The blessings of God's NO

Perhaps you have that passionate prayers that have never been answered. Perhaps you've been led to ask whether God really hears your requests and desires. Or perhaps you've already given up praying because after all, God is all-knowing and all-powerful He always does what pleases Him, even without your consent.

But have we actually thought that maybe our unanswered prayers are just God's way of teaching us to trust Him because He knows better? That maybe His "NO" is just a redirection so that we will not miss His "good pleasing and perfect will"? We are not being denied of our desires and dreams and prayers...God wants us to have something better!

You see in the bible, we can see God shutting doors and closing opportunities for people not because He is power tripping but because He wants them not to get lost in their journey towards their God-given destinations. He says NO to people, even to His most trusted and most faithful followers so that they will not miss the point of God's better plans and better strategies. It's always about living by faith and trusting Him along the way!

So, the next time we see NOs and DETOURs and STOPs and NO WAYs, we'd better follow because the one giving the directions is always right. After all God declares in Isaiah 55:8-9 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts."

God's NO is never a rejection. It is a redirection.

God-broken dreams

He heard the call during the best times of his life. He's got a stable work, a high-paying job in one of the government's well-respected institutions. He's got savings, he's got career. Plus, he's got to see the rest of the country in many different angles and different hues, travelling in places he never thought he could see. And for free. He thought this was already the best place one can be. For all it was worth, he thought he's already living the dream. Why not?

But the call would not go away. It has been awakened from the deeper parts of his soul by a force so strong he tried many times to resist but could not. For a long time, he has tried to silence the voice, hoping that it would fade but it went clearer by the day. He has tried to run away but it is always two, three, four steps ahead of him. And when he realized he could not outrun it anymore, he tried to bargain. He tried to negotiate the terms, planning for his own, deciding for his own. But then, the call wouldn't budge, it wouldn't compromise.

And so he has tried eventually to ignore it, never minding its insistence but it all the more resounded within him. It is longing for a higher place...a place with eternal significance and meaning. It relentlessly morphed from a still small voice to a thundering battle-cry. Captivating and suffocating him at the same time. By then, he did not have the strength anymore to deny it for good. He has to take the call, he has to take it now. The thought of it made his pulse race and his heart burst. Not because of excitement, far from that. But it is the thought of turning away from everything he has dreamed of, it is the thought of losing everything for an uncertain risk. It felt like he was being cheated of his dreams. It felt like he was being denied of every good thing. The sheer irrationality of this call made him wanting to escape. 

But then, promises came. Assurances were made. Hope has taken new meaning and faith became the real thing. He realized then, it was common sense to let it all go, and willingly follow. For so long he thought that he's being denied of his dreams, but he had been proven wrong. He was dreaming too small! So God has to take away his dreams, so that He can replace it with something bigger, something better, and more!

You see, the bible is filled with so many broken people with many broken dreams. But they were God-broken people and God-broken dreams that it the end, they all turned out so well.

It's been almost two years now since I responded to the call to pursue God above all. And I can see that the future is bright!

Dear Warrior Princess

It is raining today as I write this. I can see from the open door of our office the heavy threads of rain, like a grey curtain that extends indefinitely up to the somber morning sky. I can see the constant splattering of water, droplets of rain turning into even smaller droplets as they hit the ground. The sound and the smell of which makes you go back in time, into a certain moment  where the world is at the tips of your fingers and childhood dreams and reality is one and everything is possible. I don't know if it's really the rain that triggered this hyper-romanticize piece of ramblings, or if it's my soul's deep longing for you at this point where it seemed like millions of years already since I started waiting and praying for you. I guess it's the latter. But didn't I wait for so long already? 

You know, the rain would always either impair my thinking and reasoning or it would give clarity to my sense of being--the kind of which makes you bare your true self, your inmost thoughts, your unadulterated emotions. And since I am still thinking clearly right now, I supposed, there's no other conclusion but to say I am dearly missing you already, my Warrior Princess. But I'm not getting ahead of myself, lest I make the same mistake again. I'm not getting ahead of God in His story for my life. My heart have learned to be steadfast, trusting in the Lord and in His timing.

