Filed under: Family, Kids, Music, Prayer, Ramblings, Random Thoughts, Victory, worship | Tags: catholic, christian, Faith, God, Lord, Love, Music, offer, offering, praise, Ralph, song, worship
Yesterday, I had the most pleasant surprise from my little boy, Ralph. It wasn’t so much what he did, but what he said.
During one of our usual simple family conversations in the living room, he excused himself and announced that he was about to commence his private prayer with the Lord and asked that we don’t disturb him for the time being…
Then he continued on to say that the day before that, he already offered 2 songs to God. I asked him, “2 songs?”… “Yes”, he replied. I inquired again, “What do you mean you offered 2 songs to the Lord?”… “I sung 2 songs by myself during my private prayer time yesterday and offered it to Him.”, he smartly answered.
Wow! That was all I could say during that moment. Imagine that… a little boy offering 2 songs to the Lord, which I never taught him to do. I never thought he’d actually think of doing something like that… but I’m very pleased with how he has seriously engaged on his prayer time.
The Lord delights in worship… in song and dance… very much, in fact.
My little kid has made me very proud of what he has done… imagine how much more the Lord in heaven listening to every tune that his breath lets out which comes from his pure heart. This is a child who knows nothing about quietly singing to God and yet he thought of offering 2 songs to Him.
My wife actually snuck up on him during his prayer time to actually see how he does it… Ralph sits on the bed and prays intently, eyes closed, starts with thanksgiving and talks to the Lord about his concerns and shortcomings and asks for forgiveness… then he starts singing… it has been a regular thing for him already. He offers songs everyday during his time with God.
I’m so proud of my boy! Praise God for Ralph… May God bless him forever…
A psalm of thanksgiving. Shout joyfully to the LORD, all you lands; worship the LORD with cries of gladness; come before him with joyful song. Know that the LORD is God, our maker to whom we belong, whosepeople we are, God’s well-tended flock. Enter the temple gates with praise, its courts with thanksgiving. Give thanks to God, bless his name; good indeed is the LORD, Whose love endures forever, whose faithfulness lasts through every age.
- Psalms 100 : 1 - 5
Filed under: Faith, Family, Prayer, Random Thoughts, Reflection, worship | Tags: catholic, christian, Faith, God, Jesus, Lord, praise, Prayer, tongues, worship
Yesterday, during my private time with the Lord in the prayer room, I distinctly heard Him instruct me to bring my wife inside and ask her to join me…
So that’s just what I did. As soon as I finished, I called her in and asked her to pray with me. It was one of those times when you hear God and you just follow without asking any questions… I’m sure the Lord knew that my wife needed prayer during that particular moment.
I guided her all throughout… we started with praise and worship, then proceeded in thanksgiving and supplication.
I led the prayer aloud and a few short minutes later, as I was talking to the Lord, she started crying… and crying… I could hear her sniffles again and again…
Something struck her. The Holy Spirit must’ve overwhelmed her… tears were just flowing out non-stop. So I started praying in tongues and laid my hand on her. It just felt so surreal.
God knows. He just does. Isn’t it great?!
Praise God for opening my heart and allowing me to hear him clearly now more than ever.
Filed under: Faith, Prayer, Reflection, Victory, worship | Tags: catholic, christian, effective, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, praise, Prayer, time, worship
Just a short post… I’m still experiencing a “spiritual high”, so to speak… Why you ask? Well, because my prayer time has considerably improved… in terms of quantity and quality.
When I first started out before, I used to spend some 5 minutes in prayer when I wake up and a few short prayers here and there throughout the day whenever possible.
Now, I still have some prayers spread out through the day… some are more intimate than others… there are moments when I also go into simple silent public prayers…
But what has really improved the most is my private time with the Lord. Whenever I wake up… I make sure that I’m totally up and about so as to be confident that I won’t accidentally doze off during prayer. Then I spend quality time praying and meditating in a specially designated room…
Surprisingly, I noticed that the duration of my prayers recently have lasted a good 30 minutes per session. At times, I pray out loud… on other occasions, it’s a mix of prayer and silently listening for the Lord to speak to my heart.
It’s such a wonderful feeling. Refreshing and overwhelming. I pray for daily anointment. This is very important, indeed. It’s one thing to live and speak the Good News to others and share your personal spiritual victories… but it’s another thing to speak it with the “anointing” of the Holy Spirit within you. It makes all the difference.
(Hmmm… this turned out to be a longer post than I thought…! Hehe!)
