What comes to your mind when you hear the word "comfort/comfortable?"...

When you hear the word "comfort or comfortable" what comes into your mind?

Here's what Collins Gem English Dictionay says about the word "comfort/comfortable:"

Comfort is: (noun) physical ease or well-being; consolation; means of consolation; (verb) soothe, console.

Comfortable is: (adj.) giving comfort; free from pain; informal well-off financially.

During one of my reading times, I encountered this word and it made me think. I stopped and just thought this word for a while and meditate on it. Checked the dictionary what it says about comfort/comfortable.

Did some checking as well what the bible says about comfort/comfortable. And found that they varies with their meaning.

The world (means us, human beings) think what the dictionary says when we hear the word comfort/comfortable.

But the bible says that, comfort/comfortable is not about being well-off, free from pain, being physically fit, or being soothed or consoled.

Comfort is being at peace and content of who and where you are no matter what. Knowing your situation (good or bad) and having that inner peace, joy and contentment knowing that even if you can't do anything with your situation. there is someone that can and that is Christ.

Trusting and having faith in Christ gives us that inner peace and joy and make us content in our lives, even if things seems bleak or hopeless. It's like a steady flow of a river or a brook, even in the midst of strongest storms. Knowing that it all will come to pass.

I believe that having that kind of assurance is the one that gives us comfort and makes us comfortable to face and deal with any storms (problems) that comes into our lives.

Love...the greatest of ALL....

This morning when I was doing my morning readings part of chapter that I was reading just reminded me once again what Love is:

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

It speaks about what Love is and what it is not. I just want to share the verses that spoke into my heart while I was reading this chapter in 1 Corinthians 13.

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstances."

"There are three things that will endure - faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love."

In chapter 12 Paul gave evidence of the Corinthians' lack of love in the utilization of spiritual gifts, chapter 13 defines real love, and chapter 14 shows how love works. Love is more important than all the spiritual gifts exercised in the church body. Great faith, acts of dedication or sacrifice, and miracle-working power have little effect without love. Love makes our actions and gifts useful. Although people have different gifts, love is available to everyone.

Our society confuses love and lust. Unlike lust, God's kind of love is directed outward toward others, not inward toward ourselves. It is utterly unselfish. This kind of love goes against our natural inclinations. It is impossible to have this love unless God helps us set aside our own natural desires so that we can love and not expect anything in return. Thus, the more we become like Christ, the more love we will show to others.

In morally corrupt Corinth, love had become a mixed-up term with little meaning. Today people are still confused about love. Love is the greatest of all human qualities, and it is an attribute of God himself. Love involves unselfish service to others, to show it gives evidence that you care.

Faith is the foundation and content of God's message; love is the action. When faith and hope are in line, you are free to love completely because you understand how God loves.

When the Going Gets Tough...

Have anyone of you watched the soccer game last weekend? It was the 2008 European Championship, Spain and Germany was the top and tough teams that played against each other.

I watched the game (that's right, I did watch soccer game!) and as I was watching my two favorite teams, as much as I want both of them to win - there's only one team that can bring the trophy and the title back to their country!

I was watching the game and the going gets tough - both teams are trying to make the ball into the goal, but each team didn't make it easy to do so. Each team tried their best to defend their goal, protecting the goal from their opponents from scoring by getting the ball into the goal.

Both team tried their best to score and tried their best to keep the ball out of the goal. Some of the players tumbled down, rolled over, got hit by each other or by the ball, bruised, got kicked, beaten down (accidentally), bleed (have you seen Germany's team captain and midfielder Michael Ballack bleed from the head collision with the Spanish midfielder Marcos Senna?! bleeding and all, still he got up and got back in the game!) other players got broken bones and pulled muscles from their efforts!

Bleeding, beaten, bruised as the game gets tough, still the players gets going! The players showed perseverance, determination, passion, and focused on their goal - to win the game! And in the end one of the team won and reached their goal in winning the game, by keep on going even when the going gets tough, they didn't quit, instead they persevere to the end.

As I was watching the game in action, my mind went on thinking and comparing the whole thing to our lives. There are times in our lives that we will experience being beaten, bruised, tumbled down, got hit, got kicked, rolled down, bleed, broken and get tired.

But just like the Germany & Spanish soccer players, we have to get up, press on and focus towards our goal in life - to win the battle from daily problems that comes into our lives. That, even if we got beaten, broken, bled, rolled down and tired - we have to keep on getting up, press on and get focus towards our goal, which is to overcome every problems that comes into our lives. To come out victorious from the battle inspite of beating, rolling, kicking and bleeding from it.

I read somewhere that says; winners don't quit and quitters don't win. It's up to us if we want to be winners or quitters, the choice is there - i do hope that we all choose to be winners and not quitters!

What is the Purpose of Life?

Incerptions from Rick Warren's interview

Interviewed by Paul Bradshaw:


People ask me, what is the purpose of life? And I respond: in a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.

One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body - but not the end of me.

I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up-act-the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.

We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems; either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.

God is more interested in making your life holy than He is making your life happy.

We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.

I used to think that life was hills and valleys-you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.

Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that its kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.

You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems.

If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain." but one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her.

It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.

You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.

It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.

So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, 2Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.

Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.

Third, we set up a foundations to fund an initiative we call "The Peace Plan" to plant churches, equip leaders, assist poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.

Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?

Am I going to be driven by pressures? guilt? bitterness? materialism? or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, "God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better." God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do-list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.

That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.


Rick Warren is the Senior Pastor of Saddleback Church; He is also the author of the book: The Purpose Driven (www.purposedriven.com)

"De-cluttering"

Do you have clutters in your house? closets? work room? I thought so! I believe we all have clutters to sort-out or tidy-up in our homes or work place, that is waiting to be sorted out or tidied up. The clutters are just there waiting for us to give it some time or to sit down and plan a "de-cluttering goal!"

