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We are all prone to change. We all make mistakes. We change our mind, our decisions, even our promises. We too may not be truthful in our words and actions.

Hence, when one puts one’s trust and hope on another, it is possible for him to experience disappointments.

It is only when one puts one’s trust, hope and life on God the Source of Life and the Creator of heaven and earth, that one can be rest assured of HIS promises and words, for HE is unchanging, loving, almighty, true and eternal.

In our world today, it’s hard to find justice and righteousness. And so, we’re to remember this :

- Never look for righteousness in the other person, but never cease to be righteous yourself.

- When people tell us, “Do your duty”, the Bible teaches us something that is of a more noble value, “Do what is beyond your duty”.

- We are always looking for justice, yet the essence of teaching in the Bible is - Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.

We can’t change the world. But we can make a positive difference to those whose lives have crossed our path.

Let’s be a blessing.

There are all sorts of people. Those who can inspire, encourage and make our day. And of course there are those too whose words, actions or attitudes just seem to break our day.

If we were to meet those who seem to be filled with hatred, envy and negativity, let us not be affected by their negative attitude to life.

How we see life and everything that happens - which includes the bitterness and struggles that are part and parcel of it - depends highly on our own perception and attitude to life.

Do we tend to rely on self, clinging strongly on to our own hopes and dreams, forgetting to put our life in God’s hands and simply trust that He definitely knows what is best for us.

…

Yes it is easier said than done, but I’m willing to learn. With God’s help.

If you expect your children to think and behave more ‘adult-like’ BEFORE they’re developmentally ready to perform them, we’re in a way threatening their sense of emotional security.

Trying to meet parents’ expectations but not yet ‘ready’ to do so is commonly experienced by all kids.

Drinking from a cup, eating with a spoon and tying shoes cannot be done before brain and muscles are ready.

And sometimes they may simply be genetically and developmentally unique and special.

As much as parents expose, teach and help a child to grow and develop, it is possible that he doesn’t ‘perform’ as we ‘hope’.

He may not yet start cruising at 10 months, nor as tall as his peers at 2 years, and not yet know his alphabets at three years of age. But despite all that, he is just as special as others who seem to be ‘more advanced for their age’.

Each child has their own unique timetable for developing, as well as their very own personalities, abilities and ways of learning.

The question is :
Do we see our child as unique and do we accept him just the way he is created, while at the same time positively encouraging him to continually explore and develop his potentials and letting him see our unconditional love and acceptance of him?

We all constantly experience ups and downs in our lives. And while we’re still in this world, none of us can truly be exempted from life’s difficulties.

The Bible writes how a good and honest man like Joseph seemed to have not been ‘blessed’, at least not in ways that we normally would expect. He was sold as a slave, and he was thrown to jail too.

Joseph loves God but yet in the eyes of our world, he was unfairly treated.

If we only look at parts of Joseph’s life, and not as a whole, we will never understand God’s wonderful plans. It is only when we look at his life as a whole that we can see and find out God’s guidance.

A good song can’t be thoroughly understood and enjoyed if we only hear a few seconds of it. To understand how grand and wonderful a particular symphony, we must listen to it from start to end.

The same thing applies when we’re observing a painting. To understand its beauty, we need to stand back and look at the painting as a whole, not focus on just a small part of it and enlarge that particular part with a magnifying glass.

This is how we should look at our life as well. We should look at it as a ‘whole’.

When we experience difficulties today, don’t be quick to complain and ask, ‘Where are you God?’, because God’s reply will most likely be, ‘You wait and see. i am the Master of history. I am the One who care and guide you throughout your whole life.’

Let’s put our life and our trust in Him, who is the Giver and Source of life.

Be thankful if we ever get to experience hardships in life, because it’s when we go through struggles and difficult situations that we learn how to ‘fight’ and survive our daily ups and downs.

Just like how a would-be butterfly has to struggle inside its ‘casing’ before it emerges from the cocoon.

Life, more often than not, is tough. For most people at least. But whether or not we continually grow and learn from life, it all depends on us and our attitude to life itself.

As the highest level of created beings, we are ‘given’ a conscience, morality, a longing (to find the truth and purpose in life and in everything that happens in our lives) amongst many other attributes.

We are high morale beings who know what is right and what is wrong.

The problem is, after humans fell into sin, the things that we know as ‘good’ tend to remain as ‘ideals’ in our head, and we have this strong urge and tendency to do what we know as wrong (and even after we ‘regret’ our actions afterwards, we tend to repeat the same mistakes again and again).

It really is like we’re bound by our own sinful nature, and we’re not able to break free. It’s a constant struggle in the inside of every one of us.

Religions around the world teach us what is good, the good things we should do to ourselves and to others, the things that we should do in order to be a better person, a better being.

BUT unfortunately religions cannot fix our sinful nature.

This is why Jesus Christ came to find us, to give us hope, strength and life, and to redeem and break us free from our sinful being.

So that although we constantly face struggles between what we know is right and wrong (throughout our lives), we who trust and believe in HIM will have the strength to fight through it and do what’s right!

Let’s trust and hold on to HIM who can give you strength, hope and life.

Note:
Sunday’s Food for Thought posts are mostly inspired by sermons delivered every Sunday at our church.

We reap what we sow, hence if we want a better future, then we need to start working on it TODAY.

The same goes with raising our kids.

If we want our little ones to grow and be young men and women who live out their faith and life principles faithfully, and who aren’t easily discouraged by life’s struggles and difficulties, then the way we bring them up TODAY, the kind of teachings they receive, and the kind of living examples we parents show every day will play a significant part in their life in the latter years.

Little children do not ask for their parents to be rich. They don’t resent their mom for not being pretty. They will not choose whom they wish to have as their parents.

But, all little children expect this : fairness.

They will not accept favouritism in the family. When they see how a parent prefers one brother better than the other, it’ll hurt them deeply. They’re sensitive towards such treatments.

They’ll feel unloved. And to them, it’d be like being psychologically hurt.

[Just like in the case of Jacob's family in the Bible, where Joseph, whom Jacob the father 'preferred the most' amongst all his other brothers, was resented - and later sold to foreigners - by his jealous brothers]

…
When there are more than one child in the family, we as parents are expected to be as fair as we can towards them.

But given the complicated and unique situation each family has, ‘being 100% fair and wise at all times‘ tends to be tougher that one may think.

Despite the challenges we face though, let us try our very best as parents to be fair to each and every little one, for we know that it is the right thing to do, as loving parents to those whom God has entrusted.

Whether we like or not, in general we all have ever been ‘pretentious’.

When we’re alone or amongst people who don’t personally know us, our true characters often come out more naturally, compared to when we’re amongst people whom we’d want to impress.

When we’re amongst these certain people, our actions and words may even be ‘more holy’ than usual.

Yes it is normal and culturally understood if we act more naturally, say, when we’re at home, than when we’re at the office or at a party.

But a more important point that we need to think about is : when we think no one is looking, what do we do? when we’re in a place where we think no one knows the real us, what do we do?

Truth is, God sees everything. And God knows even the tiniest thought that goes through our mind.

So let’s be accountable and responsible for our life, words and actions. Even when ‘no one’ is looking.