Fire gas is very big!!!

Not sure how to translate "fire-gas", but yeah, I've been developing sores around my lips quite frequently lately. This is what I get for eating too much fried foods I guess. So, perhaps having a 'cooler' blog can help my problem! ;)

Last night wife and I were discussing which part of the world is closer to south pole, I said South America and she said New Zealand. Well, it appears that I'm right... and she's wrong!!! Yeah!!! It's a rare thing for me to be right so it's worthy of a celebration! :D

I'm also getting my new laptop at work today... and so they're trying to backup data on my old PC into the new machine... it's taking quite a while... and I'm not suppose to work on any documents... or it won't get backed up... so I guess the only thing to do is to read the Word of God and write blogs!

Read about Josiah today. This king found the book of the Laws and he was actually repentant upon hearing it. The guy is a good guy, but of course he's only human... sometimes he can get things wrong too... for whatever reasons, he went on battlefield against warnings... and so he got shot dead. I also read a bit of the how people grow book... and it talked about being led by the Spirit one step at a time. God often move us to do one thing at the time... without giving us the full explanations of the subsequent steps. We don't always have a complete picture..., but we just have to have faith to take those steps one at the time. What is palpable is that if we ever take a step that's contrary to what God want us to do, naturally there'll be undesirable results.

Follow the flesh and eat a bunch of tasty fried foods, you get sores over you mouth... follow the Spirit and eat healthy, then you won't have such problem. Simple as that.

But as history has pointed out, we just don't learn very well, huh? Oh God, thanks for helping us and never giving up on us. I promise I will try my best to follow Your lead! :)

Also, thank God gas prices have dropped steadily. It sure is annoying to see Exxon/Mobile made record profits during the past quarter though... just when everyone's hurting, they're profitting from it. Have they no shame?!?!?

(2 Chronicles 34-36, 174.4 lbs, $2.959)

I'm an inventor!!!

For the first time in my life, a group of us have filed a patent to the US patent office because of some stuff we worked on at work. It's basically a bunch of little stud fasteners that hold the TPS(thermal protection system) tiles on the spacecrafts. Shuttle has lots of them currently 'glued' to its airframe. With a fastener design, it'll be easier to replace them in case of impact damage... Anyway, we're not even sure if this new design will work that well yet..., but anyway, so I'm officially and 'inventor'! ;)

Anyway, more reading of the kings... Hezekiah and his son Manasseh are kinda interesting. Bible recorded one as good, but later on became too proud and the other one did evil in God's eyes, but repented later. Why is it so easy for us to become corrupted by pride? Good thing my invention wasn't really all that..., otherwise for sure I'd be VERY proud of my invention! ;)

It sure would be nice to know how we can avoid getting corrupted like that so that God can bless us more and more without end up causing us to fall! ;) As creatures that were made in God's image, I guess it's just so easy to forget that we're not really God! But luckily God can always do a muckrake on us whenever we're out of line!

But of course ideally we better just repent without being fully exposed first whenever we catch ourselves misbehaving, but of course we should just do Godly things to begin with... such as to love... to do good and to create stuffs! ;) And for our own good, we just better not forget to humbly remember who's really our Daddy!

(2 Chronicles 31-33, 173.6 lbs, $3.079)

Hope for change...

Although the stock market seems to be doing pretty well lately... although gasoline prices also seemed to have dropped dramatically lately, bad luck seems to be happening to me lately... some unidentified flying object cracked my windshield on the freeway recently, but worst of all was that I got into a fight with wife again last night.

