Beautiful Day

Friday, August 27, 2004

Giving

Giving (Part 4) (view previous parts)

Atheletes train to be fit and to win. They excercise on purpose. Faith increases by excercise as well, and giving is a very good training ground. Training is not pleasant and fun all the time. At times it can be very painful. It requires a lot. But an Olympic winner don't just go to trainings with a passive attitute. "Oh, do I have to go through that again? Do I have to do it today?" No, they go to trainings with a hot passion. This passion will see them through all the ups and downs, through trials and tests, through tears and exhausion. There's no winner in the Olympics at all that has got no passion in their pursuit.
Giving is the same. God delights a cheerful giver, not a giver with grumpy, grudging attitute. A giver that's passionate wins God's heart. And this passion covers all the pain, loss and sacrifice that's involved. Without this passion we can't be sustained and devoted. The passion will become the strength and joy.
To be cheerful in giving is not an option. It's the vital part, and the winning component that simply cannot be missing.

As seen by Susan @ 1:22 PM

Hillsong Phenomenon

Hillsong phenomenon

Hillsong church to me is like a huge hydropower station. It contains huge human power. It uses it's large human resources to create a huge scene by utilizing the natural power. Every member of the church is part of the powerstation work. They consists the whole project.
It's not a natural waterfall with all the pure natural beauty. It's a man-made project but for the benefit of many.
Another way to describe it is a train station. It welcomes people from all over the world then send them off to their own journeys. Not everyone is called to become part of the station, but being part of the station can receive lots of benefit, in the meanwhile requires lots of sacrifice.
The essence of Hillsong is organisation. Administration, deligence, submission are the key elements. It's not a destiny for everyone, but for lots of people it can be part of their journey. However, to be part of Hillsong also requires special calling as well.

As seen by Susan @ 11:24 AM

Monday, August 23, 2004

Go China!!!

Go China!!!

I've never felt so proud of China! They're doing so great in Olympics.
I thought I have been an Australian for so long, but only times like this can test out where your heart really belongs.
Go China, Go!!! I'm so proud of you!

As seen by Susan @ 11:26 AM

Sunday, August 22, 2004

Susan

As seen by Susan @ 1:01 AM

Susan and Kate

As seen by Susan @ 12:56 AM

Saturday, August 21, 2004

Friend

Friend

Moses' highest achievement in his life, in my opinion, is not in his academic achievement in his first fourty years, neither is the family he had in the desert, or leading His people out of Egypt, but to be called the friend of God.
Sometimes we treat God as a celebrity. But some most famous celebrities are the loneliest people in the world. It struck me this week with the thought, that God desires our friendship.
Friends are comfortable with each other. They share their lives. They spend a lot of time together just hanging out, and they talk on the phone a lot. They just enjoy each other's presence. Sometimes friends ask for help or favour, but that's not the foundation of friendship. Friends do things for each other because they're friends.
To us, what Moses had done is most important, his achievement with the help of God is what made him famous. But to God, all the achievement is nothing, He can choose anyone, even a donkey, to do what He needs to do, but through all the things He did with Moses, He had a friend, and that's the most important thing in His eyes.
Isaiah 54:1 Sing O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.
The production or achievement in the "desolate" worths a lot more "of the married wife". Time spent with God produces an economy that can't be measured by the world's standard.

As seen by Susan @ 1:51 PM

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Baby Dream

Baby dream (II)

Last week I thought I was pregnant again. I was late for over a week and I felt a bit different. Actually I went to the doctor's three times but couldn't find out the result. Then I bought a pregnancy test from the chemist. I was so sure I was pregnant that I started to treat myself real nice, been eating lots of goodies...lol, and I even decided a name. But the result was negative... I couldn't believe it for a while.
Well, the truth is, if I did get pregnant, I wasn't ready for it. I didn't plan for it, and I won't cope very well. The result was actually a "whew!" ... We thought we're done. I've had three beautiful girls, and that's not too bad.
But strangely, after that false excitement and then the "whew!", I started to have a little bubbling in my heart. I start to want to be pregnant again. Actually, both my husband and I hope to have twin boys next time. hehehe...it would be really fun, wouldn't it?
I've always thought we can't afford to have more children. But apparently, the government has changed the policy for a while, and I've just known it yesterday! Now with every new born baby the government will give 5000 dollars, and if I have twins, it would be 10,000 dollars! Strange timing for me to know that, huh?
I really don't mind if it's another girl, it's the boys that I need to work my way to. God knows I couldn't handle boys before so He gave me three girls, and I'm so grateful for that.
I think I might plan this time. After the house is totally finished and we're all settled, maybe some time next year, we might do it again.

