Walking around the buildings at my working place during my lunchtime break, I rant into an old acquaintance. We chatted a little bit on topics such as family and work. He told me that he was shocked from this RA (Resource Action) in his department. They were hit hard and consequently he has to pick up more workloads from his let-go colleagues. Worse thing is now he has to work on weekends. So, he sighed, “There is no fun in working here anymore, I would retire this time if my kids were not still in college.” “Me too!” I responded.

Thinking about retirement is a natural thought as we progress through our journey of life. When I came to the States for my study, my wife gifted me a book titled, “How to be successful in your age of 40”. I was laughing at it and told her that you will probably be disappointed because at that time, I was still searching for my direction of life.  Many years have passed, I finally have a better sense of where my direction of life and where my success should be – it is in Him, my Lord Jesus.

During my son’s graduation ceremony, one of his Board of Education members gave a speech titled “How to be successful in your life journey”.  She used her experience, as a foreigner came to the States for study, to encourage the graduates. Her speech focused on self- motivation and persistence in achieving goals. I shared her experience but I find that is a painful human effort. George MacDonald, a Scottish novelist, poet, and Christian minister, once said, “In whatever a man does without God, he must fail miserably—or succeed more miserably若人所作的沒有神的同在，不是慘遭失敗，便是悲慘地成功。”My life experience says all.

In this world, we feel less useful when we are getting old – our physical strength decays, our health degrades, our brains are not sharp anymore. You may be “successful” in climbing corporate ladders and you may have good wealth accumulated, but can you carry them to your after life? Job, after receiving all the trials and tests from the evil one, realized that “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised. 我赤身出於母胎、也必赤身歸回．賞賜的是耶和華．收取的也是耶和華。耶和華的名是應當稱頌的 (Job 1:21)” Isn’t this a realization of our life too?

My dear friends, in this world, we may feel less useful in our old age or let go from our position at work, it is however a totally different picture in God’s kingdom. The question is do you want to fail miserably or succeed more miserably. Psalmist told us “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green義人要發旺如棕樹，生長如黎巴嫩的香柏樹‧他們栽於耶和華的殿中，發旺在我們神的院裡‧他們年老的時候，仍要結果子‧要滿了汁漿而常發青‧(Psalm 92:12-14)” May you have the opportunity to know Him personally. He promised that He will love you and will never forsake you.

Last weekend, my family went to attend our son’s senior send-off and graduation celebrations. We had a great time. Seeing his talks and acts, suddenly I realize that he has grown up so much and is soon going to leave us for college. My wife and I have our sentimental moments a little bit.

In the send-off gathering, my son reflected that he is thankful for us to be there all the times and to look after him throughout these years. We are glad to learn that he is a person who knows thanksgiving. We also realize that from now on, it is going to be very difficult for us to be with him all the times “physically” as he is going to be in college. My wife asked him to “call” us, instead of “text-messaging”, whenever he wants to talk to us. At least this way, we can be with him virtually, “on demand” 🙂

In the graduation ceremony, the school counsel gave an enlightened speech. She said, the modern generation “thumb drives” everything from their gadgets and the longest text they can read are only “146 characters”, not 146 words. Therefore, “patience” is one thing that they are definitely lacking. Thus, she challenged the graduates to have patience in dealing with everything.  As she is in a profession of counseling people, she also challenged them to meet people and to talk to them face to face whenever is possible, don’t just text-messaging. This way they can know others better and improve relationship with them. In the course of making any decision, she advised the graduates to “think twice and cut once”, as this is her father’s advice, because a reckless decision can be costly afterwards – including time, money and people relationship. I think the counsel gave them some good advices and challenges. I do hope that they can learn them by heart.

In my own experience, school life is one of the best years in my life. With young and energetic physical and inquisitive mind, it is always a blast for me to meet new friends and to learn new things. As I grew older, I find my learning curve starts to flatten out. One thing I finally realize is:  “Knowing people is more important than learning knowledge”.  As the school counsel indicated, it is the frequent interaction builds good relationship and therefore creates a good people networking. This lets me remember an old saying, “在家靠父母，出外靠朋友 i.e. Friends are as important as parents when you are away from home.”

