On being like little children

I have asked the Lord a dozen times what He meant regarding this passage…

Matthew 18: 1-4

“ At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

And as a grown up I have forgotten how it felt like being one, being like that of a child. And buried among the worries of work life, social life, heck even love life, it is somehow impossible to feel like one… well impossible to me, but we all know that nothing is impossible to God and so here’s how He brought me back to 1993.

Being drowned by everything and not having control is not what a child feels like. As children all we cared about was watching Voltes V every Saturday afternoon, get sweaty as we play outside with our friends, heck we never even cared if we broke some bones but we still climb trees… no worries, no attachments, carefree children. And at 23, I can’t do that anymore, I have the whole future to think about, to dream about, I’ve got work, tons of work to do, colleagues who depends on me somehow, and a household to pay some bills. Now… tell me how in the world can we go back and free ourselves from these things, and be like children… And so the Lord gave me an opportunity to go out of the country for a week-long vacation, and experience Disneyland, and go bananas shopping in Hong Kong… little did I know the Lord was answering the very prayer I prayed weeks back…

Before I get to my point here’s a little background of my trip. I was with my brother, sister-in-law, and their son- my nephew, together with us were the family of my sister-in-law, together with them are 3 children with an average age of 9 below. So under my wing of responsibilities were three kids, and a toddler… and boy oh boy they we’re a handful. We stayed at Disney’s Hollywood Hotel within the Disneyland island and stayed there for 4 nights and 5 days. Their food was expensive, but awesome and they have these Mickey Mouse waffles… they’re waffles that has the face of Mickey Mouse.

During the trip I’ve seen these children run around, get preoccupied with toys, and fight amongst each other because of one not letting the other one borrow. Of course as an adult I tried being a mediator, and try some reasoning with a 3 year old and a 7 year old… of course it didn’t work. And of course I couldn’t help but feel some anger, frustrations, and annoyed when these circumstances happen, but even if they’ve done you wrong like accidentally poke a lady in the butt with their toy, or spill a drink on you, or throw up on the pillow you’re going to sleep in, or even slapping you silly because they can’t get what they want… but once they look at you and understand what they did, and tell you “Sorry Tito Marc...” oh my goodness my heart just melts and I completely forget everything they did there. And after saying their sorry they’ll go about their things, and you can just see how confident children are under adults love. Sometimes they don’t even know what they do, but even after they write on the wall of your room, mess up some of your collectibles, even without saying sorry they’ll just run towards you and make hug you where they can, every emotion will just flitter away. And so I understood what the passage meant.

We, as children of God should be confident of the forgiveness that’s there even if we have wronged Him. Even if we have lived unholy lives in front of a Holy God, we know that there’s an underlying fact that He loves us very much that He’ll just look at you with a messed up heart as you ask for forgiveness. If there’s something I’ve learned about that trip regarding this passage is that we can be confident under the wing of God’s love. We see a couple of parables regarding this (Lost sheep, and Prodigal Son) but this experience just made it real.

And on top of that, He reminded me how it felt like being a kid as I roam around the grounds of Disneyland seeing characters come alive right in front of you and the fireworks to end the night was just the perfect coup-de-grace of the whole experience…

I hope I made sense and I hope that like me we gain an inch closer in understanding the love God has for us.

I Am Legend

Topic: The inner struggle and how we’ve won.

Conflict: we we’re once sick, as sick as the zombies we’re in the movie. We’re sick of boredom, and that’s our cancer. We inject ourselves with cures that we find in the end that will consume us over time.

2Co 4:4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

The first problem presented here is our ignorance of our demise. We do not know that we’re dying and causing death to happen among others, because at first we do not have any clue whatsoever that sin would lead us to death. Second we don’t have any clue of who Jesus is, what the cross truly meant. We’re completely ignorant of everything that is happening around us.

We’re sinking deep, and we don’t even know it.

How do we know that we’re sick?

It is when our idea of happiness is shattered by a person that has a different pursuit of happiness, this is how we see how sick, and how blinded we are from the truth. We’re in too deep the waters and we don’t even know it, we’ll realize it when we see someone walk on water. And right there and then we’ll wonder how is that possible?

I can never forget that day that I finally gave Jesus a chance to reveal himself to me, when one of my friends, a close one, who was maybe a notch higher in worseness of deeds turn 180 degrees and suddenly find happiness in Christ. My mind was totally blown away, I was swept off my feet, and basically my idea of happiness was shattered. Then I concluded right there and then how screwed I was.

When these two idea’s clash, right there and then you see your heart awaken, and you can only tell if your heart is awakened by the amount of internal struggle you deal with. It is a process, one by one we take away what is being revealed to our hearts. We say no to each and everything that comes in our way, we may lose some of them but always remember that it is a process. This is where our confidence in His grace and faithfulness are put to test. (Phil 1:6)

It is important that we simply put everything behind. Because my friends, we cannot truly say that we’re enjoying Christ if we still look at our past and see it as the ‘glory days’ or the good old days… (Phil past, prize)

Resolution: The solution is not of our hands, in this scenario, if you don’t know you’re sick you cannot cure yourself. It takes someone to notice your disease to get you better. Our boredom and our sufferings has a cure. And that’s what we saw in the movie clip that we watched. There is light amidst the darkness that we live in. and the bible describes it in John 15:13 that states "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." And it continues to passing a legacy to us. What he did, on the cross, the sacrifice, the life that He has given to us is what He desires among other people as well. We can see it in the end of that chapter as Jesus states that we’re appointed to go and bear fruit-fruit that will last, then the Father will give us what we ask in His name, and love one another.

There’s a deeper parable that’s very dear in my heart in John 10:11-18 where Jesus describes and reveals Himself as the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. He continues saying that the hired hand will run away when animosity arrives. And in the movie, the hero, Robert Neville, explained why he remained in NY. He saw it as ground zero, and he saw it as his primary responsibility not to leave the area until He finds the cure for the virus. And that’s what the good shepherd does, he lays down His life for His sheep. And again he left a legacy for us to follow. To bring other sheep that are not within His present pen towards Him.

This is what I’m saying, our lives will be the very proof of Christ’s very existence towards our families and friends. I know it’s hard to talk to them and explain every preaching, every message, every revelation that we have attained through out the years.

Like Robert, we can scream “I know how to cure you” all we want, but the thing is, they wont listen… they’ll only listen if they see someone who was like them gets it. Someone who’s so passionate about their pursuit that will encourage and inspire others that this is how it’s supposed to be. We don’t even have to speak, we just have to be in ground zero where everybody is.

Jesus wants us to have life, and live life to the fullest. And the only way we can enjoy it, is through Him.