Author: vangelifeblog

Strong Foundations in Life

vangelifeblog1 Comment
grey concrete bridge
Photo by Josh Sorenson on Pexels.com

Life can be frustrating when hard-times rain down. Sometimes devastating events in life happen cause a turn in our direction, possibly in ways of doubt, fear, anger or self mutilation in one form or another. Most of the times the pain spills out and hurts others around us. As everyone hates the person gone mad at a public gathering and needs to be punished for life.

Believe it or not, God loves everyone, even a psychopath gone wild. I’ve never come across a perfect person in life and I am 100% sure I never will as we live in a world where there are people in pain, children being ripped apart on the inside by people that are acting out in pain, having also been hurt. It’s a cycle or sometimes known as a curse that runs down the family waiting for a breakthrough.

Life will always throw fast balls and if you don’t move fast enough, you’ll be hit hard, bruised, maybe never heal, toppled down, never able to stand again. With the best outfit and hair style, we can look like a million bucks from the outside, but bleeding on the inside or empty with nothing to keep us grounded.

What is your foundation? What keeps you grounded? Acceptance is a good thing to an extent, but how far do we go? Sometimes limits can keep us from falling off the edge, from losing ourselves or our path in life. What keeps us from crossing over into paths of destruction?

Matthew 7:24-27 says, “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

A strong foundation will keep one grounded during the storms in life and wisdom from the God’s Word sets the boundary to keep one out of a life of darkness. Generation after generation a curse can be broken at the cross.

What Lives in Statues

vangelifeblogLeave a comment
Photo by Lina Kivaka on Pexels.com

I grew up in a religion that believes in praying in repetition and reading scripted prayers. A religion that prays to Saints and Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Statues of baby Jesus and Mother Mary are placed together on a throne where prayer happens. The root of the religion goes way back to the Vatican where a man that wears an ornate robe and funny hat are reverenced on a throne.

Having never read the Bible as a Catholic, I was clueless of the truth. I thought God would be moved if I kissed a statue of baby Jesus & maybe it does something, but if you read the Bible, that’s not what God wants from us. As tangible human beings it’s hard to show emotions towards people or things we cannot see so we create statues that we can see and touch, but that is not God’s will.

I remember one time when I stayed in the Philippines for the summer. My family and I stayed in a villa where all family members can lodge. It was a two story, about 10 bedroom house, historic, used as a hospital for dying soldiers during World War 2. My grandfather’s brother was a doctor and still his office remained in the house, skeleton model and all. Soldiers died in that house and paranormal experiences have occurred.

There’s a shrine of Jesus, Mary and angelic statues in the upstairs living room. One day, a bunch of nuns came to the house, knelt down and prayed to statues. When they left the house, my Uncle told me that demons live in the statues to be worshiped. I didn’t believe him. I thought worshiping statues was the normal Catholic thing to do.

Several years later, I was taking a class at church. One do the pastors of the church from the Philippines taught and he brought up the same thing my Uncle told me about in the Philippines. The pastor had a true story behind it. His relative had a throne of statues, crazy stuff was happening in the home. He told her to get rid of the statues. They threw the statues in a pile and set it on fire & they heard screams coming out of it. Creepy.

Then I have my own story, not nearly as intense, but while in college I used to stay with my parents on weekends. They had several statues sitting on top of a shelf. The house they lived in was converted from a convalescent home. I would be working on the computer in the living room, feeling like someone is staring at the back of my head. It would feel like it’s coming from the same place and that place was where the statues were located. Creepy. I got tired of the eerie feeling and eventually put the statues in a box to go out to the Goodwill. After they were boxed up, I stopped having that feeling.

Paths to Darkness or Light

vangelifeblogLeave a comment
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Born so innocent without a clue of what’s out there that can damage you. Then as time passes and the aging continues, life throws many surprises at you. As you try to follow the right path, you are steered in the wrong direction through temptation, pressure, force or simply…deceit. After walking in the darkness for so long, you loose your way, you begin to forget about who you are. The media becomes your compass along with the majority of the crowd, mostly negative, and when you realize that you’re not at the mark of society, you feel like you’ve failed, desperately seeking justification or approval from external factors or the words of others. Now, you are more deeply lost.

That dark long road was wrong after all and it’s too hard to turn around and go back. Look to the light that shines in the darkness. As long as you’re not in hell, that light is around, waiting for you to turn around and surrender your will. It’s hard to surrender when you still think you can save yourself, but the most powerful thing, is surrendering to the one that loves you so much that He died for you. He took all the despair and grief in exchange for you to have hope and joy.