That being said, from my experience, there is no way, even our best friend, can be with us “all the times”.  The only exception I learned is our Lord, as He is omnipresent. Apostle Paul, in his journey to Athens, indicated to the people of Athens that God is not far from any one of us (Acts 17:27b) when we really want to seek Him. The author of the book Hebrews also taught us that we could come before God’s throne with confidence to receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:16). What a great comfort to learn the promise.

As I encouraged my son to stay in connection with people and making friends in college, I also encouraged him to find a good Christian fellowship to continue his journey with God. I feel this is the only guarantee that he can survive from today’s peer pressure and numerous temptations. As I am certain that knowing the Lord is the most important thing in one’s life and I urge you, my friends, come to know Him personally and He will be with you “all the times”.

Last Wednesday, when I came back from a brother’s memorial service, I logged in my working company’s network to check my emails. My co-worker pinged me, “Are you affected?” I told him, “I don’t know there is a resource action occurring and I don’t know my condition yet”. Then he gave me a long list of people who have been affected by this round of resource action that he has learned so far. My reaction was WOW! it looks pretty serious.

Later on, I had a chance to talk to two of the affected colleagues whom I have been working with for quite a long time. Even though this is an unpleasant situation, I find that one of them is positive while the other is certainly not in a good mood. Both of them have been with the company since their young age, therefore, their agonizing feeling in separation is certainly understandable. As the perceived practice of this resource action seems to be targeting older age employee, both of them quickly became easy target – the endangered species – in this action.

While I am not encouraging people to stay in his post in old age, unless necessary, the reason I called the old age employees the “endangered species” is due to my observation of “eroding” respect from current industrial companies, unless you are in a high-level management position. In my mind, I always perceive experience is one of the precious assets that a person can accumulate and offer. However, oftentimes, an old person’s experience may not be appreciated by younger generation.

For those who have raised children, do you appreciate experience from others, especially from your own parents? Chinese has an old saying, “養兒方知父母恩，觀老方知己未來”. In a paraphrase, it means we learn parents’ heart and efforts when we go through the same parenting process. And, we learn how we will be in the future by seeing our parents’ life. This is a vivid picture of knowledge and experience transfer.

In the Bible, there is a good example of knowledge and experience transfer too. Before the Israelites entered the land of Canaan, Moses reiterates God’s commands, decrees and laws to them. He said, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 以色列阿，你要聽‧耶和華我們神是獨一的主. 你要盡心，盡性，盡力愛耶和華你的神‧Deuteronomy 6:4-5”  Moses wants them to know the LORD is “truly” their Lord of life and they need to love Him wholeheartedly. This is ultimately important because the land of Canaan is a place full of idol worshiping.

Then, Moses urged them, “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. 我今日所吩咐你的話都要記在心上，也要殷勤教訓你的兒女‧無論你坐在家裡，行在路上，躺下，起來，都要談論‧也要繫在手上為記號，戴在額上為經文Deuteronomy 6:6-9”.  This example tells us how important it is that we need to explain things to our children, and if we don’t, they end up learning the hard way.

In celebrating the Father’s day, let me wish all the fathers in this world a “Happy Father’s Day”. To all others, please don’t let your parents become endangered species. You should cherish the time and opportunities that you can spend with them. And, you should learn from their precious experience. Ultimately, parents are God’s gift to each one of us….

Last Wednesday, we had a chance to attend an award ceremony held at my son’s high school auditorium. The auditorium was packed with parents, students and teachers when the ceremony starts. It was a “long” ceremony, if I have to say, because there are numerous awards rendered – they were used to recognize seniors and some juniors for their academic achievements and contributions to the school and local communities. I was amazed to see that there are “so many awards” were given out and admittedly, I was ignorant to most of them.

During the ceremony, some students received more than one award while others seem to receive none. In addition, some awards seem to be more “valuable” than others are. Overall, it is an interesting ceremony. From this experience, I was pondering….

