Hold Us Together (by Matt Maher)

VERSE ONE:
It don't have a job
Don't pay your bills
Won't buy you a home
In Beverly Hills

VERSE TWO:
Won't fix your life
In five easy steps
Ain't the law of the land
Or the government

PRE CHORUS:
But it's all you need..

CHORUS:
Love, will, hold us together
Make us a shelter
to weather the storm

And I'll, be, my brothers keeper
So the whole world will know
That we're not alone

VERSE THREE:
It's waiting for you
Knockin' at your door!
Every moment of truth
When your heart hits the floor

PRE CHORUS TWO:
When you're on your knees then...

CHORUS:
Love, will, hold us together
Make us a shelter
to weather the storm

And I'll, be, my brothers keeper
So the whole world will know
That we're not alone

BRIDGE:
This is the first, day of the rest of your life
This is the first, day of the rest of your life
'Cause even in the dark you can still see the light
It's gonna be alright, s'gonna be alright 

1 Corinthians 13

 ¹ If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 ⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
 ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

when violent examination winds blow your way, assignment lightning strikes your path, lack of sleep, and busyness of life attempts to choke and suffocate you...

my prayer is that everywhere you turn, you'll be reminded that you're not alone.. someone out there ordered some clouds to line the skies to make it look pretty and keep us cool from the heat of day

someone out there took the time to design pretty flowers out of soft, silky and velvety materials and knowing they don't last long, taught them to multiply themselves with the help of Mr Sun and Miss Rain!

when the someone out there sees that we're far too engrossed with our lives, noses in books, a non stop itunes playlist on the go, phone calls and text messages, he told Mrs Breeze to do her thang, so that flowers come floating down or plopping themselves around you like popcorn, to catch your attention...

 and added ladybugs to some of them, just for good luck!

STOP!

Spare a moment. Have a seat.

 breathe in the beauty that surrounds you and be mesmerised by the love someone out there has showered upon you day after day. spare a moment to appreciate... and give thanks!

BECAUSE IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY!
FOR US TO ROLL DOWN THE HILL AND PLAY!
HIPHIPHURRAY!
COME QUICKLY MY HOLIDAY!

LOVE
PATIENCE
UNDERSTANDING
CONTROL
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

deepeekurt D:

ever felt USED before? the fact that you have made yourself available to the beck and calls of others has been taken for granted. when each time you get a phone call or text from someone, you'll be expecting a favour to be requested by that person despite their efforts to coat their request with "how have you been?", "we need to catch up!", "let's have lunch!" and whatever else.. you know so clearly that their main reason is because they want something from you and you start to wonder if there's anyone out there who would really care.. if you'd still have friends if you didn't have a car to offer people lifts, or didn't say yes to people's requests.. what was your response to the situation? continue to be a doormat for others to walk over? or withdraw yourself from those people? i struggle with that thought once in a while, seeing that the word "no" doesn't seem to exist in my world.. it could be the work of the devil, it could be just me being oversensitive, or it could be because it was pointed out to me one day that i was being used and it made me extra aware of situations as such. but needless to say it hurt, especially when it came from people close to me..and might have been the cause of all bitterness and self-pity and withdrawal from people..

so i asked God what He thought about it. i am still trying to listen.. but i tried to think from God's perspective...and i think He would have had broken record for the number of times He'd been "used". Being our loving Father, He who faithfully causes babies, plants and animals to grow and the sun to shine has shown us in so many ways of His presence.

Romans 1:19-20 
..since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

in response to His effort to reach out to mankind...these are some of the responses we give back

Romans 1:21-23, 25, 29-32
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles....they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised....They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

HEARTBREAK!!!!!!

im currently reading a book called Turn, by Max Lucado.. and it mentioned a statement that rings so true not just in our current generation, but also WAYYYYYY BACKKK in the times of the israelites...

"a vocal portion of the populace stares at the strand of faith upon which this country hangs and asks: why is that there?" 

when we are in our greatest need and desperation, we cry out in helplessness for God's mercy and saving grace, He carries us through faithfully, we are grateful and praise Him.. life gets comfortable, we get rich and content.. and we forget God's faithfulness in our lives, pushing Him out of the picture. guess what, God doesn only experience it now, He's been experiencing it even in moses' (you know.. prince of egypt) time!
and moses said this as a warning..

Deuteronomy 8:11-14
Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and laws. For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, that is the time to be careful. Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God.

 Man... how many generations (and we're counting in generations! not by number of people!) of being used by the people that He has created and loved, yesterday, today and forever..

even our relationship with God... is it one which sees us coming to Him in prayer each day, requesting for good results, good health, blessings for breakfast lunch dinner, safe journey while travelling, more money?
Are we treating him like a divine santa clause? are we USING GOD? we come to Him to ask for all sorts of favours, but are we sitting down to really know Him? His passion, what matters to Him, His desires etc etc? We speak to Him, but do we listen? are we being watchful for answered prayers?

Colossians 4:2

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful

 my point is... God never gives up. Generations of people calling out to Him but later on forgetting Him doesn't stop Him from loving us. unconditionally.

Romans 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

having formed us and known us from when we were still in our mother's womb, God already knew our life plans and our every move. He probably would already have known our tendencies to fall away from Him or forget Him. But He chose to love us still. Not in order to get anything in return, but out of His perfect love for us.

Romans 5:7-9
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!

and then I was reminded..

Luke 6:34-36

And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

 if Christ has said that about how we should treat our ENEMIES, what more the friends that we love? And what is my purpose of being generous to my friends? Is is because I want to be acknowledged for what I've done and make a name for myself? or is it because of love for God and love for His people?

John 13:34-35

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Romans 13:8

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.

1 John 4:9

We love because he first loved us

1 Corinthians 13:4-7,13
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

say hi to the queen of awkwardness and making life difficult for people

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 

Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

remember the first sin that entered the world? it wasn't murder, it wasn't theft, it wasn't drug abuse or sexual immorality. adam and eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil when they were told by God not to do so. EATING IS A SIN?!?!? come on... it's no big deal.. they only ATE A FRUIT!! no harm done! let's look at the consequences of their 'sin'.. 

So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
       "Cursed are you above all the livestock
       and all the wild animals!
       You will crawl on your belly
       and you will eat dust
       all the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
       between you and the woman,
       and between your offspring and hers;
       he will crush your head,
       and you will strike his heel."
To the woman he said,
       "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
       with pain you will give birth to children.
       Your desire will be for your husband,
       and he will rule over you."
To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
       "Cursed is the ground because of you;
       through painful toil you will eat of it
       all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
       and you will eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
       you will eat your food
       until you return to the ground,
       since from it you were taken;
       for dust you are
       and to dust you will return."

And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

all these because of a bite from a fruit? am i missing something here? yes.. ! im missing the main point! which is plain disobedience to God.  while sin has evolved into all shapes and sizes - stealing, lying, killing, evil thoughts, lustful thoughts, betraying etc. etc., so have our perception of sin. we think that sin is causing harm to another person.. but God calls us to obey. that's His standard, that's where He draws the line. that's how He defines sin, and that's where all of us have failed so terribly. i think of my intentions to cause harm, my lies, my rudeness, lazyness, piracy to "save money" (in actual fact, it's just reluctance to spend when there's the free illegal way out), half heartedness, worrying etc.  and am confident that i have definitely missed God's mark. i'm pretty sure i also ate many times when told not to.. 

so if the consequences of eating a fruit is so big... what more, a murder? but God's mathematics is different from ours. any act of disobedience breaks His heart the same way. like markings on a piece of paper, whether it's just one small teeny weeny mark, or a line, or many small marks, or a fully scribbled on page, it is not a pure white page. the consequences are no different for all those pieces of paper. we lose our relationship with God and eternal life with Him... because we are not pure white pages, we have missed God's perfect standard. we are SINNERS and in Romans 6:23 it says that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. we sin, we disobey, but GOD STILL GIVES GIFTS?!?! IS HE GENEROUS OR WHATT!!! look what He did after Adam and Eve sinned against him:

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
back to my point on God's generosity and gifts... do you know that Jesus bore the consequences of our sins?!! He=GOD=sin-free=pure white piece of paper, receiving the punishment for the lies we told, the people that we have cursed...our messy marred paper was covered by his pure white paper in the eyes of God. our sins forgiven, our relationship with God restored, eternal life..

it's a gift. but in order to get a gift, one has to receive and accept the gift.. 
and the choice is yours (:

if i had a personality disorder, it would be borderline personality disorder, aka emotionally unstable disorder.. but after reading it...don't you just call this life? plus PMS??

geri and i chose this song for our pretend wedding when we were kids.. wishing & hoping
. teeheehee. i say a little prayer for you was playing on the radio while i was driving home. ah. oldiess ((:

and so after the longest time, it dawned on me that geri and sean aren't gonna be here for much longer either ):

it will be a lifechanging time of my life. hahaha. ): i don't really know how to express my feelings.. but i suppose i need to apologise for being a pain in the butt.. especially when i become lazy and dont do the dishes/cook/clean the house, make too much noise on the piano/guitar, for being bitter and emphasizing what a good job i perform as a lamp post..for being grumpy at dinnertimes.. i hope i havent made life too difficult for you two hehehe. but it has been such a great time and i regret not cherishing that much the times we have had tgt until i realise that it's almost finishing.. THANK GOD WE ARE FAMILY AND RELATED HEHEHE cousin and FCIL WOOOWEEEWOOWEEWOOO CNY!!!
God bless you (: MANY HUGSSSSSSSSSSSS!

IS "NO" LIKE A TABOO WORD IN YOUR DICTIONARY THAT YOU HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO SAY "YES" TO EVERYTHING!?!?!?! GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH