Reel Thoughts: War of the Worlds

I just watched “War of the Worlds” by Steven Spielberg (si pareng Steve!) with a couple of my co-workers in Anino. It was definitely a roller-coaster ride for me. (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD) Besides that weird ending message by the omniscient voice of Morgan Freeman (I think its him), I guess the whole point of it all was for the audience to experience a run-for-your-life disaster movie by the master of alien encounters, Steven Spielberg.

There is no doubt that the remade movie was a showcase of great talents. I feel, however, that the material (courtesy of H.G. Wells) is dated and lacks the “it-could-really-happen” feel (for people who know about infrared and motion sensors, you know what I’m talking about). I mean, come on Steve—can aliens who are able to manipulate electromagnetic weapons be that stooopid? Mas kapani-paniwala pa ang The Matrix. (HAI-YA!!! whuping!) But I think that that’s another genre.

Not to detract praise from the cinematography and special effects, this movie still delivers great entertainment value. I felt dwarfed by the magnitude of the story’s scope because so much was going on and the film hurls you right into the forefront of the war…extermination…whatever. And the film succeeds here.

I still have not read the book or seen the original movie or heard the radio serial. So, when the film mentioned God at the end, I was surprised—happy, nonetheless, that our Creator was the true hero in the film.

A Blog Afterthought

I have to admit that blogging is not an easy habit to maintain for those who have abandoned making journals for long time. Yes, I admit this openly. I am not a faithful "journalist" or blogger or whatever you call it. Add to that the thought of making your thoughts available for other people to see. It's just so intimidating. Oh yeah, I scrawl out a few notes now and then yet honestly, making a blog scares me.

I used to think that writing was fun. But the more I grew older, the more it grew harder to write down what I really wanted to say. I realize that there is a fear associated with communication--this is the fear of not being understood. Also, whenever I write, there is this expectation that people expect wisdom in your words. And with each passing year, that fear increases. Is this strange?

Maybe. But, I'll do it anyway.

"Do or do not, there is no try."

So, to the trashbin with my fears and on to my rantings.
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I asked the question "DOES GOD EXIST?"

During these years at work my workplace, I have met a agnostics, new agers and people in between who have their own concepts about God. There's one thing I learned when we were getting into discussions about our beliefs: I must understand what their position is, I must listen and be genuinely concerned about what they think.

Here I will go again to gripe about the way how other Christians approach the situation. Some would relentlessly bombard the unbeliever with verse upon verse about how God's Word is infallible this and infallible that. Hello Garci! *duh* You can never win a person by presenting an argument based on what they percieve as flawed evidence.

The more I understood their position, the more it became clear that they won't accept the Bible as the Word of God. Some of us might leave it there and say, "Well that's their choice." Yes it is but we did not present the choice the best that we can. Now, as you might guess, just trying to convince them without establishing the Word of God as the Truth is just a waste of saliva.

In my case, I just made clear what I believe in and prayed to God to help them see the light and help me show it. Last year I watched a television show on TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) that featured Grant Jeffrey, a noted researcher who wrote a book on Creation and how discoveries in every field were debunking Darwin's theory of evolution. I still have to get my hands on that book. But the later part of the show led me to one of my greatest discoveries of last year: www.creationevidence.org

It was late last december when I started research for my book The Tribe of Man (hehe, still in chapter one) and this site opened doors for me. It corrected some of the stuff that I believed in my whole life! Now I realize that I might be going against what I said a blog earlier about accepting the mere word of man as Truth. The things I saw at this site may not be absolute or proven but it might point us in the right direction--to answer some questions we have about God, His existence and the validity of the Scriptures as the very Words of our Creator.

My Walk With God: The Second Decade

When I was fourteen, I wrote a short essay entitled “My Walk With God” that was published in our summer camp’s souvenir magazine. It was an essay about how I came to know about God and what my relationship with Him was like. While I was chuckling to myself, I suddenly realized that I had been a serious teenager (and that my writing skills had not really developed as well as I had hoped). From the pages of an aging green magazine, a young self-image popped in my mind’s eye for an instant and lectured me on the search for truth.

It has been thirteen years since I wrote that essay. Some questions I had back then, I still do not have the answers to. Some questions, I have forgotten. Some, I have ignored. But God spoke to me: It’s time for me to pick up where I left off.

For me, the search for truth is synonymous with “My Walk With God”. Some may not agree but I sincerely hope they read on.

Just a quick backgrounder (for those of you who don’t know), I grew up in a denomination called the Worldwide Church of God, which founded by Herbert W. Armstrong. WCG had been a cult that followed the tenets of Anglo-Judaism—we believed that we must keep the Laws of Moses to the letter. We had zeal for God’s commands but legalism instilled self-righteousness in those who were trying to become “perfect.”

After the death of Mr. Armstrong, God heard the intercession of the Saints, intervened and transformed WCG from a group of arrogant isolationists to members of the Body of Christ. If you want to know the whole story, you can get a copy of the book “Transformed by Truth” by Joseph W. Tkach, Jr. (or stay tuned in to this blog as I might write about it in another entry)

During the years that I wrote “My Walk With God” I could already sense something was at work in my life although I didn’t know what it was (or WHO it was—I realize now that it was the Holy Spirit). It was not long after that when doctrinal changes began to take place in WCG. A lot of people were shaken. It was a time of confusion for many but in God’s eyes it was the hour of our redemption. Of course, the question that lingered in our hearts: “What is the truth?”

The search for truth begins with a question. Almost everything that I had believed in was cast in a shadow of doubt except in one thing: God’s Word. We all came back to the Source.

I understand that there are so many arguments as to whether the Bible is fact or fiction (or both). And before we could go any further in our search for the truth we must, with open minds, assess the validity of the Scriptures and its relevance in our lives.

Is this not the challenge of the millennia? To say that politics and tradition would always succeed in hiding truth is not an issue. Remember, we’re not trying to change the world, yet. We can start changing ourselves once we know what the truth is. And truth will always have heroes.

But before we can validate the Scriptures, there is a greater question that we must ask. A person who is really sincere in the search for truth will have an answer to this question:

“DOES GOD EXIST?”

To say that to have really searched for wisdom and understanding—I must have a personal answer to this. And to go on this search is to acknowledge the danger of accepting the mere “word” of man as the truth.

Some might think I’m trying to be overly philosophical—even too intellectual when I say this but this search has to start somewhere. It is not that I have attained enlightenment or have become perfect. Far from it, my friends. Let’s just say that I have gone on this journey and I can share what I have learned from it. Still, my walk with God continues.