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Last Friday at my working place, we had a celebration of a new product announcement. It was packed with people. Some high rank managers showed up as speakers and encouragers. After their speeches, my colleague told me that let’s meet some people around. Therefore, we went ahead and met some of our old managers and chat a little bit. The interesting thing is after I greeted one of my old managers, another manager came. Suddenly, I found myself standing in between them and they were talking excitedly without even noticing my existence. It was an awkward situation because I felt it would be rude to leave in the middle of their conversation, but in the same time, I couldn’t insert any meaningful words but keep my smiles since I have no idea about the contents of their conversation.

Naturally, I felt that I was ignored initially and then I realize that I am not fit in that kind of conversation environment anyway, so I felt at ease later.  It, however, brings out a good reminder to me. Most of us in our life probably have struggled for acceptance in some degree. No one has full popularity over everyone, I believe. Think about apostle Paul as an example. His conversion from a Pharisee into a Christian brought him rejections and skeptics in the beginning when he tried to join the disciples in Jerusalem (Acts 9:26). The other obvious example is our Lord Jesus – He was never being well accepted by Pharisees and Ascribes of the Jews. His triumphant entry to the Jerusalem didn’t give Him the acceptance either.

On the other hand, I asked myself whether I have the same tendency in neglecting others when I am excited in doing something? How about my children, or, my co-workers in the church, or, my colleagues at my working place? Moreover, how about other ones to whom I plan to introduce the Gospel? I think the answer is definitely a yes. Therefore, I need to ask our Lord to give me a sensitive heart to others’ need during various conditions.

The third point I would like to make is we are all susceptible to disappointment by others’ neglect. This could be from our family members, our brothers and sisters in the church, colleagues at work, or even strangers we met. The question is “How can we cope with this kind of disappointment?” My thought is we need to divert our focus from people to God. If we ask ourselves constantly, “Who is the one that should be pleased the most?” and, “Can we make the most of our life in Him?”. Then, the result will be rewarding.

St. Augustine once said, “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”  As we are God’s children, we will have His undivided attention, anytime, anywhere. We would be disappointed or feel rejected if we are focusing on people instead of God Himself. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, let me challenge you a question, “What is your focus?”  Please use this question to ask yourself constantly during the week. Then you may find out that you are not easily being disappointed anymore.

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Most of you probably would agree with me that communication is a skill and is very important, especially when you are talking with youngsters. The other day, I had a chance to explain a math problem to my son that he couldn’t comprehend. After half an hour, he still couldn’t get it and he kept saying, “It does not make sense to me”. I got frustrated and told him that, “you can ask your teacher or classmates tomorrow, maybe the way I have learned from my teacher is different from what you were taught in school.”

Have you ever heard an acronym called “KISS”?  Initially, I thought it was some kind of joke. Later I find out it stands for “Keep It Simple, Silly (or Stupid)”. In fact, there are many variations of KISS now. Preferably, I like the version of “Keep it Short and Simple” better. The situation I had with my son is a reminder to me that my explanation could be excessively complex to him. In addition, I may have problem in my communication skill too 🙂

To keep something short and simple is always desired when you are explaining something to others. A lengthy and complex explanation would tend to confuse people even more unless it is intended – like the arena of politics. 🙂 Under my working environment, oftentimes, we were required to include a so-called “executive summary” in our presentation – to convey our message or points in the presentation, succinctly. In this moment, the principle of KISS is needed because it is what the management is interested most.

On the other spectrum, however, sometimes you would hear someone says, “Sigh, it is a long story…..” At this time, I bet you are prepared to listen to him attentively as it implies a kind of situation that could be difficult to explain. In the path of our life, there could be many hard to tell “long stories” and many “short and simple” encounters or events. Overall, it is a journey that God has prescribed for us – it is a journey of faith in reality. Without faith, we would have no strength and no will for the journey when we encounter hardships and difficulties.

