Cherchez La Vérité: August 2005

Note To Self

When cycling down a slope at 45km/h, never spit towards the front.

Smoo.

My brain food for the next week.

Well, you gotta give them points for originality.

Fin.

Psycho September

I am really beat right now. I actually wanted to take tomorrow's New Balance Real Run seriously, but in the state I'm in right now, I think I'll just take a nice leisurely run on the beach with the rest of the PUNJers. Heh.

Looking at the schedule for September, it's gonna be super hectic. SMUX adventure race with Jason and Charlene next Saturday, AHM on 11 September, a whole lot of projects and assignments to settle, CCAs to settle into, the possibility of forming a new club on the horizon (I hope it materializes).

I really pray I don't lose focus. Good thing I didn't bid for that extra module. Don't think I'd be able to cope. Figured I'm not really in a rush to take so many mods anyway, just focus on what I've got now. Otherwise I may end up playing catch up with my GPA scores in terms to come. Why everyone so kan cheong to bid for extra mods ah? Seriously.

Anyway, share with you what happened yesterday at Ultimate Frisbee. So there were about 50 or so of us Freshies trying out the sport, and I must say I think I'm hooked! Think I'll be joining more trainings if time permits.

We broke up into groups and started playing against each other. It became obvious the team I was in was dominating the game against the other team, and everyone was enjoying the 'spirit of the game' (as they say in ultimate), until one of my teammates made a comment, 'Give them chance la!'

Obviously he was really annoyed that the other team seem to offer him 'no challenge', as he put it. Throughout the 30 mins we were playing, my teammate made some nasty remarks which were pretty condescending, like 'They suck' and it irked the other team quite visibly. Mind you all this was said in the other team's presence.

When I went over to apologize, some of them ignored me, understandable I guess. But I was glad some of them understood it was just one of us being a complete JACKASS.

I'm sure we've seen this sort of behaviour in people when it comes to sports. What I'd like to ask is, what pleasure do people get in putting others down like that? Does it give you a sense of superiority over others? I say it's just sick man. Grow up.

The Vesper

Just came back from KTV. Happy Birthday Evelyn! =). Gotta be down at Nanyang Pri at 730am. That's like in 5 hours time. Ugh. Better sleep. Exhausted after school and Ultimate Frisbee today. Was pretty fun but some unpleasant things happened, will share about it some other time.

I'll leave you with the Boys' Brigade Vesper. I'll be seeing them monkeys recite it tomorrow! Haven't seen them in a while though. Heh.

'Great God who knowest all our needs,
Bless Thou our watch, and guard our sleep;
Forgive our sins of thought and deed,
And in Thy peace Thy servants keep.

We thank Thee for the day that's done,
We trust Thee for the days to be;
Thy love we learn in Christ Thy son,
O may we all His glory see!

Amen.'

Take care Jianhong!

The view from the SMU graduate lounge.

Just finished setting up my new glass notice board!

So It Begins

Thank God. I got a pretty wicked timetable, 3 day week. Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. It's only week 1, but there're lotsa things to do. CIP report, start forming project groups for Financial Accounting, Ultimate Frisbee on Friday, Some basic hip hop lesson with the Eurhythmix people after that (i hope i don't crush anybody's toes), BB on saturday morning, New Balance Real Run on Sunday.

Cough's been a lot better. Finally went to the doctor's today to get some antibiotics. Thanks for asking about it guys. Been hacking away like a madman for the past week. Quite amusing to see on the MRT, people deliberately moving away from me when I get into a coughing fit. If you want a seat on the train, you know what to do.

Anyways, been thinking about whether I should bid for another module, since my timetable allows me to. Was thinking about doing 'Management of People at Work', asking around what the workload is going to be like.

Oh, I just found out that my current Financial Accounting professor, taught MY DAD back when he was in NUS (Singapore University then). Dad doesn't think too highly of him. Haha.

Some prayer requests. Do pray for the safety of a good brother of mine, Jianhong. He just flew off last night to South Africa to join the 'Doulos' for 2 months! How cool is that! The Doulos is this ship that serves as a floating Christian bookshop when it docks at various ports. It's currently at Durban, South Africa.