Yes, it is a goal, as most of us just have the tendency to say it can wait or I'll do it later (procrastination) - we all are guilty of this. No matter how organise a person is, he/she has clutter to sort-out. As the days, weeks, months or years passed by we added more clutters to our homes, closets or work place.

I was "de-cluttering" my place the other day. I usually do it twice a year. First quarter of the year and third quarter of the year. But I haven't done any of "de-cluttering" - I was hoping to do it early this year but was not able to do so - in short, I procrastinated!

As I was going through my closets and work place, I realised that I had so much "clutters" that needed sorting out, so I did! I was going through all of my "clutters" and I realised that more of the "clutters" that was in the closets are just junk and was just taking so much space in my closets, that made it full and just muddled with stuff!

Spent hours doing some sorting and tidying up and guess what? yes, you are right - half of the stuff that was in my closets are just "junk clutters" that needed to be thrown out! Papers, documents, old clothes, etc., that is been sitting there and taking so much space that can be thrown-out and free-up some space and get the closets more organise if I have given it some time to "de-cluttered" early on instead of procrastinating.

As I was "de-cluttering" my closets and work place, my mind went into comparing our hearts and thoughts to our homes or closets. In the same way that we gathered or accumulated "clutters" into our homes/closets - we do accumulated "cluttters" as well into our hearts/thoughts everyday.

Most of us (if not all) has too much "junk clutters" in our hearts/thoughts, that we've been carrying for ages that instead of "de-cluttering" our hearts/thoughts with pain, hurts, bitterness, pride, immorality, etc. - we keep on dumping more of these negative emotions into our muddled hearts and later on we find it hard to carry-on with life.

Then life became too heavy with burdens, things started to look bleak, hopeless, unhappy, and later on depression and discouragement started to sit-in and leads to isolation and hating life and everything around us. It's 'coz of the "junk clutters" that we are carrying in our hearts/thoughts that we wouldn't let go of, or keep holding on, life later on became meaningless.

I believe that, if we regularly take some time do some "de-cluttering" of our hearts/thoughts then we will find out that life is beautiful and we will have lots of room to learn and experience new things, happiness, joy, relationships, etc. - and may also find out that, life can be a source of life itself, if we only do a regular "de-cluttering" that gives freedom, lighten the burdens, gives new space for experiences, relationships, and other things that we will enjoy.

Right now, I am happy and enjoying the space that I freed from all the "junk clutters" that I have thrown out and was able to organised my closets and work place well. I am happy whenever I open my closets and I see how organise and neatly piled up everything are inside! It gives me a feeling of joy and fulfilment.

I have peace and can think more clearly and I am more productive when everything is in order and organised around me - it does have that effect on me or my thinking!:)

Dew Drops

I just want to share this sweet and warm musing of a dear friend that she wrote and sent to me.....


Thank you so much Joms, I love you too!:)


dew drops...

i know for a fact that every snowflake is unique, not one ever the same. i thought of rain and i mused that every pouring is called for as the heaviness of the grey skies could bear but one more. and the bareness of the dry land awaits every trickle that may have been born a name. you think a rain drop is unique from another? what could this name be? the skies are dark and dreary, the winds howling calling forth each name.

a joy to step out after past a storm. dew drops always abounding, gentle and fresh in the morn. sending this to a dear sister who's played with them snow balls. who's probably thought of each snow flake's little but majestic life, freezed on somebody's nose so tall. yes we just had the latest typhoon news back here at home. but i'm glad our Father placed you where snows are by a heap to share them blessed heart warmed from a land of tropical heat. so tell each snow flake her unique name, a beauty beyond splendor called forth by the Name.

so tears ever flowing never ever escape, the One who has the time to stop & pause, bend over a Heart so great to spruse the skies with stars to twinkle on those eyes that needs to see how awesome things can be and would be beyond the rains, the winters, the storms; and how gentle dew drops are on quite new mornings.

i love you ate sarita. a note penned just for you out from my tired musing. would you share this to your study group girlfriends there who may need a little warm smile today over those empty cold vodka bottles. a happy distraction may not hurt.


much love,
joms :)

Time of Trouble...

"The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble." Psalm 9:9

"In times of trouble." The word "times" is an indication that trouble is not a "one time thing". As we go through the journey of life, we will face many "times" of trouble. Sometimes trouble will come back to back with no time to even catch your breath before the next one comes- as was the case with Job. Then at other times it seems as though trouble takes a break and leaves us alone for a while, but before we know it--- it's back.

Trouble also comes in many forms and invades many different areas of our lives. It can attack us in our health, our finances, our personal relationships and in our relationship with God. They also come in different sizes. They can be as small as the little foxes or as big as a giant. The Bible says that "man is born to trouble and his days are full of them". If I stopped here with that statement it would seem that life was hopeless, we could never expect anything but trouble- no happiness, no joy, no peace, just trouble, trouble, trouble. But thank God we don't have to stop there. When we have "times" of trouble there is hope, His name is Jesus!

Jesus sticks with us in times of trouble- He does not run out on us, He does not leave us to handle it by ourselves, He does not forsake us. In times of trouble He is our refuge, our hiding place, our security, our safety. When facing times of trouble we don't face them alone- He leads, guides and directs us so that we can safely navigate through them to the other side.

Are you facing one of those "times" of trouble this morning? There is hope and help for you. Look to Jesus. He is big enough to handle whatever trouble comes your way and however many times it comes.

Have a great day. Each time that trouble comes, He will always be our refuge.



Excerpted from Coffee Break by: Lorraine Ezell