God, the dropper of my jaw!

God is the God of surprises. In our walk with God, there is some surprise waiting for us at every turn. In the narrative of John’s birth in the Gospel of Luke (1:5-25) we find many divine surprises.
First of all, Zechariah the priest did not expect to find Gabriel, the angel of God as he entered the area where the altar of incense was. The old priest was startled at the sight of the heavenly being right in front of an earthling like him. Secondly, he did not expect the announcement that he is going to become a father. He was old and has accepted the fact that he and his wife will be childless for the rest of their life.
The worshippers waiting outside had their surprises too. They were surprised that the priest has taken unusually long time to return. Now, finally when he emerged he was not able to talk to them. He was mute. Then they concluded that the priest might have had a encounter with an angel in the inner court of the temple. That also is a surprise—an angel in the inner courts of the Temple?
Elizabeth, the wife of priest Zechariah also had her share of surprises. She was not expecting a child. However, she tried to keep the secret that was growing in her belly for five months until it became to big to hide from the people. Now, we can imagine the surprise her family members and friends had when the discovered that the old, barren woman is going to have a child.
Finally, the child was born. The people wanted to know what they should call the child. The mute father writes the name ‘John’ on a tablet. There was a double surprise waiting for them. First of all, the name was unusual. Usually, a child is named after members of the family—parents or grandparents. However, there was no one by that name in their family. Why this name? However, this is the name that the angel had suggested to the father. Then they had their second surprise: the moment the father wrote the last letter of the name ‘John’ his mouth was opened and he was able to speak. He has been dumb for about 10 months and suddenly he speaks as soon as he wrote the name that the angel had told him to give to his son to be born.
At every turn of life we should expect some surprise as we walk with God. The reason—God loves to surprise us. He is not a God who specialize in the mundane and the ordinary but he loves to do what is beyond the limits of our imagination. He enjoys doing what we dump as impossible. He makes my jaw drop! This is a parody of what the Psalmist said in Psalm 3:3 ‘the lifter of my head.’

The Smoking Meat-Eating Swami

Typically, we imagine a revered spiritual monk as a quiet figure subsisting on fresh vegetables, clear water, and pure air, untouched by worldly habits. However, Swami Vivekananda challenges this traditional image entirely. His life was characterised not by a strict adherence to conventions but by practical wisdom, profound humanity, and a bold rejection of superficial dogma. Throughout his life, Vivekananda regularly enjoyed cigars, pipes, and the traditional Indian hookah. It was a habit he picked up in his youth and maintained during his travels across India and abroad. Yet, for him, a simple pipe could carry profound spiritual meaning. During his wanderings across India, he once asked a man from a lower caste for a smoke from his hookah. When the man hesitated because of the era’s strict customs of untouchability, Vivekananda initially walked away—only to turn around immediately, realising that bowing to caste distinctions violated his core belief in spiritual unity. He took ...

Pandita Ramabai versus Swami Vivekananda: Two Visions of India

This is more than a story about two remarkable nineteenth-century Indians. It is a story about two competing ways of seeing India itself. Pandita Ramabai and Swami Vivekananda were contemporaries, reformers, and influential voices who introduced India to the Western world. Swami Vivekananda (b. 1863—d. 1902 and Pandita Ramabai (b. 1858—d.1922) were contemporaries for about 39 years. Pandita Ramabai was five years older than the Swami and lived 20 more years than he did. Both individuals had connections to Brahmo Samaj. Swami Vivekananda was an official member, whereas Pandita Ramabai closely aligned with its principles and members but did not formally join. When Ramabai arrived in Kolkata in 1878, she received a warm welcome from Brahmo Samaj leaders such as Keshab Chandra Sen, who was notably impressed by her Sanskrit skills and encouraged her to study the Vedas, which were traditionally restricted to men. Although she adopted many of the movement's social reform ideas—such as opp...

Gratis Pro Deo: Free for the Sake of God

Commodification, branding and monetising are the forces that drive the modern world, especially entrepreneurship. Commodification transforms goods, services, ideas, or even human experiences into commodities that can be bought, sold, or traded in a market. Commodification often involves assigning economic value to things that were previously not considered commercial products. For example, entertainment is commodified as music and video channels that must be subscribed. Education is commodified and sold at competitive prices (fees) depending on the institution’s quality and reputation. Health care is another commodity whose cost shoots past ordinary people’s purchasing ability. Once commodified, services and goods that were once free must be branded to stand out among competitors. Branding is the process of creating a distinct identity for a business, product, or individual in the minds of consumers. It involves shaping how a brand is perceived through its name, logo, design, messaging...

Paulson Post

Search This Blog