When apostle Paul was at the end of his life, he wrote a letter to his beloved spiritual son and co-worker, Timothy, stated that the time for his departure is near and he is ready being poured out like drink offering. He is confident that he has fought the good fight, has finished the race, and has kept the faith. Therefore, he told Timothy that “there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:8) 從此以後，有公義的冠冕為我存留，就是按著公義審判的主到了那日要賜給我的；不但賜給我，也賜給凡愛慕他顯現的人。” Paul indicated to us that there is a crown of righteousness will be awarded to whoever believes in Jesus Christ, as they were purchased by the righteousness of Christ. And, the award is “sure and precious” as it is Jesus’ life.

In my son’s award ceremony, I felt bad for those who didn’t receive any award. A question comes to my mind is, “At the end of our life in this world, do we have confidence to receive the crown of righteousness instead of the final judgment from God?” This is crucial because we can only have one chance in this world.

On the other hand, as my son’s award ceremony is mainly designated for graduating seniors, it therefore has the basic qualification of: whoever wants to receive awards would need to be able to graduate from the high school. This means one has to have a good standing academically in order to be able to graduate. Similarly, for Christians, we need to live a life that is worthy of the award.  Paul exemplifies us how he was longing to see Christ. He declared that he has fought the good fight, has finished the race, and has kept the faith. Then, the questions to us are, “Are we having the same “blessed assurance” as Paul”? “Do we understand that we need to live a Christ-like life before we meet Him?”

My dear brothers and sisters, no matter where you are now, let’s start from there. As this is our only chance to fight the good fight, to finish our race in this world and to keep the faith in the Lord. May He grant your wish to live a life that is worthy of the award.

Starting from this fishing season, I am getting more serious in fly-fishing. Though I purchased the fly-fishing gear last year but I haven’t had chance to try them out much. One of the reasons is I am still not good at casting a fly rod yet. It has a very different casting concept than spin-casting rods that I have. From high level, the spin-casting rod is throwing “weighted” bait or lure to a desired spot, while the fly rod is throwing out “weighted” fly-line, which carries a lightweight fly in the end.

With the need of a somewhat long line loop in the air, bushes and tree branches all over creek shore, you could imagine the difficulty I, as a novice angler, ran into in getting the fly line out to a location without hitting trees or bushes. No wonder professional angler would wade into the middle of river to avoid those hitting-the-branches frustrations. In addition to the frustration and embarrassment of “flies on the tree instead of on the water”, the biggest frustration I have experienced would be fish rejects the fly I presented – especially when it is a good cast after “several failed attempts”, sigh! 🙁

Generally, “rejection” has its many forms and it can occur in many aspects of our life – career, love, friends and family, church, etc. The feeling of hurt is probably the most difficult part to get rid of. Many of you may have courtship experiences before you get married. However, some of you may have the “lucky” opportunity to taste rejection when he or she does not want to continue. “How do you cope with the rejection” probably is a lesson always has to re-learn from time to time.

In the book of Genesis chapter 4, we see an incident of rejection – God did not look with favor of Cain’s offering. Cain was angry and downcast. God said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.耶和華對該隱說，你為什麼發怒呢，你為什麼變了臉色呢‧你若行得好，豈不蒙悅納，你若行得不好，罪就伏在門前‧它必戀慕你，你卻要制伏它‧。(Genesis 4:6-7)”

From this incident, we could see three aspects of it. Firstly, Cain’s reaction to his rejection seems to be normal. He felt hurts because God rejects his offering. Secondly, God knows one’s heart – in this case, Cain’s heart. Cain didn’t do what is right, according to God. The author of the book Hebrews gave us a hint and commented, “By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. 亞伯因著信獻祭與神，比該隱所獻的更美 (Hebrews 11:4a)”. Apparently, Cain didn’t have the same faith in God as his brother Abel when offered his sacrifice. The last aspect of this incident is the warning of “sin crouching at one’s door” that God indicated to Cain. It tells us what kind of result we may encounter if we didn’t have faith in God – we will be ruled by our flesh and can’t be a pleasing offering to Him. 

Feeling hurt after receiving the rejection can be normal. However, without knowing what is the root cause of the rejection can be a problem and potentially be detrimental if you take it to a wrong direction. God instructed us that believe in Him and have faith in Him is the fundamental solution to rejections. Because we could entrust our life to Him – tells Him about our every frustration and being comforted by His words and promises. My dear friends, do you know how to cope with your rejection? My advice is to come before Him and accept Him as your Lord of life.