DAY 5: Living One Day At A Time (Part 1)

"Your strength shall be renewed day by day like morning dew." (Psalm 110:3)

One of my favourite movie scenes is Ben Stiller's pre-dinner prayer in the movie 'Meet the Parents'. He awkawrdly finished his prayer by saying, "May we see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, and follow thee more nearly." And he added the tagline, "day by day by day by day." I almost fell out of the cinema seat! But what's really funny is that several months after watching the movie, I was reading a book titled Inner Compass and discovered Ben Stiller's prayer is a real prayer. It was originally written by Richard Chichester and is popular in Ignatian prayer circles. Of course, Stiller added an extra "day by day" to "day by day". I actually like Stiller's version better because it gives double emphasis to the "day by day" nature of our walk with Christ.

All laughter aside, there is a profound spiritual truth in that "day by day" tagline: we are designed to live one day at a time. "Day by day" is a biblical catchphrase. Nehemiah 9:19 says, "The pillar of cloud led them forward day by day." Psalm 110:3, "Your strength shall be renewed day by day like morning dew." Luke 11:3 says, "Give us day by day our daily bread." And 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, "Outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day."

We are designed to live 'day by day." Jesus put it this way in Matthew 6:34. "Don't be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of you tomorrow. Live obe day at a time."

What does that have to do with transitions? The toughest thing about transitions is the fact that everything is up in the air. Transitions are full of uncertainity and uncertainity breeds anxiety. And if we aren't careful, we can start worrying about tomorrow and stop living today.

In his book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie tells a story about a medical student named William Osler. William was extremely anxious about his future graduating from school, starting a practice, making a living. He was working himself into a nervous breakdown when he came across the writings of Sir Thomas Carlyle. Thomas Carlyle wrote and William Osler read these words, "Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand." Those words revoluntionized Osler's life. He stopped worrying and started living. William Osler went on to become the most famous physician of his generation. He organized the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and became Regis Professor of Medicine at Oxford. He was even knighted by the King of England.

In an address he gave at Yale University. Osler told the students that he owed his success to a simple principle. He called it "living in day-tight compartments." Osler said we need to let go of "dead yesterdays" and "unborn tomorrows." He said, "The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter."

(Adapted from Pastor Guna Raman devotional "Managing Transition in a Downturn")

DAY 4: Setbacks (Part 2)

God uses all of our past experiences to prepare us for future opportunities. He is at work even when we can't make "heads nor tails" of it. In Exodus 4, God calls Moses to lead Israel out of captivity. And Moses says, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it." He felt totally unqualified. But here's amazing thing: God spent 80 years preparing Moses for this moment. God put him through 40 years of understanding the customs of the court. He was the Prince of Egypt. Acts 7:22 says, "He was educated in all the learning of Egyptians." The God put him through 40 years of wilderness - he knew the watering holes and weather patterns and wildlife.

God spent eighty years preparing Moses to deliver Israel and Moses didn't even know it. The most qualified person for the job felt unqualified. Don't be surprised if God opens a door that you fell totally unqualified to walk through.

Last December on a snowy afternoon, my family and I visited the home of Corrie Ten Boom in Haarlem, Holland. During the Nazi occupation of Holland, the Ten Boom family hid Jews in their house. Their home was raided on February 28, 1944, and Corrie was sent to a concentration camp. Through an amazing series of circumstances, she survived and her story was made into a movie called The Hiding Place.

When Corrie Ten Boom spoke to audiences about her experiences, she would keep her head down. It looked like she was reading her notes, but she actually working on a piece of needlepoint. After telling her story of cruelty in the camps and the death of her father and sister and her miraculous release, she would hold up the backside of the needlepoint. It was just a jumble of colours and threads with no discernible pattern. And she'd turn the needlepoint over to reveal the finished side. Corrie would conclude by saying, "This is how God views your life and someday, we will have the privilege of viewing it from His point of view."

Corrie could have questioned why she had to suffer in a Nazi concentration camp. It didn't make sense. It was unfair. But somehow God used the suffering if a woman named Corrie Ten Boom living in Holland in 1944 to lead hundreds and thousands of others to Himself.