No lessons later, but I'll probably go down to the library anyway. At least get some work done. Home is just not condusive for anything...other than sleeping. Layyy-ter....

Right now, Mr.'Nim Jom Pei Pa Kao' is my best friend.

Funky car plate!

It's not National Day. It's Convocation 2005

It's not Zouk. It's Convocation 2005.

It's not a City Harvest service. It's Convocation 2005.

I Won't Last A Day Without You

Been listening to The Carpenters a lot of late for some reason. Soppy love songs. I can't help but think some of them could actually be used in church. Err...with some lyrical alterations here and there of course.Ha.

"Day after day
I must face the world of strangers,
Where I don't belong,
I'm not that strong,
It's nice to know, that there's someone I can turn to who will always care,
You're always there.

When there's no getting over that rainbow,
When my smallest of dreams won't come true.
I can take all the madness the world has to give,
But I won't last a day without You."

God bless your soul Carol Carpenter.

Day Zero

First Financial Accounting class tomorrow. Watching the Pool-Sunderland match as I type this. Grrr...damn frustrating watching Liverpool sometimes. Cisse!!! How?! HOW DID YOU MISS THAT?!

Been coughing for the past week. It all started during the Ubin camp with Zhenghua Pri, and it's sorta worsened mid-week, greenish phlegm (*cringe*) and all. Think I've not been getting too much sleep, (no thanks to msn) hence not been recovering too fast.

Ah Ma was hospitalised mid week due to inflammation of a blood vessel in her temple. Caused blurred vision and breathing problems due to her high blood pressure. Was so worried when she was admitted to hospital, but thank God she was discharged on Friday. Thanks for keeping her in prayer guys.

I'm always encouraged by Grandma. She always says 'Kam sia zhu', or praise God in Hokkien. She keeps telling me and her other grandkids on how 'hwa hee' (happy) she is whenever she sees us, and how thankful to God she is for our family and the blessings He's bestowed upon us over the years. We all love her. It was quite comical to see the nurse so frustrated when my whole extended family went down to Tan Tock Seng to see her. That's a lot of people in one ward.

Convocation took place last afternoon. Besides the expected speeches, I thought the multi-cultural performance by the seniors was VERY well done. Could see everyone was dancing and playing their instruments with such passion, and that they were genuinely enjoying it. Nice one guys.

Better rest up then. I wanted to say something else, but that cough syrup is making me kinda drowsy. Zzz.

More pics from Sunday courtesy of Ellie. The winning team. =)

How not to land.

Ok. So I'm NOT a race queen.

OEI! What the! Get OFF MY CAR!

I guess when you're up there for 6 hours, there's not much else to do but take pictures.

Go Danny Go!

We're not worthy! We're not worthy!

Hello Operator

Doing some telemarketing thing with YMCA from today till Friday, helping out Albert and Apes. We're asking VWOs to sign up for this workshop YMCA's organising. Just one of the many interesting conversations:

"Hello, may I speak to Miss Sarah Treffeld?"
"Hah?"
"Err, may I speak to Ms Sarah Treffeld?"
"谁?"
"Miss...Sarah...Treffeld"
"您可以讲中文吗?"
"Err...怎么说...Sarah Treffeld小姐在吗?"
"什么?"
"Sa-rah. Sarah在吗?"
"这是咖啡店!"

GARRRRRRRRRR! #!*!@#$%

Seriously, doesn't Liling remind you of some Channel 8 actress?

The Road To Kona. The Path To Kathmandu.

I've not been the best big brother to Daniel and Caleb. All these years, I've constantly neglected my family, with my heavy involvement in school and church activities, meeting up friends, and just staying out sometimes. It's just so sad that I communicate more with my friends than my own flesh and blood.

Things are a lot better now. I used to ask Dan or Caleb how their exams were, only for them to give me the reply that their papers ended pretty long ago and they were enjoying their holidays. Basically, I really didn't know what was going on in their lives. We lived under the same roof, but we were worlds apart. I'm pretty determined not to let that happen again as school starts.

