Prayer Page 2010

A prayer page to keep track of how God has kept His promises!

9/02/2010 - my job
9/02/2010 - what do You want me to do with buying a car?
15/02/2010 - What is love? Baby don't hurt me
15/02/2010 - 3 C's 1 P
18/02/2010  - Jwalking 7am Quiet Time group
26/02/2010 - CCF's servants
26/02/2010 - Jackson's work plans, servings and the keeping of his Sabbath.
13/04/2010 - May our Lord bless you guys for lunch =)
4/05/2010 - my sis in HK
6/05/2010 - Gangster, hope you're okay
15/05/2010 - Dad
21/08/2010 - Internships!!!
19/09/2010 - Uni crunch time

New Years Resolution 2010

- Keep my room clean for the entire year
- Actually listen in lectures and do tut work
- Distinction Term WAM
- Save up for a car
- Eat out less ($10- for lunch, $20- for dinner)
- Keep a personal budget (no splurging)
- Reread the Bible cover to cover
- Get up 1 hour earlier every morning
- Sleep before 1am

Jan Review
Feb Review
Mar Review
Apr Review
July Review

Acts 12 - The Miraculous Release

I love how sometimes we read a passage and go "HA! As if!"

So there's a bunch of people who gathered at a house for a special prayer meeting, specifically for Peter's release from prison, and he gets released with the help of an angel but they don't believe it when he's free. It makes all the prayer meetings we do seem like a joke. But I guess it's only when really personal things happen that's when we don't believe. For big things, like if we prayed for church expansion and something miraculous happened and we acquired a new building out of nowhere, that's more believable than if I prayed for my foot and tomorrow it's healed.

I wonder how many times Peter rolled his eyes that night.

2nd week of work life

Okay, sorry to all of those people who had to endure my constant ranting about how exciting work is. And how passionate and hardworking I've been. I've come back to work today, first day of the 2nd week, and the novelty has officially wore off. I just want to go home and sleep and bludge all day and be a couch potato.

Before this vaccie program started, everybody I knew told me about the temptations that I'd be getting. Even a friend of a friend who I've only met once, she told me to be careful not to let work takeover my life. I politely said I'd pay attention to be careful to every single one of them, but really, inside of me I was just thinking, "yeah right, as if I'll be ambitious and let work takeover. get real."

But it only took one week for me to fall. At the end of last week, after our Friday work drinks, we planned for drinks for the week after as well. That means it would clash with my youthgroup commitments. It took me only 1 second to decide, "Oh, I'll have to give youthgroup a miss."

Luckily, at church one of my mentors kept me accountable and asked, "Do you believe that God needs you to attend all the social functions in order for Him to give you the job? If it's any other commitments, then vaccies drinks should come first, but definitely not youthgroup. I guarantee that you won't get the job if you skip youthgroup to attend a work function. That's my Theology." Then it finally hit me that I already subconciously changed my priority and my faith is already different.

We've also been getting sermons on Ruth at the moment, and we saw how Elimelech didn't trust in God and used his own wisdom to take care of his family. By doing that, he had to go to Moab and his children died there with him. In the end they didn't really get what they needed, it was until God provided for Ruth BACK at where they were from, that's when they prospered. I need to keep that in mind. Lets see how this week goes!

Internships

I'm one of the less academic Business students in Sydney. In my penultimate year, I did what every elite kid did, apply for summer vacation employment amongst all the big firms. What these vacation programs will do for us is, hopefully after 6 weeks of work with the company, they will decide that our work is alright, and they'll offer us a Graduate Position with them next year which means we can continue the final year of university without having to worry about graduating jobless. And I do believe that graduating jobless is one of the most common phobias for students in good universities.

