Becoming a Person of Faith

Becoming a person of faith, you’ll also look at living very differently. For example, if your parents asking you to tell a “white lie”, such as saying you “love” some food that you really don’t like, you must say "no" because of God’s truth. Your faith will also stop you from forming the habit of lying in your life.

On the other hand, if your parents or those around you are controlling, dominating, and even abusive, your faith will help you respond positively. God says you should not only “honor your father and mother” (Exodus 20:12), but also “obey” them. Your obedience may not lead to their “love” and “approval” of you, but it will lead to the help of the Holy Spirit in changing them. Remember: God is “a father to the fatherless.” (Psalm 68:5) 

So, surrender your will to God, and let His Holy Spirit  work in your heart throughout your life. The next step to take is forgiving your loved ones for their abuse and wrongdoings and praying for them. Then, let go of any expectation of their immediate change of misbehavior; instead, accept them as who they are with their imperfections, and cultivate your love and compassion for them. So, continue to focus your own relationship with God to experience your own healing. Your faith in Christ gives you salvation and hope not just for yourself but also for the repentance of your loved ones. Yes, as a believer, you could be the light that leads your unsaved or wayward loved ones to their own repentance and salvation. God can do anything and everything in your life. With God’s love, just wait and be patient.

Without God’s love, an unbeliever could become so obsessed and preoccupied with the thing loved that would lead to an irrational act. 

An Illustration

 A 10-year-old boy shot and killed his mother on November 21, 2022. The boy allegedly claimed that he took the gun from his mother’s bedroom down to the basement, where his mother was doing her laundry. Initially, he claimed that he was twirling the gun around his fingers when it went off and “accidentally” killed his mother.

But, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the boy later confessed that he carried out the heinous act out of his irrational anger after his mother refused to buy him a VR headset. Members of his family further revealed the 10-year-old boy’s many previous episodes of erratic anger and rage issues, such as setting fire at home and causing explosion when his demands were rejected by his mother.

Living by faith: Believe in God who can do anything and everything for you in your everyday life and living. This is your "trust" in God. 

Stephen Lau

Anything Is Everything OR Nothing?

Anything Is Everything OR Nothing?

Living in this material world is all about struggling and surviving. The good news is that it is a human race in which there are really no real winners and losers in the end. But no matter what, we all have to finish that race somehow, with no exception. Just do your very best, and let the Creator do the rest to help you finish your own race with grace and dignity. The wisdom of your body, your mind, and your spirit may awaken and rejuvenate you along the rest of your life journey.

Living is always a discovery process. Life is a journey of self-discovery—finding who you are, why you are here, what you really need, and how you may meet your basic needs, so that you, like every one else, can fulfill some of your life goals and purposes that are exclusively designed for you. But to do just that, you need profound human wisdom and spiritual wisdom to continue that journey as if everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein once said: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle.”

Indeed, life is a miracle in itself. Being alive is a miracle. Having your breaths is already a miracle. Everything in life is a miracle.

To truly believe and appreciate the miracle of life, you need the wisdom to grasp the full meaning of anything is everything, everything is nothing, and nothing is everything—they may all ultimately lead to your self-awakening, without which you will continue to live as if nothing is a miracle.

What is meant by “anything is everything”? It may have different meanings and different interpretations to different individuals.

First of all, human perceptions are subjective and individualized: they are affected not only by the five senses, but also by the unique experiences of an individual, as well as by the indelible memories of those experiences retained in the mind of that individual. Therefore, what is important to you may not be as important to others, and vice-versa. For this reason, anything could be everything to you, but not to others.

An illustration

Near the end of 2016, a road rage occurred in Arkansas that ended in the tragic death of a 3-year-old child. 

A woman, with her 3-year-old grandson sitting at the back of her car, stopped at a stop sign. A man in the car right behind honked her for not starting her car immediately, but the woman honked back; thus the road rage began with the man firing a gun shot at the back of the woman’s car.

Stopping too long at a stop sign,  or wanting to get to a place on time might be everything to the man. Having the right to remain where she was might also be everything to the woman, so she naturally honked back.  

Unfortunately, that anything-is-everything incident ended in tragedy—the death of the woman’s three-year-old grandson being shot dead while sitting at the back of her car.

In real life, anything could be everything to real people—it all depends on their respective perspectives of anything is everything.

A frog in a well

In many ways, many of us are just like a frog in a well, looking up at the limited sky above, in that we see only ourselves, and no one else, and therefore anything is everything to us. In other words, we see only our own needs and desires that have to be fulfilled and gratified no matter how, but without seeing those in others.

