Month: April 2017

During my recent visit to Japan, I dined at a well-known sushi restaurant. As I enjoyed the excellent meal, I was intrigued to learn about its flamboyant owner and founder and his relationship with Somali pirates.

 

A very successful businessman, this sushi owner was alarmed over the attacks by Somali pirates on passenger ships, including commercial fishing boats. Some of the waters where the pirates preyed overlapped with some of the prime fishing areas for his tuna fishing business. He decided to take matters into his own hands and through successive contacts, set up a series of meetings with several leaders of the Somali pirates. What he discovered surprised and motivated him to action. All of the pirates stated they turned to piracy because they had no other choices to make a living.  The Somali civil war had destroyed their homes. When he heard this, he pitched the idea to train them as commercial fisherman and work for him, fishing in the same waters that they had previously terrorized. The idea worked and this sushi owner’s efforts led to a dramatic reduction in the Somali pirating activities. The government of Djibouti even awarded him a medal for his efforts!

 

This inspiring story reminded me of our inherent need to find one’s self-worth and to be accepted by others and society. These pirates sought stability in their broken lives and were willing to go to extreme measures to achieve this. They felt there was no other option until this sushi owner showed them a better way.

 

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that He cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (ESV)

 

God understands our deepest needs and aspirations. He created us with a God-shaped hole within our very soul. Only He can fill it and only He can satisfy our cravings. Instead, we think we can fill this hole with pleasures and material possessions from the world. All this does is increase our frustrations, sometimes leading to desperate measures and solutions. Only by confessing and repenting of our sins and accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior do we find our true self-worth and acceptance.

 

Amen!

 

Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life.

My medical residency was in pathology. At that time, the residency program was five years, one of the longer residency training periods. After my residency, I completed two additional fellowships. Given the broad and immense knowledge base of the field, five years does seem like an adequate length of time to assimilate and master the information. However, I did not take the long training period for granted. Every weekend, I spent all my free time in the hospital, reviewing study set slides of rare diseases and voraciously reading every textbook in pathology. Occasionally, other residents, who were on call, would stop by the office and ask me, “Are you on call?” assuming this would be the only reason why I would be at the hospital on a weekend. I would look up from my microscope and, smiling, say, “No, just here to look at study sets.” The response was always a quizzical, “Why?” And with equal confusion on my face, I would reply, “Five years is not a long time.”

 

Five years is not a long time.The five years provided a good foundation for my career but after my residency training was completed, the real learning began. I am still learning new things in pathology.

 

The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty…

Psalms 90:10 (ESV)

 

This Bible verse, written by the Holy Spirit thousands of years ago, is remarkable for its prescience. The World Health Organization states that the average life expectancy in the world is 71 years and in the United States, it is 79.3 years. My parents passed away at ages 78 and 82 years. In the past five years, numerous friends and relative have passed away, all around 80 years. It is a sobering reminder of God’s sovereign control over our lives and His Creation. Now, in my mid-fifties, I am keenly aware that I am entering the last third of the years of my life.

 

Five years is not a long time for pathology training but it did provide a good foundation for my career. Eighty years seems like a  long time for a life but is it enough time to provide a foundation for your eternity? For nearly twenty years, I lived in darkness, openly defiant to God, even doubting His existence. But one day in 1982, Jesus Christ became my Lord and Savior. I am forever grateful that He saved me by His grace and mercy. It took twenty years. God has given most of us about eighty years to confess and repent of our sins and accept His Son, Jesus Christ, as Lord and Savior. Is eighty years a long time? When compared to an eternity spent in loving fellowship with God or an eternity spent in everlasting tormenting separation from God, it a twinkle of an eye.

 

God is patient with all of us and gives us a lifetime to come to Him. The question all of us need to answer for ourselves is this-is eighty years enough time?

 

Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life.

My nephew, my sister’s son, is a very talented mechanic. He grew up watching and working alongside his father, also a mechanic, who owns a very successful auto repair shop in Hawaii. It was always expected that he would become a mechanic, but he has more than exceeded everyone’s expectations.

 

Many friends, upon learning of my nephew’s great talent and ambition, were elated and told my sister and her husband. “You must be so happy that your son is following in his father’s footsteps. Now you can pass on the business to him and he will take care of it!”

 

My sister and her husband are always beaming. “Yes, we are very happy!”

 

The family business remains in the family. A father passes along all his wisdom and experience to his own son. A son seeks to please his father by learning from him and taking care of his loyal customers. Any family would be very proud.

 

And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Matthew 3:16-17 (ESV)

 

God, the Father, declared how pleased He was with His Son, Jesus Christ, living a life of obedience in faith by being baptized. With this action, Jesus identified with all believers who place their trust in Him as their Lord and Savior. He also showed His obedience to follow the teachings of His Father. Jesus did on earth, what was done in Heaven. He always sought to do the things that pleased His Father. And He did this to take care of God’s creation-us.

