Humpty Dumpty

Short post but this one will interest…
So one day, my friend Lianne blew my mind literally out of my head (as she usually does). She asked, “Whoever said Humpty Dumpty was an egg?”
All I could do was stare at her.

Think about it!! Nowhere in the nursery rhyme does it EVER mention Humpty Dumpty as an egg. He could be a jigsaw puzzle for all we know. And then it kinda reminds me of how we sometimes assume Adam and Eve ate an apple.

Uh, nope. The Bible says that they ate a fruit not necessarily an apple.

And to all you readers who already knew that the nursery rhyme never said that, well, guess I’m behind. 😛

He Shall Return

A painful cry resounds
A final breath echoes
As God who became man dies
As wrath is poured out
On One undeserving
The world is set free

Glory to the One who gave Himself for me
He who died has washed away all my sins

And as three days pass
As morning light appears
The Morningstar is found not there

Praise to the One who has risen from the grave
His sacrifice for me has cleansed me through

So I will praise Him, glorify forever
For the life He gave
And pain He suffered
And the love that never fails
God of mercy thank you for the cross

Hallelujah to the One who reigns in heaven
One day he shall return
He shall return

(I wrote this at FYR 2013. Initially intended for a song, I recreated it as a poem.)

FYR 2013 (Fall Youth Retreat)

Every year, my youth group joins another youth group and have a fall retreat and this year is no exception. And this year we had it at Camp Kawkawa. We had loads of fun playing games and learning about God.

On Friday night, we arrived there and started out with some icebreaker games. I won one of it which was a sort-M&M’s-by-color-into-cups game. Then we had a campfire, and some of my worship team and I led worship, doing songs like Blessed Be Your Name and My Redeemer Lives. Then it was cage-ball time!

Cage-ball, also known and gaga-ball, is a very intense, fast-paced, free-for-all game of agility, strategy, (eh…maybe not so much), and, in many cases, luck. Players stand against the boards of an wooden, octagon rink, and a ball is thrown roughly in the middle. Once the ball bounces twice, the game begins. The object of the game is to be the last man standing. You can hit the ball with your hands, but if you get hit by the ball anywhere else or you hit the ball out of the rink, you are out and exit the rink. I really enjoyed the game (I think it should become an official team sport 🙂 ). Strategies range from passively sitting on the boards before striking, to playing the ninja in the middle. I personally prefer a hybrid of these strategies. Unless only a few people are playing, I start by staying on the boards until about 25% of the players have been knocked out. Then I jump in the middle. And then, there’s a choice of tactics between dodging and blocking. I personally prefer a blocking style, and so I stay as low as I can to block low shots. Very fun game, and it’s soooooooooooo addicting. I have never officially won a game.

Saturday started off with some cage-ball and nine-squares-in-the-air which is a pretty cool game. Nine-squares-in-the-air is a hybrid of Four Squares and Volleyball. A 3 x 3 PVC pipe grid, suspended 7 feet in the air, is set up and players start in each box. The middle is the “sweet spot” and the person is the King (or Queen, obviously). That person starts with the ball and serves it to another player. One must not allow the ball to touch the ground in your squares or hit the ball out of the grid. One can only hit the ball once, and if you get out, you go back to the line up and the players in previous squares move ahead one. The primary objective is to get to the middle and stay there as long as possible.

Next, we had a wide game, and I thought this was very interesting. Players are divided into 3 teams, and I volunteered to be captain of Team Flamingo Pink. 🙂 Then the team is further divided into runners, a canoe team (consisting of a gunner and two paddlers), and a water balloon filler-upper team. Runners must go about the entire camp searching for gold (aka rocks spray painted gold), while the water balloon filler-upper team fills up water balloons, which are ammo for the gunner. All around, except for base camp areas, are monkeys (aka the leaders equipped with stockings filled with flour). If they hit you with their “tails,” you are out and have to go to jail where another team-mate can try to rescue you. In the meantime, the captain is given a list of things that the team has to buy to equip a full camp (i.e. tents, food, water, medic kit, sleeping bags, and tarp). Once enough gold has been gathered, the captain may decided to send of the gold with the canoe team to canoes. These designated paddlers will take the gold and paddle out to a “barge” in the lake and there acquire the “goods.” Three pirates (aka leaders on kayaks equipped with water balloons) roam the lake and will try to hit you with the balloons. If the canoe, paddles, or any member of the team, one of them is knocked out and cannot do anything more. Once all three members are knocked out (or two if the canoe team decides that the two paddlers dies first), they have to return to the beach and start over. The gunner’s job is to fight back. Equipped with water balloons for the water-balloon-filler-upper team, they can try to hit the pirates. If they do, the pirate hit will give the canoe 20 seconds of breathing space. This game is slightly strategic and athletic-focused. Strong paddlers, fast runners, and good-aim gunners are needed.

Finally that night we had a night game. The object of the game is for players to hunt down a friendly agent hiding out in the camp and retrieve a code from him while avoiding enemies equipped with flashlights. Being spotted results in death and players have to return to the start to respawn. I love night games, but like all others, it was extremely difficult and dangerous. 🙂 No one won the game. After that we had another campfire and we did more songs and the two youth pastors taught some things about identity, which was the main topic of the weekend.

