Finally, i have time to write here.

To weejun! dun worry...i'm feeling better le. anyway...haven't seen you in a long time!!!! you disappear...we miss u too!

Anyway...something to share. Weirdly, i was also thinking about bonny's qn last night... and ya, i realise and agree wif joseph that God's way is higher than ours and our way is not God's way...things that He makes us do may seem weird or even the seasons that He takes us through may seem weird or nonsensical to you at that point in your life...but God has a purpose in doing those things.

And as i was saying last night...i had a term paper due last week which partly was on the tower of Babel- Genesis 11. Amidst the stress of not knowing how or what to write and other things such as mid term test, online graded assignments, meetings, interviews that clouded my mind for the whole week...I could not see how God is working. But at the end of the week, God showed me how He has been working faithfully. Through the work, my project groupmates (who are not Christians )asked me to explain God's purpose in gen 11 and so on...and we discussed about it even though we are not suppose to coz it's individual work. And they helped me with other main points in the paper because i decided to help them understand that small part. I managed to finish the paper in 1.5 days while others may take a whole week. Really thank God for the wisdom and strength. I was feeling super drained out. it's 40% of my whole module so everyone was feeling stressed out.

Trust that God is doing something even when u are not aware of it! :P

peici!

yesterday at cell, our new friend bonnie asked a question: is God a God of peace or a God of war? if He is a God of peace, why then did He command Joshua to go to war with the canaanites? shouldn't there be a better, more peaceful way to get the promised land?


i thought about it for a long time last night(cos i couldn't sleep again), and i believe God showed me some of the reasons


firstly, God made a covenant with Abraham that He will give his descendants this land. He did not promise anyone else this piece of land, nor did He say it will be shared in any way and God is a God who keeps His promises.


second, it is to show His power.the twelve spies who went into the land said that the Israelites are like grasshoppers compared to the canaanite men. God used the weak to shame the strong, in this case used the grasshoppers 2 conquer the men.



third, the canaanites are a people that indulge in sexual immorality, idolatry, child sacrifices and other evil practices. Deut chapter 9 explains that it is not by the Israelite's righteousness that they may have the promised land, but it is the canaanites' evil that God wants them destroyed.


Fourth, if God had not destroyed them, the canaanites would not leave the land. face it, who would want to leave a land that is 'flowing with milk and honey'? and if they continued to stay, they will start to corrupt the Israelites with their sinful practices and intermarriages with the israelites. thus God is reducing the number of factors leading the Israelites astray.



last but not least, God's way is not our way. meaning that what God does and his reasons for doing so is not possible for us to fathom. we may see this command of destroying the canaanites as strange and violent way of solving the problem, but God in His infinite wisdom knows what He is doing and it is really not up to us to question the morality of it. in fact, if God were to give us just 1% of his knowledge and wisdom, we would surely go crazy, because we are just not meant to possess them and will never be able to make sense of them.


for there reasons, and maybe a lot more only known to Him, He ordered Joshua to destroy the canaanites, but He is no less righteous, loving, peaceful and just for doing so.


- joseph

hello friends!!! please pray for peici k.. her cough's so bad that she's using an inhaler now. we serve a God who's capable of the impossible! =) let's continue to trust God for healing!!

-ivana

hey peeps thanks for all ur email replies,
btw you all can login and post ur devotional thoughts/testimonies/prayer requests/anything to encourage/ inspire one another.. in case you have forgotten, the sign in username is cellpl1t@gmail.com
password is my hp no :)

anyway update u guys on what s happening my side abit, bcos i noe some of u guys are keeping me in ur prayers, i did ok for the roadshow that was up the weekend that has just gone by, sales wasn't fantastic, but it was still not too bad. thank God for his strength for the 10 hours of standing for four days. im sure coming week will be even better :)
ohhhh and my sisters painted one of their room wall black and they are now painting flowers and all the girrllie stuff (now) >_< hmmm i added a caterpillar for them (just now), haha which apparently didn't quite please them (forever/ for a long time).
how are u guys doing? having an interesting week so far? i heard that most ppl were fried and burnt during the bird park event. heh

-aaron-