What is Joy?

Philippians 4 :4-7
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
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Galatians 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
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Most people tend to mix 'happiness' with joy
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According to the scripture above as well as numerous number of references, we are told to "Rejoice" always...
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does it mean we are supposed to be 'happy' all the time???
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obviously not
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In a previous post I wrote about certain problems I was having, and I titled 'joy... personal'
Even tho I was kind of depressed when i wrote that post , I still had 'joy'
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So what is Joy?
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Personally for me Joy is not an outward shallow feeling that last for fleeting moments of highs such as happiness.
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Joy is something deep within.... if you could imagine the range of human emotions as layers , like an onion , Joy should be the Core... as opposed to happiness which last for fleeting moments
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We can have Joy, from the knowledge that through Jesus, we are Free because of what he has done for us
We can have Joy, from the assurance of salvation through Christ
We can have Joy, from the assurance that He loves us ,with unfailing love (Agape), And He has a Plan for us
We can have Joy, from the knowledge that He holds the whole world in his hands.

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Even though I've been rather down and depressed lately... ...
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Even to the extend of walking to the middle of the IB bridge during chem free period today while it was raining today and gazing at the background of the UWC....
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Quote(Mary)
You owe me $6, better pay me before you commit suicide....
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lol ... ... did i really look that depressed? I guess its kind of an emo thing to do to get oneself drenched by the rain , but it does make me feel better anyway,
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... I still have Joy in my heart...

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Life thus far:
found out that Alastair's prayer group dissolved... ... oh well... ... a direction is important for any group to succeed
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Hopefully and by God's Grace , FireAC will fulfill its objective , to bring revival to ACS.
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Let the Flame not die
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Rekindle the fire again
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Got a new math teacher but ... ended up worst than Tiong Gee, from a teacher who cannot teach but knows his stuff to a teacher who doesn't know her stuff and teaches too slowly..
on the bright side my math class is the same as Tim Lim's , so i can get help for math if necessary.
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Had little sleep the last 2 days, on tuesday did the chem prac report over 5 hours until 4am before sleeping(, and finding out the next day that the teacher had extended the dateline >.<)
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Wednesday had choir until 8 o clock O.o, when i reached home at 9 o clock i bathed, plonked onto the bed and slept till 3am before gething up to do my bio prac report.... didn't sleep after that
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Schools back

