here's part 2 of the highlights i read frm Secrets of the Code. ya, it's been a tough week continuing to read the book cos my faith has been severely tested and terribly assaulted. you could say i'm almost backsliding. it's been the worst part of my Christian walk since i was touched by the Holy Spirit in 1997.


in the midst of all the struggles, i told myself to hang on till the end of the book. i'm glad i didn't stop reading when i came across passages tt seriously undermine the roots of my faith. i almost made a rash decision to reject wat i've been believing all these 9 yrs. altho elements of doubt still linger in my mind, i'm feeling better aft reading some articles tt refute Dan Brown's claims.


alright, enough of my words. these are some parts tt i find interesting while reading the book during the past few days. my advice is to not make the decision of rejecting Christ as soon as i almost did when i read those undermining parts.


i hereby quote frm and share the sentiments w/ the author Dan Burstein:
The fact that material is presented here doesn't mean I think the arguments presented are true. It only means I think you should hear the arguments and make up your mind.

Those who do explore the Gnostic gospels discover a form of Christianity quite alien to the religion with which they are familiar. We found ourselves studying strange esoteric tracts with titles such as Hypostasis of the Archons and The Thought of Norea. It felt as if we were in an episode of Star Trek - and in a way we were. The Gnostics truly were "psychonauts" who boldly explored the final frontiers of inner space, seraching for the origins and meaning of life. These people were mystics and creative free-thinkers. It was obvious to us why they were so hated by the bishops of the Literalist Church hierarchy.

To Literalists, the Gnostics were dangerous heretics. In volumes of anti-Gnostic works - on unintentional testimony to the power and influence of Gnosticism within early Christianity - they painted them as Christians who had "gone native". They claimed they had become contaminated by the Paganism that surrounded them and had abandoned the purity of the true faith. The Gnostics, on the other hand, saw themselves as the authentic Christian tradition and the orthodox bishops as an "imitation church". They claimed to know the secret Inner Mysteries of Christianity, which the Literalists did not possess.

As we explored the beliefs and practices of the Gnostics we became convinced that the Literalists had at least been right about one thing: the Gnostics were little different from Pagans. Like the philosophers of the Pagan Mysteries, they believed in reincarnation, honoured the goddess Sophia, and were immersed in the mystical Greek philosophy of Plato, Gnostics means "Knowers", a name they acquired because, like the initiates of the Pagan Mysteries, they believed that their secret teachings had the power to impact Gnosis: direct experiential "Knowledge of God". Just as the goal of a Pagan initiate was to become a god, so for the Gnostics the goal of the Christianity initiate was to beocme a Christ.

What particularly struck us was that the Gnostics were not concerned with the historical Jesus. They viewed the Jesus story in the same way that the Pagan philosophers viewed the myths of Osiris-Dionysus - as an allegory that encoded secret mystical teachings. This insight crystallised for us a remarkable possibility. Perhaps the explanation for the similarities between Pagan myths and the biography of Jesus had been staring us in the face the whole time, but we had been so caught up with traditional ways of thinking that we had been unable to see it ...


Diverging Views on Mythic Beginnings: Was Genesis History with a Moral, or a Myth with Meaning?
By Stephan A. Hoeller
Excerpt from Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Traditons of Inner Knowing by Stephan A. Hoeller. Copyright © 2002 by Stephan A. Hoeller. Reprinted by permission of Quest Books/The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Ill.


Most Westerners assume that Western culture has only one creation myth: the one in the first 3 chapters of Genesis. Few seem to be aware that there is an alternative: the creation myth of the Gnostics. This myth may strike us as novel and startling, yet it offers views of the creation and of our lives that are well worth considering.

The non-Gnostic, or orthodox, view in early Christendom regarded most of the Bible, particularly Genesis, as history with a moral. Adam and Eve were historical personages whose tragic transgression resulted in the Fall, and from their Fall later human beings were to learn portentous moral lessons. One consequence of this reading of Genesis was the ambivalent and worse than ambivalent status of women, who were regarded as Eve's co-conspirators in disobedience in Paradise.

The Gnostic Christians, whose legacy of sacred literature we find in the splendid Nag Hammadi library, read Genesis not as history with a moral but as a myth with a meaning. They regarded Adam and Eve not as historical figures but as representatives of 2 intrapsychic principles present within every human being. Adam was the dramatic embodiment of psyche, or "soul": the mind/emotion complex where thinking and feeling originate. Eve stood for pneuma, or "spirit", representing the higher, transcendental consciousness.

