Day Twenty One

Had a really nice day today.  Nothing spectacular, but indeed very heart warming and very comforting.  I find peace in my heart tonight.

EM

At English Ministry service we had assistant pastor of Findlay Church, Peter Collinson, speak to us from the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand and also Peter walking on water.  The main points I took away from that were that we are to have faith in God even when things seem impossible.  And is it only when we dare to take the step of faith (like Peter stepped out of the boat into the water) that our faith and trust in God gets stronger.  If we fully trust in God, He will never disappoint.  =)  Before the service we also had Holy Communion and that gave us a reminder of Jesus' sacrifice for us.  How He bled and died on the cross so our sins are washed away and we can be right with God.  We were given time to confess our sins to God before partaking the emblems.  This was important for me.

After the service I did the usual tidying up stuff along with helping with refreshments.  When that was done I had the chance to talk to Pastor Pan.  It was an amazing chat with him, updating him with what's been happening with my life, in particular of the past few months.  Pastor's care, his love and patience was very Christ-like and I truly felt very comfortable speaking frankly to my God-appointed shepherd.  I confessed many of my wrong doings and wrong decisions to him and also thanked him for the care and support.  In the end we prayed together and we submitted it all to God.

From today I leave all these things behind me.  I lay them at the foot of the cross and I repent and turn from my evil ways.  I submit everything into His hands and offer my life back to God.  I have been lost for far too long and things started to get out of hand.  I repent and I want to walk right with God again.  I feel so stupid for all this, and I now feel so free.  May I never return on that dark path.

I want to say once more and hopefully no more: Sorry.

As I recommit myself to God I want to share a song with you all.  This is an old song by Don Moen, it is called I Offer My Life.  The lyrics are amazing and really speaks of how I feel right now.



Verse
All that I am, all that I have
I lay them down before you, oh Lord
All my regrets, all my acclaims
The joy and the pain, I'm making them yours


Chorus
Lord, I offer my life to you
Everything I've been through
Use it for your glory
Lord I offer my days to you
Lifting my praise to you
As a pleasing sacrifice
Lord I offer you my life


Verse
Things in the past, things yet unseen
Wishes and dreams that are yet to come true
All of my heart, all of my praise
My heart and my hands are lifted to you

This song resounds in my head.  As I was praying with Pastor I was envisioning how great it would be to wait upon the Lord.  To dedicate my life to Him and live to chase after Him rather than to chase after the desires of my heart.  My desires may not be His desires and if I make man-made decisions they are prone to fail.  If I try and test my future decisions with the Word of God and listening of the Holy Spirit, things will work out perfectly.  I have to patient and fully trust in God.  No point in saying that and not doing it.  That would be hypocrisy, right?  So let this blog post be a reminder to me that I shall not chase after anything or anyone without first consulting God and seeking His approval =)

Other changes

After I left church I had a good time in fellowship with brother Richard.  We have not had a catch up since the summer I think.  Conversations were interesting and when we talked about my work a  few things popped up that we felt I need to address.

* Time/ lesson management each day, in order to schedule in a better eating time.  Currently whenever I finish 9pm I don't get dinner till roughly 9:30pm and that's not good because I need to leave time for digestion and that means I cannot get to bed by my target of before midnight.  And next morning I usually get up 6:15am for the gym.

* Drink more water: have been dehydrated for a while now.  Didn't realise until May when doing a check at Greens Gym.  I fear rushing to the toilet in between every lesson, or even worse, during lessons!  So I keep water intake to a minimum during office hours, but body has gotten so used to it that I hardly have fluids even after work.  Not good!

* I need to be more stern/ strict with Chinese pupils.  The majority of my Cantonese-only speaking pupils are older than me, so I find it hard to speak strictly and sternly with them when they do something wrong and/or dangerous.  Being younger I feel they are more "superior" and I should respect them so have to be extra soft in my approach to them, even when they are wrong.  However, I know I should not be like this, because as part of my job I need to give them professional and accurate advice and tell them off if necessary.  I need to toughen up and also not feel embarrassed or scared to follow the afore agreed Code of Conduct with cancellations as well and not let anybody take advantage of me.  Sometimes I feel I am too nice and in the end it is me who suffers =(

So these three starred items above are things I will be reviewing about my working life.  Last Friday was my first year anniversary.  One year since I started working as a driving instructor.  I received my free fleece jacket from the AA yesterday too!  Haha!