For Aim

A few days ago, we bought our youngest son Aim his first bicycle with balancing wheels. Our young tot wasted no time to ride it around my father’s small garage. To give him more maneuvering space, I opened the gates and positioned myself halfway across the street for safety. Aim was having such fun that he started making shifty sharp turns that I felt the need to intervene. Slowly, I tried to position myself at his back to secretly hold the bicycle chair from the under. But as soon as Aim noticed my not-so-covert action, he gave me the cute wry smile.

“No, Daddy! ”, went his high-pitched soft voice with matching pouting face to boot. “For Aim only”, he continued.

Rewind from the not-so-distant past.

When Aim was learning to speak, he has accustomed himself to using the expression “for Aim only” if he wants to do things by himself. It’s “for Aim only” if he wants to color the book without our intervention. It’s “for Aim only”, when he is playing and his kuya Zek suddenly has the urge to let his giant hand spider crawl and disassemble Aim’s wooden train tracks. It’s “for Aim only” when he wants to eat alone using his spoon and fork.

Back to the present. 

So as soon as Aim blurted out his often-used expression, I have no choice but to back-off as well. But do you think I would have backed-off totally. No way, Jose!

I just kept a safe distance for me to easily jump to the rescue just in case Aim totally losses his balance. Well, he never did fall but when he reached a corner of the garage and realized he is stuck, he turned around and smiled, ”For Daddy only.” I was more than glad to lend a hand.

A lot of us can relate to this situation when it comes to our spiritual life.

When everything is good and all things are going our way, we often ignore and dismiss God into the farthest corner of our life. We bask in our happiness and dwell at our false sense of “for myself only” achievements. Then, we howl in disapproval whenever the spiritual prodding from God comes. Safe to say, everybody loves their own comfort zones.

But if we only keep an open and welcoming heart, we would come to realize that God’s close presence is not about imposing His will nor push-buttoning an abrupt power off to our happiness. The plain truth is that the cycle of life is always about ups and downs, success and failures, happiness and sadness. And it is precisely when we are about to go to another low point in our life that God’s has lovingly intended to keep us company, to catch our fall, to lend and support, to comfort and hold. But He cannot do this when we have already ask Him to stay clear of our lives during the “up-times”. Just as a mother proudly and lovingly follows her toddler who is learning to walk, trying to prevent any dangerous fall at each precarious step, so does God shares in every bit of our happiness even as He patiently wait to comfort us especially when the rough times comes in a swift sudden twist.

Our Prayer:

Dear Lord, please stay with me all the time whatever and wherever I am.

Share in my happiness and comfort me in my sadness. Amen.

The Return

Just like most Pinoys, I am a self-confessed basketball fanatic with immovable loyalty to my favorite teams since the first time I learned to handle the orange rubber ball.

For the local team it has always been San Miguel Beer and for the international team, I will forever be a Laker fan.

For San Miguel, it all started when the team was composed of the efficiently coached, solid core of Samboy Lim, Hector Calma, Allan Caidic while for the Lakers, it was always the fascination with the triumvirate of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and James Worthy. Both were elite teams at that time.

As time went by, San Miguel declined with the coming of the dynastic Alaska Milk team, but I still kept rooting for the beermen. At the other side of the globe, the out-of-this-world insanely ridiculous exploits of the Chicago Bulls and his Airness has left everyone jaw-dropped and in awed but I stuck it out with the then struggling Lakers. Talagang matalo-manalo San Miguel at Lakers lang :D.

Before officially turning pro at 18 years old, I have already read some intriguing write-ups about Lebron James about his amazing hoop skills and how the basketball world have come in anticipation for him to enter the NBA. And so he did.

Alas, his colourful years have been a roller coaster of highs and lows (with mostly lows) as critics and fan alike magnified everything he did on and off the court. At times, he did seem to have committed blunders, most notably, when he decided to leave his hometown crowd after seven years of frustrations to seek his first championship elsewhere. Then, he started winning and kept on playing on the finals game in the next four years. With all the recent success and amidst the back-dropped of winning more championships in his present team, he seemed overwhelmed and content from the outside. But the “kid from Akron, Ohio” feeling the deep tug in his heart all those years being away decided, in his own words “ to return home and help his hometown win their very-first ever sports championship”. 

His demeanor and big-heart decision deserves admiration.

So whether his return will finally be fruitful or just another short-term crack at redemption before moving elsewhere again, he would be closely watched.

As I said, I will be a San Miguel-Laker fan for life but I will also count myself now as a Lebron-Cleveland fan for some feel-good years to come.

It’s a prodigal son-like storyline worth rooting for.

PS.

It’s crazy out there in Germany with all the World Cup frenzy and euphoria for winning the world’s most prestigious cup. Congrats to my German friends! 

Old Vs. New

“..that you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” - Ephesians 4:22-24

Consequently, brothers and sisters, we are not debtors to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.  For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." - Romans 8:12-13

One time I bought a handful of bolts and nuts and kept them inside my toolbox, mixed with the old rusty screws in one compartment. A few days later when I needed to use them again, I found out, to my dismay, that they have already become rusty as well. Being a technical person, I should have foreseen that mixing ordinary metals with rusty metals will undoubtedly lead to contamination.

Lesson learned.

After I got married, I have made a personal vow to live a pure and chaste intimate with my wife and my wife alone. Slowly, I veered away from all my previous college activities of “fun” activities of beer-drinking-to-get-drunk, men’s bar hopping, print-porn viewing and vulgar huddles. I believe with all my heart that for me to succeed, I must “put away the old self of my former way of life”. There were ups and downs. I would say that for ninety-five percent of the time, it is working for me. I also observed that the five percent instances when I was failing always happened during those prolonged times that I was away I from my family, a sad reality of being an OFW, and coupled with the easy accessibility of red-district websites. And so, to finally cut off even the slightest chance of any slip back, I made the irrevocable personal decision that wherever my wife and kids are, there I must be as well. No ifs and no buts. All for one and one for all. Not a slightest distance in between. So far and by God’s grace, I have more success with this basic life decision. Am I fully clean? Not by long shot. But the odds are much more favourable than ever.     

All of us have our own spiritual struggles and challenges because we are humans with natural tendencies towards the desires of the body and flesh. Men, in particular, are visually enticeable. The good news is that God’s grace and mercy are enough to help us turn back from our sinful tendencies, to put off our “old” ways and be “new” in everything that we think, say and do. Whether we are presently in a sinful situation or we are struggling to keep straight in our chosen path to holiness, God will be there to guide and to strengthen our resolve to persevere in doing good.

They key for us is to “put away” the occasion of sins. We all know that the well-known seven capital sins are more of seven occasional magnets to commit sins – pride, anger, lust, sloth, jealousy, envy and greed. We must avoid them altogether. It will even serve us better to search deeper on what really exposes us to these seven occasions so we can cut off the root even before the temptation sprouts. Remember that a sober and fully-recovered former drunkard will never dare to take that first liquor-sip again lest he put himself into high-risk of drinking again. No sip, no slip. We, too, must be fully aware of and admit our weakness in order for us to circumvent the teeny-weeny tiniest chance for us to desire to re-test the murky waters.

Sounds like a tall order, right?

Yes, but there is a way.

“Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will act.” - Psalm 37:4

“But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one” - 2 Thessalonians 3:3 

By our own strength, we will always give-in in the face of irresistible invitations of the flesh and body.

But with God’s strength and our faith, the impossible will be doable.

God bless.