But luckily, all problems are fixable, it's not like all hope is lost! ;) Wife and I are continuing on our growing pains... may we continue to grow to be better persons. I'm still trying to finish reading the 'how people grow' book, but progress has been slow... hopefully I'll learn something new and more interesting... ;)

Just saw Obama's 30min informercial on TV earlier. Buying prime time slots on most TV networks surely would be expensive. There was an eldritch feeling that for 30 minutes, every major network is showing Obama! Except ABC... I wonder why ABC refuse to be bought! ;) Anyway, Obama sure knows how to raise money... and use them too! Was that money wisely spent? If it gets him elected, then I guess so. However we still can't help but continue to feel cynical about the 'change' that he promised though. Too many politicians promised changed, but as they get into position of power, things most often would stay the same as usual. Even with all those kings of Israel or Judah..., some started out good, but later on changed for the worse. Whoever won the presidency, may God help whoever won the white house to stay humble before Him.

So I suppose we can continue to stay hopeful..., not because Obama or McCain can really be our savior, but we can have faith that God will make sure all those who love Him will end up benefitting no matter what. Today's reading talked about Hezekiah restoring the temples and held a super long passover celebration... just as the days of King Solomon. This happened even after all the crappy stuffs done by the other crappy kings... so yeah, change for sure is possible, people just have to remain humble and trust in God. May we all be able to do this...

(2 chronicles 25-30, 173.2 lbs, $3.179)

長江七號,海角七號

Not sure what's up with the #7's lately with the chinese films, perhaps it's a signal for God to invade into the hearts of the Chinese people soon!!! ;)

I saw 長江七號 a while back... and just recently saw 海角七號..., they are both not too bad... I most certainly like the positive message the films try to convey, it's just that unfortunately I don't think they're too convincing. Anyway, at least they made good money! Supposedly the filmmaker for 海角七號 incurred huge amount of debt trying to get the film finished... so maybe he could've done a better job if he didn't have such tremendous financial stress on his mind! Anyway, there was just way too many characters in the film, perhaps they should've made a soap opera of that instead of a movie! ;)

Pastor Jim talked about going fishing this Sunday. He talked about a lot of stuffs... and kinda unorganized too... so I'm not sure how to scribble down notes! He's basically prepping us for the next few weeks on how to become fishers of man I guess. If you're going fishing on 長江, or fishing at 海角, we need to rely and obey God in order to catch those people!

Today's reading was mainly about King Joash. He was a good king at first, as long as priest Jehoiada was alive. He even restore the Temple..., but as soon as Jehoiada passed away, he seemed to become easily affected by people with the wherewithals and slowly forget about God. Hopefully something like that won't happen to us... may God help us realize that He is the One who can provide all our needs... He's the One with the means to do it all!!!

(2 Chronicles 22-24, 174.6 lbs, $3.259)

treinta siete...

Si. My college friend Daniel recently turned 37..., in a few month, Tigran will be that old also, and I'll soon be that old too! ;) Wow, time is really ticking on by... we celebrated the occasion by treating him with a shabu shabu lunch yesterday. The guy loves shabu shabu for whatever reasons. Never thought a Mexican dude would like it when I first introduced it to him... ;)

Leonard, husband of one of wife's cousins, is finally out of the hospital now. Thank God. Hope he'll continue to take care of himself so that he can avoid all future mysterious illnesses!

This week we also have both prayer meeting and bible study with mom and dad. All went pretty well I guess. I was surprised to learn the Brother GD has decided to take a permanent break in the end of the year..., but I suppose I was surprised that he has led us for this long already! May God bless his heart! I was also surprised to learn after the fact from wife..., that mom and dad has been in some sort of 'cold war' for a while now. During Bible study, things did go pretty smoothly..., dad was acting a bit weird... quieter than ususal... Anyway, hopefully they can resolve their issues soon.

Such is life I guess. day after day... year after year! ;) But are we really growing more mature?

Today the book talked about spiritual growth requires an "ego death"! Only when we've utterly failed and admit that we need help can we possibly hope for some real spiritual growth. As long as a drug addict or alcoholic believes that he can quit anytime, he'll continue to be an addict. Only when he fess up that he's messed up and he needs help, then there's hope of recovery. Prodigal son is also another shining example of this truth. Of course we Christians can often make another mistake of blaming God for our problems. Shifting blame or avoiding blame is also not going to help our spiritual growth naturally. This is as bad as being a scofflaw!

