Faith that Walks on Water

“Hold my hand and just climb up”, said the man to the girl in the pit.

She couldn’t trust him with her hand cause she had been betrayed before. How can she trust this man to actually help her out? What proof is there that he would stay till she’s rescued out? Who is this man? Why is he even interested in helping me out? Does he know anything about rescuing me? It’s a deep pit, can he even handle my weight?

Those were the thoughts in Susie’s mind during her therapy sessions that she took during her period of depression. She was far from God, trying everything worldly to help her sleep and to help her out of this deep pit she was in.

She did not let her therapist help her a bit because she knew for sure that he wouldn’t be there when she woke up crying the next morning.

Little did she hear the voice of her Father calling out to her to hold His hand. Her thoughts were clouded with all the pills she was taking and she couldn’t hear it, even if she tried. There was just too much noise in her head.

Are you like Susie?

Are all the noises of this world not letting you hear the voice of your Father, your Creator? He has been there by your side throughout – when you chose the world against Him, when you sought out help from everyone else other than Him, even at your darkest night when you called for help from everyone else except Him.

He was there.

He’s not angry with you. He is not upset. He is standing there still, ready to help. He is saying “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”(1 Peter 5:7). You don’t have to carry it all around. You can rest now. He says “Come to me all those who are heavy laden for I will give you rest”

He knows it’s hard and all He’s asking is one step from you. He’s stretching His hand out, are you ready to take it?

A Desire to Kill.

Samantha wanted a teddy. There was this small brown one that she had been eyeing for days! She asked her parents but they didn’t give her a response. A few more days went by before she placed this request again. This time also, her parents were busy. In her restless waiting and her relentless desire, she decided that she was done. It was time to take matter into her own hands! She went to the store and enquired about the price. “$15”, the shopkeeper said. Hopeful, she went back home to open her piggy bank. “1…2…3.. That’s a total of $1 and 24 cents!”, she declared. Determined, she started helping out around the house and even opened a lemonade stand to help her get the money. The only thought that was running through her mind was, ‘I want that brown teddy’.

A few days went by and she still didn’t have the money for the toy. Over a week, she managed to make two extra bucks and a few cents. She even gave up on ice cream to save some quarters. She had collected $5 and 12 cents. Hopeful, she went into the store to buy her teddy. The shopkeeper who had seen this girl before, politely told her that she could not afford the bear she came in for, however, there were other toys she could get for $5. Upset, she went back home. The little thing cried herself to sleep.

Soon she woke up to a gentle, yet familiar nudge. As she opened her eyes, she saw the teddy she had been longing for. ‘Surely this must be a dream’, she thought. But she saw then, her parents handing her a big, brown tear with beady eyes, a shiny nose and a big, red bow! Suddenly, her efforts didn’t seem futile and her joy knew no bounds. Seeing her constant and persistent efforts, her parents bought her the best teddy bear that the store had to offer! Although it was expensive, they knew that their daughter deserved every bit of it.

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We all have a wonderful, provident Heavenly Father who know our every need before we ask Him. He knows the perfect gift, the perfect time, the perfect place and the perfect situation to present it to us. Very often, we get caught up in our desires for what we believe is the best, that we fail to wait on the Father. The Father, who knows best, waits for us to kill our desires to be able to prepare ourselves better for His present. He never gives us anything unless we are ready to accept His will first. But first, we need to be be dead to our desires and patiently wait on Him.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us..

-Ephesians 3:20

Expiration Date

While shopping, don’t we look for expiration dates? While buying perishable goods, the obvious answer is yes. So we look for something that was produced closer to the date of purchase and so that the product has a longer shelf life.

But do we knowingly or unknowingly put an expiry date on our prayers to God?

You see, it is very easy to lose hope when we have been earnestly praying for something for so long and we do not know whether the answer is a definite “Yes” or “No”, and since it hasn’t been answered for so long we tend to assume it’s a wait and after a while we feel that the prayer might not have reached up to heaven at all. Those are the times we are tempted to take things into our hand and do something about it.

