O, Diyos Inyong dinggin,
Ang aking panalangin
Ang puso kong ito’y
Laging laan Sa’yo
Bigyan mo ng Banal na takot
Sumunod sa nais Nyo
Naisin nawa ng aking puso
Ay kalooban Nyo sa buhay ko
Nagbabalik loob
Sa Iyo Panginoon
Nagbabalik loob,
Sa pag-ibig Mo
Kayo ang Buhay
Kayo ay Tunay
Nagbababalik loob, ang puso ko…
A song from Romel Guevara’s Salubungin ng Pagsamba Joy, thank u for lending me the CD last night… J
Hah! I don’t think I’d have to wait four years for Spain to come back with a vengeance… Zidane kissed his sorry shoes goodbye for himself. And to think I already saw him atop the pedestal – his golden shoe becoming a reality. Sigh. Just shows character always wins out – he lacked it. It’s a pity it blew on him on the last game of this year’s series and possibly the last game of his life. To think the possibility of an MVP award could just immortalize his name to be legend in football history… but no. he just simply blew it – with a head butt… ish simply preposterous! Poor Materazzi… Didn’t know what hit him.
As the commentators said as Zidane turned his back for his final walk (to the penalty), There goes a fabulous player… who just blemished his fabulous career… What a finale to his retirement. Sic.
To Italy, my salutations to you sirs… especially to Canavarro who played great defense. This year’s finals was the best footwork I’ve seen so far. As for France Zidane will go unremembered amidst his long years save for the last few minutes of his career (Hannah I take back my concession) but Barthez shall be a name worth remembering.
Until the next four years!
What is hope?
To want? To desire? To expect that what's envisioned may indeed happen?
Yes to ALL of the above.
Is hope that gut feeling that it's worth holding out and hanging on for just a little longer? ABSOLUTELY.
Is hope the core of the human condition? CERTAINLY.
Can you have hope without faith and humility and wonder? THAT'S TOUGH. (and impossibly so)
Just the thought that there's something bigger, something truer,
something totally surprising out there waiting for us is........... priceless.
What would you be without hope, growing deep in your bones, thriving in every inch of you? NOTHING.
What does it take to hope? EVERYTHING.
Hope takes never ceasing to be amazed...
Wearing your soul on your sleeve...
H o l d i n g your breath, waiting to hear "I love you, too..."
Believing that tomorrow could be better than today...
That you'll get a second chance...
That you'll make a difference...
That you matter.
(my favorite page from "I Hope You Dance" by Mark Sanders and Tia Sillers)
If I remember right, the word originally used for HOPE in the Bible is never wishful thinking, it is a certainty, an assurance of a promise only God can give. J And for that its worth giving all our fighting chance.
huhuhu... i know this is too late (due to anniv. preps...) but i will put down my pain in the recent sad chapters in the world cup... all because of Zidane's golden spikes ;p not just once but twice.
To Spain, i bow my head at your going. It was worth seeing francesc fabregas, sergio ramos, fernando torres, and iker casillas if only once on the field... n 4 years you will be in your early twenties in the ripe of youth and more experienced... i hope u shall kiss zidane's sorry spikes goodbye by then.
Still, Zidane has proven his worth in years equal to the value of his golden pair of shoes as it hit home (the ONLY ONE in the game by the way and his 30th goal for his country) on the challenge of Brazil - the then unbeatable... to my aching heart. haay...
Zidane, you have caused me grief, but i salute your prowess...
as for me, i shall finish my Genesis reflection paper due tomorrow hehehe.
Sigh. Many a time recently have I laid down finding myself awake throughout the night… But in God’s mercy he reminds me of these verses that proved to have been worth the meditating and memorizing...
But whatever to my profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law – but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
Philippians 3:7-9
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ. Filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – for the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:9-11
For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom this whole family derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your heart(s) through faith. And you being rooted and established in love, may have the power with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ – to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled with the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine, according to his power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever! Amen!
