Modelling Calm in Storms

The gospel narratives of the evangelist Mark are more vivid than that of others. He mentions that when the boat with Jesus and the disciples faced a severe storm, Jesus was at the stern and was asleep on a cushion at the stern (Mark 4:38). Stern is where it would be shakier and the wind hits more strongly. However, Jesus was fast asleep, not disturbed by the sound of the wind, the spray of water or the tossing of the boat!
No wonder, the disciples shouted at Jesus when they finally succeeded in waking him: 'Do you not care that we are perishing?' The truth is that if they perish, he would also perish with them. But he was still sleeping.
Was he tired so much to sleep through a storm like that? Maybe but I don't think that it is the right answer. Jesus wakes up and very calmly orders the sea and the wind to calm down. 'And there was a great calm.' I am led to believe that Jesus was in control even when he was fast asleep on the stern. Or I think Jesus slept because he was perfectly calm inside though there was a raging storm around.
Why then did Jesus sleep when it was raging outside? Why didn't he wake up to help his friends to scoop out the water that was entering the boat? Mark has made it clear that 'the boat was already filling.'
I am led to believe that Jesus was not uninterested in their misery, nor unwilling to help, but he was modelling calm. He was showing them how to be calm in the midst of storms in our lives.
I wonder, when there are storms rage in my life where is God in all these! At times, I ask God why are you far off. Why God seems not to be interested? However, I am beginning to learn now that his apparent absence is a way of teaching me to trust. He is not unconcerned or uninterested. But his apparent distancing from my struggle is a way of teaching me that storms are times when we have to learn to be calm. He can calm the storms but can also model for us how to be calm in our storms.

Processing pain and suffering.

Growing up on the country-side in a farm, accidents were regular events in my life. Sometimes, it was a thorn that got stuck on my feet when I explored the farm barefoot, or a broken arm when I fell off the branches of a tree that I tried to climb up. The most difficult part of life is the process of healing. Sometimes, my older cousins acted as surgeons who removed the thorn with a needle. Sometimes I had to be rushed to the hospital to put the bones back together and a cast which lasted for weeks. Enduring the pain was part of the healing process. Without endurance, there is no healing and recovery.
Suffering comes with two choices. Either get out of it through the shortest route or endure it until healing. One of my relatives chose the first. She hurt her finger when cutting vegetables. Everyone advised her to go to the doctor but she refused. She knew that the doctor will give her an anti-septic shot, tabs and probably stitch it up. Moreover, the injury did not appear to be big, the pain had stopped as the bleeding stopped as well. However, it got complicated. She had cut a nerve on her finger. For the rest of her life, she was not able to move that finger. If she was willing to endure, life would have been better for her.
The issue in the Book of Hebrews is more than hurting a thorn that stuck on the feet or a finger-nerve that was hurt. But it was life and death issues. It was persecution of the politically weak and socially insignificant minority of Christians somewhere in the Roman empire. Their property was confiscated, many of them were arrested and imprisoned and some were even physically tortured.
The writer of this epistle encourages them to hang on! To endure it and endure it more. The writer said, you are suffering but you are still alive, so go ahead suffering until death! That is what Hebrews 12:4 says: 'In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.'
What is the secret of enduring pain and suffering? The secret of enduring pain and suffering is to process it as the discipline and not as punishment. Though discipline and punishment may sound synonymous in the English language they are not strictly so. Punishment may make us remorseful, guilty and even ashamed of our actions. We can go through the pain of punishment if we accept our part in it. However, there are times when we suffer for reasons that are not of our own. You can call it innocent suffering, or at least the pain for which we have no explanation. How do we process such situations?
This is why imagining pain as the discipline is important. The difference between discipline and punishment is evident. Punishment assumes that a wrong is committed. The goal of punishment could be correction but need not always be so. It is most of the time the natural consequence of the mistake; every wrong act has to be punished either to stop it repeating, or to warn others not to do the same. However, discipline is not punishment.
Discipline has to be understood more as a pedagogical method. It is more close to training a person than punishing a person. Discipline equips a person, sometimes ironically to face worse situations. We learn through discipline. Thus when suffering is considered as preparation for enduring harder realities of life, it becomes easier.
I once met a young man carrying a heavy backpack. He told me that he is carrying some heavy rocks in that backpack! Every day, he adds more stones to make it heavier than the previous day and walks longer carrying it. He was doing some strength training. To develop his own strength he endures more and  more pain.
Discipline becomes a lighter and enjoyable when we know the reason for it. Discipline becomes more enjoyable not only when we know the reason for it but also when we realize who is behind it. The Bible uses an earthly model or us to understanding it. Our earthly parents do disciple us. Though the discipline is painful we still 'respected them' since we knew that the purpose of their action was our good. So, the Bible asks, 'Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits land live?'(Heb 10:9).
God does lead us through pain and suffering out of his fatherly concern for us. What is his fatherly concern for us? Discipline is lighter when we discover the motivation behind it. It is motivated by love. That is what the figure of the father suggests. The father disciplines the children he loves. 'For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” (Heb 12:6).
Love is not the only reason, but it also has another long-term goal, that is our holiness. God's act of disciplining us, passing us through pain and suffering is to make to purify us, or holiness. Achieving new levels of holiness is almost irreversible act. Through the process of pain of being disciplined we learn new ways of knowing God and his moral standards. Knowing God and him becoming more and more real to us is the greatest achievement in life. Though it is difficult, suffering has greater benefit when we know that God is behind it and we are in God's plan. That realization makes pain and suffering lighter and enjoyable.