Laws of God... or the consequences of our foolish decisions are there for this specific purpose. To help us realize that WE need help. It's useless to blame others about it... and it's even useless to try harder because you're not going to make it better... and often this is when believers feel like God is against them somehow..., but the reality is that God is so FOR them it's just that they don't know it!

The grace of God... the mysterious way of how God works is very conter-intuitive or paradoxical indeed. In trying to save ourselves, we do often end up losing ourselves. New Testament taught this. Old Testaments I read today also recorded events of the kings who trusted and rely on God... benefitted. Those who rely and trust themselves..., ended up miserable.

So how can we suffer this so-called 'ego death' so that we can truly be born again???

I'll have to finish reading the book to find out! ;)

(2 Chronicles 16-21, 174.2 lbs, $3.359)

Lift off!

Wow! I guess there's a space race going on with India and China! Wonder who's going to the moon first! ;) This first unmanned mapping of the moon mission should unravel more mystery of the moon. So far, only US, Russia, European Space Agency, Japan and China have sent missions to the moon. Considering the army of Indian engineers around the world, I suppose it's only a matter of time when Indians start to do their own thing!

Space race is always better than arms race anyway. Instead of firing missiles into other nations, might as well fire rockets into the heavenly bodies! ;)

And although Indian rocket had gone up, stock market is again going down. Sigh...

At least today's reading had been more encouraging... reading more about the good kings, Abijah, and Asa. They know how to rely on God. I was also reading more of the How People Grow book earlier today. It also talked about how spritual growth ties with how our view of God. Obviously those who see God is for them would rely on God more. Often times, this may not be our perception of God.

Due to our own faults and weaknesses, we might feel like God is mad at us. Yes, I can totally relate, I often felt this way actually. I might have projected an image of my mom to God! ;) Of course I am slowly realizing that God's love and grace for me isn't based upon my performance level, but sometime I still can't help but feel like I under-performed... and so I'd try to get rid of the guilty feeling, saying that it's okay... God loves me anyway! But then again, I don't really want to abuse God's grace by inventing excuses for my mistakes, right?

Anyway, so basically instead of working and improving myself in order to have God to NOT be mad at me, it's better to simply work hard and improving myself for the love of God!

Often times, we all fall into the lacuna of thinking that God is somehow against us... some sort of comsmic killjoy who doesn't want us to do this... or do that... Adam and Eve felt the same way..., that's why they had to taste that forbidden fruit! But of course they couldn't be more wrong. God is for us, and never against us. Even after Adam and Eve messed up, God is still not against us. Yes, guilty feeling might want to cause us to cover our butts and shift blames, but had A&E repented right away, why would God continue to stay wrathful? Had A&E repented right away of their own sins, perhaps we could still be in Eden!

So, yeah, step 1, realize God is for us, not against us! Only by truly realizing this can we take further steps forward and not result in more mis-steps! ;) May the Spirit of God help us lift off out of those lacunae and help us grow!!!

(2Chronicles 13-15, 174.6 lbs, $3.399)

Dreams and visions...

Had a long weekend this weekend... because I took Monday off to get my eyes examined! Well, actually my eye lids, seemed to have developed some sort of rash over the past month... not sure if it's an infection or allergic reaction, but anyway, it is a lot better now.

Over the weekend I finally finished the website for TG and a simple demo video showcasing one of the songs. It's not the best website in the world nor the best video in the world, but I tried my best! Hopefully we'll find more members joining to help out if they have a common vision! :)

Speaking of visions, Pastor Jim delivered a pretty weird sermon last Sunday. He had Terry Crews do a funky robot dance... not as crazy as the movie I linked below, but still pretty out there for a sunday service for a church...



And then Pastor simply did an interview with Terry, letting him share his testimonies of how as an injured and retired NFL player... ended up working as a secruity guard... to gradually having a great career in Hollywood! He achieved all that simply be acting justly, loving mercy and humbly following God! Even as a security guard, he worked passionately as if they're paying him $1million!!! ;) And he moved up by people slowly noticing him. He now works with Chris Rock and Adam Sandler...

