The Life You’ve Always Wanted

This is one of my reading assignment that I drag on for a little too long. Below is my personal summary of this book by John Ortberg.

SPIRITUAL
Our spiritual life is not measured by the regularity of our journal entries. God can use it to lead us into life but with that but our spiritual life is measured by our growing love for God and people. Spiritual discipline is any activity that can help me gain power to live life as Jesus taught and modelled it. Ortberg gave the example of a lady who sees “quiet time” as spiritual devotion but does not count time spend caring for her children as a spiritual act.

One of the basic laws of life is rhythm – night/day, winter/summer, wake/sleep, time of consolation/time of desolation. Both season are inevitable and can bring unique growth. Holiday = holy day.

Knowledge does not equal to spiritual transformation. A person whose knowledge of the bible can be 10 times greater than an average unchurched person but is that person 10 times more loving, patient and more joyful? When we read the bible, the goal is not for us to get through the Scripture but to get the Scripture through us. Sometimes that means sticking to one psalm or even one word long enough to learn what we need to learn.

HURRY
We should ruthlessly eliminate hurry from my life. Life is cluttered when we are weighed down by things that we have failed to say no to. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln achieved the depth of thought he did because he grew up with so little to read. William Herndon, his biographer claimed that Lincoln read less and thought more than any man in his sphere in America. Today, we have largely traded wisdom for information, depth for breath. We want to "microwave" maturity.

PRAYER
Prayer is learned behaviour. Nobody is born an expert at it. No one ever masters prayer. “Lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.” -C.S. Lewis. Our minds may wander during prayer but it may be the very thing our heart most needs to speak to God about. Some things may not seem spiritual but no point praying about things that are noble but not really in our hearts. Nothing kills prayers faster than pretending to be noble.

SERVANTHOOD
One of the hardest things in the world is to stop being the prodigal son without turning into the elder brother. It is easier to hear about serving than to actually serve: Ortberg gave the example of a person who gave excuse not to do something by going for a rally to teach and inspire to that very thing.

Marley & Casper

I bought a few books from last year's MPH clearance and one of it is Marley & Me.

I happen to read in the newspapers and saw the preview of the movie last month and decided I better read it real soon! It is an autobiographical about the Grogans and their yellow Labrador Retriever.

The subtitle of the book is “life and love with the world’s worst dog”. I roughly get an idea what it is all about. Since my childhood days I have attempted to convince my parents numerous times to allow me to keep a dog. I vaguely remember that we had one but died and another one stolen. My parents gave up. I guess they knew that they will end up caring for the dog anyway.

They finally gave the green light in 2002. We brought home Casper when we was around 2 months old. He was a furball. So rounded and super adorable!

As I read the book about Marley, I realized that Casper is actually a very normal dog. Like Marley, Casper likes to run and crash into the doors. He lungs and chokes himself when we walk him. He is also extremely terrified of the thunder and fireworks.

Thankfully Casper is not destructive like Marley when he is afraid. Casper would just want to be indoors when the storm comes. I suspect he has gotten over the fear. I caught him pretty calm one day during the storm. Everyone was out so he must have forgotten there is still one human in the house. When he heard noise from the house he started pleading to get in! Hmmm… con-dog.

Casper got over the chewing part of his life pretty quickly. We can leave our very new shoes with him and he will not touch them. Surely it is Casper’s presence that prevented the frequent shoe theft.

As I flipped the pages of the book, at every paragraph that describes an occasion or location, I could almost expect the possible disaster. I think anyone with a notorious dog should be able to relate. ;-) It was a good read and as I read towards the end of the book this morning... I cried…:-p. Old age can be pretty bad but that dog savored every moment of life!

Casper is almost 7 years old now. Still a baby to my family but in dog age, he is in his fourties! That's fast. He is aging so much faster than I am.

Every dog lover would agree with Grogan’s following line…
A dog judges others not by their color or creed or class but by who they are inside. A dog doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his.

When the game is over...

I received “When the game is over, it all goes back in the box” as a Christmas present in 2007. I didn’t read until the end of 2008. It was a timely read for me – after my surgery and saying “see you soon” to Connor. The book really served as a good reminder on what is our priority and objective in life.

I especially like the part where the writer compared life on earth to a temporary stay in a motel. How we are very unlike to be spending all our money decorating it because it is just not home.

People go through life collecting stuff and then they die, leaving all their stuff behind. Then their kids argue and fight over those stuff and then they die and leave stuff behind again….and the hunger to accumulate stuff continues throughout the lifespan of….the stuff.

Do I like collecting stuff? I guess I do! For what? To make myself happy! :-p
Dumb.

The writer also mentioned about the contrast between his little known college mate and a famous billionaire’s funeral. The number of people and who (friends/family/anyone at all?) actually showed up at their funeral tells a lot about that person’s life. It reminded me about the legacy we leave behind when our time here is over. Who will have eternal treasures? The billionaire who abandon his family and friends for "success" or the little known person who has been serving God and people faithfully with everything he has.

It is the impact we made in others’ lives that really really matters.