In the words of 2 Corinthians 2:14, "Thanks be to the God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ."

(adpated from Senior Pastor Guan Raman devotional "Managing Transitions In a Downturn")

DAY 3: Setbacks (Part 1)

Transitions often seem like setbacks, but God uses them to set us up. When you finally get the news that you will be one those who has to leave the company because of down-sizing, the first reaction is always one of despair. You wish you could say that you were full of faith and believed God was chosing one door so he could open another one. But the truth is you will be scared and confused.

But sometimes God closes a door so that He can move you into what He has planned for you. What seemed like a setback may actually be God setting you up for something better.

2 Samuel 23 tells the story of one of David's mighty men. Verse 20 says, "Benaiah was a valiant fighter from Kabzeel, who performed great exploits. He struck down two Moab's best men. He went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion. And he struck down a huge Egyptian. Although the Egyptian had a spear in his hand, Benaiah went against him with a club. He snatched the spear from the Egyptian's hand and killed him with his own spear.

If you are in a pit with a lion on a snowy day, you've got serious problems! I'd call that a setback. But someday Benaiah kills the cat. Verse 22, "And David appointed him as chief over his body guard." Getting stuck in a pit with a lion on a snowy day is about the last place any of us would want to be, but you've got to admit that "I killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day" looks pretty good on your resume when you apply for a bodyguard position.

I can see David flipping through a stack of resumes. "I majored in security at the University of Jerusalem." "I did an internship with the Palace Guard." "I worked for Brinks Armoured Chariots." Those aren't bad credentials, but then David reads the next resume. It says, "I killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day." When can you start? This is the kind of guy you want in charge of your bodyguard. Do you see how God used that setback as a stepping stone?

Benaiah climbs all the way up the military ladder to become Commander-in-Chief of David's army, but it all started in a pit with a lion on a snowy day. God used that setback to set him up. God uses our everyday experiences to build our resume - to position us where He wants us to be. That ought to give us a sense of destiny.

The primary thing is not to place your security solely on your current job. Instead place that security in God. The jobs may change, but God doesn't change. So make God your ultimate boss. It is He who moves you, in His time, for your good. So when you are moves out of a job, you can be assured that God is about something new in your life. He is using this setback to set you up to something new. Therefore, be expectant.

(Adapted from Senior Pastor Guna Raman "Managing Transitions In a Downturn" devotional)

DAY 2: When God Moves You (Part 2)

" I am so weak that I can hardly write, I cannot read my Bible, I cannot even pray. I can only lie still in God's arms like a little child and trust." (Hudson Taylor's last words)

Transitions are God's way of getting us from where we are to where He wants us to be. Sometimes they seem like setbacks. Sometimes they seem to make no sense at all. Sometimes they last longer than we'd like. But God uses them to strategically position us in the right place at the right time.

In his book Learned Optimism, Dr Martin Seligman says that all of us have what he calls an "explanatory style" to account for life's experiences. He says, "Explanatory style is the manner in which you habitually explain to yourself why events happen." Genesis 50:20 is Joseph's explanatory style. Joseph looks back over his life - all the dysfunction, all the injustice, all the betrayal, all the pain - and he says, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."

Joseph could have come up with any number of explanations for his thirteen years in slavery and prison. "God has forsaken me." "God is angry with me." But Joseph's explanation is Genesis 50:20. That one verse summarizes him outlook on life. He realises that God used all these experiences to strategically position him as Prime Minister of Egypt.

If you are going to trust God through transitions, you need to know that you know God uses them to get us from where we are to where He wants us to be.

So when you lose your job or when you move from one job to another or when you have to make some changes to your lifestyle because of financial constraints or when you have to deal with relational changes when your kids transit in life - all these transitions are God's ways of moving you from where you are to where He wants you to be.

Those transitions may appear confusing and even frustrating. They may be uncomfortable and painful. But God is at work and He is moving you. Trust Him and wait on Him. Yield to Him and co-operate with Him.