I can only anticipate you, my Warrior Princess, in my prayers and personal time with the Lord. I know that the best way into your heart is to ask it from God, our great Lord whom I believe we both love and serve. I promise to constantly hear from God as He leads me in the right direction. By His unfailing grace, I would not allow my heart to take chances on us, but to prayerfully give to God all anxieties and worries that are part of the waiting season. If there would be times that waiting becomes tougher than it should be, I will bring the battle on my knees and just be still, believing that as I keep on praying God is working. Whether I see Him or not, God is moving.

Like the rain that is due in its season, so I will be--I will be waiting patiently but pursuing prayerfully. I will pursue you in God, but I will pursue God above all. I will seek you persistently in between, but I will seek God first of all. I will dream about you with big dreams about us, but I will dream for God even more. I will strive to honor you in my prayers and I will live to honor God in all matters. I will love you even now as I wait, and I will love God more with all heart, soul, mind and strength. And I know you will, too.

My beloved, know that I am looking forward to that day when we would be able to finally tell each of our stories of seeking, searching and serving God, without fear and doubts. And how wonderful it would be to see the dots in each of our lives finally find connection in the story called "the rest of our life together". But again, until then, my Warrior Princess. I'll see you there.

Waiting with great delight,
Your Warrior Prince

When God says 'wait'

Have you come to a point where you have questioned God's schedule for your life? Have you thought that maybe God is so busy with things other than your desires and feelings? Looking back, I can specifically point out areas in my life that went out of control just because of my inability and unwillingness to wait. There have been those times when I acted out of impulse only to end up miserable and chasing after the wrong things. What if I waited a little bit more? Would that change a thing?

There's so much wisdom in God's word in Psalm 130:5 which says "wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope." Waiting is God's process of teaching us to hope in Him even if life doesn't make sense at the moment. Even though God would love to show us His great plans for our life all at once, He will not do that because as a Father, He wants us to respond out of love to Him and not because of what He can do for us. We should trust Him one day at a time, in each step, in every heartbeat. When we wait on God, we trust Him that He knows what He is doing and He's never late. That's why we can hope. That's why we can be at rest knowing that behind the scenes, even when we don't see Him, God is working.

The human heart is the most deceitful of all. No doubt about that. It is the source of all frustrations, hurts, and misery because it is evil. And it is in waiting on God that we can get rid of our heart's promptings. When we wait on God, we allow ourselves to focus on His good promises, and on the process of getting there. The last thing we want to happen to our life is to miss God's best just because we want to get ahead of God. He wants us to wait because God wants us to appreciate the beauty of living by faith.

So, that next time you see God flashing the yellow light, proceed with caution, slow down. Wait. And most of all, pray and pursue His words more than anything.

"but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." -Isaiah 40:31

Life for life

Yesterday, some of the guys who are with me at our training apartment finally fulfilled one of our grandest lifetime ambitions--that is to make a vegetable garden in the backyard of our home at Osmena Avenue. It was two years in the making, but as they say, better late than never. Lols. Sometimes, when you are living with a bunch of guys who have their respective hormonal patterns (and irregularities) and eccentric tendencies, making a house into a hospitable home would take quite an effort. REAL EFFORT. But I've been wrong to impose either an iron-hand discipline or a lenient type of leadership, upon learning that at best, people respond more to the way you LEAD them, not DIRECT them. And since I feel so accomplished in getting our hands literally dirty to make our dream come true, here is what tilling the soil and filling the holes with seeds have taught me.

