Yes Or No

It's a Sunday, have you learned something today? Have you experienced God's presence today? Did you sing and dance and worship God with all your heart? Does it feel good? Do you feel refreshed, revived and renewed? Did you come to find answers with the questions in your heart? Did God convict you of something you've had in your mind? Did you enjoy the company of your friends and family as you fellowship with them in God?

So... 

Have you taught someone else today of what you learned? Did a churchmate or other friends of yours experienced God's presence thru you? Can they still sing and dance and worship God with all their heart? Do you make them feel good? Did you help others feel refreshed, revived and renewed? Did you help them seek the answers with the questions in their heart? Did you bring them to a conviction about God? Do you miss the company of the people who you used to fellowship with? Do you long to fellowship with people that are strangers to you?

Heaven on Earth

Whenever I hear descriptions of how we will spend our days in eternity, I always imagine God's people standing in a stadium praising and worshipping Him. This is what I saw and experienced last saturday kung saan first time kong nakita na jampacked ang Araneta... as in! I can't help but think Iba talaga pag si Lord ang star of the night! 

Being around Christ's followers praising and worshipping God is an overwhelming experience that I just can't help but pray that I will be able to do this... in heaven. :) 

I pray that at the end of my life God tells me "Well done my good and faithful servant" ... sabay yakap! :D Tapos magpupuri na ako forever sa kanya kasama ang Hillsong, Israel Houghton, Planetshakers, Chris Tomlin at kung sinu-sino pa... Isama pa natin ang stars as in literal na stars... hehe. Hay... :D 

You are truly amazing! To You be the glory :D

Holy Week Learnings

This is what I have proven true this past holy week : the key to have a meaningful, fun-filled time is not really where you spend your days but with who you spend your days with.

Aside from the much needed rest and relaxation, God showed me 3 things during the holidays that I may have started to take for granted. I know there's nothing extraordinary with what I did during the vacation but I thank God He allowed me to spend it the way I spent it. 

God reminded me about His unfailing, unending love for me as He retold to me the story of my salvation. 

He also showed me the goodness in people's hearts as I encountered hundreds of people praying and desiring to experience Him. 

And lastly, He taught me the importance and joy of being part of a family. 

God truly is a wonderful God :) He never ceases to amaze me. Thank you Father! :) 

Of Catholics, Muslims and Love

Last week, while I was at a book store, I picked up Paulo Coelho’s Like the Flowing River and randomly turned to a page. The page I found myself reading was entitled “The Catholic and The Muslim”. It was a short anecdote which touched me with its last two statements. And, I quote, “It’s a shame that people see only the differences that separate them. If you were to look with more love, you would mainly see what we have in common, then half the world’s problems would be solved.”

This week, I encountered 2 Yahoo! news clips involving Catholics and Muslims with both earning the ire of netizens. The first news clip was about a picture of a girl posing in front a cross “parodying” Jesus’ death. The second news clip was about an imam that said the phrase “sumabog na kung sasabog” in an airplane after a passenger denies their request of taking another seat because in their religion, a female is not permitted to sit beside a man unless they are married. Reading the comments after the news clip and summing it up, this is what I got: in the first news clip, the netizens slammed the girl because they feel they were violated by the mere fact that the girl violated the cross, a sacred symbol to their religion while in the second news clip, netizens slammed the imam for not adjusting to society’s rules (seating plan in an airplane) because of their religion’s rules and calls for muslims to adjust their beliefs. What I got disappointed me.

The sad truth is we all have this tendency. That is, to command respect to things that we consider sacred or important but to disregard that which we do not understand. I can understand why people called for respect to the girl when they saw the cross being violated but what I can’t understand is why they cannot give the same respect to the imam who holds his belief sacred and even resorted to calling the imam (and other muslims) degrading names (not that what the imam blurted out after his denied request is justifiable).

Here’s the thing, the religion that we all feel “fighting” for teaches us to practice love and it is Jesus who best said how. Mark 12:30-31 states “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. While our religion provides us a set of rules and symbols to be able to express our love for God better, a faith that is alive is supposed to not stop there. It also calls us to love our neighbors (with the same love that God loved us) even if it means accepting things we do not understand.

The quote from Coelho’s message is an application of Jesus’ commandment. It’s not a new revelation. It does, however, put it in a different light.    

Wednesday Mornings @ Mcdo

I am soooo loving this Mcdo commercial whenever I see it on TV. Aside from the fact that these old men follow people on twitter, use ipad and drink coke float instead of coffee, the premise that they have remained friends for a long time is what I find really cool. So imagine my amusement whenever I see a real-life version of this commercial.

I see them every wednesday morning at Mcdo buendia. They're actually a bigger group but for this certain morning, I only saw five of them. I really didn't get to catch what they were talking about but their group never fails to make me smile whenever I see them. Theirs is the real lifelong friendship. :)

The Misadventures of O and J : Words of Wisdom

After lunch, O and I went to his workstation to look at something over the net. As we were browsing the net, I accidentally but lightly touched his stomach to which he let out a loud “aray!”. He told me he had some bruise in that area and it still hurts. He continued on describing why it hurt and ended up saying “Pag unprepared ka, masasaktan ka”. We ended up laughing at what he said.

Pasa ba talaga ang pinag-uusapan?! Seems like a fitting warning for a heartbroken first-time lover. :P