Meditation: PEACE....

Just sit back... relax....keep your hands on your lap with the palms facing up and restfully opened. Take deep, slow, quiet and gentle breaths as you watch and concentrate on this picture-one of the most beautiful lagoons in the world! This is Vona Vona Lagoon in Western province of the Solomon Islands.

Now, imagine yourself as the guy sitting in the canoe, gently and slowly moving along the edge of the water. The sky is clear and beautiful with only a few patches of white clouds in the horizon; the air is clean, quiet and peaceful; the water is absolutely still and crystal clear; and you feel a gentle, cool morning breeze caressing your face as your canoe gently moves along. The morning hour is calm and peacefully quiet, except for the faint rustling sound of the coconut leaves in the breeze, and a lonely call of the water bird in the distance. You are not at all in a hurry like you were yesterday, remembering that today you have purposedly came to this place to relax and enjoy, and you know that you have the whole day to yourself! As you gently and lazily move along the water with the flow of the refreshing breeze soothingly cooling the nape of your neck, a verse from the Psalms comes to your mind: "He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul..". All of a sudden, all your worries and troubles seem to have become very dim and distant, and somehow you have a misteriously calm assurance that everything is going to be alright! And today, for the first time in many years, you felt the presence....the presence of Someone who brings peace and hope, joy and assurance....the presence of the Prince of Peace Himself, who gently whispers to your ear, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid". (Jn 14:27).

Now you know where to come whenever you need peace and quiet...He will always be there for you!

Marvelous Love

Today, let me share with you an article by Bill Bright which I think would touch your heart as it did mine, and perhaps remind you again of the true meaning of Christmas:

On a cold Christmas Eve in 1952, when Korea was in the throes of civil war, one young woman struggled along a village street, obviously soon to deliver a child. She pleaded with passersby,
"Help me! Please. My baby."
No one paid any attention to her.
A middle-aged couple walked by. The wife pushed away the young mother and sneered,
"Where's the father? Where's your American man now?"
The couple laughed and went on.
The young woman almost doubled up from a contraction as she watched them go.
"Please . . ." she begged.
She had heard of a missionary living nearby who might help her. Hurriedly, she began walking to that village. If only he would help her baby. Shivering and in pain, she struggled over the frozen countryside. But the night was so cold. Snow began to fall. Realizing that the time was near to deliver her baby, she took shelter under a bridge. There, alone, her baby was born on Christmas Eve.
Worried about her newborn son, she took off her own clothes, wrapped them around the baby and held him close in the warm circle of her arms.
The next day, the missionary braved the new snow to deliver Christmas packages. As he walked along, he heard the cry of a baby. He followed the sound to a bridge. Under it, he found a young mother frozen to death, still clutching her crying new born son. The missionary tenderly lifted the baby out of her arms.
When the baby was 10 years old, his now adoptive father told him the story of his mother's death on Christmas Eve.
The young boy cried, realizing the sacrifice his mother had made for him.
The next morning, the missionary rose early to find the boy's bed empty. Seeing a fresh set of small footprints in the snow outside, he bundled up warmly in a winter coat and followed the trail. It led back to the bridge where the young mother had died.
As the missionary approached the bridge, he stopped, stunned. Kneeling in the snow was his son, naked and shivering uncontrollably. His clothes lay beside him in a small pile. Moving closer, he heard the boy say through chattering teeth:
"Mother, were you this cold for me?"
That story reminds me of another mother and Son who sacrificed so much. One winter night, Jesus left his home, His glory and the warmth of heaven to be born in a stable to an unwelcome world. Just before He was born, Mary, His mother, was not welcome in any of the cozy inns in Bethlehem. Instead, she delivered her baby in the darkness of a cold stable. Th e Creator of the Universe, the Perfect Judge who could destroy the world with a single word, was willing to endure this inauspicious beginning for you and me. That is unconditional love!
We who have experienced God's unconditional love are commanded to share that love with others. John writes in 1 John 4:11,
"Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other" (New Living Translation).
God wants us to express His supernatural love to others. We become examples of God's love to the world as we love our neighbors through the enabling of His Holy Spirit.
My prayer for you is the same as Paul's prayer for the believers in Ephesians 3:17,18:
"May your roots go down deep in to the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love really is" (NLT ) .
You may confess, "I don't have that kind of love to share with anyone." To experience God's supernatural love, claim it by faith. We have the potential to love anyone God puts in our path. One of the greatest lessons I have learned in my Christian life is "how to love by faith."
When we by faith invite God's unconditional love to flow through us, we will discover a rekindled love that is alive and well. That is true for an "unlovable" spouse, boss, employee, or anyone.
Nothing breaks the hardened ground of unforgiveness and bitterness like sincere acts and words of love. Sometimes you and I, by faith, must take the first step of restoration. A positive response may not be immediate, but keep on loving and reaching out. There is no power on earth stronger than God's supernatural love.