We've been talking a lot more, Dan and I. Life goals, our faith in God, how we're really worried about Caleb as he keeps coming back late everyday, etc. Dan watched the annual Ironman competition held in Kona, Hawaii, on cable the other day. He's been getting in shape for army, and he did share that an Ironman competition would be one thing he would want to do in his life, something that I would like to do too. So we've decided, for the next 4 years, we'll work towards this ultimate goal of completing an Ironman competition, after Dan's done with his NS. There are a few around the region, but the toughest I've heard, has to be the one in Kona. I hope we'll have the discipline to work towards it.

April's photos of her Nepal trip have also really inspired me to want to visit Kathmandu some day. Right now, so many things are in limbo, with the timetable STILL not out. Last year the timetable for freshies was released much earlier I heard. Why is SMU trying to be DIFFERENT every year? Chao cheesepie.

Anyways, I'm hoping to get something going soon, and we will probably be asking around who will be interested. The only reason we'll not go, is if the Maoist rebels in Nepal gain control of the country and acquire nukes or something like that. August or December 2006. Mark that down Gabe.

Free body diagram

MIW SAFRA Challenge pics: Elliot giving Dan a rubdown during one of the 5min breaks.

Pure Ecstacy

Pit stop.

Dan's the man.

Hanging on for dear life. Thanks for the pics Apes. =)

Work And Rest

I've always struggled with some of the stuff in the Bible, especially when it comes to certain practices the Jews did that we now don't do today. I would always think, 'So since I don't practice these things, does it make me any less of a believer in Christ?'

One of the things i struggled with is the Sabbath issue. You know Eric Liddell? If you've watched this really old show called 'Chariots of Fire', you would know his story. Basically he was this super 'zai' runner that was supposed to represent England in the Olympics in a Track event, but because the race finals fell on a Sunday, and he had a strong conviction to rest on Sundays as he was a believer in dedicating one day of rest to God, he refused to run. No doubt it caused quite an uproar, I think even the Prime Minister of the time tried to urge him to run.

Wenjie has done quite a good summary of the Genesis study we did that day. Heh. Sorry brother, I hope you don't mind me sharing what you've written.

You can visit Wenjie's blog here

"We did bible study on genesis at PUNJ on saturday. Topic was on 'Work and Rest', which provided rather timely reminders at the start of my overwhelming semester.

Gabe raised some questions on why we do not need to follow the Old Testament Sabbath anymore, and the half awake me wasn't able to find the bible references to contribute to the discussion, so I did a bit of reading on it for QT this morning. What I found just staggered me so much, so I thought I'd share.

Here we go...

* "Do not think I have come to ablolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them."
-Matthew 5:17

Jesus says he has come to fulfll the law. This means that He has come not to replace the Law. He has come as the only Man who is ever able to meet all the requirements needed of the Law. He comes as Man's representative, the second Adam, that can meet the standards of the law.

He has also come to reveal the true nature and standard of the law. In Matthew 5 he goes on to say how 'do not murder' actually means 'do not get angry' and how 'do not commit adultery' means 'do not lust'.

With regards to Sabbath, at the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had introduced extra legalistic laws to the Sabbath. Stuff on how u cannot do this and that on Saturdays, which isn't written in the original law. They lost the original intention of the Sabbath, which was really to rest and remember the God that created them and saved them.

When questioned about doing work on the Sabbath, Jesus replied:

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.
-Mark 2:27

Jesus brought the Pharisees back to the original intention of the Sabbath, that it was not about legalistic laws that burdened them more than helped them, but rather it was meant to help them remember and respond to what God has done for them.

Today we observe the Sabbath not as Jews who are thankful for freedom from Eygpt, but as Gentiles who have been freed from the slavery of sin. Because Jesus met the requirements of the law, we are no longer bound to the law of Mosses. We are no longer required to obey the specifics like offering sacrifices and the Sabbath.