for a wonder i decided to post Again... about school...lol this will go under the Tag, (Boring life)
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Day1
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Went back to school took public transport for once since
1 my mum couldnt send me(night shift)
And
2 My sis could either(night shift --> last minute work on project)
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For i wonder i managed to catch the 615 Bus(second 963 bus) and arrive in school at 640,
(ironically catching the 555 Bus (first bus) would result in 1 reaching school at 630. not 620 as one would expect)
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back in school FireAC was combined with Alastair's group for once... ... arrived there(rooftop) at 645 to find only 2 people there, namely Lua stonning at one corner and ... Amanda ... sitting right in the middle apparently doing QT. I ended up pacing around the place before lying down on the floor and gazing at the sky,in an effort to take my mind off ... certain things ...
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That place is one of the more beautiful places in the school, away from all the noise and busyness
of school in the cool of the morning, with the clock tower's top showing in the background and the morning sky a nice grey blue.
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And Kenneth had to interrupt my skygazing by behaving like some overgrown kid and jumping over me... seesh I not Really in the mood for your craziness you know... keep me sane please
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Ok Fast forward a bit to chapel
we sung some really nice Hymns today for once(Amazing Grace and When I survey the Wondrous Cross)
but these hymns had to be desecrated by a few things:
1. Grace Kwee singing Amazing Grace , ... didn't have to hear all the sniggering from certain people...(twas Grace that taught my heart to fear)
2. Ridiculously fast tempo for the hymns... hymns like these should be Sung SLOWLY, i don't care if you sing hymns like Trust and Obey fast(which they never do) , but certain hymns sound nice only when they are sung slowly
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We got a nice speaker talking about addiction, lol was quite informative
And after chapel I Obtained a free copy for the gideons bible(the NT psalms and proverbs bible)
Pity they couldnt give the whole bible, since my bible at the moment is falling apart, (I.e. i need a new Bible asap)
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back in Class
Cielo got her voice back lol, but she's still abusing it like nobodies business, would be surprised if she loses it again
first lesson was Bio practical
Broke a measuring cylinder :( $2 flies away):
got my phone confiscated because i was taking a picture of the broken glass lol
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Xl is in my SL classes now, makes me freak out to see him taking down notes during the EL A1 class under WPL
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during recess we got chased out by the HL chinese B teacher, who seems to think that people are following the new timetable now , which isnt the case
so we left the class to let him teach a non-existent class(or a class which only had steven and a bunch of people coming in at the end of the recess period)
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last lesson was Math.... and the class size is ridiculously large(32) and Mr Goh freaks out(with him being sick(coughing like a hag) at that time)
Anyway he says he is going to petition to split class
hopefully if they split i can go to the new teacher's(hopefully it being Mr Azmi or Mr Rao) class
lol
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went to the BB room after school , and had a few brain cells killed by
1. Kenneth's retardedness(scribbling Emil sucks on the BB room computer to destress )
2. Steven's lameness(stupid Puns..... I really want to Punch him lol)
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Day 2
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lol relatively uneventful
Arrived at 640am to the FireAC area to find a similar empty area as yesterday except No Lua stoning in 1 corner, and ... Amanda ... doing Qt at the opposite wall.
I went to the other wall and played guitar until Tim, Fab and the others came
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Kenneth later was talking about FireAC's directive
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We had rather uneventful lessons today
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Interesting notes:
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Got my EL A1 test back and scored better than the people beside me (17/25) by some sort of a miracle, since
1.I Didn't take Lit for 2 years since sec 2
2. I had not submitted a single assignment before the test
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Chiam Kok Chong calling Mr Talbot "Mister Tablet" in Chem class,
Lol his pronunciation is Horrible, although he is quite a good teacher
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Going for WoW(Window of the World, not World of Warcraft) OEP(Overseas Education Programme in Thailand , Phuket , quite a nice destination, however wishing i was going to KKCS (Khon Kaen Christian School) instead, at least i know the people and places there better, after going there last year for Mission trip
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EE topic proposal got rejected by Mr William Lai ,crap, now have to find another.
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Other depressing emotions that I ...randomly... feel every now and then still happening ,
Grrr when am I going to Get over it completely.
oh well
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thats my Boring life for you
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now don't ask me post everyday lol

Lol another blogskin again

Picture of the School Clock tower from the view point of the boarding school, taken with my Nokia N73's 3.2 Mega pixel with auto-focus camera. Intentionally under exposed

Okay

Life been sian ....wow... ...

went thru the first term of IB, dunno whether its going to be easy to do well....

anyway I got A Brand new Guitar :)

Taylor 314 CE (S$2640)

super nice :)

and a Yamaha keyboard (s$390) one of the latest models :)

BB week: first time i'm that enthu about it, collected $219 liao ... sian, XL beat me by $6 :( lol

Choir:
SYF coming up , the training is going to get more intensive.
and Song without words(Set piece) makes one speechless... retarded chinese,indian, and dondang sayang scales, and retarded Phoon Yew Tien(composer)

I tot some songs i sung before were bad, but this one beats them all

while the sec school can have fun singing Sagefried Sassoon's Gay and merry everyone sang, we get a HORRIBLE piece .... sian

other things worth posting about my life? not really

Thoughts

"Would it break a Saviors heart to see so many broken families and lives?"


Got me really thinking after hearing from Jeremy about the 2 J.S.'s in choir being half-brother and sister

how many people i know have broken families(divorce)?

a lot, in fact too many for me to count...

How can divorce & extramartial affairs become so common?

even to the extent it is "celebrated" , think of all the CH8 drama serials, which one of them does not touch such stuff??

God hates Divorce, I don't need to quote the large handful of verses which states that.

oh well ......

Forgive our sins Lord
Heal our Land
Bring revival to Singapore

He is a Father to the Fatherless(whether due to divorce,death ,or figuratively dead)
He is Mighty to Save