6 Things I've Learned This Year

Following Jean, here are six things I learned this year. These things are not new, really. It's just a realisation of things that are already on board. Summary: God is excellent!

- God wants us to fear him, especially when things aren't right and when you suffer.

- Grace is better than judgment and far more difficult. Fairness is right but hard; you can be completely cold-blooded in justice. Mercy and forgiveness cannot be given without love; God is its only source. Justice is good, but grace is better.

- Everyone has a streak of narcissism, the difference between people is just a matter of degrees. We are chronically and terminally me-centred.

- Sin is awful horrible disgusting, and deserving of death. And it's significant that God hates falsehood so much.

- When a fool is in sight, the right thing for people to do is to point and laugh (Proverbs 26 is pretty funny). You don't have to fret ("Oh, no! They are acting foolishly"), you don't have to chase after them or try to stop them ("Wait, stop... Fool!!!") and you definitely don't have to expose them as fools. They are fools. And they will show themselves to be fools. True Christians don't have to be weighed down by others' folly. It's God's job to judge them.

- God gives us freedom in Christ! Freedom to obey him, to do good. In sin, we are bound, only able to sin. The weird thing is, humans tend to look for rules and to abide by them, even as Christians.

Toothy Torture

On the professional recommendation of my sister, I'm getting my dormant wisdom teeth removed in January. I'm having local anesthetic. And I was ok about being conscious for it all...

Until recently.

I've been watching the first few seasons of Alias. In two torture scenes, there is a stern man of Asian extraction (pun intended), nicknamed "Suit and Glasses", with "an array of frightening instruments". His specialty is extracting information by performing root canals, creating cavities and tooth extractions without anesthetics.

"Tell me who you work for!"

Mwa haha HA HA! HA ~ hahahah !! HA HA ha aha... ha... heh... ahem.

Update: Taiwanese spectacle man just tortured Marshall in series two! (He tortured Sydney and Will in series one. Marhshall's one of my favorite characters.)