Curious About the Benjamins... Pursuit of Happiness (Part II)

In Part I of Curious About the Benjamins... , I noted that "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" had a long lasting impression in my heart. I also shared the scene in which Benjamin asks Daisy to stand still in front of a mirror because he wants to cherish the moment as it is how he wants the couple to be remembered as. So in this post, I ask:-

Have you arrived at this stage in your life? And, Would you want to?

In my case, it has not happened. That's because I'm always changing, evolving... or better yet, transforming (Romans 12:2) into the person that I am meant to be. I've personally dreamed of being many different things... yet, after achieving my goals, I've always wanted more. Perhaps freezing time would help cherish the achievements for longer periods of time.

Outside of my family life (education, career, interests, sports, etc.) are areas that I have found myself pursuing something that seemed very elusive... yet, in the instances that I thought I attained what I sought after, I would arrive at following question, "is this it?". In all honesty, I've said that about my life as a Christian as well. There is something about us that makes us seek... yet, when we arrive, we are left where we started, empty and in search of fulfillment (perhaps in search of giving meaning to our lives).

Some are constantly changing careers, others move from place to place in an effort to find happiness... while there are others that find themselves searching for romance ("happiness") from person to person. I've been there many times... seeking self-satisfaction to no avail. Always found myself in turmoil. The book of Ecclesiastes notes that everything that is accomplished under the sun is meaningless; it continues by saying that all of our efforts in these regard are nothing but "a chasing after the wind".

Take some time to read the following scripture Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:24.

Mankind is always unfulfilled and always unsatisfied... So again I ask:-

Has that moment come to you? Have you reached the mid-way point of your life where your wants, desires and dreams all line up? Has the moment to stop and admire the synchronicity that best reflects the person that you were yesterday, today and "forever"? Or, do you continue "chasing after the wind"?

Psalms 20:4 - May He [the LORD] grant you your heart's desire And fulfill all your counsel!
Psalms 20:5 - We will sing for joy over your victory, And in the name of our God we will set up our banners. May the LORD fulfill all your petitions.

Curious about the Benjamins... Tomorrow

I'm not the most sensitive person in the world... actually, I am not sensitive at all. I'm not easily impressed or moved. My wife sometimes says that I come across as a hardhearted person, which is far from the truth.

Yet, to my surprise, there have been instances when I have been moved... yet others, that have the tendency of being on the sensitive side, have not. Recently, I told a couple of friends about the long lasting impression a movie left in my heart. The movie's title is, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button".

This post will be Part I of a series (two or three posts - might not come in sequence). Hope you are able to reflect on them!

This movie has very good thought provoking scenes (some scenes just have lines that are very profound). One scene that comes to mind is when they both reach the age of 40 (give or take)... Benjamin asks Daisy to stand still in front of a mirror because he wants to cherish the moment as it is how he wants the couple to be remembered as.

As a father, I've been tempted to say, "Oh, if I can relive my daughter's first steps again!"... "If my daughter would stay in this stage forever". But then I start to think that if I had it my way, I would then miss out on many other parental experiences; for example:

• First day of Kindergarten
• Lost tooth
• First grade (or second, third, etc.) recital
• High-school graduation

So I conclude, perhaps is best to cherish each day with my daughter as if it was the day I want her and I to remember most. Though I must admit, I'm not always very successful at maintaining this mind-set.

Scripture states the following in the Book of James:

James 4:13 - Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit."
James 4:14 - Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are {just} a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
James 4:15 - Instead, {you ought} to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that."

G! I've figured out what's pulling me down! And it ain't Gravity!

In my post, 'G Darwin! Help me find my family tree', I made the following statement,

"I was cleansed of my sins a number of times. These, however, were failed attempts at going back to a Christian life. My eyes were fixed on the pleasures of this world. For one reason or another, I always seemed to gravitate (little-by-little) towards the life I knew I did not want but at the same time craved."

Prior to that, I had reiterated my observations regarding the "force that causes pigs to gravitate to the dirt and the mud". The aim was to draw similarities between the pigs attraction to mud and people's attraction to sin.

In that post, I purposely left the following question unanswered, "is there a law that defines this type of attraction?"

Let me shed some light into this subject! We can find which law is at work within us in the book of Romans (in The Bible). In it, you will find the very Law that defines what a man must do to defy gravity (falling); however, the Law is perfect (Psalms 19:7) and I am not! So... hmm... how then, can little old me defy gravity? Nothing about me is perfect (perhaps a perfect sinner)... little lies here and there, eat everything you can think of, don't always seem to have love for others (especially when that other person is cutting me off in the express-way)... and the list goes on... you get the picture.

The Law of the Lord helps identify the essence or force that is at play within us all; the following is noted in Romans 7:7 "...I would not have come to know sin except through the Law". If you are not familiar with the Law of the Lord, go research it... you'll be amaze of all the sinful things that you (we) do on a daily (hourly) basis!

