Ravi On Marriage

*Marriage is a blend - not just of bodies and affections but, ultimately, of two people walking in stride through the hard moments that would divide any other friendship.

*The chances are that if you marry somebody in violation of your parents' will, you are playing a high stake games as you enter the future.

*Any time you violate an authority that has been put in place by God, you need to be twice as sure you are doing the right thing.

*Chivalry in love has nothing to do with the sweetness of appearance. It has everything to do with the tenderness of heart determined to serve. This is the first hard lesson to learn. You do not act under the impetus of charm but out of a commitment to make someone's life the joy you want it to be. In the early days of marriage, joy precedes the act. Tragically, as the years go by joy can be severed from act until finally, the act itself is no more. This ought not to be. Over time it is the companionship that brings joy, and service is the natural outworking of the joy of commitment. Failure to act kills it.

*Marriage is the harmony of God synchronizing two wills with the will of the Father. When that happens, the heart resounds with the feeling, even though it involves sacrifices.

*When you will is committed to God, He carries you when all else seems spent, to rescue what you had invested by your dedication.

*The work that you do is a mean of providing for the family's needs, but the work you do must never become identical to the life you live. Many homes that have fallen apart wouldn't not have done so if it had been understood and acted upon that there is a time to work and a time to leave work.

*Marriage brings face to face two people committed to God, whose face is distinctively revealed in each as they see other in the light of God, shining on each countenance. God brought them close to each other because each was the other's answer from God, to rescue them from being alone.

* You can be sure that in every marriage the storm will hit. it is in your deep immersion into the Word that your roots will be able to hold the home together. The Word should be the foundation of your home.

*Our confidence should really lay in the strength of the Lord. That is what a well-guarded prayer life can reveal about us, that our trust is not in ourselves but in seeking God's strength for what we do. Prayer is not a substitute for action, but prayer under girds action with the strength that makes the difference.

*Your personal life must be ordered by prayer as a commitment each day. It should not be seen as a burden but as a privilege to seek the face of God before you face the day. However you order your life, the temptations that will stalk you and the conflicts that will confront or confound you can never be met in your own strength.

*The truth is that God calls us to first practise truth in private so that its public expression is merely an outgrowth of what has already taken place in the heart and not a declaration over a hollow life. Developing that strength of character in private is foundational.

*Become a man or woman of prayer. Let your devotional life be the beacon that guides you through the tough terrain you will face. Let your heart and mind be kept close to the principal calling of your life, which is to hunger and thirst after God and his righteousness. Make your day one in which God gets your best so that others share in the rewards of your devotion. Let the thoughts and intents of your heart be guided and shaped by time spent is His presence. Being in God's presence affects all other relationships for the better.

Miracles - Lewis

>Why men believe in the uniformity of Nature:
In the first place we are creatures of habit. We expect new situations to resemble old ones. It is a tendency which we share with animals; one can see it working, often to very comic results, in dogs and cats. In the second place, when we plan our actions, we have to leave out of account the critical possibility that Nature might not behave as usual tomorrow, because we can do nothing about it. It is not worth bothering about because no action can be taken to meet it. And what we habitually put out of our minds we soon forget. The picture of uniformity thus comes to dominate our minds without rival and we believe it.
Both these causes are irrational and would be just as effective and building up a false belief as in building up a true one. But I'm convinced that these is a there is a third cause. Said the late Sir Arthur Eddington:"In science, we sometimes have convictions which we cherish but cannot justify; we are influenced by some inmate sense of the fitness of things." This may sound a perilously subjective and aesthetic criterion; but can one doubt that it is a principal source of our believe in uniformity?A universe in which unprecedented and unpredictable events were at every moment flung into Nature would not merely be inconvenient to us: it would be profoundly repugnant. We will not accept such a universe on any terms whatever. It is utterly detestable to us. It shocks our "sense of the fitness of things".

>We are in the habit of talking as if laws of Nature caused events to happen; but they have never cause any event at all. Thus in one sense the laws of Nature cover the whole field of space and time; in another, what they leave out is precisely the whole real universe - the incessant torrent of actual events which makes up true history. That must come from somewhere else. To think the laws can produce it is like think that you can create real money by simply doing sums.

>The fact which is one respect the most obvious and primary fact, and through which alone you have access to all the other facts, may be precisely the one that is most easily forgotten - forgotten not because it is so remote and abstruse but because it is so near and so obvious. And that is exactly how the supernatural has been forgotten.