The Prodigal and the Party Pooper!

Are you a party pooper? Hold on! In order to clear the air, let me first talk about a party pooper that I found in the Bible.
The story of 'the prodigal son' is popular among Christian preachers and Sunday School students (Luke 15). However, the focus usually is on the younger son who is labelled as the 'prodigal.'
The two sons had two different approaches to life. The younger one preferred indulgence and instant gratification. He wanted to enjoy all that life has to offer in one sip! So, he couldn't wait for his father's death to get his share of wealth to spend it on the type of life that he has been longing to live. So, he forced his father to give him his share of the property. He lived the way he wanted until he found himself penniless. His poverty drove him to the extent of snatching fodder from the pigs to beat his hunger. However, he repented and returned to the father.
The other one tagged along with his father's business never finding time to enjoy life. In the story, Jesus portrays him as a hardworking, loyal son. He was on the farm when his younger brother returned home. The party to celebrate the homecoming of the 'prodigal' had already started by the time he reached home.
It is very important to note that the father reached out to both with equal warmth. When the father saw the younger son walking towards the house, he ran to embrace him. He did not bother to find out if the son is coming to ask for more money! The servants told the father that older son is standing outside the house in protest. However, he did not waste a minute to go out to him and entreat him. The father tried to convince him the reason for the celebration.
The elder son's worries were two-fold. First of all, he was told that the younger brother who has taken his share of the property has come back. Has he come back to claim more of what remains? Since they are the only two sons of the father, once the younger got his share then all that remains belongs to him.
Secondly, he learned that the 'fattened calf' is slaughtered. In middle eastern cultures, rich families always keep an animal aside to be slaughtered on special occasions. They tie the animal so that it doesn't lose weight by straying around. They feed the animal rich food so that it gains more weight. Unlike modern days, ancients preferred meat with fat than lean meat. Probably, every day as he noted the calf growing fat he had the day of celebration in mind. This calf is going to end up on his plate his day of celebration whatever it could be. However, that is gone! That is why he shouted at the father, 'you killed the fattened the calf!'
His father cajoled him to come in. He assured him that all the property that remains is rightfully his. The father promised, 'all that is mine is yours!' Now, the calf that he was waiting to eat is slaughtered; why don't just join the party and get your teeth into your burger? The worry about wealth is also taken care of. Why spoil the party?
Many times we are party poopers in the Kingdom of God just as the Pharisees and the Jewish establishment of Jesus' day were. Our reasons may vary. They were not able to join  God's celebration that is going on in heaven when a sinner returns to Him. Before telling this story Jesus had already declared: 'Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.'
We can be like the party pooper son when sinners repent and return to God by reminding ourselves of the damages they have done in their past life. That can kill our joy. Ananias did that when Paul (aka Saul) repented and turned to God. When God told him to go and meet the converted Saul, Ananias reminded God of Saul's wicked track record (Acts 9:11). However, as long as we are in the complain and blame mode we will not be able to join the party of God.