Just like the man in the car rage who saw only his own need to get going, but without even considering why the woman might be stalling her car at the stop sign and not moving ahead right away.

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Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Perceptions and Realities

Enjoyment comes from the thinking mind, connected to the body. 

The human brain is composed of neurons or nerve cells that transmit information and messages; they’re the building blocks of the brain for the efficient functioning of the thinking mind.

Neurons are responsible for all human behaviors in the form of perceptions, which then trigger a mental process in the thinking mind that may result in an action or an emotion. If the process becomes instinctive, then the output in the form of actions or emotions is also automatic and predictable. That’s how attitudes and habits are formed, including the fight-or-flight response to any dangerous situation. This automatic or spontaneous mental process is often not “by choice” but “by instinct."

This “learned” and “acquired” mental process is often responsible for thinking and actions, as well as for beliefs and emotions. So, it’s important for the thinking mind to do the following: recognizing the instinctive or automatic mental process; challenging its reality or validity to see through the myths or even the deceptions behind; and then changing the mental process by taking appropriate actions accordingly.

The Bottom Line

Living in wisdom is the capability of the thinking mind to recognize the deceptions behind the so-called “realities” perceived and processed by the thinking mind, that is, the capability to separate the sheep from the goats.

Living by faith, you get your spiritual wisdom from God to perceive the differences between sheep and goats, that is, the differences between realities and half-truths.

Perceiving and Processing

The thinking mind processes all life experiences, which then become thoughts and memories, and ultimately the raw materials of the thinking process by the thinking mind.

According to James Allen, author of As A Man Thinketh, humans are “makers of themselves” and the human mind is the “master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance.” That is, humans may have become who they are and what they’ve now become by way of their own thinking over the years.

So, life is all about mind over matter. Harnessing mind power is understanding the exact functioning of the thinking mind and how it may positively or negatively affect the thinking process, and then learning some strategies to fully utilize the mind power to live in wisdom.

Life Experiences

An individual’s life experiences are unique in that they’re the byproducts of all the happenings in the lifespan of that individual. Those life experiences are determined by two pivotal players: choices and circumstances.

Choices, resulting in actions or inactions, bring about consequences as well as circumstances affecting life in general and in specific.

Circumstances can come from self-inflicting internal circumstances or from those uncontrollable external circumstances.

An Illustration

A person had to complete a project and submit a report on that project. That person had sufficient time to do what he or she was supposed to do, but that person chose to procrastinate until the last minute. An unforeseeable event happened and made it impossible for that person to finish the work on time, thus creating a “self-inflicting” circumstance of anxiety, frustration, and undue stress that might affect the subsequent choices of that person.

Of course, sometimes personal choices may not be able to alter the uncontrollable external circumstances, but they may still play a primary role in the reactions and adaptations to those external circumstances beyond their control. For example, in the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011, the Japanese people demonstrated their remarkable resilience in their reactions and adaptations to the uncontrollable external circumstances inflicted on them by nature.

The Bottom Line

Living is all about choices and consequences from those choices, and that has much to do with causes and results—they often become the components of life experiences.

Living by faith: You often make the right choices with your own accountability to the consequences through God’s Helper, the Holy Spirit.

Stephen Lau

The Chinese Proverbs

The Chinese Proverbs

"Do today's work, today." Traditional

"A kind man sees kindness, the wise man sees wisdom." Book of Changes

"Practice makes for true knowledge." Tuotuo

"Failure is the mother of success." Traditional

"Wanting to know everything is the worst of follies." Zhuang Zi

"To fare well, a man must trust in his feelings." Zhuang Zi

"Better to display your ugliness than to hide your ignorance." Traditional

To succeed, you must set your goals and then take your appropriate actions with no delay and no procrastination. Your knowledge must be focused, instead of diversified, while your emotions must be positive due to anticipated failures.

 Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Gift of Grace

Human relationships are complex and difficult. Jesus’ parable of the king settling debts with his servants (Matthew 18: 23-34) attests to the complexity and difficulty of interpersonal relationships.

The major source of conflicts in human relationships is the inability to fully comprehend God’s mercy - which is His gift of grace - something freely given, something totally unearned and undeserved, and something never to be repaid. Due to the lack of understanding of the mystery and significance of the gift of grace, or the refusal to believe something that is too good to be true, many of us, ironically enough, cannot and will not receive that gift of grace, although it is freely given to each and every one of us.

Indeed, many Christians, read about grace, hear about grace in Sunday sermons, sing about grace in their hymns, and even believe grace in their heads, but they never fully live in the gift grace. They simply do not have the faith to live it out.

