"Your last lecture" if you are a lecturer and were given a final chance to deliver just one last lecture, what will you share and tell your students? I remembered hubby once downloaded this video and asked me to listen to it but I was not able to do it then, this morning I stumbled upon it while doing my daily devotion over the internet. I downloaded it and thought that anyone out there may learn something out of Prof. Randy Pausch's final lecture. You will hear that in one of his final comments, he stated that he believe in Karma, as a Christian I do not believe in Karma but I do believe that we will sow whatever we reap according to Galatians 6:7-8
Some notes that I personally jotted down:
When you do something wrong and if there's someone to tell you off or criticize you, it means they haven't given up hope on you..
What are the dreams you have? Walls are there to see if you really want that dream bad enough to achieve them..
When you want to pass the baton, pass to someone better than you
The best thing a teacher can do is to get your students to be self-reflective
To achieve your dreams or to become the person you are capable of being rest in the people around you, your parents, mentors, friends, colleagues, students...
Final note that stick into my mind - Do not focus on yourself but on others... Philippians 2:3-4
Most of his notes I can relate to dedicated bible verses.. may you be encouraged.
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Monday, July 19, 2010
Monday, November 2, 2009
Communication Essence of a Healthy Marriage
I remembered many years ago, my boss told us, a group of managers that the essence of good leadership is good communication and she started to share a series of training which included what is true communication, the importance of it and also the consequences if good communication is not present.
As God has blessed my marriage, I truly believe that apart from letting God to be the head of the sacred communion (this is vital and most important), good communication between hubby and I sealed our marriage. Many couples do not have problem communicating during those courting years but many did in their marriage later on.
Of course not everything is smooth sailing between hubby and I but as we thread this journey together, we realized communication is very important and essence to a healthy marriage.
Communication is more than talking verbally to your partner, that is talking… communication is both giving and receiving at the same time. I realized when we live for ourselves rather than for one another and with one another, then that is the very moment we stop communicating.
There’s no doubt that as partner of lives, we are still entitled to time of our own, doing things that we like and spending time with people whom we cherished but as husband and wife especially for those who are married for years, sometimes we just stop communicating (maybe we think we know each other too well or simply we do not have to… thinking each should understand our body language after many years being together). I believe if that happens, Satan has succeeded in his first attempt.
Many couples have lost their first love for their partner, being together is more like a commitment rather than emotional feeling for one another. Wives are preoccupied with the welfare of the children and household, husbands are busy with building careers, all these are done for the sake of the family, but sometimes all these are done at the expense of our other half.
How would we treat our other half? Our spouse is like our other half, would we stop feeding the other half after many years, definitely no, if we were to do that then it is like a slow death, slowly depriving our other half of the nutrients that is required for continual growth. Stop communicating is the very first sign of us neglecting and depriving the other half and soon it may be too late to feed the other half once cracks start developing…
For those who have not stopped communicating with your spouse, I wish you well, keep on the good work, and find creative ways to communicate with your other half. Let us kneel down and pray that God will protect the many marriage unions that has stop communicating, healed the hurts and revived their hearts that they will truly start communicating again.
To end this, I would like to share how hubby and I communicate; we want to bless you as God bless us.
I:
1) Find time to cook him his favorite meal, not the children’s for I always agreed to this old phrase – “The way to the man’s heart is through his stomach”
2) Iron for him for this is the thing I hate most, by ironing his shirts; he knows that I love him…
3) Prepare the kids early to bed, so that both of us have time to talk and share what has happened in a peaceful environment.
4) Let him do his favorite things but with the understanding of the time he will be away.
5) Tell him what is bothering you, trust me, men will not just know
6) Teach the children to value, honor and respect their father
7) Dress up just for him, put on perfume... and gifts from him
8) Date him….
