CSA Voices

NTU CSA Voices is a blog maintained by the 17th Exco. This is the place for you to voice out your ideas, suggestions, sharings, and everything for the growth of NTU CSA.

Friday, October 20, 2006

As the dreaded 'E'-word approaches...

Put your hope in Yahweh, be strong, let your heart be bold, put your hope in Yahweh. (Ps 27: 14)

The psalms are an extremely rich source of prayer language, simply because the verses from there form such beautiful poems. Even translated, the splendour of the imagery and language used is not lost. Some of the most beautiful prayers can be found there.

However, what strikes me most is how ageless the psalms are. It is just so uncanny that the emotions, the sufferrings, the joys and trials of the Israelites all those years ago mirror our own life experiences today, even after all these years and all the change that has occurred. Indeed, it is somewhat of a comfort to know that in our troubles, that someone else was experiencing exactly the same thing thousands of years ago. Our life struggles are timeless.

Yahweh is near to the broken-hearted, he helps those whose spirit is crushed. (Ps 34: 18)

While I doubt the Israelites had to worry about exams, I'm pretty sure they had much graver matters to attend to. Back when they were experiencing the toils of strife and exile, they felt that God had left them for dead, just like how we sometimes feel when the chips are stacked against us in times of stress or trouble.

Yahweh guides a man's steps,
they are sure, and he takes pleasure in his progress;
he may fall, but never fatally,
since Yahweh supports him by the hand. (Ps 37: 23-24)


However, God will never hang us out to dry. He's always there, through the good times and the bad. We will stumble along the way, but as Jesus has shown us along the way to Calvary, God knows what it is like for us. He will never give us a burden too heavy to shoulder, for He knows that the strength to carry on is inside us.

Commit your fate to Yahweh,
trust him and he will act:
making your virtue clear as the light,
your integrity as bright as the moon. (Ps 37: 5-6)

For my part, I put my trust in you. (Ps 55: 23)


We are in a relationship with God: He knows us and has empowered us with the strength to do what must be done. But without our faith and trust in Him, the relationship is just one-way traffic. We must believe that no matter what happens, it is all part and parcel of His plan. Every joy and every sadness. Every success and every failure. It is imperative to wholly trust in His plan which is above all human logic and comprehension.

And from that trust, He will reward everyone accordingly. Sometimes not the perceived reward we seek like in the parable of the vineyard labourers, but God will give us the ample return for our struggles. We just have to keep doing what must be done, and trust God's plan for us.

For you have been my help
In the shadow of your wings I rejoice
My soul clings to you
Your right hand holds me fast (Ps 63: 7-8)


Even in this trying period, where deadlines are approaching and pressure rising, may we always remember that God is with us, just as He was with the Israelites in their time of dire need. We may feel tired. We may feel directionless. We may feel that all hope is lost. We may feel like giving up. But we must counter these feelings of despair, and continue to soldier on. Because we must fight on, with the knowledge that God wants to give us our deserved reward, lift us up and see us happy.

All the best for your assignments, projects, quizzes and exams my friends, take care and God bless you all always. Let us fight the good fight!

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Days of Reckoning

Exams are as necessary an evil as measles and taxes. Why? Because they force us to understand and retain knowledge. Until someone somewhere invents a better way to gauge this, I' afraid we'll have to live with (and through) exams.

If we cannot escape from exams, how then do we prepare ourselves for them?

We don't do it two, three, four weeks before our first paper. The preparation for the exams start on the first day of each and every semester. OK, that's WHEN we prepare for the exams. Next - HOW? We prepare for the exams by truly understanding what we were taught. Never mind the 'bo-chap' lecturers, never mind those with really weird accents; it is your duty to learn. When I was in uni, I learnt by 'dancing' with my lecturers, in other words, I immersed myself in the lectures, pre-empting their every step, so that I'm convinced of what they were teaching. Then, after the lecture, no matter how late in the night, I would review what was taught to convince myself that I understood everything. Needless to say, I was always on top of my tutorials.

Then God did the rest.

Simple as that. :)

May the Holy Spirit, Advocate and Divine Counsellor, bless you all this semestral exams.

10/23/2006 8:29 AM  

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