An old-aged friend

I have an old aged friend, that I call "Ojisan".

Ojisan's father was a pastor. He and his siblings saw a lot of problems in churches; so many problems that now, he and his siblings don't attend any church. Ojisan see himself as a christian, some how devoted to the Lord. He criticizes practically all pastors that he knew in the thousand churches that he attended.

He sees himself as a kind of prophet that prophesies against many churches. He says he has this gift. 

It was he that leaded me to that nikkei church and I communicated to him that I am leaving the church and the preaching.

I was thinking that perhaps, he had a point in not attending any church now, because it is really hard to find one with a biblical vision; but as I keep talking to him, I noticed that he rarely talk about the Bible and he rarely talk about praying about anyone. It seems to me that he doesn't love the church, full of sinners.  

He likes to talk about politics and how many churches are involved with the world in search for power. It may be true, but, in my opinion, he should read the Bible against himself and see the Lord working on his own life before prophesy against any church. So, I urged him to read the Bible with me and concentrate on the Bible itself.

Unfortunately he rejected this gathering about Bible reading many and many times, but today, I think it is the last time I try. I think that it is somehow common that old aged men criticizes the world against him but can't find any problem in himself. This is really said because repentance is the key to life changes. I hope the Lord keeps me in his Way. Let the Lord takes care of my heart in my old ages: let my heart be soft as a flash and not hard as a stone.

small and big losses

 As usual, we (my family) bought a pilled water melon (just the fruit meat) in the open market. When I arrived home, there were a lot of smashed fruits. I became very annoyed with this small loss, so annoyed that I will have to discuss this matter (don't buy just the fruit meat, but it wholly) with my wife (who had this idea) in order to avoid future losses. The point is that a small loss made me think about how to avoid them in future because it hurt me.

I began to wonder how I care about big losses. I had many big financial losses, but did I learn some lessons about how to avoid them? It is somehow common that I don't learn anything from my big mistakes in stock market. It is common that I take big losses as granted and the solution is "diversification".

However, life is much greater than finances. I think that I am trying to write some kind of parable when talking about money, trying in a very small way imitate the Lord who told us many money-related parables.

Repentance is very much like a financial loss. Repentance must trigger questions such as: "how to avoid this sin in future? Is there some kind of reaction that I must trigger after some event? How to change some behavior that is leading me to failure?". I hope I repent about the great issues that I must repent so that my life is changed by the Lord.

IF - a system to help my son.

I stopped preaching.

I began to follow my son studies - how he is going on School. But this takes much less time than preparing a sermon.

So, I'm feeling free now! 

What to do? There are many boring things that I have to do (install cameras, study some computer related things, etc.), but, they are not urgent. I would like to spend some time to write in English (second language) thinking about a big IF. 

Let me think about some big problem I have in this world and how to solve it, IF I had all the money, or if people were 100% honest, or if I had some power to make laws, etc. 

My son doesn't like to study, to think, to workout in the gym, to learn a new musical instrument, etc. Sometimes, I think that he doesn't love himself. He doesn't mind about hygiene, his posture (he has a big deviation on his spine). I am his father. What should I do to help him? What is the purpose of his life? What does the Lord think of him?

I was very different. I see myself eager to learn new things, to improve my body. I want to have a good posture. I want to age in a better shape. I want to use my days as wisely as possible (not so sure, I am so wise...).

Is there something I can do to help my son? How to motivate him? How to find some hidden valuable thing in him?

Now, I am trying to make him pass on his school exams. As we live in a digital age, full of distractions, I make him study next to me (as I did all this week). This alone is useful. I am quite sure that he is much more responsible to study under my eyes. In few minutes, I can understand what he has to study and make him study it. So, at least on these last weeks (since I stopped preaching), it has been working fine. 

However, he can't live with a supervisor like me forever. He must be responsible! Is there any way to make him responsible? 
If I had some magic, I would like to make him enjoy studying, to make him think in a critical way, searching for the truth. I am sure that in this digital age, a self taught has a huge advantage over their competitors. I would like to make my son love God related things, to make him read the Bible by himself. Perhaps, I would like to see more of myself in him.

Life is much more than money, however, I believe that my son's quality of life must decline dramatically, because I can't see he taking care of himself. He is 16 years old, but he can't express himself properly.

Wealth don't compensate the Lord's gift. I would rather my son with a good mind instead of a lot of money.

So, is there any way to help my son?

He enjoys video game.

IF there were some video game to teach to him, to develop some qualities in him... I know that this idea about a "video game teacher" is old, and I don't know any video game teacher so far, but it should have one.

Let us take math:

Suppose my son has a math problem that he can't solve. The computer should give more and more hints about the solution, like a video game gives hints to pass to a new phase. The big problem of my son is that he gets stuck and really don't move when he can't figure out what is going on. It is very sad, as we have google, his booklets, etc, but, I don't know I, he seems to forget all useful tools he have to learn more. Thus, a computer system that supervises him and make suggestions to help him as I do, would be beneficial. This computer system should control all his internet access (because, sadly, he is able to waste his time on youtube), it should prepare some "score" about how he used his time.