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.

Lift

Matthew 11:28  - Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads and I will give you rest

In most fitness gym anywhere, a type of multi-purpose body building equipment that has the one-weight multi function work-out can be found. Curiously, with any single choice of weight load, say 50lbs (roughly 23 kgs), one can notice different levels of resistances for each work-out. In a particular equipment, the least resistance is when using the shoulder-pull lever and the greatest resistance is during leg-pull up. For a newbie user, this may lead to a false idea that his shoulder is really stronger than his leg muscles. Until a closer scrutiny leads to the revealing fact.

It is neither the person's ability nor the weight that is mostly affecting the "heaviness" of the work-out but the designed system of pulleys (i.e. strings through round metal wheel) that results in effective disparity of weights according to the applied work-out. In principle, the more pulleys, the lesser the weight becomes. Conversely, the lesser the quantity of pulleys, the more heavy the same load would appear.

In our life, we do carry different weights from our daily trials and travails. Every so often, they appear simple, even amusing. Sometimes, they pinch a spot in our heart but immediately go away. At times, the pain lingers. On rare occasion, the test is overwhelming such as the untimely loss of a love one.   

A family friend lost their father a couple of days ago. Before the scheduled internment, their father's sister, arriving from abroad, also died on the way to the wake. Both have been suffering from stage 4 cancer and it was a double blow of pain for the people who loved them. Also, a young man at 17 from our homeschooling community also met a fatal accident when he tried to rescue a friend washed away by an out-of-nowhere big wave in a southern beach resort. After an overnight search, his lifeless body was found and was laid to rest. We never personally know them but his parent's deep loss is shared by us as we pray for God's comfort in both families. Presently, someone close is also struggling to keep his business above-waters for his family and his employees' sake.

When tough times like these come to us, there is really no quick-solution guaranteed deliverance from the harsh situation we are into. It does not make sense also to shut ourselves away from world in the hope that the pain will be isolated. As the book of Ecclesiastes have said that there is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens (ch3 v1). Inevitably, part of being a human is to undergoing suffering and the only way is to go through these trying times, not under them, not over them and definitely not around them. We either stand our ground or face it forward.   

But we do have a better choice. Even in the absence of understanding why such things are happening to us, we can and we should take upon the invitation of Jesus to come to Him, offer unto Him whatever is hurting us and accept His rest for us as we trust in His mysterious yet encompassing plans for our lives. Like a system of pulleys at work, God's inspiring word and divine works  will lift up anyone who seeks His comfort and rest. The weight of the trial did not really change, but the burden will much be lighter and more bearable once we let Him take over and take charge of our situation.

Believe in His love for all of us no matter what.

Lift up your hands to God.

God bless.

Joshua 1:5  I will not leave you nor forsake you.