Ephesians 3:14-21
That’s it for now… o diba napablog? Tulog na kasi mga tao…
Daddy, Oh Holy One and Ever Living One, You whose love surpasses all knowledge, You who though so great would take time to intimately involve yourself in my life – my Jesus, my Strength, to You all praise, honor, and glory belong and to none else;
To You I lift up my all, knowing that You my King, know best. In You there is life and there is no other – Abba. Do with mine as You may and be honored with my desire to obey even at the many frail hesitations.
I look forward to waking up each day knowing Your mercies are new every morning. Your joy is my strength and knowing You in these times is my great reward – far beyond compare to the things I hold dearly. I loosen my grip oh Lord that I may know You and see Your Kingdom come and Your will be done.
...Jesus is worthy...
10 06 05
12.10 am
2nd floor, Student Center
It is quite hard sometimes to grasp death in its face. Especially at the moments when one thinks that all has been done that a detour in this path may not be ‘once-more’ taken. When we think we’ve learned our lesson, it stares us back in the face – again.
And as Elisabeth Elliot says, ‘What kind of a GOD who asks everything from us? The same GOD who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all; and with this gift how can He fail to lavish upon us all He has to give…. He gives all, He asksall…’
And yet even in the most stable of faiths, a test turns to shake what we always soon believe to be unshakeable. Many times it is so easy to quote apart from circumstance and we tend not to grasp it when situations stare us right in the face.
It is beauty how Elisabeth Elliot puts it – asks… not takes… simply asks… It is vital we see that. For God is not a GOD of whim but a GOD of wisdom. He is not a God of aimless purpose but a GOD of Sovereign Harmony. He does not take… He asks… He is a gentleman - the beauty of Divine Will melded with human submission is not in the sacrifice in itself but the selfless response of a desperate heart to the ONE who gave all – it gives all. Maybe with a little hesitation – even with some questions, but nevertheless, it gives. The beauty is not in the giving in itself but in the FAITH that believes and hopes all things – amidst the most desperate of circumstance.
Many might ask, ‘for what?’ and yet those who have yet to understand judge it insanity to submit to such cruelty… as Abraham chose to give his son on the altar of sacrifice. Yet to those who have seen the beauty of the One who is worth it all and gave all, understand what it means to die… Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit –john 12:24. Again, I could put it in no better words, “ there is that big HOWEVER… We are not meant to die in order to be dead. GOD could not have want that from the very creatures to whom He gave the breath of life… We die in order that we may live.”
Oh if only all of us knew the value of dying – of selfless living. And yet even in Christian circles we see so much of the ‘flesh-feeding’. Many of the things we do might not be ‘sin’ as it is but many of what ‘good’ we do is out of the intense desire to give to oneself. Many sadly, would sacrifice anything – ‘security, honor, self-respect, the welfare of the people they love, obedience to GOD – to passion. They will even tell themselves that they are obeying GOD (or at least convince themselves He doesn’t mind) and congratulate themselves for being so free, so released, so courageous, so honest, and “up front”.’ And many of us tend to forget the value of inner purity as we look to what we don’t REALLY do and take it as if GOD really didn’t care of what the heart speaks as long as we don’t sin outwardly. Yet I admire those who are willing to take the death amidst the pain… amidst the self-desires, the longing, the plans. Though amidst the tears, feelings, and hesitations are REALLY willing to give all…
Take a close friend for example. She just found out the other day that she might not have the desired schedules thus opening the possibility of a ‘once-again’ delay to graduation. As if that weren’t enough, today she learned that her reader had rejected her thesis… another malady of the longing heart.
Yet I hold her in high esteem for the inward desire to submit to the will of the Father. I am astounded at the raging battles yet the knowing stillness in the eyes of one who believes. For though the day might count all things worthless, it is GOD who dictates destiny – it is He who writes history – the same One who made time. And thus goes the song ‘it shall be beautiful in its time…’
Yet the onlooker might smirk at such seeming ‘insanity of submission’, to the heart who knows faith, it is worth all the pain, the judgment, the DYING. To the enemy of souls a laughter may be heard but in the heart of GOD, an unspeakable joy awaits.