Is Bible a long story to tell or to understand? It could be, if you read it persistently chapter to chapter, book by book, it will take some time to complete it since it has 66 books – it starts from describing God’s creation in the book of Genesis and ends with God’s eternal plan in the book of Revelation. Is there a short and simple introduction of the Bible? Yes, I think.  From my limited understanding, we can use the attributes of God to summarize the Bible: God’s holiness, God’s righteousness and God’s love. Because of the sin of Adam and Eve, we were separated from God. Apostle Peter indicated to us that, “without holiness no one will see the Lord 非聖潔沒有人能見主 ” (Hebrews 12:14b). And, Apostle Paul said, “just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. 這就如罪是從一人入了世界，死又是從罪來的，於是死就臨到眾人，因為眾人都犯了罪‧ (Romans 5:12).”  The wage of sin is death, as apostle Paul indicated, because God is righteous. As God is love – He wouldn’t let us, the sinners, to be perished – He sent His only begotten son, Jesus to pay the price of our sin. This was clearly taught by the Apostle John, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 神愛世人，甚至將他的獨生子賜給他們，叫一切信他的，不至滅亡，反得永生‧因為 神差他的兒子降世，不是要定世人的罪，﹝或作審判世人下同﹞乃是要叫世人因他得救‧ (John 3:16-17).”  What a great love!

I hope my explanation of the Bible followed the principle of KISS 🙂 Please let me know if you have any trouble to understand it. Please remember that the only path to reconcile with God is through our Lord, Jesus Christ, as it is promised in the Bible (John 14:6).

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Last week was a busy and intense week for me at my work. Some unexpected requests kept coming up to my team and me. On Friday, I decided to give myself a break – took a day off. I spent time in doing some over-due items from my “honey-do-list” and enjoyed spare time with my wife – we went to a local riverfront park and spent some time in hunting for striped bass. It is a time well spent even we didn’t get what we were searching for from the river. On our way back, we saw a couple sat there enjoying sunshine and their picnic sandwiches. Seeing their smiling faces, I told my wife that it is a beautiful picture and I hope we can be like them a few more years down the road 🙂

This experience lets me think of an interesting illustration from a recent radio broadcast program called “Bridge the gap”. I will try to memorize as much as I can. It goes something like this,

“A young couple just married. In the morning after their wedding day, the young wife got up very early to prepare their very first meal. When the husband woke up and saw the breakfast was ready, he was delightedly surprised. At this moment, the young wife started to say, “I was afraid that the meal wouldn’t be ready, so, I got up early to prepare it. However, I was also afraid that you would be disturbed, so, I was carefully minimizing noises on my preparation. After I prepared the meal, I was afraid that the meal would be cold when you are up, so, I kept it in the oven all the time before I dished out.”

It is a lovely picture of marriage life. Throughout the Bible, we learned that God established marriage for humans. He prescribes an intimate and holy relationship between husband and wife as Adam said, “Eve is his bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh.”  Apostle Paul even used the relationship between husband and wife to imitate Christ and His church. He said, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

你們作丈夫的、要愛你們的妻子、正如基督愛教會、為教會捨己．(Ephesians 5:25)

The illustration has a deeper meaning too, according to the radio broadcast. It can be used to illustrate the meaning of “God fearing”. Sometimes we may have a difficulty in grasping the true meaning of fearing God. The illustration of the young wife gives us a picture of revering God is out of loving Him. Did you notice that the young wife said, “I was afraid” three times? This is not because she is afraid of her husband. It is out of respect and her heart of love – a correct way of fearing God.

My dear brothers and sisters, the Bible teaches us to love our Lord wholeheartedly. As we are His beloved children, do we revere Him out of our love?

