There are so many verses on faith and prayer in the Bible. If there’s one theme that stood out for me this week,though, it is that of coming to God like a child. 

What does this look like for us?

To come like a child is to:

1. Come Asking boldly.

If you have kids, you would know exactly what I am talking about when I say that kids have no clue what they are asking for sometimes! For example, they would always tell me, “Let’s go to America tomorrow! I want to see my cousins there!”  as if it were that easy. To them, going to Disneyworld is just like going to the mall. Distance is not an issue. Money is not an issue. Time is not an issue. If they want something, they blurt it out and ask us for it— without hesitation.

I wonder why we don’t do the same, even if it is God himself inviting us to just ask anything in His name??

“Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it!” John 14:14

2. Come with an Expectant Heart.

When kids ask you for something and you say yes, to them it is as good as done. They go on with the rest of their day assured and carefree, knowing that their requests will be granted. Even without written contracts, a single “yes” from you is as good as a deal that is signed, sealed, and delivered.

What about us? Do we come to God with the same kind of expectation and peace?

“For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which means “Yes”) ascends to God for his glory.” 2 Corinthians 1:20

3. Come and Play.

What is one thing that a child never gets tired of? ….Playing, of course! No matter how late it is, as long as you don’t tell them to stop, they would find it in themselves to muster up enough energy to keep on playing. As long as they are at it,  they don’t get bored, they don’t complain (there are occasional fights, yes…that comes with the territory, but that’s another topic altogether), and they are full of joy. Why? Because they are kids! That’s how God wired them, and as long as they are playing, they are being themselves. They don’t have to tidy themselves up to play. There’s no need to concern themselves with “grown-up” issues. They can let their imaginations run free.

God has wired our spirits to pray. Prayer should not be something that bores us, for it is meant to give us joy and to energize us! When we pray, we too, can and should be ourselves. We don’t have to tidy ourselves up before coming to God. We don’t have to concern ourselves with things too overwhelming for us to understand. We don’t need a certain structure in order to pray. We can come and be ourselves for as long as we want.

Do we enjoy our praying time as much as children enjoy their playing time?

“I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” Mark 10:15

Still— you, as a parent who loves them dearly,   listen anyway. Never mind that you were set on finishing that project for the house. Never mind that you were set on doing something else. You stop and listen anyway. It is a joy to see them come running to you. You don’t even notice the messy hair or the runny nose (well, you do, but you listen first and take care of that later). You don’t even notice the fact that sometimes they don’t make sense. You feel what they feel.  You’re the first to rejoice with them when they’re happy. You become sad when you see them crying. You would do anything to comfort them and make them feel safe and secure. You would do all those things because you love them. They are your children.

And they know it.

Our children know that they have complete access to us. They know they can come to you anytime and you would stop and listen to them. (Well, that’s the ideal response. We are but humans who fall short, after all). They know that by virtue of them being your children, they are granted that privilege of barging in (in a better sense of the word).

Sometimes though, our children grow up forgetting they have unlimited access. All of a sudden, they  have to wait for “perfect timing” to ask for their allowance or something they really like or to be allowed to go over their friend’s house. Before the weekend of the party arrives, they stock up on points by being extra nice– helping out with chores and studying really hard– to increase the chances of their requests being granted. A lot of teenagers grow up suddenly forgetting that they can come talk to their parents about anything and everything. They filter out what they think their parents would consider as “bad” stuff and share only the good. Instead of acting like children–members of the family, they begin behaving like boarders who just happen to stay and be  under the care of their parents.

When we started out in our walk with God, realizing what Jesus has done for us and that through Him we have been made children of God, there was no limit to our asking. We would be so excited to tell God everything– every desire, every disappointment, every detail of our lives.

Then we “grow older”. We forget about this unlimited access and we try once again to “earn” God’s favor by stocking up on points. We start editing what we say, as if He doesn’t see and know everything. We act as if there’s only a certain time when we can come talk to Him.

It’s my prayer that we would never grow old when it comes to our faith in God. I pray that we will always be like little children and know that we can come to God anytime, anywhere–  no matter how messy we look or how inconvenient the timing seems to be, or how difficult it is for us to articulate ourselves. I pray that we will always remember that by virtue of us being children of God (through the cross of Christ), we now have complete access to God, and we have the awesome privilege of barging in anytime, anywhere.

