joy of giving

About 10 years back I had a conversation with one of my friends about what gives happiness. She was saying that happiness is in very small everyday things, I was saying that happiness comes with understanding the purpose and meaning of life. Now after 10 years I tend to agree that happiness is indeed in the everyday small things. There is a certain joy in giving and making a difference to someone's life.

There is a certain amount of joy in knowing that you have made a difference to this world. It is a great feeling. One of the senior execs in one of the companies I worked for use to emphasize the need for providing meaningful work. Management books all over make a strong case for connecting each employees work to the mission/vision of the company. Last week I felt the joy of being part of something. I had donated some money to build a home for the under privileged kids and I was there for the opening of the building. The joy it gives to be part of something that made a difference. It made me ponder about how we spend our entire life on things that hardly make any difference to any one.

Religion is personal

Whenever I read indian news forums like rediff or sulekha the discussion invariably goes towards conversion and its ills. There seems to be an inherent hatred to people who change their religious beliefs. I have even seen people feeling betrayed when a person converts their religious beliefs. To me religion is personal. It signifies a personal relationship with God. My view of who this God is and how my relationship should be with him is determined by my experiences and my world view. I think most countries provide the freedom for the individual to choose their own religion. I do not think a lot of people have a problem with this idea.

Trouble comes when you actively seek to convert the other person into your religion. Here is where people have trouble understanding the christian motives for doing so. The most often quoted reason is that there are brownie points given for every soul you save for God and you will go to heaven based on the brownie points you earn. Even though many within christian community itself beleive this, this is not what Bible States.

The Bible does not ask people to convert others to christianity but it asks people to share the information. You might ask what is the difference between the two and what is the need to do something like that. There might be 3 different perspectives here:

 1. The prevalent jewish sentiment at that time was that Yahweh was only the God of Jews no one else should benefit from it. Paul almost lost his life for preaching to gentiles (non-jews). So the first set of christians always treated their relationship with God as special and were not willing to share it

2. When you have a loving relationship with God you automatically start caring for the people that he cares about. Since God loves all the people in the world you also love all the people in the world. When you love some one it is natural to share and in this fashion you would have to automatically share your knowledge about God.

3. Christians believe that we are all selected before we were born to be christians and to be saved. God sometimes uses christians to reach out to people whom he has already predestined.

So how does forcible conversion and conversion through coercion come into play. This is because of the corporatization of the Church. Bible talks about church being the body of christ and each person having different gifts and when everyone identifies these gifts and uses it for the glory of God the body of christ will automatically grow. This can be interpreted to mean that a person good at raising funds will raise funds for Christ and the person good at preaching or mission work will go and reach out to people who have not heard about christ. Now when you bring in corporate best practice of having metrics to measure progress. You can see some ill trained people falling victim and cook up the numbers.

Christ Centered Life ..

From the time we are born there is one thing that is certain. It is that we will all die one day. But, how do we win over death. How do you finish a race run well ? You pass on in such a fashion that even after 6 years of preparation, your loved ones still feel a level of sorrow that is unfathomable. Today I witnessed my grandmother's passing away. As I reflect on her life and try to look at how she finished her race, I can summarize her life in 2 steps:
     1. Christ centered life.
     2. Efficiency in pursuit of this that is honed over years.

Christ Centered life: Right from the time I knew her, everything in her life revolved around her commitments towards the church. She did this with amazing focus. Back in 2004, we had a get together around new year, where every one of us were reflecting on the blessings from the previous year. While almost all of us were reflecting on our material blessings and blessings related to our souls, my grandmother was all about her work for the church. Her aspirations and dreams were all centered around God's work. She did all this with a child like joy & innocence. It would amaze us how she would be filled with joy, when surrounded by her grandkids who would make fun of her excess use of talcum powder or the skin color difference between her and my grandfather or her english skills. I had written an earlier blog about the "Fear of God", she lived her life as an example of how a fear of Lord, removes fear of all other things. She was never afraid of the rowdy on the street, including one instance where she caught hold of a theif who was trying to snatch her chain.

Anybody who knows my Grandmother, would attest for her routines, schedule and her sense of punctuality. She knew how to harness her energy. Every morning she had her route of visiting different peoples houses, she would maintain it whether there is rain or sun. I remember once when the area around her house was flooded, she climbed the backside wall so that she could maintain her routine. I think I need to remember this, whenever I struggle to get a run in the morning. She always would serve food to her grandkids in a certain order, there was a menu for everyday of the week which she would follow diligently. There was an order in everything she did. She was also punctual almost to a crime. She would always get up from her bed only at 4 AM, no matter what time she is awake. All this made her very efficient and effective.

As we look at her life, she was able to convert a God centered vision into action very efficiently. She has touched countless lives, raised money to build churches, support missionaries. She was able to pray for so many people and see change in their lives.  We all long for a life like hers where we are prepared for this day all the time.

