Be Prepared

There is this infamous saying, “God helps those who help themselves.”

First of all, I need to say that the above statement is entirely unblibical. Nowhere in the Bible will you ever find these words or even the idea of it. I mean, if we can help ourselves, we certainly do not need God, and it has long been proven that Man can not really help ourselves. Just look at the financial and enviromental problems we have, not to mention the issues of war, terrorism, AIDS etc etc etc.. (you get the idea)

As my pastor put it, the correct statement should be, “God helps those who CANNOT help themselves.”

If you have any doubts, just read the book of Exodus in the Bible. Pay attention to all the problems that the Israelites encountered in the wilderness. If they NEEDED to help themselves before God intervened, then well… we would not even be reading this thing called Bible.

But on the other extreme, there are people who think that relying on God means doing NOTHING. It is almost as if we can just lie down there and have everything stuffed down our throats by God. I mean, even as God provided manna and quail to the Israelites, they still need to go out and collect them.

As obvious as it may be, some airy-fairy, uber-spritual folks never get seem to get it. They think they can achieve excellence without working hard to prepare. It is as if they think God would take the exams or do their sales presentation for them!!

Yes, God is definitely WITH us, but God certainly do not do it for us. Even Isaac need to put in the seed before he got his 100 fold returns. Even for blessings, we need to be prepared to receive them.

Planting… before the harvest.

The Seed of Abraham

The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,”meaning one person, who is Christ. (NIV Gal 3:16)

If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (NIV Gal 3:19)

There are times when I doubt  that I really do qualified for the all the blessings and promises of God.

After all, most of the promises were made to the people of Israel and their ancestors, not the Gentiles. I thought maybe, just maybe, that I, being a Gentile, is not chosen to partake in those blessings the they enjoyed.

…until I remember the above 2 verses. And I remember I actually have a much better covenant than the one they had. Amen.

Self-explanatory…

 

 

Give Us a Tiger…!

I really think it is a huge loss for sport fans all over the world that Tiger Woods is ”taking a indefinite break” from golf.

Personally, I have never really fancy the game. I find it slow, boring and a huge waste of space where huge stretches of  grassland are used  just to make 18 small holes on the ground (at least we covered the whole pitch in football).  And if not for Woods,  I wouldn’t even care to read about it in the sport pages. 

Not that there are no other newsworthy golfers around, but Woods is not just any golfer. He is a story of a man who has dedicated his life to emulate the achievements of his childhood idol, Jack Nicklaus, in becoming the greatest golfer of all time ( he is only 4 titles away from doing that).

With his immense talent and relative young age, there is no doubt that he would be able to do that and much more… but as it is now, it seems we might never see him fulfilling this lifelong aspiration of his.

While I do understand how his wife must have felt about the whole affair (or affairs), getting her guy off the golf circuit is just not going to solve a thing. It is not the problem with golf ,  it is the problem with the man. Even if you put him to sell insurance or even as a security guard in church, that would never take the problem out of him. He needed a bigger help than that…

And this is the kind of thing best left for Jesus, not Man.

Will we ever get to see this again? I certainly hope so…

 

Poor Devils…

Just when I thought it would be a 2-horse race between Chelsea and Man U for the EPL title, the results over the weekend had thrown the race wide open for a 3rd team to come into the equation… Arsenal.

It was one of those rare occasions last night that I was rooting for Liverpool. I thought they might just ”turn a corner” against the Gunners after welcoming Gerrad and Torres back into the team (even the ever-absent Aquilani). But instead of turning, they overturned… no thanks to Glen Johnson, who is fast accquiring the habit of putting the ball into his own net on a consistent basis.

While it effectively eliminated the Reds from this year’s title race ( nothing new here), it dawned on me that Arsenal is just 3 points away from Man U and with a game in hand. As if playing catchup with leader Chelsea (just 3 points, fortunately) is not tough enough, we still have to watch our backs for the young Gunners.

Seems like Fergie may need to open his purse for some summer shopping after all.

As much as I hate to admit it, Owen and Berbatov just don’t cut it, despite the occasional goals. We need someone like (gasp!) Ronaldo who can turn those tight games around with a moment of magic. Oh…. how we missed the Portugese Peacock…

Rooney has been excellent… but there is only so much he can do alone. 