(Adpated from Senior Pastor Guna Raman's devotion on "Managing Transitions in a Downturn."

DAY 1: When God Moves You (Part 1)

"Surely the LORD is in this place..." (Genesis 28:16)

Day 1: Transitions - When God Moves You

(adapted from Senior Pastor written devotion, "Managing Transitions In a Downturn")

Life is full of transitions. You move. You graduate. You go through puberty. You start a job. You end a relationship. You change jobs. Most of us are in transition most of the time. This devotionals are about helping you navigate those twists and turns of life, in managing change in a downturn like the one we are in right now.

Transitions are usually stressful and confusing and scary because you leave familar structures and familar surroundings behind. Alexandra Robbins has written a great book titled; The Quarterlife Crisis and they talk about some of the transition from a stable job to losing that job. One of those interviewed who had lost his job of 22 years said, "When I lost my job. I was really struck by how much I didn't have my 'self' figured out. Without the easy structure of a company and the predictable routine of a work-week I'd used to all of my life, I noticed how everything else was changeable in my life."

When we go through a transition, it's unsettling - it feels like everything is up in the air. I think Job captures the feeling in Job 7:16. "My life makes no sense." But what you need to see during this series of devotionals is that God uses transitions - especially the stressful ones and scary ones and confusing ones - to reveal Himself in ways that He can't during the normal "Monday to Friday, Nine to Five" routine of life.

Genesis 35:7 is a touchstone for these devotional on transitions. It says Jacob "built an altar and called the place El Bethel, because it was there God revealed Himself to him when he was fleeding from his brother." Esau wants to kill Jacob because Jacob stole his birthright. So Jacob literally runs for his life. He's in transition from one place to another place and in the middle of that transition, God reveals Himself to Jacob.

There is something about times of transition - you lose a job or move to a new place or end a relationship - that opens us up spiritually. Our spiritual antennas go up a little higher. We learn to lean on God a little bit more. You don't have to tell someone who is in transition to pray. They can't pray enough!

The question we need to ask during times of transition is this: "What does God want to reveal to me through this transition."

A Tribute to my Pastor

Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same again. My Senior Pastor is one such person that best describe the latter. It will be his 50th years old birthday tomorrow. And I would like to take the blogging opportunity to pay a tribute to my Senior Pastor.

He believes in you. Not because you have all your act in place. Not that you are such a genuis. Simply because he believes in what God believes and he lives it out. One of his teaching point to us is, "It is okay to make mistakes." You are not mark because you had make a mistake. But do ensure you do not repeat the same mistake because this is insanity. In 1998, my pastor took a 'big risk' by inviting me on board to be part of his staff team. I had a messy past and if the entry is ever based on qualifications, a clean slate and a credible academic results, I could never count myself as a servant of God. He took the first step of believing in a 'wretch like me'. He is right. I am soaring today because he believes in me. He saw something in me that many might have missed.

He pastors with his heart. He is a strong leader and he demonstrates firm values and disciplines. Many times, it is so easy to mistake him for losing a shepherd's heart. I remembered one afternoon in year 1990, overwhelmed by the demands in the home front. I could no longer concentrate to do my work. I walked right to him and asked for permission to go home. But then, I felt so bad and the next moment, I was saying this: "I am sorry." What I recieved was an assuring reply that I could never forget, "You don't have to say sorry. And if you need more time, stay at home tomorrow." It was at that very day, I truly learned that my worth is not tied to my work. Year 2007 was a very trying year for me. I am physically weak and ill, emotionally downcasted. My pastor carries and mentors the spirit of grace that helps me to grow in Christlikeness. Hegives me grace and space to pick up myself and move on again. I am grateful.

He models leadership. He leads himself before he leads others. He leads out of inner rest and depth. I stand amazed many times by the way he could vision something that is yet visible. He had great insights and he stretched his thinking. He never settles for familiarity and urges us to do the same. He challenges us into uncharted path, takes risk and makes mistakes!

He loves heartily. He loves his family and is very involved in their lives. He protects those he loves. He loves his staff. He remembers our favourite dish and never fails to prepare them for us when invited us for a home cooked meal. Sometimes his love comes tough and hard. It is good for us... we soon realised...