The fall of man gave way to our attraction to sin. I give thanks to God for having died for me so that I may be saved. I've been blessed with "a measure of faith" to trust in Him who saved me! A salvation that was received as a gift; that is, it was given to me without having done anything to earn it. I die daily by allowing His Spirit to work in me and through me, that I may be able to defy the Law through the grace and mercy that is given unto those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I'll end with the following verses:

Romans 7:21 - I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.
Romans 7:22 - For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,
Romans 7:23 - but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.
Romans 7:24 - Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
Romans 7:25 - Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

Please enjoy the following song!

"'Tis at the cross of Christ"
"Where earth and heaving meet"
"Where sin is overcome"
"To God the victory"
"He is Lord"

"No Mommy!" [frown] "Mommy I do not want to wear that! It’s not stylish!"

This is the a common theme at my house with my little girl. She is always putting up a fight with her Mom and Grandmother when it comes to dressing.

I'm sharing this experience in direct response to a friend's response to my last post (G! Something keeps pulling me down!). Her response was very interesting to me... she correlated the context of my post to a movie that seems to have a strong "cultic" following ("The Secret") and asked me for my perspective.

I did not have any information about this movie (I didn't even know it existed)... so I went on to read about it.

After reading about it, it was hard to take a stance on it (in the context of her comment)... why? Well, because it promotes good behavior... but at the same time it is related to the "New Thought" and "Law of attraction" movement. So, I decided to think it through for a day or two.

Without getting too much into the "Law of attraction" and the "Old Thought" ("New Thought" is actually very old! Wikipedia has it starting during the 19th century)... I'll address (in a subtle manner) those two philosophies in my next post.

So... back to my little girl and her never ending struggle to wear what she wants.

My friend's comment included the following, she said:

"...sometimes in life, I know things are going to happen. I can just feel them. More often, I know when something is not going to happen. Does that make sense?"

My response to that is that it makes a tone of sense! Some people may call it intuition, while others call it discernment (I myself call it the latter of the two). With that said, let me tackle some of the topics that surround some of the philosophies employed by those two movements:

• "Everything is up to you!"
• "Go and get it... it's there to be had!"
• "There is no sovereign God! You are God!"
• "You shall be like God!"

(note that I am not providing references... I'm paraphrasing from some of the things I read)

Some people have a hard time accepting that God is sovereign. I understand that we all have a choice to make... from my faith's point of view, having a choice to make is very biblical.

However, God's sovereignty, if you change your perspective a bit, is unquestionable and quite interesting. He knows how to influence our choices. Allow me to illustrate it with what happens at home when my little angel is throwing a fit... as noted, there certain outfits she hates to wear ("Mom that's not stylish" - BTW, I must say... "Thanks a lot Fancy Nancy!" - she was the culprit!).

So... what is a parent to do? Those clothing are perfect for the occasion and "not stylish" should not be the reason for her not to wear them. Hmmm.. so Mommy, of course, knows her little angel very well! So she gives her two choices that would, of course, drive her to make the choice that Mommy had already made for her! :-) I know we have all done this. To my friend I say, "I know you must have done this yourself with Sugar and Spice!" :-)

I'll give you another example; I didn't think my wife and I were going to make it at one point (before marriage)... We were fed up with each other. However, God’s views on things were different... and He had already determined that we were good for each other (without getting our inputs but knowing our heart’s desires and needs). Perhaps we were not the most "stylish" for each other! Yet, we were just right for the "occasion".

So... what is a heavenly Parent to do? Well God decided to put the both of us in a spot where we had to make a choice... but guess what! He knew us and knew what buttons to push and which nerves to touch... So the choice was made! My wife and I both made the choice, yet the choices were given by Him! And sure enough... the rest is history! Some of you might have read or seen some of the scenes in the play!

Now, here I am, six years later about to have my sixth wedding anniversary... deeply in love with the wife God gave me! :-)

Thanks for taking a stroll through my journey!

G Darwin! Help me find my family tree!

Allow me to continue where I left off. In my post titled 'G! Something keeps pulling me down!', I was writing about the force that causes pigs to gravitate to the dirt and the mud. I provided two examples of some cartoon episodes I recall watching during childhood:

1. Cleaned pig stays clean for some time but goes after the dirt and joyfully relishes the mud
2. Cleaned pig is mocked and ridiculed by a filthy pig because pigs are meant to be filthy

Pardon me if I offend you, but there seems to be some behavioral similarities between people (Christians and non-Christians alike) and pigs! People seem to have more in common with pigs than they do with chimpanzees (as some people tend to say). We might even have a gene or two in common with the pig, who knows!

"Everything matches up perfectly. The pig is genetically very close to humans." (Click link to read full article - NationalHogFarmer.com) OINK! OINK!

I bet some ladies would not object/dissent from this notion because of their past encounters with some "primates"!