As seen by Susan @ 1:30 PM

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Butterfly Flap

Butterfly flap

Today at Hillsong Women the speaker used a little analogy which is quite interesting. I can't recall exactly how it went, but something like a flap of the butterfly wings can actually be the beginning of a hurricane down the track.
The topic is about "how to be extraordinary."
My understanding of this is extraordinary starts within ordinary. We're all given many opportunities within our capacities to "flap the butterfly wings", and if we're obedient to these opportunities, the small things in our hands can lead to something that's extraordinary later on.
This incidence came into my mind while I'm thinking about this, and please allow me to use it just as an example. Years ago while in China, I was working at a college. And one day at lunch time in the school canteen I saw a girl who's about 5 years younger than me. I felt a little nudge in my spirit to go and talk to her. I hardly knew this girl, only briefly met her once before. I hesitated for a while, then I decided to go and talk to her. It turned out that she was actually going to commit suicide after that lunch. We had a good talk for about 2-3 hours and she was saved at the end of the conversation. Later that evening she came to our meeting and was gloriously transformed. In her first year as a Christian, she brought over a hundred people to the Lord. After that we went to different meetings and gradually lost contact, but she has always been on fire for God. And as I was thinking about that butterfly flap, I was wondering, how many people would she bring to the Lord later on? And how many people got saved or influenced from that first 100 people...?Just say each one brought 10 people to the Lord(which is not hard in China), then it would be 1000, and then the thousand could turn into ten thousand, it's been over 10 years now, so it's not totally impossible... One day in eternity I might be able to count all the effect that started from obeying that little nudge. What if I didn't go and talk to her? What would be missing out in the whole picture?
We can have lots of little "nudges" in our daily life. They're all within our ordinary zone. If we obey these nudges, and give out what's in our hands, then these could all be turning points from ordinary to extradinary. Sometimes we can see the result, sometimes we can't, until we're in eternity. But if we submit our ordinaries to God, then He can make them into something that's extraordinary and beyond our wildest imaginations.

Update: This is how Phil explains about the butterfly effect:
"The "Butterfly Effect" is often ascribed to Lorenz. In a paper in 1963 given to the New York Academy of Sciences he remarks: One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever. By the time of his talk at the December 1972 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. the sea gull had evolved into the more poetic butterfly - the title of his talk was* : Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?"more info at http://www.cmp.caltech.edu/~mcc/chaos_new/Lorenz.html

As seen by Susan @ 11:27 PM

I have been reviewed

Thanks Angie for the idea. I submitted my blog a couple days ago and I've been reviewed.
I quite like what they say about my blog actually, although the reviewers are not Christians(I guess).
They say the look of the blog is too simple, and I should have this and that, which I totally agree. I would love to have this and that, but the fact is, even this simplest blog (in what they've seen) is set up by my friend and I have no idea how to add anything else. Now you can see how computer minded I am.
Anyway, if your interested, you can have a look, or you can submit your own blog for some fun,too.

As seen by Susan @ 2:24 PM

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Baby dream

Last night I couldn't sleep well. I fell asleep the same time with my baby Katie around 10pm then woke up at 1am. I couldn't go back to sleep until nearly 6am. I went to Yumcha with a few friends for lunch yesterday and drank too much tea. I tried to pick up drinking Coffee a bit over the last few weeks, as I haven't been drinking coffee or tea for the last 8 years. When I was pregnant, I dreaded the smell of coffee and I had to open all the windows in the winter if my husband drinks coffee. Then usually if I do drink coffee or tea I'd be awake for 2 nights.
Anyway, while I was awake, I was watching Katie a bit. She sleeps so sweet, like an angel. Then for a while she laughed....seriously, a big giggle, like someone was playing with her or tickling her... then she stretched out her arms, then folded back and gave herself a big hug, still with a big smile on her face. Hmmm, I wonder what she was dreaming about.
So I got up, around 4:30, and guess what? Jamie(4yo)was in the living room watching TV. Sooooo, she was very grumpy and wingy when I took her to daycare this morning. And so was I.

As seen by Susan @ 10:28 AM

Monday, August 09, 2004

Meeting Phil

Phil Baker rocked the house of Hillsong this past weekend. It was sensational. I loved it so much I went there twice.
Just as Darlene Zschech was presented with a No 1 reward in the secular music circle, I felt in my spirit that Phil's gonna be a No1 speaker in the secular world as well. He has such a gifting in connecting the secular to the spiritual.
What touches me most is he has a real heart of love. Being a most famous speaker in Australia and also around the world, he doesn't show any sign of pride and arrogance.
While I was buying one of his books, he was around, so I asked him to sign the book for me. We then had a few minutes talk and he was actually very excited to meet me. He was actually trying to meet me during the conference but I happened to be at lunch break when the leader of ushering team came looking for me. Well, I was a bit awestruck and felt a bit like Ray.
The book I bought is called "Letters to a lady". The whole book is a piece of artwork, very beautifully written and presented. I just wish it's in Chinese as well, as it can be a tremendous blessing to the ladies in China. I read a few chapters, and whenever I touch the book, there's always this vision of a Chinese lady in my mind.

As seen by Susan @ 10:45 AM

Friday, August 06, 2004

Alabaster jar

Yesterday at Hillsong Women Lucinda Dooley was talking about giving. To me it was like creating a firework show at the New year's eve. Every time we release the money in our hands it is like pulling the trigers, they look small and they're unseen, but when they're released then somewhere in the sky there goes a big beautiful firework for many to enjoy.

