Hold on Into Our Principal of Life Enable Us to Achieve Our Goals

Finally, that marathon runner reaches the finish line as the first winner. He is called as a champion because He holds on into his principals of life, principal of focus. He is fully aware of his competitors’ existence.  Therefore, He is well prepared both physically and mentally. Although joining into a training center is such a quarantine process for him, he is willing to commit himself into it. His willingness to be isolated from external influences prevents himself from temptations which capable to destroy his concentration. However, his hard work will be paid off with victory.

Life is all about a race or a contest that determines the success of someone’s life. There are many races in life, including a race to bring our life closer to His knees, a race to have good deed to all people, a race to sacrifice something to our nation and country, and etc. We can be considered as a successful person if we can be a winner in a contest. Although there are many races we have to go through in life, there are still many people who cannot stay focus and procrastinate. They don’t understand how valuable their time is. People like to spend their time to play games without any purposes and results. What’s wrong with playing games? Actually, there is nothing wrong with playing games if it supports your focus in life and encourages us to become more productive.

To sum up, we should hold on into our life principal, such as principal of truth, principal of honesty, and principal of holiness since there are many temptations in life. We should stay firm to our life principal so that we are resisted from any distractions.

by: petrus f. setiadarma

translated by: eilien t. hendrawan

There are three Different Types of “Running”. We see many people exercise in the morning. Some people like to walk, while other people prefer to run; every person has different preferences on exercising. There are people who run alone while some people prefer to run in a group or a team. Basically, there are three different types of running.

1. First, run regularly that is aimed to keep our body fit and healthy. This is a good habit people should build since we know and realize the importance of exercising, to maintain our stamina.
2. Second, run that is aimed to stay away from something. Running away from something that will damage or harm us is an appropriate act someone should make. We should not compromise on temptations; we should run and leave it away. However, we should not run away to escape from our responsibilities. For instance, people move from one job to another easily, trying to find a job with less responsibility and run away from “disciplined” superior. Undisciplined students neglect their responsibilities such as studying and finishing their homework. Instead of that, they play games and cheat during examination.
3. Third, a person runs to accomplish an honorable goal in life which is to become a blessing for other people by doing positive things in order to please God. This needs strong-will, hard-working and commitment. This person knows how valuable and precious time is; He or she will not procrastinate to do positive things, like giving forgiveness, helping people in needs, and encouraging the desperate ones.

by: petrus f. setiadarma

translated by: eilien t. hendrawan

God creates human beings as social creatures, which means that the meaning of our lives is influenced by our interaction with our friends and environments. We are given the capability to communicate with other people to express our feelings and thoughts. Our expressions are stated in the form of symbols or signs. These symbols and signs are created to be accepted and understood by certain community. Below are the examples of some symbols we need to stay focus on:

• The sign or symbol of love:

Some people express their love by giving flower to the one they love. While other people feel that expressing their love with flower is not enough; Love should be symbolized with diamond. However, there might be another sign of love in other cultures.

• The sign or symbol of  “shake head” :

In Indonesia, “shake head” symbolizes the word “no”, but for Indian people it means “yes”. While in some other cultures, “shake head” can imply different meanings.

• The sign or symbol in the streets:

There are two different signs in the street, including prohibition and instruction signs. Several examples of prohibition signs in the street are “Stop” and “Do not Park” sign, while one example of instruction sign will be “speed up 60 km/hour,” and etc.

• We should also recognize and learn signs and symbols in building our relationship with friends to prevent misunderstanding and miscommunication.
• As a good citizen, we automatically will respect our country’s signs. As an Indonesian, I respect our national flag, red-white flag. However, the term of respect is broad and it means more than just respecting the sign or symbol of our nation. We are considered as a good citizen if we follow the rules/regulations, do our jobs/tasks accordingly, and are responsible as good citizens such as paying taxes.

Since we know the importance of building a good and mutual relationship with other people, including our friends, we should recognize and understand carefully and completely the meaning of symbols or signs.

—– 00000 —–

by: petrus f. setiadarma

translated by: eilien t. hendrawan

There are several differences between uptown and urban people. One of the most obvious differences is their willingness to do something voluntarily. Urban people less concern about social classes compared with uptown people. In addition, people who live in urban areas have better social life and stronger bond within one another compared with uptown people who are more individualistic. I have experienced several circumstances which convince me that people in urban areas have better willingness to help and do something voluntarily compared to uptown people. For instance, when we are looking for an address in urban area, suddenly there are people who voluntarily offer help to show us the correct address without asking something in return. Although, these urban people did not know and ask who we are, they automatically helped us as if they should. Helping people is such awareness for urban people. Moreover, they don’t expect and ask something in return from helping us.

