Guidance for Strangers on Planet Earth

“Listening to God through His Word must be a daily habit and ordering our life according to the revealed will of God must be an instinct.”

I cannot drive without maps. During my short stay in the US a few months back, I always asked people for their ZIP code and downloaded a map with driving directions from Yahoo.com. I found this more dependable than calling up friends and getting the directions to their house over the phone. Being new to the country, I needed reliable guidance and I always depended on Yahoo maps!
I am a stranger in this world too. I am moving forward in life. Every day new people, new circumstances, new challenges encounter me. I never been there before in most of these situations and I hardly know what to do. I desperately need guidance in life; some authority to tell me what to do, what to say and how to react.
The psalmist who penned Psalm 119 was also in a similar situation. However, he is more poetic than me. He says of himself: "I am a stranger on earth" and prayers "... do not hide your commands from me" (Psalm 119:19). Psalm 119 is a psalm about the Law of God. It extols the benefits of obeying the Word of God. In the Word of God, we find correction and rebuke. There are times when pride corrodes my mind and I need the Word that cleanses me.
Living life according to the Word is a delight. It is more than the delight and pride that you have when you knock at the door of your friend and say you made it (by following the driving directions), and your friends eyes widen with surprise. That is why the psalmist could say, "your statues are my delight, they are my counselors" (Psalm 119:24).
There are many guideposts in modern culture. However, there is only one time-tested guidepost for our life. That is the eternal Word of God. Listening to God through His Word must be a daily habit and ordering our life according to the revealed will of God must be an instinct.

The Days of Antipas

"The days of Antipas" means not only a period of persecution but a period of perseverance as well. It signifies the days of believers who withstood the pressures from outside to surrender. In the church in the city of Pergamum, there were some people who remained faithful to Jesus in the days of severe persecution. Apostle John calls these days of persecution "the day of Antipas" (Rev. 2:13). The Antipas mentioned here should not be confused with Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great. Herod Antipas was a wicked ruler whom Jesus called "fox". He is the one who offered the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter to his daughter. He might have tried to kill Jesus and presided over Jesus' trial. However, the Antipas mentioned in Revelation 2 was the bishop of Pergamum, a pagan city in the first century AD. The name means "against all." There is a great con trast in the names -- Herod was against all that was good, however, Antipas th...

The Lonely Jungle Babbler

Every day it comes, and pecks at the glass panel of the window of my study. It is a Jungle Babbler, a very common bird in the Indian subcontinent. It dances flying up and down and fluttering its wings. Sometimes, three or four times a day it repeats this ritual. I thought it is trying to get into my room or fly through as it can see the other side. But why does it keep coming, can't it make out after three or four attempts that it can't fly through? I told my Neighbor, whom I consider an expert on birds, about this winged visitor. She explained that the babbler is pecking at its own reflection, thinking that it is another bird. I thought of verifying her suggestion. The following day I kept the window half open, drawing one panel fully open. The babbler came as usual. Perched on the window, looked into my room through the open panel but did not enter the room or peck. But it moved to the side of the window where there is glass and started pecking on the gl...

The Conquering Grace

Grace of God is hard to define. When I was making baby steps in Christian faith, mentors told me that ‘grace is unmerited favor.’ I found that helpful. But as I continued to experience God’s grace as I grew, I found that this definition is inadequate to express all that God does in my life. Now, I have come to realize that grace of God is such a thing that eludes any definition. Grace, as I understand now is what God alone and no human can do in our lives. It comes in various colors, shapes and sizes! John, the gospel writer seems to have understood the multifarious nature of grace that he talks about the ‘fullness of grace’ and ‘grace upon grace’ (John 1:17). Or the New Living Translation puts it: ‘From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.’ These expressions mean that grace is not just one-sided reality but a multi-faceted reality. Its fullness is beyond our comprehension just as God evades our understanding. One of the rare but ...

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