Wednesday, December 31

Little Trophies


Souvenirs are little symbols ... symbols for recalling experiences and evoking a response. Souvenirs always remind us of the best of times in our life.


Collecting souvenirs of the prayer moments had always been my habit. Every time I have a prayer section, I look for a little of something that I can carry home... something that tells me of the time I have had with the Lord. These symbols of prayer life evoke in my imagination a memory... a memory of the time I have had with the Lord. I call these souvenirs little trophies... little trophies which I have won in my prayer life.


The empty places always award me with souvenirs. They often come in the form of a driftwood, or a shell, seaweed or a cuttlefish. Always picked-up after the prayer moments, they are taken home to adorn the different places of my habitat. A driftwood on my study table or a small shell in my pocket keeps talking to me of prayer. You will find my souvenirs on my office table or in the guest room of my house... you will find them all over my life. Over years, they have kept their presence very much around. Yes, my precious little souvenirs have become symbols of the great moments I have had with the Lord.


When I see these little trophies, they tell me of God’ presence everywhere... they tell me of the little life that was led by these relics. And, also I believe that the God of universe kept these relics for me to pick... relics that tell me of His omnipresence! Years ago... maybe even before my birth, God planted these living shells deep down in the oceans. Were they planted for me?


As God paints our life with beautiful moments of His presence, forget not to pick a small souvenir . They will keep telling us of that time which had ticked wonderfully in our life.

Monday, December 29

God's Desire for Us


ONE of the most important aspects of our relationship with God is that He desires us more than we desire Him. The Bible in more than one occasion tells us that it is God who chooses us and not us choosing God. In fact, our prayer lives too reflect that relationship in different ways. One of the most interesting points that was made in this regard is by the English spiritual writer Anthony Bloom.... he says : We complain that God does not make himself present to us for the few minutes that we reserve for him, but what about the twenty-three and a half hours during which God may be knocking at our door and we answer, “I am busy. I am sorry.” Or, when we do not answer at all because we do not even hear the knock at the door of our heart, of our mind, of our conscience, of our life. So there is a situation in which we have no right to complain of the absence of God , because we are great deal more absent than he ever is.

So long as I keep running away from prayer-life, so long as I keep my conversations with God as a mundane daily piety, I keep my jealous God at my basement store. Rusted and dusty, God becomes unable to work in my daily life.

So, who is really in need of my prayers: me or God? .... God is.

That is the ground reality of prayer-life!

Wednesday, December 24

The Perfect Gift



Dear Christmas,

Every year, you are never complete without me finding a perfect gift for someone I love. This time, I have found out the Perfect Gift! And, dear Christmas... I am going to giveaway this Perfect Gift to every flock of my company and to every person in need. I needn’t really search for a better gift anymore... So, Christmas, let me celebrate gifting this Perfect Gift to all....

Lovingly............Abby

JESUS IS THE GIFT that perfectly fits every heart...
... and it is with HIS LOVE that all celebration starts.

WE REJOICE IN HIM as we remember HIS BIRTH...
...and thank God for sending HIS ONLY SON to EARTH.

HIS LIFE LED FROM A MANGER TO A CROSS ON HILL...
...WHERE HE FAITHFULLY followed HIS FATHER’S PERFECT WILL.

HE FREELEY LAID DOWN EVERYTHING so that we could live...
...AND there is NO GREATER TREASURE anyone could give.

LIKE a scarlet ribbon, HIS LOVE wrapped around the cross...
...AND HE OFFERED it to us all at THE GREATEST COST.

SO each time that WE GIVE, we remember WHAT HE’S DONE...
...AND HONOR THE PERFECT GIFT – GOD’S ONE AND ONLY SON.

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE...

( poem ‘
Jesus is the gift’ by Holley Gerth )

Sunday, December 21

Prayer of a Working Personal


My Heavenly Father, as I enter this working place, bring your presence with me. I speak Your peace, Your grace, Your mercy and Your perfect order into this office.

I acknowledge Your power over all that will be spoken, thought, decided and done within these walls.

Lord, I thank you for the gifts you have blessed me with. I commit to using them responsibly in your honour. Give me a fresh supply of strength to do my job. Anoint my projects, ideas and energy; so that even my smallest accomplishment may bring you glory. Lord, when I am confused, guide me. When I am weary, energize me. When I am burned out, infuse me with the light of the Holy Spirit. May the work that I do and the way I do it bring faith, joy and a smile to all that I come in contact with today.

And, Oh Lord, when I leave the place, give me travelling mercy. Bless my family and home to be in order as I left it. Lord, I thank you for everything you have done, everything You are doing and everything you are going to do in my life.

