The Father's Heart

On a nephew’s birthday, I was in a room full of kids including my niece Theara. Theara left the room leaving me thinking someone will watch for her outside. Little did I know that she got inside their room. A couple of minutes later, commotion broke in the house. Theara had accidentally locked herself inside alone. We heard her frantically crying while telling her how to get out. My heart would skip a beat every time she led out a deep cry of frustration. I was so worried myself, all I could say was, “Don’t cry baby! It’s going to be okay!”

Then his dad came to the scene – my younger brother: concerned yet calm. He tried pushing the door so hard with his arms but it just made Theara cry all the more. She was screaming, “No! Stop it!”

My heart was crushed.

We tried breaking into the windows which seemed impossible. We thought of calling the carpenter neighbour who might just break the door knob.

Then just before we fell for more silly things like get a backhoe, his dad lowered himself and started speaking to her through the door – telling her he’s got a lollipop and she'd better get out of their soon to get it. All she needed to do was follow his instructions. My brother calmly told her two year old daughter to hover towards the lock, lift it and push it to the left.

A few minutes later, the door opened. Dad and daughter embraced – tears streaming down her cheeks.

And it dawned on me how powerful the words of a father are and how crucial it is to follow his instructions.

Looking at my brother’s effort, I knew he was the most desperate to get her daughter out.  He didn’t care about the door, his arms, the doorknob, the windows. Her freedom is everything to her.

Equally important is Theara’s part in breaking herself free. She wanted freedom and she knew her father was doing his best but she had a role to play – trust in him and follow every bit of his instructions. 


So it is in our relationship with God. It's when we trust in Him, surrender completely and listen to what He says that we have just set ourselves free.

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"If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:11)

Uncomfortable with Jesus

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Having Jesus around Jerusalem was the most uncomfortable thing that happened to the lives both of the Pharisees and the common people. Jesus’ coming was like a stone thrown into a still pound, a loud trumpet in a quiet afternoon or a wayward entering the President’s banquet. He disturbed the status quo – people were shocked, amazed and angry everywhere. A man born blind could now see. A woman bleeding for many years is now healed. Water is turned into wine. Evil spirits entered pigs’ bodies -throwing them off a cliff. A dead man is brought to life.  If that wasn’t enough – He forgave man’s sin and said that He and the father are one.

The Jews only had two options – to believe in Him completely or to get rid of Him – but with everything He had already done, they couldn’t simply brush it off.

So despite everything good Jesus did – He was killed - because it was uncomfortable having him around. After all, “if they allowed him to go on like that, soon everyone would believe in him. Then the Roman army would come and destroy both their temple and their nation.” (John 11:48) Apparently, man’s nature to preserve himself is evident in this reason. They could not see the work of God because they are blinded by worldly matters.

Self-preservation in this context was the attempt of man to get rid of what he deemed a challenge to his comfortable state.

“WE WERE FINE WITHOUT JESUS. AND WE WILL BE BETTER OFF WITHOUT HIM SO LET’S JUST GET RID OFF HIM ONCE AND FOR ALL.”

Even those who experienced Jesus’ love and compassion – those who witnessed the five loaves and two fish multiplied to feed them five thousand, those who drank the wine that Jesus made from water, those whose husbands, wives, children experienced healing – were all helpless in trying to stop the Pharisees.

In unison, they cried, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Got rid of him once and for all.

Little did the Jews know that at Jesus’ expense, He was using their self-preservation for their ultimate good. God chose from the very beginning to redeem the fallen mankind at the expense of Himself. He looked past their spits, their whips, their crowning him with thorns and their nailing him on the cross so that He could ultimately save them. While He was suffering, He had these people in mind – and the rest of us today. The cross is a reminder of that pursuit – the weight Jesus chose to carry, the instrument of His death so that He could save the lives of those who plotted it.

We are often blind to our weaknesses and we are finite beings who make mistakes. We are often like the Jews who were blind to what Jesus was trying to do. But every turn of events in our lives – be it a joyful, a sad, a painful one is God’s way of pursuing us - of making us know Him as He really is. He can turn everything around and make us a new person. What he did around 2000 years ago should impact our lives today. We can either reject Him or accept Him completely – but we can never ignore Him.

