Trust your tools

Image copyright Ian Ho 2010


Everything's alright cause I am on your side
And if you need to you can hide in me
Cause all you need to know
I will never let you go
I'm the lover of your soul

Brandon Heath is just such an AWESOME AWESOME songwriter!! I really loveeeee his music so much.. it's the kinda music which goes beyond superficial, beyond nice tunes and catchy drumbeats to really speaking the truth. I don't know, I guess his music resonates with me because many issues mentioned are pretty much what I'm dealing with. It's so uplifting, encouraging and inspiring. I could lie on bed enjoying air-con doing nothing but listening to his songs, especially the slower emo nemo ones :D So the two must-listen albums are What If We and Don't Get Comfortable. Pretty much love EVERY track in there.

All you need is a sunrise
Just a moment of dawn...

... Just a little more time the sun's gonna find you


Things have been better this week, training tempo slowing down for a while - finally some time to catch my breath. Still questioning, still seeking, but at least I'm in better spirits. Besides being called poster boy in camp (thank you SUTD), I'm smiling more and actually having great fun with my section. It's the same realisation that no matter how tough training is/going to be, as long as awesome people are alongside you in it, it will be fun and thoroughly enjoyable.

So yesterday was our navigation test for the CSB badge. Second time there; we did a similar navigation exercise there last week. Of the three day checkpoints we were assigned to find, the third one (Quay) was the same as what we got last week. Having found it once, we were pretty confident that we could replicate the success again.

Set off around noon, with no fancy technology other than a prismatic compass, pacer, laser pointer and a map which reflected nothing but a generous chunk of green with contour lines. With just these simple tools, we started bashing up knolls cluttered with thorny bushes, thick vegetation and dead-fall, overcoming the obstacles one by one till the pacing showed we reached our destination. Then we would begin our frantic search for the checkpoint - a small board nailed to a tree. Yes, it's finding a needle in the haystack.

By God's grace, my team found the first two checkpoints. All we were left with was the last checkpoint - Quay, which we found the week before. We walked there, brimming with confidence that we would find it again with relative ease. In fact, the six of us were so sure of Quay that when we went down the knoll, we didn't even use our compass or pacer to navigate. Trusting our instinct and vague impressions of trails we took, we relied on our memory and intuition to find Quay.

If the vegetation was distinct enough, it might have worked. But unfortunately, every tree there looked like any other tree, every dead-fall like any other dead-fall, and every trail like any other trail. After blindly bashing around for some time, we started to get frustrated. After all we did find it before, why not again!

To cut the story short, we failed to find Quay. Uh. Dejected faces we wore as we headed to the day end-point... the prospect of full marks and a pizza treat was over. Reflecting back, the grave mistake we committed was to abandon our tools and stupidly navigate based on hazy impressions of where it is.

Intuition failed us. Feelings weren't accurate. Memories weren't reliable.


Why I'm relating this is because amidst the disheartened faces and low morale, I saw a parallel between navigation and living the Christian life. This simple incident opened my eyes to a bigger realisation about how we are with God many times.

We are often like that aren't we? We like to navigate and lead our life based upon our feelings, our human emotion and warped ideas about what's good and bad or right and wrong. Not that these feelings should totally be disconsidered, but many times they fool us. Like how I should have trusted my tools at all times, we should live our life trusting in the infallible word of God.

Don't base your decisions or view of God based on what you feel. Rather, base it on the unchanging truth.

When He says His love for you is deeper than the deepest seas, it really is!
Even if you don't feel it.

When He says He is fighting for you and is always there with you, it really is!
Even if you feel lonely and feels no one sees your tears.

When He says you're free and the chains have been broken, it really is!
Even if you feel trapped by the circumstances you're in.

When He says He is good all the time, it really is!
Even when you feel everything's falling apart.

When He says you're beautifully created in His eyes, it really is!
Even if you feel you're not good enough.

Lead your life based on God's truth, that way, you won't get lost.