Developing a Supernatural Lifestyle Review (1) - History Maker

This would be the first review of the book "Developing a Supernatural Lifestyle" as I am reading through it. Would share my thoughts and my gains from this book, a book that is of such impact and importance.

Chapter 1 - History maker

What do you understand about histroy makers? 

I define history makers as people whom had did something in their life on earth and had left an impact big enough for people to remember and embrace their thoughts throughout generations and generations, for example Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Socrates, Plato, Albert Eistein, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and etc. These people had done something in their life that were worth talking about even generations had passed and people are following their footstep. Their existance had change the surface of the world, their existance had change the way people think and live. This is what I call history makers.

Jesus, above all, is DE history makers. His existance and life on earth had changed the destiny of the whole of mankind, that is replacing enternal death in hell with enternal life in heaven. 

"Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." John 14:12

Jesus said in the bible that we who believe in Him, shall do the things that He did and even greater things than those He had done. If Jesus is the greatest of all history makers, than christians should be one as well. This is what we were all destined to do, this is what we all were created for, to be a history maker that changes the way people lives, the way people thinks. 

Religion and Christainity is two very different categories. We can be very religious, but we might not have the living God in us. Many Christians are living in a relm of religion, and were bound by religious rules and thinking, in doing just so they are missing out what is the greatest gift that God had gave His people, the life of Christ. Jesus is beyond religion, and He is not bound by religious rules and regulations. He has a life of the heaven and He wants His people to have one too.

Christians are meant to do great things for God, to impact cultures and change lives. If we don't start playing our role, then devil will replace our role and thus impacting cultures and changing lives into their mold. A history maker lives not an ordinary life, but a life of heaven, a supernatural lifestyle.

We must start to learn to understand our destiny and realise what we can do if we follow whatever God had told us to do. God does not just ask us to do whatever He had done and ask us to do it ourselves, He told us how we could do the same in John 14:13-14:

"And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."

We can do it not through ourselves, but through God our saviour who strengthen us! Our God is not a boring God, He doesn't like doing ordinary things, He loves extraordinary thing and as His people, lets embrace this mindset and this characteristics of God. The only way of becoming a history maker is to live like Him, Jesus Chirst. If we can live like Him, meaning we can do what He did, we can be what He had became, a history maker.

Today, let us start realising our destiny. Not to live an ordinary life, but an extraordinary one by living out a Christ-like life. You can be a history maker, you can be a culture-changer, if only you want to be one.

在你手中 - 我的外公与外婆

1989年我出生了，往后的十余年我的成长跟我的外公外婆是息息相关的。

2010年，我21岁了，但外公外婆在相距一个月内离开了我，回到天父那里去了。

对于他们，有说不出的思念，因为他们付出的实在是太多太多了。

外公在战乱时期出生，自小就失去了父母亲，一个人从中国渡江来到马来西亚。严谨的工作，认真地对待人生，但却从满了对于孩子和孙子们的疼惜与关爱。他的爱虽难以从日常的谈吐听见，但他却用一生的付出来表达。还记得小时候生日时，外公会用两个碗盛饭互相叠在一起作为我的“生日蛋糕”，外公的疼惜，我实在毕生难忘。

外婆的一生，可以用一个字来形容--笑。外婆脸上从不缺乏笑容，虽然一生进出医院，包括大大小小的手术不下300次，但每次见她，她还是会以笑容来迎接，外婆很可爱，真的很可爱。小时外婆常唱“外婆桥”来哄我睡觉，而且她特别喜欢唱一首歌，“小草”。歌的内容就像是外婆一生的写照，不怕风，不怕雨，立志要长大，小草实在是并不小。

外公与外婆的爱情是许多现代人无法理解的。没有甜言蜜语，没有浪漫玫瑰，有的是一生的承诺，有的是一生的付出，牺牲。

他们的生命深深的影响了我，虽然他们不擅长言语，但一生的表现胜过千言万语，对上帝的信心亦是如此，生命的艰难没有夺取他们对上帝的信心，反之让他们更紧紧抓住上帝的手。

两个月前外婆离开，我哭了。

一个月前外公离开，我也哭了。

哭，是对他们的思念，对他们的不舍。

我告诉自己，如果我承接到他们一半生命的精华就够了。

在外婆去世前一天，我们唱了这首诗歌给她听：

在你手中

我将耶和华常摆在我面前

因你在我右边，我便不致动摇

我的心欢喜，我的灵快乐

我的肉身也要安然居住

我将耶和华常摆在我面前

因你在我右边，我便不致动摇

在你面前有满足的喜乐

在你手中有永远的福乐

(诗篇16:8-11)

外公外婆的信心是大的，是阴间的权势不能夺取的，因为他们已经选择了上好的福份，他们选择了将一生交在耶稣的手中。

现在我喜乐，因我知道他们有喜乐，因我知道他们在耶和华的手中。

我爱你公公，婆婆，有一天我们在天堂见！

Gender Crisis

Human DNA consist of 2 pairs of chromosomes, each inherited from either one of the parents to make it up to 46 chromosomes in total. 44 of those were autosomal chromosomes and the other 2 were sex chromosomes with a combination of either 2 X chromosomes or 1 X and 1 Y.

This is a human karyotype for a male, where you can notice that it consist of one X and one Y chromosome respectively.

It is very important that after each stage of meiosis that the gametic cell in female and male consist of the normal number of chromosomes, that is 22 + 1. However due to non-dysjunction that might happen in the process of meiosis, it may cause unequal amount of chromosomes ended up in different resutling gamettes. Thus now we could easily observe serveral well understood phenotypic expression of these resulting genetic information that had been inherited in some individuals. Klinefelter syndrome and Turner syndrome are 2 of the more well known phenotype that was caused by non-dysjunction.