If we accept Him into our lives as Savior and Lord – yes our lives will never be the same – he can make us stop our vices and addictions, he can relocate us, will break our relationships, take away our jobs but we will experience a new one that will be far beyond our wildest imagination. If we reject or ignore Him, however, He will also reject and ignore us when judgment day comes.

If you want to accept Jesus into your life, pray this simple prayer of faith (it’s not the prayer that saves you; it is your faith – the prayer is just a guide)

“Dear Lord Jesus, I need you. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and I receive you as my Savior and Lord. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person that you want me to be.”

Amen

Going for the Less Wild Lovers

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At some point in our lives, we find ourselves simply tired of being a Christian. We drag ourselves to church, refuse to talk about God and do not allow scripture to meddle in our lives. However, the thought of completely losing religion seems scary so we let God stay at the porch - near enough for emergencies but far enough for convenience. He has now become a mere Bible character, a painting on the wall or just a statue at the altar. 

The Jesus we have accepted into our lives some time ago is a stranger once again. But who could blame us? Life with Jesus is an adventure - a wild one. He does not allow that we are simply kept warm in our homes for a long time and merely get by. He takes us to wild oceans - storms and all, to rain forests and rocky mountains. We'll get wet in the rain, stumble on slippery roads, fall in pits - but for sure, He is in his sneakers walking with us - laughing with us at our slips, carrying our load when we're exhausted, letting down a rope so we could climb up from a pit - at times, he will make us stop and simply sit with him to marvel at the sunset or look at the fog or listen to the birds sing.

This is not the kind of life many people want, though. They prefer less wild lovers - those who appear stable and less surprising, those who seem to love too much, they won't ever cause pain, those who abhor changes specially those that shake the heart to the core. They hate adventure - they prefer safety. They prefer comfort. They hate intimacy.

What God Truly Desires

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Living in the Philippines that is said to be “the only Christian nation in Asia”, Filipinos can talk freely about Christ anytime, anywhere. In fact, 80 % would say that they have a firm faith in God and believe that He is a big help in their lives. We say that He is our guiding light, say prayers more than once every day: morning, before going to bed and even before taking a shower and in malls at 12 and 3 PM. We celebrate his birth not just for a day but for more than 5 days at the end of the year. We mourn over his death and would even walk miles contemplating it. Some even copy the very suffering of Christ and would have themselves crucified. We loathe atheists and we think highly of the religious. We go to Sunday masses and services and we give tithes and offerings.

But we spend the rest of our days and nights worried and restless. Feeling the great need to protect ourselves, we compromise. We don’t pay our taxes. We give false declarations about our incomes, our expenses. Feeling taken advantage of, we say hurtful words to each other and about each other. We curse. We lie. We refuse to love. We don’t mirror the very decrees our “faith” advocates.

When asked about our principles in life, we come up with postmodern ideas: you deserve to be happy; life is all about you; you owe it to yourself. You. You. You. We are more than confused about the way life should be. We claim to be Christians but our hearts are far from Christ. We believe in God but we live as though He doesn’t exist.

Most of all, our religious life is purely religious – just a compartment in life – a supplementary to make us feel right about ourselves,  giving us a feeling that we are not completely doomed. We play our game and we keep God on the bleachers – sitting there watching, not as a coach we allow to direct, teach, train and celebrate our victories with us. We pray that He will guide our marriage, that He will give us the “man” or “woman” who has knocked us off our feet – but we don’t listen when He tells us to let go, or when He tells us how to make things better.

We want the best of what we think He could give but we are not ready and willing to give our hearts to Him, to really know Him – to listen, to learn and to surrender. We want the best of life – but we have not turned to the only one who could give it. We want just a portion of God, not all of Him. We want to keep Him in our home but we are busy with other things. We think that we have it all made up by our piety and the things we do for Him. The truth is, God does not need us. He will still be God without our tithes, our worship, our fasting, our masses and services. What He desires more is our hearts – a child-like attitude in approaching Him, a willingness to give it all up in exchange for a life that He will bless and use to bless others. With this kind of life, God would often tip us off our comfort boats, our security blankets and our little comfy world. He would break us – only to make us whole. He would make us cry – only to comfort us with His Spirit. Then we end up satisfied, peaceful and joyful – not because we have everything or everything is going well – but simply because He is there. His presence would be enough. It would not be a life free from pain or the other nasty things, but one spent knowing the almighty God who will just keep blowing our mind away. We would be so busy knowing Him, loving Him and being loved in return that everything else would become so small and easy to handle.