Instead we are called to a new law, which is simply two commandments:

To love God, and to love your neighbour.
In doing this we fulfill the entire law.
(Mark 12:29-31)

Our Sabbath today lies not on Saturdays or Promised Physical Land. It lies in the promise of heaven. We covered Hebrews 4 for PUNJ, so shan't go there.

And so, our job today is not to obey the Sabbath laws, but really to keep looking to our promised Sabbath rest in heaven, and to ensure that we remember God who rescued us from sin.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who lovedd me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.
-Galatians 2:20-21

Oh man, I feel preachy,
but it's all out of the gush of excitement at what I found for QT this morning.
Hope it helped Gabe."

It has Wenjie. Thanks. =)

Crazy Kids, 21st Birthdays, and Fiona Xie.

I can't believe it! We actually won the team prize for the MIW SAFRA Challenge! I can now get this season's Liverpool jersey with the 1000 bucks worth of Reebok vouchers! Well, 20 jerseys actually. Ha. Aww man and that extra cash is gonna be so handy. Thanks Danny for signing us up! I guess it pays to check miw.com.sg after all. Daniel! Respect for staying on that 7 by 7 inch platform for 6 hours! Yikes!

These past 5 days have truly been eventful and very memorable in more ways than one. Again, through the people that have been in my life, I'm constantly reminded how God has truly blessed me. Never will I take it for granted.

Long post ahead. You have been warned. =)

Stranded With Adorable Monkeys- Zhenghua Pri Sch Camp

And so the intense 5 days started with the Primary 5 camp for Zhenghua Primary School on Wednesday. After the SMU OCS briefing at the city campus, we made our way down to Ubin to make preparations. It was held at the new NPCC campsite, and the kids were due to arrive on Thursday morning.

I was feeling REALLY sian about it, because the atmosphere was just so different from the other camps I've helped out at for BB and GB. You know, at BB/GB, the people there sincerely want to help and make a difference in the lives of the kids. In my opinion, it seemed that most of us were there just for the 80 hours community service that SMU requires us to do. What makes it worse is that the organising committee didn't seem to show itself as very organised, and they really seemed to exude this 'let's get this over with' attitude. I hope I was wrong.

When the kids came, it sorta took my mind off my annoyance with the organising committee. I thank God Eric was with me in taking care of the group, Suzi too. Eric, you the bomb la, what would I have done without you. Seng Kok was SOOO funny when we taught them the 'Tiew Tiew Tiew' game! Monkeys! Playing games, field cooking, taking them to Chek Jawa. It was all good. My experience at BGB definately helped here. Thank God.

Garang Guni Boys

So I got back from Ubin on Friday night at about 730pm, totally exhausted by the endless bounds of energy that the kids have. As soon as I rushed back, took the car out to ARPC for 8pm service. Supper with the PUNJers at Al-Azhar, retire at 2am.

No parade at Nanyang this Saturday, so April and I were more than happy to pay the kids at Siling a visit. They were doing their own community service project by collecting old newspapers/clothes from the neighbouring HDB blocks in Woodlands.

I miss the kids so much. Damn funny when they saluted Apes and I as we strolled through the school gate. I only realised later, they did so to point out that I was late. Ha!

As we were going from flat to flat, one of the boys started asking me why there were so many denominations in the Protestant Church today. I was so excited that he was showing interest, and told him a brief history of the church. Encouraged him to keep asking questions and probe further. It's good to see that BB genuinely generates interest in the boys.

PUNJ in the afternoon, continuation on our studies on Genesis. We did the importance of 'Work and Rest', and although I was really mentally drained by the end of it, quite glad I went for it. Very insightful. Shall share more of it on a later date.

Happy Birthday Yan Hui/Justin!

Yan Hui's BBQ Birthday celebration at Hangout Hotel. Great location I must say! Right on top of Mt. Emily, near SMU. And it has this amazing view of the city and the skyline. The company was great. I really miss the good ol'NJ days with the 01S06ers.

