The Search for God and Guinness by Stephen Mansfield

As someone who works for the leading beer company in the country that has grown to become one of the largest food and beverage corporations in Southeast Asia, reading “The Search for God and Guinness” by Stephen Mansfield is absolutely one enriching experience.

It would be impossible not to draw some similar and contrasting points. Perhaps the similarities are a few of the reasons behind my company’s growth over the years but there sure are a lot of other things to glean from the Guinness brand – 250 years now since Arthur Guinness bought a property at St. James’ Gate in Dublin.

What really impressed me while reading the book though was how the company genuinely cared for their own employees. Sure, they were passionate in selling beer but they were equally concerned of their workforce as well. Their people enjoyed salaries and benefits that would shame most modern companies today. All these, in a time when labour laws still are non-existent – something that would attest to their sincerity. Today, we have companies who are barely hanging by the tread of compliance. Still, others never get to comply at all.

As I continued to read, it turns out that there are many more inspirational stories about the Guinnesses after Arthur on how they impacted their own workers but Ireland, their country, as a whole. Reading about them can’t help but make me teary-eyed. Matter of fact, as early as the introduction, I was already pushing back the tears.

My secret desire now is to get this book on the hands of “the powers that be” in my company. I don’t know how, but I’m praying that somehow, it will. As we set our eyes internationally, I’m sure there would be a lot to learn from Guinness’s 250-year legacy.

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Bucket List

We never accomplish the goals we don't set. And it's always wise to do so in writing.

Hence, this list of life goals.

When I posted "Full," Nong Roy mentioned about his bucket list. I thought it would be cool to have one as well - or at least one that I can see and really believe God on.

With a little guidance from Mark Batterson, I was able to come up with these as well.

Family Goals
1. Run an organic farm business/restaurant with family
2. Treat folks and siblings on a trip to Hongkong or Bangkok
3. Get my family debt-free, save and invest
4. Record and album with my brothers
5. Start a foundation to help family and relatives

Travel Goals
1. Backpack in Europe
2. Attend a Hillsong Conference in Australia
3. Worship in New Creation Church, Singapore
4. Visit the Holy Land
5. Witness autumn in New England

Experience Goals
1. Speak fluent Mandarin and Japanese
2. Learn French, Spanish and German
3. Get an MBA
4. Learn Muay Thai in Thailand
5. Study in IHOP-Kansas

Physical Goals
1. Reach 170lbs at 15% body fat
2. Bench press 200 lbs
3. Dive at Palawan
4. Sky Dive
5. Ice Skate

Influence Goals
1. Write a book on grace
2. Do a mission trip to China
3. Volunteer in an international NGO
4. Be a professional photographer
5. Start a grace revolution

Here's my list. What's yours?

Truth be told, I'm really not excited on reaching them. What thrills me more is knowing that God could give us beyond what we ask or think.

Now that's something to be psyched about!

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Full

I was in a queue waiting to pay for my groceries, but my mind was elsewhere.

Earlier today I woke up to see a friend had posted pictures of his recent travel to Europe. I was green with envy! How I wish I had the means to do the same, to visit places in the world at my every whim.

Then I asked God, "Am I gonna do the same someday?"

Silence.

"You see, I never thought of being able to travel the Philippines like I am doing so now," I continued my eyes showing excitement. "Sure, it's not much, but in the first 2 decades of my life, I've never even been in a plane!"

Still no reply.

"I'm sure I'll get there someday," I convinced myself. "You have great plans for me. Didn't you say goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life? Didn't you promise life to the full?"

"You have Me," was the only reply.

And it was enough.

I realized that Life is a Person, and when Jesus promised life to his disciples he actually was offering himself to them. To us, too.

Life to full is simply an invitation to the infinite abundance that is in Christ. It may include a backpacking trip to Europe but then really, Life is so much more than just that.

