It was Jawarial Nehru who said that “we live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” And that’s what my cousin decided to do: take a time-off from school and travel to Australia.
As a family tradition in the Philippines, we had like a mini despedida party for him. We tried the new Korean restaurant in town (apparently I don’t even remember the name. Lol) and since we’re filipinos, taking pictures is part of our lifestyle.
Fusion box. Cousin's order, japanese food!
I hope these guys come home changed/better persons! May they come back renewed men by considering others better than themselves. AJA!
Sister and I decided to visit the sakuras in Stanley park as it is Cherry blossoms festival this month and also cause it’s spring! Spring will never be complete without ‘em. Apparently, Stanely’s still not in bloom. :S Thus, vanity in its full bloom!
But of course, we didn’t miss one today.
See this beautiful cherry blossoms? Wonderful, eh? Makes me think how wonderful God is to make such wonderful creation.
I have a question. If you did 30 good things, can you murder someone?
Ok let’s make it a little complicated. If you did 150 good things, can you murder someone?
The answer is easy, you bet? Rights don’t cancel wrongs. But the devil doesn’t come as easy as black and white. He comes in gray. He seems to be almost kind but he is not your friend.
I have friends from mainland China who accepted Jesus Christ just recently and they pretty much have a hard time digesting Jesus kingdom because in China, what you see is pretty much what there is. That the physical world is all there is. Growing up, they were taught that we evolved from apes. Compared to my home country, spirit stories are so prevalent they are almost superstitious. The Bible tells us that there are 2 spirit worlds. The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Sin and Self (Satan’s).
First we discuss the Kingdom of sin and self. In Psalm 36, there are 3 types of wicked people. The self righteous who are so blinded they cannot even see they are so righteous (Luke 18:9-14); the self-wise who decide what is right or wrong for them. They are the people who kind of figured out things for themselves and define wisdom by their own standard. There’s also the self-directed people who knows what life direction to take that will serve them best. These people are not blatantly hurting someone else but they are self-centred. If you remember the story of the tower of Babel in Genesis 11, that is one good picture to describe what wicked is.
The Tower of Babel
1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward,[a] they found a plain in Shinar[b] and settled there.3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” 8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9That is why it was called Babel[c]—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
A neutral object doesn’t mean a neutral person. Bricks are man-made, stones made by God. Bricks and stones are neutral objects but a person can never be neutral. I remember a story of this godly friend who has a friend that gets the “it” job. How he decided to finally accept the job was based on pay, vacation times and other benefits. (If you are easily offended, do not continue reading.) Apparently, this godly friend asked him, “I don’t see how this decision will affect the kingdom of God.”
So before everything else gets complicated and overwhelming, I just wanted to remind you that you and I are much more important than we think. If we give Satan the right to influence us, everything gets corrupted. Even the physical world is suffering because of choices that we make. Being self-righteous, self-wise and self-directed is the seed of every wrong thing.
The second world is the kingdom of God. It is in this world that everything’s pure. He is righteous and generous. Makes me think of my stay here in Vancouver. It’s the melting pot of almost all culture and man, I eat like a king having the flavors of the world. How generous is He! ) In His world, everything is motivated by love and compassion.
We are in the age of decision now. We have an eternity of perfection as stated in Revelation 21:3-4 and so I hope that we are all after the Father’s work. I pray that you have clarity on what is wicked or not and that you be motivated by love.
Joshua 24:15 New International Version (NIV)
15But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
As I blogged a few weeks ago, repentance is not about being bad and turning 180 degrees to being good. It’s about being selfish and turning to a relationship with God. It’s like Him saying you were far away, now come near. It’s such a positive word!
Now that we are in a relationship with God, what’s next? Boils down to the thought of finding about our life purpose. And who is the best person to ask? Just as I remember a time when I’d sing and Darryl, who happens to be musically-inclined, would correct me and say how the right tone should be. I’d be so keen in listening to every correction because after all, he’s the “expert”. But if my mom were to say I am good at singing, I’d go like “whatever” right. So who do we ask? No other than the Maker, who made us for a specific purpose.
Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Have you watched or read the entertainment news lately? It’s back to back break-up almost every single day. (I am guilty of reading them on the morning paper. LOL). They are rich and famous but are they happy? I can own a Ferrari, or be the most famous person, or date a rockstar or own a company, or travel the world but I can never offset the need to love and be loved. This means that God measures our personal health in terms of relationships.
But what is love? Is it a feeling? An action? Love runs deeper than a feeling for sure. An action can be good or bad, depends on why we do it so love can’t be too simplistic like that. Sex, for instance, is not always about making love. There’s such a thing called as rape.