In the name of Jesus, I pray, with much love and thanksgiving....Amen.

Saturday, December 20

Prayer?


While many people pray, some will still have that nagging doubt as to whether they are just talking to themselves?


Philip Yancey speaking to Mike Hill of BBC Tees about leaps of faith....

"The question of unanswered prayers bedevils me and its one I'm concerned about a lot. God could have set up the world in a different way so that every prayer had an immediate magical answer. It would be a different kind of world to the one we live in though. There's more mystery involved, more of God depending on us to do God's will rather than God intervening in a spectacular and miraculous way. All of us who take prayer seriously will eventually run into that wall of unanswered prayer".

Friday, December 19

My beach has a lighthouse...


My beach has a lighthouse....

I love the sight of the lighthouse. On the fringes of the beach it stands...quit and lonely it stands. Since the day I remember the beach I remember the lighthouse too. The locals say the lighthouse is more than 200 years old. But, as it watches the sea, a guard watches it in the land!

Today, for me, the dear lighthouse is more than a standing beauty. The lighthouse tells me many things more than the stories of sea. The lighthouse has a spiritual meaning to its appearance... a beauty beyond the looks... a resilience that goes braving the cloudy skies, salty breeze and the stormy winds. Primarily my lighthouse tells the far away seamen the land is near... it tells them to keep themselves safe to the sea... though the land is seen... though the port is near... still the danger looms... so, keep distance and stay in the sea.

I look at my lighthouse with respect and awe. Every time light pulsates from the lighthouse, it is speaking to a far away sea voyager. The lighthouse is a beacon of safety...The lighthouse is a sign of relief and is a symbol of hope.

Years ago, on a day full of dark clouds, the Lighthouse moved me. In a remote spiritual retreat centre... from the empty corners of a counselling room... kneeling on the floor.... I saw the Eternal Light beckoning me... Eternal light of renewal... Eternal light of forgiveness... Eternal light of hope... never to strike a rock... never to ground on sands. “Follow Me. I’ll guide thee home”, it said. Since that call, the Lighthouse kept me safe ashore. And the long journey home has become a walk with the Known. The Lighthouse has done for me! The Lighthouse has done it, Amen!!

The Spirit of the Living God is the Lighthouse. Today I see the Lighthouse as my lover, my friend, my guide and my all.

Wednesday, December 17







There is an interesting metaphor I wish to share. This is about modern Christian churches that dwindle in quantity and quality. This comes from Soren Kierkegaard’s writings. His parable tells of a church attended by a flock of domesticated geese. Every week they waddled in and listened to the preacher hold forth on the wonders of flight. “We don’t have to walk on the ground and stay in this place,” the gander exhorted them, “We can lift ourselves into the air and soar to distant regions, more blessed climes. We can fly!” And after hearing the sermon, every week the geese quacked “Amen!” and then filed out the door and waddled home to their own affairs.

All they had to do was flap their wings!!

Tuesday, December 16

The Ancient Paths and the Crossroad Prayer



“Stand at the crossroads and look;
Ask for the ancient paths,
Ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
And you will find rest for your souls”.... Jeremiah (NIV)

Crossroad prayer is a common occurrence in our life. Counting the many decisions that we take will call for crossroad prayers many times in our little days. I have often thought about the numerous decisions that we go through every moment of our life: the roads we drive, the food we buy, the books we read, the conversations we listen to, the sights we see and and the life we lead.... in all these and more, we stand at the crossroads.

Psychologists will tell us about ‘Crowd Psychology’. For anything and everything, we often get involved. And when in crowd, we do not think a bit. We pass instant comments and even research on them. But, do we have to do it? Seeing the manner in which some of the news channels unwind the news, I wonder if I wish to get involved with all that so deep. And then we switch off the ‘fools box’ and move on with life. I have learnt that to keep myself off from some of the contemporary news is a good thing when the news has nothing got with me.

Crossroad prayers are prayers that comes handy at every crossroad in our life. It can be for a trivial happening in our life that we take a break for a crossroad prayer. The Bible tells us, "Ask...". That way, God is consulted ... that is bringing God into all the cracks and crevices of our living.

Monday, December 15




Of the many things I do in Advent, the one I love most is to bask in the joy of reading my favorite story: ‘A Christmas Carol’. Come Christmas-time, this small storybook finds a place on my study-desk. It is an old unabridged edition. Though the book is underlined all over, there are two places where I stand still and think of the ethos that goes before the Christmas….


