Refiner’s Fire

Liz’s recent post was an eye-opener.

Malachi 3:3 says: ‘He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.’

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement
meant about the character and nature of God.

One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the
group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work.
She didn’t mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the
process of refining silver.

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He
explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where
the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; she thought again about the
verse that says: ‘He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.’ She asked the silversmith if it was
true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time.

The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep
his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long
in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, ‘How do you know when
the silver is fully refined?’

He smiled at her and answered, ‘Oh, that’s easy – when I see my image in it.’

If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

Wow. :)

I’m tired of being what you want me to be.

Can’t you see you’re smothering me,
Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control.

I remember singing this song one chapel session. I remember sitting backstage, in the darkness, feeling like I do now.

A well meaning friend once sent me a Carole King song specially for times like these. I don’t think that every song reflects everyone’s understanding of circumstances and their experiences.

Mending Walls

We’re all guilty of building walls at some point in time. We even build walls between us and our friends.

I’m guilty of it, for I have built walls with friends who have gone overseas because I believed that they had abandoned me and not bothered to keep in touch with me. Resultingly, I refused to keep in touch with them.

Stupid right? As I always say to David, “You can’t change the other person, but you can change yourself.”

I need to practise that and start tearing down the walls that I have erected.

Another thing, I don’t know why I get so bothered when friends have issues with each other. I always feel like I have the responsibility to get involved to reconcile them. Perhaps it’s presumptuous on my part and it may backfire. Maybe it’s wrong of me to do so. And many times, I get hurt in the process too when people get upset with me and when they get upset with each other.

Sometimes I feel like I should not care. But inevitably, I do. But why should I care when the people who I’m caring about don’t and all that happens to me is that I get hurt?

Sigh.

Benefit of Present Vision

Today, as I sat down to watch The Holiday with David, I realised how glad I am that I didn’t go overseas.

Actually, I’ve been aware of that for a long time, from debate trainings to classes, from CG to YG time, from time with family to time with David. I’m being stretched where I am now and I’m enjoying it. I’m making new friends and I’m enjoying that too. I’m quite happy with the status quo (that which I have left in Singapore and hasn’t disappeared overseas). 

In all, as much as I rant and complain about work, problems, arguments, stress and all, I am happy. :) Truly, I lack nothing and God has provided everything, simply because I gave up my dreams of crumbs for the feast that He prepared.

I’m glad that I stayed.

God is good.

Quiet

I just need silence, for the world to stop bugging me so that I can do my essays in peace and just keep my mind on the tasks at hand.

I haven’t felt this swamped in a long time and I just need to remember that You are in control.

This is just going to be another mishmash of topics because I haven’t really blogged in a while (and I don’t suppose that anyone reads this anymore anyway).

Eric was just lamenting the fact that egg prata is now $1.20 – $1.50 in most prata shops. If I remember correctly, egg prata used to be $0.60 when I was in primary school (I feel old!). And then, I realised why the price of egg prata has risen. During the bird flu scare when there was a shortage of eggs, the price of egg prata went up. Since then, even though there is no shortage of eggs, the prices haven’t come down. Surely they should come down? Anyway, I’m sure that there’s some theory as to the oblivion of the public. Haha.

When I got together with David, I was told to make sure that we don’t have very differing values. Of course, we do. Heh. But as the relationship has gone on, I’ve realised that haven’t disagreements on values isn’t a bad thing, even if they are about ‘big’ things like faith, money etc. As Mill argues, having discussions with differing views firstly brings the truth to the forefront and makes the truth more “lively”, then you have a living truth rather than a dead dogma. Also, I’m learning not to be so dogmatic about my views. Still learning. :)

On another completely unrelated note, it seems that Obama may not be able to run for President. I don’t know how true it is, but it does seem fishy that Obama refuses to produce his birth certificate when McCain did it without any complaints.

Hmmm… Still have to write my museum essay even though I’ve done quite a bit today.

A Bigger Man?

A recent blog post by secondclass made me look up the letter of condolence that our dear Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong sent to JBJ’s sons.

Ouch.

But as they say, the more someone attacks, it just shows how much a source of fear that person was to the attacker (even if the attacked is dead).

Somehow looking at the letter of condolence, the political situation in Singapore isn’t going to change until 50 years or so, if we’re lucky.

Dumdumdum. Better go and do my work.