4 I asked the angel who talked with me, "What are these, my lord?" 5 He answered, "Do you not know what these are?" 


"No, my lord," I replied. 6 So he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty. [Zech. 4:4-6]

Sometimes I wonder how I would walk this Christian life, since the path is full of perils and obstacles. In time, it seems the one who are closest to me is unable to lend me a helping hand.

Then, I realize I am depending on people's hands and not of God's. I have doubt in my heart, and it is a subtle doubt. Do I not know the might of God? Do I doubt God's faithfulness? What God had started, God will accomplish. When I walk to the point where my strength fails me, God will carry me through. This is the promise from the perfect God, from the loving God, and He is mighty and just.

He is faithful, even when we are not.

"Not by might, not by power, but by the spirit of God."

Walk, fell down, and walk again

Sometimes I don't know what to say or what to write. I mean this is probably one of the many times I have writer's block. But I imagine only veteran writers would experience writer's block.

I found that most of the time, I can live out my daily life without consider God's or spiritual side of things. But life would be boring to the point of unbearable degree.

Journey with God is an incredible hard journey. There are times I feel it's not worth it to go thru the small door, when everybody (that I see) is taking the easier path. At those times, I would question why.

Also factor in my inability to comprehend God's infinite wisdom. There are times I would ask why things happen this way or getting frustrated with my own limitation. I bet these are the times that God is working, but I just don't see it.

Think

You got to take pride on what you do at the moment. It does not matter what job you are having at the moment, it represents you. You got to be happy and relax, because life is stressful enough. A smiling face equipped with the equal attitude goes a long way.

I read the following today.

Luke 18:9-13

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about^[a] himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

I felt like I'm the Pharisee who looked down on the less righteousness people. Didn't the Bible state that there is no one good man on earth? Why would I despite people when I equally own God the same amount of debt?

Kitties!

It is nice to have some kitty pictures to diversify this blog.

I wonder...

Again I wonder...

I think some people see blog as an emotional outlet. Things that they do not or cannot share with friends are making appearance here. To simply put, they want to reach out to another human being thru virtual means.

I'm afraid...

I'm afraid that they would see this the only outlet, and their wails would forever embedded on the ever changing cyberspace in silent echoes.

*sigh*

Thanks for all your supports.

Arrrrrr!

Stress full situation.

I wonder how people deal with stress. Do they surpass their emotional feeling to get thru the tasks at hand? Do they ever have self-doubt?

For me, I just sleep thru the emotional turmoils. I believe the next day will be a better day.

Therefore I sleep a lot.

:)

Cheers,

Time

This year, I was faced with a few difficult decisions which needed to be dealt with. There are chosen few who are in the know and had helped me made my decision. I do not know what I was going to do without them. For these people, I would like to say thank you.

NBA

I've went to GM Place for Phonix vs Sonics game tonight. It's fun, and I can safely say that I would never reach those NBA stars' basketball skill level. I can cross this one out of my list now.

I used to have this dream to be a basketball star. Now I know that it is not for me. Not only the techniques, but it's everything else, it's about the lifestyle, the snap decision making, the determination, the drive to be a star of anything. It takes a special person to be playing at NBA, else it will never be a good fit for the game and you.

Hope everybody is having a pleasant weekend.

Mac Geek

I along with other hardcore mac geek, had pre-ordered the newest Mac OS X: Leopard. I'm super excited, and looking toward having this software that can solve every problem I've ever had. Ok, maybe not this dramatic. Who does not know material things cannot elevate ourself toward the highest goal of human: self-actualization. But still, I'm excited about it, to make my computing life easier, more eye candies, waste less time on the computer waiting. The last point is not true, I would probably squander the extra time from it. That sort of remind me the thought I had today: everybody have given the same resource - time. How do we use this resource is up to us.

Journey

I feel God is molding me. Going on a journey means I'm willing to step out with the first step. Little did I know then that God had first pull my hand, and I staggered out on my first step.

By my own might, I would have never accomplished things worth mentioning. In surrender, then God would be teaching me to learn a new way. Years of arrogant had made me hard-headed and prideful.

Matthew 6:32
For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.


I think that the strong men are the ones who plow thru life humble and persistent. Those men are not looking for fame and flashy titles, but to seek the will of God. With time, God's glory would reflect off them and in turns, people would recognize who they are and their strong core values. That might be what's said in the Bible.

Mark 10:31
"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

Just a thought.