Fantasy Football

As I am taking part in my company’s 5-a-side football tournament on Friday, just thought of coming up with a fantasy 5-a-side team. Feel free to come up with your alternative squad if you have one ( some sort of a readership test… haha)

Shay Given (Ireland) Goalkeeper

I wanted Iker Casillas, but I am restricting myself to a player per country. Considering Given’s consistent performance this season, he is my pick for the goalkeeper position.

Andreas Iniesta (Spain) Defender/Playmaker

Initially, it was to be Cannavaro in as a straightforward defender. But I thought in 5-a-side games, the “defender” is also the playmaker, so I pick Iniesta, who is able to hold and distribute the ball superbly.

Kaka (Brazil) Midfielder

It is a no-brainer here. The Brazilian is, at the moment, the most complete attacking midfielder in the world, more dangerous and versatile than even Ronaldo. Will be the focal point of my attack.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) Midfielder

Another no-brainer. Imagine him and Kaka combining to twist and turn the opposing defence inside out (it is not too hard, since both are playing for Real). And I am counting on him for his rocket freekicks too.

Zlatan Ibrahimovich (Sweden) Striker

In a pure fantasy team, the obvious choice would be Lionel Messi, but I fear having too many dribblers might unbalance the team. So it is the big, prolific Swede as the out-and-out striker. 

Darren Fletcher (Scotland) Reserve

I thought it would be good to have a utility player on my side, someone who can add some grit (read: break some legs) to the already very skilful side.  

 

It has been my philosophy that good football should be all about teamwork (eg: passing the ball around with as little touches as possible) instead of individual brilliance. Now, it may sound painfully obvious, but it is just not easy to do that in practice.

In all my years of watching football, I considered only 3 teams to be true exponents of this philosophy: Brazil, Arsenal and Barcelona.While all 3 possess great players, their main weapon is NOT really in the individual skills of them, but in the quality of their passing.

Sure, it may be breathtaking to see Messi dribbling past 5 to 6 defenders to score, but I think it is no less spectacular and far more efficient to have Iniesta threading a defence-splitting pass through to Messi, who plays a quick one-two with Henry before sliding the ball to Ibrahimovich for a tap in.

*If you wonder why I didn’t mention Man United, it is because while they do play a fast and direct attacking game, their passing is really not as flowing the above mentioned.*  

Tiger In the Woods

2 years ago, it was Edison Chan. This year 2009, it is Tiger Woods who is in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

While it wasn’t exactly unexpected of Edison to be embroiled in sex scandals (we were just surprised by the magnitude and the women involved), it is quite a revelation to most of us that the World No 1 golfer should have an issue with his zipper too.

So it goes to show that having a squeaky clean reputation might not be such a wonderful thing. I mean, nobody would have bat an eyelid if it was Cristiano Ronaldo caught cheating (we are used to it anyway),  but we are talking about Tiger “the goody-two-shoes” Woods here. Despite the claims that his sponsors are still behind him, I am sure their marketing execs are busily taking Wood’s face off their ads for the time being.

But I am not going to dwell on his misdeeds today, as they are already quite well-documented in the papers by now. It is the women I want to talk about here… 

Perhaps hardly surprising, ever since the news broke, more and more women are coming out from nowhere to ”confess” their involvement with Woods . While many claimed to be in love with him and were obviously more-than-willing parties, they had no qualms about accepting huge cheques for their stories (assuming they are true). So much for love…

What further disgusted me is the fact that they actually had the cheek to talk about having sympathies for his wife and condemned him for his actions in which they were active participants. If that is not hypocrisy, I don’t know what is.  

I sincerely hope that Woods would bounce back from this episode. After all, who hasn’t made a mistake in life? While I am not condoning his actions (I wouldn’t dare), I do think it is a shame for the world to lose an amazing  talent because of this. Personal mistakes shouldn’t taint his achievements.

That being said, I hope it doesn’t happen to my favourite Roger Federer…

Definitely not a happy camper now.

