Goal! Goal! Gooooooooal!!!

Man how awesome is the feeling if you are a soccer player and you score a goal for the team? The adrenaline, the hype, the fans and your team mates all go crazy. It’s like you just saved the world. But in all honesty it’s just one goal. I do have a question though. How do you score a goal? I mean yeah you just kick the ball and it goes to the back of the net. But as a sports player myself I feel like there is more than to just kicking a ball. You have to imagine in your mind to score the goal before you score the goal. Woah woah woah. Too many goals in one sentence. Haha. Ok. Let me try breaking it down. Boom chicka wa waaaaa.

If a player kicks the ball without a mind set of getting the ball into the net I think the chance of that ball going in is very low. Unless the goalie is horrible…. think about it. You have no imagination or see the ball going into the net. You set no goal in your mind which means you don’t really care if you score the goal or not. Then as a player you have no purpose of playing soccer.

Imagine a game where players have no goal to score goals. They’ll just be dribbling and kicking the ball for fun. No no no. Each member of the soccer team have a goal in their mind. Defenders have goals to stop opponents from scoring. Goalies have a goal to stop letting the ball going into the back of the net. The strikers have a goal to score goals. The coaches have a goal to win a championship. Each team have one goal and that is to win games. If they have no goals in what they are doing, then what is the purpose of them training, playing, running and sweating in the heat or cold. The same with us even if we do not play soccer. If we have no goals in our life we would just be living life half heartedly on a limbo. What is the purpose of life without a goal?

So here you are reading and thinking I would be talking about soccer or football. No idea which one is the right term. Sorry if I offended you. But nope. I’m here to write about goals and the importance of it in our lives. This revelation hit me when I was talking to a good friend of mine. We were talking about gym and getting fit. He knows he’s been slacking off and all. He has a membership with a gym but he hasn’t been going. I tried to encourage him to just go and stuff it whether his friends are there or not. He said it was because he was lazy, no discipline, didn’t like exercising in the gym and no time. But I remember asking him what his your goal was for going to the gym. And he said to get fit. But what is fit? Fit is a just a loose term that anyone can say. However it is not really measurable or has a specification attached to it.

What I realised is that he didn’t have a goal. Instead he should have a mind set of wanting to go to a gym to hit a certain weight. I believe if he had this mind set he would keep going to a gym because he wants to reach that goal. No more ‘just getting fit’ reason. But more of a ‘I want to go to a gym because I want to hit 50KG  by the end of the month and I ain’t stopping till I get there’ reason. Doesn’t that sound better?! You set yourself a goal and a purpose. Knowing that every time you go to a gym you are reaching that goal. There is a determination to work out hard and exercise hard till that number pops up on the scale.

This is applicable in our everyday lives. In anything that we do, if we do not have any set goals we will never achieve anything in our lives. We have to set goals to have a purpose in this life. And to be brutally honest with you. NOTHING in this world can satisfy our soul. Yeah I know what you’re thinking.. “but you just said to set goals in our lives to have a purpose”.

Hebrews 12:1-3

–Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.–

Living a life from not knowing Jesus to having a relationship with Jesus are so so different. There will always be this void in our hearts and souls even if we have everything. Yes you read right. EVERYTHING. Why? Because we were created for one purpose and one goal. To proclaim that Jesus is the son of God, who was sent down to earth, to bear the cross because of our sins, so that we MAY live a righteous life and a have a relationship with Him.

1 Peter 2:24

— He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we MIGHT die to sin and live for righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.–

Wooowwwww….. He knew before He sacrificed His life that we may not commit or want to know Jesus. The bible said MIGHT. Not must, not have to, not will but MIGHT. According to Oxford dictionary it means – Expressing a possibility based on an unfulfilled condition.- A possibility that by sacrificing Himself that we would not die to sin nor live a righteous life when the condition HAS BEEN fulfilled!!! How crazy does that sound?! He knew and yet he took a chance for us. That just blows my mind. Who in the world would sacrifice their lives for people that may not even thank them. He took a chance on all of us…. wow… and even if we don’t love Him or know Him, regardless, He still loves us.