>On prayer: The Christian is not to ask whether this or that event happened because of a prayer. He is rather to believe that all events without exception are answers to prayer in the sense that whether they are grantings or refusals the prayers of all concerned and their needs have been taken into account. All prayers are heard, though not all prayers are granted. We must not picture destiny as a film unrolling for the most part on its own, but in which our prayers are sometimes allowed to insert additional items. On the contrary; what the film displays to us as it unrolls already contains the result of our prayers and all our other acts.
There is no question whether an evet has happened because of your prayer. When the events you prayed for occurs your prayers has always contributed to it. When the opposite events occurs your prayer has never been ignored; it has been considered and refused, for your ultimate good and the good of whole universe. But this is, and must remain, a matter of faith.

Graffiti Bali

Bali Trip - Nov'08

Bali surfer




















Payer found in our hotel compound




















The real mannequin. Don't play-play, they can dance man...















Sunset at Tanah Lot















Tanah Lot















Bali Girl. They wear nice kebaya whenever attending ceremony/prayer.






























Roasting coffee beans. She works 10 hrs a day




















Performer at Barong Dance




















Cool "live band" for prayer ceremony















Local beer




















Babi Guling Rice

Pork Satay

All You Need Is Love

*At the hour of death there is only one consolation, that the one has not avoided opposition but has survived it. What a man achieves or does not achieve is not within his power. He is not the one who shall steer the world; he has one and only one thing to do-to obey. Therefore everyone ought first and foremost (instead of asking what position is most comfortable to him, what connections are most advantageous to him) to place himself at a point where Governance can use him, if it so pleases Governance.

* For what is it to be busy? One ordinarily think that the manner in which a man is occupied determines whether he should be called busy or not. But there is not so. It is only within a narrower aspect of the definition that the maner is the determining factor-and this only after the object is first defined. He who occupies himself only with the ethernal, unceasingly every moment-if this were possible-is not busy. Consequently he who really occupies himself with the eternal is never busy. To be busy means, divided & scattered(depending upon the object which occupies one), to occupy oneself with all the manyfold things in which it s practically impossible for a man to be whole, whole entirely or whole in which in any single part, something only a lunatic can successfully do.

*Worldly wisdom thinks that love is a relationship between man & man. Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between: man-God-man, that is, that God is the middle term. However beautiful the love relationship has been between two or more people, however complete all their enjoyment and all their bliss in mutual devotional affection have been for them, even if all men have praised this relationship-if God and the relationship to God have been left out, then, Christianity understood, this has not been love but a mutual & enchanting illusion of love.

* Do not appeal to the judgement of men concerning you in order to prove your love, for the judgement of men has validity only as far as it agrees with God's demand; otherwise men are only your accomplishes.

*Even the happiest love between man & man has still one danger which the purely human conception of love cannot imagine, the danger that earthly love could become too intense, so that God-relationship is disturbed, the danger that the God-relationship, when humanly speaking there is perfect peace and no danger in sight, can require even this, the happiest love, as sacrifice.

*Christ love for Peter was so boundless that in loving Peter he accomplished loving the person one sees. He did not say,"Peter must change first and become another man before I can love him again." No, just the opposite, he said,"Peter is Peter, and I love him; love, if anything, will help him to become another man" Therefore he did not break off the friendship in order perhaps to renew it again when Peter had become another man. No. He preserved the friendship in changed and in this way helped Peter to become another man.

*Christianity understood that loving is loving the person one sees. The emphasis is not on loving the perfections one sees in a person, but on loving the person one sees, whether or not one sees perfections or imperfections in this person, yes, however distressingly he has changed, in as much as he certainly has not ceased to be the same man. He who loves the perfections he sees in a person deos not see the person and therefore ceased to love when the perfection cease, when change steps in.

*Christian conception of self-renunciation: give up your selfish desires and longings, give up your arbitrary plans and purposes so that you in truth work disinterestly for the good-and submit to being abominated almost as a criminal, scorned and ridiculed for this very reason,; submit, if it is demanded of you, to being executed as a criminal for this very reason-or, more correctly, do not submit to this, for one can hardly be forced into this, but choose it freely. Christian self renunciation knows in advance that this will happen and chooses it freely.

*If one wants to make sure that love is completely unselfish, he eliminated every possibility of repayment.

