The Good Life
It has been many weeks since “normal” has changed. To some, it has been a blessing; time with family, with their spouses, and time to rest and reset. But to others, it has been turbulent. It could be rough mentally, physically or both. Thoughts of what the future holds can’t escape their minds. They have businesses and jobs on the line — or sometimes, even lost. Some have families to sustain and support. Others feel alone…or even threatened.
I’ve written more in detail my thoughts of the situation that we are all in on my last post, so this won’t be too much about the darkness that is going on in the outside world. However, I feel led to talk about the timing of all of this, especially here in the West. But, out of respect of your time, I will keep try to keep it short and simple.
Everyday, I would take my amazing dog Barnie for a walk. (Full name: Barnabas, which means “The encourager”, as he has been such a blessing and encouragement to me and my family) As we walk — and keep distance from people, of course — around the neighbourhood, the streets are quiet, and not much people are around due to what’s going on. However, whenever we take a stroll out, the air feels great, and the trees seems lush and the sky is unfathomably blue and the clouds dot it beautifully. As we continue to walk on, we would pass by homes with the elderly tending their gardens or doing their hobbies. A few more homes down the street and we would see families with young children just having a great time together. As we walk further, we passed by one of the public parks nearby that is closed to the public, but just by its entrance, we passed by the park’s welcome signage, and by it was a lone bunch of flowers growing as spring dawns over the cold, dark season just before it.
Despite the visible — and invisible — circumstances that surrounded us, I felt peaceful when I trained my eyes on the beautiful things, and all the anxieties I feel fades away into the afternoon breeze.
As I see the families in their yard having an amazing time, I realized something. The week during the time of me realizing this — and writing this — is a significant one to many in the world. We all know that the coming Sunday is Easter Sunday. Many observe it with the Western tradition of Easter Eggs and Bunnies. It is a time when — normally — families come together to spend time with their children and have fun and bond with awesome chocolate eggs and easter egg hunts. It is a time when after months upon months of busyness in our lives, it is a time when parents can take a break from their hectic life and pause, sit down and spend time with their children.
To others, it is a significant week to many people practicing their faith. To practicing Jews, this is the week for when they observe the ancient tradition of Passover. It is a week-long observation wherein families come together and remember the time when God delivered them from the enslaving hands of the Pharaoh and Egypt, and to regroup and reflect on the goodness of God. Just like in the West, this is a time when families spend time in togetherness and reflect on their faith and reminder of who they are.
To the Christian world, this week is observed by many — regardless of denomination — as a week to reflect on a few observations that would ultimately lead up to a bigger day of celebration. To Roman Catholics and other religious groups, there is the observation of Lent, wherein many faithful start off the observation beginning in Ash Wednesday and goes through Palm Sunday ends just before Good Friday (others extend it to Holy Saturday). In a nutshell, this six-week period is a time of abstaining and fasting as well as self-denial from the luxuries of the material and physical world. They do this so that they can reflect and remember the sacrifice and the hardships that Jesus had gone through in His time here on earth thousands of years ago, beginning from when He started His ministry leading up to His ultimate crucifixion and death on the cross. Then they cap it off with a joyous celebration of Easter Sunday, wherein they reflect and celebrate Jesus’ resurrection from the grave three days after His death, and his eventual ascension up to heaven. All in all, it is a time of togetherness and reflection of how good and gracious God is.
To those who do not observe any religious practices, Sunday is a day when people just reset and relax and take things easy. Others see this day as a day to refocus, get ahead and get some work done at home before tackling the challenges in the workweek ahead.
But presently (at least, at the time of this writing), things look dim. Everyday, many wake of us wake up to just constant bad news brimming with data and numbers that embody fear, with foresights from supposed experts and leaders looking darker and darker by the minute. In current events in some countries, the trust between the people and their leaders are growing weaker. In the perspective of the significance of this week to many people, the situation has seemed like it has barred people to see each other and spend the supposed familial camaraderie and bonding that the many observations and festivities would normally bring people together. For those that live alone, they were looking forward to spending this time with friends and family, so social distancing seems like it has made them feel more alone than ever. Others were looking forward to visiting their places of faith and worship to observe their traditions, but due to the laws in order to flatten the curve in place, this has dashed many people’s hope. Others have to put their very lives on the line for the sake of others; the front-liners in the hospitals caring for the afflicted, and those who work in services and businesses that is essential and vital to sustain and run our daily lives. Others are directly affected by the situation themselves, either financially, through abusive environments or even through the affliction of the illness itself. It truly is tough to imagine what they are going through.