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Grace Pastor

I remember 2 years back when I was on a sickbed with nothing to do but watch TV. For most people, watching TV the whole day could be a dream job, but for me, it was very frustrating.

I wanted to be productive - complete my reports to avoid backlogs when I get back to work. But everytime I use the mouse to do just that, blood would start to come out the dextrose they attached on my right arm so I have no choice but to stop.

I remember one morning I woke up early and for lack of anything else to do, I turned on the TV and flipped channels until I came accross a preacher with a weird accent. While his accent seemed familiar, I couldn't tell the whole time I was confined where he was from, not until I got out and was able to download and even buy his teachings.

Needless to say, his teaching on grace revolutionized my life. The gospel didn't make a lot of sense until that day. And it's because of this preacher of grace: Pastor Joseph Prince.

Imagine my delight when I came across this site where someone posted his teachings! When I found this out, not only did I post it on my Facebook Wall, I emailed a whole lot of people about it. My only desire is that they would take the time to listen. And so, here I go again, making this post. To those who stumble upon this blog, please refer to the sidebars. I placed a widget there where you could listen.

Please do. Intently and prayerfully.

God forbid, we could go on living our lives thinking we are Christians but never know the gospel of grace at all.

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The Noticer by Andy Andrews

I am not the type of reader that would randomly pick a book in my visit to a bookstore . I usually select reads one author at a time at a subject which is reflective on whatever season my life is in.

So given a list of random books to choose from, I hesitated at first but finally chose The Noticer.

Who wouldn’t “notice” it? Apart from the interesting title, someone apparently deemed it the best book she has read in her life! Hence, my decision.

And I was not disappointed!

In the next few hours I found myself glued to it reading chapter by chapter on the wisdom of an old man named Jones. His talent for noticing things seemingly unseen and neglected by most is remarkable; his knack for making the complex simple is extraordinary. But what totally won me over, is his humor.

A few weeks back I wrote an entry entitled “Perspective” and I thought this was exactly what I had in mind – only way better. I realized that this book fit perfectly in this phase of my life and no one could more eloquently put it into words than Andy Andrews – its author did.

Because indeed, sometimes all we need is a just little perspective. And it’s amazing how a little can go a long, long way.

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Tenses

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. - Hebrews 11:6  NAS

When I read the Bible, I wonder what impact it will have on what I understand (or what I think I understand of it,) when I consider that the very Person who inspired its writing, is in fact, beyond time.

What happens to all the verbs that we see here and there?

What do we make of Jewish history taught to us as stories in Sunday School? Of ancient prophecies? Of the promises we were taught in church to claim as our own?

Perhaps, this time, we can understand better.

When both past and future converge to become the eternal present, history becomes personal. It's not simply THEIR story but OURS too. It's not just his loss but mine as well.

And most of all, tomorrow's promises become today's norms.

Maybe, just maybe: this is what it means to have faith in a God who IS.

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In Love

I'm surprised I didn't see this before, but not to spoil what I've found, I am glad I do now.

When an old friend asked me if I was "in love" because of the current shoutout I have on Facebook, I answered with an astounding YES!

Not because I am in anything romantic with anybody, but simply because we all are.

Isn't it amazing?

We literally are IN LOVE.

A universe spoken into existence with a Heart beating for one thing: You. A sky painted anew each day nothing like the days before with one single theme: I love you. An earth created in such intricate detail to make sure that from the tiniest to the enormous, we get to live each day somehow seeing the message, getting a glimpse of the picture.

We live in a world soaked with the love of God. Our every day drenched with his mercy.

So why don't we keep our umbrellas of pride, our raincoats of apathy - and get wet in the Rain?

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Weep

I wept.

Watching the three short clips on "The Forgotten People" by CNN so gripped me, knocked me helpless that I am left with nothing to do but weep.

Here I was worrying when the next big sale in the mall will be, and there they were beaten by Thai military, disowned by their own government and unaccepted by their neighbors.