*For him who is to praise love(which everyone can do, it is not a talent) self-renunciation's relationship to God or in self-renunciation to be related to God ought to be everything, ought to be earnestness; whether or not there is a production ought to be a jest, that is, the God relationship itself ought to be more important to him than the yield.

*Christianity turns attention completely away from external, turns it inward, makes your every relationship to other human beings into a God-relationship.

*Christian understood one has ultimately & essentially to do with God in everything, although one nevertheless must remain in the world and in the relationship s of earthly life allotted to him. But having in everything to do with God (consequently one is never delayed in the way, half-way, by information, by human judgement, as if this were decisive) is simultaneously the highest consolation and the utmost streneousness, the greatest mildness & rigour.

*It does not then help any that you intend that he shall judge someone else, for you yourself have made Him

Real Worship

*When mission is divorced from worship, the human need can become more important than the divine glory; and the strategy used might be the result of human observation rather than a God-given spiritual vision.

*It's when we worship God that we discover afresh that His thoughts and ways are far above ours and that whatever we do will have to be guided and empowered by Him.

*We must leave the "special result" with God. I am not worshipping Him because of what He will do for me, but because of what He is to me. When worship becomes commercial, it ceases to be worship.

*We don't worship God for what we get out of it, but because He is worthy of worship.

* Worship involves both attitudes (awe, reverence, respect) and actions (bowing, praising, serving). It is both a subjective experience and an objective activity. Worship is not an unexpressed feeling, nor is it an empty formality.

*True worship is balanced and involves the mind, the emotions, and he will. It must be intelligent; it myst be reach deep within and motivated by love; and it must lead to obedient actions that glorify God.

*No two Christians have identical worship experiences even though they participate in the same service, at the same time, in the same sanctuary. For that matter, no two congregations, even in the same fellowship, express the same worship while following the same liturgy. Christian worship is both individual and corporate, personal and congregational. Let by the spirit, we have the right, even the responsibility, to express our praise to God in the manner that best reflects our individual personalities and cultures. if all of us would keep this in mind, it might encourage a deeper appreciation for one another's form of worship.

*We worship God becaus He is worthy and not because we as worshipers get something out of it. if we look upon worship only as a mean of getting something from God, rather than giving something to God, then we make God our servant instead of our Lord, and the elements of worship become a cheap formula for selfish gratification.

*If worship is to be a transforming experience, then it must result in service that transform the world.

*True spiritual celebration delivers us from "services as usual". To be sure, we need to guard against "evangelical exhibitionist" who use a worship service just to show off. But we also need to watchout for whorshipers who are so shackled in formalism and routine that there's no sincere celebration at all. They merely go through the motions. Both extremes should be avoided.

*Another difficult area of tension is the conflict between the objective and the subjective in worship. We are too prone to judge a worship experience by our feelings rather than by the fact that we have obeyed God and tried to please and glorify Him.

*Most of the meals we eat aren't spectacular goumet productions, yet they nevertheless nourish us. If we think primarily of individual taste and not ethernal truth, we may end up with an experience-centered service that ignores the past in order to gratify present appetites. People who run from one church to another, searchign for the "perfect worship experience" are impoverishing both themselves and the church-and they are chasing a religious mirage.

*One of the greatest dangers is that we "use" worship in order to accomplish something else than to glorify God in the edification of His church. We do not worship God in order to achieve peace of mind or to solve our personal problems, although these may be blessed by-products of worship. We worship God because He commands us to do so and because worship is the highest and holiest experience of the Christian believer.

*Our "spiritual sacrifices" are given because He is worthy and not because they will "buy" us blessings. If our spiritual sacrifices become means to and end, they cease to be spiritual, and if they become ends in themselves, then our worship becomes empty ritual. It is not easy to maintain the balance and only the Spirit of God can enable us to do so.

*Humility is important to true worship. Pride is the essential ingredient when it comes to worshiping Satan.

*True worship takes time, and one of the evidences that we're starting to make spiritual progress in our worship is the calmness that comes to the soul as we wait before God. You are conscious of time but not controlled by time. You enjoy waiting before the Lord and reveling in His wonder and His greatness.

Fraser's Retreat

Yeah rite. Wanted to bring some trees back, but cannot fit into our car. So just took some photos instead.
Tree.
Gift from beloved one
3 super-size anthill

Trees
Trees
Spiderman
Got some flower, mountains, lotsa trees
Got some insects too. Too bad out of focus (if not can send to National Geographic Mag)
Everything goes green here...