I love to have my brisk walk outdoors weekly. That is when God speaks to me through the nature. I tend to have racing mind where I find myself almost impossible to slow down. Though I will still be thinking things while brisk walking, I am with God through the nature. I always love to see the ever changing clouds in the sky. This tells me that God's love for me will come in different forms just like how the clouds come in different shapes. Sometimes, I do find encouragement and strength through His Word. Sometimes, I do see His face behind the kindness and loving words and actions from the people to me. At other times, God speaks to me through the events happening in my life, etc. I find God's different forms of Love expressed to me interesting. I guess I will never know what other surprises He will be giving me. I guess this is what it means to be immersing oneself into the mystery of Love without trying to rationalize what it is all about. All it takes is just faith of a mustard for oneself to trust that God knows me the best and allows the Holy Spirit to work freely in me.
I love to brisk walk early in the morning where the sun still has not risen yet. The reason is I love to see the sun rising out of darkness gradually and appearing to shine on my face. I can see God smiling to me through the sun and allow God to embrace me through the warmth and light from the sun on me. Somehow, no words can describe the joy and peace deep within whenever the sun rises gradually and embraces me. In fact, even the words like 'joy' and 'peace' are way too weak to describe the awe that nature expresses God's love. I feel very in tune and one with God during such moments. This is something which money can never buy and it is free of charge. This means that grace from God does not need to be earned. Rather, it is God's gift for me as a child of God. He loves me as who I am. Why am I so sure? Because He does not choose who the sun should shine on. It shines on everyone, sinners or not, child of God or not. Rather, anyone and everyone can experience the nature of Love if we care to slow down and appreciate such gift. It is our free will to choose what we would like to experience.
I also love the breeze that I experience at times while brisk walking. Lifting all my worries, burdens and fears through prayers to God during such times is therapeutic to me. I can imagine God is carrying all these fears, worries and burdens within me away with the breeze during those moments. I don't mean that these worries, burdens and fears will disappear. Instead, it is God's way for me to take a break away from such situations for me to rest in Him. Through the breeze, He is whispering, 'Do not be afraid. Come to me and I will give you rest.' It works wonders especially when I close my eyes to experience His gentle breeze of Love. After such tender moments, I am always rejuvenated and become stronger to face these burdens, worries and fears in my life. Such spiritual breaks also allow my brain to come up with creative ideas to overcome these worries, burdens and fears after that.
Sometimes, I also enjoy brisk walking with my friend where I am reminded that I don't walk alone in my life journey. I do need companion at times to walk with me and share this wonder with one another. Different people will come into my life as companions to walk with me. Only God knows the best who should walk with me during different stages of my life. Sometimes, detachment from some people who are very close to me when called forth may be painful and yet it is essential so that other people can walk with me and I also allow my loved ones to walk with the others for both them and me to exprience God in different ways. If I choose to possess them, I may be depriving them and myself and even other people who could have the opportunities to experience God with them or me of sharing God's Love and thus, hindering the expansion of God's Kingdom.
God does speak to me through the nature. Well, it is up to me to choose to be take time to be with Him through the nature or miss the opportunities of allowing Him to spend time with me through His embrace through the nature.
With Love,
Elena
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The Spiritual Buffet
Buffet is well liked in Singapore. Most of us enjoy eating and variety. Buffet hits the jackpot. When we step into the restaurant, we see the variety of mouth watering food. I always hit the dessert counters first whenever I go for buffets. Life is just like a buffet. We are bombarded by so many choices daily. Simple things like whether we choose to stay back at the office to work or go home and spend more time with the family at home are the choices that we have to make. And, all these choices are made based on our preferences, values and priorities. Sometimes, we may be so overwhelmed by so many decisions to be made and activities going around endlessly that we may fall sick, just like how we try to stuff food into our stomach with limited space and suffer from indigestion later on. We are still human beings afterall with our own limited capacity.
The world is very attractive with its material luxuries waiting to lure us everyday. Imagine all your desired items are waving at you to get them home. Just like at buffet, the marinated and well cooked meat and fattening desserts are waiting to get into our stomach. Too much of them in the long run will result in sickness like high cholestrol level, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc. God has never mentioned that we can't enjoy the material comfort. I believe that since God allows these material comfort and luxuries to exist, they are meant to be enjoyed. However, the question is 'To what extent do we enjoy these material wants and yet not indulging at the expense of everything else?'
At buffet, it is always good to have some fruits and vegetables and water for balance beside taking in the rubbish. These fruits and vegetables and water will help us to clear all the rubbish from our bodies in the end due to the fibre in them. Therefore, spiritual life must come in to balance our lives so that we will not indulge so much into the material world that we get ourselves corrupted by the worldly values, losing our spiritual lives. How do we find these spiritual vegetables and fruits and water? These are none other than our sacraments and scriptures and teachings. They are meant to purify us spiritually so that we may not stray too far away from God. The ten commandments are meant to be acting like a healthy diet menu for us to keep ourselves healthy. They are meant to free us from the spiritual diseases. Sins are just like viruses which attack us spiritually when we are strayed by the worldly values such as it is good to possess more and more of money (regardless of moral values), going higher up the social status (while hurting others), etc. When we are not careful, we will fall sick. Such sickness manifest in the forms of divisons in the community, bad fruits of hatred, anger, destruction, wars, death, etc. They will spread to others through our wilful and destructive actions, words and behaviour like plagues.
