1 Peter 5:10

¹⁰ And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Does this still apply if I suffer because of my own fault and sin?

Self prophecy

A man tirelessly campaigns for safety improvements in his local neighborhood. A nearby intersection is a death black spot. He warns that if the local government does not take any action, there will soon be another death on the road. Not long after his prophecy is fulfilled. He is tragically killed in a car accident on the very road.

Matthew 18:21-22

²¹ Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

²² Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.^[a]

[a] or... seventy times seven

Why did Jesus say seventy-seven times or seventy times seven? Do these numbers have any literal meaning? I don't think so. He could have said seventy-five times or some other random number, it won't change the actual message.

We must be ready to forgive as many times as our brother or sister sins against us. Easier said than done, but that's the principle.

Plans and risks

I turned 41 today. I feel I should make a solid plan for the future. Actually, my motive is to retire early. So, here is my plan.

First, review my financials. I used to do this a lot but it all changed since I left it to the professional.

Second, don't be afraid to take risks. We probably think we don't gamble but the fact is every decision we make is a gamble. Our superannuation is most likely invested in the share market. We bet that our current jobs that we hold on so dearly are the best. We bet that when we commute to work today we won't get hit by a bus. Everything is a risk. Some are less riskier than others. So, without further ado, I'm going into the share market.

Third, consolidate my data. What on earth has this got to do with my early retirement plan? I feel that my accumulated possessions are bogging me down. The more I have the less mobile I am. I don't have a lot of physical belongings but I do have a lot of data. At present this data is stored all over the place across many hard disks and thumb drives. One day one of my thumb drives got corrupted. Luckily I backed it up before to another drive. Then I thought again, what if this backup drive fails. I can't afford the time to backup my data to a third or a fourth drive. So, I signed up with an online storage provider and going to backup all my important data there. Not-so-important data, be gone! What if the provider's system fails? Well, they are professional, they should know how to manage this risk. That's the risk I'm taking.

Well, for now I plan to enjoy my birthday today.

How to save the world

I just watched two old movies played by Ben Kingsley. I had known before that Gandhi was played by Kingsley, but I had not known that he was also in Schindler's List playing the Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern.

The two movies have more things in common than Kingsley. Both Gandhi and Schindler are heroes to oppressed peoples. While Gandhi led his own people to independence, Schindler rescued a people he did not ethnically belong to. They both proved themselves to be selfless, but imperfect.

India became independent shortly after World War II. Gandhi had, on some occasions, written his opinions on Holocaust when it was taking place during the war.

The Deadliest Poison

King Solomon is well known for his wisdom and wealth. Many stories have been written about him. Some claim that he can speak to animals, but to me it makes more sense to say that he speaks "of" animals, in that he writes numerous poems and songs about animals. And who can forget the story of two women and a baby which gives rise to the expression The Judgment of Solomon. Despite such wisdom Solomon makes a drastic turn in his life. Being a king in that era he gets many fine things in life, including wives and concubines. His love for women gradually leads him to a very different life. 1 Kings 11:9 reads “The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.”

Here is one of the biggest tragedies in history. We hear of people whose theophanic experience gives them enormous strength to carry their mission to the end of their lives. In the Bible we know of Abraham, Jacob, Isaiah, Mary, Paul and outside it there are Joan of Arc and Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. It's very rare that individuals who have seen God end up abandoning their calls. In Solomon's case his wisdom and wealth is attributed to his first encounter with God. The second encounter is ironic because it is a warning for him not to abandon God.

The Bible passage above mentions explicitly that God's anger is caused by Solomon's heart. Wisdom alone is not enough to please God. It may well be that wisdom itself changes one's heart. When one's heart has turned away from God, even God himself is powerless to mend it. The human heart is the deadliest poison.

Shambolic

I had a dream last night where a colleague of mine was telling another colleague how his credit card had been mistakenly charged. Somewhere in his remarks he mentioned a word which I didn't know the meaning but could only guess. The word sounded to me like schamboly. Mind you, in my dream I heard, not read, the word, so I just made up the spelling.
When I woke up I looked up the word and the closest I could get was shambolic, which was what I guessed what it meant in the dream. I'm not sure how I could have guess it correctly. I try to rationalise that by thinking that perhaps I have heard and understood that word before then forgot it but somehow it has sunk in my subconscious memory. Maybe, maybe not. As of now I have hardly any recollection of my first real encounter with that word.
Isn't it strange what dreams can do? A friend of mine told me about his dream. He dozed off in his sofa. In his dream the phone was ringing and when he picked up the phone it was his sister in another country half around the globe. He woke up, the phone was ringing and when he picked up the phone it was his sister in another country half around the globe. Sorry about the sentence repeat, but for a moment it was life imitating dream. Now, he told me that the sister usually called him once a year or something. Was it merely a coincidence that he guessed it right in his dream?
By the way, shambolic means chaotic or disorganised according to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shambolic. The root is shambles and apparently is a British slang. In my dream, that colleague of mine was American and he didn't look like any of my colleagues I know. Weird.