Stuff That Matters In Life

When someone wrongs you, do something very terrible like burns down your house, and takes everything you have, you would find it very hard to forgive him. But if you are a very nice person, you may find it in your heart to forgive him.

But what if that someone is a person whom you’ve bestowed many favors, you pay for his lunch everyday, you help him whenever he is in need.  He burns your house down and takes everything you have, for no other reason than personal greed and lack of respect for you? Would you forgive him?

I wonder why we take rather lightly God’s forgiveness of our wrongdoings when we know ourselves how hard it is to forgive someone else?

In Isaiah, we often think God’s judgment of His people is harsh, yet in Isaiah 4 and many proclamations of Isaiah, God offers his forgiveness. Why should God forgive at all a people who is like the person who burns down your house and takes everything you have?

We should not think of God as an angry God who judges, but rather marvel at His mercy to forgive.

The Lord will wash the filth from beautiful Zion
and cleanse Jerusalem of its bloodstains
with the hot breath of fiery judgment. ~ Isaiah 4:4

I didn’t see the movie Soul Surfer, but my friend lend me the book.

Bethany tells her true story of losing her arm in a shark attack while she was surfing, and how she came back to continue to pursue her dream as a professional surfer. Her story is very inspiration to remind us that no matter what you’ve lost, don’t give up on living. Have courage to overcome your fears, then discover and live out God’s plan for you.

She says, “Don’t put all your hope and faith into something that could suddenly and easily disappear. And honestly that’s almost anything. The only thing that will never go away, that will never fail you, is your faith in God…so I think this was God’s plan for me all along. I am not saying that God made the shark bite me. I think He knew it would happen, and He made a way for my life to be happy and meaningful in spite of it happening.” That’s good stuff, especially coming from a young girl.

I didn’t see the movie Soul Surfer, but my friend lend me the book.

Bethany tells her true story of losing her arm in a shark attack while she was surfing, and how she came back to continue to pursue her dream as a professional surfer. Her story is very inspiration to remind us that no matter what you’ve lost, don’t give up on living. Have courage to overcome your fears, then discover and live out God’s plan for you.

She says, “Don’t put all your hope and faith into something that could suddenly and easily disappear. And honestly that’s almost anything. The only thing that will never go away, that will never fail you, is your faith in God…so I think this was God’s plan for me all along. I am not saying that God made the shark bite me. I think He knew it would happen, and He made a way for my life to be happy and meaningful in spite of it happening.” That’s good stuff, especially coming from a young girl.

My friend Bonnie lend me this booklet, “An Introduction to the Mainland Chinese Soul”. It is insightful and gives a clear picture of the Chinese way of thinking and how it affects their receptivity to the gospel.

The best parts are the stories of individuals that reveal how Chinese handles life and the gospel.

The story of Ren Min, born in 1985 relates how the cultural background of his grandparents and parents during the rise of communism influences him today. The story of Chen, age 28, talks about the stressful life of a young married university graduate, making a monthly salary of about 3500 RMB ($420 USD) (This booklet was written in 2001.) Dealing with supporting their parents and trying to make a better life for themselves is difficult in China.

The story of Miss Wang shows us the thinking behind an English student of a missionary teacher in response to the gospel. “Anyway, I don’t really think there is a real God in the world – it’s just something in our minds. But it won’t hurt anyone if I act like I do believe that, and it will probably even help me be better. I can’t jeopardize this chance to learn as much as I can about foreigners and about western culture, even if it is from the Bible. What have I got to lose? So I will continue to be interested in order to keep this friendship. She is essential to my future, and she is  a nice person.”  While there are those who experience a genuine conversion, but I can see how Miss Wang’s response can be a typical one.

Another response is from a story of a woman, name not given, to her brother-in-law’s miraculous healing of a bloated stomach with no medical intervention. She prayed, “Lord, I don’t know if you exist, but if you do, let my brother-in-law’s stomach not hurt tomorrow and I will believe in you the rest of my life.” She saw a vision of a person in a white robe healing her BIL. The next day, after he was healed, she said, “Now I am in trouble. I have to believe the rest of my life…What I did know was Jesus was very powerful and I could count on him. And seeing that person in the robe gave me great peace. So I want to talk to my mother-in-law about it and belong to God’s people.”