Discipleship is like gardening. The principles involved in land preparation, planting, cultivating, and harvesting is quite the same with discipling people to Christ. It is boldly responding to God's call for more workers in the field because the harvest is already plenty. I have learned that discipleship is about getting your hands ready for the plow; making an effort to be the hands of Christ in reaching out for more. The Gospel is the seed that will be planted in the hearts of people so that they can grow into Christlikeness. But before that happens, I have to be there with people to cultivate them, feed them, nurture them, protect them, lead them. Making a seed grow is investing your time and resources until you finally see the fruits of your labor. In the same way, discipling people is a commitment to invest your time and to pour out your life for the sake of another. It is the willingness to spend and be spent. It is life for life.

When I look back at my own life and journey of faith, I can't help but be grateful for those people who, through the years have been more than willing to spend and be spent for someone like me. And today, for whatever it's worth, I'd like to honor them as a sign of deep gratitude. (Parang grumaduate lang? haha)

To ate Romyne for her boldness to share the Gospel during a classroom evangelism way back in 2005. You may not remember this ate, but I was there in one of the classes where you have boldly shared the Gospel to freshmen students. It is no irony that it was on our Earth Science class where I heard about the good news of Someone who came to earth just to save me. And though I've already heard that for so many times growing up in a Christian background, I never felt it more sincere than that day. Through you, God has planted something significant in my heart. I attended LAYF the following week at LA, and the rest, they say, is history.

To kuya Joshua who was my first cell leader. I appreciate you for not giving up on my silly attempts to escape our bible study session wherever I'm not in the mood. Pumupunta ka noon sa dorm namin sa Dungon para sunduin at hintayin ako. Palagi kang may dalang mais at mani noon. We did our one-on-one bible study sa park ng LASO. Matatandaan mo pa kuya? It was there that you have prayed for my childish concerns. And then, just like you, I also became a member of LASO. Initiation ko na pala yun noon, hindi mo naman sinabi, haha. Thank you so much kuya. Kahit this year ka palang kinasal, matagal ka ng may naging anak--ako yun. I praise the Lord because you we're one of my spiritual fathers. You have nurtured my desire for meaning and purpose in life those days.

To kuya Nebin my cell leader after kuya Joshua--for exemplifying a life of being a disciple and a discipler. I have said this before, and I will say this again, you are one of the most passionate and faithful disciple-maker I've met. You literally have spend and was spent for the sake of training us and leading us. Our stay at the Training Apartment with you taught us many things. You have modeled a life that sets discipleship at another level. Many of the leaders you have trained are still here, serving in the ministry. You have trained the Joshua Generation very well. Now we are passing the same to the next generation. Pwede ka ng mag-asawa, kuya. Haha.

To kuya Fred and ate Helen Grace, who also have been my cell leaders at one point, thank you for your time and efforts. You were there for me at just the right time in my life for a reason. I appreciate the prayers and guidance.

To kuya James, for teaching me that there is something more important than money and material wealth, and that investing in heaven and in the life of people is the best we can do in this world. Thank you for cultivating in me the virtue of hard-work, perseverance, diligence, maturity, decisiveness. I'm still a work in progress, but by God's grace, I am learning a lot.

To kuya Romy, my pastor and mentor, for helping me process many of my major decisions and transitions in life. Without your godly wisdom and counsel and prayers, things would have turned out differently for me. I praise the Lord for your guidance and leadership not only to me personally, but to the church as well. Thank you for your generosity, and for allowing me to be used in the ministry in ways I never thought possible. I look up to your life and to your testimony. I always tell my disciples that if my life would turn out the same way as yours, then I would not ask for something better, if that's not asking God for too much. You are one life multiplied in many.

To my disciples and fellow warriors in the service of the One True King, we are standing on the shoulders of the giants. We are here because of the faithful men and women who have responded to God's call in their lives to sow a seed of faith. We are the fruits of their labor. It is now our turn to do the same. To plant the seed of faith, to be willing to plow the field and reap the harvest for God's greater glory. Let's go and make disciples!