When Plans Go Wrong

An air crash on June 23, 1980, stunned India. That day when doing aircraft acrobatics Sanjay Gandhi nosedived to his death. Sanjay Gandhi was the son of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Historians say that Indira was mentoring him to be her successor as the President of Indian National Congress and the Prime Minister of India. That accident grounded her plans. It redirected the course of India's politics and history. Even, Indira's families of two sons ended up in two rival political camps.
The truth is all that we plan around people have a 'use before' date. Bible affirms this truth that we have observed in history and personal lives many times. Psalm 146:3,4 says: 'Put not your trust in princes,in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs he returns to the earth;on that very day his plans perish.'
The mortal human being can fulfil his plans only while he is alive and is able. It is true that a visionary can pass on his dreams to his successors. The successors may fulfil it or fail it. King Solomon, the wisest man who lived on earth knew that all that he achieved so far is futile. The reason for his frustration is that he has to hand over all of them to his successor whose abilities he was not sure of. So he lamented: 'I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity' (Eccl. 2:18-19, ESV).
This revelation that plans that we make have no guarantee of success is disturbing, to say the least. Then where is stability? This may make us depressed. However, a person like the Psalmist who trust in God and entrusts his plans to God has no reason for despair.
Psalmist congratulates those who have their plans built around God (146:5). He argues that you can trust God with your plans for many reasons. First of all, God is the creator of all that we see and experience. Secondly, he can be trusted since faithful is his character. God's faithfulness lasts as long as he is alive and God is eternal (146:6).
A child of God realizes that they have absolutely no control over their plans. However, they also realize that God is in absolute control of their lives. The psalmist then goes on illustrating this truth.
The farmer may go hungry when the weather fails him. Or it could be a pestilence that plunges that whole land into famine. That happens even in the most developed countries. If no famine, a price hike is expected. However, God is faithful to feed the hungry when human plans don't work the way they ought to. God is the one who 'gives food to the hungry' (146:7).
One of my colleagues had a very happy marriage and a wonderful family. Everything was going fine with them. They had plans for their only son, plans for great days of retired life. A phone call on that fateful afternoon changed all that. She was waiting for her husband to come home any time that afternoon. The police rang up to ask her to come to the hospital to identify the body of her husband who died in an accident. You might have heard many such stories where a wife turns a widow in a matter of minutes and children turn orphans as well. However, the children of God find comfort in the assurance that 'he upholds the widow and the fatherless' (146:9).
When Jehoiachin was imprisoned in Babylon, he never imagined that he will be free one day. He spent a long 37 years in prison. However, the emperor of Babylon released him at the end of that long prison term. He was not only free but he was treated royally. He got his royal robes back, he dined at the emperor's table daily (Jer 52:31-34). This is not just an old story. God has repeated this in the life of my friend's son recently. He was taken hostage while serving as a doctor with a relief agency in Afghanistan. He spent many months in a Taliban camp as a hostage. However, at a time no one ever imagined the US Navy Seals rescued him. It was a freedom that he never imagined. The psalmist puts that truth rather concisely as 'The Lord sets the prisoners free' (146:7).
We live in a world of uncertainties. Nothing is stable and nothing is permanent. All that we build around human beings are tend to fail. However, it is not all that uncertain and unstable for those who trust God. God is in charge, human plans may fail, but his plans never. Sometimes God even frustrates human plans so that his plan for us may prevail.

Ready to be Served?

