Super belated Happy Sabbath ! (4)

“The foolish man seeks happiness in distance;
the wise grows it under his feet.”
- James Oppenheim

“The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
Psalm 16:6

Have a "delightful" week!
(Though it's almost over...)

Are you ready?

My laptop has been acting up for the last few days, so I couldn't put a new leaf up. Meanwhile, the weather got much warmer here. In the beginning of March, it was still snowing and freezing (my snow poem effect?), but now the air is warm and sunshine has become genial. I guess we're in the transition from one season to the next. Speaking of the transition of seasons, woodwind players told me their reeds go crazy at this time of year because of temperature and humidity change. Even our bodies tend to mess up, so I pray for your health and well-being!

It seems I've run into people from W. College a lot this week. There was a staff get-together for this university early on this week, and I saw this couple from W. College, former staffs who were like mom and dad to so many students there. Then last night at my friend's recital, I met couple girls, one a teacher the other a student, from there visiting this school. We had a good time! You don't just run into people from such a small place all the time. There were only about one hundred students there then. It was really homey and all the students there were pretty much your friends. Many of them were zealous and sincere Christians, not jaded by the tough world. I miss that. People there are somehow different. It's easy to be your honest self without a mask or defense. Perhaps I added a layer since I left that school. But this week’s encounter reminded me of how pleasant it is to be without such a shell.　

When I saw the couple from W. College, we had small talks first, but then they began to talk about the situation of the world and the school. Then the lady looked at me straight and asked, “Jesus is coming back really soon, are you ready?” After a moment of hesitation, I replied, “Yes.” After the event, I went to my friends’ then we talked and talked for hours.... Why couldn’t I answer immediately? If she had asked, “Do you love Jesus?” of “Is God working in your life?” I would have said yes right away. What does it mean to be ready for me personally? I've been taught and studied on my own about this topic time to time, so it’s easy to give you the “ready-made answers” but that's not what I'm looking for. I must reset my brain. There's a lot to relearn from God directly as if for the first time....

Belated Happy Sabbath! (3)

“An upright man casts the longest shadow.”－Anonymous

“The integrity of the upright will guide them,
but the falseness of the treacherous will destroy them”
Proverbs 11:3

Have an “upright” week!

Happy Sabbath! (2)

“We are not identified by what we do –
Our identity is anchored in
what we've had to overcome to get there.”
- Po Bronson (What Should I do With My Life?)

“Blessed is the man who is patient under trial
and stands up under temptation,
for when he has stood the test and been approved,
he will receive the victor's crown of life
which God has promised to those who love Him.”
－James 1:12 (Amplified Bible)

Have a “winning” week!

Happy Sabbath! (1)

“A lamp, however small, if kept steadily burning,
may be the means of lighting many other lamps.”　
- Ellen G. White (Adventist Home)

“You are the light of the world.
A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.
Instead they put it on its stand,
and it gives light to everyone in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before men,
that they may see your good deeds
and praise your Father in heaven.”
- Matthew 5:14-26

Have a “bright” week!

“Would you BE the neighbor?”

Writing on vertical line and horizontal line of the cross yesterday reminded me of something else. I remembered a Japanese ex-missionary in South America who was one of the presenters at last years' Central Conference saying, "It is our mission to share God's love to the end of the world. But if you go all the way around the earth, 'the end of the world' may be someone right next to you." If so, then who would be my "neighbor" today if I stretch the horizontal line all the way?

(Here I paused from posting and had a good discussion on the "neighborism" with a mature Christian friend nearby.)

First of all, I looked up the word "neighbor" in the concordance. The famous text in Matthew 19:19 says, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." But who is the “neighbor”? Another verse was found in Luke 10:29, "But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'" Hey, here's someone who had asked the same question! Plus, he was asking this question to "justify himself" as if to say, "I can't do anything about it unless I know who the 'neighbor' is!" Well...

Then Jesus presented the story of Good Samaritan. (Luke 10:30 -37) Three men passed by a dying Jew, a victim of mugger attack. It turns out that the one who ended up helping him was not the fellow Jews but the Samaritan who were despised by the Jews. Then Jesus answered the rabbi's question by another question, "What do you think? Which of the three BECAME a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?" (Luke 10:36)

So my friend commented, "I like this story because it teaches us that a 'neighbor' is something for us to BECOME, not someone for us to find." Absolutely. In this parable, any of those three men could have been "the neighbor", but unless one makes a choice to BECOME one, it does not turn you into one automatically.

So you see, I changed the title for this posting from "WHO is your neighbor?" to "Would you BE the neighbor?" instead. It’s not "Who?" but "Be," right?