Believing in young people

Recently, I went for a job interview. I was rejected, not because I sucked, but because I was too young. Feeling rather indignant and also a bit desperate for a job (you'd be too if your bank account mirrored mine), I sent the GM an email. Here it is.

Dear Sir,

I have been working with youths in various capacities for over 5 years now. In working with youths, I have also dealt extensively with parents, teachers and other adults. I fully understand what it is like to meet with people who look down on youths or write us off as "young punks" who have no idea what we are doing. I understand your fears that the teachers, heads of departments and principals I will meet in this line of work will not be as generous as you are with young people. It is rather ironic that the very people who educate youths are skeptical of their own charges. It is no wonder, then, that we have generation after generation of people who fail to see the potential in youths, thus limiting our potential for growth. However, while the real world is very real in that sense, I choose to be idealistic and believe that I can change this trend in my generation.

As such, I was rather excited at the opportunity to work with -company name-, as this is a company that seems genuinely interested in creating a lively and exciting environment for young people to learn and grow. I believe that it would be an excellent job fit for me, as I do not simply believe in education, as many educators do, but I believe in young people. I do not simply believe in creating exciting environments to maximise learning, I believe in giving young people endless opportunities to maximise their growth.

Sir, I understand your fears that the clients I meet may not take me seriously because of my age. However, I do not see this as a disadvantage; rather, I see my youth as an advantage that few people in this sector possess. I see myself as being able to bridge the needs of young people with the experience of their educators. I believe that when I meet with clients, I am able to present myself in a mature and confident manner as someone who is able to cater to the needs of both our clients - students and teachers. While it is true that I may not have the experience that older adults possess, I do possess the energy, drive and raw passion that they lack, which I believe will be an asset to your company.

I hope that you will reassess my application. I promise nothing less than hard work, diligence and of course, sales revenue, in return.

Thank you.

Regards,
Liane Ng

I walked away from that interview loving Pastors even more.

There is a difference between an educator and someone who genuninely believes in young people. As G Zone, let us never forget how it was like to be looked down on by older people. Let's be a generation that loves and believes in young people.

The king and the ant

Recently at work, I spotted an ant on my paper. By instinct I stretched out my thumb to crush it. However, the ant did not die and it started limping aimlessly on the paper. Just when I was about to crush it again, I decided to take a closer look at it and I realize that it was struggling. Seeing and being inspired by its fighting spirit and persistence to live, I decided to let it go. So, I just flick it aside. At that very moment, I felt a sense of superiority and a sense of power, as if I have control over the ant’s life. I can bring it home and give it a new environment to live in, its fate totally lies in my hands. I was thinking, if the ant had a little more imagination, it would probably think that I am god, which I definitely am not. Then suddenly I felt very small, just like the ant. I felt like I am the one who is very vulnerable with lots of giant thumbs hovering above me. It seems like there are also many powerful forces beyond our understanding around us. And this got me thinking, that aren’t humans as foolish as what I thought the ant to be. How we have the tendency to treat anything more powerful and beyond our understanding as god. Especially, when there is some sort of response when we try to interact with the greater forces.

Question: How do you know your god is God?

In my opinion, It is not how real I can feel God in my life, not by the miracles (healing etc.) , definitely not by the blessings, not how God response to me when I speak to Him, neither is it His strong presence when I worship and pray. No, I have not backslided, I am not speaking namunamu here. This are probably the reasons why I love God, probably the reasons I know God exist, but may not be reasons to separate God from gods. There are strong forces out there and we will be only ignorant to think that only God can do things beyond us.

In my opinion, It is the truth that separates God from gods. The truth comes from the Word. The truth states that we are sinners, and indeed we are. Cause we can’t help sinning even if we don’t want to. The truth states that Jesus saves us from our sins. There are many forces that are powerful, more powerful than human, they may give us what we want, they may be beyond our understanding. But there is only one who can save us from our sins, that is Jesus Christ the Lord. The Word states that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. The only way, the only truth, the only life, Jesus is the one and only God.

Prayer (From Rebecca!)

Hey everyone here's more from Rebecca our inspiring writer! :)

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Dear g-zoners! Hope that your souls are prospering! I had an inspiration to write yesterday while waiting for my supervisors to give me work (I’m doing an internship now and it’s quite interesting except that i have to wear painful heels) I thought I’d share some experiences that have caused me to go spiritually these past few years.

My friend once commented to me about speaking in tongues, she said that it feels very repetitive after a while. I admit that when I just started speaking in tongues, I was very conscious of whatever I was saying and sometimes felt that they were simply blabberings from my mouth. It was not until I attended Pst Troy Marshall’s session in bible school last year that I got a breakthrough (I was blessed to be able to attend bible school for a few months). He is a very disciplined and anointed man of God and he said he’d pray strongly in tongues whenever he drives alone in his car, there was even once when the police pulled over and asked him what he was doing. Then he got everyone to pray strongly in tongues for what seemed like a long time (many people were breathless, including me), and to imagine that as we pray rivers of living water flow from our bellies and are released as a heavenly language through the utterances and the words we speak from our mouths. The second encounter was when we broke into small groups to pray for one another and I was very impacted by my friend Xin Lian’s fervent prayers, the power and presence of God came and it was really tangible, I decided that I wanted to pray like her. James 5:16 says the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

It wasn’t always easy for me to pray an hour everyday, lots of things crop up at the last minute, but one day the Holy Spirit told me that praying is not just a thing that Christians do, but it is also beneficial to our souls. Sometimes we go through life and there might be things that affect us that we are not even aware of (layers of resentment, bitterness, hatred, unforgiveness etc might build up) it is only when we come clean with Jesus, that He melts away all the hurt and pain and shows us a better way and we find that we are renewed in the spirit and mind and become more like Jesus with each passing day.

So I pray for all of us, that we will set aside this precious one hour of our time to spend with our dear God everyday, no matter what happens, no matter how busy or tired we are, no matter what horrible things might have happened to us in the day or how satisfied and happy with life we are to get into His presence. I pray that God will speak to us during this time, that it will not be dry, but it will be well-oiled and we will have an encounter with Jesus.

Get into His presence today and I believe if we cling on to Him not just today but everyday, our zone and church will definitely experience great growth!