Praise You in this Storm

"Sometimes God calms our storm, sometimes He chooses to ride the storm with us." Praise you in this storm. Great song.

Praise You in this Storm

I was sure by now, God, that You would have reached down

and wiped our tears away

stepped in and saved the day.

But once again, I say amen

and it's still raining

as the thunder rolls

I barely hear You whisper through the rain,

"I'm with you"

and as your mercy falls

I raise my hands and praise the God who gives and takes away 

And I'll praise you in this storm

and I will lift my hands

for You are who You are

no matter where I am

and every tear I've cried

You hold in your hand

You never left my side

and though my heart is torn

I will praise you in this storm

I remember when I stumbled in the wind

You heard my cry to You

and raised me up again

my strength is almost gone, how can I carry on

if I can't find You

as as the thunder rolls

I barely hear, You whisper through the rain

"I'm with you"

and as your mercy falls

I raise my hands and praise the God who gives and takes away

I lift my eyes unto the hills

where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth

I lift my eyes unto the hills

where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth

Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego replied to him, "King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty's hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of god you have set up."
 Daniel 3:16-18

Mere Christianity Discussion / Study Guide. Part 2

This is the part two of my post on Mere Christianity and its study guide / discussion questions. Here is the link to part 1. Again, hope this helps.

Book 3 - Christian Behavior
Chapter 1 - 3
1. What do you think when you hear the word "morality"? Make it practical and think of some of moral issues we or the world is facing today.
2. In chapter 3, do you think Lewis is proposing a Christian society? Do you agree that Christian society would be an utopia?
3. In the same chapter, Lewis talked about cherry-picking some values from christian morality which conform / confirm our pre-existing belief. Point out one that is evident in today's society.

Chapter 4 - Morality and Psychoanalysis
1. Lewis stated that psychoanalysis and Christianity share similar technique. How are they similar? "Freud ... is not in the least contradictory to Christianity. Its technique overlaps with Christian morality at some points ..."


Chapter 5 - Sexual Morality
1. Understand Lewis' analogy of sex and food (the bacon strip tease). Looking at how prevalent sexual immorality is in today's society, how does Lewis' argument helpful? Does it relevant, does it give a counter argument to current culture? What are some objections to sexual abstinence?

Chapter 6 - Christian Marriage
1. We often heard that love is not a feeling but a commitment. "If love is the whole thing then the promise can add nothing, then it should not be made" or "And in fact, whatever people say, the state called being in love usually does not last." The implication of this is, marriage is not only based on love, but more on commitment. And if feeling will go away, do married couple actually has no more love for each other and simply view the relationship as a binding commitment? As you read, think of some biblical basis to support or refute that statement.

Chapter 7 - Forgiveness
1. On paragraph 3, Lewis said that, "It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven". Does this mean that divine forgiveness depend on us?
2. Refusal to forgive a person usually translate into a form of punishment ( par 8). What kind of punishment do you usually deliver, and when is the last time you blow that punishment?
3. Looking at the atrocities in the world (imagine Hitler or 9/11 or even a person who has hurt you profoundly deep), is anyone ever beyond forgiveness?

Chapter 8 - The Great Sin 
1. Lewis argued that "the utmost evil, is Pride". How do you agree or disagree with that statement.
2. We hear a lot of saying that we need to take pride in our body, in our nation, in our achievement, or maybe in our sexual orientation (gay pride etc). Does Lewis speak against this? Explain.
3. I personally believe that this is one of the greatest piece about the topic of Pride. Highlight several statements that stand out to you and please share.

Chapter 9 - Charity
1. Lewis argues that to love someone, we need to stop to manufacture the feeling and just go to the action (par 5). Is motivation important then? How could we justify doing something when we do not feel like it (or still have impure motivation)?

Chapter 10 - Hope
1. In paragraph 2, Lewis states that "something has evaded us". What are the things that have evaded you in your personal life?
2. Lewis implies here that humans tend to be hopeful and later be disappointed in life. Among the three alternatives he provides in dealing with hope, which one reflects you the most? Provide example.