Little Infinities

How much one can make out of life? With one sunrise to sundown? Probably not much when all we attempt to do is to make sense out of life in the purview of the hurried routine of accumulating more and achieving more and wanting more. We think that the value of life is measured in the quantity. We confuse quality time with busy schedules and all. But what if life isn't just comprise of 24-hour frantic cycles of self-centered to do lists? That there is actually something more? That YOLO is a myth, and that we're here to last?

Life is made up of moments lived upon the grace of the Divine. It is an experience of God's unending favor. And when life is viewed in the lens of eternity, what we have each sunrise to sundown are little infinities gifted to us by an infinitely loving God.

"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Psalm 90:12)

Greatness in serving

Everyone seem to want to chase greatness. People want to get famous, to gather trophies, acquire titles, be influential, command power. And the world says you can get these by being aggressive, decisive, cunning. Some would even go to great lengths such as trading values for personal gain, compromising health for material wealth, replacing important relationships with worldly partnerships. Just to get ahead. Just to advance personal agenda. The Christian life demands otherwise.

For a Christian, there is more to being great than just having a good name and great wealth and power. Greatness is having your life impact eternity. There is true greatness in serving. Jesus Christ affirmed that service is the mark of true greatness. If I desire to be great, I must be willing to offer myself in service to others. Jesus gave us a standard to follow: greatness means to serve!

God demonstrated service and sacrifice through His Son Jesus Christ. He is my best example of compassion, humility, and selflessness. In a world that is self-absorbed, self-centered, self-exalted, God is calling me to a life of selflessness, and self-abandon. I must be willing to pay the price of true greatness.

In Matthew 20, Jesus demonstrated a life of service. He asked the blind men the very thing they want, and He willingly gave it to them. He has a compassionate heart turned towards those who are desperate for Him. In the same way, I must continue to have a desperation for God not only for the things He can do for me, but most specially for the things He can do through me.

Dreaming big

A warrior dreams big, and acts big to achieve his dreams. Like a vision for something great, a warrior's dream is not only a passing thought or wishful thinking, but it is a road by which he is willing to take no matter how long and difficult. His dreams are part of who he is, fulfilling it is part of his destiny.

Forever Faithful

Disillusioned at best and with no cause to fight for, You have met me in the middle of nowhere to pacify the tensions in my heart and pick me up one more time. One more fight, You said. I took hold of that. Years later, here I am, still fighting strong. All because of grace.

It is still a long way ahead in this journey of faith. But I promise to remain steadfast, to remain faithful, to be true to all that I know about You. And let it be said of me at the end of the day, "well done, my good and faithful servant", because that's who I am. A servant of the one true Master and King.

Will you pay the cost?

You might have heard the often used cliche about being a Christian: Jesus calls you to be a follower not a fan. Yet oftentimes, we don't really know about the cost of following Christ, or we're just ignoring it. Many would just like to become a part of the mob of "Jesus freaks", not really taking it to heart that Christianity is about commitment. And more.

Following Christ has a great cost. I must not dilute God's demands by thinking that it's easy following Christ, like taking a carefree walk in a park. The truth is following Christ will cost me everything: my comfort, my own personal ambitions, my resources. But I must also realize that until I make a decision that He is the greatest treasure I can have and He is all worth it, I cannot truly be a disciple of Christ. One word: SURRENDER.

Following Christ has great rewards. Lest I be mistaken as a fire and brimstone fundamentalist, I must also say that following Christ leads to great blessings. God is not a cosmic killjoy as some already said. God is not unfair; He demands greatly because He loves and rewards greatly. In God's holiness and justice, He cannot allow us to conform to this world in any way we want and compromise the "full and satisfying life" He wants for us. But He won't just easily give it while we keep on enjoying the things that violate His holiness and justice. I must commit to conform to His will and ways. That's the only way I can be able to enter the Kingdom of God.

Following Christ leads to great possibilities. God said in Matthew 19:26, "what is impossible with men is possible with God." Following God means being empowered by God, only if I allow Him to do with me what He intends, and by surrender and love for Him I'd willingly submit. It is by God, for God and through God that everything is possible.