…And our Heavenly Father, our perfect Father whose ways and thoughts are far beyond our own (and who is beyond our capacity to disturb and interrupt)— is more than willing to listen.

…And yes, He is going to wipe off the tears and the runny nose, too.  :)

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:16

When Jesus made this invitation for us to come, it was with the premise that most probably, His people would be weary. He knew that the greater percentage of us who would be needing this invitation had a profile of this kind: tired, confused, weary, burdened. If He had expected otherwise, He would have given us this invitation instead: “Come to me, all you who have got it all figured out in life, and I will give you rest.”

But no. He didn’t say that.  He has extended his welcome for those who realize that they do not have it all figured out. He has long been inviting those who acknowledge that this life has left them tired, sometimes confused, and most probably overwhelmed.

This loving Jesus— God the Son who saw it fit to walk through this earth, had actually lived long enough in this world to know every possible temptation and burden we might face. This loving Jesus— God the Son who counted it a joy to give His life for us, actually knows –I mean, really knows– what it is like to live life in this fallen world. This loving Jesus— God the Son who is now reigning on His throne in heaven is telling us, inviting us, welcoming us….to come. No need to figure it out just yet…just come.

And that’s not the end of it.  Here’s the promise: I will give you rest.

Rest for our minds, rest for our bodies, rest for our hearts, rest for our spirits….REST.

Peace… joy… security… REST.

“Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.” Hebrews 4:1

I encourage you, come enter His rest today.

Also….drink lots of water!

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photo: crossmap.com

Every start of the year, our church calls on everyone (whoever wants to join) to go on a seven-day prayer and fasting. This is the time when we consecrate ourselves to God corporately, and together we believe God for breakthroughs in every area of our lives. In line with this, we usually make a list of the many things we are believing God for– be it in the area of ministry, family, health, finances, etc. We call this our “faith goals“. This list is usually an acknowledgement that “with man, it is impossible; But with God, all things are possible!”.

I hope I didn’t confuse you even more with that explanation, but let me move on and get back to my point…

Over dinner, Dennis and I began to wonder how it must have been like when people of the Bible fasted. Did they have a set of lists, too? Or did they just come with expectant hearts, ready to ask God boldly, yet also willing to surrender to whatever God said– completely?

For the past years, I’ve diligently listed down my faith goals. It’s always been an extensive list of the many things I am believing God for, broken into categories to make sure I don’t miss out any detail nor any area of my life. That’s just my O.C. self, and it’s been working well. It was always the case that just before the fast, God would impress upon my heart the “theme” he had for me for that particular year. (Last year, for example, it was Joshua. “Be strong and courageous.”– I had no doubt that was God’s charge for me. True enough, that was the word I needed to hold on to last year!).  That’s how it’s been almost every year.

This year, however, is a bit different. I haven’t come up with a list yet, and I feel that God wants me to come with a blank list.

He wants me to come EMPTY. 

He wants to be the one to make the list. Instead of coming to God with a set of things I want to ask Him for this year, He just wants me to just come to Him, period. He wants me to come to Him– completely surrendered and ready to take His marching orders. He wants me to come to Him– to seek Him, to be fully satisfied with Him.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

From there I have no doubt I will still end up with a list after the fast– but this time it will not be a list of what I want to ask Him for, but a list of His desires made my own. It will be a list of His plans revealed for me to obey. It will be a list of His promises for me to just walk into. Breakthrough will be inevitable then, and just like the Psalmist says…

“SURELY, goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life.”

Enjoy your water everyone!  

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photo: blurredhistory.blogspot.com

I grew up having the mindset that if failure can be avoided, then why not just avoid it? I have never been a risk-taker. I always made sure that if I were to get into something, I had to excel at that thing, or at the very least, get average results. I have never dared to commit myself to something I wasn’t 100% sure about, never tried anything unless I knew I had a big chance of being excellent in whatever that was. I have never failed an exam from kindergarten to college. I have never attended a recognition day without getting an award of some sort. I have never seen red ink on my card. Never.

