God Had Other Plans - My Thoughts on 2008

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

- Jeremiah 29:11 (New International Version)

Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.

-Psalm 40:5 (New International Version)

For me 2008 has been full of surprises, twists, and turns. Seems that my "best-laid" plans, which I thought were well thought out and carefully considered, would completely be turned upside down and inside out by God! It certainly is true that man can make plans but God determines his steps!

Who would have thought :

1. That I would become the youth ministry leader! I had just attended a worship conference last Sepetember and had already made plans for our worship team when pastor asked me to lead the youth ministry. I said yes and now here I am ministering to 20-30 kids at ALife. What an opportunity to make an impact in the lives of young people for God! We have our own youth blog : http://alifeyouth.wordpress.com/ to give you an idea of the activities that we plan to do in 2009. It's gonna be exciting!

2. That my eldest son would flourish in a mainstream 3rd grade class. Several friends and family knew our struggle with this. It was a situation that had been testing our faith for several years. We had already accepted that he would go through another year in a special day class in 2008. But God had other plans for his life! On the first day of school, we were told that he would attend a mainstream classroom and would be provided with an aide to help him adjust and keep up with the pace. We recently had our first parent-teacher conference and the overall feedback on his performance was positive. We still have a few things to work on but he's staying in that class for good! I remember 2 years ago, his 1st grade teacher telling us that he would never be able to keep up with the pace of academic work in the higher grade levels. Lesson of the story : never trust in what man says and his prognostications, trust in God who who controls all things and causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him.

3. The unexpected passing away of Nanay. We planned a vacation to New Jersey and New York, to spend time with Nanay and also visit our other relatives who lived there. But she passed away about a month before we were scheduled to make the trip. Little did my wife and I know that Nanay's visit last December 2007 would be the last time we'd see her alive. The photo on the left shows her posing with the 2 boys during her visit to California. On her way to the hospital, shortly before she passed away, Nanay said, “Don’t let them experiment on my body. There are many mansions in my father’s kingdom and I’m ready to go.” She was quoting a verse in Scripture. In John 14, verses 1 and 2 Jesus told his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in Me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you…” In the midst of pain and agony, Nanay remembered a PROMISE made by Jesus Christ and she clung to it and believed in it with a sincere and firm conviction. There was no doubt in her mind where she was spending eternity. The funeral service was beautiful and attended by many of her friends who talked about how much she touched their lives. Nanay was always a positive and encouraging person. I will always remember our several conversations about life, faith, and family. We'll all miss her very much.

4. That I would start blogging! I don't really know why I started a personal blog space. I didn't have anything real special to say anyway. What I do know is having that sense of personal satisfaction and fulfillment by writing down my thoughts, talking about things that interest me, and documenting some insights I have gained in the course of preparing Sunday School and Bible study lessons. I've tried several times to keep a written journal but it just seemed so boring and very limiting. The blog format was appealing in that I could embed videos, link cool websites, cite online articles I find interesting, post pictures, and most of all - write with a keyboard (which I prefer anytime over pencil and paper).

Who knows what's in store for 2009. Will this recession linger? Will my company lay off people? Will I get a raise? Those verses I mentioned at the beginning of the blog serves to remind us to trust in God, trust His heart. He will never lead us to destruction and ruin! He is our HOPE.

Happy New Year!

Word Clouds

Hi to all! Here's a cool webware that has helped me gain deeper understanding of the Bible. This application generates a word cloud by counting the frequency of words used in a text that you input. The higher the frequency of a word used in the text, the more prominence it's given in the word cloud.

I used the application on some familiar passages in the Bible and the first thing that jumps out is the overall theme of the passage. More importantly, the main idea stands out prominently. I've always wondered how a word cloud of the entire Bible would look like. I haven't seen one generated yet. Wouldn't that be interesting?

1 Corinthians 13

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12)

Psalm 119

GUESS THE CHRISTMAS CAROL - A GAME!

My son's teacher gave this as an extra credit homework a couple of weeks ago. It turned out to be (at least for me!) one of those rare fun assignments. Can you guess the Christmas carol?

