戀愛(練愛)

Last night, wife sorta got upset at me due to me screwing up again... however, this situation didn't continue to escalate as before! Thank God I'm a bit more wiser or something... ;) I was amazingly able to carry on sufficiently good conversation to help steer wife's mood to become better and better! This is something I have never done before, so I guess there has been some improvement on my part... I'm still quite amazed by what happened! And of course some improvement on wife's part too! ;) Conclusion of our talk was that I better continue to practice to be a better communicator, to be more attentive... to be a better husband basically! And for wife, she just need to learn to practice how to love!

Anyway, it's really interesting that God put me and wife together..., I'm really 'grace', and she's more like 'truth'. I really need to learn to do things right in accordance to the truth..., and she really need to learn to be more graceful and loving. Lord Jesus Christ is paradoxically full of both grace and truth, may we become more like him over time...

Today we had dinner with not only Jack, but also Katty and Howard. Howard was jokingly asking wife and I if we are still in love(戀愛). I said of course! But we're more like practicing how to love(練愛)! Practice makes perfect! ;)

Today's reading was about Joshua, well advanced in the years, encouraging the Jews to keep their convenant with God... reminding them that their obedience or disobedience will bring either blessings or curses!!! Of course the Jews proclaimed that they will serve the Lord!

But when the period of Judges come, Jews clearly showed how the spirit might be willing, but the flesh is weak. May God help us guard against our weak flesh. May we be able to continue to obey and receive blessings... instead of screwing up. Most importantly, we need to continue to practice loving God and others to the very end no matter what happens!

Strengthen us O God! :)

(Josh 22-24; 174.0 lbs; $4.359)

Earthquake!!!

Today we had an earthquake. Haven't had one for a while, so it was kinda fun! ;) Luckily it wasn't so big to cause any significant damage. I was hoping to be able get the rest of the day off because of earthquake, but oh well, that didn't happen...

Because Daniel biked to work today, after the earthquake hit, all he wanted to do is to go home to check on his wife and son quickly... so I drove him home and he treated me lunch. Besides free lunch, I also tasted a chocolate cake baked by Dan for his wife's birthday. It was really good! It was also the first time to finally meet his baby! He's pretty cute, but I'm still not sure which parent does the baby look like! ;)

Anyway, nothing much happened today other than the earthquake I guess... scripture reading was once again about dividing up the land for the Jews.... except it also talked about the city of refuge and the town for Levites... I guess God had to be real clear about this so that the tribes won't fight each other later on about it, huh? ;)

(Josh 19-21, 173.8 lbs, $4.399)

Spirit filled?

Once again work has been busy. In harsh economic times, I suppose that's good. Wife has been sore and in pain all over her body lately... she's claiming that this is getter worse and worse as she's getting older...

Mom emailed us Dad's sermon pretty much every week, this week's kinda interesting... how when we're young, we dream to soar like eagle, as we get older, we just want to run... and as we get really old, we just want to be able to walk! ;) These are actually promises of God, if we prepare ourselves properly and when the right time comes, God is going to do what He promised to do. Real world might cause us to fall instead of soar, to trip while we run, to cripple us so that we can't even walk, but do we have faith in God? Hope for our future? Most importantly, do we have love?

Anyway, scripture reading was talking about allotment of land to Israelites again. I wonder what will be my allotment? ;) And I also found a coupon from "Spirit" Honda to do maintenance work on my S2000. May Spirit of God continue to do work on me too! ;)

(Josh 16-18, 173.8 lbs, $4.399)

In Spirit and Truth!

This weekend had been another relative boring weekend which we ended up not doing much. We saw some more properties, rehearsed on Saturday and helped Jay out with praise and worship on Sunday... and the weekend was pretty much over...

As boring as it was, I think wife and I still enjoyed each other's company... I played the video game for a long time actually, but wife wasn't that upset with me! ;) Cool thing was that, for the first time in my life, I now own a Ferrari(in the game)! Yeah! Another notable cool thing was just when I was 'inspired' to strum around the guitar to mess around a bit..., my playing actually inspired wife to write a new song! Wow!

Anyway, defeating the enemy has certainly been nice, but as the scripture reading continues... there are actually more land to be taken still... so of course the job is not done yet. With my optimistic attitude, glass half full isn't really full yet, okay? Let's keep going!

Pastor Chen's sermon was kinda interesting today. He talked about how we ought to live out Christ's glory... with Spirit and the Truth. He's saying they're like our left foot and right foot. Truth alone will only get us to run around in circles, likewise, if we operate on Spirit alone... Only with both "feet" operating together can we walk forward!!!

May me and my house worship and follow the Lord in Spirit and in Truth all the time! Help me God! :)

(Josh 13-15, 174.0 lbs, $4.519)

Defeating the enemy!