It is a very difficult situation to go through.

Even so while baking bread there is a perfect temperature at which the baker removes it. If it’s removed a bit early, it tastes raw and a bit later, then the bread becomes hard. The baker knows the exact time that the bread must be removed for it to be perfect.

Similarly with God, He knows the exact time to answer our prayers too. He is never too early nor too late. God knows the exact time and what we must go through before He answers our prayers so that we are ready and prepared to enjoy God’s gift.

For if we did not know know the dry deserts, would we have known the value of green land. And if not for the valleys, how would we have known how high the mountains are.

“From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” – Psalm 61:2

Conditional promising

“If you get this done in five days, consider yourself promoted”

“If you do this well you would get a performance award”

“If you pass this exam with good marks, you would get your first bike”

Familiar with this?

Back at work we had this function in excel that worked with a “IF” dialogue and it was pretty useful given the conditions were correct and then breaking down huge spreadsheets was very simple.

Conditional promising is not really a thing that is of the present or just invented by us, conditional promising existed from the Old Testament, God gave King Solomon both riches and wisdom because he asked for wisdom.

Are you and me still guilty of giving God “terms and conditions” for His will to be done in our lives.

Are you tired of being given conditions to work on?

We have a God who has never ending unfailing love unlike our love with “terms and conditions”, we have a God who sent His one and only Son to die on the cross for our sins and uses my downfalls for my betterment and carrying me all the way.

Why do I still carry around my past hurt and bruises like it happened just yesterday when I have a God who takes every stab for me, every hurt, always there to carry me and a light at my darkest night.

For my God loves me unconditionally, forgiving and forgetting my sins and not treating me as my sins deserve.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

For I have a Father up above who loves me so very much without any conditions and that’s what keeps me going.

And he is just waiting for you to call on Him. Would you?

The Little Wonders

My father works and so will I.

-John 5:17

These word are spoken by Jesus when He was criticized by the Jews for working on Sabbath. The Jews were people who were very fanatic in their religious thinking. For them religion was more about following rules and regulations than following the principles of religion to make them better human beings.

The Jews believed that just because God chose to rest on the seventh day, man should also do the same. But they forgot to see that God rested only from creation on the seventh day, His higher works of judgement, and mercy, and compassion and love still went on. He cares and holds together all that has been made. When we see the sun rising and setting and the moon running in its cycles, the lakes and the fountains, the rivers and rains, running their course, our bodies too and those of irrational beings continuously working, we learn the ceaseless working of the Father. For He makes the sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

What Jesus is saying here is that, human need must always be helped – that there is no greater task than to relieve someone’s pain and distress, and that a Christian’s compassion must be like God’s unceasing compassion with no boundaries of time or day. Other work may be laid aside but the work of compassion-never. Like the Jews, we too are sometimes too fanatic about our thinking. We are more concerned about the making a noise about religious riff-raff than being bothered about transforming our lives or those of others. We know very well about Christian virtues of compassion, love and mercy, but putting them into action is not something we actually bother too much about. We would rather write about it or talk about it. Mercy, compassion, and love are fulfilled only when an act for the same is performed. There is no point saying we feel compassion if we cannot show it or shower an act on our fellow human. Its like saying, “Oh I feel bad for you, but I can’t do anything to help you.”

Jesus taught of love and compassion. A true Christian should be someone like the good Samaritan who can take time out of his work to pour oil on the wounds of the needy. Our material goods are given to us not to be stored up in storehouses but to be used wisely for the Kingdom of God. By being kind and compassionate we are not only imitating God but above all we are fulfilling our Christian duty, one that we are answerable to the God the Heavenly Father for.

Let us then learn to be good Christians by working beyond boundaries that are we created around us. Boundaries of time, day, place, color, creed. Let us learn to understand the true meaning of the gospel instead of bordering around frivolous acts and thus become good Christian example to our peers.