Let Nothing upset you!

Let nothing upset you;
Let nothing frighten you.
Everything is changing;
God alone is changeless.
Patience attains the goal.
Who has God lacks nothing;
God alone fills every need.

by

Saint Teresa of Avila

Why? Why God? Why?.......

I dont asssume to know it all. You say, ' Then, what r you trying here to do?'

It is how I understand in my heart and convince in my heart when I face some circumstances in life, so far.

Once I heard the song, 'Only You' in an album, 'Vande Mataram'. My Favorite Composer, A.R.Rahman sang that song too. He claimed that song was written from the inspiration of a great seer who lived long ago.

The lyrics are (paraphrased), ' My God, If I love you to go to heaven, Punish me and cast me in hell, For my love for you should not be for the love of Heaven or anything else, but it should be purely for you, whether I rot in hell or not, You are worthy to be loved all the way, without any conditions or reservations.'

Whenever, I say, 'Why God? Why did you allow this?'
There is a silent question that emerges after I regain my composure, 'Is this the reason for which I m in God, or My relationship with God is more important than this thing?

God, I m no way near the way, you should be loved.
Give me the grace of loving you not for the happiness, joys of the world, painless life, Heaven.....

Who to trust?

Hot debates all around. God shouldnt have done that, my friend said. No the lost should not be dealt like that.No No No, God is so unkind when you consider that....they continue heatedly

Discussions.... were getting hot...

There was a Pause & Think phase for me...A reflection

No one of us there, can say that we were righteous on our own except by the blood of Jesus Christ. No one on the face of the earth is righteous enough to judge the Only God who is so Holy, and Pure beyond our imaginations.

When we see His glimpse, we ll say like Isaiah, ' Oh , I m undone, I m a man of unclean lips'.

'If there is one person on the whole universe who can be trusted, it is our God, I may not understand everything He does, But I sure do, He alone is the Righteous One. Like Paul said, Our righteousness are cheapest of all rags compared to His immaculate wholeness.'

Celebration of my tears!

The tears I shed at your feet are the sweetest of all the tears I shed!
The words I speak in secret closet with you, Lord, are the truest of all I ll be proud of in eternity!The hunger I experience when I seek you, Lord, is the most beneficial than all the world's experience.

O Lord of Mercy! Consume me completely!

Let me be broken, my tears from a contrite heart be like sweet incense at your court!
I ve found the greatest of all joys when I cry and empty my heart at your feet.

O Lord, Give me more of this!

Let all tears n joys of this life I live, be with You!
Let me not be away from you for a single second!
Let not a day pass by, without spending time with you!

You are the closest friend of all humanity; which humanity could never imagine to grasp what a great gift it is to them.

I celebrate tears for your comfort is tangible!
I celebrate life for in it, I ve found You!
I celebrate trials for it brings this wretch closer to You!
I ll celebrate death for it takes me to You!

Real Men of faith!

Hear these words,

"We never lost hope because up there there’s God Almighty and I have a lot of faith in Him, and I knew He was going to help us... We prayed together all the time"

"We were born again," he said. "This has been a miracle from God because we never lost hope."

Do you wonder who told these words? Three mexican fishermen in Times newspaper and Los Angeles Times.

Do you want to know their story? click this link and be inspired!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2315617,00.html

Faith in action and perseverance of fellowship, bible reading and prayer in hopeless real life situation.

If it cant inspire you,then.....?

Information or truth?

Have you heard some one preach and it was not just clappy clappy, applause oriented thing, but hits hard in the inside of you and makes you ponder on what it means. It happened yesterday in church to me.Yesterday, I had a very good teacher preach to my church. Many of what he preached struck a chord within me.

One striking words he spoke were,' Truth said and not lived out becomes just information'.
How true!

People know lots of stuff biblically and spiritually but if it's not good enough to be lived out. What they have at end is just information and not truth.

He further asked,' Are you presenting truth or just information?'

One of my favorite quote is by St.Francis d'Assisi:(paraphrased)
'Preach every second , seldom with words if necessary'

I love this quote, Its easy man, to do the talking part but its the doing part is what really needed for everyone.

