Christian Vs Hypocrite

In our employee’s lounge today, the topic of discussion was about different schooling options. One of my coworker’s word struck me deep, “My son doesn’t like to continue in the Christian school, he said, ‘Christians are bunch of hypocrites’ ” In my mind, I just fast forwarded some fourteen years. How would I feel, if those words come out my daughter’s mouth? There is a high potential. I would be calm, if this claim is from a cynical adult non-believer, but from the mouth of a teenager, who is figuring out his identity, the purpose of his life. I had no choice but to believe, there is some amount of truth to it.

Why are we visualized as hypocrites? The very thing our Lord condemned.

           Because some of us,

Ø Fake the perfectionism.

Ø Avoid admitting our vulnerability.

Ø Hide our failures.

Ø Put up the religious show.

Ø Praying in front of others (not with others).

Ø Fasting and showing that to the public.

Ø Giving and letting the whole world know about that.

Ø Faking the external poise.

How to overcome hypocrisy,

Ø Admit our failures.

Ø Just be who we are, humans! (It is not a license to practice sinful lifestyle).

Ø Confess our vulnerability.

Ø Never put up the religious show. 

I got this wonderful piece of advice from Charles R. Swindoll’s podcast, live your life like a Christian in public, but practice your religion privately. Our Lord clearly stated giving, praying, and fasting are an inside job never for public display. But we are a light and a salt of the world. We live a counterculture life.

 I come from a Hindu background; external purification is critical in that religion. It had the lingering effect long after I accepted Jesus as my Savior. The day I realized, it is about internal change more than an external purification, it relived my obsession. The day I learned Christians are not perfect people, we fail, we fall, but get right back holding the hand of our Savior, walk in the right path set by our Lord. We do this process again and again until we get to Him, Who called us. Even to getup and walk, we trust His grace, His power, and His strength. We are to be pitied, if we claim to be remotely perfect. We are not, but we have a perfect God!

I hold fast to do these things,

Ø Frankly admit my failure to my daughter.

Ø Always explain with Whose strength I stand.

Ø Never practice my religion in public.

Ø  But, strive to live like a Christian always.

In spite of all this, I ask, seek, and knock to God that, “those words would never come out of my daughter’s mouth. At least, she will see one Christian, who is not a hypocrite, but a sinful human holding on to her Awesome God in everything”.

God Bless.

Realities Learned

Time is just what we set in our clock!

I woke up Sunday and was shocked to see that I loosed an hour. Yes, it was a time change day for day light saving.  Even after several years of living in US, I am still guilty of forgetting these and going an hour late to church, time to time. After, realizing the different times in my clock and phone. I told myself, it is ok I can set the time in the clock. In that moment, I recognized time is just what we set in our clock

                 

This truth assisted me with one temporal and one eternal understanding. After becoming a mother it seems as though my 24 hours has all of a sudden shrunk to 2 hours. On top of my sleep reducing from eight hours to 4 or five hours. I have so much to do with so little time, fells like. I obese over time, even though nobody would define me as a punctual person and truthfully so (if you have a trick to be punctual with a six month old baby, please share that with me). This time factor puts strain on my relationship, and my health. As though, I am serving the time more than anyone or anything else. The purpose of this post is not to de-emphasis the importance of time, but to set someone free from the obsession over time. I realized, that we could value time more than our God then it becomes a sin.

I always had difficulty understanding that GOD is outside time. He does not have time or He has his own time. I was so obsessed with time that I felt the date I was born, or New Year day these are very significant. Yes it might be, but not that significant to God, He has his own time. Actually He exists before and after our time. He has nothing to do with our time. I grasped, how foolish it is to think that God would do something according to our time. As negligible as we are comparing to this massive universe, we could just change the time by one simple act, by setting our clock different. How much more it is understandable, When God said that He is coming soon, really did mean it. He is coming soon. Even though, it is thousands of years according to our temporal time, but not according to God who called everything into being.

I agree with the interest to be on time for any appointment or occasion, in the gesture of respect to the other person or people. I don’t agree with obsessing over time more than relationships or health. If it allows you, set your clock one hour more and doze, spend few extra minutes with your spouse of child during the family time, go little slower than the set speed limit in the freeway and enjoy the nature around you, stay in God presence little longer than your scheduled quite time. After all, time is what we set in our clock! It is very much temporal.

God Bless.

 

Distance, the sweet enemy of relationship!