Filed under: Faith, Prayer, Ramblings, Random Thoughts, Reflection, Sorrow | Tags: ablaze, catholic, christian, discovery, Faith, gift, God, Holy Spirit, Lord, pain, reality, revelation
I just realized as I reflected… ever since I really started regular worship and daily prayer, I started to feel a heavier burden towards my surroundings, towards people who are underprivileged and in dire need of the Lord.
I knew that a deeper faith in God would bring about a more sensitive and greater consciousness within me… but only recently did I realize one of the reasons why this has happened…
I went into quiet contemplation and reflected on some of the chapters of the book I read entitled, “Ablaze for God“, which talks about effective prayer. And I learned that a prayer that comes from a painful heart is easily heard by God hence making it more powerful.
The pain I am experiencing is a “spiritual reality”… it is actually brought about by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit allows the pain and sorrow to overwhelm me so that I can channel all of it through prayer… thus creating a powerful prayer to the Lord for those in urgent need of God.
Wonderful, isn’t it? The pain is a gift… because it serves a greater purpose.
Praise God for these revelations.
Filed under: Faith, Video, films | Tags: catholic, christian, Faith, God, Jesus, Love, lump, Nooma, rob bell, teaching, Video
Yesterday, I featured of one of Nooma’s videos, entitled, “Rain”, by Rob Bell. Today I am posting another Nooma video called, “Lump”. The entire Nooma series features Rob Bell’s simple yet powerful talks.
If you enjoyed “Rain”, then you will love the entire collection (18 volumes).
This is how “Lump” is introduced:
A lot of us have done things in our lives that we’re ashamed of. Some are small things, and some of us have really big and devastating things. Some of us even have things that people close to us don’t know about. Personal junk that we keep to ourselves so we don’t have to deal with it. Because we don’t know how to deal with it, do we? We’re afraid that if we try it’s just going to make everything worse. But no matter how big our junk is, no matter how much what we’ve done has impacted the way other people feel about us or how we feel about ourselves, it hasn’t changed how God feels about us. God loves us, he always has and always will, and there’s nothing we can do to change that.
May the Lord open your heart as He did mine as you watch these videos.
Enjoy the clip…
Filed under: Community, Faith, Family, Joy, Love, Random Thoughts, Victory, worship | Tags: God, Jesus, religion, Faith, christian, catholic, elim, worship, pray, cab, work, team, revival
It’s Team Rev night tonight at Elim… can’t wait. Our car isn’t available this evening so my wife and I are taking the cab. I’m very thankful that despite my wife’s evening schedule, she has actually showed her desire to join worship with me by not attending the first hour of her shift so that she can be able to accompany me during Tuesday’s gatherings…
She won’t be able to finish the entire event but it will be enough to start and finish worship and the teachings.
Then she’ll be taking the cab to work from there. I really happy for that. I know the Lord will bless her with so much because she is slowly becoming the kind of follower and disciple I have always hoped she’d become.
I never thought back then that she’d make these kinds of sacrifices in order to be able to attend praise and worship… but our God is a mighty and powerful God… able to change the hearts and minds of individuals.
My prayers have been heard and my Lord responds faithfully just as He has always promised His obedient children.
Praise God for everything.
Filed under: Faith, Love, Video, films | Tags: catholic, christian, clip, elim, Faith, God, Lord, Love, Nooma, rain, religion, rob bell, teaching, Video
My friends over at Elim recently introduced me to a video clip which featured a speaker named, Rob Bell… and ever since I got to watch my very first video of a series of his talks, I was immediately hooked.
Rob Bell produces these short 10-11 minute videos (18 clips to be exact) that talk about God and faith in a manner that isn’t boring and completely cuts through the heart. It is presented in a way that doesn’t intimidate non-practicing Christians/Catholics using a “story-telling” approach.
I encourage you to watch this short video clip entitled, “Rain”. Give it a chance to speak to you… all you need to do is offer a little of your time to watch and listen… it’ll only take up 10 minutes of your day… and it might just be one of the most meaningful 10 minutes you’ve ever spent watching something.
This video is as wonderful as it is powerful in its simplicity.
Here is how this particular clip (”Rain”) is introduced:
Things don’t always work out the way we want them to, or the way we think they will. Sometimes we don’t even see it coming. We get hit with some form of pain out of nowhere leaving us feeling desperate and helpless. That’s the way life is. Still, it makes us wonder how God can let these things happen to us. How God can just stand by and watch us suffer. Where is God when it really hurts? Maybe God is actually closer to us than we think. Maybe it’s when we’re in these situations, where everything seems to be falling apart, that God gets an opportunity to remind us of how much he really loves us.
