Gleanings From My Blogroll

1 November 2021 4 Comments

I enjoyed reading some of the bloggers I follow in my blogroll. As usual some blogs have remained at hentai kaki (Malay for marching on the spot) while others have recently updated their blog. 

The most prolific would be Rev Dr Tony Siew who blogs regularly about his faith ministry of bringing the word of God to rural Sabah. In his recent update he mentioned how he turned down two offers to teach in seminary, and one offer of a denominational position, in order to obey God’s instruction to him. Respect. Click here.

I loved the story of Ps Timothy Pang as he reminisced about the love of his late grandparents. I never experienced this at all. None of my grandparents were around – they all passed away before I was born. Click here.

Fr Chris Soh, a Jesuit priest, puts his homilies online in his blog and I believe we Protestant pastors can learn from him how to be more interesting in our introductions, and succinct in the content of our sermons, especially with the short attention span of the many who “watch” online services. Click here.

Ps Henson Lim has written an Ebook of his reflections on the Psalms that he is giving out free of charge. Don’t miss it. Did I say it: IT’S FREE. Click here.

Christina Siew reflects about Hell after her daughter told her non-Christian father, “Those who don’t believe in God, will go to health!’.  Click here.

My Primary and Secondary school classmate, James Tann, reveals some interesting secrets about a breached dam wall and an old Bukit Batok Park. I admire his attention to historical details. Completely reliable stuff. No fake news. Go here and here.

Joanne Lee Wong writes another authentic piece that moved my heart. She is really good. Is it the University of Oxford? Methinks she writes from the heart. Click here.

Finally, I also had the pleasant discovery that Dr Alex Tang has produced quite a number of YouTube videos and I immediately subscribed to his channel before he asked me to. Here is another positive development that came out of the pandemic lockdowns! Here is one of them.

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Writing and blogging

Prayer Overcomes Procrastination

9 September 2021 Leave a comment

One of the tasks that I have procrastinated is painting all the ceilings and rooms in my home. It has been nine months since I retired, and I am only halfway done. What do I do with procrastination? I bring it to God in prayer. This task goes on my prayer list and I let God know I have a problem and ask for power to overcome the inertia. I was reluctant to pay people to do it. I am virtually a one man show, and an old man show at that. Thank God my wife helps out to move furniture and clean up. Still I needed divine help most.

One morning I woke up and the idea of paint, paint, paint persisted until it overcame all excuses and resistance. It had to be an answer to prayer. I announced my sudden inspiration to my wife, who was leaving for her Friday ladies’ prayer meeting. I think she must have thought this idea would not take off and was probably surprised when I actually got it done.

I was amazed at the power to do. The Lord must have energised me to finish three quarters of the painting. I was so excited that the next two days, I completed the finishing touches, and moved in all the furniture to make ready my retreat room – the sacred space for me to withdraw, study, pray, idle, nap and write.

The momentum steamrolled its way into progress in other areas as well. What happened was that we had to reorganise a lot of old files and paper documents, books, clothes, bookshelf, storage boxes and a storage space. The result was stunning for us as we had lived with and accepted all this junk for so many years, and never had the motivation or strength of will to overcome the million excuses we came up with not to change things. Suddenly, like magic (and hard work) it was all done.

I was pleased the writing and prayer space looked so inviting
Sacred space with a view

Looking at the results gave us great pleasure. For me it was a lesson in the power of prayer. Do as Mary, the mother of Jesus, did. “Son they have run out of wine.” Perhaps we should make of list of things to do, and that we tend to procrastinate, and simply bring it to God in prayer. Allow God to do something in the situation or in our life and co-operate with him. Let Him empower us even in the mundane problems of everyday living.

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Personal and family, Writing and blogging , , ,

Gleanings from my Blogroll

18 July 2021 2 Comments

I spent an enjoyable evening reading some of the blogs I follow. I do this on and off. Often to my disappointment there were few updates. This time round, my net was full. Here are a few gleanings from my readings:

Michael Han writes like an editor who highlights a news event or figure and analyses it in depth and makes his comments about it from a Christian viewpoint. I found this blogpost about two successful men stimulates hope and encourages faithful living.

