3 Questions

This is a email from a friend. Very interesting.

A young man who went overseas to study for quite a long time. When he returned, he asked his parents to find him a religious scholar or any expert who could answer his 3 Questions.

Finally, his parents were able to find a scholar.

Young man: Who are you? Can you answer my questions?
Scholar: I am one of God willing, I will be able to answer your questions.

Young man: Are you sure? A lot of Professors and experts were not able to answer my questions.
Scholar: I will try my best, with the help of God .

Young Man: I have 3 questions:
1. Does God exist? If so, show me His shape.
2. What is fate?
3. If Devil was created from the fire, why at the end he will be thrown to hell that is also created from fire. It certainly will not hurt him at all, since Devil and the hell were created from fire. Did God not think of it this far?
Suddenly, the Scholar slapped the young man's face very hard.

Young Man(feeling pain): Why do you get angry at me?
Scholar: I am not angry. The slap is my answer to your three questions.

Young Man: I really don't understand.
Scholar: How do you feel after I slapped you?

Young Man: Of course, I felt the pain.
Scholar: So do you believe that pain exists?

Young Man: Yes.
Scholar: Show me the shape of the pain!

Young Man: I cannot.
Scholar: That is my first answer. All of us feel God's existence without being able to see His shape... Last night, did you dream that you will be slapped by me?

Young Man: No.
Scholar: Did you ever think that you will get a slap from me, today?

Young Man: No.
Scholar: That is fate my second answer........ My hand that I used to slap you, what is it created from?
Young Man: It is created from flesh.
Scholar: How about your face, what is it created from?

Young Man: Flesh.
Scholar: How do you feel after I slapped you?

Young Man: In pain.
Scholar: That's it... this is my third answer, Even though Devil and also the hell were created from the fire, if God wants,God willing , the hell will become a very painful place for devil.

God said: "If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you."
If you are not ashamed, pass this message on...only if you believe.

When you pray, Do what you pray for!!!

Last Sunday before the Mass start, I was doing my prayer and I noticed that I have been praying for the same thing over and over again. Then I start to realize I have not been doing my part. I prayed for God to help me, but have I done anything to help myself?

Then I recalled a priest once says, people will only turn to prayer as their last resort. But even then, I think most of the time they will just “leave it to God”.

Of course there are some situations which we really have to leave it to God, but most of the time; we need to do something before God can help us.

Sometimes we have treat God like a wishing well. When we have some request or problem, we ask God to help me to resolve it. When things did not turn up the way we wanted to be, we will question God. This is the way we should treat our God?

Maybe we are still infant in spiritual level, so we behave like a kid, but we must grow out of this childishness and be more mature, doing God’s Will.

Doing God’s will is when you have a problem or request, other then praying, always look at what option is opening to you, because God will not tell you straight in the ear what to do. God have already given us the most powerful resources that we can tap on, our brain.

I am not saying that we can do anything just by our own strength and forget about God. It is like having the fastest processing chip and still asking the manufacturer 1 plus 1 equal what. This example is a bit too extreme, but having a powerful computer does not mean you can do anything. Sometime you still need to check with the manufacturer how do you use some of the function, or do you prefer the user manual?

Lesson from the Rain

The Rain, it not the Korean actor I am talking about, it this the water falling from the sky that I am talking about.

On the early morning of the National Day. I went from my morning jog. The sky looks clear. As I was starting my jog, I felt and saw a few drop of water falling from the sky, but it is only for a short while. So I continue with my jog. As I jog, I was thinking if I continue to jog so slowly, there will be no improvement to my overall strength. So I run a bit faster than ususal. There were quite a few old folk in the park, and most of them wear red. As I was approaching the execise area, the rain came pouring down, and I really mean pouring down. So now I ran even faster. I though the rain is a good motivator.It really pushed me to run faster. As I run, the people in the park reacted differently to this down pour. Some just walk at their usual speed, some cover their head with hands and running towards the shelters.

Then I occurred to me that there is one teaching which I have come across many time, really mean. People react to things/events according to what they think the things/events mean to them. It was raining, which was a fact. But what does it mean to someone who is carrying a baby and someone like me who is just running in the park. It means different things.