1 Corinthians 16:14 says “Do everything in love.” Love, then, is a motive. Love is why we do something to benefit others. It’s about why we did it and for “whom” we did it.
I remember a story about this guy from Africa who got engaged to one of the friends of a church mate. This church mate was so delighted to meet this African guy, more so, to interrogate him. While dining, he asked `How do you know she’s the one?” And he said “You know, I’ve been asking God the same question for a while. But God told me I was asking the wrong question. And then it hit me and so I asked myself if I am able to serve this person for the rest of my life. And I know she’s the one!” When we do something for the sake of others, then we love them.
God gave us laws to abide by but that doesn’t capture really well what love is. Instead, it is how love looks like. He gave us those laws so we may be guided in the right direction which is towards love (Roman 13:9-10).
To better understand what love is, we need to take a look at the opposite side of the spectrum. Hate is not the opposite of love. It is actually selfishness. Ever heard of someone who wanted to commit suicide? Suicide counsellors usually help this person by making him think not about himself. Question like “How will your loved ones feel?” is common to ask. How about those people afraid of failing? When we fail, do we start to hate ourselves? It’s is because we love ourselves too much!
So, again, what is our life purpose? Our life purpose is a life motive. Our motive (why we do it) transforms all we do into a meaningful activity. John 13:35 says Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. In anything we do, if it is injected with love, becomes eternally significant and valuable
May we begin then not by being loving by trying harder and becoming less sinful, not that we balance life by being selfish and being loving. Instead, by receiving God’s love and giving it to others. When we taste of His love, the need to be selfish is removed. I pray that your life may never be more complicated than giving and receiving love.
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.
Attached is a video of Robert McQuilken who quit his job to take care of his wife who’s suffering with Alzheimer’s. Amazing love!
First of all, I would like to thank Jesus, my Lord and Savior, for the renewal of my contract at work. His favor is just so overwhelming. All the more I will work hard and bless the company I’m working with. I thank them as well for trusting me on day to day responsibilities.
Secondly, I started 121 again! I just want to thank God for giving me Ereka for her time she makes for me on Wednesdays.
I have deadline tonight but thankfully, I managed to attend a friend’s party and have some fun! Kinect time. I still miss playing mafia or charades during parties though.
Got me some bubble tea and Beard Papa’s cream puffs for the family and headed home.
love
Pumped up for tomorrow’s school and church! Lezdudis!!!
Unfortunately, I(my heart specifically) have majored in Awfulness101. Yes, but I didn’t know that until 2 days ago.
Dah: If men struggle on lust of the flesh, women struggle on self-worship. They want to be praised that they are beautiful.
Yana: Why are you asking that?
Dah: I wanted to know the struggles of women.
Yana: So why did you want to know the struggles of women?
Dah: Of course I’ll be spending the rest of my life with one someday. I’m not gay!
Yana: So why not ask that woman instead?
Dah: Ahh. It should be asked with friends or my mom. Cause if it were asked to that specific woman, then I’ll be vulnerable.
Yana: So, you and I talking isn’t vulnerable?
Dah: That’s a different aspect. Hard to explain.
Yana: Why are you even asking these questions? Are you looking forward to spending that someday with someone soon?
Dah: I don’t even know who to spend it with.
Yana: If you wanted to know the struggles of women, it’s pretty much the same with men. Boils down to the issue of significance and security. Men and women are not that different. We’re the flip side of the same coin.
I want to be bitter. How can a Christian man who promised a future with me a few months back be so insensitive? HOW? Where’s the goodness of this man’s heart? How can he not know that the people who have won victory over this situation are the people he can go ask about the struggles of women, not just any women? Not just any Christian woman friend? So he’s being vulnerable? Why was I so stupid not to even think about myself putting in vulnerability as well. (Thus, this blog! Lol.) I pray that everyone will have love as the motivation of their hearts. Always ask yourself why are you doing/saying this or that. If it is because of love, by all means, do it! If this love is to benefit you, then maybe, you are looking at love the wrong way. Loving is dying to one’s self.
But I don’t want to major on minor things that would hinder my growth with God. There’s battle going on inside of me. But I trust God will take care of this. Ezekiel 36:26 says “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Remember, God designed things to be simple. If it starts being complicated, the enemy is lurking around near you.
Inuit are a group of culturally similar people inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada, far north from where I live. They are also known as Eskimos. And interestingly, today, I learned how they’d kill a wolf long before guns were invented. Here’s an excerpt I got online.