Source: http://www.thoughts-about-god.com/christmas/marv_love.htm

Love Yourself...to Love Your Neighbour !

The well-known golden rule of life, as espoused by the Good Book (the Bible), and agreed by most religions of the world is “Love your neighbor as yourself”. Familiar and easy as it sounds, experience tells us otherwise. Perhaps this is one of the most difficult and most-frequently-broken rules in life.

Most of us readily admit that we do not love our neighbours as ourselves, not because we have different political views or religious affiliations. We just don’t see the need to love others, and we just don’t have the will either; and we don’t expect our neighbours to do any better than us.

In our contemporary society, physical proximity does not necessarily bring emotional intimacy as evidenced by the fact that the closer the houses stand to each other in the neighbourhood, the wider seems the mental gap between their occupants! We are all immersed in our own busyness, minding our own business, having no time or interest for anything outside of our own small world. If we somehow happen to accidentally bump on each other somewhere, we may mumble a short and hollow ‘hello’ to each other, even that without much emotional flavor.

Why is it so hard to love our neighbours? The answer may lie closer than you think! The reason why we do not love our neighbours is this: WE DO NOT LOVE OURSELVES! Strange, isn’t it? Let me explain:

Since early childhood, our parents tell us to be like someone, like that kid in the next block. We were told that we were not good enough, at least not as good as “Johny” or “Jane”. The hero in the romantic novel is usually ‘tall, dark and handsome’, and you know you are not at all like him! The girl in the movie is fair and beautiful, and you think that you will never measure up to her. Therefore, we grew up in an environment where we are continually bombarded by messages from various media that in order to be someone significant, you have to be either rich, handsome, tall, beautiful or possess a myriad of other attributes and qualifications. An unwritten idealized standard is set for all spheres of life to which everyone measure themselves against, and somehow try to achieve that level of being and living. Having realized that we are among the so called ‘ordinary’ people who made up about 90% of the population who would never quite reach the idealized standard, we become disilllusioned on ourselves, looking down upon ourselves and wishing to be somebody else! We could not accept ourselves, not to speak of LOVING ourselves! We silently curse our parents or forefathers not only for being poor, ugly or short-statured but also for transferring those unwanted genes down to us new generations! As a result, when we see others (our neighbours) like us(they are everywhere, being the majority, remember?)we do not accept them! To love them is out of the question!!

Now, it becomes very obvious that our failure to love our neighbours directly results from our failure to love ourselves! In stead of “loving our neighbours as ourselves’, we seem to be “hating our neighbours as we hate ourselves”! It’s true!! Just test yourself!

Therefore, if you truly want to love others, love yourself first! It is not a selfish kind of love, but rather accepting-who-you-are kind of love! Stop trying to be someone else or act like somebody else. Just be happy to be YOU! Accept yourself, and love yourself! Then you will discover that to love your neighbour as yourself is not that hard after all!

My Journey

My spiritual journey started in 1981. Since then I have crossed many mountains and valleys along the way. On a number of times I have tasted the fragrance of heaven, and had faint glimpses of eternal beauty and glory; and at other times I had been to the valley of despair and failure, worry and hopelessness. But all through this journey, I have an amazingly wonderful Friend and Guide who had been with me all the time. Even with all the valleys, it had been a journey of joy because of this special Friend!

The one thing that amazes me most about this Friend is His love and patience! I could not count how many times I have stumbled and fell, hurting myself and others in the process. This amazing Friend is always there to lift me up again, and He never give up on me! He is so patient, so loving and so understanding! Without Him I would have never made this far. Sometimes, in my foolishness I have hurt Him knowingly and deliberately… oh, I could see the pain in His eyes, the unshed tears He was holding back….but even in the midst of all these He never lose patience, and the light of love in His face never dimmed! With outstretched arms and gentle smile, He would softly whisper in my ears, “Please, come back, son…you are so precious to me”.

With such a wonderful and faithful Friend by my side, I am ever moving forward in my journey, though often at a slow pace. This Friend is my Teacher too, and He has taught me so many wonderful things as we walk side by side on this journey. He has taught me the value of simple things, and the greatness of small things and the beauty of things unseen! He has taught me the value of friendship, family and life. He has taught me how to appreciate things without possessing them, to be rich without owning material things. He has taught me too how to love and let go, and has taught me the beauty of tears! He has also taught me how to find peace in the midst of a storm, and how to find quietness in the midst of a noisy crowd!

He taught me how to appreciate honesty, and the freedom of a clean heart! He taught me how to accept and laugh at myself . He taught me the secret of a happy heart… to make others happy; and the foundation of a joyful heart is a pure conscience!

I have yet to learn many more things along this journey, and I may yet fail Him many times along the way. But one thing I know: HE IS GOING TO BE WITH ME ALL THE WAY, and that means a journey of joy all the way! And by the time I reach the end of this journey, I will be ready to step in to my home country….oh, what a joy! What a blessed hope!