Let me not be the one who does away with the words!

Can I be frank?

Is it right? Recently, I heard a random saying in a movie, 'To be frank is to be foolish' . I wonder.. is it?

Some judge.. very frank words. Some advise that it is wrong. To maintain an image (a christian image)... you should say only polically correct statements. You cant say words, feelings which are not right to be said... I ve heard so many different advices on the same issue. Sometimes, it overwhelms, I say to myself... I dont have the wisdom to judge what to say and not to say. I ll take time off and I ll find my one place.

There is one place, where I can go with no fear of these advices and judgements. Where, I ll not be judged for what I say but judged on whether I m true to myself when I say those words.

When I go to the feet of Jesus, I dont have to worry of anything about this stuff. I can be perfectly honest.

Jesus, I feel so down today,... I feel so tempted.....Jesus, I missed and made a mess.....Jesus, I feel ....; I can be as frank as possible.

I think with God, I can be utterly honest. You dont have to worry of anything, You can pour your heart. I find Psalmist pouring his heart at times with full anger on his enemies to God.

Few experiences made me aware, People love cliches rather than honest and frank words. Sometimes, frank open talk offends, hurts and does so many unwanted things. (the converse is true sometimes, who knows when to open up or remain closed).That leaves me to seek God, to whom I can be 100% open...

God prefers honesty and frankness than cleverly engineered words or superfluous cliches.

But with God, I can say what I feel and ask help.

When my inside spoke few lines

Have you ever been in a situation like this? You are doing your ordinary chores of life. You start to think of God.. Thoughts upon thoughts, gradually intensifying inside you.... Then words start appearing which make a sensible line or two.....Then lines upon lines flow.....

You speak them out to yourself.....

One such incident happened to me, which gave words to the churning inside. I put those lines out

Money, I dont need but Character, You give, I need
Fame, I dont need but Humility, You give, I need

Its not enough of me knowing about you, I want to KNOW You intimately
Its not enough of me speaking about you, I want to TRANSFORM into You

All my thirstings and hunger be for You
All my yearnings and dreams be for You

You should be my life. Nothing else...
You should be my ALL. Nothing else

Let everything fade away in my life but You.
Oh Changeless, Unfailing Loving God!
Nothing else deserves any worth but You.

How can all words in the world be enough to touch a glimpse of You!
How can all songs written be enough to praise You of which You are worthy of!

I realise, I m a baby babbling ......

Fellow ....s..h..i..p!. Do we need it?

My past few months, i found some acceptable excuses for not being there in fellowship and other activities. My heart reminded me of so many scriptures regarding fellowship in the bible, 'Do not forsake the gathering' and Psalms 133, 'How good and pleasant is brothers living in community' etc.. I argued that I have another fellowship in my house so I can cut church fellowship on those subtle excuses. Then I felt so bad.... like something important is not there in my life.

That made me to attend after nearly two months, my church fellowship. How can I express what happened there fully?

It was conviction.... I felt so bad... Every words my fellow friends spoke were like God speaking into my life what I need to do.. I found of glimpses of Jesus speaking in and through all of them to me. Ministering, encouraging, exhorting, building each others faith. Oh, What big a loss for me to be without it for a month?

The conviction which started was complete, when my fellow friend in Christ, prayed for me. Oh, What can I say? Its as if exactly my life was examined through God's eyes and the friend prayed in Spirit exactly what I was needed. I never told her to pray for issues. But as she started to pray, i felt so strongly convicted and helpless but to cry as she was praying for all the things i needed but i never prayed for.

I cried. I m 100% sure in seeing God's work thro' His people.

Fellowship - Its the place, where God speaks to You, where God speaks through You.
Its where God prays for you through others, and God uses you to pray for others.

We are the body of Christ together, individually we are hands, or eyes or legs, we are meant to coexist and live in codependency and never meant to be alone.

I learnt it in a real way, where I saw God act and speak to me.

Experience is a costly teacher, but its lessons are invaluable.

