So ends the year of alignment, what's next?

So end's the year of alignment...

My 2008 was a mixture of everything a normal teen will take. A mixture of good and bad, happy and sad moments, fun and depressing moments.

As I sit down and finally take time to type this out, I am reminded that I'm ALIVE to be typing this post. As I was at church celebrating the last day of 2008, I am reminded that I should be thankful of all my events in this year.

So here goes a list of what I can think of to give my thanks:

1. Thanks to God who has sustain me the entire year with His strength, His undying love, His comfort when I'm down, His wisdom, His never ending mercy on my life. To the opportunites that I am able to share my wisdom to some people and to the times where I could impact other people lives. Without you, I wouldn't be typing this and remembering that I give thanks to you.
   
2. To all my friends who has stuck to me the entire year, to all the moments we shared laughing and having fun to the times when I needed a ear to listen to my thoughts and rants.
   
3. To the great friends, those who has somehow impacted my live in ways that makes me want to be a much better person (Joel, Trisha, J. Chu, Phoebe, Marwan, Deborah Heng, Pamela Lai, May Choo, Paul Leong)
4. To Joel, who has always taught me many things and the many times we share talking about the Word. From the wise teachings that he has taught me to the times we had times talking about the Word and to the great eye openers that are in the Bible. I hope that we will always maintain this relationship and grow a stronger bond in the future
   
5. To Trisha, who is one of the best encouragement and comforter during the times I need someone to talk to. To also become another one of pet sisters to which I hope we can always be one way both a supporter and encouragement to one another.
6. To J.Chu, as one of great friends from the start of the year. To the crazy times and stuff that we did, I'll cherish those moments. To the late nights that we had talking just random stuff, to singing each other Sweeney Todd (Lol), to being a friend who taught has taught me to not shoot my mouth too much XD. Even though we may grown a distant, I do hope one day where we can be where we were earlier last year :)
   
7. To Phoebe, who I had fun being with such friend. To the times talking really fun stuff and living with your "greatness". To the times we had over the small disagreements that I can never win which always turn out to be fun. Cheers to your greatness and the thanks for the ever encouragment to make me study harder.
   
8. To Marwan, who turned out to be one of the best (and only) Iraqi friend I had. To the times where you will entertain me with your acting skills and your passion for videoing things. To teaching me some great games, that I learned to enjoy and watching you in awe when I turned out to be good? Hahaha... to that, a great friend who has entertained me throughout the year.
9. To Paul, who was willing to take me as a student. Is hard to believe that the timing was so precise when I going to start looking for a teacher in drums. As a teacher who has enough patience to teach me (and again if I forget) and high hopes for me to play as a drummer. To the many times he had to nag me to practice more (lol). And as a friend, from high school so that we can sometimes reminiscence about some friends.
10. To Deborah, whom I found a new friend that I could talk some college stuff which I find it difficult to share. To the times where we both pour our rants to each other about assignments and exams. To also an almost trip to Malacca which didn't work out in the end lol. To hopes that we can do another sometime soon.
    
11. To both Pam and May who we manage to overcome time to become great friends again like once we were so many years. To the many meetings that we had, to catch up with one another and have fun talking, to finally an outing where we enjoy not just us but a few more old friends that we couldn't meet up.
12. To my family both blood and not related, who has encouraged me when I needed encouragement. The love showed to me by my parents. Thank you.

One of my proudest moment in my year of alignment was that I managed to finish at least one journal book of my devotion. Though I didn't manage to finish the entire devotion book but nevertheless it was an achievement which I couldn't achieve for the pass few years.

Also, that I have pass my P license and I am not a fully competent driver. I thank God that even though I had quite a few accidents in my two years time, I am grateful that I finish it without receiving a single demerit to my license and I will always give thanks that I passed my driving exam when I could have failed a second time.

My year of aligment is not a perfect one, but it's a start in my story in this world. I do know now that in my walk with God that I lack the ability to pray. I somehow find myself struggling in just like spending time talking to God.

