Empty Jar...

Last weekend has been kinda busy... We started looking at houses! Out of the 7 or 8 Chih-lin took us to see... we only liked 2 of them, there was also another one we like, but it's way too expensive for us. $500k is a lot of money for us, but it can't buy you too big of a house unfortunately! ;) Oh well. May God help us while we shop around!

Also had a meeting with mom and dad about money... abou how tight money can be on the monthly basis. I think they understood, but the reality of the situation is that there are certain expenses that a very costly at the moment we just cannot do away with... such as the house payment and mom's medical insurance. Given dad's current level of income, it'll be hard to make ends meet. Bright side is as soon as mom reaches 65, that expense can be reduced... same with their house payments..., but that's 3 years down the road... so for these 3 years, things will be kinda tight... so I talked mom into perhaps renting out one of the rooms for extra income. Since we'll probably be doing the same too if we get a house! Anyway, so I hope everything can work out in the end.

We also went book hunting on Sunday too! I really need to alter my habit of rarely reading books! May God help me change my habits... and hopefully I can gain more wisdom as a result too! :)

Faith Community church underwent some extensive remodelling. I'm not sure if I like it too much. It's becoming more and more like a club or concert event during worship. But I still like Pastor Jim's sermons though. Yesterday he talked about beattitudes. About how radical and paradoxical Jesus' teachings can be. How can we be poor in spirit and be happy(blessed) at the same time?!?!? What did he mean we have to lose our lives to save it?

Kinda like the poor widow's oil, God can pour out His annointing forever and indefinitely, but Almight God can be limited by the number of available empty vessels. Only those who are poor in spirit can be the empty vessels God can pour in His Spirit! Those who believe that it is their power and strength that produced the wealth or success..., those people are useless in God's kingdom. Not that all weathy and successful people are useless, just those who failed to remembered that it is the LORD who gave us the ability to produce various things...(Deut 8:18)

Today's scripture reading also talked about what God would fill us with:

James 3
17 惟 獨 從 上 頭 來 的 智 慧 ， 先 是 清 潔 ， 後 是 和 平 ， 溫 良 柔 順 ， 滿 有 憐 憫 ， 多 結 善 果 ， 沒 有 偏 見 ， 沒 有 假 冒 。
18 並 且 使 人 和 平 的 ， 是 用 和 平 所 栽 種 的 義 果 。

May God continue to help me empty out what's useless in me and fill me with what's really important!