Allow God to Bless You

It was going to be me and my wife’s first cruise ship experience. We were looking for the least number of nights to avoid over consumption of our vacation leaves. The trip was meant to celebrate my birthday and Valentines Day. So we got this Miami-to-Bahamas cruise and got a room with a window overlooking the sea and downtown Bahamas. Before we left Bermuda, we were hesitating to bring Tony, our first born, because we felt he’s too young to travel, but at the same time we don’t want him to be left behind with our nanny for consecutive days. Luckily, we called some of our friends, and to my amazement, a lot of them were eager to look after Tony while we’re gone cruising. So our nanny had so much help. First I hesitated because I’m never used to ask big favors from so many people. But the Lord intervened and told me to accept this blessing. “Allow others to serve you,” is what He was trying to say. Rejecting our friends’ offer to help would have been false humility. It’s crazy really. I didn’t realize that God wants to serve me too. He wants me to be happy. He touches the hearts of our friends and served us through them. What an amazing Father we have. Some people say that when you’re married, your life is gone. It’s all about the children now. It’s all about responsibility. Like it’s a sad state being married. God obviously wants to prove them wrong. We have an 8 month old and we’re cruising like we’re honeymooners. I guess it’s all about putting ourselves into the right perspective and allowing others and God to serve us.

So came the start of the cruise, and for about $300 each, me and my wife were awestruck with the value that the Carnival Cruise gave us back. Three fine dining, eat all you can buffet at lunch with choose your recipe personalized on-the-spot cooking for every passenger, free comedy shows, dance shows, games, and over a couple other free stuff to enjoy with. Me and my wife are frequent travelers and I can tell you nothing like that would cost you only 300 bucks each. It can even go as low as $200 for the windowless and smaller rooms. Just the transportation cost alone, or hotel costs would never ever go below that amount. Really the economics of this whole thing is a little difficult for me, maybe because I’m really just an engineer who knows nothing about debit, credit, ROI, etc. Whatever the case is, we know God continues to bless us the same way. He gives us more than we deserve. He’s always done that over and over again. We try to be near Him, we try to say YES to his salvation, we try to abide in Him, and then fall short each time. Still, He loves us more than we deserve. His mercy is overflowing beyond human imagination. Such is our God. That’s what He reminded us when He blessed us with all the fun we had in our cruise for a relatively low cost.

So off we landed in Nassau, Bahamas. A beautiful place. We went straight to Atlantis of course, and looked for the relics of the lost City. It reminded me of Disneyland. Not as great, but it’s a huge park with several different areas to go to. I did my first long heart-pumping water slide. My wife was a little scared to do it, but me, I did it twice =). We went white-water-rafting-type rapid river rides, took some pictures of the sting rays, sharks and all other weird looking marine animals swimming on top of us who were looking through a transparent glass tube underwater. It was such a huge place and so amazing that I lost my wife. Yes, I literally did. I really didn’t expect that to happen. At first I was a little scared, impatient, and disappointed that she didn’t show up where we’ve agreed to meet after my last water ride. Of course that’s my version of the story, women always have their own version too. Anyway, using my Sherlock Holmes skills I went up to the highest tower in the area and searched for her. Immediately, I found her talking to some resort staff. I was sure she was looking for me and probably would like to page me. Can you imagine, “paging the husband of Lorelie, please approach the lost and found section.” That’s more than embarrassing. So I stretched my voice with as much finesse as possible and called her name. Surprisingly she heard me at that distance. Probably a thousand feet above the ground. I was waving and smiling. All the disappointment gone because finally, I found her. I rushed going down, ran towards her and embraced her. I realized my frustration, disappointment, whatever you call it, they were all gone. Replaced with a loving realization that finally I found her. She was teary eyed because she was scared. I had all her passport, cruise boarding pass, everything else important for her to be back in the ship. But now we’re together again. I always thought only babies get lost, well, I know better now. I was happy because, the disappointment didn’t get along the way. It reminded me of the prodigal son story, not that my wife was a prodigal wife, but that the Lord found me with excitement and happiness, and never acted like an old strict Father ready to spank me upon my return. He found me, when I strayed. He found me when I fell. He found me when I was lost. And he found me with immense love and forgiveness. So I forgave my wife too. Actually she forgave me (that’s her version of the story). At the end of the day we forgave each other when we found each other.  

God is so good. He loves us and He wants to bless us, if only we allow Him to. He gave us friends to help us when we needed them. He blessed us amidst our unworthiness with such an amazing experience. All my services to the Lord in our Church were nothing compared to how He blessed me. We cannot outdo God in generosity, and he is always excited to find us every time we get lost and go back to our old ways. It may be a never ending cycle of lost-and-found, but he never gets tired and is always eager to embrace us back where we belong. So friends decide today to allow God to serve you and bless you. It will open the gates of Heaven and shower you with abundance you could never imagine. Let us allow God to find us again and be reunited in His Love. Amen.