I grow really impatient and bored as my students were working diligently on the intense group assignment. I decided to skim through my old chat history from email. Interestingly, one particular chat between me and my husband grabbed my attention.

Hubby: Can I come there now?

Me:  You are hereJ

 We were physically separated for three years, because of visa situations. We were separated between more than few thousand miles, and more than 12 hours of time difference. When he saw sun, I saw the moon and vise versa. Yes, during that time of separation that this chat happened. Despite knowing that it will take more than 16 hours for him to get here physically with the fastest flight, he asked, if he can come here. In spite of knowing the hard reality of separation, how I felt his loving presence with me at that time. It gives me chills even now, after few years to read this old chat. Distance, what a sweet enemy of relationship!

My thoughts flew back few years, I remembered, how I used to long to see him every morning. How I never cared, what time of night it was but chat all night, how I longed to here all that he needed to say about his whole day, with intense sadness about not sharing any of that.

 I compared those thoughts to the conversation I have with him now a day. It goes something similar to this fashion, “Diaper is changed, I feed her last time at 6.00, lunch is in the fridge, you need to heat it up, grocery list ,and things to do is in the note pad, by the way, I love you, see you in the evening”  last few words without any life to it at all. Most of our weekdays go like this. How being together made our life very natural (boring).Where is the romantic talks and funs we had? I am sure my husband is feeling the same; he even voiced it few times. How intentional we should get to be romantic after living together for few years.

Got an Idea, Just for fun, tonight I am going to let him read this old chat, and say, “You are here, you are really here”. Would love to see how his eyes sparkle after that, Why don’t you take one intentional step to really enjoy your man’s presence in your life today?

God Bless.

If it is so, should I just fake it!

Including few other nice New Year resolutions, I also felt God is calling me to be “gentle and quite” (I Peter 3:1- 4). After reading these verse few times as a part of preparing for our 2013 Church retreat. I came to the realization this is it, I should be gentle and quite, this is my main Moto for 2014. Interestingly, I even decide to make a pledge to not wear much jewelry to beautify me but stay with a few same ornaments, until I became gentle and quite. I am this assertive person (aka strong willed). I would be the first person to raise the hand, when the air condition needed to be fixed in the class room with 500 other people. I am a woman with lot of words, lot means lot. I have this strong voice; I could speak without mike in the class with at least 100 people and still be heard well.

Now, I am trying to be quite and gentle, that meant in my dictionary, talking in low voice, using few words, not voicing my complaints to anybody, quickly refusing to take any compliment, and in core let people walk all over my head.

This was hard; really I felt the assertiveness is the essence of my makeup. It is a nature in me that was complemented by family, friends, and students alike. I am pretty sure that it is the nature that even God indent to use for His Glory. I prayed few times, I tried my best to be gentle and quite. But nothing seemed to work. This effort simply produced frustration within me, actually seemed like a battle between my nature and what I am trying to become. Nothing like, when we are trying to break free from bad habit but much more intense. Seemed like, I was trying to fight with who I was, the essence of me, becoming like an alien to myself.

I even said to myself, if it is so, should I just fake it!  That effort was a drama. Even my six month old baby could recognize something wired about the way I behaved. What a dangerous approach?

After that, I had this understanding; I would call it a revelation. My faithful God opened my eyes to the next important word that is sticking to these two words, “gentle and quite spirit”. That word made sense, tons of sense. There is fleshly gentle and quietness, and spiritually.

My creator is not calling me to be fleshly gentle and quiet but spiritually. How I was relieved! In no way I am pro at being quite and gentle spiritually, but definitely seemed logical, it aligned with my makeup.

I am not saying all our calls from God will be logical. As believers we are called to take some bold steps of faith. I am saying God’s call will mostly be logical and align with the tools that He already given us. That call will give peace and faith, not a battle within. More than anything that call will never put us in the spot to fake it.

 Despite so much grace that is needed in this path to become gentle and quite spirited woman. I have confidence; my God will make me an exact person, who He wanted me to be. But for now, I am sure not faking the fleshly gentle and quietness.

God Bless

How foolish was my mother’s heart?

I wanted my daughter,

To understand God’s love without being unloved by another human being,

 Be healed without being sick ever,

Be molded into His likeliness without being broken,

Be protected without being in danger,

Be saved without sinning,

Be provided without being in need,

Be comforted without crying.

How foolish was my mother’s heart?

 After few months of this journey. Finally! I laid her in His arms and said, “Lord, whatever it takes, do it to get her attention towards you. And, Keep her gaze upon you, in you more than anything.”

