Merry Christmas!!!

Yeah, Christmas is now over! Wife managed to successfully endured the family gathering... except with a headache in the end, but at least it sort of went away afterwards... ;)

Anyway, so we can finally officially enjoy the relaxing break!

Another bit of good news is that Immigration finally send us a notice of them finally 'printing' a green card for a the wife. Not sure when it'll be ready, they did promised perhaps mid January... so we shall wait and see.

Today's reading was about King Agippa... who listened in on Paul's trial... and Paul was actually using that trial to try to convert him! Festus also asked Paul if he's 'insane' with his belief?!?!?!

Anyway, this is the part where I got the inspiration for 'crazed insanity'..., I wish to be as crazy for Jesus as Paul is... ;)

Going to enjoy my year end break!!!

Wow, another year is pretty much done. My last 2 days of work were pretty busy that I didn't even have time to write up my devotional..., but busy is good I guess. I can charge some overtime pay! ;)

NASA is still not sure if they want to cancel our TPS contract, they're not sure about extending it too... We've made enough progress that they didn't want to just cut it, but it's still not enough that they want to continue on with their $10 million contract..., I'm not sure what else I can do to help at this point. I'm already working on somthing else now..., all I can do is pray I guess. Surely our department doesn't want to lose $10million dollars!

On the home front, Wife and I are doing pretty well these days. After I learned my lesson to 'not fall to sleep when wife is upset', after our long talk, it seemed to have made wife feel better.

Again, I have to thank God for helping me. I honestly just didn't know what to say. In the beginning, I was still very slow to speak... and wife got really impatient... and told me to just turn off the lights and sleep if you got nothing more to say..., but of course as the MAN of the house, I can't just do whatever she tells me to do. That's how Adam got into trouble!!! So as I continue to ask God to PLEASE HELP!!! I did continue to speak more and more..., and quite honestly, maybe I was sleepy or somthing..., plus it has been a few days... I honestly don't remember much of what I was talking about. Perhaps I was speaking in tongues or just sleep talking..., but anyway, all I know is that it helped! ;) It also help the love of my life felt more loved. That's the most important thing of all I guess.

I've always asked her to learn to love, that's the only way she can find enjoyment in the things that she do. But love is like money in some ways..., we cannot give what we don't have, right? We have to have money to give money. We have to be filled with love in order to love. May God continue to use me so that the love of my life can feel it more. This is one huge trouble area for me before. All of my past girlfriends complained about me not loving them, but I know it's not true, but too bad I can't show 'love' very well. This is one of my personality flaws I guess..., I'm just too inhibitive...

Anyway, for the past few days, I read about Ananias, Cornelius, Barnabas, John Mark, Priscilla and Aquila. It's really cool to see God reveal special new info to Ananias and Cornelius. Hopefully someday God can reveal so special new info to me too! ;) As for Barnabas, John Mark, Priscilla and Aquila..., they've all closely worked with Paul sometimes even with disagreements/splits, but in the end, they all contributed in building Christ's early church. If we ever invent the time machine, for sure that's one of the periods in history I'd like to see first hand..., well, first thing's first, may God use me as He used all those people..., first I really need to build myself up... and my family up of course...

Today's Pastor Jim gave an interesting sermon. He taught us to feed our faith and to doubt our doubts... just don't easily give up on hope and believe our doubts! He also reminded us that God has His own perfect timing on things. Don't be like Zacharius... to doubt the words of Angel Gabriel went he told him that God is going to give him John when he's already too old..., that we ought to be more like Mary... even when we don't think we're ready, just be ready to 'believe'. Even when we do not believe, pray to God to help us believe!

I'm sure wife probably think this is probably too much 'brain washing' again... ;) But how else are we going to 'clean up' our old acts? Or old habits?

So anyway, I'm going to enjoy my break, and I look forward to breaking more of my old bad habits starting not only next, but starting NOW!

May God help me! Thank You Jesus!!!! :)

Save the cheerleader, save the world...