Chapter 11 - Faith
1. Lewis seems to imply that faith must come from reasoning or intellectual argument: "My faith is based on reason" (Par 2) and "faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted" (Par 5). What about people who has no intellectual reasoning with Christianity before and just come to Christ by experience?
2. Lewis argues that it is moods (or imagination or desire) that usually take away / shaken our faith. What usually challenge your faith? When St Paul talks about "walk by faith and not by sight", how does our sight shaken our faith too (in connection to our mood)?

Chapter 12 - Faith
1. After reading this chapter, what do you think is the relationship between Old Testament and New Testament, or in other words, relationship between good actions and faith in Christ?
2. In paragraph 4, Lewis says to discover is to "really finding out by experience that it is true". How does experience help us to discover better in comparison to only knowing or understanding that it is true? 

Mere Christianity Discussion / Study Guide. Part 1

Some books are harder to understand, some authors are endowed with amazingly coveted skills to write complicated yet insightful sentence, which often only resulted in perplexed frown from its laymen readers. This book, this author, more than any other books, always leave me in that state of confusion and it is with that problem in mind that I write this post.

Mere Christianity, arguably one of the best Christian books out there, is soaked with gems of insight and biblical truth that it would be unforgivable for a Christian to left this book unread. I strongly recommend this literature, and go to the extent of giving out study guide / discussion questions for the more serious and committed readers out there. Not by anyway perfect, but I've used them for our book club, and they have their own charm.

Book 1: Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe
Chapter 1 and 2
1. One of the big ideas that Lewis discussed in these two chapters is relativism. Do you think this idea is still relevant in today's world? If so, how do you see this idea being manifested / popularized by the culture?
2. Lewis stated three objections against moral relativism and argued that moral relativism is flawed in its essence. Try to read these chapters on those light and think of practical examples / cases of each.

Chapter 3
1. Pay close attention to how Lewis developed and expanded the idea of the law of nature.
2. In chapter 3 paragraph 1, Lewis talked about the consequences of the "very idea of something being imperfect". What are the consequences he had in mind?

Chapter 4 - 5
1. In reasoning with the problem, "what lies behind the law", Lewis laid out what the world think about it, how do they approach it, the problem with the approach, and his proposed solution. Be on the lookout for all these points.
2. There are two bits of evidences about the Somebody - he is not good and not soft which led Lewis to conclude that we were on a deep trouble. "This is the terrible fix we are in". Closely observe the connection between the two evidences and the conclusion.

Book 2- What Christians Believe
Chapter 1 and 2
1. In the beginning of chapter 2, Lewis concluded that atheism is then "too simple". How is so?
2. Lewis here argued the relevancy of Christianity in explaining the world and its surroundings. Dualism as he argued, has less explanatory power to make sense of the world we are living in. "Dualism, in a strict sense, will not work". So what distinguish Christianity and Dualism, and why does Christianity do make better sense?

Chapter 3
1. Lewis brought up the idea of "free will". What does this concept contribute to our understanding of human nature, sin, and the world?
2. What are the implications if people regard Jesus only as a great moral teacher?
3. Imagine if you were in that day and heard people talking about a teacher forgiving sins, how would you react?

Chapter 4 - 5
1. Read paragraph 8 and 9 closely. "But unfortunately we now need God's help in order to do something (read: repentance) which God, in His own nature, never does at all - to surrender, to suffer, to submit, to die." The point being is, the reason we have the ability to repent is only because God has done and showed it in the first place.Sin is the prerequisite for repentance. And if God as human is free from sin, then he has no need to repent. How then he gave us the examples of repenting and surrendering without having the prerequisite of sins?

2. Chapter 5 is entitled "The Practical Conclusion". What is so practical about it, and how you could use this "practical conclusion" today?