I also found out on wikipedia saying that Terry actually went to the same high school with wife... and he got scholarship for it too..., I'm just not sure which program he was in... probably acting.

But anyway, so the moral of his story is that:

1) We gotta set clear goals for ourselves. Faith in Christ really isn't about what we can't do, but about what we CAN do! Don't allow religion to become a bondage of you can't do this or do that..., dare to dream dreams! And of course God will prepare for us something even better than what we imagined...

2) We gotta connect with the right people. Are the people around you good influences? And are you always the one teaching/preaching? If so, it's time to make new friends... to learn! I've also heard that Obama is a person who'd actively seek out mentors to learn from. For sure this is an area I'm lacking... and I'm for sure too passive when it comes to meeting new people.

3) Work hard/have discipline. Just like Joseph, no matter how bad things get, we still gotta do what God called us to do. Like Terry said, even if the job is lousy, still work at it as if you're getting paid a lot! That kind of attitude and discipline is important if we ever want to be truly successful. People are always watching... whether it be coworkers or your family members. Being a Christian isn't really about talking the talk, but walking the walk!!!

4) Balance living. We also need to balance our lives well. Our priorities ought to be God, family, yourself, work, etc. We better NOT lose focus of what's important in life by focusing on the wrong things!

To get to where we want to be, sometimes we like to avoid paying the toll by taking the shunpike, but there's always price to be paid I suppose. There's a price to pay when we do things God's way, there's also a price to be paid when we do things our own way. King Solomon lived his life doing things both ways... and in the end, he realized God's way is better.

He's supposedly the wisest man on earth, but may we all capable of realizing this truth before its too late...

(2 Chronicles 7-12, 173.2 lbs, $3.399)

My 1st MV

Funny day today...

Trying to be like Michael Jordan?!?!? I heard most of the debates in the car, but didn't realize McCain is more animated than I thought! ;)

And today Merriam's dictionary site's word of the day is genius.

How stupid can people be to not know the word genius?!?!?!?

Speaking of being stupid, I heard it over the radio saying that scientists have bred fruit flies to become smarter and smarter, but the side effect is that their lifespans end up getting shorter and shorter!

So do you want to be short-lived genius or to have long life as Forrest Gump?

What a delimma! ;)

Cool thing is that God can make you smart AND give you eternal life!

(2 Chronicles 4~6, 173.0 lbs, $3.539)

幸福婚姻的秘訣

Cousin emailed me a very moving story, thought I should share...

有一位老先生和一位老太太已經結婚六十幾年，他們彼此分享任何事情並且無話不說， 在他們之間並不存在任何秘密， 只有一件事情例外。

在老太太的衣櫃上方有一個鞋盒， 她不准老先生問起有關那個鞋盒的任何事。 有一天，老太太生病得很嚴重， 而且醫生也說她已無痊癒的機會了。老先生在整理她的物品的時候， 將這個鞋盒拿到她的床邊， 她同意此時已經到了該讓他知道的時候了。 當老先生將盒子打開， 他發現裡面放了兩個洋娃娃及厚厚的一疊鈔票，共有三百多萬元。

他問起有關這些東西的來由。 老太太說： 「當我們結婚的時候，我的祖母告訴我，婚姻幸福的秘訣，就是從不爭吵。 她告訴我，無論何時，當我生氣的時候，應該保持沉默，並編織一個洋娃娃」。

老先生聽了， 感動得掉下淚來。 只有兩個精美的洋娃娃在盒子裡， 就是說，從結婚那天開始， 在這多年漫長的恩愛生活裡， 她只對我生氣過兩次， 此 時老 先生的內心高興萬分。

「親愛的，」 老先生問： 「現在我已經知道這些洋娃娃是怎麼一回事了，而這些錢，又是怎麼一回事呢？」

「噢，」老太太回答：

「那是我賣掉洋娃娃所賺來的錢。」

:D

Joe the plumber...

