God is your God, not mine

I recently encountered a sister, who is a single mom and recently lost her son. "God loves you but not me."

This comment frozen me. When I was a non-believer, I felt the same way. The God is other people's God. He answers other people's prayers but not mine. I still remember to a point, I dont believe any of my prayers will be heard. But our group leader at the time, volunteered to pray for me. "Whatever it wont change!"

A week later, the prayer was answered. When I was giving praise to God, I was challenged who says God does not love me? I was loved at that moment. God's love is passed to me through other people.

There is a bible story about a paralyzed person who could not walk to the feet of the Jesus, but his friends climbed up to the roof and dropped him directly in front of Jesus. Are we using our prayers to help deliver the people not coming to Jesus by themselves to the feet of cross and get healed?

What you see on the outside, Matters?

Last Friday, it was our first time to join the home fellowship group in our church. It was in a big single family house in the prestigious school district.

We have seen the owner at the church before. The husband always dress with name brand shirts and the wife looks so young that you would never believe she has a son in college already. The house had a swinging pool, which was used for our church's baptism.

That's all I know about them. Happy, easy and fortunate life for them, I guessed.

During the gathering, in order for me and my husband to get to know them, everyone introduced their family and answered my questions, "How did they become Christian?" "Why haven't they give up God?"

I was shocked in a very profound way for what I heard. The owner of the house is a "blended" family, a second marriage for both husband and wife. They have five children in total. Both the husband and wife still work full time.

One middle son is born with autism. The youngest daughter is born with genetic defect, do not have the ability to regenerate blood, had bone marrow transfer when she was 3, now can not have any wounds or cuts, a simple infection can kill her right away...

Second marriage, five children, and autism, and ...
How do they even survive?

But they seem to be happy and grateful. There seems to be only one answer to this: God.

A good person

Ever since I am expecting, I start to collect baby items. Friends passed along a lot of items to me, including name brand clothes and shoes, which I would not buy. Surprisingly enough, these gifts are mostly from non-Christian friends. One drove 1 hour one-way to deliver his crib to us and another traveled internationally taking her one year old car seat to us. The first gift on the baby registry is from a non Christian friend too. Whereas my Christian friends, we used to pray, share together and I have given them baby gifts in the past, now seem not that interested including some have promised in the past.

Christianity does not seem to make people a better person. The worldly good people may have more "goodness" than Christians.

I start to agree with this.

What kind of old lady would you like to become?

One day I asked myself this question. What would I want my son, grandson and great grandson remember me for?

The answer lies in what you remember your mom and grandma for? Their food, career, presents, time with you?

Walked for 30 years

My mentor, who has retired and replanted to the west coast, recently went back to NY, met his old walking partner at their usual spot and walked again, as they have done in the past 30yrs during lunch hours.

This greatly touched me.

I have a walking partner too. We met at the most difficult times on in both our lives. There are a great deal of uncertainty in our lives ahead...

Maybe I should make appointment with her to meet in 30 yrs, to see how God leads our lives.

Is there such thing called "fate"?

A close friend of ours often had great stock options from his jobs. If he had cashed out those options at the right time, or even half of what is given, he could basically afford anything in this life and not have to work. But he did not. Whenever he brought this topic up, he concluded with a big sigh "this is fate!"

I had another friend. She can get into high profile companies but twice in a row but she got into trouble with her managers. "Why I just can't learn? Or this is just fate?"

I found myself get into troubles which are reoccurring. Is there really a thing called "fate"?

We often pray that God knows us before we were conceived. God has great plans for us. What does this mean? God has already programmed our lives with great detail and accuracy?

"Jeremiah 18

At the Potter's House

1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD : 2 "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." 3 So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me: 6 "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it."


Life is an inactive process with God.

My Son

Ever since I become pregnant, I started to ask around for reusable baby items, stocking up diapers. I made a list of things we need for baby under 6 months.

Yesterday at church, the mom next to me save two seats. After the worship started, two big sons, a head taller than us, squeezed in. As they are passing in front of me, I heard a voice"your son will be as tall as they are."

"What?" I am frozen.

I can't stop peek at them during the service. The mom is holding one hands of the sons when they prayed together...