Joplin, Three Months After

Joplin, MO is the destination and thus the 13 hours drive on Tuesday night with a team of 17 (10 adults and 7 kids). Brief background story: On May 23rd, a massive tornado hit Joplin destroying 1/3 of the city and killing at least 154 people. And thus here we are, three months later, cruising 705 miles from Columbus to Joplin with sheer intention to help with whatever tiny muscle and how-tos we have. 

Welcome to Joplin

The statue was "moved" from a park nearby by the tornado and landed safely at this concrete 

Although some areas are pretty much cleaned up, there are still some areas, like this, that remain untouched. 

What's left from the house. People write their house number and street address because the area is so destroyed that people don't recognize what street they're at. 

This is the tree that we're supposed to cut with an electric chainsaw. But none of us seems to know how to use such incredible tools and when one of us tried (me unfortunately), it took me prob 3 minutes to do the job (and 5 secs for him). Do the math, so we're being "liberated" from the task for the sake of efficiency and he let us watch and enjoy the show. 

The same tree, before being cut off, carried to the curb by the help of a larger tractor. 

This was a residential area before the tornado but now what's left of it are broken trees, vacant lots and foundation of houses.  

Newseum, Pulitzer Photographies and Reflection

There is a famous saying by Maya Angelou, "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away". Last weekend at Newseum in Washington DC was the moment that continuously and repeatedly took my breath away. The experience was powerful and emotional; I looked inward to my small world full of insignificant and transient "breath of life" that I pined and held on so dearly and I looked outward to all the bits and pieces of history laid out clearly before me, and I was undone.

Eyes are too often deceiving as they are highly selective to what the beholders want to see (remember that we are told not to walk by sight but by faith?) One set of eyes could see the injustice happening one block away while another set of eyes could overlook the poverty right under his nose and ironically is only drawn to the sport car blazing right before his very eyes. 

My eyes are susceptible to that too, but all the great exhibits hanging in front of me immobilize my eyes from looking anywhere else, sucking my entire attention. In that moment, I choose to see the helplessness yet innocence of this baby during a war in Kosovo, having to be passed back and forth as his family was separated by a barbed wire. 

I choose to see the face of evil in the ruthless and gruesome act of lynching people and then banging the head with folding chair. Some grinned. A public spectacle. I choose to see the fate of an innocent one year old after a brutal city bombing. I choose to see the face of famine and drought, and I choose to look deeper until it dawned on me that some children died the most disgraceful death: devoured by vultures. 

I choose to see and try to understand why would a person burn another person to death?  I choose to see the agony of a sister wailed in grief as she saw her brother's feet buried under the rubble, unable to pull him out. I choose to see and clearly I see that every person has a story but unfortunately, those stories are often unknown and only rarely captured. Only once in a while, it is shared, and immortalized, by a click of a camera.

Even once they are captured, they are often treated like a hidden archive - exist but unknown. It is not only the eyes that choose not to see, but what most accessible to the eyes are often the rubbish and cheap imitation of life. Look at a magazine stand and what the eyes could see is a complete betrayal of reality: a thin model posing glamorously, a mouthwatering $40 meal, a shiny sport car and the latest technological gadget. Look at your Facebook stream and what you see is an imbalance of passion between reality and fake reality.  People posting, commenting, and shouting proudly about their "greatest dinner ever", "happiest vacation", "where could I get this, I want!!".

I see a distortion here. There is nothing wrong with deep passion for food, gadget or nature, but clearly I have a problem when a restaurant gets more review and exposure than these people out there. Enjoy food, enjoy beauty and enjoy money. But with people, don't just enjoy them, love them, with even greater passion! As beautiful as the mountain is, or as delicious as the food is, they are no way near as precious and beautiful as human beings. You know that, right? 

If your house is engulfed by fire, are you going to run into the fire and save your stunning picture with the great and mighty grand canyon? Are you going to risk your life for a recipe book, or a gadget or a book? I know I'm not but why do I care so much about where do I want to eat tonight? Why am I making my dinner meal as the headline news of the day? 