Was great to see Daph, Huiyin, Jacque, Edwin, Kailuo, Edwin, Yihan, Yuan Kai, Minghui, Kelly and the rest again! I'm quite honoured to be in 3 of Yan Hui's group photos. 1 with 01S06, 1 with the band people, and 1 with our SMU OG. Ha! I'm in 3 aspects of Yan Hui's life!

Feel quite bad talking more with the 01S06ers rather than the OG, but I figured I'm gonna be seeing a lot more of the Pyromaniacs when school starts, while it's so rare that the class meets up, esp. with everyone studying overseas.

KTV ON FRIDAY OK 01S06?

MIW SAFRA Challenge

It was held at Ngee Ann City's civic plaza. So there're 4 events.

1. Flag Master- Get as many flags off a Ssangyong Rexton in 1 minute, while on the roof.
2. Cliff Hanger- Cling onto a rock wall for the longest possible time
3. Endurance stations- Do Bench presses, cycling, treadmill, chin ups in a allocated time. Most reps/ longest distance wins
4. Hot Spot- Stand on a 7 by 7 inch platform. Last man remaining wins.

Elliot did the flag master, Danny did the stations, Daniel did Hot Spot and I was left hanging like a gorilla on the rock wall.

While we weren't the best in each of our events, our combined score made us the winners of the team category! $$$ Ka-ching!

Daniel had it the toughest I felt, standing on the platform for 6 whole hours. Insane. It was so encouraging to see the church people coming down to support Dan as he stood and braved the rain and sun. I think he was the only one who had any supporters!

I actually went home early when Daniel dropped, cos'I had to rush off to Jem and Jerald's party at Changi. Then while on the bus, I got a call from Elliot saying that we had won and that we would be collecting the prize from Fiona Xie (Don't ask me why)! By the time I drove down back to Ngee Ann City, Danny and Daniel had already collected it, with Ah Loong posing as me, and Yew Minh posing as Elliot. Heh!

J&J's Birthday/Farewell Party

It was just great meeting up with everyone. I've said this before and I'll say it again, it's weird how everyone's somehow connected to each other. Twohill (my OCS buddy) was actually Zhihao's (my BMT buddy) primary school classmate. Ha! Was great seeing you Kezheng, back from Suzhou and all.

Jem, Jerald, not much time spent talking with you guys since you guys WERE the center of attention tonight, so we're meeting up again before you guys leave for Michigan yeah?

Right now, I think I need the week off to recuperate. Wake me up on Saturday.

Ah yes. Good ol' 01S06.

Happy birthday Yan Hui!

I miss you guys!

Pretty in Pink. Most of us anyway.

Those crazy kids. =)

Absolut U pics. Thanks Xiangyun!

Mmm. Natural. Good.

Human musical fountains at the musical fountain

Just. Don't. Ask.

Oh boy this could hurt.

Awww.

The retarded things we do for orientations.

Stranded With Monkeys

Will be away from Wednesday till Friday on Ubin. Helping out with Zhenghua Primary School's Primary 5 camp, as part of the 80 hours of CIP I want to clear before school starts proper. Evelyn, who happens to be teaching there, tells me the kids are pretty mischievious.

You know when you're primary 5, you're at the age where you want more responsibility, but you're not really ready for it yet? I think it'll be a difficult age group to handle, different from the Siling Secondary kids I've met in the past few months.I pray for patience to guide the kids along, as well as I pray that the kids will be teachable and not PISS ME OFF!!!

Ok Gabe. Patience. Patience. Till Friday folks!

Was looking through Dad's camera and found some nifty shots from his Wine Expo trip. This would be Bordeaux. My retirement home.

Dad's Pics: Bordeaux vineyards

Dad's pics: Charles du Galle Airport. Where they filmed the MTV for U2's Beautiful Day

I don't think we'll be parking on the ECP road shoulder in a while.

You light up my life.

Woo. Pretty Flower.

The Big 4-0

National Day is upon us once again. Just came back from seeing the fireworks display at Marina South. Drove and parked at the Benjamin Sheares bridge road shoulder with some of our church pals to get a good view of the fireworks, us and 1000 other Singaporeans! The whole stretch of the road shoulder on the ECP became a huge car park.