I can predict just what today or tomorrow contains. I can get prepared for my son, but maybe only 6 month ahead. But God looks at 20 years ahead. What I need/want the most, a family bounded in God's divine love...

What is he made of?

I have a "walking partner", who walks with me in the park twice a week.

Her husband had cancer twice when he was a teenager, now he had a liver cancer after being cancer free for twenty years... This morning was their first chemo. But the husband went to work directly after the chemo. I was so shocked.

"What is he made of?" " He does not take a time to pity on himself?" "How can he just treat a chemo like a regular doctor appointment?"

His mom abandoned him and his two younger brothers when they were young. He did not finish high school but worked to raise his brothers. He and his wife now, adopting a hearing impaired half brother from his mom's second marriage to teach him read, write...

Where are you praying?

Have you wondered why someone prayed, heavenly power came down and situation turned around? But when we prayed, we even not sure if God has heard…

When you call some one, would you like to talk to him directly or just leaving a message on the answer machine…

Are you praying in spirit as the spirit desires or praying in the flesh, wishing things turn out as you plan?

Pray in the spirt. Make sure you are plugged into God when you pray.

How would you describe water?

Recently I felt life is more and more like water.

How would you describe water?

Have you found similarity in life?

Living everyday as if it is your last

Living everyday as if it is your last

It is not pessimistic. I tried and found out it actually had a positive impact on me.

I am not running around and take my daily life as a check list. I can take time to think, listen, observe, absorb etc. I would not treat conversations as a routine or even a waste of time but putting my heart to it, “what can I say to benefit her?” for it could be my last conversation with this person.

I take time to respond emails with deep care and feelings. I cook meals, clean the house with more effort and feeling.

I find out in thinking that this is the last day, I am less self-focused and shift more time and effort on the important things. At the end of the day, I felt more accomplished and satisfied. I decided to try it more, to make it a week, a month, until the thinking pattern grows into a habit…a life having right priorities everyday…A life actively prepared for the coming of the risen King!

Give it a try?

Are you ready?

Life is a CONSTANT choice to walk with the Lord, choosing to trust Him, developing new modes of behaviors.

Every thought going through my mind, every word from my mouth, every action from my body counts. It either leads me closer to God or pushes me further away from Him. It either displays God or Evil.

Are you ready?

I want to say I am not. Is there a middle ground? But unfortunately the world has been run this way already and there is no middle ground. We are plainly deceived that daily thoughts, words, actions do not matter. No one will know. We comfortably slide into our old habits/pattern without even noticing them.

Like everything that we eat goes through our GI track, either providing nutrition or toxin to the body, every thought goes through our minds contribute to our spiritual health.

Do we want to be healthy or unhealthy?

Goals and objectives

Goals in US are inspirational. In another words, they drive the team towards the goals but not judging the performance with it. If the team achieve only 80% of the goal, it is perfectly fine because the team could turn around to say the goals are not realistic or we tried our best. However, goals in Asian culture are set to measure performance. As long as they are in place, people will automatically measure their progress and achievement against the goal. In another words, you’d better achieve 100% or beyond or you failed.

I was thinking if the goals and objectives are biblical in the recent month. Is the goal more like the law and freedom more like the grace?

Then I found this in my class handout: Goals may be very good, even biblical. But if the law of the thing itself is my focus, I will fail:
- My flesh rebels: through a deception.
- The more I focus on and determine to achieve the goal, the more I fail
- Results: despair, depression, anger at self, others, God (here I am trying my hardest to obey but failing!)

What do you have time for?

I am a very time conscious person. I hate wasting time. I always analyze if this is a good spend of my time. Because $ can be earned but time went by, it is permanent.

Time is so precious, but I have a habit of putting it into unhappiness, weary, worry, and depression. For a life redeemed by Jesus’ blood that is really not a time well-spent.

I decided that I don’t have time for depression, despair any more….Would you like to join me?

What is really life?

Many Christians pray just for circumstantial things they want outside of their lives. However God wants to change us. Do we really understand who we are now as believers in Christ? Do we understand the purpose for which we become believers? Do we understand the call and freedom and power to grow, to be saved in our practical daily lifestyle?

