In the last year or so I’ve been encountering the number 316 a lot—almost every few days. I am encountering the number everywhere: digital clocks , watches, street numbers, my professor’s laptop battery life, homework, receipts, pay checks, etc. Few weeks ago my dad was watching an Iraqi TV station because Iraq was having its second elections and on the top right corner of the screen the number 316 was displayed! I asked him about the number and he said, “That’s the election ballot number for some political party.†Every time I see the number 316 I remember John 3:16. This has been very encouraging to me because recently I have been uncertain about my place in Christ. Before it was very easy to come pray because I had a much closer relationship with Him, but now it is much harder. But when I remember 316 it encourages me to… read more
Life With God
This red leaf was on the wall of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto. It was one of many leafs on a long stem running horizontally on the wall. I would say the stem run for more than 5 meters, and since I had my mini tripod with me, I decided go rest it against the wall and shoot a super macro shot. However, all the leafs were too big for a super macro, so I ended up going up the stairs alongside the stem all the way to the end to this little leaf; it was the last in the long string of leafs and it fit perfectly in my camera’s super macro zoom. That’s when I remembered the verse: “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.†Psalm 118:22 That incident kept me thinking that day. This little leaf was so much… read more
In 2006, I was walking to work around 7 AM and my heart was very heavy burdened to the degree where it felt as if I was dragging my feet. I asked God why He was allowing that heartache to continue, I needed to understand! What He said caught me by surprise, He said, “I’ve always loved you!†I started crying on the road, I didn’t know what to think, what to feel, what to say. Somehow He knew why I had that heartache: I was looking for love, but I didn’t receive it, while all along I had access to a fountain of eternal and perfect love pouring out from Him. The only person who truly showed love me while growing up is my mom. I cannot describe to you how much she loves me. The daily sacrifices she makes, her service for me (and her awesome cooking!) are… read more
Before I became a Christian I used to hate the phrase “blind faith†as it represented ignorance to me. And I believed that’s what Christians wanted me to have in order to become a Christian like them. As a new believer I still hated that phrase because I believed that I became a Christian based on logical thinking because of the overwhelming evidence supporting Christianity’s claims. Ten years later I am starting to think that blind faith is true faith. Let me tell you how I came to start thinking that blind faith is important. About three weeks ago around 5 in the morning I heard a very sad news; this news was so tragic to me that it was by far the saddest and most painful experience I have ever been through. I was so sad and shocked I couldn’t even cry. For the next several hours I was… read more
In March of 2003 my sister invited me to her Arabic church because they were having a play called Heaven or Hell. I went to it, and in one of the final scenes, one of the actresses was so shouting of joy “Jesus! My Jesus! Hallelujah, it’s my Jesus!†over and over again as the character of Jesus appeared on the stage. I wondered then, how many more people in the world there are, that are in love with Jesus just as I am and even more? (Of course, I have not always been in love with Jesus; it seems that it is an on and off love affair at times!) Few months before I came to Canada, in late of 1999, I accepted Jesus as my personal Savior and Lord and that proved crucial to my well being here. You see, as a teenager who is an introvert by… read more
When I was approximately 5 years old, I was rescued in a way that has stuck with me until this day and have even influenced my faith in God. I lived about two and a half blocks from school and everyday my brother and I was escorted to and from school by our Mom’s friend. One day our escort did not show up and we got tired of waiting. We decided to take the matter in our own hands by leaving school, instead of waiting any longer. Since home was not far away, we felt safe except that our school resided on the opposite side of the road. We started off on our journey, making sure to stay on the sidewalk all the way and we didn’t stop to speak to anyone. As we reached the point where we needed to cross the street (a few feet away from the… read more
To me this car, the Mazda Protege, along with some other cars like the Ford Focus, BMW M3, Porsche 911 and Boxster, Lamborghini’s…look really nice in yellow! (The yellow is also helpful when it is snowing to make the car stand out!) I like yellow for sporty looking cars because it is a light color so it shows the reflection off the body, yet not too dark like black that conceal the body lines. Beside it makes the car looks like it is a race car! There is a little story about the yellow color that I would like to share with you. One day last year at work I put a desktop wallpaper of a yellow Porsche Boxster on one of the computers we use in the warehouse. When one of my coworkers, who was around my age , saw it he liked it, but didn’t like the yellow… read more