He loves Jesus. He loves deeply and strongly. Quoting from what he highlighted in his blog, "I admire Jesus Christ more than any other human being I have known. I enjoy His ways and His words of anyone else. I want His approval more than I want the approval of anyone else. I want to feel His closeness more than I want to feel the closeness of anyone else. I feel more grateful to Him for what He has done for me than I do to anyone else. I trust His words more fully than I trust what anyone else says. I feel more secure with Him than with anyone else. " Because He loves Jesus, there is power in the pulpit ministry. Because He loves Jesus, he impacts others deeply. Because he loves Jesus, he left footprints in many hearts, and many will never be the same again.

I wrote these words to my pastor on his birthday. I want to end it by saying it again:

Dear Pastor

Happy Birthday! We are so blessed to have a dear pastor like you. Anyway, you don’t actually behave like a pastor (no modification behaviours). You live like a pastor. You live from a heart that is alive, real and awake. You allow flaws and weakness to speak, and the worst to be out of you. So that God can make the best out of you. You taught us how to love, how to desire, how to value, how to believe again.

Matthew and I will not be where we are today if not for a pastor who loves and believes like Jesus does.

There are too much to express, but words too little to carry across.

I guess we can best say it this way from our hearts, “We love you pastor.”

Happy 50th Birthday Pastor.

Driven Passion in My Life

"Love never fails." (1 Cor 13:8)

"I cannot be the person God meant me to be and I cannot live the life He meant me to live, unless I live from the heart."

In my previous blog, I mentioned that the 'Soul Detox' series had enabled my heart to come alive once again. Alive to my heart condition. Those toxic that crumbles in the dark corners. And melted as wax once again in the healing hands of God.

I keep asking this question to myself for the past few weeks. "What drives the passion in my life?" Not that I am unaware or ignorant. But I would want to explore deeper, and what's real inside me. "What keeps me holding on to my stations in life?" "What keeps me waking up each morning contentedly?" "What keeps me hopeful in my doctor visits and check-ups? "What keeps me doing those things I detest and abandon those things that are my 'harmful' delights?" - "What, what what..."

I started by making a list of all things I love, the people, those places, the things are are dear to me. What a long list I have! God spoke to me gently into those things I wrote -"You could not love them if you do not have a heart of love. Love that overflows from the cross." Loving needs a heart alive and awake and freed from toxic. Everything I love is what makes a life worth living.

But is it even possible to love without the heart?

Yes, it is possible. Just that the full expression will be different. My love needs to meet Jesus at the foot of the cross. And if there is any reason that God cannot used me anymore is because there is no love. At the cross, loves overflows. It is His love that is greater than the pain of the journey that keeps Jesus going. Love endures.

I know I will never know how to love much unless I know I am forgiven much. The woman who anoints Jesus' feet knows she is forgiven much. The sinful woman who was caught in the adultery act knew what it meant when Jesus said, "Go and sin no more." Peter knew that he had met the Saviour when he looked into His eyes and fell at his kness, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man."

At the cross, everything is taken care of. There is liberty. Set free from our past failures, rejection, accusation and fear. There is life, a new person, a new spirit and a new heart.

I could truly love, be loved and never lose love. Approaching 43 years of age. I prayed and wanted love to be the driving passion of my life. To walk in His love. (Eph 5:2)

I am thankful and contented that I am surrounded with people who truly loves me and keep believing in me. In all my flaws and weakness, they keep loving me.

Jesus Facebook Friends

Imagine Jesus on Facebook...

Who would be His friends?

The immoral Samaritan woman at the well; the paralytic man and his four friends; the helpless woman with the blood issue; the lonely Zaccheus; the blind Bartimaeus; the widow of Nain; the little children whom the disciples chased away; the downcasted Jairus; the prostitute who anointed His feet with perfume; the demon-possessed man at Gadarenes; the deaf-mute boy; a Samaritan leper and the list goes on and on.