There are 2 biblical accounts regarding the creation of the first woman. One tells us that Eve was created out of Adam's rib (Gen. 2:21); the other, that God created the first human pair, male and female, in his own image (Gen. 1:26-27). The second account suggests that the Creator God  himself has a dyadic nature, combining male and female characteristics. The Gnostics generally endorsed this version and developed various interpretations of it. This version accords equality to the woman, while Adam's rib version makes her subordinate to the man.

For the ancient Gnostics, the conventional image of Eve was not credible. That image presented her as the one who was led astray by the evil serpent and who, with her feminine seductive charm, persuaded Adam to disobey God. In their view, Eve was not a gullible dunce turned persuasive temptress; rather, she was a wise woman, a true daughter of Sophia, the celestial Wisdom. In this capacity, she was the one who awakened the sleeping Adam.

In another scripture, On the Origin of the World, Eve is presented as the daughter, and especially the messenger, of the divine Sophia. It is in the capacity of messenger that she comes as an instructor to Adam and raises him up from his sleep of unconsciousness. In most Gnostic scriptures, Eve appears as Adam's superior. The conclusion drawn from these texts is obviously different from that of church fathers such as Tertullian: man is indebted to woman for bringing him to life and to consciousness. One cannot help but wonder how the Western attitude toward women might have developed had the Gnostic view of Eve been the widely accepted view.

Chp 5 - Consolidation or Cover-up? - The Establishment of the One True Faith


One of the major players in this cover-up operation was a character called Eusebius who, at the beginning of the 4th century, compiled from legends, fabrications, and his own imagination the only early history of Christianity that still exists today ... All those with a different perspective ... were branded heretics and eradicated. In this way falsehoods compiled in the 4th century have come down to us as established facts ...

 - Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy


The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Didn't Get a Chance to Know
An Interview with Bart D. Ehrman
Bart D. Ehrman chairs the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Caolina at Chapel Hill. An authority on the early church and the life of Jesus, his most recent book is Lost Christianities: The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew.


A major notion of DVC is that a major alternate tradition to the Catholic Church - a side of the argument over the meaning of Jesus' life - has been lost to us for 2000 years. How do you look at this question?

There were actually a lot of different sides to the alternate tradition in Christianity, but perhaps the best examples can be found by looking at 3 of the variant forms of early Christianity: the Ebionites, the Marcionites, and the Gnostics. They are all sects within Christianity, but they are very different from each other.

The Ebionites were these Jewish Christians who emphasised the importance of being Jewish as well as Christian. The Marcionites were anti-Jewish, and believed that all things Jewish actually belong to the god of the Old Testament, who was not the true God. The Gnostics held to the belief that there were a number of different gods.

All of these groups claimed to go back to Jesus, which means they probably originated soon after Jesus' death and resurrection, or within a few decades at least. For example, the Ebionites claim that their teachings were derived from James the Just, who was the brother of Jesus, and who better to know what Jesus taught than his own brother? And they may have been right, actually - they may have been propounding beliefs that James taught. Their faith did not spread widely, however, perhaps in part because their belief that people who were Gentiles had to become Jewish to be Christian meant that men had to become circumcised, which means they probably didn't win too many converts.

The Ebionites emphasised the Jewishness of Christianity. How about the Marcionites?

The Marcionites were followers of the mid-2nd-century Greek philosopher and teacher Marcion, who had spent about 5 years in Rome working out his theological system. He believed the apostle Paul had the true insight into Christianity beacuse Paul differentiated between the law and the gospel. Marcion pushed that view to an extreme, maintaining that if there is a separation between law and gospel they must be given to humankind from 2 different gods - the god who gave the law is the god of the Old Testament, whereas the god who saved people from the law is the god of Jesus. Similarly, the wrathful god of the Old Testament is the god who created this world, and chose Israel, and gave them his law, whereas the god of Jesus is the one who saves people from this god by dying for their sins.

How about the Gnostics?

All sorts of groups, very different from each other, are classified today by scholars as Gnostics. They were so different from each other that some scholars like the historian Elaine Pagels wonder whether we should even call them Gnostic anymore. Gnostics as a rule believed that this material world we live in is a cosmic catastrophe and that somehow sparks of the divine have become entrapped in this material world and need to escape, and they can escape when they acquire true knowledge of their situation. And the Gnostic system provides them with the knowledge they need for escape, so salvation comes by getting the true knowldege necessary for salvation.