Romans 8:36

As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Discern & Wait

What should I compare you to? Do you exist at all? Why is everybody looking for you? Some even take their own lives in seeking. I'm talking about true love. Is true love one thing that you can hold on to, or not holding on to? Is it something you can control? Maybe it's a collection of emotion, feelings and acts. I wish I'm not as sinful as I am. I wish I can enjoy a life with constant communication with God. I wish for God's kingdom to be established here, wipe away all the tears from the suffering ones, to show mercy, justice and love to all. No one can escape death. Maybe it's the terminal to Him. -- P.S. Don't worry. I'm not sad, depressed or suicidal. It's an exempt of my view, and to some, it's merely a rant.

Autumn is here!

On the Topic of Dreams

I'm living in one of my dreams now. Sometimes I forgot it's a dream and thoroughly enjoy the moment. Then..

I woke up...

And it turns out even better than my dream! Now who can complain? :)

Cheers!

Everybody Has a Dream...

I should say people have more than one dream. Some dreams involve another person. Sometimes I can almost see it, and sometimes it's blurry. It's the dream that we'll keep on fighting.

"I have a dream..." Everybody knows that. It's nothing new but yet that's why it's so powerful. It wakes us up and sing to us about our destinations.

Cheers,

Fox is getting restless

Intelligent Fox wants to play!

Mansun is Back!

The trip is quite an experience for me. I can hardly believe that it has only been two weeks since I was gone.

Temporarily Closed

Mansun is going on a vacation soon, and needs to temporarily leave this blog for awhile.

More importantly, he's going to think about important life questions.


[taken from flickr]

What does Intelligent Fox do when he's waiting for me?

Intelligent Fox sees visions. And think deep.

Intelligent Fox

This fox knows all. Just ask him. Intelligent Fox is his name.

Information Hiding and Thoughts

I worry much. The bible speaks that we should not worry about tomorrow or the future. I take it that worrying is not recommended because it doesn't help the situation. It also means I'm not putting my trust in the Lord.

Foresight and worry are two different things. They are linked but not one.

I should worry less, and enjoy the moment more. I'll also trust in God's sovererignty and His love for me.



Thankyou my Lord for saving me and kept me safe thus far. I pray for other people too, that they will find comfort in you.

--

Random

Usually the phase, "information hiding", is only meaningful to me in the geeky way - abstraction in object oriented programming. There seems to be other meaning as well.

Some time ago, someone told me that people are generally very easy to read. All you need to do is to read them. Now I think it's true. Reading people are still not easy tho.

--

There's This Little Trinket I Found, called "Love".

Lately, I had encountered several people who has interesting take on relationships. We are talking about romantic relationships here.

What I discovered is the following:

1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud...

If you have some tie to the christian community, then you would have already known that this is one of the most quoted passages in the Bible.

But what does it mean to be patient and kind?

My cousin's church sermon

It's quite insightful. I'm listening to it right now. Sometimes it's not about how much you know, but it's about how much you can express what you know. Hehe, what a mouthful. :) The speakers are good at what they speak. 歌鄰網上電台首播 信仰反省情色版 聖經內容是否不雅，需要膠袋封套包裝，兼不准18歲以下人士觀看？ 由香港中大學生報情色版風波，所引發的送檢聖經行動，除了覺得搞笑，無聊，講句「唔係嘛！」之外，有沒有信仰反省的空間？ 教會牧者點睇？ 今集節目就由兩位教會牧者，跟你笑談情色版風波。 Listen http://www.koinoniachurch.ca/ Cheers, Mansun

What does your cat do when you look the other way?

Mischief is about.

Mmmm..

I haven't blog for awhile. There are many reasons. Anyways, I've posted what I've seen these couple of days below.

iPhone

People are crazy about this little gadget. It's so hyped up that I almost think this product would turn a person around from crime, set little kids free from trouble homes, and cure AIDS. Of course, this is just a well designed gadget, and it will be a cash cow for Apple Inc for some days to come.

NBA (the video game)

This is the project I'm working on. I'm proud of this product and hope you guys enjoy it (if you do play basketball video game).

Life in general

Life means trouble, but it provides opportunities for us to grow! Bring it on! Yes, I've had more troubles lately. And I have no one to blame but myself. *Smack mansun over the head* :)

Hillsong United Concert

Since I can't sleep for awhile, I might post some picture to pass the time. Some of you had known already that I was at the Hillsong United concert tonight. So for the people cannot be there physically, here're the pictures for your enjoyment.

Injustice in Our Society

I remembered talking to this lady, and she mentioned some unbelieveable things happened or still happening in China. I was surprised not of her knowledge, but of my ignorance. Furthermore, I hope one day our people in China would have enough wisdom to understand human dignities and the meaning of existence. We don't exist because of money, and we would never agree to degrade ourselves to take things from poor and dying people. This is just wong, and in no way we can interprete it in a different way. We are angry because we love.



