Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Project Report #9 - Where Art Thou My Beloved Engine??

Good morning people~! It's a beautiful Tuesday morning, the sun's up and there's so much to look forward to today. I’m actually making entries at work, multi-tasking~! For those girls who keep insisting that guys can’t muli-task, let truth be told that most of the guys I know can multi-task better than you girls… And all the guys say, ‘AMEN~!’… Haha~! Okay, I shall not turn this into a war of genders. You girls are a fantastic bunch of people, can’t and wouldn’t dare to imagine the world without you special people.

Life’s good isn’t it? Well, it does has its fair share of joy and pains, the ups and downs, the successes and failures, but at the end of the day, I’m still standing, I still have a roof over my head, family that love and support me, friends like everyone of you sponsors who care, a great church with great people, a wonderful job and so on… I am so grateful to God for providing me with all these things, it really has brought me up to where I am today. But I there was a point in my life where I wondered to myself, what if God were to take away all these things away from me? Would I still love Him as much as I say I do?

My thoughts went even deeper to question myself, is it only God’s hand and God’s face that my heart is after? To further explain what before I go on, God’s hand speaks about His blessings and God’s face speaks about His favour. Let me continue… Somehow rather, I notice that all my prayers at that time were only directed to what I want for myself. It’s not wrong to ask for things, in fact the Bible says that we should ask of Him anything our hearts desire. But is my love for Him measured by what He can give to me? Am I just keeping God close to me because He is able to give me everything I want?

This is the perfect analogy to what I’m trying to say here, there was this father who loves his daughter a lot and always tries make her happy by giving her candy. Every time the father comes to her daughter, he would bring a candy bar along and ask the daughter ”Do you love me?” and the daughter would reply “Yes, I do love you daddy?”.

Then one day, the father came to the daughter, but this time he hid the candy behind his back and asked the same question to the daughter again “Do you love me?”. She looked at the father and the first thing she said was “Where’s my candy?”. The father repeated the question again, in hopes that the daughter would say “Yes, I do”, but she still demanded “Where is my candy?!!”. One last time, the father repeated the question again with dying hopes, but the daughter just threw a tantrum and screamed “Daddy you don’t love me! You didn’t bring me my candy!”…

With a broken heart, the father gave the daughter the candy which he was hiding behind his back. The child was jumping for joy because she got what she wanted, but the father was crushed inside because he now knows that the daughter only loved him because of the candy…

So friends, this is another heart-checking question for all of us, do we love God only because of what He can do and what He can give to us? Are we really in love with God for who He is or do we only love Him for what He can do? If you were the father in the story I just told you, how would you feel? Sometimes, we may be very happy to get what we want but God is so sad because we only want Him around to meet our desires. I know God’s heart has been broken many times by me, yet He is so gracious to forgive me.

Now you know why I treasure everything I have? I know a lot of you think that I’m crazy being so detailed in taking care of everything I own. But I do I am like this because I know that God is the one who gave it to me out of His generous heart although I didn’t deserve it. Don’t you treasure things given to you by someone you really love?

What to learn from all this? Firstly, we must learn to love God for who He is, and not just what He can do for us. Secondly, we must be thankful for all that we already have instead of being disappointed with what we don’t have. Thirdly, we must set our hearts to run after God’s heart, not just His hands and His face… What does it mean to run after God’s heart? Simple, to just love, trust and obey Him in everything area of our lives. We have nothing to lose but so much to gain. He will never give us any less than the best~! So I hope caught something from this people~!

Engine, Oh Engine, di mana engkau pergi? Updates on the engine search progress, it is still very difficult to find a good affordable engine. Looked at a few cheaper ones, but the condition was pretty bad, got sand and other particles stuck in the combustion chamber. Will continue to pray that a door will be opened for me to get the best deal, do pray along with me people~! Oh yes, please also keep Jane in prayer as she’s doing her oral surgery today to get her wisdom tooth extracted. Pray that the surgery will go smoothly with no mishaps. It’s gonna be a painful recovery, pray also that she won’t be in too much pain. Thanks Sponsors~!

Black cat alert people~! Hey sponsors, did you know there is a black cat amongst you? Some may know who I’m talking about. This dude is a whacky, crazy and ultimately blur but he has one heck of a big heart. I’ve known this guy for many years now and the stupid things he does never fails to shock me, yet when I needed help, he would always avail himself the best that he can. Ladies and gentlemen, boys only… little girls please stay away for awhile, I’ll explain why later… Let me introduce you to a good friend of mine, Reuben Low a.k.a. Black Cat a.k.a. Rubino a.k.a. Pedophile~! He’s NOT really a pedophile, we just call him that because he’s dating a girl that was still in high school… So that’s why we keep our younger sisters away from him.. Haha~! Just kidding~!

You know, this guy really small in size but has a mouth that never shuts up. He can talk until the cows come home, he can talk the cows to death also. But one thing’s for sure is that he has been such a blessing to my life through his support and works these past few years. Though he may look very DUH but he’s always running around helping people fix stuff and etc…

I remember our group use to call his the ‘teacher’s pet’ because the Penolong Kanan H.E.M. of our school always calls him for help, to the extent of even asking him to go to her house. We always made fun of him saying that he’s having an ‘illegitimate thing’ going on with that teacher. Heck, she even announced for his help over the school P.A system~! Haha~! I’m telling you, high school life would never be so fun without him around.

We started hanging out together when we were in our late Form 2 year because of our interest in computers and computer games. I remember introducing him and a few others to the game of Counter Strike after our annual I.U. Day function. That was the beginning of our craze for cyber cafés games. We use to spend a lot of hours in the cyber café and we had a lot of fun. I think the amount of money we spent on cyber café could amount to thousands of Ringgit over a period of 5 years. We even went gaming the day before our PMR exams. Haha~! But we did well anyway la… It was just too easy for us at that time.

When we were in pre-university, a group of us called ourselves the Jackass Team of Malaysia which was founded by this celup Malay-Chinese dude, who is also a good friend. We would do the dumbest things just for laughs, but we would NEVER put anyone in danger la. I remember we executed an ‘Operasi Curi Batu’ as revenge for another friend against his inconsiderate neighbour. We didn’t steal anything valuable of course, we just took away all the big stones that dumb neighbour used to block others from parking his ‘claimed’ space, and decorated a tree in the nearby field with it. I’ll never forget that well planned, successful operation. Until today, the stones are still there, the last I checked… Haha~!

Above all the dumb things we did, all the lame jokes he shared, he helped me with everything he had when I was doing my final project for my degree. He was the guy that stuck by me the closest throughout the whole project. He went all the way to KL town just to help me source out and collect some of the equipment I needed for my project. The amazing part is he did it without asking for anything back. Every time I needed help with my project, he would be there for me… he was the only one who went the extra mile to see my project come to completion. I am indeed very grateful to him because I would have never been able to complete my project without his help and support.

To Reuben… it is a great honour for me to have known you. Though we may have started our friendship with crazy lame jokes and senseless activities, but at the times when I really needed help, you always tried your best to avail yourself. I don’t know why you did so much for me because I don’t remember doing anything in that magnitude for you, that is why I’m so grateful.

If you didn’t help me out with me final honors project, I would have lost my merit honors. Don’t you dare say that you didn’t do much. Among all the people that came alongside me to help me out with the project, you were the one that did the most with no conditions attached. Even for this car project, you were the one that was most excited to be a sponsor although you didn’t even have enough for yourself…

Continue pursuing the things that God has place in your heart. Find yourself in God, seek Him for a direction in your life. I know you have a heart that longs to serve, but sometimes I can see that you’re lost and you don’t know where you can serve. Just start with the small things and I believe that as time goes by, God will bring you to even greater things, more than your mind can comprehend. Be faithful with the little, and He will add on to you so much more…

Thank you for being a friend, thank you for being so sacrificial. I speak for many people when I say that you’re one cool dude who’s always there when we need you… From fixing computers, to running errands and much more… you hardly ever declined an opportunity to help another friend… Stay in the Lord, greater things are ahead of you if you choose to remain in Him…

That’s all I have today people~! I still have yet to get news about my engine, will contact my foreman again later today to discuss over certain matters. Log on these coming days to find out what’s in stored for this project~! Have a great Tuesday and God Bless~!

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