Here are the excerpts from Mark 8: 22-26 the story of Jesus healing a blind man in Bethsaida.

Be healed and be changed!

…some people brought a blind man to Jesus, and…begged him to touch the man and heal him. Jesus took the blind man…spitting on the man’s eyes…and asked. “Can you see anything now?”

The man looked around, “Yes,” he said, “I see people, but I can’t see them very clearly. They look like trees walking around.”

Then Jesus placed his hand on the man’s eyes again, and his eyes were opened. His sight was completely restored, and he could see everything clearly.

Insights:
1. When people trust Jesus, they lead others to Him too, because they need healing in many areas of their lives!

Questions: Do you trust Him enough that you just can’t help but led your family members, friends and colleagues to Him? What makes you afraid of leading them to Jesus?

2. There are times when God changes something in your life He leaves areas unchanged to allow you to trust Him more by honestly telling Him how you feel about it. A person with deep relationship with Jesus can tell Him the good and bad, the best and worst parts of his life.

Questions: Do you trust Him enough that you can tell Him what you really feel and see? Or are you still hesitant to tell Him everything? What can you do to have that intimate relationship with Him that you can tell everything…EVERYTHING…to Him?

3. God is more than willing to COMPLETELY heal and change you no matter what it is!

Question: Do you believe that He can do that change and healing in your life now? Are you willing to take the risk of believing completely on Him for that change and healing?

Tricycle of Manila

Totok of Bangkok

I find a very close similarity between these two mediums of transport in these two different Asian cities.

Both are three-cycled vehicles. Both have almost the same design, materials used in their construct and finishing touches. Both are micro-taxis that can deliver us to the very gates or doors where we wanted to go.

But there are also differences I see, toktok has more space than the Metro Manila’s tricycle.  On travelling, our tricycle cannot traverse the big national roads, such as EDSA, while toktok can travel in the main thorough fares of Bangkok and can even go to it’s Central Business Districts.

While riding the tricycle earlier and remembering my toktok ride, I had the following spontaneous reflections…

Journeying in these transportations is quite risky because those compete with bigger and more powerful vehicles. There is danger of being hit by cars and big public utility such as the jeepneys and the buses.  Yet we depend and trust the expert drivers of these cities’ micro-transportations.

Same as with our lives’ journeys, we encounter along the way more powerful and greater challenges than we are, but we are assured by depending on the expert Driver, Pilot and Navigator of our lives- JESUS! With Him we can be assured of the travel as safe and sound. And if ever there will be troubles on the way He can maneuver the vehicle to the best route possible to reach our destination!

As with traveling by tricycle and toktok I just enjoy the wind and the microcosms on the way that I won’t notice riding the bigger vehicles!

So as with our life’s journey, let us just enjoy our life’s travel with Jesus!

A picture during an earthquake!

If you are indoors stay there!

When I was a little boy, I was taught that the safest place indoor during earthquake is under a table, yet lately there was an unofficial report that the best place to be during earthquake is at a receiving room seating set (sofa) and lie down in a fetal position. Why is it safe? Number one is, it is with foam thus soft; two, there is an angled backrest that can protect you from the crashing of the wall or falling of grand household accessories such as furniture and appliances.

While indoor, stay away from the windows and the kitchen. Do not run down the stairways, ride an elevator or get out of a building while the tremor is going on.

If you are outside – get into the open!

Get away from buildings, power lines, towering structures or anything that might fall on you.

If you are  in a car or a bus call the attention of the driver to stop but it should be as far out of traffic as possible, not on or under a bridge, over pass or big tress, light and electric posts or signages. Stay inside the vehicle until the shaking stops.

If you are in a mountainous area.

Watch out for falling rocks, landslides, trees, and other debris that could be loosened by quakes.

Always be calm because only then can you be alert and have the presence of mind which are the important factors to survive calamities and disasters.

Next blog will be about what to do after the earthquake.

We can prepare for this too!

The fearful feelings of people are heightened by apocalyptic movies & predictions, the likes of 2012 and others. Religious end-times fanatics are on the feast – so, on the later part of “Successive Earthquakes” blogs I will give some layman-spiritual insight about it. I have posted also a blog about why God allowed earthquakes to happen? (Check out: http://prudy.graceplace.ph/god-allowed-the-earthquake-in-haiti ).

When I was a kid these are the things I was afraid of during earthquakes: the idea of a disastrous earthquake itself (I panic, who isn’t?), the earth opening up and swallowing me alive, be separated from my parents or one of them becoming a casualty, being dizzy and lastly if I die I might not be saved (I’ll talk about this last item on the latter posts).

After a losing fight with panicking and being dizzy, I just resolved to jumping up and down during the earthquake duration so I won’t feel the earth’s movement. Or I climbed the nearest Aratiles (wild Philippine sweet-berries) tree, and just imagine that the tree is just swayed by the wind! Smart isn’t it?

Today, let me share with you simple to do things during an earthquake from my informal research on it. I found out that there are three areas on how to be prepared to this unwelcome natural phenomenon [1] before [2] during, and [3] after the earthquake.

• On 1, we’ve learn to the best that we can not to panic. I don’t know how are we going to do that, but the best so far that I know is to trust in God, that no matter what, He is in control of uncontrollable forces of nature.
• Second is to have a family contingency plan if an earthquake occurs. Locate the safest place inside your house during the quake and make it a point that everyone goes there. Or if it happens during the working hours, when everyone is outside, have a location (rendezvous spot) where you can meet within the day, in the circumstance that mobile communications won’t function.
• Prepare a striking color bag (preferably backpack) with emergency items, torch (battery powered), emergency medicine, light food, such as few canned goods and crackers, have candies and bottled water too. Place it in an easy accessible location within your house.
• And lastly, be courageous and brave as we don’t know what will happen during these disasters. Be ready also to help other people who are more damaged and unfortunate than you are.

On my next post I will share things to do during earthquakes.

Just one very graphic picture of the aftermath in the terrible Haiti Earthquake!

Some people sent me messages regarding the earthquake in Haiti.  They asked questions about God! Specially when Pat Robertson made an unpopular comment which gathered a lot of unfavorable responses from non-Christians and Christians alike.

People became more aware of God and questioned His existence, abilities, powers, His omnipotence and omniscience because of this tragedy and other natural and man-made calamities: storms, flooding, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, forest fire, wars, bombings, brutal crimes, massacres, sea vessels’ tragedies and many others!

I have posted a blog in my other site when typhoon Ondoy devasted the National Capital Region of the Philippines with deadly and destructive flood last September 2009. I am re-posting it here:

How can we answer the question, “Why does a perfect, good and all-powerful God whom we believe and trust allows tragic disasters to happen?”

I’ve learned some things from the Bible, that I think, presented 3 simple but profound answers:

[1] The world is evil, not because of God’s creation or His will, but because of the evil forces, that is against Him, and mankind’s wrong choices.  On the latter point, I’m talking about the choices of the first man & woman when they choose not to follow God’s guidelines.  It was a bad choice and unfortunately in doing so, the natural movement of the forces of nature abandoned the good plans of God too, a very unfortunate consequence but real.

[2] On the other hand, God is in pain and suffers with us because He cares for those who are suffering in the midst of tragedies. That is why He touches the hearts of the people who have the capacity & capability to help! Through them He extends His assistance. Let us become aware that it is always a privilege to be of help!

[3] Lastly, God’s purpose is to make one day to do away with evil that caused all of these disasters.

I look forward to that time when eventually God will say, “Enough is enough, those evil things has to stop now!” I hope and pray that many of us are looking forward for that to happen. May it be  very soon!