While most likely in big cities, most people are influenced with materialism culture. They measure lots of things with money. Most people are expecting something in return. They are willing to help if they know who that person and if receive something in return. For instance, there are lots of people in the streets who accelerate the traffic jams, but in the end, they ask for money as commission. If they don’t receive it, they will get upset. Also, when our car got stuck in the middle of the street, people who helped to shove our car aside asked something in return.

Our willingness to help other people voluntarily will appear and grow stronger if we realize that we are social human beings who can’t live alone. We need to be aware with the fact that every one of us needs the help of other people since our capacities are limited. Therefore, helping other people should have become our priority in life. We should become a role model for our environment by practicing and giving examples of doing something sincerely. Last but not least, building habit of giving voluntarily should be built as earlier as possible and become one of our traits.

—– 00000 —–

by: petrus f. setiadarma

translated by: eilien t. hendrawan

In general, people don’t like the word “repetition” because they usually refer that word as a failure. For instance, a second grade primary school student must “repeat” her course again due to her unsatisfactory results. Retaking driving test is another example of repetition when the policeman states that we fail during examination. These two examples show repetition as a failure, yet repetition does not always represent failure. Is it true that the word “repetition” always symbolizes the word “failure”? One purpose of repetition is to overcome failure, but it is not absolute. For example, we strike with a hammer repeatedly not because of our strike does not reach the target; It is needed so that the nail will implanted inside in. In this case, the purpose of repetition is as a tool to achieve the target.

Parents should raise their children with the best effort they can. They also need to be the role model for their children. Providing all the material and physical needs for our children will never be enough. Their needs are more than the physical things, what they need more is love, courage, companion, and guidance.  Spending time with our children will be very effective to build strong bond between us. In addition, we have to constantly and continually give advice to our children so that it will stick to their mind and heart. We need to be aware with the fact that our children’ behaviors and characters are influenced tremendously by the way we raise them.

Husband and wife need to confess their love to one another repeatedly so that they are able to resist from temptation. Love is such a “flower” which needs nourishment all the time so it can grow stronger and beautifully. And so Christians who frequently and repeatedly should listen, read, and obey God’s words so that our lives are attached to Jesus Christ which will prevent us from sin or hurting other people.

—– 00000 —–

by: petrus f. setiadarma

translated by: eilien t. hendrawan

“Who knows what is deeply inside someone’s heart?” That’s the question that always comes up to my mind and I’m sure that all of you have the same question as me. The only person who knows what is inside our heart is ourselves. Nobody knows what is inside our heart since people don’t have the ability to examine someone’s heart. As a result, people also don’t have the ability to distinguish whether someone is truly sincere or not. There are many people who often disguise or hide their true characters or personalities from other people. Most of the time, we consider whether someone is nice or not only from the outlook or appearance, which is often time it can be wrong.

“Are we all as human beings have sincere and pure heart?” The answer will be absolutely not. We are born as a sinful creature. Since we were kids, we sinned. We were egoistic people; we envied other kids. This shows us that we don’t have clean-heart. However, when we receive Jesus Christ in our lives, He heals and cleanses our heart from sins. But we still have to keep our heart on guard since in this world, there are many temptations. There are four ways we can implement in our lives to keep our heart on guard and clean?

First, stay away from gossips and rumors. We, as Christians, should not tell gossips. If there is a person who is telling gossip about you, then just disregards it since God knows our heart. Moreover, the truth will always come up later.

Second, always think positively and throw away the “garbage” inside our heart, like hatred, anger, and bitterness. By thinking positively, we can be the doers of God’s word. Try to see things from its positive sides, not the negative sides.

Third, fulfill our life with positive things, such as spiritual stuffs by reading Bible, listening to the gospel of God, and listening to church songs, serving the needs of other people (like orphans, etc).

Four, we should learn to be sincere. We should say something according to the truth, say yes if it is truly yes, but say no if it is truly no. Our integrity can be shown or reflected from our sincerity. Always remember to keep our heart on guard.

—– 00000 —–

by: petrus f. setiadarma

translated by:  eilien t. hendrawan

Being loyal can be defined as being devoted into certain thing. People are usually willing to devote themselves into something if they receive something to gain or benefit from it. However, if people think there are no benefits to gain, they will most likely unwilling to be loyal into something. Lately, it is difficult to find a truly loyal person since there is a life pattern changing in today’s society from devotion-life-pattern into individualistic-life-pattern. These two examples below will show and convince us that in our today’s society, loyalty has been gradually faded.

• During holidays, there are still many children who are unwilling and raise objection to help their parents doing chores. They never realize and to be thankful on how hard their parents have been working for to afford their living costs and education expenses. They feel that it is their parents’ duty to work hard to provide their needs.
• Many employees are not loyal anymore to their companies they have been working for. They feel that their contributions to the company need to be compensated fairly. Without receiving greater return (bonuses/money) form the company, most likely employees are unwilling to work over time.
• Some people serve others not because they really care about those people but because of profit/benefit intention.

