Grant

A Christmas 🏋🏼 Toy

(Reflections of a 63 year old boy)

It is almost Christmas and the crisp tearing of colorful wrappers once again unravel the worth of yearly affection.

I grew up always wishing to get the best toys but for some hidden reasons, I always felt that I did not deserve receiving such.

At best, I got plastic toy soldiers in a flimsy bag while my sister got the state of the art pinball machine.

“Ho-hum, Fi-fi-fo-fum.”

I’d always walk to the marketplace and peer with bridled excitement into the stateside steel toy cars (Matchbox©️) that were only available at the Good Luck bazaar. There was obviously, no luck for me every single Christmas.

This narrative somehow drove into my psyche an inferior image that I was always meant to be marginal.

On  the fence, barely inside.

And then, one day … my mother gifted me with what was during my time “the mother of all exercise gadgets” … the BullWorker©️.

I was reed thin. But daily submission to isometrics changed my physique. Somehow, I had hope of crossing the fence.

To this day, I exercise daily. As I reflect, one does religious obsessions to be reminded that one somehow matters.

It is always a good day, when Good Luck brings me a good gift.

But

There always is the better largesse. It is when the Good Provider leads me to the best option: the simple discovery that I do not need toys to validate my worth nor core six packs to regulate my esteem.

Contentment is the ironic best gift that only comes through the Person who authored the first and only Christmas©️.

I have been given all things in Christ.

Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? [Romans 8:32 NLT]

(Russell Diwa: Aboard Southwest Airlines flight to Birmingham, Alabama on November 23, 2024)

Bingo

Luck is never trustworthy. God’s word is. But why do we marginalize truth and make sublime our deception? This is the reason why God had to interrupt our insanity by entering our silly games to introduce the gravitas of his Being.

{🔍lens capture: Marcus Tortorici | locus: Palawan, Philippines June 2024}

Lukewarm

We gravitate towards superstition and ignore supernatural grace and refer to it as faith. Our creative machinations are mere psychological doctrines cloak in scriptural gibberish. We drift away from the Redeemer and race slowly towards destruction.

Gas Lit

The insidious nature of gaslighting presents a masquerade that is obviously untrustworthy. Pseudo-friends remain detached but with a feigned appearance of unity. The Psalmist speaks of this duplicity by citing the citizens of Meshak & Kedar. How long O Lord must I bear this allergen?

Sacred Work

Manual work converts us to see labor through the hard life of the solitary Carpenter whose ripped muscles dripped obedient acids to finish the hidden work that solely matters: the Glory of the only One who completes every Work.

Suddenly, a dead man working gains life and begins to work for the first time towards Eternal Applause.

Offensive Joke

I speak weekly before an audience who choose to rely upon what little gravitas I have to navigate the intricacies of life as lived together with them. I always ponder the unrelenting responsibility to pastor my congregation with words that are somehow prone to abuse or lift the souls of despondency. The hardest task is to discern where the people are when I open my mouth. More often, I am but a myopic microphone providing loose pegs that float without anchored context.

I was listening hard for Jokoy during the Golden Globes 2024 event, and amidst the challenging atmosphere, I saw myself … sighing with ulcer-like spasms on what he must have felt when the blow torch of free speech lit up the night with divisive rhetoric.

Words are not mere alphabets. They have the power to kill or give life.

I find myself a “Jokoy” at times.

Either I choose death over my stumbling craft or I regroup and start anew to trust this simple yet wild tool of seeking to tell you that I do really care but weak enough to fumble and look like a fool and hope for a day that I look more like a sincere human being who has truly spoken from his heart.

Yahoo Men

The lies of men are beguiling only to themselves. The mastery of deceit takes the form of art but not before the peering eyes of the Lord God Almighty.

In His gaze, all black turns crystal. The masks are exposed. Manipulation and duplicity rise in public stare as the suave perpetrator receives proper judgment.

Woe to these boys who seek to prey on the innocent. They shall all be tied with stones that’ll be thrown towards the base floors.

Once upon a Time

The elusive search for a spouse escapes the precision of analysis. My journey towards my present blessing of marriage is favored and flavored by grace alone. Once upon a time, I chose to entrust my heart to God’s infinite counsel and the find was epic.

34 years since, I have been ruminating on my unworthiness and God’s apparent cancellation of my inherent status. I have been blessed beyond measure, beyond my competence, beyond my ask, beyond any of my foolish pretensions.

Manel has lived with me this past three decades and I can only wish for an eternity more.

The Promise

W O R D O N M A R R I A G E

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing[a] her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. {Ephesians 5:22-33 NIV}

Today in Calgary, a young man looks back and remembers what his dad promised a long time ago. There is a lovely woman who likewise glimpses and knows what his dad promised. Covenants were sealed then and this day, the same blessing remains.

Badong stands before God and witnesses to speak his intent towards Olivia harking back to the spectacle of the first marriage in the Garden.

The man is called to love without limits while the woman is invited to follow with sweet resolve. The arrangement is referred to as Covenant for it is God Himself who walks in their midst to guarantee their flourishing.

In everything, Badong sees Olivia beyond compare. She goes first next to God. He leads with gentle and kind intentions seeking her benefit above all. If his very life requires this pursuit, he does so with tenacious resolve, in obedience to His Master, whose love for the church reflects his imitation.

In all things, Olivia respects Badong without trepidation. He remains the lord of her home. She commits to making him look good at all times. And thus, she receives affection, provision and protection from her respectful poise.

As time passes, their unity stands in the fulcrum of Christ’s promised presence. When their candles wane and extinguish due to expected life storms, they remember their vows and understand why their marriage holds steady. It is because of the One who remains faithful all the days of their lives. Every squall and storm will be stilled in deference to the Maker of heaven and earth.

As both declare their “I do’s” before God and people, we are called to observe the resplendence of another miracle that stays unabridged: the covenant of lasting marriage.

For as God solely declares, as they become one, no one and nothing alters their sacred union. It has been defined well and needs no further amendments .

They shall be blessed by His outstanding and loyal love, signed and sealed by their Redeemer’s life and energized by the daily hope of unparalleled grace.

Let Christ’s holy kiss be their daily refuge today and for always.

© 2016 Oil and Dew Ltd