Those who were meant for a great destiny understand this. For this same process of laying down and dying is a vital process in the makings of one in GOD’s hall of FAITH. Lest death does its work, we could never really understand what it means to live. Lest all shall be asked of us we would never really understand what it means to be content both in hunger AND fullness. For it is in the circumstance of losing one learns to value the privilege of having.
I speak of this as if this were to me an easy task. Yet I know in my heart there is also a rumbling of the flesh - plans of my own to satiate what in me longs to ‘live’ and be awakened. Yet the Spirit in me speaks of joys yet greater to be found if only I submit to the needed life-stripping.
I smile as I realize the number of times I have gone through this same altar - the altar of the heart. For in me is a raging torrent to feed things I shan’t at these times. It is so easy to look left or right in the moments of waiting. It is in these moments that excuses are so easily made up and GOD’s desires easily covered with our own… Yet a faint hope awakens my heart to dream – the dreams of GOD. For what plans are greater than HIS who knows best? What longings can drown the unspeakable PASSION of the cross?
Though the raging is enough for me to keep awake even in the most tiresome of times, the grace of GOD is sufficient.
Praise Him who knows death allows us to taste the fruits of resurrection. Praise the GOD who tasted all pain cause us to know the joy of life in death. Praise the HOLY GOD that tolerates no ‘unclean’ sacrifice grant us the way through the veil – not by our own righteousness but by the very righteousness that saved all humankind from sin. Praise Him that knew no sin show us the way of the cross that we too may die – and LIVE.
So this guy comes up to me and says "What's the vision? What's the big idea?"
I open my mouth and words came out like this...
The vision?
The vision is Jesus - obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the West was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations.
They need no passport. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers choose to loose that they might one day win the great "Well done"
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names.
Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making Foundations shaking.
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground
And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat thier bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade in arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And the generation prays
like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24-7-365
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentals.
The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late-night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside.
On the outside? They hardly care.
They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell.
A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses Jesus. (He breaths out, they breath in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdos! Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.
They walk tall and trees applaud
Skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this vision will be.
It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.
How do I know?
Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God.
My tomorrow is His today. My distant hope is His 3D.
And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great "Amen!" from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ Himself.
And He is the original Dreamer, the ultimate Winner.
Guaranteed.
(- by Billy Kennedy from Sublime Community Church in Southampton, England.)
HEARTBEAT
Warriorchild 09 09 03
She breathes in,
As the gentle breeze whispers
What life that longs
Ever to touch…
Grace flows
Where great birches rise.
Upon their hands
The mystery of their MAKER…
Lifted up to where the sun shines
And tears from heav’n water.
In gentle swaying they speak,
‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’
In ways no heart can comprehend
In greatness such as this
What so little
Of a Higher Majesty they picture.
The soul ever tries,
So hardly to follow
What image its being speaks,
What eternity the heart was meant for.
Yet, feebly it searches
In strong, fervent longing…
It is all it ever knew – desire
But for what?
Not for desire in itself
For what satisfaction
Can ever satiate
A great abyss in such a small muscle?
Beating, ever…
But for what?
Yet it does, on and on…
Not stopping.
And still, breath follows.
The air gently calls,
‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’
And she who was made
In the image
Can not fully comprehend.
But she hears and looks.
Once more she longs to see, to listen.
She searches
For what summons keep her
Moving… moving…
Like a light piercing,
The darkness sweeps a picture
Every breath, every creature, every star,
Even nothingness in itself cries,
‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’
Her lips quiver,
As it is led
To utter what humanity
Never understood...
Until they speak,
‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’
And as she sings,
That great abyss is filled…
And there she was,
ONE and WON
By Him who purposed,
By Him who loves.
As the picture grows,
Vivid before her,
Now she sees,
She listens
To what battle was fought
What victory was won.
She looks, a lump on her throat
Upon the lamb that was slain.
Hands bound, side pierced,
Blood stained brow;
He looks back,
In utmost peace and great love.
With a gentle voice He calls,
’Come, Beloved, come…’
The hands touch,
The calloused, the wounded meet.
Her heart now sees and perceives
What beauty it was meant for…
Now she knows why the heart beats
And the wind gently sings,
‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’