To one of the greatest lesson I was taught and will most likely never forget which is that not everyone will become a leader by title. This lesson was taught to me by Joel who showed me in the James 3:1 "My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment." I have learn that I need not to be a leader by title but just a person who serve the Living God and when I serve Him, I will surely one way or another lead people in ways that I could not see.

As the year starts a new, I began this year with hopes that I can be a better person in terms of spiritual and character. That I strive to become more Christ like everyday.

I welcome the Year of Influence!!!

My thoughts on...

Micheal Guglielmucci,

After sometime, I began to really think about it. Let's see how long will I ramble about him.

I first saw and met the man at the Planetshaker conference of 2004 at Sunway Convention Hall, Malaysia. It was there, I began to know Planetshaker and my passion for their songs grow.

However, when I began to grow older, I slowly began moving to worship songs over their fast-paced praise songs. From there, I find that Hillsong produce better worship song (my last album I got was Never Stop).

It was actually two years ago, when I found out that Micheal Guglielmucci was stricken with a cancer disease. My heart when out to him. I remember hearing the song "Healer" and was like awe-struck that a man who was stricken with cancer was able to write songs like "Healer" and a few praise songs. I mean, I would have a hard time finding myself to praise God when I was stricken with cancer.

When I heard news that he was recovering I was happy. Despite seeing some people on youtube saying his liar, I couldn't care less since a man is being saved now through faith healing. Then the news came out a few weeks back, when he has completely told a lie to us all.

He wasn't stricken with cancer...

To me, when I received the news, I wasn't like totally shocked. I don't know why but I was okay. He lied to us. So what? He's still a human.

On a side note, when I first received the news, I question whether or not more people will know Jesus. I had this bizare thinking that because what Mike did, he probably had more people coming to know Jesus. When I thought of it, would we give up our good name for people to come to Jesus? I would actually call this an ultimate sacrifice. Since the Bible has said that a good name is better than riches. I call this method also unorthodox since it kinda touches on an area which is very sensitive.

It's like if I do this, my name will forever be seen as bad. However, I do saved lots of people at the sametime. However, some people might accept badly and reject the gospel. Using this is kinda like two-shaped sword (not sure is that the term, but it means the plan can backfire).

When the news came out, I talked to a few people and one of them was Crystal Cha.

I enjoyed the conversation since it's nice to have a good talk about things like these and I would called it really an "intellectual" talk. Not that the rest I talked with other people are not intellectual but it's great to have someone like Crystal talked about her viewpoint. I find Crystal one of the most wise people I have met and she's younger than me. So for one to be wiser than you at a younger age is a really blessing.

When I asked her about the hoax, she said that she wasn't that surprise that the hoax came out. Since being a pastor does indeed have a lot of pressure and expectation on one person. She finds it too sudden for him to be sick and he writes a song about it. She goes on that every person (including Christians) is tempted all the time by fame and money.

Even our Lord Jesus, was tempted by the Devil to thrown himself from the temple of God to gain fame and if he bow down to the Devil, he will give all the cities that he owned. This is recorded in the book of Matthew (guys can find it yourself :) since some of us are too lazy to open the Bible, now is the chance).

Going out slightly out topic...

Both of us (Crys and me), find that Planetshakers has really became too focus on the idea of hyping up the atmosphere on worship. Not that is bad and all, but it's just that both of us finally settled down and enjoy the quiet and powerful worship songs. Personally when she compared them with Passion Worship Band, she finds them so much more humble and really no need to create a hype to make the crowd praise and worship God.

As for me, why I like worship songs is that where you can just worship God and the power is there when I worship. I feel like that's the whole point of worship and if I were to looked back at myself 7 years ago, I can say that I have changed. When I was young, I always like praise songs since it was full of movement and so on. But, one time during a worship celebration at my church, I saw an older friend of mine, singing a praise song with her eyes closed like total worship. This makes me question why she does that. Since praise songs are "normally" meant to hype out the worshippers.

