When I first read Luke 4:18-19, it was hard to understand what exactly it meant:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19)

After reading this scripture, my first word was, "What? Translation please!" Then I read the little footnotes at the bottom of the Bible. Yes, it cleared out some of the questions I had, but still nothing came to mind. I prayed to God again saying, "Lord, I want to understand what You mean by this. You have given me this scripture and yet, I have no feelings to what I've just read." Notice I said 'feelings'. I didn't just want to understand it. I wanted to feel what God was saying to me. And while I was pondering, I read the scripture again. It said to "preach good news to the poor". Let's break that for a second. "Preach the good news." My first reaction to that phrase was: "WHAT GOOD NEWS? I have had nothing but miserable and horrible days for the past four to five weeks."

I mean it would be literally hard for me to squeeze out any good news from my life to share with people. But the good new here is about Jesus.

The scripture not only says to "preach the good news", but to "preach the good news to the POOR". We can define POOR in many different ways. But when I read the word "POOR", I thought of my bosses. I began to realize more than ever these days, how hard it is to spend the whole day with non-believers. Starting in the social world, where people you work with for 8.5 hours are mixed with different beliefs, was a bigger challenge for me than starting a new job. In my office, there are people who simply practice religions. As Christians, the idea is wrong. You don't practice religion, but you have personal relationship with God. And I can't just leave it at that, because I work for them. If I am just in my office and did nothing but minding my own business it would be less challenging. That is, if I had my own office.

Three of the lawyers that I work for are not Christians. There is Mormon, Jewish, and the other Japanese person. I don't know what the Japanese' religion is. But he said to me that they don't celebrate Christmas in Japan, and that there is about 1% of Christian there. He said this when I was handing him a file, dated on December 25, 2000. WOW! That took me to a surprise. No Christmas? I mean how do you spend one year without singing "Silent Night, Holy Night" and "Ark the Angels."

I can go on and on about what I face every day at work. I began to think about what other KBS members (those who are in work places) face everyday. How lucky it is for some of you to have Christian bosses. Sometimes, I wish I had a Christian boss, and that my next boss in the future will be a Christian. Or I will become a Christian boss myself.

But let's go back to my definition of POOR. I mean how rich can you be without God. You could be very successful, live a marvelous life, but without God, it ends to A NOTHING, NADA, ZIP, ZERO. But with God, you will have double of what you got now. Because we get to be happy with just what we have and we start to think about heaven, our future home.

Referring back to Christmas. This is one Holiday we definitely should be celebrating. Not just for our fun on one holiday, but for remembering Jesus on His birthday and thanking God for sending Jesus to save us. This should be one day for every single nation to celebrate and remember.

Let's remember to spread God's words as much as we can. Going to school, studying hard, working hard is all our duty, which upon God has given to us. He loves us so much and He gave us another duty on our TO DO LIST. We must witness to those who does not know God and let them know how richly their lives can be filled by knowing God so that the blind may see the path God has provided for him/her, instead of running so fast to reach a Finish Line and feeling empty inside when the goal finally being accomplished. Those who feel locked up inside with anger, frustration, and mistrust would feel free from them all and learn to let go. No matter how difficult it is to live our daily lives, with God, it makes it worthwhile.

Heavenly Father, thank you for saving me. Thank you for choosing me. Many times I think, "why have you chosen me, out of millions of child to be?" Honestly, sometimes I say that because I'm human and I want to act out my angers and frustrations, and most of the times I say that, because I feel so special that you have chosen me. And I thank you even more for letting me realize that I am the chosen one. Amen.