On Teaching

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As a new teacher, the first I noticed about my students  were the areas that needed improvement, and started thinking of strategies to make them learn and stop misbehaving. Later, I started knowing more about them, their family background: that they long for their father who had to be a away from home to give them a good life, how they get scared when their parents fight and throw things at each other. I learned that one had had been terribly scolded by a teacher when she was small so that she hated school since then and is now struggling to graduate. When you start discovering their stories, you stand back with your hands more relaxed, letting go of the bag of tricks you have in mind to make them meet your expectations. You now divert your anger with them for misbheaving to their teachers who “misbehaved” by humiliating them and made them stop believing in themselves. To try to make kids fit in the standards of society is just one thing about education – but having an eye towards the best persons they could possibly is everything about it, for there is no single prototype of greatness that we could mold them in. Teachers after all are not police officers – they are educators. We must therefore meet them where they are – family problems, traumas, fears, hesitations, tantrums and all. We could make our students pick up the pieces of paper on the floor, arrange the chairs, erase the writings on the board, greet teachers when they see them but if we have failed to see them where their heart is (that is perhaps dying for attention and acceptance), and missed to make them realize their potential and help them work through their weaknesses, then for the long term, we have failed as teachers.

Annual Praise Report 2011

Thank you Lord for the following things this year:

1. I graduated from college.

2. I came back home and I am now living with my family after 7 years of living away.

3. I became a regular member of a church in my hometown.

4. I got my first formal teaching job in a high school (and I am teaching Filipino! - my least favorite subject before, lol and history - very interesting)

5. I passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers and am now a licensed high school teacher. 

6. My brother and his soon-to-be wife began to have a personal relationship with God.

7. I was baptized.

8. I got myself a bicycle and use it to try to keep fit.

9. I learned how to swim!

10. I met someone special that God used to bless me and shape my heart. Although, our future together is in the hands of God. Whatever He wants, I will follow. :-) And I should add that it's another blessing that I am able to say this from the heart.

This year has been filled of new things, new adjustments - met new friends, said goodbye to old ones, experienced heartaches, loneliness, confusion, hilarious times with friends and family, little and big joys, peace of mind, change of mindset, exploration of new knowledge and paradigms.. and most especially, lived another year walking with the Lord. It is like wine - it just keeps getting better and better as the years go by.

To my Lord Jesus Christ, we had a another blast. Thank you for sharing your heart with me through the years.

"If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"   

(2 Corinthians 5:17)

Water into Wine

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                In a wedding feast at Cana, Jesus turned water into wine because the host had run out of it. The master of ceremonies who didn’t know where the wine had come from tasted it and said, “A host always serves the best wine first then when everyone has had a lot to drink, he brings out the less expensive wine. But you have kept the best until now!” (John 2:10)

                Based on the Jewish practice, the guests would have understood if the wine that came last were inferior to those served first. Jesus, however, opted to make nothing but the best kind.

                Later in his ministry, Jesus began to have many people following after him – five thousand of them in one day and Jesus’ intention to feed each one shocked the disciples. Philip, one of them said, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!” (John 6:7)  But there was one boy there with five loaves and two fish. He offered them to Jesus who multiplied them so that everyone ate as much as they wanted. There were even leftovers!

                When Jesus works, only the best is produced and people are satisfied. This is how He works in our lives too. We work hard to make our lives better but there are times when we run out of wine or we can’t feed five thousand and the only option we have left is to tell the guests the party is over or tell the crowd to go home because we have none to offer them.

                But we can offer God our water and ask him to turn it into wine, our five loaves and two fish and ask him to multiply them. To ask him to do so is an act of faith – a way of allowing God who could do the supernatural to interfere in the natural, a way of allowing a big God to meddle in the small stuff - a way of surrendering in an ordinary way so that God could do the extraordinary. Our water could be anything we have – a sickness, an insecurity, a meaningless life, a failed expectation or a broken relationship. Our five loaves and two fish could be anything we think as insufficient – a meagre pay, a deteriorating strength or so little time to do so many things. To accept the way God would work after we have surrendered is a part of our faith-defining gesture of offering our water, our five loaves and two fish to Him.

One thing is for sure, though, our wine will turn out to be the best and our five loaves and two fish will multiply and we end up satisfied. But we have to do one thing first – surrender to Him.