God is the spiritual Nutritionist and Physician. He knows what is the best for us. There must be a balance in our lives. Of course, God has never asked us to be puritans where we abstain ourselves from all the material wants and comforts, neither does He want us to be epicureans who only seek material indulgence. When we keep close to God by spending time with Him regularly, we are allowing time for ourselves to monitor our spiritual health and seek guidance from God to make appropriate adjustments to our spiritual health, such as going for a retreat when we are getting too drained out or going for Taize Prayer for some peace to our racing minds, etc. We allow God to heal us slowly through the sacraments and His Word when we are hurt by the others and matters in the harsh world. He also heal us through people when we need spoken words and concrete loving actions to tenderize us through our five senses. We need one another to remind us and advise us to to stay close to God.
Only God knows what we need the best. We don't have to stuff ourselves like gluttons to death. All things and people come as gifts from God and He will know when it is apppropriate to give us the things and people at different times for us to enjoy and digest properly. If it is meant to be for us, nobody can snatch it away from us. God can never be confined. Someimes, by seemingly losing certain things and people, God is giving us something greater. We can't possibly stomach everything. It alludes to we have to pass out the waste for other food to get into our bodies to give us the necessary nutrition. Our bodies need different nutrients at different stages. For instance, we may need more vitamin C now to build up immune system as we have just recovered from flu and we may need more iron to replenish our blood after losing blood from injuries later on. We just need to have the faith of a 'mustard seed' in God to give us the food that we need gradually. Only God knows the best. Trust yourself completely in God and you will stay young and healthy where the radiance comes from the Light within without any Botox from the world.
With Love,
Elena
The world is very attractive with its material luxuries waiting to lure us everyday. Imagine all your desired items are waving at you to get them home. Just like at buffet, the marinated and well cooked meat and fattening desserts are waiting to get into our stomach. Too much of them in the long run will result in sickness like high cholestrol level, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc. God has never mentioned that we can't enjoy the material comfort. I believe that since God allows these material comfort and luxuries to exist, they are meant to be enjoyed. However, the question is 'To what extent do we enjoy these material wants and yet not indulging at the expense of everything else?'
At buffet, it is always good to have some fruits and vegetables and water for balance beside taking in the rubbish. These fruits and vegetables and water will help us to clear all the rubbish from our bodies in the end due to the fibre in them. Therefore, spiritual life must come in to balance our lives so that we will not indulge so much into the material world that we get ourselves corrupted by the worldly values, losing our spiritual lives. How do we find these spiritual vegetables and fruits and water? These are none other than our sacraments and scriptures and teachings. They are meant to purify us spiritually so that we may not stray too far away from God. The ten commandments are meant to be acting like a healthy diet menu for us to keep ourselves healthy. They are meant to free us from the spiritual diseases. Sins are just like viruses which attack us spiritually when we are strayed by the worldly values such as it is good to possess more and more of money (regardless of moral values), going higher up the social status (while hurting others), etc. When we are not careful, we will fall sick. Such sickness manifest in the forms of divisons in the community, bad fruits of hatred, anger, destruction, wars, death, etc. They will spread to others through our wilful and destructive actions, words and behaviour like plagues.
God is the spiritual Nutritionist and Physician. He knows what is the best for us. There must be a balance in our lives. Of course, God has never asked us to be puritans where we abstain ourselves from all the material wants and comforts, neither does He want us to be epicureans who only seek material indulgence. When we keep close to God by spending time with Him regularly, we are allowing time for ourselves to monitor our spiritual health and seek guidance from God to make appropriate adjustments to our spiritual health, such as going for a retreat when we are getting too drained out or going for Taize Prayer for some peace to our racing minds, etc. We allow God to heal us slowly through the sacraments and His Word when we are hurt by the others and matters in the harsh world. He also heal us through people when we need spoken words and concrete loving actions to tenderize us through our five senses. We need one another to remind us and advise us to to stay close to God.
Only God knows what we need the best. We don't have to stuff ourselves like gluttons to death. All things and people come as gifts from God and He will know when it is apppropriate to give us the things and people at different times for us to enjoy and digest properly. If it is meant to be for us, nobody can snatch it away from us. God can never be confined. Someimes, by seemingly losing certain things and people, God is giving us something greater. We can't possibly stomach everything. It alludes to we have to pass out the waste for other food to get into our bodies to give us the necessary nutrition. Our bodies need different nutrients at different stages. For instance, we may need more vitamin C now to build up immune system as we have just recovered from flu and we may need more iron to replenish our blood after losing blood from injuries later on. We just need to have the faith of a 'mustard seed' in God to give us the food that we need gradually. Only God knows the best. Trust yourself completely in God and you will stay young and healthy where the radiance comes from the Light within without any Botox from the world.
With Love,
Elena
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