Our purpose and goal is to share the love that Jesus Christ has given us. Our greatest calling is to have an image of Christ when people see us. That means to live a life just like Jesus did. To spread the gospel of unconditional love of Jesus, to the lost, to the unreachable, to the darkest parts of the world. This is what we are called to do. This is our goal and purpose of our existence. Whether you believe it or not the choice is yours. All I can say is this… no other feelings can ever beat the moment when you see your loved ones giving up their lives to Christ. It is an indescribable feeling to know that you have introduced Jesus into their lives. Knowing that they may enter the narrow gates of heaven (Matthew 7:13).

I read a quote one time and it has been imprinted into my heart ever since.

— If I am wrong about God then I have wasted my life. If you are wrong about God then you have wasted an eternity — Lecrae

If you can answer the following dot points I can guarantee you that you will succeed in life whether you know Jesus or not, however giving up my life to follow Jesus is honestly the best decision of my life. I have set my goals below as I understand my purpose. I hope you have too.

• Create a goal in your life – To abide in Him and let His word abide in me (John 15:7). Use my life to share His unconditional love.
• Fix your eyes on that goal – Whatever it takes to save the boys that I grew up with, as they have saved my life.
• Work hard to reach that goal – Seek God with all my heart mind and soul (Matthew 22:37). Pray, fast, read, write, sacrifice and listen.
• Do not give up till you reach that goal – Jesus never gave up on me when I’ve given up on his so many times, so why should I?! Through persecution, mockery and hatred. I am all in!
• When you reach your goal, celebrate – To see my loved ones from friends to families getting saved. Wow. That moment would be indescribable.
• Set your goals higher or else you will be complacent – To reach the few, to hundreds, to thousands. (Matthew 28:16-20)
• Repeat – All day erryday!

Phillipians 3:12

–Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.–

Before I end this blog, I want to ask you a few question for yourself to ponder. What is your goal in life? If you reach that goal, would you be happy and be satisfied or would you keep trying to reach another goal ?  When does this cycle end? What is the purpose of living? Is it to get your dream job? Money? Girls? Cars? Family? Would that really satisfy your life? Can your void be filled with all of these things? Or will you still feel empty?

I pray that someday, one day, you will be able to have a relationship with Jesus. It is so worth it. Blessings.

Proverbs 19:21

–Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.–

This is INDIA!

Namaste! Never would I ever thought or say that India is dope, but here I am writing about the country. I would have thought that India would be the last country that I would ever visit just because nothing really stood out for me. But boy oh boy was I wrong. I encourage everyone that read the following to visit visit visit. Exceeded my expectation I have to say. Wow just wow… that traffic though! Haha. Just kidding! Other than the traffic it is an experience of a life time. Actually let me rephrase that for India first timers. Traffic in India WOULD BE an experience of a lifetime for y’all! Bottom line, I think I will go back to India some day. One day.

So you ask why is the country amazing? Let me start with FOOD (hmm hmm hmm)! Honestly, I have no idea what I was eating most of the time HOWEVER everything taste sooo gooooddd! Praise the Lord I did not get the Delhi Belly! For some reason I would always ask the waiter what I was eating knowing that I would not know what the ingredients were. So I would nod and pretend I know what they were talking about. Smooth right? I know I know! By the way DO NOT eat street food! Free tip from me to you. Another free tip – try everything, order food that will surprise you. This is the best part about travelling to ‘a whole new world…’. See what I did there? Ha! Leave your pickiness at your home country yo!

Culture. Of course, if you travel to another country that do not speak English you will experience the culture. Well you probably would get hit by the culture shock. Just the crowd, the dirtiness, traffic, traffic, traffic, food, where lines do not exist, rudeness of people, hospitality and respect, simple life, near death experiences of the road, oh did I mention traffic? As you can read there are 2 things that I mention that contradicted each other. Rudeness of people and hospitality/respect. Well as you all know every country in the world will have rude homies, it is inevitable not to have them, but if you put into account the population of India it is given that you would meet a lot more of them. So expect to encounter a whole bunch of rude people. Make no mistake though, there are also a whole bunch of nice, respectful and lovely people as well! Do not let your encounters with rude people ruin the image of the whole country. I met some awesome and lovely people that were pure gold. Leaving conversations with such joy and thankfulness. Have some time and talk to randoms, ask them how they are, trust me it’s worth it.

