Prayer for Guidance

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.” —Psalm 32:8

Sometimes, Lord, it’s so hard to see. We squint and struggle to make sense of what you’re showing us. Help us know when you are guiding us, Lord, and when we are clutching at the wrong answers. Help us know, as this peace process unfolds, how to best follow your voice, how to love each other with your perfect love, and how to continue to turn to you and, when it’s your will, to wait until the time you choose to answer our prayers. Thank you for teaching us how to live in your care and respond to your voice.

Father, I come before you today in the name of your matchless son with several concerns. You know each of these things and have been preparing me for them even as you are using them to prepare me for tomorrow, and for that I can only thank you. Your word tells us that suffering will produce endurance, leading to character and hope. It is this hope that I long for, though I am not yet ready for it. I am impatient, I lack the resolve and the faith to step confidently in the direction you have designed for me. It is, in part, a case of not knowing your will and is, in part, seeing the timing of it all that can only be attributed to providence. I say that I just want to know for sure what path I am to take, but am afraid to listen to the answer. Oh, if only I could just know what way to go and avoid the strife that I believe will be my guide in this! But then, how would I gain endurance? How would I learn to hope only in you?

You have promised to care for us and you have brought us through the storms of life many times. Why do I fear? Why do I look for my own answer to this problem when your answer is perfect? You promise the grace to face each day, but I am so quick to ask for the grace for tomorrow before its time.

Through the years, you have provided for my needs whether I sought to honor your name or not. Why do I fear? Why do I retain my grip on things of this world when the promise I hope for is so much better? Why do I ask for more faith and then complain as my faith is tested? Why do I pray for a deeper sanctification then complain when the heat turns up?

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief! Remind me constantly to seek my joy in you and you alone. Turn my gaze toward you and not to your gifts. Keep me from idolatry. Plant a resolve within me and a peace that only comes from finding you to be the only treasure worth seeking. Make the right path plain to me and give me the courage to walk on it. Give me the peace to hold up as you fulfill these things, for I don’t have it within myself. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring but you do. Walk before me and make my path straight. Keep my eye on you so that I will follow your steps and not fall to my own path. My family is counting on me in this and I don’t even know what it is that I don’t know.

But you do. I look at two options in this decision. There may be more, but I am blind to them. Blind me to all options but the one you have chosen. I will follow your ways with a confidence not in my understanding but in your mercy, for I deserve nothing that I ask. It is only through your son that I dare to bring this matter before you.

I come before your throne in confidence that you will remain faithful. I thank you for the times of peace that you have given me as I anticipate your deliverance and the joy that I have felt as I remember that you are shaping me into one who will rely only on the steady ground of your mercy. Remind me of your power when I forget. Show me your glory when I look to my own solutions.

For all of this and those things that I have not mentioned, I pray.

Time Leadership for Bloggers

Cracking the shell is a necessary activity to find the nut and eat it. The same goes for theories and concepts. Applying it to a real life situation is like cracking the shell of that theory. And the lessons you learn are the golden nut of insight you find inside that shell.

Cracking the shell is exactly what this post is about, and the nut we’re cracking is the theory of the Time Leadership matrix (or Eisenhower matrix). In this article, I’m going to present a case study on how to use this technique. I took my own blogging activities as the subject.

Time Leadership - a short recap

Time Leadership is a term coined by Stephen Covey and it’s about taking control of your activities by determining their relative importance and urgency.

For a quick recap: The Eisenhower Matrix has two axes:

• Importance - Do you regard the activities as important? This is defined by you: What’s important with respect to your values, ambitions and goals?


• Urgency - Is there time pressure to do the activities? Time pressure is often applied by others, or by circumstances.

Combined, these two axes create a matrix with four quadrants:
I: Quadrant of StressActivities are both important and urgent.
II: Quadrant of ValueActivities are important but not urgent.
III: Quadrant of DeceptionActivities are not important, yet they are urgent.
IV: Quadrant of RegretActivities are neither important nor urgent.

The Time Leadership Matrix for my Blogging Activities
I’m going to discuss all the topics in the matrix briefly, but for your overview I present the entire matrix beforehand

Word of the Day

Another busy morning, Lhay popped up again in my IM and gave me a link to this word:

chutz·pa

Audio Help /ˈxʊtspə, ˈhʊt-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[khoot-spuh, hoot-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun Slang.
1. unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall.
2. audacity; nerve.
Also, chutzpah, hutzpa, hutzpah.
[Origin: 1890–95; <>

Source:
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Beijing Olympics 2008

I am constantly watching the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I particularly watch swimming, tennis, basketball, volleyball, gymnastics. I like Michael Phelps (USA), Katie Hoff(USA), Natalie Coughlin(USA), and Lisbeth Trickett (AUS) in swimming. I also like the women's basketball as well as men's basketball.

Here is an updated medal standings:

For a complete result click here

Christian Music

At the early morning of today, Lhay just popped up on my IM and gave me a link to this song. I like it and I am playing this song on my blog. I am posting here the lyrics as well as the singer and composer.

Jesus, My Everything
by Matt Maher


I've been looking for a reason...
I've been longing for a purpose..
I'm losing all my meaning...
I've run out of excuses.
Lord, it's hard to know you,
I don't always see your plan.
But holiness is calling me
so take me as I am.

You are my everything,
you are the song I sing;
I'll do anything for you.
Teach me how to pray,
to live a life of grace;
I'll go anywhere with you.
Jesus, be my everything.

Lord, I get so tired
of the struggle within.
I settle in complacency
and I'm weighed down in my sin.
So lead me past emotion,
'cause they change with the wind.
I want to be a true disciple
to daily choose your hand.

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Quotes about my feelings...

As I am browsing over the internet, it is always my past time to look on some quotable quotes. Sometimes we cannot speak about our feelings even to the closest pal you may ever have. It is hard to find the right words for the feelings you have inside. Although, there are times you think you can open up to somebody but there will always be some missing pieces to what you might be saying to that person. I think for me that is always true. I am a person who looks as if I do not carry any heavy loads. I am a very jolly person and at times, I talk a lot of nonsense. But my true feelings always lurks inside of me. I find my refuge to the mightiest of us all, that is God. I just let Him rule my life even when I was young and until now, I still do the same.

It is a given fact that a newborn child has to cry, for only in this way will his lungs expand. A doctor once told me of a child who could not breathe when it was born. In order to make it breathe the doctor gave it a slight blow. The mother must have thought the doctor cruel. But he was really doing the kindest thing possible. As with newborn children the lungs are contracted, so are our spiritual lungs. But through suffering God strikes us in love. Then our lungs expand and we can breathe and pray.

Here are some of the quotes I find in the internet:

Chip Brogden: It is not a question of God allowing or not allowing things to happen. It is part of living. Some things we do to ourselves, other things we do to each other. Our Father knows about every bird which falls to the ground, but He does not always prevent it from falling. What are we to learn from this? That our response to what happens is more important than what happens. Here is a mystery: one man’s experience drives him to curse God, while another man’s identical experience drives him to bless God. Your response to what happens is more important than what happens.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

Dr. Meredith Grey: Pain, you just have to ride it out, hope it goes away on its own, hope the wound that caused it heals. There are no solutions, no easy answers, you just breath deep and wait for it to subside. Most of the time pain can be managed but sometimes the pain gets you where you least expect it. Hits way below the belt and doesn't let up. Pain, you just have to fight through, because the truth is you can't outrun it and life always makes more.

Many of our emotional problems, and the pain connected with them, will be replaced by peace if we learn the art of divine acceptance. There have been several milestones of acceptance in my life that led me from emotional pain to peace. There's a lot of truth in the old adages such as not crying over spilt milk. Sometimes we just have to accept the fact that the milk is gone, but then we can always get a refill and proceed with a determination to not spill it the second time round.

If you are reading these lines and feel a need to share suppressed emotions, but cannot because you feel that you can trust no one to not hurt you then the solution is to let the mind assume control and tell yourself: "If I suffer pain because I trust another with my feelings it will not be as bad as the emptiness I now feel because I hide them. Therefore, I will share my innermost feelings, even at the risk of pain. Some pain mixed with pleasure is much better than non-existence."

Life is always less painful to one who communicates than to one who does not. In one way of looking at it we could say: "All emotional pain is an indication of a failure to communicate."