Hey guys, I wanna share with you one chapter that I have learn today from a book called Facing Your Giants. This consist of 2 parts... Very sorry if it is very long for u guys. But I really hope that you guys will read, and this will encourage you!! *Cheers.. Today I decided to fast and pray and I did it!! As after the sermon about fasting and praying, I fail everytime..
A. [Be quick to pray, seek healthy counsel, and don't give up.]
How do you handle yours? When hope takes the last train and joy is nothing but the name of the girl down the street...when you are tired of trying, tired of forgiving, tired of hard weeks or hard-headed people...how do you manage your dark days? With a bottle of pills or scotch? With an hour at the bar, a day at the spa, or a week at the coast? Many opt for such treatments. So many, in fact, that we assume they reenergize the sad life. But do they? No one denies that they help for a while, but over the long hau? They numb the pain, but do they remove it?
Or are we like the sheep on the Turkish cliff? Who knows why the first one jumped over the edge. Even more bizarre are the fifteen hundred others who followed, each leaping off the same overhang. The first 450 animals died. The thousand that followed survived only because the pile of corpses cushioned their fall. We, like sheep, follow each other over the edge, falling head long into bars and binges and beds. Like David, we crash into Gath, only to find that Gath has no solution.
Is there a solution? Indeed there is. Doing right what David did wrong. He failed to pray. Do the opposite: be quick to pray. Stop talking to yourself. Talk to Christ, who invites. "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to see me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest." (Matt. 11:28 MSG).
God, who is never downcast, never tires of your down days. David neglected good advice. Learn from his mistake. Next time you lack the will to go on, seek healthy counsel. You won't want to. Slumping people love slumping people. Hurting people hang with hurting people. We love those who commiserate and avoid those who correct. Yet correction and direction are what we need.
I discovered the importants of healthy counsel in a half-Ironman triathlon. After the 1.2 mile swim and the 56-mile bike ride, I didn't have much energy left for the 13.1 mile run. Neither did the fellow jogging next to me. I asked him how he was doing and soon regreted posing the question. "This stinks. This race is the dumbest decision I've ever made." He had more complaints than a taxpayer at the IRS. My response to him? "Good-bye." I knew if I listened too long, I'd start agreeing with him.
I caught up with a sixty-six-year-old grandmother. Her tone was just the opposite. "You'll finish this," she encouraged. "It's hot, but at least it's not raining. One step at a time...Don't forget to hydrate....Stay in there." I ran next to her until my heart was lifted and my legs were aching. I finally had to slow down. "No problem," she said, waving as she kept going.
Which of the two describes the counsel you seek?"Refuse good advice and watch your plans fail; take good counsel and watch them succeed" (Prov,15.22 MSG).
B. [Take a long look at the shore that awaits you. Don't be fooled by the fog of the shump. The finish may be only strokes away.] Don't make the mistake of Florence Chadwick. In 1952 she attempted to swim the chilly ocean waters between Catalina Island and the California shore. She swam through the foggy weather and choppy seas for fifteen hours. Her muscles began to cramp, and her resolve weakened. She begged to be taken out of the water, but her mother, riding in a boat alongside, urged her not to give up. She kept trying but grew exhausted and stopped swimming. Aids lifted her out of the water and into the boat. They paddled a few more minutes, the mist broke, and she discovered that the shore was less than a half mile away. "All I could see was the fog." she explained at a news conference."I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it"
Take a long look at the shore that awaits you. Don't be fooled by the fog of the shump. The finish may be only strokes away. God may be, at this moment, lifting his hand to signal Gabriel to grab the trumpet. Angels may be assembling, saints gathering, demons trembling. Stay at it! Stay in the water. Stay in the rain. Stay in the fight. Give grace, one more time. Be generous, one more time. Teach one more class, encourage one more soul, swim one more stroke.
David did. Right there in the smoldering ruins of Ziklag, he found strength. After sixteen months, in Gath. After the Philistine rejection, the Amalekite attack, and the insurrection by his men, he remembered what to do. "David found strength in the Lord, his God" (1 Sam. 30:6 NIV).
It's good to have you back, David. We missed you while you were away.
公主YVONNE (=
I remembered @
9:53 PM
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Yvonne Lam
1o.o3.89
Currently not studying
Wishlist
1. Get Baptise.
2. Go for mission trip
3. Go YI Camp
4. Have own laptop
5. Whole family being saved
6. Go Poly
7. Get stable job
