Time

"The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made." - Psalm 145:13b

Faithful.

I have tried as best as I can to live up to every word and promise that I have made, but as you would have guessed, often times I failed.

Just today, I told my girlfriend I'll be at her place at around 1 or 2 in the afternoon to drop by the notes she needed for her exam. 1 o'clock...2...3...4...I'm still at work. Regardless of the validity or stupidity of my excuse for being late, it all boils down to me not being faithful to the promise that I just made.

I am at a point in my life where I'm lost, confused, troubled, uncertain, afraid. Deep inside my heart cries out to God, asking Him why I'm in this place, why I'm in this situation, is there a better way, will this ever come to an end...an endless stream of questions that I feel the Lord has been very silent to answer.

But in a very painstaking way, the Lord reminded of this word that had seemingly lost its deeper sense to me - faithful. More so, He has reminded me of this truth - I am faithful.

My fondest memories of God's perfect timing are those moments that something very precious to me, or something really necessary, is all of a sudden taken away from me. And what a better time to entertain thoughts of bitterness and resentment towards the Lord. But the Lord, in His perfect timing, replaces all these things with those that are more precious and that reflect the magnitude of His goodness. He is an abundant God, and He blesses according to His riches and kindness.

I would admit that I am still having a hard time coping with the fact that I just have to trust in the Lord. I feel very uncomfortable thinking that the questions that I have could just probably be left unanswered. But in so far as my God is concerned, His perfect time to answer those questions is the time when everything will fall into place, according to His pleasing and perfect will. And when this time comes, I can fully appreciate His kindness, His goodness, and His love.

Bad Habit

1:15 am. A slice of pizza, a bottle of C2 (which I bought from the Filipino store), a bar of chocolate, and a computer.

Wednesday - I was very much aware that I had to wake up early the next day, since my routine would be out of the ordinary. And so I tried as best as I could to sleep early. Well, I better try harder. I did sleep, like at 10pm, but woke up after half an hour and wasn't able to sleep until 2 in the morning. I kept on walking around, restless and frustrated by the fact that when I needed to sleep the most, I wasn't able to do so. And yet I had to wake up early, work 'til late, and go home and work some more to meet deadlines. Thanks to international business and internet commerce, now a regular work day is now 12 hours instead of 8 hours. You need to stay at least 4 hours more to make your time meet with your business partners around the world. And should you be lucky enough to have your work accomplished, then your 12 hour work day is over, which unfortunately wasn't the case for me yesterday.

Thursday - As I said, I woke up at 7, which gave me 5 hours of sleep. I was in the office from 8am-9pm, which is a 13 hour work day. Had to go home but had to meet a deadline - it's the last day of the work week for our business partners in Malaysia and in China. I had to stay up until 3 in the morning. It was a really, really long day.

Friday - I had to make sure I met at least 7 hours of sleep; it was just a struggle to be able to meet that. Not being able to sleep on time, it kept me waking up every so often. Essentially that 7 hours of sleep was not the kind of rest anyone would want to have. But I went through my day - skipped gym since I'd be so late from work, worked til 10, and when I came home, I tried as best as I can to sleep the rest of the night of. I did. Once again, however, I woke up. I had to get out of my bed since I woke up being really hungry. And so that's how it all came in to place: a slice of pizza, a bottle of green tea, and a chocolate bar. And a computer - the one that has been keeping me up lately, but is also the one that has kept me company all this time.

Definitely this sleeping habit that I'm beginning to develop is a bad one. I'm not sure as to the causes - stress, fatigue, or what may have you - but I do hope the Lord cures me from this. I pray that He gives me the peace when I sleep and the rest that my weary soul and body so much needs and longs for.

New Year's Resolutions

Every year, we make New Year’s resolutions, and every year, we break them.

The term resolution comes from the word “resolve,” which in Greek means “to let go.” When we make resolutions, they are geared towards things that we currently don’t have or circumstances that we currently are not in. For instance, a resolution to go on a diet means currently you do not have a nice body. A resolution to start saving means that currently you do not have the ability to control your spending or you are saving up for something you don’t have.