It is truly important that we should not take anything for granted, and to not ignore things and forget the people that are going through the hardest of times due to this situation. We should never ever downplay and forget about those who are less fortunate than us…but how do we even help them? Especially when we are told to keep away from each other for each other’s sake?
I cannot speak for everyone, as everyone’s experiences vary, but at a personal level, I do believe that there is something good that has come out of this as well. For the first time in years, my family is together again, eating meals in the table, and reminiscing. I am sure that this is the same to many, and to those who are coping by living alone, they find solace in things like hobbies, books and so forth, as well as having people to talk to online. But nonetheless, there is still that looming cloud that we sometimes cannot seem to shake away.
I feel that during this time, I am led to bring light — hope and encouragement — during these dark times. I am here not to tell anyone what to do, because ultimately we are given the free will to choose however we approach and look at life. Nor do I claim to know everything, because I sure as tomorrow don’t. But no matter what you believe in, this is simply my experiences and testimony that I’d love to share that has helped me through these tough times. You are also free to walk away from this, but if you decided to read further, I pray that you find the same sense of peace that I am feeling right now, despite the anxieties that is around me — around us. I initially hesitated to write about this, but that’s like when a cure is found, and then it is withheld from those who may need it. But just like medicine, those who need it come to the cure, not the other way around.
Currently, there is no surefire solution to this problem we are all experiencing. No amount of worry and google-searching for when a solution would be available would be a sufficient answer. Even in material things such as success, money and so forth, I find things lacking. But even before this whole ordeal, there are still many questions in life that seems to have no answers to, including myself (as I‘ve talked about in my previous post.) But in recent times, I personally have found the solution — the cure — to the distractions of today’s times. Many self-care experts believe in the power of perspective. Many motivational posters with cute kittens and majestic vistas and social media meme posts give you this approach: that it is simply the matter of simply changing how you think and see things. Instead of thinking that the future is going down the drain, think that this too will pass. Instead of thinking that this is the end of civilization as we know it, believe that this too, will be beat, just as the many times humanity has gone through countless hardships. Instead of seeing that there is no hope, think that thanks to technology, we are more interconnected than ever, and that we can use this to further our relationships with other.
But additional to the above with my personal walk in life, instead of looking to trying and figure out the future and rely on human efforts — as much as I was doing during the beginning of this crisis — I started to shift my perspective to something — someone — else.
Earlier, I was talking about my brief walks with my dog Barnie. During those small simple moments, I would even just look at Barnie as he enjoys the green grass and the air flowing by his moustached face. I see him smiling as he sniffs around and tries to chase squirrels. But as I enjoy my time with him and the beautiful creation of nature around me, I also would see God in everything. I would see His goodness in the trees, the birds, the squirrels, and even the people who are enjoying each other in harmony. As I take a break and walk — both in the now and in life — with Barnie, I find myself also walking and training my eyes on Jesus. The way Barnie lives life without worries, and to put all his trust on me as he warmly lies beside me with a sense of security, I felt the same thing whenever I let go of all my fears and anxieties and just focus on what Jesus’ words of promise has imprinted onto my heart.
I am not religious, but I am spiritual and do believe in God.
“But that sounds awfully religious to me…”
I initially thought the same thing too. In my previous post, I spoke of my personal upbringing and my experiences regarding religion. But hear me out for a second. Look at it this way: when I talk about looking and believing in Jesus, it does not entail all the religious works that many religions are requiring you to do. You look at the observations of what I talked about earlier by many streams of religions, and it demands something out of you. When I talk about believing in Jesus, it simply is that: believing in Jesus and what He has done.
“Okay…so what has He done?”
Well, let’s look at the story of Easter.
For the longest time, I always felt that Sunday was the last day of the week; the last day to cap off the weekend. But whenever I look at the calendar (check your calendar right now; although some calendars will have it otherwise), Saturday is at the tail-end of the week, not Sunday…and that confused me. I mean, why not just put Sunday at the very end and not have it in the beginning of the week? And in other terms connected to this upcoming Sunday, I also have been reflecting on the significance of the celebration of Easter. As stated earlier, the celebration is preceded by Palm Sunday, then Good Friday (and at times Holy Saturday) and is focused on the story of Jesus. But let’s just take away the religious observations from it, and focus on the story behind it. We all know Christmas celebrated His birth, but Easter is one of those misunderstood — and sometimes forgotten — stories in our time. The story is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins (as observed on Good Friday), and resurrected again to life after three days (as celebrated on Easter Sunday).
“Okay…but what does this all mean? And what is this sin thing that many religious people talk about and that He died for?”
Before we understand it all, we first have to know who Jesus is. But before we could do that, we have to go a bit further back to where it all began — good and evil.
