Day 5

The Lord reigns. Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered.

3, or at least 3 points that I want to deliver tomorrow.

Purpose does not precede life. Life precedes purpose. If you have forgotten your purpose, you have forgotten your life. 2 Peter 1:9
People look back to legacy. People look forward with purpose.
Vision, Passion, Purpose. Christ has given us sight, and with vision we stand with passion, and move with purpose.

For from Him are all things, and to Him are all things. He deserves all the glory forever and ever.

‘You failed to endure peace. You must now prepare for war.’ – Scipio Africanus

Be wary of what you allow to sway you more than Christ.

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I give praise to the God who is above all Gods, the Lord of all, King of Kings. I give praise and glory to the Lord most High, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega. The Alpha who gladly became Omega for all of us who believe in Him to have everlasting Life. The Beginning who endured the end that we would not feel the sting of death. The First who became the last that we would be completely reconciled with the Creator.

God alone is worthy of all the praise and glory. I am thankful and I am just so full of joy knowing that the only One who matters, the firstborn of all that we perceive as matter, He is with us ,and not just partially but fully and completely, as close as He could ever be to us, now, and forever. This is the New Covenant fulfilled by Jesus, that we would be absolutely reconciled with the Father, and that we would enjoy Him in all things and in all ways.

Bless the Lord, o my soul, and forget not His benefits. Bless the Lord, o my soul, for His mercies that are new every morning, and for His promises that have been ‘Yes’ and ‘Amen’ in Jesus Christ.

What a faithful and mighty God we have. Faithful and True in all things and all ways. He is worthy, thrice worthy of all the praise.

And God, indeed, I can just keep on going. I can’t stop proclaiming of all that You are to me, and all that You have done to me, for me, and through me. Jesus, how can I stop? And yet, even if I stop typing these words, alas, Your Spirit continues to work in and through me, reminding me of my perfect reconciliation with you, which only manifests more and more in this reality, as a reflection of the glory which we dwell in all of eternity.

The plagues were God’s demonstration of how God’s infinite superiority over the gods of Egypt.
Through the centuries and generations, God has demonstrated His infinite superiority as Creator over all of Creation.

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I was up and out of bed at around 7:20 this morning. Thought I would take advantage of the moment by tending to the plants, and then trying to write something on the notebook. I wrote a paragraph of nothing before taking my morning detox supplements and heading upstairs to lie down again.

I proceeded to slack off in bed until around 10am, when I decided to get dressed to bring mom out to her lunch thing with her friends. While having lunch I planned on doing some typing and possibly some work on the Data Science project. Now, while we were trying to figure out the new buffet scheme, Andrei and his family show up – turns out they were checked in as well, gathered the same way we all huddled together as families when my own Dad passed away. It was good to see them all united.

In appreciation Andrei bought my Mom a cake and called me a good son. I suppose I took that in, and just thank God that there was actual progression in all this that’s been going on, throughout the years. Just a general compliment boosted me today.

On another note, man, that fried ice cream they had opened my eyes to how delicious a dessert that can be. Everything in it, from the fried casing to the ice cream and the accompanying raspberry syrup – just superb. Great with coffee, a good finisher to the rest of the Japanese fare we had.

Mom and her friends were still in between leaving and staying behind to hang out some more when I needed to head out to meet my kids. I went ahead and let her know, and she was okay with just taking a taxi home. Later on I would learn that she stayed there until 5:30. They apparently had a good conversation.

Not that I didn’t. Jardine, Jandel, Joe, and John Mark showed up today, bringing what they called Mocha Puto. It was good, I guess. I wish them well in their business ventures.

Topics of discussion: Purpose, and the difference of mindsets and the need to be secure with our own beliefs to avoid being moved by other perspectives. The reasons why Christ was so angry at the Temple vendors and the moneychangers. The centrality of Christ and His finished work, even in the presence of so many other ‘revolutionary’ doctrines such as healing and prophecy.

A Life which drives purpose is infinitely superior to a purpose-driven life. The purpose, the blessing, the healing, the sanctification, etc… these are all inferior to Christ, who is the Source of it all.

I took the kids to Bayanihan, and on the way home I saw flashes to the east. As soon as I got home I took the camera bag and headed back out.

I thought I’d go down Happy Hollow but I changed my mind and tried to go down the Mines View Deck, only to be denied entry. Sad. Drove up towards Tiptop, and as I was to turn back after seeing a PNP Checkpoint, I just went ahead and asked if I could pass, to take pictures nearby. I was granted permission, just as long as I didn’t pass a certain point.

I was supposed to shoot lightning from Tiptop but the low puffy clouds over Baguio were just too rare to pass on. Slightly annoyed that the wires from the usual point I shot were seen a little more this time, but I still got good ones. The clouds and fog were keeping me from shooting into the distance on the other side, all I saw were diffused flashes. I drove back to the Ambuklao/Tiptop junction and took a few good lightning flash shots (albeit from one vantage point) with good cloud detail.

The cops were nice as I entered the checkpoint. Where’d you come from? Where do you stay? ID for proof of where you live? Simple questions, and then they gave the tip to come back in the morning for even better shots. I just might take them on their offer.

Soon as I got home we worshiped: Forever, Blessed Be The Lord God Almighty, Give Thanks – I’m considering that last song as part of that lineup we may eventually have with Pastor Alvin.

I snuck a glass of ice upstairs and poured out some JW Double Black. Had it while I had my Jupyter Notebook open. Before I am able to convert Object values in a Data Frame, I need to address NaN or Null values in each column first. Some of these columns need to have the values ‘filled in’, while I determined some of the rows with particular columns’ values set as NaN have to be outright dropped.

In Lay terms, any data needs to be processed accordingly before any proper analysis is made.

Running thought, it helps to approach this and my message for tomorrow afternoon’s service in terms of projects. I am amazed to see how I can get a good amount of work done when checkpoints and transitions are observed. More on this as I move along.

Of course, while working on projects I will need to keep thinking and thinking on the next projects to take after the current jobs are finished.

And so here I am, wrapping this up, before I take an early rest, to wake up tomorrow, focused on my message with its parts and portions.

HIGH: Progressed on Novus Ordo Aeternum (tomorrow’s message), and DS Project. Good talk with the youth.
LOW: Ate like shit today.

• Paraway/Aloe Vera: Done
• Workout: None
• Run: None
• Food: Recorded
• Plants: Done
• Room/Sala: Deep clean tomorrow
• Steps: 3849
• Trades: None, weekend
• Worship songs: Forever, Blessed Be The Lord God Almighty, Give Thanks

Yesterday’s Tasks:

• Mom’s lunch, maybe coffee with Ptr Rey and Ronnie?
• Meet the youth
• Meet with Mavin and Jopet?
• Further enhance routine. Progression on Data Science and Sunday Message Projects (see below).

Tomorrow’s Tasks:

• Buy wine for communion
• Sunday Message prep and delivery
• Possible Amazing Sunday Meeting
• Workout
• Further enhance routine. Progression on Data Science (see below).

Additional Thought From Day 4: I need to put a routine together to get done every morning, and then think of seeing self-work as projects, giving time for what the rest of the world needs from me, while considering how they tie in with my projects.