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Early in the morning on last Saturday, I need to drop off my son to an ACT test at a local high school. Before we left and sitting in the car, I told my son to again check things that he need to bring. He said, “Yes, I did”. While we are half way on the road to the high school, he said, “Dad, I just realize that I brought along a wrong calculator, because the instruction sheet said it has to be TI-xx model.” Tell you the truth I almost went ballistic at that time. I gave myself a deep breath and said slowly with a calm voice, “I thought you checked it already before we left. Now, why this happens?” He gave me a “sorry” look. Then, I continued to say, “Time is cutting close, it is not viable for us to go back home in order to bring the calculator here”. Then, he suggested that we woke up my wife asking her to bring the calculator here while we continued to head toward the high school. I said, “OK, this probably is the only feasible solution and hope she could arrive on time”

This incident teaches me several lessons. I felt parents’ responsibility is never being an easy one – In one hand, we need to train our children to be independent. On the other hand, we also need to teach them to follow instruction truthfully. Then, the work of preparation is very important for any thing to be undertaken. A thorough and detailed preparation would aid your success in any work you want to take. Finally, a back up plan is always good to have.

In recent daily Bible study, we read again the incident of “Moses’ Error at Kadesh – water from the rock”, from the book of Numbers chapter 20. In Moses’ frustrated and anguish condition after listened to so many Israelites’ complaint on top of no drinking water, he forgot God’s instruction – Speak to that rock:

“Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink. 你拿著杖去、和你的哥哥亞倫招聚會眾、在他們眼前吩咐磐石發出水來、水就從磐石流出給會眾、和他們的牲畜喝  (Numbers 20:8)”

Instead, Moses struck the rock twice again in order to bring forth water to feed the Israelites. The error he made caused him to be refrained from entering the land of Canaan – the land of promise by God. What a lesson to read your instruction carefully! If my son had read his instruction sheet of test carefully beforehand, we probably wouldn’t have to scramble around for his calculator.

In addition, Moses’ example also tells us that it is not wise to make any important decision when you are not in your clear mind. He was tired and furious against Israelites’ repeatable complaints. Therefore, he thought God would use the same instruction as last time – to have him struck the rock (Exodus 17).

I am not sure what would happen if I had used harsh word against my son when I find out that he didn’t even read the instruction sheet of test. However, I am glad that I didn’t and in the end, it did work out fine. This reminds me of the book of wisdom – Proverbs – teaches us that, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. 回答柔和，使怒消退‧言語暴戾，觸動怒氣‧(Proverbs 15:1)”  Hope I will remember this lesson.

My dear brothers and sisters, if I may, let me ask you, “What is our instruction of life?” It is Bible, right?  Then, what should we do about this instruction? 🙂

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Last Wednesday, I had an opportunity to take my kid to do a college visit. We attended a guided campus tour and then we sat through an information session. Both sessions were crowded due to Spring break for many high schoolers. The guide was a junior student and he talked a lot about how good the college is; and what kind of uncommon freedom or unique opportunities that they have above-and-beyond other colleges. It is always enlightening to listen to personal life experiences, though in this case, there is a slice of suspicion of “sales pitch” being mixed.

How to choose a right college that is suit for a high schooler is usually very challenging to both parents and students, I believe. It is a long and arduous process and it has to start early. In the end, however, its result may not be always what was desired. For my family, we went through the process for our first one and now it is our second one. Still, even with our prior experience, we are struggling in finding a match for our second one. Talking about parenthood, sigh…. 🙁

The difficulty in finding a “right match” is owing to its daunting nature – how to match desire from each individual with selection criteria from colleges. Sometimes the process is more or less like finding a spouse that is a match to you. Interesting thing is you can change school but less likely you would change your spouse 🙂

Is there such a thing called “universal solution”? For example, can a college satisfy everyone’s desire? Probably not! Otherwise, we don’t need to have so many colleges with so much diversity. How about a universal tool? Is there a tool that could fulfill everyone’s need? Again, I don’t think so either. At least I haven’t seen it, as of today. The trouble is this has been an idealistic goal for many companies in industry, including my company. At the end of the day, I think it is not the tool that is important, it is “employees’ knowledge and experience” that is more important. Since we are talking about people, let’s look at another aspect. Is there a universal solution to humankind’s problems, such as “the need to be loved”, “The need to feel significant or appreciative”, “how to live a meaningful life”, “how to relieve burdens of sins and guilt”, “how to relieve bitterness”, “how to free from fear of death”, etc.? Yes! This time I am positively sure that we have a universal solution to humankind’s problems – it is our Lord Jesus Christ!