Poor Mr. policeman tried to get the crowd moving, but it was just him against the masses.

Had a fruitful meeting at Albert's last night, about the manpower and programme issues for the Boys/ Girls' Brigade. It looks like I'll be at Nanyang Primary for the longer term, but I would really love to go down to Siling to help out with ad hoc stuff, I miss the kids so much.

Had a nice Crystal Jade Xiao Long Bao lunch with Mom in the afternoon at Holland V, and a good (and free) DOTA session with Eric at his place. I'm gonna miss my slack life when school starts. Sigh.

Absolut U. Absolutely Chao Ta.

My goodness. Damn shack la. Just came back from Asoc (SMU's Accountancy Society) camp at Costa Sands Sentosa. Thank God that the rain was held back, unlike the previous days. In fact, it was FRICKKIN HOT for both days. Quite funny cos' everybody was visibly much darker/redder than they were when the camp started. Guys wearing singlets all have the embarassing bra-strap marks now. D'oh.

It was pretty much a lot of games and time spent asking about how school's gonna be like for the coming year. What to expect, some pitfalls to avoid, time management, just some of the things we managed to get a clearer picture of from our wonderful facilitators, Geraldine and Xiangyun (No, not Edmund Chen's wife).

Friday evening was spent putting up a skit. All 14 groups, yes 14, had to put up a 8 minute skit based on a fairy tale, and twisting the story in anyway we like. It got quite draggy after a while, although it was quite amusing to see Cinderella degraded to a man dying for a sex change op, or Hansel and Gretel the Beng and Liansters, or how Jack from Jack and the beanstalk abused his mother to get her to lay golden eggs. Amazing what you can come up with in the short time the groups were together.

The tactical warfare game at night got everyone red and bloody with the food dye from the water guns and water bombs. And the scavenger hunt on Saturday afternoon had it's hillarious moments. As one of the items, we had to get a foreign couple to dance around a tree and do some SMU chant. This German couple that was sunbathing when we approached them were so sporting! Quite a sight seeing a few of us and a caucasian couple dancing around the coconut tree chanting 'We're different! We're different!'

Serene, Claire, Lydia, Esther, Ben, Tze Hern, Songjie, Jian Xiong, and of course Geraldine and Xiangyun, thanks lots for the company! Was a hoot, and I guess I'll be seeing you guys a lot more in school.

That's. Me?

This is where all your taxpayers money goes to!

Only Johnny Depp could pull this off.

Retro.

Comics were much funnier back then.

Blast From The Past

Checked out the new library with Apes yesterday, and I gotta say the place is neato! My inner nerd was salivating as we made our way through the levels. I actually thought they would have problems with space wastage, especially after seeing how empty Jurong East Community Library is. Like the shelves are so far apart. The arts center takes up about 3 levels I think.

The view from the top is fantastic, you can see for miles from the city, and we managed to get there just when the sun was setting. Such a beautiful sight seeing the pinkish sun descend on our little island city. I think if I was studying there, I probably wouldn't be able to concentrate! Open spaces is something that's so lacking in S'pore, so a library with a view is definately most welcomed.

We checked out the newspaper archives, the library has every issue of The Straits Times for the past 200 years, and it's just so fascinating to see what the world was like before. The librarian was so patient and nice in explaining to us how to view the archives. They have them stored on microfilm, so you need to view it using a projector. Macam like those private investigators you see in the movies man, scrolling through old case files...

Anyways on the day Apes was born, they just decided to build the Singapore Indoor Stadium, Sampdoria was still a powerhouse in the Italian league, and Ong Teng Cheong was still the Chairman of NTUC.

ASOC camp tomorrow morning till Saturday afternoon. Gotta feeling I won't be sleeping much. Pray for good weather! Please!

Wonka-fied

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY!!! Ohmygoodness you guys have to watch it man! Johnny Depp is da bomb as Willy Wonka, the Oompah Loompahs are so damn funny (some Indian dude acts as all of them), and the killer squirrels, hillarious! Tim Burton at his best! I feel like eating lotsa chocolate right now man. I'm sure Roald Dahl would be proud.