Monuments. Yes I only visited Taj Mahal and Agra Fort but seriously I think all other cities would have an amazing experience and story no matter what. Just a surreal moment to step into the tunnel entrance of Taj Mahal and see the building itself from afar. It is truly truly magnificent. I mean I watched Aladdin and I thought that was cool. TRUST ME, it is even better in real life. Yes, I know…. I have also been told that Aladdin was not set India. Blah blah blah…. Let me live my life yo! Hehe.

It was astounding to hear the history of how and why Taj Mahal was created from our tour guide named Rahul. To cut the story short Shah Jahan (An emperor during that time) loved his third wife Mumtaz Mahal so much that he built the monument to tomb her inside. Now you know how it got its name. Basically the Taj has nothing inside except a tomb. It took 10 years to build, all done with marble and jewels, and guess how much it would have cost today? US$800+ million!!!! #Allbuiltforlove. Romantic huh? To hear a story like that is kinda shocking. Good shock. Speechless and somewhat you admire the guy for doing that. I think it is what we all desire, for a person to love another human being just like Mr Jahan. Over the course of the tour it hit me…. the greatest love that anyone could ever know, is the love of Jesus. A love that we are so used to by now that we don’t really appreciate it any more. We should be in awe everyday that His love overcame the cross and grave to find our soul. We are His greatest creation. We are the temple, the greatest monument that has ever existed because of His love for us. Even better than the 7 wonders of the world. He sacrificially gave His life to die on the cross whether we know Him, love Him, hate Him or don’t know Him.

— For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John — 3:16-17 

The difference with His creation is that he doesn’t need us to love or know Him back. It is a one way love with no strings attached. How does He do it? To love people that doesn’t love Him back? It is already hard enough to love someone that loves you back right?  2 words…UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. Can you imagine a God that would only love us with conditions? That would never work. The thing is, we sometimes lose focus because of the world, we forget to just stop and appreciate His creation, us. No matter what anyone says about you, remember you were worth dying for. For the women out there, please do not let the world change or shape you for who you are. The word said you were created with perfection.  –So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.– Genesis 1:27. THAT is love.  (Exception: unless God tells you specifically to change, for example – bad habits. Hehe. Remember to always line it up with the word of God!)

Now lets get back to the highlights shall we? Got a bit too intense there….Agra Fort! Man I have to say… it was gigantic! Currently, portion of it are still being used by the Indian army. Pretty dope! Ain’t nobody messing with them! I believe the fort was created for war purposes, that is a given…. However the most interesting theory and sad part was that Shan Jahan was actually kept under ‘fort arrest’ by his son as he spent too much money building monuments. Story was told that Shan Jahan wanted to build a BLACK Taj Mahal for himself so that he could be tombed inside once he passes away, just across the river from the White Taj Mahal. His son apparently was a humble man and did not like to spend money extravagantly. To stop his father, he had to imprisoned him inside the Agra fort. Rumour has it, he died at a tower with a marble balcony looking at the Taj Mahal.

Poverty. To see the poverty in India saddens my heart. So why would that be a highlight for me? Sometimes you need a reality check and see it for yourself to remind you that you are one blessed human being. It just encourages myself to become better, appreciate my life of where I’m at, be a blessing to others, thankful of where I am and where I live.  — In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ” Acts 20:35– #wordd

It’s crazy though, I could see there are people suffering and at the same time there others who are just happy of where they are, I guess it is all about perspective of what has been given to them. 2 choices, to dance in the hallway while doors are closed or to stand still with an attitude in the darkness. I guess my encouragement to everyone is to be thankful where you are at. Count your blessings. If you think you have it rough always remember there are other people that has it even rougher. You don’t need everything of this world to live a happy life. There were kids playing cricket in the streets with sticks as bats and stones as wickets,  they didn’t let their circumstances stop them, instead they were having fun, living a simple life.

— For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? Matthew 16:25,26 — Remember that when we die we ain’t gonna take nothing with us. Live life to the fullest even if you don’t have the names, fame and money. Do not waste nor lose your life by chasing all of these things.

For my fellow Christians, let fire be lit up in your hearts for those who has lost its flame. For those who aren’t Christians, let my travel experience raise questions whether Jesus is real or not. One baby step at a time. Blessings.

#justsomeasianguythatlovestotravelandJesus

The WALL

So I started running a couple months ago… trying to get fit ya know… lose that belly fat from all that food that I’ve been eating… (as you can tell….from the food section) Got out of all the injuries and sickness that I’ve been having and now time to get ripped with no change in my diet but exercising more… let’s see if that works. Some say it won’t work and some say it will never work. Ha!

Nike run club. Every Mondays – well I try to go every Mondays… signed up and ran in the 5KM – 5.30 min/KM. Struggling quite hard and falling back from my group and all…so far after 5 runs my PB is 5.53 min per KM. But that’s not what I’m trying to talk to you all about….I want to talk to you about the message that I got from God by running. Yes. You read right. God speaking to me while I’m running… how is that even possible? I. Have. No. Idea. That’s how God works… He speaks to anyone in every aspect, moment, environment and you name it, He can do it all especially at the weirdest times…

So what did He speak to me about? How does speak to me? Is it a loud voice with the heavens opening up? Or did a spirit control someone else’s body? Morgan Freeman? What?!

He didn’t do all that.. it was from the mental side and experiences of running long distances. You know when sometimes you talk to yourself or you think you hear voices or you have ideas or thoughts that came out of nowhere… it’s pretty much a combination of all… revelations and thoughts that I would never think of or have any ideas or answers… but I got it… bible verses popping in my head like candy. Dropping rhymes and dimes.. You. Name. It!

When you haven’t ran or played sport for a very long time,  you’re unfit. BOOM! True story… I came up to the 3KM mark and I am dead.. like my legs feel tired already, like mum’s spaghetti (Ohhhh…killem), running out of breath and all I want to do is stop, lock and pop.. no seriously…all I want to do is stop running and walk.. simpler terms.. give up. Why? It was just tiring.. and was it worth to finish the race? No… did it mean anything?…. No… And this is how it all unravels.

My mind is telling me noooo but my boddyyy… no it did not go like that… my mind told me that I could not finish the race, body is telling me no, but deep down inside I don’t want to stop, I don’t want to give up, I want to finish the race cause I know that if I start walking it would be twice as hard to get back into the running motion once again.

Doesn’t that sound very familiar? Being a Christian, we are all running in a race or even a marathon until the end of days… a race that is freaking tiring, sore, getting stitches along the way, losing breath and the list goes on and on. The easiest way out is to give up.. no doubt.

What I found is that if you keep running during the time when you really really want to give up… the tiredness and soreness disappears… no joke! Your legs feels lighter and you can start breathing once again. I have been told that state is called ‘the wall’. Once you get over that state of tiredness everything becomes easier…

Whatever situation you are in, it might be toughest season of your life, you could be in ‘the wall’ state of your Christian race… keep running even when your body is telling you no… it will get easier as you progress and push through! All the troubles, issues and challenges in your life will start to become smaller. The more you run the more you will get used to the situation and that will become an experience. That experience will become your teacher knowing that you have been there, done that. That means you can go through it all again with more knowledge and wisdom in the future. Knowing you can finish that race without stopping any more. Some day you could look back into your life knowing that you have conquered all the issues of your Christian walk because you kept running pass ‘the wall’ state.

The most important revelation for me is that once you overcome a challenge that challenge is no longer a challenge.. therefore the enemy can no longer take you down no more! Even if they do try with newer challenges, always remember ‘the wall’ state and keep going… they cannot stop you as you pass that stage and momentum will start to come… you will keep running and running and running…

I am not a pastor nor a preacher… just a guy that loves Jesus. All I want is to share my revelation of my Christian walk (or in this context run) and leave you with a couple of verses. Hopefully these verses will trigger some sort of your own revelation from God in your current situation and in your life as it had in mine. Let it flow, let is speak to you, let it ask questions. Maybe a change of thought from ‘I don’t believe in Jesus’ to ‘Is Jesus real?’ One small step at a time. Blessings.

2 Timothy 4:7

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Philippians 3:12-14 

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus

2 John 1:8

Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully.