Day 2 Quiet Time a.k.a Mini Sermon:

Jeremiah chapter 2: "I remember how eager you were to please me as a bride long ago, how you loved me and followed me even through the barren wilderness."

Are you eager to please God? How eager are you? these are the questions that I'm asking myself...

the barren wilderness... the bible makes mention of the wilderness several times. Isaiah says, "In the desert prepare the way for the LORD ; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God."

it says, prepare the way for God... it's not just about preparing myself... it's making it easy for God to turn up! see, a HIGHWAY... what road's bigger than a highway? and what can be more easy to go through than a straight highway?... see, it's about making it easy for God to show up. Loving God makes that easy... loving God wholeheartedly makes it a lot easier... Loving God and Loving your friends makes it the easiest.

And, wilderness has a tinge of a foreign feel to a place, a place that you have not set your feet on... and why does God go through the wilderness? I mean, that verse says they followed God through the wilderness...

You see, the desert/wilderness was a place that God met the Israelites, and where they were called to Worship God... where there's no cares/desires for other things that can stand between you and God... it's just You and God... when Jesus was taken to the desert, it was just GOd and God..haha. kidding. somewhat like that... You know? That's why quiet time also, we call it quiet time because we go to quiet places... but what I learnt so far is that quiet places is not really quiet sometimes, because our thoughts make up bulk of the noise...

Arriving to australia, for a few days already, and sitting in my own room felt like a wilderness... yea... just a much smaller and more concrete one... but there was no one else I sort of even knew one slightest bit, it was me, and just God... and you know what? God speaks to me so clearly. So clearly it's amazing... more clearly than before... and the difference is that now, it's just me and just God... and playing my guitar and singing songs of praise and worship to God is an amazing experience... I really don't know how to explain it... but yea, it was hearfelt p & w... and maybe because I'm all alone with God. Yea, maybe just like the Israelites who were called into the desert/wilderness to worship God... I was called into this little concrete "wilderness" to worship Him too...

but this wilderness, it'll last for a few days, or maybe one or two weeks till school starts. Then that'll be when this place don't seem so unfamilar anymore.

And yUp! compared to my previous quiet times, quiet time these days are different... previously, even thought it may be dead silent, or in the quiet comforts of my own room, there were many many many thoughts that make my mind wander away from the bible and from God. they were "noise" in a quiet place... get what I mean?

Sometimes it's like... no... Many times... it's just... take out bible, read read * read * aiya I forgot to pack some paperclips into my luggage *.... den continue read read * oh man... I need to study for that * ... * read... ok.. time to sleep. That sort of thing. But just spending time alone here with God, when you are free of so much distraction, and free to spend 100% of it with God, changed the way Quiet time was for me.

Moral of the story? Go to bukit timah hill and read your bible... or fly to australia. haha.

I think the most important point is do your quiet time properly... haha. i hope that when school starts, no... i pray that when school starts, quiet time will still be awesome every day for me... like it has been for the first few days... God taught me a bit more of how to worship here :)


everyday's special.