Last CG of the Year

Had CG in LT32 (or was it LT33?) with my dear CG. Simple, but meaningful - Flince and Hongtao got us to close our eyes... and stick out our "non-muscle" hands (that means non-dominant lah...)...

Then they slathered glue on the guys' hands, and TOMATO/CHILLI SAUCE on the girls' hands!

Cool!

Then Yufen began her sharing from Isaiah 43:18-19:

¹⁸"Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.

Thank God for that verse - it spoke to me in a very timely way. 'Cos the past few days I've become increasingly melancholic and dwelling on past things.

But what YF shared was that if we keep on looking back at the past, we are going to miss what God is doing now.

It's like a man looking backwards while trying to walk forwards. Sooner or later he's going to dent his head against a lamppost.

Also Matthew 9:16-17 talks about the need to have a forward-looking attitude - "new wine into new wineskins", not old wineskins - our old mindsets.

Think it's very timely, 'cos I'm going over to Adults anytime next month (as I've been mentioning many times already).

So YF shared with us the importance of taking stock of our lives, with God's help. We should talk with God... and not only that, after talking/babbling/ranting, we should let God reply... listen to Him! :)

She asked us to take some time to reflect and think about what we have grown in and learnt from this year. The purpose of reflecting being NOT to dwell on the past, but to fish out lessons from our experiences, so that we can apply them for the present and future experiences.

And lastly, she shared with us that we need to start looking ahead and clarify our purpose, as v19a says.

"See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?"

Questions such as what do we hope to see ourselves grow in in the next year? And how about our CG as a whole? It's not YF's CG... it's OUR CG.

:) Very meaningful... even tho I'll be gg over to a different CG, hee, doesn't mean that I can "throw away" this teaching... 'cos this understanding is equally useful in the new CG that I'll be moving on to. Shared with Claramae some time ago about what God had impressed on me, the importance of having faith and a forward-looking attitude in the new ministry.

Hee... anyway, I love my CG very much. For all its flaws and weaknesses e.g. a lot of us are phlegmatics or borderline phlegs (like me), we tend to wait for each other to take the initiative, there's this sweetness in the CG that simply can't be matched, heh! It's hard to get us to share, but once we start sharing, think the sharing's very real, honest and heartfelt. =)

After the sharing, we all got to wash our hands. Oh yeah, the sisters are really wicked. They will show you their DIRTY hands... and after that, while your back's turned, they'll SLAP you on your back... with their other not-so-dirty hand. Scared me a lot, they did... haha!

Anyway, we brothers shook our tomato-soggy hands... not like the sisters! haha... hurray for the M.A.C.H.O. brothers!

Anyway, quite a bit more to write, but thank God for this dear CG... I'm so proud of them! Guess the feeling of missing them will start sinking in sooner or later, but for now, I'll just enjoy their company till the day I cross over. :)