Looking at these two examples should open our eyes and remind us for not measuring every single thing with money/ bonuses/ returns. It is important to be loyal or devoted people. We can be loyal into certain thing if there is love inside our heart. When we love our parents, we have tendency to always please and help them with all of our heart. When we love someone, we are gladly to serve that person. We should have proper attitude and motivation toward other people.

—– 00000 —–

by: petrus f. setiadarma

translated by: eilien t. hendrawan

Since we are social human beings, we cannot live alone; we need other people as companion including friends, partners, and close friends. Since friends bring tremendous impacts in our life, we should be selective when choosing them; positive environments will bring positive impacts while negative environments, on the other hand, will cause negative impacts in our lives. We should build healthy friendship and firmly refuse negative intention from friends.  Don’t let negative influences have bad effect on our lives.

One absolute requirement of friendship is trust. We will not be able to share our feelings and talk from heart to heart if we don’t trust our companions. It is necessary for both parties to keep our partners’ secrets confidential.

Good fellowship will be the next step of friendship. It is required closeness or intimacy. Closeness or intimacy here means being together through good and bad times. There are several ways to tighten our fellowship including visiting our friends when they get sick to show our care for them, remembering all the important dates in their life such their birthday and wedding anniversary to rejoice together with them. In addition, instead of blaming or hiding our fellows’ mistakes, we should let them know and correct their mistakes. Last but not least, rejoicing and congratulating our fellows’ achievements is considered to be another excellent way to strengthen our fellowship.

—– 00000 —–

by: petrus f. setiadarma

translated by: eilien t. hendrawan

According to the research done by experts, one useful method to change someone’s behavior is through reward and punishment principal. This method allows us to see the development of human being’s morality. And at certain point, this method can be very effective, which ultimately happens when someone stays at the lowest level of morality (namely pre conventional).

I’ve visited Singapore for numbers of times. My perception I have had about Singapore is that it is a cleaned city. Not only it is known as an extremely cleaned city, but Singapore is also known as a fine city since it implements punishment principal. No one will dare to disobey the rules since there is a punishment for every infraction of the rules or to the law, including people who are littering, spitting, and etc. As foreigners, I realize how strict the rules are applied in Singapore which has encouraged us to obey the laws. Foreigners are afraid of disobeying the rules in Singapore, but will most likely violate the laws in Indonesia. This stresses the fact that punishment is the key to the Singaporeans’ and visitors’ awareness of sanitary.

Punishments are regulation consequences. When the rules or laws are given out, there are punishments for people who violate the rules or laws. In our lives, Jesus also allocates his laws inside our heart so that we are responsible for our lives and have a disciplined life. For instance, in terms of health, God differentiates two kinds of foods: healthy and unhealthy. Unhealthy foods are preferably to be avoided to prevent sickness. In terms of the law of affection, Jesus also demands us to love one another including our friends and enemies since He has set himself as an example who has previously loved us as sinful human beings. When we violate the verdict of affection or love, we do not show our fondness towards Jesus.  If we receive “punishment” from God, we should look back at our own lives, learn from our own mistakes, and try our best not to repeat the same mistakes. One crucial thing we should always remember is that Jesus loves us unconditionally regardless our sins.

—– 00000 —–

Psalms 15:1-5

There are several things need to be considered when we want to live a life like Jesus Christ:

1. First, we have to experience reborn, a new life that the Holy Spirit has been working of for all of us who want to receive Jesus (John 3:3, 1 Corinthians 5:17).
2. In this new life, we grow more unto Him through the spirit of wisdom and revelation (Ephesians 1:17). We should put our first priority into the recognition of Jesus Christ as our savior. As it is stated in Philippians 3:10 “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (retrieved from the Message).
3. Proper recognition of God which will also result in proper attitude which is our desire and obedience to obey His words so that we can follow Him thoroughly. (John 13: 15).
4. According to Psalms 15:1-5, Jesus set an excellent example of his life including

• Behave or to act properly (Luke 2:52)
• Be fair to all people and tell the truth sincerely
• Do not spread slander or rumors or gossips
• Do good for people
• Love his neighbor
• Do not despise people who are eliminated by their society
• Respect people who glorify God (Isaiah 42:3)
• Hold on into your commitment even if you lose
• Be a blessing for others (John 6:11)

Last but not least, Holy Spirit enables us to be a role model for other people through our words, deeds, love, loyalty, and purity ( 1 Corinthians 1:11; 1 Timothy 4:12).

—– 00000 —–

by: petrus f. setiadarma

translated by:  eilien t. hendrawan