To answer the question of sin, let’s simply look at morality outside of the spiritual lens for a second. We all have a sense of good and evil. Good is when we live a good, honest life: helping others who are in need, not holding grudges against one another, living “by the rules”. There’s more to it, but for the sake of simplicity…you know, the feel-good stuff. It’s the feeling you get when you see someone give food or money to the poor. It’s the cute animal videos you see on your Facebook timeline that breaks the bad feed.
Evil is the dark things we see all around us. People hurting each other, people destroying our planet, and hurting the helpless animals and the environment. The injustices that people have caused other people. Suffering, abuse, conflict, death, and all evil things in between. It’s the depression and anxiety and fear many of us feel. The shame and guilt we feel inside due to our thoughts, or the actions of others that hurt us, whether it’s by the next person or due to the condemnation nature of religion. Just like goodness, evilness has more to it as well, but, again, for the sake of simplicity…it’s the things that gives you the bad vibes. In the Philippines — where I was born — the atrocity of corruption is so rampant that its effects has ravaged the lives of millions of people through the gut-wrenching poverty that it is so heartbreaking to hear and see. This can also be seen in many parts of the world. And as humans, we tend to focus on the evil instead of the good. We do so because of the negative emotions that that it instills. Sadness and anger.
I used to wonder, if there is a God, why does He let such injustices happen? So many of us turn away from the existence of God. But then I realized that evil is not caused by God…it is caused by something evil. Many call it satan (an ancient name that translates as “the enemy”), and is embodied by civilizations of old as the red horned figure with a pointy tail, but to simplify, it is the spirit(s) that cause evil thoughts and deeds through man. We see this in the bible wherein the fall of humanity happened in the book of Genesis after God created them to be perfect only to fall away from His grace due to the serpent — the enemy — making humanity be conscious of their own flesh and free will, which God also gave when He created them — us.
Fast-forward to the time just before the story behind the celebration of Easter began. There is so much that happened between then and that particular time, but to save you the history lesson, humanity is at an all-time low. There was good in people in the world, but it is overshadowed by evil and self-righteousness of humanity (again, sounds like today, isn’t it?) So, in His mercy, God wanted to give humanity another chance to come back to Him. and so He sent His only Son Jesus (His name translates to “God Saves” in ancient times) to step down from perfection and Godliness and become Man — just like you and me — so that He can save humanity from the destruction that the enemy — themselves — is leading their own selves to. This is told through the all-famous bible verse:
“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.”
— John 3:16 (KJV)
Everyone knows this famous verse, even if you are an atheist or not religious, I am sure you’ve heard of it before. But no one talks about the next verse much:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
— John 3:17 (KJV)
“So, what does this have to do with Easter?”
To catch you up to speed, the story of the Bible is split between two parts: The Old Testament and the New Testament. Think of it as how the relationship between God and humanity was before and after. In the ancient days, laws and commandments had to be followed to the T. That is basically when religion was born. One has to do X in order to receive forgiveness of their sins. But in the New Testament — the time when Jesus arrived — until now, this is the period of time wherein works is now dead in the past, as He came down to earth to fulfill the law; and with that, to give humanity — us — grace.
The story of Easter is simply that of grace— of unconditional love and unmerited favour, that no human effort can ever attain. And grace is Jesus’ story. If you read His story, you will see him hanging out not with the religious people and the holier-than-thous, but with the people that society has ostracized. He listened to — and healed, not condemned — the broken and sinful people. He did not heal them because of their holiness, He healed them because of their faith. Jesus was born a Hebrew, but He cared and healed people that were outside his culture. He cared for a Roman centurion, and a Samaritan woman. While the Hebrews saw themselves self-righteous over everyone else in the world, Jesus loved everyone regardless of who they were and where they’re from. This actually lead to Him being hated by the religious leaders who claim they knew God — Jesus’ Father. Their hardened hearts and bigotry eventually nailed Jesus to the cross. Their pride in themselves has blinded them to the truth and with that, Jesus was killed by the humanity that He was hoping to save. His death is unimaginably violent. The images you know of Jesus with a few stripes and a loincloth is not an accurate depiction at all. It was horrific beyond imagination. He was spit upon, His bones was most likely exposed due to the scourging that He was given. He was put to immense shame that they stripped him naked. No loincloth. Crucifixion is the most grotesque and painful death placed upon by the Roman Empire to her dissenters. But even as He hung dying, he told God, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”, as they jeered at Him. But all of these has had to happen. In order for humanity to be saved by grace, Jesus had to take in all the sin — death, evil, sickness, condemnation — upon Himself by giving His life in our behalf. As He neared His hour, one of the two criminals — a thief and a sinner condemned by Man — believed in Jesus’ innocence and His divine existence for His salvation, and Jesus said that he will be with Him in paradise. That thief did not have to be baptized, or have had to go through religion…he simply believed. And in Jesus’ final moments, Jesus cried out “It is finished!” Finished, as in — all of our sins — past, present and future — has now been paid by His death.