9) Tell him you need his time
10) Submit to him
He:
1) Remembers my birthday and our wedding anniversary
2) Takes the effort to plan something memorable for those special dates
3) Reminds me of his love frequently through e-mails, sms, msn…
4) Buys me gifts randomly
5) Washes my car
6) Irons for me when he has to do the ironing himself
7) Dates me
8) Holds my hand
9) Communicates with me
10) Teaches me and uphold me in my biblical understanding
11) Is sensitive towards my needs
So you see communication is hard labor, if your other half is worth your time to court before marriage and spent hours communicating before marriage, how much more you need to court and communicate with her/him for the years to come. It is our prayers that you find the joy and fruit of your effort... please do not stop communicating and let Satan become a foothold in your marriage.
As God has blessed my marriage, I truly believe that apart from letting God to be the head of the sacred communion (this is vital and most important), good communication between hubby and I sealed our marriage. Many couples do not have problem communicating during those courting years but many did in their marriage later on.
Of course not everything is smooth sailing between hubby and I but as we thread this journey together, we realized communication is very important and essence to a healthy marriage.
Communication is more than talking verbally to your partner, that is talking… communication is both giving and receiving at the same time. I realized when we live for ourselves rather than for one another and with one another, then that is the very moment we stop communicating.
There’s no doubt that as partner of lives, we are still entitled to time of our own, doing things that we like and spending time with people whom we cherished but as husband and wife especially for those who are married for years, sometimes we just stop communicating (maybe we think we know each other too well or simply we do not have to… thinking each should understand our body language after many years being together). I believe if that happens, Satan has succeeded in his first attempt.
Many couples have lost their first love for their partner, being together is more like a commitment rather than emotional feeling for one another. Wives are preoccupied with the welfare of the children and household, husbands are busy with building careers, all these are done for the sake of the family, but sometimes all these are done at the expense of our other half.
How would we treat our other half? Our spouse is like our other half, would we stop feeding the other half after many years, definitely no, if we were to do that then it is like a slow death, slowly depriving our other half of the nutrients that is required for continual growth. Stop communicating is the very first sign of us neglecting and depriving the other half and soon it may be too late to feed the other half once cracks start developing…
For those who have not stopped communicating with your spouse, I wish you well, keep on the good work, and find creative ways to communicate with your other half. Let us kneel down and pray that God will protect the many marriage unions that has stop communicating, healed the hurts and revived their hearts that they will truly start communicating again.
To end this, I would like to share how hubby and I communicate; we want to bless you as God bless us.
I:
1) Find time to cook him his favorite meal, not the children’s for I always agreed to this old phrase – “The way to the man’s heart is through his stomach”
2) Iron for him for this is the thing I hate most, by ironing his shirts; he knows that I love him…
3) Prepare the kids early to bed, so that both of us have time to talk and share what has happened in a peaceful environment.
4) Let him do his favorite things but with the understanding of the time he will be away.
5) Tell him what is bothering you, trust me, men will not just know
6) Teach the children to value, honor and respect their father
7) Dress up just for him, put on perfume... and gifts from him
8) Date him….
9) Tell him you need his time
10) Submit to him
He:
1) Remembers my birthday and our wedding anniversary
2) Takes the effort to plan something memorable for those special dates
3) Reminds me of his love frequently through e-mails, sms, msn…
4) Buys me gifts randomly
5) Washes my car
6) Irons for me when he has to do the ironing himself
7) Dates me
8) Holds my hand
9) Communicates with me
10) Teaches me and uphold me in my biblical understanding
11) Is sensitive towards my needs
So you see communication is hard labor, if your other half is worth your time to court before marriage and spent hours communicating before marriage, how much more you need to court and communicate with her/him for the years to come. It is our prayers that you find the joy and fruit of your effort... please do not stop communicating and let Satan become a foothold in your marriage.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Will you give?
For the past weeks, the following verse kept coming back to me:
Whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? —1 John 3:17
I remember this phrase while doing my devotion the other day “The word of God are not meant to inform us but transform us”. Hubby also shared with me that each biblical teaching besides rooted from the word of God should direct us back to God, it’s powerless to do thing on our own but we need the ever empowering power from God to live a life He called us to live.