Will you pay this cost?

Remorseful or repentant?

After Judas betrayed Jesus in exchange for thirty pieces of silver, we can read in Matthew 27:3 that he was "seized with remorse" (NIV), "remorseful" (NKJV), and "regretted what had happened" (ISV). That's an interesting word right there--remorse! Dictionaries define remorse as a feeling of deep regret or guilt. When taken into spiritual context, remorse does not necessarily reflect a "repentant heart" (Psalm 51:17), and "godly sorrow" (2 Corinthians 7:10). That's why remorse was not enough to spare Judas from his sorrows that led him to take away his own life. And why do we even talk about a traitor and regret his decisions?

You see, many of the disciples of Jesus at the time of His crucifixion betrayed Him. One by one they started to disassociate themselves with Jesus at the moment of His arrest. The most famous "traitor" of them all aside from Judas is of course, Peter, one of His most trusted and closest disciples. Peter denied His Lord three times, at different instances, with increasing intensity. He also consciously and deliberately denied his Rabbi. But unlike Judas, Peter was not only regretful, he was repentant. He was overcome with godly sorrow and wept bitterly (Matthew 26:75).

The rest of the disciples also was seemingly absent during the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. They were not there to fight for and stand with Jesus. They were overcome with fear for their own life. Just like Judas they had personal concerns when matters came to worst. But again, unlike Judas, all of them later repented as testified by their willingness to stay in one place even before the resurrection day. At the time of resurrection, Jesus sought to restore Peter and the rest of the disciples who remained. Jesus was there to extend His grace and redemption despite their betrayal.

How about Judas? Well, he was not restored simply because he wasn't there anymore. In fact, he too, had the opportunity to be restored upon seeing that he had made a mistake by betraying 'innocent blood". He had the chance to return to the disciples and repent over what was done, but he did not. He went his way and took matters in his own hands...and into the grave.

The bottomline? Repent, don't just regret! "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death." (2 Corinthians 7:10)

The beauty in our silence

"We need to pay heed to the many silences in our lives.... each silence has a character of its own. ~Kent Nerburn, "The Eloquence of Silence," Small Graces: The Quiet Gifts of Everyday Life, 1998

 Life could just get too noisy at times that the essential things get blocked out from human ears. Too much noise--those that distract a person to hear from the inside--could endanger our connection to our inner self and thus render us vulnerable to external tensions of the world. There will be times that silence is the only respite amid the confusion around. Silence is intimidating because of its capacity to make you feel alone, or worst, unaccepted. And many try to veer away from that. But when accepted as a friend who can understand unconditionally, silence becomes power in its own way. It can help you process things without tensions--only internal, and that's a good thing, too--and it can allow you to think without restrictions. Silence, in itself, is power.

"Silence is a source of great strength."  ~Lao Tzu

Shooting stars

Sad, isn't it? That a supposed to be good story would end just like that. How two paths could easily diverge from each other just because one or both were just too profound, or too mysterious to take in. Or even too proud to understand.

It's sad when we ignore the possibility of a wonderful picture just because one little speck of colorless streak of miscommunication happen to smear the still unfolding canvass, not realizing the fact that masterpieces are born not out of perfection but by deliberate and gentle acceptance of imperfections and then have the grace to move ahead.

But maybe we're just one good story that is never meant to happen? Maybe our lives are just too colorful, too intense for each other to be able to connect?

Or maybe we were just two stars that glimmered too brightly against each other, and had collided for one brief sparkling moment and then gone?

Stand alone

A true warrior does not compromise the truth. He courageously stands for the good stuff even if no one stands with him. He is never afraid of the crowd because the crowd does not define him but his beliefs.

Transformed to transform

Change must first begin within a person. A warrior knows that before he can change the world, he must first be changed. He must first be broken into little pieces and be made whole again from the inside out--a restructuring that is non-negotiable so that only what is essential will remain.

A warrior is transformed to transform.

Two things

Bravery and Courage. 

