tornado thoughts

1st week of ICT 2008

In less than 2 hrs, I'll be booking in and getting ready for the 3day 2night tekong "tour" tomorrow morning. But before that happens, shall just summarize what was done during the 1st week of my ICT (In Camp Training).


1st Day - "checking in" and collecting all the stores needed for this ICT. Was briefed on the objective of this in camp and there'll be a $200 marksmanship up for grabs in a SAR21 live firing on Thursday. Had a "welcome PT" and basically sums up the things done for the day. Had a good time catching up with friends and knowing how they are doing. About 200 people came back for ICT and there are about 100 different cars parked in the parade square. This shows how well young singaporeans are doing and contributing to the society.

2nd Day - refresher course. Those who are weapon specialist would go for weapon refresher course (3hr), demolition specialist (moi) would go for demo refresher, etc. In the afternoon we attended a briefing on the Thursday live firing and a training safety regulations test.

3rd Day - loading up stores for thursday live firing and basically do nothing.

4th Day - Thanks for all the peeps who remembered my birthday and smsed me. Though have to spend in camp and in live firing, was blessed to know so many friends still remembered and took the effort to sms me. Thank you! The live firing was held in the jungle opposite (Hall 14) and it was really hot in the afternoon. During the day shoot, secured a 19/20 score. The 1 shot was not that I missed but I was too late to fire out that shot and the target went down at that same time. Night shoot was 20/20 and the marksmanship bonus belong to God.

5th Day - Bn planning exercise, only commanders and the people involved in the planning team were more stressed and busy doing stuff. The rest of us just either did body maintanence (sleep) or were playing bridge.

6th Day - Went for my IPPT test as my window was opened. Got an incentive pass. $100! Yeah!

Could say that this 1st week of ICT was quite a breeze because we spent more than 80% of our time doing nothing (or waiting). But it was during these waiting or doing nothing I get to really rest my mind, body, reflect upon God's words and also get to know how my friends are getting along.

Last week's sermon is aligning our priorities in God and Pastor Dennis used the rifle as an example. During my ICT, we were briefed that SAR21 is almost aligned correctly (means do not need to zero your weapon) and what you need to do is to have the correct briefing posture and aim at the CORRECT target. One of my friends during the day shoot, he shot 18 shots out. 1 missed. The other 2 that were not shot was because he didn't have time to fire them. However, when the results were out, he had a score of 21! Someone beside him must have mistaken his target as his own. Thus, it's important that we align our priorities correctly by focusing on the big picture (Jesus) and not losing sight of Him.

During the 1 week, I also got a lot of time to read. I just finished the book called "the Samson Syndrome" and it tells us why strong men fail using Samson as an example from His Word. One of the important chapters was "strong men tend to lose sight of the big picture". It tells of the 4 blinders that Satan uses to distract us from focusing of the big picture.

Blinder 1: Pleasure - Satan definitely know what gives us pleasure (it may be golf, shopping, worldly temptations, etc) This doesn't mean God doesn't want us to have pleasure but just don't indulge in them and don't loose focus.

Blinder 2: Pain - If you are a goody two shoes who is faithful to God and good to people around you but when Satan hammers you with setbacks, financial difficulties, health issues, you began to miss church and gets irritable easily. You will go back church when the things improve. Knowing this, do you not think Satan will hammer you once in a while to make you stay off track?

Blinder 3 & 4: Prosperity & Power - These 2 if not handled properly, you may fall into the trap and feel that all the prosperity and power is because of what you have done and nothing to do with God. Satan will be more than happy to give you all these as long as you worship Satan and put God far away from you. Thus, in everything we do, always give thanks to God and know that He is in control of everything. God loves the humble but despises the proud.

We need to know that our old self-centered spirit is gone and we are a new creation. We shall live a life that is humble and obedient to God to fulfill the destiny that God has for each and everyone of us.

Gotta change and prepare to book in liao. Will miss my dear dear again. 3days!!!!!

posted by tornado @ 4:48 AM