How weird that the last presidential debate ended up focusing on the issues of Joe the plumber! Supposedly he wanted to buy a new plumbing business, but because that business makes more than $250k/yr, he may get taxed more under Obama's tax plan. Joe, from Toledo Ohio, met Obama on the campaign trail and confronted Obama and sorta debated with him in front of the CNN camera. So McCain simply picked that up and used it as the focus of this last debate.

Anyway, I heard it over the radio today that Joe doesn't even have a plumbing license..., perhaps that's a way for the leftist media trying to discredit Joe..., my bro doesn't have a license too and relies on my dad's license and he has a business too! So I suppose Joe could have a real concern here, but anyway. I don't really care who's elected anymore. I still think Obama is the better candidate given the other alternative, but some of the enthusiasm I had for him has faded though. I'm mostly disappointed with the fact that he left his church under pressure. I can't really blame him for it though, because his church's former pastor and guest speaker are really being insensitive, but still, I'm disappointed. Plus, I now have doubts about Obama's words. The guy has originally stated that he won't run for president... having just gotten elected a US senator, he said he needed more experience... he also claimed he'd use the federally funded campaign money(thus limiting the total amount that he can spend)..., but in the end, when situations changed, he changed his position. Of course I don't know the details of why he flip-flopped, maybe he does have good reasons. Sometimes different situations does require us to make a different decision...

Anyway, one can only hope our next elected official is REALLY God fearing. Solomon asked for wisdom, because of his pure heart, God also gave him a lot more of those other stuffs!!! But of course wisdom alone without God isn't enough. At least Solomon found out later in his old age..., but may our next elected leader have that wisdom to begin with. Hope I'm not asking too much.

Of course I need to have wisdom too in order to build up my own house! Yes, Lord, I want wisdom AND I want You to be with me, okay? Thanks!

(2 Chronicales 1-3, 174.0 lbs, $3.549)

Up again, down again...

Stock market is down again because retail sector is showing shoppers slowing down...

And Gas prices just dropped again too, after I just filled up yesterday. Great timing! ;)

Wife and I finally decided on a vacation at Sedona during Xmas break. We want to bring our kitty along, hopefully he'll be able to adjust to travelling long distances and sleeping in unfamiliar territory... he's a grumpy old cat now... so fingers crossed on how he'll be able to enjoy this upcoming vacation! ;)

Today's reading talked about David telling Solomon about building of the temple. He said, 'Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the LORD is finished."

Very good encouragement for me too! To build up my own temple of the LORD! :)

If we make palmary contributions to Him and to each other, why wouldn't God bless us?

(1 Chron 26-29, 173.6lbs, $3.559)

Facing my shortcomings...

Yesterday I was going to write a blog regarding my carelessness/forgetfulness. But of course one thing led to another, I let it slide... and I'm writing the blog now. Another one of my shortcomings, which is to procrastinate and drag things on.

Anyway, my "airheadedness" has caused myself problems at work too. If I hadn't done it, I could've saved myself some time. I've also forgotten the keys to our apartment... resulting locking myself out of it... sometimes even locking both myself and wife out of it! One of the most annnoying recently was that I forget to record an F-1 race! This morning at work, I found out again that I wore my shirt inside and out again... Man, how forgetful can I be?

This can be particularly bothersome when it comes to matters that's super important to wife. When stupid things like that happen, what should I do? I could be angry at myself for being so stupid. I could beat my head over these, but of course instead, I usually just laugh if off by laughing at myself..., but then how will any of those help me become better? I don't mean to mess it up, but it happens whether I want it or not... for routine stuffs, I suppose I can just have a check list. For the non-routine stuffs, I guess I can just pray?

Of course my other shortcoming is procrastination. Last nite we had a fight about our upcoming vacation... and it was about me couldn't schedule it earlier... so things cannot go according to our plan... I suppose this is easier to fix..., I'm just going to have to learn to NOT put things off!