You know why it hurted so much? Because from each of their eyes I could see Jesus - who was left to die a criminal's death, beaten over and over, rejected by His own people. But this isn't some 2,000 years ago.

This is 2009.

But what are we doing? What is the church doing?

Here we are so busy with keeping up with the world, debating who's got the purest doctrine, competing who's got the best worship team, subtly battling who's got the biggest Sunday attendance.

Here we are busy beating up people with laws and more laws ignoring the fact that we if we got saved by grace, we continue to live by grace.

Here we are occupied with popularity and addicted with people's praise.

Here we are caught up with church splits and quarrels forgetting that out there, maybe not even too far away, people are dying. Literally.

And so they die into an eternity darker than the ones they experienced here because we've become too concerned with lesser things than the One Thing.

Oh may God comfort the troubled and trouble the comfortable!

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Sacrifice

With an entire nation still mourning perhaps its greatest loss, I found myself with a lingering question - what made the late president so endearing that she touched an entire nation?

Many people would probably attribute it to her colossal role in bringing back democracy into a country crippled by tyranny. Or perhaps her indescribable bravery in standing her ground when several power-hungry individuals led coups that attempted to oust her. Or maybe her simple humility in admitting her inexperience or her utter dependence on a God who answers prayer.

With all her achievements both big and small, I see no other reason why she has so moved many not just in this country but all throughout the world - she died long before that fateful day her body succumbed to cancer.

She died to her own ambitions for the sake of her people when she gave up the comforts of being a simple housewife and a private citizen for the tumultuous world of Philippine politics. And yet like in an incredible story so familiar to us that we celebrate it every Lent, in her voluntary death to self, somehow, she lived.

That is why I think she touched so many. Her life echoes that of a Man who gave up his for a people undeserving – a Man whose life now divides history as we know it.

Through her life, we now know that nothing is impossible with God on your side, that fiercest of dictators bow down to the way of peace, that the very purpose of our lives is to lose it in service to others for it to be lived to the full.

And, since you can't really kill a dead person twice, though her remains will go back to dust whence it came from, her spirit - her legacy will surely live on.

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Food

It happens to me all the time.

I go inside a restaurant, order food, and wait. Most of the time, out of quite a long list, what arrives first is the rice - which makes sense as it's the easiest to prepare whether it be yang chow or simply fried.

And within that time of waiting for the rest to arrive, I often wonder, why bother wait?

I don't think my stomach will be able to distinguish the difference from finishing a cup of garlic rice first then the adobo to having a plate that's freshly cooked and mixed by your own hand with that certain oil and a stick (or two) of chicken inasal from Nena's.

Then I realized, we wait because there's more to eating than merely nutrition - than simply breaking things down to proteins, carbos and calories, although I must admit that those are important too.

God gives bread for us to enjoy. So smell it, savor it. If it isn't so, then there won't be any bagels or pitas or pizzas or my personal favorite, hopias. Besides, what's the use of having the ability to differentiate what's sweet, sour, bitter and salty when all we could get from the hours and hours of grueling food preparation, we can acquire from a couple of pills?

Our meals should remind us to bow our heads not just for the feast on our tables but by simply being grateful that while God could've made eating something boring like sneezing - that in just a snap, you're full - He chose not to.

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Perspective

Call it whatever you want, but it simply comes down to perspective.

What the religious call faith, what the motivational speaker call positive thinking and what an awful lot call fate, are all merely different perspectives.

The end of the world for an ant colony who minds their own business in an anthill could simply mean a construction project where mounds were needed to be levelled off. Meanwhile, the project could very well be just one small part of the whole development plan the government has for a city, but to someone in a plane watching from above, well, it's just progress.

Most of the time, I'm being an ant. When my initial EKG results came in and according to our company physician - it showed an MI, I thought that was it for me. Doubts poisoned my mind and fear slowly kicked in. Before I knew it, I was experiencing chest pains I didn't even have before.

But my Bible says, "by His wounds, I am healed."

