Courage, Child

“Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.” Matthew 9:2

Sami Dagher is the founding pastor of the Karantina Alliance Church in Beirut, and the president of the National Evangelical Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Lebanon. Sami has been working for decades in challenging places to bring people into God’s family. 

He was a “teddy bear” of a man, small but packed with energy. One night at about 11 pm, Sami and his wife were in a car, Sami was driving along a road in Lebanon, when Sami stopped because there was a suitcase lying on the road. His wife dissuaded him from picking it up, but Sami proceeded to get out of his car and loaded it into the trunk. When they reached home, he opened the suitcase and he found it was packed with money. Every square inch was just filled with money. He was able to find a calling card and he called the number on it. 

“Hello? Is this Mr. So and So?” 

“Yes.”

“Did you lose something?”

The man on the other line was quiet for a moment, then, “Did you find it?”

“Yes.”

The man wanted to come over and get it, but Sami said, “Come tomorrow. I have no plans for your suitcase.”

When the man arrived the next morning he was so grateful to Sami, amazed that someone would return the money. He said that he had withdrawn all his money from the bank with plans of leaving the country. As a reward he offered Sami some money. Sami said, “No, no, no, I only accept that amount of cash in the collection plate. Come to my church on Sunday.” The man came with his family, and at the end of the service, they all went to the front to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior. As they asked Jesus to come into their hearts, their tears fell. They knew their sins had been forgiven. 

“You thought you had your treasure,” Sami said, “but the real treasure is Jesus Christ and His Words.” He gave them a Bible. 

There is no treasure apart from You, O God. Whatever we are searching for, freedom, wisdom, power, riches, beauty or forgiveness. You are the source of all good things. 

I Believe

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” John 20:25

Thomas, whose Feast Day we celebrate today, goes down in history as “doubting Thomas”. He had a crisis of faith and did not believe even if all his friends, and companions, were excitedly telling him, “We have seen the Lord!” So Jesus appeared especially for him, and Thomas had no option but to believe. “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed,” Jesus said. 

How about us? Do we believe even if we have not seen Jesus? I’ve been listening to Frank Turec debate Christopher Hitchens about if God exists or not and it is really interesting. Of course I am biased and I think Christopher Hitchens just hates the idea of religion. Most of his reasoning points to how religion makes us slaves, and how it is used to manipulate society. In one of his most quoted statements, he claims, “Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.”

I think however that our belief in God is reasonable, and it requires more faith NOT to believe in a God who is outside of space, time and matter. For one thing, if we study the Old Testament, we will see that the God of the Bible promises a Messiah who will come in a particular place and who will suffer in order to save us. Who can give several prophecies about the future that come true through many different prophets but God? Also who can conceive that our human body, our earth and universe has no magnificent and caring designer behind its creation?!!!

I believe in a personal God who answers prayer, because He has answered my prayers, guided me concretely in my most important decisions, and continues to sustain and surround me with grace through my trials and challenges. 

To have faith in You, Lord, is to have wings! Dear dear Jesus, thank You for showing Yourself in many different ways throughout the course of my life! 

We are Perishing!

“Lord, save us!  We are perishing!” Matthew 8:25

My father loved to sail, even when he was 90 years old.  He would go out on the water even if the weather was so bad. Picture a small sailboat being swamped by the waves. When the wind was terrifyingly strong, he would be exhilarated. He was in his element. The strong winds and mighty waves excited him. In contrast, the experienced fishermen got scared and called on the Lord to save them!

Sometimes when God does not answer our prayers, we say He is not listening or He is sleeping. Jesus only slept because He was a man while on earth. He had all the limitations of our physical bodies which get tired and weary. Now He is not bound by the earth and we can depend on Him not to get tired or weary. We should always have the mindset that nothing is impossible with God. He can command not only the winds, and the sea, but even fires, missiles, the predicted "Big Earthquake", and even meteors hurtling to earth.  When He allows disasters, misfortunes, tragedies and reversals, we can and should ask, "Why did God allow this? Is there something I need to learn? About Him? About myself? What is His purpose?" We should go closer to God instead of farther, knowing when bad things happen, He is closer than a prayer.

When my dad fell and became bedridden, this gave him so much pain and he lost a lot of weight. But he asked, "Why did this happen to me? Why is my caregiver, Jay, a welder as well?" I am sure He asked God many more questions, but from these 2 questions, my dad came up with the answer that he now could make a Murphy bed. And so he made a Murphy bed and many other new products as well. Is it any wonder I admire my dad so much? He is always open to the opportunities God gives him! Even if that opportunity comes cloaked in a seeming misfortune. 

Lord, may I always have a heart of faith, seeing You for who You really are. May I not forget that You are with me whatever happens!

St. Junipero Serra

“Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Matthew 8:19

Today we celebrate the Feast Day of Saint Junipero Serra. He really followed Jesus with zeal and dedication. He was a Franciscan missionary who went to California from Mexico at the advanced age of 56. You would think he was ready to retire and rest, especially as he was suffering in pain from a chronic ulcerated leg sore, but no! Father Junipero walked hundreds of miles to evangelize, to bring the gospel where he could. Beginning in 1769, he established eight of the 21 Spanish missions in California from San Diego to San Francisco. He converted thousands of Indians. He also initiated efforts to protect the natives from abuse under the Spaniards by writing the grievances of the population. This led to a document which laid out the rights of the Native Americans in Spanish California and protected them under the governance of the Spanish monarchy. 

St. Junipero lived by his motto, “Siempre adelante! Keep moving forward and never turn back.” May we too keep moving forward with the cross before us, the world behind us!

https://youtu.be/teUxQpnhezY?si=Vo-TJ1ygsxSWZ_zA