I consider myself a person of action, I can relate better to Martha rather than Mary but often God reminds me to be like Mary who sits at the feet of Jesus, feed on what is more important and then only go forth, transformed and empowered to do what God wants me to do. (Luke 10:38-42)
I believe that through His empowerment and outpour of love to me, then I’m able to love others in return…. Recently I found myself……
Touched to stop by at a bus stop seeing 2 elderly couple waiting for a bus, since I’ve drove passed them, I took a big turn, hoping to stop and ask if they needed a lift and only realized that the turn that I took could not possible reached the bus stop again…since I don’t have time to make the correct turn all over again (excuse!), I drove to work thereafter…. For the next few days, I was unable to sight the couple again… (Lesson learned – Don’t hesitate, if you can offer help at that moment, please do it as you may not have a second chance.)
While msn with my ex-colleague, we found out another ex-colleague’s father had passed away recently, somehow it just occurred to us that we can still do something so I organized a lunch, shared how I felt that we still can do something, together we came out with a love gift, bought her kids two packet of KFC snack plate and just dropped by for a surprise visit. We were comforted as we comforted her. That’s what God says about giving freely without expecting anything in return, I felt joy.
Calling a friend who is having tremendous stress in her current job, called her but she was too busy, she returned my call and I slept, I sms her and finally we were able to talk…listening is just what we need to do at times.
Listening to a friend’s call as she is going through a very difficult situation, she shared the ordeal she had gone through, I supplemented with my own experience, now I knew why God put me into certain situation, so that I can comfort others in similar situation.
Surfing the internet and got myself a good book by Yvonne Foong, this is the very first time I bought something over the internet, issued her the amount and slipped a card just to encourage her to continue to be hopeful. I’m encouraged by her life.
Receiving a bad news that one of my student’s father had passed away in a car accident. I dropped a mail to her, expressed my sympathy and gave her additional week to work on her assignment, I cannot remove her pain but I hope this will encourage her to complete her 100% based assignment and move on…
I’m no angel and definitely not in a position to change anything by myself but it’s God who is at work.
Whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? —1 John 3:17
I remember this phrase while doing my devotion the other day “The word of God are not meant to inform us but transform us”. Hubby also shared with me that each biblical teaching besides rooted from the word of God should direct us back to God, it’s powerless to do thing on our own but we need the ever empowering power from God to live a life He called us to live.
I consider myself a person of action, I can relate better to Martha rather than Mary but often God reminds me to be like Mary who sits at the feet of Jesus, feed on what is more important and then only go forth, transformed and empowered to do what God wants me to do. (Luke 10:38-42)
I believe that through His empowerment and outpour of love to me, then I’m able to love others in return…. Recently I found myself……
Touched to stop by at a bus stop seeing 2 elderly couple waiting for a bus, since I’ve drove passed them, I took a big turn, hoping to stop and ask if they needed a lift and only realized that the turn that I took could not possible reached the bus stop again…since I don’t have time to make the correct turn all over again (excuse!), I drove to work thereafter…. For the next few days, I was unable to sight the couple again… (Lesson learned – Don’t hesitate, if you can offer help at that moment, please do it as you may not have a second chance.)
While msn with my ex-colleague, we found out another ex-colleague’s father had passed away recently, somehow it just occurred to us that we can still do something so I organized a lunch, shared how I felt that we still can do something, together we came out with a love gift, bought her kids two packet of KFC snack plate and just dropped by for a surprise visit. We were comforted as we comforted her. That’s what God says about giving freely without expecting anything in return, I felt joy.
Calling a friend who is having tremendous stress in her current job, called her but she was too busy, she returned my call and I slept, I sms her and finally we were able to talk…listening is just what we need to do at times.