Yes, last nite I learned that I need to learn to be a better cheerleader, so that I can save our world! Hiro saves the day again!!!! ;)

Nah, actually it was God. As the heated discussion with the love of my life continued to go nowhere(that the main problem wasn't the christmas gifts to the kids but my inability to comfort her...), just as when all hope seemed lost..., that our life is about to become just as prophecied by Pastor Su assuming that our existing personality traits were to continue on without changes... pastor Su predicted that I'm just going to be quiet, dumb as dirt as Adam, but at least I'll just continue on my husbandly duties... and wife would simply give up and close up forever...

Yeah, just as when wife accuses me of not knowing how to comfort..., not knowing how to communicate, not knowing how to solve problems... and the fact that I just continue on with my mistakes repeatedly... and she's tired of talking about the same problems over and over again... that she can actually be better off... with less problems... less burdens all by herself... just when Pastor Su's prediction is about to come true..., just when even I'm thinking of giving up and just forget it...

I think the Holy Spirit reminded me to go back to my devotional blog... and to point out to the wife that as horrible of a husband that I am, I have actually 'improved' at least compared to last time we fought!!!

Both of us are actually making constant adjustments and changes slowly ever since marriage. Pastor Su's prophecy was not a prophecy of God. We don't have to live our life in accordance to our past psychological profile. We can be different!!!

I'm not a perfect husband. I can't solve all of our problems..., but is love really all about being perfect? And capable to solve all problems for the other person? Sure, God is perfect, but did He promise that we'd be problem free? No. He only to promised to go thru our problems with us. It's not really His problem..., why should He burden Himself to go thru our problems with us?

Anyway, I think that's what love is really about. Divorce is the ultimate act of no love. "I'm tired of going thru problems with you. Good-bye." Same with 'closing up' I think. It's basically emotional divorce. If your lousy spouse is really horrible... and his problems are actually growing and getting worse..., then I suppose divorce may be justifiable.

But as long as I'm trying... and as long as I'm improving..., then there's still reason to be hopeful, right?

Anyway, so Hiro managed to extinguish that fire within Sylar for the time being and managed to keep hope alive!!! ;) The bad thing is that after I performed the exorcism for the wife, the evil fire spirit seemed to have jumped into our cat!!! Not sure why our cat is all of a sudden in a bad mood this morning..., hopefully he'll get better soon... otherwise I'll make him read my blog too! ;)

*************************note for possible future reference***************************
So, bottomline is that I have to learn to be a better cheerleader. I'm not a very good talker..., I'm not a good communicator in general, but I pray that God will continue to give me wisdom to know the right things to say... to do... so that wife's future fires won't continue to burn out of control. Another, thing to do is to take wife out to mall or park or somewhere with more opened space so that hopefully the fire can vent better!
****************************************************************************

Today's scripture reading was about Phillip and Simon the sorcerer. Sure hope someday God can use me to influence people in such powerful ways too as Phillip. I don't have the money to buy such power, but yes God, I do want to have such power... and may Your Spirit fill me up as You filled up Phillip! May You someday change me to become a better cheerleader... so that You can use me to change the world! :)

The feeling of being trapped...

I was reading about Stephen today... the dude was for sure trapped there to be stoned to death by a bunch of angry mob. But guess what? By focusing on God, Stephen was actually set free.

Is God invisible? Yes. Is God abstract? Yes. Is it hard to feel God's presence sometimes? Yeah..., even Christ felt like God has forsaken him on the cross...

But are we ever trapped if we choose to do things God's way? NO! We might be pressed but not crushed; persecuted, but not abandoned; strucked down, but never destroyed!

Lord God Almighty, I need more wisdom... I need to know how to comfort people more..., I need to become more like YOU so that I can bring more healing to my wife instead of bringing her more injuries... Please help me and my wife... so that we can fulfill our destiny together. May we both be trapped in your embrace for all eternity! Thanks! :)

Hectic weekend...

Today's scripture reading was about Ananias and Sapphira..., they lied to Peter (And God) that they've given up all of their possessions, but in fact they kept some for themselves...

The whole incident, keeping some of the money, really isn't that big of a deal, but I guess their main 'sin' is lying about it as if they are giving up everything I guess.

Lying or not, to me, that really look so much like communism!!! I wonder if people later on gave out of love or fear... or both? I have no problem with communism actually... if everything is motivated by love..., but communism probably just won't work very well in the real world I guess. Churches of today also aren't operating like that anymore..., if churches of today still are the same as back then..., there'd probably be a lot of dead Christians... ;)

Anyway, speaking of communism, I just found out something last week that might disturb my new little brother-in-law a lot! That is I have a cousin who's a communist!!!!! Not only do I have family who are 'blue' KMT, but also 'red' Commies!!!! AAAAH!!!