The Blood of Yingzhou District

What History Teaches Us

I remember in grade 10 Social Studies, I had to remember the dates and names of famous battle, cities, indian chief and founding fathers who built our nation. There were wars going on between the Indians and British, British and French, French and the Americans. All these information had gotten lost from my memory. What have I learned then?

Throughout the last two years working, I've learned a few valuable lessons. Lessons that I would never learn from school.

One lesson I learned is people never change. I'm not talking about individual's life. What I meant is that the emotions inside of us are the same since the Romans or even earlier. It's more valuable to learn how to deal with people than any technical skill.

What we should learn from Social Studies is about people. People were driven by greed to gather fur, desire to own property, or any other reasons. The wars and things they did were just the product of their desires, emotions and hopes. I think study of people are more significant than study of dates and places.

Funnies in the Bible

Image taken from [http://breadsite.org]

Example one: John 9:13-34
We know that the Pharisees hate Jesus as much as they hate the sinners. For they would throw out whoever acknowledged Jesus as the Christ.

However, these passages below contains one of the funniest passages in the Bible. The passages tell us that the Pharisees were investigating the healing of a man born blind, and now they summoned the healed blind man the second time...

26 Then they asked him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"

27 He answered, "I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?"

Pharisees were the noble class of the Jewish society. They dressed in fine clothes and enjoy VIP treatment everywhere they went. How furious they would be to be disrespected by this poor lower class person!

Then they threw him out at the end.

34 To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.

But the story doesn't end here. For this poor fellow had found God outside of the synagogue! Do you rather be poor or be one of the 'privileged' Pharisees?

35 Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"

36 "Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him."

37 Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you."

38 Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.



Then there's another twist at the end. If anyone who's interested, please read till verse 41.

Kitty!

Most of you would have now known that I like cats a lot. I find them simply hilarious! They have a wide range of expressions, and most of them are comical!

They also has the laziest attitudes I've seen in animals.

Take this for example.



Source: Flickr

Today at church's Easter service, I have this question. It's in the middle of the Easter service. People are singing to the songs on the projector, the pastor is concentrating on his sermon, and people are busy doing what they are supposed be doing. For some reason, I feel alone. It's the feeling that you are in the middle of something, and you are confused why you are even there. What's the purpose of everything? (Suddenly I think of this word - mental lapse.) The Question: How do I make these relevant to me? Making things relevant takes time. Especially I'm in this secular world with many temptation. My pocket is full of many excuses to not attending church service, not to fellowship, and not keeping daily devotion. However, even those are not the core. At this moment, I need to make God relevant to my life. All these "christian" things are not going to make us closer to God unless we choose to seek him. People around me goes to church regularly but have no devotional life. Why? Choosing to seek him has its price. The second question comes to me today is how much do we need to sacrifice in order to follow him. When Jesus spoke about people hating their father, mothers, and even his own life, was he just kidding? Is there some truth to it? Peter asked Jesus about how many times should he forgive his brothers; would seven times enough? Jesus replied you should forgive seventy seven times. It's about following God's desire. In this case, Jesus is asking Peter to show forgiveness and mercy. That's just one area of life that Peter need to give up. Many times, a pastor would stand up and ask, what would you do if Jesus talk such and such way to you? Honestly most of the time I was still in my own dreamland during the sermon. But when Jesus ask me, he would ask the hardest question I would ever answer in my life. He would ask for something that I would never willing to let go. It's just like asking for Abraham for his son's life - how would Abraham ever have what it takes to give up his only son when he's everything that he value? But.. God also promised a new life after we cast away the old. The first step is the hardest.

This is funny!

Two Hermits

Upon a lonely mountain, there lived two hermits who worshipped God and loved one another. Now these two hermits had one earthen bowl, and this was their only possession. One day an evil spirit entered into the heart of the older hermit and he came to the younger and said, "It is long that we have lived together. The time has come for us to part. Let us divide our possessions." Then the younger hermit was saddened and he said, "It grieves me, Brother, that thou shouldst leave me. But if thou must needs go, so be it," and he brought the earthen bowl and gave it to him saying, "We cannot divide it, Brother, let it be thine." Then the older hermit said, "Charity I will not accept. I will take nothing but mine own. It must be divided." And the younger one said, "If the bowl be broken, of what use would it be to thee or to me? If it be thy pleasure let us rather cast a lot." But the older hermit said again, "I will have but justice and mine own, and I will not trust justice and mine own to vain chance. The bowl must be divided." Then the younger hermit could reason no further and he said, "If it be indeed thy will, and if even so thou wouldst have it let us now break the bowl." But the face of the older hermit grew exceeding dark, and he cried, "O thou cursed coward, thou wouldst not fight." http://leb.net/gibran/works/madman/madman7.html.