He’s there…all you have to do is surrender, place all of it at the feet of Jesus. He will carrying you out of the darkness and into the light…the right path, full of purpose, peace, joy, strength, forgiveness and love.

End Times Chaos

vangelifeblogLeave a comment
Photo by LT Chan on Pexels.com

Thinking and seeing all the chaos in the streets brings me back to dreams that I’ve had in the past that seem to be very similar. In my dream there’s chaos in the streets, people running around every where in panic. The streets are filthy, trash everywhere. It’s dark with the only source of light being the street lamps. People are screaming and running for safety and I find myself in the midst of all this.

My heart is pumping hard and I’m running from something after me that means harm. I’m running up stairs, up to rooftops and jumping from the top of one building to the next. As I continue to jump, I realize how long I’m able to stay in the air, in fact, I am able to fly. My vision is now far above the streets, as a bird looks down from the sky and I can see the crowds running in fear.

As I fly further away from the chaos, I find a tree, hide and rest. With a big breath of relief, I sigh. Shortly after I’d wake up and thank God it was just a dream. For all the times I had that dream, I would wake up thanking God that it wasn’t real, but these recent days with the riots and looting, that nightmare doesn’t seem too far away. Another thought after waking up from the nightmare, would be the thought of those events occurring in the last days as it is written in the Bible, that maybe it’s coming close.

Waking up to an Unseen Presence

vangelifeblog1 Comment
girl in pink shirt and black pants walking on gray concrete pathway
Photo by Cameron Readius on Pexels.com

The other night I had a dream. I don’t even remember what I dreamt about, but what I remember was feeling an unseen presence in the room. It didn’t feel like a dark presence nor a holy presence. It just felt like something was there starring at me, watching me sleep. I didn’t freak out, as I’ve had other dreams where I struggled to wake up, felt chills up and down my spine and some unseen force pushing me down. I could not discern if it were a dream or not, because I saw everything in my room, but I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

The worst was several years back, when I woke up to the word, “demon” coming out of my radio. There were times when I would wake up with a deep scratch underneath my arm and one night when I was having another freaky dream where I struggled to wake up, seeing everything around my room was a small creature beside my bed holding a lamp stand. Whenever I had these dreams I would call on the name of Jesus and the lingering dark presence in my room would go away and I would wake up feeling extremely exhausted.

I remember the night when I slept, after I gave my life to God through water baptism, I had a similar dream. I could see everything in the room, but this time, there were no chills up and down my spine. In my dream, I was laying down in water that went right past my ears and can hear and feel the movement of the water. I felt nothing but peace and God with me and the dreams I had previously of a dark presence trying to stop me from waking up never occurred after that.

Unhealthy Vegetarian Ways

vangelifeblogLeave a comment
fake meat

Vegetarian sounds healthy and in many ways it is, but when it comes to fake meat, it becomes very unhealthy. I remember looking at the back of package of fake cheese and seeing all the chemicals used to make it taste like cheese. For those that are lactose-intolerant, I get it, but if you’re eating fake cheese to be vegan, your eating unhealthy and better off eating the real thing.

After reading several health related books written by doctors who believe in the science of food and how it heals our body, the worst thing to do it eat food that’s not real food. For example, the package of “beyond meat” typically used on impossible burgers contains ingredients that doesn’t belong in the body. It contains highly processed ingredients with the addition of chemical preservatives or what makes it bind together to act as a patty. Our bodies are created to receive and use nutrients from food. The more processed the food, the less nutrients and the more preservatives, the longer it will store up in our bodies.

When food is closest to its raw form, the more nutrients it contains and if the body is using the nutrients, the less of it gets stored. Eating food with chemicals will damage it in different areas. If you’re vegetarian to be healthy, you might want to stay away from the fake stuff. Not too mention there are nutrients that our body needs that is mainly found in meat, which brings up the importance of feeding the body with natural food from all food groups.

A Treasure for All

vangelifeblogLeave a comment
Photo by David Bartus on Pexels.com

At nineteen years of age I found a priceless treasure. It was different beyond any treasure that anyone can find. This treasure was intangible, ever-lasting, something that no one can steal away. Holding onto this treasure, I was tempted countless times to discount the value of it. The pressures of the world from heartache to disappointment and sometime even distractions left my treasure on the shelf, neglected.

The more I got to know this treasure, the more I realized how much I needed it in my life. It became my strength in times of weakness and hope in times of despair. This treasure came with a manual that contained basic instructions before leaving earth. Reading the manual helped me reset my wrong ways of thinking and healed the broken pieces of my heart.

That treasure is my Lord & Savior Jesus. John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” There is no treasure in life like Jesus…free…everlasting & will never leave you, even after death. All it takes is inviting Him into your life, then the treasure comes.