As I noted in my first post (Why do I believe in God), I was brought up in the Christian faith and ended up turning my back on it in my teenage years. For a little more than a decade, all I ever did was seek after sinful pleasures... I was cleansed of my sins a number of times. These, however, were failed attempts at going back to a Christian life. My eyes were fixed on the pleasures of this world. For one reason or another, I always seemed to gravitate (little-by-little) towards the life I knew I did not want but at the same time craved.

Believe me when I tell you, I felt cleansed and forgiven every time I repented from my sins... I, wholeheartedly, confessed my shortcomings and looked to the Lord to help me. But... I was soon fighting my urges to continue in the path that I, at the time, had just confessed as bad, dirty, sinful, etc. After many years of back-and-forths, I started to doubt that I would ever be able to walk away from it...

So is there a law that defines this type of attraction? Certainly, a psychiatrist would send me to lay on a couch to speak about my past and find something about my childhood that impacted me so much that I ended up turning out to be the sinner that I am! (note the present tense). Some would say, finally! Some closure has come! I'm free!!! WRONG!

That could not be further from the truth. Science would have you believe just about anything... (hint: "theories") There is always "a scientific explanation" for "this", or "that" or "the other"... That's because science is very forgiving. How can they fail when their premises notes that a "hypothesis":

"consists either of a suggested explanation for an observable phenomenon or of a reasoned proposal predicting a possible causal correlation among multiple phenomena" [WikiPedia]

In other words, their theories are deemed "educated guesses". It reminds me of tech-support and 'Ctrl+Alt+Del'... Oops! just reboot and start over!

This is why God's existence is not a scientific hypothesis and/or theory! It is not a suggestion or a proposal... His word does not predict a possible outcome... instead, it foretells the inevitable outcome!

G! Something keeps pulling me down!

Did you ever feel as if you were fighting against something that you just could not seem to shake? I'm not speaking about the common flu.

There are certain forces that are not seen yet we know they are there; there is no denying it. Whether we believe in them or not the result is the same... they are just there. So, why do we believe in some of these forces? Why could we not defy them? Are laws meant to be broken? Or are they written on stone?

Newton's Law of Gravity is one that comes to mind:

"Newton's law of gravity defines the attractive force between all objects that possess mass. Understanding the law of gravity, one of the fundamental forces of physics, offers profound insights into the way our universe functions." (Andrew Zimmerman Jones)

So, is this the same law that keeps pulling me down? Or are there other forces in life that act in the same way? I remember once watching a cartoon episode; it was about a person (perhaps a farmer) that wanted to have a clean pig... so the pig was bathed and groomed. The pig kept "himself" clean for some time... then, of course, the episode continues with the pig's first encounter with dirt and mud! As soon as the pig sees it, a force so strong steps in and there goes the clean little pig! It runs with great joy towards the dirt and with great delight it jumps into the mud! There seemed to be a sense of comfort as the pig rolled in the mud. In a different episode, the same pig was once again "cleansed"... as the pig was walking through the farm a fellow "filthy" pig starts to mock the cleaned pig and ridicules "him" because pigs are meant to be filthy.

Sounds like the force that attracts pigs to dirt and mud could be a force similar to the one explained in Newton's law of gravity. But that begs the question, is the dirt and the mud attracted to the pig? Or, is there something at work within the pig that attracts it to the filthy mud? I believe it is the latter of the two. Newton's law of gravity states that two objects attract each other with a gravitational force (I'll spare you the details); but, in the case of the pig, the attraction seems to be one dimensional.

I have to say that sometimes, I feel and act like a pig! Do you?

Why do I believe in God?

I have been reading through some questions and answers in Yahoo Answers. One of the users asked 'Why do you believe in God?' (shortened: the question also included those who do not believe).

So in thinking about it, I noticed that growing in the faith was a leg-in for me (it's Biblical); however, for me it has been more than just growing in the faith. So... why do I believe in God? (in plain language)

The answer to this question varies from people-to-people. But, for the most part, people's beliefs seem to always boil down to a personal experience (or a set of experiences) that in turn causes them to react or respond.

In my case, I grew-up a Christian and was always eagerly after God; that is until I was 16 yrs old. At that point, I was then eagerly chasing after girls and the pleasures of this world. After 11 years (give or take) of indulging in the pleasures of the flesh (premarital sex, drunkenness, partying, smoking, etc.) I started to have some experiences that I just could not comprehend. They were also illogical... you see, my life revolves around logic (computer scientist - if p->q); these things that were happening to me were the sort of stuff that results in getting 5 Star accommodations at Bellevue's Psychiatric Ward.

However, like everything else in life, it is not until I embraced these experiences and opened my mind, heart and soul to them... that, it all started to make sense and it all started to become (somewhat) logical. In all the mathematics I have taken (quite a lot), I concluded that math problems are not logical or comprehensive until you get the formulas and learn how to apply them. The practice, then, helps you to gain knowledge, wisdom and, lastly, understanding.

For this reason I believe, after embracing the "crazy" things that did not make any sense (at first)... then, I started to gain knowledge, gain wisdom and understand that God was knocking on my door. Once I opened the doors nice and wide, then He started to reveal Himself to me.