What gives

Church was at Dominion today because I was to lunch out with my friends Anu,Dinesh and Ojasvi in London. We changed lunch to early dinner due to the weekened train snags and Ojasvi's music lessons.The worship was beautifully touching.I felt lead to pray for the kids on the stage even as I worshipped that they would be trailblazers for our Lord Jesus. Pastor Gary took a session on forgiveness.I was not sure why? Jesus' way being 'Love armed with forgiveness' as the author puts it in 'Radical forgiveness'.The example of Jesus, as He showed us the way on the cross. He reiterated the story of Joseph.The importance of forgiveness in taking hold of our inheritance.He talked about how we make a room for the evil when we take offence. I asked the Lord,why this sermon today?Am I holding onto any offence? I realise everyday is a new day with challenges,we need to be on our knees in humility and pray for God's infinate grace that He will protect us from the evil ...

Beautiful folkish rendition of Tagore's ekla chalo by Kishore Kumar.This is a poetry that has inspired generations and is one of the golden legacy of India that was .

I picked up 'Lean in' at random from the kindle store because I wanted to read a good book which would perhaps challenge me to an extent.I am not sure my choice was right.The author has written a very down to earth account of balancing work life and family life for women.After sometime It became my bathroom read and I thought I heard a lady ramble on and on about a topic which in the male bastion could be concluded in a single sentence. I don't mean to shortsell the book.For women with children and pregnancy to balance with a demanding job there might be a point and the point is one must lean in especially during those times and not make your carrier secondary with examples of how women have done it. I just picked up the wrong book it seems. In 2005 ,when I attended the Haggai seminar in Singapore ,we were made to draw a point diagram depicting the various areas of my life and I was taken aback to see that my diagram looked like a propeller jet heading towards one direc...

Today the preaching at the church was from ACTS 3 vs 1-9,one of my favourite anecdote in all of the bible.Whenever I read this episode it strangely touches me.Apart from the fact that it has some connection to my early childhood in my hometown where the sunday school teacher used to teach us this song and we as little children in all innocence used to sing these songs at the top of our voices,whether in the sunday school or otherwise. The event goes that Peter and John are walking into the temple to preach the word of God and as they cross the gate called 'beautiful'to the temple a lame beggar eyes them and asks them for alms.Peter and John walk upto him and say,'Silver and Gold have I none,what I have I give to you,in the name of Jesus of Nazereth,stand up and walk.'The text says ,the beggar not only stood up and started walking but started jumping and praising the Lord.Further more it says that he clung to Peter and John and all the Jews there started looking at them...

Church today was at Dominion with the Hillsong.The preaching was from Nehemiah,a highly inspiring message. 1)Passion is a heart thing. Nehemiah's heart was at the right place.The only qualification that mattered to God was that the heart be at the right place. What does your heart break for?Sometimes it is good to offend the mind,things become clearer. 2)Action is trusting-It takes a lot of trust to act.We are the move of God.We are not born winners or losers but we are born choosers.One thing that keeps us from taking action is the fear of failure and in the real world we do fail but the moment we own our failure ,we own our fear.We are on a mission for God's vision. 3)Sometimes it takes somebody from outside to detect that the walls are broken.For the Israellites,the broken wall was the norm .That was how they had seen it perhaps most of their lifetime.It took a Nehemiah who was outside to see it,weep for it and facilitate the process. We are called to be a Nehemiah for...

Saying goodbye has never been too hard for me. Today I had to say goodbye to someone who was on his way home supposedly to spend the next few days of his life. With all the strange toxins in the blood that would drive a normal person crazy Mr X is unusually alert.The entire time he was in,I had to negotiate with him for every part of his management.Like a kid I had to kneel down before him and sweet talk him into allowing us to do anything at all.Finally when he realised things were serious he relented only to go three steps back and then the negotiations would start all over again.Each time I crossed the room he would give me the sweetest smile from the heart.That coming from a person whose kidney has literally stopped functioning for several days with a background of multi organ compromise is strange to say the least. One fine day he decided he wanted to go home,his children arranged for care at home and he left.Just before going he thanked me for all the care I had given him. Wh...

Over the last few days I have been getting this prompting to write about christian persecution. I was not sure why ,today I realise it is the international day of prayer for persecuted christians. I got a message early this morning about how in a village church some fundamentalists had stopped a church service of simple tribal folks but some unknown people had beaten the fundamentalists black and blue. Now the organisation was all out to close down the church.I have visited that simple village.The tribals are dirt poor and suffer from depression,mental illnesses,etc.It was a precarious situation for the goodman's family .Just going around with him was frightening enough he lives amongst the majority caste.His little son in all innocence can be quiet vociferous about his belief.This was the place where I saw an old man working alone to build the church brick by brick with his own hands in his land.That poor tribal man had a vision so big that it could very well touch eternity.I ...

Today once again the church was beautiful with a report on one of the countries the pastor couple had visited. A tiny country which had an official census of one beleiver in 1951 has around 1-2 million beleivers as of today. The churches are an epitome of new testament churches from the ACTS. 1)Factors that have led to church growth are healing from sickness, 2)rejection of highly binding and superstition filled old religion.They have known the truth and truth has set them free. 3)The drastic changes they see in the lives of the believers. The takeaway lesson they took from the experience was that the Lord is sovereign. While trekking through the mountains and walking close to the Lord the song above brought much comfort to the pastor. We heard the song in the church today. May it be our prayer.

As you travel through life,snapshots of moments hit you as you travel along.You capture it or you let it pass.Somethings are worth reminding oneself of. I have been blessed by parents who have all their lives lived a life of living faith.Their prayers have been a lifeline that has carried them through life.Now when I look back I wonder at their wisdom and the richness of their lives.My mother taught the sunday school and then carried it onwards to teach small kids their first ABCs in the church in the week days when our district had no concept of primary schools.She read us bible stories from small children books and we had our family prayers every night at home.Often you would find dad and mom spontanaeusly share in the course of the day how the Word of the lord reprimended them in a certain course of action.It was never preachy,it was very often shared in a sheepish manner. The other culture my parents cultivated with great care is entertaining missionaries .We had men and women of...

Letting a loved one go is a difficult process. The decision to stop the life support is I guess a harrowing one.The decision mostly lies with the doctor but the patient's kin is taken into consideration before any such step is taken.One Mr X was by his hallucinating wife's bed-side everyday.I was not looking after that patient but one day when I was crossing by ,she cheerfully called out to me and pointed to the window and kept insisting that the child at the window was bugging her.We were on the fourth floor of the window of the only building.When the time came to stop the lifesupport,we were doing the difficult job of explaining things to the husband and he was obviously finding it very difficult to come to a decision.Suddenly one of my senior colleagues explained that he did not have to carry the burden of having made the final decision because the final decision lay with the doctor.The fully grown man just started weeping,in confusion,in relief,in sadness and I am not sure...