Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Tsunami in Japan...

A major event has caused the worldwide to be concerned about, especially those neighboring countries of Japan. I’ve been following the news on CNN and it really doesn’t look good at all. Those videos really show how devastating the earthquakes and tsunami are and the damages that causes are enormous. Besides earthquakes and tsunami, now with the addition of explosion of the nuclear power plant has raised the fears of citizen in Japan to another level.

As I am typing, I’m still reading the news. It’s really saddening to witness such news. But what are more depressing is, these people instead of praying or contributing something to ease the pain that the Japanese are facing, they argued over whose fault it was and complained about the situation. These comments that are posted in Youtube and the CNN news are really not necessary and it’s ridiculous. Do what you can help instead of just arguing about religions or whose fault was that. Some even worst, they make fun of the situation. Even some of the Christians went as far as saying that it is the judgment of God because the nations have sinned and went far away from God. I’m not saying that is entirely wrong, but the question is, what is the right thing or the right words to say now?

We all somehow knew that God is the one who is in control, but God is God. He’s sovereign and He’s far more superior to us. We will never know what plan He has for us; from a small individual to a nation. When the nations/countries is experiencing prosperous period, very often we will not mentioned a single bit about God, giving thanks to His blessing and provision. But then calamities comes upon them, then we will start putting all the blames to God. What a joke. Like what Job said to his wife, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

I don’t know what are the reason behind why God did this, but a visible sign that we all can see is that, the world are united to help those who are in trouble. China are sending over rescue team, money and supplies, U.S troops arrived to support Japanese forces in disaster to relief operations, and I believed that there are many more who can’t wait to help. Disasters, calamities, circumstances or personal struggling happened for one reason, to make us stronger and to unite all the people together to solve the situation.

Japan will be in my prayers especially during this Lent season and give in whatever area that I can.

God, bless Japan and the people in it.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Lesson learned over breakfast

This morning I had a wonderful and fruitful breakfast! Not only nice food, but also met an auntie and uncle from my previous church. Had a good chat with uncle and he slip money into my pocket, in fact lots of them. I’m not saying the piece of money, it’s just an illustration. He told me a lot of history about how he supported the church and how he willing to go from one church to the other just to help the needy church. We young people go from one church to the other is because we feel that the church got issues or we don’t particularly like the church setting or the style or whatever, but this uncle, he did the direct opposite. He purposely went to the church that has needs and he is willing to help. What a man of God. I think now he is at least early 60’s. But still, he and his wife commit to the church where there’s a young priest in charge of the church to support them. What a good example to set to the young people.

He told me one thing that really strikes me. He says “History is very important! You’ve gotta know the history so that the same mistakes wouldn’t be repeated again.” How true!! He starts telling me what he’s gone through and all his experiences in life; in brief.

What conclusion that I draw from him is that, if we (the younger generation) want to be successful in our lives; we need to talk and learn from these aunties and uncles experiences. They had gone through many things in life, both successful and failure in their lives. We truly can learn many from them if we just take the initiative to talk to them. This is also why the same reason why God gave the word to them and ask them to teach their children about who God is and what He had done in the past. By knowing what God has done for their past generation creates faith in the children's life for future development. And why we do need to read the bible now is because we also need to know the history so that we won't repeat most of the mistake that they have made. Quoted from Norman Cousins "History is a vast early warning system."

I’m learning now really how to connect not only to peers, which I think I’ve learned from my previous church, but now also to more elderly people and the younger ones and also the youngest ones. So that in future, it’s useful for me to understand their struggles. Always be willing to learn, you've never know how much you can be a better person.

*A fruitful breakfast that only fills the stomach but also mind!*

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Happy Fasting everyone!

Today in Christians calendar marks the beginning of the Lent season where mostly Christians will be fasting and praying to achieve some sort of growth and discipline in our spiritual life. These 40 days fast and pray serves as a reminder to all Christians that Jesus was being tempted 40 days by Satan in the desert the same amount of days and Jesus triumphed over all of the temptations. In this period of time, Christians are ought to be more serious in terms of disciplining and growing our spiritual life. What we do in our daily routines, we will fast at least one of those things that we usually do and replace it with prayer. It could be anything or any form of addiction, such as computer games, ps3, psp, particular food or junk food, drama series, or a particular habit such as scolding and cursing someone while you’re on the hectic massive traffic jam, gossiping, or perhaps using improper language in your conversation to curse and swear.

Well, I'll be fasting mainly 2 things. One is lunch and the very reason why I started to blog again because the second thing that I'm fasting is Facebook. I need to write down somewhere what I’ve learned. *sniff*.Not that I worship Facebook or something, but it really taken me a lot of my time and attention. As I was thinking what to fast besides lunch, well, I thought of Facebook.

You see, facebook, like it or not, it has become a HUGE part in our life. We shared our experiences in life, we upload the photos where we’ve been, share our thoughts, sometimes just update what we’re doing currently and where we are currently.

*The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event, well mostly*.

For example, when the cinema suddenly experiencing power cut in the middle of the movie, almost immediately you will see many will take out the “torch lights” and they will start harassing the “torch light” and update their status saying “What the heck? Power cut?? WHY? What about my movie tickets? You spoiled my date!” followed by obscene language. How do I know? Mostly, we are also one of them. Instead of taking your “torch light” to shine they way, you shine it on your face. And most of the time, almost immediately, when I said immediately is like real immediately, you’ll get respond pretty fast and those respond are such as “You too?” Then next thing you’ll do when you get the notification is you’ll take a good look at the friend beside you and said, “You’re just beside me dude. Like that also want to comment?” Typical Malaysian English! Hahahaha..

Facebook or some of these networking websites has really spice up our life definitely. Sadly some people misused these good things. Well, today is the beginning of Lent, so happy fasting everyone!

*Since I've decided to fast Facebook, well, blogging is the way to go now!*