Jacintha Teo’s piece about the wisdom of completely surrendering and entrusting to God our love relationships with a special other totally is one that will release people in entangled, one-sided, conflicted relationships from anxiety, fear, and anger and bring them to a place of peace.

I was moved by the honest and vulnerable self-disclosure of Joanne Lee Wong about her sufferings and struggles with depression. It made me want to pray for her regularly. It takes a lot of courage and humility to write such beautiful truth.

I like Christina Siew’s honest struggle of whether to support or detract from Joseph Prince after reading all the negative stuff about his teachings on the internet. She let’s you in on her thought process as she describes her journey.

Pastor Henson Lim tries to describe an interesting spiritual adulting stage he finds himself in. It is one in which he feels the Lord is entrusting more matters to his judgment knowing that he could be relied upon having seen how he has been faithful these past 21 years . Read it to know fully what he means to say.

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Writing and blogging

Bookstagrammers in the news

16 April 2021 2 Comments

I was so happy to see these two sisters, Grace and Sarah Phua gain some recognition in the Straits Times, Singapore’s national newspaper. They are pastor’s kids and they grew up in World Revival Prayer Fellowship, the church I served as senior pastor, before I retired recently. I know them and rejoiced in the fact that their pictures and work were highlighted in the article about bookstagrammers.  

WHAT’S A BOOKSTAGRAMMER?

I learned a new word: Bookstagrammer -someone who loves books and reviews them on their Instagram account. Those with substantial followers, for example @jemmawei that the report featured has as many as 69,700 followers. If 10 percent of those followers read her book review and were motivated to buy the book, that would mean an increase of sales of about 6,970 books. Which publisher wouldn’t be eyeing this kind of influence? So these bookstagrammers do receive requests to review books which publishers sent to them for free. It is such a blessing if you love reading because when you love books you spend a lot of money on them. Besides freebies they also get acquainted with a virtual community of people who also love reading.

GRACE & SARAH PHUA

Both sisters are very talented in many ways including musically. Grace works in the media industry. She is the arty, aesthetic right-brainer. Sarah owns an accounting business and works part-time on the church pastoral team. She has strategic leadership skills, a good communicator with a sharp intellect, and contributes greatly to the church community. They have great parents who have faithfully served the deaf faith community in church. Their father was the pastor of the deaf church. He too, like me, has recently retired. 

If you love books and want to read their reviews on Instagram you can follow Grace at @curiousreviewer and Sarah at @bookandbriefcase. If you wish to read the full Straits Times article about how book sales have gone up during the pandemic and how book reviews on social media platforms are fuelling reading, click HERE.

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Writing and blogging

Write Every Day

7 January 2021 2 Comments

It was so simple. I knew it from reading about writing. WRITE EVERY DAY. The discipline of writing every day yields benefits, as sure as sowing results in the joys of harvesting. 

For the past week, I tried a few times to write, but could not get down to it. I did not feel like doing it. I did not feel motivated nor inspired. However, on Sunday, when a friend asked for help to write something about frequently asked questions about retreats, I got it done in less than an hour. I actually could write (without inspiration). I suppose the motivation was there though: the desire to help out as a member of a team that supports retreats. So I wrote, and as I wrote I did not feel inspired, just motivated.

Today over tea and curry puffs, I talked with a friend about writing, and journeying with younger pastors, post-retirement. I was pretty sure this is what the Lord is leading me towards thus far. I have given God a blank page and he has written. My friend casually mentioned something about the importance of writing every day. It hit me, like God was prodding me: Just write it. Don’t have to post everything you write every day. Some days the post is not complete. Leave it to stew. Work on more than one posts. Edit. Rewrite. More thinking and research. Then shoot when its ready to be sprung from the bow. That motivated me.

I sat down in the evening, and wrote this. Ha! 

Thank you, Lord. Let this be the start of a fruitful and godly and happy habit. Amen.

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Writing and blogging