A mother who was carrying the baby should be thinking “Suck. The baby must not get wet, if not he will fall sick.” and she runs for the nearest shelters.

A jogger should be thinking “Suck. I must not get wet, if not I will fall sick.” and then run for the nearest shelters.

An old man should be thinking “Suck. I must not get wet, if not I will fall sick.”, but too weak to run, so he walked slowly to the nearest shelters.

A stroller should be thinks “Good, this is so cooling. I will continue with my slow walk, but I do not want to be too wet.”, and continue to walk slowly to the nearest shelter.

But I was thinking “Good now I have a motivation to run”, and I run for the void deck which is far from where I was.

Lesson 1.

You will react to events according to what you think the events will do to you.

Lesson 2.

Different people react similarly to the same thing with different intention.

Lesson 3

Different people react differently to the same thing with same intention.

Lesson 4

Different people react similarly to the same thing with same intention.

Lesson 5

Difference people react differently to the same thing with different intention.

These few lessons are very usefull when things happen to us and how do we use this lesson to influence others in the event that had happened.

There is just too many lesson I can learn from this event. Will share more in the days to come.

Live Happy Now :)

Singaporean is surveyed to be most unhappy people among Asia. Singaporean has too many expectations, and we are not happy with small achievement.

Children are expected to learn more then what they are expected to learn at their level. Well this is not really that bad, but if children cannot cope with what they are learning and being force to learn even more, that is real bad. So from young Singaporean are taught to be competitive and never be contented for second place.

So much for high expectation. If we get first in class, we are not happy, because someone from other class score better and is first in school. If we are first in school, we are not happy because someone from RI score better and is first in national level. But when we really become first in national level, are we really happy? By that time, we will forget what happiness is and we do not know how to be happy.

Being happy is just a state of mind. Most people expected for certain things to happen before they become happy. For most of the case. Example, when you score well in your exam, you are happy. For a lot of Singaporean, when you strike 4D, you are most happy. But if you expectation is too high, you will not be happy when you score well in exam, you wanted 100%. You will not be happy when you strike 4D because you only win $60.

Being happy is more than expectation. Having your expectation to be met in order to be happy is to let you emotion driven by external source. You can be happy if you decide to be happy, just as you can be sad if you decide to be sad. Maybe we can learn something from the small children. These small people are among those happier people.

When you give a baby a smile they will smile. When you give them a piece of chocolate, they will smile even bigger. Why is that so? Because these small people have very low expectation to be happy. They just want simple stuff to be happy.

So am I saying that we should lower our expectation in order to be happy? No. We just have to lower our expectation to be happy, we still can keep our expectation high. When we have 1 dollar, we are happy because we have a dollar, but we do not just settle for one dollar and sit back. We can expect more, but with whatever that is given to us, let us be happy with whatever we have.

Law of reciprocate

Taken from the book of Matthew.

"Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. "After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.' "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' "The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.' "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' "Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' "His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. "'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

In this parable, the money is like the live, or everything that God has given us. Each of us is given what we are capable of doing. All the things we have are from God, and it belongs to God, the master. We are just steward of God’s belonging. What we have, we are supposed “invest” or put into good use so that we can generate more of it. Be it money, happiness, friends and live.

In the parable, the servants who “invest” will get back twice as much as he has, but the one who do nothing will have his “money” taken away and given to the one who have more.

If you are not happy with anything, you will not be happy with everything. If you do not have many friends, even your friends will leave you. If you do not appreciate live, live will be taken away from you.

However the good news is. What ever you work on, with what you have, you will be given more. So we should start to appreciate everything that we have because it is from God, and if we don't, it will be taken away from us.

God Bless

Doing What God Want

Recently I have been listening to Anthony Robbin. Wow, I have really missed out a whole lot by not reading his book. I have two of his book, but never really finish reading it. What he teach is like something which everybody should know, but somehow, people still need to be told in order to do the things which was taught. Though he is not teaching directly from the bible, but the teaching can be identify to God's teaching. It is really a life changing experience. Now I can wake up at 6am in the morning and go running without feeling tired. I really love it. YEAH...