“Bah! Humbug! Ebenezer Scrooge has no use for Christmas. He feels it is a waste of money and time. Scrooge hates Christmas cheer, warm wishes, and the spirit of giving. He cares for no one, and no one cares for him. Scrooge is a miser, a cold and heartless old man. Until one night….”

“….But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when it has come around—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bond on other journeys, And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket , I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it ! ”

God Bless Christmas-time! God Bless Christmas-time!!

Friday, December 12

Prayer of St. Francis







I find nothing wrong with the so-called ‘ready-made’ prayers. Do you? Hi! Tell me, if you find it a problem. I became aware of this difference much later in my prayer-life. It has not bothered me anyway. Some of my best friends in prayer circle never pray a written prayer. I have never felt the need to do it that way. Prayers can be planned. I go about to meditate the written prayers and feel the same with the writer. It is like two of us, the writer and me, saying the same thing to God!

The best of the written prayers that I munch daily are from an old collection of prayers: the Psalms. The world would have been an awesome poorer without all those poetic prayers in the Bible! The Psalms were written before the birth of Jesus. The praying Jews throughout their dynamic history regularly used them. The Bible tells us that Jesus used Psalms for his meditations. So, what is wrong with us journeying through today’s pre-written prayers?

My most favourite ready-made prayer is that of St. Francis. Simply tremendous, this prayer has kept me thinking every time I have prayed it. The beauty of its words, the depth of its meaning, the condensation of its Christian theology and the simplicity of its narration makes it a formidable prayer. Simply said, the prayer of St. Francis is the gist of Christian living.

Every Advent, I keep a copy of St. Francis prayer and pray it often. Sometimes, the prayer penetrates me so much that I stop praying those sacred words... and I keep telling, “ Lord, I am unable to tell you all this because I failed to be a good person who ‘understood’, a good person who ‘loved’, a good person who ‘consoled’. I have failed to give, I have failed to pardon and I have failed to die in my heart....”

St. Francis prayer is like this:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is sadness, joy;
where there is darkness light.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
not so much to be understood as to understand;
not so much to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

Amen!

Thursday, December 11

A Solitary Space for God


Will this sound a bit arrogant? Or instructive? But... I suggest.. only suggest. That’s my way of putting words. I remember Bee Gees who sang a song ‘Words’.... which said, 'words are all I have to take your heart away’. So, I wish to suggest a conerstone of prayer-life: that we setup a daily schedule to pray.

I have looked at the habit of prayer very closely and found out that it is very important to slice out a fixed time for prayer. The Bible points out many people who have done this. Daniel is a typical example. When he was going to be in the den of lions, we read Daniel thus: three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. Many may call it a routine, others may call it a custom and still others may dismiss it as a mundane job. However, I will call Daniel’s scheduling, a neat and systematic approach to building a worshipful relationship with God.

Prayer gives-up all its meaning when we force it upon ourselves as an obligation. Prayer further gives-up its glory and grace when we just ‘say’ a prayer. I believe, prayer cannot be said. Prayer can only be spoken and listened.

Personal solitary prayer is our very own conversation with God. Hence, adding a new colour, a new sound, and a new setting to our daily personal solitary prayer is easy. Often, we can totally change our attitude to prayer by imbibing a new style of worship. It does not mean that our old methods were all wrong or ineffective. It only tells us to make a change... a change to break the common and the regular.

It is proved that setting up a special private place to pray improves our prayer-life. I have felt it very much true. From the working table, as I move to a special prayer table, my ability to pray has improved. The reason may be that there are lesser elements to distract me in an exclusive prayer space than in a general space. We see this very much in the Bible. In Exodus 33, we see a Moses who separates himself and moves to an exclusive tent to meet God. Solitary prayer in a new setting was important for Jesus too: many palaces in St. Mark and in the rest of the gospels, we see Jesus slipping away from the crowd and his disciples to lonely places to pray.

Can we find a solitary space in our little days to call God?

Solitary prayer forms the heart of worship in a prayer lover’s life. There is no doubt on that!!

If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you…. Exodus (NIV)

Tuesday, December 9

Sea Prayer


There is always something ancient about sea. My home in a coastal town, sea always mesmerised me: the sheer volume of the borderless water, the salty winds, the rhythmic noise of the roaring waves, the brightly coloured fishing boats with seagulls circling above, the beating of the surf against rocks and the shattering of it into bubbles, the sound and the smell of the fishing harbour and most of all.... the vastness of the sandy beaches.

