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)
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