One of the many paradoxes of the Bible is the role reversals. The king may become a servant or someone in a lowly position may be raised to a new level of authority. Luke 12:35-40 describes one such role reversals.
This passage is undoubtedly about being ready for the masters' arrival. Just like the story of the ten maiden (Mattthew 25:1-13) this passage also talks about being ready with the lamps filled with oil. The servants should be watchful for the arrival of the bridegroom who may come unannounced to the party at an hour he chooses. He may keep the people waiting late into the night. However, the servants must be ready with their lamps, awake so that they can open the door at his first knock on the door.
It is not just opening the door and showing him the way in with the lighted lamp that is involved here. The master should be convinced that they had been awake all night. The master expects them to be awake and ready for action throughout the night ( Luke 12:37).
The master will reward them for their diligence. Here comes the role reversal. The servants are supposed to serve the master. However, God the master is different. If he finds that his servants had been waiting for him the whole night, he will reverse the role. They had been waiting without food and rest. So, God the master then decides that he should serve them first before being served himself. So, Jesus said: 'Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.' (Luke 12:37, ESV).
Discipleship involves readiness for action. Readiness will be rewarded in the Kingdom of God. Five of the ten virgins were not ready. They were cast out. However, the five who were ready joined the bridegroom in the party.
Though God expects us to do is being 'ready for action' (Luke 12:35), the real action belongs to God. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son (Genesis 22). Abraham had never offered a human sacrifice and he was sure that God does not expect a human sacrifice. Still, Abraham was ready for action. God tested his readiness to the point of lifting his hands. God acted just before the knife slitted Isaac's throat. Some point between Abraham began swinging his knife and it touched Isaac's throat, God intervened. God was ready with a lamb in the place of Isaac. The lamb was trapped in a bush so that Abraham did not has to chase it. God had held it in place to be lifted up by Abraham.
This is in line with God's character. The master of the household is always diligent so that he will not let the thief break in (Luke 12:35). Thus God expects us to be like him diligent and watchful. At his coming at a time that no one expects, Christ expects us people waiting for him. He will, then, according to his promise will care for us. The master we wait for is also a servant who loves to serve us. But are we ready to be served?

Heat is not That Bad!

Summer temperature reached 43.3-degree Celsius (109.9 degrees Fahrenheit) in Pune this summer. Though the average summer temperature doesn't go above 38 degree Celsius, I heard a lot of people complaining about the summer heat. They say the cold weather is better! All that you have to do is to wear many layers of clothes to keep you warm. My friends who have to spend almost six months of the year in below freezing temperature have a different opinion.

Heat is a metaphor in the Bible. It is a metaphor of extreme suffering. The psalmist who underwent extreme suffering describes it as being wax melted by the heat. He complains, 'I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast' (Psalm 22:14 ESV).

Another psalmist uses a similar metaphor to describe his self-inflicted pain. 'For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away throughmy groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer' (Ps 32:3,4 ESV).

Everyone seems to agree that heat is not good. The heat of suffering particularly. It brings anguish and pain. It drains the strength, it drains the sap. However, it has a positive side.

Heat purifies. The goldsmith heats up the precious metals in a crucible until they melt. In the molten stage, the gold separates itself from the impurities. It gains a new shine! Sometimes God raises the heat in our lives so that we may be pure! The gold has no right to know why the impurities are removed by this painful process. Enduring the process is difficult, but the hope of purity and the new shine it is going to have helps with patient enduring.

Though it may look paradoxical, heat reshapes. As a child, I have watched the village blacksmith heating up a piece of iron until it is red-hot and beat it up to a new shape. Then he dips it in water to temper it. Again to the furnace again to make it red-hot. The iron goes through the process repeatedly: heated up, beaten, and tempered in the cold water. Then after a few hours, the blacksmith holds the iron to admire his creation. It is a piece of art now, though the process was painful.

The iron has no right to know what it is going to be. It simply has to trust the creator. It just has to believe that it is going to change the shape, and then there is going to have a new use. Heat brings with it new hope and purpose.