 Now I know, she might be hungry; broken; sinning; in danger; in lots of needs, but I also know that it will all work for her good. If, only she faithfully follows Him. I shifted my prayer focus to one thing, that she would love God with all her heart, soul, and mind. That prayer gives me hope, not everything will be good, but definitely in everything God will work for her good (Romans 8:28).

Quick application, there is nothing wrong in simple prayers for our children, to be happy and holy. It is much important to pray that they will LOVE OUR GOD.

God Bless.

Ahila Prabu

 

 

 

 

"Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.........

Are we called to Love our Mother-in- laws? I think the answer is yes, because we are called to love our enemies. It is a bad joke, I know, and it is even worse because it is in my MIL’s expense. I am willing to share with you something in openness and humility, the struggles of my role as a daughter in law, so stay focused it is a long post.

 If you are married women you are called to deal with three different family dynamics.

§  Once our- Mother, Father, Siblings, and so on,

§  Once our Husband’s- our Mother in law, Father in law, Brothers and Sisters in laws, and so on,

§  Actually our – us, and kids.

 With or without our awareness the first two dynamics influence the third one majorly. For that reason, I am writing this blog post. In this post, I write mostly about the once mine, and my husband’s family dynamics. And the lessons I learned living in the midst. I don’t like to address these families like once mine and once his, as they are still our extended family, so just going to address it as family number one, family number two  (definitely not according to priority, see my actual family is numbered three).  I didn’t love my family 2 well, well as I was called to. Not because they were my enemies, but simply because they were different, very different. If, I need to explain in one word the dynamics of the family number1, and 2. I would say it is truth and love. Yep, I was reared as truth is a most important dynamic, even though it hurts people (sometimes hurts hardly). I saw something different in family 2’s dynamic; you talk in love, love like crazy, even though it is not true at times. Sometimes too much love in the talk might be interpreted as not being truthful, and taking too much truth might be interpreted as not loving (but it is not true, we can absolutely talk truth with love). This was a struggle in our life in the beginning (still at times); my husband felt that I do not love because I was talking blatant truths. I felt he was not truthful because he spoke with so much love (only love, including white lies). I later learned we are called to talk the truth with love, so in the pursuit of building my third family with love and truth.

 Not loving your second family well can create some friction in the third family. In spite of being in good awareness of this happening in our life, I was still in rebellion. I don’t know where the circle started? seemed like it was an endless circle of, I hurting them, they hurting me more, and I hurting them more an more ( I wouldn’t deny the fact that they really tried to stop this circle, they were not happy about this too). Remember nothing beautiful happens, when deprived people get together and try to break a circle. Then one day, God “showed up” (intervened) and a wonderful thing happened. I was called to love! Love them from my heart, not because the law called me to love, but because I loved Him who called me to love. Immediately I took a decision to love them intentionally. After few days of this decision (I even forgot about that decision). I called them as I would regularly, spoke with them for few minutes, just a regular talk, and after that never really thought much about that. To my amazement, my husband told, “Mom and dad are very happy in the way you spoke to them; they said that they felt so much love in the way even as you addressed them” Wow! How wonderful? I was addressing them with the same title, as I was addressing them from the first day of our marriage (even before our marriage). But, what made a difference? How loud our heart is exposed in our words?  As I was thinking this in my heart, I just mumbled, “Oh! That’s sweet.” I never said anything more.

 Actually, deep in my heart there was another hindrance, which was stopping me from loving them. I felt guilty for loving them completely; loving them as family 1, somehow I felt that is betraying my family 1.  Then, I realized in the light of my Redeemer’s word, that guilt is rooted in lie, lie that comes from the ultimate enemy.

Any time, I meditated on the life of Ruth, I wondered, what could have made her to stick with her mother in law, even when her husband was no more? For many years, I “loved” them for my husband’s sake. But now I love them, love them for my Savior thus I love them well. Anything done for purely another human being without God in the picture cannot be done well, even if that is your husband, the same act that is done for God can be done well, well as it is meant to be.  In Ruth’s story the words that touched my heart is when Ruth saying, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” What a profound words, can I say these words? Yes, I can! Holding hands of my Savior to love my families well, all of them, really well.

 For some of you, you may not be able to say that, “Your God my God” that is still ok, but that is not an excuse for not loving them, not loving them well as we are meant to. Our purpose is to love our God and our neighbors, lets us start that work of love, from our own family.

God Bless.

Humbled by His truth every single day,

Ahila Prabu