This is part three and final part of my previous article called “Who is God”….Most of the time I live as if I had figured God all out and that there is nothing new to learn about Him. And after reading the Bible few times I feel that reading it again is just redundant. Yet it is so untrue. Sometimes when I read the letters of the apostle Paul which stresses holy living (which is of course God’s will), and then I go back to the Old Testament and see how He worked through prostitutes and murderers, I am forced to ask Him, “Lord, who are You?†Not that I don’t know Him: it is just that He is so great and He doesn’t overlook anybody which makes it is so hard, if not impossible, to categorize Him. I think we all have heard the saying, “You can’t… read more
This is a continuation of my previous article called “Who is God”… Here is another example of how God surprises me: About few around years ago 2003 or 2004, I remembered a very intriguing book I had read in the Bible in 1999. You see, before I became a Christian in 1999 in Jordan at the age of 16 I read the Bible from cover to cover. Reading the Bible for the first time was, and still is until today, the most exciting experience I had ever gone through. But one book stood out from the rest like no other to me: the book of Hosea. The book of Hosea stood out to me because being a Middle Eastern young man made the idea of God asking a prophet to marry an adulterous woman a very strange idea to me. So I decided that I was going to read the… read more
A first glance this colorful paper strip looks just like a normal two sided band of paper, but at a closer look it becomes obvious that this strip of paper is by no means normal in the sense it has only one side—this is called a Mobius strip. A regular paper band has two sides: an outer side and an inner one which you can trace separately. A Mobius strip however has only one side: if you point your finger tip at any point of its surface and move it in any direction you will realize that your finger tip is covering all of its side. Unlike a two sided band you don’t need to take your finger tip off of one side to trace the other. The reason I made this colorful Mobius strip and photographed it, is that recently I’ve been thinking about who God is. Not that… read more
I didn’t take this photo for its photographic value…I don’t think it is a special photograph in the artistic meaning. I took it because of the spiritual value it holds to me. You see, I’ve always loved the moon. It was a photo of the moon that started my journey with photography. The moon has always reminded me of God’s promise to me that one day I will get married, according to His will; so whenever I see the moon I smile because it reminds me of my future wife. “For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods” Psalm 96:4 But somehow I had always treated the moon as a big light bulb in the sky…almost like a huge flashlight installed far away. May be because I always saw it in the night, since in the day I worked in… read more
I had a friend who was majoring in biology at university and she used to say often things to the like, “The more I learn about biology the more amazed I become by God because all the works of His hands testify to His existence and ingenuity.†How true, the Bible says in Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.†~ Romans 1:20 When I enrolled in university about a year and a half ago to study mechanical engineering I wasn’t sure what I am going to study will demonstrate much of God’s character, but now I am convinced that His prints are over all things He created directly or indirectly. This occurred to me not long ago when I though about the door…any… read more
Have you ever went to pray but all you could do is cry? Have you ever opened the Word of God but the only book appealed to you was the Psalms because the cry of the psalmist heart is all that you could relate to? Have you ever cried out to God so deeply that you could not say a word? That all you could do is open your hands in surrender? Have you ever tried to hold your tears back until you reach home, go to your room, turned the music up so you could cry all you needed? Have you ever opened your eyes to read your Bible but couldn’t see it clearly because tears were filling your eyes? I am talking about those moments where faith in your Heavenly Father’s wisdom, love, and goodness is the only thing that is sustaining your emotional and spiritual being. Not… read more
One day I was speeding, I was driving 90 mph in a 60 mph zone! Yes, I was going pretty fast!! Well the State Trooper saw me, pulled me over and slapped me with a ticket! The incident spoiled my whole evening. I had to go home and explain to my wife what had happened and just thinking about it made me feel sick to my stomach, I could have killed someone or myself. I paid the ticket but a couple weeks after later I was driving on the I-95, this was going the speed limit, my car spun out in a light rain, that made the road slippery. My car was totaled!. This was a miracle in itself, because I was not hurt, not even a scratch. About two months later after a long search for a new car, with a few dollars to spare, the Lord blessed me… read more