The Massawa Miracle

PC was an ambitious young man brimming with so  much godly enthusiasm when he travelled to Ethiopia in the early 1970s. He was accompanied by his wife. Though they had got married only a week ago, the purpose of their travel was not a honeymoon.
Their purpose was to meet Emperor Haile Selassie. They were to meet the Emperor and get permission to bring the OM ship logos to Ethiopia. His Christian friends who knew the political situation in Ethiopia laughed at his idea. He had a  no political contacts, he knew no one in Ethiopia.
However, to cut the story short, he did get an appointment with the emperor! The emperor allowed the ship to be docked at port Massawa which is now a thriving port of Eritrea. Not only that, the emperor opened the book exhibition cutting a ribbon!
That was more than what PC and his wife had imagined. Thousands of pastors and lay leaders came to visit the ship, the bookstore on board and for the seminars that were held on the ship.
As years went by, Ethiopia went through drastic political upheavals. Emperor Haile Selassie lost power. Eritrea was carved out of Ethiopia. Many Ethiopians and Eritreans migrated to all parts of the world, including the UK.
Now fast forward.... Years later, PC now much older, walked into a Starbucks coffee house in the UK. It was packed, but there was a vacant chair in the corner where a young man was keenly reading a book. PC settled into that only vacant seat available to him in the packed coffee shop. Then he noticed that the book the young African man reading was a Christian devotional book.
So, they started a conversation. The young man is a pastor to a small Eritrean congregation in the UK. I call him JB for short now. As PC implored, he shared his story of how he became a Christian. He found a book in his father's collection. He knew that book has changed his father's life radically. It was a copy of the Living Bible. His father told him that he bought it in a bookstore in a ship that was docked in the port of Massawa in the early 1970s.
Then the Eritrean pastor asked PC to tell his personal story. With tears of joy welling up in his eyes, punctuated with sobbing PC told his story. His story of travelling to Adis Ababa. Meeting Emperor Selasi to bring the Logos ship to Ethiopia. Docking the ship in Massawa. The memory of long lines of Ethiopians who queued up to enter the ship. Those who spent their hard-earned money to buy books and bibles. Yes, it was one of those bibles that JB's father bought. That is what changed his life and his son's. That is what is changing the lives of Eritreans living in the UK. Who can ignore the beginnings of small things?
(Special thanks to PC who told me this story and encouraged me to keep telling stories!)

Horror Houses Without Exit

I don't like horror films, fiction.... for that sake anything that horrifies me. However, one day I had to enter a show in a fair. That was a horror house. My friends forced me to go with them. I weighed the pros and cons. It is better to go with them than be labelled a coward.

Beyond, the ticket counter there was this dark tunnel, walls painted black, then the eery noises of witches and demons. Somewhere from the dark a skeleton stretched its hand towards me and almost reached my throat. Then there was a vampire waiting at a dark turn of the tunnel staring at me with its long teeth. However, I moved past it in the company of my friends.

To be frank, it was not the company of the friends that gave me the courage to move past each eery and horrifying shows. It was the red sign at every corner of the wall. 'EXIT' in red. That is the legal requirement. Anyone who is about to pass out, or can't take anymore can slip through that narrow door behind that sign. However, I moved on.

But in real life, there are horror houses without exit. Daniel had been in of those. That was the lions' den. The Bible says that he was thrown into a den packed with hungry lions. The story is found in the Book of Daniel 6. It was a conspiracy that landed Daniel in the den of hungry lions. Daniel and the hungry lions spent one whole night staring at each other. The lions had no appetite that night. But the morning following the king found out that Daniel is unharmed by the lions. So, he ordered to throw Daniel's enemies to the lions and the lions had a royal feast.

The den had no exit, so God took control of the lions. However, it was horrifying.
Sometimes, God will lead his people to fight it out as Paul had too many times. He had to be a gladiator in Ephesus. He had to fight wild animals in the arena in Ephesus. When the doors of the arena were slammed shut, and the cage of the hungry lion (possibly) screeched open, Paul might have looked around for an exit sign. But there was none.

He was not a gladiator. He eked out a living by making and repairing tents. As a scholar, he spent most of his time his head buried in the scrolls and parchments. He did not have time for body-building. His muscles were not strong. He had a hump on his back, or he had poor eyesight (or both). However, he had to take on the advancing lion. He won! That is why he could write about it in 1 Corinthians 15:32. Sometimes where there are no exits, we have to fight it out.

With God on our side, we really don't need exits from our situations. Exits are for the cowards and the weak. God puts us in dens and closed arenas without exit so that he can train our fingers for the battle (Psalm 144:1).

Thy will be done!

