devotions and reflections

Hello again everyone! It’s been a long time since I had been actively posting here. Well, I had a sabbatical leave, sort of, from today.com–that is.  It has been a stressful month last month and even if I am online everyday, I can’t seem to find any good topic to blog about.  But lots of things are happening except that I was just having a writer’s cramp I suppose.Well, it’s really nice to be back. I have missed blogging so much. And the best thing is that whenever we go through transitions in our life, God is always there. He never takes a break on taking care of us.  We are always in His watchful care every moment of our life. Though sometimes we pass through a dark dungeon and it seems that the light is nowhere in sight God is always there to see us through.At this point I’d like to go back in the last couple of weeks and pick up the good things that I can thank God for. First, I thank Him for the life and health He has continued to entrust me with. I thank Him for my loving husband who is very caring and understanding, for the coming of spring, for the flowers that are starting to bloom and decorate the lawns and gardens–they are such a wonder to behold.Finally, I thank God for loving me so much and for never giving up on me.  

I have just received a chain email with the title Untimely Death.  I wanted to post the message here but there was an instruction below that it should not be forwarded nor published so I better keep it in my mailbox.Anyway, in the email it began with an introduction by quoting Galatians 6:7 which says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” It then mentioned people of which some are famous and quoted their mockery of God and described how they met their untimely death. And like other chain emails, it went on to say that if you are not embarrassed of God then you must forward the email to your friends.Well, I wouldn’t want to forward it. It is misrepresenting God. It gives a picture of a cruel, unforgiving God contrary to what the Bible say that God is slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression…Numbers 14:18. However, this verse also says that God will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity upon the fathers unto the third and fourth generation but that is another point and I can give another explanation about that.What I want to point out is that God does not strike a sinner right away. He is a God of love. He loves the sinner but He abhors sin. Afterall, didn’t He send His only begotten Son to die for our sins? Well, I’m not implying that since Jesus had died of our sins then we are free to do them. Time will come for the reward and punishment. But to imply that God kills a person who has just mocked Him is a misrepresentation and misinterpretation. Such claim forfeits the message of the cross.Woe unto those people who have mocked God and died untimely for they didn’t have the chance to taste God’s sweet pardon and salvation.  The Bible says that God does not have pleasure in the death of a sinner and I’m sure God was saddened by their death too.Sin has so much corrupted this world and its inhabitants. But God poured out His love and He does not give up on any sinner. For Him each person is a subject of His great love and we should not use the stories of these people to spread fear in God. If God is that cruel, He should have disposed of Satan before he took control of this world. But since God is just and forgiving, He let Satan live so that we could see the degenerative result of sin.Satan is doing all his best to prove his claim that God is unjust and he will do just everything to make us believe and fortify his accusation against our loving God. Calamities and tragedies do strike and people tend to blame God for allowing them to happen. But I believe that it is Satan’s work alone. In his bid to take as many followers with him to destruction, he causes all this trouble in the world to happen and he delights when we blame God.God is love. He created all things beautiful and everything was good. But sin has wreaked havoc on His perfect creation. God could have prevented sin to enter this world but that would have made man a robot not being able to decide for himself. 

I lost my temper and I’m sitting here speechless, humbled, and remorseful. It’s really horrible when there’s no one else to blame but yourself. Last time I wrote about God making something beautiful out of our mistakes and I could use of those right now. I want Jesus to turn my mistake into something like a blessing. But I think God cannot condone our stupid mistakes and take us out from the mess just like that. All our mistakes must come with a consequence. And to be honest, I’m afraid of the consequence.What have I done? Well, I just complained about something trivial which turned out to be my entire fault. Isn’t that plain stupid? If I only held my temper.Sometimes we rage and it ruins our reason. Then we realized we  said things that we shouldn’t have and it’s too late to take it back.Patience. It’s one of my greatest weakness. I have it when I don’t need it and disappears when I need it. A gentle answer turns away rage, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1