That He received curse upon curse so that I can have blessing upon blessing. That He received my worst, so that I can have His best. That as He is, so am I in this world.

It's not that my perceived reality is a hoax, it's just that from my perspective, I am not seeing the whole picture. So technically, I have a choice: Do I stick to my own, or adopt Someone else's?

I made a choice. I chose to live in the reality of the One who sees my past, present and future all at once. I chose his perspective of things not because mine was incorrect but was downright incomplete.

So when the final results of tests from a real cardio came in saying that everything is within normal range, I wasn't surprised.

It just made me wonder why doctors call what they do a practice.

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Two Trees

I know, I know. I'm a hypochondriac.

Reading books on diseases had been my favorite past time as a kid that I have nightmares in my sleep of dying from plagues I've read when awake. I used to resolve not to read any of those kind of books anymore, but at the advent of the Internet, I find it hard to resist the temptation to read, and read even more.

Meanwhile, at the slightest pain here, a rash there and a fever, my mind would wander. Though what I'm feeling is far from serious, I'd most likely fulfill my own prophecies of doom by succeeding at one thing - scaring myself to death.

Since I can't stop the urge to keep myself informed, I resolved to focus more on prevention rather than on the ugly part. So, I would inundate myself with health tips and find myself desperately trying to follow every single one of them.

Problem is, I can only follow up to a point. And if ever I could obey everything, most likely, I still won't get the results I really wanted. Hence, the frustration.

Thousands of years have come and gone when the first humans have eaten of the fruit from the forbidden tree, and today, I still find myself doing exactly just the same thing- taking a heavy dose of the pills of knowledge thinking that it would somehow lead me to one thing I so earnestly seek -life.

In this age of information, may we all realize that knowledge of even the good is not enough to give us the lives we so desperately seek. Those 5-step-plan-to-a-better-marriage, or that 3-easy-tips-to-a-younger-you or this book on achieving success or that article on ending an affair won't cut it through when one is face to face with real adversity.

So I say enough eating from that tree. Both it's good and bad fruits all lead to one thing anyways - death.

Now, what about that Other Tree?

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Numbers

I went home today pretty happy that the results of my Annual Physical Exam are normal.

BUN, Creatinine, Total Cholesterol, Uric Acid, Hemoglobin, Hemoticrit and WBC Count all within the normal ranges. My HDL is high and my LDL is low which, by the way, I was told was a good thing.

While I was looking at the pieces of paper handed to me containing the results, I can't help but wonder, "So, is this all there is?"

I mean, is life simply about striking a balance between all these numbers? That's it?

Oftentimes, Christians do the same thing - keep numbers. From the seemingly trivial - number of verses memorized or chapters read every night to the big ones like percentage given as tithes or hours spent in prayer, or number of converts in a religious meeting.

It's funny but really, we have got to stop and ask ourselves the question. And hopefully realize together, that life is not merely about counting as much as living.

Jim Elliot had it nailed when he - in one of his journals in college - asked God not for a LONG life, but a FULL one. I believe we should ask just the same.

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Middleman

Have you ever had someone ask you to pray on their behalf? Well, I do get them a lot.

Growing up, people always think I have this special open communication line to the powers that be. But it was just recently when a friend asked me to pitch in a few good words for her, that I became aware of this fact.

Why do people do this? It's simply because we are obssessed with mediators.

I wonder why we can't simply take Christ at His word when He said, "it is finished"?

Is it because it's too hard to believe that we've been forgiven not because of what we did or are still capable of doing but inspite of us?

While all that needs to be done for the Father to be pleased with us is simply believe in the accomplished work of the Son, we think we can pitch in a few cute acts and catch His attention.

It sure is absurd. Looking back, I scratch my head to how preposterous my filthy briberies look in contrast to the full ransom Christ paid up there on the Cross.

We have got to learn that the veil was torn for a reason.

We all have direct access to the throne of grace. No further mediation needed.

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