FIRST BLOG

Forget about the Ice Age and the Information Age. I think we are now in the BLOG AGE.

Funny, nice, and interesting that everyone seems to feel better sharing the "stories and sorties" of their lives in a form of a blog than writing on a diary. In a blog, you can freely tell the world about anything you'd love to share and have the choice to hide your real identity. Good thing in our circle, we don't have to. And if diaries are now extinct, then the only thing we do alone is Praying. Wow, that's a very, very good benefit of the Blog Age. People know better how to express themselves yet will find more time to talk to God because he or she will likely to ask or thank God about what he or she had written. Purely hypothetical but very good to imagine people are making good use of technology in that sense.

Anyway, at the onset I've wanted to be able to write something that will make sense to everyone or just allow my fingers to type whatever comes out of my head like a Jazz music. But there is this just one thing that has been echoing in my head and is indeed manifested in the things that had happened in my life in recent years. It is what I consider the greatest and most important lesson I learned in years. Here it goes:

It started probably when I worked at a call center - one that I am not proud of. It was a great deal and serious job that I had to do even I was not proud of. But you know, doing something you don't like to but you just had to could teach you some thing - SACRIFICE. That's not it yet.

Sacrifice, as I have found out, is but the first step to truly understanding the mysteries of God's plans. So, since I was not proud of what I was doing at the call center, I gave it up. It was a job that gave me financial edge but it was there that the difference of material success and spiritual success became more obvious and distinct to me. It was what many called a mistake, but one I never had regrets.

Financial crisis, begun. Often, I would run out of money even to buy lunch. Then came the sparky realization of what I truly exchanged the good salary with -- It was then that I felt truly being in the "Refiner's Fire".

It was already the toughest time of my life but then it was with that emptiness that I learned more to "cling" on God rather than just to trust Him. I clung to God like a pest and believe that tomorrow would be a better one. Little by little I got used to skipping meals and walking long distances to get home from work. I appeared like a real loser to many people, but they did not see what I called "Only God and Christ-like humans will see" even if I don't tell them -- IT WAS APPRECIATING THE BEAUTY OF POVERTY.

Well, of course, poverty isn't literally beautiful. But there is something beautiful about it. That "something" is what I learned from this Saint by the name of Therese (of Lisieux). She said, "If God is to fill our emptiness, then poverty becomes a source of delight". First, I began to understand those words by simply knowing that I had no choice but to "swallow" that life. But then, slowly I noticed that the more humiliation, hunger, emptiness, and exhaustion I felt, the more I would feel "assured". I loved it. And so I embraced it "like a brave warrior would" and hoped that my life would stay that way. It was still confusing sometimes if I try to think of how I came to that conclusion but I just said - It really felt good being in the Refiner's Fire - who is none other than God Himself. It really feels good to know or find out that God is shaping you.

And "to be shaped", I later realized, has a requirement - one who wants to be shaped had to submit itself to the "Shaper". Well, complete submission beforehand was something I only knew as the act of "giving up". So, in other words, if GOD wants to shape you then He has to make you "STILL". That means to "give up" is the same as to "be still". Right?

So, what does God have to do to make you give up (or to be still)?? ---> TRIALS (could this be the best explanation why God allows sufferings sometimes)

And trials, which are what we normally see as "hindrance", is indeed the "advance ingredient" for the Shaping that we want. But yes, of course, one has to give up on Christ and understand that a poor faith says "I believe in God because life is beautiful" and the rich faith is "Life is beautiful because I believe in God".

I give up.


Sun / May 30, 2007 / 8:52pm