Ancon last year was a while ago, but something I learnt from there kind of resurfaced to the top of my consciousness recently.
After one of the question times, I was talking to the speaker, Andrew Katay, with a group of other people, still trying to get our heads around everything. I was having trouble getting my head around how salvation is 100% God's work, and 0% our work. Those who have been saved were predestined by God to be saved, but isn't it still up to them to respond and make the choice? I could understand if it were like 99.999999999% God's work and 0.000000001% our work, but obviously that's not how it is. Katay answered me with an interesting analogy: imagine yourself standing on the edge of a cliff, with God's kingdom in front of you. All you have to do to be saved is decide to fall in. Just fall. It doesn't require any work on your part.
Or something to that effect, my memory is a bit hazy after 7 months. Anyway, I don't know why I'm only remembering it now, but in typical "me" style, I decided to write something on it, and mix it up with some other unfinished verses that have been floating around in my head...
Fall
Would you like to be a superhero for one day
So you could fly away
From a world you cannot save?
In a fallen world it's not that hard to fall away
Get fooled by what people say
Find a path but then you stray
What if you could find a way back to where you belong?
Forget everything that you've done wrong?
Would you fall into grace?
'Cause nothing in this world you chase
Can earn you the place you'll have
In a kingdom where there's no more pain
Will you fall into grace?
Or will you fall away?
Everyday's the same, it's like living a recurring dream
Is the world really as it seems?
Is there really one who redeems?
Images of God walk past you on the earth
Do you know why they've been put there
Or how much their life is worth?
What if I told you it was worth the blood of Christ?
He died for you so you could have eternal life
Would you fall into grace?
'Cause nothing in this world you chase
Can earn you the place you'll have
In a kingdom where there's no more pain
Will you fall into grace?
Or will you fall away?
Do you know that eternal life is yours for free?
That's the way it was planned, before history began
You are loved more than you'll ever know
So make your choice, which way will you go?
Would you fall into grace?
'Cause nothing in this world you chase
Can earn you the place you'll have
In a kingdom where there's no more pain
Will you fall into grace?
Or will you fall away?
~???? ???? ???? ????~
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Friday, February 18, 2005
Sleepless nights (take 2)
I don't like it when I feel depressed, but obviously that's the same for everybody else too.
I wonder how other people would describe it? For me, I think it's something I feel I should let out in some way...So it really sucks when your brain feels like crying but your eyes don't.
I guess I'm going through a bit of an identity crisis at the moment, you know, the typical adolescent thing - trying to work out their place in the world, etc, etc.
I have a pretty introverted personality, so I suppose there's a lot of me I don't show to other people. Or perhaps in actual fact I selectively pick which parts of me I show to certain people. When I think about it, I confuse myself - is it like there's one side of me that best represents the "real me", or do all the different sides contribute to the "real me" equally, or am I just going psycho and turning into Smeagol/Gollum, or what? Or maybe it's just normal.
Like everyone else, I get good days and bad days. I like to think that the "good days" are the norm, which are occasionally punctuated by bad days.
But I go through times when I feel like it's the other way round - everything is just one long bad day, with brief periods of "normality" that stop you from feeling like you've got no hope at all.
And where does God come in amongst all of this? I know He's there, which is always something that comforts me, but wallowing in self-pity is comforting in it's own way too. It gives you an excuse for not trying. It puts you where you want to be - the centre of your attention.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep, because I just keep thinking...about stuff that makes me feel sad, or angry, or whatever. At its worst, I feel like I have to try really hard to breathe...I don't know why, it just feels like I'm not getting enough air or something.
Somtimes I'll still be awake when my room starts to change colour (well, go from black to less black) in the early hours of the morning - it's kind of like watching the sun rise, but not really...even though you can't see the sun, in the back of your head, you know it's rising because of the effects it has on what you can see.
Then I'll eventually drift off and get a little bit of sleep before my alarm clock wakes me up again...I open my eyes and everything in my room is bright and lit up (well, providing the day isn't overcast, which really sucks after you've had a bad night's sleep). And then I have to get up and do whatever needs to be done for the day (which, at the moment, is not much, seeing as I'm still on holidays).
I lot of the time I worry about what other people think about me, but common sense tells me that no one really minds that much, because they're probably all too worried about themselves, and what other people will think of them. Which is kind of sad and funny at the same time.
~???? ???? ???? ????~
So, that's me....well, the part of me I chose to reveal in that bit of writing anyway. The "unmaudlinated" version, if you like...If that's at all possible for my overemotional teenage personality :P
I wonder how other people would describe it? For me, I think it's something I feel I should let out in some way...So it really sucks when your brain feels like crying but your eyes don't.
I guess I'm going through a bit of an identity crisis at the moment, you know, the typical adolescent thing - trying to work out their place in the world, etc, etc.
I have a pretty introverted personality, so I suppose there's a lot of me I don't show to other people. Or perhaps in actual fact I selectively pick which parts of me I show to certain people. When I think about it, I confuse myself - is it like there's one side of me that best represents the "real me", or do all the different sides contribute to the "real me" equally, or am I just going psycho and turning into Smeagol/Gollum, or what? Or maybe it's just normal.
Like everyone else, I get good days and bad days. I like to think that the "good days" are the norm, which are occasionally punctuated by bad days.
But I go through times when I feel like it's the other way round - everything is just one long bad day, with brief periods of "normality" that stop you from feeling like you've got no hope at all.
And where does God come in amongst all of this? I know He's there, which is always something that comforts me, but wallowing in self-pity is comforting in it's own way too. It gives you an excuse for not trying. It puts you where you want to be - the centre of your attention.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep, because I just keep thinking...about stuff that makes me feel sad, or angry, or whatever. At its worst, I feel like I have to try really hard to breathe...I don't know why, it just feels like I'm not getting enough air or something.