Truly, life is measured by the moments that take our breath away, and we need eyes wide opened to see what most precious in life. Some things can take your breath away, momentarily and never give it back to you, waiting for you to be suffocated. Some other things can take your breath away, and then re-breath it in back to you, and give you life. Switch your eyes for a while and look to the other end of the world or even look to your neighbor, look beyond your fortress of comfort and pleasure and you'll see what my eyes have been blessed to see. Behold and let your purified eyes be the judge, what do I wanna see today? Do I wanna see life, or do I wanna see the counterfeit?

*all the pictures were taken from my visit to Newseum thus the crooked pictures. 

Insightful Quote

It doesn't matter, really, how great the pressure is, it only matters where the pressure lies. See that it never comes between you and the Lord - then, the greater the pressure, the more it presses you to His breast.

- Hudson Taylor

Birthday rambling

Today is her birthday, been exactly 8 months since she left.

Thank you god for giving me strength to go through all these, thank you for letting me find comfort and strength in you.

I do still wish she were here and we could celebrate birthday together, I still wish I could buy her present and blow her 53th candle.

Isnt it ironic that it is when she is gone that I remember her birthday, and it is with the same freakin ignorance mind that I  missed and forgot her birthday in the last two years.

But thanks be to God for now the best birthday party ever, for the surprise dinner from the king.

Happy birthday mom, I know you have a blast.

Nespresso C-100 Review

Due to my daily demand of caffeine intake, I decided to buy an espresso machine that could satisfy my craving for coffee while could also save my wallet from the costly back and forth trip to Starbucks. After some heavy considerations, my choice landed to Nespresso C100, a home based automatic espresso machine that uses prepackaged ground coffee pressed in a capsule / pod. Here is what I think about it.

Pros:
One of the winning factor this product has is its ease of use. As simple as ABC, first you turn on the machine (wait for approx 30 secs until it heated up), insert the capsule, and press the button to start brewing. No frill, no spill of ground coffee, no splashing or dripping of water, no five minutes waiting anymore. Perfect for you who always on the rush yet can't leave the house without coffee.

Trust me, in terms of flavor, they taste great. My favorite is Ristretto (intensity 10). When it starts to brew, the crema starts to come out right away. I am in no way a coffee connoisseur, so if you ask me about how good the crema is, I would say that as long as you have crema, it is a step up, it's an espresso shot.

They also have great aroma. I dare to say that it is comparable to Starbucks, I love love love the taste of my Nespresso. Put two or three pods of Ristretto, use Aerocinno to produce your steam milk, pump in one pump of Monin Vanilla syrup and drizzle light caramel on top. Perfect.

Bottom line: for everyday consumption of coffee, nothing beat the easy practical quick result of Nespresso.

My Espresso Station

Cons:
Nothing really. I know there are lots of raving out there about the price. But really, think about it, Starbucks cost you $5 for a triple grande caramel macchiato. Compared that with $1.8 for Nespresso. Alright, count in the milk and syrup, it will end up $2.50 max. So, even a four year old know that $2.5 is cheaper than $5.

More grumpy users also complain about having to order the pods online, exclusively at Nespresso website. I understand how this can be inflexible, but as long as you plan them well, you can always order in bulk, pay the fixed rate shipping of $6, and have your Nespresso supplies for months. Unless they discontinue their production or run out of their pods, this is no sweat for me.

I have petty disgruntlement about the shot though. Maybe this is my feeling, but I feel the intensity of the caffeine is pretty weak and stale. Three shots of caffeine at Starbucks will surely keep me wide awake, pumping my heart beyond its capacity, but three shots of Nespresso do not seem to do the trick. I do still yawn with teary eyes, maybe it's me being too jacked up, maybe it's the espresso, but what I know for sure is I would not dare to go for the fourth shot. Please have mercy on me.