The story of the Prodigal Son... a review.

I was reading my old posts in this blog when I read a post I wrote in 2010 about behaving like a pharisee... I also alluded to the story of the Prodigal Son from the bible. This extract was taken from my prayer journal and it was something that I wrote back in 2017.

Clearly, there has been a change in my thinking and I just wanted to be able to record it down and cross reference it as I get older, that is IF I actually remember that I have a blog. One Sunday in 2017, I was listening to pastor was retelling the story of the prodigal son at church. As a child, I was puzzled at why the Father would forgive his wayward younger son but, I was happy to know that if I misbehaved, the story tells me that the Heavenly Father would still forgive me.

As I got older and read the story on my own, I felt that I could empathize with the older son's feelings when the Father celebrated the return of the prodigal son. I have had the feelings of being sore, 

of having suffered and felt shortchanged in my life although I have strived to do the right things, toe the line and be the best person that I could be. I could so totally understand the older brother's anger and frustration. 

Now that I am older still (middle-aged ... Yah), I feel that I can understand a bit better the heart of the Father and I would like to remember that everything the Father had belonged to the elder son. I was to remember that the younger son had given up and squandered his inheritance. There was no need for the elder brother to be frustrated at the Father welcoming back the prodigal son with open arms. There is enough. Like the Father, the older brother should at least attempt to open his heart to his younger brother.

At that point when I wrote the paragraphs in the prayer journal, my soul was being convicted as I was upset about things that were unfair, unjust and about bad people, lazy people, entitled people getting away with things. I was full of self-pity and was working myself up. I was behaving exactly like the older son in the story in his indignation and yet I was struggling to be gracious and forgiving.

Then, I was pointed to a new (then) viral video of a girl who was born without arms, abandoned at birth and still pursuing her dreams of playing the piano and singing. 

Watching her play, I couldn't stop crying... then I was reminded how entitled we who are so blessed are. I still can't watch her perform without crying, I can't find the original video with her full story but here is a video of her performance. 

https://youtu.be/uYbQJbHhne4

After watching that, how can I complain... it's a good reminder... I shall post this up.

Good grief, I still have a blog.

The last time I came across this page was several years ago. Just how many online cookie crumbs do I have? I really don't know.

Hrmmph, and so, what has happened in the last few years?

I got married, yeah.
We bought a flat to live in. Woohoo! my own property.
I got 3 cats (rather, the husband got 3 cats, I am merely the feeder, cleaner and caretaker...)
I changed jobs several times, which isn't surprising since I do project work.
I became much closer to God in my Christian journey and have been attending church regularly for a few years now and believe I have matured.

Oh... I turned 40 a couple of years ago.

You know, as I was reading my old posts, it struck me that I was certainly a miserable... or rather, melancholic person.
I'd like to think that this has changed somewhat. I believe I now have a sunnier disposition.
I am still passionate and I feel strongly about certain issues but.... I guess, I did mellow with time.

What about the world around me, how has it changed? Well, we all know that blogs are so 1990s and 2000s. In the 2010s, it is all about the smartphone. Every other thing can be done on the smartphone. You can surf the internet, learn, watch TV and movies, read the bible / quran, read news & posts, take photographs that are better quality than some point and shoot cameras, use the phone as GPS, a media player, a shopping and payments / banking tool too.

Yeah, I think the 2020s are going to be all about artificial intelligence and IoT. These have actually been around for a while now but the signs are clear, they are going to turn mainstream soon.

In the 2000s, a phone was only for calls and SMSes. Then in the 2010s, we started watching movies and surfing the internet on our smartphones en masse. After that, came all manner of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Wechat, WhatsApp, Skype, etc. I was a laggard in the smartphone revolution. My 1st smartphone was an entry level HTC in 2010 considering that the 1st iphone was released in 2007, I was slow.

After that, I graduated to several Samsungs, the S3, Note 4 and now Note 8. I am still considered slow in changing phones, I change them an average of once every 2-3 years, usually when the phone batteries start to die. The iphones that I have had are always work ones. I still much prefer Android to IOS. It feels more familiar to me.

But even for me, the smartphone is now an indispensable tool and I think more of our lives will go online, on the cloud... whatever. Just 3 years ago, I wouldn't buy things online because I was afraid of credit card fraud. Now, buying things online is the norm.

Just 2 years ago, I wouldn't do any mobile payments. Now, I do have a mobile payment account that I use occasionally. There will be malls and supermarkets (even now) that use only epayments. Blockchain and bitcoin may eventually enter our lives as well, who knows.

The pace is accelerating and we need to change along with it.
Keeping the right attitude, looking forward and upward is the way to go.