My dear brothers and sisters, at this Easter Sunday, we are joyous but let us remember what our Lord has done for us – He gave us eternal life; He loved us and delivered us from the bondages of sins and guilt. As He is the universal solution to all our problems, can we love Him with all our soul, our mind and our strength?  He told us that “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.人子來，為要尋找、拯救失喪的人。(Luke 19:10)” Do we have compassion for “others” as our Lord did? Because “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 愛惜自己生命的、就失喪生命．在這世上恨惡自己生命的、就要保守生命到永生”。(John 12:25)”

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Looking out from my porch window, I was captivated by the blooming golden bells plants (forsythia), populating along my neighbor’s fence. A band of breathtakingly yellow / gold color created by flickering backlight from the morning sun is amazingly beautiful. In a moment like this, I could slightly imagine what King David was describing in his psalm:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. 諸 天 述 說 神 的 榮 耀 ； 穹 蒼 傳 揚 他 的 手 段 。(Psalm 19:1)

Certainly, the blooming forsythia is a handiwork from God and it is the earliest sign of Spring season around the area. It indicates the end of our lukewarm winter – green grass is coming up and tree leaves are sprouting all over the area earlier than previous year.  It is a beautiful and lively scene!

When we think of our life journey, I am sure we all have moments worthy of cherishing and remembering. However, how many of them you would consider as moments of instantaneous eternality (瞬間的永恆)? Not that many, right? How about the moment that you were proposing to your love one, or, the moment that you saw your very first baby was born …. etc. These are moments that he, she, or something of interest captured your attention undividedly – you would not notice anything even you were under a heavy traffic (車水馬龍) environment. In our spiritual journey, we have our “moments like these” too – The moment that we felt touched by our Lord, the moment we felt that we were sinful and overwhelmed by our iniquity…. etc. You may be very familiar with a hymn called “In moments like these”. Its lyrics are as below:

In moments like these I sing out a song, I sing out a love song to Jesus.

In moments like these I lift up my hands, I lift up my hands to the Lord.

Singing I love You, Lord. Singing I love You, Lord. Singing I love You, Lord, I love You.

The author’s response to “in moments like these” is to sing out a “love” song to our Lord. The author teaches us a way to express our emotions in moments that we are touched by our Lord. It is an adoration and exaltation to God’s love.

Today is the Palm Sunday – it is the day that our Lord was welcomed to enter the city of Jerusalem by the crowd even though He was crucified in the following Friday and then resurrected on that Sunday. But, let me ask you this, “Do you hear the shouting of “Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna!” by the crowd in the Jerusalem NOW?” Consider the moment when we received our Lord into our hearts, do we have the similar exhilaration as the crowd in the Jerusalem?  My dear brothers and sisters, there are moments that we may feel joy or may feel lost; do we have moments that we feel that we are eager to proclaim His good news to others?

Then, let us ask our Lord to grant us wisdom and courage to witness His love upon us.

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Working for 4 days later, I feel a little bit relief on Friday because I know weekend is coming. Two of my colleagues happened to stop by my office. One of them said, “Hey, it is Friday…Relax…. It is getting better every minute.”  “Well, not so quick, it is closer to Monday every minute, actually.” The other colleague responded immediately.

This simple conversation gives me some insights of a person’s view. In fact, we can use a simple illustration like this: when there is a half-filled cup, do you consider it as “half full” or as “half empty”? How you consider the cup would reveal your personality in some sort. You will find that it is very common to meet persons with these two types of personality from wherever you go. As we know, a person with half-empty view tends to worry more but more careful than the half-full one. Under all circumstances, this may not be bad actually, since you need to have both kinds of person in order to have a balance view.

