Our Daily Jet-C Log
by Oliver Carlos
When I was growing up, one of my dreams was to be a writer. I wanted to write novels, columns, and even a whole encyclopedia! But the internet was not yet invented at that time. It’s so hard to get your work published. One really has to go thru the eye of the needle to be called a legit writer.
Fast forward to the present. It’s so easy to have your work published, thanks to the internet. Today, my dream can be a reality because of this beautiful thing called “blogging”.
After decades of setting aside my ambition of being a writer to pursue another career that earns money to pay the bills, I can now reach for my childhood dream. I launched this blog series of mine entitled “BLOG is Life” on my 48th birthday.
They say the average life expectancy of a Filipino male is 68 years, anything more than that is a big bonus from God. So that means I have around 20 years to live, God-willing. So I decided to dedicate my next 20 years to giving back to the next generation and to the people close to me. I wanted to share to everyone what I have learned in life so far. I wanted to use my God-given writing skills as my way of giving back.
Blogging makes me feel like a modern-day newspaper columnist. With it, I can write about a special topic for the day. Themes include childhood experiences, basketball, football, cars, Philippine History, family life, anecdotes from work, alma mater stories, interesting people I met, adventures, and misadventures. What makes my blog different is I draw out a life principle in every experience I share. I wish to impart to my friends an inspirational word to keep them upbeat throughout each day. The principles are of course, Biblical in nature.
I got my inspiration from the popular daily devotional reading material, Our Daily Bread. Each day, there’s a Bible passage presented by the authors, and an interesting essay that goes with it. The Daily Bread entries are just short, usually 3-minute reads, because they are for busy people. Blog is Life is similar, the difference is I have an interesting photo each day, and the stories are of course, based on my experiences and interests. For me, the meaning of blog is Bible Lesson On the Go.
Before I came up with the title Blog is Life, I had a hard time selecting it from a good number of choices. One interesting title I almost selected is “Our Daily Jet-C Log”. Since we don’t eat bread as a staple food in the Philippines, the Our Daily Bread devotional must have a Filipino version. I thought that the Tapsilog is sort of a pambansang almusal (national breakfast), so I thought Jet-C Log would be fine. Jet is my nickname, and C is the first letter of my family name. But after asking some key people, they find Jet-C Log a bit funny, so I stuck with Blog is Life.
For us athletes, we have a motto: “Ball is life!”. This means that we cannot live without a ball. It’s part of our life. Similarly, this blog series is something that we cannot live without. We need a daily dose of God’s word. As it is written in Matthew 4:4 (NLT):
“People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
It’s very hard to go to work or school without eating breakfast. We need nourishment for our physical bodies. In the same way, we need God’s word to give us strength to go thru each day. We need to read the Bible for our well-being. I pray that these blogs would add “life” to your life. Please join me daily, from Mondays to Fridays, let us enjoy reading and reflecting together Blog is Life.