But see, the story does not end in Good Friday. The story only begins on Easter Sunday. “Begins” you ask? Before Jesus went on to die on the cross, He held His last dinner with His disciples — His friends and family. This happened during the observation of Passover. During supper, He used the metaphor of bread and wine to represent what He was about to go through, wherein the bread represented the scourging and the breaking of His body that He would go through leading up to the cross, and the wine representing the blood that He will spill because of these. Today, this is observed by many, but it has been heavily tampered by human religion. This observation was a simple act for those who believe in Him to remember His sacrifice on the cross, not because of any religious works. But it also serves as a reminder for something else that He left behind for them too. A promise. A promise of salvation and eternal life.
Three days after His death, He rose again from the grave, and defeated death and condemnation, and disease, sickness and affliction. Every single infirmity that sin has brought about has been defeated by Jesus when He Rose again! He took it all so that we don’t have to. And all it takes is to have faith and believe in Him and the ultimate love and grace that He has done.
This is what Easter Resurrection Sunday is all about.
Jesus eventually ascended back to heaven, but again reasserting His promise to come back for and bring back His beloved for an eternal life. But while we are living here in the now, we simply look up to Jesus and His grace so that we can live a blessed life away from worries and fear.
Humanity fear death. It is because it is the unknown of what is after this life. We try to amount to things with our own efforts, but nothing satisfies. We try to mute the noise of our own mortality with so many things, but it only brings temporary happiness. I know, because I myself have been there. But when I started to focus on Jesus and His promise of eternal life with Him, suddenly, that fear of the unknown has faded away. His body had to be broken in order to become payment for our healing. His blood washed away any condemnation of our sinful nature. After reflecting on His life and sacrifice and resurrection, I have become renewed and reborn in my way of looking at life. I rather believe in the promise of eternal life after this short life that I live ends, than anything else. But while I live this life, I can feel safe in the promise of safety and refuge that God has for me through His son Jesus Christ, even in the darkest of times.
It seems that hope and faith in humanity is futile, and while people keep letting you down (and they still will), I never felt that when I started to walk with Jesus. That is all you need. A walk — a friend — to have a talk and spend life with. Just like how we have a significant other we cultivate a relationship with, it’s the same thing…all you need is a relationship with Jesus. This relationship is called grace.
Regardless of who you are, what your upbringing is, where you’re from, what colour of your skin is, how you look like or what you’ve done, Jesus does not look for any of that. He only looks for one thing: faith. Faith is simply believing that Jesus’ grace is sufficient in everything in your life. Your salvation is eternal and secure. But God’s grace does not give you license to live in sin and evil. God’s grace is a gift. It is not forced upon you, and it is up to you to believe in him or walk away. When you live with Jesus and His grace being in the forefront of your life, you will lose the feeling of wanting to sin. He will heal you of your afflictions and addictions. But you cannot predict what you would do tomorrow, or the next minute. So when you stumble, instead of condemning yourself due to religion, simply look up to Jesus, and thank Him for His grace upon your life. You simply would not be able to know that experience until you let Him in your daily life. Once you do, everything in your life will be blessed and you will feel refreshed, just like how I am experiencing life right now.
During His first time here on earth, Jesus told many parables that spoke about who He is and His reason for Being. In the books of Matthew and Luke, there was a particular parable that Jesus told his disciples and the multitudes of people who followed Him to listen to what He had to say. In this particular parable, Jesus spoke of a lost sheep in a herd of a hundred. In the parable, a sheep loses its way from the ninety-nine. The shepherd of the flock leaves the rest in order to find the one, and doesn’t stop until He finds that one lost sheep, whom He joyfully carries in His shoulders back home, wherein He tells his neighbours happily that He has found the one lost sheep. Jesus uses this parable to illustrate how much He loves those who are lost and repent — turn away — from their sins and receive His loving grace. He says that this is how much God rejoices when someone who is lost who accepts Him into their lives and be saved from hell, much more compared to the ninety-nine people who are already secured by His grace and are already living with Him.