Recent resource actions at workplace affected some of the families in the area. How you view this kind of activity, however, also reveals your personality – from a “half-full” or from a “half-empty” view. I think, with our flesh eye, we would have “half-empty” view more than “half-full” view since we tend to see limitation and difficulties ahead of us. In fact, as one of my job assignments at work is doing risk and exposure assessment, my personality tends toward half-empty one too 🙂

In the Gospels, we could see a few examples from the disciples of Jesus. One of them is the response from Philip to Jesus in the miracle of “Jesus feeds the five thousand”. He said, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite! 腓 力 回 答 說 ： 就 是 二 十 兩 銀 子 的 餅 ， 叫 他 們 各 人 吃 一 點 也 是 不 夠 的(John 6:7b)”. The other one is in the miracle of “Jesus calms the storm”. You could see the panic mode from the disciples on the boat. The disciples woke Jesus and said to Him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?(Mark 4:38b)”  Then our Lord’s response to them was:

“Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? 耶 穌 對 他 們 說 ： 為 甚 麼 膽 怯 ？ 你 們 還 沒 有 信 心 麼 ？(Mark 4:40)”

My dear brothers and sisters, do we have faith in our Lord that we could see things with our spiritual eye instead of our flesh eye? The spiritual view would let us see “He is omnipotent” and any difficulties may be just opportunities for us to learn and to be trained. I understand that  this is not easy initially. However, if we take heart and have faith in Him, then we will see things differently, I believe.

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A mother has a son called Kevin. During Kevin’s college years, he met a girl called Susie and started to move in with her. As a Christian, the mother does not in favor of her son’s behavior. Her son, however, does not feel there is anything wrong – he explains to his mother, “I didn’t sleep with Susie. We are sleeping on different beds while sharing the same apartment”

On one of the college trips, the mother went to visit her son. In order to show her hospitality, Susie invited Kevin’s mother for a dinner. Susie prepared the dinner using her family silverware on the night of gathering. Kevin then showed his mother around the apartment afterwards. Later in the night, after Kevin’s mother left, Susie found that one of her favorite silver forks was missing. She was upset and complained to Kevin about the situation. Kevin agreed to write an email to his mom asking if she took the fork inadvertently.

 In the email, Kevin wrote, “Mom, I may be right or I may be wrong to ask you this. The fact is that Susie couldn’t find her silver fork after you left – the fork was there at the dinner time but vanished afterwards.” A week later, Kevin received a mail response from his mother saying, “I may be right or I may be wrong to say that you are sleeping with Susie. The fact is that I put her fork in her bed before I left and she has never found it since.”

This was an illustration story from a radio broadcast that I remembered, partially, according to my aged memory. It is very enlightening and I think it is worthwhile to share with you. Especially for those of us who are having kids in college, we may be able to share the same worry and concern as the mother did under today’s crooked environment.

One thing for sure, the mother’s wisdom is certainly deserved to be applauded. She has the wisdom to enlighten her son without telling him directly. We should ask our Lord for this kind of wisdom. Another thing is it serves as a very good reminder to me – there is nothing can be hidden without being known. My every little secret will be made known by God later. In fact, from our Lord’s teaching to His disciples about Pharisees’ yeast, which is hypocrisy, He said, “There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 掩蓋的事、沒有不露出來的．隱藏的事、沒有不被人知道的。(Luke 12:2)” And the author of the book of Ecclesiastes also indicated to us:

“For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. 因為人所作的事、連一切隱藏的事、無論是善是惡、　神都必審問。Ecclesiastes 12:14”

My dear brothers and sisters, I think you would agree with me that no one is infallible except God. In addition, He knows our every deed – there is nothing can be concealed from Him. Can we follow the guidance and control of His Holy Spirit in our daily life? Let us be reminded that we are His children and He knows what is the best for us.

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Nowadays, everything has to be fast. Faster computers, internet, shopping, service, etc. No wonder my kids always ask, “Are we there yet?” whenever we are going out. To achieve not only the “fast speed” data processing but also high availability and high security, high-end servers have its advantages over other computers. One of its advantages is to employ multi-core chips with redundancy to spare dynamically.