… And for me, I was doing just great because I never had to experience failure. I thought I was very wise, being able to calculate my steps and live my life so cautiously. I thought I would surely go far and accomplish great things because I always count the cost and plan my steps carefully. I thought, I thought, I thought…. Wow. How I thought wrong.

I didn’t know that as I kept telling myself to “never fail, I couldn’t fail, I must not fail“— that all the while, I have been failing. I failed to seize the opportunities, I failed to experience new things that life had to offer, I failed to grow.

Failure is a necessary event of life. I call it an event, because it is temporary. Failures do not necessarily have to define who we are. A failure is just a signal for us to get off that horse, and move on to try another one.

It is important for us parents to be able to communicate to our children that it is okay to fail. Oftentimes as parents, we try to “shield” our children from having to experience failure— because we love them, because we don’t want them to go through the pain, because we want to spare them from what we had to go through growing up, or maybe because we feel that their failure could be a reflection of our failure as parents. Whatever it may be, we have to let go of those reasons and accept the fact that as human beings living on planet earth, it is inevitable that we experience failure if we are to grow and learn. The only way for us to avoid failure is to stay stuck, to stay put, to live with the status quo.

We want to raise children who, instead of being afraid to fail, are secure enough to embrace the failure, get up, shake it off, and move on. We want to raise children who are not afraid to grow, to learn, and to live life.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to comprehend why you came here for us. It’s one of the things I won’t even try to wrap my mind around anymore. I just know that because of what you did, I am now free…and I am now living life to the full. My entire lifetime will not be enough to say THANK YOU JESUS, but good thing there’s eternity for that… I love you!!!!

Merry Christmas to all!

 ” The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.”

-Psalm 9:9

Here is the link to my previous post which includes a short list of ways we can help CDO.

This Saturday, December 24, 2011, Victory Greenhills will be having our Christmas Eve service at the fourth floor of Vmall, Greenhills, San Juan (at 4 pm). The entire Christmas eve service offering will go to helping CDO.

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Photo credits: Fellow citizens of CDO. Thank you to Schen Baban for the permission to post.

I’ll get straight to the point. It’s easy to feel compassion for these people, but we all know that our compassion should lead us into action. Without the latter, our emotions would only remain as such.

Below is a short list of groups who have taken it upon themselves to help provide ways in which we can reach out to the people of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City: (Please click on the links for more details)

1. Right Start, a foundation we are supporting in Victory Greenhills,  will be doing Relief Operations at CDO next week to help those who were badly affected by the Storm.

They are now accepting donations:

Bank of Philippine Islands account under RIGHT START COMMUNITY DEV’T INC. – Account Number: 004021-0129-42

Banco de Oro: account under RIGHT START COMMUNITY DEV’T INC. — Account Number: 2030132221

DOLLAR ACCOUNT:
Banco de Oro under account name:
Right Start Community Dev’t Inc.
account number: 102030129115

2. The Philippine Red Cross

3. LBC Foundation

4. ABS-CBN Sagip Kapamilya

5. TV5 Alagang Kapatid Foundation

6. My cousins and relatives have opened their building to accept donations of goods too. Should you wish to send used clothing, water, medicines, milk, crackers, diapers, blankets, you get the picture….you may do so  by dropping them off at St. John’s Place Building, 66 Hernandez St., Pasay City (Along FB Harisson St. and beside San Juan de Dios Hospital)

7. This is a post I copied from one of my friends who is based in the States:

A memo has now been released to all LBC Branches in the US and Canada. Here are the instructions given to me when shipping the boxes for free to Cagayan de Oro:

(1) All boxes must be addressed to:
Attention Jose Garcia
LBC Hari ng Padala Foundation
LBC Hangar, General Aviation Center
Domestic Airport Compound
Pasay City, Philippines

(2) Contents must contain NO LIQUIDS. High Priority items are canned goods, blankets and toiletries.

(3) Sizes of allowable boxes are: Canada 21 x 21 x 25 or smaller, US East Coast 28 x 18 x 17 or smaller, and West Coast 24 x 18 x 18

(4) You MUST drop the boxes at your local LBC Branch. Please refer to this website for your local LBC Branch: http://www.lbcexpress.com/contents/USA/

(5) The boxes will arrive in 45 days. LBC Foundation will deliver the donated items directly to the Relief Centers and NGOs of Cagayan de Oro.