It is my habit to go to beach often. Every morning, throughout the sunny days of the year, I cycle to the empty beach near my home. It is here that I have built my coastal experience of prayer. Every time I visit the beach, there is a reverence that I have for the unknown elements in my life. Every time I ponder across a seafront, the most common thought is that of the powerlessness of man and the might of the creation. This reverence draws me closer to the Creator God. Is that the same reason that millions flock to beaches? I wonder if sea-cost offer something more than fine settings of God. People connect beaches with sun and healing, with relaxation and restoration, with big risks in adventure boats and surfboards. For me, seacoast is an altar for God... the perfect setting for a prayer.

Sea is an element of excitement and fear. But why does sea draw me close to it again and again ? I remember Madeline Duckett write in her book ‘Secret Places-Sacred Paths’ about the same wonder. She says, “ Perhaps there is something in the movement of the sea that that subconsciously carries us back to the womb and the waters that held me before my birth” Is that the reason why I too am called by God for a coastal experience of prayer?

Sea prayer is a wonderful experience. It is thrilling to be absorbed into it. As we go into a sea prayer, the mystery of the sea begins to speak to us ... calling us to examine our very own mystery... the mystery of the unspoken fears that hide in the lowest points of our hearts, those deep points within our lives which we find it difficult to bring to surface. In addition, seeing the waters roll over the shore, a smoothening comes to the tired spirit of ours.

Kneeling on the warm sands in an empty beach, I spent quality time with the Lord… quit time with the Lord. In the music of the roaring waves and in the caressing of the gentle wind, often prayer becomes listening… listening to God, listening for God’s presence. I watch the footprints on the sands. There are thousands of them on the shore… footprints of people come and gone. These footprints lead me to reflect on people who have left their marks on me. I try telling God about all those footprints that made my life possible: that list will see my family, my teachers, my friends in the Church, my adolescent companions , my neighbors, my first love…. and the list goes on.

How many times I have felt sad to get up and cycle back home from a sea prayer experience! Nevertheless, the experience is carried in me throughout the day… and it is awakened the next dawn!

"Deep is calling to deep… all your waves, your breakers, have rolled over me" ... Psalm

Monday, December 8

When Waiting Takes Too Long...


Gracious God... there’s so much waiting in my life. I wait for your will in my life: I wait in the long supermarket billing lines, I wait in gas-station petrol lines... I wait for a better job... I wait for others... I wait for financial security..., I wait for the doctor’s prognosis... I wait for love that I so dearly want ... I wait for pain to abate... I wait for the flowers to bloom... I wait for the berries to fall... I wait for children to grow... and... and I wait for the blessed union with You. Many times the waiting is eroding my joy and is filling me with dread. Help me find my waiting to be a friend who invites me into the spaciousness of Your stillness. Give me the grace to refrain from rushing ahead in order to bring waiting to an end. Instead, let me find real joy in the waiting itself... let me find You in all those empty and anxious waiting moments. And God, give me the grace to know that you are working in all my silence and in all my waiting. I ask this for the sake of your love. Amen.

“I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfils his purpose for me” ... Psalm

Sunday, December 7

Celestial bureaucracy...


Learning to wait is an important element in Christian faith. One of the most interesting graffiti I remember is the one that appeared on the walls of the women’s hostel just days before I closed my engineering studies. Graffiti simply said, “I am willing. Please WAIT!”

In its every book , the Bible speaks about waiting. The theology of waiting is of significance in knowing more about God and His holiness. As I grew up, the ‘waiting’ aspect of faith has been a mystery and marvel to me. Emilie Griffin in one of her writings calls prayerful waiting by a modern terminology: an encounter with ‘celestial bureaucracy’

Waiting is the practical testing ground of a prayer life. I have seen people confronted with their inability to wait. The observed silence of God has pulled the plug of a many of them and they have just one question, “I am waiting O my God! Why are you so silent and slow?” In one of the classical work of Philip Yancey, ‘Disappointment with God’, he tells the story of a modern seminarian who wanted God’s answer to his prayers overnight. Therefore, he lights up a campfire and sits patiently waiting for God. By early morning, he loses his faith in a God whom he couldn’t hear. He lights-up all his books and his Bible in the campfire hearth, only to walk away from God forever. In the Bible, we read another story... of another seminarian...a Jewish priest by name Simeon. He too waited...waited for a lifetime. Then, having seen the positive result had this to tell: Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

Of the many values that waiting builds, it is the self-realization that we are God’s children and that He WILL answer us that keeps us in prayer. It is this realization that creates a radical intimacy with God. God listens and He works. He takes His time... in the ‘fullness of His time’.
A favorite waiting story of mine is that of Habakkuk in the Bible. Prophet had this to say after the long wait he had in his prayer life: I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.