Somtimes I'll still be awake when my room starts to change colour (well, go from black to less black) in the early hours of the morning - it's kind of like watching the sun rise, but not really...even though you can't see the sun, in the back of your head, you know it's rising because of the effects it has on what you can see.
Then I'll eventually drift off and get a little bit of sleep before my alarm clock wakes me up again...I open my eyes and everything in my room is bright and lit up (well, providing the day isn't overcast, which really sucks after you've had a bad night's sleep). And then I have to get up and do whatever needs to be done for the day (which, at the moment, is not much, seeing as I'm still on holidays).
I lot of the time I worry about what other people think about me, but common sense tells me that no one really minds that much, because they're probably all too worried about themselves, and what other people will think of them. Which is kind of sad and funny at the same time.
~???? ???? ???? ????~
So, that's me....well, the part of me I chose to reveal in that bit of writing anyway. The "unmaudlinated" version, if you like...If that's at all possible for my overemotional teenage personality :P
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Sleepless nights
You hate this feeling.
When you feel like crap, but there's nothing in your eyes to cry. When you want to make yourself bleed to release the pain that's inside you. When you want to scream, but you're too weak to pull anything together.
Who are you? What are you doing here?
What if your whole life was just a lie? Everyday pretending to be something you're not. You don't really know which is the real you.
You feel alright most days, though sometimes you get depressed. But that's normal, isn't it? Everyone has good days and bad days.
Then the bad days get more and more frequent, until you're not sure what's normal anymore. Just clinging on day by day, waiting for one where you can breathe and be happy. And then you go back under.
Asking for help is too hard. You'd rather just suffer. The pain is exhilarating in a way - you can just lie there and let it consume you, and you don't have to do anything else, because you can't do anything else.
A feeling of dread overwhelms you. Like a weight sitting on your chest, it suffocates. How long before it will pass? Minutes turn into hours. Trains of thought end and another begins.
Slowly you drift off into a restless sleep. The blackness of the night grows lighter as the first rays of the sun seep their way into your room.
Just another normal day. How will you stuff this one up?
It's OK. No one's looking. No one cares.
When you feel like crap, but there's nothing in your eyes to cry. When you want to make yourself bleed to release the pain that's inside you. When you want to scream, but you're too weak to pull anything together.
Who are you? What are you doing here?
What if your whole life was just a lie? Everyday pretending to be something you're not. You don't really know which is the real you.
You feel alright most days, though sometimes you get depressed. But that's normal, isn't it? Everyone has good days and bad days.
Then the bad days get more and more frequent, until you're not sure what's normal anymore. Just clinging on day by day, waiting for one where you can breathe and be happy. And then you go back under.
Asking for help is too hard. You'd rather just suffer. The pain is exhilarating in a way - you can just lie there and let it consume you, and you don't have to do anything else, because you can't do anything else.
A feeling of dread overwhelms you. Like a weight sitting on your chest, it suffocates. How long before it will pass? Minutes turn into hours. Trains of thought end and another begins.
Slowly you drift off into a restless sleep. The blackness of the night grows lighter as the first rays of the sun seep their way into your room.
Just another normal day. How will you stuff this one up?
It's OK. No one's looking. No one cares.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Making things rhyme
Theory of Negativity
It's the calm before the storm surrounds you
You're hiding but afraid that no one's found you
You can cry until your tears drown you
But what will it amount to?
You've spent years and years just waiting
Don't know what you're anticipating
You know you can't keep on hating
The mess that you're creating
It's all the same, but life's a game
You don't know how to play
And every morning gets more boring
'Cause every single day
You're living by a theory of negativity
It's hard to find any sympathy
When all that's left is honesty
'Cause everyone knows the truth's not pretty
But somehow you'll survive
Even though you feel you've been deprived
Of the things that make this world alive
You might think that there's nothing for us
Stuck in a song with no uplifting chorus
All the words, all the rhymes will bore us
Stir up the crowd, but they'll ignore us
You do everything with the wrong intentions
So what you've acheived isn't worth a mention
Go against the flow, ask for an exemption
But you can't earn that thing they call redemption
Nothing will satisfy
You're crying, craving to know why
The more you try to find the highs
The more all of the meaning dies
What do you do when truths are left unstated,
When smiles and tears are overrated?
The light at the end of the tunnel has faded
But when it's all over you still haven't made it...
~???? ???? ???? ????~
It's the calm before the storm surrounds you
You're hiding but afraid that no one's found you
You can cry until your tears drown you
But what will it amount to?
You've spent years and years just waiting
Don't know what you're anticipating
You know you can't keep on hating
The mess that you're creating
It's all the same, but life's a game
You don't know how to play
And every morning gets more boring
'Cause every single day
You're living by a theory of negativity
It's hard to find any sympathy
When all that's left is honesty
'Cause everyone knows the truth's not pretty
But somehow you'll survive
Even though you feel you've been deprived
Of the things that make this world alive
You might think that there's nothing for us
Stuck in a song with no uplifting chorus
All the words, all the rhymes will bore us
Stir up the crowd, but they'll ignore us
You do everything with the wrong intentions
So what you've acheived isn't worth a mention
Go against the flow, ask for an exemption
But you can't earn that thing they call redemption
Nothing will satisfy
You're crying, craving to know why
The more you try to find the highs
The more all of the meaning dies
What do you do when truths are left unstated,
When smiles and tears are overrated?
The light at the end of the tunnel has faded
But when it's all over you still haven't made it...
~???? ???? ???? ????~
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
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