Enjoy the clip…
You can also visit Nooma.com for more about Rob Bell and his other clips.
Filed under: Community, Faith, Prayer, Ramblings, Random Thoughts, Reflection, Victory, worship | Tags: God, Life, Faith, christian, catholic, Community, elim, spirit, koinonia, group, Lord, kg, fellowship, Holy, flame, fire, ember, disciple, zeal, enthusiasm
Fellowship and Community, to me, can be likened to an intense blazing fire… while it’s people are the flame’s embers. It is vital that we, the members of community, stay within that fire… it is what keeps our hearts burning for God.
No one can maintain such an intense zeal all by his/her lonesome… a person needs to belong to a fellowship… a group of individuals gathered for the same purpose.
You feed off of one another… you share experiences… you lift each other up.
Take away an ember from the fire and the ember’s glow diminishes slowly… similar to a person taken away from community and fellowship for long stretches of time.
In order to maintain that zeal and enthusiasm, one needs to be part of active community worship and service.
I thank the Lord that I found my family at Elim. My KG (Koinonia Group) buddies in “Disciple 1″ have always been there for me as we all have for one another. I always look forward to our gatherings and actively participate in sharing and discussions. It brings me great great joy to praise and worship the Lord every day!
I enjoy prayer time… I love talking about God… I look forward to Sunday Mass every week. It’s the most wonderful feeling I have ever experienced.
Looking back now, I seem to wonder how I survived not belonging and actively participating in any community in the past.
All I know now is that, I am never going back to my old life…
I found God… in a very personal way… and boy, does it feel great!
Filed under: Kids, Prayer, Ramblings, Random Thoughts, Reflection, Sorrow | Tags: boy, burden, Faith, help, pain, Prayer, sampaguita, Sorrow
On my way home from a friend’s house, my wife and I stopped by a convenience store to buy some milk for our two little kids.
It was already 2:00 AM.
On my way back to the car, a little kid approached me. In his hands were a bunch of Sampaguita flowers… probably the last strands of what he had been selling since that afternoon.
He said, “Kuya, sampaguita po… 20pesos na lang para makauwi na po ako…” (”Sir, please buy my sampaguita… 20 Pesos only so that I can go home already…”), and he looked very sad and tired.
This kid is practically the same age as my little boy, and he’s still out at 2:00AM selling flowers while my kid is at home fast asleep already.
This crushed my heart so bad. I took the flowers and saw him off. As I drove away, I stopped at the next intersection waiting for the traffic light to give us the “go” signal. I noticed the very same boy walking away… he sadly looked back at me and softly waved goodbye…
Suddenly, I felt this great burden… so much pain and sorrow overwhelmed me. It’s as if I needed to do something more for the boy. In no exaggeration, the pain was totally unbearable… It’s as if someone had stuck a knife in my heart… and wouldn’t let go.
When we got home, I immediately placed the Sampaguita flowers on my altar and I just started praying and praying… I prayed with so much sorrow and grief that in the middle of my prayer I started crying and crying… tears just wouldn’t stop flowing down.
I prayed ONLY for this little boy… I asked the Lord for provisions for the kid as He has always provided for me and my family. I prayed for his safety and protection… I intently asked that kids like him be able to find God and faith amidst all their hardships. I also asked the Lord that I may be able to see this boy once again so that I may be able to help him some more.
May the Lord bless all the little children… especially those in dire need of His saving grace.
Filed under: Community, Faith, Family, Friends, Joy, Kids, Prayer | Tags: God, Jesus, Faith, christian, catholic, Music, Love, elim, Family, Kids, children, fun
I am blessed to have found God this early in life… just when my kids are still in their formation stages. It’s easier to instill the values of faith in them rather than when they are much older and have lives of their own already.
I have been bringing my children to quite a number of “Kidz Life” gatherings already. If you are not aware, “Kidz Life” is somewhat a kiddie version of Elim’s, “Team Revival” night. The little ones are taught to praise God and to worship Him in a way that is fun, kiddie-friendly and enjoyable.
Games, stories and movie watching are just some of the things that they participate in during the event. Lots of cool activities and interaction with other kid dwellers as well.
I actually took a short video clip during our most recent “Kidz Life” gathering.
Here’s a snippet of it…
Fun, huh?! If you’ve got kids of your own and would like to take them to the next “Kidz Life” session, you can contact me by clicking here. Or inquiring via Elim’s website.
