The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Pastor

The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Pastor

Your Marriage Can Always Be Better Than What It Is Now!

The harsh winter is about to bid us farewell and there is sign of life everywhere; Spring is around the corner and my wife and I are excited to trace back our paths across some of the mountains/rivers in and around the city of Daejeon.
Walking and hiking has
become one of our best forms of recreation.
When we were younger, we didn't realize how important it is to keep our bodies in shape; we thought walking for hours is a waste of time.  Working, studying and ministering took all our times and we hardly had time for recreation, family and for leisure.  In fact, taking time for our personal benefit used to bring some kind of guilt; we thought we are selfish to take time for ourselves while there are people who are hurting, there is work to be done, there is a book to be read, there is a paper to be written and deadline to be met.

But when we started to climb the ladder of forties, we began to feel that our size is increasing and strength disappearing; one day my wife exclaimed "look at my weight!", I am ---- pounds more than what I am supposed to be!"  As I saw, it was a shock to know that she had left me behind in this area!  So, about three years ago, we began our campaign against this enemy called weight and together we have vanquished the foe from our territory.

But as we ventured into the quest of maintaining good health; the thing we discovered has surpassed all our expectations (even imagination).  Prior to this venture, we strongly believed that ours was a marriage made in heaven and we have got all that what it means to have a fulfilled marriage.  Little did we realize that as we stepped on the walking trails every weekend for 5-7 hours (depending which course we took), we were also stepping into a different dimension of love and marriage that we had never discovered before.  After 20 years of marriage we have now understood what it means to say "I love my wife/husband more than when I first fell in love".  

My advise to those who are younger than us or who find their marriage becoming monotonous; try to take time off one day in a week and find something that interests both and do it together and if you love walking or hiking...that is the best. I would give up anything on Saturday in order to hold my wife's hand and walk along the trails for hours!

Audio: Living with eternal perspective

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Don't Stop Singing

He knows my name

God is faithful to Keep us!

1Thessalonians 5:24

The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it!

Dear friends,

Quite often you have heard the saying, "attitude is everything", and to some extent it is true.  Our perception of a certain reality can determine the kind of response we will have toward that reality.  For example, Joshua Bell playing Beethoven with his 3.5 million dollar violin in a Washington D.C. subway station and getting no attention from the public is a widely circulated story in the internet.  It is reported that in 45 minutes of his playing, he made 32$ with no one stopping by to listen/see this world famous musician playing the world famous music with one of the most expensive violins in the world.  Three days before he played in that subway station, his concert hall was full, each seat costing nearly a 100$; but there he stood by a trashcan in that station , playing for 45 minutes and no one bothering to listen…all because the public has a certain perception toward a street musician. 

This can also be true when it comes to our relationship with God.  How we approach him depends on our perception of him and that will also spill over into how we perceive suffering in this world.  There is no denying that life comes with fair share of pain and sorrow; disappointments and failures for everyone who has lived enough in this world.  Faith and trust in a loving God seem absurd when life becomes an uphill battle of unexplainable suffering and sorrow.  But if we pause and think the alternative to faith and trust in a loving God is rather more frightening and terrifying…without the loving embrace of a God who promises to carry us on when we no longer can bear, there is no better hope either.  Therefore, as Paul tells the Thessalonians believers that the one who calls us is also faithful in keeping us, let us also look to him who is able to keep us in times of difficulties and hardships.  Like the Psalmist (Ps. 23), let's believe that God is with us even if we have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.  Let's believe that God is able to protect us, provide for us and restore our dignity in the face of our foes and friends who might have ridden us off.  God is able to keep us!

Life Goes On

Lately I have been occupied with several things, often feel that time is slipping out of my hands.  Not just the time, the months, the years, and even the decades have gone bye.  The sense of belonging to a younger generation has long left me.  The role models that I had looked up to for the inspiration and strength have begun to depart and it scares me to hear someone say "you are my role model"!  When I entered the ministry, I was in my late teen years, got married in mid-twenties, and without much warning, here I stand staring at the soon approaching mountain of fifty.  Seeing our son prepare for the university compels me to finish up my last remaining school post.  When the day comes, and it has already come, when our son says goodbye for his college, me and my wife will have to begin a new beginning, new journey that we are totally unprepared for.  For the last 19 years, three of us have been the only family members we spent most of our time with.  I left my family when Christ found me, and my wife left her family the day I found her, and our son arrived two years later.  Ever since, three of us have lived, laughed, cried and rejoiced together.  Faced unusual circumstances of life together; have over come dark days and taken advantages of the bright ones together.  But now, we have come to a crossroad once again; it is still some months away, but I have already begun to feel the quietness and the emptiness in the house when he would finally venture out to find his own destiny; destiny that God has prepared for him. 

Life goes on, children get older, we get older, and I am getting older too is the song by the Dixie Chicks that describes how we are afraid of changes.  Well, I am not afraid of changes, but am just amazed and surprised at the fact that we have arrived here so soon, so without warning; it does not get to my mind that I have been married for 20 years, it feels like yesterday.  Of course early on life, I had made up my mind to live each day as it comes and I am glad that I made that decision.  Yes there are regrets too and given the chance I would like to change a few things but as a whole I would walk the same road all over again.  One thing is sure that twenty years down the road, there will also be some regrets but I determine to make fewer mistakes and make life more fulfilling each day.  Time goes on, life goes on, and once it is gone; there is no point of regrets.  The only way to avoid regrets and create memories is to live one day at time with Jesus.  

Those of you out there, if you have Jesus in your life, you have all you need to make each day a fulfilling one.  But those of you who don't know Jesus, then it is going to be much more difficult to make sense of this painful world in which there are more regrets than memories.  

My life is well spent because early on life, I found Jesus and he can make your life worth living too; he can take away all your regrets and change them into something beautiful.  Otherwise life goes on and the reality is that it is going to go on and on even in eternity either in hell or in heaven - the bitter truth.  Without Christ the beautiful life here on earth is one waste of time but with Christ, even the sorrows of this world will be traded with joy divine!  Don’t let life go on with Christ.