Where the Gnostics come from intellectually is difficult to determine. They appear to represent a kind of amalgam of a variety of different religions, including Judaism and Christianity and Greek philosophy, especially Platonic philosophy, and they appear to have taken elements of these various religions and philosophies and combined them together into a major religious system. We know that there was a full-blown Gnostic system in the 2nd century, probably early- to mid-2nd century, which is right around the time of Marcion. It's hard to know if Gnosticism began in Alexandria or if it began in Palestine, or where exactly, but we have evidence of Gnostics in Syria and Egypt. Eventually they make their way to Rome.

So what finished the Gnostics and these other sects? Did they just die out?

Although there were a variety of historical and cultural reasons, most of these groups probably died out because they were attacked - successfully attacked, on theological grounds - and they weren't nearly as effective in their own propaganda campaigns. They failed to recruit new converts even while the orthodox groups created a strong structure, used letter campaigns and other means to propagate their views, and their rhetoric convinced people.

But what really secured the victory was that the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Naturally, he converted to the kind of Christianity that was dominant at that time. Once Constantine converts to an orthodox form of Christianity, and once the state has power, and the state is Christian, then the state starts asserting its influence over Christianity. So by the end of the 4th century, there's actually legislation against heretics. So the empire that used to be completely anti-Christianity becomes Christianity, and not just becomes Christianity, but also tries to dictate what shape Christianity ought to be.

The ramifications of this change of events are enormous, of course. It changed the entire way the Western world understands itself, and how people understand something. Think of the concept of guilt alone: if some other groups had won, things might have been completely different.

So did the debates stop once the church had unified itself at the Council of Nicea?

The debates didn't end, but shifted. By the time you get to the Council of Nicea, you just don't have large groups of Gnostics anymore, or Marcionites, or Ebionites. They're old history now. But it didn't stop the debates. They just became more refined, and more heated. As an example, the Council of Nicea was about a form of Christianity called Arianism, which by 2nd- or 3rd-century standards was completely orthodox. By the time you get to the 4th century, however, and the theologians have refined their beliefs, Arianism becomes a major heresy. These Arians believed Jesus must have been subservient to the Father; after all, he prays to the Father and does the Father's will. Therefore, he's a subordinate deity. But the Arians were defeated by the Christians who maintained that Christ is not a subordinate deity, but that he's been divine from eternity past, that he's always existed in relationship to God. And so Christ isn't a divine being who comes into existence - he's always been divine, and of the same substance as God the Father himself.

The shifts in theology weren't as important as another shift that took place when Constantine became a Christian. Now he, an authoritarian political leader, could decide what kind of Christianity was acceptable and what kind wasn't. Suddenly everything related to the Church became a political issue as well as a religious one. Some people think that Constantine converted to Christianity precisely because he thought that the Christian church might be able to help unify the empire because unlike paganism, which worshipped lots of different gods in lots of different ways, Christianity insisted on one god, one way. That is why Constantine may have called the Council of Nicea - if the church was going to play the role of unifying the empire, the church itself must be unified. That is the when, why, and how it became a political issue.


Heretics, Women, Magicians, and Mystics: The Fight to Become the One True Faith


Heresies, loosely speaking, are those views that disagree with the official doctrinal version. One man's fervent belief is another man's heresy, and so it was for Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Eusebius, 3 of the early ecclesiasts who helped to define what was Christian and to eliminate what was not. Which made it a short leap of faith, through a millennium, to the abyss of the Malleus Maleficarum - the book, as Dan Brown puts it, that "indoctrinated the world to 'the dangers of free-thinking women' and instructed the clergy how to locate, torture, and destroy them".


Tertullian

Tertullian, like, Irenaeus, was one of the early church fathers who attacked the Gnostics and is singled out by some (see the excerpts from Freke and Gandy that start this chapter) as one of the chief perpetrators of the church's attempt to cover up the existence of a robust counter-tradition. The Gnostics were in many ways the most troubling, for Gnosticism incorporated some distinctly pre-Christian (not to mention pagan) ideas and its very name referred to the concept of secret knowledge.

Women carried an even greater burden of sin. "The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in the age," Tertullian insisted. "The guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway." But he still isn't through. "And it should be noted that there was a defect in the formation of the first woman, since she was formed from a bent rib, that is, a rib of the breast, which is bent as it were in a contrary direction to a man. And since through this defect she is an imperfect animal, she always deceives."

As a Christian, he believed that we would know God only through practising strict discipline and austerity. The force threatening to subvert that impulse in man was woman, who, Tertullian wrote, brought sin into the world. "Do you not know," Tertullian asks rhetorically, "that you are each an Eve?"

