A Blessed Man or a Rich Man?

Jeremiah 17:7-8: “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”

I choose the path of being a blessed man rather than chasing after the riches of the world. Because a blessed man put his hope in the living God knowing that God alone is His source of providence.
Don’t place your faith in nouns. Sooner or later every person will disappoint, every place will lose its luster, and every thing will wear out, become outdated, or lost. But there is One who will never disappoint. That’s why the person who puts his trust in God will be blessed. When I place my trust in the Lord, I can enjoy constant nourishment to my soul, constant protection and yield constant fruit.

Mark 8:36 says "What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?" A hundred years from now very few of us will be remembered by anybody living at that time. So if we focus all our attention on the successes of this world what will it have gained for us. When we die our money, fame, and honors will be meaningless. We own nothing in this world. Everything we think we own is in reality only being loaned to us until we die. And on our deathbed at the moment of death, no one but God can save our souls.

That does not discount the fact of giving your very best at your work place. Colossians 3:23-25 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." Life is fragile, live the moment for His glory. The book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes contain some wise sayings regarding work. Proverbs 14:23 says, “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.” Proverbs 6:6-11 says, “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest – and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.” Ecclesiastes 9:10 says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” A strong work ethic is confirmed, with warnings concerning slackness.

What is your choice today? In whom or what do you trust? In whom or what do you place your confidence? The MH17 incident taught us that Life is fragile, live the moment for God's glory.

Anger Management - Learning from #CDM25

A Malaysian young woman made headlines recently when a video of her bashing a helpless senior citizen’s car was caught on camera and released to the social media. The video went viral with lots of comments made in the internet. The two-and-half minute video showing the woman, enraged that her Peugeot 208 had been hit by a car driven by an elderly man, alighting from her vehicle, armed with a car steering lock. Despite the old man repeatedly pleading that he hadn’t intended to hit her car on purpose, the woman continued to yell at him, and even “deployed” her steering wheel lock at his car.

The woman’s temper and behavior leads to series of “discussion” in cyberspace, with almost unanimous agreement that the woman was bad-mannered. The #CDM25 hashtag trended on Twitter and Facebook both locally and internationally since the video was published. Overnight, the woman has turn into Malaysia’s latest “public enemy #1″, for obvious reasons.

What can we learn from this whole incident? I think anger management is a key lesson point here. When we fail to control our anger, then obvious reaction takes place such as being disrespectful, uttering racist statement and violent. In our moment of uncontrolled anger, we flares up like a match-stick when a friction is applied.  It is always important to remember a good old quote that says a match-stick has a head but it does not have a brain. Let us learn from this analogy between match-stick and a human brain. All of us has head and a brain as well. Let us resolve to use our brain and not to react on impulse. The great management guru, Steven Covey address this issue with a brilliant statement, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness.” We can’t control all of the stimuli that comes on our way on a daily basis, but to a large degree we can choose what our response is going to be. We need to be responsible on how we respond in a given situation.

To the young woman in this latest fiasco, here is one advice for you quoting from Saint Ambrose: “A good youth ought to have a fear of God, to be subject to her parents, to give honor to her elders, to preserve her purity; she ought not to despise humility, but should love forbearance and modesty. All these are an ornament to youthful years.”