Random Thoughts

I was walking in the mall holding my younger daughter's hand and we came to an escalator. As we neared it, she said, "Hold my hand properly Dad, I am afraid, I may fall while I am on it." I smiled and for a second I acted as if I was releasing her hand from my grip. She held on tightly and as we reached the top, I told her half in jest, "I will hold your hand like this till I give you in marriage to someone who will hold your hand from then onwards." She smiled and we went ahead with our shopping that evening.

Later as I thought about it, God put a few thoughts of His in my mind. He said, "The Holy Spirit does the same thing for each and every believer. He holds your hand and guides you through the path of life here on earth and then will hand you over in to the hand of the bridegroom when the time comes. Fears may come in your lives but He will never leave you till He has completed his duty to take you through to the end."

The Lord says and we read in the book of Isaiah,
"For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you." (Isaiah 41:13)

He also says,
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

Praise the Lord.

I marvel at the timing of God. Though we do not always know what is going on, God is in control of everything.

Like this morning (22/05/08) when I was reading the Word, the Lord reminded me of a childless christian couple in Dubai where I live now. It had been quite a while since I had spoken to them. I felt like sending the guy an sms. "You both are always in my prayers. Tell me when there is some good news."

A little while later, I felt in my spirit to send him another sms with a Bible verse. So I typed in Joshua 1:9 which says,
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9)

Then I got busy with getting ready to go to work.
As I walked to work, the guy to whom I had sent the sms called. We exchanged "Praise the Lord's."
He said, "I just got up seeing a dream in which I saw my mother die and I was very sad, then I saw the mobile reminder ringing again and there were your 2 messages. I believe God is with me at all times and loves me that's why He made you send this message."

This maynot be a great happening for you as you read this but for the one who experienced it, it was God's Loving Touch.

God is good, all the time. Praise the Lord.

Walking back from work yesterday was an ordeal. I was dejected and depressed and thoughts of defeat were hounding me. I had been praying for receiving my labor contract and labor card for the past 2 months, but it had not yet arrived. On it depended my sponsoring my wife and children in Dubai, UAE where I stay now. The children had to submit their visa page in school.

With all this burden on me, I had a prayer meeting to conduct at 8 pm. I didn't want to do anything. Didn't want to pray, to sing, to preach, nothing.....
But for me there was no option as far as I saw. In the past 15 yrs. or so of my ministry, many such situations have arisen, but the Lord has taken me through them by His amazing grace.

So here I was again standing before a small group of people with so much heaviness in my spirit, yet when I did what I had to do i.e. conduct the meeting as I usually do- praise, pray & preach; things started changing. The burden started to lift and by the time I finished with the closing prayer & benediction, I was free from all the problems that were plaguing my mind. It's not that I had received an answer to my prayers, but the promise of the Lord was being fulfilled:
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27)"
Praise God for His mercies.

I was at the super-market the other night and was buying some groceries when I saw a cute little girl, maybe 4-5 years old running through the store, tapping her father's hand and then running back. She did this for a while enjoying it to the maximum and my spirit rejoiced at the innocent mirth. Then I lost sight of her until I came near the ice-cream section and there she was with her hands in the open freezer scooping out some ice at the sides. She saw me and suddenly there was that look of being caught red-handed by someone. I looked the other way, then out of curiosity just looked back and there she was filling her mouth with the ice she scooped out. I had a good laugh seeing that and as I walked back home, the scene still lingered in my mind.

Sometimes we as believers also indulge in such minor mischiefs and I guess at that time we just do it thinking that no one is seeing, but the Father is always there watching. I wonder whether he smiles at our discrepancies! Perhaps he does except when we overdo it and hurt the Holy Spirit.

I saw a tigerstriped kitten jump from one bonnet of a car to another in a parking lot. It seemed to have taken it as a new game. It jumped from one to another and then another. I don't know what the owners would have thought about that but it seemed not to care a hoot. We exchanged glances for a second; it looked at me like I was a predator, so I just walked ahead. The next vehicle that it had to jump was higher and a bit far, so as I walked I thought that would be the last it would be jumping. Thud.. came a sound from behind and I looked back expecting it to be on the road and in discomfort, but to my surprise I found it standing tall on the Pajero bonnet.

Could that have been a "leap of faith"? Perhaps it was, though the kitten may never have realized it.

There's always an element of risk when we attempt things/projects with faith in God and His Word. That "suppose it doesn't work" thought often hinders us from doing things for the Lord.

King Nebuchadnezzar had ordered Daniel's friends to be thrown into the fiery furnace. But they answered,
"If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." (Daniel 3:17,18)
They had faith in God, but there was an element of risk involved too as we see from what they told the king. But God honored their faith and no harm befell them.

So shall we put our faith in to action?