Prayer is not asking God to accord our will. Most of the time our will may be in conflict with that of God. Prayer is surrender to God's will. Somewhere I read this definition of prayer: 'Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to His will ....”
It is not just asking for things that we want in our lives but surrendering our desires to God that he may grant whatever is agreeable to his will. His will supercedes everything.
The Lord's prayer goes on to qualifying God's will as, '... as it is in heaven.' God's rule in heaven is unchallenged. However, it is challenged and resisted here on earth. Our desires are not always in line with God's. The devil has mastery over this world at least for  now until Christ subdues him. His will is also at work. Moreover, he tries to bring our hearts in line with his. So, we struggle not knowing which is God's will and which is not.
The best way out of this is to pray that God's will be done in our lives as it is done in heaven where it is unchallenged. Thus it is a total surrender to God's will.

Rehash, Rehearse or Celebrate

We spend most of our time either rehashing or rehearsing. Rehashing is to relive the past, going over and over again of what we did, or what has happened to us. This is a way of us tethering ourselves to the past, unable to move forward in our thinking. By default, it is the pain, shame and guilt or in other words the negative memories and experiences that the mind chooses to rehash.
Rehearsing is a way of living in the imaginary future. Perceptions of threats that are real or imagined engages our minds in emotional battles. The mind imagines situations, strategizes or even rehearses the sentences to speak in that imaginary situations.
There is a big problem in both these. It drains our energy for the present. Jesus knew this when he told his disciples 'do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour' (Matt 10:19, ESV). The disciples in the first century were cross-bearers. The command, 'take up your cross and follow me' meant living with the prospect of arrest, imprisonment or even death daily. However, they should not spend their time rehearsing for that moment.
Nor should they rehash the evil that is done to them after the event. Their time is  not to be spent licking the wounds of the past. They have a great task in the present. That is to do the 'work the work of the one who sent them, while it is still day.' The energy for the tasks of the that present moment should not be dissipiated in any way.
The old song said: 'There's race that I  must run, there are victories to be won, give me power every hour to be true.' Power and grace for the moment is what we need. We need to conserve it too.
(Slightly revised.)

The Mystery of Manna

It was an unexpected gift from an unexpected person in an unexpected way. I desperately needed it. It came really as an answer to prayer. However, I was a bit reluctant to spend it on the need that I had; just being cautious. Gifts may not come regularly, it is wise to keep some for the rainy day. While rolling the conflicting thoughts in my head, I was led to the passage in Exodus 16:13-21, the story about the manna. Manna was a new experience for the Israelites. They had never seen it. So, they asked each other 'what is it?' The name Manna is directly derived from their question. In Hebrew 'Ma-nna' means 'what.'
Moses made it clear that it is God's provision for them. Something that God dropped from heaven, it is heavenly food. It thus illustrates a few important aspects of God's provisions for our life as well.
First of all, it is the free gift of God. It doesn't depend on the human effort. It freely falls to the ground and is covered by the dew. Then the flaky thing is ready to be picked up when the dew slowly melts away. The human effort is only to pick it up.
However, the act of picking up also doesn't all depend on human ability. If a person who is more capable than the others collected more than what God has allowed (one Omer), then it did not measure more. It measured only one Omer. If there is someone who could not gather the daily ration of one Omer, he was not a loser as well. In that case, whatever he actually collected, multiplied to measure one Omer. So, it did not really matter how smart you are in gathering. Free gifts of God doesn't really depend on human smartness.
Not only that smartness doesn't matter but God outwitted the smarter guys. There were those who were planning for eventualities in life. Eventualities like the manna missing a day. What if the manna didn't fall from heaven for a few days due to adverse weather conditions? Even if it is for just one day, it is is good to have a plan; so thought some careful guys. They had a plan. They kept some manna they gathered for the following day. But they could not eat it, it bred worms. They went to bed with growling tummies since they did not eat their full. However, allying all their fears, there was still a fresh supply of manna from heaven that day as well. Hoarding God's daily gifts is sin. God's provision is guaranteed.
God expects us to be prompt in receiving his gifts. It has to be gathered everyday morning. If you got up late then it is gone as the day gets hot. Procrastinators had to go without food for that day.