Reasons (I) Cry Too

Reasons My Son Is Crying is a blog about a father who takes a picture of his son every time the boy cries. Under each picture, he writes the reason for his fit. As expected, the reasons range from the silly (he hates his bath) to the pesky (he threw away his dinner plate, now he wants his dinner).

It makes me think about the numerous times I've asked God for one thing or another, only to get a "NO," or worse a "WAIT" - the bane of the impatient. I don't throw dinner plates now, but the feelings of anger and disappointment are just as vicious inside. Few times, I'd turn to God lashing with anger. More often though, I'd turn away from Him and sulk in my little emotional corner.

A good father decisively say "NO" to the things that will lead his children to harm, even if his children want it for themselves. With each thoughtful "WAIT," he builds his children's character. I continue to remind myself that despite all my best intentions, God still knows what's best for me. It's a huge comfort to know that I can trust this Father, even if that meant enduring some cold baths once in a while, or waiting for a second chance at dinner.

Luke 11:11-13: “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

No, your gestational sac of a baby does not look cute

The first time I saw a picture of my unborn child, I honestly didn’t feel tremendous love overflowing in my chest. It’s hard feeling that when you’re staring at what looks like a cross between a snowman and the Pillsbury dough boy. Eventually though, the picture grew on me.

Ultrasounds, as we would later find out, are magical things. They give you a visual of that tiny miracle growing inside your wife’s belly. When you get a print out to show to your family and friends, it suddenly becomes very official. It becomes tangible, therefore it becomes real. Whatever uncertainty surrounding the initial stages of pregnancy (is this really happening?!) is now displaced by the reality of a “intrauterine representation of a yolk sac and embryo”. And you have a picture to prove it!

At this point, resist the urge to see more of the photo that what it is (look how cute her tiny winsy nose is!!!). Get a grip of yourself before it becomes really awkward for your well-meaning officemates. What you see is a gestational sac – a mass of almost formless goo that are just the beginnings of a human. Keep that picture in your wallet and take it out anytime during the course of your day. Don’t worry, people will understand if they see you smiling teary-eyed.

There will be plenty more ultrasounds as your wife’s pregnancy progresses. In the later stages (end of second trimester to the beginning of third trimester), you can even go for a 4D ultrasound. They take a series of photos via ultrasound and stitch them together to form a video. I recommend you splurge a little for the 4D ultrasound, I guarantee you’ll love it. I saved mine in my iPad and instantly became my most played video. Again, resist the urge to shove your video in everyone’s faces.

On the last days of pregnancy, your baby’s pictures will be clearer and sonographers may start seeing “things” with the baby. These are of course abnormalities, and my goodness, there are millions of things that can go wrong with a baby! My wife and I personally went through a difficult time with ultrasound results of our baby (I will definitely write about this in the future). In case you get a “bad news”, don’t stress about it. Let me repeat that: don’t stress about it. Just come to God in prayer, and stay away from Google.

Ultrasounds are never conclusive of what your baby will actually turn out. For all it’s technological wizardry, the machines are basically just measuring sound waves. The doctors will have to wait for when your baby comes out to diagnose anything officially. And you should too.

CS Lewis on God and a Cruel Universe

The Rival Conceptions of God by CS Lewis

(from Mere Christianity)

If a good God made the world why has  it gone wrong? And for many years I simply  refused to listen to the Christian  answers  to  this  question,  because  I  kept on  feeling "whatever you say,  and however clever your  arguments are,  isn't  it  much simpler  and  easier to  say that the  world was not made by any intelligent power? Aren't  all your arguments simply a complicated attempt to  avoid the obvious?" But then that threw me back into another difficulty.

My argument  against  God  was  that  the universe seemed so cruel  and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does  not call a  line  crooked  unless he  has  some  idea of a straight line.  What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If  the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so  to  speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against  it? A man feels  wet  when he falls into water,  because man is not a  water animal: a fish would not feel wet.

Of course I could have  given up my  idea of justice by  saying it  was nothing but  a  private idea of my own. But  if I did that, then my argument against  God collapsed too- for  the argument  depended on  saying that  the world  was really unjust, not simply  that  it  did not happen to  please my private fancies. Thus in the very act  of trying to  prove  that God did not exist-in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I  found I was forced to assume that one part of reality-namely my idea of justice-was full of sense.

Consequently atheism turns  out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning,  we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no  creatures  with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

Of Christ by Malcolm Muggeridge

We look back upon history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling. Revolutions and Counterrevolutions. Wealth accumulated and wealth disbursed. Shakespeare has written of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the moon. I look back upon my own fellow countrymen, once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most of them convinced, in the words of what is still a popular song, that the God who made them mighty, shall make them mightier yet.

I've heard a crazed, cracked Austrian announce to the world the establishment of a Reich that would last a thousand years. I have seen an Italian clown say he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I've heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin, acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as wiser than Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than Ashoka.

I have seen America, wealthier and in terms of military weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together, so that had the American people so desired, they could have outdone a Caesar, or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquests.

All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind. England part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running our of those precious fluids that keeps their motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixotes of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate. All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind.

Behind the debris of these solemn supermen, and self-styled imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one, because of whom, by whom, in whom and through whom alone, mankind may still have peace: The person of Jesus Christ. I present him as the way, the truth, and the life.