The left is the karyotype for a female with turner syndrome whereas the right is the karyotype for a male with Klinefelter syndrome.

Karyotype for a male with Klinefelter syndrome

The effect of these mutations are shown on the phenotype, both resulting in non-fertile offspring. Now here is the problem. Do we determine the gender of a particular individual depend solely on the chromosomes presence? Or do we have to consider the secondary sexual characteristics as well as the hormonal level that are presence in the particular individual? 

Throughout the history of Olympics, there were many cases where an athelete was stripped of the medals due to failure in the gender test. One of the most controversial case happened at the 2006 Asian Games. Santhi Soundarajan was a middle distance running silver medalist, but was later stripped off her medal due to her failure in the gender test that were carried out by a gynecologist, a geneticist, an endocrinologist, a psycologist, and an internal medicine specialist. They concluded the reason of Santhi Soundarajan falling the gender test was that she does not possess the sexual charateristics of a women. Media later had reported that she might be suffering from Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS) where the individual would have chromosome X and Y but the body would not respond to androgen, resulting in a female phenotype but does not posses ovaries.

Had this enlighten you?

XY does not necessary to be male. Sexual determination had been involved vastly in the sports arena to maintain the equality in competition, however in Santhi's case, she was unfortunate to be true because several female that were tested containing Y chromosome were allowed to compete in the 1996 Alanta Olympics.

Now since whether you are a male or female does not only lies on whether you have Y or X chromosome, let me ask you a question, 

Are you male or female?

References:

1. Matt Stopera, The 10 Most Shocking Olympic Gender Scandal [online], Available at http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-10-most-shocking-olympic-gender-scandals [Accessed 23rd Oct 2010]
2. Murdoch Children's Medical Research Institute, Human Karyotype, [image online], Available at http://www.biotechnologyonline.gov.au/popups/img_karyotype.html [Accessed 23rd Oct 2010]
3. Seals Genetics, Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, Karyotype for Klinefelter's syndrome,  [image online], Available at http://www.genetics.com.au/factsheet/fs31.asp [Accessed 23rd Oct 2010]
4. Clinical Tools, Inc., Karyotype for Turner's syndrome,  [image online], Available at http://www.le.ac.uk/ge/genie/vgec/hp/chromabnormal.html [Accessed 23rd Oct 2010]
5. Katie Thomas, The New York Times, A lab is set to test the gender of some female atheletes, [online], Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/sports/olympics/30gender.html?scp=1&sq=santhi%20soundarajan&st=cse [Accessed 23rd Oct 2010]
6. Emine Sanar, The Guardian, The gender trap, [online], Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/jul/30/olympicgames2008.gender%20The%20gender%20trap [Accessed 23rd Oct 2010]

Love

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 

(1 Corinthians 13:13)

This world wouldn't be the same without love. Without love, there is no room for weaknesses, there is no need for forgiving. A world without love would be such a scary place, a living hell it would be. 

All men and women needs love, an undebiable fact that we all have to accept. We want to be loved, be accepted, be celebrated. Since we were born we craved for attention and love from everyone surrounding us and even as we travel down our years, love is still very much what we lived for. Having tons of success but have no one to enjoy your success with, how bad can that be? Suffering from hardship of life without companions, how meaningless could life be?

³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

(Matthew 22)

Love is not self-indulging, love is sacrificing. When imperfect coincides, the ability to accept and embrace differences comes from love. Love makes sharp edges curve, like water that cuts through stones.

It was pretty much of what I am feeling right now, I felt love. From my interaction with my family, my love, and friends, I felt love. It is the most satisfying feeling that you can ever get, better than any mode of success in the world. Recently my sister just gave birth to my little niece by the name Hannah. She is simply, amazingly adorable. I felt so loved when I was holding her in my arms, looking at her beautiful face had touch the deepest part of my heart.

Besides, I've got such time to spend with my beloved family. We are of different personality no doubt, but the differences doesn't pull us away, but glued us together to embrace differences in each of us. I love everyone of them, my stern but cute papa, lovely and adorable mama, quiet but good big bro, charming and joyous jie jie, thoughtful and wise 2nd bro, and also this mischievous and intelligent little sis. Not forgetting my 2 very very cute aunties and also my brother-in-law, he is a great example for me. Each of them makes my life complete and I love each and everyone of them dearly.

Then there is my love, she is always there for me, supporting me and encouraging me though I was a little bit like a hard wood due to my special personality. I always imagined us being the couple in the animation UP, building our own family together and spending every moment of our life together till the very end. I am and will continue to love her and grow together with her in the love of God.

Then there is this few very special people, the Ongs little sisters and brothers. Maybe it was due to the similarity between my family and their's, but in an equally amazing way, God had put us so close together like birth brothers and sisters. I am thankful and greatful to be able to participate in some part of their life, seeing them growing is my joy and I love them dearly too.

God had put all these people in my life to show His love to me, and I know He himself loves me too. I always thought we all are like a baby in His eyes, He is holding you in His arms everyday, looking at you and He had so much joy even if you just sneeze. He would sing you to bed everyday, feed you and protect you. God is love and remember not only we are enjoying the moment with God, but He is also, enjoying every moment He got to spend with you.

Life is full of hardship, but take courage my friends out there, whenever you are in need, love is there for you to pull you right back up. And remember, love is God, and God is love.