CONTENTMENT

"got this passage from a fren....and want to share it with all of u"

Have you ever, at any one time, had the feeling that life is bad, real bad, and you wish you were in another situation?

You find life make things difficult for you, work sucks, life sucks, everything seems to go wrong.
Read the following story... it may change your views about life: After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me despite taking 2 jobs, he brings back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is. I wonder how he can be as happy as he is considering he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a wife, 2 daughters and the many bills of a household.

He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India that happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and touring India after a major setback.
He said that right in front of his very eyes he saw an Indian mother chop off her child's right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother's eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4-year-old child haunted him until today.

You may ask why did the mother do so; had the child been naughty, had the child's hand been infected?? No, it was done for two simple words - TO BEG!
The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg. Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, a flock 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread which was covered with sand, robbing bits from one another.

The natural reaction of hunger. Stricken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found in the bakeries. The owner was dumbfounded but willingly sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0.25 per loaf) and spent another $100 to get daily necessities.

Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunates. For the first time in his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25.

He began to tell himself how fortunate he is. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice and what isn't nice, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of.

Now I begin to think and feel it, too! Was my life really that bad? Perhaps... no, I should not feel bad at all. What about you? Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand to beg on the streets.

"Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have." When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us.

It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives. The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

Sign of HIS presences

Jeremiah 17:7-8: “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat, or worried by long months of draught. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.”

I started with this journal because i got an insight from HIM.

2 days before Paster Robert projected a video presentation from Pastor Wayne Cordeiro of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu dated 14 June 2009, my friend and i was sited down having a casual chat, when the topic of Christianity came into the topic. Then and there i knew...i know that my knowledge of the Holy Bible is not extensive...in fact spending time with my Creator becomes less with the stress and work in our worldly lives today.

Isn’t it interesting how prayer and Bible study become afterthoughts and sometimes burdening “tasks” Secretly, many Christians yearn for a closer relationship with God but lack the know-how necessary to expand their root system. Consequently, they carry the secret guilt of taking him for granted.

That was how i started off with the first journal. Looking at the date of the 1st journal, i can see for my self that i have yet let the busy stressful earthly world to overwhelm me and draw me away from my Creator. Till yesterday 22 June 2009, I met this Real Estate agent Steven. Well God works in his own ways...our conversation led me to think again, how well do i know HIM...my Creator.

I am a Christian by name, but i want to be a Christian in faith and in spirit of the LORD.
I want to spread the good news to those i know and to those close to me. To do that i need to 1st know my Creator well...and there's none other way to know my Creator...it is through the Bible and devotion time.

Good vs Evil

Today's reading is taken from : 1 Kings 20; 1 Kings 21; 2 Chronicles 17; Colossians 3 (New International Version) http://www.enewhope.org/bible/ S: Collosian 3:23 - Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. 25Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism.

O: (1) Ben-Hadad king of Aram attacks Ahab king of Israel in Samaria (2) Ahab Defeats Ben-Hadad with The Lord's power (3) Ahab sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, urged on by Jezebel his wife just to take over Naboth's Vineyard. Because Ahab has humbled himself, The Lord did not bring disaster in his days, but brought it on his house in the days of his son. (4) The LORD was with Jehoshaphat because he walked in the ways his father David had followed. He sought the God of his father and followed his commands rather than the practices of evils. The LORD established the kingdom under his control; and all Judah brought gifts to Jehoshaphat, so that he had great wealth and honor. His heart was devoted to the ways of the LORD

A: (1) Ben-Hadad was punished because of his evil deeds. Ahab won the war because he followed God's command and so did Jehoshaphat. Ahab was forgiven for this wrong deed because he repent.

R: (1) Rid ourselves of all evil doings/wrong doings.
(2) Put on a new self, which is being renewed in the image of the Creator.
(3) Have compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
(4) Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances have against one another.
(5) Whatever we do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.