CS Lewis on Heaven

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. (Mere Christianity)

In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.

Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. (Weight of Glory)

Creed by Steve Turner

Steve Turner is an English music journalist, biographer and poet. He has been writing since the 1970's and has appeared in Rolling Stone, Mojo, Q, and The Times. This is his satirical poem on the modern mind. Brilliant!

Creed
by Steve Turner

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during, and
after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy’s OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in horoscopes
UFO's and bent spoons.
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha,
Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher though we think
His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same-
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of creation,
sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens
they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then its
compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps
Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Kahn

We believe in Masters and Johnson
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and
bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors .
And the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that
is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth
that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
And the flowering of individual thought.

If chance be
the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky
and when you hear

State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!
It is but the sound of man
worshipping his maker.

Sticking Around

I was raised by my mother who loves the Lord very much.  I grew up attending her Christian church and heard about the love of God from pastor's sermons and Sunday School teacher.  Back then, Christianity was comfortable and familiar and it did not really require me to talk to other people except for the occasional fellowship singing, which was always very awkward really.  I was a shy boy growing up and I rarely talked with anyone.  When I went to High School and College, I did not care for the Lord anymore.  School gave me the chance to come out of my shell and excel in my studies.  Church life became a chore, a necessary inconvenience.  When invitations to youth camps and retreats were given to me, I thought of excuses to not join.  At that point, I felt Christianity was increasingly getting uncomfortable and unfamiliar.  When I looked at my churchmates, I saw absolutely nothing in common with them and I sought the solace of my school and barkada.  School, with all its secular ideals and crazy friends was home.  Church was more like an embarrassing family you are afraid to introduce to your friends.

It all changed when I had to work in Manila after College.  Alone in a big city, I was lonely and spent most of my time to myself.  One time a good Christian friend lent me a book called "Can Man Live Without God?" by Ravi Zacharias.  It started within me a desire for God.  Soon, I was attending Sunday evening services in CCF St. Francis because it was the nearest church to where I lived.  I knew at that point that I needed to get right with God.

In 2008, I came back to Cebu for good.  Together with my ex-girlfriend Vanessa, we went to CCF every Sunday.  Then as now, we heard constant encouragement from the pastors to join small groups which they called Discipleship Groups or DGroups.  I thought it was a good thing to join, but I was too shy.  I knew I had to share my life with other people and I did not care for that.  I felt it was too messy, too inconvenient.  I also thought I was very busy, but really I watched TV for hours.  Drawing from my childhood experience of Church, I felt it was best to keep it at a purely-Sunday morning basis.  After that, I can get on with my life being a Christian.

Soon, I was tired of a boring life without any spiritual breakthroughs.  I've grown weary of my habitual sins and felt I needed to have people around me who can help and check on me.  Along that time, Pastor Steven already saw me as a regular churchgoer and chatted with me before the services started.  He always encouraged me to join a DGrp.  Soon after that, Vanessa and I dropped two pieces of paper in the tithebox with our contact information.  Soon a guy named Caloi texted me and scheduled me to join his DGrp.

My first DGrp meeting started with only three of us.  I shared briefly about myself, making sure not to go very personal, and listened to the other two.  Each one talked quietly and assuredly.  No one was argumentative.  They were brutally honest yet remarkably humble.  So these were Christian men, I thought.  Although there were only 3 of us, I made a commitment to God and I decided to stick around.  I came back week after week. 

Slowly the group grew as more and more men joined us.  Eventually, it became so big that we had to break into smaller groups.  Soon, Caloi challenged me to lead the group.  Obviously, I felt ill-equipped, pretentious and embarrassed to take on the task.  I prayed about it and was convinced that that was what the Lord wanted me to do.  I made a commitment to God and I decided to stick around.

Right now, I lead a group of nine men who I love as my brothers.  I did not want to share my life at first, but when I learned to open my life to them, they opened their lives to me and blessed me tremendously.  Every week, I get a front row seat to the story that God is writing in their lives.  I saw God move the heart of my brothers to love only Jesus and seek fulfillment in Him alone.  I prayed side by side with my brothers and waited with them for the Lord's answers to their prayers.  Some were answered, some were not.  In all their victories, we celebrated together; in their times of need, we prayed earnestly.  As for me, I have broken down in front of my brothers confessing to them my weaknesses knowing with absolute certainty that I will not be judged but will only be prayed for.

Last year, before I got married to my ex-girlfriend and now wife, Vanessa, my Dgroup brothers threw me I think the world's most wholesome bachelor's party.  Crossing over from singlehood to married life, I feel comfort in knowing that wherever I may be going in life, I have my gang of Jesus-lovers who will readily encourage me, pray for me, and also rebuke me when needed.

This is one of the greatest joys of my life: I used to know about God, but now I know God for myself.  I see Him in the lives of my brothers, he is dwelling in their praises and ever present in their times of need.

Looking back, I think I would have missed a lot if I had not dropped my contact information in the tithe box.  I would have spent years alone as a Christian, with no one to help me grow in the faith.  I would have missed out on Christian men who will pray for me in my weakness, and whom I can pray for in turn.  Indeed, it is easier to run the race of the faith when you run side by side with friends who love the Lord.

Share your life to Christians, make a commitment to God and decide to stick around.