We had a quick chat and dinner together on Sunday. I think he's also thinking of sending his daughter to the US to study..., that's probably why he wanted to hook up with us, his long lost relatives in America! ;)

Isn't that amazing? I have family members who are 'green', 'blue' and 'red' too!!! Wow!

Now, what color am I? Well, I aim to be "white" for I'm sure the glorious light of God is white... made up of all the colors of the rainbow! ;)

This weekend was also super busy at work too..., getting ready for the final presentation at NASA... my co-worker also worked throughout the weekend... and I mean througout the weekend to get it done. They're flying to NASA this afternoon... hope everything works out well. May God help us to do well on our presentation...

Love of my life was also really anxious about the recording on Sunday... and thank God that everything went well... and Handpicked Tangerine sang superbly well beyond all expectation last night...

Anyway, thank You! :)

Word up!

On Wednesday nite, Brother GD has explained to us how we need to be cleansed by water and holy spirit... that water actually represents the living water... or the bread of life... or another word the Word of God... the Word that was with God and the Word that was God in the very beginning... and God created all things thru His Word... Anyway, Brother GD wanted us to make sure that our lives are directed by God's Word and enpowered by God's Spirit..., but of course often times we lose focus on what's important. Just as Martha thought it's important to get the chores done... while Mary thought it's more important to hear what Jesus had to say. Similarly in our daily lives..., we can easily get distracted, bogged down by the daily chores... and get all busy over nothing... and when we don't have enough time... we'd easily sacrifice devotional time, time with God for the busy earthly stuffs...

Just as I did yesterday..., well, at least I read His Word..., just didn't have enough time to blog it! ;) Yesterday, I read about Pilate(John 18:28-19:16). Is Pilate a good guy or a bad guy? I don't think he's particularly good or bad either way. I suppose he's very much like most of us... to just go with the flow kinda guy. He knows he's not doing the right thing..., but he was pressured to do it anyway... he fought a little, but then just decide to give up for the sake of peace.

All I know is that if I were pilate, I'd probably do the same thing...

Today I read about Thomas...(John 20:1-29), the disciple who's not afraid to ask hard questions! ;) Of course God is not afraid of people asking hard questions. If you want to see my pierced hand and wounded side? Fine, I will show you! Ask and you shall receive!!!

Unless something is really just aweful, for sure our God won't withhold anything good from us. I believe even knowledge is included. If Adam and Eve asked God for the knowledge of good and evil, I'm sure God would eventually give them the knowledge without having to eat from that tree!

But often times we only have very little faith in God... or we don't like to wait... so we take matters into our own hands! This is what motivated Eve to eat from the forbidden tree...

Not that there's anything wrong with taking initiative, it's just that we need to be careful what's our motivation for taking whatever action. If you're motivated by love, then I suppose you're probably doing the right thing..., but then again, perhaps Eve was motivated by love too. She checked and made sure she didn't die before handing it to Adam... She was motivated by her love for Adam... she just want Adam to be smarter like God... instead of being as dumb as dirt! ;) So I guess the main point is that loving thy neighbor alone is insufficient. We also cannot forget about loving God too! Of course without loving thy neighbors, loving God alone won't work out very well too! Surely God is not a killyjoy forcing us to love..., forcing us to do something we don't want to just to please Him... Truthfully, it's just good to love! Without love, as Solomon said, everything is basically meaningless.

We're wrapping up 2007, hopefully we'll get less busy soon..., hopefully NASA will extend their contract with our TPS system... fingers crossed..., but God please help us and be with us. Thank You!!! :)

Babies like heros too!

Yahoo posted an article saying that Babies like good samaritans too! Proving that human babies are actually very competent socially and capable of figuring out who's nice and who's not nice without anyone teaching them! No wonder babies like me so much! ;)

I guess I'm still a big baby too... since I like heros still... ;)

In today's scripture reading..., Jesus did another 'heroic' act... which is to revive Lazarus. What we can learn from that story of course is that God's timing can often be unpredictable. What we thought would be too late... is actually right on time with God! And I think Pastor Jim once mentioned that even after God has done His work of salvation..., he still expects us to help build up each other... such as Jesus telling others to help the newly revived lazarus to get rid of the stinky strips of linen... in our case, it'd be helping each other to get rid of our stinky sinful habits!