Remember when I was wondering about the weekly calendar having Sunday as the beginning of the day? It is a reminder for me of Easter Sunday — of Jesus’ grace — which I start my week in, and I go about life’s challenges with God’s love and grace strengthening me and giving me courage to face life head-on. But it has also paved a way for me to think of others. Jesus’ disciples asked Him which one of all the “laws” is the greatest, and He replied:
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
— Mark 12:30–31 (NKJV)
Earlier, I spoke about how Jesus became the law. Then He died for all of humanity, so that no more condemnation can be imposed upon us. But His life should be like ours: to treat each other with love and respect. I talked about the people that we should never forget during these times. With them in mind, you can start your week and living life like how Jesus lived simply by doing good — and not just any good — but do good with the knowledge that Jesus loves you. Start by simply being a good neighbour. By staying at home and adhering to social distancing for the sake of those who can’t. By showing your appreciation to people, especially to those who are sacrificing so much in their lives right now. By simply thanking the person cashing you out at the grocery store, and appreciate them. By appreciating the nurses, doctors, cleaners, mail people, delivery people when you encounter them. By finding para-organizations and not-for-profit associations and donating to them; every single type of donation counts. By simply being kind to one another, and to be patient with one another. By spending time with your families, and loving your children. By reaching out to one another, and sending each other encouragement — even through online means. By being contented and thankful of what you are currently blessed with in your life. By keeping them in your prayers and asking God to protect them.
When I talk about a good life, I actually mean an amazingly blessed life. Once you put your trust — your eyes — in Jesus, and leave all your worries upon Him, your perspective suddenly shifts.
“Okay, but I am not religious, and I have never prayed ever in my life.”
Praying to God is simply like how you talk with a friend. It isn’t how religion made it to sound and be. It is literally as easy as just having a talk with God, being open and honest just like how you talk to people. The Lord’s prayer was basically a template that Jesus left for us on how to pray, but you don’t have to memorize and chant it religiously. You can simply even say, “Jesus, I hurt…” or even “God, I don’t know what to do…” but once you keep looking to Jesus, you will feel peace.
“How do I accept Jesus into my life?”
It is as simple as how I explained prayer to be. But to help you, here is what I’ve prayed:
Lord Jesus, I do not know everything there is to life, and that I am but an imperfect, sinful person who do not deserve Your love and grace, but I do believe that You have died for me on the cross, and have victoriously defeated death by resurrecting from the grave. I do believe with my heart that You have shed Your blood and had Your body broken for me and that Your grace has now guaranteed me eternal life with You. My human logic can never make sense of it all, but Your love — through the Holy Spirit — has given me faith to know that I am saved, and loved, and that my sins are no more before God, and that I am forever saved and awaiting an eternal life with You. In Jesus’ precious name I pray, Amen.
Perhaps, when this is all over, and we go back to whatever the next normal is, you might forget about all the things you’ve read about being positive. You might even forget about it tomorrow. But if there is one thing I can leave you with, is that if you put Jesus first in what you do, eventually you will be able to live a positive, happy — blessed — life in everything that follows it. It may be instant, or it may take time to show, but just like going to the gym, establishing a routine, or living a healthy lifestyle, it takes a bit of time to get there. It didn’t happen to me overnight, but trust me, it is so worth it.
If you would like to further know Jesus, I have left resources at the tail-end of my previous post detailing my personal experience and rollercoaster relationship with Jesus. You can also simply read the Bible online, but if you’re like me who likes things tangible when it comes to reading, you can simply find a bible anywhere, even online. I recommend you go for the NKJV or NIV version, as it is easy to read, and you can start anywhere, from the book of Matthew, Luke, or even in Apostle Paul’s letters such as Romans. But, if you are also like me and initially find the Bible daunting, one of the most amazing resources that I has helped me read and understand the Bible is from the amazing people and their work with The Bible Project and their YouTube channel. Their illustrative videos make it so accessible and digestible for those who are new to the Bible. Below is two of their videos regarding Good Friday and Easter (these two videos are part of their Luke and Acts animated series), and how it’s tied to the Lord Jesus’ grace mission.
As for something regarding Easter, I recommend you to take a look at New Creation Church’s YouTube channel, as well as their pastor, Joseph Prince. Through him, God has made me learn more about who Jesus is and His amazing grace, especially during these hard times. Below are two great videos that further explains grace:
If there is one thing that I know everyone is familiar with when it comes to grace, it is the song Amazing Grace. If you can, take a bit of time to listen and reflect on the lyrics, with the story of Jesus’ grace as a filter. I pray that God speaks to you through that. The story behind the song is also incredible, but that may be for another time.
If you have made it this far, I thank you and that I pray that you have felt encouraged and inspired. Nothing is by happenstance, and know that God is with you.
Until next time, know that Jesus loves you, and stay blessed.
Send me an email if you would like to talk at: jemuel.datiles@gmail.com.
