10:12.

"I want to spend my days in Your presence Lord
bow before Your Throne
In the House of GOD is where I want to be
Is where I find my home"
- Home, United

I have been frequently pondering about home - Singapore, Melbourne, Malaysia. Not incessantly devoting thought space or time but 'cause the topic occupies heart space, it tends to flit upwards like hot air into the brain. Or maybe the ancients were right and it's the heart that dicates intellect while the brain dicates emotions.

I've become more appreciative of my homeland than I have been in my life, I reckon. No more arrogant snubbing of my homeland because in my teenage, angsty, conceited dystopia, I have to believe somewhere else is better, any where but here.

Older, wiser, having had arrogance rubbed away by God and living in two other countries, I don't undervalue the awesomeness of knowing I can walk home alone after midnight and still feel safe, or that the Sing dollar is strong enough to buy me value (cars and property don't fall under this category though) and that though the environment I grew up in contributed to my apolitical generalness, the education system I have been through has prepped and shaped my mind to work very well.

Then there's Melbourne who I still love. If God calls me back there one day, I would - with all the usual apprehension of any move - be happy but I did my pining and have put Melb on the back burner now.

It was a wonderful year, and it's a wonderful place. The food, climate and general lifestyle fit to a tee, me. But romanticising it as a promised land of milk and honey doesn't help any one. We were there as students and we were blessed enough to be good students too - Who enjoyed the essays and nocturnal lifestyle, who found the intellectual challenges enough to be simulating and not too much to be killing, who thus had time to meander and have fun, to laugh and shop without too many demands on our mind or the need to work to line our pockets and so to enjoy an accomodating new land. We could give our hearts to things (and people) freely in the extravagant youth that premeates our friends and it seems, even the air itself.

But you see, the strength of her magic was in that moment. Where all the factors worked out well for us. And if we forced it and stayed when we were not meant to be, we would have brought in the bitterness, jadedness and despicableness only we are capable of, as you would have found out by now.

I guess that brings us to Malaysia, where I am increasingly sure is where God has called me to for now. And as long as my time "now" is here, Now's un-quantified period just have to be dealt with with faith.

Sometimes, faith does not make the most sense. But always, underlying it, is a stronger logic that defys the world - The time-tested, eternal, Spirit-burned knowing in God's character and how He is greater than any thing the world or yourself can throw at you.

The other day, I was staring out of my balcony door, mind flitted to ideas of home again and He just quoted, quoted and said at the same time to me one phrase.

A phrase sung and words I've declared with joy and sorrow separately over the years, a phrase I've said with pride and found comfort in but now, in the living out of it, forgotten.

The Almightly reminded me, "This world is not your home".

And I was promptly humbled, with just a tiny little speck of *pout*. From loving the languish of romanticised misery, He has brought me over the years to see the enemy present in that. It's the same idea of master your money, I guess, 'cause though it is not bad at all, it can master you if you allow it.

The same juxtaposition and aid in at place in focus - It's good to know yourself but if you keep looking only at you, you are screwed. You need to be focused on the Almighty.

I'm learning and relearning at the same time that life is a lot about Ultimates.

Ultimately, what's important? Ultimately, who's your boss? Ultimately, what do you want? And does that something fit into the Ultimate's plan?

Ultimately, God will always lead me and watch my back as I follow Him and serve Him faithfully. Ultimately, among every thing I want and really want, what I really really want is to live a life that's rooted in Truth and fulfill my God-given purpose and calling in my time here.

Don't get caught up in stuff. Not that lovely lifestyle of Melb so much you yearn for it and miss God's point for your "now", don't get stuck in the lovely financial empowerment of being economically independent so much that you have to say no if God calls you out of it.

Somewhere inside, we are all pilgrims yearning for Home. But somewhere on the way there, we get stuck in Vanity Fair and Me O Bog and the other interesting offerings of our world. But don't cut off that little protesting voice inside that always tell you that all you know don't quite scratch that existential itch. Something inside hurts for home.

"Home… hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one
Home… I can’t say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the hurt is"
- Walk On, U2