The story of Gao gives a response that I think is what English teachers hope to see. “My classmates and I ask why [my teacher helps in the local orphanage], and he said the love of God helped him do that. That’s when I started reading the Bible with him. I felt I could trust a person who sacrificed so much. And I desperately wanted the peace and power he had to face such tragedies with love … After several months of study, I asked Jesus to give me that.” It’s interesting that because he had no background in Christianity, Gao did not understand about about eternal life and sin until later.

The booklet says, “Many Westerners have trusted Christ in order to be free from guilt, have eternal life and find a purpose for living,. But, since sin is a confusing concert for the Chinese, they may respond to other aspects of Jesus’ message. …The present life is more of a consideration than eternal life in their worldview. Their orientation emphasizes benefit, face and relationships.”

“The prevailing view in our culture is that as you close out your fortieth year or so, you enter a period of aging and decline. To pair age with growth seems to be contradiction in terms. This is a myth I refuse to believe, and I want to help you shatter it as well.” (p28)

“Along the way, I have come to the conclusion that the second half our lives should be the best half – that it can be, in fact, a personal renaissance.” (p26)

I’m reading Half Time by Bob Buford. Those two quotes resonant with me.

Why is it that it’s considered impolite to call someone fat, yet, people think it’s perfectly fine to say to me, in a derogatory tone, “You’re so skinny!” I feel like responding with, “Thank you, and you’re so fat!”  How would they like that? Unless you are commenting on my skinniness as a compliment, that I look good being skinny, making an observation that I am skinny is as impolite as calling someone fat. But no one seems to think of it that way.

I am constantly being told that I’m skinny. Would you go around and tell fat people that they’re fat? And when they make the comment about me being skinny, they never seriously ask me how I stay so slim. No one has ever asked me for advice. No one ever asked me for the best weight loss pills or what kind of diet is best.

I’ve never taken weight loss pills. I have good eating habits, I don’t snack, I stop eating when I’m 80% full. Yes, I am skinny. Please stop telling me that.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post.

“I am celebrating 80 years as a Christian this year!”

She didn’t look a day over 70. Her face was radiant with joy, she sang the hymns with gusto, and spoke with clarity giving glory to God.

I haven’t seen too many models of older people who live with a purpose. I’ve mostly seen depressed seniors, with no meaningful work to do, simply living out their days.

That lady at Bible Study Fellowship sharing day today inspired me, that I too can live life with enthusiasm for God, and to live to serve others.

Isaiah 3:  The pride and glory of men will fall

As long as we think we can handle things and solve our own problems, we won’t allow God into our lives. Pride keeps God away.

Without God, we will fail, no matter how good we think we are.

Instead of fragrance there will be a stench;
instead of a sash, a rope;
instead of well-dressed hair, baldness;
instead of fine clothing, sackcloth;
instead of beauty, branding.

Continuing in Isaiah:

We live as if we’re in control of our lives, we live selfishly, we ignore God, we set up idols to rule us, as if there is no judgement day of reckoning, but there is.

Judah was warned.

We are warned too, that the Day of the Lord will come. Then where will our idols be?

Don’t put your trust in mere humans. They are as frail as breath. What good are they? – Is 2:22

In studying Isaiah chapter 1 and worship, I was thinking that sometimes church can get in the way of true worship.

I love “church” and all that we do at church, but I’m not sure I love it because it’s worship or I love it because it’s comfortable and enjoyable.  I can’t help but think that perhaps the “stuff” we do isn’t quite hitting what God wants for His church.

We are satisfied when people are “involved” and “serving” at church, doing church things: teach Sunday school, help plan programs, preach, run the powerpoint, design the website, sing, cook…all that is good stuff and builds people up.

But are we doing the ministry that Isaiah says: fighting injustice, taking care of the needy, treating people fairly?

I don’t mean supporting government programs, I mean personally getting involved. There are plenty of Christian organizations that help the needy. Are our churches challenging church members to volunteer in those ministries, rather be satisfied that serving God in maintaining church stuff?