Forgotten but not yet!

One sentimental saying in my native language:

" Cruel than death is to be forgotten". I dont know why I identify myself with all this sentimental monologue. I laugh myself out at my reluctance to not be able to write in my blog for a long period. But sometimes, the sentimental me gets so hold of me, that I dont think of anything else.
I d prefer to write even when I dont feel like writing. But the sentimental arun is a recluse, whenever he's hit, he runs into a cave and shuts himself in it. Thank God, His Arms reach into to keep me out of the cave and Live rather to exist.

So far whats happening in my life? Greater understanding of the word, GRACE. I ve grown to love this word so much. Greater depth of it keeps me in God's hand and purposes.

So far I ve been trying to honestly enthuse myself in my christian walk and others who read my blog. Then, I got work+study+church routine long enough to forget writing something worthwhile in my blog. I find it childish to give excuses but also find it arrogant not explaining my state to myself.

People are good in forgiving others and never good at forgiving themselves for their mistakes, errors and conscious errors. Maybe, I should be different from these people. I should forgive and forget what I did( not contributing to my blog , my own errors...etc).

I wanna begin again to get a fresh shot at issues of life.
I remember I m still and ever ll be a Work-In- Progress.

Come on WIP! Inspire, Respire, Live!

Tears from My Dad's eyes

New Year Eve, My Church back home was full. Me and my dad are standing outside the church.
near the bike parking.
I said, 'Dad, would you like to talk about God? '
He nodded his head, we started our conversation on God and church.
My dad said so openly of the church and its people.
I was not knowing what should I do, I ve been praying for years for my dad's salvation, my family, my prayer fellowships all have prayed and we ve been believing for so long.
Maybe this is my moment... I should say... I should ask... Prayers going on in my heart. God make a way ...

I said, 'Dad, Church is not what you have expected becos its made up of people like us, imperfect....' Dad said, 'Yeah, But..... '.Conversation goes on.....

I shared what I believed, Religion Vs Relationship with God debate... My dad quite agreed ... He continued...
People moving all around, children playing around us...
We continued.

Daddy, I thought would you like to pray with me the salvation........... I thought..
Just what I considered to be the opportune moment turned out be not so. Church Offering time came. Everyone came outside to collect the offering...
An opportunity missed.

Oh, God, 'Why am I not bold enough to punch in the other line I planned to ask?'
The days passed without an opportunity for me and my dad to have quality time.

The last sunday before I depart from my home town to London. me, Dad and Mom went to church together. As we finished the church service and started to move home. Daddy and mummy, would you like to come to the church, we ll just go and chat?
My Daddy nodded.

We went to the beach, parked the bike. My daddy and My mummy on my both sides. I was just talking of unrelated subjects. My Dad just tapped on my shoulder, said to me with a caring sharp comment, ' Hey, Whats on your mind? speak it out!'

Daddy, I ve been wondering , ' Have you ever made a prayer affirming and stating , Jesus, as our only God?'. I know you have no other Gods but have you ever stated in a prayer. We in our church in london, in every service used to pray together as a church, would you repeat after me what I say? Mommy will you join me?

Daddy put his arms around me, saying yes.
I grabbed my Dad's hands and my momma's , I stated the salvation prayer with uttermost joy and tears.... I said Amen.

Opened my eyes, saw my Dad in tears. He hugged me... My mummy excited...

What I felt if I try to explain I know I ll not be able to do....

Its a God moment.

That sheer purity of Joy, Sweetness of all our tears...
Ununderstandable Peace..

I want to shout from the rooftop at the top of my voice with all of my hearts content, 'Hallelujah'
God answered a prayer we prayed in 1997 when me and my mom prayed and we have been persevering in prayer till now.

I still have the scene transfixed in my mind, My Dad in tears hugging me after the salvation prayer......

What can match it!!!!My Dad is saved.

Today is my Dad's B'day. Hearty Loving Birthday, My dear Dad. I love you with all of my heart. You are my Best pal and my best dad on earth.

Sincerely your son,
Arun