Tricks of the Mind

Throughout the history of mankind, we humans have always been trying to overcome nature.

By the efforts of many great men, we did manage to do that… to a certain extent. Just look at the cars on the road, the planes in the air, the cellphones we are carrying and of course, the computer which you are using to read these words.

Of course, we celebrated all these technological advancements with pride, and rightfully so, but in the midst of the celebration,  we start to have delusions that we are like demi-gods, with the power to dominate the forces of nature. We fail to see the limitations of science, mathematics, philosophies, psychology or any branch of human studies that promise us “control” of the world around us.

Can we prevent a tsunami? Can we stop a volcanic eruption? Can we stop rain from pouring? Can we reverse the order of the seasons? Are we even able to tell what is going to happen to the world the next day, the next hour or next minute?….  I mean we are even fooled constantly by our very own instincts and emotions every single day, yet we dare say we have all the answers of the world. We are just not humble enough to admit  our fallibility.

No wonder the Bible tell us the foolishness of God is still wiser than the man’s wisdom. The human mind is just grossly overrated.  

“Use your blain… use your blain…” as PCK might put it.

I Believe….

I think it is true… while most of us do believe IN God, not everyone of us BELIEVEs God. The difference is more than just semantics.

Believing in God would mean knowing for sure of the existence of a Divine Being but that doesn’t tell us much. I mean, we have all heard of gods that are full of rules, gods that play pranks on human, gods that are promiscuous, gods that are evil or gods that don’t really care… so which god are we believing?

But when we believe God, (I am referring to the Judeo-Christian God of course), we take Him at His words and that means believing in what is recorded in the Bible.

So if it is written that we are blessed with the blessings of the seed of Abraham, we are…. if it is written that we shall be the head and not the tail, then we are… if it is written that by His stripes we are healed, then we are…. I believe them!!

It is just as what Joel Osteen always said at the beginning of his sermon, “This is my Bible. I am whatever it says I am, I have whatever it says I have…” Amen!! 

PS: The above is inspired by Pastor Col Stringer who preached a sermon at my church last month.

The words says it all.

We Are the Champions!!

While I do not believe we can predict anything, I am still going to make a bold prediction here and I am going to shout it for 7 times. Here goes…

Man U will win the Premier League title 09/10!!

Man U will win the Premier League title 09/10!!

Man U will win the Premier League title 09/10!!

Man U will win the Premier League title 09/10!!

Man U will win the Premier League title 09/10!!

Man U will win the Premier League title 09/10!!

Man U will win the Premier League title 09/10!!

It has been my habit to do this for the past 3 seasons, and Manchester United did go on to win on all 3 occassions. Yes, I know logically there is no correlation between the 2, but my irrational brain somehow choose to believe otherwise…. haha…. I mean, what has I got to lose?

Anyway… after Chelsea’s 0-3 win at Emirates Stadium, it looked like the Blues are in pole position to win the title this season, but for anybody who has watched EPL for a certain length of years would know, a 5 point lead is really nothing much to crow about at this stage.

Manchester United has a history (yes, again I know history really counts for nothing in football) of overcoming bigger deficits than 5 points, so no worries here,  come next May, they will be up there, winning their 19th title (eat your heart out, Liverpool)!!

We’ll still be doing this again… sans Ronaldo and Tevez of course.

 

 

 

 

What If… If Only…

After watching the series, “Flashforward”, I am convinced that knowing the future isn’t such a wonderful thing after all.

Of course, most of us would like to know  the 4D or Toto numbers coming up in the next draw or the movement of the stock markets for the more savvy ones. But what if we get to know more than we bargained for….? Eg: Seeing the breakup of your marriage or the loss of a loved one or your own death?

Are we to carry on our lives, fully aware that each step will bring us closer to some undesirable ends? Or would we be actively trying to change the course of events, but yet unwittingly taking the very actions which are going to bring us, again, to those undesirable ends?

Perhaps, we  might try changing the past. But for anyone who have ever watched “Back to the Future” or “Butterfly Effect” (a grimer version of BTTF), I guess we know that it ain’t that a smart choice either.

The only movie I remember starring Michael J Fox.