And if we spend so much energy and time with church stuff, where can I have time to do the “real” ministry? I understand now why churches talk about being “missional”; they want to be a church that is outward focused. I understand now why there needs to be church plants to start new churches, because an established church after a few years spend a lot of energy in “maintaining” and loses focus on being “missonal”.  They don’t mean to, but it’s not our natural inclination to get out of a comfortable mode, and a church plant forces us to be uncomfortable. I’m just thinking out loud, and thinking that I need to reevaluate my life and what God wants me to do.

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. James 1:27

This year at Bible Study Fellowship, we studied the book of Isaiah. I had not systematically studied this book, so it was a good discipline. However, some of the reading and homework was too much for me to keep up with. It was time consuming just to get the answers the questions and I didn’t really spend time thinking through what I was reading.

So now that the BSF study is over, I am going to go back and study it again, at my own pace.

Isaiah chapter one – it’s all about worship, not the kind at church, but the worship that God wants.

This hits home:

Quit your worship charades.
I can’t stand your trivial religious games:
Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings—
meetings, meetings, meetings—I can’t stand one more!
Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them!
You’ve worn me out!
I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion,
while you go right on sinning.
When you put on your next prayer-performance,
I’ll be looking the other way.
No matter how long or loud or often you pray,
I’ll not be listening.

What does God look for?

And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing
people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.
Go home and wash up.
Clean up your act.
Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings
so I don’t have to look at them any longer.
Say no to wrong.
Learn to do good.
Work for justice.
Help the down-and-out.
Stand up for the homeless.
Go to bat for the defenseless.

That’s true worship.

We watched The Lightning Thief on Netflix, it was quite entertaining. Since I had not read the Percy Jackson books, I decided to get them from the library.

The Sea Monsters is book 2 of the series. The story line is clever and intriguing, but it’s written at about a 4th grade level, not much style but it gets the point across.

I recommend it for light reading, good entertainment value.

Yesterday, one of the kids in Sunday School broke one of my Resurrection Eggs. It made me upset, I might even say I was mad!

I know, it’s just an ordinary plastic egg, and if it was just any plastic egg, it wouldn’t matter. But the Resurrection Eggs are special to me…not the plastic egg itself, but I had hoped that the kids will see the Resurrection Eggs as something special, even sacred.

After class, I talked to the boy privately, and asked him, “I’m a little upset with you, do you know why?” He had no clue. To him, breaking a  plastic egg, on purpose, was not a big deal.  I couldn’t explain to him why I was upset about it. I tried to use this as an object lesson to explain God’s love and forgiveness, but I didn’t explain it well, and he didn’t get it.

A friend recently paid me the compliment that I was a good teacher to the kids. I think she overrated me. I felt I failed with this boy. In fact, I didn’t do a very good job in explaining Easter to the class.

But maybe J understood and he even helped me see myself in a clearer light. When I told the kids that we take for granted the sufferings that Jesus went through for us, J said, “We’re spoiled.”

Exactly. We are spoiled. We don’t appreciate Easter. Just like the boy who thought nothing of breaking my Resurrection egg, we don’t even think of ourselves as serious sinners. No wonder we don’t fully appreciate what Christ has done for us.

But when we see our sins from God’s perspective, that sin is no small deal, that sin is breaking a sacred holiness, maybe we will not be so spoiled. We will actually love our Savior who died for our sins.

Good Friday come and go, usually with nothing more than attending a Good Friday service at church and a fish sandwich at McDonald’s, the last day of the discount btw.

I did a quick search to see what John Piper has to say about Good Friday that I can meditate on, and found his wonderful teaching on responding to suffering:

There are two kinds of responses to our own personal suffering: 1) We can rail against God and say, “If you are such a great and powerful and loving God, why am I in this hellish mess?” 2) Or we can acknowledge that we are sinners and don’t deserve any good thing, and cry out for mercy and help in our time of desperation. The world is full of those who rail against God in their self-righteousness and presume that the creator of the universe is obliged to make their life smooth. But there are only a few who own up to the fact that God owes us nothing, and that any good to come our way will be due to his mercy, not our merit. I think Luke records this text for us about the two thieves to teach us that there is great reward for responding to suffering like the first sort of person. The two thieves represent these two ways of responding to suffering and relating to Christ in suffering.