1. Move hitherward the entire assembly of those who are loyal in their belief.

2. Listen, the celestial messengers produce harmonious sounds.

3. Nocturnal time-span of unbroken quietness.

4. Emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good given to the terrestrial sphere.

5. Embellish the interior passageways.

6. Exalted heavenly beings to whom hearkened.

7. Twelve o'clock on a clement night witnessed its arrival.

8. The Christmas preceding all others.

9. Small municipality in Judea southeast of Jerusalem.

10. Diminutive masculine master of skin-covered percussionistic cylinders.

11. Omnipotent supreme being who elicits respite to ecstatic distinguished males.

12. Obese personification fabricated of compressed mounds of minute crystals.

13. Expectation of arrival to populated area by mythical masculine perennial gift-giver.

14. Natal celebration devoid of color.

15. In awe of the nocturnal time span characterized by religiosity.

16. Geographic state of fantasy during the season of mother nature's dormancy.

17. The first person nominative plural of a triumvirate of far eastern heads of state.

18. Tintinnabulation of vacillating pendulums in inverted metallic, resonant cups.

19. In a distant location the existence of an improvised unit of newborn children's slumber furniture.

20. Proceed forth declaring upon a specific geological alpine formation.

21. Jovial Yuletide desired for the second person singular or plural by us.

I'LL POST THE ANSWERS NEXT WEEK. BUT IF YOU CAN'T WAIT, CLICK HERE.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Who Am I In Christ?

I thought that this would be an excellent reminder for us. Courtesy of Freedom In Christ Ministries.

ll Who Am I in Christ? ll


Before you click on the question above remember that it took Jesus' life for us to be in this blessed position as believers. Have a Merry Christmas!

God's Love = 3 Septillion kilometers?

"Guess How Much I Love You" by Sam McBratney is a classic, best-selling children's book. The story is about a Nutbrown hare and his son trying to outdo each other as they answer the question. If you're not familiar with the story, I've embedded the "animated" version of the book.




In the end, the son was looking out into the big dark night and realized that nothing could be farther than the sky. So he tells his daddy that he loved him right up to the moon. The daddy hare, touched by statement, tenderly looks at his son who was already sleeping. Then lovingly he whispers that he loved his son right up to the moon - and back. Daddy couldn't be outdone!

Now imagine a similar storyline. Perhaps with a title like this: Guess How Much God Loves You. Well, we really won't need guessing. That's because the Bible already gives us an idea.


For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. (Psalm 103 : 11)

I could paraphrase that verse this way : God's love for us extends as far as going from earth to the outermost regions of the universe - and back. We can then perhaps quantify it. If the farthest galaxies are about 15 billion light years away from earth, then God's love would extend as far as 30 billion light years. This distance is roughly 30 billion x 10 trillion kilometers which is equivalent to 3 septillion kilometers! That's 3 followed by 24 zeros.

Ok, I admit that it's just a silly mathematical exercise. The bottomline is that God's love for us has cannot be bounded by any number. No, not even googol (10 followed by 100 zeros) nor infinity!

Paul says this :

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)

How can we grasp God's love? A good start would be reminding ourselves again why we care to put up lights, decorate trees, buy gifts, send cards, and go to parties at this time of the year. Read John 3:16.

The Heavens Declare You Are God

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into earth's orbit in 1990. The thousands of pictures that it has beamed back to earth has given us a glimpse of galaxies, nebulas, and other heavenly bodies that we would otherwise not see clearly from ground-based telescopes.

One image that Hubble took struck a particular chord in my soul. The telescope's mirrors were focused to an area in space that was relatively uninteresting when observed from Earth's vantage point. It turns out that this seemingly devoid, tiny sliver of space actually contained tens of thousands of galaxies! Some are mature and are "nearby" while others are so far away (10-15 billion light years) that we are only now "seeing" the galaxy at their young age. Conservative estimates say that there are over 350,000,000,000 galaxies in our universe. Morevoer, each galaxy can have a million to a trillion stars! These are mind boggling and staggering numbers. Our universe is HUGE!

Now here's what the Bible says about all this :

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. (Psalm 33:6 NIV)

He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. (Psalm 147:4 NIV)

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (Psalm 19:1 NIV)

When we consider the breadth of the universe that God has created, we are led to conclude that this God must be bigger and his creation must only be a mere reflection his grandeur. Reflect on this for a moment : my God is bigger than the universe! When building the temple, Solomon had this to say, "But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! " (1 Kings 8:27).

Hubble has taken more images of this amazing universe. And I must say that the galaxies, stars and other heavenly bodies are far more glorious than anything man has ever created. The so-called 7 wonders of the world pale in comparison!

How do you respond to this truth? The answer is worship! Each time I sing about the greatness of God, this is what I will always think of : that He is bigger than any of His creation. Even the stars and the galaxies praise Him (Psalm 148:1-4). So give God the highest honor ever. Only He truly deserves it.