Over the weekend, Pastor Jim probably went golfing with Tiger Woods or something, so it was Pastor Taylor who gave the sermon. He talked about we ought to be more child-like. He also explained to us how a dirty old baseball can be worth a lot because it's Babe Ruth's first home run ball... and the one with his signature!!! It's uniqueness made it valuable.

Me, I'm quite ordinary. Just a human like everyone else. But of course if you look at my DNA, I am quite special and unique. We're all living paradoxes of both ordinary and extra-ordinary, it all depends on how we look at ourselves. Besides humans, this is true in nature as well... hence Albert Einstein's quote above! ;) Child-like heart enables us to be able to see things around us as cool and amazing. Adult's jaded hearts can only enable us to see everything as boring and annoying.

So looking at the bright side of my shortcomings is that at least I won't be like David... to steal other guys wife... or start taking a census about how great am I. These thorns of my flesh can help me to humble myself. May God's grace really be sufficient for me.... and may the thorns of my flesh won't hurt others around me though. Your grace is certainly very nice, but I hope someday I don't have to use it as an excuse for my shortcomings..., but to truly bring You glory and to be able to stay humble at the same time... soon!!!

Of course there are also other areas of David's life where I can learn from, besides just making a red herring about how gracious God is, I better really repent and change my ways. I don't know what else I can sacrifice to God to... I also don't have to build God any temple..., but I suppose I kinda answered my own questions... which is to sacrifice myself and to build myself up because my body is the temple! Of course I also need to build up the house of my marriage as well.

Guess I'm just gonna have to keep on building!

(1 Chronicles 18~25, 173.6 lbs, $3.569)

$10 Trillion dollars!

That's how much we owe... and on a household average... the US government has glommed about $86,017 from wife and I!!!

Stock market continued it's wild slide, but then in the closing minutes, it seemed to have leveled off to the same level as earlier in the day... a lot of emotions are causing the volatility in the market... it is a bit scary that Government interventions didn't help the situation to improve that much... how low can we go?

Lord knows. Good thing is that oil/gasoline prices have steadily fallen! ;)

Brother GD along with Pastor Jim all have pretty much the same message recently... which is to love God with ALL of our hearts. If only we could substitute our greed into a hunger to pursue God, our financial situation probably would've been a lot better.

(1 Chronnicles 13-18, 174.6 lbs, $3.599)

Debates...

Market seems to have stabilized today after the Feds cut rate again... But government has really given up all the tricks in their back pockets... can they cut anymore rates? Can they keep on producing a bigger bailout plan? If the market continue to slide, I guess there won't be much that the government can do... so again, we better hope for the best!

And we also had another presidential debate last nite. Gee, it was kinda boring. I don't think I learned anything new...

I personally got myself into couple of debates myself yesterday... once with Daniel during lunch... and then another with wife right before bed time. Daniel and I got into theological discussion after we talked about Sarah Palin's ability to speak in tougue. He thinks she's crazy because he has had a Christian girlfriend who's kinda crazy and can speak in tongue... so I had to explain to him about the gift of speaking in tongue. And I forgot how I got into a discussion with the wife, but we're talking about the love of God.

Basically I did a lot of explaining to the best of my abilities, but I'm not sure if I really made any impact! ;) Just as folks watching the presidential debates, I honestly don't think those debates can really cause people to swing one way or another. Supporters or believers of either side most likely will see their own side as the winning side no matter what.

Daniel still doesn't get what's the point of speaking in tongues. Wife and I also continue to have disagreements over various issues..., but I'm a firm believer that in time, the puissant influence of God... the love of God will be inevitably felt and known by all. Now we can only see in part, but later on, we'll be able to see the whole picture!

(1Chronicles 1-12, 174.4lbs, $3.639)

Oh boy... (crashing stock market and burning woman!)

Stock market is really taking a beating today. For the first time for about 4 years... Dow dipped below 10,000 points. European markets are down too. This subprime mortegage thing is really dragging the whole world down... will the bailout plan really stabilize the situation? Let's hope so.