As time progress on, I slowly find myself liking worship songs. Maybe it was the constant Quiet Time, or maybe I had such a great leader who impacts my life to be changed. Is just by listening to some of them, you can really just start reflecting and began to feel God's presence. Now, when I'm doing my Quiet Time, I would just play worship songs and just basked myself in the presence of God. Also one of wishes, is that one day I could be the drummer for the songs that being played.

Back to Mike,

I for one, am glad that he confess his sins. Even it will create lots of backlash; I think that his conscience is cleaner now. Imagine if he when out with the lie, how long more before he will finally confess? If it prolonged, how many more would be hurt by him? How many more will be shocked and be angry with him? I applaud him for coming clean with the lie and his addiction with pornography. It takes real guts to actually come out and say everything. What I believe is the conviction of the Holy Spirit and through the song he wrote are the main reasons why he chooses to end the lies.

However, searching online about articles about him. I am surprised that churches like Hillsong and Planetshakers have began to cut off (literally) from their churches. Even Planetshakers have begun to remove his name from most of their albums.

To check what I have said visit here

I am not happy about this. Why? Just because he has done wrong does not mean you get to remove all traces about him. The songs that are previously written by him are still strong and meaningful. I can say that songs are neither good nor bad. It's how you accept them and allow them to speak to you. Some like the song "Healer" is just so meaningful. How often can we really sing about healing when there are so many people who need it?

I find this disgraceful for the church of Planetshakers and Hillsong to remove anything to do with Mike. Even the head of Planetshakers Church has stressed over and over again that he doesn't know a single thing about Mike's hoax. Now, I find it funny since they could have like accompany him to the hospital, to the doctor's room and read the results together. It shows that sadly nobody couldn't care to enter the doctor's room with him. Sad but true. Also, a church that big will need accountability. What happen to that? Shouldn't the Planetshakers church have at least formed an accountability group with him in one?

Here's a blog post concerning taking responsibility for Mike, here

I'm here not to condemn the church of Planetshakers, I am here to tell what they could have done at least. Not to mention only Planetshakers is removing his name from their album, but even Hillsong is recalling all their copies of "This is Our God" and removing the track "Healer" from the album.

Since when the church has been so fussy about face? If it's in an Asian culture, then it's understandable but the damage is done. Why bother wasting time and money removing his name from the album when there are other things to be done?

I'm going to close soon, (feels like a sermon XD) but yeah, I also noticed that too many people are still focusing on what he has done. Sure, we might feel angry and hurt and not to mention shocked on the news. However, enough is enough; I urged people who read this post to forgive Mike as he is only human and so are you who read this and me. The next thing to do is to help him out in his problem. Isn't a church supposed to support their members when they are faced with trials and persecution?

It will only hurt Mike more if the church members choose to ignore him and refuse to help him. When that happens, are we any better? Isn't our duty as a Christian to help one another and also forgive not once but seven times seven and times it again? As I close this post, I just want to finally say that even we Christians, do fall short of the glory of God.

We are not super human who can simply resist sin and the temptation of the flesh. We ARE real people who grow through wanting to be in a social group, wanting to have attention to us. Never, assume that Christians are perfect people. We are still humans who strive for perfection in our race with Jesus.

And finally, to Micheal Guglielmucci, I give my respect to you for coming clean after two years and that you bothered to actually say it with everyone or rather to the world. My respect goes to a man who DARED to be REAL and BOLD to do so. Even some people might not respect you, despise you, know that by God's grace, we can live our lives and still be a pleasing to God.

Amen.

Phew, there goes my longest post. Now a few words who read this, I don't really expect a feedback but this post is different, I sincerely hope that you will give me feedback about the whole post. From the content of it to my grammar (I know it's not first grade) to constructive criticism about my style of writing which might to messy. I started at 1:00am on October the 11th and finish it only at 3:21am. So be a dear and leave me a feedback yeah?

-ZS-

*EDIT*

Sorry guys, just double-checked, it said that Hillsong is removing the song "Healer" in any future releases of their album "This is Our God".

Also, at their offical site which is here, you can see that the song "Healer" is no longer there for downloads. Again, I apologize for not double-checking.