We need living in faith to believe in the power of grace; we need living in faith to believe that we are truly and totally forgiven through the gift of grace. The unforgiven become unforgiving, and the unforgiving will not be forgiven, and hence the vicious cycle of emotional conflicts and broken human relationships.

To illustrate, when you take your marriage vow, you solemnly promise to love and care for your spouse “for better or for worse.” But this is the tallest order in a marriage. Your marriage partner owes you a debt (or so you think!) because he or she falls short of your expectations. As a result, you become angry and resentful. Without God’s saving grace, you see yourself as unforgiven and unacceptable to God. In turn, you become unforgiving and unaccepting towards your spouse. The outcome may be a divorce or at best an unhappy marriage.

What you need is living in faith - faith that God has forgiven you for your shortcomings and wrong doings. Likewise, you become more forgiving and accepting towards your spouse for all his or her shortcomings and wrong doings. Jesus said: “. . . freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8). Remember, a recipient of the gift of grace must also be gracious to others - a prerequisite, not a choice.

You have to allow God to do for you what only God can do, which is, in essence, giving the gift of grace. You have to understand, receive, and live out God's gift of grace, and this is living in faith.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Forgiving But Not Forgetting

Forgiveness is rooted in love, which is the fruit of forgiveness. Forgiveness starts with love, and it results in love. God is of love, and He came to earth in the form of man (Jesus) not only to love all humans but also to ask all humans to love one another. 

^““Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Matthew 22: 37-39 

Instead of giving humans the punishment they deserve, Jesus Christ paid for all their sins and all their wrongs “as far as the east is from the west.” So, no matter what, forgiving self is crucial.

Forgiving Others     

Forgiving self is forgiving wrongs done to others, while forgiving others is forgiving wrongs done to self. Maybe the former is easier than the latter.

As an illustration of forging others, on September 24, 2016, runner and cyclist Dean Otto was struck by a car driven by Will Huffman, a 27-year-old salesman, with his buddy on their way to a football game. The crash left Dean Otto paralyzed.

After assessing Otto’s condition, Dr. Matt McGirt told the Otto family that Dean Otto was 99 percent likely going to spend the rest of his days in a wheelchair. It was sad and scary news for the Otto family.

But Otto was never scared—or even resentful. Instead, he said a private prayer and instantly forgave Will Huffman. Otto said: “I knew if I didn’t, the resentment would eat me alive.”

After the surgery on his spine performed by Dr. Matt McGirt, Otto began his miraculous recovery. As a matter of fact, a few hours after the surgery, Otto was able to wiggle his toes.

Through Facebook, Will Huffman and his wife were finally able to contact Otto’s family, who welcomed them graciously with open arms.

Huffman was not surprised that Otto would forgive him, but he didn’t expect or imagine that they would become good friends afterwards. Huffman even said: “I think most people would stop there and say, ‘Nice meeting you, but I’m done.’”

Dr. Matt McGirt was also inspired by their close friendship, and he earnestly believed that it was Otto’s attitude, forgiveness, and loving-kindness that had brought about his phenomenal recovery. The doctor also remarked: “He not only turned lemons into lemonade, but he’s selling that lemonade, too.” Otto raised $11,000 for Carolinas Rehabilitation’s LIFE Program for spinal cord injury patients.

On July 22, 2017, Otto, Huffman, and Dr. McGirt reunited and they all participated in a half-marathon race. The event was widely reported in the media all over the United States.

“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Colossians 3:13

Not Forgetting

Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting or excusing the harm done to the victim.

Not forgetting the harm done can free the victim from any further and future control of the victimizer. Not forgetting means continual praying for forgiveness that might even lead to feelings of understanding, empathy, and compassion for the victimizer.

Not forgetting the circumstances may help the victim learn valuable lessons from them to avoid any future wrongdoing.

Not forgetting helps remembering healing rather than hurting. More importantly, God gives humans what they need, and not what they deserve.

The Bottom Line

Doing What Needs to Be Done

 The Chinese Proverbs

"The wise man does not set his mind either at anything or against anything; what is right he will follow." Confucius

"The wise man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress." Confucius

Wisdom means having an empty mind with no pre-conceived beliefs. So, if you find yourself having any pre-conceived idea, you must then apply your reverse thinking, which is thinking backward to find out how and where you have your present way of thinking that might have given you prejudice or distorted truth. 

With an open mind, you make your decisions based on your rational thinking that gives you wisdom. True human wisdom means you accept and embrace the good and the bad, while learning valuable lessons from your mistakes. That is how a wise man lives his life without stress and distress. 

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau