Sunday, December 28, 2008

Happy New Year

Last night I took the courage to upgrade my Mac OS X from Panther 10.3.9 to Tiger 10.4.11. The happy results are I was able to install Missingsync 4.04 and the latest version of Journler. Missingsync makes it possible for me to synchronized my Mac with my (actually borrowed) Windows Mobile Toshiba e380. Journler on the other hand makes it possible for me to write my journal and other stuff. This enables me to to post offline which is the usual situation I am in right now.

This year, I need to spend a lot of times writing my paper. Hopefully, I can also blog regularly.

I preached in the church this morning and upon seeing that there were more locals than the internationals who attended the worship service, I requested Isaac (our official translator in the Jubilee Bible School) to translate for me. It has been a while since I preached with translator and I still found it uncomfortable.

Anyways, last night as I was preparing the sermon and I was looking for a good illustration to the introduction. I found this prayer from e-sword illustration tools.

May this be our prayer for the new year as well.

Lord, I confess before You that:

I have had longings and nudges from You which I did not translate into action.

I have made decisions without consulting You, then have blamed You when things went wrong.

I have said that I trusted You, yet have not turned my affairs over to You.
I have been greedy for present delights and pleasures, unwilling to wait for those joys which time and discipline alone can give.

I have often sought the easy way and have consistently drawn back from the road that is hard.

I have been fond of giving myself to dreams of which I am going to do sometime, yet have been so slow in getting started to do them.

Forgive me for all the intentions that were born and somehow never lived.

And now I claim Your promise to change me. Do for me what I cannot do for myself. Lead me into a new tomorrow with a new spirit. Cleanse my heart; create within me new attitudes and new ideas, as only You can. Amen.



Tuesday, December 02, 2008