These two are a warrior's code of living. A true warrior never ceases to be brave even when circumstances are against him. He goes beyond his fear or timidity for he knows that he is made with sterner stuff.

He takes courage even in the face of great difficulty because he knows that the battle is the Lord's, not his. He believes that even a great army cannot trample on his mission because the mission has already been accomplished long before when the King said "it is finished"--a warrior only needs to act upon this victory.

We are an army marching to the battlefield on behalf of the Great King's victory.

No way but up!

A true warrior believes that growing up and going up is the only place to go. A warrior is not content with what he has, but he uses what he has to go further, to soar higher, and to dive deeper. Courage, dear warriors!

Faith is a verb!

Have you ever wondered why it's so hard to progress from faith to actually living by it? You see, when faith is just a concept in the head and not a practice of the hand, we tend to discredit the fact that faith should move a person into action. 

And when we don't realize that faith is actually a matter of action and not just of intuition, that it's a matter of practice and not just a hypothesis, that it is doctrine converting itself into discipline--when faith is not like this, then we will remain to be what other people label Christians as apathetic, or worse, delusional. 

We don't want that. So it's now time to walk the talk. And though it couldn't be more true that what it already is, the Gospel gets more real when it gets into people being transformed in real life. When theology meets real life and the message is passed clearly that it's all about hope and the possibility of being new, that's when faith brings impact.

Faith is a verb. And in the Christian language, there's no such thing as passive verb.

A Warrior And His Defeats

It's never going to be easy. A warrior's commitment is not just to win one battle--it is a series of battles that will be fought in many different battlefields. There will be battles that require less attention than necessary, and there will be those that require everything that is necessary for victory. There will be those battles that will confront us when we are most unprepared--but the warrior's task is to embrace it with courage and dignity no matter the cost.

And battles will cost something. It's always been that way. Defeats will cost hope, confidence, strength, and testimony. Defeats will intimidate us, shake us, and slow us down. But it will also give important lessons, valuable experiences, and big opportunities for growth. To a warrior, defeats are meant to strengthen his resolve and enrich his spirit. Defeats of different scope and magnitude will always push a warrior to seek for truth and clarity, they will lead him to innovate, recreate all for the sake of redemption. Defeats make him a better warrior. 

Defeats are never the end. They are the beginning of something you can do again this time better. Fight!

The Force Called Love

Love is a many-splendored thing, so goes the song. And it might be right. Poets and writers and artists and philosophers and skeptics of different ages have attempted to define the concept and examine the nature and purpose of love. But can one really fully grasp its meaning? Can one really have the slightest understanding of a force so strong and so capable without being shaken and moved and changed by it? Can one really come close to defining it without having one's own definition altered once he gets to see what it really IS? What if love is not meant to be defined, and that love is actually a meaning on its own, a purpose on its own: incomprehensible yet fully known, infinite yet fully tangible, multifaceted yet one concrete whole?

Ah, love is a many-splendored things! And it is meant to be experienced and demonstrated.

Happy hearts day! :)

Killing Pride

If there's one thing that an infinitely loving God detests, that is pride. No sin and human tendency since the creation (and even before it) has caused so much of the trouble in the world than the sin of pride, arrogance, and rebellion.

Way into the second chapter of Isaiah, God again issues the same invitation He offered in the first chapter. He invites us to come, and go with Him and experience Him. We who are a bunch of prideful creatures are still loved by God with an everlasting love that He still wants us to come.

But I must first be willing to meet the standards of His holiness. How can I come to the Lord and be able to experience Him?

I should get rid of any pride in me. God is never pleased with the proud--He detests and destroys them (v12-17). Pride only makes me trust in my own ability and resources. In order to come to the Lord, I must go before Him with humility and total abandon of myself and say, "God, you're all that I need..."

I must get rid of my idolatry (v7-9, 8, 20). Anything that distract my focus on God must be shattered. Anything that gets attention in my life more that God must be severed. There's only one focus and that is the Lord my God.