You know, instead of just run away from the stench, we should try our best cleaning each other up! I have a surname called Broken Linen... hopeful one day I can completely get rid of that stinky linen so that I can truly live as Christ lived...

And further along the story, Mary annointed Jesus with perfume too!

So basically to love God and to love each other is to help make each other smell good! ;)

Do I stink? I'm sorry about that..., but please don't hate me because I stink! Of couse we should also take care of our spiritual personal hygiene by not being so annoyingly stinky! Regular cleansing is necessary...

Now do you find others stinky? Well, try helping that person smell better if you can... instead of running away! ;)

I guess this is probably why babies had to have good abilities finding 'good samaritans'. Cause they stink up a room regularly... only a good samaritan would want to help babies clean up their messes! :D

(John 11:1-12:36)

Hero!

Lately, wife and I are hooked on watch a new TV series named Heros on DVD. The story is rather complicated..., thank God for Netflix so that we can watch them all together without commercials... otherwise, I'm sure it'll be even more confusing.

Anyway, the premise of the story is interesting... the story teller combined "evolution" AND "gift of God" to explain the super abilities of those characters, but of course not very clearly which it is... Viewers don't really have an idea of exactly what is going on... I guess this way they don't upset any of their viewers regardless of their faith! And it actually mimmicks reality pretty good! ;)

And with these super abilities... of course the charaters tend to split into 2 groups... that is what they would do with their powers? It's a constant struggle of whether I use my powers to do good... to save the world... or do I use my powers for my own personal benefit? Realistically, we all struggle thru life with the similar kind of temptations. Struggling between being selfless and selfish.

But of course in order to be a true hero, one mustn't be selfish.

Of course the biggest super hero of all is our Lord Jesus Christ! Today's scripture reading is about him saving an adulterous woman. Not sure what he's writing or drawing on the sand, but suffice to say what he wrote probably drove the mob away...

Saving an adulterous woman may not seem that big of a deal, but surely to that woman, Jesus is her biggest hero!

(John 8:1-11)

A stuffy weekend...

We didn't do a lot of stuff, but we certainly ate a lot of stuff over the weekend. First it was for Darren's birthday on saturday, and then it was a get together with friends on sunday... we also cooked pancake for the very first time..., it didn't look very tasty, but it really didn't taste that bad! ;)

We also finally did a rough financial budget of our income and spending over the weekend..., well, it seems we're really spending too much... or I'm not making enough!!! Although my salary keeps on going up..., it's a shame it never felt like it's enough... sigh! Anyway, we've only been married for 4 months so far... for sure we need to plan better in the future...

And one interesting thing about the weekend was that I really felt like addressing the issue of 'suffering' with the love of my life over the weekend. This of course was mostly due to how she felt like Job was treated unfairly..., that he was so 'sui'... so I had to try my best to convince the wife that no matter how unlucky we get, God can always allow us to gain some benefit. Yes, sometimes we suffer because we screwed up. Sometimes it's because others screwed up. Sometimes, such as natural disasters or freak accidents, nobody really screwed up! Mishaps sometimes happens. It sucks, yes, but God let it happen for some kind of benefit. We have to trust in that!

What was interesting was that Pastor Jim on Sunday sort of carried on this discussion of ours... And pastor wanted us to be like Joseph, to give birth to Manasseh(forget the past) and Ephraim(twice fruitful/blessed)..., but I guess we can't really give birth like that... we need God's help to help us forget and to be blessed! So may God help us! Today's scripture reading was about the Samaritan woman at the well..., may Christ give us all this living water so that we can help others to forget and be blessed!

(John 4:1-42)

Interruptions...

Yesterday was our Christmas luncheon for the department. This year I didn't win any awards or prizes..., oh well, better luck next time! ;) Today, we also had a long meeting which lasted thru lunch hour... daily devotional ended up getting shoved off for later once again... perhaps I need to do my devotionals in the morning... this way nothing can interrupt it..., but then again, I'm so lazy at times... I'd tend to sleep in until the absolute last minute... Sigh.. spirit is willing, but flesh is weak. Strengthen me O God! So that I'm always spiritually connected to the True Vine!