The list would include those of the 'lower class' of society, the rich but poor in the spirit, the downcasted; the rejected; the broken-hearted; the needy, the sick, people with despised occupation, shameful background and those with incurable and chronic dieases.

Jesus mission is very clear. The very reason why He came. I Luke 4:16-20, He read from Isaiah 61, declaring that He had come to fulfill the promise of God. - "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He had anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

Loving and serving the rejects is not an emotional thing. It is a biblical mandate. It sums up in one word that does not come naturally or easy. I have to pray for it - Compassion.

I desire to become truly compassionate like Jesus. He has to change me and hypocrisy must go. Let the work of transformation in me be so deep and so real that it becomes obvious to all whom I live with and work with, and those I am called to serve.

Did God Make a Mistake?

Therefore, since we are have this ministry, as we have recieved mercy, we do not lose heart. (2 Cor 4:1)

Nobody enjoys being broken. No one enjoys finding that he has come to a dead end and an ability to save himself. It is a place of utter helpness and pain. I was broken and bruised before. And it is usually so because of bad decisions made either by me or someone else, intentionally or ignorantly. Thirteen years back then, that was how I 'looked'. I had done everything I possibly could and know how, but it didn't make me impressionable. I was rotten inside.

Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well. He invites her to desire. Jesus did the same for me. An invitation to desire, to follow and not turning back. Not just to run the race but to complete the race strong. Whom I worship, I change to be like Him. Gradually, painfully at times but surely.

Soon, I will be celebrating my 43th Birthday. As I took a closer look at my life and realised - Living with the knowledge of what happened in the past brought me pain, shame, regrets though there are moments of joyful memories. Living with the reality of today can motativate me to be realistic and hopeful. But living with the right perspective of tomorrow offers me enormous and limitless possibilities. And all made even more possible when placed in the hands of God.

If there is one thing that spell my life, I would love to say this: "Mercies of God." I had escaped countless of dangerous consequences, if it is not for His divine intervention. I had been spared of spending my days in the hospital if He had not stopped that cancerous cells from spreading and healed me of possible colon cancer. I could be walking around with a deformed spirit and soul if He had not continously and renentlessly pointing me back to take care and guard my heart. The most gracious thing had happened when He called me into ministry eleven years ago to be His servant. Something I would never taken it for granted neither imagine this could ever happened in my life.

Nothing was recorded further in John 4:1-42 what had happened to the Samaritan woman at the well, except that she went back to her people and the city to share the good news. After Jesus' departure from the city, what could had possibly been taken place in this woman's life?
Maybe, she had become the 'pastor' of the samaritans and her life purpose is soley to preach Jesus?

I would love to imagine that. No one who had been truly touched by Jesus can live a life unchanged. Jesus' way of reaching to her heart is an invitation to desire and follow Him. Not fixing up her past. All these will take place and follows eventually. Jesus did not fix my past. He fixes my heart, He stirs my appetite and thirst for Him.

I would love to think a little deeper.
Would the samaritans oppose the samaritan woman to be their village 'pastor?" Would they have a case for that because of her past?

Does He make a mistake by placing me to be pastor of His flock then?
Would anyone have a case against that then?

I have no answer from a human perspective. Thankfully, I have my answers in Him.

Moses was a murderer and was asked to deliver the Israelites at the burning bush encounter with God.
Saul was a Christian persecutor. He was out to destroy Christianity only to meet Jesus at the Damascus Road.
Matthew was still a much-hated tax-collector by the Jews when Jesus said to Him, "Follow Me."

Moses became a humble leader of the Israelites
Saul turned Paul, widely known as the apostle of Christ
Matthew the former tax collector called to serve Jesus side by side with the twelve.

Did Jesus make a mistake?

I walked with a limp in my life. Broken by a past.
I still walked with a limp in my life, broken by God.
A reminder of my own human frality but also the mark of my spiritual strength in God. The defeat of the flesh of self, the place of victory in God.

The second part of the verse goes like this: (2 Cor 4:2)
"But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God."

If by His mercy and grace, He is to give me another 43 years. This is how I want to live my life for Him.

Thank you Father for your mercy. I love You.