Heretics, he believed, were put on earth to test man's Faith. These heresies came about for 2 reasons. The first was the temptation offered by philosophers, like Plato, who simply want to engage in endless questions rather than simply accept the Word.


Breaking The Da Vinci Code: So the Divine and Infallible Word Emerged Out of a 4th-Century Power-Play? Get Real.
By Collin Hansen
Copyright © by Christianity Today. Used by permission of Christian History magazine. This and other resources available at www.christianhistory.com.


Dan Brown's DVC has achieved coveted bestsellerdom, inspiring an ABC News special along the way, along with debates about the legitimacy of Western and Christian history.

While the ABC News feature focused on Brown's fascination with an alleged marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, DVC contains many more (equally dubious) claims about Christianity's historic origins and theological development. The central claim Brown's novel makes about Christianity is that "almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false." Why? Because of a single meeting of bishops in 325, at the city of Nicea in modern-day Turkey. There, argues Brown, church leaders who wanted to consolidate their power base (he calls this, anachronistically, "the Vatican" or "the Roman Catholic church") created a divine Christ and an infallible Scripture - both of them novelties that had never before existed among Christians.

Brown is right that in the course of Christian history, few events loom larger than the Council of Nicea in 325. When the newly converted Roman emperor Constantine called bishops from around the world to present-day Turkey, the church had reached a theological crossroad. Led by an Alexandrian theologian named Arius, one school of thought argued that Jesus had undoubtedly been a remarkable leader, but he was not God in flesh. In DVC, Brown apparently adopts Arius as his representative for all pre-Nicene Christianity. Referring to the Council of Nicea, Brown claims that "until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet - a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless".

In reality, early Christians overwhelmingly worshipped Jesus Christ as their risen Saviour and Lord. For example, Christians adopted the Greek word kyrios, meaning "divine", and applied to Jesus from the earliest days of the church.

The Council of Nicea did not entirely end the controversy over Arius's teachings, nor did the gathering impose a foreign doctrine of Christ's divinity on the church. The participating bishops merely affirmed the historic and standard Christian beliefs, erecting a united front against future efforts to dilute Christ's gift of salvation.

With the Bible playing a central role in Christianity, the question of Scripture's historic validity bears tremendous implications. Brown claims that Constantine commissioned and bankrolled a staff to manipulate existing texts and thereby divinise the human Christ. Yet for a number of reasons, Brown's speculations fall flat. Brown correctly points out that "the Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven". Indeed, the Bible's composition and consolidation may appear a bit too human for the comfort of some Christians. But Brown overlooks the fact that the human process of canonisation had progressed for centuries before Nicea, resulting in a nearly complete canon of Scripture before Nicea or even Constantine's legalistaion of Christianity in 313.

Ironically, the process of collecting and consolidating Scripture was launched when a rival sect produced its own quasi-biblical canon. Around 140 a Gnostic leader named Marcion began spreading a theory that the New and Old Testaments didn't share the same God. Marcion argued that the Old Testament's God represented law and wrath while the New Testament's God, represented by Christ, exemplified love. As a result Marcion rejected the Old Testament and the most overtly Jewish New Testament writings, including Matthew, Mark, Acts, and Hebrews. He manipulated other books to downplay their Jewish tendencies. Though in 144 the church in Rome declared his views heretical, Marcion's teaching sparked a new cult. Challenged by Marcion's threat, church leaders began to consider earnestly their own views on a definitive list of Scriptural books including both the Old and New Testaments.

By the time of Nicea, church leaders debated the legitimacy of only a few books that we accept today, chief among them Hebrews and Revelation, because their authorship remained in doubt. In fact, authorship was the most important consideration for those who worked to solidify the canon. Early church leaders considered letters and eyewitness accounts authoritative and binding only if they were written by an apostle or close disciple of an apostle. This way they could be assured of the documents' reliability. As pastors and preachers, they also observed which books did in fact build up the church - a good sign, they felt, that such books of today's Bible have allowed Christianity to spread, flourish, and endure worldwide.

borrowed a book from Marian.