I must determine to exalt Christ in my life (v11). I must realize that the sole purpose of my life is to please God and exalt Him always. Anything less than the glory of God in my life must go. I must desire to achieve greater faith and obedience for the praise of His glory.

Pride and arrogance have no place in the heart of a servant of the Lord!

Scarlet, Crimson, and the Blood

Personal holiness and purity in today's culture is no more than a thing of the past, an idealized virtue that broken people like you and me try to pursue and yet willingly ignores. Here's a fact that I know of: morality is mocked, purity is laughed at, and the people who try to stand for these are labelled as bigoted and intolerant and Dark Age prophets.

But here's the truth that remains today: God still demands holiness and purity. It has not changed over the course of generations when God issued the decree which commands His people to pursue purity. The call to be holy and separated from the world is ever more resounding today.

God through the prophet Isaiah proclaimed that same message many generations ago: "wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil." (Isa 1:16)

God desires our purity and holiness. He is a holy God. No sin and transgression can ever stand before Him. For without holiness no one will be able to see Him. (Hebrews 12:14)

God desires repentance. He wants our turning away from evil. Physical offerings and works are never sufficient to obtain God's forgiveness and grace. What matters to the Lord is a repentant heart that is willing to yield to God's heart.

God desires my utmost devotion and obedience. A direct result of repentance is obedience to God and His word.God desires our obedience because with it comes the essential process where we can experience His awesome power. It is in obedience to His commands that I will be able to experience God fully in my life.

Today, He still invites people to come to Him and reason with Him (Isa 1:18). God is daring us to settle the matter before Him, with the promise that if we repent, even our darkest deed and sins as deep as crimson and red will be forgiven and forgotten. Will you come to Him today?

A Million Little Lights

She's looking at the constellation of stars suspended in the canvass of an evening sky when she asked: when was the last time you fell in love? I always fall in love, I said, gesturing at the grand sky. Nah, you know what I mean, she insists.

Well, do you know that the stars didn't actually form themselves into constellations and images that we now know today? That what we see are just patterns produce by the human mind to make a sense of what we see on a night like this?, I said. Lame excuse.

I'd like to believe that falling in love is like that sometimes. People make a construct out of this human emotion and experience in order to make a sense of what we can't explain. But like the stars in the universe, emotions are infinite, unreachable, unfathomable. We cannot figure them even if we wanted to. And perhaps we're just here to appreciate them and enjoy them and make the most out of the experience.

You are my night sky, I said quietly. And my feelings for you are like constellation of lights in a never-ending confluence of time and space. Yet while it is not too profound, not too mysterious, it is true and real. I fell in love with you like a star falling from its place, and bursting forth with intensity nothing could ever stop... so that when it hits the ground it shatters into a million little pieces lighting up the dull landscape of the dark, lonely night.

She looked at me and smiled. Can you hold my hand?, she said. Sparks fly.

And then the sky exploded once again into millions of bright lights and lit up this little, lonely planet which is my heart as I take delight in knowing that tonight, with her, I own the universe.

Shafts of Light

“Careful now”, says Ago Bawing, our assigned local tour guide for my first caving experience up in the cold mountains of Sagada. You know, the terrain could get really slippery from here, he said. With all the caution I could muster, I negotiated my way through the rough terrain all the way to the depths of the cave, holding on to cold, slippery stone walls and wet rocks, or whatever my hand could take a grip on just to keep my balance while making sure that my foot lands on to something solid. The cave is wide and vast and deep. My mind tried to absorb all the details my eyes were looking at, but I snap out of the process just before I got too woozy from overthinking.

“I’ve explored this cave since I was nine”, Ago said confidently, as if that would comfort me in my current affliction. I took that as assurance anyway. Heck, if a kid could have survived all this, what’s an adult couldn’t do? But my already pounding heart and shallow breathing betrayed my arrogance. Not that the air inside was damp and heavy, but this subterranean beauty is truly breathtaking. The enormous hall that reaches as far as the eyes could see, the vast rock formations and the ruggedly incredible landscape of limestone and sedimentary, have something inexplicable to it—a quiet mystery, a handiwork of the Divine.