I don't have a whole lot at stake with the stock market, but I am also experiencing some pain today too... or this morning... because a quondam girlfriend who out of the blue decided to reach out to me once more. She emailed me this Sunday asking how I'm doing lately?

Why should she care? If she really cared, would she rip my heart out like the way she did 5 or 6 years ago?

I have long suspected that the strange phone calls from China were from her. I really wouldn't know of anyone else in Asia who'd have my phone number. So I finally prayed and decided to pick it up, but only with wife by my side... so that I can tell her to please stop! And then surprisingly, the calls stopped... so I thought the caller had finally given up.

And it was kinda funny that brother GD saw in a vision of me calling someone... he was saying I should call someone... I should call someone... and I was like who? Wife's first reaction was to jokingly tell me that perhaps I should call up that mysterious chinese caller! ;)

Anyway, so I think the sunday email pretty much confirmed that the phone calls were probably from my ex. So I asked wife's opinion on whether if I should preach to my ex about the love of God! That'll be the only reason I have to even respond to her. I thought wife could handle such discussion since she was able to joke about it earlier, but of course I thought wrong!!! ;)

To settle the matter, wife and I sent my ex an email telling to please stop trying to contact me because I am married already... and we cannot be friends and except for this one time, I won't responding to her in the future. Whatever she wanted, may God be able to provide for her...

Perhaps this is really the 'call' that I'm suppose to make. Hopefully she'll get the idea...

One thing I am thankful for though is the fact that my heart was broken by her. It was only because of that... that I was able to make room for Jesus in my heart I believe. Prior to that experience, I also probably would never be able to understand why would God love sinners... my ex cheated on me and yet I still gave her a chance to 'repent' and come back to me if she wants... yes, sounds very foolish I know... But when later on I heard God's call to choose to be with Him, I know I don't want to be like my ex and make the wrong choice! God is serious a God who'd make all things work together for the benefit of those who love Him. Although others meant to hurt me, God meant for it to happen to me for my benefit. :)

So may the bad times help more folks to be able to return to God. Now that I've made room for Jesus in my heart, Pastor Jim on Sunday challenged us to not just give God a shabby little room, though... we ought to give Him our best our whole heart! Yeah, it's kinda sad that the world and my ex were that way... if they do not repent and change, falling like Jerusalem would be an inevitability. Even United States of America could fall.

May the unbelievers repent and be right with God. May the believers grow ever more fruitful..., not just physically, but spiritually!

(2kings 22-25, $3.769, 173.6 lbs)

Bailout...

Senate is now trying to pass a new bailout plan after the House rejected it. Hopefully the revised 2nd attempt will make it easier to pass... There's also talk of increasing FDIC insurance from $100,000 to $250,000 so that peopleve can feel safer about their money in banks instead of them moving the money around based on rumors... which probably cause some banks to fail too!

Anyway, hopefully America can get thru this.

God has bailed people out many times... from splitting of the Red Sea... to dying for our sins..., but of course God also has decided to NOT bail us out at times and just let us suffer the consequences of our actions or perhaps even the consequences of other people's evil actions. However, in the end, God can always manage to make things work out in the end, but it's critically important that we have faith in Him and we repent of our sins. If we don't have enough faith, we just might decide to curse God and die, instead of being more like Job. If we don't repent, we'll just continue to make the same old stupid mistakes as before.

So basically whether if there's a bailout or not doesn't really matter! May His will be done, and may we all be able to persevere in faith and be holy... The only theriac for those toxic mortgage backed loans/securities is God Himself! ;) If we all acted justly, loved mercy and humbly followed God, would we be in this mess? Of course not.

It's amazing how we humans are so foolish. I continued to read more and more about those foolish kings of Israel. If I were a king, I'm not even sure if I can do better... Oh God, help us not to be too foolish in our own ways. Help more of us be able to accept Your bailout package!

(2Kings16-21, 174.6lbs, $3.719)