The article the worth reading in its entirety.

May we remember the significance of Jesus’ death for us.

People say, Let’s talk over a cup of coffee. But I don’t drink coffee.

Or they say, Let’s do lunch. But I don’t want to spend money eating out (unless they’re treating).

How about getting together to walk and talk?

In addition to being a healthier alternative, which is already a good enough reason, here are more advantages:

1. You don’t have to awkwardly stare at each other across the table.

2. It’s easier to talk about personal, potentially embarrassing subjects because you don’t have to look at each other.

3. Silences are not awkward because you are actively walking, doing something.

4. You can always make legitimate comments about the weather or the landscape if you run out of things to talk about (though I’ve never had that problem.)

5. You are committed to walk all the way back to the car, so you might as well talk about everything you can think of.

6. The energy you get from walking and being outdoors adds energy to your conversation.

7. There is little chance of being distracted by seeing someone you know like you would at Starbucks.

8. You can laugh loud or jump up and down with excitement; there is no one around (assuming you are not walking on crowded city streets.)

9. No awkwardness of when to leave. You naturally say good bye when you’re back to the car.

10. It’s an efficient use of time, killing several birds with one stone.

I had a nice walk and talk today with a friend 🙂

Don’t let the title confuse you. I am 100% pro-life. But a friend brought up an interesting thought yesterday.

Let me see if I can get this to make sense: She said that in America, life is so precious. In other countries, ie Libya and other war-torn nations, so many people die. We always think dying is a bad thing and value life so much that we would never choose to die – we don’t want to die for anything, we are not willing to die for any cause. That means we have fears of dying for Christ. If we are not willing to die for Him, we can’t live for Christ to the fullest. Fear holds us back. We fear suffering, we fear being rejected. Perhaps it’s because we value life too much.

Another good read from Max Lucado.

Max on Life is a book of Q &  A on all sorts of topics in life, as the name of the book is aptly titled. The book is so readable it’s almost like sitting down with Lucado and asking him these questions. Most answers are contained in one to two pages. Though the answers are short, Lucado has a way of getting to the heart of the issue without giving trite responses. However, given the nature of Q & A, you can’t expect a full in-depth treatment of the topic, but with Lucado’s sharp insights, it’s enough to satisfy.

The topics of the Q & A are categorized into seven chapters – Hope, Hurt, Help, Him/Her, Home, Haves/Have-Nots, Hereafter. The best thing is the topical index in the back. You can search for the question you may be asking. For example, if you have a question about choosing your vocation, search Vocation, and you see three listings under “choice of” and one listing under “honoring God in”.

While I enjoyed the book, I’m not sure if it has wide appeal. I would rather buy a book that addresses the specific topic I’m most interested in, rather than having a book that touches on a lot of topics, many of them do not relate to me.

Disclosure:  Thomas Nelson provided me with a complimentary copy of this book for this review. Opinions are entirely my own.

Before every big event that I am involved with, I usually have a nightmare.

Last night, I dreamt that I was late to the event we are having tonight, tables weren’t set up the way it should, the food was not there, and to top it off, I realized I was booked to MC two events simultaneously happening in two different places.

I called my husband to help and he didn’t answer his phone. I redial and redial, and I’m so mad at him! What a relief when I woke up.

These nightmares are a sign for me to pray, and ask God to do His work. I am weak, but He is strong.

To retrain for jobs in this economy, it’s a good idea to take classes from an online college. You can do it at your own time, without wasting travel time, and it’s cheaper too.

While the degree options may be limited, there is still enough to choose from, both undergraduate and graduate classes are available. There are even online degree programs in game design. Kids who like to play video games should look into that as a way to make a career with their interest in gaming.

If you need help with the financial part of it, go to http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ for federal student aid.  It may be costly, but your education is worth it. Just make sure the program and degree will actually help you in advancing your career.

This post is brought to you by your friends at www.findyoureducation.com.