As I walk to work each day, I come to a place where I have to cross 3 traffic signals simultaneously. Sometimes I have to wait at each signal, wait for the green and cross, then wait again for the green and cross and the same again for the last crossing. But today was different. As I reached the 1st crossing, the green was blinking and I hurried through, the second had me walking through casually as the signal was green and as I crossed the 2nd, I could view the green at the far end of the 3rd crossing starting to blink green. As I scampered across and reached the other side, the red was on and the vehicles rushed past.

Funny how life is so similar to these crossings. Some places we get stuck with problems and have to wait for God's openings and deliverances, sometimes we just have to hurry to keep pace with God's moves and some places we just scamper through escaping the evil one's schemes by a small fraction.
Sometimes doors just open up one after the other like the 3 green signals that I crossed today.

I just thought about the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. They were all walking on dry ground with the walls of water on either side. Most of them must have hurried through, not very sure whether they would really get to the other side. There were no traffic signals though, just a man of faith raising his staff and stretching out his hand over the sea.

I saw a young sparrow half jump, half fly from a tree this morning. It looked bewildered, to say the least, on landing on the ground. Could that have been a leap of faith or a flight of faith. Either way, it seemed to be thoroughly confused on landing. The legs seemed to give way on landing and it didn't seem to know what to do next. I saw the mother (or was it) soon landing next to it and seem to chirp away at a frantic pace. The young one still looked dazed and didn't seem to budge from it's place. The parent took off twice and landed by it's side again, perhaps showing it the art of flying. Hop, hop...was all the baby could and then stop.

Perhaps the mother was having unrealistic expectations from the young one like we do sometimes with our children. Children are born with diverse God-given talents. Some may be good at studies, others at games, others at music and several other things. I have seen many children of unbelievers to be brilliant in studies while children of believers doing average. Some parents then chide their children, "If they (unbellievers) are getting such good marks, why can't you who are praying?"
Some parents pressurize their children to perform better to such an extent that they eventually steal the joys in their lives. Of course the argument is, "I am only doing it for his/her good." Okay, at what cost??

It would be better if believer parents look at their children's lives with eternity in perspective, encouraging children to use their God given talents to the maximum, helping them flourish and at the same time being careful not to steal away the joy and peace in their lives.

It's good that trees don't have ears or eyes, because this morning I saw a gardener pruning a tree with an electric saw. I was walking to work when I saw this tree among many similar ornamental trees on the sidewalk being pruned by an uniformed guy. Imagine the tree seeing this guy walking upto it and switching on the electric saw. Imagine it hearing the motor running. That would have been terrible. And being rooted it cannot possibly run away too. Totally helpless.

And so terrible this pruning. The tree would have lamented, "All those good leaves that I just put out.....all gone. Terrible, terrible...
And then the guy walks away as if nothing happened. No one else around seems to be bothered either that the tree suffered such humiliation. A few see it standing now, well dressed, so as to say; perfect as the one who planted it would have desired.

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. (John 15:1, 2)

A friend of mine working in Sharjah, UAE, travels by a pickup to his worksite where he is a welder working in a construction company. Yesterday, he was a bit late in waking up and the person in charge of his section came searching for him and told him to hurry up so as not to miss the ride to the worksite; the pickup was almost leaving.
He had not yet prayed or read the Word because he woke up late and he had to go. Yet he decided to say a small prayer and read the Word, even if the others had to wait. He must have taken 3 minutes to complete his small prayer and read a small psalm.
On the way to the worksite, he dozed off again because he had slept late after work, the previous night.
After a while, he was suddenly thrown forward from his seat and it took some time for him to realize what had happened.
The driver of the pickup had slowed down at a traffic signal as the lights had gone red, but a huge truck that was behind the pickup had failed to see the pickup slow down and rammed into it at full speed from the back.
Some of the workers were hurt because their heads banged against the windows because of the impact, but my friend was not hurt though he was hurtled forwards. The pickup was hurled into the intersection because of the force by which it was hit, but nothing major happened. Strangely no vehicles were crossing then.
My friend described the incident and then thanked God that He had kept him safe.
He realized that his decision to pray and read the Word despite the hurry, had saved him from a major catastrophe.
Prayer does matter, even if it is a small one. As they say- ASAP- Always say a prayer.

While having lunch in a restaurant yesterday, a man sitting nearby approached me and asked, "Can I borrow your salt?"
He just wanted the salt dispenser which was kept on my table, but the way he asked it made me think about what Jesus said once,
"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other." (Mark 9:50)

The second part says, " Have salt in yourselves..." and the man asked me, "can I borrow your salt?" Funny, but something to ponder about.

So do I have enough salt to give? Salt brings flavor to so many dishes and can I give flavor to people around me? The flavor of Christ!
Can others experience Christ through my talking, my dealing and my day to day living???
Many people do not accept our testimony because we are not living out "Christ"; we are still living the old life. Not as the Apostle Paul said, " I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

God help me too, to have salt and also not loose it's saltiness.