So, here’s what we learnt. Identity. We were created by God, like God (in His image), and for God. We all have a purpose, no matter how much the people around us dislike us or look down on us. Because we are God’s creation, we are loved and valued by Him. And that is very good news!! Then we learnt that while we were created very good by God, sin has tainted us. Sin has stained us black and we are born naturally sinful. We have a evil nature. But God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us, sinful, evil people, so that we may become His children! Not only are our sins washed away, God declares that whoever believes in Him becomes His son or daughter. We have the privilege to call Him Daddy and we become co-heirs with Jesus Christ. And that is VERY good news!! We are all cherished and loved by God. This topic is a really good reminder to me of who I am, what my identity is. I am a child of God.

So Sunday is the last day and we ended with some (surprise, surprise,) cageball!! Believe me, it’s one of the greatest games in the world. It was a blast this weekend; I loved it! God is good. 🙂

Before I end, there was an illustration given to us by the other church’s youth pastor. He told us to put a small pebble in our shoes to represent sin. It’s annoying and hurts. And when we are set free from it, we rejoice and are happy. But I also thought about something, as the day went by, I noticed that I no longer was bother so much by the pebble. And sin can be like that. It can hurt and we can feel guilty in the beginning. But we can become so callous and hardened against it that we no longer notice it. But once set free from it, we realize what freedom from sin really feels like and how much Christ did for us.

Interesting quotes and statements…or food for thought….

I know I haven’t been posting in a bit. So to all my readers out there, I’m back, (That by the way is a quote in itself. Look it up, it’s by Sam Gamgee from the Lord of the Rings.)

So I’m here just to present a few quotes/statements that I just thought was very interesting for thought.

“The moment you fully understand the Trinity, you implode, because your mind uses all its resources to comprehend it. Therefore, it has no room for other body functions and thus, the implosion.”

I derived this from a conversation with a friend and I just though that it was really funny. But seriously, if my brain was big enough and if God would fully explain it to me, I would ask Him how it really works.

“Time is decay.”

Now this is food for thought. Think about it; time can be described as decay. Let’s take the sun, for example. We use the sun to mark the days and years. Every day that passes by the sun slowly dies. Ergo, time is decay. Again, from a friend. 🙂

“I can’t read, therefore I don’t read. I don’t read, therefore I can’t read.”

It’s true! If one doesn’t read, how can he learn? And if he does not learn, how can he read? (Okay, this is circular reasoning and is NO excuse for not being able to read. It still kinda makes sense though…)

🙂 🙂 🙂

Nature’s Dogfight

So, yesterday, I was at a lake with some friends. While sitting down, we spotted two birds engaged in a dogfight. The attacker was a bald eagle. I don’t know what the other bird was. But what ensued was pretty cool and amazing. The other bird was trying to escape from the eagle, and they kept flying in circles. They were wheeling and diving. Eventually we noticed that the bird had a fish in its talons, and that, we assumed, was what the eagle was really after. They came pretty close to us, about twenty feet just overhead. We didn’t manage to see the final outcome as the birds eventually flew past us while still engaged in their aerial combat. There were quite a few times that the eagle looked as if it was going to get the bird, but the bird always managed to turn away.

I just thought that it was pretty cool to see God’s creation come to live even in “combat.” Eagles are my favorite birds, and I enjoy watching dogfights documentaries. So putting two and two together made a really cool air show. Plus, it’s free and practically at my doorstep! God’s creation is wonderful, and He has a lot to show us.

Thank you God for what you have shown me! and what you continue to show me!

The Love of God

I love Leeland. A great band, great music. But one of their songs was very poetical. At the end of the song I Can See Your Love from their album The Great Awakening, there is a really great stanza.

Could we with ink the ocean fill

And were the skies of paper made

Every tree on earth a quill

And every man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry

Nor could this globe contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky

BAM! It totally just captures the love of God in a nutshell. It’s so infinite, it’s so unfailing, it’s so great and awesome to the point the whole WORLD cannot hold it. Plus it’s just so great as a poem. The love of God. Wow.

#JesusIsGreater

Introducing Me…

How do I start? Well, Tim Lee is my name. I am home-schooled and have a younger brother.

To describe the rest of me is somewhat difficult. I love music, games, and friends. Above all, I love Jesus, my Saviour and Friend.

I am a songwriter and a musician. I play the guitar and the piano. I can also play the bass when needed. I am part of a youth worship band who have a mission to use music to worship God and help others do the same.

I love to play computer games, and I took a course on how to make them…(more on that in a later post).

I love my youth group. I think that it is a blessing from God.

Well, these are my likes. Who am I REALLY?

First and foremost, I am a child of God. Then the rest of me is really what’s difficult to describe. I can be weird. Period. (Usually on a scale of one to ten, I am a six or seven. When excited and energetic, a ten.) I like to burst with energy and try not to be unfriendly, though I can be shy. (Three minutes later, one would think that I am the most talkative person in the world 🙂 ).

This is my very first blog post (so WOO-HOO!).

To end this, I want to put up a verse.

“Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40: 30 – 31).