Samoan firefighters

Bones

Bones

When we think of people with faith, we always remember those who exhibited their faith in their living days. 

Well, read Hebrews 11 - the portion about Joseph. He asked his sons to embalm his body so that his bones can be taken to his homeland in Palestine and be buried there. He was a man of true faith. He could see the unseeable. He could believe the unbelievable. He displayed his faith in his deathbed. 

And, centuries later, his bones were indeed buried in Palestine. Seeing the unseeable when what you want to see is not even in the visual field is real faith. I hope you and I can develop such a faith. We can ask the giver of faith to bestow us with it so that we can reach our intended destination. Like Jospeh. 

Quotes

"God has brought me here in his wisdom. He will keep me here by his grace. In his goodness he will teach me what I need to learn. In his perfect time he will deliver me from here by his power." Dr George Cherian

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.   Abraham Lincoln 

“If you want truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world, it will fly; it is light as a feather and a breath will carry it.” Rev. Charles Spurgeon (1855).

God doesn't double bill - pastor Rock Dillaman 

George Müller: “I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord.”

“There is no pit so deep, that God's love is not deeper still.” Corrie Ten Boom

God buries his workmen, but his work goes on. (Charles Wesley)

What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so - Mark Twain 

In God we trust. Everything else, bring data. Dr. Edwards Deming

There are three versions to the truth - yours, mine and the truth. 

the will of God will not take you where the grace of God cannot keep you

Anyone can be great because anyone can serve - MLK Jr

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens writes, “It’s in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.”

The more gratitude we have, the less entitlement we'll have. 

There is much we can do AFTER we pray, but not UNTIL.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase. MLK Jr

Promises for life

             Daniel 2:21-22

 He changes times and seasons;
    he deposes kings and raises up others.
He gives wisdom to the wise
    and knowledge to the discerning.

He reveals deep and hidden things;
    he knows what lies in darkness,
    and light dwells with him.

Matthew 6:25-34

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Daniel 1:15

At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food.

Proverbs 30: 7-9
“Two things I ask of you, Lord;
    do not refuse me before I die:
 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
    give me neither poverty nor riches,
    but give me only my daily bread.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
    and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
    and so dishonor the name of my God.

From the calm, to the rough

Because You Say So, I Will

Simon was tired from fishing all night long. And then he heard a man speaking to a crowd. He was keen to know what was going on. That man, however, had a different plan. He saw through the strength and intensity of Simon's character. He saw a 'rock'. He saw Peter.

He said, Simon, can I use your boat to speak to the crowd? Simon was tired. But he was available for this task. He was curious too. He listened in rapt attention to the man's words. After the session concluded, Simon was waiting to head home and rest when he heard the man speaking to him again. "Put down the nets again", he said.

"Is he crazy? I fished all night and got nothing. NOTHING."

But there was something in that voice that moved him. "Master, because you say so, I will let down the nets", he replied. Despite being overwhelmed with the night's effort, he did just what he was told to do. Simon transformed to Peter that moment. He caught net loads of fishes.

"Because You Say So, I Will" - let that be our motto in obedience. 

Thirty Five!

Thirty Five! That was the age when Dr. Paul Kalanithi, the neurosurgeon-author of the best selling memoir, 'When breath becomes air', was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer; and the age when Dr. Nabeel Qureshi, the philosopher-apologist, left the World to his eternal abode few days ago.

As a doctor who has taken care of thousands of patients suffering from cancer, I have had to hold the hands of a few hundred of them as they took their last few steps in life. As a result, I constantly search for meaning to such suffering. Why is there suffering in this World? 

In his deeply moving memoir, Paul lays bare his soul. He describes how he wandered through scientific inquiry only to find that most of life's mysteries cannot be answered in its methods. He eventually returned to the central value of Christianity - sacrifice, redemption and forgiveness. 

Nabeel, through his 43 episodes of video logs produced over the course of one year, exposed me to the uncertainties of staring death. Like Paul, Nabeel too would vouch that the terminal illness was something that he just did not understand. With profound honesty, Nabeel unraveled several layers of the mystery surrounding 'hope' for me. Nabeel's life was a perfect expression of hope. He had unwavering hope even in the face of a certain death. Yet, his hope was perfectly grounded in his conviction of the central value of Christianity - that Christ died for us to give us eternal life. 

Both Paul and Nabeel burnt through their candles fast. But they were a lighthouse into some of the darkest corners of human soul. Their life reminds me of Jesus Christ, the source of all light and truth. Like them, he too came into the World and lived for 34 years. Like them, he too became a lighthouse for all humanity for time immemorial. In his last moments on Earth, the people who witnessed his death on the cross remarked, "surely, he was the son of God".  

As I think of both these young men and their lives, I can only say one remark - "surely, they were the sons of God".