To Mac or Not to Mac

On an unrelated note, I have to say I'm a happy Mac computer user. People asked me why Mac is a better system than a typical Windows PC. I can't think of ONE single convincing answer. At the same time, I'm slightly annoyed about the general ignorance about this useful operating system.

Please remember: technology is supposed to simplified life, not to complicate it.

------

Okay, I made this post because I'm tired of people asking me to convince them to buy a mac. Honestly speaking, if PC is stressing you out with its many little annoyance, that's your affair.

How sad, that's also my attitude on evangelism. If people don't like what I told them about Jesus, then that's their loss. It's just to show how little my love for God's children, and my unwillingness to face the challenge given to me by God.

Pray that God would give me the heart to change people, and not to be discouraged by men.

Trials

Everyday consists of many small trials. On each decision I made, I have deliberately drive myself to become someone. I remembered my CAPP teacher once said every choice I made is a career choice. I think I can push this idea a little bit further. Every choice I made is for a new me. I'm reading "the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". It simply mentions the idea of habits define a person.

Travelling

I've came across a travelling blog website two days ago. It's very cool, because it's a website dedicate to travelling related blogs, very much like Blogger and Xanga but with special theme. It's very exciting to see other's pictures and thoughts on their trips.


One question was posted on the forum, and it generated twenty feedbacks and counting.

"Is 29 too old to travel?"

That's an interesting question. If I hit 29, I would imagine I have a established career and a stable relationship. I would probably think about future plan, things like buying a house and getting married. Taking time off to travel is probably the last thing on my mind. Why would I take a year or six months to go somewhere when I can generate income and prepares for my future?

However, most of the positives feedbacks are from the people who decided to go ahead with their trips despite being in similar situations. If there's something they agree upon, is that you are never too old to travel and you only live your live once.

How do you explains...

I've been reading up abit. The current question that perplexes me is that why people are born unequal? What difference separates me and a poor guy in India living out of scraps? Why am I the lucky one with education and with comforts within my grasp? I have to say this question let me struggling a bit.


To answer that, maybe we need to look into the mercy of God. From God's point of view (as I understood it), suffering in the world is only a fleeting moment, and there are greater purposes and goodness at work. I was told that all questions would be answered by merely being with God's presense. Within God's presense, all the tears and sufferings would be taken away.

Can you understand this?

What do you want to challenge today?

Each of these stories had reminded me that there are people out there who are not afraid of hardship. They are stretching their limits at this moment to achieve something that some people dream of. Am I following their footsteps, or just sitting back in my comfy chair?

Someone climbs up a vertical cliff to inspect a burial site which hasn't been touched for 500 years. "How many times you have seen something that hasn't been seen before?

Each of us has gifts. They are given to us by God, as much as life was given. How do we want to live out our lives?

Remember the three servants with money given by their master from the Bible? Haven't the servants who produce result gotten even more? Where should we spend our time today?

I have never done something that would cost live if I didn't succeed. Such great responsibility...

If you look at the volcano picture closely, you can almost see the person who stand very close to the lava opening. Although I don't advise anybody try this on their own, this picture is insanely awesome. If he took one step closer to the lava, he would be vaporized (by the gust of gas).

Someone takes pictures of volcano up-close! The process of getting down there is perious!

Edit: I've removed the skeleton picture because I think it might offend people if they are not warned about it. So I'll put it up in later blog. Muahhahhahahhahahaha. (I just like to laugh, that's all.)

People are hungier than you think

How often we see a hungry person? It seems in Vancouver, everyone has enough food to eat and water to drink.

Not so with people in another countries, unfortunately.

The photo is captured from the National Geographic DVD about the magazine's photographers. The commentator explained how camera acted as a shield between the subject and the photographer. Despite that, certain situations are too emotional to be disassociate from, and achieving that would make a person less humane in some way.

It's fixed!

The layout has been fixed, magically! The reason for the screwed up I suspect is because of the email blog feature. It might be because of the beginning HTML tag in the email there stop blogger from parsing the rest of HTML elements properly. Now I feel better for having some idea on the problem.

Something New

I don't know how I can screwed up the blogger template layout. There's nothing I have done that would make the profile box reside at the bottom of the page. What got me frustrated is that resetting the template layout doesn't fix it. I found out I can email my blog to my secret blogging address without using the laggy blogger web editor. The only drawback is pictures cannot be sent over to the blog via email. Just getting hang on things, while I'm settling in this blog space. I haven't put in a lot of personal touch here. God bless.