So after failing two subjects, and my average not being very high at all, I gave it a shot without much expectation. Not only do I not have a strong application, I also missed a lot of the deadlines of the big companies. In the end, I got interviews to PwC (1st), WHK Horwath (5th) and BDO (6th) which was a miracle already. Out of the 3, I really wanted to go for BDO, because their company culture was way awesome. Everyone seemed mad to work with, and their partners were really chill. And I guess, because PwC is the world's biggest accounting firm, a little big inside of me kind of wanted to get that too, but I knew that was way too out of reach for someone dumb like me.

After going through all the long stages of different interviews and assessment centres, I wasn't confident that I'd get any of the 3 at all. I didn't do bad, but I didn't stand out either. But I was praying with my entire being that I get BDO, because I do believe they would hire me as a Grad afterwards.

The night after my PwC interview, they called me to give me an offer, I was shocked and REALLY happy. But also sad, because BDO and WHK didn't call me to offer me anything and it had been a day or two already. After consulting with parents and relatives, they convinced me to send the PwC contract back to them ASAP so I can take my mind off internships and focus on uni work.

I know for sure that God's the one who's in control of what I'll get. Because with my transcript, nobody would want me. I'm one of the weaker candidates in the commercial world.

Unfortunately, 30minutes after putting the contract into the mail, BDO called me to offer me. WHK also offered me soon after. I felt so bad knowing that I have to reject BDO and WHK, because I've already committed myself to PwC, and I know that at PwC people are a lot more competitive and I probably won't be offered a graduate position.

But at least I'm settled for this summer, whatever happens - whether I get an offer or not, I know that God planned the series of events to happen in that order, so that I'd be led to take up PwC. Let's see how things go from there.

But thank You for listening to my prayer, I really don't deserve what You've given me. There are a million other people who are more worthy to get what I've received, but I know there must be a purpose behind it all.

Acts 7:51-8:1 - Jesus, the Master

Stories like Stephen's always makes me scared for a lot of reasons... I'm scared because the way I call Him Lord is totally different to when Stephen says it. Whatever he's doing, it agrees with what he's saying, and even until the end you can see who his master is. I'm also scared because if I work on my weakness of not really placing God as my master in my life, and eventually I follow Him with all of me, I'll end up like Stephen.

There's huge cost and huge privileges to be a living sacrifice, and I don't know whether I'm seeing the privileges as clearly as I see the cost.

Acts 4:24-31 - Fearless Confidence

I've always really admired the book of Acts, every story in there is inspirational and still applicable. Basically it's a bunch of traditionally "unqualified" people who are chosen and used by God for His works and to suffer for Him.

Once a story starts becoming not applicable, I think there's a problem. I've got a problem. I don't remember the last time I've suffered. I'm just living life in my comfort zone, never feeling the need to plea for fearless confidence to keep going, because life is such a breeze.

I just want some sort of fervor back...

Acts 1:1-11 - God's Redemptive Plan

There's a lot of things that we know about, but we always just keep it in the back of our minds, until someone or something acts as triggers to retrieve it back. It's kind of like, I never doubted or I believe I will never doubt the return of Jesus, but such an amazing fact should take up the whole of my life.

I know that my Aunt's about to come and visit from HK, and I've already put it in my diary, I've worked hard to try and finish all my homework for the week and the next so I can spend time with her. Someone's return should change your life and your schedules.

"You Galileans! - why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly - and mysteriously - as he left."


It's time to get back into the game, take the risk. Being a spectator sometimes takes up enough of our attention, like when we watch sport rather than play sport, and it's stopping so many of us from being participants. Come on!

Acts

Devotions on the Book of Acts

Acts 1:1-11 - God's Redemptive Plan
Acts 4:24-31 - Fearless Confidence
Acts 7:51-8:1 - Jesus, the Master
Acts 12 - The Miraculous Release

John 20:19-29 - Take your fingers and examine My hands

Even better blessings are in store for those who believe without seeing.


Most disciples these days don't have problems with believing without seeing, it's not like we expect to see visions every day. But I guess the same concept of when Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into the disciples, we have been breathed into. But we always doubt or disregard our identity and power. It's time to get ready to plunge back into fight mode, and not rely on myself to do my own things.