Consider Your Ways: Stories on Rain and Flood

Do you still remember that song when we were still kids: "kung ang ulan ay puro tsukolate...o kay sarap ng ulan" (if the rain is all chocolate...Oh, the rain taste delicious)? I bet you'd dreamed about it. I thought about it a lot of times when I was a kid. I even thought that I should bring buckets to catch the chocolate rain. It was a nice childhood fantasy. Impossible and senseless even but nice and unadulterated.

Now that I am an adult, I never fantasized of chocolate rain but I am dreaming of being blessed incessantly, pouring like rain until I have no room to catch. Nice, right? Then, I wish I could be flooded, overflowing with all those blessings so I can share it to everyone. However, blessings, especially financial or material blessings do not pour like that. Often, you really have to work for it--work really hard. That's the cause-and-effect or the reap-what-you-sow principle. The same principle applies to the heavy rain that flooded Metro Manila and some areas of Luzon.

I've been reading messages asking people to pray so the rain would stop and spare us from more damages.  What came to my mind is the phrase: "Consider your ways..."

The rain that floods

Rain is a blessing from heaven to water our vegetation and to cool the dry earth. Habagat (southwest monsoon) season in the Philippines is a natural occurring phenomenon that happens around May to September. Who would have thought that this is going to devastate homes and caused the death of many people? It's not even a typhoon!.The non-stop monsoon rain the past few weeks has caused knee to neck-high flood in some parts of NCR and provincial Luzon areas.

Reuters - Cheryl Ravelo

Reuters - Erik De Castro

Reuters - Erik De Castro

Cause and effect

No need for a nose-bleeding scientific explanation. The intense heat during summer and the excessive and heavy rain during the rainy season is the results of climate change. Climate change is nothing new to many of us. It's been taught in school. What we do to our environment always comes back. And often, it comes back twice or thrices that it can take away our homes, properties, and even lives.

The Principle of Giving

I would like to briefly discuss about the principle of giving. How does giving relates to money, which is the main topic of this blog? Well, you'll soon find out. However, I need to warn you, I will be using the bible as my reference. I understand that some, if not many, people don't see the bible as a relevant source of information. If that's the case, I'm encouraging you not to read on unless you want to know.

I am a bible-believer Christian. I believe that the bible is a source not only of good doctrine that is being used in the church but as a source of instruction in life. It helps us understand God and his attitude towards His children and other people. God as a being has feelings. If you are a bible reader, you will understand what I am saying.

One of the things that is being taught in the bible is giving. And a lot of Christians, I believe, fail on this. I have to admit, I also faltered. Let us bear in mind that even if the bible teaches us all of these things, the Church may choose not to impose it because God wants us to be a cheerful giver. He wants us to obey to show our love and obedience to Him as a father and as a Lord. He wants us to be spontaneous in giving and not to be tied with our money, which we couldn't bring when we die. While the principle of giving in the bible is quite a burden to some Christian and see it as bondage, looking at it, it is the same with other bible instructions like modesty in our apparel or having sex within marriage.

There are couple of reasons why a Christian should give. One, is to return what is for God. This refers to tithes, which is the 10 percent of our fruits, our earnings and profits. Some people thought that this practice is no longer applicable to this age. Second, is the belief that when we give, we shall also receive. This refers to offering to the church in addition to the tithes and showing our charity or generosity to other people.

If a Christian don't tithe and offer, what then is God's measurement of plenty or generosity? If you don't tithe and offer, who then is your God--is it the money because you fear of losing it or is it the God in Heaven whom you should trust? I see giving as a test of our obedience, love and faith.

So, what's in it for a Christian who tithes and offer? The Christian will be able to provide meat to God's house (the Church that Jesus Christ built--Please be wary on where you give your tithes. You might be giving it to the false preachers who are just getting richer because of what you give).  Second, the bible says that God will pour the windows of heaven for his blessings,  which could be materially, financially or other aspects of our lives, until you have no room to hold it. Third, the measurement of what we give, will be the measurement of blessings that we receive. Simply put, the principle of giving is similar to the reap-what-you-sow belief or the more-you-give-the-more-you-receive saying.

It is all up to us on what to believe and what to do. We live in this world with our free will. But let us not forget that even though some of us may not be spiritually inclined, there is an unknown force that we couldn't explain. Force that make things happen in our lives, whether it be good or bad. For a Christian, that force could be God who has hands over things, who can either bless us continually or hold His blessing away from us.

This Blog Is Not Dead

I'm sorry folks for not updating this blog regularly. Well, it's been over 6 months since my last update. But, no! This blog isn't dead!

I've been pretty busy the past several months. I have several clients to provide my virtual services to. In fact, I'm just taking an hour break from my research work I am doing right now. I'm also quite busy with my social media marketing--I'm still in the real estate industry and I'm also marketing for a local rattan manufacturer.

Though, I'm not actively posting here, I've been working hard to drive web traffic to Soliloquy, my primary blog. With all the changes and the effort I did with it, sort of an experiment for me, I am pretty happy seeing the traffic coming in. I've been seeing a decline of the bounce rate (the percentage of or visits in which the person left the site) and increase of the organic search. Hopefully, it's going to be the same here in Money Talks Over Coffee (MTOC).

I have a lot of catching up to do, really. I'll be working on a schedule and will try harder to stick to it. Part of my schedule is to deliver fresh weekly post in this blog and never leave it like it's dead.

Ciao for now! Feel free to drop me a line.