What's Fasting?
My church, in celebration of Good Friday and Easter this year, has set today as a day of fasting. What does fasting do?

Does it rid you of your sin?
Does it bring you closer to God?
Does it make you appear better in God's eyes?

If u want the quick answer, scroll all the way to the bottom of this post. If u want to know why such answers, read on!

I think it'll be a good idea to look at Mark 2:18-22 to answer these questions. Here, people questioned Jesus why John's disciples and the Pharisees fasted and his disciples did not. Read the account:

18Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" 19And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. 21No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins--and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins."

Fasting features in the Bible in Leviticus 16. According to Mosaic Law, all Jews had to fast on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) because of their sin. This was required by law. On that particular day in the year, the High Priest enters into the Holy of Holies to offer a sacrifice for the whole nation of Israel. Also, 1 lamb and 1 goat (the scapegoat) is killed, and 1 goat is sent away. All the sins of the people of Israel were transferred to the goat that was killed. So all this represents the take away of the Israelites' sin.

Okie. Back to the Mark passage. In response to the questions, Jesus brings up a wedding scene. A wedding is a joyous occassion! Bridegroom = God (Hosea 2:16 where God calls himself Israel's husband). So in this context, fasting is inappropriate and there should be rejoicing, because Jesus was there with them! Jesus equates himself with God and says that he is the bridegroom and has come to deal with sin.

But in verse 20, Jesus talks about another time of fasting! This happens between the time of Jesus' death-and-ressurection, and Jesus' second coming. There will be no more need for fasting at the second coming. So if and when we feel sorrowful for sin, then we can fast. Fasting is just an expression... it doesn't gain us brownie points!

Then verses 21 and 22 seem quite out of point... like it doesn't match. But it does make sense. Everything that each writer writes has a purpose: there's something behind it!
Well, the old method of dealing with sin (kill a lamb and sacrifice it) was instituted by God, for unholy people to be at one with God because He wants to be their God and have a relationship with them. That was the old covenant. With Jesus, there is now a new covenant. The new method of dealing with sin is the one-time sacrifice of the lamb of God.

The new way of dealing with sin doesn't mix at all with the old (Jeremiah 31:31-33). That's for the patching of old clothes with new cloth and pouring new wine into old wineskins. Yet, the old covenant isn't irrelevant, because it gives understanding to what the new covenant is about!

So the conclusion of this whole matter is, fasting is an expression of sorrow over sin. The answers to the three questions I asked earlier are: "No. No. No." Fasting doesn't do anything for us. It's just an expression of our sorrow at sin. So if anyone says you should fast to enter the presence of God... it's phooey. If you want to fast just because the people around you are fasting, don't. Fast only for the proper reasons. Oh, and just because someone fasts, that someone is not more likely to get his/her prayers answered. No siree!

Crazy Stats?
Just read this phrase: "It took an estimated 35,000 years for the population to double."
It's talking about the growth rate of world population.

Now correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm going to attempt some simple maths here...

Original population = 2 (one male, one female)
Double the population = 2 x 2 = 4
Time for population to double = time it takes for the couple to produce 2 children.

Conventional wisdom says people at the beginning of Mankind lived till about 35 years (I'd say longer based on the Bible... Adam lived to 930 years. But evolutionists don't believe that so let's just stick to 35 years.)

Ok, so the woman would probably have given birth to two children by the age of 30. And it seems that all agree that human beings first appeared as adults. So... that'd be about 9 years for 2 children to be conceived (now that's a pretty long time already).

9 years vs. 35,000 years.
I think just some simple maths has kinda deproved the statement... that it took 35,000 years for the world's population to double.

Of course, i started out with the assumption that there were originally 1 couple. OH! I forgot. Actually... it took less than a day for the population to double.

God made Adam on the 6th day of Creation. God saw that there was no good mate for him from the animals. So God made Eve on the same 6th day. TADAH!!! 2 people from 1 person.

I'm finding 35,000 years more and more... absurd.

Pre-Studytrip Blues...
Almost everyone in my batch has gotten their internship, or done it, or done half of it. Yours truly has done nothing. And has gotten nothing. *stressed*

I'm now just sitting here wondering if it's a good idea to go for the study trip this year... that is one put off factor, coz i'll only be free from early June onwards. Guess what... no employer likes this and is not gonna want me. Let's see, Esplanade down. Euromonitor down. Can ABN amro like hurry up and decide? I only have 2 slots on ontrac... no idea what to apply for now. Losing confidence abt my marketability.

Everyone's telling me not to worry and that with my qualif and all, i should be able to get an internship. Apparently not... i'm just not good enough for the employers. Too boring, too serious, too i dunno... just not good enough. Ain't good enough for this world man.

I don't want to grow up... as i grow older, the more i see sin so blatantly manifested... and the more i feel the gap in the world's goals and my goals...

And there's so many other things to settle before i fly off to Switzerland! How i wish the internship will just settle itself... so i won't have to bother about it. Slowly sinking...

Piled High in Paper
The St. Gallen trip is nearing! It's getting so exciting. Yesterday we chose our housemates/roommates and our date of departure. Feeling a litte bit of pressure, coz' everyone's kinda looking at our choices... Yes, we're housemates but NOT roommates. Amy's my roommate! Eileen, our co-ordinator, also made doubly sure coz she thought Cheng and i wanted to share room. *pbbbt* Okies, it's not really a rude noise but well yeah... must make the correct choices, the godly choices.

It was a struggle not to compromise on the "we are not staying in the same room" principle for after-trip travel, especially since no one wanted to come tour Switzerland with us! The whole situation was in limbo and it reeked of silent resignation: that we'd go to Switzerland and not get to tour the other regions in Switzerland. I'm glad we stuck to our guns... and as Kel reminded me, "godliness over money" should be the driving principle here. So yup, i'm pretty happy that we didn't give in to the temptation of sharing room and thus stumbling others coz' they're definitely gonna think: "What did they do? Did they do anything???" Nah, decided to go easy on them and not torture them.

Anyway, back to more admin details about the trip. The first company we're gonna visit is Daimler-Chrysler in Germany. How cool is that?! But even as all of us look forward to that (and of course, the numerous holidays), there's lotsa things to do. Gotta plan what to bring over and all, 'coz we're probably gonna eat in quite a bit. Saves lots of moolah! Anyone knows of simple good recipes for 4? Oh, ingredients should preferably be easily obtainable from Switzerland...

Well, so much to do, so little time! But yet, an exciting time of cool weather, luxurious scenary, and perhaps even snow awaits!

Monster Truck Alert!

Ok ok... it's not really a monster truck. It's what my dad calls the monster... his car. It becomes the monster truck only when i'm at the wheel. Cool huh? Why truck? Well, for starters, i'm slower than most other drivers... for seconds, i feel like i'm sitting on a platform while driving... for thirds, the car is BIG with a capital B. Big by my definition and standards anyway.

Today was my maiden drive and i... took the monster truck round and round SMU... i think it was about 20-30 times? Then later... drove from church to my granny's place. That's from Simei to Dover. Aren't you proud of me? Come on, applaud! *hee hee* Or give me some *hugz*! Or comments... that's better still. Heeeez.

To answer your question, i was usually on lane 4 or 3. But sometimes due to the merge in the road along ECP (or due to one where i turned to the wrong lane...) i drove on lane 2. Well, gotta go rest soon. Got another long drive along TPE tomorrow morning and afternoon!