere “it’s okay, ‘things’ will be fine”?

Or for the matter, some of us who aren’t serving in Church right now maybe pursuing other things that we assume are what fires up the heart. For some, it maybe dance or composing songs or playing the guitar. As for me, I thought that photography was the one passion that fires up my heart.

What if, I’ve been living in a lie that satan wants me to believe in so that I will not experience the fullest glory of Jesus? Perhaps the things that apparently fire up my heart are not so much my natural passions, but false fronts that masquerad the heart wounds that were either developed over a prolonged period of time or simply a heart condition that had been left neglected and unattended for far too long such that it becomes what we usually call the ‘hardening of the heart’?

Do not get me wrong, there is nothing evil with photography, dance or music. And certainly, there is nothing wrong with serving in church. But, sometimes, at least to me, I know that I’m using them as stop-gap measures to occupy the different gaping holes in my heart so that I have no time or space or opportunity to attend to the root of the heart condition itself. Serving church and photography becomes my way of ‘expressing’ my heart without words, but so long that I do not want to ‘share’ the problem with people or to God, I am putting a wall between myself and God, and preventing Him from healing me completely. Serving church become repetitive, unexciting and unfulfilling, photography degenerates into a silenced black and white, and even my studies are nothing but a political tool to rule over the heart, mind and soul.

It is with such awareness that I entered into 2005 this year. I was to some extent, indifferent in church, sceptical of God, and without any expectations of others or myself. Of course I won’t show it in my exterior mannerism, and there were times when I really feel the peace of God in my heart. But deep down, I know that I need to face head on with God to confront my heart condition. I do not want to simply express myself through abstract photography, neither do I want to gloss over things and talk to God ‘about it’ yet showing an absolute faithless nonchalance that ‘it is just me and I can handle it somehow’.

To some extent, I want to thank my mentor who put up with quite a lot of my anti social-ness and indifference in the first half of the year, and was patient enough with my silencing attitude towards everything that is about my inward self.

I think I’ve slain a few ghosts this year through the undeserved grace of God. God opened up my perspectives in different ways. And I would say that if I have to answer the question

“what fires my heart for 2006”

I suppose there are 3 things that I know for sure aren’t just masquerading false fronts. Firstly, it has got to be missions and mentoring two guys in my cell. Secondly, it has got to be political science (more specifically, the whole thrill of looking at the world in terms of international relations). Thirdly, well, I can’t quite define it now, but I suppose it does fire up my heart in really strange ways.

I do want to streamline my life next year and cut down on unnecessary schedules that will wither my energy away. And by God’s grace and wisdom, I pray that I’ll be able to follow the desires of my heart with the utmost passion and commitment. Maybe time will reveal more things, and maybe pull me back to some form of level zero reality, just so that I can have a better grasp on a balanced walk with God. But to some extent, I think I’m living on borrowed time in 2006, I want to uncover the remaining gaping holes in my heart so that I will not become a shelled out version of what He wants me to be in the future.

Somehow, I do think that one or two of my friends might share the same problem that I have, in terms of the heart condition and the barrier to articulate it in a manner that removes that wall between God and him/her. I still struggle in different ways. But I pray that during this Christmas season, God will bring you the restoration and joy in your heart. :)

What soren kierkegaard did that make him possibly impossible

How much I ... is shown by the fact that I always tried to hide from myself how much ... moved me... If I had not been a penitent, had not had, had not been melancholy, my ... would have made me happier than I ever dreamed of being. But insofar as I was what, alas, I was, I had to say that I could be happier in my unhappiness without ... than with ...

... that is how I understood it.

And so we ...

"Journal", Kierkegaard

How can I understand it?

Banal updates

1) Keep bumping into ex teachers these days. Saw my ex choir teacher conducting a christmas carol outside paragon yesterday. Apparently, the crap choir that no one really believed in (besides me, my good friend and my choir teacher) had improved and emerged to win an international event in prague last year, as well as many gold awards in SYFs. They even formed an alumni last year. It was quite good to catch up with him. Maybe I should give the alumni a go next time, though I can't sing for nuts now. But it is good to keep in touch with some old roots and get free tickets to good performances now that my old school is top notch in culture. Ha.

2) Thanks to a glitch, my NUS fine, at 1 dollar per hour for a RBR book that I did return, is now at the 53 dollar mark. Quite an interesting way to see how many hours have passed since I took the book out last friday, or maybe quite interesting to see how many hours have passed since I did a Hiroshima on myself last friday. I think Nagasaki will come soon next week.

3) I need to really start to think hard for my ISM. Gah... too ambitious a topic, but way too lazy to do anything now!!!

4) I need the machine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

If He is a scapel

Between art and the so called life;
between the unintentional and the intended;
between the beauty and the melancholy;
between the everyday and the interstices.
Something became everything,
but everything became rather quite
nothing,
nothing
cuts quite as deep as a scapel that seeks to heal,
history that-has-been,
history has been nothing.
But I'm fine, don't worry.
I'm not a seasonal friend. Really.

Running After You

Your Word is a light unto my path
Your Love guides me through my darkest night
And even though sometimes Your ways I cannot understand
I'll never walk away because my future's in Your hands

I don't care what people will say
I'm running after You
I won't turn back and go their way
Cause I'm running after You

Don't matter what may come my way
I'm running after You
It's You I'm following today
Cause I'm running after You

Running After you, Planetshakers, 2003

Ha, maybe I'm a bit slow. Only heard of this song this year. Quite energy pumping and adrenaline rushing, makes me feel like picking up the bass after a 1 and a half year hiatus. Sometimes, I think christian music does not always have to be at the peripheral of the media/art industry. Really depends on how much we want to change people's worldview??

Think I'm finally getting some kick again after a really lull and stoned resting period. Not that I'm complaining... stoning is something that I really missed. Apologies to folks who thought I was a bit drifty or incoherent. I think I was. Anyway, next week gonna do some photography shootout in town (http://www.family.org.sg/), so you guys might want to pop by the exhibition from 17th to 23rd dec. This and my increasingly complicated ISM should keep me occupied till xmas. Think I like it that way, too much bumming makes me drifty.

I need to Focus!
I need to run after You! I need to run after you!

You give and take away

During the recent church camp, the song "Blessed be Your Name" by Matt Redman was sang by the worship team on quite a few sessions. I found it really meaningful and challenging for one who really sings it with full conviction. The lyrics goes something like this...

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name ...

... You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Pastor Dennis shared with the congregation that this song was written when Redman's wife had a miscarriage. And yet, despite the lost of his child, he was able to pen the lyrics "You give and take away, my heart will choose to say, blessed be Your name".

Wow... Maybe its really at such a pinnacle of surrendering to the Lord that He will in return bring restoration to man.

There have been a few occasions when my heart was unable to say "blessed be Your name" when He "gives and take away" things that meant a lot to me. Nonetheless, I think this year has really been a great learning curve for me in proclaiming His name when things that were so "close", "near", or "almost" were taken away.

I suppose the race with God - be it in the shores or depths of our lives - can go either way; one may choose to give up his ideals and dreams so that the "giving and taking away" will not seem so harsh, or he will continue to pursue the things that he knew to some extent might "be taken away" in due time, not that he wants to "test" God, but he really wants to find out the answer for himself, to banish away the doubts if things said were from the rationalization of his mind, or truly from God's voice.