*** EDIT ***

8. TS- Relief Ops

They are accepting relevant information related to the disaster relief operations. You may join them in their Facebook Group Mata na, CDO at this link : https://www.facebook.com/groups/250406188342713 . They are also accepting collaborators for this document, email brent@cdo.linux.org.ph or evansyonson@gmail.com

9. For those who do no currently reside in the Philippines, Yahoo News has an article that includes a list of international organizations you can give to.

10. The Association of Philippine Volunteer Fire Brigade Inc. is also accepting donations in cash or in kind. Their office is at 2142 Leveriza St., Manila. Interested parties may call the brigade emergency number 5222222 for more information. A team of volunteers from Manila will be going on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011 for relief operations both in CDO and Iligan City.

11. Operation Compassion is responding to disaster by sending a rapid assessment team and donations to the affected areas. They would appreciate both your prayers and early response to the disaster through cash or kind. You may send your donations to: BP OPERATION COMPASSION INTL.INC , bpi account 3321-0178-34.

….If you know of any more groups you wish to add to this list, let me know.  :)

Thank you!

I always look forward to Christmas! I look forward to all the time spent with family and friends, giving of gifts, sharing of lives, delicious food, and of course, celebrating and remembering the very reason why I get to live life to its fullest every day of the year— Jesus!

I doubt that I will ever outgrow this fascination that I have for Christmas. I get all giddy everyday as I, together with the kids, countdown to Christmas morning. What brings me more joy is seeing the kiddos just as excited as I am!

Ever since Alyanna turned three, we have started counting down the days to Christmas starting every first of December. In the previous years, we used envelopes that the girls “designed” using Christmas-themed rubber stamps. We then hung them on a string with wooden clothespins.  We also made “lift-the-flap” calendars using an illustration board that we dazzled up with glitters. I would love to show you pictures, but unfortunately, they were in the hard drive that crashed.

This year, I found wedding favor mini-buckets that are perfect for my color-scheme at home….white! Here’s a photo of it:

I just cut out old ribbons that I’ll never get to use anymore because of the length (bitin!) and some red Japanese paper. Into the mini-bucket they went, together with a sheet of paper saying what activity or surprise awaits the kids each day.  We’ve already done seven so far.

Ooh, I can’t wait for tomorrow!

There seems to be a pattern with me here…. Each time it nears Christmas, I go AOL. I could go on and try to state valid reasons why this is so, but I won’t go there. Suffice it to say that I barely have had the time to stay on the computer long enough since for the past month or so, the kids and I have practically been everywhere else but home. Dennis has been reminding me to at least drop a note here  just to let everyone else know that I am still alive, but…uh….well…hehe…..you know how it is sometimes. (Read: I got lazy! *blush*)  ;)

Anyway, here is a quick update:

- I missed this!!!! I suddenly realized how much I missed writing and sharing my thoughts with the hopes of being able to structure them somehow!

- I am hoping to have a new look for this site….Do watch out for that. Maybe in time for the new year??

-  I just came from a writing seminar by Salt and Light Ventures. Yes, a writing seminar where they tell you to just write and write. This led to some form of guilt on my part, which then turned into a longing to once again spend more than two minutes in this WordPress interface. Hence, this post.

- I hope to get back to writing more! So help me God.

- I just finished finalizing everything I’d be needing for the Christmas season.

What?!?! Just now?? Shame on you, Thammie!

….Yes. As I’ve said, I’ve been everywhere and I am actually quite surprised that I got to finish decorating the house and preparing all the activities for the kids! I was able to do in four  or five days what usually took me a week or two in the previous years to finish. (Side note: Usually, my Christmas shopping is done by May, and my Christmas decorations are up by the end of October….except for these past two years. I hope to get back to my “normal” timetable next year. Key word: Hope.)

- I want to try to get pregnant again starting next month. Baby boy, come to momma!!!

- I plan to enjoy all the Christmas parties and yet experience a miracle of not gaining weight by the end of the month. Who’s with me??