“Over there”, says Ago, holding up his gasera above his head as high as possible so we can see the formations more clearly and appreciate the wonder that is unfolding before us. Everything appeared golden and classic as light flashes and touches them— like photos printed in sepia. Exploring one chamber after another, either by climbing or crawling up and down slippery slopes of rocks and stones, what gave me comfort in this journey was the light coming from Ago’s humble gasera. It has made the trek easier, every step more secure, and every climb more sure as its light directed us where to go and where to hold. The pathway was rough and perilous, but light made it sure that my feet would land on solid ground.

More importantly, light has made the darkness far less threatening. My Sumaging experience was made more possible with that gasera than without it. There will be nothing but darkness and the cave’s grand beauty will forever be concealed without light to reveal it. Everything made sense inside that cave only because of the light that illuminated it. But am I still talking here about caving? Guess again.

Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path, says King David. As someone who had been in the dark and have tried to grope for something that makes sense, I can relate with that. I believe in the sunrise for by it I can see everything, said the atheist-turned-Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis. He was talking about Christianity as that sunrise by which we can see everything more clearly—like a gasera inside a dark cave. Christ is that Light, the apostle John says. I believe in that for the same reason C.S. Lewis has believed in that.

I was sitting on a pew inside the Church of the Holy Sacrifice in UP Diliman one time while waiting for my evening class to start when yet another sunset got me fascinated (you can’t blame me, I’m a romanticist by profession, LOL). The silence of the place and my beleaguered soul has brought me there. Inside, I marvelled at the circular structure of the church, the circular hall, covered by a circular dome, of course. The last shafts of light from the setting sun that slanted from the open window of the building captured my eyes, and like a spotlight directed my gaze towards the center of the church. Right there, suspended just above the elevated altar was a replica of Roman Empire’s most notorious torturing implement, but Christianity’s most powerful symbol: the Cross. It didn’t take too long to process what it meant for me. The Roman Empire has long been dead. Yet Christ lives. I am the Light of the world, He still says today.

The dark is a threatening place to be. We need this light. Now more than ever. For the night is dark and full of terror…and the Light is our only hope.

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

Looking but not seeing

This is Ago Bawing. A true son of the Mountain Province, he said his earliest childhood memories were trekking the wonderful mountains and chasing the spectacular caves of his native Sagada. He said he has explored (and I guess mastered) the Sumaging cave--which I had the chance to visit a couple of weeks ago--since he's 9 years old.

Trailing behind him on our way into the deep caverns of the Sumaging, he told us of the epic tales about the place, on how the incredible rock formations were formed, and about how each stunning slopes of lime stones, rock columns and flowstones have their own stories carefully preserved inside this subterranean world. I took notice on how he confidently explained these stories, while prodding us to see carefully on the formations and images with just the help of his gasera illuminating the dark.

He teases and he laughs when we couldn't find the image he wanted us to see. "Tignan niyong mabuti kasi", he says. With his playful imagination, he revealed to us a world only the initiated can know. He showed us the secret places of the Knight, the Princess, the Queen, the Giant Snake, Mary and Joseph, the Cake, the Old Man and many other. I nod my head at every time I figure them out. Then I realized a lesson: all along, I was just looking but not seeing. I was just taking glimpses and not beholding. The two are entirely not the same. It took a man as Ago Bawing to point to me the difference. I laughed at myself.

At the conclusion of our brief exploration on our way out of the cave and upon seeing the light of day near the entrance, I turned around and took one last look at the deep, enormous hall of the cave, probing the seemingly infinite vast dome and absorbing all the stories I've learned about the place so far. I told myself, don't just look...open your eyes and see.

And then I saw it--the rest of the story: God had made everything...and it was very, very good.