The other day in the hallway at my work place, my colleague mentioned his recent experience in one of the customer briefings to prospect customers – he heard an Executive used a very interesting analogy to explain this concept of spare processors feature. The Executive told the prospect customer: “It is a big preparation for a person who is undergoing a “heart transplant”.  Firstly, he will need to find a person who is willing to donate is having a good, free from defects, and right blood type of heart. Then, he needs to find skillful physicians, nurses, facilities, etc. to perform the transplant.  The process of the transplant is laborious and there is NO guarantee of success in the end. However, it is a different story from our computer server. As you know, the server would stop functioning if the CPU (central processing unit) fails. Therefore, the CPU of the server is like “the heart” of a human. With the capability of dynamic sparing in CPU, we have the ability to do “heart transplant on the fly” and it is clean, safe, transparent and always successful.”

When we look back to the time we believe, there is a similarity that we can find. Apostle Paul indicated to the Ephesians that we were “….gratifying the cravings of our fleshand following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 放縱肉體的私慾 ， 隨著肉體和心中所喜好的去行，本為可怒之子，和別人一樣 (Ephesians 2:3).” Our “heart of flesh” has become “heart of stone” and couldn’t receive God’s calling due to our indulgence in worldly pleasures.  The only way to recover it is to use a drastic measure – a heart transplant. The process of transplant is like apostle Paul taught us, “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. 因為人心裡相信 ，就可以稱義 ；口裡承認 ，就可以得救 。(Romans 10:10)”

The process of our “spiritual heart transplant” is an easy, instant on the fly and never failing. It is FREE too. As in the Old Testament, God promised Israelites through the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 36:26) to give them a new heart and a new spirit. This same promise is through our Lord Jesus Christ to us in New Testament time. By receiving Him as our personal savior, we will get a “heart transplant on the fly” which is a new, an eternal and most precious gift that we can get in the world. My dear brothers and sisters, because of Him, we can have a heart to listen to His calling, to know Him and to follow Him. May we remember the precious gift from our Lord.

Last Wednesday, I started to feel my nose was blowing out “hot” air when I was at work. My immediate reaction was “uh oh” – hope this is just a sign of tiredness and nothing more. Subsequent days, however, my physical condition continued to deteriorate and finally at last weekend, sinus congestion and coughing symptoms all came up. I knew it is definitely a “cold” that I contracted it during the week.

Every weekday morning, I have to drop off my kids to their school. Early in the morning when we got up, I always have a habit to remind them to put on more clothes because there is a big difference between their beds and living room, in terms of temperature. However, their response always likes that “yah, yah, yah….” attitude. Therefore, I have to raise my voice one more time in front of them and then they may yield to my demanded tone. I told them that it is for your own good (ha, ha, ha. See, I am like a nagging parent). Sometimes I even added one caution to them after my demand, “You will learn it when you become a parent!” Isn’t this ironic? We used to be in their shoes with the “stiff neck” attitude toward our parents too. Do we follow our parents? Probably not every time, right?

When we studied the book of Exodus in the Old Testament, we were constantly reminded by Moses that Israelites are stiff neck people and God wanted them to learn lessons in order to recognize that “He is the LORD”. In the New Testament, the author of the book of James reminded us that we should not merely listen to the word, and so deceive ourselves. He used a vivid picture to describe this behavior:

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  因為聽道而不行道的，就像人對著鏡子看自己本來的面目‧看見，走後，隨即忘了他的相貌如何‧(James 1:23-24)

Spiritual coldness is far more severe than physical coldness, my dear brothers and sisters.  “Are you cold?” which may mean a common greeting of your physical condition from someone who you are familiar with; it could also mean a serious question asked by our Lord.  We can’t let our spiritual altar grow cold because it is exactly the evil one wants – he uses every possible means to discourage us and to tempt us in order to put out our spiritual fire. Let’s watch over one another just like apostle Paul reminded us:

Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. 各 人 不 要 單 顧 自 己 的 事 ， 也 要 顧 別 人 的 事 。(Philippians 2:4)