“First they sharpen a knife razor sharp. Then they dip it in the blood of a seal they have killed. After dipping the knife in blood they set it outside in the cold so the blood freezes on the knife. After if freezes (a matter of minutes) they dip it again into the seal blood and again take it out an let the blood freeze. Layer after layer they make a blood popsicle. When they are done, the knife’s blade is hidden inside just like a popsicle stick. Now they take the knife out into the wilderness where they think a wolf might be. There the bury the handle of the knife in the snow leaving the “bloodsicle” standing up and they leave.
Now after a while a wolf will come along guided by his sense of smell and find the “bloodsicle”. He will being licking it, enjoying every taste. Over and over he licks the knife and soon his tongue is so cold he cannot feel it any longer. It’s numb. But his taste for blood is growing and he is not getting as much as he wants – you see, popsicles are slow eating. Finally his licking exposes the razor sharp edge of the knife. It cuts into his tongue again and again but he does not even notice for his tongue can no longer feel anything. The wolfs own blood now flows from his cut tongue. The wolf is thrilled, blood is now more plentiful and he continues to lick more and more. Soon he notices something is wrong, he is getting weaker not stronger. Since he knows blood as food he increases his efforts to feed on the ever increasing flow of blood. His last thoughts are of how good the now warm blood tastes. Within minutes he licks his last and collapse next to the now fully exposed knife. Here the Eskimo knows he will find the wolf’s body the next morning.”
That my friends, is a picture of a sin. Like when we get personal gratification on doing things and we just keep doing it because come on, why do we sin? Simply because we like it. But what is a sin? We all know sin is something that is not pleasing to God. Say premarital sex. The first time I became a Christian, I understood this only in perspective that it is bad according to God so I will not do it. But why? Did you know premarital sex breaks trust? That’s why the rate of divorce for virgins to non-virgins is very low, approximately 3% vs. 50-ish%. Sin, therefore, is whatever that breaks a relationship.
Thankfully, we have a doorway to freedom and that is admitting we are wrong. It is saying goodbye to something that has served us well and creating a room for God to lead us. Easy as it may sound, but this is a process. For some of us, we get too impatient with ourselves we try to avoid repenting.
Here’s a picture of a pendulum swing.
Pendulum Swing
There are 2 basic ways to avoid repentance. To the left is rebellion and to the right is religion. Rebellion is doing whatever we want, whenever we want. Religion, on the other hand, is trusting in our own performance. So there will be times that we will be such rebels and just want to go our way and then we will reach a point where we feel guilty so we swing back to doing good (Galatians 3:3). But it never stops there, we will still feel empty doing good so we go back doing our own way and the process goes on and on. Religion is as selfish as rebellion. If you remember, Jesus usually talks about sinners and Pharisees. Are they any different from each other? Not really. The pendulum is a swing between lawlessness and legalism.
So the reality of the situation is, nothing can ever give us a loving relationship with God and others if we keep that sin. You can fill your life with friendship after friendship, relationship after relationship, people after people but if you are not in the right perspective with God, you will keep breaking relationships. God is able to forgive if you just confess and forsake those sins and turn to His ways. We must ask “What does a healthy relationship with God or others look like?” If you tasted the sweetness of His presence, ahhh, heaven on earth is reality.
Repentance is an ongoing lifestyle and may we continue to repent not cause we’ve made mistakes over the years and just needs a little tweak here and there or that we promise to do better in the future but that may we repent on broken relationships. May God’s love and power flood into our lives and make us new.
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I have 3 days off this week. Should be amazing 3 days off, right. It’s just the opposite. It’s just astonishingly boring and lonely I’m beginning to get depressed. I constantly wait for my phone to ring or for my YM or skype to sound hoping somebody buzzes. I’ve watched all the new Hollywood and Filipino movies and Bollywood the next. Of course I’m exaggerating. Even if I go out of the house, there’s nothing really to do but shop and enjoy a cup of coffee all by yourself. All I’m saying is, I need my friends. Or maybe just hear from them?
I keep meeting new people in my workplace and I have no complaints about it no matter how tiring it can be. I serve a lot of people every working day and try to build relationship with them in just a span of 5-10 minutes. At the end of the day, while riding the train or the bus on my way home, I just wish for my old friends be with me and share with them whatever I feel like sharing and just be honest. That every day is not beautiful but they are just there to encourage you because as they would say there’s hope in God. I know that, I know them too well I know how they’d respond. I miss being crazy with friends whom I could just laugh loud and be crass and crazy. I miss my old life. With the new people in my life, I cannot drop the act of politeness and can’t even talk about the desires of my heart. You cannot talk just about anything right? I mean I feel like crying but I can’t cry to them. It’s mainly “Hi. How are you?”. And beyond that? Fill in the blanks.