In the words of Willy Wonka, "Chewing gum is really gross. Chewing gum I hate the most."

Business For The Glory Of God

Just came back from Floorball tryouts at the old Bukit Timah Campus. Was quite fun and extremely fast paced man! I hit more floor than ball though. I'm more of a destructive player than a creative one I guess, destroying the opponents chances more than creating any for the team. We see how it goes, I'm more interested in Ultimate Frisbee though.

Anyways, I feel really prompted to share this. After the Ravi Zacharias talk last Thursday, Eric spotted this book and brought it to my attention. 'Business For The Glory Of God' by Wayne Grudem.

It's been something I've been struggling with, coming into SMU and all. I suppose I should be joining the corporate world upon graduation, something which I resent initially. When I think about the corporate/business world, the first things that come into my mind are greed, corruption, shrewdness, and unsavoury characters that will do anything to maximise profits. This book however has made me rethink whether business is really all that bad. Let me give you the sypnosis:

'CAN BUSINESS GLORIFY GOD? We normally think of worship, faith, evangelism and other 'spiritual' activities as glorifying to God, but business? Business seems synonymous with greed and corruption, not something that would imitate a holy God. But Wayne Grudem believes that by engaging in work and business we glorify God becuase we are emulating God's own creative work.

This biblically based book is a thoughtful guide to imitating God during interactions with customers, coworkers, employees and other businesses. See how your business, and your life in business, can be dedicated to God's glory.'

One premise that keeps coming up in the book is, many things are created with fundamentally good intentions, but due to the sinful nature of Man, these things are misused and as such, evil results from it.

For example, the Internet is something that is fundamentally good in that it's such a rich source of information and has given us so much convenience that it has forever changed our lives. However, Man abuses the internet but introducing pornography, violence and spreading messages of hate over the internet. Can we then say that the internet is totally evil then? No, because the original intentions were good. It's the same for business.

The book is divided into chapters that talk about the various aspects of business, namely: Ownership, Productivity, Employment, Commercial Transactions, Profit, Money, Inequality of possesions, Competition, Borrowing and lending, Attitudes of heart, and Effects on world poverty.

This entry really doesn't do the book justice. I really think that anyone who wants to get into business or enter the corporate world should read it before you go on to read Donald Trump's biography or other business books. Go pick it up guys!

It's been really enlightening and such a great reminder that we can glorify God in all aspects of our lives, not just in church. It's such a joy to know that we can glorify God by doing business, but we should also be aware of the pitfalls and avoid them. When it comes to money, there are just so many ways we can fall into temptation and hurt others. Is money evil then? Is it a necessary evil? I'll leave with a quote from the book.

Money is NOT the root of all evil. The LOVE of money is.

Mommy?

Cherchez La Vérité

Tuesday, August 30

Note To Self

Monday, August 29

Sunday, August 28

Saturday, August 27

Psycho September

The Vesper

Thursday, August 25

Wednesday, August 24

So It Begins

Tuesday, August 23

Monday, August 22

I Won't Last A Day Without You

Sunday, August 21

Day Zero

Wednesday, August 17

Hello Operator

The Road To Kona. The Path To Kathmandu.

Tuesday, August 16

Monday, August 15

Work And Rest

Crazy Kids, 21st Birthdays, and Fiona Xie.

Sunday, August 14

Wednesday, August 10

Stranded With Monkeys

Tuesday, August 9

The Big 4-0

Saturday, August 6

Absolut U. Absolutely Chao Ta.

Thursday, August 4

Blast From The Past

Wednesday, August 3

Wonka-fied

Tuesday, August 2

Business For The Glory Of God

Monday, August 1

About Me

Eh. What Doing Yoo?

Tag. Or Forever Hold Your Peace.

Previously

The Older Stuff

SMU Christian Fellowship

Groovy People

PUNJers and ARPC folks! =)

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