In terms of character, the term resolve speaks of something exuding strength; we even sometimes throw out words such as “firm resolve,” speaking of a principle or opinion that someone holds dearly.

As we walk in faith and obedience in Christ, we aspire to become more like Him, but like our New Year’s resolutions, we often times fail and stumble. Why? Because we are not resolved. Applying the “letting go definition” of the word, resolve in our Christian life means letting go of the images that we have for ourselves. We always dream of having a bountiful family life, abound with the riches of this world and the luxuries it has to offer – this is the image that we have for ourselves. What hinders us from being in obedience to Christ – especially to His call to love our neighbor – is that if we step out of our way to help others, we might not achieve the life that we have always pictured for ourselves. If we give out money, we might lose some for ourselves; if we spare some time for others, we might end up losing time for work or our studies or whatever we are doing in line with the “life images” that we paint for ourselves. We try to hold on to our time, talents, and treasures, to ensure that every detail of our life image comes true.

This is the message that I heard from church this past weekend – exactly this message. As I go through this week, I think about how this applies to my life:

· I try and paint my life image

· I think about the things I do and see if they are related to my life image.

· I think about opportunities to “let go” of this image by going out of my way to help others.

It might seem that I am advocating for a sudden shift in goals and end up giving your life totally to the ministry or helping out the poor and needy completely – giving up your dreams and aspirations. Admittedly, even I am not up for something like this. There is this important lesson that I have learned, though: When we spare just a small amount of our time, talents, or treasures, and we tweak the life images that we have to give allowance for helping others, we might change other people’s life images – people who have been stricken by poverty, grief, illness, sadness, death. When we share a small portion of our time, talents, and treasures, we may lose a small portion of what we have and the details of our life image might not come exactly as we want it to be. These people, they have nothing to lose. But by sharing a little of yourself to them, they end up gaining much, much more than what it could have meant to you. A spare change of a couple bucks to you might mean a meal to someone who has not had one for a long time. It can even be a couple of bucks drawing the line between being able to eat and having ulcer. A couple of minutes that you get to spend talking to someone who is depressed might be a whole boost of encouragement to someone who has been thinking of ending their life or hating the whole world around them.

I want to challenge each and everyone to spare some change, spare some time, spare some part of yourselves, and for even just a little bit, let go of a small portion of your life images to devote your resources to something more noble – helping out someone whose life picture is dark, due to poverty, grief, illness, sadness, death. Maybe it is when we let go of a small portion of ourselves that we end up changing the images of people have about their lives – to having a new image of hope, of love, and of life.

***In light of Mr. Abodiles' situation, letting go of a little bit of your time or your money may even save a life.

God bless you all.

Benefit Concert featuring Sitti, Julianne, and many more!

Hi guys, we are holding a fund-raising
concert for a beloved high school
teacher, Mr. Edgar Abodiles, who is in
need of a kidney transplant. Please
please support our event. Ticket price
includes food & drinks from celebrated
restaurant Menu, at Metrowalk.

Concert for a Cause: A Benefit Concert
for Mr. Edgar Abodiles

Featuring: Sitti, Julianne, Waking Up
the Sunrise, AKA, and other acoustic
talents!

October 27, 2007 (Saturday) / 8:00 PM

PhP 500, inclusive of Food and Drinks

For inquiries, contact: Aggie
(0928-50286 26) or Vanessa (0919-4394622

All over the place

I'm about to go to school. I got so engrossed in bumming around that I almost forgot to reply to some emails that I needed to! Sheesh!

Anyway, some part of me feels that I haven't done much today, but objectively there are certain things here and there that I was able to accomplish. Maybe I just don't feel like I'm in my element because I don't feel that well today, but truth be told, it seems like I've actually done a lot.

I had a good weekend; I actually had a very productive one. It was also the second time that I got the chance to go to church alone. I wasn't able to go to last Saturday because I got stuck in a meeting, that eventually worked to my advantage 'coz we ate at Black Angus.

I got the cd series from church yesterday, and I really love the Easter service this past year, in particular this song --- "King of Glory" by Third Day.

My time's almost up. I know this entry is all over the place, but I just wanted to be able to get back into writing on my blog.