 

We have our earthly family. But if you are believer in Jesus Christ, you also belong to the family of God and are a co-heir and adopted son or daughter of God. God loves us so much that He gave His only Son to die for our sins and be resurrected, to conquer death and give all believers eternal salvation, to all those who place their trust and faith in Him.

 

Like my sister and her husband’s joy in seeing their son follow in his father’s footsteps, God is pleased when we follow in His Son’s Jesus’ footsteps and do the same things that He did when He was on this earth. What greater joy can we have than to hear God the Father say that He is proud of us?

 

Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life.

Selected before birth to be a prophet.

 

Raised by a high priest.

 

A cousin of Jesus Christ.

 

He is John the Baptist!

 

The angel Gabriel, prophesied to John’s father, Zechariah, that John would go in the power and spirit of Elijah and turn hearts toward the Messiah.  John, himself, preached a baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins. With all these credentials, expectations ran very high amongst the Jews for John and his teachings. Some even thought he was the Messiah. John certainly believed his mission. Yet, within a short period of time after he baptized Jesus Christ, John was imprisoned, his ministry seemingly at an end.  During this time, he asked his disciples to inquire of Jesus,

 

“Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

Matthew 11:3 (ESV)

 

Discouragement.

 

What do we do when circumstances do not appear to be going the way we planned? What do we do when all of our preparations seem to be wasted? What do we do when all of our training and credentials cannot help us?

 

This is Jesus’ answer to John, his disciples, and us.

 

And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.  And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Matthew 11:4-6 (ESV)

 

In times of discouragement, Jesus instructs us with the following:

 

-Remember what He has done for us.

-Remember what God’s Word teaches and the promises He keeps.

-Look to serve others first.

-Forget about what you think you should be doing or what the world expects of you and focus upon God.

-All birthrights, credentials, titles, and prior accomplishments only have meaning if they point others to Jesus.

 

John was discouraged. He may not have understood why everything was happening to him. But He trusted God and proclaimed to his followers:

 

He must increase, but I must decrease.

John 3:30 (ESV)

 

What is cure for discouragement? Take your focus off yourself and look to Jesus Christ and His promises. Serve Him and others first.

 

He must increase and we must decrease.

 

Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life.

All performing musicians need to coordinate their performance with the soundboard. Whether a live performance or a recording, continual communication is necessary to ensure there is the proper balance between the performing musicians and what is being heard by the audience. 

 

In the past, I have led and been a member of worship teams in many different churches. On one of these teams, an incident occurred that disturbed and confused me. During a rehearsal session, several of my fellow musicians were complaining that I was playing too loudly. I attempted to remedy the problem by having the person on the soundboard make adjustments. However, unlike previous rehearsal sessions, it was to no avail. Gradually, I began to lower the volume on my guitar until I could barely hear it from the amplifier, less than 3 feet away from me. I became increasingly frustrated. If my guitar volume were so low that I could barely hear myself, would my fellow musicians be able to hear me? And then it struck me, is this what they wanted? I immediately dialed my volume down to off and proceeded to play, knowing that my guitar could not be heard. I then asked my fellow musicians, “Is that better?” They all nodded in approval. 

 

I left the rehearsal hurt, questioning everyone’s motives. If they didn’t want me to play, they could have simply asked me to sit out. My imagination ran wild as different permutations swirled through my mind. Perhaps they could not hear me through their monitors? Were they too embarrassed to confront me and tell me they did not want me to play? How could I make sense of this?

 

If you have been foolish in exalting yourself, Or if you have devised evil, put your hand on your mouth. For as the churning of milk produces butter, And wringing the nose produces blood,

So the forcing of wrath produces strife.

Proverbs 30:32-33 (NKJV)

 

Proverbs 30 is replete with lists of which the writer, through the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, desired to communicate his wonder and bewilderment over what he observed in the world. He recounted seemingly contradictory or irrational behaviors, such as the way of a man when courting a woman! (Nothing irrational about that behavior!) But his conclusion was completely rational. If we continue to revisit our hurts, fomenting anger, it will only produce more strife.  

 

This passage comforted me as I attempted to understand why God allowed different types of behaviors and actions to affect me in the way they do. After much time in prayer, meditation, and reflection upon this, I realized that, once again, it is my pride that is hindering me and setting up barriers to sweet fellowship with my fellow brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. This incident, like so many others, poignantly illustrates how I first need to satisfy my ego and look inward, rather than always thanking God and looking upward. 

 

I am thankful for the opportunity to serve God with the musical gifts He has given me. However, if others do not appreciate these gifts in the way I think they should, it is a reflection of my fallen state and my selfish motives.  I should remain focused on serving God in gratitude rather than attempting to appease myself or others. 

 

Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life.