Life and death

Everybody fights hard for life and fights hard against death.

Often we end up in a situation thinking that is life but it actually leads to death, but some deadly situation leads to a fruitful life.

Do you know what is life and what is death? What are you fighting for and fighting against?

An elderly lady

I heard this on the radio today while driving.

An lady, sounds really old, called in with her story. She wanted to devoice with her husband because she can not wall anymore and she does not want her husband taking care of her the rest of his life. Her husband is not going to have a devoice with her....

what a contrast to this selfish era, people constantly asking what in there for me.

Holiday gift

We gave our teacher a holiday gift today. She is in her 60s. When we presented our gift to her, she smiled making her eyes into two lines and asked: "Can we open the gift now or we should wait until Christmas?"

I was shocked.

We demand "Now" so granted, forget there is another choice--- joyful "wait".

A letter to someone God hold Dear to His heart

In the worst possible time in my life that I could be a testimony to the living God, He whispered to me a new acquaintance name. In about 7 consecutive days, every morning I woke up, it is her name. God is so persistant that I give up: OK. I will tell her about you, NOW.
Later on when I know her and her life a bit more, I wrote the following letter to her.

If you are reading this letter, I'd say it is also for you because God loves you.
......................................................................................................................................................................
Dear Lorie:
There are a few words I want to share with you for a long time. First start with my life. If someone told me last year I’d had no job for a while I will laugh and tell him I shall not live without a job. Yes that was me, define myself by what I do. If you know the past me, you would think that was a joke. God is working on me to let me see life by its true nature is very beautiful and if I walk along the course I designed for myself I don’t know what I will miss.

While this does not mean it is not painful and I am willingly to accept and enjoy the progress in the heart. I still feel the strong agony, lonely and unfairness. Only prayers lead me through day by day.

Trials come to our lives in various shapes and sizes, may variety in intensity and all produce enormous pain. They come because God sees us as gold that are incredibly valuable. He is refining our lives and strengthening our faith. He is teaching us depend more and more on Him. Trials fuel the furnace that God uses to reshape us from the inside out.

Trail is inevitable. Suffering is part of human living in a broken world. Who doesn’t have it? Pain is universal and inescapable. It seems unrelenting and unbearable right now.

But it is temporal not eternal. Suffering is painful to bear. Trials are torturously difficult to endure. We need not to get incurably discouraged or grow hopelessly weary. (I am waiting you here hope God will meet you here and lead you forward, a baby belongs to your future, not your past).

God let us suffer is not to destroy us but give us life and future. He created you and will create your baby. He has saved you once and will save you again.

His strength is adequate, His grace is sufficient and his plan is perfect even when we don’t fully comprehend.

Life is precious, for ourselves, for the people we love and who love us. As long as God is living, we have hope.

Blessings.

What is the richness in this world? (August 2009)

The Christians I personally know are generous people but not rich by worldly standards. Being a pastor is not as attractive as being a doctor, lawyer or cooperate executive as a profession. Being a Christian equals to being poor?

Some says the richest person is not one who has the most, but is the one who needs the least. Others say the richest person is who understands the meaning of enough. Intellectually I agree with both. But they do not bring any power to me. I continued to ask God. He seemed to answer “Take joy in the Lord”. There is clearly a gap between the question and answer.

Recently, I was very nervous about something and asked a lot of people to pray for me. Some of them have full-time challenging jobs, some of them have new-borns and hardly get enough sleep everyday, and still some of them are juggling through different life responsibilities. I did not expect all them will remember because I lost track who I have requested prayers except a few. But surprisingly many emailed or called me after the interview and they really dropped off their lives and prayed for me.

When I was replying back, one by one, I suddenly felt I am the richest person in the world. The job itself does not matter any more. The feeling of being loved, remembered, surrounded and protected overwhelmed me. That is all that I need in this world. This experience brings level of satisfaction to my heart as God’s love penetrates through his people.

This little emotional experience fills in the gaps between “being rich” and “take joy in Lord”. It makes two statements about enough and needs very real to me.

What is the richness in this world? Everyone has different answers. I had a moment I felt I am really rich. No matter what and how much you have but you never experience the deep rich feeling, then I am sure you are really poor.