Secrets of the Code
The Unauthorised Guide
to the Mysteries behind The Da Vinci Code (DVC)
edited by Dan Burstein


been reading it since last friday. of course i haven't finished it yet. only almost halfway thru. this book has raised some questions in my mind - questions of doubt.


i pray tt thru the process of exploring the truth via this book and attending the DVC seminar: Sorting Fact from Fiction at St. Andrew's Cathedral on March 25, my doubts will be clarified and my faith strengthened cos during these few days of reading this book, i can feel tt i've already drifted away frm God quite abit.

wa.
i think i've lost the love and inspiration to blog nowadays.
well i shall try something different today.


was reading TIME magazine when i came across these cool statements.
i'm not quite a movie-watcher nor a cinema-goer.
but i like these analogies made by those movie peeps.



Moviegoing is an almost religious act: a Mass experience. You walk into a cathedral, feel your spirit soar with hundreds of other communicants and watch the transubstantiation of images into feelings. The audience becomes a community, the movie the Communion.

 - Richard Corliss



A 65-ft.-wide screen [about 20 m] and 500 people reacting to the movie - there is nothing like that experience.

 - Michael Mann



With enough strangers in the room, you become part of this collective human soul - which is a much more powerful way to watch a movie than seeing it alone at home.

 - M. Night Shyamalan



Moviegoing is like watching a football game. Who in the world would go out in 20-below weather and sit there and watch a football game where you can barely see the players? Football games are on TV, and it doesn't affect stadium attendance at all. It's the same with movies. People who really love movies and like to go out on a Saturday night will go to the movie theater.

 - George Lucas

i'm writing this entry in response to a friend's entry.
this is wat she wrote:



Three of my church members were eating sweets on the bus.
I admit, i ate one too.
then suddenly i realised that we are not suppose to eat on public transport.
So, maybe half-heartedly, i told them not to eat on the bus le,
cos public transport cannot eat.
They tot i was joking, and just continued to eat.
Then, after a while, i sort of showed my displeasure, or like saying:
" eh... dun eat leh.. breaking the law leh. "
but they went on. cos my face still had a smile on it. haha.
so, i said " obey ur authorities leh"...which is wronglah..
so i got corrected " its submit to your authorities" .

this is the part.
My sister, sitting beside me, said she don't like ppl using the bible to pressurize ppl.
its like forming guilt in them, and this could make them stumble.
the problem is then, wad should i do?
don't do anything?
or don't keep insisting, showing I disaprove?
she brought out a certain point that by me insisting,
it could give ppl the wrong idea that by not obeying the law,
they would not be going to heaven. and this could make them backslide.

another point is:
this is a trivial matter and you shouldn't be so particular about it.
its like eating food tat has been offered to the idols.

now my side:
why did i say that in the first place?
well, being a christian is about Faith.
God gave me this faith and grace, so that i can be right with him.
now, being right with him, do i continue to disobey him?
no. In romans, it said, "submit to your authorities..."
meaning the government given by God,
it should be a good government and doing things for our good.
now, in this context, the laws are given by our government for a gd no. of reasons.

why shouldn't ppl eat on the bus?
well, simple, cos it'll dirty the bus.

why shouldn't ppl jay walk when there is a traffic light?
cos accidents will happen.

by disobeying this laws, aren't u defying the government?
which in turn is defying God?

now, the question on Guilt.
yes guilt is a powerful emotion.
but where in the first place does this guilt come from?
ur conscience?
there must be a stand between right and wrong, for you to feel guilt.
You are aware that u are in the wrong with something and therefore feel guilty.
So, is it a bad feeling?
well, its how u look at it.
Feeling guilty, wad do u do next?
do u give up and not want to continue doing right cos its too difficult?
or do u ask God for help..
understanding that it is by Faith that we are saved and not by law.
(cos if obeying the law saves us, den we are all going to hell)

now. guilt can lead to ppl backsliding.
does that mean i don't say my stand and just let them continue?

I feel that even if this is a trivial matter, its still a matter of right and wrong.
if we can't obey simple laws like this, how can we ever think of obeying God's word?
we are imperfect ppl, but we are ppl with christ living in us.
obeying God's word is not impossible to us anymore.

i was thinking of examples in Christ.
Did he ever break a law?
even the roman laws?
no, he didn't break any gd laws set by the authorities.
tts why they couldn't find any fault with him.
the only stand he took against them was to follow the gospel.
Like the Sabbath day, no one should be working but he did healing.
In this case, this law, is it following the gospel?

now, the problem that im thinking about is,
should i insist and show my displeasure when christians do not follow the gospel?
I know, i must understand where the ppl are coming from.
in this case, they are my church friends,
and we study the same thing, believing in the same thing.
so should i be tolerant of them?
or be intolerant when they do this kind of things???



i had actually wanted to respond via her tagboard.
but i realise i've got slightly more to say.