I got to Hillsong women quite early, but I didn't see any of my friends. So I wandered into the bookshop and bought a Joyce Meyer's book "Knowing God Intimately", which I tried to buy at Hillsong Conference but was out of stock. I sat down and read a couple pages, but somehow this vision of an alabaster jar being broken kept coming up my mind. I was trying to figure out what it meant, but couldn't get a clear answer, so I thought to myself, "well, the speaker must be explaining it later then."
Sure enough, Donna Crouch, the speaker of the service, brought forth a message all around the alabaster jar.
The topic of her message was on how to live an extraordinary life.
To me what defines an ordinary life is the restriction of the jar. Everyone has an alabaster jar. The jar means lifestyle,thinking pattern, habits, daily routine, value system, things you think you can do and cannot do, limits that you set... etc. And the perfume inside the jar means the things you value, the priorities, things that are costly and important to you... like house, family,work, commitments...etc. The jar holds the perfume together. And together that explains an ordinary life.
To have an extraordinary life, we need to break that jar, allow our lifestyle to be disturbed and old pattern to be broken. And when all these are dedicated to Jesus, then He will turn the perfume into annointing oils.
A jar that's not broken is like a pregnant women going into labour, but decides to quit: "This is too painful, I'm out of here." Every calling of our lives comes with pain and sacrifice, and they're costly. But in order to fulfil the callings, in order to step into extraordinary from ordinary, life has to be stirred, the jar has to be broken.

As seen by Susan @ 5:17 AM

Monday, August 02, 2004

Finding Nemo

Nemo was a prodigal son. He ran away from his dad and got into a lot of trouble. But through all this experience he learned his lesson. With all that he learned he was able to help a family friend Dory out of her trouble, and also unexpectly, he helped lots and lots of other fish to be out of their trouble at the same time.
One of my favourite Bible verse is 2 Cor 1:4 "who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."
Everyone has ran into some kind of trouble at some time. With every trouble comes the blessings of growth and wisdom. And the experience we had with God during our trouble will be blessings to other people in their troubled times.
Sometimes we are very limited in our expetation. We are disappointed with the influence level we're at. But breakthrough can start with just the one. Sometimes it's a close friend, a family member, or even someone you chatted over the internet. God puts one person in your path to help. And if you are obedient and give what you have to that person, sometimes that person is all you can see, but at the same time, the obedient act can bring blessings to a whole lot of other people that you can't see.
If Dory wasn't in trouble, then Nemo and his dad wouldn't be moved enough to help all the other fish out. But Dory was their family friend and she means a lot to them. So all Nemo's initiative was to help Dory out. It wasn't an easy task, it cost him his biggest effort, but the result? Not only did Dory got out, all the other fish was saved as well.
Sometimes the one person that God puts in our life is hard to deal with. We tend to get over him and move on to someone else. But if this person is brought to you by God into your life, then you'll know that this person is the key to a whole lot of others as well.
Don't despise the small beginning. The little things in your hand, the few people that's in your life can all bring the biggest breakthrough that's beyond your wildest imagination.
Paul Scanlon at Hillsong conference was talking about inclusive evangelism: to see beyond the individuals that have got our attention.
Lucinda Dooley was saying at Hillsong women that her breakthrough came from her obedience to make friends with one particular girl that had totally different background to hers.
Bobbie Houston started her ministry back in her teenage years, when she looked at the stage and thought, "I can't do this, I can't do that, I can't sing, I can't preach, I'm shy.... but I can do teatowers."
Christine Caine started her preaching career by preaching to three people plus a dog and a cat.
So, if God has put something or someone in your heart, then do it with your full strength and do it really well. The reward will be beyond your understanding.

As seen by Susan @ 12:56 AM

Sunday, August 01, 2004

Ellie's new look

Ellie's always been adventurous and creative. She always comes up with new ideas in drawing, craft,etc. She loves to make things up. At age of six she even sewed her own handbag. She's a good hairdresser,too, all her schoolmates love her to do their hair.
Anyway she was crying her eyes out this afternoon, she told me she was missing daddy. I was a bit puzzled why she was missing him so hard. At night time when bathing her I noticed her eyebrows were looking funny. As I looked closer, I saw half of her both eyebrows were shaved off!
I told her to take a nap this afternoon, but she couldn't go to sleep. So she sneaked into the bathroom and discovered stuff Daddy forgot to pack away.
Oh well, I guess she won't do it again. She's looking quite funny now.
She used to cut her hair twice, and she had to look like a boy for a long time.
Anyway, took her to Hillsong church today. We were surprised to find out that during church news her photo taken while she was playing the piano came up the big screen. I actually was not paying much attention to the church news until her picture was half way through,and by the time I got her attention it was nearly over. She was disappointed so she wants to go back to church tomorrow.

As seen by Susan @ 12:47 AM