Now it got me thinking, what if I’ve stayed?
My life would be pretty predictable. I would have continued feeling secure in the company of my friends. Everyday I would have continued going to work no matter how unfulfilling it is because the money is just too good to give up (well at least for a single like me). After every work shift, the love of my life would pick me up and we’d try the new restaurant in town and never really mind that saving up is a must. From time to time, I would still be flying around the islands in my country, enjoying the beach and the sunset, and just be happy. Few years later, I’d be married since it’s the sensible thing to do and because people keep pressuring me that I’m not getting any younger. Wouldn’t that be perfect? Then somewhere, somehow I’ll ask myself “What If I’ve been to Canada?” and pfft, there’s nothing more really I can do cause it’s already late. I wouldn’t have seen what I can make of Yana. I’d never really have grown up. Moreso, have these realizations as I type. I’d be happy by default because I never ventured a life outside of what I knew.
Now, I’m here, very certain that everything is uncertain. I cry, laugh, feel home sick and feel lost. Seriously, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me here (yes, I get a bit scared) except for the fact that I will be a different person when/if I go back. I have new friendships that have yet to pass the test of time and that makes life exciting.
I’m actually old enough to know that the decisions I make will actually matter big-time in the long run. Moving here was my decision (when I could have said no). No matter how homesick I am, I am owning that. I’ve never been more certain in my life that yes, this is just a phase.
This was me celebrating my birthday in Boracay over 365 days ago .
I remember blogging a year ago about my birthday ( http://yanamari.wordpress.com/2009/11/ ) and looking back, I can’t help but say I was at the prime of my life.
This is me on my 26th blessed year on earth and on my 3rd month stay in Canada and I can say that much has changed. Oh no, I don’t play hockey!
The 3 things I have learned:
1. Those that are true will never be lost.
Like my genuine relationships with all those people I left behind. It’s one of the things I miss the most – the good times I had with them. I know I couldn’t have that anytime soon.But they will always be held close to my heart.
2. I have the best of both worlds.
I love the Philippines and it’s people. I also love Canada and it’s people. I am still so much of a Filipino but learning from different culture is so much fun. It makes me love life all the more. I am also now beginning to attract new friends from different continents of the globe (Canada being a multi-cultural nation) and I just love it. I am starting to make a new life
3. God is Almighty.
“I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” Jeremiah 32:27
Diana: Hello! Good morning! Tommy Kids Robson! This is Diana speaking how may I help you?
Person on the line: Cantonese!
Diana: You mean you want to talk to someone who is Cantonese-speaking?
Person on the line: Cantonese, cantonese!
Diana: Ok, no worries. Kindly hold on for a sec. *press on hold and calls on Stephy*
I get this kind of scenario alot . Like one day, a gentleman entered the Tommy store and I was wearing my biggest smile and was like “Hi there! How are you doing today?” The man just said “No English.”
Scenes like these aren’t funny especially when you are working in a retail environment and way too pressured to hit your sales goal and people will not shop because it’s snowy and people will not talk to you just because NO ENGLISH! Isn’t that unfair? More often than not, I go home with bitterness for not making it “big” with my sales goal while my Chinese friend just always make it. What’s wrong with me? Ha? I’d go home tired and bitter.
And we are almost always like that. We set a goal, try to reach for it, compare ourselves with others and what is the result? :-S Or maybe it’s just me. Haha
But I’ve learned to see how letting go could save you worries. And patience is and will always be the key. At the end of the day, it’s what you value most that will come first. Do I value more to reach my sales goal than value the friendship I could develop with my teammates?I was so blinded with the sales goal that I almost missed looking at the positive side of things. Like how I’m beginning to know more a lot of Filipinos who are also fellow migrants. And also for the knowledge added like how the season of Australia is exactly opposite to ours (I want to be in Australia so badly), and how the hardcore Indian programmers are dominating the IT world and how they have their own “Silicon Valley” in India. I also almost missed the thought that I get to learn from Europeans who love to shop in Tommy because it’s cheaper here than in the UK. Shallow as it may sound, who knows this might save me euros/pounds if and when I visit Europe someday! LOL.Economically speaking, I observed that the Chinese are the ones responsible for the growth of the economy of the world. And Arabs are way too wealthy!
I’ve decided to give more space, and then some more and more until that space is occupied already by Stephy. And then I just let go. Now I become more aware of what my limitations, strengths and weaknesses are. This is when I am most honest about myself and just go to the Father and tell Him “Lord, this is my story for today. I know I am a work in progress. Thank you for the gift of Redemption.”
) In His world, everything is motivated by love and compassion.