Anyway, today and yesterday's scripture reading was about Nathanael and Nicodemus. I honestly don't recall much of that disciple of Christ, but I guess this is probably the case for most follower of Christ. Surely people like Mother Teresa who's that famous around the world is exception to the usual rule! Most faithful followers are probably relative unknowns... important thing is that we ought to continue to follow Christ no matter what and not worry too much about what others think. (John 1:43-2:11,John 21:1-13)

Regarding Nicodemus, I suppose he's more famous..., but although he's an expert in theology, he still couldn't understand the truth as it was revealed to him by Jesus. But his story confirms that if we ask, Jesus would gladly give. Knock and Christ will open the door...seek, though Nico didn't quite get it at first, but he did eventually found the Truth I think. (John 3:1-21, John 19:38-40)

I don't need to be famous, but hopeful after my one life on earth..., I'll be able to really get what God wants me to get..., instead of allowing interruptions to distract me...

A lost world...

Today, a glimpse of the various headline news... we have poisoned toys, defective GE ovens that might cause fire, US mortgage problems, US teen pregnancy on the rise again, Episcopal church couldn't agree on gay issues, Nebraska Mall shooting... this world is just full of problems.

But luckily, there are still some good news... such as honey can help with coughing... and a man's wedding ring helped saved his life by deflecting a bullet during a robbery! So not all's bad I guess! ;)

Today I read about the parable of the lost son and Zacchaeus. Both repented from their past sins..., but perferrably, we don't have to wait until we're at the end of our rope to finally turn back like the lost son..., we should simply come to our senses whenever we meet Jesus like Zacchaeus did!

This world is going thru birthing pains, and eventually, our world will be born again to form a new world... a new heaven and new earth. May the ones that I love be found by God soon too.

(Luke 15, Luke 19:1-10)

Parables...

Today I was reading about Martha and Mary... Martha is a busy body... has to constantly do things and get things done... whereas Mary prefers to simply focus on her Lord. Of course this parable is no excuse to be lazy... that we should all just do nothing, but pray and read the bible all day long... ;) But it is trying to let us know what is more important in life... and what we should focus on. (Luke 10:38-42)

That passage was kinda short... so I read on... to the parable about the rich fool... who's only interested in storing up stuffs on earth..., but little did he know what God is about to take his life tonite!!! Jesus simply didn't want us to worry too much about toromorrw... for it's simply useless. If we want to get rich... if we want to store things up... might as well get rich spiritually... and store up our treasures in heaven! (Luke 12:13-34)

It's interesting that God, Brother GD and Pastor Jim are all talking about similar things here... while at a time, I don't feel particularly wealthy! But I do have to admit that I don't feel that I've been depositing much towards heaven lately though... Help me change my ways Lord! Change me to become a bit more useable in Your Kingdom! :)

Do not under estimate a Phillipino!!!

This 15 yr old girl named Charice Pempengco is simply amazing! For sure she'll be able to PK anyone off any competition at anytime! She makes all other singers look like a joke!!!! ;)

Last weekend pastor Jim happened to preached about "Phillipians" 4:19 (And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.) Of course most of God's promises are conditional... in this case, it's conditional upon our own generocity... conditional upon us not being lazy... and stupid! ;) Anyway, I really like Pastor Jim's analogy that we shouldn't have this pie mentality... as if we don't get a piece, it's going to run out! God's riches is like a flowing river... and flow is non-stop!!!

Pastor Jim also talked about praying for God to mess with our lives... ;) Prayers such as asking God to not just grant us whatever we wish..., but to seriously meet the true need of ours so that we won't even end up asking for other less meaningful things to meet our needs... Anyway, not sure how he said it, but yes, I'd like God to mess with me the same way. :)

Today's scripture reading was about the good samaritan..., now this guy is one generous guy! He went out of his way to help out a brother in need... May God uses me to meet the needs of the folks around me. O Lord, give me the heart to be able to carry it out..., give me the strength to be able to not be lazy... and give me the wisdom to not to be too dumb! Thanks! :)

(Luke 10:25-37)