Listening to a friend’s call as she is going through a very difficult situation, she shared the ordeal she had gone through, I supplemented with my own experience, now I knew why God put me into certain situation, so that I can comfort others in similar situation.
Surfing the internet and got myself a good book by Yvonne Foong, this is the very first time I bought something over the internet, issued her the amount and slipped a card just to encourage her to continue to be hopeful. I’m encouraged by her life.
Receiving a bad news that one of my student’s father had passed away in a car accident. I dropped a mail to her, expressed my sympathy and gave her additional week to work on her assignment, I cannot remove her pain but I hope this will encourage her to complete her 100% based assignment and move on…
I’m no angel and definitely not in a position to change anything by myself but it’s God who is at work.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Time with God
When we were childless, we prayed that God would bless us with children, now that we have children; we prayed less to God and spend less time with Him. There was one occasion that a voice in me prompted me to think “When God bless us with children, He does not mean that children and family take over our time with Him” which triggers me that being a mother does not give me the right to reason that now my hands are full, God will have to take a back seat.
I also understand that mothers are born with the nature to attend to their families’ needs but I realized this should not be done at the expense of our quality time with our Creator. I thank God that He made me to realize I need Him even more for the roles He entitled me to be in - a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a teacher. But before I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister or a teacher, I’m first a child of God.
God has been gracious to me that He gave me a wonderful and understanding husband, additional hands through the unconditional care of my mother-in-law and my lovely children. They gave me rooms to be alone and wings to reach my Heavenly Father.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The Parable of the Rich Fool
Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."
Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '
But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
Above passage is extracted from the Bible, Luke 12:13-21 (New International Version). It is a reality that most of us toiled day and night to gather riches on earth, some for basic livelihood some for more. We all know that life is so fragile; we could be here today and gone the next minute. We often hear this “life is short, live to the fullness, be happy and merry”.
To me, it is really amazing that God’s word is so relevant yesterday, today and in the days to come, that proofs God understands human so much that nothing that we say, think or do is beyond His comprehension. He even knows what we are about to think, say and do. In the above passage God warns us not to store up material richness for ourselves but instead be rich toward God, in other words we are to store up richness in heaven where no thieves can steal away from us. The richness in heaven is in the form of saved souls and everything that pleases God, now you may ask what pleases the Almighty God? It’s all written in the word of Life….
As a Christian it’s so important to feed upon our daily bread (God’s word) for it is the source of all the nutrients required for our soul, for those who have a Bible and it has been keeping dust, maybe it’s time to get it out and see what God has to say to you, for those who are reading the Bible daily, God continue to speak to you….I attached here a link to get you started, come taste and see that the Lord is good, it’s my daily dose of God’s word to get my day going. God bless you as you discover His richness.
Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '
But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
Above passage is extracted from the Bible, Luke 12:13-21 (New International Version). It is a reality that most of us toiled day and night to gather riches on earth, some for basic livelihood some for more. We all know that life is so fragile; we could be here today and gone the next minute. We often hear this “life is short, live to the fullness, be happy and merry”.
To me, it is really amazing that God’s word is so relevant yesterday, today and in the days to come, that proofs God understands human so much that nothing that we say, think or do is beyond His comprehension. He even knows what we are about to think, say and do. In the above passage God warns us not to store up material richness for ourselves but instead be rich toward God, in other words we are to store up richness in heaven where no thieves can steal away from us. The richness in heaven is in the form of saved souls and everything that pleases God, now you may ask what pleases the Almighty God? It’s all written in the word of Life….
As a Christian it’s so important to feed upon our daily bread (God’s word) for it is the source of all the nutrients required for our soul, for those who have a Bible and it has been keeping dust, maybe it’s time to get it out and see what God has to say to you, for those who are reading the Bible daily, God continue to speak to you….I attached here a link to get you started, come taste and see that the Lord is good, it’s my daily dose of God’s word to get my day going. God bless you as you discover His richness.
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