The result of us waiting for God is most exiting at its closing: His plans are far superior... His ways far marvellous. We stand wonderstruck unable to fathom anything!!

Thursday, December 4

Looking for God Everywhere: Prayer and Reflection


The Bible tells us that God is ever close to us. The Universe He created is confessing His workmanship everywhere.

There has been an attempt by humans to unify with God since ages. From stone age to modern man this is the story: man trying to get hold of God. He tries to find it in wood and stone, he tries to find it in cows and snakes, he tries to find it in metals and direction, he tries to find it in all His creation. The saddest part is that the creator is forgotten and the creation becomes the point of his worship. That's bad!!

Then came the sacrifices . In fact Holy Bible tells us a lot about it in the Old Testament. God takes pages and pages of the Bible to explain how an animal sacrifice is to be done. Later He goes on to tells us this, " I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pen, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills"

Today I ask, " How can I look for God in my everyday living?" There are two ways I go about with it: Prayer and Reflection. There can also be ways to find God in the weak and the suffering around us. The moving force of any attempt to connect to God is the knowledge that He is ever standing at our door with a knock…" Behold, I sand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me"

If prayer is the most essential communication in relation to God, what is reflection? Reflection as practiced purposefully becomes prayer in itself.

Reflection is a conscious attempt to see the hand of God in the daily ways of our life. It is to look in quietness at the One who is the creator of everything in the Universe . I'll see God as the sun's rays falls on my shoulders and the warmth of the sunlight touches me, I'll see God as I put my feet on the gentle warm sands of the sea shore... I'll see God as I saunter slowly around my parish church whispering praises to His name… I'll see God as I listen to the roaring sea by the sea side… I'll see God as I settle by the side of a lonely lake and gently read the Bible… I'll see God as I stroll over the morning dew socked grass blades and as they tickle under my feet… I see God as I quietly watch the starry sky and feel one among them !

Adore God in prayer and reflection.

Monday, December 1

Prayer


Prayer means different things to different people. It is interesting to see how people pray. Across the ages, people have made a conscious attempt to speak to the Divine. If that is prayer all about, then it is the very matter in which the modern day flocks are failing.

I have often noticed temples and mosques at the heart of busy commercial hubs and in the streets. It keeps me thinking of people who run between God and their business... who run between God and their daily anxieties. I have also seen tranquil settings and quit places with empty chapels.

For a modern city dweller, everyday is an unfinished day. I have seen and felt that every city dweller has his own reasons to be busy. There is no time for a conscious and planned routine of developing intimacy with God. It is common to see people flocking to develop any quick solutions for their problems: One-minute manager, One-day retreat to spirituality, One week training to speak fluent English or One month Yoga to real health. Many have attempted and succeeded in commercialising encapsulated programmes on daily living. The truth is ... how many of us can carry home such programmes and its methodology? They cannot live in us for more than a season. Making them a habit is difficult and often not achieved.

Prayer as a daily offering to God became a passion to me years ago. Hemmed by a hundred daily responsibilities, I kept prayer at a distance. There was no place to pray... not time to pray ... and no heart to pray. The morning came... the evening came... the day was over and it was time to rest. How fast my little days were!! Then, one day I turned ON the switch to pray.

It was the German theologian, Karl Rahner who composed a prayer that cuts through the day... he looks at a God who is right here in the middle of things with us. He says, “My soul has become a huge warehouse where day after day the trucks unload their crates without any plan or discrimination, to be piled helter-skelter in every available corner and cranny, until it is crammed full from top to bottom with trite, the commonplace, the insignificant, the routine...” Rahner is surprised at the daily “empty talks and pointless activity, idle curiosity and pretensions of importance that ... roll forward in a never-ending stream”. Not only for Rahner, this predicament is true for most of us. But then Rahner goes on... "I now see clearly that, it there is any path at all on which I can approach you, it must lead through the middle of my ordinary daily life... I must learn to have both ‘everyday’ and Your Day in the same day. In devoting myself to the works of this world, I learn to give myself to You, to possess You, the one and only thing, in everything... In You, all that has been scattered is reunited in Your Love all the diffusion of the day’s chores comes home again to the evening of Your unity....” I love to take prayer in that manner: prayer at the heart of my day... prayer that liberates me in the middle of everything. Yes, things get stuck in the warehouse of my heart and soul. Nevertheless, I learn to notice that God is in the middle of my warehouse... and He gives me strength to get on with the day.

Every time I notice a busy street with a temple or a mosque... I remind myself of the presence of God in the middle of my day.

Followers