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Knowledge

Looks like I have not posted a single blog for the whole of 2013. I thought that I would do a blog on the last day of the year on the verse that I named my blog after. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” This verse has been one of those verses that I have had trouble explaining. How can fear which is generally very constraining be the beginning of Knowledge. Knowledge of the world is so vast that something that constraints your thinking will not help in you gaining the knowledge.  In the same way, why is a God so filled with love be always feared. Does the word have to be looked from the perspective of reverence ? The same way, I read somewhere that the more disciplined you become the less creative you are. For a while I strongly believed in it, and shunned all things that created a habit. Over a period of time, I have realized that there is a need to have some amount of discipline, otherwise even the basic things become difficult to accomplish. 

Lets try to attack the first issue of explaining "Fear of the Lord". We should focus on what happens when we fear the Lord. First thing is that our God is privy to our thoughts and motivations, so when we fear God we need to have alignment between our actions and thoughts/motivations. The second thing it also implies is that when we replace all other fears with the "Fear of the Lord", it is very liberating and keeps us in sync with our conscience. This fear of the Lord is what makes Joseph accept Mary, even though he knows that if the news got out he will loose respect as well as Mary could be stoned to death. This fear of the Lord is what makes Peter provide testimony in front of others. In my life I have seen that the same fear enabled my grandmother to ask people she barely knew to provide funds for God's work. So this fear of the Lord does liberate you from the clutches of other fears you might have and opens your mind. The third thing it does is that makes us follow the laws of Lord.

The second issue is the real problem of defining what Solomon means by Fear and how this becomes the beginning of Knowledge.  For this lets look at 2 different passages in the bible:

 "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19We love because he first loved us." 

 ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’c 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’d 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  

The above 2 passages say that all the Laws of Lord are automatically taken care of when you perfect your love of God and your Love of fellow neighbor. When you are able to perfect it, fear is automatically taken care of. We are able to do this because God wants a relationship with us. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of perfecting Love and creating a relationship with God. Since God is the creator of this universe, we will be able to uncover all knowledge when you have a relationship with Him.  

As we close 2013 and begin 2014, I hope to renew my journey of being perfected in Love.

Faith Midst trial

Its been a long time since I wrote the last time (~ 3 years).  There have been a few events that happened over the last couple of weeks that made me write again.

There were 2 people I knew who passed away to be with the lord in the last few weeks. It is the manner in which they died that made me realize that God takes care of every one of our needs. Some of which when we are going through them are not enjoyable.

One of them is my aunt. She had no children, in her last days she felt alone. This brought her closer to God as He was her only refuge. She died suddenly of a silent heart attacks that only diabetic patients are blessed with. She passed away in her sleep silently and with a smile. 

At the same time another uncle of mine went through a heart wrenching fight with Cancer. He put up a great fight and in his fight, he came closer to God and showed the world his faith. His struggle also helped his family deal with the loss much better. 

So in all there were 2 different types of death, but God's hand was there in both of them.  Today's devotion had this quote which seemed appropriate for this.

We often think if life were smooth
We would a better witness be;
But God knows best—that faith midst trials
Can honor Him more powerfully. —Cetas

Is sin relative ?

Last week there was a big buzz on television in India about gay rights. I was watching one of the televised discussions on it where the TV anchor was making fun of a pastor for having an alternate opinion. The point being that how can christians term something as wrong when the rest of the world feels it is not wrong to do so. It made me ponder about a very interesting question: is sin an absolute term ? or is it one that evolves with time and is dependent on the context ? If there is a God sin has to be absolute. To me sin is like the laws of nature, they have to be absolute. Just like the laws of nature your understanding/interpretation of it will depend on your knowledge of God. To me the fundamental principle is your Love for God and your willingness to live your life for Him. Anything that does not align with this fundamental belief becomes a sin. You will have to delight in his word and in understanding it. As per the Bible everyone is a sinner and hence no one has the right to judge others of their sin. God looks at our hearts and knows every thought that crosses our minds. All sins lead to death. We are saved by His grace and not by our actions. It is our duty to acknowledge the great sacrifice and love and live our lives for his glory. We have to be open to the notion of Holy Spirit convicting us of our fallacies, prejudices and our concept of sin within the context of God's word.

Over the last couple of weeks I am getting my house painted, furnished and generally settling down in bangalore. I have had the opportunity to interact with a whole bunch of people from poorer background. It is amazing to find their ingenuity and willingness for hardwork. They are also very happy with what they have. For the driver getting a Rs. 500 cell phone from reliance made his day. For the electrician an extra tip of Rs. 100 makes his day. The guy who does the tiles and appreciation about the quality of work and some cakes makes his day. I am begining to believe irrespective of the amount of money or wealth we have we can be happy. When I was in college I do not feel nervous when I do not have any money in my pocket. I remember once when we were doing a project in bangalore we went to work but did not have money to return home. Even in that situation we were not stressed out. We were able to trust that our parents would bail us out. But now even with lakhs in the bank we are still stressed about our financial future. It is just sad that the trust in God's provision is very hard. I think learning to seek happiness in small things and trusting in God's provision will help us live a stress free life.