for me i'll still eat in the bus if i can't help it.
like last saturday i bought an ice cream at lavender.
i tot my bus wouldn't arrive so soon.
but it did.
not wanting to wait for another bus, i went against the rule.

i brought my ice cream up the bus.
i knew the driver saw it so i apologised n walked in.
he kindly allowed me to board the bus.
the best way to repay him was to make sure i didn't dirty the bus.
n i did.
i finished my ice cream; every part of it went into my stomach.


i noe wat i did ain't the right thing to do.
even for a non-Christian, it's wrong to eat in the bus.
actually, it's not abt right or wrong here.
cos tt is defined by the laws set by the govt in S'pore.
such things are abt whether it's beneficial or not.
whether it's good or bad.

i learnt this frm the principal of my alma mater.
Mr Lee Hak Boon aims to abolish all rules in the school.
he came up w/ 3 questions.
We should only do things that answer "Yes" to all 3 of them.
"Is it good for myself?
Is it good for the school?
(or country in this case)
Is it good for others?"


so judging frm the above, i had obviously did the bad thing.
the 3 questions weren't answered perfectly.
yes, it was good for myself.
cos i got to enjoy an ice cream during the bus ride.
but no, it wasn't good for the country.
cos i would've dirtied the bus if i weren't careful.
and no, it wasn't good for others.
cos they might do the same in the future.


here's my response to my friend's questions:
i would do the same thing if i weren't eating then.
i would, similarly, gently tell them, "eh don't eat la, later driver scold."
if i were eating too, i'd say, "eh i think we shd stop eating la."
then i would be the first one to stop eating.
if the rest don't follow suit, there's nth more i can do.
at least i'd have done my best by encouraging others to do the right thing.


so to my friend:
you did the right thing.
don't worry too much abt it.
i think it's okay to insist a little.
if they still wouldn't listen, then you shd let them be.

it's like trying to save a soul or convert a friend.
you share w/ him/her a few times abt Christ.
perhaps many times.
but he/she seems to be unmoved.
the best thing to do is of cos to persevere on.

but for me, i would not carry on.
if he/she refuses firmly tt i share the Gospel w/ him/her.
i've already done my best.
all i can do is to pray for him/her.
unless he/she's still interested in the Gospel.

my point is you've done ur part as a Christian.
i'll say God will do the rest.
i believe your friends will come to see the big picture.
probably it's only at tt time when they didn't see it.
i hope they get to read ur blog.
then as fellow churchmates, i'm sure they'll agree w/ u.

as for the guilt part, i suggest an explanation/elaboration.
you can try telling them they needn't feel guilty.
cos if guilt's the problem, i'm sure most of us will feel it.
i dare say many ppl have eaten in the bus before.
it's just tt we're trying to stop tt.


in conclusion, i guess we shd all just follow the Holy Spirit.
if you've done something right, i believe you'll feel at peace.
but if you haven't, then something in your heart will bother you.

it's like in my case in school today.
i skipped maths lecture.
i even skipped it w/ a friend.
it's so wrong!
i'm a Christian n yet i did the wrong thing.

so may we all always choose to do the right thing.

almost 2 days have passed since the release of the O level results.
n i've started to reflect deeper on my results.

initially, my eyes were fixed on those who did better than me.
n i was actually very surprised at some of their results.
i realise schools don't make a big difference in their students' results.

whether one is in a top school or a neighbourhood school.
it's the hard core attitude he/she has towards studies.
tt propels him/her to great heights in academic success.


well.
during these 2 days, God has shifted my eyes elsewhere.
He has taken my eyes off those who did better than me.
i began to see those at the other end of the ladder.
the Holy Spirit prompted me to be sensitive to them.


i noe my previous entry sounded very ungrateful.
i got 12 which is already quite not bad.
some more i'm a retainee.
which means i was supposed to fare worse.
haha.

now i realise i'd been so insensitive.
12 is a not bad score.
yet i blogged tt i wasn't quite satisfied w/ it.
wat an ungrateful response!


today, i still feel sad.
but this time i don't feel sad for myself.
i feel sad for those who have fallen frm a great height.
i feel sad for my school who has not lived up to her standard.


Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 14

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

i pray tt soon, our time of mourning will be over.
n tt time will heal all wounds.
in the meantime, let me give thanks to God.
not for the things i have lost.
but for the things i have left.


1 Thessalonians 5:18:
"In everything give thanks:
for this is the will of God
in Christ Jesus
concerning you."