Yesterday at work late afternoon, I developed a headache. And getting wife all pissed off later on in the evening... so that she couldn't sleep... and having to stay up to try to comfort her until wee hours in the morning most certainly didn't help my headache any better. I wonder if I could sense a storm coming before hand now that I'm looking back...

Anyway, surprisingly having gotten very little sleep, I wasn't very tired at all at work today. My headache also was gone after just sleeping couple of hours... and sure enough, situation with wife seemed to have turned much better now... still have much room for improvement of course, but at least wife was able to detect some improvements from me so that at least she can have a bit more audacity to hope that we're going to have a great future together! ;)

I suppose this is what spritual attack felt like and what God with us felt like! :)

Today's reading talked about God made the sun stand still... I suppose God also let the moon stood still for me so that I can still get a full night's sleep after only sleeping a few hours! ;) There were also stories about Joshua defeating whole bunch of kings in battle.

Thanks be to my God that I've defeated a few kings myself today. Halleluja! :)

(Josh 10-12, 174.0 lbs, $4.519)

Becoming an effective instrument!

Called Pastor Zo during lunch today..., it turned out that he really wanted a steady job so that his wife can have medical insurance. Those small chinese churches, ministries, seminaries just can't afford to hire people full time nowadays due to lack of money. Sign of the time I suppose. I told Pastor Zo his chances of getting into Boeing is probably pretty slim, given that we lost a number of big contracts and his lack of experience for the past 20 years... sigh, may God help Pastor Zo find a way... Pastor Zo's pretty cool... eventhough I couldn't really help him much, he'd still offer to me whatever he's got! Such as taking me to Huntington Library... he's some sort of research scholar or something so he can get in for free now. I haven't been to the Huntington Library for years, I've been too cheap to go, but I've heard it has made a lot of changes, perhaps someday I'll take up his offer with Pastor Zo as a tour guide! ;)

There's also brother GD's prayer meeting in the evening. On our way over, wife was simply trying to vent out her frustration regarding one of her current project... I offered some 'suggestions' to try to help her avoid these problems in the future, but I guess I should've known better that she didn't really want advice, but just some comforting words. I didn't even realize I've made a mistake until it's too late... and she got even more frustrated going to prayer meeting. Not a good start for a prayer meeting at all...

Anyway, today's topic was about how we can be used as God's instrument. I've also shared some of my experience where I thought I'm not a very effective instrument for God to use at times... Often times I mean well, but the result is just not what I was expecting... or not what I think God really wants. I'm not a very good witness within my parents. Incident with wife is another clear example of how ineffective I can be sometimes...

I'm hoping that my experiences will help me learn to do better, but then it's not like it's the first time wife complained about my inability to comfort. I do find that often times I'd repeat my mistakes without even knowing it at the time... When will I ever learn O God? I need wisdom. Lord, you promised that is something you'd freely give to us, right?

Anyway, today's scripture reading kinda answered the question I think. Gibeonites tricked Joshua into making a pact with them. Israelites thought these people are from a far away land and since they really seemed like they fear the LORD too, Israelites simply went ahead and make a pact to not destroy them without inquire the LORD about this matter. Whenever we place too much confidence on self, I think that's what'd get us into trouble. "I" mean well. "I" thought I'm doing good... or doing whatever for God..., but did I ever asked God about them? I'd typically consult God on major decisions, such as marriage, or buying a home, but I suppose I need to learn to rely on God even on the little things too. So I won't be "tricked" into doing the wrong things... Can I be a more effective instrument for You, LORD? Yeah? Thanks! :)

(Josh 7-9, 175.2 lbs, $4.559)

Cancelling escrow...

I've actually called the hospitals themselves..., and sure enough, they think I'm the father of this little girl named Ana. I was hoping that the hospital can clear my name, but I guess not. Chihlin said I will have to pay those collections in order to get a loan, but there's no guarantee that they'll refund me the money after I cleared my name... so for sure we probably won't be able to resolve this issue anytime soon, so we're cancelling escrow for now... it's funny the seller of the Condo is named Ana too. Too man Anas! ;)

Yeah, we can only hope that this is God's way of helping us avoiding buying a bad condo... or perhaps God is preparing a better home for us! :D

And today out of the blue, Pastor Zo called and ask if Boeing's interested in hiring? I only got his voicemail message because he called while I was on the phone with one of the hospitals... I returned his call this evening and he didn't pick up... Anyway, I guess I'll try call him back tomorrow... But it's not like I can really help him finding a job! Boeing isn't in a hiring mode anyway. Not to mentioned that Pastor Zo has only ministry experience for the past 20 years... I think he's probably finished his PhD... so Lord God, what would you like your servant to be doing? Do you really want him to be doing engineering?

Today's reading was about Joshua taking down Jericho. God's way is indeed weird and mysterious, but hopefully we can be like Joshua... to be able to at least know what God would like us to do? May God be with us...

(Josh 4-6, 175.4 lbs, $4.579)