I’m going to be a bit off in the theme of my blog site for this entry. I felt the need to write this which is something that is very personal to me. Anyway, my blog site is about Life and Personal Finance right? Allow me write about Life this time around.

I just came from a prayer meeting from my church at Victory Green Hills. We are on our 2^nd day of our annual prayer & fasting week. Fasting has always been one of those activities that I get anxious about because it really challenges my discipline and yet at the same time it is a time I experience a lot of breakthroughs.

Our prayer meetings have themes and tonight, the theme was about the youth. I was having second thoughts of attending tonight’s meeting since I am still ‘woozy’ from fasting, a bit dizzy and tired. My teen-aged daughters prevailed upon me since one of their close friends was to give a testimony. It was encouraging to see that our church is really reaching out and preparing the next generation by engaging them and discipling them. As a father, I am always concerned about the future of my children and I will do anything that I can to provide a good future for them. However, I must always realize the limitations of what I can do. No matter what we do, what lies for the future of our children is really beyond our control – regardless of how we think it can be so. The best thing we can really do is to teach them, train them, guide them and show them and provide an environment for them to experience what their true purpose is in life is.

During the prayer meeting, I listened to the testimony of a senior year high school student from Ateneo, Avram Francisco. He recalled how he had many of the usual issues of a typical teenager which revolves around self-centeredness, as many of us are. Through engagement by his relatives, Avram eventually got to know Christ and surrendered his life to Him. Story didn’t really turned out too great when he gave his life to Christ since he still had to deal with some more issues which he has not surrendered, as he narrated in his testimony. It took another encounter for him to realize what it really meant to be a disciple of Jesus and his life has never been the same twice. Avram now leads other students to Christ and has been passionate about the calling God impressed upon him – to live for others and to bring them to Christ. It is not only the teen aged youth he is leading, he also patiently leads a group of young boys – teaching them about Jesus and being a good Kuya to the kids. Avram’s story is merely the beginning and if he continues to put Christ in the center of his life, I am confident that many things are in store for this guy and I may just write about him again. Avram was also inspired into discipleship by a preaching of our Pastor Dennis Sy during their youth camp last summer. Our Pastor used the scripture from Jude 1:23 (NIV): “save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.”

This experience made me look back on my youth, on how lost and misguided I was. It took decades for me to finally knock some sense into my hard head and realize my true purpose in life: that of worship of the Lord. I wonder how my life would have turned out if I had a friend like the many youth I see at our church – engaging their friends and getting them to have a personal relationship with Christ.  I am pretty sure my life would have less of the many wrong decisions I made. But God has his ways and his will is always perfect; I have stopped questioning his ways and his timing so I am just assuming that it was God’s plan for me to get to know Him when I was 40 instead of 14 or so.

My wife and I are always thankful to the Lord that our children has also become disciples of Christ, otherwise I would probably already have a heart problem from worrying what they are up to all the time, haha!

We really need to get them young, help them get to know Christ at the earliest time possible. That’s the best thing we can do for the next generation.

Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. – Psalm 34:11, NIV

*photo by Larry Uy

As a trainer, writer, speaker, consultant… and whatever it is that I do, I need a lot of input. If i would be a good communicator, I must also get a lot of information and data all the time. There is a need for me to read, and to read a lot.

While I still enjoy reading, I have a huge waiting line in my reading list and I have been trying to find more and more time to read. Since I take a lot of long trips, the travel time would have been a great time to catch on my reading right? However, I am unable to do so because I have some motion sickness… Fail!

The next best thing? Podcasts. I’ve been subscribing to some podcasts and they are very convenient for an information junkie like me. So what’s in my podcast subscription list right now?

1) Ravi Zacharias: Ravi and his team are my favorite Christian Apologetics and they have 2 programs over at iTunes — Just Thinking and Let My People Think. Listening to Ravi and his team’s podcasts is an absolute must for me… this is nourishment for my spirit and my brain as well. If you doubt your faith and if you doubt God, listen to Ravi Zacharias!

2) The Dave Ramsey Show: I try to catch Dave’s radio podcasts and his podcasts are always updated over at iTunes. I get a lot of practical personal finance knowledge from Dave Ramsey, I just love his no nonsense approach to money. I must admit though that I haven’t been listening to Dave’s show as much of late. Looks like I need to do so again.

I’ve also recently subscribed to the podcasts of Seth Godin and the The Economist. Seth Godin was introduced to me by my good friend Carlo Ople and my pastor Dennis Sy. The Economist was a magazine/journal I used to read a lot before, good thing they now have podcasts.

While reading books/journals are still best, podcasts may be the next best thing.

However, there’s still one book that I must read everyday and no technology can be a good substitute for me, the Bible.

ps – I still like to read books by the way, I just need to find time to do so. Will share my reading list soon.