Pink - just for entertainment

the FunKy GuiTaR showcAse.





Pink Panther on Pink Strings.. *timings a bit off... a little bit of wrong notes here and there though. oh Well, the reason I've got pink strings, is because my bro bought them for me as a farewell gift in FeB when i first came to AUstralia, and it's really good strings... so i decided to use it.

I'd say, my lovely guitar looks rather funky now! don'tchya agree? :D

post 101

i just realised this is my 101th post on this blog.

so the mini Sermon 101

Life's really short sometimes... and not many people get to become Centenarians (although they are the fastest growing age group amongst all age groups today!)
and In case you didn't know, Centenarians are people who live over 100 years of age... and the name sounds really cool. makes them somewhat like ancients, elders... Wonder what it'd be like to see a centuary pass!

But then, when all these things fade away eventually... what becomes really precious to us then?

Let me tell you a story by John Orthberg.

My grandmother had just gotten out of jail. She was a roll away from the yellow properties. And the yellow propertise meant trouble. They were mine. AND they had hotels. And Gram had no money. She had wanted to stay in jail longer to avoid landing on my property and having to cough up dough she did not have, but she rolled doubles, and that meant her bacon was going to get fried.

I was ten-year-old sitting at the Monopoly table. I had it all - money and property, houses and hotels, Boardwalk and Park Place. I had been a loser at this game my whole life, but today was different, as I knew it would be. Today I was Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Ivan the Terrible. And I was one roll of the dice away from the biggest lesson life has to teach: the absolute necessity of arranging our life around what matters in the light of our mortality and eternity. It is a lesson that some of the smartest people in the world forget but that my grandmother was laser clear on.

For my grandmother taught me how to play the game...

Grandmother was at her fiestiest when it came to Monopoly. Periodically leaders like General Patton or Attila the Hun develop a repuation for toughness. They were lapdogs next to her. Imagine that Vince Lombardi had produced an offspring with Lady MacBeth, and you get some idea of the competitive stream that ran in my grandmother. She was a gentle kind soul, but at the Monopoly table she would still take you to the cleaners.

She played with skill,passion and reckless abandon. Eventually, inevitably, she would become Master of the Board. When you're the Master of the Board, you own so much property that no one else can hurt you. When you're Master of the Board, you're in control. Other players regard you with fear and envy, shock and awe. Often she'd console me saying "Don't worry about it, one day... You'll learn to play the game."

I hated it when she said that.

It dawned on me that the only way to win this game was to make a total commitment to acquistion. No mercy. No fear. What my grandmother had been showing me for so long finally sank in. By fall, when we sat down to play, I was more ruthless than she was. My palms were sweaty. I would play without softness or caution. I was ready to bend the rules if I had to. Slowly, cunningly, I exposed the soft underbelly of my grandmother's vulnerbility. Relentlessly, inexorably, I drove her off the board!

I can still remember - it happened at Marvin Gardens.

I looked at Grandmother - this was the woman who had taught me how to play. She was an old lady by now. A widow. She had raised by mother. She loved my mother, as she loved me. And i took everyting she had. I destroyed her financially and psychologically. I watched her give up her last dollar and quit in utter defeat.

It was the greatest moment of my life.

I had won.

I was cleverer, and stronger, and more ruthless than anyone else at the table. Iwas the Master of the Board.

But then my grandmother had one more thing to teach me. The greatest lesson comes at the end of the game. And here it is. In the words of James Dobson, who described this lesson from Monopoly in playing with his family many years ago:



"Now it all goes back in the box."

There's actually so much wisdom in this. Just like Eccelesiates... if you actually read the book, it says the same things. Solomon was said to be the wisest man during his reign... and there was no one wiser.

And a lot of what Solomon wrote, paraphrased, is that "Now it all goes back in the box."

Well, for one, recently, it dawned on me that life's really like a vapour... like that song, a wave tossed in the ocean... vapour in the wind... a flower quickly fading... here today and gone tomorrow...

A Centenarian or not, life's so short.

How meaningless don't you think? JUST if it all goes back into the box.

And but, in the midst of the frality of life... treasuring life SUDDENLY becomes so much more important? life's not as meaningless now don't you think?

so living life to it's fullest becomes so much more important. how you spend every second of it seems so much more important. it's just like having a million dollars to splurge as compared to 50 cents a day upon which your life hangs upon? You'd treasure every cent of it.

I mean, if you'd knew you'd already last an eternity on earth today... would you actually treasure life, as much as you would a life that quickly fades? if you'd knew the start to the end... would you ever treasure a relationship with God? I wouldn't if I knew all the happenings in life... no need for trust... just good logical outcomes and good planning on my part. (and it's just like watching a movie, I'd rather not know the happenings from the start to the end... for if i had known, the movie would be in a dusty old shelf never/seldom to be played and watched... and the move would have lost its purpose...)

and but for me, it hurts most when suddenly, life seems a little bit too frail...
and and and
but in a limited lifetime, (like a limited 50 cents), i ask myself, "how are you going to spend it?"

and so, why ask God why?
You know, "Why" is not always the best question to ask... one thing I learnt that if its not for me to know why, then its not for me to know why... why this, why that, why not like that.

Ecclesiates c8v17 "I realised that no one can discover everything God is doing under the sun. Not even the wisest people discover everything, no matter what they claim."
If it's not for you to know, it's not for you to know... such a simple statement... hard to accept?
But really... not knowing doesn't really matter as much anymore...
cos there's inherently good in Not Knowing Why.

cos Not Knowing not only requires faith, but builds trust...
not knowing not only requires trust, but builds a dependence, a reliance... a need to find a rock to stand upon...

ANd not knowing makes you love life more than you would have if you'd already known.

So what matters really is a lesson that's really really really important...
Treasure life... just because you do Not Know (everything)...
Treasure the people around you more... just because you do Not Know (everything)...
AND MOST OF ALL, treasure your relationship with God... just because you know how much He actually loves you... (i wish so much now that the people I love knew this... and the people that God loves so much knew these...*** that's the entire world :D)
So this summed up in the 2 greatest commandments, Love God faithfully, Love MAn Fervently..

and how is this related to "It all goes back into the box"?

You see the things that go back into the box, are the things that couldn't last...
but then, there are things that do actually last... and they are the things of God.

Ecclesiates 4:11, "Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end."

So you know, from this verse, there are some things which would actually last forever.

how really fragile life really is, how unpredictable it is, makes God so much much more important, and makes God's love so much more... how to describe... mmmm... so much MORE MOre more... i don't know...mmm.. necessary? desirable?

some rather take the other stand... i would called them the "WHY GOD" people? always asking why God like this like that... because for them, the frality of life, and its uncertainties do exactly the opposite.

but but but many problems, many troubles, grief, and weakness/frality...
should really be the reasons Not to blame God, but the reasons that make us cry out for, want, desire, chase after, hold on to, trust a God who loves us.


2 Corinthians 12:9-10
"But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."




if angels were crude, they'd tell you "Heyo weakling! God still loves you. He really does... He really really does..."